About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, February 13, 2016

R is for Recent Sorting Session!

When I say recent..I mean about two years ago I think! This stuff sits in Picasa as I think I must photograph it, then don't know what to do with the photographs, yet it seems that these sorting or show plunder posts get the most traffic over time...so I'll whore myself to Google-love and clear Picasa with several of these in the next month or so!

Gareth from Morgan Miniatures (currently promoting his new Ancient Egyptian Infantry from the battle of Kadesh) pushed this stash to me for no real money at all at a Sandown Park show ages ago, and as it was a busy day I didn't get to have a proper look until I got home that evening.

Bags, lots of bags! All the detritus from mixed lots which he's sorted into his collection...he knows I like the eclectic junk and small scale so he put this lot aside for me. basically we'll look at them bag-by-bag, but some of it's out of order and I can't remember the order now, not that it matters!

Kinder bits top left, a couple of HK athletes, a bunch of seated 'unknowns' and a nice (but damaged) motorbike with a French or Italian look (toy-wise). The best thing in this bag (eclectic and small scale!) is the sub-scale piracy of the Matchbox farmer in a soft silicon-rubber, presumably from a Chinese rack-toy I've yet to ID?

Also of interest, the two wooden cannon; might be home-made or might be wartime austerity/craft toy accessories for a wooden fort? The yellow Dinky copy, white astronaut, lead (Britains or Crescent?) range-finder and the Esci/Italeri Nebelwerfer chap who's already enhanced a post, a while ago...he needed dismantling and re-glueing.

More mini-ships and the Esso Tiger who got blogged the other night. The little car is one of the Charbens 'Old Crocks' they are quite common, but usually in this state paint-wise, however, they also suffer from metal-fatigue, particularly the wheels, so it's nice to get one in this condition, even with the paint loss. And it will make a nice WWI staff car after a re-paint!

Next lot!

Cereal toys aplenty! Hong Kong copies of Crescent circus, a bunch of the Kellogg's animals and a couple of other animals, one of which (orange girafe) I think I saw on the Cereal site the other day. The Zylmex half-track is probably the recent Red Box Motorcity re-issue (I say 'recent' casually...it's probably 15/20 years ago now! It gets faster as you get older...wait 'till you're here!), but identical to the 1970's original.

Nice heap...

...breaks down to give most of a Marx 45mm G.I. mould-shot in mint condition, various useful gaming figures, Merit tree bits and a Lego tree, a Kinder robotic horse (?!?), Blue Box plough and a local-yokel key-ring. I perticularly like the two ghost/ghoul figures which I have ID'd but haven't got the moniker in front of me!

Hiding under the click-shut bags (I refuse to adopt the infantile 'baggie' moniker..luvies, buddies, baggies, babies - big babies!) are a couple of nice mid-1970's header-carded rack-toys which will get their day when I cover the originals...in fact the right-hand one might have had it's day last year sometime...I think I did Lido HK copies?

Another - whole - bag of gaming pieces, some Game Workshop, some GW for MB (Milton Bradley), some less obvious and all waiting for an in-depth article looking at all the commercial boxed open-and-play version sof this type.

Continental premiums as polystyrene flats and tin flags along with the Lido submarine I had been missing for the longest time, picking-up the sky-blue surface ships years ansd years ago!

Least said, soonest forgotten! But that's half the fun of these mixed junk lots, and I will keep one of each in any event, seems to be a Mustang lookie-likey (Pucara trainer?) and a more obvious Stuka!

Best bit of a Blue Box fort, lots of wall pieces for a land-grab by the illegal immigrants and  - despite the cotton hinting at damage - the whole gate was in one piece so bargain I think!

I kept meaning to blog these when the collection was at hand back in the early days of the blog, but I don't think I ever got round to it...HK copies of the Marklin lead flat HO railway workers, I have quite a few of these now and really like them. In the small-scale world so much of HK's production is Airfix based one always has a soft spot for other sousces of figures.

Starting to sort a big bag of mostly Airfix clones, newer on the left, older on the right, interesting bits sorted above...

...then breaking down the left pile and finding a few more oddments...

...and then the right-hand pile gives the above, the blueish-grey Britains clone was new to me, and while he was the only one in the whole pile, you need to get lots of these piles to find those odd figures. He's now on the HK Khaki Infantry page, marked China, he's a recent Cracker or gum-ball toy.

