C is for Chris's Autumn Parcel - Everything Else!

Basically, TV & movie related, Sci-Fi and Fantasy figures and a spaceman who might be a diver (or a skydiver), but who is more spaceman than diver (or skydiver) when compared with the divers who were nearly spacemen (but not skydivers) in the previous post!

Kid's TV! A Paddington pencil-top, I think he's missing a hat, but I might have a spare one somewhere, or a Hong Kong cowboy 'Swoppet' hat in red or blue can suffice! In the middle is a new Pink Panther, while the Big Ears is from a Budgie toy tricycle I think?

A Santa's sleigh, weighed-down with presents; hard polystyrene and hollow, there's a catch-like hole in the front-end which suggests he may have been clipped to something like a musical box, or that there was a deer-team with a T-bar 'key'?

There was going to be some more cake-decoration posts this month, but I think they're going to be pushed back to next year now, especially if I get the Nativities finished first! We'll see how the holiday week goes after tomorrow's cooking!

Fantasy; with a Kellogg's black cauldron figure in the middle, undercoated for painting, he's a home-cast pewter/whitemetal copy, the originals were in typical premium colours! To the left is a Chinese Lord of the Rings knock-off, I think? Again, it went to storage before I'd taken notes or paid attention! With a C.S. Lewis 'Narnia' toy to the right from Disney/Walden, we've seen a couple before here.

A fantasy board game figure on the left, but on the right is a fascinating thing, which has some of the properties of a paperclip, and Chris wondered if it might be the logo/mascot of a hotel or restaurant, and have been used to hold menus or a welcome pack (fire-regulations?) in a  motel-room or something like that?

Does anyone recognise the slightly devilish fantasy warrior type? Equally it might hold dividers together on a board-game so players can't see what's happening on the other side of the board?

We've see these before too - classic Christmas cracker novelty! Not sure if we've seen an elephant, I know I have a bear in orange/yellow, but love this shite! This is the stuff which makes Christmas memories when you're five!

Lik Be's legacy written over two of them, but no LB here! A Marx 'Mystery Spaceship' alien in the less common (?) red, as against the Orange/Green set we saw here, along with a robot sucker and mini-astronaut, and both LB piracies.

Eclectic line-up here, Galoob knock-off called Soldier Force (imported into the US by James Alex Imports, don't know who handled them here?), Acme novelty mini-Autobot and a 'Gumball' pencil-top of an Ultraman, Gatchaman, Battle of the Planets, or Astro Boy character?

A later Autobot/Transformer type key ring, a stylised/deform Dr. Who (last but one?) from a maker I've missed and a Character Options Cyberman make-up this trio of more recent Sci-Fi stuff.

A lead Sci-Fi lady, which I'm hoping Terranova might be able to help us with, as I know he has dealt with some of these 'new production' whitemetal companies, but I don't think she's from the Dan Dare set?

The second one is a rubber/PVC material and a solid, similar to some of Yolanda's stuff but not them, while the third is a Dragon Ball character, possibly Ultimate Gohan?

Half a Tente spaceman from Spain, who will go with the others to find or await his legs, and the Spaceman who might be a diver (or skydiver), he definitely held-on to something with his ring-hands and looks quite modern, but the backpack is not really a SCUBA set, nor a decent life-support system, or a parachute pack?

Should have been in the previous post! The three painted ones up the top are all interesting, one is clearly a casualty from a toy ambulance, but quite a big one, anybody recognise him to ID it? Next to him on the right is a farm type in the New Ray style while the kneeling chap with treasure (?) box may be from a movie-related set?

The ruing guy is actually roller-skating, and looks like various figures from Accoutrements/Archie McFee, but I don't recognise him? The small farm figures are Smart Toys while the babe in flares is probably a Homie? Another of those Chauffeur/Doorman types, and a Marx baby-jesus, which is rather fitting, right now!

