C is for Comet: Comet-Authenticast and Comet-Gaeltacht

A play in two acts, opening in New York and closing in Eire! That's Eire with a 'F'!! I won't bore you with the history today, that's one for the A-Z entry one day, but there is a book which deals well with most of it, and we're really box-ticking here, although with a lovely set from Jon Attwood to start us off!

Their HO scale figure set, as produced and carded in the Republic of Ireland, there are a few lifts from other makers not least Hornby's pre-war sets, while some others have the unmistakeable signature of Holgar Eriksson's sculpting style about them, one wonders though, if he had been happy to know (if he knew) or would have been happy to know they were side-by-side with piracies?

 

A gatefold flyer, with the O-gauge on the front, a mix of both scales in the middle, and a plug for the Authenticast soldiers and sports sets on the back. Jon's set can be seen middle-right on the opened centre pages.

 

Reminds me I have some of the shrubs, and they work for either size, at about 2cm high, they are actually very crude and look like home-painted Skytrex! For all the hype about centrifugal casting, the 'authenticast' process, the railway stuff was mostly pretty basic in the paint finish?

The box Jon's card came in, it's the standard artwork for the time fitted to a smaller, squarer area, to the more normal long-thin toy soldier boxes, but a lot of the railway range had similar dimensions, as one can see in the flyer above.

 

The obvious lifts include two figures from Hornby, flanking a Horton-Trix-Britains Lilliput passenger in the middle, and, given the era and subject-matter, it was more likely laziness than any idea of fakery, which led to these three?

Copies of copies of old Xerox or 'Electrofax' sheets, from the James Chase collection, again the O-gauge leading with HO on the second page, now with vehicles, but all really aimed at the parent company's US market.

 

Probably Eriksson's, but could be the work of Frank Rogers, who was clearly influenced by the master. Those O-gauge which are Eriksson's are often marked HE, as the male in the recent show-plunder post was, but in the HO, it's not so clear, and we have the piracies to contend with, which I don't think he would have countenanced?

 

I have posted some before, both O and HO I think, but under which Tag I can't remember, it was quite early in the blog's history I think? Many thanks to Jon, again, for the rare card and box. We are slowly coming to the end of these, but there's still a few to come!

M is for Minor 'Euro-Makes'!

Actually I'm going to tack a major on at the end, whom we've already revisited once in this occasional series, entering it's third month with at least 12 posts still to come, plus a combined comparison/round-up post at the end. And today, some of the European makers we haven't yet looked at.

From a 1970's Vollmer catalogue, are these wagons, which I think missed the wagon posts a few years ago, they look to be Preiser, but the horses are the smoother, simpler ones more commonly associated with the Roscopf wagons or some Hong Kong copies. Indeed, I think I've mentioned before, that I'm not sure what the relationship is between the three or four (Noch seem to have carried other people's product before they embarked on their own, now Preiser-equalling, range), so I can't add much beyond that the similarities are obvious?

 

While this is the 2000 Walther's (Terminal Hobby Shop) catalogue, and we see what are clearly Preiser, in a 'simple paint', we actually saw this earlier in the post series, but I scanned it again!

 

Not sure if these are from Merten or Preiser, (they have the arm'y/leg'y look of Merten?) but again a rolling-stock and trackway manufacturer, getting 'simple-paint' samples from another maker, to enhance their catalogue with a basic set, it's all part of the 'brand-loyalty' work, isn't it? Add a couple of Pola buildings, a level-crossing, some track plans, Heki trees . . . and 'Fleischmann' people!

 

This - the Jouef figures - is a personal embarrassment, as I think it's their third mention on the Blog, over the sixteen years, with the Mettoy Playcraft scans appearing at one point, and yet, despite seeing them go to storage, I still haven't photographed them, but they did appear in One Inch Warrior magazine, I think, in black & white, which doesn't do justice to the loud and leery paint job, of the Playcraft - ironically a Tri-Ang rival from the same Line's empire!