Airfix fort roof and HK walls, all grist to the mill! The walls go in an 'unsorted' bag and occasionally get sorted against the known examples, as there are subtle differences between the various Giant, Woolbro, Gordy, Success, Fleetwood et.al. supplied/branded forts.

Large lump of robotic Games Workshop which prooved to be almost complete, a blob of....sea-grass (?) from a modern action figure r doll play set probably. And a real gem, hidden under that gloss chocolate brown paint was a Gem Models rock formation.

As with the Airfix clones, there's usually a bag of hollow-horsed 'Cowboys & Indians', usually mixed product of several sources/brands (with little or no genuine Giant) to be sorted out....

...and again, separating the obvious lots and puting the lesser items to one side...

..in this case a Marx barbed-wire strand, Quaker horse, Morestone/Budgie horse and some 15mm Christmas cracker/gum-ball toy minis...

...along with four late/post Giant foot figures...

...and only four of the correct figures for a heap of the horse I call Waveymane...I have started work on that page, but it's a big job and obtaining lots like this all help with that bigger picture!

C is for Cross...of the Crusaders

Or B is for Box-ticker...using 'crusader' in a post title probably gets me on a Jihadi death-list somewhere! Nothing exiting, interesting or rare here today, just getting them in the tag-list - Timpo, Crusaders, polyethylene, swoppets, 54mm...job done!

First version; I prefer them to the second type, contrary - I'd agree - but that's the cost of having nostalgia for a mistress! The poses are a bit more wooden than the second type, but at least they look like they're wearing chain-mail unlike their battle-casualty replacements who...

...were clearly coated in polished steel-wire! They are the better poses, but they just leave me colder...sorry, 2nd type crusader fans!

Comparison between the two, and the various shield designs, the method of creating the arm-straps out of the rear of the red-cross became cleaner with each generation of design.

They both had mounted versions on standard Timpo horses, with the hook-over caparison. That's it - Timpo, Crusaders, polyethylene, Swoppets, 54mm...job done!

A is for Army Moving Parts Vehicles!

Preparing stuff for a future page...actually: preparing stuff for the existing HK Khaki Infantry page and the Airfix Blog, I kept getting confused by shots in two folders, eventually I 'realised' I'd shot the same set twice..."But hold on" I thought..."One of these folders is for the Britains/Crescent stuff, the other is for the Airfix stuff...what's going on here?"

Well, those naughty pirates in 1950/60's Hong Kong were plagiarising each other with some skill and confusing me years later, so as an exercise in how devious they all were - I give you:

 Army Moving Parts Vehicles...parts I and parts II!

Side by side and a quick glance...they're the same set aren't they, artwork's a bit fuzzy on the right-hand one...or a bit sharp on the left-hand one, other than that, the same set. Aaahhh! But....the figures are different? Must have run out and bought some others in, to finish a contract?

Well, maybe, but it's a little subtler than that...everything is different...everything! Upper shots and left shots below are all of the left-hand set, lower/right are the right-hand set...

The mini Humber trucks are two different sizes and equate to two different classes in the posts I did on the subject, the left set having the little spoke-wheeled ones with black plug-ins (my 'Type 4'), the right set having metal-axles and solid wheels with green plug-ins (my 'Type 6A').

The artwork is done using different printing systems, one litho-plated, the other a form of three-colour screen-print, the artwork and font copied none-too-accurately, with only one having a stock-number.

One has the 100-figure card copies of Airfix, the other having copies of Britains Lilliput 'Trooscale' troops.

But this is where the depth of the piracy becomes obvious, if not incredible....the same two aircraft types, placed similarly on the card, but from two sources, the one pair being well detailed with stars on the wings, the other pair blob'ier with HONG KONG across the wings. That's a lot of effort to go to for what was probably little reward. But - any reward is worth whatever it takes!

Wheels and tyres...different!

Axles and chassis - different! Marks...

...gun-mounts, guns, even (slightly) the drivers; all different.

A close-up of the two artworks, this isn't based on photography or photocopying, this is carefully copying everything in the original...poorly!

I suspect the one on the right is the original, probably locked into an exclusivity contract with a Western importer/jobber, the one on the left was copied to be hawked round the toy centres. We'll never know, but it's a fascinating example of how they worked in HK back then...no honour among thieves! More on thieves in a week or two...

