C is for Contribution Week - III - Tatra from Brian

These are a fascinating contribution from New York, having come all the way here, via there, from the UK! Brian says they are the last UK figures he collected before leaving these shores for pastures new.

A packet front from the Nabisco biscuits that contained the premiums, Brian thinks around 1972/3 (they were also issued with Kellogg's Ricicles, probably the year before - 1971), Brian reports that there was a mail-away offer-panel on the box for the whole set, which he did send-off for, intending to paint them, he's still to get round to it; maybe if he does he'll send the Blog those pictures too!

Close-up of Mr. McHenry; However, if this is the correct figure I'm afraid they're not the Tatra set Brian thinks they are!

These figurines were one of three sets of Magic Roundabout premiums around in the late 1960's and early 70's, and are the most common being the smaller-sized set given away by Wall's ice cream, the biscuits Brian found them in and in Europe by several people including Tito (?) and Ola (who were a Wall's subsidiary, or in some way connected? Similar logo and brand-marks).

In the above shot Dylan is damaged and one of the birds is missing from what is - fully - a 16-item, 14-figurine set, it was a hurried shot of what's come-in, in the last few years; all my premiums are in storage!

While all the figurines have the little holes in the base (probably made by mould release-pins), common on these 'Euro' premiums, Mr McHenry has a larger hole which is used to locate him on a pin sticking up from the floor of his tricycle.

The other shot shows one of the more interesting colours available from Ola's Portuguese Ice Cream premiums (among others) on the right.

A larger sized set (probably* made by and -) looking like the Crescent Thunderbirds figures, was a Kellogg's Ricicles premium (1969), being issued with only 6 sculpts, most having bases - left hand figure in both shots. The Tatra set (also Kellogg's - 1970) were eight figures a little smaller that the [probably*] Crescent set - second from left in both shots, while Iron-on Magic Roundabout transfers were also issued by Kellogg's around '72.

The figure far right seems to be a piracy of the Nabisco and others commercial set, bearing all the hallmarks of the Lucky Luke piracy we looked at a while ago, those LL premiums also being widely issued by several of the same sources and having the little holes in the bases/feet.

Getting back to Tatra-produced stuff, Brian also sent a shot of his Kellogg's Soldiers - most [shock horror] still in their sanitised packs! These - of course - are Tatra! He remembers them as being in Sugar Smacks, also around '72. Of course I'm joking with the 'shock horror'; these premiums carry a 'Premium' if they are still unopened!

Again - thank you for the contribution Brian.

* Similar colours, similar bases and six poses; I rest my [probable] case until someone proves me wrong! But it further raises the possibility of Tom Smith having carried them as well?

Kellogg's on the Cereal premium website

Crescent (?) set 1969

Tatra Set 1970

C is for Contribution Week - II - Solpa from Kostas

So Contribution week may be longer than a week as so much is sat in waiting, some for a while now, like this one which Kostas sent to the Smallcscaleworld back in 2013! Only the one as the others have either gone on the Airfix Blog, or been included in an/other mixed post/s.

But being neither Airfix sculpts nor mixed stuff, it was left in Picasa waiting for a Matchbox 1:32nd post which may never come, so here, today, for your pleasure, are the Solpa piracies of Matchbox's Afrika Korps, from Greece; thanks Kostas!

C is for Contribution Week - I - Circus from Brian

The recent news that the world renowned Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus will soon close its ticket booth for the last time was a timely reminder that these were sat in Picasa from the Autumn waiting for me to do something with! I slightly cropped a couple and err . . . posted them here, now!

Brian said "Last weekend my wife and I went to Florida for a wedding. The town was Sarasota which contains a group of museums called The Ringling founded by the founder of the Ringling Brothers Circus. One part of the museum is called The Tibbals Learning Center which contains the massive model of a travelling circus at 1” to 18” scale. My photos do not do credit to the model so go to the website."

1 & 2 "...show figures on the workbench. They are based on plastic German made dolls house figures that were obtained in bulk when SEARS stores discontinued the range. I mention all this in case you can identify the brand? As you can see working from a photo they are making a diorama of workers standings outside a railcar."

