T is for Two - Sandy Whiskered Gentlemen!

Anthropomorphic cartoon foxes to be exact; courtesy of Peter Evans recent parcel, both new to me, neither from Miss Potter and both PVC, one Euro-squidgy soft PVC, the other a denser Hong Kong type.

I'm guessing, nay; 'assuming' (for the second time today!) these are a French kids TV thing from . . . probably the 1970's? Le (or is it La) Renard Something . . . Something Renard? If it wasn't for the tail you'd be excused for thinking he was supposed to be one of the Three Little Pigs! Editions de Vaileant is presumably the TV production company or IP-rights holder? Is he an early PiF character?

And Brabo rang a bell . . . we looked at modern capsule toys from a Brabo coming out of Belgium, working with a/as CBG, importing trolls and stretchy smiley's, so a Henbrandt type novelty importer/jobber who have - clearly - been around for a while; if it’s the same Brabo? They'll share a tag until I know different!

There's another Brabo in the Archive, which I now suspect is the same 'novelty' specialising outfit, credited with the above bendy toy footballer, soldier, dragon and Native American with bow in the style of my older Pink Panther - really long arms and legs.

Upon loading the article - It's all the same company all-right! Funnily enough I have that mini-French (Belgian?) sailor somewhere! And . . . still going!

Richard Scarry, a name I know from my childhood, we didn't have any but a friend of ours with US relatives had several books by him/about the animals 'world', a sort of anthropomorphic Seattle with nearby/attendant rural stuff, so I guess it's a US thing pre-dating or running alongside Sesame Street?

If I remember rightly (and I have fond if vague memories of them - lots of ginger-&-white cats in overalls?) one of the works was a simple alphabet primer with predominantly pictures, while the other was larger with more text and done more like a fairy-tale book, with proper stories? There may have been smaller, sort-form books too, like Mr. Men/Little Miss books?

This is a much better fox and the joke - of course - is that he's in a 'hunting pink' jacket! Don't mess with the Mayor; he might have rabies! The figurine is manufactured for Playskool out of Hong Kong. Mayor Fox . . . Fox Mayor?

Two excellent foxes to chat with the Phidal Beatrix Potter chap we saw recently here and the large-scale Tinykins-likey I think we've also seen here - thank you Mr Evans, both charming, even if one of them does look a bit like a piggy-wig!

Google Confirms!

H is for How They Come In - Peter's Latest Parcel

I had an email from Mr. Evans not a week ago, actually . . . a week and a day ago! Saying he had sent me a little something and I should keep half-an eye out for the postman, actually . . . he didn't say it quite like that at all, but it makes for a better narrative! The next day it arrived, no . . . really, the very next day a week ago exactly (at time of writing!), I tought it would take a few days and there it was on the doorstep, and what a parcel -

We did look at it, briefly, last Friday, but here it is, all laid-out, with the 'for September' stuff conveniently buried in the middle

As with all these parcels from other people, the aim is to get it on the Blog sooner rather than later, but some of it will be sorted into the collection, and wait maybe years to appear, however we'll look at some of the more interesting items below and a few others I can pick out above include . . .

. . . the Strawberry Group (via Tiger?)'s issue of the Toy Major knights possibly from Supreme/SP Toys at 3-O'clock, a piece of toast bendy-toy which looks a bit SpongeBob Square Pants but probably pre-dates the cartoon at 5-O'clock, two Charbens road-menders at 7-O'clock and - coming back toward the centre a Tony Tiger trainer and a polyurethane resin man-at-arms who needs his spear-tip repaired.

Up at the ten O'clock position a nice Toy Story soldier holding a tube above his head, I can't now remember what it was for (for a drinking-straw or a zip-wire toy?) but I have seen it somewhere, so the figure's advert or other details should be in the archive somewhere?

Slightly to the left of 12-noon is a row of PVC characters or caricatures with more down at 4pm, we'll look at two of them later today, with the rest being filtered into the collection, next time I have a putting-away session!

