M is for More - Palitoy and Renwal's Plastic 'Planes

Not really a follow-up as it's been a while now since we last mentioned the Palitoy 'planes, and the Renwal are new to the blog, but I picked these up in one of the autumn shows, and there are a few things to unpack, so a T is for Two . . . maybe!

I actually picked up a bagful of the Palitoy aircraft for next to nothing, which was nice, these bargains happen from time to time, and we all have them occasionally, so not an obvious or deliberate brag, but I didn't know what I'd really got until I'd got them back to Adrian's table, and looked at them properly.

We have looked at the Spitfire[s] before here, and the musing on that occasion, are upset by this pair where the supposed earlier, inaccurate one is here found in the supposed later, stable polystyrene, while the opposite is true of the other moulding, with an early marbled/flecked example of the better quality model, which logic dictates must have come later.

So some new points or musings from yours truly, first, in conversation with several other collectors at the show, we mused that (given the inaccuracy and pre-war nature of several of the other aircraft in the range) there could be the lines of a French Dewoitine D.520, albeit without the long sharks-nose of the original, and someone has started to add French roundels to this one in paint.

Now I'm not saying it ever was a Dewoitine, but I have learned that among the specific war work of Palitoy's Coalville works was Spitfire landing gear, and perspex components for the aeroplane industry, and there remains the possibility that it might have been renamed at the last minute, due to perceived failure by the French in 1940, or just the need for a Spitfire.

But the fact that the two now seem to have run alongside each-other, and the inaccuracies to both against real Spitfires, which they (Palitoy) would have been very familiar with, might suggest they were originally two different planes - maybe one was meant to be a Hurricane and got the wrong marking-stamps, first - and that my previous assertions of the age of these being definitely wartime and with possibly some pre-war production, seems more solid now.

The Wellington; the early ones might be manufactured from what Palitoy (then British Cascelloid, or even Pallet Toys as they may still have been known) called cascelloid, which was a rather flammable celluloid polymer, but that tended to be processed into product as/from a sheet material.

 

In 1931 they were purchased by British Xylonite (another branded celluloid), and in 1939, merged into Bakelite Xylonite Ltd. (BXL), who's Union Carbide partner in the 'States may have something to do with the earlier unstable plastic these aircraft are found in, some kind of Bakelite by-product?

 

My own feeling is that they are an early, unstable form of polystyrene, looking to copy the product being made by IG Farben in Germany from - also - 1931, which had been worked on, fitfully, since the 1870's.

 

Lockheed 'Hudson' bomber-reconnaissance aircraft and air-taxi; While the 'early' models tend to have the red/pink wheels and propellers, and the late (obviously polystyrene) ones black accessories, the fact is I now have all four combinations in the collection with the later Spitfire first seen here in a stable blue, having the red attachments.

 

This actually only reinforces my thoughts on wartime production, as while some will tell you there was no toy production in the war, that's not strictly the case, as with the tariffs we're all currently being threatened with by that lieing, criminal, orange loon, exceptions can always be sought in these matters, with exemption licences being issued on a case by case basis.

 

As a company engaged in 'war work' and a group experimenting with plastics on both sides of the pond, the idea that those experiments could be undertaken in small runs of cheap playthings makes perfect sense, and once they started playing with perspex components for real aircraft and gas-masks/respirators, the small transparencies on the Wellingtons also makes sense, and also ties them to wartime production. The toys helping boost morale while promoting popular aeroplane types, of the time.

I think these Renwal were either the same seller, or the same bag, I can't remember now, but new to me and ready for action as 'Dimestore' style ready-made's, one (wing-tip tanks) marked Navy Plane, the other Army Plane, I guess there's a third out there somewhere - 'Air Force Plane'?

 

The army 'plane is a generic design, although there are recognisable elements of Sabre, but not that pointed nose! The other is a better rendition of US Navy Grumman F9F Panther, capturing the rear-wing line quite well.

 

A comparison shot, between the two lines, scale per se doesn't come into it, but they're both the same size, which, with their simple construction, would put them in the same pocket-money category!

G is for Go Space Trucking!

Really - 'futuristic' trucks!

