B is for Blue Bird, not Bluebird, or is it Telsalda?

About two years ago I put a few people (Deadleaf and a couple of others) right on New Maries one of the Hong Kong plastic companies we've managed to ID thanks to Bill B's catalogue, and while they haven't done much with the information, you can imagine my surprise when I saw them being described as "...the father of Telsalda" earlier today, with absolutely no empirical evidence, nor a credit as to where they got New Maries!?

 

Especially as Telsalda are a jobber of the old type, jobbing product to third parties. By which I mean we who tend to call what the Americans tend to call a 'jobber' (or 'jogger' if you are one Mr. Sell!) an 'importer/wholesaler', but Telsalda would have been a jobber to the Brit's as well, jobbing stuff to buyers, at the toy fairs, down in Kowloon harbour, or out of offices in the Toy Building - 200 Fifth Avenue, I don't know that, but it's likely, if you find Telsalda in the US? But this and the fire engine/bus we've seen here, are all UK-oriented.

Yet we can see them here as a sticker on something brand-marked to a Blue Bird Toys? Do Blue Bird also claim New Maries as a Father too? Or Mother perhaps? No, not that Blue Bird Toys are any more or less likely to be an actual branded factory than Telsalda or any number of other brand-marks, phantom brands or flags-of-convenience!

 

Airfix piracy, an almost full set, with the possibly missing figures as speculative text? You also get five balls, might there have been ten? And who policed them, did the shopkeeper have a big sign saying something like "Balls behind the counter, only for purchases of five or more figures"?

 

These are neither the marked ones in pastel colours we've seen before here, nor the ones from the Mike Orchard Enterprises board game, but a third type altogether, and like an idiot I didn't compare with either, so we'll have to return to them another day. I'd say, quality wise, they are between the other Hong Kong and the Mike Orchard?

 

From both sides, Blue Bird footballers, being jobbed by Telsalda, no New Maries involved. Stop makin' it up, guys! You'll always be found out. That's three posts today, all basically correcting other people's rubbish or dispelling myths, it gets boring.

New Maries are best known for Blue Box knock-off farm and zoo, with the odd Noah's ark set and a range of swoppet Wild West they may have bought in, themselves. Telsalda put their name on Jimson stuff, Guiterman stuff, Blue Bird stuff, Ri Toys stuff, and maybe New Maries stuff, but that's the only connection, and you need to provide evidence, not just tell the whole hobby they are Father and Son! There's no real connection.

O is for Ottowa?

Did they have red 'London' buses? Do They?

We're going to have a quick season of plastic vehicle articles, two of which are left over from the last 'follow-ups to the Lucky post's season, two of which I shot the images for at the next Sandown Park show (so thanks' to Adrian Little for all four post's images, and don't forget it's Sandown this coming Saturday), and this posts which was sent in by Brian Berke about a month or two ago.

This is basically the Telsalda bus again and everything I said last time - of an opinionated perspective - applies equally to this one, however there are detail differences which need to be pointed out, but which serve only to underline everything I was getting at in those previous musings.

The first is that the box while being the same at a glance; has no Telsalda logo on the end of the building, while the BOAC logo (British Overseas Airways Company) on the side of the bus in the image has been replaced with the informative - but unnecessary? - Double Decker Bus!

In the box (unlike last time) the stickers bear no relation to the box-art, with Ottawa, Canada and huge Union flag graphics down both sides, I can't begin to guess whether this was an attempt by Hong Kong to find 'any' market for the toy, or something with UK Tourist Board money behind it, or if Ottawa actually had red buses to sell toys of?

The other major difference is a deliberate removal of the code-number by drilling a bloody great hole in the tool-block where the number was placed and allowing it to fill with plastic. Also the silver plating on the wheel-hubs hasn't happened, so they are a neutral-granule looking; creamy-white.