Finishing with a rather gruesome trio - for the time of year - I'm afraid, but that's how I shot them and that's the order in which they were cropped/collaged. In the style of Safari, but with heavier painting/weathering and similar to the horrid hags from the aforementioned Accoutrements/Archie McFee but smaller and a harder rubber-like material, they are both a nice surprise and a mystery! Some blind-bag gaming thing maybe; they look like Monsters in my Pocket should have looked like!

Which brings us to the end of Chris's donation, so many, many thanks to him for going to the trouble of putting them all to one side, saving them-up and sending them, I hope you've enjoyed looking at them, and maybe ID'd something in your odd's pile?

I've missed the Blog's birthday again, but this should get us one post from fifth-best year for posting, which is a minor miracle given what's going on in the background! So I'll wish you all a happy Christmas for tomorrow, and be merry!

F is for Friedel

Mentioned in passing here at Small Scale World once or twice, always - as sharper-eyed Loyal readers may have noticed - in connection with the sheep, as someone on one of the animal forums ID'd the sheep years ago, so I knew them as being the droopy-eared ones!

This set probably dates from the 1950's, it's missing a thin, crinkly type, cellulose-film window, there were a few fluttering-tags left, but it looked better with them removed! 13-piece, 12-item count, is par for the course and it's what you might call a composite set, being a mixture of wooden, plastic and slip-cast bisque components, all on a bed of dyed wood-straw.

The Holy family on the left and the three wise men or Magi on the right (another poor shot, sorry!), you can see how the figures are slip-cast from a pourable ceramic solution, like fairings (or slush-cast lead).

Like the Art Plastics stuff out of Hong Kong, they (or some of them; the 'Kings' and shepherd) had paper labels covering the holes, but they were a thin tissue or newsprint (UK readers think; chip-paper!) and have long since been pierced, probably by the very small-peoples' fingers they were trying to protect from the sharp edges of the casting!

Two droopy-eared sheep, a grazing one, and rather nice cow & donkey sculpts (in a composition style) join the polymer Little Baby Jesus who gets a hand-made wooden crib which does actually look like a manger (first in five posts!). The Shepherd is another ceramic 'fairing'.

The manger was lined with moss, which has dried and worn-off, just like the moss on the floors of the wooden stables they would have gone with, indeed some may even have been boxed next to them on the self and marked Friedel?

C is for Chris's Autumn Parcel - Sports & Civilians

I was going to do sports and civilians as two separate posts, but realised most of them were sports (or pastimes) of one sort or another, and all the seated figures were in one shot which would have made a quick post with two Asian ladies, so they're all here!

Fussbal! There was something about pig's bladder kicking on Faceplant the other day, some Arabs were organising an end-of year kick-about or something, I believe the Argentines were playing dirty again, but still won? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

The three on the right are from board games of one type or another, but the chap on the left is one of those press-button collapse'a'toys (I've ever found a good generic term for them), where all the parts are threaded on wire, cotton button-thread (in this case) or fishing line, and held in tension by a spring in the drum base, so when you press the button, pushing the spring in, the fellow collapses like a 'red shirt' in an alien death ray! All plastic - brilliant thing!

Sorry for the upper shot, by the time I realised it was unusable they had gone to storage, so I used it! They are something we have seen before, in depth twice and in many mixed-posts like this one so you should be familiar with them, and with so many variations in size, colour and base type; something we will return to one day, these are mid-range (30-odd millimeters) and mid-quality.

Below them we have a rider (from an eraser go-cart/cartie type thing?) in eraser rubber, a wrestler in the style of Kinukiman/M.U.S.C.L.E., but not marked-up as one of them, so probably a gum-ball/capsule-machine knock-off, and, finally, an ice hockey player, similar to the pencil-top/key-ring footballers, but with no sign of a loop having been removed and no hole up his back-passage, more of a stand-alone desk-mascot.

The rear of that cart-rider, I wondered if he was a spaceman (he's quite similar to the Dinky Moon-buggy/Space Chariot crew, but he's more BMX'y with knee-pads and padded thigh-protectors, and I have half a feeling I've seen the cart somewhere, equally you might think pencil-top, but the larger hole is still a tad small, and I suspect locating-lugs on the go-cart?

