W is for Well! We've Seen These Before Recently!

But they were hidden in a non-VT header-carded, bagged, coach, and sans riders as they were being employed as draft-horses. But that these are they - I am quite sure (I have a few in storage somewhere) and having visited the wheeled transport twice in the last few months, let's look at some of the riders - courtesy of Adrian Little!

As they came in, but after a good wash, so . . . not 'as' they came in at all - fake news!

The two golden- or dried-cream coloured ones were almost certainly another, browner or yellower colour once, but have faded through the action of sunlight or just the leeching of an unstable/unfixed additive?

The cowboys (Mexicans!) are the same as the wagon/coach drivers and while I think these are the sub-piracies, I'm guessing VT have slightly better ones (possibly the ones in storage), and they may be limited to the one pose?

The Indians are far more interesting - firstly they don't have the plug-on hats, secondly I love the colour palate and thirdly; at least six poses . . . including the one on the far right who has a hunting horn like the kazoo/blow-horn we looked at here last year some-time . . . year before?

Now, there are some clues to origin here, as I have been given similar but much better figures by Italian collectors with the proviso that they were Italian pocket-money things. This suggests that the French versions may be copies of Italian production, with the HK copied from either.

My reasoning being, that while the French stuff is much better than the HK stuff, it's horses are thin parodies and - as far as I know - they don't have mounted figures like these, but the Italians do, along with the wagons?

There are three poses of horse -and as far as I know, these are a HK-only thing, the Italian (and French) originals having either their own designs or animals following the Bergan-Beton pattern. Although I expect a western design of this horse to turn-up one day, it's such a common design with HK stuff, one feels it must have been copied from somewhere?

You can see from studying the photograph, that the two left-hand and the three middle horses (the other two poses) have some very odd-looking leg positions and/or sculpting and have clearly been created by traumatic surgery on examples of the common pose! The white one, bottom-right, it a premature mould-release shrinkage example and otherwise a guide to nothing!

Also the right-hand pose is the one I call 'Mexican' with regard to the small scale production of the former colony, where it comes in two slightly different sizes from Giant (and many others) as well as an intermediate 30mm version - probably a Christmas Cracker/Gum-ball capsule thing as I only have one or two.

Markings are confined to rather crude Hong Kong's on horses legs, one leg per horse, but not every horse, so a multiple-cavity tool looks likely.

The 'scenic posed shot'! For what these are; 2nd or third rate copies of copies I rather like them! They are quirky and there's nothing wrong with that, conformity never did anything for anyone!

With a tray of mixed stuff there's always a question mark or two, and while I quickly rejected the Totem Pole (seen in the 'How they come in' post the other day) as having nothing to do with them, I'm not so sure about the pink Tee-Pee.

The red one (also un-ascribed to a set or maker) is for comparison, and more common (I have two or three now), but the pink one is the same pink as the cowboy in the sample, so while I've bagged it separately for now (with a post-it-note note), there's a chance they do belong together, a second 'as clean' sample will confirm . . . one day . . . maybe, or a bagged set on fleaBay.

Also a comparison shot between the 25mm figures (this is a non-Giant one on a poor quality horse I happen to have to hand) and the 45mm, the 30mm (which I couldn't find with a cursory look) comes dead-between them both! Actually - I think mine (30mm sample) has an over-scale Roman on it? - I was looking in the wrong box!

F is for Follow-up - Hong Kong Copies of European Premium, Rack Toy, Bazaar and Other Wagons

Just a quickie - not long after I published the VT follow-up to an earlier JCT post, I remembered I had some more VT and/or other bits in the attic, shot them when I was putting the others away, then picked a few more up at the PW show, so here they all are!

The previously Blogged VT coach with it's not-correct driver at the back, in front are a bunch of bits (from Micheal Melnyk I think?), sadly one of the pulling ropes is damaged, so apart from coach-body, chassis or wheel colour swaps, I'm no nearer a whole one!

In front of that is an Italian cheapie version's horse team from Dario, these are closer to the French horses than the HK ones.

