One of the things which leads stuff to
languish in the long queue for years is an annoying habit I have of getting the
photos done, maybe even doing any collages or touch-ups, perhaps even starting
the text, then thinking "Hold on, I
really need x to make the post", going off to feebleBay, finding it's
only available as a ten day auction and waiting for it to finish, by which time
I've lost interest in the post, or finding it's not there at all and putting
the whole thing on the back burner with a vague mental note to get one/some at
some point!
Another reason, is that I imagine if I post
it before I've located the 'missing element', y'all will rush off and find it
first, so better to not raise it with you until I've got whatever it is first!
I say that only because when I posted the tinplate the other day, that's exactly what I nearly did, but in the
end I published despite leaving bids on two items which would have made that a
better post, and which you might have gone to look for after I published, which
fortunately you didn't, despite Andy B mentioning one of them specifically in the
comments to that post! Phew!
So, I managed to get both without
counter-bids, leaving a T is for Two as the obvious
direction to go in. And the first was this lovely inter-war (?) piece of
generic WWI limber.
I say generic, it's more a French helmet
than a US or British one, however the dark-on-light grey of the cart's camouflage
is more a Wehrmacht thing, but then
it's been buggered-about-with, the horses are pulled tight to the limber and a
bit squashed at the rear-ends by replacement wire traces, so I don't know how
original it is, and it's missing a crewman, but if it was pucker it would be
100-&-something quid or Euro's or dollars, or whatever and well outside my budget! But it
will look the part on a little shelf somewhere!
The other item I literally went and bid-on
half-way through editing the post two weeks ago was the missing Roggaz/ZZ-marked
military piece from Schilling/Tobar; the ceremonial sentry box with a slightly Prussian
or Austro-Hungarian bent, as mentioned by Andy! Luckily no one else from the loyal readership went to look for
one, or if they did they didn't bid and I got it for the opener! isn't it lovely?
It's lost it's tree-hanger, but is otherwise pretty minty.
Then, a week ago I managed to find this at
an otherwise very quiet Sandown Park show, which rather threw the T is
for Two trope under a bus! It's a relatively common French 'penny toy'
in the metallic 'spirit paint' finish such toys often came in, and again is
probably a between-the-wars thing.
The boots and jacket should be gold'ish and
blue respectively, but have suffered from degradation leaving little 'liver spots'
under the varnish and fading the colours, but the red has held up well, and I'd
photographed a better one on Mercator
Trading's stall a few years ago (for the Tin Plate Page, if I ever get it
finished!), so we will see a better one here at some point!
The two horses with the limber are marked
'MADE IN GERMANY' from where a lot of the early tin-plate came from (Schuco, Bub, Tipp, Carrette, Distler, Märklin et al.), which is why the Roggaz
goes with its misleading ZZ GERMANY ©, which can mean Roggaz from Germany's ZZ
brand, copyrighted to Schilling or some
Chinese firm, or not at all!
Something Schilling would have been happy with, expressly for that 'Germany'
provenance, whether they were instrumental in the operation at the start or
bought-in after Ingo Roggaz had instigated the line!
So, three new pieces of tin-plate! You'll
observe from the previous collage, I cleaned the limber after I'd taken all the
other pictures! I wasn't just watching it Andy! And I will get the motorcycle
and sidecar when I see a cheap one . . . for another day!
I've also found scans I'd taken, of the other catalogue,
which I'll post shortly, or between now'ish and midnight, I must go and cook
something!
