S is for Shot at the Show

As I prepare for today's toy fair at Sandown Park, one of those dozen-odd dates which help the collecting year click over, here's a nice game I shot at last May's show, Spear's Games 'Targets in Space', a clockwork automated shooting game, which is almost a miniaturised fairground sideshow booth!

 

It's all about the artwork with these old things, isn't it?!

 

Reproduced on the inside with the far-distant sky, cut out for the target-wheel.

 

A large clock mainspring, behind the metal plate, is wound via the butterfly-nut.

 

 

Eight targets with variable scoring, not exactly random as you would learn the sequence!

But you could change the cards around occasionally.

 

Not the best image, but an old auction shot shows the rather futuristic, and robust sidearm, with pretty lethal-looking metal-shafted darts, used to achieve the task of blowing alien critter transports off the ring, or at least, folding them behind it, on their spring-clips! 

 

I love the spaceman, he's that classic Ajax/Archer type with the rubber ducting for stretchy knees and elbows! Cheers to Adrian Little for letting me shoot the other shots.

T is for Trek, No Star!

Another quick box-ticking of a board game, mentioned in passing a few times but it passed under my nose on it's way from the garage to a shipping container the other day so I fired-off a few shots, well; enough for a .gif (not spelled Jif!), and dug out some older shots which have been seen elsewhere, but not here before.

It is what it is; a competitive collecting of stuff for a final race type mechanism, but the 'stuff ' is of real use to war-gamers, being a large number of jeeps, pack mules and stores crates, so - bargain!

Playing pieces are 30mm flat explorers looking through telescopes, in a 'European Margarine Premium' style, made of a hard/brittle polystyrene, with provision for six players.

Jeeps are good-enough for 20/25mm war gaming, the pack animals are brilliant, but sadly only the one pose, so need to be mixed in with Atlantic (three variations?) and Pegasus (one or two?) or even cast-metal beasts of burden. Strangely, while the player-pieces are so brittle, the rest is manufactured in soft polyethylene?

The stores are so brightly-bright and yellowy-yellow you can't tell which way up they are or read the 'STORES' stamped on the tops, but painted or heavy-washed/weathered they would make useful vehicle loads or objective-markers in gaming.

With some conversions (Airfix ANZAC's married to commando legs) as a scaler, that’s yer' very actual Spear's board game; Trek, done and dusted!

C is for Collie-dog

Having to work out why there are definitely two types of collie dog, I discovered there are actually four . . . ish! If you are interested I can only send you here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collie, but suffice to say in polymer there are basically two, the long haired Border or Farm Collies, and the even longer-haired (and more pointy-nosed) Rough Collie. I used to think Border and Welsh were the same, but Welsh are short-haired (my cousin's endless line of unrelated 'Rovers' - saves learning a new name!).

From the left and all basically Border/Farm Collies with one exception; Britains 1st type, Timpo (the exception, he/she's more Rough Collie), Britains prone, Britains 2nd type and finally; Britains Hong Kong - to which you can add the Spears 'A Shepherd and His Dog' board-game copy, although I decided it was probably Britains supplied, unlike the sheep.

Of the three designs Britains ran from the '50's (?) to the mid-1960's, the running one is more Rough Collie than the other two, and is probably a second 'exception'! However the later HK-manufactured version (far right) is defiantly Border/Farm with the thicker muzzle.

The Timpo Collie has the longer fur of the Rough, and while early ones had a touch of white paint on brown or black plastic, later examples are unpainted in black, white or brown. The darker-brown dog is a Hong Kong copy with a spray-painted white belly.

The Hong Kong clone has been copied with some skill, to the point where there is little size variance and the 'E' of England on the original is still readable on the knock-off. If it wasn't for the slightly blobbier feet and tail and different join-marks (in a three-part tool), one might think the HK maker got hold of the old Timpo mould!

Britains running pose, started life as one of a 'family' of three, with standing and prone kennel-mates, but by the 1970's only the runner remained in the catalogue. The top row shows those early dogs (another yellow-brown one came in today - 17th July - with a charity lot!), definitely 'Lassie' type Rough Collies, they can have dry-brushed highlights on the collar or plain-white shoulder-stripes.

