News, Views Etc . . . Dancing Dolls Page - Contribution

I've added a nice contribution from Brian Wagstaff (near the bottom of the page) and some more Scot's dancing 'Gerrils' (in their section) to the above mentioned page

Dolls! - Rush Job!

S is for Shilling

The following appeared in the letters section of Plastic Warrior magazine - issue 170 (1st quarter/March; 2018) just over a year ago, I reproduce it verbatim below;

" Dear PW

Re issue 167, New Zealand figures. As well as collecting toy soldiers I also collect cereal toys. I wrote to Craig L Hall about the New Zealand figures: he has written and published a book called Breakfast Barons, cereal Critters and the Rosenhain & Lipmann Legacy.

I enclose the letter he sent me in reply.

David Pye.

We quote from Craig's reply as follows [Ed.].

"I think the author of the article, Paul Stadinger, has done a great job on the research and is correct in what he says except that these were not made by R&L, as there was another company, more established in the 1960s, called Consolidated Plastics, who made this type of toy."  "

Now, if you live in an entirely non-digital universe, it may well appear to you to be pretty straightforward, although you might - almost at once - use your own logic abilities to ask A) why would a modern publisher be operating in a non-digital world and B) why do these two seem to need to hold each other's hands . . . it's not quite kosher, is it? Still, this post is in the digital world, so presumably these two idiots (above named) won't see it!

And - on a purely obvious level; nice plug for one's book, by the other! Why only quote a section of the reply, why the middle man? Plug your own book! Well, the answer is, shilling! Not the currency; ex-Empire and still used in Kenya, but the issuing of an aggrandising shill letter, to support TJF, probably (no evidence!) with the knowledge and/or input and/or instigation of The Jabbering-Fuck himself?

The facts are;

21st February 2016 - After much independent research over about three years, and with full acknowledgement of all relevant sources (and a few irrelevant ones!), I published the Dolls of the World/Dancing Dolls page. I didn't acknowledge Mr. Hall's book, as I haven't got it, haven't seen it and therefore hadn't used it in my research (and still have no clue what he has, or has not said on the subject). As part of that research I revealed that the [still] mentioned elsewhere as 'Unknown Australian' figures, were from three sets of figures issued with Sanitarium breakfast cereal, AND, on the separate, supporting A-Z Page entries published three days later, posted links to some of the Antipodean sites that were doing great work publicising the Sanitarium stuff we (in the West) had missed.

November 25th 2016 - TJF published his colonist's set, pretty much claiming to have solved the problem of his unknown figures all by himself, and discovered Sanitarium . . . with the help of an Aussie seller, of the kind I had pointed out! We now know - after early denials - that he follows this Blog '...very closely...'!

June 16th 2017 - I posted the Colonialist set on Lodoprimofiles - nicer figure-colour spread!

June 19th 2017 - I posted the NZ set on the Blog as well - new photo's more text, box ticked!

June 2017 - The naked emperor reposts his article in PW167 with no new imagery and no new blurb.

July 7th 2017 - Stadinger (TJF) mentions the dancing dolls, still describing some of them as 'unknown Australian' (they're New Zealand!) and claiming they don't interest him!

March 2018 - the shill letter appears, crediting TJF with the work actually done by . . . well . . . quite a few other people!

If these two muppets knew so little about the background to the reposted article, why did they feel the need to put pen-to-paper? And/or to have the results of that mutual cud-chewing published? It's not like we see a mass of letters congratulating all the other authors of all the other articles for their '...great job on the research' in either PW or all the other magazines; whether the articles are accurate - or not? Nor - it has to be said - do we see a regular stream of such factually inaccurate letters!

If it was to get the book plugged, then it only needed one of them? If it was to get the book plugged, then; well done, it's got another mention here; three-cheers for me!

If it was to correct the false accreditation to Rosenhain & Lipmann, it fails, as it only seems to 'suggest' an alternative? I looked at a couple (of possible sources, to which you could add Toltoys) in the original article and we mentioned a couple more the other day (January posts) - there were lots of plastic manufactories in that part of the world at that time. If you are to correct someone, you need to be firm in your correcting, the last line in the quote only seem to offer 'an' alternative? And again - only requires one author!

Does that make sense? What I'm saying is . . . IF you know; correct the idiot TJF's "... strong working knowledge..." (he was calling early Zang-Herald "Crescent" the other day - it's tragic!), but if you don't know, why the need for the fucking letter in the first place? It's the idiocy of people in a very small hobby pretending they have no knowledge of and/or haven't seen several large chunks of it (the hobby generally, and/or specifically; the war with me!), when they almost certainly have intimate knowledge of it!

No; this was a concerted effort to 'big-up' TJF's self-appointed 'legend', with ignorant or deliberately unfounded 'facts' which bore no relation to the actual course of events. I've never met either of these fools, they've never communicated with me - as far as I know, and therefore their actions were designed to credit the one person who did the least research into the matter!

