N is for Nuts! Nutcrackers - Part One; New York Shelfies

I was literally just starting to collate nutcracker stuff for a foreseen post on their return, re-invention, restoration to prominence - whatever you call the phenomena - on my way to the Internet station (currently down) I use, only to find a bunch of these from Brain, who would send several lots in over the next week or two up to last weekend.

So, things spiraled as they do and we now have three posts which while not covering everything; will give a reasonable account of a set of figural 'things' that/who have been pretty-much absent from the blog - today looking at the wide variation in nutcrackers through Brain's shelfies.

So we start with the nutcracker equivalent of deforms or 'super-deforms'! These have deliberately short legs, short bodies and squidged heads to create short, fat nutcrackers, presumably for specialising in short, fat nuts - hazels?

These are more traditional in proportion, but flarxed-up with sequinned headdress'es, lace trim and fancy codpieces, I am reminded of Fanny the Wonder Dog!

Much more Christmassy; the God of the lollipop-stick on the left (see 'White Rod' - my new purchase - in part three), and clearly MacNutcracker on the right, or is it McNuttcraker, I think a massacre in Inverness is required to sort that out; yes - I listened to Mark Steel the other day!

I seem to recall we've had the camouflaged one before? News, Views, or Brain B last year? I'll have to find the post to add the new 'nutcracker' tag! He's compared to a very traditional drummer-boy one in 'Santa-scarlet', not available from Farrow & Ball . . . yet!

To the right is a fantastic post-modern, minimalist take on the nutcracker, this is almost a bare one, all the basic parts are there, sans hat or bearskin; it's just been given a coat of what looks to be gloss-white. Love it!

Here we see on the right some of the 'super-deforms' apparently attached to the hat of a more conventional nutcracker . . . "Shall I throw the green cannon-bauble of Antioch at the guests now, Mr. Scarramanga?"

While to the left; a priceless version with chefs coming out of their own cakes! The heavier base will allow for some serious leverage . . . Brazils' shouldn't be a problem for them, but it looks like they are powered novelties with little actual strenght? I suspect their lollipops may be real, sugary 'snacks' though!

Hummm . . . designer babe, least said - soonest mended; she doesn't even have the proper mouth!

Larger ones in more traditional layouts, Tyrolean musicians to the left, Bavarian guards types to the right, this is the size for a practical, actually use it for nuts, type!

This guy is looking particularly stern, he's also been clothed in starter-flags, while his hat has a weird Hibernian/Polish cavalry Officer vibe! Also he's unusual for having shoes and socks rather than high boots.

The reason I had started collection info. On these the same morning as Brian sent the first of the shelfies, was because these had all but disappeared by the late 1980's; you found the odd non-working, smaller one with hanger in peoples family collections of tree-decorations, and they were still a staple of tourist shops selling Erzgebirge in Southern Germany or Berlin (there was a lovely store full of this stuff in the Europa Centre down by 'The Zoo', and I remember a whole street of shops selling them in Bad Tölz in the 1970's. But - as far as British (and I suspect; other -) Christmases' are concerned - they had all but vanished.

Yet in the last few years they have multiplied like fungi on a forgotten silage clamp, and there is a tsunami of nutcrackers washing over the retail landscape like . . . err . . . a very big wave...

Now my theory for this is a simple one and I'm open to other hypotheses; namely, after the end of the Cold War (actually still healthily chundering-on in the background!) and reunification of the two Germanys, there was very real poverty in the Eastern portion of Germany and in the Former Czechoslovakia, and as a way of producing both jobs and cash, there was a re-vamping of craft-industries, including the wood-based ones, particularly those of the Erz (or 'ore') Mountains.

As a result of success in those ventures, and a triggering of the nostalgia button of Western consumers, they have caused this current plethora of nutcrackers, there may have been a smaller part played - particularly in the UK - by the likes of Lidl and Aldi shipping in sets of wooden decorations, a possibility backed-up by the apparent popularity of less 'Erzgebirge' wooden decorations using the new lazer-cutting techniques. Fashion says; wood's where it's at man!

Next - The Nutcracker Trail!

