C is for Coincidences, coincidences!

It's funny how things sometimes come together; if with divine purpose it's synergy, if without: coincidence, I think this is the later, as it falls at the last, but it's worth recounting anyway . . . the blurb has to come from somewhere.

Back in December the 169th issue of Plastic Warrior's magazine dropped through the door with - among many other things - a British issued (Selcol) version of a Lido medieval set; King's Knights. So far so good, last weekend I went to Sandown and saw these, they were quite reasonable and the seller told me these was another mounted hidden in the pile - twice before I took it!

I thought; "ohh, they must be those ones in the last PW, I'll have them to go with my Lido (and Selcol!) unpainted sample". Meaning to Blog them after I'd looked-up December's PW; I shoved them in a folder and left them on the desktop last-night (Wednesday).

Of course; this morning PW 170 fell onto the mat (review; next week - hopefully), with a letter from someone referring back to them and I read it with interest to see if they mentioned what I thought I'd 'discovered', but they hadn't (phew!), only for me to look up the older issue this evening (Thursday) and find that the Selcol's are either unpainted as per the Lido, or all-over painted and I hadn't discovered more than that there are HK copies, which I already knew!

What I thought I'd discovered was that the British ones were from Hong Kong, but I hadn't bought the British ones (I thought I was buying), I'd bought some more HK piracies! So I turned to Kent Sprecher's ToySoldier HQ where there is a little more clarity with the painted ones shown as copies (he's added a lot more to the page in the last couple of years), however, while my horses are clearly marked 'Made in Hong Kong' . . .

. . . the foot figures seem to be in every other way, the same as Lido's, just with paint. The foot figures are soft polyethylene, the horses - hard polystyrene.

Kent's site gives a nice time-line of the company's many incarnations and the moulds seem to have gone every-which-way and I wonder if the knight's mould might have ended-up in HK? It would be easy to add the 'made in...' stamping to the mould-tool, while other Hong Kong clones exist (see pink chap below), but smaller and/or marked - as tended to be the case, or 'as you'd expect'!

Anyway, I then went into the attic just now, to get the Lido knights tub, only to find it's not in either of the medieval boxes because - as I remembered after the fact - I'd give them their own tub (Really Useful 3-litre CD box, brilliant for 4x5½ bags) with each pose (US (or UK) and HK) in a separate bag together, as they are a favourite of mine, the toy-like quality appeals to me and I buy them whenever I see them - I'd just forgotten the painted ones!

So, here's a few, all Hong Kong, although all bar the pink one seem to be as Lido/Selcol, I thought I'd posted them here before but I don't seem to have, so we will return to them when I get the tub out of storage. In the meantime there's PW 169 and 170 (and earlier issues for sure) and Kent's page to help!

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Schleich - Wildlife

Other than animals and civilian ('Farm & Zoo') there was nothing on the Schleich stand to interest the hobby really, there is a Fantasy range we'll look at in another post (along with some more licensed stuff), but there are no knights (Eldrador now cleared through [and from] TKMaxx), pirates, Samurai or Ninjas, no Gladiators, Egyptians, no historicals, the siege-engines and medieval camp gone . . . nothing, nada, zilch!

Anyway, today we shall look at the Schleich stalwart - animals, and starting at the beginning; Dinosaurs! Funnily enough I picked-up a K&M stegosaurus the other day and was quite surprised by its quality, but these Schleich are pretty much at the top of the game, and like the Papo range, don't have the weird join-lines found on the larger 'CHINA' models - including the K&M example.

I particularly like the treatment of the Dimetrodon 'sails' they have the radiating spars of the extended vertebra nicely sculpted, but the blood-vessels have been given a more amorphic paint-treatment, over and between the spars, ignoring their symmetry, which gives sense to several of the theories concerning the functionality of the sails; either to cool in the heat of the day, or to warm the blood in the rays of the morning sun, or indeed - both!

The wild animal range is also pretty much as it's been for a while now, a few new tools of old but popular sellers (when everyone's bought your whatever, give them a new whatever to buy!), some totally new animals, and the core range carried-over from the previous year.

Obviously with things like the cetaceans 'constant' scale has gone out of the window, but they would otherwise be several feet long, I think for such beasts it's understandable.