 

Panhard 1951Titan IE 45 HL Pathe Marconi

 

This existed as one of several futuristic/novelty builds, used for advertising, or as crew-vehicles for teams or media outlets in the Tour de france or Grand Prix circuits of the 1940-50's, sometimes, like the Weiner mobile in the US.

General Motors 1964 Bison concept truck

Chevrolet 1965 Turbo Titan II concept truck

Ford 1966 Big Red Turbo concept truck

 

It's funny, but my childhood was quite liberally sprinkled with iconography related to 'space trucking'? From early articles in World of Wonder magazine on futuristic trucks, through the various multi-wheeled, articulated beasts in the backgrounds of strips or TV series like Dan Dare or Thunderbirds, through Deep Purple's hit, also Space Trucking, and my first Def Leppard album, bought from scrimped pocket-money; On Through the Night, which had a bog-standard 'big rig' rocking through space with a giant, tarpaulin'ed guitar on the flat bed, issued around the time of the most famous space trucker, no, not Han Solo (although - of course - he counts!), but Lone Starr, the mercenary in a Winnebago, from Space Balls!

 

There were a few images in the many sci-fi art books I had, the daft strip in 2000AD; Ace Trucking Co., and the equally interesting vehicles on the elevated freeways of Megacity One and the badlands of the Cursed Zone, and then, Mad Max (and a Plethora of straight to VHS knock-offs - the iconic Herkimer Battle Jitney being notable), while the above four were among many, swirling about in the background of the public conscience.

 

Latterly, we have had Fry and Leela, in Futurama, but they had a more 'conventional' spaceship! All the while, Matchbox, Corgi and Mattel (Hot Wheels) had been producing ever more whacky die-cast spacey trucks in an attempt to hold market share . . . but the dime-store guys had already been there, in the 1950's, before I was born!

 

I can't find this on Google, I'm sure it's been through the Internet at some point, probably various points, but apart from a slightly streamlined Ford saloon (sedan) car, also by Palitoy (for this is theirs), I couldn't find anything about it.

 

The front wheels are a little low, due to the ageing of the thin celluloid (?) belly-pan, which holds a crude steering system, and from, the warping of the plastic, not severe, but there, it must be contemporaneous with the aircraft, we've been working through since the early days of the blog, so the hope must be that more will be out there to find

Gilmark's fire engine (missing a ladder, I suspect, but so is every example I can find on Google!), is probably more accidentally futuristic, being 'just' a toy? The chassis designed - like Beeju's - to take different bodies/loads, and having a tip-back cab, so you can 'work' on the engine!

 

The beauty of all these dime-store types, whether military, civilian or space/futuristic, is that they go quite well with the smaller scales, and both these would suit 23-28mm figures, so your Giant, LB (Lik Be) or Airfix astronaut/space figures, through to role-playing stuff?

A couple of comparison shots, I have a few more dime-store type, rigid-bodied 'space trucks' in the collection, and we may have seen one or two over the years, and a bus (?), but this is my first 'Artic' (articulated/tractor-trailer) type wagon, and hopefully we'll return to them when they all come together, or I find more Palitoy efforts, or even a Gilmark ladder?

 

These both came in at the weekend, last, but I'm not doing a show-report, or, I might do one on the loose figures and bits, but most of what I bought on Saturday, was specifically for posts, given everything else is in storage now! "Go Space Trucking"!

R is for Return - or Not? Palitoy-Parker Horse of the Year Game, Anyway!

Something weird seems to be going on, with me and/or my blog, I'm absolutely sure we've actually looked at these twice now, horses and riders only, once briefly as a foursome, once in more depth with variations, which should all be on the Palitoy and/or Parker Tags, but coming a few days after I couldn't find the Jungle flat set I was equally sure I had posted, I now can't find hide nor hair, of raiders or beasts, anywhere on the blog?

 

It doesn't matter as we are about to look at them anyway, but I would have shot more images of the riders, if I knew I wasn't going to find the posts I thought were here, and while I can understand accidentally not tagging one post (which may have happened with the jungle set?), nor noticing it isn't tagged as it makes its way down the front page over days or weeks, I can't believe I would do it three times, twice with the same set?

 

First, let's hear it for the anonymous sender (it was 2021, and I've lost any record of it) who packed this to defeat the best efforts of Parcel Farce and Royal Fail to totally destroy it, but it's the large things with a full wrap of bubble which do tend to survive against the tendency of smaller things to get massacred!

