L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown February - Other Figures

The final post in this sequence is the rest of the figures, I think we've caught-up with 'London Loot' too, but there will be some 'H is for . . . s' to come, with more Toy- and Gift Fair revues to intersperse with them! And Easter's coming, and there's other stuff in the queue, and, and, I seem to be in a productive phase!

 

A couple of hollow-cast WWI French (Britains?), although they went to war in 1940 with pretty-much the same stuff, just in khaki! Both from Adrian's pound-tray, with the little unknown tin-plate howitzer/gun from his five-quid box, of such gems! It probably fired little wooden balls or dowels?

 

Two post-Giant on the left and a Quaker mounted Gladiator on the right, square-up for a bit of argie-bargie, at the feet of Cherilea's Sphinx. I was so pleased with the Sphinx purchase, I got it out to show a mate, and he pulled the same one out of his pocket! I think we'd both bought them from the same seller!

 

Late Blue Box (polyethylene) Britains copies on the left, Blue Box for Triang-Hornby (polystyrene) on the right, also squaring-up for what looks like it will be a fairly uneven fight, so unfair! With an explosion between them, which I think is a modern re-mould of the old Lineol shell-burst?

 

Early Westair ECW type. In this packageing they predate Kinder by several, if not many years, the full story will be on the 'Mocherette' page, whenever I get round to it!

 

These are nice! Two of Charles C. Stadden's war-gaming figures, around 35mm, home painted in a glossy, toy-soldier style, I spent some time googling Nappie's marshals, before switching to 'Russians', with no more success, but other uniforms I found, suggested they were more likely to be Russians (1812) than French, but then I tried 'Prussians' and found images of Frederick the Great (not Blucher), which looked like the chap on the right, so we go back a ways, to the 7YW and all those successions, and find the chap on the left is probably Hans Joachim von Zieten? Seen here as a flat, the blue on the Stadden being a little too pale, while 'Old Fritz' should have a silver breast-plate with those shoulder straps!

 

Clockwise from the greeney; who is a1990's Lucky Bag piracy of Marx's Pecos Bill, and a Kinder piracy of Lone Star's 'Metallion', Pat Masterton, who's full sized version was seen entering the stash, courtesy of Chris Smith last August!

 

A Hong Kong copy of, or 'after' Crescent (I think), in the style of Blue Box, but not one of theirs, a Kinder knight, from the two-part horses, these are nearly always found with their weapons broken these days, very brittle shafts, so a good find, another of the Morestone Stagecoach drivers, and, in the centre, the old 1960's Lucky Bag Indian in gold 'styrene.

 

This is Thomas, but much mucked-about with, painted and with a replacement set of handle-bars, which are attached with a lump of god-knows-what, it could be play-doh! So, again, at some point in the future, I think I'll try it in the ultrasonic cleaner, and see what that leaves me to work with? Pretty-sure I have a good one anyway, so I can afford to 'try something' and see!

 

Adrian found a stash of Hong Kong farm figures while sorting his stock (he is semi-retiring as I write), and passed them to my stash, and while the hope is to attribute a fair few of these to makers and/or named-sets, one day, this isn't that day! So it's just eye candy for now.

 

I have tons of this, lots of it from Chris, Peter, Trevor &etc, tubbed (large scale) or bagged (smallies) by pose, and most of these will be duplicates, but you can see the many variations between them means a few will be the first sample.

 

Strangely, various makers (or issuers) used the same colour schemes - blue/white, red/blue or red/yellow, which I suspect is because lots of smaller makers (sub-pirates, all of them!) in the blocks of the Kowloon Walled City slum (demolished in the 1990's), were being employed to produce all the farm and zoo stuff for repeat orders, for the pocket-money/rack-toy jobbers of the west, a similar situation with all the sub-Giant Wild West, and various generations of 'Army Men'?