C is for Carpentry - Field-carpentry

Bit of a box-ticker today, these have been in the queue since 2012, but they are common knowledge and already to be seen on the web, but with all the connectivity issues the last few days, and a big gap in the queue on the 24th (this is being written PM of the 21st), this si the best I can do at short notice!

When your soldiery aren't building heavy timber crosses . . . oh, no, that's Easter isn't it! The catapult from Atlantic, basically a copy of the old Elastolin siege engine, but more likely a copy of a copy . . . if you know what I mean, in addition to Ougan carrying the Elastolin model, various Italian and French companies seem to have knocked-out copies, and Atlantic just scaled one of them down for their ancient series; even the change from a counter-weight to a rubber-band looped over an eye came from one of the larger clones I think?

I am pretty sure this is an original - in every part - model, with both the heavy yellow rubber-band and the rope-coloured button-tread being 'as supplied' by Atlantic in the original box. The mechanism works well and will fling one of the little plastic rocks about four meters across a flat floor from the level position.

A shot of a couple of complete runners, as with everything Atlantic, they come in various colours, but tent to be kept to a range of realistic 'wood' browns, the same colours also seen throughout the Wild West range.

Another reason these images have been incarcerated in Picasa for so long is that I kept meaning to re-shoot these shots, it's not terribly clear (due to the angles I shot it at to hide extraneous background) but this siege tower (also following it's DNA back through larger piracies to the Hausser model) is moving against a shoe box with its lid on upside-down to play at being a fort!!

With all three of these machines the nightmare for collectors are the little wheel-plugs or wedges which don't stop-in, however hard you push them in, but - due to the nature of polyethylene's properties - tend to pop-out and go AWOL when you aren't looking, and I notice from the above I seem to have lost one after managing to husband 24 of them for the preceding 20 years . . . Doh!

The best kind of siege-engine is the one your enemy happily tows into his city for you, despite the oracle telling him NOT TOO! You deserve the government you get, and the Trojans got one that ended their existence, couldn't happen today . . . could it?

I have a bit of a soft-spot for Trojan Horses (which ought to be called 'Greek Horses'!) and have a half-a-plan to one day get an Action Man horse (not much different from this one in size - a tad bigger maybe?) and paint it in a timber-plank scheme, giving it a twig mane and tail, gold ears and those manic Greek-warship eyes!

The trapdoor is a bit of a 'fail' on this model, it sort-of clips on, but can only be on or off; it doesn't hinge. Being a more unique sculpt, it has less parts than the other two 'wooden-wonders'.

C is for Chevaliers - Les Chevaliers Mini!

I picked these up in a charity shop the other day and recognised them as those announced in Plastic Warrior a while back (issue 163) by Peter Evans in his London Toy Show roundup - 'What's new for 2016'.

Feeling very pleased with myself (99p) I snaffled them home for further investigation - after photographing the suitcase they came in, popping the rivets on the plastic handle-holder and leaving it all in my mates recycling bin - collect responsibly; the planets dying and it's down to us!

As I say; they came in a little tin 'suitcase' (well, you could get quite a few of Action Man's suits in it!) which had obviously lost some packing (probably a blister tray) at some point, and while there are definitely some shields and weapons missing, imagining them laid-out in a tray suggests the figure/horse-count is possibly correct, however trying to sort them into 'two sides' is not so easy or clear, so it may be that the tin contained more, or that they are the part-product/s of more than one set?

The horses are lovely although the lance is a fancy jousting one rather than a plainer, more warlike and likely pointed one, and it's been chewed! The rearing horse is particularly fine but the charging one is good too; I believe they are scale-downs of the 70mm chunkers.

You can see that the level of detail while smoothed-off in the way of PVC has been enhanced with paint to the same quality as say the Starlux knights (which then would go OK with), or higher as you can see from the images.

The figures are designed to both sit in the saddle and walk upon the earth, and look good doing either, while a set of weapons and shield were included, even if - as I suspect - most of them have been lost in the mud of a battlefield.

But checking the PW story, I noticed that mine were lacking the finer details of those figures and re-reading the article it became clear that it was announcing a 56mm range, while the chaps I've picked-up are only 40mm! Indeed at least one of mine is a different paint scheme (red with eagle helm-crest) from one of the blue ones in the PW announce.

