B is for Benevolent Buys - 3 of 3

Along with the cats and turtle/tortoise (you'll agree it wasn't clear, but flatter = turtle?), came this bag of shrapnel at the start of October, nothing special, but all fun!

 

A Fiver's the top-end for this kind of thing, but it'd been a few days since anything joined the stash, and withdrawal was starting to itch, so what choice did I have?!!

 

A near-complete set of the 'Nabisco' Magic Roundabout, and in a follow-up I'll explain way I haven't italicised the Nabisco, and have placed it in single-quotes, but for now, strange that it's all in red, with no sign of the other colours normally associated with the 'cereal premium'?

 

Standard Erzgebirge houses and church, but larger than previous ones we've seen here, with an extra window each, The Church/Public building with Zwiebelturm (onion tower, one of the first German words I learnt, the dreaded Umleitung came second, Bummelzug third!) is one from our childhood, I've been after for years, so really pleased to add this to the pile!

 

 

Other wooden stuff of the Erzgebirge type, with the train possibly a later Kinder one, and the car probably from a board game. Some of it may go with the cottages in the previous shot, but it's not obvious, while styling, paint, varnish &etc. . . suggests several sources, and many years between oldest and youngest samples.

 

Mostly 1970/80's rack-toy scenic stuff, but the greenhouse is from the New Ray HO civil/model railway accessory range, and the two Poplar trees are new to the collection, and - with those huge bases - probably from something more infant-oriented, and also, probably more modern.

 

Odds & sods; the barrow looks like it should have a pencil-sharpener attached, but there's no sign of such an accoutrement having ever been attached, and I don't know what the blue-cap is from, or if it's even anything to do with toys whatsoever? 

I is for Intellects - Vast and Cruel and Unsympathetic

I think we've seen some of this before, but while visiting Mr Morehead back in 2016, I shot it again properly, and it's been sat in Picasa ever since . . . there's still tons of it! Anyway, War of the Worlds, which was set, initially, on Horsell Common, not far from Woking, Woking seems to claim it as theirs, almost as hard as Mr. Andrew Windsor claims Woking as his alibi!

First landing capsule.

(beautiful brickwork)

A 'Glitering Machine'

Martain tripod

The valiant defenders

A Hawker Hunter

(Monday, 30 June 1958, RNAS Fulmar, Hall JHS, Lieutenant, RN

my uncle's coffin)

 

The microbes that made the difference.

 

The dedication plate.

C is for Cast Communications Cabins!

Mr. B.J. Ward's 'Wardie Products' Mastermodels range of OO-gauge accessories weren't going to feature much in this 'mini season' of railway figure posts, as Jon hadn't sent me many images, and I didn't have much here, and what Jon sent will be in an overview toward the end of the sequence, however he did send me a pair of Telephone Boxes, and in looking for other things I found more Wardie stuff, and shot what little I have here for what will be two posts tonight - if I pull my finger out - which will take us to the not-so-subconscious next target, of 60-posts for the month, before midnight!

So, this is the little treasure Jon sent in one of the donations we looked at a while ago, briefly, because these posts were quickly envisioned! One's a bit tatty, but I do have loose ones in the main collection, so I'll make this right again with a couple of near-minters!

 

As with the other 'phone boxes (AA, RAC, Police), there is a paper wrap-around with the detail needed, printed on, and this casting was used for an information kiosk as well, a later version had a flat roof.

 

I can't remember if Adrian, Jon or Peter handed these larger, touristy ones, to me or if I found them somewhere, or a combination of the preceding, but they're not bad for model railways, maybe 28mm-compatible? One has been a key-ring, the other must have been part of a boxed-set of UK icons, as it's not had its roof drilled! And they are Chinese in origin!

 

Between them is a funny little plastic kiosk, of a modern city type, possibly based on something Asian, closer to the maker's heart? And the sort of thing which might be from a rack-toy, but might be from a comic/periodical giveaway?

 

It's a gratuitous shot of some elephants!

E is for Eclectic Donation!

Well, I seem to have found a fix for the problems with editing since the changes in 2020/21, especially the annoying habit of not loading images in the right/desired/numbered or even date/alphabetical order, preferring to sometimes load in reverse or just reverse the first and last images . . . I think at lest once or twice, it's totally jumbled them!