 

Differentials include size, base shape/type, base marks, holes or pin-release marks and plastic colour, and they are all copies of other people's sculpts, with the obvious exception of the New Ray 'Country Life' chap holding the lamb-poodle-piglet hybrid! He comes in different colourways too.

 

Again clockwise from the far-left, we have an Airfix motorcycle rider, of whom I still need a few for my fleet of machines, I'll leave the paint (chocolate brown, on chocolate brown?) for now, after the lesson with the bikes! Next to him is a construction-worker/driver, and I think he may be French? He's a hard polystyrene, and well detailed, so I don't think he's Hong Kong, and he may be in a vehicle catalogue somewhere in the archive?

 

The robber is Lledo, the race-horse and jockey will probably be from a board-game, while the seated figure would appear to be from a model railway line/range, but I don't recognise the figure, or the charcoal styrene under the paint?

T is for 'There Be Dragons'!

Probably a title we've had before, but whatever, we're over 5000 posts now, so you're bound to lose track of a few, or at least I am! Had a nice chat with the Westair guys at Birmingham the other week, unlike Ancestors of Dover who wouldn't allow photography . . . you go to a fair to promote your products, hire a stand to display your products, and then don't allow attendee's to cover your products?

 

But while I was chatting I shot off a few pictures of things which caught my eye, and this is them;

 

Various busts and things, busts are a side-arm of the hobby I've not really travelled to, although there are a few plastic ones in the pile, mostly the old famous/historical persons or footballer/Wild West cereal premiums, and a number of tank crew/commanders, but I know some people almost specialise in busts - for their display potential, if nothing else.

 

We saw these a while back, but worth another shot, they offered me one as a sample, however, I reminded them they had given me one last time, and I'm really, really not at the shows for the scrounge, but to genuinely see what's happening in the hobby, or to the hobby's advantage/disadvantage!

 

Necklaces! It's funny, but they could just as easily be key-rings, phone-hangers or luggage-tag ornaments, and, in the case of those little plastic guardsmen, all four and more - earrings and snow-shakers! Once you move away from the purism of Britains, Timpo, Elastolin, Marx or Starlux, and throw your eyes wider, there so much of this stuff, you'll never find all of it!

 

We've seen all three on the Blog now, in one form or another, but not the Pyramid, which I shall now be looking out for! Many versions of the gun over the years, and I think I have more than one design of the trebuchet, so copies-of-copies abound!

 

Figural, sculptural, Teddy Bears and Rodin's 'Thinker'!

What's not to like?

 

These were all new, I have a feeling the Rep' said they were retailing a lost cheaper than the Schleich/Papo stuff, but price is always down to the end-seller, and if the trade price is low, it could encourage scalping? 

 

Also I think I was impressed to find they were a substitute PVC, rather than resin, so quite robust, but I'm now not sure if that's a false memory or wishful thinking? But twelve, out there now, and excellent enhancers of a Nottingham Mafia game table!

 

Westair Reproductions website

https://westair.co.uk/

D is for Derivative Drivel!

We don't have many 'D's, do we, weird as there's plenty of words being with D, anyway, I was trying to find a synonym for Matter's Arising, which I know we had, not that long ago, and Derivative Drivel will do!

This arrived today from New York, I shot it upside down to hide all the personal stuff, but have since opened it and there's some good stuff coming to Small Scale World soon - many thanks to Brian Berke!

 

While I bought this from Peter Evans at the show on Saturday, and while I don't usually credit by name, when money changes hands (you could never remember everyone, and don't know half the people in the room!), Peter donates a lot to the Blog, and this was well below real value, so there will be a highlights post or two!

 

We looked at this rub-down set from Westair a few weeks ago, I think, but I forgot I'd shot it twice, and you can see the transfers in these shots, different to the old Lettraset or Patterson-Blick ones, but very much in the same vein.

This monstrosity was found when I cleared the weeds from the pond, I don't know why I was clearing the weeds from the pond when we have accepted an offer, and it's technically someone else's house, but there you go!

