O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Everything Else

So, we reach the last of the plunder, bought or donated, from the sort-of-fortieth PW show, at Whitton, in SW London, this June, just gone, and it's the bits & bobs, trees/plants, vessels, and remaining vehicular stuff!

A bunch of the Cereal Premium ships from Quaker Oats, we've seen the whole set before, here, and a previous lot of additional colours, but here's a few more!

Somebody gave me this at some point in the course of the day's proceedings, he came over and asked me about it, I said I didn't know, but that it looked both modern and really nice, and he said "Keep it" and left me holding it, I hope his name is in the footer acknowledgement, below, but if it isn't, eMail me! Sitting at it, is a larger scale Blue Box doll house kid, and smaller Britains Garden adult!

A fine rack-toy of the 6d/5p variety, a set of tools, which, had I seen it in the 70's, would have been purchased for Action Man! I reckon they would have fitted nicely in one of those silver Arctic Explorer crates, and could have been stowed in my Spartan personnel carrier!

 

Barrels from a die-cast Waggon , one of those Benbros-Charbens-Kemlows minor die-casters? A couple of road signs, one damaged, but it might be an only sample, and a badge probably from Brian, who keeps giving me his old badges, as I think he knew I'd kept all mine, and one day I'll have to sort them all out and throw them up here as a fun-post, on all the shows over the years! I've even got most of my Sandown stickers somewhere!

Scenics; including a small moon, or large cannon-ball, probably from a rack-toy bag, a Hong Kong hay-rick/stack clone, and what I suspect is a rabbit-hutch or poultry pen from Taylor, missing its front-door/mesh, but interestingly inscribed with the full For Good Toys slogan. It's probably taken from the lead original.

FG Taylor's 'squirrel-tree', a Lego Chestnut tree, a couple of Britains window-box scenics, and three smaller Barratt trees.

Largo's hydrofoil motor vessel Disco Volante (somewhat simplified!), from Gilbert, I have the carded one, so it's nice to now have a loose one, complete, if slightly discoloured by age (smoking or UV?), although I think an ultrasonic bath with diluted bleach can bring it back white, without taking the red off?

Mixed vessels, nothing too exciting, the smaller rubber-boat is Corgi I think, and the tug may be Springwell, a reissue of the Tudor Rose vessel, or one of the TR vessels (reader-driven post in the pipeworks, on that one!), several baking powder premiums and an odd colour of the usually silver/grey copies of Minic waterline ships 

Aircraft include a damaged and stripped Messerschmitt, a second Inter Cities Services Rota-Ship from Injection Moulders, a small spacy thing, probably from a board game and another Blue Box 'chopper', "I lurve the smell of vintage plastic in the mornin's!".

Another race-car, also Quaker, standard colour and number, but until it's checked against the master collection, I won't trust it! A large egg, from the discount-store rival to Kinder; Wow Eggs, an infant toy which will end-up going to charity, but is at least 'in the archive' now!

 

While the truck is - I think - the New Maries copy of the Holly copy of Blue Box's livestock truck from the Andy's/Home Farm sets, in all cases a sub-scale vehicle from those sets, but they were all mixed scale, with the Merit knock-off horses. probably fitting this nicely!

L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown February - Animals & Bits

Having had a fair number of the figures in the first post, and then the bulk of the vehicles, I thought I'd shove the rest of everything except the other figures up first and do them last! Animals, mostly horse-drawn stuff and some scenics!

 

Hong Kong hay rake . . . I guess that can be tractor drawn! Ornamental plated coach, might be a cake-dec', but I remember them being glued to ashtrays and those onyx table lighters, desk-sharpeners etc...War gaming naval cannon, maker unknown, a rather nice motorcyclist who could be a game playing piece, from a cheap railway figure-set, or a gum-ball/cracker type thing?

 

The wreaker-truck is a soft polyethylene copy of the Blue Box 'styrene copy of the original Matchbox 1-75 series die-cast, probably by Bluebow, or someone similar, there are several of those knock-off brands out there! And the horse team will be from one of the cheapo' wagons by Morestone or similar.

 

A couple of really nice-paint, early, British, plastic animals, which should be Cherilea farm for the foal, and I thought Charbens for the Giraffe, but I seem to recall looking it up before, and deciding it was Cherilea too!?

 

I bought these to check the three against the recent post on the subject here, and they are all duplicates, hay-ho, I also think the painted-eyes Poodle is Cherilea, but I don't know why I think that, and stand to be corrected for my vague-arsed assumption!

