Pirates is for Crazy Comic Piraten Serie Piratas Bucaneros Filibusteros Corsarios Berberiscos . . . and Then Some!

I didn't know how to tackle this lot, and ended-up with far too many images, some of which I know are other peoples, and which have been left out, although one or two have been kept in. Also, in the end I decided to go with the vague order they seem to have been issued in, but it's not necessarily a true timeline, so bear that in mind.

'THE' Pirate Premiums

 

Appearing around Europe in the early 1970's, there were different configurations of them, with the UK getting a paltry six poses which we have seen before, and other people getting the full twenty.

They first seem to have appeared in Spain (and Portugual?) as Arial soap-powder/detergent premiums, where they are subdivided into five groups of four figures, and next time we visit them - when I bring all mine together - I will shoot them in this order;

 

http://chicledunkin.blogspot.com/search/label/Piratas

 

Full translation of that page;

 

Aunque estas figuras son mas grandes que las Dunkin, para mi es una serie totémica, la recuerdo perfectamente de mi infancia......

 

Although these figures are larger than the Dunkin ones, for me it is a totemic series, I remember it perfectly from my childhood...... 

En realidad son figuras de unos 5 cm, 20 piratas que venían en el detergente Ariel en 1971-1972 mas o menos. 4 colores mates preciosos (para mi los mejores del mundo, los europeos son mas brillantes y en america el plastico demasiado duro...) en plastico blando (lo que hace mas dificil encontrarlas sin defecntos) amarillo, verde, rojo y azul.

In reality they are figures of about 5 cm, 20 pirates that came in the Ariel detergent in 1971-1972 or so. 4 beautiful matte colors (for me the best in the world, the European ones are brighter and in America the plastic is too hard...) in soft plastic (which makes it more difficult to find them without defects) yellow, green, red and blue.

En el paquete recuerdo que venia un dibujo de los piratas agrupados en 5 series de 4, Piratas, Bucaneros, Filibusteros, Corsarios y Berberiscos. Si reunias una serie te daban un premio en metálico y si conseguias los 20 supongo que te darian otro mejor.....

In the package I remember that there was a drawing of the pirates grouped into 5 series of 4, Pirates, Buccaneers, Filibusters, Corsairs and Berbers. If you collected a series they gave you a cash prize and if you got the 20 I guess they would give you a better one.....

Debajo os pongo un scan del trozo de carton donde venian los piratas Dibujados, Aunque no pone el nombre de cada grupo yo si recuerdo cuales eran, El jefe de cada grupo es el primero por la izquierda del dibujo. Como veis, el orden en que los puse segun los recordaba no era el mismo del cartón, pero iba bien encaminado ¿no?

Below I put a scan of the piece of cardboard where the Drawn pirates came. Although it doesn't say the name of each group, I do remember what they were. The leader of each group is the first one on the left of the drawing. As you can see, the order in which I put them as I remembered them was not the same as on the cardboard, but I was on the right track, right?

 

Just a note on the first paragraph, he's not saying Dunkin did these in a smaller size, but that they are bigger than the other Dunkin he collects which are usually around 25/30mm and also tend to come in 20's.

We need some pictures here . . . 

In the UK, Kellogg's issued only six (top left image), with Coco-Crispies and Puffa-Puffa Rice (a Quaker Sugar Puffs knock-off!), and the same colours as the Ariel premiums, there are all four versions of Cascanueces in the bottom-left image. The duplicated olive-green figure and the two white ones are oddments who have come in recently.

 

Cereal Offers do them better justice here

At around the same time Americana bubble-gum were issuing them in Germany (and South Eastern France/Italy?), as Piraten Serie, with these two images from old evilBay auctions showing that in addition to the 'standard' four colours, they also got creamy-white ones

The above three iterations were all manufactured by Tito, a premium maker in Portugal, and most carry the Tito mark somewhere, along with the given name. At some point in the late 1970's the mould-tools migrated to Peru, where the colour range got much better!

 

This is my Peruvian sample as they arrived, they are of mixed parentage however, or might be, so these are the notes I made when they arrived, I've listed them alphabetically for now;

• Arrigon (the only figure marked on the feet)
• Al Epacha (Tito mark on trouser cuff, name down cloak)*
• Barbarrója 'Red Beard'
• Cara Cortada 'Scar Face' (letter 'A' is visible, might be bootleg)
• Cascanueces 'Nutcracker'
• Corsario Azul 'Blue Corsair'
• El Arana 'Spider'
• El Bisco 'Biscuit' (no Tito mark, reversed letter 'F' is visible, might be bootleg)
• El Jorobado 'The Hunchbacked' (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
• El Manco 'The Lame' [hand not foot]
• El Pecas 'Freckles'
• El Pupas 'The Baby'
• El Tuerto 'One-eye'
• Ivan
• Jack el Negro 'The Black'**
• Morgan (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
• Mustafa
• Papatalo ('The Unbeaten, Unconquered'?)
• Sebastian
• Taric (no Tito mark, letter 'E' is visible, might be bootleg)

* might be Ali Epacha or Al Iepacha . . . 'The Pasha'?
* *Not apparently a racist epithet, the features being clear and of European or 'everyman' appearance, with long straight hair, so; black-hearted, or up to no good!