 

I have since found slightly better painted ones (in shade, not the two-colour stab-and-hope scheme), which may be Jouef origianls, from whose catalogue these scans are added to the previous shots! And playcraft sold them from the Jouef bags, so they were only ever nominally Playcraft! Also, didn't Hornby experiment with passengers pre-glued to platform sections at one point? Instant Stations!

From the same Walther's catalogue, this was, I think, the beginning of what has in recent years become a line to rival Preiser, and we have seen one or two here, a Bierfest stand springs to mind, and I will one day do the rude sets, of which I have several and they should have been in the 'Adult' naughty-post before Christmas, but they are in storage.

 

Noch were originally another prefabricated building/scenic's firm, like Pola, Vollmer or Wiad, and like them had a couple of simple figures kicking around the pages of their catalogues, in boats or something, from time to time, but in the last quarter-century have developed a range to rival Preiser, even as Priser swallowed-up Elastolin and Merten to stay ahead!

I don't know much about these, except that they are probably lead or whitemetal, possibly composition, and as listed in this old catalogue? Klinebahn (literally 'small way'), and in sets of six matching the lead of early Märklin, or the sets of Preiser, Merten and those above.

 

And, having just mentioned them, our third visit to Märklin in this railway-figure 'season', and no, we are not going to start investigating O, G, S, 1, BIG or any other gauge, that can be for another day, or for the A-Z pages! But I wanted to post this set of composition figures and - specifically - the interactive or 'working' guard, as it's just so cool! All in O-gauge.

 

The catalogue mentions the 1937 Grand Prix of Paris, on the cover, but seems to be actually the 1949 issue, as they started to recover from the national madness of national socialism.

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Hornby - Centenary

As the title suggests Hornby are celebrating 100 years of the brand, in actuall fact the 'firm' really died at the merger of Tri-ang/Rovex and Hornby, but such details are irrelevant when it's all about branding and the brand was founded by Frank Hornby at Binns Road in Liverpool in 1920.

The deal is supposed to be to have ten special or limited-edition items available, one for each decade of the branding, and reflecting some of those older logos or brands, but the salesman explaining it to me couldn't rationalise the display with that 10-total!

He did realise that one of the Rocket's (yellow box) is from the standard range, but that still/then leaves either 11 or 9 other items/groups on display?

Anyway, they are from the top, an

• ·         [Meccano] 'The Hornby' electric train set
• ·         Hornby-Dublo 'Sir Nigel Gresley' train set
• ·         Hornby-Dublo locomotive - stripped box
• ·         Range of Dublo-Dinky 'OO' vehicles
• ·         Tri-ang 'Stevenson's Rocket' (red box)
• ·         Tri-ang Hornby locomotive 'Evening Star'
• ·         2x Hornby Railways locomotives (different price points)*
• ·         2x Hornby [Hobbies] locomotives (different price points)*
• ·         Rovex train set

*I think they are also representing four different 'standard' packaging changes?

This was nice but also possibly the most disappointing of the lot, as it's obviously meant to represents the old burn-your-house-down before a zeppelin gets to it, bare-wire carpet-railway early electrictrickery train sets of the inter-war period, and while on one level it does so very well, especially if it runs on vintage O-guage track (?), on another level; it's a horrid colour/finish.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a fan of maroon locomotives and treasure my Duchess of Southerland despite the fact it hasn't run for over 30-years and may need a complete overhaul, but semi-matt, or eggshell or whatever they call it . . . really? It should have been shiny-gloss, with broad black & gold pinstripes round the tank-case, surely?

These, on the other hand, are both lovely and interesting. Lovely because they are 'true' OO or 1:76 or 23/25mm-compatable vehicles of use to model railway fans and war-gamers everywhere, yet interesting because they are NOT the original vehicles, or reproductions of them (there was a sports car and a tractor, but not these) . . . which, loyal readers, might suggest that if they/their sales are successful through 2020, it could make them the vanguards to a new range (half planned already?) in competition with Oxford Diecast? Only thinking out-loud!

Already two of the vans would make useful (if inaccurate) vehicles for French Resistance units!

A is for Archive - K is for Kindler . . . and Breil?

These two were among the papers in the James Chase Collection which went through Christie's and SAS over several sales about 14-years ago; they were taken from an unknown paper or Model Railroad magazine, probably from 1947-49'ish.

