F is for Follow-up - Dime Store Row Crop Tractors

The first of a few (?) follow-ups to things seen recently here at Small Scale World, and it's those pesky row-crop tractors, a design which never took off here in the UK, indeed, while there may have been a few demonstrators, or experimental imports, they were never a 'thing' over here at all, but, nevertheless, British toy companies ran with them, as mould-swaps or straight lifts from US dime-store vehicle manufacturers, and may have instigated some?

 

Partially as a follow-up to this post;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/11/m-is-for-mohawk-and-more-military.html

 

A line-up of the recent additions to the genre, with from the left marked Tudor Rose, x2 unmarked, marbled blue is slightly larger, both likely British, possibly Tudor Rose or Kleeware, the previously seen (in the above-linked posts) marked Made in England in military green, and a marked Banner in dark blue, The last two being bigger again, but not the same. Obvious differences in wheels, also contribute to the question marks.

 

Comparison between the Banner and unknown tractors, frankly the unknown (which I floated as possibly Kleeware last time) is the better moulding, did it come first, or was it re-cut? Maybe it was a mould swap with someone else - Pyro, Wannatoys or Wyandott - with the Banner being a copy of whatever donor's tool, the England mark was using?

 

I then found the military pattern Banner-marked version, so re-took the comparison, light conditions differed, so here's two, the lower image is eye-true colours, and you can see how the engine details are cleaner and more symmetrical on the Made in England - left hand of each pair.

 

The two Banner's, the blue one is marked Banner USA, the military-green one has had the USA removed, otherwise they are the same, and one wonders if it's a case of domestic and export, and if so, which is which?

 

They both have a hole on the right side of the engine-bay, which could be for a missing flywheel (more normally found in the other side in the UK, when present), or a higher-price-point's clockwork conversion, unlikely as the wheel is partially obscuring it?

 

The two known British ones, they are different mouldings, with the yellow Tudor Rose one slightly smaller, and only marked in the upper portion of the hollow engine cavity, while the 'army' one has the Made In England along the length of the engine on the right-hand side.

 

A larger, closer to 1:32nd scale, soft polyethylene Tudor Rose row-crop, in reversed colours from the smaller one, which is an earlier 'styrene, or less stable polymer (phenolic or urea-formaldehyde type?), but with perfectly stable polystyrene wheels.

 

Kleeware marked wreaker-truck (a straight mould-swap of the Pyro dime-store model) behind the 'England' pulling its gun, just for a colour study between the two, and because it was kicking about! The gun is a much copied design, and really, I don't think anyone knows who did it first (Auburn Rubber?), or in what size! And - of course - there was that close connection between Kleeware and Tudor Rose, and between both of them and Pyro on the space-stuff.

 

This artillery combination appears to be the one seen in this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2016/11/d-is-for-dimestore.html

 

Where a mix of a Bell machine-gun, a pair of unmarked Gilmark (possibly Tudor Rose) AFV's in bright colours, and some of the 'Built-Rite/Hardy/Kilty/Loeser/Spencer' semi-flat GI's were all found together with the tractor-gun combo'?

 

We've looked at them before, and looked at three versions of the Merit (J&L Randall) offerings, with solid wood, solid-rubber and hollow-backed plastic wheels like all the above. When I've got them all together, we may be able to work out a timeline of piracy, from US originals, to n'th generation Hong Kong clones!
 

All six. This post doesn't prove anything, but it didn't set out to, beyond the fact that there are many of these, and their heritage/origins aren't clear! When marked, we can say, they are what they claim to be, even if the tool is someone else's, but when unmarked, it's all a bit grey. More images are here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/03/b-is-for-banner-and.html, and I bought them in the end!

 

And knowing at least one was used as an artillery-tractor, I'll have to look at them all again, with the guns present? There were several already in the stash, mostly military green ones, but there are some other 'farm' ones.

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Everything Else

Last of the purchase posts from Sandown Park, it's funny I've mentioned the stash/pile and Battle of the Planets in the last 24/48 hours, and Bushy managed to name-check them both in the last few hours (the irony being, he doesn't have a pile), almost like he can't bare me to post original stuff, but that's all I do; original images, original copy and original opinions - isn't that right readers? While someone else has commented, forgetting what he said about me a few years ago, but stupid people have the brains of goldfish!

 

A nice bunch of Charbens circus. Circus, like Pirates, have become a bit of a side interest for me, but then so have dime-store vehicles, parachute toys, LB, stationary novelties, Cracker & capsule toys, and, and, and! I think the Tiger is quite unusual here, and the different colours of the dogs costumes, and horses furniture, make the sample more interesting.