 

Check Juan's comment below for more on the origin/meaning of these.

 

A similar grouping but I moved them around and swapped a few colours out to make it a better image, a few months later, then kept both for the post anyway! The quality of these is as good as the Euro-issues, but you can see from the notes, that things are starting to go pear-shaped on the tool, specifically with the text and logo-markings, I now suspect these are all the ex-Tito moulds and not bootlegs, as we are about to look at some bootlegs!

At around the same time, some company in the USA, Rubenstein International Inc. (1977) started shipping these fellows in from Mexico, bags have multiple pose duplicates and what appears to be a limited number of poses, but that remains to be confirmed by multiple samples, and I suspect all 20 poses might eventually turn-up.
 

A limited palette of colours includes red, blue, yellow and white, similar to the Euro-issues, but look at the flash and the overall quality, if there are bootlegs out there, these are they, or someone thrashed the tool to within an inch of its life, between Peru and Mexico!

http://vmminiartemonocromaticos.blogspot.com/2010/07/p.html

This guy seems to have only used eBay images without captions or context, so it's not possible to conclude what any of this means, but interesting colours, and suggestions of other issues somewhere, I particularly like the jade-green set of 20 figures. But you can also see the olive and white ones I've started picking-up, so someone around here had issues of both . . . Bonux, Christmas crackers, Maltese festival treats?

It has to be pointed out that the size and levels of caricature of these pirates, means they would mix quite well with the Antipodean Crazy Pirates we saw here

 

But we finish with darker stuff . . . 

 

I was hoping Giselle over at Mokarex would have something useful for this post, as she still owes me about 40 images under the 10-for-1 rule, but her pirate page is shit, she's nicked the Cereal Offers artwork, but all chopped-up and low-res, while she's photoshopped some eBay Peruvian figures which are not the Kellogg's colours, the page purports to represent! Only two of them are right . . . Thieves are thick, you see, somewhere to the left of the bell-curve!

 

But we end with this piece of hilarity from Kent Specher in the 'States, image used for research purposes, with full acknowledgement, wouldn't want to blame anyone else for this dog's dinner of a complete joke.

 

First;  They didn't make tea, they made chicory-coffee! Ersatzkaffee! Then we find there are too many poses, Linde only carried 14 of the designs! Why is there a Tito/Ola ice-cream premium Roman from the Asterix sets in the middle of the already too-big group, at 'K'? And the colours are all wrong!

Unbelievable, staggering incompetence, make it up as you go along to make up for a lack of research; *sloppy* is - I believe - the term used in Pennsylvania! The truth, had he bothered to look for it, is here;

https://www.lindefiguren.at/fotogalerie-linde/piraten/

 

And I've posted links to that site several times I think; most recently when we looked at the spacemen! Again, I've translated the page for English readers;

14 Piraten gibt es von Linde. Von links nach rechts heißen sie: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon und Cara Cortada. Der Name ist am Rücken oder an den Beinen zu lesen, daneben sind die Linde-Piraten natürlich immer geprägt. Die zarte Kennung kann leicht übersehen werden. Am häufigsten ist die Farbe blau.

There are 14 pirates from Linde. From left to right they are: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon and Cara Cortada. The name can be read on the back or on the legs, and of course the Linde Pirates are always embossed next to them. The delicate identifier can be easily overlooked. The most common color is blue.

Wesentlich seltener sind sie in den Farben gelb, grün und rot.

They are much rarer in color yellow, green and red.

20 Piraten wurden von der spanischen Firma TITO produziert. Nur 14 davon gibt es mit Linde-Kennung. Ob es Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas und Barbar Roja (siehe Abbildung) auch von Linde und auch in weiß gibt, bezweifle ich. Die Tito-Piraten wurden in Tüten verkauft. Tito produzierte auch die bekannten Dargaud-Figuren. Die Linde-Piraten waren natürlich im Kaffee.

20 pirates were produced by the Spanish company TITO. Only 14 of them are available with Linde identification. I doubt whether Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas and Barbar Roja (see picture) are also available from Linde and in white. The Tito Pirates were sold in bags. Tito also produced the well-known Dargaud figures. The Linde Pirates were of course in the coffee.