These are very interesting as I think they are the same food-picks we saw here (got the green ones! FIGHT!) from (or branded to-) Fred & Friends on the packaging, but are here branded to 'Bitten'; on the runner. Presented like this I wonder if they weren't attached to the cover of a 'house or homes' or cookery type magazine as a 'freebie' gift?

I had some help! "Can I eat them?"

Bitten . . . geddit!

The resin pile grows! And Peter is responsible for a fair chunk of that pile! A rather nice guardsman credited to a G·G (there's now a Gentle Giant doing 'polystone' horror, TV/move, Star Wars stuff?) at around 85/90mm, hard to judge with a thick base and huge - but realistic - Bearskin!

Passing back through history by a millennium and we have the other bendy toy in the parcel; Vikky the Viking from Schleich of all people, and they have what I assume is a lovely 'bendy-toy' specific logo - inset, centre, looks a bit like the 'Jamaica Ginger' dancer of my childhood! The rear-shots are before and after cleaning!

Back another 800-odd years and we get to the Caesars and specifically THE Caesar; Julius! There is an odd & sods Safari post in the pipeline and I was going to hold him for that post, but this is so nice I thought I should record my gratitude separately. It's beautifully decorated too.

This part set of Kinder-like or ersatz Phidal are by Unga Toys, have we had them before? I won't know until I upload the post and see whether the tag is already in the list or needs adding alongside Bitten and GG? Snow White and the two dwarves! I'll keep an eye out for the rest and may even have a few somewhere. You can see there are 15 items in a full set including a turtle, was there a turtle in the movie . . . I've never watched it?

Finally, these are Kinder, and I hope they're duplicates as I'd hate to think the village was short-handed on my account! He also sent me the Tobar gnome we've seen here previously and various other cartoony things, but more than eight images in a post of this type and you run out of tag-limit!

There was a tiny grey rabbit character which will definitely make a post as I have a whole bunch of very small gum-ball capsule, board game and Christmas cracker rabbits (or Hares, Mad, March for the use of) somewhere, crying-out for their five-minutes in the limelight!

Thanks Peter, a really nice selection which will boost future posts for years to come.

B is for Boxed Sets

In case TJF-Stadinger is still struggling to 'trust' information from this site (which he follows SOOOOO closely!) I thought we'd back-up the figures - as shown and attributed (where possible) - in the previous two posts by looking at a couple of the boxes, save him a 'phone-call to one of his "...trusted UK experts"! They get more than enough calls, texts and emails from him as it is!

The upper set is apparently (a note left in the box and sold with it) supposed to be a/the Hamley's exclusive (?), but seems to be pretty standard, while the lower set may not have been handled by Cavendish at all, but that's why they were attributed - by me, earlier today - to 'Hong Kong', despite also being handled by Cavendish, in a Cavendish box (I'm still looking for), albeit as a four-figure set.

My Cavendish (possibly Hamley's) blue-and-gold box can also be found elsewhere on the internet in its complete form (mine is missing the gold-finish, figure-retaining, card 'plinth' with the titles printed on), while there are a fair few of the HK sets to be seen around.

Perhaps if Mr The Jabbering Fuck had done a little Googling before his 2nd police post he could have been more sure of the trustworthiness of the information he was quoting from here - instead of trying to dismiss it; because I'd said it . . . Mr Stadinger though - is a very stupid man.

Some more shots.

Note the Guard's cuffs and painted plume

If, instead of name-dropping the late Mr. Kite in his adding-nothing to the subject 'I've got one of those too' post, TJF had asked Mr Kite about the relationship between the UK and HK sculpts, he may actually have had something of some actual merit to actually add . . . actually!

And this is a criticism of the 'old guard' in general, why did no-one ask the obvious questions? What did Mr Kite think of, or know about the copies, why was he happy to carry copies of what had been his figures, did he send the Musgrave (or Stadden) tool to the Colony, did he get a cheaper unit-rate that the other tourist trade importers?

