W is for Wild West Warriors - 2 of 2

I shot these first, of the two post's worth, but they ended-up as the second post for reasons I've already forgotten, half the bagged/carded stuff, and a bit of detritus at the end, but all good stuff!

 

Sorpresa . . . Italian for Sobre, Spanish for surprise! And Natale Luigi (NL) is a new one for the Tag list. I remember ten lira being about half-a-p in 1977, so it's not going to break the bank, not even the piggy-bank, pocket-money being the target of very small 'lucky bags'!

 

Apologies to Peter Burgner, I was chatting to him about this find, which he'd observed at a distance, and I said they were the same figures as the Lucky Clover sets, but they're not. The foot figures are larger, while the mounted are the standard 'Giant' size.

 

Still a useful find. I suspect two sets of mounted are missing from the top of the card, and while you could do without the shop-keepers stickers, they do at least date the thing to the mid/late-1970's, the sort of thing which was sixpence in d-money, and became 5-new-p, briefly, before the oil crisis 'invented' modern inflation! Who remembers when 1st class post was 3p!

 

While we had the Sorpresa/Sobre equivalent in Lucky Bags, at the larger end, here in the UK, these were the equivalent of the smaller ones, cheap polymer stuff, sourced in Hong Kong, or occasionally, especially with tin-plate, Japan.

 

A painted figure, marked Hong Kong, of the same size, against the unmarked bases of the figures in the bags, which came-in the same day. All Britains copies, and these 35mm's were cracker fodder, too.

 

Alkastep; a scruffy card, and a ripped bag, but a sample is better than no sample, and it means we can look at the figures. All marked 'France', on the rear-edge of the deep bases, these are to be found as other premiums I think, or were supplied as such to third parties, without rebranding?

 

Post-Giant wagons, the buggy was branded National and others, the small gun-team a cracker prize, while the larger gun and limber combo' was issued with unmarked copies of Giant's ACW and Napoleonics. The other three are more generic.

 

The Poplar-Quaker Foods-Tudor Rose wild west set, really just looking for colour variations or gap-filers now, they aren't rare, and most mixed lots/donations, or show plunder has a few! They could mostly use a god clean, common with these, that obviously got a lot of play back in the day.

 

Likewise, the Crescent hollow-cast and Bergan/Beton copies, these are two Airfix late type (back right, the Indian has been given black, fabric-tape chaps!), and the rest hard styrenes which may also be Tudor Rose, in the case of the mounted certainly, the foot figures seem to have been carried issued by several unknowns, at some point.

C is for Cinematic Celebrities and Cartoon Characters

All the other sci-fi/fantasy stuff tends toward the realm of TV and the moving pictures, to which cartoon characters and fairy tales add a few other harder to classify items, and that material is the direction of this post!

 

A lovely 54mm Barbie, who could have gone in the previous post, as an obvious astronaut, but she's better employed kicking this post off. Credited to Mattel Canada, she is probably the same size as the US shelfied one, with a different card, Brian B sent us, a few years ago, and of which I had no clue to the size - see the Barbie Tag.

 

And - of course - a small scale, solid figurine of a much larger articulated doll, this is exactly what Andy Warhol was on about when he famously said "Pop [culture] will eat itself", something you can also see in comics and Graphic Novels now, with endless mash-ups and crashing of characters into each-other's 'universes', in the end it all gets very silly with Star Wars-Angry Bird-Deforms, or, take The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; on the one hand, a fine, stand-alone, escapist action-movie, on the other hand, utter nonsense and rubbish, which had several authors' spinning in their graves! Internecine naval gazing!

 

Three Power Rangers, these are the Kellogg's premiums I think, and they clearly seem to have only done the two poses, and covered the various Rangers with colour variations! Although the ladies have different heads, so maybe it's just the guys who share a sculpt . . . does it matter? I've got the paragraph!

 

Gulliver's Supergirl premium from Pepsi, on the left, beautifully painted by someone, and while the paint has been chipped a bit over the years, I'll leave it, maybe even touch it up one day? Interestingly, she's the same sculpt as the Res Plastic for Kinder (and PIF Gadget?) one, so some cross-fertilisation or mould-swapping there, I think! I should add that I now believe only the 30mm ones were issued by Kinder, these 54mm's wouldn't fit in the eggs.

