F is for Follow-ups - Various Recent Posts

A few bits and bobs pertaining to previous posts; we'll start with the recently seen African native set ID'd by Peter Evans the other week;

Chris Smith had one with three colours, the shorts and red-clay'ed hair of my better sample but with the addition of silver for the spear tip, studying mine under the looking-glass I can find no hint of silver and I think it really is an example of how the paint was slowly reduced to cut costs, perhaps dating the set to the midst of the oil crisis?

Chris also has this lovely marbled rhinoceros which came in the same lot/sample, whether they go together or not is still a question-mark, but it's a fine beast! It is also however a bit Asian-looking, rather than an African black or white?

Which leads me on to the wheeled crocodile, I don't know why I didn’t spot it at the time, but there are little spigots on its tail and little dimples on the roof of its mouth and on its tongue . . . it's only from a crocodile 'train', or crocodile 'crocodile'! How cool is that? Too cool for first class!

I dropped into the party shop at Clapham Junction when I was up in The Smoke for the Toy Fair at the end of last month and they did have some blue teams left, the shop-assistant had to go in the basement for them, but I stole-away with one . . . after passing over the requisite shekels!

Giving me six team strips from three brandings, and enough figures for an interesting five-a-side competition. There must be some war-gaming style rule-sets you could use for such a venture, maybe some of the board-games with footballer figures could supply ideas for a skeleton rule-set without a board? Playable on a Subbuto pitch maybe!

Chris also sent in the autumn parcel a soviet-bloc, flat figure for which I already had a clone (seen before), but mine is a poorer quality copy; something which sometimes happened 'behind the curtain' as we saw with all the versions of Progress cavalry, and as it did here in the West.

The new one has been mended with a combination of an Evostick-like snot and some fag-lighter, heat-melting, so cowardice has decided me against trying to clean it up for fear of doing more damage! It’s a new colour anyway, and as I say - a better sculpt - Thanks Chris!

As a follow-up to an older post, I recently got another bunch of Merten copy Victorians/Edwardian (Wilhelmian?) civilian cake decorations (from Peter Evans I think? Cheers Peter!), with a colour variation of the pink lady we looked at before.

C is for Cavemen - 3: Questions and Queries

I know we've had one question-time today, but here's another! Cavemen are a periphery interest, I certainly don't go looking for them, but they come in one way or another, and these are toward the small-scales, so were grabbed from mixed rummage trays or came in with mixed lots over many years.

I'm guessing these are Spanish (so the dismal-duo might have something to say about them!) or Portuguese, and Sobres of some kind, but they could be bubble-gum, ice-cream or cereal premiums?

The bases are reminiscent of early Pech or Jecsan, with the irregular clipped-corner rock-look, which is not that surprising when you realise they are near-copies of the larger Jecsan set! These are around 35mm, I don't know how many are in the full set but I know I like them; particularly the colours!

I would put money (not a lot, but some!) on these being Paul Lamond, if only for their similarities to the Pirate Ron Chiasson ID'd years ago. I have looked for them but only a cursory look and how many potential search-terms are there from Jungle through to Conan via dinosaurs!

Definitely a board-game though, all the boxes are ticked; standard colours, 40-odd millimetres, disc-base and a dense ethylene or polypropylene, anyone got the game?

This is a real mystery, I have two or three now (one may be lost between the coming together collections) so it can't be that rare, each came singly, with nothing that looked like it might 'belong', so first guess is it's from some play-set which was otherwise a big plastic fold'y-out'y thing for die-casts?

He/she or it may be a monkey or ape, a caveman or cave-child, a baby Wookie or a yeti in a helmet and seems to have been designed to clip-into something and swing about? Anyone recognise the creature? The plastic is similar to some Corgi stuff - the later, non-PVC stuff.

Whether he/she or it's an ape, an ape-man or a pilot in furry overalls, he/she or it was around long-enough, or was popular-enough (as a toy) to be pirated by someone - the plastic is similar in style/colour to Rado copies of Airfix 8th Army or Russian Infantry?