 

Issued under both Parker and Palitoy branding (in that order - I think?), it was the BBC coverage of The Horse of the Year Show back in the 1970's to which I was referring last time, and this set clearly sold well as there's never a shortage of them going cheapish on feebleBay, and well worth the purchase if you also have/collect the Britains gymkhana/show jumping stuff. Although the playing-board is more cross-country/three-day-eventing than a London arena!

 

The fences which look closest to Britains, giving a real variety with full interchangeability between the two end-types, flat and angled, and the various ways you can arrange the boards or poles, along with a gate. Makes you think what you could do with Britains white gate and the wall sections it clips into.

I arranged these as a triple, but they can go anywhere on the board, the little one could also be used for the Britains kids on the Shetland Ponies, in a proper gymkhana! Or, you could put it just in front of the taller lattice-ends one to make a longer-reach jump? Officially, jumps have type-names, and I'm probably inventing stuff which wouldn't be allowed!

The wall and the water, there is one permanent water jump printed on the board, but you can place another one, somewhere else. I haven't played the game, but it seems to be a simple progression through 'jeopardy' cards and dice. I just wish I'd shot the riders better, it is a figure Blog! Still, an excuse to return to them another day, unless the missing posts 'turn up'?!!

 

Riders are a dense/stiff PVC, with one-each of another military (Britains post the other day), police, hunter's pink and female types, while the jumps are all polystyrene and the water-jump is card.

M is for Micronauts

Not me at all, 1980, I was leaving school, wearing a denim-cut-off over a leather jacket growing my hair long, gardening and cutting trees at the weekends and going to art collage in the week, I wasn't interested, in bitty, lanky, movey, placky, Hong-Kongy and - looking at some of the vehicles - frankly, whacky, slightly tacky, large-scale figures which didn't tie-in with any frnachise I might have been interested in, but they need to go in that Tag List!

Airfix Micronauts;

And my view hasn't changed one iota since! You see them in rummage bins at toy shows, or looking forlorn and one-armless in charity shops, and I just walk on by! Sometimes one - presumably 'rare' - is sitting on a silly-money BIN-price on evilBay and I just walk on by! But, if they are your thing, I get it, youngster! I'm a man fathered by a child of the pre-Palitoy/General Mills iteration of Airfix, me!

 

The full - well, a potted - history's here (Airfix/Palitoy don't get a mention - bought-in end of line?!);

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronauts

 

The funny thing is you can see the Takara heritage in the robots and smaller vehicles, some of which design-lines would reappear in the Bluebird-Kenner-Tomy stuff a few years later, the tracked robot looking very similar to the grey Tomy version of the  Blue Sharks one-man submersible from Manta Force, or the little robots from the same line.

News, Views Etc . . . Bit of a Round-Up

I had an unexpected day-off today, so having had a lazy night last night and not popped-out the two posts I had planned, I'll try to get them out later tonight! But I did faff-about until the early hours, going through a stack of catalogues and ephemera, scanned a few things and archived some stuff from Bluebird, Comansi and Klienbahn, so it wasn't a wasted time!

In the meantime, someone eMailed me to ask if the article in January's Collectors Gazette was plagiarising the Blog, and the honest answer is, probably! A while ago I noted, here, at Small Scale World, that several articles in that publication bore a more than slight resemblance to articles posted here, a few weeks, or months before they appeared there, and while I thought they'd knocked that silliness on the head, you can't have missed their coverage of military trains, so soon after we had several visits to them here?

 

When the author (who knows me, and is known to me) waxes lyrical "...these little harbingers of the plastic revolution are often overlooked - but I'm about to rectify that situation", he seems to be ignoring all the work done here by me and contributors, or elsewhere as mentioned in six posts, over eleven years! And his total number of models is out by at least two, maybe more! [I think there may be a little helicopter of the 'grasshopper' type]

 

Let's not forget he/they published two articles on me in their November 2005 edition! And, I probably get more traffic in a week, than they sell issues in a month! He seems to have nicked the image of the Armstrong Whitworth 'flying wing' and added the data from this Blog's article, I don't know, and his 1930's date . . . where does he get that from? None of them were flying then!