Most of the arctic and marine animals (back left and bottom row) are new for 2018, along with a lovely koala, whole lion family, a delightful chimpanzee, a pair of zebras a hippo and a rhinoceros. There's also a new pig family in the more toy-like Farm World range.

But with the domestic range there is both a scale creep (upwards) and that move to a more toy like or juvenile look if you know what I mean. This girl - for instance - is a part action-figure with four-to-six points of articulation; I didn't study them closely? And - like the Revell stuff the other day - seems to be aiming to take market-share from people who were not previously seen as obvious rivals, such as poor old Playmobile . . . again!

For the animal fans though the core range remains much as it's been for years and I was quite taken by the long-horn cattle in dark brown to the far right and - as you saw earlier today - I keep an eye out for new cat models!

A flavour of the catalogue gives more of these play set type things, and while the longhorns are in the display rack the rest don't seem to be and also seem to have a more playful, less realistic countenance - but that may just be me seeing things which aren't there!

Q is for Question Time - Bagheera?

Just a quick one as we looked at small cats this morning, here's a big one . . .

. . . which I'm sure is meant to be Bagheera. However it could just be a slightly comical black panther, especially as it's unmarked and Disney-licensed stuff is nearly always marked, unless unofficial/knock-off type stuff.

The lack of any marking would seem to rule out Kinder and I think it's  too big for the old Schleich 'mini's and it has painted eyes in two colours, they tended to dot eyes in black, if at all, but/so he could just as easily be a Halloween thing - as in a witches cat not a big cat? Does anyone know who made him?

T is for Two - Schleich Cats

As we are in the middle of the Schleich show reports we might as well get these two out of the Laptop's doldrums and off to their permanent home in the 'S' dongle!

This chap (or chapess) has been waiting for a while now, bought on a whim and I thought I'd already blogged him (or her), but I don't seem to have, apologies if IT looks familiar, while the photo's are here, the cat has long-since been buried in the box with the other felines!

Bog-standard grey tabby, and while the stripes are not terribly realistic for a tabby, you get those mackerel-striped grey ones from time to time and it passes muster as one of those, if anything the tail markings should be darker, while the face is very well-done and quite expressive.

This one on the other hand is a recent purchase for my mother, who has a thing for ginger tabbies. Last time I looked it was standing guard in the kitchen on top of a wooden coffee barrel.

That's it - couple of cats - both current - from Schleich

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Schleich - Bayala &etc.

I think I mentioned the pinky-purple section yesterday, so let's get that swiftly out of the way and save the relative safety of the animals 'till tomorrow. Bayala is the name of this game and it's very pinky-purple . . . and mauve . . . and sky-blue . . . and mint-green . . . and rainbowy!

Mermaids; in scallop-shells - except they don't look like scallops, they look like cheap rack-toy purses from the 1970's, or Polly-pocket compacts from the '80's? But Mermaids are mermaids and out of the shell they are nice sculpts if that's you thing.

Unicorns; I've said it before and I'll say it again: They're everywhere! Quite apart from the bandwagon of the unicorn-fest, it's a clear attack on whoever's got My Little Pony franchises, and there are quite a few of them.

Unicorns with fairies! Again; nothing wrong with them as sculpts, they are a bit big for figure collectors or modellers to do much with, but it's where the money is . . .

. . . the biggest section of the Schleich catalogue (after the Wild Animal section) is the Horse Club section, clearly going after girls' pocket-money or girls' parents money, and attacking Breyer - all these big companies are ruthless businesses, and if Breyer are doing well, they will be attacked.

As well as the DC & Marvel comic stuff (increasingly: 'movie' stuff!) I posted yesterday, Schleich have two other licensed product-lines in the early-year catalogue (everything we're looking at in these posts is good 'till June 2018), one being Peanuts, no surprises here, various companies have done PVC Peanuts over the years; with or without permission! We looked at the latest (Phidal) the other day.

Of slightly more interest (from a purely intellectual point of view - I'm not rushing out to buy them or anything like that!) is the Maya stuff. Without Google to hand I think it's an old European TV thing (Heimo or Bully did some figures ages [decades?]  ago - I'm sure), clearly with a Movie out (or forthcoming), which is nice.