Is this the Kindler of Kindler und Briel (Kibri) the European model railway accessory company, there is a lot of railway stuff in the above shot (albeit O-gauge rather than Kibri's later HO and N) of the pre-war stock? I used to think not, now I'm sure he is.

Not many US factories were 'burned in war' except by accident, but a German one almost certainly would have been, maybe he's visiting the New York Toy Fair, or drumming-up some press-coverage at the 200 5th AvenueToy Building; the German outfit began their journey through toys  in 1895.

I'd kill for one of these lorries, obviously and only if I was 100% sure of getting away with the er . . . mercy killing (well . . . if they'd lost their truck!); there'd be no point in obtaining the wagon and then going to gaol! Looking at them, they are Mercedes trucks with an Allied star huh? I think this is Kibri's Mr Kindler?

I can't work out if their wheels are on the forecourt's surface, or if they are attached to some mechanism that maybe moves them round to each-other's place? Has anyone ever seen one of these, at auction maybe, or on feebleBay? And what happened to Mr.Kindler, when did he meet Mr Briel?

M is for More Model Power!

It was when titling the folder for the Model Power HO rack-toys (looked at earlier today) the other day and watching it default to 'Model Power_1' that I knew there was something wrong! I had a hidden 'Model Power' folder in Picasa, with two sets Ed Burg sent me ages ago, so first an apology to Ed for not Blogging them sooner, and second, let's look at them now!

I feel doubly guilty as I believe Ed went out and bought these especially as part of an exchange, I'd mentioned railway figures in passing in an eMail as I'd noticed he was thinning out his Marx and . . . whoever (Aurburn?) in a post on his Blog a few days earlier, then these turned-up! And he's chosen carefully to find two very different but interesting sets.

They are O-gauge or 027, which is a strange railway system where the rolling stock is nominally scaled to 1:64th (even more confusingly - 1:64th is US HO in the die-cast and slot-racing world!), while the figures are scaled to 40mm which is also O-gauge compatible, although strictly 1:45th, usually referred to as 1:48th . . . if I've understood it all right; basically they are O-Guage model-railwy, 40mm figures!

In fact I feel triply guilty as I have an O-Gauge set from ................... in ............. which he sent to the Blog a decade ago and which isn't even in Picasa yet - I keep meaning to do a Preiser versus Merten O-guage post and have never quite got round to it, both boxed are so full it's hard work dealing with one let alone two, and when I did the wagons and things a few years ago I put off the O-stuff!

Set No. 6193 Prisoners (Black & White Stripes); suggests other colour-ways are probably available, and looking at the HO-gauge compatible 'Roco' and Chinatroop sets earlier only reinforces that suspicion. In this style of uniform they are pretty-much 'steam era', but you can re-paint them to any, or your local prison or penitentiary!

All the tropes of a jail or gaol are covered, we have a Hispanic 'gang-banger' doing weights, a guy contemplating his crime with a ball and chain, two guys in a chain-gang (or are they digging a break-out tunnel . . . it's your layout, you decide!), someone waiting to see the governor with his hands cuffed behind his back and a Hannibal Lector type in full chains waiting for supper and a nice Chianti . . . ffth'ffth'ffth'ffth'ffth'ffth!

The other set is also interesting being the modern take on a set which - had it existed forty years ago - would probably once have contained all national postal workers, but which now covers the full gamut of people who come to your door these days.

The figures include a traditional postal worker in blue uniform, a UPS guy in brown, an internet gig'er on moped, a US Mail (?) guy with trolley and an owner-driver in jeans and a T-shirt subbing for a major carrier. You also get a posting 'stand' (pillar-box) and one of those uniquely-American end-of-the-garden-path post/newspaper holders, with the little tin flag (that gets flipped-over if there's something in it) printed on it.

The reverse of the card gives a hint at the range of sets available in this scale/size and the most interesting one is the Santa Land one, clearly designed to do seasonal front lawn or garden (front yard over there) displays of the 'full Griswold' type! But they look familiar . . . however we'll wait 'till Christmas for that one!

And many thanks to Ed for these two.

