U is for Useless Post Title!

It's one of those things, sometimes you think of something amusing (even if only to you), and then forget it and can't get it back. When I was preparing these posts (there were originally four), and I settled on the silent k-for-n gag with the first post, I hadn't given any thought to the other three post's titles, but after realising I could abuse another k (as a c) in the second post, I came up with two more k-related funnies for the other two posts.

 

I then had a couple of pretty mardy days, last week, took a couple of days to recover, and realised I'd forgotten both titles! And despite a few lazy days, during which I hoped at least one of them would come to me, neither has, and so, well, the above!

 

I've also combined the last two posts into one, deleted a couple of dozen shite images, and so this is the odds & ends, on the LB Wild West Children; that's LB for Lik Be, of course!

 

From the 1986 Lik Be catalogue image, we find these three figures painted to a higher standard than the '70's toys, and a music box, similarly decorated, with the mounted Indian, I would imagine that all are actually polystyrene, rather than the polyethylene of the earlier toys, with the separate figures being marketed as cake decorations, maybe?

 

In the US, Gordy International carried them, individually, in blister packs, and larger sets (below), whether this means Pikit carried them over here or not, is questionable, I suspect not, the dates don't seem to add-up, and just because two importers/jobbers carry the same thing once, doesn't mean they always do! Note the mounted Indian offered as a baseless foot figure, and another shot of the errant (from my set) Mexican.

 

The larger sets (of which I have only found these) include paired cowboys with one of the building fronts, you don't get the rest of the building, just the frontage, which Peter Evans pointed-out were closer to Britain's Lone Star than anything else, and a quick Google revealed the double front 'City Office - Land Claims / City Jail' to be a direct copy of the Lone Star design, so I'm hazarding a guess all three are?

 

Close-up of the Mexican, and a few duplicates, from evilBay, next to a Bergan-Beton 60mm, I've listed them in the Tags as 1:No Scale, given their novelty nature, and no clue as to the ages of the kids depicted, are they six, or ten?

 

Three more from feebleBay, the Britain's heritage of the damaged middle one being obvious. Given the number of plastic colours each turns-up in, they must have run the moulds for some time, and they should be commoner than they are, especially with Gordy's involvement, Cake Decoration and boxed sets in the mix?

 

Prior to obtaining the boxed set, a follow-up to previous appearances here at Small Scale World had been in the long queue (most of this post), for some years, and these are two of the girls I already had, as I said before, the four girls do seem to be more commonly found, but that could just be my own experience, and evidence of no real phenomena at all? No, I don't know what the unicorn is doing there! Summoned by a Reign Dance? I'll get me coat . . . 

 

Various base marking treatments, some mine, some feeBay, quite an eclectic mix, with clear similarities to both the Spacemen (shallow disc) and the smaller Astronaut pair, or War of Independence cake decoration stuff (deeper recess with chamfered sides) and 'funimals' (A-codes).

 

Almost the entire range was clearly marked, with the buildings having the awful 'Is it IDL, or is it LP? No, it's LB for Lik Be' logographic at the top of the shopfront/gable-ends, and while people can persevere with the LP attribution (some on evilBay are still using IDL!) out of stubbornness, they will look sillier and sillier as the years progress, and that stubbornness will eventually be rewritten as simple stupidity!

A couple of shots from 'Le Baye' I held on to, a few years ago, ID'ing a Totem Pole I thought - at the time - I might never acquire, just so I knew what it looked like! Although looking paler, I suspect it's the same colour as mine, and was, possibly like the Cacti, exclusive to the boxed sets?

 

When originally posting these I gave the impression I didn't know much about them, but I suspect it was just blurb-creation, as they had been something to be found in mixed lots and rumage trays for years prior to my obtaining a couple, and I'd seen plenty, while serving as a dealer's bitch, around the turn of the Century, but we didn't know back then, they were Lik Be/LB!