And the Linde are logo-marked and likely to be slightly different-sized copies (I don't have any, so I don't know for sure), most of their stuff was copied, as Kent would know if he'd read the series of recent articles in a certain magazine I won't mention, by an author I won't mention either, as neither would want to be associated with this in any way, but Kent knows!

 

What Kent has here, what's in the above image, is either Peruvian  product, from the old Tito/Ola/Dunkin (et al.) group of tools (likely, with the Roman present) or Mexican bootlegs, and which, from the state of it, the colours. and the Roman (!!!!!!), is a test-shot or factory sample of some kind, probably off of evilBay, to which, with no knowledge of the subject whatsoever, he added a shit-ton of text with no research or checking of even basic facts with all the available resources!

 

19 pirates! Not Linde's 14, not Ariel's 20, but 19 . . . and a Roman, in a different size! "Look Ma, I gave them all letters!" But he thinks he can come over here and tell me I've got 'Lots wrong'? Staggering arrogance.

And if you're wondering why some of my Rubenstein images are the same as his, it's becasue we took them from the same seller about a year ago!

F is for Formula Freebee!

Well, I got into the groove and though we could have the rest of the day on vaguely HO or OO-gauge compatible racing cars, although we saw the first of these a while ago, the Tito trio should be new to Blog, and are a better 'fit' than the diminutive cereal premiums.

A sizer with a Hong Kong machine, from the previous post, to the left, the cereal - and other - premium in the middle and a Tito Elf-Tyrell on the right, the Tito is the odd-one-out here; being a soft polyethylene to the 'styrene of the other two.

As I say, we've looked at these before, and I put a couple of them together, properly,  at the time, so I've just emptied the bag for a quick shot to get across the part-count (+/-13) and colour variation (at least eight colours or shades).

I will return to these again in a year or a few, but not until I've sourced more pale-blue, orange and white examples!

Bonnet-numbers indentified so far are 2, 5, 22 and 28, but there are no vehicle types marked on them, so whether you got that from the packet-artwork or kid's comic adverts/publicity material or just have to guess them I don't know?

Tito's Ice Cream premiums, reading from the left and following the bonnet-numbers system with advertising moulded-on in raised-relief (in brackets), we have;

11 -Tyrell-Ford (Ford-ELF-Goodyear-Champion)

14 - McLaren-Ford M19 (Ford-Gulf-Goodyear-Champion-Yardley-Lockheed)

3 - March-Ford 721 (Ford-ELF-Goodyear-STP)

Which may mean these are Formula Ford? I seem to recall there was such a thing, although I recognise the Tyrell-Ford as what we called an Elf-Tyrell when we were kids, I'm sure it's the same one which got the short-lived (and destroyed the opposition before being banned) 6x6 conversion and they were both Formula 1?

Each comes as the same number of parts/basic components on a frame-runner, probably in a baking-paper envelope, and I assume there must be at least a forth model out there somewhere, maybe more?

Close-ups of two of the rear wings with their relief-moulded advertising. So - if I recall correctly - The 11-car should be a sort of Prussian-blue, the 14 a pale-blue with orange stripes (? The sports-saloons' famously were!) and I don't know on the three, lots of cars had the STP ovals?

F is for Fuchsia-Flushed Feline

As well as 'the year of the footballers', 2018 has also been the year of the carmine cougar, here on Small Scale World; equally accidentally, although with some design in the middle of the year when I looked for a few on feeBay! There weren't many in the storage lots, but three have turned-up in time to be posted before the year's end!

The key-ring we've seen before, around 50mm and old-school PVC, the 'green panther' is an old European premium (Olà Ice Cream?) in polyethylene and showing all the signatures of Tito except the mark, while the bike must have been Corgi's entry for novelty vehicle of 1979!

A rocket-firing, low-raked, street-fighter! What the fuck's that all about, the Pink Panther may have covered his little nemesis in paint occasionally, even helped him down a few holes in the road or pavement, but last time I looked he wasn't a cold-blooded killer?

The cowling is a styrene polymer and can be damaged if it comes into contact with the PVC cat, while the die-cast body has polyethylene wheels and I think this probably went in a little sub-set with the Muttley thing?

S is for Sorry

I knew you wouldn't want the swan and babies for a whole day, so here's an apology!

When I published the Novalinea set of Lucky Luke with a bit of a "well I never", I'd forgotten that Juan Angel ('Gog' of Toys from the Past) had actually educated me, some time earlier, to the connection when he sent me these two images, so - sorry Gog; you'd told me! I'm not apologising to the rest of you, for subjecting you to a floating swan with attendant rug-rats . . . live with it!