 

On the right is a soft PVC-alike Superman figure from NJCroce of bendy toys fame, how they came and went in a couple of toy-seasons?! He's not a bendy, just a slightly wobbly figure, clearly they haven't finished with their DC licence! 

 

Two vast blobs from Argentina, and you can't beat Argentina for 'toy' appeal! I think they may be from Kamen Rider (is that a crude attempt at Kuuga on the left?), but what do I know, very little on that subject, so Atomic-Super-Kaiju-Boy is still in the frame! They are about 120mm and showing that Argentine favourite, lashings of silver paint!

 

Army Ants/Combattini/Terminators, we've seen them before, no black ones this time, but a new colour, bright pink, and the details are on the Tag. But I noticed some seem to be missing separate weapons, and/or have holes for accessories, of which, one, a radio-set, is still attached, so I now have to hope I have some of the missing items in the bits-zone!

 

Pretty sure these are Kinder now, and probably quite recent/contemporary, we saw a Chewbacca from Chris I think, not that long ago, and they seem to be taking from the 'classic' characters.

 

A Disney sucker, we've seen several generic 'monster' characters and a superhero, so I'm guessing some recent playground craze/blind-bag thing which I missed? Along with what I suspect are two Pokémon?

 

Marx Simple Simon in chalky-blue plastic, and an unknown action figure who may be a knock-off of something more obvious like the GI Joe's or that Airfix line . . . I really don't do action figures, unless they are Galloob, or Matchbox, or . . . doh! And is he a diver or a spaceman?

 

Odd gnome to the left and swivel-head alien to the right who was probably a key-ring, or hand-bag/mobile-phone hanger, and I think it glows in the dark, but forgot to check! 

 

Small scale bits include a DFC or similar revolting peasant (and he's rebelling, too, boom-boom!), a couple of Bluebird Zero Hour/Code Zero, a small vinyl shuttle from Star Trek (Playmates?), a Marx 'Kin's cat (Figaro), Christmas cracker angel orchestra figure, and a lovely fully-glazed, ceramic little-baby-Jesus, who might be a French fève?

 

I think these are all Moshlings? But they could be Zomlings, Ugglys pets, Super Zings, Super Things, or even Shopkins/Grossery Gang, I really don't know, and purple eye 'shadow' seems to be a feature of most of them!

 

They are mostly in the Capsule Toy/Blind Bag queue, I started clearing a while ago, and I'll make some sense of them here, just to get the boxes ticked, but there was this bagful, as a part of one of the donations.
 

Again thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for everything on the day.

S is for Ships at Sea, and Sky Surfers

The other half of the vehicular element of this year's Plastic Warrior plunder; only a few, it is - after all - a figure show, but I took loads of photographs of one of them, because it was such a cool find!

 

 

 

 

TN Thomas Toys boxed jem: Submarine Base with Rocket Battery! I was very pleased to find this, I think it was my first purchase of the day, along with the smaller bag of Hong Kong smallies, and while I soon worked out it's missing a launcher, a missile and all the torpedoes, they are things which I will be able to replace, possibly from 'the pile'?

 

I've found examples online, and I think I recognise the torpedoes from the ammo-stash, of interest is that the launchers and rockets are of finer, and sharper finish, than all the others we've looked at, notably here

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/05/s-is-for-spring-powered.html 

 

But we have looked at one or two others which came in, and I think one might be from this set, or just from Thomas? But it would suggest that the Thomas one is the granddaddy of all those from Jean, Kellogg's, Unimel and - obviously - the Hong Kong ones.

 

The missile will be the hardest thing to source, because it looks like they were paired white, charcoal and mid-grey (all marbled), so I'll not be happy if I don't find a dark one, but the tool ran, so they must be out there somewhere!

 

This came in one of the mixed bags, and I thought it might be from one of the Hong Kong bath-toy sets, but I suspect it's just a badly painted model-kit, possibly from one of the early Japanese makers, someone did two destroyers in a box around 1:1200 if I recall a corner of the hobby I didn't pay much attention to!

