G is for Gift Egg Updates - 1 - Overview

I didn't know whether to use this as a last post roundup, or a first post intro, but guessing a lot of the die-hard 'Toy Soldier' purists will quickly get pretty sick of little novelties (and it's not December so I can't use that excuse!), especially five posts of them; I figure if we start with the bits and pieces, we can end with a short post...with proper figures!

In the beginning there were gift eggs, and they were egg shaped and full of gifts! Originally these were made of waffer-thin wood, by the inter-war period tin was common (and is making a comeback as trinket storage/jewelry boxes) with papier-mâché and heavy, pressed card also popular, but by the 1970's it was another item of human construct ripe for a plasticisation!

Kinder themselves (still the market leader) have made two changes to packaging in the last year or so, firstly the wrap-around was changed to two foil halves (of which one is shown flattened above) joined pole-to-pole, and more recently they've been turning-up with two moulded plastic halves or 'clamshells' like a lunch-box snack-pack dip! Because when the world is knee-deep in plastic waste; let's find more things to make out of plastic!

The Ziani Frozen we looked at a year ago (I got the little dwarf thing, you may remember) but I've since had a session of scanning the paperwork into the archive, while these two Trolls (one of which I think we looked at in the novelty posts last Xmas) are both imported by CBG of Belgium (not Minot!) from WF Industrial of China. The paper slip of the earlier being replaced by, yes, you guessed it...a printed plastic sheet - that's not going to find its way into the environment between the sweet-shop and home/school is it!

The drag-racer in the upper shot was broken, some of Kinder's suppliers in the 1980's used a silver plastic which was very frangible, and is almost impossible to glue, however I have a method...I coat both halves in a cyanoacrylate 'super-glue' gel, then put a blob of that plumbers-sealant between the two and wedge them together.

The sealant evaporates away to nothing in minutes but bonds and fills nicely, being mixed with the super-glue gives the whole thing added robustness...or at least I like to think so! Time and chemistry will tell if it's a busted-flush?

Below is a bunch of Kinder motorcycles and such-like (pedal trike!) from the 1980's and 1990's.

From that same lot (I got at the PW show back in May) came most of the ships, I've left them in the bags as they are a real bugger to set-up for photography and I have a bunch-more in storage, so one day we will come back to them and do them justice.

Below them a selection of lorries and vans, we looked at a couple of them with the other novelty mini-trucks in December-last, sorry! Another racing-car for the project...but I think I already have the yellow one, so it can stay on its low-loader.

This is brand-new, bought last week for a quid in Wilkinson's (Wilco) and branded to them; it's an egg full of rubber dinosaurs no bigger than a fingernail! Four poses and four colours, packed as two each of two each, I suspect you would only need two eggs for all four of all four, but one's enough to give you the idea. Same new crumbly rubber as other things we've looked at though.

D is for Dragon Roundup

Dragons are building-up in Picasa, and given their volatile nature, best to get them up here and away in the attic before they do any real harm!

From Ubisoft who I think we've visited before (might even be these dragons?), but all in Spanish so obviously clearance - here in the UK. Imported by Heathside Trading and sold through The Works about a year/18months ago, I seem to have taken some shots (which may have appeared here?), then got another dragon or two.

Each comes with a flyer/rule sheet in Spanish and Portuguese, three game cards and a jewel, there are a total of 30 dragons to collect.

This may have appeared before, or he may be the addition (or I may not have Blogged them yet!), with the limits of the Library for posting I can't check. They are a cut above the rack-toys below, but they're not that good either, trying too hard to be as spiky as the characters in the World of Warcraft franchise, if you ask me.

The full set of 30, some sculpts seem to have been re-used several times, others are unique, there's no real reason for this I can see, but it may be a familial thing hidden in the rules?

Imported into the US by JPW, these shots were sent in to 'Smallscaleworld Towers' by Brian Berke and this is a current rack-toy on the far shores of the pond. Standard 'Chinasaur' type dragons, they would look better for a proper paint-job, but as fantasy air forces, you can't get them cheaper!