A fascinating shot of a professional's workbench, not that a lot of you don't also have tools, paints, reference materials, lights, magnifiers and several works in progress scattered around or piled about! Although one feels this table's been tidied somewhat for the public who are allowed to look.

"Original figures were carved in wood . . . [...] . . . Presently a Mr. McGarvey and his wife are on site building figures to fill the gaps . . ."

These look to be commercial Italian nativity figures, possibly Composition (from the strange angle of the tails) but could be plastic? I can also see a novel use for kids pink, fluorescent, craft pipe-cleaners. The camels have also been enhanced with various items of craft and 'carding' materials, trims and baubles!

These are wonderful, I suspect a latex (?) wrap-around moulding to convert - again commercial - horses into 'sea-horses'; the mirror crates an army of them!

This is wonderful; I believe the balding gent showing the kids how a sea-lion is handled was once a novelty pencil-sharpener, possibly sold by Archee McFee/Accoutrements, about ten years ago?

Note also how the pinking-sheered edge of the model marquee almost matches the real one visible in the background and the top of the shot. I vaguely recognise the girls, are they an old, [failed?] line of 'pink' Lego?

Many more people along with a fleet of scratch-built animal wagons with what looks like one of the rings, in the background, but closer inspection reveals it's the elephants enclosure.

It would be nice to see a few comments on this one - can you ID any of the commercial figures origins, what interests you on the worktop, what do you like best, I love the sea-horse army!

Wikipedia

Thanks to Brian Berke for sending us something a little out of the ordinary.

News, Views etc...Shelfies

A bit of synergy had Brian Berke and I both taking shelfies of the same things on opposite sides of the Atlantic at roughly the same time! And while I ought to hold them 'till next year, my Picasa albums are full of postponed 'seasonal' stuff which then doesn't seem to get published because as the holiday approaches I take other stuff!

Pretty standard central European nutcrackers (yeah - I try to avoid the Erz...word!), but with a twist in that some have had a costume change, and are to be found wearing 'digital camo', which appears to be actual DoD approved material, glued over the standard form.

Meanwhile I shot this rather blurry image through a charity-shop's window of another take on the traditional nutcracker, this one being a Rock&Roll star!

While I shot these a week ago, they are the 'new season' stock in Poundland who have cleared most of the Xmas stuff and are gearing up for the quiet season with standards like 'the tub of generic army men'! I didn't see if they were branded to Funtastic, but last time we looked at them (also Poundland) they were.

The inset figure in a fetching silver plastic is one of the Germans, which my brother found on a walk the other day and sent round to me via my Mother - They all know my eccentricities! The Brits are a bog-standard Army Man green while the Americans come in a colour I shall dub trumputterance-brown - if you know what I mean!

Of course they are all the same poses - if you know what I mean; One life. One people. One planet...

News, Views Etc...Odds and Sods

This 'News, Veiws...' has been put off a couple of times in recent weeks for one reason or another, so this first link is a bit dated now, but if I keep it till next Christmas it may well be a dead page, not everything lives forever on the Internet.

Krampus Birthing Event

While those of you who've followed the Blog for a while will know I like a bit of elephant action and this link has some fantastic imagery (indeed - I may have posted the link before, but it's worth a second look!)

 

Gallimafry Blog

"Get off your horse - and eat your fruit-shortie!"

This author (left) with his brother about 40 years ago! You can just see the floor of our tree-house in the hawthorns at the top-edge of the garden (which was also the edge of the heath); it waved a bit in the breeze! Funny how big the fruit shortcake's look, have they got smaller or have our hands grown that much? There's another one somewhere of us dressed as Indians, I'll try to find a copy - it was taken on a sunnier day!

Also from my childhood; this turned-up over the recent break, my archer's err...whatever an archer calls it! I seem to recall several fingers used to go in those holes, now I struggle to get one in each hole!