Not because I like franchises, I don't; I despair at the state of the whole licensed-character 'thing', even though it goes back the best part of a century, with Betty Boop, Robinson's Gollies, Jonny Walker, various cats (Felix, Figaro, Fritz . . . ) and Disney - of course, but it's got to the point were there's not much else? At least the Bayala above seems to be a totally 'in-house' construct.

But in a world where Disney, Lucas, DC, Marvel and Nintendo seem to own half of everything cultural or toy-like, it's nice to see European (or Bwreaksit British!) things like Dr. Who or Pepper Pig getting picked-up and passed across the pond, or further afield like Japan. The irony in this case being that the Maya figurines aren't even available in the UK . . . Doh!

Still - I get to put Maya in the tag-list! More Schleich tomorrow.

R is for Real Armeria or 'Royal Armories'

Having looked at museum exhibits from Brain the last two days (as well as the knights we looked at in a past Papo post; also from Mr. B), it was rather fortuitous I picked this up at Sandown last Saturday, well, actually Mr. Little as good as gave it to me at the end of the show - so big shout out to Mercator Trading.

Before cleaning

I give you Philip III of Spain (and the various other places he claimed!) C1570-1621 wearing his Milanese-made Parade armour which I'm assuming is on show at the Madrid Royal Armories.

I think I first saw these in Plastic Warrior magazine about 20 years ago (?), and I seem to recall there are others (I remember two?) to find (my back-issues are in storage so I can't check), also; I think there are larger versions, more like the Marx and Aurora kits, but I might be making that last bit up as I go along?

Or maybe the Marx or Aurora kits - someone else made some large knights, one of the Japanese kit makers; Crown? Aoshima? - were the larger ones, also made-up for sale in the museum's gift-shop?

After cleaning

Whatever the facts, the smaller ones as seen here are exquisite little polystyrene kits, a tad smaller than 54mm (closer to 50-mil or 1:35th scale) made-up and painted as a commercial exercise, the smaller and larger plinths also being in styrene, as is the base-plate.

He needed a dusting and re-gluing but I tend to shoot the show-stuff as I'm doing the initial sort and before I get round to cleaning, so the four-way image above has him teetering . . . the camera may never lie, but it can hide a multitude of sins and this two way highlights the poor finish, but he is now glued firmly back on his plinth.

Decoration is minimal with a gunmetal wash, silver over that and an over-paint or wash of a nice pale-gold which shines well in the light, minimal colour has been applied to the saddle-cloth and the horse gets a few splodges of thinned-black, however, all this appears to have happened after assembly so the sides of Phillip and the armpit area are bereft of decoration,

You can also see a richer, yellower gold used for highlights on the horse furniture and saddle and the only damage I can find is the very tip of the sword has been lost, but a dab of paint at some point will all but hide the fact it's not there.

News Views etc . . . SAS - Tri-Ang Signature Collection

Just a quick one to spread the word about a forthcoming auction at SAS (Special Auction Services), off down in Newbury, Berkshire.

A two day sale on Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st of March is mostly dedicated to the sale of what can only be called a 'signature' or 'reference' collection. I've seen the catalogue and it's quite amazing, although not much for toy figure collectors per se; there are some items of interest.

The collection is of 'vintage' Tri-Ang, so not much of your 1970's plastic trains and things, this is stuff going way back and includes many examples of early 'playroom' and garden toys, ride-on, pull or push toys and the like.

There is also the most extensive range of dolls houses I've ever seen in one auction and they are all Tri-Ang.

The most interesting thing about them is that - dinky-little thatched-cottages apart - the tin-plate and wood suburban town-houses they were well known for seem to reflect the changes in architectural fashion from the first inter-war Deco styling, through the faux Arts-&-Craft, to the post war expansions and the simpler designs of the 1960's, houses which some of my mates' sisters had.

Also notable is the numbers of colours they used over the years, I was left (by the houses of my youth and most of those I've seen since) thinking they were usually cream with green woodwork, but blue, dark brown and black abound for detailing, while brickworks are also white, grey or yellow - among the soberer shades. If you know someone who collects dolls' houses, this is one of those 'once a decade' sales they really should try and attend.

Where some followers of this Blog may be more interested is in the tin-plate and vehicle section of the sale, some having animals as cargo, several toys have the wheeled animals we looked at here a while ago and indeed; there is at least one of the Noah's Arks in the same with a full complement of animals.