Key Ring I got last Christmas, a 'proper' Chinese sea-serpent style dragon coiled in a heap, don't know for sure if it's modern or vintage, but I suspect (from the simple ring and chain) mid-1970's to the mid-1980's?

[added at library - yes, I've blogged them once already...click Ubisoft in the tag list...at least I know there are 30 now!]

L is for lifesize

I know we've had that title before, but i'm not feeling inventive today and I haven't posted wildlife for ages, these were shot in an hour or so on the 7th of this month, between rain showers!

This first one is a bit of a mystery, it looks a bit like a weevil, or a scarlet lily beetle and was found on a day-lily, so you might think it's a green domestic version of the red intruder, but I can only find a more weevil-like thing in the books called Byctiscus Populi which lives on Aspen...anyone recognise it?

Buff Ermine moth, he/she had a lovely orange and black tiger-striped (stripped? The one the doesn't involve the removal of clothes!) thorax, but it was difficult to photograph as you could only see it when it was fapping it's wings, which is when you can't get a decent shot in focus!

Emperor Dragonfly, sitting and in flight, our best dragonfly by a mile! Snail on the march and a Ringlet Butterfly. I also took loads of shots of various slugs - who knew we had so many species of slug! - but I've spared you those pictures.

A female Beautiful Damoiselle, our largest damoiselle, the male is bluer. Yes; it's official name is 'beautiful', how nice is that!

M is for More Superheroes

I know I said that would be it for superheroes for a while, but I also said I'd look-up the ID of the new eggs I got in The Works...and then another set turned-up!

These are the insert-slips for the Hulk/Disney Princess ones we looked at a week or so ago, branded to Disney, Marvel, STL (UK importer) and TPF (manufacturer) you can take your pick where to place them in your data storage/information retrieval system!

I actually got a couple more in another store last Wednesday, some independent 'pound' store in Aldershot, so they are clearly current stock with at least one of the clearance wholesalers, being originally from the £1.99 bracket, and now at a pound with two sources to my knowledge.

 

Then I found this huge capsule from Chinese firm Zuru - who's given address is a few doors away from Blue Box's HQ - with a full 54/60mm figure, one of five, with no picture of the range we must assume Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and err...one of the others! Again, currently a pound, probably originally priced around 2.99 or 3.99, get them when you see them, they'll be another end-of-line.

News, Views, Etc . . . Odds and Sods!

So a few loose ends, contributions, questions and stuff which doesn't make for separate posts.

As a follow-up to the Figurines Historiques post the other week, it turned-out that I had one original in the 'various-flats-that-have-come-in-in-the-last-few-years' tub and with it being a bit late to add to the other post - here it is!

From one of the Napoleonic sets, not seen in the recent post, you can see how the different base variations we looked at the other day were produced as a result of blanking-out the original Mokarex base-mark.

Following-up from the Timee post, Brian Berke sent me this shot of his figures painted-up as UN troops (with a Crescent 'Berserker' for scale!) from an African country such as Nigeria. A first glance at the thumbnails in the eMail and I thought I was looking as some French figures I have, which look very similar with the camouflage!

Having looked at what may be the world's smallest Noah's Ark a couple-of-few years ago, I keep meaning to post this which I shot back in 2012. It's in the local shopping precinct (Farnborough 'Meads') and I assume there are others around the place [country]?

I was going to explain the sorry tale of the vile fucker who stole one of the monkeys, but I noticed the other day he is back (the missing monkey, not the thief), after an absence of several years, whether that was down to guilt, or another ark being taken out of service somewhere else I don’t know, but who'd steal a large, wooden, flat, charity monkey? The sort of selfish idiot who votes Brexit, I'll bet!

