B is for Best Show on Earth! 13. Everthing Else!

The last of the PW show posts, and it's an eclectic mix! Then there's Sandown Park, a parcel from Brian Berke, two, no three from Jon Attwood, several from Peter Evans, the London show and, and, and . . . !

Starting with those figures which didn't get shot in the correct thematic posts! From the left a small-scale Hong Kong farmer copied from Britains, a Matchbox (NOT HG Toys!) Adventure 2000 space figure, Chromoplasto Mountie from Italy and a Hong Kong knight in need of a sword!

 

Then we have an Answer Mage/Wizard/Vizier/Magician (the alternative to 'Answer Robots' - was there also a clown?), missing his wire answer-wand, and an African warrior who may be Spanish-made, and may be a native American Indian? In front is another smallish Hong Kong milkmaid copy.

 

Plants which accrued as everything was sorted out, the interesting one here is the Merit copy stacking fir, the broken Lego fir, though, is in red plastic under the paint, they were usually green.

 

One of the favourite pieces of the whole show, buried in Trevor's bag was the teeny-tiny two-bar fence, I may have another somewhere, in a different colour I think, but it's literally an N-gauge compatible piece!

 

The stook of corn from Charbens is also useful as there are a series of posts in the medium queue (the long queue, but pretty-much ready!) on stooks, bales and ricks/stacks, but this wasn't in them, so that's a box ticked!

 

The well is useful, without checking the old posts on the subject, I think this is the post-Blue Box copy so NMP or Holly? But it has its bucket, which is the important thing! The other three are additions to bits boxes, but the windmill is in a new colour-way I think?

 

The rest! It really is all grist to the mill and there's a home for all of it somewhere! The Dracula novelty teeth will go with the other body-part novelties we saw a few Christmases back (a bag which has already been added to several times), I intend, once everything is reunified and sorted (a three-month job; I've done it before), to re-run that 'season' in the same order, but looking at the expanded samples of everthing we saw then!

 

It was a fantastic show, there wasn't enough time to buy for catching-up with old faces, and there wasn't time to chat properly for buying! Thanks to all for everything last May; Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin and Adrian Little, with special thanks to Brian, Peter and Paul Morehead for organising it all again . . . and it's only 10-and-a-half months till the next one!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - December '21 - 1 of 2

I sort of knew we'd overtaken this, and did explain to Chris back in Jan/Feb that to get 'up to date' I'd jumped a post or two, but I had hoped to get this one out before now, never mind, it's here now! I shot larger 'line-ups' with this one, so rather than three or four thematic posts, I've just split the sixteen into two-eights, as I shot them!

Initial sorting! Straight away I can see a couple of things I didn't shoot further for these posts; two of the W.Germany/Hong Kong-marked (can't remember which) coaches, we've seen them before, and with a number having come-in in the last year or two, we will return to them more fully one day, while in the bag are some Kinder (or similar Italian) pocket-money kit aircraft and I can see a micro-Chinook peeking out of the box!

These three are all interesting, they are all hard polystyrene, and it's a miracle the one on the left is still in one piece, probably a cake decoration, but a cut-above the usual fare! The middle one is a relief flat, probably surviving a long-gone snow-shaker?

While the one on the right is clearly sculpted by the same (possibly German) sculptor who did the Vitacup premiums (inset for comparison), with that same 'carved wood' effect, and we have seen a painted one of those, so not a surprise, so much as a nice find which seems to extend that 'family' of sculpts.

These are just lovely, I've got the funnies from Peter Evans (which might be Kinder) and I've got the HO Marx versions of the Babe's in Toyland guard, and now these have turned-up! Obviously cake-decorations and styled in the manner of some little angels I've seen, they are superb! About 30mm and made in polystyrene.

This was a nice surprise as I've downloaded several carded ones over the years (images only) while hoping a loose (or cheap carded-) one would turn-up . . . and here it is! Not Hong Kong's finest output, but back in 1960-something, it was just what you needed for your sandcastle on the beach! And we all had a bobby like this in our local community; although round here they had scooters - Honda 90's! One of my kittens came as a stray from 'Polly' Parrot, our local bobby! About 3&1/2 or 4-inches?