There are also wide ranges of the later, smaller Minic's, and even some lovely sets of the late plastic military ones, a few of which I covered here back at the beginning of the Blog eight or nine years ago, in fact - we looked at the log-wagon and crawler-tractor not that long ago.

It's not a sale for figure collectors, but it's a sale any other old toy collectors should be more than interested in, and everyone should be trying to get hold of a  catalogue.

Some of the other dates for forthcoming sales at SAS in the first half of 2018 include a figure-heavy sale the following week, two train auctions and a single-owner die-cast collection along with another vintage sale in June.

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Schleich - Superheroes

As with Papo I've broken the Schleich (or Schleich-S as I think they are aiming to be called?) down, but not into the same number of posts as Papo, simply because there wasn't much to see! The display seemed smaller than Papo's despite the stands being of equivalent size (they were only a few yards from each-other as well!), the move seems to be toward scene-in-a-box play-sets, fantasy (of a pinky-purple type) and the dreaded licensed stuff (the target of this post), but don't be put-off be my wittering, the animals are still about the best out-there.

And they are big, some of these a four-and-a-half-inches (120mm) or taller.

Marvel superheroes, being - if anything - a DC guy, I tend to just shake my head and move on, they have Spidey and the Hulk I s'pose, but it's not enough when the enemy have . . .

. . . Superman, Batman and the babe in a basque! Now she's in an armoured-basque I may have to be more respectful! But DC has its duffers too; who the hell's Shazami? Don't all write-in at once - I don't care; he looks like a hippy dance-guru, or a cheaper Flash! Cheap flasher? Peter Stringfellow's going to a Toga Party?

It's nice that there are different generations of the Batman, although the TV one isn't shown and he's the one I like. There may be other versions at the website (link www.schleich-s.com) where we are invited to "Discover other superheroes at:...", you will find that following the link will take you to a local (US, UK etc...) hub.

It's funny; the Man Bat gets all these upgrades with each movie (as does Marvel's Iron Man really), Wonder Woman has gone all Spartan-Amazon on us, but all Superman's got out of all the Hollywood attention is slightly fancier boots!

Thought for the day - why do the comics (or the movies) never show us Superman, at the end of his adventure, sewing-up his wreaked civi's at the speed of light, presumably in the same telephone box where he left them, all torn and ripped, so that he looks like he's just been to the water-cooler when he steps back into the office?

E is for Exquisite Emperor

As well as the twelve tazze we looked at yesterday, Brian also sent a couple of shots of this, which I far prefer, despite the Met's website being slightly dismissive of the likely (it's not 100% clear or known) maker, Reinhold Vasters of Aachen, Germany.

To quote the Met's website description in full;

"This Silver Caesars-inspired statuette was probably made by Reinhold Vasters, a nineteenth-century goldsmith famous for his forgeries of Renaissance objects. Vasters evidently admired the tazze - his personal collection included copies of the Augustus and Vitellius dishes. It is likely that he also manufactured the six replacement feet added to the tazze in the late nineteenth century."

Made of finely carved marbles and other semi-precious stone, the joins (which I suspect - with no evidence - are peg-and-hole with grout) hidden by finely wrought, gilded, silver-work, which - as well as hiding the joins - will also hold the pieces in place., flush against each other?

I'm not so convinced that this is necessarily inspired by the twelve Caesars as just a wider part of the Enlightenment's look back at the Renaissance's own referring back to the splendor of Rome (and Greece) as it was seen by the 'modern' men of those ages, where the monumental statuary was the 'big puller'.

A few samples of marble similar to those used on the Caesar, including the green and red stone which I believe is called blood-stone, as used on his kilt, a fine Calcutta/caramel-yellow (onyx?) similar to, but paler than the sample his breast-plate is carved from, the cherry-yogurt pink comes in various hues, our little marble having large flecks of black in it (probably another version of Bloodstone), while the statuette's own shirt-sleeves and cloak are flecked with paler grey splotches; the plinth pink having white flecks and striations.

Note also that the decorative fringe of his belt was once fully enamelled in a rich, translucent apple-green, now mostly flaked-away.