Common fault with many arks: gay lions, no lioness? Gay, fecund lions too, as they are still with us so they must have bred successfully! If you believe that sort of thing! Every other of the tens of thousands of gods in all of human history were fairy-tale fuckwits, but yours? Yours is the one true, but strangly intangible, pan-dimensional mega-being, huh?!

Some of you may have noticed that there is a six issue gap in the chronological PWxxx listings in the tag-list/index, from PW140-146 I think? This is due to the house-move back in 2011, and I have got together with Paul Morehead to do reviews of the four missing issues, and the two I found in the attic here.

I haven't decided whether to do six separate posts or one combined, and/or whether to do them here (as new posts) or schedule them to appear where they should be, but I will get on it. Also the new issue (PW163) will be reviewed soon and is out now - if you don't yet subscribe, or . . . shock horror . . . if you have let your subscription lapse!

This is a cast-iron door-stop of no particular age which I shot through the window of a charity-shop the other day, I couldn't tell you if it's a regimental uniform or a generic civilian piper, I suspect the latter, but as toy figure collectors - we should all have one!

Had an eMail last week from 'Martin' asking about this truck, as I said to him in my reply "Looking at the thumbnails, it looked like Jean or Manurba, but looking at the close-ups - especially the wheels - I'd say Hong Kong, but nicely done and uncommon..."

More than that I couldn't add, does anyone have anything else they can give to Martin? I am familiar with Tootsie Toys, but I don't know the whole range, could this be a copy of one of their larger-scale, simple die-casts; in the slush-cast style? The specificity of the 'FORD' on the front bumper (fender) and overall quality of the moulding suggest it's a copy of something a little above the usual HK fare of what looks to be mid-1970's-mid-'80's production?

Or is it something altogether 'better'? Timee; another US or European minor-make? I know as you scroll through Kent Sprecher's site, you keep seeing things like this pass up the screen! Although having the canvas tilt extend to the bed is a bit odd/naff?

We looked at these a while ago (twice - I think?), here's another one! East Asian, painted, plastic I think (it's painted all over in a thick lacquer), but they used to be wooden, ceramic or a pumice composition and this is toward the larger end of the size range for these miniatures, at about two inches.

This arrived the other day: a gift of a running man from Konrad Lesiak, for some help I tried to give him, ID'ing some figures, he came all the way from Poland - and he was duly liberated - none the worse for his journey.

I wonder how many evilBay bottom-feeders voted 'Out' the other day, not thinking what it would do for their European business and postal costs . . . at the risk of repeating myself - idiots.

Here he is 'out of the box' as it were, he's an old European 1950's/60's premium issued by several companies in various colours and is one of a set of sports figures in a fully-round style quite reminiscent of the old WHW military sets. The figure below, which I've cropped from a larger .png image, is painted by Konrad . . . would that be the Polish team-colours Konrad?

I don't know who came first, but they seem to be linked to Unimel (gold figures), Van Houten (orange), Café Martin (gold'ish? Bronze?) and Codec in this grey/gunmetal. The Codec ones would seem to be copies as the Van Houten ones are definitely better detailed sculpts; this is of no surprise - as we saw - their World Dolls were also plagiarist.

Konrad is also looking for more information on these, I know they were in a 'toob' a few years ago as I remember looking at them and thinking nice touch with the fire-pole, but I didn't collect larger scales at the time so let them go, which puts them in the 1990's/2000's.

They are not Arco, Fishel, Imperial or Jaru, nor are they Hunson (coming soon!) and are too late for Blue Box, Lucky (who copied Mecanno/Dinky anyway) or any of the usual earlier suspects, but they will have been associated with at least one branding, probably several, can anyone help Konrad? . . . DFC? Funtastic? Larami? Titan?

Finally - as I've mentioned Arks and mid-period HK stuff above - Adrian Little (Mercator Trading) let me photograph this a while ago; it's a nice 'unknown animal' identifier from 1985 (when it was retailing for 50p!), and you may be more familiar with AJP from their rip-offs of Blue Box and Marx arks and 'Home Farm' sets, often sold through advertisements in Sunday supplements, TV listings mag's and women's 'lifestyle' publications.