The two ends of the souvenir box.

The above is obviously not meant to be a criticism of Mr. Kite; both Britains and Marx ran-off to Hong Kong too (which didn't save either of them in the long-run!) but it (the lack of the right questions being asked) is the obvious question to ask of those who would be 'legend' but missed the open goals, which; as Mr. Stadinger's original attack on me turns to something more insidious or ideological (with some of the 'old guard' actively supporting the idiot's idiocy), they are worth questioning in and of themselves.

They're the first questions I'd ask Mr. Kite if he was still with us.

R is for Redcoats

I can't believe I haven't had that title before? Maybe I have!

Following-on from the policeman and - like the previous post - re-shot after everything had been brought together; it's the Guards, from Cavendish, Hong Kong and possibly Kentoys (Having used Kentoy earlier, I'm adding the 's' for this post - they used both!).

The earlier shot had the figures out of what I suspect is the correct order of issue, but - if more than one Hong Kong maker is involved - not necessarily? The figures marked '1' above are the Cavendish sculpt (Charles C Stadden's work, or George Musgraves?) They have a distinctive plume on the right of the bearskin.

The Hong Kong figures of which there are two distinct versions (and a sub-variation discussed below); numbered '2' and '3' above are all manufactured in polystyrene.

The updated shot gets them in the 'right order' and adds a Cavendish original as the first figure on the left, which, although better painted has a brush-slip hidiosity for a white rifle-sling!

Now, if the Kentoys sculpt is a Norman Tooth effort (as claimed by Mr Tooth in his interview for the eponymous PW special on the firm) and the figure numbered '1' above is a Stadden sculpt where is the Musgrave design; the PW special having listed three?

Might it be that the reference to the Stadden 'sentry' was a crossed-wire with the band's officer (marching) and the sentry above is Musgrave's work, the quality of the sculpt could be either Stadden or Musgrave, but the PW special isn't clear and/or doesn't show all three together, while I don't know of another?

As the '2' and '3' are copies of the 1, almost certainly originating in the copyist-shops of a certain British Crown Colony, I seem to be short a sculpt (and any copies of that sculpt), for the Tooth-Stadden-Musgrave line of evolution given in the PW Cavendish work?

The 1b's are made of a dense polymer more akin to polypropylene than ethylene and seem to be quite 'new', also the painting is more HK than Cavendish in style? The [other] HK copies are all polystyrene while Kentoys and Cavendish tended to use chalky polyethylene's, leaving one with a question mark over the 1b's, as to where they were produced, did Michael Martin or Tony Kite ship the tool to Hong Kong quite early - allowing - more easily - for all the copies? Or has/had the tool resurfaced over here in recent years?

The sub-piracies 3a and 3b have some minor differences; sharper fur on the flatter-topped bearskin of 3b and strange painting of the cuffs of the same figure, which may point to a third (or fourth) source in HK, the others being: 65mm copy of Tooth's figure, copy of Stadden/Musgrave (?) sculpt ('2'), and the sub-piracy ('3a'). My '3b' is damaged but from the paint you can see he's got the same shorter version of bayonet as the '3a'.

Three '2's, the one damaged being attached to a sentry box which is also a Cavendish-via-Kentoys sculpt, although there are so many of these (Kentoys & sub-Kentoys sentry boxes) out there, they'll need a similar comparison post one day.

The Norman Tooth design, here in the 65mm HK form, is similar to Timpo's guards' styling (and I may have described it as such in the past, but A) I was only a few years into this big-scale malarkey, B) I seem to be getting the hang of it now and C) nobody corrected me at the time!), but Tooth sculpted some of their (Timpo's) stuff as well.