We got free archery lessons in school because a local club used the school-grounds and the deal was - anyone who wanted to could turn-up and fling a few sticks down the range! Mum ended-up buying us a second-hand, laminated, long-bow at a local auction (the sort of thing that came with sucker-arrows (from Chad Valley or Tri-Ang or Wembley?)), and we bought some proper arrows with steel tips and went hunting, we usually only bagged a Coke can (hard target) or rusty oil-drum (easy!) though!

Remember when Coke cans were heavy ferrous tin with rolled, crimped-ends and a separate ring-pull that was sharp enough to open-up an artery?

Sticking with the past holiday season I shot these figural scent bottles at my sister-in-law's over Christmas, ignore the dust on the rim of the snow-shaker, not that it's actually a snow-shaker, rather a fine red glitter-shaker! And I think it's filled with perfume, although I couldn't see any way of getting it out so just an odd novelty with a semi-flat HO/OO sized figure within!

The others are by/from that French bloke who used to appear on Eurotrash I think? Jean Claude? Rue Paul Galtieri, St. Paul of Isuzu . . . someone? All Breton stripy-jumper and pink beret? Eurotrash was the program that taught me in other countries collectors amass figurines of people taking a crap - amongst other things! There's a poo-museum in Belgium you know, or is it Holland? With a stuffed rhinoceros' bottom and other such luminary artifacts!

And having lowered the tone suitably, another link . . . I must stress however, that on no account should you click on the link if you are easily upset by alternative lifestyles, 'decadent' art, pornography (including Black & White photography) or anything that the pastor told you was "...Bad, very bad...", as the picture at the other end of the link is all those things and more, seriously: no point in complaining after the event!

So, so, so very, very Not Safe for Work, or the PSTSM! Definitely not for them, it'll have them throwing-up in the same coco-pops they were so recently blubbing into!

http://wp.the-editorialmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/20.jpg

Those who trusted the broadness of their minds to click anyway will know exactly why and how I found it - Side Collection! Go!...Go!...Go! . . . They get everywhere! And yes, I think the string is . . . Yeah, well; I did warn ya! . . .

. . . but then - I do live in Fleet!

(one of Ken Reid's Creepy Creations)

Couple more links - First-up; an ideas factory for all the junk in the 'whatever' pile!...

 

More Dangerous Minds

 

And this which I found the other day, was flagged-up by one of it's targets in PW magazine a while ago...

Dullest men in Britain

Back to plastic toys and the Schleich squirrel got his annual outing in the last few weeks, he starts in the middle of the log, migrates to one side and ends-up perched on the 'sawn' end when it's tipped-up to stop the cut end drying-out!

Some years it's soft cream icing and he gets progressively muckier as the week progresses, but this year he kept slipping-off what was really just a thin layer of milk-chocolate!

Cat path!

Well . . . that was the winter, that was - in all: a day-and-half of slush! Now the gorse is flowering, out on the heath, and the snow-drops are up; it'll soon be summer!

I was amused by this typo in a search term - for if anyone should be found to be munted it's the bloody cavalry with their water boilers and stowage-bins and endless supply of bungee-cords courtesy of the QM and all that poncy bollocks! Minging, munting, gopping, hummers - the lot of them!

H is for Help! They need somebody; Help! Not just anybody...

Having received so much help last week (thank you all) with my lead/white-metal odd and sods (I think about a third of them were positively ID'd which is not bad going!), there are a couple of blog-followers who need a bit of help ID'ing things, hopefully someone out there knows who made the following two sets/series' of toy figures . . .

 . . . first up is David H who is looking for a moniker to slap on the figure to the right:

"I am hunting for one skeleton that someone else found, but has no information on it. It is the same size and shape as playmobil, but more alike to imaginext in detail. I thought it might be a European brand... would you be able to identify the toy set it might be associated with? the picture has it next to a playmobil skeleton for comparison"

My suggestion would have been Playmobil! But with the Playmobil to the left, can anyone ID the figure on the right? Did Playmobil have a redesign? Could it be Mega Bloks, their Arctic Yeti was similar? Any help gratefully received by David, who has a Skeleton page on the Facebook at the Toy Skeleton Closet which is extraordinary, his key-rings alone are a collection to envy!