 

These are interesting, a lot of kit-figures came in at the show, for the 'combat' post, and they were mostly sub-scale, but none seem to match with these plastic-colour wise, so they remain a mystery, although they could be from a river-craft kit? If anyone can ID them, than would be cool, they are around 1:48th.

 

A few small-to-micro 'planes, the little metal one keeps turning up, and is probably a cracker prize, but might have been from a board-game, but possibly one with multiple aircraft? I think the small red one is from one of those aircraft-carrier toys with a flick-catapult, I think?

 

The transparent, but damaged plane is early, probably taken from those Lido/Pyro sets, but even it this state, is a 'place holder', while the delta-type (Dart II?), is the earlier, better version of one you can still find occasionally, I think I got one in that short-lived cake-decoration store in Fleet about ten years ago, and they are in the cheaper crackers, which are slowly disappearing now.

 

Which leaves the red, spacey lump, which is totally unknown to me, and bares no clues as to its origin, accessory from a larger play-set? Blind-bag thing? I haven't a clue! But there's plenty of that kind of thing in the collection!

 

Finally, we have two Hong Kong copies, a Gloster Javlin and Sea Vixen I think, and I suspect they were taken from early British plastic toys (the ones in the red, white and blue boxes, were they Mettoy?), a slight dink on the Javlin's tail-plane will be mendable with that two-part epoxy 'metal' you can get from Halfords (auto-parts place for our foreign readers), or even a scrap from the spares box, plenty of wing, tail and fin parts in there!

 

thanks to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans or Trevor Rudkin, for everything here, except the Thomas set! 

S is for Several Sculpted Spacemen

In addition to the two - quite sensible - rack toys, and the loose figures I used for the first narrative post, there were also some more assorted or generic spacemen and astronauts among the plunder of the first weekend in July, and which are the subject of this second space post.

 

Martin let me have these, pretty-much at cost, and a maker's name has come out since we last looked at them; Anabea, from Argentina, I think there were only the four poses copied from Deetail, but there is an alternate alien head used sometimes.

 

The Reisler also came from Martin, and is a duplicate of one previously seen, however this time he has a clear helmet, as opposed to the blue-tinted one we saw last time, a piece of Hing Fat junk from modern China, and a Cherilea pod-foot. I think my based sample is fair enough now, but I'm short on the pod-feet ones, with mostly HK or Marx soft vinyl versions.

 

Two K&M-Wild Republic on the left, with two new, baseless figures on the right. I think I may have seen their set, and if it's the one I'm thinking of, it's quite an infantile thing, for such realistic figures? A chunky flag-pole would appear to be missing.

 

A very cleanly marked 60mm Tudor Rose copy of Premier on the right, while on the left is a giant, 100mm-odd, polyethylene version of the Archer spacewoman, I think she may be one of the ones you see singly in bags marked A-OK USA, although there are plenty of parallels with the Hong Kong knock-offs, the quality is better. There should be an equally huge helmet, but it may be convertible for something else at that size - some of the modern travel-bottle sets have round-bottomed containers?

 

These Marx 60mm guys didn't survive the trip to Whitton, but I have better examples, so I guess it's off to 'recyce' for them, before their free-radicals contaminate anything else . . . Soylent Metallic Blue, yummy!

 

Also four post-Giant clones came out of the woodwork in the course of the day, three of the type 'C1' and a commoner 'C2', all grist to the mill;

 

https://butisitgiant.blogspot.com/search/label/Astronauts 

 

There is a bit more sci-fi/fantasy in the TV-Movie/Cartoon post, still to come, and thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for their part in what was a brilliant day.

D is for Donation - Chris - Odds and Sods

It's always a bit sad to come to the end of these donation posts, as it's fun to cover so much eclectic, unknown, or odd stuff, in one post, let alone a series of them, but all good things come to an end, and here we are, with the 'odds & sods' of Chris's parcel.

