G is for Ginormous Jungle Man

He's ginormous, and he's a man, from the jungle! No making it up as I go along here! Shot this two or three years ago now, but as I try to steer-away from the army-man stuff at chritsmas i thought you'd be interested.

He's 'believed to be' Spanish or South American in origin, although he ticks all the Hong Kong boxes apart from being marked with anything. A blow-mould about 5 1/2-inches (bit smaller than Action Man/GI Joe) with the (probably slightly bulging) base removed to give him a flatter standing surface, that's it: Ginormous Jungle Man . . . with a monkey!

S is for Sorry

I knew you wouldn't want the swan and babies for a whole day, so here's an apology!

When I published the Novalinea set of Lucky Luke with a bit of a "well I never", I'd forgotten that Juan Angel ('Gog' of Toys from the Past) had actually educated me, some time earlier, to the connection when he sent me these two images, so - sorry Gog; you'd told me! I'm not apologising to the rest of you, for subjecting you to a floating swan with attendant rug-rats . . . live with it!

Nice bagged set of loose figures, with an interesting mix of unpainted and painted figures, the header card artwork is the same as the blister-card, but simplified, so possibly a later issue; clearing unsold stock, it's not a full set?

Gog actually sent me several shots of the bag (from both sides) and I used them to get the following collages together of the various figures . . .

Painted Figures

Animals

Unpainted - as per the original premiums

There are several poses here that weren't in the other set, both undertakers (?), the dog and the prison-garb Dalton's, so it must have been a larger set. The dog is actually a spitter for the Scoobie-Doo from Comics Spain?

Also today I published a minor page on sale condition/description, it gets a bit ranty at one point but those male doll collectors take themselves far too seriously!

P is for Pedalo

Perfect for Christmas, although like the previous five, I uploaded it to edit in February! But it's a nice novelty item that gets us into the spirit of . . . I'm about to start talking mawkishly sentimental bollocks aren't I? Lets just get on with it . . .

Kleeware swan for the local municipal pond's pedalo-hire with children possibly bought-in from Thomas, but they don't really fit, so that may be bollocks too!

 That's it! A Kleeware swan with Thomas Toys brats, what more do you need, the machine-operator's name? Mike probably, or Mick . . . Fred maybe?

P is for Postponed Plunder Post - Plastic Warrior 2014 May Part-V - Box Two of Two!

So 2014's Plastic Warrior show was a cracker, and we'll finish with this box, as among other things it was full of Christmas cracker type novelties! It was also full of Hong Kong AFV's, scenic bits, broken bits and err . . . other bits!

I'd already started sorting it when I remembered to take a photograph, so you'll just have to imagine what other treats were in the box; second of the Auction lot, but it was good! Indeed rather than me waffle them off, just click on the image and see what you can spot!

There were also a bunch of figures filling the gaps and here I'm sorting them into type and maker piles! Again, see what you can ID - I'm afraid it's a fuzzy shot, even with flash it was a low-light situation and my current little Nikon struggles if the light's not perfect.

P is for Postponed Plunder Post - Plastic Warrior 2014 May Part-IV - Box One of Two

I also picked-up a couple of boxes someone had bid for me on at an auction, the other was full of bits and will be the last post (tomorrow) on these late - very late - show reports!

But this one was a bargain with two soft-polyethylene ready-made forts from the early Airfix 'cartoon artwork' play sets, both missing their flag-poles, but I think I have some in storage, just a question of hoping I've a colour-match for the Wild West one! I have a comparison article in the queue for these.

Underneath them was a mass of 'Hollow Horse' Cowboys & Indians, getting harder to come-by cheaply these days, you see lots on evilBay all the time now with silly start prices or BIN's, but people do go for them, you used to get a bag like this for a fiver or less!

Starting to sort them into some sort of order, how I do this will become more obvious when I pull my finger-out and get a move-on with the HK Blog, I've got a lot of the images done, it's just a question of deciding how to best present them so that people with similar piles of mixed stuff can get them into some sort of order?

It was actually quite a clean sample, with these easily ID'd as post-Giant, Giant clones (the leg studs are different - but it'll all be on the other blog now!), the reason for the two columns of horses is that all the ones on the left had one cavity-mark, the others - another. Not also how - even with a large sample - you never get every pose (in good condition) in every colour, so the collecting goes on!

The ones I call 'Wavymane', with the Crescent clone horse, described elsewhere as Giant, it isn't, well, it can be! It's the first one in the queue for the other Blog and all will be explained - they're not Giant, but one set with Giant product (the fort) did carry these figures, probably because the set was gathered together from more than one source by a shipping agent or export concern.