C is for Crazy Cartoon Kids

Yeah, I'm giving that K a battering! This set came in back in January, but I didn't get to shoot it until February, It's funny, 'cos Bushy keeps asking his readers to send him their 'LP' lists, while I keep posting the LB lists! We've had the Dinosaurs and Cavemen, did the Gygax knock-offs and skirted round the farm sets (and musicians); not quite ready to do the definitive on them or the other Funimals yet, but I thought I'd better do the Wild West, which will leave the Christmas cake decorations for another day!

 

The box had seen better days, and there is at least one item missing, but otherwise this seems to be a complete rendition of the Wild West line, a similar 'circus village' was seen on Faceplant a couple of years ago, with all, or most of the Funimals, if only we could find something similar for the fishermen . . . throw them in with the divers, and a boat!

 

Cowboys!

 

Mexican!

 

Only five foot cowboys and the missing Mexican (he'll be in the next post), for a six-count (the Indians get eight), I love how some enterprising out-worker has painted the skin of the flesh-coloured figure ashen-grey, for a contrast . . . so he looks like a zombie cowboy kid!

 

The Stage Coach

 

I suspect it should have the sticker on both sides, not least than because the box shows it on the other side! But, like the Mexican it's been lost somewhere between Hong Kong, Italy (from whence I purchased it) and here, so I'll have to keep an eye out for a damaged one going cheap, with at least one sticker I can transfer!

The horses are in the same arrangement on both wagons, as per colour distribution (it's a single moulding), as they are on the box-art, but a different pattern, so, I guess each out-worker got into a different rhythm, but all got one of each colour! Wagoner is the same moulding on both, increasing the cowboys to seven sculpts.

 

Boys!

 

But the cowboys are outnumbered by the Indians who have eight foot figures, four each boys, and girls, while there are no cowgirls? Fluorescent pink is probably not quite historically accurate, and you may be noticing a similarity between some of these poses, both cowboys and Indians, and the Britains Deetail range, not that they are direct piracies, but some of the poses have been used as a guide, which means these can't be older than around 1972?

 

 Girls!

 

Not so with the girls, and I have to apologise to a mate of mine, as I sent him one of these as a 'Little Plumb', a few years ago, and it turns out she was a Little Plumbette! You know who you are, and I'll sort out some boys as soon as I have some duplicates! For reasons I can't begin to explain, these four seem to be far easier to find, loose, at shows, or on-line, than either the Indian boys or the cowboys?

Raising the count to ten!

Looking similar at first glance, these are completely different sculpts, although they have reused the body from the neck down. But a lot of effort went into the whole set, as shown with these two. Opposite arm sculpts to match, and it's clear the body tool and arm tools were different as the plastic-colours don't match, which happens if you're adding the pigment by hand, to neutral granules at the final stage.
 

Final count 9/11

The demented horse is different from the wagon animal, but was used for both riders.

 

Three buildings are included, which are half-Timpo/half-Atlantic in execution, with a shallow rear assembly (identical for all three) attached to different facades, this is the Silver City Bank, but when you're outnumbered by the locals you haven't got time to rob a bank!

 

Construction follows the Timpo model, but as shallow 'theatrical scenery' in heavy polyethylene blocks, which is more like the Atlantic 'Abilene West City' buildings, from Italy?

 

Frisco Bar

City Office - Land Claims / City Jail

 

All the free-swinging doors are factory fitted, but the back 'box' requires assembly.

Another Britains copy, this one Herald, and an umteenth-generation one though, with many better ones coming before it, including the hard-plastic one we saw as part of a cake decoration set a while back.

 

The distinctive LB fence sections, you get six in two bags of three, presumably because three was the number added to other sets, like the My Farm sets we saw, or the Animal Fun Fair set?

 

As far as I know, the two cactus vignettes are unique, rather than copies of anything else, and while I'd previously ID'd the righthand one and listed it in the Lik Be master list, the left-hand one here, was a revelation, when I got hold of it earlier this year.

 

The tree is a common Hong Kong item, and while carrying an LB A-code, is a fourth-or-more-generation copy, as is the ex-Crescent monkey-puzzle tree.