I don't know when they came out and whether or not they pre-date or followed the 56mm launch, the tin looked new enough to be less than two years old, but clearly the Papo knights (and other lines?) are available in three sizes.

I've not seen them new, but look out for them if you have the older Elastolin, Marx, Merten or Starlux knights in similar sizes as they will go well together, but don't store them together, PVC (such as these) figures have a tendency to melt polystyrene figures such as the aforementioned four brands, if barracked in the same block!

Stop Press! - It wasn't the PW article I was remembering, it was Shaun's posting of them (much more here) and the subsequent comments from yours-truly over there, which I've just found through Google (nice to know it works!), and they do pre-date the mid-sized issue, they were sell-off in the US as early as January 2015!

T is for Two - Teixido . . . I Think!

Another quick one; I did say I'd lost my mojo to a certain extent, and it's Christmas, things are very much in bimble-mode!

Despite what He-who-makes-it-up-as-he-goes-along, again, has said in the past; I don't often post on Spanish stuff and when I do it's usually either common stuff I know about (sobres or Comansi) or stuff I've been sent, so this post is a bit of a departure as I'm happy to admit I'm 100% sure I'm not sure who made either of them!

But I'm pretty sure by way of supposition (the level of presumption below assumption) that they are Teixido, and a quick perusal of that there Intermerthingey (the Wibbly Wobbly Way) reveals that there's not much known about the company by anyone, even the Spanish Blogs, so obviously they were a minor company to whom stuff is still being attributed?

Anyway we'll have a look at two 'possibles' and anyone who knows more or better is free to add their bit! They were both shot at that show-and-tell I posted stuff from a few years ago (2012).

This is lovely; An Amerindian (Peruvian?) clearly; and in the same PVC rubber as the chap Brian Carrick ID'd - also awhile ago - with similar painting but a better size (closer to 54mm), maroon-red Jaguar-pelt notwithstanding; I'd love to see the rest of the set.

More seasonal this one; he seems to be a shepherd-boy, but whether from a farm-toy range, medieval line or a set of nativity 'Belenes' I can't say - as I don’t know!

Again he's toward the 50-mil bracket, again PVC, but the paint's glossier and peeling (not proper PVC paint). The wire could have been added by a later owner, but I suspect it's original, a lot of Early Spanish stuff has wire added, usually as flag or standard staffs, but weapons, and - as we saw with Jecsan the other day - angel's 'sky-hooks' can be wire too!

That's it, I'm afraid - quick and easy!

28th Dec. - Message over Christmas from Paul Morehead at Plastic's Central; "They are both Pech Hermanos. An Aztec and a pirate with a flag on a wire" - Cheers Paul!

M is for Mucking-About!

These are from the old archive of stuff I shot while working for a dealer years ago, ten years ago in fact!

 Captain Nemo's man faces-off against one of the scarlet-crested baddies! I think the helmets were from Airfix 'Eagle' action figures (or something similar), anyway, they fitted; like I say - mucking-about!

The bridge I posed them on (I was sorting stuff) might be Formtech? It's a roughly detailed lump made from the sort of 'aqueous form-filling foam' you buy in cans to fix holes in the side of your house!

Although you can get it from the craft material suppliers as a mix-at-home goo, it's the same gunk those novelty fake drinks you found in shops called 'But is it Art?' or similar back in the 1970/80's were made from, you know the thing, a real glass overflowing with ever-lasteing beer, that sort of thing.

Some of Formtech's stuff is a bit better finished than this, but I'll add it to the tag-list until I know/hear different.

It's neither fish nor fowl, being scaled (vaguely incised stonework, size of buttresses) for 54mm, but too narrow for more than two figures to pass at a pinch, for which job you'd be unlikely to build such a structure, while although you can get 1:76th scale wagons or light vehicle across, the detailing IS out of scale?

Close-up of the rough detailing, poor finish and basic fettling; with eight buttresses and three arches, you'd make it wide-enough for a bloody farm cart - wouldn't you?