I couldn't find a green to match the main-body of the plinth, it looks like the same stuff they cut signet-rings and seals from (they also used bloodstone, but tended to use purer-red pieces for small works) while the boots seem to be the same near-all-black as the black in the above group, infused with white, fern-like fronds or 'ice-crystals', you also get streaks or spots; his left boot has one running across the front of the ankle, and it's not far-removed from the Carrara we were looking at a year ago - but it's not an exact science; they will all be Italian stones though.

Link

Metropolitain Museum of Art - from the other side

The exhibition has been made possible by The Schroder Foundation, Selim K. Zilkha, the Anna-Maria & Stephen Kellen Foundation, Nina von Maltzahn, and an anonymous donor.

I'm very grateful to Brian for sending us these, it's nice to have a bit of up-market content on the blog, and to see what we might be adding to the collection after we crack that all-important 'becoming a multi-millionaire' ceiling!

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Revell - Miscellaneous

Finishing-up the Revell reports with the bits and bobs, basically two ranges which - while probably not 'new' - are new to me and have some new items. Also a bit outside the remit of the Blog, but interesting for being clear attempts to steal market-share from people they never used to clash with, but the toy business is a cut-throat one these days, and Revell are flexing their muscles.

These are basically Playmobile for people who want more realistic figures, the vehicles and accessories aren't much different, the trolley may be a tad finer or 'less chunky' than the Playmobile version would be, but it's definitely the same type of toy; half-way between toy figures and action figures with a bit of construction thrown in for good measure.

I think they have nine points of articulation which takes them toward the action figures end of the toy-figure 'spectrum' and will give them greater playability than Playmobile figures that have always had that stilted 'Frankenstein' walk.

The subjects on display were all 'real life' of a modern or up-to-date nature, whether it will one day extend to Romans, Knights, Vikings or post-1914 style combat figures is anyone's guess, I suspect not, but if the line takes-off - who knows?

Single figures are available (like Playmobile) as an entry-point 'come-on' or collection-builders, and in a pocket-money price bracket (£4.99), given that for those lucky-enough to get pocket money, it's trending to a little-more (£5-10)that the occasional sixpence we got, way back when.

Police, fire and ambulance/paramedic crews need civilians in trouble to be able to spring into action . . . and a mix of vacant 'preppy' looking kiddults and high-performance sports cars look like a recipe for trouble to me!

One of the cars is actually licensed from Cars the movie franchise, dragging younger customers into the 'Playmobile Plus' world!

Not content to just attack Playmobile's market, Revell are also aiming their multiple sights at Lego, or it's sub-brand Duplo, with a range of large-stud [simple-] construction toys which are 'compatible with all leading brands!

A move I - for one - am happy with, Lego are a ruthless 'corporate' hiding behind the 'fake-news' of a cosy apple-pie family business, and now they've lost most of the (at one point; seemingly endless) court battles, it's nice to see other companies getting into that market.

Again, though; [getting back to Revell!] there is a more advanced element than I think you get with Duplo, in that the vehicles are radio-controlled, although as tech slides down the age-spectrum of toys, becoming ever more affordable, we will all end-up with walking, talking, flashing toys or figures who can get into their own drone and fly-off to worry the family pets!

Out now and better than Airfix's offering, but not exactly setting the world on fire either, and a clear move away from hobby-kits to early-years toys and from realistic representations of real life, historical or iconic things to licensed TV/Movie related stuff.

T is for Tazze

These have been pushed back a couple of times as far as the queue goes, but I'm glad they're here now as they are only on show for a few more days in the US (exhibition finishes on March 11th - next Sunday), before coming to the UK, so I can let you know about them with 'minutes to spare' as the saying goes.

All images from Brian B, although there is plenty more available on the web for those who's interest is for the wider sphere of figural-sculpture, or renditions of the human form or whatever the phrase [I'm not finding] would be! However; I wouldn't know anything about them without Mr. Berke's contribution, so many thanks to him.

This is a silver guilt tazza (plural; tazze) currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York with its eleven brothers and a whole bunch of copies, derivative 'homage' and influenced pieces, one of which we will look at tomorrow.

It may look like a cake-dish to you, it certainly looks like a cake-dish to me, but they are apparently standing cups, and are collectively known as the Aldobrandini Tazze, after the Roman Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, who was known to have owned them, they are also known as the 'Silver Caesars'.