Nice bagged set of loose figures, with an interesting mix of unpainted and painted figures, the header card artwork is the same as the blister-card, but simplified, so possibly a later issue; clearing unsold stock, it's not a full set?

Gog actually sent me several shots of the bag (from both sides) and I used them to get the following collages together of the various figures . . .

Painted Figures

Animals

Unpainted - as per the original premiums

There are several poses here that weren't in the other set, both undertakers (?), the dog and the prison-garb Dalton's, so it must have been a larger set. The dog is actually a spitter for the Scoobie-Doo from Comics Spain?

Also today I published a minor page on sale condition/description, it gets a bit ranty at one point but those male doll collectors take themselves far too seriously!

C is for Clip Together

No more than an overview with these today, it was a bit of serendipity and a reader contribution which led to this post and I have many more in storage so we will look at them properly by company/type another day (or: other days!), for now, let's just get an idea of the wide range of mini (or micro) model-kits which were available as - mostly breakfast cereal - premiums, many - but not all - supplied by R&L (Rosenhain & Lipmann) of Australia, primarily (in the UK) to Kellogg's Foods.

Kellogg's liner which we've seen here on the Blog before and racing cars which were also issued by Sanitarium in the antipodes, as well as someone on the continent (Portuguese food company?), so they often turn-up, but with all the little pieces (especially the wheel hubs); are rarely whole. I do have another bunch in storage including orange, red and white examples so we will look at them again one day. The driver moulding is the same for every car, so you can build him half-and-half - two colours, he looks good in black and orange!

Various ages and generations of bits for the Montaplex Bi-plane, I picked these up as a single lot in a larger bag of mixed bits; someone was obviously building himself a 'circus'! Between the bits I can still get one airborne!

These are all soft ethylene plastic with the WWII fighters (and sub-scale Heinkel? Mostly bits) having been given-away in the UK with boys comics (Fury, Valiant and Warlord), as part of the hype surrounding the release of the movie Battle of Britain - I believe? Sellotaped to the cover as an unmade kit on the chunky frame...for years I wondered (not being a 'plane guy') if they were Atlantic, the frames are chunky enough!

The Concord (I think?) is one of three (or four) in a set with The Tupolev and Boing efforts, possibly from Quaker Foods or Weetabix?. I say "I think" as there were several sets with Concord in and I'm not sure which is which!

I bought the bagged ones at a car boot sale quite a few years ago, the chap had loads of them in a fruit basket, so I assumed they were a new issue or a re-issue of older moulds which he'd picked-up as a job lot or as clearance, so bought one of each, but I think they may be the 1970's originals, now, which is annoying as I would have grabbed them all, he only wanted pennies... The broken-up bits have come in with mixed lots over the years and I think between the two shots are aircraft from two different sets?

While the ME109 is probably a modern 1:144 kit, but he's in with the medium-smallies in the unknown bag!

Jet Petrol (gasoline) stations issued this lovely set of 10 (?) cars for quite a while, so they are not too uncommon, and while I'm missing one or two, I'm hoping I might have them in storage, but if not they will turn up one day!

One made-up and broken into its constituent parts, a pair with a colour variation and two soft-plastic (polyethylene) cars from Europe - Spain or Portugal I think...Tito? I do have some Ford and Vauxhall rally cars in this style marked Tito, but these two are unmarked.

The  next four images (below) are all courtesy of Andrew Boyce who sent them to me ages ago (before Christmas?) and I said I'd be publishing "soon", "in a day or two hopefully", "probably tomorrow" then in the February splurge...only for time, Nathaniel and Voda'fail to intervene in their timeless fashion! Can time be timeless? There's an existential debate for a cold winter's evening!



A lovely shot with samples of various sets Kellogg's issued, along with both Gerry Anderson sets complete. I also remember a set of clip-together Tony the Tigers', with another set of train kits coming out of Italy.

Of interest to me in this shot is the set of blue wheels on the red estate car (station-wagon) as the ones I have all came with black wheels and the helicopter which I was unaware of.

This shows the kid's comic ad. for the Captain Scarlet vehicles shown in Andrew's image above, I think I have the Patrol Car somewhere, and shot the SPV before Christmas here on the blog, it's a lovely little model, almost 1:300th scale, with all the little wheels (10 of them in two sizes!) separate.

I suspect these were from a different source than the others, they are much chunkier with only a few (or no - TB4) parts, and lack the finesse of the R&L stuff. It was including some of these in the novelty posts before Christmas which triggered Andrew's contribution, which in turn led me to gather up a few bits and bobs to photograph for this post.