 

Two scenic vignettes, both taken from Britains Deetail, which nicely pulls it all together, re my comment above, and the well! We looked at various versions of the well a while ago, and I don't remember even looking for marks in the roofs!

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/09/d-is-for-ding-dong-bell-pussys-in-well.html 

 

But I bet it'll turn out that the slightly smaller ones are all LB cake decorations, that chromed one is similar to the spacemen from Culpitt, while the slightly larger one (on the left of the two shots) will be a donor, from someone else? But it's nice to be slowly pulling all this stuff together, I got a lot of help with those well-posts from Chris Smith and Barney Brown.

 

Finally, a unique, but very childish design of Totem pole, to add to that oeuvre! Apart from the base sticking out, it's a slab-flat with a smooth, blank reverse.

 

Nearly everything in the set carries a standard Lik Be A-code, which, with a few exceptions among the scenics, and with the addition of two Rhinoceroses, are in several blocks toward the end of the main LB A-prefix numbering, as known to this author. But there are a few 3, 4, 5 and even 600's before the B-codes, with probably more to discover, much of the below was only added a few weeks ago.

Listing

Wild West

≈

No. A149 - Wishing Well (two-part, marked in roof only)

[unmarked] - Farm Fence Section (x6 in large set) 

≈

No. A153 - Tree/Shrub with Clump of Grass 

≈

No. A219 - Teepee / Tipi / Wigwam (ex-Britains Herald, polypropylene, might be bought-in, but has LB code) 
No. A220 - Totem Pole (unique, but juvenile design) 
No. A221 - ‘Clancy Claim’ Sign (Britains Deetail piracy) 
No. A222 - ‘Dead Mans Gulch’ Sign (Britains Deetail piracy) 
No. A223 - Stage Coach (Multi part kit with 4x A225, marked on one half of body only) 
No. A224 - Cowboy Waggoner (for stage-coach [A223] and Wild West Wagon [A234]) 
No. A225 - Cart Horse / Wild West Coach-Wagon Horse (MADE IN . . HONG KONG .)

[unmarked] - Horse-Trace/Furniture

[unmarked] - Base for Four Horses

[unmarked] - Small Wheel/Axle Assembly

[unmarked] - Large Wheel/Axle Assembly

No. A226 - Native American Canoe (hard polystyrene) 
No. A227 - Indian Girl Canoeist (one feather in headband, earrings, pigtails) 
No. A228 - Indian Girl Canoeist (two feathers in headband) 
[unmarked] - Canoeists Arms (dipping oar to left) 

[unmarked] - Canoeists Arms (dipping oar to right)
No. A229 - 
No. A230 - 
No. A231 - 
No. A232 - Rhinoceros (very male!)
No. A233 - Rhinoceros (female?)
No. A234 - Wild West Wagon (Multi part kit with 4x A225, marked on underside of wagon-box) 
No. A235 - Silver City Bank (three part building frontage) 
No. A236 - Frisco Bar (three part building frontage) 
No. A237 - Land Claim Office / City Jail (three part building frontage) 
[unmarked] - Building Roof Piece 
[unmarked] - Building Rear Wall 
[unmarked] - Building, Left Side 
[unmarked] - Building, Right Side 
No. A238 - Monkey Puzzle Tree (Crescent copy, x2 in large set) 
No. A239 - Group of Cacti & Succulents (x2 in large set) 
No. A240 - Prickly Pears (x2 in large set) 
No. A241 - Indian Girl with Tomahawk (pirated by SK as No. 194) 
No. A242 - Indian Girl Dancing 
No. A243 - Indian Girl with Tom-Tom Drum 
No. A244 - Indian Girl with Bow & Arrow (shooting up) 
No. A245 - Cowboy with Lasso/Lariat 
No. A246 - [Mexican Boy with Six Guns] (should prove to be A246?) 
No. A247 - Cowboy with Six-guns, One Pulled, One Holstered 
No. A248 - Cowboy Boy with Rifle

