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.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

L is for Larceny-lifted Lone Star Lookalike Lots

If you're going to cover the copies, you'd better look at the originals first! Trouble is, most of mine are in storage at the moment, but some have come-in which we'll look at below, but you can do no better than pop over to Dave Keen's site and check out the Lone Star page there.

There were actually two versions of the Lone Star figures, and the two sets of piracies below (so far discovered!). The first version are the chalky (and now very frangible) matt-painted milk-chocolate brown ones. They then issued them in a glossier plastic (with no chalk - for paint - additive), with the addition of bases for the horse.

Now, with no evidence whatsoever, I'm going to suggest they were issued as some kind of premiums in this second guise. The reason for which is that while seemingly rarer than the brown ones, when they turn-up, they turn up as a set of six. Recently the above complete pose-set of cowboys came in, years ago I found a complete set of Indians which are in storage - although they may have featured in One Inch Warrior magazine?

Anyway, it's a coincidence worth noting and I wonder if they were issued in their 6's as either a pack of Cowboys or a pack of Indians with cereal or biscuits or something...petrol? The Indian's horse was also fitted with a base (needing it more the the cowboys), the set was also in the same red plastic.

For the longest time I thought only the mounted figures had been copied, as Christmas cracker or vending prizes, but you can see two foot figures in the upper image (and there are a few more in storage), however the handful (8/10) of foot figures I poses are mostly in the same jade green as the blood-spattered figure above, with a couple of yellow ones, while I have dozens of the mounted figures, none in the same colour.

So it seems that the figures didn't last for long (possibly as a carded/bagged rack-toy set), but the horsemen were issued for years, where I can attest they came in cheap/budget crepe-paper Tom Smith crackers.

Originals on the left, cracker toys on the right, and the 100 Figure Set's examples in the middle, they are clearly copies-of-copies, with very poor sculpting and detail. Speaking of the 100 Figures Sets which we looked at here...

..some more colours have turned-up! Which helps explain how I ended-up with 48 of 50, it must have been a bit chaotic in the factory mid-batch change, trying to get 50 of each on the card with more than two colours kicking around in various tubs or stillages!

News, Views Etc...41st Herne Show, Germany

Had an eMail from Peter at PB To...oh no! It's not PB Toys any-more; it's BB...do I detect a corporate takeover by the offspring? Start again...

Had an eMail from BB Toys today re. the forthcoming toy soldier and model figure show in Herne, Germany:

Für die Deutschen Händler und Sammler hier ist das original -

Liebe Händlerkollegen,

dieses Jahr sind wir auch schon wieder rechtzeitig dran.

Die Vorbereitungen für die

41. Deutsche Kunststoffigurenbörse / 41st german plastic soldier show

am 13. März 2016
11 - 16 Uhr
Kulturzentrum
Willi-Pohlmann-Platz 1
44623 Herne
Tischgebühren: lfd. Meter je Euro 50,00

gehen in die Endphase und wir wollten Euch nur daran erinnern,

das wenn Ihr einen Stand wollt, schon fast alles weg ist.

Also auf geht's

Danke

BB Toys

www.bbtoys.de

Falls Ihr euch anmeldet gibt es die Standdaten nur noch über die Herne Webpage, Einlaßbändchen gibt es am Tag vor Ort, es kommt keine schriftliche Bestätigung auf dem Postweg mehr. Einlaß für Händler wie immer um 9 Uhr

For those hoping to travel there from here (not me again sadly), it should be obvious from the above, but....

13th March (a month from today), doors open at 11am and close at 4pm (you need that long...there's tons of stuff to find and carry-out to the car in tranches!) at the Kulturzentrum (Cultural Centre), Willi-Pohlmann-Platz 1, 44623 Herne, Germany. Table fee is €50 per meter, dealers can unload from 9am.

That's as far as me or Bablefish are going to take it...more details from the website (which is all new and redesigned for 'BB' Toys!).

www.ksfb.de

There's a new telephone number as well: 02377 78 79 322, and check out the new BB Toys retail website while you're surfing!

S is for Slick Saloons...in Space!

You can't beat a bit of 'dime-store' (or even 6d-store!) space plastic...even if you were too young to remember them at that price or at that time! If it's in metallic plastic that makes it all the better...

...Thomas Toys/Poplar Plastics copied the Gilmark 'Fireball' (one engine) and 'Supersonic' (twin-jet nacelles) Jetmobiles for the carded sets of their space figures, they also sold them individually.

The simplest way to produce the two-colour effect is to have all the pieces in the one mould tool and run it in both colours, swapping all the small components (wheels, the rear tail-fin piece and exhausts) before glueing. The tail-fin is damaged and needs TLC on the lower right example. Also  - they both appear to have barbed-wire cutters on their noses!

Saturday, February 13, 2016

F is for Follow-up - Artillery

As an addendum to last year's post on Artillery this is the stuff that's come in, in the last four years, as I said in the first 'round-up' post: I will redo these, or just start an Artillery page one day, but for now, here are a few more!

The upper one is the little cannon claimed by Kinder collectors as one of theirs (and may well have been in the eggs at some point), but has been available long before, and from various sources as a tourist trinket, key-ring &etc.

The lower gun is (I suspect) an apprentice piece, handmade from high-quality brass-plated steel, with hand-cut wheels and a leather finish to the barrel (lizard or snakeskin by the looks of it), it has a loop for a charm bracelet but is a tad heavy for the purpose. maybe and engineering student's end of year thing, or jewellers first piece...even a bit of 'War Art', but the quality is really too good for that?

The upper shot here is a lead solid Skybird's howitzer, it makes a super mountain-gun for Airfix Australians or Gurkha's to drag through Burma...or even to be given to the Japs! The lower shot shows the wooden ones from the sorting post earlier today, in better detail...home-made or austerity/craft 'manufactured'? They elevate by means of a panel-pin pushed through the barrel as trunions.

Above; classic and common 'antiqued' pencil-sharpener gun of the 1800's, issued by several brands over the years and a favourite with museum gift-shops and tourist kiosks the world over.

Below; Kleeware large-size cannon from the yellow, marbled-plastic, clip-together forts.


The six together with a plastic ship kit Naval gun for scale and (inset) a French penny toy from SR in lead with a heavy wash of pale-grey gloss paint.

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....!