 

And of course blogger have locked all the chats screaming for a solution, but this kind person has an answer, I've just tried the piece of code, the 'bad' code was there, I replaced it and these all worked in one hit! And I forgot to add the xxx's or any text, and it still worked!

https://www.listph.com/2020/10/fixed-new-blogger-upload-images-in-reverse-out-of-order.html

Shooting yesterday's plunder earlier I realised I still have a London Show and possibly a Sandown to Blog, so I am behind again, but they are self-imposed criteria which probably don't bother you anyway! This is the second of Jon Attwood's donation parcels - which was taped, piggy-back fashion, like a space shuttle, to the main-booster tank of his third parcel!

Jon is having a clear-out, so it's an quite eclectic mix he's been sending the Blog, which makes for more interesting posts, as there's something for everyone! This is a lot of figure-modellers or figure-painters stuff, mostly whitemetal with a bit of plastic/filler, and some repainted or home-cast solids from Hollow cast, and it's a question of what can you spot?

I have a soft-spot for Hussar uniforms, inherited from my late father's interest in Yeomanry uniforms and that excellent series of articles on the same in Military Modelling in the 1980's! I think the WWI/BEF type is an original (Britains?), as is the farmer's wife, but she has been repainted, and I may try repainting her again to something more blue maybe, certainly less pink!

Schneider moulds, or maybe (UK) Agasee, what I like - as a sample - is the variation on the blue, giving us a European on the left, British on the right and Central American in the centre! A lot of guys melt this stuff down to make their next figures, but I like to hang-on to it, as a sample of what went before, these could be home-cast/painted or something more commercial?

The horses that came with the above. The one on the plinth looks more ornamental than 'toy' and the two medieval ones in front need a name as they are definitely commercially painted. I have a fancy a bunch of these were seen/discussed at the NEC years ago, and someone ID'd them as a Spanish make, but I could be confusing them with some other's, they had similarly decorated riders with lances in swivel-arms I seem to recall?

 

Adrian Little kindly looked at this for me, and he thinks it may be Hyde, but without a rider he couldn't be sure what set/series it was from. He suspected a jockey in silks, but it's sadly lacking a tail. Again, it would have been ornamental rather than a plaything, and is quite large (1:25th'ish?), but a useful sample nevertheless!

 

Now, these are fascinating! One of the articles in the long-queue is the recent 'Steam Punk' sets from Hornby under the old Bassett-Lowke branding, and while I shot pre-production stuff at one of the toy fairs, these are the actual figures (BL8011 Steampunk Passengers Standing Pack 2), one of two initial sets, there were also some 54mm figures, for figure painters. A really useful addition, thanks Jon!

 

Not my best shot, but I'll shoot them again and add them to that forthcoming post.

 

I also loved this, it's the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny, who - you may remember - had a breathy, flirtatious manner with a voice provided by Miriam Margoyles, in a sexy West Country accent, imploring the other woodland animals (or her beau) to "Take it easy with Cadbury's Caramel!" !

 

Funnily enough, I had just taken in a small set of Lone Star Treble-O-Trains, so there is a small overview in the pipeline, I sold my childhood sample at a car-boot about 25-years ago in a misguided moment, and have regretted it ever since, so it's nice to be reclaiming those memories!

 

I think these three are Dinky, and hoses and taps are missing on the pumps, but again it won't stop them featuring in future comparison or over-view posts, so it's all useful stuff to arrive unexpected in the post! Funny; the Lone Star N-guage traffic lights had little paste-jewelled red and green lights, while in a much larger scale you just get spots of paint!

Pairs of Matchbox road signs, two die-cast on the left, two plastic on the right. I think we've seen these before, but they are always useful as they tend to lose the little waterslide transfers, and you definitely need pairs of Level Crossing signs!

 

Marked Strickets (C) 1993 (I think), if that means anything to anyone, I first thought he was a Native American making a bison sign, but I think he's a dark-age warrior; Viking or Anglo-Saxon type, making a bull's head sign with his thumbs, some kind of tourist memento or museum keepsake? If anyone knows more, we all need to! About 45/50mm?

 

For some reason, he reminds me of Nigel Planer's Hippy from The Young Ones! "Like, man, you love the bull, you play the bull, you ARE the bull, d'you see, Riiiick?! Possibly from a fantasy boardgame, although I don't think so?