28th April 2020 - the logo is now known to be HP for Holly Plastics, not AJP or EJP, Tags corrected accordingly.

I reckon that circus lion-tamer has A) failed to tame his lions and B) got about 30-seconds to live, and he knows it . . .and who the hell put a tiger in there; lions and tigers go together like cobras and mongooses! The same person who would introduce a zebra to a giant bobcat, or let a lion talk to a gorilla with the cage-door open . . . no doubt.

B is for Bears; Teddy Bears

There are three types of bear: real bears (and models of them), cartoon bears (and models of them) and teddy-bears, which shouldn't need models as they are already toys or playthings, but you get them anyway! It is this last lot we are looking at today, a real Picasa-clearance post!

 

These first three shots all came in a lot from a Charity Shop about a year ago and represent one of life's little mysteries - if you are a logically driven person like me - the desire of normal functional humans to go into their local high-street jewellers (we're talking Ratner's or their ilk here, not Hatton Garden!) or 'gift' shop and pay 5, 10 even 15-quid for a small lump of poured resin!

These are made by Lammermuir Designs in Scotland, [possibly soon to be a foreign country . . . fortunately I have McDougall (or McDougal? Must find out!) relatives, so my bolt-hole beckons wetly, but with stunning scenery from the far end of the M74!], and like the next two shots are made of poured, polyurethane-resin, a material we all know from aftermarket accessory and conversion-kit manufacturers, although in the case of these 'Objets d'Art' usually called 'polystone' or something equally pretentious and misleading! A much over-priced material and equally over-rated technology.

Jordan Frazer (or one of his supplying technicians!) poured a similar amount of planet-destroying two-part epoxy into this guy's mould, he's called 'Tiny Ted (blue)' which is a bit of a mouthful but makes him easier to track-down online. Actually I found all of them online, and none of them retain - as second-hand collectables - the value they were/are priced with in the shop windows of the nations jewellers as 'adult collectables'.

The other ID'd examples from the lot are these two from RR Hill, same size (30mm'ish), same customer base.

On the right are the last of that Charity Shop lot, I can't tell if they are resin or polystyrene but they were glued together after separate manufacture, to create a vignette almost certainly titled 'the kiss' or something equally mawkish!

 

While on the left is a 1970's Hong Kong predecessor of the Kinder 'animal family' collectables, sold in gum-ball machines and as carded sets, we saw the cats before on the blog, last Christmas?.

 



 

I found this (original - top left) in the street the other day, and not knowing what else to do with it (it's an unmarked lump of ethylene), threw it through the Picasa effect-tools catalogue!

 

As it was lying near a day-nursery I guess it may have sailed over the hedge, and is probably from a set of similar, simple toys/objects for early-learning dexterity, counting and colour-sorting type play-exercises, bulk-bought by educationalists from suppliers like Galt?

 

Moving further afield; the larger of the two pairs are vintage Kleeware babies rattles, filled with a pinch or two of small beads and glued together, the smaller two bears are actually naked, the forth type of bear - the bare-bear!

 

You may well be more familiar with them as flocked bears, where they used to appear in little paper-bags, with a balloon or two and some sickly aphorism or 'life-affirming' slogan on the side of the bag.

 

These have retained their flock, except for a few patches of ware and their bums, which is where they are hot-glued into their little bags, the first shots were awful, this flock attracts tons of fluff you can't really see until you flash-it under macro. I had to spend 20 minutes picking it all off with a pair of tweezers, so they'd be properly fluffed for their 2nd photo-shoot!

 

Strictly - the pencil-rubber (eraser) is a cartoon bear, not a teddy-bear but he got in under the radar while I was still formulating the bear rules! He was from Wilkinson's I think, again a while ago now and he may already have appeared on the blog?