Sugar Stars and Coco Crispies gave-up this set of six vehicles which we will return to one day as I have a tub of whole and partial ones somewhere! Like a lot of these cereal premiums, they were issued elsewhere by other brands or products, sometimes in different combinations, so some seem commoner over here than others, the train and 'Rocket' seem easier to obtain than the car, while I think I've seen the bus (still on the frame) in a small box as an Italian pocket-money toy. 

 Finally; an old scan intended for an article on wagons in Plastic Warrior magazine's little brother 1"W which never happened! A rather damaged London taxi from the 100 Years of Transport above (1834 Hansom Cab) it came with a horse and I think a better version in blue was shown on the Cabinet of Curious Things posts, but I haven't got the images here (editing away from the internet) and the tag list may not help!

I don't often deal with the filthy subject of money, but seeing some of the buy-it-now (BIN) prices of things like this, it's worth considering this: even though you are always competing with other collecting field's aficionados; train buffs, space fans, 'plane-spotters, more general premium collectors, kit guys, TV & Movie fans...so prices are often high even for common examples, you should always remember they made millions of them and you should set a limit and stick to it, I aim at no more than a pound a piece.

Let's do some hypothetical maths; Say two [popular] cereal brands (from the same manufacturer) run a joint-promotion with comic and early-evening TV adds, of a random-packed set of 4 models for 4 months in 1975, selling (even as early as the 1950/60's) maybe 100,000 packs a week to a population of approximately 12,000,000 baby-boom households (now closer to 16 million, but with less school-age kids per household).

100,000 packs x 16 weeks x 2 brands / 4 models = potentially 800,000 individual units of your searched-for 'rarity' were once out there! It's 'ball park' but it's not fancifully way-out there.

'Family Sized' packs may have two models (or five against three, three against two) which might push our fictional total to a million-odd, better known or more popular brands like Cornflakes might issue 500,000 packs a week? Three months (or two years) later the models are run again, or in another brand, or with another foodstuff, or in another country, or the model you're after is put in another set... Tom Smith get the mouldings (Quaker Gladiators) for 25,000 boxes of budget Christmas crackers, in four designs - six years running, or in more 'promotional' boxes (Thunderbirds figures)... a HK company or two copies them (jig toys)...finally some warehouse lets the remnants go by the bagful (Coca-Cola animals) as clearance or pocket-money toys to another country.

There's so much more to these, and as a specific collection, they can take-up surprisingly little room, but take a lifetime to track down as colour variations, mint in pack examples etc...but please - keep it in perspective, a 5-quid or $10 BIN is not worth the pain, when mixed lots might be had for 99p plus postage.

And many thanks to Andrew for the additional images.

Next day...Brian Berke sent this image of a "rubbery" plastic copy from Hong Kong of one of the R&L toys [2023 - probably Rubenstein rack-toys], still on the frame, he remembers the Rocket loco and has a Hansom Cab in the same neutral colour of soft polymer...remembering also they came from a 99-cent store in NY; approximately 1986. And that's a New York pound for scale!

L is for Lucky Luke

This is an unusual set, branded to Novalinea (Comansi), it contains what I think is a complete set of the Lucky Luke bubble-gum and ice cream premiums made by (and still marked;) Tito.

Obviously with these premiums there was always a search for other ways to market them once the promotion they were originally commissioned for has come to an end, and you often find them turning up elsewhere - as with the Tatra Warriors of the World. But to get the whole set, nicely laid-out is a treat.

A close-up of Luke and his near neighbours, I have most of these loose in storage, so we will return to look at them in grater detail another time. Indeed, I may have all of them, as I think I've got the vulture in another place with the rest of the known or suspected Spanish/Portuguese premiums?

Around the same time as I took these into the collection I also picked-up this copy of the smallest but eldest Dalton brother - Joe, he's a very poor-quality copy, but without any obvious mark, not even an HK so he remains a real question mark.

The copy Dalton's feet compared to the feet of the Indian female - I had trouble getting the mark to show, purely down to the plastic colour, but you can see how poor the copy is, unmarked, without the two little holes all the originals have, but with tons of flash.

Because this is the only copy from the whole set I've found in 30-odd years of seriously collecting, especially small scale (and as a stand-alone piece he is 'small scale'), I wonder if he was the only one copied - because of his size (maybe the vulture as well?) - as a gum-ball gift, he's certainly small-enough for a capsule machine of that era - the Kinder-egg sized stuff is more modern. But that's all just musing or pure conjecture?

D is for Dunkin, Disney and Deutschland!

Reader/follower 'Gerhard' of Germany sent me some interesting shots the other day and although he's missed my return email and plea below somewhere, I've cobbled together a couple of posts round what he sent.

