L is for Late Show Report - Last Word, Classics!

Not 100% sure what I feel about these, they were cheap, but not that cheap, i.e. 'all the money', and I can't blame the seller, as I enthusiastically talked myself into them! I thought they were plaster or chalkware with a bit of age, but they are actually some relatively modern, resinated polystone stuff, and they are bulky, filling a whole half-fruit box - my temporary storage unit of choice, as they stack!

 

Timpo

 

To be honest, in conversation with the seller, I think the situations was the same when he acquired them, thinking "Ooh, brilliant", then getting them home and thinking "What the flying-phuq was I thinking?!", but, they are my problem now, and it gives me my first and probably only opportunity on this blog to pull from my history of architecture modules!

 

Sadly I only had Roman figures to hand, for the photo-opportunity (the whole reason for selling them to myself!), while the three buildings are all, obviously, Greek! This being a reasonable rendition of the relatively iconic temple of Athena-Nike on the Acropolis, combining two goddesses who had been separate, one - Nike - being at various times the goddess of victory and/or subservient to the other - Athena, daughter of Zeus.

Blue Box

 

In fact all three subjects are from the Acropolis, and this with it's famous Caryatids (maidens of Karyai [Caryae], a village in Ancient Sparta) is the south porch of the Erechtheion (or 'Erechtheum'), which is the most architecturally interesting of the many ruins on the mount, being build over several levels, to account for changes in the ground elevation (solid rock) of more than three meters. It also has several 'rooms', including this entrance vestibule.

Kinder

 

The Parthenon, also dedicated to Athena, and look at the state of it! Lord Elgin, in the context of the time, and who he was, bought the friezes fairly and spent a small fortune getting them back to the UK (he also saved one of the caryatids, the ones actually on the temple now are ground marble plaster (polystone!) copies, with the other five (laser-cleaned) in the Acropolis museum), he literally saved them for humanity, years before the Greeks were prepared, equipped or even minded to do so for themselves. The noise surrounding the marbles is all political, with a bit of roguish nationalism thrown in.

I don't know if they are locally produced decorative pieces/garden ornaments, or Greek tourist keepsakes, but given how chunky they are I suspect the former, with TKMaxx, Matalan or a Squire's Garden Centre being the more-likely source, but then you remember the size of the larger figures on Carrara marble from Italy, sold as tourist trinkets, and the wonder remains?

Anyway, they are here now, and you can see that they do make quite useful bas-relief props for figure photography, so they'll stay for a while! Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile, and it's only eight-and-a-bit months to the next show!

L is for Late Show Report - Odds & Sods

Getting towards the end of the plunder posts from May's Toy Solder show in Whitton/Twicker's, and it's the bits and pieces which didn't really belong in any of the other posts, but there's a few interesting things among the detritus, dingbats and doobries!

 

Vehicle parts and hand-tools; these will all go to the spares zone until needed/matched with their owners, although of course I know the searchlight mount is Airfix and the horse furniture is Lone Star. The larger machine-gun is actually a copy of the early Airfix one from the Attack Force APC.

I think the two hands are from a Koala bear stuffed toy, they could be from a similarly described mole, but there was a range of tourist keepsake Koala's back in the 1960's, where the Koala's were stuffed rigid; more like taxidermy, rather than 'cuddly', and I suspect these hands are from one of those? We looked at a similar Kiwi from across the straits, here.

Mostly Christmas cracker charms and similar novelties, probably from the very cheapest crackers, or the mini 'tree decoration' crackers. The blue thing I don't know, the khaki piece - some kind of removable hatch from a vehicle or building, with a couple of larger novelties and an old Toy Show badge.

 

I seem to have a large tub of toy show badges, both my own 'earned attendance' examples and a bagful from Brian Carrick, once, and there's a quandry as to what to do with them as they slowly gather in an ever growing pile, they have the nostalgia of past shows, but no real use?

This was in one of the donation bags, and is interesting for being an obviously early piece of plastic, clearly a dolls house item, and it will need careful paint-stipping, there is a sprung-loaded mechanism, which allows the baby chair to switch between rocker, low chair and high-chair, for meal times and has a built-in potty! It's un-marked, and obviously I don't collect this stuff, but it clearly has some historical value, which is probably why it was given to me?

 

Large, rigid, foamed-rubber (or a similar material) scenics, I think they are modern, possibly Early Learning Centre (ELC) or a similar source, and certainly scaled for the larger figurines, they will nevertheless prove useful as future photo-props or display back-drops.