 

The Band has definitely appeared here, but they are amusing so they can return for a curtain-call. The irony - of course - being: bears . . . in bearskins (with their ears sticking-out!). If I find a second set, I'll repaint them in reverse colours . . . black bears in honey-blond bearskins!

 

The final one may be almost as old as the two Kleeware's, it's PVC, but quite crude and with flaws in, and looks a bit like the old Thomas mule, or babies, I suspect therefore it may be a dolls house accessory of that era, if not that company? 

K is for Karded Ker'nights!

This would be a box-ticker if we had a maker, but we don't, just People's Plastic Production Plant . . . [Insert number of your own choice here!] . . . Probably! So it'll just be a general interest post.

'Medieval Knights' 1 ruble and 40 kopeks are the only information on the card and thanks go to Nazar Marchenko for translating the difficult bit of that for us. Five knights in front of a fort, carded, that's it!

You want more? The one on the left has been lifted from Dulcop, the chap next to him looks a bit Britains Deetail, and the forth has shades of 1st series Timpo running legs (reversed) - I'm sure that the other two could be tied to other Western figures if I had enough knowledge; is the third from a Reamsa Turk?

Seen before - Robin Hood Posts - Sorry!

No...They're all actually taken from Dulcop, who were themselves influenced by the other makers! Slightly smaller than the originals as well at about 50mm against 54-mil. I like them!

S is for Supreme Strategic Surgeon - Sun Tzu

So, I was heading up to the Library and thought I'd drop into The Works and pick up a black Robot (which I did!) with a pound I happened to have on me, and found this. Looked around for the stack and couldn't find any more, asked at the counter and was told they'd been in a week or so, well; it was the last one, so I had the chap put it behind the counter and rushed-off to beg a tenner from someone I knew round the corner!

Gorgeous artwork on the 'cover' or top of the box (credited to Rolland Barthélémy, who seems to have done all the playing cards and paraphernalia as well) and nice black-line artwork round the sides (Stéphane Poinsot) which reminded me of the old World of Wonder or Look & Learn articles, or the better graphic novels of France and Spain (Catalan Communications) in the 1980's.

The figures are marked on the base True Art, the game - credited to Alan M. Newman - and designed for two players and to last around 30 minutes, is published by a company called Matagot from France as one of their Duo Collection.

The 44 figures would set you back seven squids on their own these days, so a whole game for a tenner is a bit of a steal! There are two character (command) figures and seven-each of three man-at-arms poses, in each of two colours for a count of 22 each side. A very brief read of the rules suggests no pose differential as far as play goes; they are just 21 counters.

If you have the MB Games figures from Shogun, these would make an excellent set of opponents, or peasant-levy but you would need to find a couple of sets, as there were a lot of figures in Shogun! They will also complement the Caesar figures, which they resemble in rubberyness and heavy-base style; hell - the same factory might have made them!

Sun Tzu, War Minister for the province of Wu who I think is the silver figure and the King of Chu, who as befitting a monarch of the time is a tad better fed! All the figures are really nice sculpts and - from the detail seen under an eye-glass - were probably mastered in a much larger size.

Not set-up for the rules, just an excuse for me to play with toy soldiers for five minutes! You can see how some of the soft, thin-shafted weapons could do with a bit of hot-water treatment and it's a supriseingly small board.

If I found one, there must be a few left out there, so if you like the look of these: get down to your local 'Works' or try their website.

B is for Bargain Basement Buys

This lot cost me less than four quid this week, and the two robots were a quid each!

From The Works, a favourite check-out for me, came these two novelty ball-point pens, the pen-tubes are so short they probably won't do 15 crosswords, but the retro robots are brilliant! Red plastic - bugger to shoot . . . photographically!

£1 each ". . . while stocks last", and I had a spare pair of legs kicking around in gold from some mixed lot that came in, so they must have been available elsewhere in the past, and will probably appear somewhere else in the future, but expect them to be four-quid in Paperchase or £3 in WHSmith, if they ever turn-up there!