 

It's actually a bit tragic, you have the two Paul's pretending they haven't seen the blog (one of them's regularly commented on), so they can post the same stuff a few weeks later, as 'never seen before', Ramses the 5th pretending he doesn't get his few facts from here, TJF and his cock-wacking monkey-lizard and their shite, the Vichy wholesale downloading my stuff, and the AFD, one of whom still pretends to be my 'mate', but only after Stad's has left the building! In point of fact - one of the Brit's does that as well, but usually before Stad's has entered the building!! And people making shit-up, all over the place!

 

Onwards and upwards . . . it's still the 6th! One of my neighbours down the corridor made a lovely little Christmas display on the door of his flat, and taking the lead from him, I managed to buy the last door-hanger in the hardware store a few days before Christmas!

So I made this, with some of the stuff in the 'Gay Tree' top-up box, which happens to be here! It was the sum-total of my decorations this year, but I had three shiny robots and an astronaut on the windowsill behind the laptop, which were joined by two large gold bows from my Crimbo' prezzies, so some effort to celebrate was made!

 

I used my surprise day-off to pop into town and obtain the offending CG, and while in WHSmiths, who I normally try to give as little money as possible to (I try to always use the much-cheaper Rymans after watching Staples fold), I found this Schleich boxed-set, at half-price! Shit shots, but I rushed them a moment ago! Well worth the seven-quid-something, for four, given they start at a fiver for the small ones in the toy shop, a few doors up!

 

I'll leave them in the bags for now! I wonder if this isn't just clearing the 'blind bag' stuff, I've seen them (the blind-bags) in Smyths, but who's going to shell out six or seven pounds for something they can't see, a pound maybe, even two or more now for the Lego minifigs? But more than a fiver?

 

I'm on the last of Lidl's Favorina bears, and gave the After Eight's away as a late gift, but I haven't started the chocolate orange, and still have most of the Belgian truffles and three Lindt mini-bears, so edible-Christmas will extend 'till at least Valentines Day! Shops are already full of it! So a proper Happy New Year to loyal readers, and to the plagiarists, copycats and annoying little tick-turd golems, may I wish only, my recent luck, on you!

T is for Two - Childhood Survivors

In all the sorting of the last two-and-a-half-years, I found two fascinating pieces of childhood ephemera, from or related to Palitoy/Action Man, which I thought I'd chuck up here under the nostalgia heading . . . 

 

I can actually remember when the parcel eventually arrived, a while later (probably the 'winter of discontent'? So 1973/74'ish?), as it had about six or eight hands, two feet and ankle assemblies and the elasticated-loop with chromed-hook for mending the waist of my older painted-head figure which had come from a Church-fete.

Then we had two grippy-hands men with flocked-hair, one each, and they needed new hands as the fingers were starting to crack-off from the inside! Which left some spare! But we had got older in the meantime and took greater care of them, so I don't think we ever even used the other hands, or one of the feet and matey from Modeller's Loft (Alan Hall?) bought them from me in the 1990's!

 

Bugger-me if I haven't got enough for a guard dog, or a sentry box! I think it was supposed to have been sent off for the sentry box, we'd got the guard dog a few years earlier, he came with a ridiculously gold-anodised chain which would have looked better on a Mr. T doll!

I don't know why it never got sent, but I suspect it was 1980, and the whole divorce, house-move (to here) and teenager thing all came together after a few months in a caravan or two . . . I don't remember the Action Men ('Action Mans'?) ever coming-out at this house?

Funny how I can remember the name of my brother's figure, but I can't remember the names of either of mine or the guard dog, which definitely had one? Painted-head might have been Douglas, thinking about it!

S is for Sandown Park - May 2023 - Military Vehicles

So to all those vehicles, in point of fact I was more restrained than I thought at the last Sandown, I just took lots of shots and split them into five posts, but there's still a fair bit to look at!

 

I think I've managed to find a Sunderland already, probably posted here, but this one was quite clean, not too distorted and relatively cheap so I grabbed it, Palitoy, but now I'm looking for the clockwork version, and any other undocumented ones like the previous posting on the subject.

 

While the US dime store/slush cast Armoured Car from Barclay was also going for a song, and was also quite clean, a few paint-chips and some grubby wheels, which would turn the purists off, but I'm not so fussed!

