AB is for Vidalis Brother's 'Joy Toy'

Back to Greece, pure coincidence but there it is, another Greek plastic toy here on Small Scale World, but sadly no figures again; no figures today actually, so figure-purists come back tomorrow, and more 'plastic smalls' so the PSTSM can have the day-off too!

The set, which has - since these shots were taken - gone in the bin! Reason being, it was a very poor carton when I got it, with a sun-burnt blister-window, and a lot of hidden mending; I did the whole dismantle - dampen - iron - patch-the-inside (with Butterfly paper-tape) job on it years ago; so it was already a bit ersatz over its originality, and these are not so rare on feeBay, or at the bigger shows like Sandown, so - in the end - there was little point keeping it limping along.

The 'meat and two three veg' in this set is the Bedford car-transporter with three VW Golf/Polo type 'hot hatches', all have tinted windows and the Bedford is particularly well done with only the gryphon missing from the little shield 'nose'.

Partly that is down to a larger size, these are toward the larger end of 1:72nd, rather than the similar Blue Box's smaller end of 1:76th, and the cab is the same model as that military MK from Blue Box (and others), but as a triple-axle tractor unit this would have been a larger engined vehicle or have a different gearbox and therefore a different code-designation, I suspect?

The same cab on a longer chassis provides heavy-lift and there is a good measure in interior detail in the cab. As far as I know this type of Bedford nevr saw service with the British Army, who used Foden's in the heavier classes, but some other NATO members may have had such equipment, while for old school war-gaming all they need is a coat of matt-green and they can serve in any army you want them to!

The logo is an AB from the Latin alphabet, odd for the country which still uses the Greek alphabet, but as it stands for 'Adelphoi Bitali' which is the Greek for 'The Vidalis Brothers', I suspect it's all cleverer than me! This is - obviously - the Mercedes bus.

While there is a lack of figures, there is still a lot of play-value added with the inclusion of a whole bunch of accessories, including both working traffic lights and working pedestrian crossing lights (for the non-existent pedestrians!), for those who need to know about these things, there are two variants of road sign with longer and shorted plinths at the bottom of the Lego-like pole.

The light units are quite clever with a slider placing a white plastic disc behind clear, coloured plastic lenses as you push and pull it up and down behind the cover, finally' two slightly sub-scale petrol-pumps are included. there's also a bag of traffic-cones

The typical range sample circa-1970, when this set was issued (note the larger 1:43rd (?) sports cars), there are a few earlier, simpler models from the 1960's, and it may be that more will be revealed by Greek collectors going forward, I don't know a good source for Greek toy info, beyond a couple of toy soldier pages, but 87th Scale Info havea page on them here, despite their mostly being quite oversized for HO-gauge - the smaller turcks here are Toyota's in a very HO-looking size.

And - as with the Comet-Authenticraft stuff (which they never actioned) if someone from that site contacts me I can give them the new model numbers and some new photo's?

T is for Two - O is for Other People's Rack Toys

A couple of rack toys, both of civilian subjects, both sent to the Blog in the last few months for the purpose of sharing with other loyal readers, a purpose ably dealt with right here, right now, in the order in which they were sent . . .

Theo van der Weerden sent me this a while ago, and it's interesting for two reasons, firstly it shows the other (or 'some more') figures to go with the road workers we looked at here and followed-up here, secondly it ties them into Tootsietoys, although Tootsie' were primarily die-casters and may well have bought the figures in, so the possibility they are/were originally Pioneer remains.

Also the third figure (with clipboard) has some similarities with one of the sets of ground-crew, which may tie them (the flyboys) into Tootsie' too? Although Tootsie' may itself be only a 'bought brand' these days, I'm not sure who owns the brand.

When Britains finally died and the assets were broken up, the Asian toy giant Tomy-Takara bought the branding and the farm/zoo tooling (or elements of it), which is why the US pretend Britains have that mouthful of a brand 'wuhabritain', the attached image is the current carding of spare tractor/harvester drivers, from Tomy, who still use the last common iteration of Britains official logo.

Brian Berke had purchased them for a project he's working-on, for which there will be one or two posts in the fullness of time here, but they are in the long-queue at the moment, maybe for the autumn or winter, there's a lot of nostalgia wrapped-up in them!

Note the painted-overalls are designed to tie-in with the main tractor brands (most are made in the same factories, they just change the body-shells), we see here New Holland, John Deer, Massey Ferguson and Claas/JCB I think/suspect. When you spend £180k or whatever it is these days, you get a free set of corporate overalls.

 I was that guy in red, I was dead-proud of my MF 'body-suit', it zipped right up the front so you could take a pee behind the hedge (or the tractor wheel!), had elasticised, wooly sleeve-cuffs, but loose trouser-legs to go over work-boots, or inside welly's and was made of something pretty tough as it lasted for years and was second hand when I got it -  well, when your uncle gives you his old tractor, he gives you his old overalls!

Thanks to both Brain and Theo for the shots, it's all grist to the mill, and all appears here, eventually!

B is for Bought Yesterday

Or two days ago by the time this publishes. Tuesday's visit to the charity shops produced this curiosity for one of your earth-pounds; winging its way to Scope's accountants!

It was clear - even as I walked over to the till - that it was too clean to be an original, and sure enough it turned-out to be a Mattel/Atlas Editions thing from 2014, however, apart from the new consumer information panel on one side and one other change (below) I think it's otherwise a facsimile 're-issue' of an original piece of French Dinky merchandise from the 1950/60's and was still sealed.

Before opening and after sorting.

I've seen other Atlas Editions, they seem to be semi- 'part work', semi-subscription, mail-order ventures of some kind; there was a rather nice offer of a 'little grey' Ferguson tractor, and an original Mini Cooper or Morris Traveller, both advertised via flyers in Sunday supplements and the like, but I had no idea they were tied-in with Mattel? I guess they got the Dinky brand-mark along with Matchbox's when they bought off Universal?

It isn't clear if it's an all-French thing (that is to say both the original - which was - and the re-issue), the bulk of the text is 'foreign' (up to four languages) but the additional consumer panel is Anglo-French and the handler is given as Éditions Atlas, while the bases are all-English, and the whole seems to have been made in China.

Modern or not, it's a lovely little thing and for a quid you can't moan. A close-up of the base reveals that not everything is a full copy of the original, I have some British ones somewhere, so one day I'll do a comparison. If I can find an answer/more on Google while posting this (Wednesday) I'll place the link right here - no I won't - they are common as muck and all over evilBay @ £1.99, still a nice thing though!

And the signs themselves are just as nice as the originals, with a fine finish to the plastic poles/signs, and the same heavy, die-cast Mazac bases. I don't know if the French Dinky signs were always plastic, the UK versions - back in the day - were slightly chunkier, all die-cast, single mouldings.