D is for Oh Deer!

One of the problems with trying to sort Festival from Gem, is that the Gem catalogues in Plastic Warrior's Gem special don't list everything Gem, and there is - as yet - no Festival catalogue, while the Culpitt salesman's sample-case - of which a couple have turned-up over the years - mixes both marques, along with Hong Kong; drawer by drawer, as they are laid-out in the trays thematically - with Culpitt order-codes.

Case in point; all the above are marked Festival, I don't know another chalkey, early 'British' white (or brown) polyethylene deer of this type, not already ascribed to someone else, yet the Gem catalogue clearly states X3 – Reindeer as part of its Christmas line. They must have sent-out the Festival-marked animal?

The yellow plastic candle-holder seems to be from a small Easter range (which may include the yellow Snowbabies?), he also comes in Christmas white, while the brown robin is also available in Yellow as an Easter chick!

Gem or Festival? They are all marked Festival! The brown plastic ones seem less common, could they have been a tool-run for Gem? Not that it looks much like a reindeer, more a woodland or downland species? Really it's a 'Christmas' deer, isn't it? And they're all George Musgrave!

S is for Snowbabies!

Having touched on them earlier we might as well have a decent gander at them, 'Snowbabies' or Snow Babies (?) is the term (going back to Victorian chalkware and bisque items) used for cake-decorating models of small children in one-piece, hooded coveralls or snow suits, these would have been plain, quilted-linen, kapok-filled things which got bloody heavy as they got wet, now they are multicoloured, synthetic-fibre, breathable Gortex things.

I have covered aspects of them before once or twice I think, but they are all together now, although I am short one pose and still need more yellow (or other coloured) ones.

The three standard poses of tobogganist, we saw the one on the left earlier, where he was being used as a crashed skiier? Nursery slopes are a mass of tangled sticks and skis! But the one on the right has also been fitted to skis, along with a variation of the prone rider. We looked at the other version/marking of Festival toboggan here.

I shot the upper image to show the locating studs on his forearms, but you can just see the Festival mark, there are two versions of these. In the lower shot we have two variants of Hong Kong piracy (believed to have been sought/commissioned by Culpitt), one being exact, the other far more colourful - as the austere 1950's faded and the 1970's arrived with multicoloured snow suits!

The snowball fighters! There are two quite different sculpts of the standing 'over-arm' chap, one with longer legs and a thinner, more-ovoid base, the other has short, fat legs and a thicker, rounder base. I suppose the same will prove true for the 'swinger' or under-arm thrower, but so far I've only found the one.

The chap at the back (with multicoloured snowballs(?)) is the HK clone, he's a copy of the taller, thinner version, which I suspect is the earlier, so probably ran alongside the later British one in some bakers?

Again from the much larger, old, museum image we see the sitting guy on skis (no sticks and looking out of control!) and the missing - from my collection - prone 'donkey kicker' also fitted with skis, it seems they were a comedy/clowning set/trio; as skiers.

Whether white, or yellow (or other colours?), the Snowbabies have a uniform paint-scheme of blue booties and red mittens.

Unmarked and showing a few of Gem's skateboarder colours; both plastic and paint, these are unmarked but are catalogued Gem (items X5 to X11), as they are children they scale to about 60/65mm or even 70mm - as do the Snowbabies?

The reason for their existence as such is a bit of a mystery, Gem made a lot of stuff which could be considered 'Novelty' or 'Touristy' while Festival did Christmas, Easter (the 'festivals'!) and Birthdays. But then why did so much Gem stuff end-up with Culpitt, alongside the Festival stuff, and why did Gem have a Christmas range (albeit small) if Festival was supposed to handle that sort of thing?

Remember both Gem and Festival had their own packaging as well as being anonymised as 'generics' by Culpitt? Sadly - with Mr Musgrave's passing; this is a question we may now, never get an answer to.

D is for Downhill Racing Planks and Dogs On Skis!

There were no dogs involved in the making of this post, 'dog-on-skis' was a in-joke between a member of Support Company and this author on a trip to BATC Steibis back in the distant youth of the past! Or should that be the youth of the distant past?

Either way, it seems a long time ago . . . and he was the dog on skis, awl'right; I was perfectly proficient, especially my right turns, there's nothing wrong with my right-turns whatsoever, much at all, really, and I don't have a concrete left leg, no, no, no! While 'Downhill Racing Planks' was typical forces humour!