Army men! The big chap is from one of the 1:18th or 1:24th (?) kits, he's about the fourth now from various sources, all different, the guys who make those big kits tend to either not bother with the figures or replace them with servo-operated animatronics . . . I have a video somewhere I'll try to dig-out in the next few days.

The five 60-mil's are all new to the blog I think? Gulf-wars era, and really nice sculpts. The Matchbox copy might have been seen before, but I think it's a new colour, we've looked at the monogram piracies before, but I always grab/accept them when I can as there about 8-generations and I don't know how many of each there are until new ones stop turning-up!

Two smallies, then an interesting vehicle crewman, I may have a shot of him with his vehicle somewhere (one of the 'Spacex Cricket' copies, or Italian Polytoy type things?), while the last two are Tente from Spain, the construction system, similar to Lego, but preferable because they had space and military sets before the Danes!

Smallies! The camel is probably from a Christmas cracker, as will be the yellow dog (Setter/Springer type), and the Marx-copy Pecos Bill's. Hong Kog mini-sub crewman (Manurba copy) and a bag of Wild West and a Quaker gladiator horse (red), pink mini-horse (mini crackers?) . . . all lovely stuff!

We will have to return to these, as several have come-in since we did an over-view and follow-up a year or two ago, including this one! It's gone to storage and I can't remember if it's the marked Blue Box one or a more generic 'Home Farm' copy, but both are around somewhere!

Oddments, of which the obviously most-interesting is the 50mm or thereabouts miner? Bottom left, 'armyman' green plastic - is he a coal-miner, tin-miner, gold-miner? Tourist thing? Playset figure? A real mystery and a pretty unique figure? He's holding a mine-lamp and has a tin hat of the US construction/South African mine type.

The key-ring Beefeater is nice, the clown is from that set tentatively advanced as possibly the missing Hilco cake-decorations, the proboscis monkey is a lovely sculpt, but no clue as to maker, possibly a smaller accessory or 'companion piece' from a larger action figure card?

The WWI German appears at first glance to be an Airfix original of the sort you always find in mixed 'junk' lots, but when you look closely, he has a locating-stud on the base and is actually a plug-in piracy and the first I've encountered - he'll be shot with an original and dropped on the relevant page on the Airfix Blog in the fullness of time - some kind of vehicle or vessel crewman?

While, coming a few days after the Comansi GI's (down the page), the pink Indian is interesting as I have factory-painted vintage 35mm ones in Comansi packaging, unpainted 'realistic' plastic colours in Novalinea packaging (Esci knock-off boxes) and now this leery-coloured one, who might have been issued under either brand?

Many thanks to Chris as always for these donations, part two tomorrow!

W is for Well . . . Follow-up to the Follow-up

Barney Brown of Herald Toys & Models sent these in case I didn't mention them in the follow-up to wells; which I hadn't, not only that but I had presumed the Taylor was from the hollow-cast mould and fingered Barratt as possible source of one of the two unknowns!

The truth is Barratt & Son inherited the T&B mould and FG Taylor's is the much copied version, although I think heavy cross-bar notwithstanding, the Speedwell is based on this - 'this' being the Barratt one!

This is the lead original, although the company is known as a hollow-cast producer, items like this are more traditionally made, poured-lead 'solid' castings, this is a cross-over piece with a plastic roof on a metal body, so is probably 'Barratt' rather than 'Taylor & Barratt'?

Production was eventually all-plastic and here is a later one with polymer body and roof, but still with a metal bucket and wire winding handle. You may have noticed - before reading this far! - another piece of plastic, on the bottom of the moulding? Well . . .

. . . I think this well is the first of the wells we've looked at, which is designed to hold actual water? The 'cap' is manufactured from neutral granules, is semi-transparent and can only be there to provide a seal so that water can be poured into the mould . . . how cool is that, it was the 1950's after all!

Many thanks to Barney for (what are very good-) images and the data, I'll update the other two posts to reflect the new information with links to here.