This is entirely collage'd from Gerhard's images, and is very interesting as it shows the Tito logo on an Americana gum envelope. It also states MADE IN SPAIN when the Americana company is centred near Aachen south of the Ardens (although Munich is stated on these packs), so I guess they were all part of a bigger multinational that also involved Dunkin, Tylers/Mundi and Jopar...all part of the Sanchez group????! - In the end it does your head in!

Anyway - nice shots of the envelope and a full set of the Disney figures, as Gerhard stated in his eMail; these were originally Marx Disneykins, manufactured in Hong kong in hard styrene. At some point the Marx arm in Europe; Heimo got sets of moulds for a fair few of the TV, Movie and cartoon character sets in various sizes and produced them in unpainted softer ethylene's, even shipping some back to the states.

Somehow they - the 'kin' moulds - seem to have gone to Tito (and/or Olá?) where they were supplied to all sorts of bubble-gum, ice-cream and other food companies as premiums from the mid-to-late 1960's until the early 1980's, after which some (Tin Tin) ended up in Mexico, others got as far as Taiwan (Asterix) where some of the original Marx Miniature Masterpieces had been made!

I meant to knock-up the notes for this post at home and forgot so I can't remember the name of the show from which the characters in the two lower left shots come from! It was an European TV cartoon though! Some kind person chuck the name in 'comments' if you know it, I won't be back here till next Wednesday! Added 24th Feb 2013 - Jan Koolen has let me know they are from the European TV cartoon Nils Holgersson, thanks Jan.

The other shots are either colour variations from Portugal (Olá) or Spain (Tito) or other characters from the old TV Tinykins range, taken from the oeuvres of Warner Brothers or Hanna Barberra.

Although distorted by my collageing them together these are pretty much all between 25/40mm. Again - because I didn't pre-load the article, I'm sitting here doing it off the top of my head in the Library and will NOT attempt to name half these critters!

Marx originals; Top is a Swansea large scale ethylene Panchito and two colour variants of the Disneykin.
Below him we have various Peter-pan characters, again all Disneykins. The last shot shows Hong Kong and Heimo treatments of Captain Hook in both Styrene (small) and PVC vinyl (Large) respectively.

Larger Vinyls at top, these are mostly unlicensed HK copies of Schlich, Bully (Heimo's modern trademark) or Papo, Daisy Duck is Heimo to the left and Marx to the right, Gerhard mentions getting the Schlich ones every time he went to the Dentist, any other German readers remember freebies. Also it wasn't clear if he was talking about the larger vinyls or the smaller ethylenes?

Below are some more old Marx figures to the right and a Heimo character who's name I've forgotten, but she was a US TV cartoon from the 50's (Little Orphan Annie, Dagwood? - something like that!)

Pecos Bill - one of the most pirated figures in the history of toy figures; Top row are all Marx/Heimo (Swansea ethylene is the unpainted yellow one on the left), bottom row are all Christmas Cracker/Lucky bag giveaways, with various stages of remoulding or decrepitude from 4 different sources!

M is for Miscellaneous

A bit of a follow-up on previous posts and some new stuff, which came about after a follower; 'Gerhard' from Germany - sent me a few pictures the other day...

These are both from him, in the upper shot a handful of the Mundi/Dunkin type animals we looked at, ooh....over a year ago now? New colours and they apparently came 3 to a bag from Tito, who seem to have generated a lot of these 'premiums'.

Below is a near full-set with the various Deer/Antelope that were missing from the original post so we can now compare them with the bag-art shown then.

The blue Bear (third from right - bottom row) and the brown Kangaroo seem to be from other sets/sources.

The Photographs have loaded the wrong way, but I can't be arsed to sort it out or re-load them, so this was going to be the last image (a bit of a 'round-up') but is here instead!

Three Bonitos tube tops, there were 5 in total I believe, and the full set can be seen in one of the Konrad books. Above them are some larger (nominally 54mm) Tom & Jerry character models, the First Tom from the left and the Jerry from the far Right are the common versions, made by Marx probably in Hong Kong for the Swansea works. The Jerry on a block of cheese, is not marked with a makers logo, but has the license info clearly displayed, he also looks as if he was designed to be standing on a pencil sharpener but there is neither a sharpener in situ or the hole for one, so I suspect he's more the sort of thing you'd find in a card shop like Hallmark or 'Birthdays'. The other Tom I used to think was a shrinkage variation but closer inspection reveals he's quite different, and may be a re-sculpt following damage to the original mould? Probably all Marx, just different sources, some may be for Swansea?

Below them is a Jecsan Yogi Bear from Spain and a Boo-boo from - I don't know where! He is clearly supposed to be holding an umbrella which is missing the parasol and looks like he could be Blue Box or Lucky? Might be Marx Swansea again!