{this post has just taken three hours, two downloads of Firefox (new, then old! But not quite the same old!!) and a lot of swearing, to get posted, I have another 18 to load before the 6th of Jan but no idea if it will happen! Sometimes I hate the Internet, geeks, service providers and everything else! Gurrrrrr.}

News, Views . . . Hiatus!

Lost Wibbly Wobbly Interwebthingy for the last three days, don't know what the problem was but it seems to have fixed itself, however; because of the way it happened I couldn't pop-up the Library with a dongle, I must go and sort out all my eMails, then I'll pop back and hopefully upload some stuff!

In the meantime . . . Tree's up!

News, Views Etc...Plastic Warrior No.169

The issue has been out for a week or so, and if you don't subscribe you may just have time to get a copy before the holiday season, but get your skates on - the PW links are below the main body of the review.

This quarter's delights include . . .

Articles

* Andreas Dittman kicking-off the issue with a look at boxed sets of Dom Plastik landsknechts, which is very useful - helped me ID a halberd, now I just need the figure to hold it!

* Part 2 of Cherilea's plastic animals by Barney Brown finds us studying the larger animals and people

* PL Cuna covers the recent issue of Portuguese and Spanish General Staff from Chintoys

* Echoing recent posts here, Peter Watson inspects an HTI (Halsall) rack-toy set of knights and compares them to their diminutive donors

* A lovely Gulliver set of Brazilian Revolutionary figures, recently offered through an auction-house, is shown in an editorial

* Gerald Edwards returns to Kellogg's and Crescent with an update on medieval cereal premiums

* For Airfix aficionados there is a fascinating piece of previously unknown information on pp21 . . . no . . . subscribe!

* The second part of Adrian Norman's Scalextric articles deals with the 'long box' figure sets in the original painted ethylene series'.

* Alwyn Brice's Elastolin at 40 (part 7 9) is similar to parts one to six eight, only . . . a bit different - Huns now.

* Another editorial piece builds on contributions to illuminate the relationship between Lido and Selcol through the knights (one of whom - in my collection - is currently in possession of my Dom halberd!)

* Peter Evans closes the issue by comparing horse-flesh sandbags and Christopher Columbus; if that sounds more than a little cryptic, you still need to subscribe!

Regulars

* This issue's 'Converters Corner' has Brain Carrick creating a 'forlorn hope' from Marksmen British Grenadiers (ex-Marx) for enlisting in the Seven Year's War, while Claude Hart supplies a nice vignette/diorama of Replicant's smuggler's being apprehended by revenue troopers!

* 'What's New' covers recent releases from:

·         Engineer Basevitch - 70 years of the Soviet Army (actually all late WWII/early Cold War poses, but presumably part of a series)

·         Mars - Ex Lintek Napoleonic figures, ARVN (South Vietnam) forces

·         TSSD - Roman testudo vignette

·         Chintoys - ACW Staff for Union and Confederates

·         Expeditionary Force - French Napoleonic Fusiliers and Grenadiers

·         all available from Steve Weston (Weston Toy Soldiers) now

* There is no room left for 'What The !&*$?' this quarter!

Editorial Bits

* 'NEWS and VIEWS and other stuff ' has news of . . .

·         Games Workshop facing a lawsuit, and not for small potatoes

·         The ongoing Toy 'R Us bankruptcy

·         The availability of the last of the late Geoffrey Ambridge's Lone Star Books

·         Toy logo key-rings

·         And a brief obituary for John Clarke*^†

* 'Readers Letters' is particularly busy this issue with . . .

·         A report on ACOTS 30th annual shindig down-under from James O'Connell

·         Musings on the figures in the Dulux adverts on TV from Norman Nevard

·         More on left-handed figures from Les White

·         Erik Keggings reports on Retro-branded figures which look like a new source of the Poundland/99p Stores 30mm stuff)

·         David Buchanan asks about Britains Trojan moulds

·         Acedo moulding and other re-issues are provided by yours-truly as a follow-up to PW's passim.

·         A Robinson Crusoe from Kinder is provided by way of another follow-up, Daniel Lepers the contributor; also asks about Cherilea horses.

