F is for Further Follow-up - Micro Vessels

I'd forgotten I'd picked the bits up from the storage unit, to do a comparison, so here's a bit more on the small or 'micro' vessels we looked at a couple of days ago, and some more bits from the Internet downloads folder on naval stuff.

 

Both this and the previous should be viewed in the context of the original post on the very small vessels, which was part of a series of seven articles;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2012/03/s-is-for-ships-and-other-vessels-part-7.html

 

There were also some comparisons in the MPC series a few years later; 

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2015/05/mpc-is-for-mini-ships-part-two.html

 

Which was a two-parter, both series have become dated by the scope of the collection now, and one day I intend to re-do all seven of the first lot, in the same order, but as longer, fuller articles, in the meantime a few more points arising . . .

 

. . . including a colour fan of the Quaker samples which are here at the moment, I know the original sample with all ten mouldings, and other accrued duplicates is elsewhere, so a better version of this shot is in the Blog's future, and looking at these, I think there's some merit to my hypothesis re. Tom Smith?

 

Furthermore, I'd suggest that whoever made these ships, made the Gladiators, both are relatively common in small quantities (down to single samples in mixed 'junk' lots), more common than other cereal premiums, and while there are none here, the metallic green in the original post, is matched perfectly in the Gladiators, originally, also Quaker.

 

Nine of ten, by size, with a hole for the missing one!

 

The two Sanella superstructures I have here, there are at least three, and they have a common hull, sometimes found loose, sometimes found glued together, like that water-film novelty I got from Steve Vickers recently. However, I'd forgotten . . .

 

. . . the larger., better finished liner, also marked Sanella, which is almost certainly a later model? The Manurba seem to have three hull types, not the two mentioned the other day - my bad! Pointed, rounded and flat sterns, and maybe only three matching superstructures? Although, like the Sanella - lots of colours, albeit brighter/primary, as opposed to Sanella's more muted or pastel hues.

 

Recently, with the help of Chris Smith (pink, middle), and - I think - another purchase (red, front), I've picked-up three vessels with WWI/turn-of-the-19th-Century forward sloping prows (there was a silver warship, from Adrian Little, still in a separate bag!), and it turned-out I'd found them online some time ago (2020);

 

Apparently sold in waxed-paper bags of twelve vessels, there are possibly only four sculpts/mouldings; twin-barrelled warship, single-barrelled warship, merchantman/tanker and liner? But with three marking variations (prow - my red one, stern - this set, and none - silver warship), there really aught to be more in the collection than there are?

 

The fate of all this Hong Kong bottom-end/pocket-money stuff is that it was always unappreciated and mostly went to landfill decades ago. So, if you have any going spare, bring them to the Plastic Warrior show, this Saturday, and I'll give you real Earth money for them!!

 

Finally, found in 2021, and as an addendum to that part-7 link above, another game which contains a micro-navy, to add to the games in that post, is the Ariel Games one, Manoeuvre, also sold as Strategy, from 1973;

 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8905/strategy-the-navy-game-for-all-the-family

 

Which is quite bloodthirsty, if you contemplate the number of troops you can have on a troopship! I'm sure there are more games with these micro vessels, and - of course - we've ID'd the slightly larger Silvercorn stuff, since those early posts.

A is for A Few Follow-ups!

A few things raised by stuff we've looked at recently, and despite a slower than usual posting rate so far this year, we've covered quite a bit one way or another, and here are a few bits and pieces related to some of the odds & sods, seen here in the last couple of months, or so!

 

This was an internet sales shot I downloaded a few years ago, I download a lot of stuff which illustrates stuff I don't have, but which it's not worth bidding on, or because I'm not - at the time - bidding, and this is one such. I downloaded it for the little blue Bisque pilot (whom I didn't know was bisque then, I assumed composition!), and, of which I've since picked-up a sample, seen in this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2026/06/bmss-is-for-more-plunder.html

 

The other stuff above is mostly common lead, some of which I've obtained in the last few years from Adrian's rummage trays, but it seems I'm still looking for the sub-scale chap. top, far-right, or is he the Crescent pilot (which I do have)? And the guy next to the blue pilot, also slightly smaller than the 54mm's. I think the sailor/lifeboat man, two along is a modern production, whitemetal solid?