The other is more obviously a soldier or parachutist, seems to be of a similar design or from a similar toy and is in a hard polystyrene, over plated with a chromium-finish. There are small dinks in either hand in-line with the 'bar', so he probably clipped into some kind of swing, or frame that allowed for a 'swinging-action'?

C is for Cavemen - 2: Return to Marx (and other) Copies/Rack Toys

There were no takers on Gog's plea for helplast year, I've got my tub of 'odds' out of the storage pile, so we'll have another gander at these bottom-end rack toys and see if any memories are jogged?

A reminder of Gog's set - for which he's still after a brand or set title - they are Marx copies of a third or fourth copy-generation I suspect. Three-colour paint on a flat pinky-flesh polyethylene which has the tininess of 'modern' rack-toys from the 1980's to the 2000's.

My similar samples are from three sets/sources, with all-new poses at the top, two new poses and one duplicate (with Gog's) in the middle row along with unpainted versions below, who are slightly larger so probably slightly earlier.

A study of the bases above and a paint variation of 'hairy chest' (or large mega-fauna tick?!) below; I have a whole sample of the bare-chested chaps. Dropping the chest hair can't have been much of a saving - cost wise - for the maker as they still have the eyes dotted-in, but it's a hell of an improvement on the giant melanoma! Is it me or does he look like one of the Slag Brothers in the Wacky Races . . . booggederbooggerderbooggerdah!

An earlier, better copy of the Marx chap, also unpainted.

I suspect most of these are from the budget end of rack-toys and/or 'toobs'/tubs with a few palnts, some wild animals or - more likely - dinosaurs and any help tying them into set or brand names/titles would be appreciated by Gog, me and probably; many other loyal readers!

C is for Cavemen - 1: Return to Swoppets

Returning to the figures we looked at backin the summer after Adrian dropped-off a tray of odds, these are the ones I suspect to be Lik Be (LB) and having combined Adrian's, the ones I had here (some probably from Jim or Trevor) and the storage sample, we can see them fully for what they are.

And what they are; simple swoppet style (or technically 'swivel-waist') cheapy-toys, numbered A80-A83, which places them at the head of the jungle/zoo 'Funimals' (they have lots of titles; Fun Friends, Cartoon Animals, Kookie Animals, but that's the one I use) from LP, A84 is still unknown to me, A85 is the lioness, and it means I'm probably not looking for the anachronistic chinosaurs who were still in the frame last summer, but see below!

This is No. A80, he appears to have secured himself access to cast-iron axe-heads with a central shaft-hole, which leaves him the most advanced hominid on the planet for at least the next 600,000 years!

No. A81; the archer, you can see from the previous shot that there are two versions of loin-cloth, a mossy/grassy one and this one which is sort of stitched-together leaves, bits of bark or giant beetle-shells! They both come in various shades of green.

The problem with this set is that while there are four upper-torso sculpts, there appear to be only three leg poses, the archer (above) and spearman (sharpened pole; below) seem to always share the advancing/braced stance legs, while this pose; A82, and the axmen seem to alternate between the other two bent-knee standing/squatting leg poses.

Assuming they were all on one small tool, and were produced in similar numbers that simply doesn't add-up, so I suspect it's just happenstance that mine seem to have a 'pattern' which wasn't in the original issues, and that owners have swapped (or swopped!) the figures around to give the 'right-looking' legs to the spearman and archer?

Although the poses of archer and bowman here suggest there is a subtle difference between two versions of the spread pose, with the waist-join angled a few degrees differently? Which would make more sense - four and four, randomly issued.

A83. A lot of mine (from different sources, over some years) have traces of red paint, so quite a bloodthirsty set when issued? Rather at odds with the cartoonish animals numbered after them! Maybe I am looking for dinosaurs after all?

As well as different greens for the loin-cloth, the figures themselves vary greatly from a translucent semi-tanned flesh colour, to a full-on oxide or orange-brown, and must have been available for some time, probably (like the Funimals) in various sets and branded to other importers/jobbers or as generics.