·         Peter Evans recounts an interesting memory of Timpo, concerning the (apparently: ever less rare!) prone type-3 cavalrymen

·         Bob Baker requests Barzo articles

·         Paul Stadinger reports on Barzo news

* Feedback on previous issues 'What The !&*$?', includes contributions from Peter Cole, Daniel Lepers, Jean-Marc de Vion, Erwin Sell, Paul Stadinger and O. Adamsberry; between them identifying Speedwell, JSF, PZG and Heimo's Travels of Gulliver set.

Plus all the usual small-ads

Front Cover (and recipe) will need pun'ishment directed at one P. Evans

Back Cover - An interesting Timpo catalogue scan with Lindberg tie-in

Remember also; for subscription details or to 're-up', for contributions, letters or queries, Plastic Warrior is now on-line through various platforms:

Facebook

Blogger

eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com

And they are on Paypal.

*^† Saddened greatly by the news of John's passing he was a lovely man, he carried the enthusiasm of three, incredibly intelligent and friendly despite treading a rocky road, and his loss is proof of the old adage that 'the best go first'.

We once had a minor disagreement about the contents of certain Monopoly sets (some of us are living right on the edge!), a couple of weeks later he sent me a letter through our mutual friend John Begg (because he didn't have my address and John had been party to the chat), apologising for being slightly wrong, and this wasn't a three-line whip, this was a full, handwritten, page of prose, explaining how he had gone about proving the facts, a REAL letter in the age of the email missives -  like wot peepel rote in the oldun daes!

Truly a charming man; we're the poorer for his passing.

There is a cryptic hint at John's diorama's having been shot by the PW editor so hopefully they will be forthcoming in future issues of Plastic Warrior?

F is for Follow-up - Paint Your Own Toys

Just a quick one; following up on the Paint Your Own posts, Brian Berke sent me these last week, they are a bit cartoony, but then they are also piggy-banks, or Swineosaurus Geldii, as I believe paleontologists are wont to call them, and need to be fat to take all those pennies!

In Walgreen's as of last Tuesday; should you be fortunate enough to live where Walgreen operates! An excellent gift idea for younger relatives, and as they get older they can always repaint!

Brian also sent these a while ago as part of a mixed lot he was trying to ID, and while I couldn't help, I did suggest Paint Your Own sets, as I had just seen the sets I would later purchase for those posts the other week.

I took them (the pictures) home and had a better look (I struggle with images in Hotmail these days, partly down to limited time on the internet, partly down to the fact they make it as hard as possible to get them to show big enough!), spotted the 'CHINA' (on the rear of the left hand figure) and changed my mind, suggesting they were from a medieval play-set.

But now doing a bit of digging into these Paint Your Own sets (there's a fair few out there), I've changed my mind back to the possibility they are actually from a Paint Your Own set, possibly targeted at castles, museums and historical sites.

The Crescent 'Berserker' clearly booked his annual leave for the pre-Christmas period so there's an approximately 54mm ACW Union flag-bearer as a scaler.

Clearly medieval or early 'age of exploration', could they be from a Pilgrim Father's set, or touristy thingy of/from a US source, do you have them? How many poses were there in a set or what was the set called? Were there Local Indians in the set for the pioneers to trade with?

I found this (Kandy Toys) looking for something else the other day, and while they are more dinosaurs, it's further evidence that Paint Your Own sets are looking to be a rich vein for toy and model figures, animals and such like, have you found any useful ones? I've also seen Paint Your Own plaster figurines.

News, Views Etc...In Brief

So, I sort of lost my mojo over the weekend, I was going to post something for Sunday afternoon and this morning but my can-be-arsed tanks ran-dry on Friday and it didn't happen, and although I have tons of stuff in the queue I don't really know what I'm playing at for the next week or two.

New Additions 2017

In my defence we will hit 450-posts before the end of the year whatever happens so I'm not too bothered, clearly why the 'can't-be-arsed' reserve has kicked in! A few shelfies in awhile and the latest PW review later today, nothing for tomorrow yet, I may post something Spanish later, for tomorrow, but I'm doing Christmas trees and cutting wood and looking for holly with berries and important stuff like that right now!

That Pirate set the other day was imported by ITP, and branded to Toy Bank and Pirate Monkey . . . Toy Bank was one of the brands on those big rubber insects, so we can deduce that Pirate Monkey and Green Geko [sic] are madeupnames of Toy Bank. I'll add all relevant tags to the Pirate Ship's post before you read this.