 

The Leyland Motors sign has joined the pub-sign already and is the swinger from one of those cocktail-stick/toothpick type publicity things, barrels have their zone, and Paddington will be off across 'The Pond', as a small thank-you to another contributor, who I know, knows a Paddington fan!

 

Cereal premium dog (Rice Krispies Champion Dogs), and a bear which I should know, or do, but van't recall, something like Corgi Circus I think, Jon identified the horse between the two as one of Salco's little wagon horses, from the gypsy wagon I think?

 

Probably another home-moulding shot, but it could be from a boardgame, but with so little paint remaining, it's hard to call! Around 35mm in scale/size, and we have seen a few similar ones over the years, both larger and smaller, with a few more in storage, we will have a good round-up of these, one day!

 

We saw the painted 'Huminiatures' from Slater's a while ago, but we haven't looked at the more modern sample. I thought we had, but I got a bit depressed about that box when it suffered badly in the 2007 flood, so I've looked at it a few times but not shot them!

 

However, I'm now keen to do the complete overview, as these are the unpainted Huminiatures, in a crinkly cellulose pack (for railway modellers on a budget), along with a pack of bases (pre-cut clear 'syrene in the Roco/Preiser style), which I didn't know existed.

 

Note the continuation of both Wardie/Mastermodels and Randall/Merit DNA in the sculpts . . . There are related posts in the interim queue! And one day I will try to pin the whole story down, but I need everything out of storage first, and as the chap from Pritchard's (Gaugemaster/PPP and now Ratio and Modelscene) couldn't bring himself to tell me, beyond an exasperated eye-roll a few years ago, it may never be accurately transcribed! Briefly I think it goes Mastermodels-Merit, with Slater's copying, but that's over-simplified, as we shall see shortly!

 

Many thanks again to Jon for all this stuff, it really is all gratefully received, and - as mentioned - will enhance future posts on motorcycles, Slater's, even barrels & water-butts!

However

N is for New Ray!

Following on from the previous posts and getting the obvious title above them, this is a quick look at one of the 1:32nd scale sets, non-military.

Taken from the Country-Life line, and in a third graphical style, I believe this set dates from around 1999 - the date may be on the reverse of the card but it went to storage before I bought the lovely A3 scanner I'm now using!

It is in the catalogue we saw in the previous post, but that example is in the brighter green graphics and sharing an assortiment code; 05232 with seven other sets - again, there may be a numerical with this one, but it'll be on the back with the bar-code, so whether it's the same or not I can't say!

Not the best shots I'm afraid, sometimes direct, bright sunlight just washes the camera out, it doesn't happen often, but summer seems to be when! Bottom left has the foot figure showing the course to one of the 'spare' horses, the other three shots are of the wall jump and show-jumper. PVC horses and figures, 'styrene accessories and 'ethylene plants.

Not up to the overall quality of the Britains sets/figures, it holds-up well against the Parker-Palitoy set and the less common Thomas Salter set with it's Hong Kong copies of the Britains, add the three Corgi figures from the alternate offerings of Horse Box and with all the above you can mount quite the equestrian event these days . . . Pony in my Pocket also had various obstacles for show-jumping.

P is for Poplar's Popular Plastic Present Person and Pooches Pulling

Well into the Crimbo-spirit here at SSW, although I think I have a Highlander post still to come! I also think we looked at this briefly in a post ages ago, but I can't find it, and it would have been the one kept here, while this post is also drawing on the stored examples and wider oeuvre.

Originally a Thomas Toys (USA) model, or - more accurately; 'set of toys', I imagine they started to come here the same year or shortly after their debut in the 'States, so no more than the following year? Over here they were carried under the Poplar label.

Left - The best version; Santa and his sleigh, with Rudolph doing sterling-work 'up-front' and a spare seat - presumably for a bag of toys; sadly not included!

Inset top right - Rudolph's two components and a comparison between the draw-bars for reindeer and dogs! The deer get a pair of large rounded studs to locate in dimples in the shoulders of the animal, while the dog's version has two pairs of sharp-pointed pimples to hold the soft PVC hounds.