This ends-up dominating the post, even though it's a piece of modern crap, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes! I have trays of this stuff, Altaya, Matchbox, Eaglemoss, DeAgostini etc . . .  and most of it is pretty, but also pretty run-of-the-mill, a lot duplicated, however I was quite taken with this.

It's a long-wheelbase, GS Truck, Unimax 85061 German Büssing-NAG Type 4500A (also available in a desert/yellow-brown scheme), with a half tilt and two passengers, and was just a bit different, and going for pocket-money, as without the packaging this modern stuff isn't worth a bean! Again - more-fool the purists!

A dodgy photograph, but it looks like it's whizzing past the viewer!

A pair of real box-tickers here; Britains 1263 Royal Artillery Gun, a gap in the collection filled, it was just a clean one and again, reasonable on the money-front, I don't think it's rare, but it was needed, was it the budget/entry-level gun, there's lots of them! And a Timpo siege catapult, which - mercifully - was complete!

Really pleased to find this, it needs the speaker/siren on the mudguard, but I've had the khaki one for years, very distorted now (probably on the Airfix Jeep page?), while this is manufactured a while later, and is a stable polystyrene, the red's a bit leery, but airfield-airside, it's good for fire/accident investigations!

I suspect this was a comic-cover giveaway or Hong Kong knock-off, of those we saw in a couple of posts a while back (lockdown?), the launcher, apart from being candy-pink, is quite a light/flimsy moulding compared to some of the branded ones, and the rocket is marbled from scraps by the look of it (not clear in the photo'), so a nice addition to that side-collection/sample!

E is for Eggcellent Effigies!

I had this figure, can't now remember if it was from Chris, Peter or one of my own purchases (I suspect Chris, but thank all) but I posted it in the other place, asking for help, and Peter rememeberd it was part of a set of Hong Kong cake decorations from way back when . . . 

. . . so what I thought was a squib and powder-pot on some unknown Nappy, was actually a limp brush and glue-pot on one of the 'King's Men'! He's a perfect 54mm though and, like most HK cake decorations; a hard polystyrene plastic.

 

So, I was off to evilBay to see if I could find the rest of the set, the figure on the left was the first candidate, and a cheaper one was procured, and a second soon followed from SSCO, seen in the right-hand image with some figures that were hanging around . . . and they were from Chris, so the soldier must be too? Another Spanish National Guardsman and an Oklahoma standard-bearer from Argentina.

 

It seems Peter Evans was by now on the case and the two, top-right, arrived a day or two before my next purchase on the subject (another from SSCO), they have a wire-twist, heat-sunk into their backs for use as - rather diminutive - Christmas tree hanging ornaments, the wires having been carefully removed from the backs of Peter's.

 

Which, as I kept photographing them as they came in, got us to this point, and I don't think I've found any of the ones that might go with the guy on pasting-duty, but certainly the two Humpty's can sit easily with him and these are all 'styrene.

 

In the meantime, I couldn't resist the bisque chap on the left here, seen with Marx 'Fairykin', who was no-money, BIN, I collected the next as an Internet image, being a larger ceramic ornament, while the candle-holder one on the right seemingly matches these? Even to the point of putting them together at the other end, as they probably belong together?

 

By now, I was getting a little out of control on the subject of Humpties and ended-up bidding on this hugormous PVC-rubber Palitoy squeaky-toy, who's squeak has died without ever leaving the bag! :-(

Both sides, scale comparison coming below, it's as good as the day it left the factory, apart from the dead squeak, and while nowadays these are all sold as dog-toys, they used to be popular with kids too, in a simpler age!

 

Oh, it's not Poly Vinyl-Cloride, it's 'Cascathene'! And four-shillings and ten pence was a lot of money back when we last used a stupid currency based on twelfths and sixteenths! In today's money; about four quid?

 

The line-up around the time I was Blogging the Fairykins, I keep searching, about once a week, but so far haven't really found anything to match the chap with the floppy glue-brush, so a future post for sure! And I have the larger Marx one somewhere!

 

For now, I leave you with the fact that he has never been described as an egg, just shown as one, all people ever publish is the rhyme, which makes no mention of his material make-up?