A is for Additional Avian Advertising Articles

As well as the links to his Jig Toy pages Nick Symes also sent a follow-up to the Vitacup figure posts, I think we have seen the Penguin, but the other two are new to the blog so thanks Nick. That's it really...I'll work on a list to add before I publish...now below, as if by magic! :-)

Penguin, Ostrich and Eagle

Known Listing
(headings are mine)

Domestic (4)
Cat
Poodle
Airedale/Scottie type
Bulldog

Farm (6/7)
Pony (four legs on the ground)
Foal (one leg bent)
Horse
Goat
Lamb (standing head turned)
Lamb (lying? head forward)
Sheep - Prone (might not be Vitacup?)

European Wildlife/Woodland Animals (8 from 7 sculpts)
Wild Boar
Deer/Fawn - head up (small horns)
Deer/Fawn - head up (no horns)
Deer/Fawn - feeding
Stag
Squirrel
Fox
Rabbit (Hare?)

Wildlife (10)
Rhinoceros
Elephant - adult trumpeting
Elephant - baby
Polar Bear
Bison (Wisent?)
Camel - Bactrian two humped
Lion
Lioness (or Jaguar?)
Giraffe
Kangaroo
Gazelle / Dic Dic?

Birds (7)
Pheasant
Duck
Stork/Crane
Pelican
Penguin
Ostrich
Eagle (sea eagle?)

Other (1)
Three Wise Monkeys

Google isn't giving-up any others, neither is FeeBay (which has a nice group on at the moment), so that seems to be it for now. There's more on them here.

T is for Toyway, Timpo, Terrans and Terrible Two

Picked up a bag of Hong Kong sourced spacemen a while ago, and had a couple of shots in Picasa so a quick overvie...no! It's not grand enough to be an 'overview' - a quick review of some of Toyway's past products!

The knight on the right is one of the old Timpo mouldings Toyway were turning out for a while, useful as a source of the original 'solid' shield and flag (albeit in a weird slightly wishy-washy plastic) while on the left is their late effort, around 60mm (really a chunky 54mm on giant horses!), these would be a ton better if it wasn't for the colours.

Yes they are chunky, but they are nice animated sculpts, the black knight taking a swipe, the silver looking for all the world as if he's only just managed to stay in the saddle and avoid the axe! But....purple? Turquoise? I like the homage to the original Timpo in the horses base on the left.

These two are a dense PVC/vinyl and pre-date the Shleich/Papo, Revell/ELC and Blue Box 'big-vinyls' of today by a fair few years. Sculpted by our own Peter Evan's I believe?

The real reason for the post...a bagged set of astronauts which seem to be quite (very?) early Toyway stuff, going on the graphics and the fact that I've had these in the unknown box for at least 19/20 years. I thought the equipment might be Blue Box or Lucky due to the quality/style, but never blogged them as such because I wasn't sure.

Not that that doesn't mean they weren't issued by someone else or in another branded packaging at some point, they have the look and feel of 1970's products. And I'm pretty sure the rock formation has starred elsewhere (Larami - Planet of the Apes rack-toy?), and yes...that's purple paint again!

Peaceful, exploratory, NASA types, they can quickly become armed, dumb-money destroyers, either with a little imagination, or a bit of glue and some pieces from the spares box...they're polystyrene! Around 45/50mm I like the chap on the far right...he has a variation of the hover-platform also found in the Airfix astronaut set, but with proper pressurised gas-canisters, not the strange balls in the earlier, smaller set.

So that's styrene, PVC and ethylene from the same company, they'd put anything in a toy bag! The toy division of Pocketbond...you wouldn't know it! Still listing the separate base Greeks and Egyptians along with the die-cast Rommel from Blue Box, there is a BB link...hummmm....!

Friday, February 12, 2016

L is for Left Hand Miniatures

I don't often win something, indeed I think I've only ever won a few club raffle prizes, and the magazine letter thing I mentioned here, back at the start of the blog, but I can add a win to the total!

There was a 'Name the new figures' competition (the pictures were of the 'greens' and have been taken down now) flagged-up on one of the war gaming forums a while ago and I fired off a few ideas in the heat of the moment and forgot all about it, then last week I got an eMail from Graydon Gorby of Left Hand Miniatures informing me I had had a choice selected and - further - had won a set of the figures!

Three days later and a US Postal Service jumbo-jet into terminal 4 LHW...the figures were mine! And rather nice they are too...I'll have to try painting them, even if I only paint the one I named. I'd love to do more painting, but time and the Devil wait for no man!