The 'Grand Parade'! I think the Cavendish 'Tooth' is the damaged one on the far left (gloss painted-base), then a matt-painted base from Kentoys, followed by the 65mm Hong Kong clone of Tooth's sculpt third, a Cavendish Stadden/Musgrave (? For what it's worth - I think it's Musgrave), the two odd ones, four '2's and finishing with the two 3's on the far right.

B is for British Bobby

It's a funny one, but occasionally something so stupid comes out of Paul Stadinger's tiny mind it's worth a laugh, and this is one of those occasions.

I try quite hard not to park my tanks on other people's lawns, and if I have to, or think I'm going to I will usually post a link of homage to the earlier event, or tip a nod to the site I feel I may otherwise offend, the obvious example would be Halloween.

And - for the same reasons - if someone posts something I also have in the queue, I will usually hold-off on my post for a while until the dust settles, and probably re-write the blurb to give it a different 'take', theme or angle to the other, earlier post.

Sometimes - in the case of stadsshite - I have ignored that 'rule' and  with purpose as I did with the Asian flats (and something else recently I've already forgotten) as I'm keen to see this mythical collection of TJF's and having seen precious little evidence of it so far; try to encourage him, which seems to work - witness this post and all his plinth'ed Marx recently!

But a while ago, I was preparing an article which meandered rather from nurses, through medics to stretcher bearers and ended up with policemen. A week or two before I posted, the shitestuff blog happened to show - as a 'don't know' (he doesn't know much it seems from the last 12 months activities there, or even the last few weeks!) - one of the policemen I, too, was about to show! Mr Carrick of this parish (but firmly affiliated to the PSTSM) identified it as Cavendish.

"Well (I thought) I'm not pulling a post for the sake of a couple of common-enough figures, on that twits site" and ran with it regardless, it was more about the Mettoy hospital stuff anyway, but I ID'd mine as Kentoy or Cavendish as I wasn't sure which one I had or how to tell between the two. Then two days later . . .

. . . this happened! Let's play 'I've got one of those too!' shall we? Yes - lets!

Pathetic on several levels, firstly; that a 'legend' (his word not mine) feels the need to prove himself against an amateur like me, second; I'd shown three versions, so he's only actually saying 'I haven't got as many as him' anyway, third; waxing lyrical about something he'd know nothing about, a few weeks earlier and needed prompting on, and  . . .

. . . finally he's not going to believe the other one is from Hong Kong until somebody - he trusts - holds his hand and tells him it's going to be alright! It's too funny. In attempting to question my knowledge, he ends up looking both childish and stupid; I only look childish in these posts!

As I'm sure he receives all the PW Specials he seems to have missed all the 'knowledge base' contained within both the Kentoy and Cavendish publications on the subject, remaining in the dark and needing help?

Of course not - he's having a dig and why not; he has to save-face somehow! It's just that he keeps choosing the wrong way to go about it, or the wrong targets . . . or both! That reminds me - I have to return to Tatra (deal with his pre-Crimbo nonsense), but in the meantime; if it's 'I've got one of those' we're playing . . .

. . . I've got four! Because another one came in at some point after the last post! I'm pretty sure - for reasons that will become clear - mine (far left figure) is in fact a Kentoy issued/painted moulding, but that doesn't mean it wasn't issued by Cavendish as I believe they obtained all the Kentoy stock, which would have included finished, ready-to-retail figures.

The second figure looks as if it's been removed from one of the Guard's sentry boxes, but I suspect it's been torn from a snow-globe?

WRONG! I've got six, some more have come in - that's what happens when you're a collector, rather than a dealer; you accrue stuff - sometimes at an alarming rate!

No, not really, I'm lying (for the cause of dramatic effect!); the 'storage' stuff has been added to the 'here' stuff along with the figures erroneously left in the mixed constabulary tub, while a boxed-set I was waiting-on from Christmas came-in at Sandown Park the other day!

From the left, Kentoy, Cavendish, Hong Kong 60mm copy and three paint-treatments of the HK 54mm piracy. The reason I believe the left hand one is Kentoy's is down to the matt-green base; Cavendish - although using matt paint for Guards bandsmen and Henry VIII bases, seem to have preferred gloss for most of their lines?