But at PW I got both a whole replacement draw-bar and ropes (unbroken) and locating plug, and a lesser-quality/later-generation open-wagon (sort of Giant scale-up), the wheels are sized between the front and back wheels of the stage coach and the figure, though the correct driver for all these wagons, is of too poor a quality to use with my coach, but there are spare drivers in storage (and hopefully - a few hats), if it has the same horses as the JTC one . . . they are a bit 'twee'!

So - when the two stashes are brought together I should end-up with a boxed coach, a loose coach (complete), a loose wagon and a few bits. All I need now are some poorer horses (I may have somewhere) and a draw-bar & tilt for the open wagon, which - I fear - should be a covered wagon like the one in the original 2009 post?

It's Hong Kong shite, but it keeps me sane . . . sort of!

VT is for Varmint Trampling . . . Stage Coach

We looked at one of these way back at the beginning of the Blog, it was a cheaper, marked JTC one, then we had one sent to the blog a year or so ago (below) probably from France, now we return to - the then - crown colony of aichkay for another look at a better-quality copy of what is quite a complex model.

And this is the 50th use of the 'Wagon' tag, Small Scale World's now showing well over a hundred wagons!

From both sides, I left the driver in for one shot although I'm not convinced he is connected to the coach in any other way than just happening to almost fit! In point of fact he's leaning forward slightly as his feet are too big for the space they need to fit in, luckily I have a bag of these 'Mexican-hatted' wagon crew somewhere, so I'll get one to match hopefully.

The real crew used to turn-up all the time in mixed bags of junk as they aren't terribly well attached, and although they have a 'cowboy hat' (I couldn't tell you if it's a Stetson, ten-gallon or twenty-two-and-a-half liters!), it's usually so over-scale when you first encounter them lose, you think they're trying to be Mexicans - ironic when you think that nowadays Mexicans are all trying to be Americans!

You can see how the UK driver (Tudor Rose or Kleeware? There's one currently on feebleBay as Morestone but I've shown on on a T*R wagon in the past) is jammed-in and pushed forwards by his feet pressing against the raised detail containing the locating stud and hole of the coach's body-halves.

Marking is a VT or TV but as the 'V' is larger I suspect it takes precedence, it'll likely be something akin to Victoria-, Victory- or Viscount Toys . . . probably; who knows? [I think I've covered my arse from TJF & TCWML there?] Yellow- it's a bugger to photograph!

Note how the two halves of the coach body are also held together/in place by the base-plate of the suspension moulding.

The axles are also different from the usual type you'd expect on a toy like this, being flatter in one plane and therefore non-revolving, firmly held in place by longitudinal slots with a true round section only on the wheel-hub itself.

The draw-bar is equally 'over-engineered' with a through cotter-pin holding everything together and providing a pivot-point. One of the side ropes is missing and the other damaged so I'll be looking out for a replacement, and the hole at the front of the draw-bar/main-pole suggests a second or subsequent horse team/s - something else to look out for.

Again the roof, which on other similar toys would be either a straight plug-on, or integral to the rest of the body moulding/s, is instead held on with long pins stretching down from the luggage-rack and washers with a partial flange or catch; which hooks over the window frame. It's frankly a miracle it's remained as intact as it has?

The guy's head has been dyed a realistic flesh-tone by pigment-bleed from the unstable additives in the over-sized hat - now THAT is serendipity! The cheaper versions have integral heads  but the same plug-on hat.

Another look at Brian's contribution reveals all the same construction quirks, but copies of the French horses, rather than the more typical HK ones of the VT effort. These coaches (and the wagons they sat next to in the toy-store) were common and there are many variations of both French and HK types (and the Spainsh Mezquita seen here), and the quirky features are the same for all of them.

It also shows what the driver of the VT stage coach should look like!

Here's one issued with a simple wish-bone draw-bar ( ⊃− ) and only one horse, which looks a little better in brown, I think both figures are there, but you can only just see one in the top right-hand corner.

I'm using the image (ex-evilBay; for research purposes) because A) it's about 15 years old, B) it's fuzzy but proves a point and C) is one of the commonest versions, like the steam road-roller I blogged a few years ago, or the HK copy of the Thomas Roman chariot, these small-bag, header-carded, generic rack toy 'novelties', priced for pocket-money were common back in the day, and do turn-up quite often. Note, however; that the artwork (similar to the other two mentioned) shows the full wagon with two horses.