U is for Uni-King! And other Unknown Unknowns....

Right back at the start of the blog I did a few 'U is for Unknown...' posts, one of which was on Space Figures/Robots (overdue for another one actually!),  some have since been ID'd and the other day another of the mysteries was solved by this Little Weirdos blog post as being cheapie-toy generics from Uni-King. I'm missing a figure and a space-ship...and two other sets!

Annoyingly I've ID'd a couple of the 'still unknowns', including the 12 small-scale figures in the bottom left corner of the first image, but lost the info. in the files somewhere, it was a play-set of some kind? Can anyone help with these figures as Wouter Wayland over at Benno's Forum is equally keen to get an ID on them? A full set seems to have all 12 figures in both colour schemes and they are a reasonable 1:72nd scale.

They seem to be Star Wars knock-offs, with a clear 'Darth' and several recognisable elements of Imperial and Rebel pilot's uniforms and a bit id storm-trooper thrown in for good measure!

[Now ID'd as Tombola (although Plastic Warrior 82 showed large-scale versions by Party Pig?)]

The three 30mm white/orange/yellow astronauts in the same image also were ID'd, err...but aren't! They were on evilBay about two years ago, a big set with a space-station; gantries, control towers, connecting tube-corridors, cranes and the like, again a generic? Argos or Target or something...maybe Mattel? Can anyone help with that? I know I've got it somewhere but that's no use if I can't find it! Note the visor sticker on one figure.

[Now ID's as MB (Milton Bradley) Star Bird figures]

From the same original image - these are now well documented, possibly manufactured by Jean [Höefler] or Manurba (Manfred Urban), but just as likely - an Italian or Austrian maker, they were issued by Jumbo in a Thunderbirds themed board game but not before they'd been issued in Linde coffee, apparently - a decade or so earlier. I believe they have also appeared in the German equivalent of Lucky Bags?

But basically they were issued all over the place! Based on Plasticraft originals, once you start searching for them you find them in every colour and type of plastic, all over the world, like a lot of those early 1950's mouldings.

Jumbo set now known to have been manufactured by DS Plastics also of Holland.

B is for Boxed-set of Bullfighters

Lindsay sent me this as a thank-you for the help he/she got in identifying them from my old bullfighters post, as it's not that clear, I'm not sure how much 'help' they actually got!

I think it's a Comansi set, and for those interested in these: I believe it will be appearing on FeeBay soon; if it's not already there?

A is for Addiction...

Michael Feeds His Secret Addiction

K is for Kultbyttovarov, Odessa

To wit: the Recreational (or 'cultural'?) Goods Factory, Odessa, or at least it may be! My understanding of the language being poor, and there apparently being some confusion among the Russian/Former Soviet State's collectors as to how many factories this mark might refer to or be linked to or - indeed - what their official title was under the collective system. Probably pronounced kuult-beer-tov-arov.

The mark is clear at least...sort of...

...I think it's meant to be a big cat of some kind, but again there is wriggle-room when you ask around...a bear maybe? The mouth and eyes being formed from what appears to be open scissors, but they could be tin-snips as one of the other possible ID's for this company is the Odessa Metallurgical Works.

My total sample! I may have  a few more in storage, but I don't think so, the 'amphijeep' is gameable and around HO/OO, albeit with an in-line seating arrangement! The Frog (FROG 2?) is likewise, maybe a bit smaller; 1:90'ish?

While the two ships and the missile-armed Black Sea/River Navy patrol craft are not accurate enough/too crude to warrant awarding set size ratios!

Thanks to Nazar Marchenko for pointing me in the right direction on this one.

101 is for Dalmatians! or; C is for Coat, Fur Coat...

I'd only just taken the photo's for these when someone posted them elsewhere so I've held them back for a year, but having uploaded them in August it's time to hit 'Publish' and get them out there and ticked off!

Difficult one to research as there is no real consensus as to the number of puppies modelled/issued, with one website I found having two different totals...on the same page!

As well as larger sets there were the little boxes of the 'Tinykin' type, each of which had this flyer - it doesn't help with the total and confuses by suggesting there might be more inanimate accessories than there actually are! [it's a hi-res image, scanned as a .jpg file for download/printing...right-click 'open link in new tab' then left click the plus sign and right-click 'save as']

The Baddies...Gurrrrr! Crewella de'Vil with her comedic side-kicks skinny Jasper and Fat Horace (were the roles written with Laurel & Hardy in mind?!! No, I don't think so!), these are unusual for Tinykins in being large 60/70mm figures, so as to be in-scale with the puppies.