Middle row compares the earlier sculpt (outer pair) with the later Hong Kong supplied replacement (inner pair) which is definitely the Border/Farm type, while the lower row is a variety of those late versions, with a washy grey-white plastic Tomy example fifth from the left and an unpainted example on the far end. Star Toys of Hong Kong copied the later design in all-black polyethylene with a battery-operated, big-rig, horse-box/animal transporter.

The earlier poses obviously sold well before they were dropped from the inventory, and they don't seem to be much less available, although the standing poses is a little harder to track down.

The right hand prone dog is a Hong Kong copy with the same purplish-brown as some pretty-common rabbits from the colony, which came in Home Farm sets, but the Holly type, not Blue Box, although some (at least one?) of the 'generics' below will probably be Red- or Blue Box.

Note also that the far-right standing dog has a gloss finish, against the commoner matt of most; a failure of the out-worker to properly stir the new paint?

Marked with a simple 'ENGLAND', this is Crescent's entry into the sheepdog trials; and they've paired a clear Rough Collie with . . . a  . . . ? . . . phffffff . . . Springer Spaniel . . . kennel mongrel? Tail's odd for a spaniel! Early painted - later unpainted, always black I think, but there may be white-plastic shots?

In the foreground Crescent's sculpts are here both pirated as Christmas cracker or gum-ball machine capsule-prizes, both marked with a blocked 'HONG KONG', to the right is a very crude sculpt (but new pose, see below), not Star Toys' one which was the Britains running pose, but of similar end-use as the Crescent copies and probably quite modern.

It's a Rough Collie, while the large (probably Chinese) one in a Schleich/Papo/Bully compatible size is clearly a Border/Farm Collie, it's unmarked and a soft PVC-replacement against the polyethylene of the other three.

This post's photograph folder grew over a few months as I tried to get everything together, with most of the above from storage, the previous image is recent - mostly Charity shop - stuff and this image is also storage stuff; the Far East 'junk'!

Three more Crescent copies at the front (green boxes in the key), a unique sculpt (purple) marked 'Hong Kong' and copied by the black one in the previous image and two marked 'China' (red boxes). Crescent's are Border/Farm types, the rest more Rough Collies. The other larger one (2nd from left back/top row) has a neat 'Made in Hong Kong' mark.

This lot was the 'here' stuff and we have another three Crescent cracker/gum-ball types (the 'spaniel' doesn't seem to have been copied so prolifically?), another Britains standing, a brown Timpo with the remains of paint, two more prone-copies (with purplish-paint) and along with three PVC types are another bunch of generics (various marks or none) to make up the pack.

Those PVC types here include; back left marked 'China 8' (or B), the next one along is marked plain 'China' and while it looks more like an Alsatian/German Sheppard, doesn't look-so, when placed with the other Alsatian/German Shepherd toys, so I've put him/her here for now and when I get round to German Shepherds will show him/her against them too, so everyone can make up their own minds - both are original sculpts!

While the large Britains ['ish] running copy (front middle - brown & white) is unmarked and might be a European die-cast/farm vehicle accessory. The two dogs (behind him and third from the left on the back row) over-sprayed with dark orange-brown may be from a Berwick board game, but I don't think so.

...The Hounds of Hell milled-about on the lawn outside Professor Farquhar's study, they knew he only had the one silver-bullet left and a small phial of holy-water, but he'd need them both - for himself - before the night was over or the fire dimmed, and cooked meat was as good as fresh!

F is for Follow-up - M is for Monkey Business

Many thanks to Chris Smith for this particular follow-up, he quite quickly solved the question of the unknown helmeted 'cool runnings' character in a Wookie-suit, it was actually a board game, the original seeming to be from Spear's and my examples probably budget Hong Kong clones.

