M is for More on the Margarine Menagerie - from Malta

These came as a bulk lot from the excellent Swagman's Daughter, and for a very reasonable remuneration, so many thanks to her, and they/this post help answer a few questions, left from last time, along the way.

One of each pose/item in each of the two new colours, it's a odd selection, with a couple of question marks (in my mind at least), such as is the horse supposed to be a Zebra, which is the American Buffalo and which the Eurasian Wisent, are they both buffalo or are they both bison, is it a seal or a Sea-lion and how do you tell without a given scale, why so many deer . . . and etcetera! And while Google would help with some, I'd lose the paragraph and I've lots of images to provide copy for here!

Useful for backgrounds and narrow-shelf displays, these new ones are all in soft polyethylene plastic and two wishy-washy colours which don't photograph that well, but by the end of the post you'll be pretty familiar with them! The 'Birch' is a bit of a guess but the only obvious alternative is those trees in the Southern US states with that mossy stuff hanging in them?

If I didn't lump the sea-life in with this shot it would be a kangaroo (or wallaby - no scale again?), but all the sea-life are common in the Southern-oceans or Antarctica so we have a four-shot!

North American doesn't fare much better! I've called it a Buffalo Bison to differentiate it from the Wisent and used the bigger model for the North American version, but are they the bigger, are they Bison Buffalo? Does anybody care!

Yeah! I should perhaps have not bothered with the labelling, or got a biology degree first! Reindeer are bigger huh? Red, Roe, doe , fawn, Hearts or Harts, are they a species 'white hearts' . . . too many deer!

The horse should probably be a Zebra but he's too big and the mane's too long and the tails too fluffy so I've made him a steppe-pony; arbitrarily! The fox and the pig are straightforward, but see above for the buffalo notes!

Small ears and round back make him Asian! The Rhino looks Asian too actually? Is a Dromedary a hybrid? Having recently watched a program of the Bactrian originals - which are very different - and remeberering research we did on the HaT site years ago; I've chickened-out of going firm on that one, most are hybrids weather one hump or two! Haven't the faintest which Gazelle-Impala-other one is depicted, but 'gazelles' leap about!

Plastic colours and types so far found; the original margarine and other premiums were in various shades of off-white, cream and pale-beige polystyrene and the same material has provided the oxide red, scarlet, blue and jade, while the same blue can also be found in soft polyethylene along with the green and yellow (prompting today's post) and black.

However all but a few of the creamy-white ones I have here come from the Swagman's Daughter (there are more originals in storage), as well as the people thanked last time (Paul Morehead and Brian Carrick), Peter Evans gave me another handful at May's Plastic Warrior show, while I've purchased a few of the smaller lots along with the bulk clearance 'bundle'; and they all came - originally - from a wholesaler's stock in Malta.

They are used on religious high-days and holidays (and other civic events?), wrapped in little paper twists and thrown from the houses to the children in the street 9nowadays it seems to be mostly confetti streamers and balloons), if you've followed previous links to the Swagman's Daughter you'll have seen all sorts similar novelties previously associated with gum-balls, Sobres, Christmas cracker-prizes and so on - a lot of them came from the same vendor in Malta.

Clearly this was another outlet for such stuff; I guess a 1970's piñata would have contained the same little novelties alongside the sweets they also carried [and which are also thrown in Malta, were among the first items ever in Christmas crackers and often found as part of the mix in Sobres, Wundertutten and Lucky Bags], it's another source for the mould-owners to sell product too, and another source for us collectors to mine!

Now last time I mentioned that people had named both Jean and Manurba as the origin of the larger versions, they are in fact Manurba as seen by the catalogue image provided by Andreas Dittmann here, but only some of the poses have been scaled down for this set, while other poses in this set are either original sculpts or taken from elsewhere?

I've since picked up another hard plastic one from the Manurba set, a Llama (missing from the small set) although his Prickly-pear is damaged I notice! Whether Manurba were the holders of the original tool, back in the margarine-premium days, is still anyone's guess, but I wouldn't bet my shirt on another brand at the moment, although I think the moulds had been passed-on by the time they were building-up in a warehouse in Malta?

Another question which arose, not in the last post, but in the sorting of the ethylene batch was; why have a set with a 29-count; 28 or 30 being more obvious targets for the sculptor and tool-makers? Well, there are more fence pieces in either colour than there are of any other sculpt, with most animals outnumbered in both colours, the clear inference being that a full 'set' or mould-shot contains two cavities of the broken-down fence, giving a likely 30-count after all?

And they are bloody useful when you have them in such numbers!

 

I know what you're thinking Giselle -

have I used six; or only five?

Well, in all the excitement I clean forgot to count...

Adjusted set-count; the numbering is arbitrary I think.

Two of the animals have suffered from miss-moulding or short-shot, the elephant and the fox, the fences also suffer, but they are bound too with all the thin channels which make-up the moulding.

As well as suffering short-shots the same three sculpts (along with the two palm trees and leaping 'gazelle') also have some very flashy examples, which was probably because the pressure was turned-up or the heat increased - to prevent short-shotting - with the result it 'over-flowed' it's designated parameters!

There's also a great variance in colour across both colour samples with a lot of washed-out semi-transparent examples, where not enough pigment has been added to the raw material and the neutral granules haven't picked-up enough colour to go fully-opaque or 'solid'? That last lot was a mouthful wasn't it . . . the vagaries of 'getting technical'!!

'Image 13' my notes say - unlucky for some? I think the combination of the three problem areas is what decided the Swagman's Daughter to offload them for a reasonable-sum in my general direction, and I in return for a bargain said I'd only swap them . . .