The Goodies...yeay! Roger and Anita (who own the two adult dogs and get together as a result of them, was he actually Roger Goode?), the Preacher and the house-maid.

Of the 35/36/37+ puppies, I've got about 18 so far, complete or near complete, they turn up in little groups with a few OK and a few damaged and it'll be a while before I'm confident I've found them all! It's the tails, it's always the tails...

...top left are Mum & Dad: Perdita and Pongo.

Colonel and Sgt, Tibbs (the cat), with a couple of the accessories and my broken examples of puppies not seen in the previous shots with my favourite, (yo-yo?) who always looks like he's broken until you study him and realise he's scratching himself!

A few examples of paint/marking variations from the duplicates, there doesn't seem to have been much of a standardisation, except where a patch or blob is a recognisable character trait. They are apparently commoner in Europe and the UK so possibly a Marx Swansea thing/connection, as a result I've tagged the maker as both British and US!

Here's a link to a useful site for more on these, including the various sets:
Disneykins

M is for...err...have you guessed yet? Mali!

Mali....yeeeesss....did I say Mali on Wednesday? I think I said Mali.

Looking forward to the outpouring of grief, the proliferation of semi-transparent Mali flags as Facebook icons, a veritable plethora of Malian vexillology over the next 48 hours? No? Why not? Are we back to 'brown people' again?

There are calls in France for an end to public discussion of 'conspiracy theories'; all of them, however they might be defined, while the Chief Constable of Surrey has just been on the Radio apparently demanding machine guns! While our execrable excuse for a leader, the inadequate cockwomble Cameron, is desperate to be allowed to play brumm-brumm's with the grown-ups in Syria.

Not because there is any tactical or strategic need for a half-dozen of our remaining aircraft to join the vast armadas of Russian and US 'planes (already backed-up by the French and others with their half-flights), but because targeted strikes in Iraq isn't carrying enough 'prestige' for him...

I hate to say I'm right, but if you think all this is anything other than the chickens of money-based, oil-fuelled, Western-centric, capitalism coming home to roost, you're wrong!

Now - Let's see those Mali flags, please...

This has just gone round the free-thinking internet so fast I don't know who to credit, but they are a credit to humanity, and they know who they are!

L is for Li-Lo

Five years ago I posted this Unknown Figures post, Peter Evans kindly identified the Li-Lo within days - if not hours - and I finally got a bead on the lower set on evilBay the other day, and I was right about it being a shooting game, Hong Kong, generic. The three poses seem to be 'it' but I can't now find it in the Unknown HK folder which means it was 'brand' named, but I can't remember where I filed it...it wasn't Gordy, Larami, Laurie, LP or Lucky - I just looked!

Anyway, back to Li-Lo...this turned-up a while ago. From the warping it's either a very unstable polystyrene or some earlier cellulose or phenolic resin? Actually marked Lilo. It's missing a draw-bar/handle thing.

In the UK Li-Lo were best know in my childhood for being the manufacturers of a vast range of polyvinyl (PVC) inflatable beds or mattresses, 'floatation devices', balls, rings and other beach/camping toys, to the point that they became synonymous with them, we had 'lilos' not inflatables! I don't know if/what they may have made/sold elsewhere....did you have Li-Lo where you are?

I'm willing to bet that the 'oversized' figure in the original post was sold with this as a beach toy, either a few together in a larger polythene bag, probably with a card header, or in a mesh-net attached to this. Pure conjecture, so don't add it to any wants lists, but that is exactly the sort of combination you'd see hanging in bunches at seaside kiosks, or further inland at the back of cycle or sporting-goods shops. There may have been a set of paper flags glued onto cocktail sticks or little wooden spills as well.

Ten minutes after publishing...there was an Australian arm, the UK parent-company had another name and Lilo is still a generic term for inflatable beds! I've also tracked down a few catalogues/adverts so will do their - now three - entries for the A-Z in a day or two...maybe!

C is for Combat Soldiers

I can't remember if this has been on the Blog or not? I took the shot back in '07 or '08, so if it hasn't it's high time it did! Rather crappy photograph I'm afraid, I was still getting to grips with flash and the macro settings, but rather crappy figures, so: ...

