The penultimate post of plastic plunder from Chris, and it's the animals, the least documented of the collection, simply because there are thousands upon thousands of them, and they've just never been a priority, and as the pile of unknowns grows, it gets, like any dark secret, too big to face!
But one day soon I hope to tackle it (there's realistic-sculpt Lik Be hidden in there, among other things), and when I do, it will fall into place, or at least some of it will!
A Dino-skeleton, a modern phenomenon which is contributing to that pile, although we have ID'd a few over the years, but they keep coming, and this one, one of those 'berry-heads' (Pachycephalosaurus
) by the look of it, is larger than most and new to me, it's creeping-up on two arguing cave-men, who are now known (by me, other people knew all along!) to be
HG Toys.
Small PVC jobbies, and a big job too, with many ID'd and many still to be, here I think we have examples of two modern/current'ish sets, a good [detail] and a not so good set, and one of more vintage, the green one with a splash of pink paint?
Not
Dinosaurs in my Pocket (
Matchbox and cereal premiums), but '
Dino Brites' by
Happyness Express of New York (1991), originally
Panosh, there's plenty on the Internet about them, this is a good
précis on the subject;
Larger chaps, with an erasersaur, and one from my favourite rubber set, front right, in a bit of a state, but that state is interesting - it looks upon first glance to be a string, tied by a young owner, which has cut into the foot, but actually, upon trying to remove it, it became clear it was actually an inclusion, running through the leg, and exiting at two points, a piece of cleaning cloth, or hessian sack used to transfer batches of product around the factory floor, which got flicked into the tool? Amazing how it's survived!
Two recognisable Holly's (now we've had half a look at them here, as part of the Gygax posts), and the silver one is a nice, but unknown, moulding? Which leaves a softer, more 'Chinasaur' Stegosaurus, who may belong with the Protoceratops and red chap in the second image above?
I've seen this chap in mixed lots on evilBay and wondered if it was a copy of one of the Wild West charging/fighting bears, but I think it's a copy of an
Elastolin (or
Lineol?) composition model, perhaps for Roggatz's
ZZ-brand, although not with those green eyes . . . a copy of a copy? Still a nice sculpt, though!
Two
Airfix piracies, getting a good sample of these now, with and without painted eyes, two larger Hong Kong/China pieces, being a mouse/rat and copy of the
Corgi farm dog, a
Matchbox boxer-dog from the pick-up truck, and a Berlin-marked bear, with
MAMPE, on the other side, a logo-premium for the 'Berlin Mule' kicker-spirit!?
A flocked kangaroo, believed to be a Hong Kong-supplied tourist keepsake, three
Safari animals, another weakness in the collection, as I've concentrated on the figural sets, and a collectable-series monkey from
Topps, who need a better post, along with those
Yowies, still in the long queue!
Tupperware zebra on the left, chalkware lion from the
Naturecraft Christmas crackers in the middle, and one of the two, or four, I'm still looking for! And another bath-toy swan (there was a blue one in the last lot from Peter Evans, and I think I have a pinkish-red one?), which is almost certainly an early post-war novelty, brightening the Christmases, and bath-time's, of the nation's baby-boom.
Farm stuff, the composition cow looks particularly interesting (
Brent?), while piggy-wiggies and eeeps will need their own ID pages eventually, as there are many of them, and so many copies of known sculpts, it's a collection field in itself . . . Indeed I know a cow collector, who comes round the shows, and from just what I've seen him buy, his collection must be amazing.
Two modern horses, and a rather knackered, but still interesting (a sample is always better than no sample) wagon or cart horse, in a solid plastic, which may be Bakelite, or a similar phenol-formaldehyde resin / thermo-set?
A bit of fun on the left (but it's a sample!), probably from a modern kid's magazine freebies, and a more conventional beetle on the right, I have half an idea, one day, if I get the time, to mount them all in thematic, glass-fronted, deep frames, as if they are real entomologists exhibits, and ladybirds will be first, as I have a dozen, or more, already!
Vitacup premiums, mostly damaged, but 'styrene, so usefully glueable, and kept apart, against a future mending session! The baby elephant is more robust, and has survived intact.
Lego (?) fish, a Hammerhead, who is damaged, he's missing his lower 'gape mouth' jaw, but it actually, ironically, takes him from the realm of rubber-juggler, to something more realistic looking! A
Safari White Shark, and a more generic . . . Mako? Marked China and 'Shark'!
Two stretchy 'rubber-jiggler' lizards, probably from two sources, the one unmarked, and flattish with fine sculpting detail, the other fully-round, with fuzzier surface detail (marked China), despite both being metallics, common on these stretchy toys.
The turtle is amusing, to me, as I have a blue one which I think is a childhood survivor, despite my not remembering the set, or occasion of its acquisition, it seems to have been in the toy drawer for forever, and nice to find his mate, in another fantastic parcel from Chris Smith.