The item in question; Spear's Monkey Race, a game for younger players, the dice only have 1's, 2's and 3's to drag the race out a little longer! Les Singes Grimpants, sounds painful, but is - I suspect - 'the griping monkeys'?

Chris has one in a purple'ish plastic, who is clearly the same beast (in both senses of the word) unlike my deformed, helmeted Ewoks! You can see how the bar is used to lock them in at each stop-point on the climb, it still leaves my chrome-plated chap as a question mark I think, he's the wrong shape for this type of game?

Chris also has this Monkey novelty, looking like similar all-plastic 'dimestore' toys from Thomas, Banner or Pyro or such-like but with more substantial steel cross-bars, as you turn the fancy handle-wheels (in both directions) the monkey jerks about and does cartwheels and stuff, I vaguely remember a similar toy from childhood, possible with a clown figure? Cheers Chris!

A is for Airfix Posting - Jeeps

A new recurring title, for a while at least; I must get the rest of the Airfix stuff up, or at least enough to get each page-post going! Then I can look at finishing the blurb on the existing posts!!

Jeeps today, the Airfix Attack Force Jeep, with comparisons of a bunch of others, there will be more to come, these were the ones in the 'Jeep Tub' which doesn't include a lot of the named stuff, nor most of the larger Hong Kong/China pieces, but it's a starter guide!

A few points beyond the Airfix aspect of the linked-post; I missed a small silver one (upper image) which comes somewhere between the Spear's Trek (left) and Kinder 'minis' (right) Jeeps; I've also shown the three colours of Kinder Jeep.

Below left image puts the two Marx mini's next to each other, the die-cast offering has the slightly more realistic windscreen position, but both are overall pretty poor sculpts, and copies of the larger-scaled one from the big playsets.

The bottom-right picture compares the two Zee/Zyl/Zylmex and/or Motormax/Redbox Jeeps, one of which has a MASH sticker. They are also different colours and have slightly different wheels.

The little silver Jeep seems to go with the two silver/gold cars we looked at a few Christmases ago, to which I've added blue and green ones which were in storage, although they are both cleaner sculpts with fatter tyres and an undercut on the wheel-arch and may be from an earlier/separate issue [wave]. They show all the 'hallmarks' (small, inexpensive, monoblock design) of being gum-ball machine capsule-prizes or Christmas cracker-novelties?

No Dulcop racing cars (or are they PRB or Crescent. . . heh-heh-heh-heh!), but - obviously - they're in the long queue. Too funny, their 'idea factory' now seems to be my 'forthcoming' posts, but I already knew that from the other day . . . all the stupidies sticking together like a pack of mangy dogs!

And now he's bleating he should be allowed to get things wrong, oblivious to the hypocrisy of correcting my Jecsan with the hysteria he did? Too funny, the loons are trying to run the asylum with the support of more loons!

F is for Follow-up - A Shepherd and His Dog

More of a return than a follow-up, it was a while since we looked at this here, and there's as many images this time, but last time I shot it in a hurry at a show, this time it was a cheapie from a Charity shop, so I pawed all-over it before the bulk went in the recycling, leaving me with the figures/accessories

Better shot of the box-lid, the boy in his shirt-sleeves rather belies the older Britains piracy within, which maybe why there's a photo of the game in play as well! A photograph which seems to be using all-Britains products!

It's not clear in these shots I'm afraid, but I can assure you the farmer is the same moulding as the orange and grey chap to his left as we look at them. The crook has been hefted-up to survive repeated handling, but the mould mark visible on the grey base is repeated in the orange figure. Flashing and gate-marks are also in the same places and of the same appearance.

To the left is a commoner, larger copy of the Britians original - who is himself - on the far right, as a late PVC one, made in Hong Kong. The fences on mine are of the same quality as the Merit ones seen last time (i.e. better than all the HK-marked ones in mini-farm sets), but are unmarked, so a possible conclusion is that the Merit ones were probably replacements, although Spear's may have procured two batches, one from Randall's the other HK?

We looked at the other version's set here

Of more interest that the sheep which are 'after' but not 'of' the Britains examples is the dog, which is almost certainly from the Britains mould.