Also Francesco Ferretti sent me the most fantastic shots of his Kinder collection last Thursday and they will make lovely eye-candy for the 12-days of Christmas, both for closing 2017 and setting us on the right path for 2018.

Maintenant - ici est un blog Français bel pour les jouets en plastique

http://www.lesjouetsdenicolas.fr/

D is for Disaster!

It's the annual Crimbo-chocolate post! Bit of a rant this year!

Lidl's have stopped shipping-in their lovely Favorina chocolate advent calendars of which there was always a choice of three, one girly kids one, one blokey kids one and one traditional one with a sort of 'cheap Christmas card' scene with Christmassy and/or religious overtones, which was the one I always got, each window (are they windows, or doors?) had a different chocolate shape, there were the correct 24 windows and the chocolate was lovely!

Last one from 2016

Last year they started sourcing them from within the UK (Kinnerton) and while the chocolate was OK, it was UK-okay if you know what I mean, not proper chocolate at all, and worse - all the boxes were younger kids TV or book/comic character tie-ins, so this year I paid an extra quid for a Thornton's one, hoping it would at least taste better.

No proper figurals this year

It's got 25 doors (are they doors, or windows?) which is sacrilege ('Bread & Circus' - "Give the proles an extra doorwindow!"), only six designs and the chocolate tastes like Cadbury's Dairy Milk which I've never liked, vegetable-fatty, sugar-gritty, shite.

I know it's frivolous, but there's a point - like housing, like prisons, like wages, like benefits, like the roads, military procurement, education (funding and policing) local governance, banking, tribunals, the toy trade, manufacturing, fishing, mental-health, pensions, policing - pretty-much any aspect of public life you care to mention; the crappifying of chocolate advent calendars is a symptom of something greater; that we are going backwards.

We are going downhill, we've ceased to improve, progress isn't and we've started to visibly, tangibly, actually degrade - as a nation, we are on the slide. 38-years of Thatcherite-Reganomic policy has left us divided, devoid of ideas and without a pot to piss in and pushing ahead with Trumpundbrexit won't do anything more than accelerate the regression. So endeth the message of hope for 2018!

Finishing on a lighter note, the one on the left is a penguin in a scarf - if you're wondering.

While the one on the right ended this way-up after I'd wrestled it from the tray and I momentarily thought - why have I got a whale-plane from the Wacky Races in my advent calendar?

P is for Provencal Peasants and Performing Provincials

I had to read-up on Santon's for the pesky Composition Page which seems fated to never happen, or destined to become a book! Primarily, this was because there was confusion in my simple-mind between 'Santons' and 'Senton', who we'd already seen here on the blog. Turns out Senton make Santons and Santons are the French take on Italian Presepi, except they (the French) apparently got the idea from the Spanish Belenes!

Typicall though, while most Santons, including those from Senton are painted and between 50 and 80mm, these are 120-odd and undecorated! However I'm sure enough they are Santons as the French changed the rules on who could attend the Nativity and decided that occasional guests could include celebrities and presidents - past and present - while one of the 50 regular guests is the hunter, complete with anachronistic firearm!

These are fired terracotta with a couple of chips on the hat brims, revealing that they were finished with a dark varnish wash or dip.

These aren't Santons, being more decorative or ornamental but of the same sort of subject; country bumpkins, so they can go here. They were photographed on Adrian's stall back in the summer, and seem to be blow-moulded polystyrene, done in the style of the Casein figures that turn-up occasionally and/or Japanese celluloid blow-moulds.

However they actually have what appears to be a British 'Registered Patent' application number round the base; hers not clear, his quite readable; R.P. No. 8863-something obscured by what looks like an Araldite repair. They have wooden bases to match the similar casein models.

Yet I wonder if the RP could be Republique Provence? They remain a mystery - unless you know better (?) - are figural and are interesting . . . and; to be honest - look more Spanish or Portuguese than anything!

Links

Wikipedia

French Official

Provencal Site

On the blog

Santons by Senton

A [casein] Gentleman in Khaki