A few more scenics, there's a whole box of the orange log-cabins somewhere, and a growing post on them in the queue, as they come with or without paint, in two sizes, and from several 'names' as well as many generic sets, we saw them here previously in a Pikit Toys set, I think?

 

Lego bush/shrub, a Hong Kong poplar tree which has been home-painted, a pond in need of a railing, and a railing from something else, a vehicle, I think?

 

In Brian C's bag were these glass-tablet WHW tokens, not military, they consist of two from a set of landmark buildings, and a pair of runes, from that set. Ironic, as, being runes they are of interest to lexicographers and etymologists, but, they - the runic symbols - were, by the time of the set, being bowdlerized to provide iconography for the Nazi party and it's war-machine, with various civil and paramilitary unit formation signs, logotypes and SS divisional/unit flashes being based upon the old Nordic runes!

 

Both sets seem to come in many colours of glass, and a couple of variations of paint/layout/final decoration, so we can assume several glassworks were involved, either over time, as separate//repeat issues, or just in providing the hundred's of thousands, or millions, necessary for such a promotion.

These - from Trevor - must be from those mini tree-crackers, they are officially the smallest-scale item in the collection now, I believe, and while I have obviously, and absent-mindedly, placed Admiralty Arch upside down (I initially thought it was a crude 'White Tower' I think!), the icons of London's skyline are pretty clear, with St. Paul's Cathedral, The clock-tower for Big Ben and Tower Bridge being included in a set of otherwise unknown number.

Obverse and reverse of the Lone Star horse furniture from the articulated draft-house we saw here, with my earlier (brown plastic), damaged, collar compared to the new, complete one, and the non-seating saddle for cart/wagon/implement poles.

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

L is for Late Show Report - Animals, Farm & Zoo!

You could subtitle this post 'Wot no dinosaurs?', as it's rare show these days, where there isn't at least one dino' among the plunder, but, with the exception of the double-headed monster we looked at the other day, there were no dinosaurs at all, in this year's PW plunder, four legs or two!

A few interesting pieces here, along with a broken Britains flamingo, but I may have spare legs for it? The Cherilea panda is not common, and from the hollow-cast I believe, while the croc' is Clairet? The giraffe may be Clairet as well, I can't remember, and is missing a hoof, but stands as a sample (on the back of the crocodile!), and while the gorilla on the right is a bog-standard one-of-meany, the one on the left (from Stad's) is new to Blog with the key-ring/charm-loop.

 

This was silly, I saw the painted cow, and thought "Looks like the Tudor Rose" (which I don't need!), but I couldn't read anything on the belly, and as it looked interesting, grabbed it in a rummage-tray lot, only to find it was the T*R one, heavily painted at some point, with poster paint, which soon washed-off on the Sunday as I processed through the plunder . . . hay-ho!

Looking like the Britains late, PVC version, I think this goat is actually the New Ray moulding? Two Matchbox cattle, one with horns, the other, later one (brown) without horns, from the gift sets. The rest are grist to the mill, with the marbled pig (bottom right), possibly having some value/interest beyond the HK tat of the others.

 

These monochromatics can be found in cheapo' bagged rack-toys, but are as likely from Christmas crackers, particularly the really cheap budget ones, and I seem to have photographed them in such a way as to make it look like the penguin is briefing the poultry on something!

 

"Guys, none of you are safe, voting for Christmas"

 

Three novelty dogs (I think we've had other colours in a Chris Smith donation in the past), could be cracker toys too, or may be low-price (1d or two new pence) gumbal capsule machine prizes, while the tiger who looks like a leopard/panther is a current capsule toy. There is a round-up of capsule toys (with contributions from Peter and Brian) in the 'hopefully by Christmas' queue!

 

More of the same novelty stuff; charm elephants and Scottie-dogs being standard tropes, the micro-mini red plastic take on a carved tusk being more fanciful than the common fare behind it and the donkey/zebra (?) being one of several in a set of chunky sculpts we may or may not have seen here before, I certainly have a few now?

 

And yet more novelties; most of the main tropes covered here, elephants, rockers, charms, Scottie-dogs, other dogs, monkeys, poultry, camels! That blue elephant is about 4mm x 6mm, absolutely tiny.

 

These were mostly in the bag from Trevor, as were a lot of the above novelties, and Trevor has found inordinate amounts of useful stuff for me, over the years, since Paul Morhead put us in touch back in 1995/6?

 

Butterfly hair clips from two sources, and a magnetic fly I remember having as a kid, in that little box. Flies were a standard of the joke shop/novelty section, and still are, flies in fake ice-cubes, flies for real ice-cubes, flies in sugar-lumps, magnetic flies, flies with glowing wings, jumping flies . . . and giant flies! And I've just realised I have to correct both the tags, there's no flys!

