E is for Eye Candy - Lone Star King Richard

We've probably seen these one at a time, but here they all are together, they came in over the last few months, because I just can't pass one, since I found I already had more than enough! So that'll be twelve then!

The lighting was so different between the flash and no-flash shots, I've included both to give a better idea of the colours; paint and plastic. Hollow-cast original on the left, with three plastics, and I think they are all Lone Star, but the one on the right might be a home-painted premium - technicaly branded to somebody else - with that smooth base?

 

As well as being slightly shorter, the plastic versions have lost the undercut/s represented by the hole though the product, between the left elbow and body, and the sword has been shortened and tapered, probably to aid moulding/mould-release.

E is for Elgate - Spring Gift Fair 2025

As last, another image dump, but many more figural items on display, this year. With Scotland and Wales having a bigger presence in the various lines, and Paddington putting in an appearance!

 

Poured resin

 

Those non-sharpening pencil sharpeners again!

Not for the collection, but could interest someone? Christmas trees?

 

I've seen a boxing Kangaroo in the last few days, don't know if it was Elgate (didn't look), but they are a bit naff, fun for kids though, which is the main function of novelties!

 

 

 

Nothing of the 'piper' about them, just Guardsman on decorated pens!

 

Roman big 'ed!

 

Keyrings, might be one of the new soft/foamed rubbers? Rather in the style of the old Xandria keyrings from the Netherlands, but modern and made in China.

 

Metal keyrings, if I see the guardsman, I'll grab one for that novelty stash, but the rest can stay on the peg, being more bottle-opener than figural!

 

Egg-cups!

 

The resin parade again, and more egg-cups.

 

A 'Photoclip', what the novelty industry calls a place-name holder, when everybody likely to buy place-name holders have bought a set (or two!) of place-name holders! Also, selling them singly, results in a higher profit-margin per unit . . . and more packaging for a planet which just hasn't seen enough packaging yet.

 

The resin bears!

 

All, also seen before!

 

The big-heads have been replaced with rubber Leprechaun keyrings.

 

Nessie - die-cast Mazak/Zamak

 

Scottie-dogs and a bear!

Close-ups of the snow 'eggs', I think the thinner one is manufactured from poured-resin, the chubby chap may be plastic or a synthetic rubber compound?

 

Various Welsh Dragons in die-cast alloy or resin, mostly smallish, baby 'Game of Thrones' dragons (the die-casts), the larger poured-resin examples could be useful for Role Play, or fans of the Nottingham Mafia system.

 

Paddington!

 

Mostly novelty stuff and pretty ephemeral, but, that's given Elgate a decent presence in the Tag list, and covered most of what they have, which may be of interest, currently, but they're not the only purveyors of this kind of stuff, and we'll look at another soon.

E is for Elgate - Spring Gift Fair 2023

Having mentioned them the other day, in passing, and because their stuff is, if not actually rack-toys, at least within that pocket-money, novelty, touristy branch of the figural tree, I think it's time to clear the queue of the Elate pictures, call it an image dump!

 

The bulk of it is poured-resin 'touristicas' with a bit of plastic and die-cast in the mix, and the post is blurb-light, as it's all pretty self-explanatory. For some reason they've loaded in reverse again, keeps happening, but there's no narrative here so it doesn't matter . . . the Internet slowly getting worse, like everything else!

 

Small resin bears.

 

Bobble heads, no room for them in this collection, unless they are glow-in-the-dark aliens - nobody knows what aliens look like! And the guardsman would probably be allowed in, just because the novelty guardsmen is a side branch with a life of its own!

 

More resin!

 

Not so much pencil (or pen-) tops, as jackets or holders for replacement Biro-ink inserts, again poured resin, and when things like this come into the collection, I saw them off the long body and put them on bases.

 

Orks!

or Goblins?

 

 

Fairies, I know where a few of these ladies hang out, and they are very similar to the Pucator ones, which we saw here, when they were kicking around, about a decade ago.

 

Standard tourist fare, we've seen the pencil-sharpener figures (sans pencil sharpeners), at the time of the Queen's death, I bought a set of three, whilst navigating my way from the North bank to the South, avoiding the miles-long, whimpering queue of simple-minded sycophants.

 

The luck O' the Irish!

 

Snow-globes/snow-domes (and snow-eggs!) of Edinburgh Castle, Highland pipers &etc...

 

Nope!

 

Better! I think we've seen one in the collection now, and if not we've certainly seen several similar beasts, some courtesy of Chris Smith or Peter Evans.

 

There's a whole lot more to come on these, from this year's early Gift Fair, so I'll try to get them up tomorrow . . . .that's later today now!

B is for Brush & Rail, Britians Show Jumping, Bits and Bobs

I don't have the big Show Jumping boxed set from Britains, it tends to attract a pretty penny, and most of the contents are available loose, but there are a few bits which were unique to the set, not least the jumps, fortunately, Britains anticipated some wanting to extend their set to a full competition ring (circuit?), and made most of the bits available separately, so by way of introducing a short season on jumpers and jumping, here are a few bits from the Britains line, which I have here - we will return to them and look at the whole range of riders another day, as they are in (back-in!) storage.

The add-on Brush & Rail fence as sold separately, you get three units of fence, basically wooden boxes with faggots of brushwood, or twiggy-twigs, stuffed into them. While the boxed area underneath the backing-card, contains a standard Post & Rail fence, two marker-flags and a spare stand for the horses which were only, otherwise available in the big set, the riders when sold separately coming with/attached to a five-bar gate, to jump over.

How they all go together, and the various components, the brush is made from horsehair, which was curled (probably under heat, a hot water dip maybe, or hot-air?), then dipped in a rubber-solution or latex before being compressed into sheets or 'bisquits' (Yes, I like to use that incorrect spelling, it's fun Panda Bear talk), and cut to shape. It was a forerunner of modern foam packing, and had been around, commercially, for some time.

 

The extra stand, replacing the gate the seperate riders came with, which could also be added to your show-jumping display, this enabled them to face-off against the various other jumps in the set/line. Some place it the other way round, with the base to the rear, but it balances either way.

 

Early and late versions of the 'Captain Mark Philips' character, he also came with as the gate jumper, but is here on a different horse, as either an early Herald/Eyes Right/Swoppet era figure (white horse) or in a Deetail iteration, black horse, rubber-band reins.

 

There were actually several riders who performed in uniform back then, a German (whom I think is behind the mind of this figure's sculptor), an Argentinian (I think?) and maybe a couple of Spaniards, among others, I well remember watching Show Jumping (and tennis, and the tedium of 1960/70's Test Cricket), because with two, latterly three TV-channels, there was often bugger-all else on, especially in the mid-afternoons! Phillips usually performed in the No.1 Dress uniform, a blue-black affair, known as 'Blues'.

 

12-03-2022 - It was the Italians I was thinking of (see FitzjamesHorse comment below), and I remembered I'd scanned this from the 13th October 1973 issue of World of Wonder magazine, expressly to add to this post, back in March '22! Honestly, the filing system is breaking down under the weight of stuff! Given when the Britains figure first came out, it was probably these guys behind the Military rider?