[Gemodels and/or] Festival (none of them have bases, so none of them are marked, but they are not in Gem's catalogues so it is to be presumed they are all Festival) and Hong Kong (mostly for Culpitt) Christmas cake figures, all on skis!

Following the discovery of the over-moulded footballer back in the summer, it would appear that they also experimented with a heat technique on the skiing figures, so as I run through a bit of a box-ticker, I'll be keeping half an eye on that side of things.

Starting with the figure on the left in the upper shot, he's had a simple application of heat to the pegs sticking through the holes in the skis which could be done with a 'professional' tool like a pyrogravure, or something 'amateur' like a heated screwdriver!

But the one on the right has had something more technical done for an 'invisible' join, which - as can be seen by the distortion in the lower shot (left-hand figure) - clearly involves extreme heat being applied between the soles of the feet and the corresponding area of the ski, but it's not clear what, or how.

Note also, the third figure in the upper shot has been attached to skis, probably with heat, and removed over time losing the main length of the studs/spigots which would have become the 'fried-eggs' of the other white figure; lost along with the skis.

And; that there are two very different designs of ski, the heat-welded ones being crude hand-sculpts, the ones with the locating-holes having a machined accuracy and finish.

Call me a heel, but I [accidently] removed these skis recently, thinking they had been added to a non-skiing 'Snowbaby' (which definately ARE Festival) by an owner (with super-glue or something), only to find that there were signs of the heat/over-moulding, which go some way to explaining the first figure above?

You will need to right-click and 'open link in new window', to see clearly that the feet have been flattened-off (which could be done by anyone - even an owner), and then [ignoring the pre-existing holes] a fine heat-weld has been achieved between both feet and their respective ski.

I can't see any way of achieving this outcome without setting the skis in a prepared channel cut in the tool and 'over-moulding' onto the ski? The skis are reversed in the picture; the one on the left had been on the left foot, the one on the right was on the foot above it.

To the right is a tatty Santa Claus who's little locating-studs were intact (and showing no signs of heat or attempted trimming!) and therefore fit the now removed skis, using those holes ignored in the fixing to the snowbaby. The inference being; he was always loose/plug-attached to his pair of missing skis?

Which gives us three apparent methods of joining skis and figures from Festival; loose; plug and melt; and an over-moulding/heat-weald - of some kind, leading to the hidden-join!

Hong Kong's engineers solved all that faffing-about, experimentation and expense with the simple expedient of swapping the order; locating-studs placed on the skis and [tight] holes in the feet - simple!

The left-hand shot shows a soft polyethylene figure to the far left and a hard polystyrene version next to him. It's quite hard to find him with his ski-sticks still in one-piece, so very pleased to get him a while back, I can tell you! To the right are two of the ethylene ones.

Ooohhhhh! Possibly best novelty thing this year! It's a bear on skis Ladies & Gentlemen; a skiing bear! Too cool for the ski-school!

He's a soft plastic one which matches the soft plastic Santa's' so I assume for now they belong together and they share a bag.

The old museum image from Eastbourne (sadly no longer available on-line) shows several skiers, including two more Snowbabies, nowhere can you see the remains of the locating studs, either poking through as loose plug-ins, or sqiudgged as fried-eggs by a hot implement, so we have to assume these all (or mostly - you can't call the top left image) have had this unknown - possibly over-mould treatment?

Left - Festival Ski Sticks; the difference between hand-sculpt and machined component is true for the sticks with the inner pair being the older and the outer pair being the newer.

Right - Hong Kong's downhill racing planks; Rossignol they 'aint! The hard plastic Santa Claus has the nearer pair, with a chamfered edge (very 'carver' - before carvers had been developed!) and thinner studs, the soft plastic bear and 'Clause have the rear pair, with straight sides and a thicker stud.

The similarity of the mark and length/width of the skis however suggests the same manufacturer, a few years apart - although the roundy-bit on the end of the sticks (did it ever get a name?) are heavier with the hard plastic figure, probably re-cut to prevent damage from the brittle material. The blue pom-poms on the figures hats also tie them together.

Returning to Festival's Snowbabies later this morning.

C is for C&T Auctions - Forthcoming 12th December 'James Opie' Sale - Final Reminder!