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

L is for Late Show Report - Ancient & Medieval

Or, at least, that's the usual denominator when sorting show plunder, there's no real Ancients in this lot, so we're looking at the dark ages, the 100-Years War and the field of the cloth of gold!

 

Replicants 'new for the show' was this little doozy, and a very useful item, being suitable without driver for a period from around 4000BC until now, in some parts of the world! With the driver we're nicely covered from, what, 1400 to the Wild West?

You get a wagon with removable sides, a slightly put-upon horse and a chap who can look like he's struggling with the horse/load, or up to no good, depending upon how you pose him, he could even be dodging cavalry! Peter Coles' sculpting is another level.
 

I think this is the third or fourth of these 35'ish mm knights, with one or two from Chris Smith, I think and another from somewhere else, and I'm beginning to suspect Poland, without anything concrete, in their archives, but that's purely going on the thick base? And they are softer polyethylene than the output of PZG or it's rivals, with their nylons!

 

Another look at the new ex-Cody March figures from Michael Mordant-Smith, and these are the ones that are 'ready to go', or were, back in May, he's probably cleaned-up a few more now, but compare with the shots in the Introduction post (1st of this month), and you can see how many still need/ed a bit of work. Because these are producible, Michael produced a few, and they were gifted to friends at the show.

 

A bunch of HK/China types, these were in one of the donation bags and will have to be compared with all the others, they look to be a new shade of grey, so I'll probably hang to a few!

 

A poor shot, but I can't retake it, right now! I've bought a few mixed lots of these Cherilea knights, more pop-together than full-on 'swoppet', in various states, and am slowly building a decent sample, but it is shield-light, so these two will prove useful in making-up a complete figure. There's also a spare belt, and I may use one of these bodies, as a first example?

 

Finally, Peter also had these available at the show, last year's peasant musician and this year's Wagoner, but in Robin Hood green, so Alan a'Dale and a whip-handed merry man?!!

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

L is for Late Show Report - Sci-fi, Fantasy, TV & Media

Some interesting items were found or donated in this section back in May, always interesting because all the genres are popular, and have given rise to lots of toys, over the years and decades, so ancient and modern figures turn-up in equal measure. Well, that was a load of flannel, but I've got my opening paragraph! The post from whence came Mr. Chitty, the Potato -headed!

 

The one on the right (Wild Republic) has been seen before several times, but the one on the left (Safari) is new to the Blog, I think. We've seen ten to fifteen or so, sets of these modern astronauts in recent years, which I suspect has more to do with the Chinese space programmes, and Chinese toy manufacturers rather than anything NASA or Musk have done, but whatever the reason there's a lot of it about at the moment!

Last year we saw three of the key-ring spacemen, but I realised when I got them home that I had rejected a probable forth pose, thinking it was a duplicate, but luckily the seller still had it in his stock, so I rectified my daftness and got him this year (large white figure), while the pale blue chap is my first Cracker Jack alien; I think there are eight or ten to find?

 

The others are a pair of Matchbox Adventure 2000 figures, still attached to each other, a Crossbows & Catapults barbarian, a Galoob Xpanders knock-off and a teeny-tiny astronaut, probably from those decorative mini tree-crackers?

Four of the standard size Christmas cracker angel/putti orchestra, there are several types/generations of them, and they all get separated and sorted into their own types' bag.

From the left we have a modern Tootsietoy Flash Gordon, a bendy taken from a Japanses Tokusatsu, probably the Ultraman franchise, the missing blue 'goldfish bowl' spaceman, which I celebrated immediately after the show, and Applause's vinyl figurine of the Rocketeer, which I have been after for years!

An Ajax/Archer full size robot, to join the others, and chrome-plated modern copy from the re-issue 'magic' question/answer games, with a sub-size copy from the same sculpt-set in between, I happen to have picked up another of the smaller ones yesterday at Sandown, in the copper finish, this off-gold or dirty-silver being less common, I feel?

Chris Smith found the caveman as he went round the hall at the Winning Post, and presented him to me, which was thoughtful! Disney I think, for the yobbo in pantaloons, while the flocked ape came as a surprise, as I thought the one I had, was the only one, so now I'll have to find the accessories for this one, while the horse behind them is also from Planet of the Apes, I believe, from the MPC set, being the mount of the firing ape rider?

A damaged premium pirate, a funny face I know absolutely nothing about, but which seems to have some age, a small angel statue, similar to one off a Faller fountain, which I already have in the collection, so I guess it's from another model railway lineside piece, of some kind?