The upper shot shows three skiers, all cake decorations, all Hong Kong, two polyethylene and one polystyrene (to the left) who's predictably lost his sticks, the first two are copies of the Britains Arctic Explorer, the one to the right a Gemodels skier I think?

The funny thing is I think the Britains 'Arctic' exploration set came out during the hype for an Antarctic expedition, the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958, which my late mother helped with, back here in the UK, and I've found some of the paperwork in her estate, which at some point I'll do something with, nothing exciting; kit lists, typed databases of suppliers, formats of begging-letters, that sort of thing!

Below them are three of the cuckoo-clock/barometer figures, a pair and an odd, with a lovely Bavarian/Tyrolean dancer in Lederhosen. We have looked at the clock-figures before, but we will return to them at some point because several more have come in, and hopefully some will make-up more pairs? In the meantime this is a pretty good line-up!

A couple of these - like the go-carter - were borderline space figures until I looked closer; they all seem to be divers/marine explorers of one type or another, with a deep-sea diver to the left, two undersea vehicle crew to his right and the Nabisco (?) diver, much chewed in front. The chewed one is worth keeping for the colour and the fact that I think I only have the one other - bent legs - pose!

The deep sea diver looks like a pencil top, but the hole is too small again, so I expect he's from a similar novelty to the Nabisco one, which relies on air pressure/water density affecting a air-bubble in the hole, to make him go up and down in a bottle? But what do I know? He might be a nineteen-fifties fish-tank ornament from a weighted wreak or something!

The other yellow plastic chap is from one of the several rack-toy sea 'chariot' or James Bond villain-army type toy vehicles out there, I think/assume!

The 'might be' Hilco cake decoration hunters, from Britains Lilliput above, with two Hong Kong cyclists below, one almost a cracker-toy, but we've seen the packaging here I think, the other from one generation of Britains piracy or another. I picked up another, raising his arms as if crossing the finish-line, the other day, which I'm pretty sure goes with this chap (but they are already ensconced in two different places!), so it's a question of matching them with the right cycles in the future, and blogging them together with the doors and the little articulated one we saw here a while ago!

Seated figures, like paratroopers are standard contents of mixed lots, and highlights this time are the turquoise one (top, middle) who looks to have some age, and the metallic turquoise one below him which is also new to me, I think? Below them is a grey aircraft (?) crewman, in the style of a kit-figure, but possibly factory-painted and therefore from a more commercial toy/pre-built aeroplane model?

Lastly, but anything but leastly; two more of the KT/Shackman et al., figures, we saw these two in images from Brian Wagstaff which are on the 'World Dancers' page (link at the top of the page), so it's really nice to have them here now, a separate image has already been taken and added to the 'Commonwealth additions' folder!

When Brian W sent them I hoped they might be the sign of a larger set of ex-Commonwealth or Van Brode sculpts within the tourist/novelty pencil-sharpener line we've been looking at here, but these are the fourth/fifth to turn-up now, and the feeling is that they are just the pair, as in a 'Pair of Asian Dancers'

With a pair of Americans (Cowboy & Indian), pair of Germans/Tyrolean's (May Day/Dirndl dancers), four British touristy subjects (Policeman, Beefeater, Guardsman and Highland piper), and . . . I'm hopeful a Mountie might turn-up?

Thanks again to Chris for all these, which leaves us waiting for the 'other figures' post!

R is for Round-up! Art Plastics

So, our last visit to Art this year, but I'm sure we'll visit them again, as they seem to have been as prolific - as knock-off pirates - out of Hong Kong as Fontanini were back in the home territory of Europe, and - of course - the USA!

I picked these up a few weeks ago, for this 'mini season' on Art, they are the same set we started last year's small-scale post with, but naked as the day they left the injector head! The carry/storage case is different, both in layout and lacking the pull-out dividers, it's all one moulding, so maybe a bit later - more sophisticated technology, as the higher shelves of the smaller compartments are now moulded-in?