On the way; subjugating the efforts and integrity of Mr. Hall himself, the other Antipodean website or blog-owners and myself, and - call me a conspiracy theorist if you have to (TJF has - several times without justification - at least this time he has good reason to scream 'fake news' like a deranged president!); it is damaging to the hobby. Damage I predicted would be forthcoming, two and a half . . . nearly three-years ago.

Do you see? I found - and credited - the Aussi and NZ sites in my research, they in turn may or may not have used Mr. Hall's book in their web-building - and/or credited it. Equally he may have used them? While Mr Standinger played no part in any of it, except to use the existing, published information, but then tries to take the credit, with the help of a ('the') shill letter; I - as always - claiming no credit for myself!

Apparently written by people drawing lines or choosing sides (within the hobby) they didn't need to or have to, because the naked emperor or his minions' asked them to! Worms; they're a couple of worms!

Let Mr. Paul Stadinger have the last word . . .

Is that like a very small Tribble? I don't have any Tribbles, I gave them all to that 'Bones' chap, I don't know what he did with them, but I heard a Federation Spacefleet engineer ordering an awful lot of Starship corridor ducting-plates and inspection-hatch covers the other day? Spacefleet list Tribbles as vermin, you know? If only we could likewise register TJF, the PSTSM and their associates!

News, Views Etc...New Page

I have posted a new page:

Dancing Dolls

It has taken 18 months to research and collate (on and off) and four or five weeks to unload, finish and edit, so I hope you enjoy it...understanding - of course - that most toy soldier fans couldn't give a feckin' heel for small plastic 'dolls'!

I will add the four companies histories to the A-Z pages tomorrow and add the links here and to the DD page when I've done so.



Two day later....Needless to say I didn't get that done yesterday and Vodafone (the Prince of Internet Darkness) have decided I'm library bound again! I have got a Van Brode draft up though, and a Clinton Mfg. cross-ref., so it's slowly hapening!

Commonwealth on the A-Z
Sanitarium on the A-Z
Van Brode on the A-Z

All done!

W is for World Dolls/World Dancers Part 2

Actually the first subjects are called 'Dolls of Our World' but like the 'Dancers/Dancers of the World/World Dancers' they are known as World Dolls. Clearly meant to be touristy keepsakes, sold individually from tourist attractions and gift shop/kiosks, they would - most likely - have been marketed by salesmen and through wholesalers catalogues.

The original figures as sold by the Commonwealth Plastics Corp., Leominster, Massachusetts, USA, in a phenolic resinous flesh-coloured factory painted plastic (top row) from - I would guess (from the nature of the rest of the contents of the collection they came with) - 1930's-1950's. Later production was unpainted (bottom row, far left 1950's?) and finally the figures were made available in multi-coloured polystyrene (rest of bottom row 1960/70's?) with thinner bases.

Commonwealth seem to have been owned/operated by/as part of the Aero Plastics group by the Catalucci family, who's decendents have recently opened another plastics factory in Leominster called Phoenix Inc.! Research however leads to an apparently unrelated high-tech plastics company with a near-dead website called Phoenix Co.Inc. (rather than plain 'Inc.'!!) in Texas!!?!

These are copies of the Commonwealth Plastics, almost certainly from Hong Kong and came either in the ivorene plastic of European giveaways (top row) or in various shades of off white (bottom row), pantographed from the originals they are slightly smaller.

Here we have some World Dancer figures, as well-moulded as the Commonwealth ones, but by a company called Van Brode, operating out of Clinton, also in Massachusetts (so - given the size of the States - some clear connection there!). The strange lozenges are missing from the base underside which is now smooth, and they are clearly marked, most on the rear edge, but the West Indies guy has a larger marking on the underside, so at least two issues?

The connection hinted at above is not quite as clear as say - they bought the Commonwealth moulds. First; the Van Brode figurines are in pairs (like the Britains 54mm/1:32 Ethnic Dancers) with one being the musician the other the dancer. Second; the Van Brode figures are reversed (where similar to) Commonwealth poses. Footnote; Van Brode manufactured C-Rations during WWII and these figures were almost certainly a premium given away in the breakfast cereals from their mill in the (late?) 1950's. [Kent Sprecher (toysoldierHQ - link above) now has them actually putting the figures in ration packs for the Korean War - Given the number of Asian looking figures in a full set and speaking as an ex-soldier; I can think of nothing worse, while freezing in your fire-base on the Imjim River, than finding a Koren looking figurine in your Chili ConcarneMRE!!]

Here are more modern copies of both manufacturers products in 30 and 20mm. Top row; Four hard polystyrene Commonwealth poses, two with a chrome/silver over-spray, an unpainted and a basic factory paint-job. Bottom row; a soft polythene Commonwealth, probably from a Christmas Cracker, a vinyl factory painted doll I'm told is a Portuguese food premium and a baseless copy of the Van Brode Hawaiian reversed version.


Size Comparison shot of some of the above, top left to bottom right they are; Commonwealth; Early, late and 20mm copy, Commonwealth; Early, mid, late, 20mm copy and lastly; a copy of Van Brode's reversed Hawaiian dancer.