 

The green thing is a Puff-Kin Popit from Weetabix, while the fawn seems to be a cheapo copy of the Marx 'Kin sculpt, which I now have in various plastic types and sizes for what James Opie would call a nice 'Cameo' collection!

These were mostly in Trevor's bag I think, along with the angels and the little blue chap, and are Bluebird Zero Hour/Code Zero figures, very useful for making up sets, or filling gaps in the existing collection.

While this beast, scaled with a  Zero Hour figure, was in Peter's donation, he's hugeormous! I think I've seen this twin red-headed dragon'o'saur credited to Imperial in the past, but the example here is a generic just marked Hong Kong, and very much in the style of a Japanese Kaiju.

 

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

L is for Late Show Report - Mr. Potato Head!

Just a quickie, pulled from another post I wasn't going to have time for tonight, and which enables me to remind everyone it's Sandown Park tomorrow, be there, or . . . err . . . miss-out! I think this was in Brian C's bag, but it might have Been Peter E's or from Adrian, and it's a ton of fun!

 

The box is actually hanging together, and will need work at some point in the future, but I propped it against itself in a way that rendered it sufficiently photogenic for the purpose! Whoever didn't have this in a 1960-80's childhood definitely missed out, unless they got to play with a friend's set! It's only Mr. Potato Head! Or, at least, a Hong Kong copy of an iconic plaything which is still with us in various forms including some big-name versions, one of which now has a pathetic plastic potato?????

It's also missing some components, but there were enough (if you can ignore the lack of hands) for a passable Great Uncle Chitty! "We were verrh-verrh-drunk!" This is one of those things which were always going to appear here one day, purely on the 'figural' rule, but which I hadn't given much thought to due to the 'infant toy' caveat, however, there are often a body-part or two, in mixed junk lots, and they have been accruing in a tub somewhere.

 

So, with this set, it behoves me to track down a few more, and get to matching up (from plastic colour, spike style and size of parts) the spares, in order to do a better overview one day, which will be fun, as you can have Mr. (or Mrs.) banana head, onion head, brinjal head, and etcetera. While eschewing the plastic body with larger fruits and veg', can produce some quite weird constructs, although none quite as weird as Republican candidate's! Actually, looking at Chitty's hair, that's debatable!

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

L is for Late Show Report - Ceremonial and Historical

Not much in this section from May, and I was going to combine it with the Ancient/Medieval images, but decided to move the images around instead, and add one from the archive at the end, so it'll do, it's only bragging on odd & sods, when all's said and done!

 

Small scale guards; a very broken Airfix was in the bottom of one of the bags! Running back up from him we have a Hong Kong swivel-head, a Zang composition with brown base (I think my existing sample have green bases?) and two of the 1990's Luck Bag/Christmas cracker ones.

 

When doing these temporary 'to be further sorted' sorts, I tend to put pirates or Zorro stuff with this class, so he's here! Those who have followed the Blog for any length of time will know there are a lot of these Kinder 'bits' bags now, with pirates, cowboys and Indians, Samurai, medievals etc . . . and he will join them for the final big sort! Missing his small parts but otherwise all there.

This was funny, a seller had a decent sample of the Colorado Argentines, and knowing I had a few, and fearing the price, I'd tried to ignore them all day, at the end of the day a mate came over and bought a sample of the foot figures (which I have), and I overheard the price, and quickly descended on the mounted pair, which I didn't already have!

 

In the course of the day I also picked up an arm in white plastic, which could be another Colorado, another Argentinian make or the Spanish Torres Maltas; I won't know (the pennant's different) until I can compare with an original or match-up with an 'armless guy!

 

I pick these up all the time, as part of my attempts to get them all sorted-out once and for all, and while I think these are all Airfix, I'm not sure on the academy cadet, he's had paint added I think, and won't fit on either horse without falling off, so may be a mucked-about-with Frazer & Glass, or a Bergan/Beton original, or another?

Horses are both 'bent-tail' Airfix, with a hard-plastic on the left and a soft plastic on the right, Lifeguard is definitely Airfix too, which would have been the end of this post (except it was originally the first image!), but I added this . . .

 . . . which was taken just over a year ago, and excluded the master collection, which was back in storage already (as all the above now is!), but includes that which had come in over the previous two years or so (on the left) and a lot from SAS Auctions on the right, with some sorting of horses and consolidation going-on in front.

 

Two posts were produced over a few moths for 'elsewhere', and it's intended to fully update the relevant page on the Airfix Blog, but I haven't got round to it, and may wait until everything's in one place, to try for the definitive narrative? You may recall there were several of these in Chris's last parcel, and the sample grows continually . . . and yes, there's an Airfix fireman hiding in there somewhere!