 

While this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2026/05/d-is-for-donations-peter-animals.html

 

Reminded me I'd downloaded these wooden flats, when I saw them on sale, again, not the common poultry girl and chickens, but in the same vein, and like the farmer in Peter's donation, slightly better decorated. I've never seen the Wild West figures before, but will look out for them.

 

On the subject of the mazes we looked at, on the London Underground, it struck me, back in April, that the tiled panels at Warren Street (geddit? Warren = labyrinth, maze), should get an honourable mention! I think there's a deliberate mistake in this, but need to check it with the other panels, and there are several per platform and four platforms to check.

 

But if you look at the 7th tile along from the left in the second row from the top, it's not right? Breaking at least two rules - two red lines adjacent, and a shadow-wall falling away at the wrong angle?

 

The various Hulk's we've seen since Christmas! I think the oldest is the pencil top, and there are others to look at one day, so we'll return to Hulks at some point if I'm granted the time, by the powers that be, but the weather this week has suggested we might, none of us, have the time left, we've been hoping for or counting on!

 

I've got the blues! I thought there were six shades here, but actually there are seven, so the early works on Kellogg's jig-toys were pretty generalised in their colour lists, and clearly there were many runs of the tools, and cereal premiums was only one of several issues, for these polyethylene jig-toys.

 

These got left off one of the Peter Evans' donations, and are mostly Hong Kong small scale with a few kit-figures and other bits (central bag), but all grist to the mill! When I'm better organised, these will all go on the But Is It Giant? blog (no, none of them are!), and with both my own quite large collection of carded, bagged and blister sets, and the many I've also downloaded from the Internet over the years, we will make sense of them all, and annotate most of them!

 

Further to the recent purchase from Isaac's friend at Sandown Park;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2026/06/t-is-for-two-diver-sets.html

 

I took this image from evilBay back in 2021, and you can see the same soft 'polythene' ships (sans the hard 'styrene submarine), with one version of the sailors, taken from Britains hollow-cast US Marines, but what it would seem to suggest is that there's an ABC-CMV-HK link to some or all of these sets, more work needed, or a couple of confirmatory finds!

 

Sticking with vessels, these are a purchase a while ago, of the Quaker cereal premiums, we added five the other day, courtesy of Chris Smith, including a new colour (white), and while I haven't managed to shoot them all together, one day we'll unite them all and cover all the colours and all the vessels (ten?), however, I suspect, from the breadth of the colour range, these, like the Gladiators, found their way into Tom Smith crackers at some point?

 

I should have credited the seller at the time, name long-lost, and they probably don't even know of the Blog, let alone follow it, but this was a cheap BIN I got back in February '23, and this is how they arrived in an otherwise standard envelope, and I thought they were beautifully packed to ensure they arrived as they were seen in the auction shots.

 

The cereal premium submarine has all four periscopes/air-tubes/exhausts up, which was the real reason for bidding, the Quaker and Manurba vessles (middle pair) were grist to the mill, and the yacht might be from a board-game, but the keel suggests not? Maybe the water-bowl equivalent of Blow Football?!

 

And mentioned in passing in another plunder-post recently - the Tallon (UK) packaging of the Manurba vessels, I have quite a few Tallon packs now, but this one has eluded me so far, it'll come; nothing made after 1950 is 'really' rare!

 

There are two common hulls (flatter stern and pointed at both ends), to which two or three superstructure types are added, to each hull. We've also seen similar ships from Sanella, who had the one hull, and several suprestructures.

D is for Donation - Chris - [Not] Paratroops!

The exception which proves the rule! As we saw Chris's most recent parachute toy finds/donation in a post at the end of April, I thought we'd look at the civilian vehicular portion of the last parcel, and there haven't been any in the three recent tranches from Peter, so it all sort of balances out!

 

Vessels, and we have an all new - to me - sailing ship, possibly a game-playing piece, or just a novelty? A variation of Hong Kong mini bath-toy to its right, both versions of cereal premium baking soda submarine, and  Marx Miniature Masterpiece rubber boat, all good stuff!