Some of the more interesting things among the minor makes after the two big lots had been sorter out of the main heap included Britains-cloned Romans/Trojans from two sources, three actual, original, properly-real Giant figures (top right) with their horses. Plus five miscellaneous horses and a hand-full of figures from a similar number of sources, these go in a separate bag, and every few years I have a mega-sort of all the scraps.

P is for Postponed Plunder Post - Plastic Warrior 2014 May Part - III Another Bag!

I've got myself all confused! This was four posts, is currently five, and I think should be three, as the next two are really one and this one probably came from Gareth a week or two later at Sandown Park, but the photo's were all together in Picasa, so we'll run with it 'on the hoof'!

Also I'm A) running out of things to say about bags of bits, and B) starting to question previous pronouncements on bit I've posted, such as the cereal kit aeroplanes above; I think the car boot guy's ones must be in storage, and the ones we looked at earlier this year are the above ones?

Also another Jet petrol premium car (also looked at before) and a nice Ri-Toys blister pack of small-scale Airfix copies. Several 'piles of stuff' (see shots below), a bunch of bubble-gum tanks (again - looked at previously) and various other useful bits.

The farm and zoo animal pile gave-up this little lot, some of them went in last December's novelty posts, the others we looked at in Rack Toy Month! Also a couple of Matchbox horses and a dinosaur.

The probably not Giant pile! This is par for the course on a bag like this, with a handful of bits from 10 or more sources, plus a sub-pile of 'to be sorted' figures! Nice group of Britains Trojan copies from two sources and the little Marx clones

Hong Kong 'combat' pile gives-up a few ID'able Rado, and a bunch of generics, mostly Airfix clones bar the two ex-Blue Box French Resistance fighters and the big heap of Woolbro supplied Britains/Crescent copies.

All sorted and bagged ready for further sorting/storage!

P is for Postponed Plunder Post - Plastic Warrior 2014 May Part - II Goodie Bags

Continuing to look at the plunder from the Plastic Warrior show 2014, and two bags were brought to the show for me, both Trevor Rudkin and Gareth Morgan having saved bits through the year for any use they may provide the blog (or the collection!), and sorting them is always a joy, as while there's lots of common or damaged stuff, there's always the odd gem!

This is how I see the lot at the show, hints of lovely things hidden behind multiple layers of ethylene click-shut bag!

The larger bits and bagged sets sorted out, I think we've looked at most of these now, but a few are still 'in the queue', while the Battlebeast has only recently be shown here!

The contents of the smaller bags, the main highlight for me was probably the animated boxer novelty, but the Lego flat trees are a find, additions to the Marx Disney/TV 'kins are always nice and the silver figure with the hoop is curious; over the years I have picked up several of these in slightly different poses (one's holding  a triangle above her head), with no idea where they originate, they seem to be from a plastic kit - circus, zip-wire, maybe a board-game?

The other lot was a bag of bags!

We've looked at the comic giveaway 'planes (twice now, since this went into edit!), while you can never have too many 1-Ton Humber trucks via Hong Kong, the interest here is the mirco-die-casts to the left, anyone know who made them? They are sort of Takara Votom size, but solid metal casts.

Highlight here are the HK copies of INGAP watercraft, the rest is grist to the Blog-mill, a blue Box Armoured Car needing a spare wheel, some Kinder and a large chicken (Playmobile)!

Another large chicken! And a very nice, complete Blue Box stable unit.

What's not to like . . . 30mm backwoodsmen, dinosaurs, a giant crab, a monster (who went on to star in the original D&D ruleset/guidebook) bits of two jig-toy horses (both sans ears, always sans ears!) and one of two bulk lots of those funny little lions I've blogged and a large duck or two.

More dino's, a witch, some Blue Box knights, a Starlux copy, we've looked at the racing cars in better condition now - all good stuff!

The last bag - clearly sourcing a railway modellers bits box!

All sorted and ready to go away, or be combined with existing samples of the same stuff, it takes a couple of weeks to fully process this kind of lot, and with 75% of the master collection in storage, it's all going in temporary boxes at the moment, one day there will have to be a mega-sort! But in the meantime, it makes even common stuff relatively useful; Blogwise.

P is for Postponed Plunder Post - Plastic Warrior 2014 May Part - I Show Purchases

So, an old show-plunder post (actually one of four), the photographs for which have been in Picasa so long, half the interesting stuff has already been Blogged! But as an exercise in 'how it comes in' it will hopefully be interesting, I know how I like poring over mixed shots on evilBay, seeing what I can ID or take a fancy to . . . this is the Plastic Warrior show plunder, May 2014!

These were the show purchases, with the exception of the bag bottom centre with the brown funnel, that was floor sweepings at the end! Visible highlight is probably the two Gem hedges?

