S is for Show Report - Late, Sandown, September, Contributions Etc . . .

Adrian Little over at Mercator Trading always stalls out at the Sandown Park show, and often has a bag, box, tub or tray of bits for me to look at, sometimes several! Some require shekels, some get sort of chucked at me and because they do I always try to purchase something too! He was there in September and this post covers all those sources and . . . possibly a bit more - one of the shots is a bit confusing!

The easy ones first! We saw the plastic pumps in the previous post and they might have been on Adrian's stall anyway, but the Lesney die-cast definitely was, and I shot the two by way of an instant comparison at the show, as while I have one, it's in storage and although I probably included it in the Matchbox posts back in 2012/13 (?) I can't be arsed to look for it when this shot is enough! Note the Hong Kong maker (probably Tai Sang) has changed the finials to Shell branded pumps from the Esso of Lesney.

Below them is a bunch of Mocherettes (as you must by now realise I call them), nothing rare here, but the Egyptian is useful and the AWI (indeed all the Wild West with Kinder bases) are harder to find and come in several finishes, so I may or may-not need him to build or complete a set? The larger one is a more modern Westair, and is soft whitemetal, rather than the die-cast zamac of the earlier, smaller figures.

Some interesting stuff here, the top row are - I suspect - modern'ish aftermarket/garage figures painted-up and based, but they could be older and/or rarer, I just don't recognise them and there are many whitemetal railway figures out there.

The middle row has, from the left; three Horten for Trix and Britains Lilliput, then three which I belive are Comet/Authenticast (but probably not Eriksson sculpts), an unknown who could go with either of the preceding trios, but is probably another Horten for Trix/Britains, the final four are Hornby/Dinky 'Dublo'.

The bottom row is less clear, did Lilliput have a post box, if not probably Wardie/Mastermodels? The aeroplane could be from a board game, but I suspect with the three-colour paint-job, it may be a 'toy' toy for a dolls-house playroom? The gun is from a ship-model and is likely to be a commercial barrel on a homemade carriage.

This is lovely, and I was touched Adrian had saved it for me, as I'm sure he has customers for it, it's a slip-cast bisqueFlaK or Pom-Pom gun, and probably a German Winterhilfswerke (WHW) piece, the partial mark seems to be in the DIN font, which would tie-in nicely, but just a lovely thing!

I tried to photograph these through the bag, but as you can see the images were pretty awful, so I got them out! It's obviously the tale of Hansel & Gretel, with the witch and a cat which I don't remember getting a mention, but witch = black cat (familier)!

Plaho (Plastik und Holz - plastic & wood) were a state organ of the VEB system, build on the firm of Herpat in Steinach, in East Germany, and you can see the composition ancestry in these figures, we may even have seen the Lineol (or Elastolin?) originals here at Small Scale World . . . and courtesy of Mercator Trading I think?

This is where I get confused, it's also a poor image, sorry. The bag bottom right was definitely from Adrian, but I'm not sure if the rest were, or if I bought a bag of bits at the show and sorted them down to this image, then including some of Adrian's stuff, but I'll proceed as if it was all from him!

We'll look at the better bits in a minute, although it's all pretty interesting, but now I'm making more effort to get the Giant Or What? Blog turning a little more regularly (about 12 articles in the ready queue), it will mostly be seen there, but what can you see here?

A bag of smaller farm and zoo animals, various Giant and sub-Giant copies of Knights, Romans and Wild West, a small bag of Quaker Gladiators, a bit of Marx-Blue Box 1:64th American 'HO' stuff, three Tudor Rose farm animals in 'styrene, a nice vintage 'ivorene' charm, Manurba/Tallon trucks, Spencer Smith Nappy, Montaplex medievals; all sorts!

These are both lovely; the cowboy whistle in two colours is one of only a few novelty whistles I have, of which only two others are figural I think, a lion and a . . . bird? While the Sikh sentry is a very uncommon Malleable Mouldings figure in soft polyethylene polymer, taken from an old lead-solid Holgar Eriksson sculpt.

The whistle from a couple more angles (we'll see the Sikh again soon) and some modern gaming stuff (bottom right); I think the horse might be Minifigs, the pack animals are nicer, but probably quite new?

Top left however, is of more interest, and the left-hand figure came from Adrian, the set of four were a coincidental purchase at the same show and could have been in yesterday's post, but they ended-up here! lead solids around OO-guage/23mm.

I am sure I know the name of the game, and possibly the maker, as I took notes on one at SAS Auctions, when viewing years (14 or 15) ago, but can't find the note, they are (I'm sure!!) from an Edwardian board game with a simple name like 'Spies', 'Secret Agents' or 'Private Eyes' and I favour the latter one, maybe 'Private Dicks'? No sniggering at the back.

I'm guessing these must be French bazaar things; bags of unpainted 'ethylene mouldings of earlier often French but sometimes copies of Timpo, Elastolin or Spanish figures/products from the 1970/80's? The odd thing here is that the two adult chickens and the ducklings are quite realistic, while the adult duck and chicks are quite cartoony? But a really nice, very clean sample!

While these - being also a nice sample - will need a bit of research I haven't done yet. There are several sets of these, and similar poultry, some of which are claimed to be Prior premiums, others not, there seems to be a set like these, a set with nests and a set on more elaborate foliage, with several sets on plainer flat bases, while a couple of larger raptors have no bases, just big feet!

Most are a stiff, dense 'Macau' PVC and seem to have come through Injectaplastic of Portugal, so may also 'be' Jouets Super Plastic (JSP) of France, while some seem to have been premiums for other companies such as Arena, Aurea, Azur, Bisco, or Ehrmann, but some are softer rubbery PVC. Prior don't actually seem to have handled the birds at all!

So, more work needed! But, lovely toy figures.

Many thanks to Adrian for the bits he gave me and the bits he saved for me to look, at all of which I took - at well below retail - and the bits I bought on top, all-in-all a bargain!

B is for Box-ticking - Soviet Era Troops - East Germany

Given what else I've managed to garner in the ten years since I extended the scope of the collection to larger scales - purely to feed the blog . . . and because it's fun - it's odd that I've only managed five of these, as they aren't that rare!

PGH Effelder's rather large (75-80mm) rubber Nationale Volksarmee (NVA), with their distinctive helmets; unique to the East German forces and possibly the oddest general-issue helmet worn in the 20th century by anybody other than the rebel star-ship guards in a galaxy far, far away!

Manufactured in a similar material and style to the Czechoslovakian Bata figures, although - as far as I know - Effelder weren't a shoe-factory! As I say they aren't particularly rare, being quite robust, and issued in one of the wealthier of the Soviet-puppet countries, so quite numerous.

They also track the changes in uniform in the East German army with the figures also issued in the rain-fleck camouflage, white (winter war) and three-colour camo'. There are also many poses and pose variations, so only a small sample above, maybe TJF's mates can show us some more? He can't; he's a dealer not a collector!

This chap is a question-mark, obviously from a model vehicle, probably plastic, but it could be an older tin-plate thing, but unquestionably East German with that salad-bowl on his head. Nicely painted and in the style of pre-war composition outriders from Elastolin or Lineol.

It's a parade pose, with hands fisted on thighs (in the British Army you brace and stretch to the knees for parallel arms) and back straight. He's closer to 54mm and seems to be a standard hard polystyrene plastic.

Now known to be Plaho - Thanks to Andreas Dittmann!