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!

P is for Plastic Toys!

The title of Bill Hanlon's excellent book on Dimestore Dreams of the '40s & '50s, and the core of this blog, no matter how much metal, wood, glass or card sneaks in! Alongside the military vehicles, which Mr Berke sent us the other day, was a plethora of civilian transport delights, most being of the 'dime store' variety, and this post is looking at the larger examples.

Left to right we have here, a 1911 Maxwell Roadster, a 1911 Daimler and a 1911 Renault, all made in Hong Kong, and my initial thought - given the leery colours - was Wilton's cake decorations, but they are different, so these may have just been pocket-money rack toys, like the ones we saw in a bit of a mini season a while back, but lovely additions to that particular oeuvre!

Two of the vehicles had been enhanced with 'ticker-tape' type-written graphics, which had seen better days, but with weathering/discolouring looked like a comercial exercise, until you realised one was a Marx tanker, the other a Dillon-Beck 'Wannatoy' utility/tool-locker truck, so I removed the remnants, which proved easy, as the glue was some water-based animal-stuff, like the old 'Gloy' pots at school!

 

There were actually a fair few Wannatoy or DB marked examples, including the boat and three 'rigid' trucks - we saw the artic's here, years ago! Indeed i think there were five different markings between the seven items. One of the spare cab/tractor-units had a different hitching mechanism/method, and I thought I might be looking for new trailers, but the aforementioned Hanlon book put me right.

 

I had seen the unmarked yellow bit, and decided it must be part of a construction vehicle or earthmover, but it turned out it's the other half of the 'new' Wannatoys cab design, but I'm still looking for the outer-end of the arm, for now it can do service as a tow-truck!

 

A lot of red, in the parcel, it has to be said! Three lovelies here, with a Renwal delivery van, we know it's a delivery van because it has DELIVERY written across the roof for police helicopters!

 

In the middle a Thomas Toys marked sedan, or at least I think it's called a sedan, in the UK it would be a 'family saloon car'! With a soft polyethylene dream to the right! I thought it might be a T-Bird and was googling with image-results by year '51, '52, '53 etc. . . and getting nowhere, before switching to Processed Plastic soft top, and finding it was a '56 Cadillac El Dorado, which I should have recognised, but I only drove the hard-top!

 

Stop me if I've bored you with this already, oh! You can't, it's a Blog . . . Hay-ho! Many years ago, like about 25, I worked for a stretch-limo' firm for a bit, actually ran into a childhood mate, but have since lost touch with him again!

 

Anyway, they were mostly shitty-old Lincoln Towncars from the 90's, ratted, sparking mother-boards you had to hold against the shocks with your spare hand to keep the gizmo's shining for the punters, awful things which had been hammered doing the LA-San Fran-Las Vegas triangle, 100's of thousands of miles. And in various liveries of silver, graphite, grey, white (weddings!) and two-tone.

But, there was one original 1960's 'Beatles & Stones', presidential Cadillac El Dorado ('68 I seem to recall), in black, with all leather, slightly stretched with a little B&W TV, and mahogany veneer bar, it only sat about six (some of those Lincoln's could hold 12 or 14 topless tarts!) in a small broken-U, but compared to the modern shit, it was one classy lady!

 

One summer evening I parked-up in the big Sainsbury's at Hatch Warren in Basingrad, while my fare did their function, and I went in for a snack and when I came out I had a crowd! She was lovely, and this little toy, albeit an earlier model, will remind me of her! She broke down as often as the others, though!

If you need a Limo', go to a reputable firm, with new cars and a landline, stay away from the local-press guys with their old cars, a mobile number and maybe a hosted webpage, you could spend half the night by the side of the motorway, or miss your flight, and you rarely get your money back!

This was funny, I'd literally mentioned it in passing a few days before it dropped on the porch, unannounced! It's the dairy boardgame, which was from Hasbro, and four players go around delivering milk, eggs and butter (I think) which fit over the different studs on the back! There was a green one in the parcel, but Royal Fail did their worst, and I have a bag of green bits waiting for a glueing session.

 

Some more polyethylene, the two to the left are in the style of all that German or Scandinavian vinyl, but in 'ethylene, and probably some similar infant/first/early-learning type thing, 1970's maybe? The tractor is lovely, marked Hong Kong, it is a direct copy of the Jean Höfler one which I have in military and civil types, so it will be nice to compare all three sometime.

While the sports car [muscle car!] is in a similar vein to the first two, I suspect enhanced with aftermarket or old leftover kit transfers, and while I would clean them off if I was sure, I'm not, and I'm even less sure about the blue paint, not obvious in the shot, but which runs around the lower quarter, and might/might not actually be factory-finish, so I wouldn't want to lift that at the same time?