 

Five of the Quaker cereal premiums at the back, two of the commoner Hong Kong Minic knock-offs. but in the less common blueish-sea green, and another of the forward sloping prow vessels, which were new to me, when we saw a silver one recently (probably also from Chris), this pink suggesting the bottom-end of rack toys, such as those parachutists who would come in a bag with a couple of aeroplanes and a cyclist or something . . . something like this ship?!

 

Another pair of cereal premiums, this time the R&L plastic-kit types of US locomotives, from different sets I think, and a similar Hong Kong effort in black, all three are in polystyrene.

 

A couple of Kinder or Kinder-like racers in the foreground, with something more interesting behind, it's in the style of a blow-mould, but is actually PE mouldings, plugged-together, however, what Chris would like to know (as I would), is . . . 

 

. . . who made it? It's clearly marked 'Made in Finland', and there can't be that many Finnish toy makers; we've heard of one or two, in the Space Toy business, courtesy of a loyal reader, on the Blog passim, but does anyone know who made this?

 

Micro-stuff included a Star Wars Micro-Machine, and one of the MPC 'minis' copies, out of Hong Kong, all useful grist-to-the-mill, and one day we will look at all the Micro-Machine stuff in better detail.

 

Vehicular jalopies aplenty! Game-playing piece, back left, I think (one of those car-park/traffic jam puzzle-games?), bits of some Kinder or similar model railway vehicles, a soft-plastic copy of the old dime store 'Morris Mini-Minor', the die-cast is a Hong Kong take on a Marx or Tootsie Toys mini, I suspect, while the charm-looped actual 'jalopy' is probably a cracker toy.

 

It's funny ironic too, as it's probably taken from those Japanese slush-cast minis carried by Shackman and others, while it is also aping the actual silver, or plate charm objects, of the sort well-to-do young ladies collected on a bracelet?

 

Back, centre is an interesting, all-plastic American muscle-car type (or Japanese sports type?), marked 280 ZX Fairlady, which Google revealed is a Japanese model - the eponymous Datsun-Nissan to be accurate, I don't know anything about the maker of the toy version though, do you?

 

Interesting, but very large, and will probably end-up on the swaps page, this is a Play Craft [sic - usually Playcraft] large-scale ('Big', G-gauge or LGB) hopper-car, for an all plastic floor/garden railway, the wheel-base however seems to match the soft ethylene infant railway, which shared the gauge of Brio wooden sets!

Heading to the card and paper tub (a Really Useful Box 35lt job), these are a pleasant mystery! Not apparently configured for slotted-wooden stands, but having clearly had the home-cut fragments of magnetised rubber sheet added by an owner, I don't recognise the characters, but they would seem to be recognisable comic creations? Can anyone add anything that might serve as a further clue? Batman?

 

A Gerry Anderson tie-in from Allen Industries; Super Car, see comments.

 

Thanks again to Chris for all these, the highlights, for me, are probably the pink vessel and the card bits, it's always nice to see things you've never seen before! Although a racing car from Finland is pretty special!

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Everything Else

So, we reach the last of the plunder, bought or donated, from the sort-of-fortieth PW show, at Whitton, in SW London, this June, just gone, and it's the bits & bobs, trees/plants, vessels, and remaining vehicular stuff!

A bunch of the Cereal Premium ships from Quaker Oats, we've seen the whole set before, here, and a previous lot of additional colours, but here's a few more!

Somebody gave me this at some point in the course of the day's proceedings, he came over and asked me about it, I said I didn't know, but that it looked both modern and really nice, and he said "Keep it" and left me holding it, I hope his name is in the footer acknowledgement, below, but if it isn't, eMail me! Sitting at it, is a larger scale Blue Box doll house kid, and smaller Britains Garden adult!

A fine rack-toy of the 6d/5p variety, a set of tools, which, had I seen it in the 70's, would have been purchased for Action Man! I reckon they would have fitted nicely in one of those silver Arctic Explorer crates, and could have been stowed in my Spartan personnel carrier!