V is for Very Vast Vac-formed Village!

I had an eMail the other week from Graham Smith who'd found the Selcol page on the A-Z Blogs asking me what I knew about these (below); I had to point out that I knew no more than was on that page, which was . . . nothing! By the time you read this though, these will have been added!

Selcol, large scale village

Graham writes;

"I am interested in model villages and have seen your "Small Scale World" website. I have some SELCOL buildings made from white plastic which have to be painted and they lose the paint very easily, as you can see from the attached photos. I wondered if you have seen any others (I have a Market Hall which seems to be a different scale) and also if these buildings were based on those in or near Braintree near their factory which you mentioned."

Now, having established I know nothing about the buildings as Selcol per se, it has to be pointed out I am no expert on Braintree or its environs either - I had a school-friend who lived in Brentwood!

Given that we will sort most of it out to some extent in the next few minutes; can anyone from the Braintree area or with knowledge of these buildings (or indeed; Selcol's wider production) help; particularly with that last question?

I asked around at the Sandown Park show with no luck but to draw an interesting selection of blank faces and have asked a couple of other experts to no avail, yet, as with all these things, dozens of people must have been involved in the design, production and marketing of the buildings, and - at least - hundreds involved in the purchase and use thereof, back in the day?

A close-up of one of the little (not that little!) thatched-cottages; they seem to be blow moulded, or rotary-moulded (the larger hole?) polyethylene, hence the failure of paint to adhere, and to have been filled with expanded polystyrene-foam, for rigidity.

The subsequent/resulting plug is clearly marked Selcol, so the one fact which is known is that they are Selcol! Now, there's a possibility that they were originally beach-toys, sold unpainted to place round your sand-castle, but I think that's clutching at straws, and that they were designed for garden railways, being scaled somewhere between O-gauge (building dimensions) and G (figures in the next shot).

A couple of the people I've spoken to on the subject have drawn the obvious parallel with the Spot-On village from Tri-Ang/Mettoy, but that was 1:42/48'ish, against the 1:35/32'ish of these, and I can imagine the PoplarPlastics bus drawing up to this rotunda/market cross/corn exchange to pick-up the [not so] little people and take them into the nearby city!

You can see - from the damaged sections - the polystyrene foam inside, and Graham's railway viaduct in the background! He runs O gauge trains including Triang, Big Big, and Timpo rolling stock and has been doing so for 46 years!

Any information on these, such as when they were advertised, any other buildings in the range or whether they represent real subjects - from Braintree or anywhere else; would be much appreciated by Mr. Smith - and other Garden Rail, or Model Village fans - I'm sure.

As an aside, does anyone know if John Ruddle's buildings have been featured in any works other than the one shot shown in an old modelling magazine? Graham; being a fan of such things, is keen to see them, and having been lucky enough to 'have the tour' myself, I know they are worth a look - being taken from Victorian Edinburgh to Kabul, via Khartoum and back via Calcutta, in a walk round a modest suburban lawn is a real treat!

T is for Two - Soft Metal 40-mils

Another excuse to shift a few pictures from the lap-top! The old 40mm standard of the 19th century, which has held-on by dint of the model railway hobby using it for O Gauge, or Scale 7, which can equate to anything between 1:40th to 1:45th depending on what's being modelled.

Bassett Lowke produced a small range of 'character' figures for their O gauge range and this is one of them (!??). Unfortunately he's in a bit of a state, and might be Charley Chaplin, or he might be Neville Chamberlain, both of whom featured in the set (apparently - I can only find Chaplin).

I'm guessing Chaplin, but with those trousers? The seller told me he was Chaplin the first time I saw him, but Chamberlain the next time...doh! And my Googleing has found a different Chaplin pose, no Chamberlain and figures with thinner green bases, so it may not even be what I've just told you it is! Life huh? Gets Bassett Lowke in the tag list, even if under false pretence!

These are by Heyde, the famous old German firm and represent 'Balkan' bicycle troops from the turn of the last Century...Serbs? Croats? Serbo-Croats? If I know one thing...best not go there...they're lovely figures, wonderfully made and an unusual subject, that's enough.