Since corrected to Lik Be / LB.

2025 - A suspicion which was proved correct a year later with the finding of a full set;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/08/m-is-for-monster-fantasies.html

News Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events

Well, no dates in the end last week, just couldn't be arsed! When you lose 'connectivity' - as our slavery to digital nowhere (now-here!) is dubbed these days - it can be a tad depressing, not that I allow such negativity to rule for more than a moment, but the thought of researching all the shows on-line without the stuff I have here on the laptop was a downer, so I ignored it!

On the bright side with no laptop to distract me, I spent the last week taking 500+ photographs of all kinds of things as I did lots of sorting and consolidating of what is actually three entities; the 'storage' stuff; the 'here' stuff and the unsorted stuff.

Didn't miss much anyway, Bulldog's 'Malvern' and the Kempton Park truffle-hunt were probably the highlights last week, and only three minor auctions. This week is looking-up a bit with the NEC on Sunday (entry-price rises) and a Wallis & Wallis auction, while Gerry at SRP has a new venue which is always worth a punt as a new venue can equate to one or two new table-takers - often local with new-to-market stuff?

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Toy Fairs

Saturday 9th February 2019

Chester - Tony Oaks Toy Fairs

The Cheshire Country Club Sports Club, Plas Newton Lane, Upton, Cheshire, CH2 1PR

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01270 652 773

Mob. - 07825 631 323

10:30 - 14:30hrs

Admission £2.00

Free Parking

Faversham - SRP - New event

Bysingwood Road, Faversham, Kent, ME13 7PA

Web. - www.srptoyfairs1.co.uk

eMail: srptoys1@hotmail.co.uk

Tel. - 07739 998 012 (Paula or Gerry)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

Nottingham - Townsend Toy & Train Fairs (Malcolm Townsend) - Nottingham Toy Fair

Bluecoat Academy, Nottingham, NG8 5GY

Web. - www.tttf.co.uk

Mob. - 07951 072 790

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission unknown, accompanied under-16's free

Light refreshments

Free Parking

Oxford - Richard Atkins Fairs - Toy and Train Collectors Fair

Exeter Hall, Oxford Road, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1AB

Web - www.toytraincollectorsfairs.com

Tel. - 01869 347 489

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission unknown

Refreshments

Free Parking

Windsor - Maidenhead Static Model Club - International Toy & Train Fair

Windsor Leisure Centre, Clewer mead, Stovell Road, Windsor, berkshire, SL4 5JB

Web. - wwwwindsortoyfair.co.uk

Mob. - 07825 564 960

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission £3, concessions £2.50p, early bird (from 09:00hrs) £7, last hour free.

Refreshments

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Sunday 10th February 2019

Birmingham - Barry Potter / BP Fairs - 'NEC'

Hall 18, National Exhibition Centre, Birminham, B40 1NT

Web. - www.bpfairs.com

Tel. - 01604 846 688

Mob. - 07966 527 177

Admission £8, early-bird (from 08:00hrs) £13, OAP's £7.50, Children £2*

Free parking

*Note - price rises for all bar children

Colchester - SRP Toy Fairs

Langham Community Centre, School Road, Colchester, Essex, CO4 5PA

Web. - http://srptoyfairs1.co.uk/

eMail - srptoys1@hotmail.co.uk

Mob. - 07739 998 012 (Paula or Gerry)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission unknown

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Tuesday 12th February 2019

Elsecar - Newcomen Fairs Ltd. - 36th Elsecar Toy & Train Fair (evening fair)

Elsecar Heritage Centre, Elsecar, Nr. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S74 8HJ