Sale's tomorrow, probably the best collection of Skybirds you'll see at auction this decade?

★               ★               ★               ★               ★

JAMES OPIE AT C & T AUCTIONEERS

FINE TOY SOLDIER AND FIGURE SALE

WEDNESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2018 – TUNBRIDGE WELLS

FEATURING

THE DEREK GOLDBERG SKYBIRDS COLLECTION

Rare Factory made models in original boxes

Rare early boxed original kits with glue packets and instructions (Mint)

Extremely Rare made up kit 16, Armstrong-Whitworth ‘Atalanta’ with an original Factory box

Original books by James Hay Stevens, Skybirds designer

Originals and copies of the ‘Skybirds’ magazine

Royal Air Force figures, pilots, dispersal, ground crew, aircrew, Irvin Air Chute etc.

British Army figures, airfield defense, anti-aircraft, staff, guns and trench system

German Infantry and Aircrew – many of the above in original boxes

Fighting, transport and refueling vehicles and accessories, some unusual colours

Hangers and other airfield buildings and structures, civil and military

In excess of sixty individual aircraft

★               ★               ★               ★               ★

Not forgetting Pat Campbell’s Delhi Durbar collection . . .

. . . and all the other prime toy soldiery!

Contacts:

JAMES OPIE Toy Soldier Consultant:

Tel. +44 (0) 20 7794 7447

E-mail jamesopie@yahoo.co.uk

Web site www.james-opie.co.uk

C&T Auctioneers:

Unit 4 High House Business Park, Kenardington, Nr Ashford, Kent TN26 2LF

Web site www.candtauctions.co.uk

Catalogues and Bids:

Tel. (three lines) +44 (0) 1233 510050

E-mail enquiries@candtauctions.co.uk

C is for Culpitt's Crafted-Clay Combat Cake Curio

Picked this up a month or two ago, current production from the investor-owned brand which was once the family-owned firm of Cullpitt.

CD0092 - Claydough Soldier, made in China and available now, he's polymer and he's a soldier so he's in the right place, but that's about as much as I can say politely! I guess he's supposed to be a Marine? I don't know what's happening with the buttons!

He was actually broken, and glued, in the factory, with a blob of silicone, which meant that by the time I got him home he'd become two parts! However it gives some clues as to technique and method, so worth a few shots!

That's it, Culpitt's polyclay not-a-paratrooper!

V is for Variations on a Theme

We had a quick look at a half-a-handful of these in the final 'odds & sods' post of the football mini-season back in Jan/Feb, and I said I had a few more in storage, in other poses/types, and this post is looking at them and the wider field they open-up.

I think these may be the first version, but they could be the second, or both the lots I have subdivided as 1st & 2nd version could be the same lot, or earlier and later version of continuous production from the same factory . . . it'll get clearer . . . hopefully!

The reason for sub-dividing them is that their bases are very different from the '2's and so many of them have come in without a base (or attendant football) that one feels they may have been kicking-around (geddit!) longer than the 2's?

Also they tend to a glossiness absent from the 2's, but that could be an argument for them being the other way round, so these are my designations for storage - as much as anything else, not biblical commandments!

The [provisional] type two; they tend to a matt finish, have more heavily sculptured base 'landscapeing' and seem to be found complete far more often than the '1''s, however, with Gem (who also supplied Culpitt, the carriers of these Asian-made figures) moving the other way - from matt to gloss - it's no rule of thumb, and only a convenience for sorting.

The type three's are definitely Type 3, being hard plastic copies of the other (PVC) figures, still available occasionally in cook-shops or the smaller independent Bakers, and using only the one clone-pose from the previous series/'s - the number-two shirt. Although the figures swap styrene for PVC, the bases replace the PVC with polyethylene!

As I've presented them above - The base sample for the 1's isn't larger enough for definitive anything, but they are both of the same design with a close-cropped turf. The underside is of high-quality finish, smooth and showing two neat release-pin marks.

The 2's have heavier grass tufts sculpted into their bases, it's like they are playing in a field, rather than on a pitch, and while the two release-pin marks are there, the over-all quality of the finish is poorer or rougher on the underside with little dinks and jiggets or a touch of flash, suggesting a second bash, a few years after the 'first tranche' of the 1's?

The 3's have a more 'mechanical' sculpting of surface detail, and a universal 746 engineer-stamped into the underside.