 

The (Timpo?) flocked Kangaroo looked better under the show lighting, he's actually a bit grubby, and it looks like fag-tar grubby! And he's a few bald spots, but still, a sample is better than no sample! The Moose is a reduced-scale copy of the old cereal-premium Moose, which was stolen from Lido I think? Green Scotties are a broach-badge, the Pigeon is Reisler, from Denmark, they liked their red-plastic! And I think the little Doe is Siku?

 

I may have a similar bag of these somewhere in the stash, but it may just be something I handled back in the days of sorting JB's stock, nearly twenty years ago! All I need is the coach now! I think it's actually only two mouldings of horse, and one rider, all duplicated four times!, but if I do find Paramount coach, I may attempt to put it all together!

 

This was a lovely find, we had the 'Japan' made ones as kids, one Christmas in our stockings I think, I remember an Elephant, Owl, Gopher, Squirrel and Hedgehog, I think, and these are clearly cheaper copies from Hong Kong, the Japan ones were better printed within the outline of the cut shape, and had one or two, little 3mm or maybe 4mm, googly-eyes!

 

The seller started to ask 50p for this and then just gave it to me! It's modern, and a dodgy piece of Chinese not-a-dinosaur! What drew me to it, though, was the similarities with both Möbius's Arzak / Arzach and the alien Tweak from the Judge Dredd story 'The Cursed Earth', with the now-banned burger-war pages! Although really it's only the nose which is Tweak's! Basically, when I saw it - it was so bad, it was good!

 

Two horses from Malleable Mouldings, the black one is OK, the white one will need work on the rear leg, both have been messed-up with home paint, I fear. I may try one of those ultrasonic cleaner tanks for the latter, and maybe hot-water first for the former, it's an early, not terribly stable 'styrene I think?

 

Three early German plastic buildings, which we have seen before, following the pattern of the old wooden Erzgebirge ones, a baby's high-chair, or lifeguard lookout from some Bluebird, Galloob or Mattel micro-playset? And an unknown shell, bullet or missile?

 

FG Taylor's farm cart, like the road-roller, a cross-over piece with metal wheels and plastic rest, quite common in this configuration, I think the all plastic one is the rarity?

 

Bits - Kleeware sub-scale garage-service-petrol station with roof parking for micro-cars, the standing platform from the late Corgi circus set and some foliage! The pale tree-stump is actually a sun-faded and very brittle tree which has lost its branches with a few 'snap!'s, but it was free!

S is for Show Report - Sort of!

I don't really do show photo-reports anymore, I've a few left in the queue, going back to 2013 or something, but really a bunch of shots of trays of stuff you saw if you were there and can't do anything about if you weren't? And who wants to be reminded of things they might have missed? I know some people do gush over such stuff, but if you follow their comments, they gush about everything!

However, I do still shoot stuff which is interesting or unusual, or way beyond my budget! And here are a few bits I shot on Mercator Tradeing's stall at last- September 2021's Sandown Park toy fair, but had to leave where they sat.

Airfix 'Rocket Car' racer; there's a spring missing, with which you compress the 'engine' with the wire appliance, like an old starter-handle! And off it goes! I assume it would have been available in various colours/colourways?

Toydell; one of the less common early British composition brands, and clearly aiming at the tourist market, so most survivors will be found abroad (?). They were about 4-inches, so quite big boys, for display rather than play, but as they are closer to chalkware than a more-robust compo', you wouldn't want to play with them, or be able to for long, before they fell apart!

 

These were rather lovely survivors of a bygone age, they are trays of Penny Toys of the sort a street-trader would have carried on the street with him, dispensing one figure for one penny! Interesting to see that a few of them have a basic paint-job rather than the all-over gold or silver commonly associated with the type. And I think Adrian said they were actually Britains' own cheapies? If that's wrong; it's my bad!

These could be that milk-powder based polymer, 'casin', or they could be an 'ivorene' cellulose/celluloid type material, and while I suspect Portuguese in origin, they could be from southern France or Spain, or somewhere else entirely? Rather nice and clearly re-based in the past, they might have been removed from a vanity-unit mirror, clock or other piece of fancy furniture?