Web. - www.newcomenfairs.co.uk

eMail - sales@newcomenfairs.co.uk

Tel. - 01226 744 425

19:00 - 21:00hrs

Admission £1.50p, children 50p

Hook - Steven Clements Fairs - Hook Evening Fair

Hook Community Centre, Hook, Hampshire, RG27 9NN

eMail: clementfairs@aol.com

Tel. - 01380 725 322

Mob. - 07958 101 891

18:30 - 21:30hrs

Admission £1

Free parking

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Friday 15th February 2019

Alfreton - Toy and Train Fairs (Malcolm Townsend) - Evening fair

The Leisure Centre, Church Street, Alfreton, DE55 7BD

Web. - www.tttf.co.uk

Mob. - 07951 072 790

19:00 - 21:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

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Auctions

Saturday 9th Febrary 2019

Bury St. Edmonds - Lacy Scott & Knight

Web. - www.lsk.co.uk

eMail - oleggett@lsk.co.uk

Tel. - 01284 748 600 (general enquires)

Tel. - 01284 748 623 (Oliver Leggett - auction)

Toy and Collector's Models

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Monday 11th February 2019

Lewis - Wallis and Wallis

West Street Galleries, Lewis, Sussex, BN7 2NJ

Web. - wallisandwallis.co.uk

eMail - toys@wallisandwallis.co.uk

Tel. - 01273 480 208

Fax. - 01273 476 562

General Toy Sale

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Wednesday 13/Thursday 14th February 2019

Stockton-on-Tees - Vectis Auctions (2-day sale)

Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 9JZ

Web. - www.vectis.co.uk

eMail - admin@vectis.co.uk

01642 750 616

Specialist die-cast auction

[Further info and imagery may be added here closer to the date]

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Overseas Events

Sunday 10th February 2019

Dublin (ROI) - Chris Dyer Fairs - Dublin Toy & Train Fair

The Talbot Hotel, Stillorgan Road, Dublin, Eire

Web. - www.chrisdyerfairs.co.uk

Tel. - 01643 702 757

Mob. - 07966 694 579

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission £4

Just off N11 trunk road

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If you are an event promoter/show curator/auctioneer and you want your toy, model, collectable or popular-/youth-culture type sale/exhibition/event listed here - .FOR FREE. - or linked to; please eMail me -

maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com

- stating the date/s of the event, address of event, contact details, opening/viewing times, admission pricing and any other relevant facts/details or features - parking, travel notes, disability access, availability of refreshments, event subject matter &etc.

And please mention any flyer-art or poster-/leaflet-scans but send by separate eMail, in case they go to the 'junk' folder, from where they can be recovered and marked safe, but only if I know they're there!

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We've been sorting stuff! She looks so pleased with herself, not at all bothered she just went over the falls, blind in a barrel!

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Hugh's Handy Helpful Home Hobby Hints

The first part of a new, exciting, informative, series of . . . errr . . . one!

Part One - 1:300th scale micro-armour poplar trees!

What you will need;

• A green felt-tipped pen or selection of same
• A brown felt-tipped pen or selection of same
• A pack or tub of Q-tips, cotton-buds, proprietary 'make-up removers' or generic "Warning-don't-ever-stick-them-in-your-ears" ear-cleaners; new paper-stem type, not planet-destroying plastic tube type.

Instructions;

• Do the pen-thing with the pens.
•  Cut at base of 'trunk', two per stick! Bargain! Oh yeah! You also need something to cut with . . . no! Not an axe, why would you even have an axe in your modelling tools; psycho!
• Apply to layout/scenery. Oh yeah! You also need some glue.
• Hide a battery of 'eighty-eight's behind them and wait for the Ronson Shermans to arrive!

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Other News

Barney's Latest Updates

Dear Collector, this week we are delighted to offer for sale a superb one-owner collection of very early Herald/Zang Ceremonial and Wild West figures dating from 1953 and '54, in bright, fresh original condition, including mounted Life and Horse Guards (early Royal blue plastic) on two-part cellulose-acetate horses and a couple of Guardsmen with "British Made" MZ base markings.

Dear Collector, this week we have for sale a good selection of Trojan Australians and 14th Army jungle soldiers, from a one owner collection, including the rare flame thrower complete with the separate tanks.

Interesting Piece

Thoughts on eschewing war-games for board-gaming

Obit

Only 69, the reaper gets to all of us.