. . . so while I have a few complete sets of these for swap, it'll be on a no money, no pack-drill basis! Therefore; if anyone would like a complete example (with two fences) get in touch and tell me what you've got to offer in exchange, early applicants can stipulate green or yellow, or get a default 50/50 mix.

M is for Margarine Menagerie

As the common cream coloured 'ivorene' margarine premiums these have been identified as being issued by Cleverstolz, Lowenbrink, Markt-Apotheque, Raulino, Sanella and Voss (among others), but the four sets represented by the small sample below remain more mysterious...to me!

The smaller ones are just the original premiums in new colours, with a second variant being in soft ethylene palstic (the right-hand column of blue ones in the main image), while larger versions exist in both hard polystyrene (lighter grey rhino) and soft polyethylene (dark grey horse), in which guise they have been linked with Jean and Manurba in the past, neither seem the right answer to me.

Thanks to Paul Morehead and Brian Carrick for most of these, I have the cream ones and a better sample of the larger ones in storage (with whites and browns), so hopefully we will return to them, by which time I may have a better idea on these - probably later - issues.

MPC is for Mini Ships - Part Two; Comparisons

So to comparisons between the MPC mini ships and other comparable vessels ancient and modern (of manufacture), to give an idea of what goes with what size-wise, as 'scale' is so clearly a moot point with these models.

Starting with the larger submarine, it's actually quite close to both the similar and almost as accurate (in outline) ballistic missile subs from Galoob's Micro Machine lines, the other three are really just toys.

I left the similar sized Crescent sub off the first image, so have squeezed it into both collages as a continuation shot, I also forgot the Lido one so I've placed that with both as an inset. It's quite interesting as it's an early Nuclear-sub design which keeps some of the lines of the old U-Boat styles, but for scale purposes, would have the size of the more modern ships.

These are all board-game playing pieces with the possible exception of the two grey ones nearest the Patrick Henry (dropped [or; lowered?] an aitch on the caption!), which may be war-game pieces, and the two aforementioned (Lido and Crescent) which were both 'carpet' toys.

Landing craft; The MPC WWII one flanked by the two modern ones from the Airfix HMS Fearless kit, and all lead by an unknown kit boat (LCA shape...'ish) which I think might be from one of the odd box-scale kits from Pyro or early Revell?

On the MPC vessel the spigot sticking out of the back may be for an unknown accessory, or just a bit of frame? Likewise the indentation forward of the wheelhouse may be a mounting hole for an unknown accessory, but I think it's just shrinkage.

Battleships - The larger size and by association smaller scale range of the MPC minis;  the INGAP and the penny-toys are quite similar, but the Hong Kong and Crescent boats are modelling smaller vessels, so are over-sized in comparison with the MPC ship.

When I say penny-toys, it's only because I don't have a name for them and they have 'cheap' decoration. They may be by a later a 'name', there were several smaller die-casters in the UK making toys in the 1950's-60's such as Benbros and Kemlow, these may be by either? They are also all slightly different and marked B1 through to B3.

[Now ID'd as Chad Valley, probably from a boxed set, 1950's?]

Intermediate or medium size, here using the Tramp Type steamer and an LST from MPC as comparison vehicles for food premiums from Manurba and Sanella and the Matchbox accessories from a large harbour play-set they did. Painted-up these would all look fine next to each other size-wise.

The smallies; the MB Games Axis & Allies ship in the centre is a much smaller scale, being a tramp steamer, and both the Montaplex vessels are military ships of larger scale size.

Back to the medium sized rage, for more naval vessels, the Lido set are all roughly the same size, but obviously one of them is a much scaled-down battleship, as is the MB Games Axis & Allies one.

03-09-2016 Unknown (bottom right, along with two pale grey subs above) is now known - Silvercorn

The ocean liners are all from the bigger end of the MPC stable and match the Rosenhain and Lipmann (R&L) for Kellogg's cereal premium pretty well. The kit is scaled by collectors at 1:3640 and is missing two very fine mast mouldings, I suspect it's a tad smaller than the MPC mini ships, being the larger vessel in real life?

Quaker also had a go at Ocean liners and their little set are scaled smaller that both the MPC ones and the Kellogg's import. A Direct comparison with two versions of Liberte (Europa for most of her eventful life) showing a lack of accuracy as well!

We looked at these Quaker liners here and there's more here.

Shades of blue above with three each from MPC, Quaker and Hong Kong above, the HK vessels being - I believe - copies of the old Triang Minic waterline series.

I forgot (or meant...) to label this shot, but the red one is Tina Onassis the only cargo-ship in the Quaker set and I've done a comparison with similar vessels, the HK one being a militarised version of the original Triang mail or packet steamer? The USS Eddy Country looking like a cargo vessel and the SS Varicella being a tanker.

The Hong Kong set were looked at before in the post linked to above with the Quaker and other smaller ones, but I've since got some more, so a new line-up of mouldings and colour variations is above with a look at the various tugs.

There are three tugs from Hong Kong, the one I've numbered '1', is a full hull model which I suspect goes with these from Lucky Toys, sort of confirmed by the unpainted pale one, going with the unpainted versions of the larger vessels in the linked post. The number 3 (two designs) goes with the similar blue-grey and sea-green copies of Triang Minic vessels, while the charcoal grey one I've numbered as '2' seems to be from a third source or even a kit, it has better detailing and a smaller superstructure.

The MPC version as a higher prow, and probably isn't a copy of the Triang one, this was a standard design of tug-boat and years ago the harbours of the world were full of them, indeed we've already seen MPC produced two, dated a few years apart, but they're all but identical.