Anyway not knowing anything about them, all this is paraphrasing the Metropolitan's own blurb or that of the next destination for the exhibition; the National Trust's property at Waddesdon Manor in Aylesbury, Bucks'; the exhibition will open there on Wednesday April 18th.

Another of the originals; Vespasian. The tazze are thought to represent the 12 Caesars of Suetonius' famous work, with each cup (dish)'s bowl decorated with four finely wrought, engraved scenes, each of which can be tied to specific events or anecdotes as told by Suetonius in the The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Incidentally: a bloody-good read.

Although credited to Aldobrandini (it is known/recorded that he had possession of them in 1603), it seems they were actually made for one of the Hapsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire further north, with the silversmiths being from or based-in the Low Countries, specifically the Southern Netherlands.

The clues (which are better explained on the websites or by visiting the exhibitions) point to Archduke Albert VII of Austria and the late 1590's as origin/owner. He may have subsequently gifted six of the tazze to the cardinal, the prelate having paid for the other six - according to his accounts?

Although it would be easy to use imagery (with proper acknowledgement and link-backs) from the websites, we're only going to look at Brain's images here, the websites are there and the exhibitions can be attended, albeit that the Met's is only running for a few more days.

These are copies made in the C19th, and have been left in their oxidised silver state, as the tazze were originally found when they resurfaced in London in 1826, the gilding added by the smiths of the day. Later still; some feet were changed . . . &etc . . . it's all on the websites.

And yes, if it wasn't for the known age and values, they could almost be a collection of unloved Stadden-clones on a table at a car-boot-sale!

Shot from the opposite corner; although there are 12 here, there seems to be a couple of duplicates (coloured dots) and there are signs of past gilding (white squares) on a couple of the pieces, but I believe there were quite a few copies made and there are more than these twelve on display alongside the originals as part of the whole exhibition.

The copies don't have the cup/dish, so presumably should be or are 'statuettes', but they are such accurate copies they are all referred to as silver Caesars. They (like the originals) would have been table centre-pieces for formal 'silver-service' functions and 'top-table' banquettes.

The naming of the parts! I would recommend that you follow the links and spend some time browsing the full story as it's quite interesting, and the Caesars are exquisite. Lovely things; thank you Mr B.

Links

Metropolitain Museum of Arts

Waddesdon Manor

The exhibition has been made possible by The Schroder Foundation, Selim K. Zilkha, the Anna-Maria & Stephen Kellen Foundation, Nina von Maltzahn, and an anonymous donor.

Z is for Zip-it-up; You Animal!

It's funny, I thought I'd posted this minor HK maker when the blog first started - I coudln't remember if it was the first 'Z' or the second, I had a feeling the first was Zizzle pirate ships and Zip were on the rebound after we'd climbed back down the alphabet - with a paltry pig (there may have been a sheep too?), but it turns out I never blogged it at all!

In the meantime I discovered Ludo's old website page on them - as premiums for Colonil - which added three more animals to the list, I had by then picked-up a turkey (in storage), while a few years later the Vichy started a thread and added another animal, and so it goes . . . Ludo's new Forum has added a Jersey cow and chicken family for instance. I had only done a listing on the defunckt a-z blog, and that not until 2011!

Today we'll add some more to the listing.

I had decided on the title and taken the shots before the rest turned-up, so I'm carrying-on for the moment as if the other four images aren't there!

A horse; here posed with the Timpo horse, to which it is similar, but by no means a direct copy; there are only so many ways to sculpt a bog-standard thoroughbred standing still, and the musculature on the two is very different. Zip copied several Timpo's though, but they also cloned Britains and others?

But what struck-me and led to the title, is that while the Timpo example has an anatomically-correct tuft of hair, strategically placed to hide the gelding-work of the veterinary surgeon, the Zip horse is rather Priapically advertising the fact that he's definitely a sire, and about to do some sire'ing!

I was so happy to have a 'new' animal, I had taken the shots before the foal turned-up, I shot him then thought I'd better check the rest, and well . . . quite a menagerie, and that's not the end of it, but I've now got another eepie-deep, other piggy-wigggy and the horse & foal for starters!

Anyway they are all marked - so there's no question as to their provenance! The foal is - of course - a Britains pose, but the sheep taken is from Friedel (probably via Italian nativity figures) so they cast their net wide at Zip Towers! But all of them are - if you ignore the marks for a second -  pretty generic Hong Kong fare.