In a similar vein, comes this vignette of William Tell and his son, obviously missing a separate crossbow, and all the comments on the material of the rural couple, apply equally here. I'm not sure if it's meant to be a letter-opener or a bookmark, but favour the former myself, the bladed-base being a more solid chunk of phenolic or urea-formaldehyde type plastic

While from the 'It's Not Rare It's Mass-produced Plastic' department comes this shop-stock box of F.G. Taylor & Sons farmers, in mint condition. I think I have the figure in a dark-brown as well, but I might be confusing it with another model in the range. We will see them all when I get round to the A-Z page entry!

News, Views Etc . . . Herald Toys & Models Updates

As I mentioned the other day, there were two releases from Barney in the queue, to which another has been added and as I've now taken everything off this piece of shit HP-17 in order to send it back for a refund (it's not right!), an image-free post is a useful one right now! Good news, I talked myself into a Mac' replying to EY the other day, so went and got one yesterday, so  . . . another weeks setting-up and getting used to a new system and I should be firing on all cylinders!

" . . . this week we have for sale a good group of Speedwell figures from the Robin Hood set, together with a smaller scale Speedwell mounted cowboy, moulded in two-pieces. Happy collecting as always, Barney - PS: Royal Mail have now resumed International services, so hopefully the cyber incident from 11 January has now been resolved and normal service resumed!"

" . . . from the Manhattan Collection we are very pleased to be able to offer two rare original Herald catalogues for 1957 and 1958, together with an original Herald New Lines leaflet for February 1956."

" . . . this weekend we have an interesting collection of Barrett & Sons Zoo Series models, mostly from the old Taylor & Barrett hollow-cast moulds, including a Polar Bear Family, Seated Lioness and Cub, together with a very rare Red Deer Stag and Hind matching pair. Some models we have never seen in plastic and are not depicted in the Plastic Warrior Taylor & Barrett Special. We also have a few B&S Farm animals, including a scarce tree, moulded in two parts."

As always Barney's stuff is to be found here Herald Toys & Models

H is for How They Come In - Hairy Hutch Herd

I saw this lot going for a song on evilBay a few months ago, I put in a bid fully expecting to get sniped at the end, as it was obviously a good lot, forgot all about and won it for a song including postage, which I relate not to show-off per se but rather to illustrate that bargains are out there - every day.

My Mozilla was playing-up earlier in the year and I couldn't get hover-enlarge or 'view image' to work in some ('most' for a while) feebleBay lots, so this is a very low-res' version of the original, but it's enough to show you how they looked, and also why they might have been ignored in the search results, busy backing-cloth leaves it looking - in 'thumbnail' - like a bunch of white blobs . . . i.e. Hong Kong crappy-rabbits!

I also can't remember what the description header said but it was something like 'lots of plastic toy rabbits' so it should have peaked interest? Actually . . . looks back through own feedback record . . . "plastic farm series of very small rabbits and cats - really small and quite rare", so no reason to not pique interest!

Probably the best of the bunch; four Britains rabbit families, all ears present and correct and it makes you wonder how many variations of this sculpt's painting-v-plastic colour there were? the dun-plastic family (middle left) have lost paint, the white-plastic family at the back are factory fresh and note the thin ears of the forward family suggesting more than one mould cavity.

Also Britains; grazing, alert and ready poses (we saw the running one here at Small Scale World, earlier today - this was originally going to be the second post today for that reason/connection!), and again a lot of variety between them.

From the left I think; Cherilea, Timpo pair, minor make (Taylor I think, or Barratt) and another Cherilea, both the Cherilea's are huge, while the white one is a bit of a blob - from hollow-cast! I have somewhere a damaged Timpo sitting-up, which I converted into a passable Gopher!

Hong Kong rabbits from a handful of sources and in various poses, mostly common, the family are based-on, but not straight piracies of the Britain one and the single crouched one (centre) is quite nice.

The rest; another Britains family, which is only conversion fodder, a tatty HK one and the three feline subjects, a Barratt cat (minus basket and kittens), the Timpo pair with ball (we saw a PVC version here before courtesy of Chris Smith), with a Britains lying cat, sans tail (Manx!).

I have more cats and rabbits elsewhere, so when these are finally sorted into those with a few others, we'll revisit both and look at them in greater detail.

W is for Well . . . Follow-up to the Follow-up

Barney Brown of Herald Toys & Models sent these in case I didn't mention them in the follow-up to wells; which I hadn't, not only that but I had presumed the Taylor was from the hollow-cast mould and fingered Barratt as possible source of one of the two unknowns!