Two of the little Pyro's, an Ideal 'aerodynamic' trailer (very 1950's), which is a fair lump of stable cellulose-acetate, a Banner road-grader, I think I have the military-green one somewhere (?) and a locomotive conductor's caboose from Lido Lines!

 

While this is a mystery, there's a feint USA mark under the right corner of the bonnet/hood, but no other markings, and it clearly had some interactive properties which are now half-missing, a hole in the rear only reveals that which is no longer there, while a sliding piston thing at the front has no obvious stop, trigger or function? I don't think it's dropping low enough to fit in a road-slot?

 

I suspect either a jump toy, with the trigger in another component (ramp or launch-mechanism), or a magnetic novelty with parts/a corresponding magnetic-wand missing? So any help tying this down to a maker or a set would be happily accepted!

 

And many thanks to Brian again, for this pile of brightly-coloured treasures!

R is for Renwal . . . or not?

Further to the earlier post, and in part an answer to Andy B's comment on that earlier post, I already had one of the tanks Brian sent, but mine was marked Renwall and is silver and green. Brief research (a google images results page!) reveals that they come in reversed colours as well - green body/silver turret &ect . . . missile, gun, whatever. A rule which breaks-down on the single mouldings, as seen on Ed's Blog with the Army Ambulance, where you get one or the other!

 

Brian's donation on the left and my sample on the right, it's possible they are trying to depict the M103, a heavy tank designed to face-up the JS/T10 series of Soviet biggies during the early Cold War, which, unlike the Stalin's or Britain's Conqueror (that all looked 'heavy'), was more of a scale-up on the M46/7/8 series, and looks quite normal in some photo's?

You can see clearly, that where mine is marked 'Renwal' the new addition has a clear remnant of mechanical scrubbing on the tool to remove the maker's mark. I think Plasticraft bought some Renwal tooling, could the all-green (more realistic) one be a Plasticraft issue? It's also a different shade of green, but I've seen other colours/shades so that proves nothing!

Another silver/green marked Renwall combo', they all have other markings including a title block, normally on an upper (normally visible) surface, and a stock-code/tool-number, along with the branding, usually underneath.

 

And another, this being a sort of giant Sparrow Missile, doing service as a Nike/Ajax anti-Nuke' SAM. Sadly, it's not a working "You'll 'ave yer' eye out..." toy, but a useful item for space bases and the like.

 

Comparison with the Norada we saw the other day (back), possibly also trying to be an M103? The Airfix 'Pershing' (front, nominally an M26?) and a diminutive, carded Marx cap-firing die-cast to the right!

M is for Military Marvels from 'Merika!

So, around the same time as the show the other week, I got a lovely parcel from the other side of the pond, and having covered the show a couple of weeks ago, and Peter's stuff from it, last week, it's time to show gratitude to Brian Berke, by sharing his plunder with the rest of the loyal readers, and we're starting with the military, in what was a vehicle-heavy donation.

This should be a Renwal readymade, very much in the same vein and size as the similar Airfix Attack Force, or stuff we've seen here from Injectaplastic, Jean Hoefler, Manurba or Norada, but this one isn't fully-marked, and has already led to a follow-up! It's quite 'space-tank'y isn't it?!!

 

Gilmark's Sherman behind and a lovely, early, polystyrene, US-made Lido jeep, trailer and gun in front. Following the pattern of the 25lbr and quads, I suspect some artistic licence from the 1950's dime-store supplier, with the very British limber added to a jeep, and a gun closer to the early war 37mm, which, although quickly rendered ineffective by advances in German armour, remained far from obsolete, retained as a very useful infantry support weapon, and which WAS towed by jeeps, among other tractor-vehicles.

 

It is a sad inevitability, that Royal Fail have to take their boatman's coin from pretty-much every parcel from Brian, Chris or Peter, and on this occasion it was the Auburn jeep which paid the price. No matter, I will glue it, and before the cyanoacrylate dries whitish, shoot it with the Airfix jeep for that post, on the Airifx blog.

 

Annoying though, as I'm pretty sure I have the original Auburn Rubber 'rubber' one somewhere (chunk of PVC), and having the polyethylene replacement turn-up is a fine showing of the other side of that coin!

Also the Auburn one I think, or 'based on', although we have seen various versions here over the years, not least the Banner, Bell, Lido and Merit ones, but unmarked and a clean mould-shot, so probably one of the US 'army man' issuers rather than Hong Kong's finest?

