M is for Musing on Models - Gemodels . . . and Festival!

We've visited them before and will again as it's a fascinating subject, not only was George Musgrave one of the most prolific designers/sculptors for other people, but he was also a great innovator and experimenter, so the full list of his output continues to grow, as the history of his company, it's apparent love/hate relationship with Culpitt, and the Hong Kong pirates, produces more and more to digest or collect.

 

A couple of shots of stuff which came in over several lots at the end of last year, and were going to be a simpler version of this post, then! The upper shot being both sledge designs with the three different configurations, the two snow babies on the smaller toboggans are melted-on, but I don't know how and wasn't going to force them to find out, which will be more relevant below!

The girl playing in the snow is a previously unrecorded sculpt, and seems to be from or connected with the carol singers, in being more Dickensian/Victorian in styling, than the sixties-kids in the woolly jumpers and baby-suits of the other sculpts.

While the Huskies again, seem to include a new sculpt, the one on the left is the brown-polymer version of one of the common set of three, the one on the right seems to be new, and larger, but I need to compare with the others, who are in storage.

 

As some larger woodland animals have turned up, we've seen some here, as candle-holders (fawn and squirrel), and as stand-alone's, so it may be he's part of a different set - I've seen another squirrel without candle hole which looks 'Gem' or Festival in mixed online lots?

 

The lower shot has all the travellers out on the ice, with two skiers and a lonely skater!

This one is marked Festival, I can't remember if we've had Gem marked examples here, but we have looked at a bunch of Hong Kong copies in three different polymers.

 

I've posted the link to the debate elsewhere on the subject of Festival before, but I'm now happy to assume and pass on that Festival was a late project of Musgrave's, set up after he fell-out with, and in direct competition to Culpitt. And that it ran for some time, with some success.

Sadly, he barely mentions them in his interviews with Plastic Warrior magazine, nor was there much, or anything (?) in the museum, but they are obviously Gem style, some Gem sculpts (or re-sculpts), and Gem painting. And because they are all Birthday/Easter/Christmas themes with smart, modern boxed packaging and newer polyethylenes (racing car and train candleholders), were specifically a cake decoration 'line', against the waning of Gemodels with their full sized figures, scenic items and buildings.

The larger sled, the two riders are meant to be both facing forwards, but you can arrange them with one absent-mindedly trailing his legs, or maybe they are waiting to start-off! And if you want them rushing down an icing slope, just remove the puller and rope!

These two have spigots on their feet which have been pushed through the skis and melted back with a hot tool, for this we have a second design of ski, which is wider - previously I had suggested distortion due to the heat, but I think they are shorter and wider, or flared, in the middle?

While these have been attached by what might be the same spigots or separate scraps of polymer, leaving a doughnut of plastic 'flash' around the feet, these are not the over-moulded ones, which leave a very neat weld-mark when separated, this is a cruder 'glueing' with heat, and a fourth version of ski-attachment.

 

There are also two types of stick; the earlier hand-tooled slightly lumpy Gem one (?) and a later, finely-machined Festival one.

The skater's partner turned up in a later lot! The yellow guy and the trio on grey fabric were shot just now, and are the first examples from Chris Smith's latest donation to the Blog, a mass of good stuff I haven't even looked at properly, or had my customary eMail exchange with him on, but I have managed to sort them into bags, thank him, and dig these three out for a quick photo' or two! The rest will follow in January, probably?

The new yellow one is a Hong Kong copy, as procured by Culpitt, from the Gem designs they had been carrying . . . bastards! You can see it's a crude copy with a loss of detail; lazy pantography and no finishing! His base looks clipped in some way, but that's because he's been glued to and cut away from a larger plinth-base (see next post) in white, his own base, in yellow, follows the outlines of the Gem/Festival original.

 

Santa is a generic, and the other Gem has come away from his base at the skate-blade line; a testimony to how fine the sculpting was!

 

Gem flourished in the 1950-60's, Festival were active from the '60's through 'till around the end of the 1980's, while this Hong Kong effort is probably a 1970's replacement for the copy seen above, simplified for mass production it's almost a demi-ronde!

 

They could all be found in bakers shops as recently as the 2010's, but are now getting hard to find as the supermarkets and Gregg's style chains have finished all the old independent or family bakers.

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Finally as a Brucey Bonus, we are off to Thomas/Poplar for a shot of the official Santa's sleigh, with Rudolf! This has a rigid set of poles integrally moulded, so only fit the reindeer, whereas the other design, with two seats, seen here several times I think, has hinged poles, so can be wedged to the PVC-rubber cats, dogs or deer, but may only be meant for the kids, even though I've posted it with Santa . . . I think I once posted it with two Santa's just for the hell of it!

A is for Advent!

This year's figurals, I think they are the same as some I had a few years ago, but I shot them so they can go up!

Halfway through the period we got an extra-big or double one, Santa' and his sleigh! And there's a soldier!

I is for Is It Just Me, or Is It Getting Chilly?

We had two heat-waves here, the first breaking three-year old 'new' records by 3°, a trend which if it continues would render large parts of Europe, Asia and the SE of Britain uninhabitable by humans - in a heat-wave - within about 20 years? But after the second, not so hot but more humid, so equally uncomfortable heat-wave, the weather has gone rapidly downhill, and it's got quite chilly, but then I guess it is October, maybe the summer just lasted too long!