The truth is Barratt & Son inherited the T&B mould and FG Taylor's is the much copied version, although I think heavy cross-bar notwithstanding, the Speedwell is based on this - 'this' being the Barratt one!

This is the lead original, although the company is known as a hollow-cast producer, items like this are more traditionally made, poured-lead 'solid' castings, this is a cross-over piece with a plastic roof on a metal body, so is probably 'Barratt' rather than 'Taylor & Barratt'?

Production was eventually all-plastic and here is a later one with polymer body and roof, but still with a metal bucket and wire winding handle. You may have noticed - before reading this far! - another piece of plastic, on the bottom of the moulding? Well . . .

. . . I think this well is the first of the wells we've looked at, which is designed to hold actual water? The 'cap' is manufactured from neutral granules, is semi-transparent and can only be there to provide a seal so that water can be poured into the mould . . . how cool is that, it was the 1950's after all!

Many thanks to Barney for (what are very good-) images and the data, I'll update the other two posts to reflect the new information with links to here.

Previously;
Original Post
Follow-up Post (post below this one on the page)

F is for Follow-up, Q is for Question Time, W is for Well, Well, Well!

Chris sent an interesting item to the Blog the other day, or pictures of it which is just as good! Further to the water wells I shew (like showed but shorter!)* the other day . . .

*Heay, cummon' Throwed/Threw, Growed/Grew, Knowed/Knew . . . can someone get all those wiggly red lines off my word.docx?

On the left of Chris's line-up here is the F.G Taylor well we saw last time, on the right is the Speedwell again, but the one in the middle is a newie! Chris wondered at Blue Box, I though similar and consulting the farm guru; Barney Brown over at Herald Toys & Models brought a confirmatory response, although he was no surer than either of us, it's just a hunch we all share?

There are two problems with calling-it for being Blue Box, the first is a Google search for all the various Blue Box and clone 'Home Farm' sets and similar items don't reveal this well, and secondly; it's not marked, which most - if not all - the larger items from their farm sets (window-trays or big-box) are/were.

It has some of the tropes of Hong Kong production though, the spray-painted bright green, thick plastic winder, shiny-polymers, even the mould-release pin-marks under the rim? An alternate proposition is that it might be Barratt & Sons, as if the Taylor's inherited the mould in the great post-war divvy-up, the Barrett's would have needed a well for their farm?

Note the separate plug-in woodwork for what is otherwise ostensibly the Taylor design, and the plastic bucket. I'm sure I've seen one of these, I remember the kink in the winding arm . . . possibly when I was  a dealers apprentice! Barney's seen them as well.

I even checked the Codeg Camberwick Green sets in case I'd forgotten an accessory from the larger village boxed-set! I hadn't.

Anyway having contacted Barney I also sought and gratefully received permission to use the image I had mentioned last time, both to embiggen this post and  . . . well, to grow the well of knowledge of wells - I should be stopped!!

It shows another variation of the Taylor design (far left example) which could be any of the Speedwell stable-mates (Trojan, Kentoy, Una/VP), newer 'old' plastics (BMS, BR), or Barratt, or even (shiny polymer!) a Hong Kong pirate? barney says it came in a 'substantial' collection of Taylor farm though?

So; follow-up followed-up, the question marks are does anyone know for definite who issued/made either of the unknown wells . . . well?

Thanks to Chris Smith and Barney Brown for the above images.

Barney Brown of Herald Toys & Models cleared up the Barratt question here, so we are still looking for two other names to pin to the unknowns!

D is for ♫♫♪ Ding Dong Bell ♫♪ Pussy's In The Well! ♪♫♪

Although it's Pussies without the apostrophe as I tried several likely felines and two of the shots worked to some extent;

This is the F.G.Taylor well, suitably equipped with cats! The largest of the three we're about to look at, Barney had a nice copy a while back which I missed, slightly smaller and with a yellow roof and simpler, solid bucket/weight.

Starting the post-proper with the smallest, I think we've looked at this before, but I recently combined the two ('storage' and 'here') samples together, which allows for a better look, although the text/captions render further blurb rather superfluous!

I believe these are all Hong Kong, but there may be a Western origin/influence there somewhere? It's similar to or loosly based-on the Marx well, but with the pivot-handle replaced by a more European winding-mechanism and rain-guard.