 

Speaking of dime-store vehicles, here's a couple more of the small, US pattern, row-crop wheeled tractors, Western plastic crap, predating the Hong Kong plastic crap by a decade or two! As you can see, these are basically the same model, but different sizes, and I have near-on a dozen now, nearly all different, so when they're all together, we'll have a proper look/comparison.

 

The blue one is marked Banner, and is the same as one of my military ones, the yellow, is not the smallest, so may be the same as the Merit/Bell ones, but marked Tudor Rose?and possibly the same as the unmarked pair we saw last September? That's a check I can make one evening this summer, when sorting over at the storage unit, where I think there's four or five of these?

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/09/l-is-for-last-mays-lots-of-lovely-loot.html 

 

Action Man command post field telephone set, which was in the biscuit tin from Isaac. This would be connected to landlines (the origin of the phrase, predating the mobile telephone!) connecting the forward trenches/positions, with a platoon net, company net and 'chat net', set at the evening O-group (Orders). Sometimes, on Salisbury Plain, in the middle of the night, you'd pick up Russian spy trawlers in the Channel, due to the power of their sending sets, and the aerial properties of all the D10 landline network!

 

Tomte Laerdal Renault Floride Cabrio sports car, note how much better the wheels are moulded on these than on the Galanite ones we saw the other day;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2026/04/l-is-for-local-loot-2-of-2.html

 

A couple of interesting Animals, Adrian found the horse, I think, which is similar to, but not the same as the Britains Shetlands, longer, thinner legs for a start! The composition squirrel is damaged, but was always a small delicate moulding, and squirrels are another thing I have a soft spot for, along with elephants, and hedgehogs!

 

Better Hong Kong copy of Lone Star, than some (but may be Spanish, South American or even an actual Lone Star, hard to tell, until I compare), and a kit accessory, possibly from a Jacques Cousteau ship model of Calypso?

 

Upper lot are Holly or Holly-like, we saw some of them in the recent Gary Gygax posts;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/search/label/Gary%20Gygax

 

While the lower shot shows their 'rubber jiggler' clones, as part of my favourite childhood set, indeed, the Dimetrodon to the right, is pretty-much how I remember mine to be, prior to my tearing all the spines free of each other, and ruining it!

 

Random, newish Dino', which turned-up during the course of the day!

Thanks to Adrain, Gareth, Isaac and Steve for bits at the show.

L is for Last May's Lots of Lovely Loot - Vehicles

Before I can get on to the very late Plastic Warrior show reports, I need to get the previous, and even later, Sandown Park's loot out of the way, which was purloined a few weeks before the PW show, so let's get them out of the way sharpish! Although I don't think you can say sharpish, when the posts are three months overdue!

 

A small Gescha/Gama style tin-plate tank, bearing more resemblance to some early post-war APC's, with a small turret, and high superstructure. I can't remember if it had branding, or if someone gave me a brand? Space Tank!

 

Two mystery (when I saw them) die-cast military vehicles. a nice inter-war armoured car, actually Charbens, it is die-cast alloy, but has lead wheels, and a British tanker-truck, which was marked Britain or England I think, the trouble with doing these posts so long after the event, is you forget stuff! But while in the style of Dinky, it's not, and is probably a re-painted Benbros Esso tanker - note the red on the paint-chips! Interestingly, a re-issue of an old Timpo mould.

 

Vintage Tootsie-Toys AFV's, one marked the other anonymous (can't remember which was/is which), I think the lorry may be pre-war (1930's), while the Armoured-car might be just post-war? But that's going on the wheels/tyres (or 'tires', they're American after all!), which could, just as easily, be replacements? You won't believe the trouble I had, getting the two MG's to look right, they are suspended, free-floating or hanging, between small bumps in the moulding, and loose with age, and were a bugger to get right!

 

Another Charbens, this all die-cast, wheels and body, and darker green than some I've seen, and while not the most accurate version of Humber out there, it's a darn-sight better than the plastic one they did later!

 

Two more French 'readymades', one each Noreda (front, Jeep-like) and Injectaplastic (behind, DKW with Jeep trailer), we've seen them both before, but they were clean, and cheap, so I took them home with me!

Banner 'row-crop' tractor in military green, possibly depicting an Oliver tractor (US Readers?), and two copies, the copies are slightly smaller all-round, and have a few detail differences, unmarked, I hope they are in Bill Hanlon's book!

 

Again, newish to me, similar to some Archer space cars from the 'States, I was told these were actually British so Kleeware or Tudor Rose, but the larger one is a Marx future car, the smaller however is a Pyro/Kleeware moulding, so could the Marx also be a mould-swap with Kleeware?

 

Two teeny-tiny battleships, probably from a late-Edwardian board game, and a larger lead yacht, which could also be a board-game piece, or a smaller component of something more decorative? It's covered in what appears to be black paint, but which could just be severe oxidation?