 

Barrels from a die-cast Waggon , one of those Benbros-Charbens-Kemlows minor die-casters? A couple of road signs, one damaged, but it might be an only sample, and a badge probably from Brian, who keeps giving me his old badges, as I think he knew I'd kept all mine, and one day I'll have to sort them all out and throw them up here as a fun-post, on all the shows over the years! I've even got most of my Sandown stickers somewhere!

Scenics; including a small moon, or large cannon-ball, probably from a rack-toy bag, a Hong Kong hay-rick/stack clone, and what I suspect is a rabbit-hutch or poultry pen from Taylor, missing its front-door/mesh, but interestingly inscribed with the full For Good Toys slogan. It's probably taken from the lead original.

FG Taylor's 'squirrel-tree', a Lego Chestnut tree, a couple of Britains window-box scenics, and three smaller Barratt trees.

Largo's hydrofoil motor vessel Disco Volante (somewhat simplified!), from Gilbert, I have the carded one, so it's nice to now have a loose one, complete, if slightly discoloured by age (smoking or UV?), although I think an ultrasonic bath with diluted bleach can bring it back white, without taking the red off?

Mixed vessels, nothing too exciting, the smaller rubber-boat is Corgi I think, and the tug may be Springwell, a reissue of the Tudor Rose vessel, or one of the TR vessels (reader-driven post in the pipeworks, on that one!), several baking powder premiums and an odd colour of the usually silver/grey copies of Minic waterline ships 

Aircraft include a damaged and stripped Messerschmitt, a second Inter Cities Services Rota-Ship from Injection Moulders, a small spacy thing, probably from a board game and another Blue Box 'chopper', "I lurve the smell of vintage plastic in the mornin's!".

Another race-car, also Quaker, standard colour and number, but until it's checked against the master collection, I won't trust it! A large egg, from the discount-store rival to Kinder; Wow Eggs, an infant toy which will end-up going to charity, but is at least 'in the archive' now!

 

While the truck is - I think - the New Maries copy of the Holly copy of Blue Box's livestock truck from the Andy's/Home Farm sets, in all cases a sub-scale vehicle from those sets, but they were all mixed scale, with the Merit knock-off horses. probably fitting this nicely!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Ancients & Medievals

So, we're back in time a bit from yesterday, with a look at the various bod's in armour, leather or chain-mail in Chris Smiths recent parcel to the Blog, only the two shots, but lots to cover!

Going vaguely clockwise from the big metallic maroon chap, who you may recognise as being the chariot driver (well; 'crew', he's hardly in control of a team of horses!) from the Hong Kong copies of the Thomas chariot, then we have one of the red copies of Airfix Romans, he's from the odd HK sets which come with a chariot but no wheels . . . and - sometimes - an ACW gun, in 54mm!

 

In the right-hand corner we have a Kinder Roman auxiliery cavalryman, with no damage (they can be brittle, as can the similar set of musketeers), and both halves of his horse! Below them the unmarked (smooth base) version of Giant Roman clones, seen here as Woolbro / Generics, with a Quaker/Tom-Smith gladiator's horse in the middle. So, it's all Mighty Rome in the ancients department this time, even if some of them are Trojan clones!

 

The Medievals are an equally interesting mix, with two of the Exin Castilos figures, these came with a Spanish Lego-likey building system, to add playability to an otherwise - really nice - infant toy.

 

But to their right, up in the corner is a very interesting figure, which I'm guessing is Eastern European, although equally he might be Portuguese, he's similar to those Starlux copy premiums, but isn't a Starlux pose? And I thought I already had one or two, possibly also from Chris, but I can't find them on the blog, so they may have come from somewhere else and gone to storage?

Below him is half a Kinder knight's horse, the other half is bottom centre! The other two on the bottom row are mentioned again below, while the silver/gray pair are the MPC small knights.

The white guy is also MPC, but from the larger set, and he's in one piece, I do have one or two in the 'master collection, ironically red and black ones I think, but they are scruffy and damaged, this chap is complete, they tend to break at the bow string or bow itself, so a very useful addition.