The last shot is a Hong Kong Christmas Cracker toy using pirates of the Marx Fairykins Jack and Jill to produce a see-saw 'action' toy! The originals are the painted ones.

Apparently these are mostly Nabisco Foods cereal premiums, the four Flintstones characters to the right are from a more modern set, maybe a pocket-toy fold-away diorama/play set thing? The Disney Robin Hood set is factory over-production and a shed-load were doing the rounds of shows a few years ago.

One of the reasons I'm always saying this stuff is not rare is that once you've made the machine-tool/mould it's easy to churn them out until you're blue in the face, they then pile up at various stages of their life cycle...producer factory, packer, distributor, outworkers (if they are painted) etc...and depending on when or why they are withdrawn, you can guarantee someone will find a box-full 15 years later!

07-01-2013 - Both the above are now identified as Tatra mouldings.

More Tatra for Nabisco - I think (input on all the last four sets appreciated) with two Tito marked characters from the same movie at the bottom right. I though they were from 'The Lady and The Tramp' but apparently is something called 'Aristocats'...showing my age again!!

So there are a few curiosities from the land of food premiums, mostly 1970's or early 1980's, and thanks again to Gerhard for the images.

P is for Pirrates Proparrr!

Avast me 'arties! I be fouwnd 'der pirrates true!

Made By Tito, and sold all over Europe as Ice Cream, Cereal and other food premiums, probably a Portuguese or Spanish (?) TV cartoon, I'll post more when I find all the notes, just wanted to get them up before midnight. Memory serves that the UK issue only had 6 of the poses, or that there were 10 on the continent? It'll all come out in the wash!

Aah-Haarrr Jim'mlad!

It Would appear that everywhere except Britain (France, Portugal, Spain and various South American countries) they were issued with boxes of Ajax washing powder, I only mention Kellogg's through word of mouth, so they were probably Ajax here to?

Although the 6 versus ten would appear to be actually 8 (or 10?) of 20. As Kellogg's took less than a full set(half in fact) of the Soldiers of the World, this would back-up those who think these are Kellogg's not Ajax.

I've moved the pirate link here from the old News/Views post;

Parai'so Artificia (2021 - now a locked 'invite-only' Blog)

Here are some from South America, again a complete set;

Natux's Blog

I had found another full set from the Iberian Peninsular but seem to have lost it again! How far away is Talk Like A Pirate Day...still, I'll cover some more next year!! Christmas next...

12/11/10 - Thomas Doyle has found the original ad, there were only 6 figures in the Kellogg's set, Barrigon and Patapalo were not part of the issue, as they turned up in the UK, I suspect another issue...Peak Freans, Cadbury's???

Z is for Zoo Animal Premiums

This post is entirely the fault of the 'Philosophic Toad' who in her question on the Bonux post, got me started on a day's research which has resulted in my not doing a clients garden, not picking up some cash and not going to the shops! As a result I've run out of coffee and tobacco, can you imagine trying to sort out 11 lots of half-understood animals without nicotine or caffeine? Toad - you owe me, however, for you delectation, and the interest of any other interested passers-by, here is my take on some (not all!) of the non-domestic animal gifts, giveaways and premiums issued over the years. [Toad made-up by sending me two images of the original ad's, and a follow-up post has now been done, when I've more time I'll re-do them both into one, but in the meantime, if you open them both in two tabs, you can flick between the two for a slightly fuller - if more confusing! - picture. new post is here; Update ]

I'll do acknowledgments first this time;

Kent Sprecher's Toy Soldier HQ provides an image of the Lido mouldings here;
Wild Animals

Jean-Claude Pifret's 'Figurines Publicitaires' gives a list and photographs of the Bonux/Mir/Omo ranges.

Wayne Ratcliffe's Cluck Vol.2 gives lists and dates for two sets, and I have a photocopy of the original advert for one set which seems to have come from Vol.1.

Lots of Spanish and Portuguese language websites/pages were found but my lack of both languages meant they were of limited use, however they did contribute to the overall picture, so thanks to the many, everything else is my own guesstimation!

The first picture shows the Kellogs animals as laid out in the Cluck Vol.1 picture, with three other animals, two of which are seen in the Lido set, linked to above; Buffalo and Moose, the Wild Boar is in the same vein, but could well be a Dom/Manurba moulding, or similar (Jean/Big, French premium?). The Lido link means these were almost certainly provided by Tudor*Rose.