Previously;
Original Post
Follow-up Post (post below this one on the page)

F is for Follow-up, Q is for Question Time, W is for Well, Well, Well!

Chris sent an interesting item to the Blog the other day, or pictures of it which is just as good! Further to the water wells I shew (like showed but shorter!)* the other day . . .

*Heay, cummon' Throwed/Threw, Growed/Grew, Knowed/Knew . . . can someone get all those wiggly red lines off my word.docx?

On the left of Chris's line-up here is the F.G Taylor well we saw last time, on the right is the Speedwell again, but the one in the middle is a newie! Chris wondered at Blue Box, I though similar and consulting the farm guru; Barney Brown over at Herald Toys & Models brought a confirmatory response, although he was no surer than either of us, it's just a hunch we all share?

There are two problems with calling-it for being Blue Box, the first is a Google search for all the various Blue Box and clone 'Home Farm' sets and similar items don't reveal this well, and secondly; it's not marked, which most - if not all - the larger items from their farm sets (window-trays or big-box) are/were.

It has some of the tropes of Hong Kong production though, the spray-painted bright green, thick plastic winder, shiny-polymers, even the mould-release pin-marks under the rim? An alternate proposition is that it might be Barratt & Sons, as if the Taylor's inherited the mould in the great post-war divvy-up, the Barrett's would have needed a well for their farm?

Note the separate plug-in woodwork for what is otherwise ostensibly the Taylor design, and the plastic bucket. I'm sure I've seen one of these, I remember the kink in the winding arm . . . possibly when I was  a dealers apprentice! Barney's seen them as well.

I even checked the Codeg Camberwick Green sets in case I'd forgotten an accessory from the larger village boxed-set! I hadn't.

Anyway having contacted Barney I also sought and gratefully received permission to use the image I had mentioned last time, both to embiggen this post and  . . . well, to grow the well of knowledge of wells - I should be stopped!!

It shows another variation of the Taylor design (far left example) which could be any of the Speedwell stable-mates (Trojan, Kentoy, Una/VP), newer 'old' plastics (BMS, BR), or Barratt, or even (shiny polymer!) a Hong Kong pirate? barney says it came in a 'substantial' collection of Taylor farm though?

So; follow-up followed-up, the question marks are does anyone know for definite who issued/made either of the unknown wells . . . well?

Thanks to Chris Smith and Barney Brown for the above images.

Barney Brown of Herald Toys & Models cleared up the Barratt question here, so we are still looking for two other names to pin to the unknowns!

D is for ♫♫♪ Ding Dong Bell ♫♪ Pussy's In The Well! ♪♫♪

Although it's Pussies without the apostrophe as I tried several likely felines and two of the shots worked to some extent;

This is the F.G.Taylor well, suitably equipped with cats! The largest of the three we're about to look at, Barney had a nice copy a while back which I missed, slightly smaller and with a yellow roof and simpler, solid bucket/weight.

Starting the post-proper with the smallest, I think we've looked at this before, but I recently combined the two ('storage' and 'here') samples together, which allows for a better look, although the text/captions render further blurb rather superfluous!

I believe these are all Hong Kong, but there may be a Western origin/influence there somewhere? It's similar to or loosly based-on the Marx well, but with the pivot-handle replaced by a more European winding-mechanism and rain-guard.

This is the Speed'well-well! I thought it might be missing a winding-handle but apparently; this is it! Similar construction to the other two for the roof piece, but with the hidden studs of the smaller one, for a cleaner look.

Back to the Taylor, I don't know if there was a lead version in the T&B days, but I don't think so? Although it would explain the studs coming through - to be flattened-down and hold the roof on? I'll try to find out!

All of them together, sans felines! the smallest I think was only ever a cake-decoration (lucky or wishing-well), the chromium-finished one being presumably for wedding-cakes? Speedwell was always toward the 45-50mm bracket, while Taylor are doing the whole 1:32^nd scale thing!

A follow-up post is here, then Barratt's well's have turned-up courtesy of Barney Brown of Herald Toys & Models