As I mentioned above, I'm sure I'd got a turkey before everything went into storage, but this one came in a while back in another of these mixed charity-shop lots (most of this post is last Tuesday's purchase), he's marked on the underside of his base with the ZIP-mark and as pointed out elsewhere is taken from the Timpo original.

Now, this is where it gets complicated; both the right-hand animals are unmarked, but I would bet a shed-load of money on them being Zip, however, there were in the same lot many others which could have been too, but I'm not showing them to you as they have to remain question-marks, these two pairs are plastic-colour matched and - in the case of the foals - paint-matched.

If things this big are unmarked (the piglet actually has the remains of an entirely spurious MADE IN.... on his base), while things as small as the turkey have a clear ZIP, it's obvious that the marking wasn't consistent.

Likewise, because they are all poses copied dozens of times by dozens of HK manufacturers over several decades, in thousands of colours or slightly different shades of plastic (including Zip) it's clear that everyone collecting and adding to the listing of these over the last ten years (including me?) have probably sorted some genuine Zip out of their sample; Doh!

For instance, the lot I picked up the other day from which all these (bar the turkey) come, had a variety of old British, HK, modern 'CHINA' marked, some Safari vinyl and 'all else', some mint/near-mint, some clean, some aged and playworn . . . among which were some bog-standard 'generic' copies of Britains poultry; the duck family, hen family, separate hens, cockerel, goose and ducks, the old Blue Box versions probably providing the donors.

They were all unmarked, and the plastic/paint - condition was as good as the four Zip's, does this mean they are also Zip? Probably, but without a marked one to match them too - as I was luckily able to do with the other two (and a marked chicken family has turned-up elsewhere), or a carded/bagged set to turn-to for direct comparison; I can't say they are, and certainly can't present them as such - so a note's added to their bag, and if the 'coincidence' occurs again - I'll run with it!

I should add that I don't actively collect farm and zoo animals, I just 'encounter' and 'accrue' them! These mixed lots leave more questions than they solve, but that's a piglet, two foals and a horse added to the Zip/Colonil oeuvre, with second pig and sheep to join the turkey.

Although - as far as the Colonil connection goes - I think the link is less firm these days (?) and I also suppose they must have been sold in the UK as toys; carded or in bags, but were they marked or generic? Or were they in one of the many 'Home Farm' sets? If only the horse would 'put it away' and tell us!

Listing

Farm 
Animal - Donor

- Pig - Timpo

- Piglet - Blue Box?

- Jersey Cow (Britains?)*

- Horse Standing - ?

- Foal Scratching - Britains

- Foal Standing - Britains

- Turkey - Timpo

- Sheep - Friedel (or Italian Precepi?)

- Chicken Family - Britains

Zoo

- Giraffe - Timpo

- Zebra - Timpo

* Other sandy-orange/brown cow breeds are (or were) available, including Guernsey and [the probably extinct] Alderney, which we once tried to track down in Texas and . . . Nebraska I think, a bit of a goose-chase in the end, and most picture show red-white colouring; all three - Guernsey, Jersey and Alderney being linked to the French Normand (a white with red or black splotching) can be other colours or have white bits.

News, Views etc . . . Herne is 25!

Snow has cancelled today's activities, but I don't have my Laptop on me, so just a quickie . . .

Don't forget Sandown Park is still happening tomorrow, and a thaw should set-in overnight, but drive carefully anyway!

I've had a quick reminder myself, from Peter of the . . .

45. deutsche Kunststoffigurenbörse (25 Jahre Jubiläum) 18.03.2018 in Herne

Which I will flesh out in the week, but it's been 25-years of shows, where does the time go?

News, Views etc . . . Big Fat Fail!

So, it's Wednesday as I type, stuff came up yesterday, more stuff happened this morning, I'm not here Friday, Saturday I'm hopping to be at the show (Sandown Park), and by then I'll've lost Internet 'till Monday, so It probably won't be until Tuesday that anything happens here now?

As you can see; there's a week's worth of Posts 'in the bag', I just haven't got round to the Blurb! I may get something together over the next couple of days, but to be honest a few days off is appealing! Sorry, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes . . . I'll try and shoot something nice at Sandown!