 

I would have cleaned it for the collection, but it was more than slightly-damaged and went in the bin! It's modern, a bead-soft or whatever they are called, so thrown over the fence from either side, by kids, or possibly stolen and then dropped by a Heron or one of the many Gulls on Fleet Pond?? It's not like I haven't had the water-lily out several times over the years!

I got these Fun Express zombies the other day, from an evilBay seller, we have looked at them before, but that sample was shite, although I may not have realised that time, how similar two of the sculpts are, or how much they differ individual-to-individual, due to shrinkage/heat (arms all over the place), so might have missed some that time, but here are all four poses in both colours, the snot-green is not glow-in-the-dark.

 

Peter also messaged me after the show-post to point out the guardsman I thought might be a Hong Kong copy of Crescent, is more likely to be a Hilco plastic-from-hollow-cast, which is sort of a better find, I checked him and the mark which I thought was one of those blobby Hong-over-Kong marks, is, in fact just a blob, so I bow to Peter's superior knowledge, and better eyes!

 

I found this on a hook in a small independent corner-shop somewhere in the Surry Hills the other night, when the thirst for a Rubicon fizzy-mango came over me, and as it may have been behind a six-hundred-quid card fraud I discovered tonight, I hope you enjoy it! Luckily I had the cash on me, as I'd just filled the tank, when my card was declined!

 

Credited to Asda supermarkets and claiming to be 8 snakes, it seems to be a bunch of previously-seen here, erasersaurs (10) and 2 of the original snakes, make of that what you will, but clearly I should have checked the label!

W is for Westair

A year old, but not of any consequence, despite TJF's opinings about 'timely manners', it's all still out there, and all this museum gift-shop stuff from companies like Westair and Timeline Gifts (Ancestors of Dover) tend to run for years, but still, box-ticking a couple of points:

In recent years the old 1960's die-cast mazac figurines from Peltro/Fontanini sculpts have finally been retired and replaced by new sculpts produced in a softer, poured whitemetal, and here we see the Tudor set, four figures (probably also sold individually at a pocket-money price-point), we have Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare and Sir Francis Drake . . . Raleigh lost his head!

But what actually caught my eye was these rub-down sheets, in the style of the old Patterson-Blick/Lettraset/Waddington's (et al) ones of our childhood, but all new artwork and transfers. They look familiar, especially the WWI and Battle of Britain ones, but I checked with this website, and they are all-new artwork.

The website. I think I've posted the link before, but it's worth posting again as it is quite the monumental work, with nearly every set ever issued, and many I remembered for the first time in decades, like all the cereal premiums!

They kindly gave me the fifth as a sample, and while I haven't opened it yet, it's a gatefold scene with a sheet of rub-down transfers and a colour-in picture on the back with a potted info'panel on the theme/subject of the card.

W is for Westair's Wandering Windies Wastrels

This is a bit unfair on Brain who sent me some 'Mosherettes' back in the New Year, and - paraphrasing - I said thanks, but I'll hold them back for the Mosherette page (which is coming-along nicely), only to post these here, but A) it IS International Talk Like a Pirate Day and B) The rest of the Mosherettes are out of storage, so that project will pick-up pace now!

You don't know it but the last three posts were abandoned earlier today, with no blurb and just small notes that I would come back to them tomorrow if you were reading the notes!

As it happens I raced back to finish them and now (6.30 today) have half an hour in-hand, with an hour and a half before this one publishes, but the last four images are so self-explanatory, I don't need blurb - whatever Google, Blogger or TJF's idiot-software might say!

So as a reward to myself for getting them all done in what ended-up being a bit of a last-minute thing, I'll say AaaHaarrrrrrr Jimlaaad and Avast me 'arties! See youse'all next yearrrrrr, yeerrr land-lubbin' scumbuck'erts!

A Pirate

Another one!

A Piratess!

Guess what . . .