Brian photographed it with the likely donor a Dinky die-cast model, however my comments last time about the number of donors holds true with the 'not'-Telsalda having a more rounded frontage to the roof and a more pronounced curve to the body-panel which comes down off the floor of the upper deck to the pillar at the back of the engine compartment

The box of the Telsalda version we looked at last time, along with three others to show the size variation of these plastic vehicle models;  the tipper truck from that previous tranche and two fire appliances we will be looking at in the next few days.

Then we must have a News Views or two - a PW168 review is due - it arrived yesterday; full of lovely things!

While posting I double-checked Brian's email and . . . "I bought this in Ottawa back in the late 70's. They had old London RT's running sightseeing tours, most memorable for all the wood worm eaten floors on the upper deck!", so my bad, and a quick Google reveals open-topped ex-London RT's - which pre-dated Routemasters - so a ready market for a Hong Kong plastic toy.

T is for Telsalda

I've seen references to this company as being Spanish, but as far as I know it was a Hong Kong maker or brand, shipping to various markets one of which may well have been Spain? They have been linked with both Lucky and Clifford (all three carrying the same vehicles), but the links I posted the other day also suggest they produced a range [their own?] of scale-ups from Lucky.

Just to be devious we will therefore look at a third scale! This is as close to an OO -gauge compatible scale as makes no difference and could be a copy of any British maker's; as it's such a distinctive vehicle there were several 'original' models to copy from.

What I mean is; while it's easy to say all versions of the Humber 1-ton truck are ultimately copies of Dinky, as Dinky were the only firm to make a decent version of a vehicle which in 'real-life' never went on to have a large run or become a service vehicle, the London bus was so iconic everybody made one . . . or two! And providing the windows are in the right place, the roof sections, 'lines' and so on properly modeled - in scale - there's no way of telling who the 'donor' was. There's a very real chance it was based on the Tudor Rose plastic version - it all seems to be in the bonnet (is this one a Leyland?), the bodywork rarely differs greatly.

Again, this has the fold-back tabs holding the motor-housing in place that yesterday's VW Beetle had (except I'm loading this the same day the Beetle publishes - which I loaded last week - but for you it's 'yesterday's'!), this is not necessarily a big clue, but it's one of those identifiers which help place these toys (of which there were hundreds) in groups to build a better picture of the HK toy industry and its supply-chain relationships.

The other main variant is the four brass (or 'brassed' (brass-anodised) - some of them rust!) eyelet-rivets, with others having screws, small slot-head bolts, or solid aluminium rivets

I think the model code was No.454, but it's not as clear a picture as I hoped! This is not a typical Lucky code (they were 1xx, 1xxA, 30xx, 50xx, 70xx, and 6xxxx for combined sets), but as the Telsalda box code is B5046 (closer to a Lucky code!) there's the usual lack of clarity there - that one expects from Hong Kong! Was 5046 a Lucky bus, leaving 'B' as the contract code for Telsalda?

Telsalda did another version of a Routemaster bus with larger bonnet/engine (Daimler?) but otherwise the same configuration of windows, roof &etc. It had clear windows, yellow seating and a driver, this (probably later) model has blue tinted windows hiding the fact that it’s hollow!

D is for Dinky Firemen are so Lucky!

I was going to do a Lucky Toys page like the World Dolls/Dancers, but it's actually easier to break it down into pieces, as some bits are simple, this is one of the simple bits! Lucky Dinky got enlarged by Luck-y . . . yeah, I'm labouring a bad pun here, let's move swiftly on.

I had forgotten that I posted these a while ago, so re-shot them; if you click the Dinky tag you'll get the other post a little below this one. Dinky's firemen; older than other Dinky figures; like those we saw yesterday, so not showing the distinctive hand of Charles Stadden, but rather the smoother style of some unsung sculptor.

The base marking (not a brilliant shot but try tipping your screen - or moving your head up or down - and it may become clearer); similar to the rail staff that came in the same blue plastic, but they were in an OO-gauge compatible size, rather than the approximately 35mm of these firemen.