The contents all sorted and spread out. It's 'find your favourite' really . . . quite a bit of space bought - mostly - from Barry Blood who was thinning his collection out, I was particularly pleased to get the Gem skier with both poles and both skis, three hard-plastic from hollow-cast moulds are off the beaten track, footballer flats, a Speedwell swoppet cowboy and a heap of Khaki infantry . . . 

. . .   from Adrian Little (and others) as I was still working on the then 'new' page at the time, not that I've given up, but it's the odd addition from time-to-time now, and the fact that I still have to add some text! Note: bottom right; a Cherilea 'dancing loon'!

S is for Sets

Just a quick one to finish-off the Ukrainian Collectable posts, we've looked at the individual vehicles and figure types, these are the various sets bagged, boxed or set-up with some of the accessories they contain.

 Bags and Boxes

 Larger bags

 Different header-cards

 Security sangers and boarder-signage

 More

 Strike Three!

 With older lead/aluminium (?) figure

 Smaller sets

 Recap

With thanks again to Mark Sergeyev for sending the pictures and information of this unusual range from the so far still 'independent' Ukraine.

I've added an image of the Ukrainian boarder guard emblem I filched from the Wibbly Wobbly Way!

F is for Firemen

A quick round-up of a few small-scale chaps, but probably not small enough for war-gamers to get excited about I'm afraid. I haven't got them in front of me to measure (this post has been in edit since February!) but they are all in that 35/40mm bracket of figures designed for 1:48, 50 or 64th scale die-cast toy vehicles.

I think these are mostly different generations of Corgi, the figure went in the hydraulic-arm basket of a Simon Snorkel fire appliance with the older ones to the left of the line-up, the yellow-helmeted guy though may be from a piracy, or a redesign of the basket?

The last one (similar but different to the Jimson sculpt) has details (base and base mark) in common with production from both Blue Box and Rado Industries, but could be neither and is probably from a Hong Kong or Japanese (Yonezawa tin-plate snorkel?) copy of the Corgi model, but who by? Both the last figure and yellow-helmet are polyethylene, the rest PVC of different densities.

Dinky went with a hard polystyrene, and their basket guy gets a metal clip which is often missing and the breathing-gear on the second chap from the left really dates this set! These guys were copied in a larger scale by The Lucky Toys for several different fire trucks (AEC, Bedford, US type and Land Rover F/C) and also imported in Clifford Toys branding.

 

Spot-On had a hose guy, also in hard styrene, he normally comes with a heavy plinth base, a slighter oblong one, or - as in my case - neither! A hose could be plugged-on to the back-end of the sculpt, which helped the baseless ones stand-up and two were issued with a meddling kid (Tommy Spot) in each boxed set (Land Rover and fire trailer)

D is for Die-cast Ducks

A quick comparison between the two recent D.U.K.W. amphibious 6x6 cargo-trucks variously issued by De Agostini and Altaya (no tilt), Eaglemoss and some Russian outfit (tilt and rope-fenders), they are both a mix of materials on a die-cast body/shell.

I would have scored the Russo-Chinese (Ocean Metal Factory) one the better of the two (marginally) if it hadn't come sans one wheel! The underside detailing is better on the Russian import, but marred by the base-mounting screw-holes, and the provision of a glass-effect windscreen is a plus, but the DeAg,/Altaya version has the nicer nose (with separate tools/snorkel) and cab-interior, so you takes your money (the Russian one wins! £2 in The Works!) and makes you choice!

T is for Two...Hollow cast Westerners

Time for another of those 'don't-know-anything-about-them-but-photographed-them-months-ago-anyway' posts, with a bit of hollow-cast for the fans of such things, and as usual with these it's a thanks to Adrian Little at Mercator Trading for the shots, which show . . .

 

. . . some of the most copied poses ever, and they're not Airfix! I don't think they're Timpo sculpts either, probably Britaims or Crescent maybe? Anyway, they were copied in hard and soft plastic by various people both sides of the Channel - if not the Pond?

The Lustre set are finished in what was known as 'spirit paint'' and are slighter mouldings, so later copies than the painted ones by Betal Parade. The single-colour ones may well have been sold singly as penny or tuppence toys in addition to the boxed set.

S is for Still Working on It!

Re. composition page: I got the free Internet a day early, so am transferring all the off-line edits! Then I still have to re-write the composite section and find all the missing links!

We've seen these before but I think, but I've added a couple? 'Composite' rather than 'composition' they are carved wood with brass sheet or wire detailing and a smoothing coat of gesso (a chalk or gypsum paint) or a thick plaster 'slip'; hand-painted, probably Indian or - certainly - somewhere in Asia.