Speaking of WHSmith and their pricing policy...all the above (and below) are currently 29 or 30p in that august body, reduced from their marked 99p, £1 or two-quid. Bear in mind Wilkinson's regularly sell this stuff for 30p or 50p which will be closer to true unit-cost plus profit margin.

Fashion Rabbit pencil-tops and micro Digger Eraser rubbers! They're all made of this new crumbly hybrid rubber with the powdery or sandy texture, so they won't last long in the hands of kids; I can see those ears coming-off first day back after the 'hols'!

How cool is this? Sort of Anime, Manzinger, Grandizer, Probot, Go-Bot, no-bot, whatever-bot . . . smyne now! It looks angry, but if you were painted mauve, given candy-pink helmet & gloves and reduced to less than a sixth of you original 'value': you'd be pissed-off.

Stop Press - on the way to the Library to post this I went back for a black robot, and found a boardgame with 44 figures for a tenner...photo's tonight, should be on the blog 'tomorrow', which as this is a scheduled-post could mean anything!

C is for Cheerio Cars from Canada

This is definitely a minor make, here, back in Canada, back in the day,  I believe it was another workaday 'dime-store' maker, but these are from the UK arm, and we didn't have the same market, we had much more Hong Kong rack-toy tat, much earlier, sitting alongside hundreds of home-grown brands, but they do turn-up and were probably - at some point - readily available; if not actually common.

I think we've seen both these shots (or other images from the same photo-sessions) before so let's get them out of the way, the upper image is my sample of Cheerio, with a comparison shot below, on a couple of similar vehicles from other contemporary companies. (yes Wanna..., not wana...)

Quality suggests that the parent; Cheerio (Canada), was sending the moulds over for a run in the UK plant, and also that those moulds were being borrowed from the US owners, rather than there being any kind of illicit copying/piracy going on.

Years ago we had a discussion about this on one of the Forums (when I was on forums!); the mould-sharing that went on, which has led to the problems of ID'ing a lot of these, was down to good old protectionism, taxes (lifted by President Johnson, I seem to recall, maybe Nixon?) on imports and exports led to moulds being flown about the planet (or trucked to Canada!), as you could run the mould in the customer country for three days and produce all the stock you'd need for the next few years!

Not sure if the chain is original, but no reason why it wouldn't be, although it is missing a hook of some kind. Equally I don't know the origin of the moulding, but I think Pyro is a definite source for Cheerio product.

The little jeep in the first shot (which we have looked at here, before - more than once) was definitely a Pyro moulding.

This is definitely an ex-Pyro moulding; you can see the remains of one of those funny semi-flat, yellowish-tan figures that both Pyro and Kleeware used with their vehicles (except when they were red - fire brigade - vehicles; then they got blue figures glued in.

One wonders how Cheerio (UK) and Kleeware resolved the fact that they were both importing similar moulds for the same companies in the US (or Canada!). The mark is not clear, but you can see how its basically the same as the Kleeware, Pyro and Tudor Rose marks with 'Made In England in a circle and Cheerio across the middle.

The reason for the similar marks and all those blank circles, or simple, unbranded, 'Made-in-England's' on the spaceships will be down to the fact that the mark was on a large rod (like a release-pin, but bigger) running through the mould-block as a separate element, which could be replaced with different rods with different faces, sometimes it was easier/expedient to just put a blank-faced rod in the tool.

This is totally unknown to me, and is a call for help, Brian Berke who's sent lots of stuff to the Blog and for the Blog in the last few months, would love to find one, as this - pictured - is his old childhood bath toy, and he'd like to find one in better shape!

Made by Remark who I've no information on, it's not in Garratt, it's not in White, and it's not in FIM! If you happen to have this boat or a serviceable component (I suspect a deck and mast/sail/s) please get in touch and I'll pass you on the Brian.

If you're wondering what the black thing behind the boat is, it's the mounting-plate for the single pom-pom gun on the back of some Tri-Ang Minic plastic trucks!