 

Should have been in the vehicle post, and I can't remember why I shoved it in the odds' folder, so it might have been by mistake? Jig-Toy puzzles from Kellogg's, or are they, as with all things, premium, we've learnt over the years that there were usually multiple issuers, and often more issues than the first two editions of 'Cluck' listed, and given the detailed breakdowns of colours over the years, the fact that we see five different shades of blue here, would suggest they can't all be Kellogg's! But they are all the same polyethylene, probably UK made ones.

 

Another take on the little 'bears in bags' (fridge-magnetic bags!) were these broach-configured ones, although this chap is a cut above the blow-moulded versions, having four points of articulation at hips and shoulders.

 

Half of a rudie-nudie lady key-ring we've seen before here, and a golf tee, I saw a set of Gophers the other day which were an amusing reference to the movie Caddyshack, but these naked babes with their heads in the sand have been around much longer, and I'll be adding it to the 'Adult' post, with a few other bits which have come-in, soon.

 

A mix of Blue Box (Hidden Adventures), Blue Bird (Mighty Max) and similar micro-action-figures, and one which appears to be magnetic. I didn't shoot her well, but the beauty of this stuff is that we will see it again when we have proper overviews of their sub-genres.

 

"We want . . . a shrubbery!!", the rubber lump on the left is from the HG Toys cavemen sets, and I used to think it was Bata! The big fir is almost certainly from the same Tri-Ang railway set as the hopper-car in the vehicle post the other day . . . last month!

 

This is interesting; unmarked, the horse-stalls and walls are hard-plastic, the roof is soft 'ethylene, and the whole has a lot in common with the Jean Höfler buildings, from their carded sets, but the buttressing round the corners is very-much in the same style as the 'wall' jump in the Palitoy-Parker horse-jumping game? Not to say it's by either maker, it remains unknown to me, although Jean did do a Wild West town, that might have had a stable?

 

Kinder, Onken, and similar parts, from an early Pixie type (centre), to quite recent, and I've explained before how these go with all the other bits, to be built into whole examples from time to time, in sorting sessions, so all useful stuff!

 

This was a lovely find by Chris, but it's started to annoy me! I have done lots of Googling, and evilBay searches, over the month or so since it arrived, and while I've found all sorts of Plasticine sets and tie-ins with various licences, I can't find the farm-themed set I have to assume these fences were designed for, can anyone help?

 

A fine piece of 60's or early 70's key-ring, novelty tat! This seems to be a better, more robust version of the rather flimsy all-plastic ones I remember from our childhood, and which often turn-up on feebleBay, so I assume it's a bit earlier, with riveted construction and metal parts. Next job is to identify the correct pellets/bullets, of which there are numerous in the stash somewhere!

 

A cornucopia of odds to finish; the 'Snap!' picture dice and tumbler may be quite modern, and definitely Christmas cracker prizes, the bubble pipe seems to have had somebody try to use it as a real pipe - bet that tasted nice! Two score-spinners (also Christmas cracker fayre), a chromed knife, which could be cracker, gum ball, or something more like 12" Wild West dolls?

 

A windmill/whistle, traditional tin-plate clicker and a 'joke shop' severed-finger, complete a nice mix of novelties. The black fleck, might be off one of the hard-plastic, kit trains, I'll have to check!

 

As always, I feel I can never thank the guys enough for all this stuff, it really does fill holes, complete pictures' and ask new questions. So many, many thanks to Chris for the above, and to both Chris Smith and Peter Evans for all the stuff we've seen in the last couple of few weeks. This will be the 885th use of the Tag 'Contribution', which I didn't use for the first few years, so, some sixth of all posts have involved other people sending/saving other stuff, pictures, or data for/to the Blog, that's awesome kindness.

 

I don't know what my favourite was this time, possibly, strangely, the diminutive Marx/Blue Box rack-toy soldiers, simply because they were new colours and had both runners complete, but both the stable and the Harbutt's fencing in this post were good finds, and I've highlighted others - the WWI US bubble-stalk, the bobble-head tank, the pencil sharpeners? All sorts! While from Peter's lots, possibly the four colour/four 'team' Sci-Fi set in the MUSCLE style, or the China pack with Duke Kaboom, maybe the two wooden farm flats?

 

Thank you both.