Issued by Kellogg's in their Puffa-Puffa Rice and Coco Krispies breakfast cereals, announced as 'Zoo Animals' in kids comic in May 1971 (Hotspur, 22nd May to be specific). A set of ten (still no Wild Boar?) were issued in Canada (and the USA?) in Sugar Pops, also by Kellogg's as 'Big Game Hunters Favorite Wild Animals' (and everything in the picture has been hunted and shot by humans in the last 200 years...), these would most likely have been Lido Originals.

We then hit this set, very similar, but much finer sculpting, and a larger range. Now the first thing you'll notice is - during the photo-session I labeled-up the group to represent the missing figures in the list of animals issued by Kellogg's at some other period (still unknown to me) in the 70's, however, as I was doing the photo's it struck me they may have been Cadbury's not Kellogg's. Ratcliffe's notes in Cluck Vol.2 on the first (8 animal) set gets to mentioning a pose variant of the Buffalo and Nabisco "shaped biscuits", and I think he was confusing the two sets as the same set.

I was already thinking of the Cadbury's Animal shaped chocolate biscuits and Google has not helped! However, I have one 1980's plastic flat of a blue Elephant with a big square base marked Cadbury, so they may well have had a similar promotion in the 1970's?

Because I photographed them as if they were the Kellogg's set below, I left out the two bottom left, if they were issued with biscuits, then they will be part of the set, as will the two Tigers, as I was looking for one! The Moose behind the Tigers is in a hard nylon plastic and points to another source of these animals somewhere? Again apart from the red Moose, these are Tudor*Rose in style and colour, why they needed to re-design 10 of them is anyone's guess, but clearly newer production methods led to finer castings.

I can't just publish a photo of the image in FP without the permission of the author/publishers, and don't have time to seek it, so will describe as best I can. There are two sets of animals, both sets are in both gold and Silver/Gunmetal with a painted Giraffe and variants of 3 of the larger set giving 30 to look for, with others bound to be still undiscovered/yet to be ascribed.

In the larger set The Bear is the same as that in the second set above, with the Moose and Zebra similar and the Camel and Giraffe bearing a good resemblance. In the smaller set the Hippo and Rhino are the close matches. The similarity's weighted against number of unrelated castings would suggest piracy in a different vein to the above sets, where the 8 are clearly the same.

Bonux are nominally linked with the larger ones only. Mir seem to have the larger set too, with a Hippo from the smaller set (to my eye it should be with the larger animals) leaving Omo with most of the small animals and the largest of the three Hippo's plus the painted Giraffe.

Animals similar to all the above sets were also made by Marx and Renwal/Plasticraft, again; good pics on Toy Soldier HQ.

The second Kellogg's set; 'Zoo Animal' is actually the set in green, red and brown bottom right with the missing Gorilla and snake, they are similar to the set in the larger picture which are the bubble-gum animals from Mundi Toys/Tylers and Dunkin, both selling to the Iberian Peninsular.

The Kellogg's set is not identical, with loss of detail on some, while others are noticeably larger. Note that apart from the Snake, all the Kellogg's are duplicates of the larger series from Spain, and as the Spanish set was issued in 1967, it's fair to assume the Kellogg's set was the copy rather than vis-a-versa.

I think the long-horned red thing belongs were I've put the missing animal card '2nd/3rd Deer' but it's hard to tell from the packet. The Tylers/Dunkin soldiers I covered a while ago came on sprues of 8 figures before being broken down into packs, so with Ratcliffe reporting the Kellogg's coming on sprues, in fours, that makes sense as you could cut an 8 figure sprue of animals into two 4 figure 'spruelets' and ensure 4 different animals in a box with a 25% chance of new animals each time you ate your way to another purchase!

The other side of the pack from Mundi Toys, I think it translates as Animals of the Savanna (or Velt?), along with similar products from Tito (cartoonish) and Olá (the name for Wall's Ice cream in Portugal and southern France), I can't find the source for my having ascribed them to Olá, so it should be taken with a pinch of salt...The Tito are marked with their little wobbly-diamond. Finally a comparison between the Kellogg's and Spanish Hippo's.

leaving us with a further size comparison, main picture, bottom, from the top left reading L-R; Kellogg's, Cadbury?/Nabisco?, Kellogg's, Mundi/Dunkin, Olá?, Unknown.

To go with the unknown Elephant is a Giraffe (smaller inset photo.), above them is a small sample of tiny soft PVC/vinyl rubber animals [Schlicht 'Minis' with the little black-dot eyes worn off!] and a group of Christmas Cracker gifts of recent origin to the left, both with Spanish bubble-gum Elephants for scale.

My sofa during this afternoons constructive activity! That box on the right is 'Animals, Unknown, Wild' and contains about 150 envelopes like the ten on the board! So it's gona'be a long life if the man upstairs wants me to finish this task!!!

Further study;
Wikipedia; Animal Biscuits

Still No Ducks