Assuming there is some connection between the type one's and type two's (which may include them all being the one lot) we can see they probably come from a set of 12 poses, possibly manufactured to fit three base sizes; small (two holes) medium (one foot hole and one ball-hole) and large (three holes), 11 players and the referee with a whistle on a cord or lanyard.

And that I still have to find 3, 6, 7 and 11? Two of which are hinted at further down/below. Shirt numbers can be black, white, or unpainted and one has been painted with another number?

The upper image is from the post back at the start of the year, I'm pretty sure the Newcastle (?) strip is a home-paint and I used him to compare with something that can be a 'Type 4', but with its key-chain/charm loop is far enough away from the other types to be a mere gum-ball or capsule-machine novelty!

He's all-polyethylene and clearly marked MADE IN HONG KONG by the pirate! He's also slightly smaller all-round, so probably the result of pantographing.

The sample in its entirety (30 figures) is larger than have been used in the close-up shots above (20 figures). You can see how the shortage of bases for the glossy type 1's makes it hard to draw a conclusion, but there is a heavy-tussock version of that large base in the type 2's, so a separation is not unreasonable.

The extremely dense (to the point of rigidity) PVC used for both types is very similar to the Macau production used for various figures/toys, so there's a chance that's where they are from, while the type 3's probably originated along the coast in Hong Kong.

These are still to be found occasionally in the retail environment, but are being pushed-out by the new, larger set we've seen three times now, here at SSW, and in three brand-marks; Wilton, Anniversary House and Knightsbridge PME.

They are also shite! Two versions and copying those above - badly - they may extend to 11 or even all twelve poses but I only have five-figures (four poses) in total; one of the left type and four of the right type, as I wouldn't spend 'proper' money on them, so only get them in the odd mixed lot.

The left hand one has a base very similar to the US astronaut cake figures, which mirror the LP robot figures, but without the LP-mark, and also the AWI red-coats.

However they do (figures at either end) hint at two of the missing four poses? These are all breakable polystyrene of eminently poor-quality and - with such a small sample - are only included for completion's sake!

T is for Two - Young Ladies . . . & A Gentlemen . . .

. . . and their bloody out-of-control livestock, running about all over the place.

It's Little (and not so little) Bo Peep, and the other peeps, they've all lost their sheep, what the hell did they think they were playing at? You take out sheep with no sheepdog, the outcome is a foregone conclusion isn't it? Didn't they do a taking-out-sheep course, or something? Jeez!

Gem Model's Bo Peeps vary in shade from cornflower- to powder-blue, and seem to go from large and all-matt paint, to small and glossy, with the final issues having no chalk or other paint-adhesion additive, but two extra paint colours . . . swings & roundabouts?

They're at your feet! I've posed the chalky Bo with the larger (also chalky) lambs, and the smaller glossy Bo (a Culpitt commissioning thing?) with the smaller glossy lambs, I'm sure that's the correct order!

Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was as white as snow, she threw it up into the air and was arrested, charged, found guilty of animal cruelty and banned from keeping sheep for a period not less than five years.

I haven't found a smaller one yet, the one on the right looks smaller due to it's being a tad bent, and the effects of the angle of the photograph, shown only to illustrate the fact that base colour could vary.

Little Boy Blue, he lost his shoe? Lost his horn? How could he lose his horn with all those pretty ladies in the meadow? Or did he blow it . . . I think he blew-off his horn for the Ladies, didn't he? See - I told you he was blue! He only went and brought a cow to the party . . . what sort of idiot brings a cow to a picnic AND a lamb?

None of these lambs are tagged, I notice; it's going to be madness trying to sort them all out at going-home time! Chaos . . .  the meadow in Nursery Land is bloody chaos - I tell's yer!

Well . . . I found them -  and I wasn't even looking hard! The older, larger sculpts are on the outside, the smaller, later sculpts are on the inside. In the catalogues (post 1979) Code F11 (which had been 'Running Lamb') became 'Lambs', I suspect that it was a pair of the smaller animals?

Lovely carded versions of Bo' and the Blue Boy are to be seen in the Plastic Warrior magazine 'Special Publication' on Gem (pp.11).

T is for Two - Gem Sports

Not exactly as 'substantial' as I was thinking earlier, but hopefully it will occupy five-minutes of your afternoon with mildly interesting stuff and there's another scheduled for 6pm!