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

L is for Late Show Report - Vehicular Elements!

Onwards and upwards and we get to transports of delight! One way or another, I came back from Whitton with a lot of the smaller novelty stuff, in part thanks to the donations from Trevor, Peter and Brian C, whose bags all had a few, so let me stop waffling and we'll have a look . . . 

These are lovely, well, I mean you can see with your own eyes, they are shite, but, they are new to me, new to the collection and new to the oeuvre of mini/micro-mini rack-toy shite! They were in Trevor's bag, and are so clean they might be quite recent, but could equally be old stock, looked-after? Quite wacky and two have a sort of 1970's US muscle-car lines to them, with the type on the right looking like some semi-demented cartoon armoured car, I know nothing else, but love 'em!

 

I think I had one of these scout cars from Barney a few years ago as an 'I've never seen it before' type thing, since when, several have turned-up and with these two I have a troop now, with some spare parts! What I love about them and the similar jeeps is that the little drivers are in scale with Airfix, even if the AFV's aren't, so they could be used in 'old school' wargaming! The Jeep is a modern rack-toy thing!

 

You've seen this stuff coming in, time and time again, if you've followed the Blog for any length of time, and, in ones and twos like this, the master samples continue to grow to workable sizes. We've looked at the semi-flats (front pair) before, both as French premiums with a variety of marks, and as these Hong Kong staples of Christmas crackers, but the Chinese only copied one of the original sculpts.

 

I think the pop-together green car (top right) is an early Kinder (there were similar military vehicles), the silver one may be new (cereal premium?), while the other green one goes with a growing handful of 'chunky' ones, we saw a while back in a mini-season of integral-moulded-wheels 'minis'. The red car in the centre is from the early-learning collection we've seen before, and the solid blue sports-car is another one joining mates in the stash!

The other two sports cars, with pierced bodywork are again somewhere in the pile as a larger sample with more colours, and have something (poor quality) in common with the first image above, while the one with separate wheels is a HK copy of an old Jean/Maurba/Siku type thing from the 1950's/early 1960's, and belongs to the genre we haven't looked at here, yet, but will - those with running wheels. There's many more of them, and several of the samples have outgrown their bags and moved up to takeaway tubs!

 

Again, we have looked at these in an overview, but there's plenty more to tell and plenty more have come-in since. Today we have a banana-plane (bottom right), two which are supposed to be SE5's I think (Biggles was still very big when I was a kid, I read them all in the school library, old hardbacks with glorious, bright, coloured lithographed covers and thick pages which were almost card!), and a small pale blue . . . Albatross? Some iterations of these have the supposed make on the underside, but I didn't think to look with these four, too much else going on!

 

A mix here of rack-toy tat and cracker/gum-ball tat, but again, all grist to the mill, all adding to existing samples, with a possible game-playing piece bottom right, and a possible new sculpt in the little primrose-yellow cracker-toy?

 

Two generations of cracker motorcyclist in the red pair, the third mine-wagon to come it, it must be from a railway scenery kit? One is complete with a cross-bar/brace, the other two like this missing the delicate piece, but when three come-in over 40-odd years, they must be from something relatively common?

 

The large motorcycle is another early Airfix one, and has lost it's handlebar tips, but the other marbled-yellowish one I found was the one we looked at with a crumbly area in the centre of the engine, so they must have had a duff batch with that colour?

 

The final piece looks familiar, but I can't place it, I think it may be the nose wheel from a possibly die-cast mini-plane, but that's pure guesswork, and it will join the spare wheel stock in the hope of being reunited with something, one day!

 

Gisby kindly ID'd the free sample of a Warlord Games 'Cruel Seas' British MTB from the fuzzy image in the Intro-post the other day, which he thinks was given away with Wargames Illustrated magazine, and to go with it are various other vessels.

 

The four silver ones are common, and we've looked at them before, the left-hand submarine is very useful, as it's the last one I needed lose, from the carded set of 1960's hard 'styrene naval vessels we have seen here. The other sub' is a 'Made In England' beach or bath toy which I think is new to me/the collection. 

 

The little white one is from the set of mini 'tree' crackers we have seen before, while the deck at the front is a useful spare from the various sets of Hong Kong copies of such Western makes as INGAP, and I may already have a bereft hull for it, somewhere.

Finally, a novelty white-button railway set, we've looked at a few in one or two posts already, and there is a bunch in the medium-to-long queue! I think the B&TAR is a madeupname railway company! I also think it's quite recent, if not still out there somewhere, it's the kind of thing you see in Poundland?

 

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.