≈
No. A263 - Mounted Indian Boy, Lance & Rifle 
No. A264 - (Possibly unused horse code, replaced by No. A267?) 
No. A265 - Mounted Cowboy, Two Six-guns, One Pulled, One Holstered 
No. A266 - (Possibly unused horse code, replaced by No. A267?) 
No. A267 - Wild West Horse (for both riders)
≈
No. A280 - Cowboy with Six-guns (right level) 
No. A281 - Cowboy with Six-guns (right high) 
No. A282 - Indian Boy ‘Little Bear’ with Lance 
No. A283 - Indian Boy with Tomahawk & Rifle 
No. A284 - Indian Boy with Bow & Arrow (shooting parallel) 
No. A285 - Indian Boy with Tomahawk and Shield (pirated by SK as No. 195)
≈
Sets
No. 1104 - Cowboy & Indian (large set containing one each of everything, with multiples of scenics, building parts, and draft-horses, along with six pieces of farm fencing)

G is for Gashapon - Bandai Namco - Ultraman Cityscape

It is the bane of blind or random selection that you won't always get what you want, what you hoped for, or what you need to complete a run or set, and while this set has three nice figures, both Adrain and I ended-up with the same simplified, micro-building, hay-ho!

 

The machine!

 

The capsule, and prize, I couldn't work it out until I'd got it out of the packet and studied the sheet! It's a small (1:600th or even 1:1200th) type micro-bulding, to be made-up, with five others, into a cityscape, for the 'Giant' Ultramen to stand amongst as they battle Godzilla or Mothma, or something equally daft and rubber-suit sized!

 

Paperwork, I don't know if the three figures are different heros. different generatuons/movie-versions of the same guy or what? Having never really followed the franchise (I haven't seen any of the recent big-budget Hollywood takes either, and I'm not in a queue to!), it always struck me as a kid's daftness, and while you can have nostalgia for your own (I wish someone would find a stash of Hector's House recordings), I don't think you can retro-establish a love for something aimed at kids, as a cold, cynical, logical adult?

 

Powered by a sealed watch battery, the novelty has a limited life-span, in its illuminated form at least, but you can, hopefully, from the right-hand image, get an idea of how a bunch of them would look with one or two of the figures looming out from the midst of them!

L is for London Toy Soldier Show - 1 of 2

So, as I wasn't helping anyone this time, I had the luxury of a lie-in, and a more gentle mosey up on the train, not knowing there was a winter fixture at Sandown Park, meaning the train was well-equipped with early-drinking rowdies, until Esher, when more people seemed to get off the train, than it could have possibly held!

 

Fortunately, a few hours later, we raced back through Esher at some speed, the mostly now skint punters, a mere blur either side of the train, their 'How am I going to pay for Christmas now?' faces illuminated a pallid-yellow by the carriage's own lighting.

 

I didn't stay long at the show, missed Paul, although I saw him a couple of isles over at one point, but managed to catch-up with everyone else, and purchase a bag of bits! I then forgot to go to the Pub, and managed to get involved in a mini-adventure, or 'experience', back in the city centre, but, toys first;

 

Two Cherilea spacemen, I have a decent sample of these now, especially with the three based ones I added the other day, but I know that when I Blogged them (not that long ago) it was a cobbling together of archive, show-shots and my own samples, to get the story clear, so my own sample was small and probably still has gaps, so I tend to grab them when I see them, and these earlier, pod-feet ones are rather nice.

 

Between them is an early Kinder toy, in which the capsule itself is used, with pre-formed slots to receive the bits inside, and a sticker-sheet to produce a small R2D2 type 'astromech' droid / robot, with articulated arms.

 

More of the native-dress figures, in semi-flat polystyrene, the weight of evidence veers toward India, but a commenter at the time of last seeing thought Sri Lanka, so still technically a question mark, and we have several new paint schemes, and a new pose, so worth keeping-on buying them, when I see them.