...the earlier 60-mils from Marx, two gunner/loaders but no gun and two guys doing PT with a grenade, but I always quite liked the squatting/sitting firer, a very decent bit of sculpting - the chap with a rifle that is; the bazooka-man's going over backwards any second now!

M is for More toys tomorrow...

...Libya, Nigeria, Mali, Tunisia, Egypt...Crimea, Ukraine, Georgia, Transdniestria, Moldova... Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Burma . . . Peru, Mexico, Columbia...

Religious zealots, drug cartels, Marxist/Leninist ideologues, 'genuine' revolutionaries...we're all one species and we better find a way of getting along together soon, or there'll be no planet left worth living on.

With thanks to the artist Lee Marej for letting me use his image:

Deviant Art
Facebook

S is for Sickened

Funny how 129 French deaths get the entire Internet going red, white and blue, but 224 Russian deaths went unmourned by the same keyboard warriors a couple of weeks ago!

But then...Slavs? Not much better than brown people, huh?

The false wailing and gnashing of teeth, the metaphorical wearing of sackcloth and ashes, the mawkish sentimentality, the idea that millions of people were taken by surprise...again! Fuck Off! Middle-class, middle-aged, pro-establishment (the real problem), uneducated, fakery.

Grow up and educate yourselves, before it's too late. Read 1984 and watch the rush to push through Draconian law-enforcement legislation with open eyes, read Catch 22 and listen to the politico's speeches through open ears . . . I'll be standing over here in despair!

N is for Not Suprised

Who are we at war with? Eastasia or Eurasia?

Image - Wkipedia

It's the white bit we need to worry about as it's entirely a construct of Western intervention, colonialism, slavery, empire building and corporate land- and resource-grabs.

The only thing that surprises me about the last 16 hours is that people are still surprised! Orwell and Huxley warned us this was our future, how can we be surprised? Kafka and Heller patiently explained the madness we operate in and tolerate, how can we be surprised?

The answer - of course - is that the average citizen is a selfish, stupid, frightened creature with an abysmal knowledge of world affairs, his own country's political situation or the effects of capital on himself, those around him and the ecology of the entire planet.

It is a fact that in the next few days the sales of private body-armour (never to be worn) will go up, in countries that allow them (America) the sale of guns will peak this afternoon, and yet, tomorrow, the world will only have become slightly less safe!

If you are feeling surprised today; worried, confused, maybe a little frightened...my advice is go out and purchase another movie channel, subscribe to the new Games Workshop mechanism, buy a new iPhone, get a scarf. You can never have too many scarves in the scarf drawer. Order a pizza with ALL the extras. It's what the rulers want you to do, carry on as normal, ignoring the fact that normal is the root of the problem. The root of all the problems.

Oh, and you could get CCTV throughout the house, as you'll be doing a future government a favour if you prepare in advance of legislation!

To quote (misquote?) Private Baldrick -

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupiddidy stupid.

T is for Toy Story

Following-up on one of my 'general' posts from last year, this is what the Disney/Mattel pull-train Toy Story figures looked like when their bases were smoothed-off.

Not too shabby...

T is for "Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!"

Except that of course the message of the early films in an ultimately arse-ripped franchise (and the truth) is that we are the damn, dirty, filth. Apes are trying to live their lives as we eat them, plough-up their lands and burn their forests...oh yeah...AND try to beat them to death when they run from the flames...

Japanese company AHI's Doctor Zaius (pronounced Zeus) on a wind-up, clicky-clacky 'running' horse, he's missing his rifle which should be slung over his shoulder.

He knew we were the 'damn dirty' apes, and twisted his science and his religion in order to preserve the status quo...a very Human trait.

L is for Le Drapeau Tricolore de Starlux

From Starlux, a tri-coloured Flag!

French Paratrooper standard bearer, older moulding on the left in each shot, newer on the right, points to note, older version has rounded base, blanco gaiters painted on, painted belt and gold highlights on beret and flag. It also has the 'Starlux' recessed in the base, the later one has the mark standing proud and has been repaired.

Thanks to Samwise Gamgee for one if not both of these?

E is for Even I play with them occasionally!

Galoob Micro-machine Paratroopers and jump instructors practice exit drills on the gymnasium floor!