Gem, Gem Models-for-Culpitt and Culpitt's 'Netball' (basketball) players; GeModels on the left and the Hong Kong copies on the right, both pairs came with the illustrated poles, which are a Hong Kong piece, not the Ge-Model original, suggesting that Culpitt had commissioned the replacements and was sending them out to Baker's and Cook-shops, while they still had some Ge Model's stock left. Is that all the Gem spellings?!

Although usually sold from those compartmentalised Perspex or styrene towers, wall-hanging dispensers or small drawer cabinets, you do find various cake-decorations pre-packed in little bags - this is a crinkly, cellulose 'stamp-collectors' type with Gem originals in.

The Gem's are manufactured in a soft polyethylene plastic while the Asian clones are made in a hard polystyrene polymer, and note; it has a silver Gem pole, in both cases the HK-copy figures are smaller and less well-formed, but then these are not Mr. Musgrave's best work either!

You may by now have realised I've brought all the cake decorations together! I'm actually still sorting them all, but I was pleased to shoot this as I've been grabbing the pugilists whenever I've see them, for years now, each time thinking, "Have I got that colour?" or "Have I got one with white shorts?" (Durh!) or whatever, and never quite getting/ending-up with a pink-monkey!

I finally got a Caucasian the other day at Sandown, so this is - if not definitive - the best I can currently muster! Strangely he's the only one with painted gloves, but back then (1950/60's) most gloves were still heavy brown leather and as this was obviously a 'two colour' paint-job, making the gloves another colour would have entailed a third colour . . . As the late G. Bush once memorably stated - it's the economy . . . !

There are differences in the sculpting which might point to a two-cavity mould-tool?

Other side; plain base; box . . . -ers ticked!

C is for Chinese Dragons

Or . . . B is for Briefly! Because I spent Thursday evening getting a video together for the tenth anniversary of the blog, the time which would otherwise have been spent getting something together for Monday, wasn't available, so I've rushed this together for the 9.30am slot and I'll try to work on something a little more substantial for posting live this (Monday) afternoon!

You can tell it's rushed - there's too many 'together's and they all needed spellcheck!

How they come in! Mid-July 2015, and a quick trip to Basingrad netted this little pile of plunder, we've seen most of it before here, the generic flag and Hong Kong/China Santa' came from a cookshop which would subsequently close-down, but not before I went back and cleared their Gem cricket stumps!

The rather poor Zhong Jie elephant (which seems to be the basis for the fibreglass one in Fleets shopping center the other month!) was a Poundland (or even 99p Stores back then?) quid and the dragon was a charity-shop 50p thing, but . . .

. . . I found this on Amazon not that longago (few weeks, couple of month's maybe?), you can get them wholesale in six-pairs for next to no-money! Made in China generics for the end-user to sell as key-rings, phone-tags, bag-hangers, earrings . . . dream-catchers! Whatever! I think the red/cream one is my favourite.

That's it, hopefully something better, later!

O is for Only One Casualty . . . so Far!

Moving all your stuff into storage, then having it moved - in situ - on the back of a lorry up a rutted farm track (without your say so) to a new site, and then getting it out of storage, cross-transferring it through two vehicles and piling it in the garage - over seven years, is bound to lead to casualties, and while there is a pile of matchwood to super-glue (not for the first time) in the kits [half-tracks and armoured cars drawer] cabinet, the only real casualty so far has been Edward Ryan's excellent tome;  Paper Soldiers . . .

. . . which got wet in a squall/thunder storm the day of the move, long after I'd given up for the evening, a small trickle of water got into the garage and while all the books in the box were the same way-up (open ends down), this seemed to soak it all up!

Anyway, three whole rolls of kitchen paper and a couple of months to let it dry-out 'un-forced' and it's almost as good as new, a couple of pages are slightly ribbed and one has a water mark, why only one, I don't know! And it's lucky, 'cos the price of a replacement copy on-line is getting as silly as Opie's Big Book of Britains!

The trick was to place each sheet of paper-towel toward the outside/open-side of the book, so that not too much strain was put on the spine (which didn't get wet), this allowed air to circulate, once the whole book was done the weight of it pressed the pages out gently which - I think - is why so few of the pages ribbed, although I turned it every few days so the weight wasn't unequally pressing on one half the whole time.