 

Looked at here - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/08/i-is-for-asian-rack-toys.html

 

There's evidence on a couple of them, of having been glued to cards, maybe in window-boxes? 

 

More Kinder toys, the barbarian needs a weapon, the Indian needs some hair (both in the spares bags, I think) and a mini, cement-truck.

 

A third Kellogg's Frosties Campbell land-speed racer (on the right), to join the pair I found in February, along with a duplicate, which may be a useful swap for the missing fourth vehicle, in the course of time?

 

Seeing red! Another of the Pomeroy-designed game-playing pieces, a rather nice sub-scale Swoppet clone from Hong Kong and a piece of Bisque from a Christmas cake, or even a Birthday cake, I think it's a clown which is more generic, isn't it?

 

Another game playing piece, a small rubber dog, probably contemporary and off a kid's magazine, the third item is a WWF trophy, an accessory from a larger action figure set, but the two figures making-up the trophy-sculpture are almost perfect HO-gauge compatible. The final figure is a priest, possibly for wedding-cakes?

 

Rack-toy Submarine.

 

A handful of French production, there's a possibility that the last one is Polish, but he's hard plastic, so the feeling if more likely French. The Mokarex chap next to him is from the paired French regional-dress figure set, the small one is an integral-base (Kinder?) version of the usually separate base premiums, and the first figure has been paint-stripped - like Starlux, but not?

 

Matt Thier did tell me the origin of the lead lady being beheaded (Mary? French?), but I forgot it in all the conversations with everyone, the paper boy is an old Bergen-Beton figure in hard 'styrene, the mint-green chap is from a kit (Monogram, Pyro, Revell?) and the little corporal is a brass tourist trinket, from France.

 

Nice, probably French stand of fir-trees, with a bit of damage to the tallest one.

On my way back to Waterloo, I dropped off at Leicester Square, to check the bookshops in Charing Cross Road, and look for something for someone else (which has been another mini-adventure). While I was there I found a 'German Market' in the centre of the square, it was pretty shit . . . no German stalls selling hand-made wooden toys or blown-glass ornaments like the one in Berlin, the Bratty' stand was run by Asians and there was a stall from the 'Great Cornish Pasty Co.,', or something equally non-German, so all a bit naff really, and incredibly crowded.

 

Put on by a global entertainment corporate called 'Underbelly', it might be more bearable later at night, but I doubt it, as you'd just be adding the inevitable drink and drugs to the mix!

 

Walking back out and up to Shaftesbury Avenue to visit Forbidden Planet (which also depresses me these days!), I narrowly avoided being hit by a horse pulling a sulky! Closely followed by several more, which started parking on the pavements, willy-nilly, as pedestrians dived everywhere, so I dived up the Avenue, and bought a few books!

 

When I returned, about 20-minutes later, to head off up to the tube station at the big Tottenham Court-Oxford Street's crossroads, it became clear there were now nearly a hundred Traveller carts, wagons and racers of all types, and about 20 double-decked buses, going nowhere, who had advised their passengers to alight, the whole of Charing Cross Road, now a pedestrianised sardine-tin!

 

It turned out this was an annual thing, lost in the mists of time - all the travellers from Kent, Essex and North London, gather somewhere, and rally down to Central London, park wherever they manage to end-up, and while the younger ones look after the horses and pose for photographs with tourists, the oldster's all go off to Harrods, to spend what cash they've made, legitimately, in lawful enterprise - of course!

 

Poor Harrods was my thought, I was dressed better than most of them, and I wouldn't have got into Harrods! Non-branded jeans! But tradition, is tradition, and makes us, Britain, what we are, so I was rather glad to have been part of the whole chaos for a few minutes, to have seen it, I've never seen it before, and am unlikely to, again!