I'm not sure on the missing components, as the count is different from last years, and we have all the kings, but I suspect the lamb belongs in the empty shallow shelf, leaving room for a second sheep? Joseph is missing (but the kneeling shepherd with stick can stand-in) and that a couple of shepherds are the other two empty tall ones?

The survivors! Why I'm, sure we'll re-visitArt Plastics, I hate question marks, so I'll track down a better one! The Donkey is suffering from mould-heat induced rickets, and won't stand up!

A couple of shots of off that evilBay; on the right a small scale variation of the other set we've been looking at, marked Art, on the left what I suspect is the 60mm set in a much larger tray (which may be polyethylene? The tray, not the figures), and you can do a quick comparison, one set is 'Art Deco'y with sharp edged sculpting, the other softer and more Fontanini-like.

With standing animals in one set, laying animals in the other, a choice of up to three standing shepherds, a second laying sheep with reverse head-sculpt, different baby Jesus's and several angels, in at least four sizes, and having realistic or stylised painting, on white, dun or cream plastic, or left undecorated, they could produce workable Nativities for most budgets from a basic 8-figures, up to 18+ items, and they were copied by some of their neighbours in Hong Kong!

And, while one or two of the sculpts in the more-realistic set are straight-lifts from Fontanini, others seem more original, with the 'Art deco' sculpted set, I'm not so sure if they are original, or a complete copy of a Euro-set, but I'll find out over time, and as I've said, we'll return to them with more, because there is more, not least a side-by-side comparison between the various figures/sizes and two set, which are currently in three places!

C is for Chris's Autumn Parcel - Wild West

So, couple of busy days have put me slightly behind, drove over to pick-up the dregs of Dave Pomeroy's archive yesterday - bit of a mini-adventure in itself! But I'll catch-up quick enough, life-willing, and it's back to the donation from Chris Smith a month or so ago, with a look at the cowboy and native Indian angle, of that rootin' tootin' shootin' wild Wild West!

A nice group of semi-flats in an 'ivorene' polystyrene plastic, it's probably rare to find them so undamaged as a group! They are unmarked marked Vortella Plastic, and while in the style of the Coca-cola animals, have thinner bases, they are also somewhat in the style of the US Cracker Jack set, but different, heavier sculpts, I don't think they've been attributed to anyone yet, but would seem to be Euro-premiums/margarine giveaways?

Bendy Toys; a striation of colour weaving its way through the marble of Small Scale World; I think we've seen the smaller chaps before, but the Brabo styled 'lanky-git' to the right is a lovely thing, I forgot to note any marks before that tub went up to storage, but I think it was a Hong Kong mark not Brabo themselves? And a Safari on the far end. [Next day - it's not Safari is it, I think it's Phiadal's Pocahontas set, I keep them all in the same tub; painted PVC!]

Fun chaps; There's a mix of modern China marked generics (first three) possibly accessories from a big-box play set, of exactly the kind of thing hardware, stationary, general stores and/or pharmacies get-in at this time of year, and an older Soma figure (on the right).

Base marks, I recently (well; about a year ago!) got a similar lot in with a mix of the Soma and similar premium figures from Haribo, so at some point in the future (year or two?) we will compare all three with the older cartoony stuff from Jecsan (Spain) and Lik Be (Hong Kong), in a much fuller post.

The de rigueur bag of Giant or Giant-like bits, these being mostly the ones I call 'Wavymane' associated with several brands/brand-marks, but that's all for the other Blog!

I'm pretty sure these are premiums, just not sure who, and I think we've seen them before, maybe always in this dark, metallic lilac, but I won't sware to it! Obviously, we'll return to them when they are all brought together! With a new pose to the left?

This is rather intriguing, nearly all the poles have come loose, and the thing's been 'ironed' into a stiff hankie by the weight of whatever toys were laying over it, but you can see feint marks where the original glue was, or where the past making-tape was applied as a first attempted mend, so eventually I intend to restore it.