FAO Schwarz is coming to London for November

It's unclear it it will be bringing its 'Dark Helmet' with it!

While this - taken  from The Pioneer of India

Hamleys opens 2nd store in BBSR
Bhubaneswar: The London toy shop Hamleys launched its second store in Bhubaneswar at Esplanade One Mall recently, two months after the launch of its first store. With over three thousand products on display, the store offers an amazing selection of toys from much loved home-grown brands and a range of in-house branded toys that include its signature teddy bears, toy soldiers, wooden toys, bath toys and much more. Prominent animated characters such as Tom and Jerry, Peppa Pig, Minions, My Little Pony and others are all friends of the brand.

https://www.dailypioneer.com/2019/state-editions/in-briefs-in-briefs-2019-02-03.html

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Top marks to Donald Tusk for saying it . . . how it is!

Funny that the same people who think it's OK for the right-wing press to call our judiciary 'Traitors' for following the Rule of Law are now blubbing with faux-outrage at being called out for what they are! All of them squatting on our collective doorstep with their trousers round their knees and their minds in 'effing neutral while they Brwreakshit all over our future!

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F is for Follow-up - Tim Mee's Fierce Fellows

Although I tagged them with Tim Mee, I forgot to mention in the text that the various HK-sourced figures we looked at the other day were copied from Tim Mee mouldings . . . I don't have many but here they are for a comparison...

It's the figures we're interested in and all three poses are here, I'm not sure about the green dinosaur; he looks a bit too good? They are two or three millimetres taller than the largest of the copies, so they (the HK figures) were probably hand-copies rather than pantograph; the detail loss is also quite marked.

Coconut shy! Tim Mee/Processed Plastics made a second set (reissued by J Lloyd) and this is the sum total of my sample! He's about 45mm and the tree may not be right; there are so many versions of it now it's hard to place, but they came together!

C is for Crazy 'Crazy Pirates'

Phew - it was the power lead (forty-quid) not the receiving-port (sixty-quid, plus parts and another two weeks without the laptop!), so here's the antipodean pirates . . . a bit late!

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I know - it's not International Talk Like A Pirate Day (ITLAPD) yet, but this was the other jewel in Glenn Sibbald's parcel, and as they are cartoony, and the pirate 'rule' has been broken (with whole ships) two Christmas's running, we're having some more pirates out of pirate season!

And believe me; there's already plenty in the TLAP folder for the 19th of September - six or seven posts-worth so far.

Now, I think most of these were sourced from New Zealand, certainly 'in' NZ, but a couple have an Australian origin, where they were issued (or are believed to have been issued-) by Nabisco in 1971. Four of eight poses (the other four will be along in a minute) in various colours of a soft (Airfix type) polyethylene and almost certainly sculpted by the same chap who did the Working Dogs (Crazy Canines for Kellogg's here in the UK; November 1972).

In Australia they were given names known to be (from the left above);

Black Captain Cutlass

Long Thomas Thumbscrew

Pierre Pegleg (who I've dubbed Peg-legless Pete!)

Sir Swashbuckler

But - there's no evidence of them being given the same names in New Zealand, or of them even being a Nabisco promotion, both Sanitarium and Griffins being more likely as the issuer, but no packaging or advertising seems to have come to light . . . yet?

I think it's worth reminding ourselves here, that while people tend to block them together (much to the chagrin of the locals), Australia and New Zealand are much further apart than say Britain and France, or Britain and Holland (or the US with Mexico or Canada), and their markets and brands, their 'household names'; differ just as much as ours, as anyone's does with their near neighbours.

The rest of the motley-crew; again naming from the left, we have;

Hook

Mr. Jonathon Greed

Scarface (Dagger-legged Derek!)

The Right Dishonorable Roger Jolly Esq.

Is it me, or are the three to the right all cousins of Dick Dastardly!

Glenn has been trying to get a 'complete' complete-set, e.g. one of every pose in every colour, and while it's proved harder than he anticipated he's getting there, but the number of colours and the relative rarity of the figures down there has been exacerbated by the fact that they are quite hard to find in good condition.