 

These on the other hand, are Hong Kong, but rather uncommon 'German' blue plastic, probably from Ri-Toys (Rado Industries), and one of their bagged or carded rack-toys of the 1970/80's, but equally possibly a sub-pirate, the tank being a cruder copy of the Blue Box one, than I remember Rado being responsible for!

 

Brian kindly put these to one-side when I mentioned them a while ago, and it's the Faun 6x6, NATO-era, 10-ton Bundeswehr truck from Roco Minitanks, with a load of assault boats and the larger rubber-boat.

 

Interestingly, I think that grey wheel, is the early sign of 'styrene-rot, and it's only the second time I've seen it, but on the other occasion it was A) also Roco product, and B) also from the 'States, probably AHM over-stamped stuff from the late 1960's? On that previous occasion, I rather blamed the climate in Florida - well, Americans themselves, seem to blame Florida for most things!

 

It's not like the brittleness of dying polyethylene, but more like the Mazak-rot you get in early die-casts, the grey bloom eventually getting fine cracks in it before crumbling, more like biscuit. As with other plastic diseases, I'm sure it's a batch thing, but whether it's down to too-high or low injection temperatures, incorrect operating-pressures or corrupting additives/inclusions . . . as yet, as far as I know, that work hasn't been done.

Many thanks to Brian for all these, and there will be more on the Renwall tank next!

C is for Canoes - 10 - Non Wild West

 A very eclectic mix in this post, and by no means all, or even most of those I could have found, but more of a taster of what's out there, if you're tempted by these posts into specialising in canoes!

 

I think this was a Charity Shop purchase about a year ago, i.e., some time after these posts had begun their journey to publishing! But it helps fit the next one into the oeuvre, and who doesn't have a soft spot for Snoopy! Marked as if licensed and made in Hong Kong, it's probably been manufactured for someone like Applause?

This was also a latecomer to fill this posts folder! Included in a previous donation from Chris Smith it was a mystery for a time, I thought maybe an eraser, but after finding Snoopy and noticing the Bully mark I have tied it into a similar Smurf toy!

 

We've seen these before I think, probably more than once as they are part of a bigger line which incudes or crosses-over into sports, beach and divers! Cheap Hong Kong rack toy copies of a Corgi original, they are in storage! The oars are always missing or broken!

Also not appearing in these posts, is a similar 1:70th'ish canoe, as a roof-load pair from Hobby Dax, which I got in Lidl about 20-years ago, in fact, there is a whole family of them from Majorette and Matchbox (both also paired), Guisval, Spot-On et al!

 

This is the now out of production - Canoe, MkII, 'Ard Bastards, For the Use Of - kayak, courtesy of Ronara Store, a Chinese outfit, via Brian Berke, who was wanting to reproduce the infiltration device of choice of the 'Cockleshell Heroes', it's manufactured in resin and is nominally suitable for 54mm figures!

 

Brian's finished model, I'll let him set you right on the model . . .  

 

"Recently on eBay out of China came what I hoped was the long-awaited canoe of my dreams. Listed as 1/32 it falls far short. Moulded in resin, it was difficult to glue and getting the arms to stay in the correct position to take the hands with paddles proved to be beyond my patience. So here it is. The real Mk II canoe was 16' long, 28.5" beam, the model is 4 5/8" long"

 

I thought I might have saved these from evilBay, but in following-up on the eMails for these posts I find Brian sent them, but he saved them from evilBay! It's the Renwal 'dime store' civilian pleasure boat, and the figures are about 30/40mm and look like they might have been sculpted by whoever sculpted the figures for Pyro's military vehicle sets? It also seems to be missing a clip-in oar?

Many Thanks to Brian for his input, lots more to come!

T is for Two - Renwal Dimestore Automobiles

A quickie now, approximately 1:48th, proper 'Dimestore' from Renwal and a rather insipid yellow, that's not the US 1950's taxi colour either! The seller (years ago) actually had several of them including some better-coloured ones, but I had limited funds and took these two because one had a figure (small-scale figure!) and the other was a consecutively numbered 'hard top' version of the first!

Posed passing the Kilgore 'space-car' heading the other way and parked-up next to each other I'm assuming they were 103 and -4 respectively in the Renwal catalogue? I'f I remember my though process at the time, another reason I bought these two was that they had paint which most of the others didn't?

The, colour wasn't conducive to photographing the marking (in the engine-bay) but you can see the simple construction and the fact that they were very definitely 10¢! The silver is stenciled with a spray-gun, but the brown has been hand-applied, in a rush, by someone who knows it will be sold for ten cents!

That's it; two Renwal Dimestore automobiles.