 

Apparently last year's 'event' was marred by an 'incident' involving the 'younger element' so there was a heavy police presence, and I was very disappointed by the Traveller's vehicles - a few had the old paint-schemes, but most were plain, and almost all welded steel, even the old-looking spoked wheels, were flat steel and welded-tube, while one of the sulkies had what appeared to be a pair of mag-alloys off a 1986 Ford Granada, with low-profiles!

F is for Follow-up to Plunder Posts - Animals (Prehistoric)

Confirmation of the 30mm rubber cavemen being issued by Harett-Gilmar (HG Toys), and some of the rather fat dinosaurs they lived alongside, in the well-known prehistoric continent of Gondneverwhen!

 

Sometimes it's those mid-era (of one's life) toys which pass one by, those issued while you're busy doing other things, but which have disappeared from the retail market by the time you return to collecting, full-time, and I only discovered these, looking for something else, in 2023!

 

The dinosaurs are fat, I mean there's something wrong with their metabolism, which may be a clue as to their demise, if the meteor theory proves false . . . they ate themselves extinct by getting too fat to mate, or move! The shrub, being like everything else, a softish PVC, could easily be mistaken for a Bata accessory, with its semi-flatness?

At least four poses, although I've also seen the guy with stripey loin-cloth ascribed to another toy line (Mighty Max, I think?), but that was almost certainly a false identification, and I'm guessing the string on the bow is a home addition (in fact I think the whole bow is a replacement), and the club is missing from stripey-pants, but you get the idea!

N is for Not a Follow-up!

As a sort of [pretty tenuous] follow-up to the last post, and the mention of Crong, I'm posting something which was already in the queue, but isn't coming in the order I'd like it to, and doesn't tell all the story, but hopefully still of some use to some Loyal Readers!

 

Donated by a friend of the blog who prefers not to be named, but occasionally comes up with little treasures, Battle Knights by Feva UK, is one of the more recent iterations of a carpet 'wargame', commonly known as Crossbows and Catapults (Tomy, Base Toys, Action GT, Zatu, et al), but also having iterations as Weapons & Warriors (Pressman), and Battground (Moose), which has been around since the 1980's.

 

The originals have produced several generations of two figures, a small squat fantasy figure (Doomlords of Gulch) in a putty-coloured polymer, and a sort of Hollywood Viking/Barbarian type (the Impalers of the Clannic Shelf), in various shades of brown or ginger, which we have seen, in various mixed/plunder/donation posts over the years, but which I haven't posted-on, formally, yet as my main sample has always been in storage.

 

The Pressman version changed the dynamic slightly, with press-pads instead of loose walls, and other innovations have tried to make it more fun or keep it relevant to new generations of electronically-distracted kids, here it's spring-loading. Pressman also changed the figures, to medieval types (Castle Storm), along with a pirate version (Pirate Clash), both also seen here, in past mixed-lots/shots. 

 

This Feva version adds mounted figures, and they are the unknown figures from the Crong post (the tentative link being used here!), although this set has green bases. The foot figures are scale-downs of the Pressman set, and I now think they are all Games Workshop knock-offs?

 

 Other useful bits!

A couple of banner-flags (or pennants?) missing 

 

Could be useful, but would need work to hide the nature of the balls or discs all these sets fire at each other, the oversized culverin for instance has quite an Elastolin look to it . . . fill in the hole and give it an antiquing, with washes and dry-brushing?

These turn-up in every junk-lot on evilBay, the Supreme medieval knock-off's from several brands have versions of them, and there have been large bow-like ballistas and larger cannon, but they'd all need a lot of effort to get realistic-looking.

 

As a Brucey Bonus, these are the Moose Toys figures from the other more recent iteration, Battleground Crossbows & Catapults, and were also a donation, I think from Graham Apperley, but hidden in a PW plunder-post a few years ago.

 

Smaller at around 25mm (the Feva are 30'ish, the older sets closer to 35 (C&C) or 40mm (W&W)) and a soft PVC, against Crossbows' polyethylene/propylenes and Weapons' polystyrene. It's quite a franchise, with many US and foreign-language/foreign-market sets, and worth a proper study, which will appear here one day!