You can see that Scarface/Dagger-legged Derek (my favourite!) has at least six points of vulnerability, and Roger Jolly is very hard to find with his rapier A) still attached at both ends and B) still intact. All eight have either thin, sticky-out bits or very narrow pinch-points, most have both!

And for that reason - again - I can't thank Glenn enough, as while we've benefitted from his duplicates; he has also made to send the Blog complete, undamaged and shiny-clean samples, which is incredibly kind of him.

He has in fact sent us six which his research leads him to believe are the [also] New Zealand colours, with two - probably - Aussie [only] one's he couldn't spare in NZ-origin pigments.

The Oz collectors list - in alphabetical order - thirteen colours;

Aqua

Blue*

Brown*

Green

Grey

Lemon

Lilac

Lime*

Orange*

Pink

Purple*

Red*

Yellow

Those with an asterisk are the [only] six colours Glenn believes were in the NZ Issue, while in the quarto above the outer pair are New Zealand  or believed to be NZ colours, the inner pair are the Aussie set's two, but clearly; there are more colours or shades than those listed. It should be noted that elsewhere they were issued in still other colours.

And I don't want you to think they are New Zealand exclusive colours, it's just that six of the colours out there are those commonly found in NZ, the Aussies seem to have got some extra colours, among which is an unlisted, second red, assuming one of the above blues is 'blue' and the other 'aqua'?

Scame in Italy produced a set of eight 'homage' copies as tourist 'mocherettes' (a word of my own invention, which I will explain, one day!) for museums and gift shops; these were also carried by Ferrero in their Kinder Eggs, in the 1990's - if memory serves?

Some sources state that 'some figures' are marked MADE IN AUSTRALIA or plain 'AUSTRALIA' but Glenn - who has seen more of these than most (I suspect) - has yet to find one. Other collectors 'down under' wonder if they were from a British designer/sculptor, and while they are credited to Rosenhain and Lipmann (R&L), there's a lot of stuff credited to them which I - for one - maintain big question-marks over.

Glenn has a note to the effect that a Consolidated Plastics in Auckland may have produced these for the NZ issue, he's not sure where the note comes from, but thinks there's some mileage in it?

He also talks of "...some scuttlebutt...", re. the moulds ending up in Mexico (sometime in the 1980's), however, given the number of premium moulds known to have ended up somewhere in South America, a cursory search reveals that indeed that seems to be the case so it's probably not scuttlebutt, but the reality?

Many, many thanks to Glenn for donating these to the blog, he calls them his 'Precious', yet he sent eight to this 'orrible little 'obbitsis! If I remember - I'll do a comparison with other caricature pirates in September; just to get them up here again!

News, Views Etc . . .

S is for seems I'm a lazy git! I started various things over the weekend, and carried on with some others, but didn't finish enough to post anything today, although I've posted something nice for tomorrow.

Missed - Show
Toy Fair!
Toy and Train Show - Westchester County Center, White Plains - January 27, 2019

The theatre - lovies!
In the meantime, if you are lucky enough to live in sunny Cali-forn-I-A and fancy a drive to La Mesa, there's a classic playing at the Lamplighters Community Theatre with Toy Soldiers as part of the central theme; “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie, 'till February 10th.

ACW
Interesting story and toy soldiers get a mention!

Return of the Soldier
A bit late - seasonally - but a good news story nonetheless!

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The Gods giveth and the Gods taketh away!

The above was written yesterday, prior to my posting todays little NZ surprise . . . which - of course - isn't here; because my laptop died on me! Seems to be a charging port come loose, but it means the battery is totally dead until I get it fixed which won't be for a week or so, so I'll be having  a little holiday!

I'll try to do the show dates on Friday, but it'll be a sketched skeleton of a listing, because with no laptop I can't edit at home and slot in pictures or upload anything useful to a dongle . . . hey-ho, the luck couldn't last indefinitely!