Whether this was with the knowledge of Britains or their HK agents, or a back-door door job at the factory remains to be discovered, but there's nothing in the moulding, nothing in the paint to ID him separately if you don't find him in the box (he's on the right in both shots), and I don't think it's s second case of replacement, this was an unused set.

While I had them out! A living graph of the various Britains sheep generations, oldest on the left, newest (Tomy PVC) on the right! The Spears is to the far left with a resting Blue Box above it. In the 1970's at some point the dog was simplified and given a straighter head/longer nose.

The first generation were better detailed (the grubby one seems to be an owner added over-wash), then they lost some of that etched definition, as such they ran for the longest time, eventualy switching to both Hong Kong and PVC. Toward the end of 'Real' Britians (under/as Britains Petite?) they got a new colour-way, and finally you have the have the new Tomy vinyl sculpt, which keeps only the scale!

Being far more common than Toy Soldiers, these come in with charity-shop bags all the time now, and with some in storage, we'll do a better 'graph' with more stages in the future. My Barny Brown/Peter Cole guides are in storage, they have better timing/date info, than the quick 'overview' here.

Board!

Still bored!

B is for the Board-game Batmen!

Mattel issued two board-games with batmen, namely: Gotham City Mystery with Batmen and Robin, two main bad-guy characters and a 'bunch-of-five' baddies, and Shadow Assault (a 'Batman Begins' tie-in from 2005) with four Batmen and a herd of ninja baddies!

It is from that latter set that these three are probably taken, I say probably as there were several versions it seems, and not all of them had the same four poses. There seem to have been three with this type of base (red, orange and yellow) and another with a different base. The Ninja bad-guys are all the same pose and in unpainted transparent PVC.

The Upper Halesworthington Synchronised BDT (Bat-flying Display Team) totally mess-up their compulsory flaming-swoosh with triple-salchow fly-past, right under the judges noses; spacing is all over the place, yellow-leader has not turned-out early enough and green has stopped smiling his very expensive, snow-white, Harley Street dentistry. . . awful performance!

I'm missing the blue one, presumably kept by the owner as the most realistic of the four, originally included in the Spears Games game of Batman Swoops Down, from 1966. Thanks to . . . I'm not sure, they came from the PW31 show, but whether they were a table-purchase or in one of the brought-by-mates lots I'm not certain, so thanks to Trevor, Graham, Adrian or Gareth anyway!

L is for 'Like Britains'

An interesting little thing this, Spear's Games take on the old BBC TV program; One Man and his Dog, imaginatively retitled One Shepherd and....!

The contents look - at first glance - to be Britains, but are in fact not, probably Hong Kong in origin, they are not marked as such, so there is the possibility that they were sourced from a UK maker with easy morals?

The fences are marked, J&L R, which is - of course - Merit...who were not above a bit of piracy! That's it, box ticked, pictures filed...

S is for S'mother Stuff!

This is last post today and is to clear a couple of little companies, who's contributions to the small scale world have been on the minor side...

Soma was/is a trade Mark for a Chinese (Probably based in Hong Kong) company making/marketing carded pocket-money or rack toys. They produced two sets of aircraft and space vessels, each of which came with a pair of 'pilots', there were 12 poses in all, they wear a mixture of WWI, WWII, futuristic, SCUBA, fire-fighting and law-enforcement equipment with or without motorcycle/ice-hockey/Africa Corps headgear!!! Oh, and at least one was a female!

Issued in grey plastic with the space-ships and green with the Fighters, they were touched up in colours which could only serve to enhance the awfulness of the aforementioned equipment! Now that Caesar have started doing proper small scale fantasy these will make excellent space troopers. Each was numbered under the base.

Spears were a company long since swallowed up by Parker/Waddingtons (now Hasbro), that produced a board game in the 1970's called Trek, with an assortment of pieces useful to the war gamer, boxes of supplies, several nice 25mm mules, 30mm plastic flats of hunters and a reasonable 1:87'ish willies jeep.