Yes - I know Playmobil is spelt wrong in the Tag List, I just spelt it wrong another three times . . . it's another thing on the list!

Then we have Robert Der Arakelian who is looking for a name/brand to stick to these chaps, who may look like the above-mentioned Playmobil, (four!) a mistake I made when the image popped-up in my in-box, but they are not . . .

"I have been looking on-line for these figures in the picture attached with no avail for 2-3 years. I cannot remember what they were called and what country they were from, only how they looked. This is a picture of my own collection which had mysteriously disappeared with all of my Lego :(

Do you have any idea what they are called? I really want to try and find some again.

They are slightly shorter than Lego characters and they obviously look like a Playmobil knock-off."

My advice was that they are probably Italian pocket-money toys from the little boxes (some of which ended up in Kinder eggs, but not these?), or Hong Kong copies of the same. I know the ones with ball-sockets were both Kinder and Italian-boxed with copies from HK as 'Boggi' or something - I think one's been seen here (a gardener) on the Blog?

Funnily enough I recognise the medic, I think I have one with a foot missing in storage, and I definitely have the traffic light somewhere, but they came in with a mixed lot - possibly even Lego (a mate and I spent a while in the 1990's buying vintage Lego at car-boot sales!)? maybe they go with an early Lego knock-off?

Any help you can give either collector might help them sleep at night . . . hey - these things matter! And with Google-search results tailored to each individual user these days, everyone will get slightly different results, it's worth an hour's time-wasting, isn't it?

F is for Flamable!

Apparently these blow-moulded celluloid figurines can be highly flammable, I suspect that's a 'crossed-lines' thing with old cine-film which was also celluloid, but coated with all manner of chemicals? I can say that despite smoking for 40-odd years I've never had one suddenly combust under my care! Also I think a fair few of these may actually be polystyrene?

The dangers of self-immolation aside, these are a particular niche of the toy figure oeuvre, being almost exclusively a Japanese thing, and relatively short-lived - 1940-50's. Certainly these are all Japanese, and while we looked at my small sample a few years ago, more have come-in and we're looking at them today.

On the left of the upper row are two Royal Guardsmen similar to those we looked at last time, with a small . . . err . . . what? 'Gentleman hobo'? Cartoon character from the '50's? Don't know, but probably a Christmas cracker gift or something of that ilk?

Below them are two cowboys with the same mark although not to scale, and these are the plaster/chalk filled type. I don't know how they did it on the mounted figure; sometimes there is an obvious fill-hole somewhere on the toy, but with this model there is no obvious point for the plaster to have been introduced. With the standing figure it's obvious, he's got an open base with the plaster sanded flat!

Marks on the above figures include a plain 'JAPAN' on the miniature, three 'M's round the edge of a circle with an 'N' in the centre (mounted Guardsman), and smaller 'M' within a 'C' (the two cowboys) and an 'S' in an egg-shaped ovoid itself within an elongated oval on the other Guardsman (different to the previous lot) - I don't know any of the makers . . . yet!

Three Elephants, again the one on the left is a chalk/plaster filled model, the filling prevents the dents and damage these extremely lightweight and brittle novelties otherwise suffer from only too easily.

We've seen the middle one before I think while the one on the right is stylized to the point of being more wrinkly than a really wrinkly thing that's gone to university and had itself elected head of being really wrinkly!

A selection of very small ones, these were probably all cracker or fairground prizes, a forth elephant (I like elephants!), a larger scale sheep, with a similar goat, a polar bear and a rather Sqiudgged turtle . . . or is it a tortoise? The bear is just over 2cm.

This is rather annoying as there is a larger sample of this set in storage (about 12 animals), but somehow I ended-up with the spares here, still they give an idea and it means we can return to them another day, also we saw the bear before - I think! I like bears!

Animal marks, most are unmarked, but the sheep has Japan as do the larger set while the realistically-sculpted elephant has what looks like Tom/Toms, Jon/Jons or Toni? . . . Tono maybe?

Colour variation on the animal set. I like blow-moulded celluloid animals!