Inset bottom right - Both Santa Claus and the draft animal are PVC, the sleigh and seats being styrene; the PVC used by the Thomas-Poplar-Taffy group was a stable mix which mercifully means they don't eat the polystyrene parts, as cheaper/less stable PVC's would.

The Dachshund version in the upper shot, the passengers are Thomas/Poplar but not original to the sleigh, just a couple I grabbed for illustrative purposes, the slight should have two of the smaller infants, the girl here is from the play-equipment twins, while the doll/baby is a dolls-house accessory, I think.

Equally; I don't think it was ever issued with the other dog, and almost certainly never with the cat! But it fits and it's a bit of fun!

The full set of animals (to my knowledge) with a Hong Kong copy of the . . . spaniel? It seems to be quite modern, even current in that pink (?) and it's nice to see mouldings from the 1950's still enjoying a life, albeit as a gum-ball machine's capsule-prize or Christmas cracker's novelty clone!

Made in England is clearly marked on the chair-backs (are they 'thrones' on a sleigh? They should be!), except - of course - they were made in Wales!

Speaking of the chairs, they were also used on the swing, which was the natural hang-out (pun intended!) of the little girl and her twin brother.

I is for It's a Local Blog for Local People!

All day! And I didn't burn the bodies officer!

Seriously, there are several less than toy-soldier related posts today; all centered on the 'teeming metropolis' of Fleet in Hampshire, but all with a cultural theme/element or some figural connection which lead me to take the pictures I'm now offloading on your unsuspecting ass!

We're starting with Fleet BID's follow-up to last Christmas's nutcrackers, with a summer season of large fibre-glass animal mouldings which were liberally chained-up round town to encourage people into the town when they wanted to go to the beach - or just melt where they lay!

Appearing over the weekend of the 21^st/22^nd of July, ready for the 23rd, I found this one first, and I recon it's the best, but if you're still reading you're welcome to disagree with me as we go down the page . . . it's a giant hippopotamus!

Placed behind a bench (to make climbing on it all the easier) it had a sign saying "Please do not sit on the animals"! That's the risk-assessor wonks at the town-hall for you; pathetic.

Another three hundred yards and I encountered King Kong's little brother! Scale's totally out with the hippo', and this one is clearly designed to have two children sit on him at once (and over the five or so weeks many did), one on his left knee, the other in his right hand; despite another of the idiot-signs.

Realising 'the game was afoot', I crossed the road and went into the mall, reasoning there was bound to be one or two in there - missing the parrots (four doors down) completely!

What we call the 'glass menagerie' anyway (Fleet's 'Mall') had a most disappointing thing pretending to be an elephant and called 'Elephant', showing no clear signs of Asian or African heritage/breed and a rather too-pink colour, even as a 'baby' elephant it's not very good . . . but ride-able!

Out the other end of the mall and back across the road I found this chap near the Library, he's supposed to be a grizzly, but looks quite amiable to me, and he - obviously - has the same seating arrangements for little people as the gorilla. 2nd best!

Nearby and almost opposite the Library I found a fine lion with a mane that was about as good as you can get with boat-building technology! I like the whiskers too!

I popped into the Town Hall to ask what was going on, and they said "Nothing to do with us, but they're fun aren't they, I've seen a Zebra in the Library and a big monkey by the traffic lights!", and sure-enough I found this chap hiding from the carpet-men round the back by the stage-entrance.

The 'big monkey' turned out to be a Mandrill, but he was behind a highly-reflective window and I never got a good shot of him, despite going back a few times!

The same was true of the parrots, which I found on the way back through town that evening. Very well done, possibly resin rather the fibre-glass, the deatil was finer and the painting, although formulaic was very effective - they would look good in a garden, say; half-hidden in a rhododendron?

After the refit in the café, the Zebra moseyed-on through to the front of the building so he could be seen from the car-park!

Meanwhile, the national press had an identical gorilla causing all sorts of upset hundreds of miles away . . . with his 'bare' arse and beady-eyes! I wouldn't call it a 'life-like' replica though, it's three times the size of the biggest gorilla ever known - I'll bet; they are big, but not that big!

Obviously these things can be hired for events or corporate 'stuff' and somewhere there's a warehouse or two full of 'em! I noticed the other day Basingrad has the nutcrackers, with new names - don't worry I won't subject you to them again this year . . . I've giant jelly-babies and woolly-mice lined-up instead!