This is the Speed'well-well! I thought it might be missing a winding-handle but apparently; this is it! Similar construction to the other two for the roof piece, but with the hidden studs of the smaller one, for a cleaner look.

Back to the Taylor, I don't know if there was a lead version in the T&B days, but I don't think so? Although it would explain the studs coming through - to be flattened-down and hold the roof on? I'll try to find out!

All of them together, sans felines! the smallest I think was only ever a cake-decoration (lucky or wishing-well), the chromium-finished one being presumably for wedding-cakes? Speedwell was always toward the 45-50mm bracket, while Taylor are doing the whole 1:32^nd scale thing!

A follow-up post is here, then Barratt's well's have turned-up courtesy of Barney Brown of Herald Toys & Models

T is for Two - Of The Few!

As we lose the forth-to-last remaining Battle of Britain fighter-pilots, here's a couple of really very interesting model 'planes, the first is the less fascinating maybe, being a chunk of Alli', the other is a real treat. Both shot on Adrian Little's Mercator Trading table at Sandown Park, but photographed several months apart.

I think this is probably a 1st-year or 1st-term (Christmas) an apprentices or engineering student's test-piece, due to its crudity and lack of true mirror-symmetry . . . and the fact that the engines point outward, or that it lacks a notable or noticeable cockpit!

However, one or two people who saw it at the show thought it might have had a more commercial aspect, remembering similar stuff from their childhoods. Being older than me I'm not going to argue with them and will leave it to your judgement.

It's an aluminium casting, but appears to have been poured, not pressure-injected, resulting in softer lines and a rougher surface, and might be trying to be a Bristol Blenheim fighter-bomber?

We know what this is because it's written on both wings! A De Havilland Comet, but issued in a natty army-green, rather than the more famous racing scarlet! It's also marked with the B&s cipher of Barratt and Son's - similar to the cipher of the Bergan Toy Company (Beton)!

What I find so fascinating about this slush-cast lead-alloy (whitemetal) model is that it's almost identical in production values or properties to the early Supermarine Spitfire and Bolton-Paul Defiant models from Palitoy, not because it's copying them, but because they were aping the previous technology, prior to discovering the full potential in the properties of the new materials.

The way the propellers are fixed on with nails set into the casting, the whole profile of the wings and fuselage, even the marking position and style is similar!

Thanks to Adrian again, for the photo-op'.

F is for Follow-up - Cherilea Walls and Various Fences

As stated above, a quick look at Cheilea's little window-box enhancers' first;

Very crude, single-sided detailing, and among the earliest 'large scale' things to be collected by me as they are better suited to small scale scenarios! With the exception of the corner piece they are all stood on small 'pod-feet', the corner piece has a more amorphous base arrangement.

Comparing the Cherilea corner with Speedwell's shows how 'small scale' it is, but then these pieces were mostly used with the 45 and 50mm medieval and 'khaki' infantry window boxes, so it sort of makes sense!

I've shown this question-mark castle before, years ago, but it remains a question-mark! having features in common with various British makers, I assume it is a British piece, but it could be Spanish. Colour is similar to one of the sand-bagged emplacements we've looked at, the 'ear' baselettes however are pretty unique, and scale is 'sub'!

Speedwell, top/front left, with a mystery piece behind it. The mystery piece has the whole Speedwell moulding to the left of its moulding (yellow and red rings) with an extension to the right (beyond dotted-line). Elements of the 'original' are repeated (yellow boxes) but not the whole 'run', and the longer moulding has only the one central foot, which is more formal or engineered than the landscaped blobs of the known Speedwell version.

Which of the two is the original and which the copyist is anyone's guess and they may both be Speedwell? The smaller one is - I'm pretty sure - Taylor &/or Barratt.

These are all recent in-comer's, I have yet to find the small-fences box, where I know I have some in cornflower-blue. I say 'I'm pretty sure' as I seem to recall you get a pair (same colour) tapped together with Sellotape (or a similar proprietary sticky-backed plastic!) inside the small T, T&B or B thatched-cottage/hovel?

This is from Codeg's Camberwick Green sets which we looked at here and is one of the scenic pieces from the boxed sets which each had a building, two or three figures and a couple of scenic elements one of which is this charming little dry-stone wall with cottage gate.

I suppose these are from something like Playmobile or Sylvian? But I took the shot, so it might as well go here! Useful as an unpainted picket-fence in large-scale, or a substantial, but more toy-like barrier in small scale - at about 25mm high.