 

Because they came with a T4, these two reprobates have got themselves into the vehicle post! In the style of MUSCLE or Kinnukiman, these two Thunderbirds Keshi are new to the collection, along with the little Thunderbird Four.

 

A damaged Manurba coach and spare helmet crest for a Lone Star knight are snuck in at the end, just to get them off the laptop!

F is for Farm Friends - Larger Set

The Farm Friends trope was a sort of under-branding carried by quite a few sets, some generics, or supplied and otherwise branded to other firms, but this set is fully marked to Lik Be (LB) and is the first of two we're looking at for now (I might dig out all my evilBay/Worthpoint shots later!), and having been in Picasa since '21, is well overdue.

The full set, the Farmhouse is actually a money-box/bank, with the smaller pieces stuffed inside, along with a blow-moulded grain-silo which also has bits in. The artwork suggests the traffic-light sticker, placed here, on the roof, should be engine 'detailing' on the tractor!
 

The artwork listing is also not quite complient with the contents, a 'pony' is actually, clearly a donkey, no matter how cartoonish, a pink and white farm is also hinted at, and the farm-girl has been replaced with a farm boy! There's two dogs and an extra chicken, too.

 

The other dog - if we assume the referred-to one is the sheepdog - is this small black puppy, and the boy is pretty dwarfed by both of them! The boy and girl are in the style of, and may be by the same sculptor as the Native American Indian kids, seen before here at Small Scale World.

 

The smaller animals, the problem with researching these is that as well as at least three sets of knock-offs (nominally, at the moment; Betta Toys, Colonial and Holly), some of these are not marked or numbered in sequence with the A-codes, while the odd piece has a B-code, so I'm rather keeping my powder dry on that score, to which end we've seen the rooster on his log/stump a couple of times without me letting-on his LB connection!

 

The larger animals, all 'funimals', with the pig being one of the commoner finds, and the cow being among several versions, clones, and a reversed-sculpt, in several sizes. A cat as big as a sheepdog, why not?

 

The money-box farm-house, a sort of Dutch-American design, with a simple key to open/close the flap, also equipped with a carry handle, it's not bad for a bit of Hong Kong tat, and would have made a poorer kid happy, even under the tree at Christmas!

 

The tractor has a driver who is channelling the Fisher-Price 'Little People', who were themselves mirroring the earlier wooden infant toys, like our racing-car driver (seen here passim), the whole design, scale-reduced, is taken from Fisher-Price, a rare instance of plagiarism from LB, who usually designed their own stuff?

 

The grain silo; made of two blow-moulds which just sleeve together, the silo-body being decorated with relief sculpts of corn-cobs, a deer and something in a nest which may be a catdog or a dogcat, it's not clear, and it might be a pig!

 

The farm-fencing in hidden in the silo, and with only four pieces, not much cop! Having been sticking these in the 'unknown' fence section for years before I knew they were Lik Be, I have quite a few of them somewhere, and one day we may have a photo-session of a proper set-up with all the LB farm - there's another set of chickens and a pair of kittens on the yellow plastic, and more animals, including some realistic sculpts.

 

The much-missed and not-yet replaced Boysie-boy helped me investigate tractors!

And Godzilla monsters!

B is for Banner . . . and?

Also shot at Sundown Park in November, but not purchased (because I think I have them in the collection already), was this series of comparison shots between a clearly Banner-marked 'row crop' tractor, from the US and two probably British copies, of unknown origin, and both unmarked.

 

The Banner is larger, and has better sculpted tyre treads on the front wheels, it also has a towing hitch missing from the smaller copies. I don't know who made the copies, but when we saw a similar copy, it was more close (with tow-hitch and marked Made in England), and came stitched into a gift box, with Gilmark-copy vehicles, 'Bonnie Bilt' figures and a Bell gun, which probably rules them out of responsibility for these smaller ones?

S&S is for Scale and Size!

 Can you see what I did there! As well as our regular visits to the canyons of New York, there has been this for . . . about seven or eight years now, I think - the annual Christmas toy-related display by the Fleet & Crookham Local History Group in Fleet library, which this year is all about size/scale of like subjects.

Another 'lazy' post, in that it can be blurb-light, it is what it is! I would add that the FCLHG do other presentations through the year, local development, the medieval period, how the maps change, that kind of thing.

It's getting like we've seen most of it before, hence a different theme every year? I think the Furby's are new this year, they used to be called Gonk's, when I was a lad, and were made by Travellers on old loo-rolls for the fairground-prize trade. They were a good introduction to loss and death, as their little paper faces slowly dog-eared, ripped or even slid off, and eventually damp got to their cores or an adult's foot or arse flattened them!

 

The Exhibition normally comes down in the first or second week of January, so if you're passing, worth a quick visit.