Four of the poses were subsequently copied in roughly 50mm by the Hong Kong firm Lucky Toys, who used them in various sets, both badged to themselves as The lucky Toys and their subsidiary brand Laurie Toys, however they were also supplied to the importers/jobbers Clifford, Cragstan, Fairylight, Jimson, and Larami (among others), sometimes with the Lucky logo retained on packaging (some Fairylite), sometimes not!

There were other sources through further contract manufacture (Century21) while other brands OK, TAT and Telsalda for instance may be connected through contract or subsidiary brand status it's not clear and further complicated by some of them having ranges in different scales of the same vehicles - mostly Corgi or Dinky clones. I can't possibly pretend to be an expert on them all, but there is a fair bit in the plastics section of Planetdiecast. [Thanks to Woodsey at Moonbase Central for that tip]

Lucky numbered all their figures in the larger scale and the other two poses may well be out there as there is a gap in the numbering which points to them existing? We will be returning to the numbering (and its gaps!) in future posts.

548 - Fireman standing, both arms forward   (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

549 - Fireman with breathing gear (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

550 - ?

551 - ?

552 - Fireman with hose end (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

553 - Fireman running, waving with right hand (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

Marking for Lucky Toys is a bloody nightmare, but fortunately - due to the unique (for Lucky figures) full square/whole base marks, they are a bit easier to delineate in this case; there being only four (so far!) types.

Top left is the probable first or Lucky original, with the HONG KONG removed from the right-hand one, possibly to facilitate demand from a client selling in a country that was finding the buying public adopting the 'all Hong Kong is crap' of my parents!

The other two will be for subcontracts I think, but it's not hard and fast and as we will be seeing in a day or two, there are actual Lucky brand base marks (with the horseshoe looping an 'L'), and as yet none has turned-up on these firemen's bases?

We will also find that the 1112 sub-number is a batch (or contract/customer) code being present on all bases of the same type, irrespective of the figure-pose, and applied to two of the round marks we'll look at later as well as one of the lozenge bases.

Examples of three of the base types and some paint/plastic colour variations, I have three figures with the fourth type base mark (or I wouldn't have bothered CAD'ing them up - I know some people will go to extraordinary lengths in their attempts to make stuff up, even to inventing a whole port - huh Paul? But that's not my way) however; they are all damaged and didn't get photographed.

Models they were issued with is - again - not my field, but among the few I know of are;

Lucky

114 - Fire Engine (with push-and-go gyro-friction motor, US style ladder truck)

178F - Fire Chief (Buick saloon-car)

195 - Fire Engine (Dennis?)

196 - Fire Truck (forward-control Land Rover)

- Land Rover Fire Service (series-3 Land Rover)

Clifford

22/4175 (? or ..73) - Fire Engine (AEC, friction powered with siren, ladder/pumper)

No. 232R - Fire Chief Ford Zodiac (saloon-car)

- Fire Engine ('No.21 Fire Brigade', Dennis (?) turntable ladder truck)

SYS

50411 - Fire Engine (friction motor, extending ladder, 1950's type vehicle)

Marx

- Fire Chief (copied by Clifford, station wagon)

Hover

- Snorkel Rescue (US style cab-over hydraulic ladder-truck)

Which of these models also appeared in another or each other's branding, or whether they all had all or any of the figures is also unknown - to me!

Other figures supplied to Cragstan were unpainted or minimal-paint versions of Lucky's (VW camper van for instance) and as I haven't found such firemen yet, I'm proceeding on the assumption they didn't carry the Lucky fire appliances, but Cragstan were a US concern, also imported from some of Lucky's rivals and seem to have concentrated on 'autos & race-cars' as the Americans would put it, but on fire trucks American collectors may know different, Erwin Sell probably went to all twelve factories the year before he was born; in Port Tain Sang no doubt?