 

While the Lido clone (of which we have already seen hard and soft plastic copies with or without paint), is semi-flat to a thinness that qualifies as just 'flat'! Possibly a gum-ball capsule-machine prize? But might have had a rack-toy issue as well? I may have one or two in an orangey-red from years ago somewhere, so expect a return to these in a future 'odd flats' round-up!

T is for Tiny Trucks and Traffic Jams

This post has been slowly growing in Picasa for some time, 2016 I think was when Brian Berke sent the first to the blog, and I've been slowly adding bits to the folder ever since, to the point where some of it got shot twice and there are many more unused pictures, than used, ce la vie!

So Brian sent the red/green five in the first two images, while I was able to add three more much later; the yellow, tan and an alternate green. The vehicles, old 'Dine Store' novelties were made by Empire Plastics, but they may have bought some of this stuff in, certainly the relationship with Lido and Pyro's similar smallies is not as clear as some would have you believe, and the sculpts may have originated elsewhere!

Also the Parent was a Canadian firm; Caldwell Enterprises, and the Canadians often produced copies under license . . . or not! These are all manufactured in hard polystyrene.

These also came from Brian, and are far more interesting to me, as they are Hong Kong copies, another Empire came out of the colony while 'Empire Made' was a common moniker on the products of several other companies at the time (1950-60's). I also love the colours of these, they almost look edible!

Bottom-right is a comparison between the original and copy tow-trucks, the loss of what was already little detail, renders it less than clear what the copy is meant to be! The copies are all softer polyethylene.

The Cabriolet seems to have been much copied in Hong Kong (as a gum-ball machine prize?), and I now have three, different sculpts, each of which is very different from the other two, but clearly sharing the same DNA.

The modern equivalent, but not at dime-store prices, are the Rush Hour games from Binary Arts, and here we have some which came in in a loose lot from a charity-shop purchase or two, they have better engraving as far as detail goes that their 1950's ancestors, but are more cartoony or fictional than the earlier vehicles.

A more advanced version of the game for older players has more realistic vehicles (of smaller size/scale) attached to tiles, so you move the whole section according to a set of rules laid-down in the instructions, which also contains the various scenarios for start positions, which can be solved. The aim - in each case - is to get oe or more of the three emergency vehicles to the front of the queues.

I didn't need all that extra plastic (another charity-shop purchase), so proceeded to remove all the vehicles from their tiles, which started hard, but once I'd got one off, it was easy to see how to pop the others off with a  screwdriver!

They also do a steam-train version, safari animals and a junior variant of the original Rush Hour game, which I will look out for in the same charity shops, now they have their own tub!

And am I right in suggesting they are all based on a earlier Traffic Jam game? The trouble is this game - like Crossbows and Catapults - is much licensed and there are lots of current Gridlock, Rush Hour and Traffic Jam's out there!

Comparison between the full size Traffic Jam lorry (black), Empire truck (green) and civilianised ambulance sculpt (yellow) to the right, the left hand image being the screwdriver's 'harvest'!

I also have this set (part set!) of probably European (East Germany?) ones, marked PmL, they could be Hong Kong, or anywhere, and I can't remember where I got them, and can find nothing on them as a firm?

I actually have the equivalent of 12-liters of these civil mini/micro 'Dime Store' or novelty vehicles, in four of the Really Useful Box Co's 3-litre CD boxes, but what unifies the ones in this post is their integral-moulded wheels, all the others - for an/other day/s - have plug-in axle assemblies or plug-on wheels/tyres, none of the ones in this post do.

To which end these are a few more without working wheels! The upper shot is a set of Cereal premiums from the UK, being seven of ten BMC models from Quaker's Sugar Puffs, full set to be seen here.

The lower shot has a few odds; the orange one is almost a solid lump and possibly Hong Kong, the green truck is supposed to be another Empire one, but it too is a heavier sculpt with little in common with the above examples which have much lighter walls.

The 'old crock' is a Hong Kong copy of one of MPC's Minis, the truck in front is a cracker-toy/capsule-prize also from Hong Kong, while the little yellow truck is technically a half-track, usually glued to another Hong Kong product, the copies of Tri-Ang Minic's harbour wharves, where it's glued to the deck of the plastic copy of Minic's die-cast piece. And many thanks to Brian for both lots!