Anyway, seems like a good excuse to get the cold-weather gear out and check it over, these are all Kinder; 1980's/90's, and they are ready for anything the climate throws at them! 20/25mm at the top, 28/30mm compatible in the middle and a decet stab at 54mm with the 'steckfigur' at the bottom, who has lost the backs of his skis, and his boots . . . sniff! The silver blob was off some cartoon thing; long-lost.

I have a blue/white one who has his boots, so if I ever find the missing ski sections I will be able to re-shoot them both in some sort of order? All polyethylene, and with moveable arms/articulated waist, they are a useful addition to Timpo and/or Britains polar explorer/Esquimaux/Inuit sets.

There's the colour reversed version of this on evilBay at the movement, he's more of a novelty toy, and winter-sports rather than polar explorer or native hunter, but fun, Kinder, polystyrene and possibly a bit earlier, although still 1980's I think?

M is for Mushy-mush Mushington!

Before the winter's entirely over and after seeing the story the other day about one of the big Northern 'mush' races struggling to find a course of the correct length than was snow, not mush, I thought these were timely after a fashion . . . or indeed a manner!

Not a patch on the sublime Britains Herald sledge team (which I don't have!), but aimed at a different price-bracket and consequently cruder, yet more robust, is the Timpo arctic sledge with Esquimaux/Inuit musher.

13 pieces (unlucky for some . . . especially if items are missing!) go together to make up the model, which was sold assembled. One of my dogs is the wrong pose, but one of his feet lines up with a hole in the base so I could bluff the assembled shot below.

It's a stunning piece, even it if lacks the subtlety of the Britains one, although you have to ignore the totally inaccurate arrangement of the dog-team, who are always in-line, lead by the pack leader and spaced so that they can't reach each-other with a bite!

The traces simply loop loosely over the dogs heads and given that both horse leathers and these dog-leads are known for their increasing brittleness these days, I was treating them with such care - so's not to break them - they kept popping off; as I got a couple over the heads one would come loose again, it was like a fiddly game of whack-a-mole!

The Britains set was different from the others by depicting Western explorers rather than native peoples, the green one is a Marx reissue and I think the brown one holding a fish aloft was by Ideal, also an American make, also a reissue?

The musher can take the same snow-shoes as the rest of the line, and; once equipped with a knife, makes a good bar-brawler or bear-fighter!

S is for Steckschlitten!

We saw this briefly in a post about 10 years ago here, when I collaged all sorts of Bonux stuff into over-busy images - I was still getting the hang of this Blogging malarkey - so I thought we could look at it again in close-up.

Until quite recently (17th/18th, maybe 19th Century?) the was no orange as a colour, things were either red or yellow (gold in heraldry), and looking at this you can see where they were coming from, I mean; clearly on one level it's orange, but equally and in certain light it's really a bright scarlet!

11 pieces (I've lost a ski from the parts shot!) come - still on the runner - in the little Bonux bag along with a random, loose horse, and clip together with studs and holes. The driver has a separate arm with literally; a 'whip hand' but lacks any feet, to speak of!

Most of the cake decoration sleighs are beyond doing much with, due to their design or cartoonish appearance, but this could easily be thrown against the German panzers at the gate of Moscow; winter of '41 in a war-game.

Indeed; the floor's big enough to take a mortar, with the crew on the first bench and ammo/supplies piled on the second seat? The driver would need a helmet though or a little red star on his flat-cap, give it a go - a self-propelled mortar . . . but you can't have mine; you vandal!

S is for Several Similar Sleighs

Just a quickie really, as you may have noticed this week has been a  bit slow, and while there's a bunch of stuff cropped, collaged, ordered and [nearly] ready to go, all the posts lack blurb, so I'm not sure what's going to get up before Tuesday, but a rest is as good as a break! Anyway, this was started last year and I finished it the other night.

Three seasonal sleighs, intended to slice through fondant or get stuck-fast in royal iceing, and two copying the original, but which is the original? The one at the front is marked CHINA, so has to be modern, but I suspect a Hong Kong version will be out there, and is probably the original. By co-incidence, the sizes are approximately N, HO/OO or O-Gauge!

As I mentioned; the sleigh is marked CHINA, Santa' is unmarked and both are polystyrene, while the deer and reins are polyethylene, with the left-hand deer marked 44 (x2) & 55, the right-hand animals bare 10, 20 & 77, all marks are found in the top of a hollow body-cavity, like Hong Kong horses.

The whole of this assembly is in polyethylene, the sleigh marked MADE IN HONG KONG NO 33C, nothing else is marked. Quality is poor and the sleigh has been shortened in proportion, so looks stumpier and the deer are quite cartoony.

A shot I took last year which may as well go here as I forgot to take the teeny-tiny one apart and shoot it unassembled, and it's now been put away and I want this finished and out!

I can tell you it's (the N-Gauge one) marked with a reversed 'R' and part 'C' which can be seen on the sleigh, there may be other fragments under the lump of hot-glue/wax obscuring the under-floor, the sleigh is hard polystyrene, the deer are soft polyethylene and the (upper, clear) reins are a nylon or rayon; like fishing line or that clothing security-tag type polymer.

Not following the same sleigh design, but 'based on' if the colour-scheme is anything to go by, this is a single moulding, and is probably aping an earlier chalkware or bisque type cake decoration.