So, these are they...(my suggestions in brackets)

LCHB001. - Deadeye Davina (Limilla)
LCHB002. - Haleloke (Fancy Nancy)
LCHB003. - Uma Caulder (Sierra Solo)
LCHB004. - Empress Leonesse & 'Sanura' (Gloria Regina; I forgot to name the Lion!)
LCHB005. - Holly Go Heavily Armed

Davina and Uma would would make a brilliant pair of pirates in a role-playing game of the type, or the girls make a nice eclectic gang as a group...no men! More here.

Holly go Heavily Armed! Tank-girl with 'big hair'! I posed her on Garratt's encyclopaedia because he had such a poor opinion of fantasy and sci-fi miniatures I thought a bit of karma was called for! I'm not sure what she's holding, but I know I wouldn't want to be down-range of it...a repeater fleshette-grenade pistol I think!

Empress Leonesse & 'Sanura' is a rather nice sculpt (they all are!), bringing to mind the eponymous 'She' condemning chains of captured enemies to the fiery-grave of a volcanic flume...alive! You don't mess with someone who controls a Lion...

Two of the figures come with a little spruelette of parts, Japanese swords in Uma's case, a selection of pony-tails for  Haleloke...nice figures, check them out...I'm a winner...thank you Gordon!

Thursday, February 11, 2016

News, Views etc....Jigtoys

Had a nice eMail from Nick Symes (who's the chap behind the increasingly comprehensive and excellent British cereal premium site 'Cereal Offers' we've linked to once or twice), he's starting to get the Kellogg's pages loaded, and provided three links to his Jig Toys posts which I've added to the jig-toy page (above).

It answers several questions but leaves me needing to edit the page (again!), which I'll try do do promptly...in the meantime...the horses aren't missing their ears...the gap 'is' their ears! The tractor, likewise never had a sticky-up exhaust, so the Merit one isn't broken. The difference between all the wagons is partly-explained by different mouldings over time and there were three sets, not the two in 'Cluck' with some very different toys in the third which helps explain things. Anyway; links are above.

I is for Interstellar...Italians?

Believed to be Italian, these chaps are waiting a better ID, like a company name, or even whether they are actually from Italy! Anybody recognise them?

Hard polystyrene plastic with glued-on bases, they are a collection of spacemen and robot-looking types with a piratical air, TV related maybe and might well be premiums?

[15-02-2016 - may be Torgano, see comments, thanks Ervino!]

E is for Eaton...and Munby!

I Photographed this on Adrian's stall at Sandown park about a year ago and it's been sitting in Picasa ever since. Eaton & Munby were another New Forest maker like Forest Toys, exploiting the local material of choice...

Gun turret with mechanism firing large dowels about the place until you "...put someone's eye out with that thing"! Elevation/loading is provided/facilitated by the fitting of a domestic door hinge!

Box was really too tatty to photograph and lacked a label, but this is almost certainly the target, utilising a loose tounge-and-groove to hold it together until you get the range, after which you dismantle it piece by piece...presumably a war-time 'austerity toy' (are we at war with bankers? We're not doing a very good job of killing them!), but possibly an earlier inter-war period toy?

Although all navies had grey ships, I think I detect a slightly Germanic feel to the lines of this? It's got a bit of a straight-backed and stern Teutonic appearance!

B is for Blue Box Alien and other Bollocks!

I hate Disney....have I ever said I hate Disney? Well, I hate Disney! Mawkish sentimentality, everything will be alright in the end, happy ever after, a mouse that's clearly been kicked in the nuts, school-yard joke level, simplistic characters, ruined stories that were relatively unchanged for generations before Walt got his hands on them...I hate Disney! I also hate Disney because they make sorting unknown (and known) licensed products a nightmare, they don't make their own toys, but do buy-in contract manufacture, and issue licenses.

In the early days they used to issue licenses which were so controlled they licensed the pose as well as the character so you end-up with 30mm ice-cream premiums in Portugal having the same pose as 70mm toys in the 'States or coming out of Swansea...nightmare! But these are more modern, carried by the Disney Stores back in the 1990-2000's and were manufactured by and marked to Blue Box.

Can't remember the name of this play set, I picked it up at a car-boot sale about 15 years ago, near-new. It may be in storage, but I think it went to recycling with just the figures retained. Lovely, big, red, Cyclopean, PVC lump of alien that will go with most scales and five dumb animals, already dated by the handsets they're carrying ('selfies' before the word had been coined?), did I say I hate Disney...