I'm guessing it went with smaller 3 or 4-inch action figures or something like Playmobile figures, and is - clearly - a fabric Tee-Pee/Tipi with wooden poles; four present, probably six originally?

The painted cowboy with the straw boater can be found as a cowboy or a jungle/big-game hunter, and is probably missing a dog, usually attached to the front of the base, but this is a non-Blue Box sub-piracy and may not have run to a dog!

Below him is one of the very-well sculpted 40mm backwoodsmen and Indians (copied from a larger scale) which, like those AWI's we looked at a while ago, have some of the properties of DFC, but are probably older and of better quality than DFC's figures?

To his right is one of Nardi Mounties; a bit the worse for wear, but a useful sample against something better turning-up one day, good ones tend to command high prices and stay outside my practical (read: tight-fisted) budget!

Some interesting Hong Kong production, including two painted (newer) and two in blue plastic (older, one aping Texas, but probably from a coach-roof?), some cake decorations and another of the Lone Star shooting game figures, we'll have to return to them too, as after the original post and a couple of follow-ups, more have come in (four I think, three from Chris?) and the paperwork, so it should all be tied-together more neatly!

Finally, top-right, a wagon crewman . . .

. . . which I'm guessing is US, or from US moulds (early Tudor Rose or Kleeware, Salco, Selcol, someone like that?), nice, a sort of hard, coal-black 'styrene, and the hunt for an ID will occupy my mind from time to time!

Smallies; two of the horses from those cheap wedding-cake type coaches, and three of the Hong Kong coach/wagon crew, having looked at them before, I've since ID'd older French and Italian versions, some/one of which should be the donor! The broken horses are worth keeping as colour samples, as there seem to be so many variants of them!

More smallies! Top row; A Marx-copy cracker toy/Lucky Bag premium of Pecos Bill, two Marx Miniature Masterpieces, one damaged hard polystyrene (left) and one soft polyethylene (right) from the window-box sets and a Blue Box miniaturised Britains sculpt.

A Minimodels mounted Indian; I've just picked up two painted metal castings (because you DO cast metal) of these from the aforementioned Dave Pomeroy's archive (he didn't design them, they are Charles Stadden's work) and they are equally damaged; the weapons were just too thin! Finally a trio of Hong Kong'ies for the relevant tubs of such things - love the plastic colour of the cracker-toy, bottom-right!

So thanks again to Chris for another interesting lot of odds to share, and it's civi's next I think?

B is for Biggies - Art's Five Inch Figures

So, the reason I asked you to note the mostly undecorated Joseph with his touches of gold (and the brown 'wash' cloak), in the earlier post, was because he was channeling this whole set, which at 150mm is the biggest of the Art Plastics sets I've found so far. This one an import (into the United States) by Similegno;

Similegno seem to be a smaller version of somebody like Shackman, with other nativitie sets and household goods or novelties under their brand. A 12 piece set, which - as I've said - seems to be the average, you can go as low as 8, or upwards beyound 15, the Santons and Fontanini 'ranges' being almost limitless in the former case and well over 40-items in the latter's 35/40mm and 54/60mm lines.

Mentioning Fontanini, we have another of their shepherd sculpts in this set, albeit finessed I think, either by Art, or someone in-between? Also, note that at this size we get a separate Jesus, still in a rather truncated 'Moses basket', but the two items counting as one-piece for the total.

Produced in a faux ivory or 'Ivorene' plastic with simple gold highlights, mostly to clothing hems and the Wise Men's presents, the only colour is a semi-transparent/smokey-opaque red 'brick' of plastic making-up Joseph's (very anachronistic - medieval or post medieval) storm-lantern, which is a tied-in separate piece.

And these too have the paper/card seal over the hollowed-out bases, here; the DOnkey's, with close-ups of the shepherd and little baby Jesus . . . it's his official Birthday in a week!

If you remember last year's post, there are many copies of Art Plastics (themselves pirates) in the smaller sizes, and I'm sure over time copies of the larger (60/70mm) ones will turn-up too, but whether at this more extreme size I'm not so sure?