The base marking of the 60mm's is similar to Blue Box road-menders, but also some Lucky stuff (or sub-Lucky?), so it proves nothing, the three above being numbered 2 (policeman), 3 (Guardsman) and 4 (Houshold Cavalry - in this case Horse Guards, or 'Blues'). The Number 5 mark goes to the Beefeater (seen here [nine] years ago), which leaves a hunt for number 1?

Strangely - it was the Lifeguard ('The Royals'), who although resembling the Horse Guard in every other respect needed to be run in a different colour polymer, which would leave a single mould suffering twice as much wear as the other 'three'? A duplicate tool for a five count left them all ageing/wearing at the same rate!

Now, they were probably five cavities in a single tool (I've assumed five . . . or two (red and blue) tools for the sake of argument in the previous paragraph!) which might mean that a lot of red policemen and blue Guards and Beefeaters went straight-back for re-grind, but I suspect the cavities could be blanked-off between colour-runs.

I seem to have shot this in 2013, probably when it came in (PW show?) and if I don't use it now, it will never be used and just sit there on the dongle like the proverbial 'spare penis' at a wedding!

Returning to the jabbering fuckwit, back in October of last year he accused me of telling him not to copy me;

"One final thing don’t tell me not to copy you. First I will not copy your information Hugh. Second if  I cover the same item it will be on a different aspect of the figure.  Final he does not bother me at all.  Just very sad person who needs to channel his hate somewhere else."

That'll be two final things then! Too funny . . . or 'two' funny! But I what actually said was;

"If you're going to sit in my dust copying my recent output, at least try to get it right!"

Accepting both that he would continue to take his lead from my blog (which he is consistently so doing) and accepting that he keeps getting it wrong, which he consistently continues to!

He added nothing - by way of a 'new aspect' to the police reprise, except to name-drop and act knowledgeable about a subject which had been strange to him a few weeks earlier (without crediting the person who put him right), and in recent weeks he has failed to identify Chromoplasto (some of the most distinctive Spanish rubber out there) despite correcting me - a year ago - on 70-year old odd Spanish rubber figures I was 100% sure I didn't know, he's substituted one company's name for another and he got his Cherilea and Charbens mixed-up . . . again!

That knowledge-base of his [not] working overtime! I don't know why he bothers with Cherilea or Charbens, he always gets them wrong* - despite presumably having the PW Specials? What a legend . . . Ladies and Gentlemen; call me a 'pesky kid' if you must, but I'm telling you - the 'Emperor' has no clothes! The mighty 'legend' is a straw-dog.

In conclusion; the message seems to be - don't trust what I say, ring somebody else in the UK you can trust and ask them, don't ask TJF; he doesn’t know!

*I've got them wrong too; with the [Cherilea] foal, but there's a follow-up on that, forming in the long-queue!

News, Views Etc . . . Stuff!

Apologies for this morning's post, it was pretty thin gruel but I literally had 15-minutes to change plans, stop writing tomorrow's article on Guards, find something else and blurb-it-up, so you got a little toy with a big gun!

Anyway, tomorrow's three articles have 24 images in 14 pictures over three posts and should prove interesting enough to be worth the wait, unless you're TJF, then you'd probably rather the posts weren't there at all, but he wanted it and I've plenty to dish-out!

Checkered Liver Chicken Banners!

I had an amusing spell-checker suggestion offered-up by Blogger back in the Autumn!

From the 'look what turned-up' Department

I found these in storage, as we looked at the stuff Peter Evan gave me back in 2013 (after they had gone into storage), these must have been from Poundland or Pounstretcher back in 2009-10, and the chap with the rope is present - we've seen the other five. While I ought to keep a complete set intact, I fear that by September 17th he will have been dug-out; curiosity killed the cat, but I'm not a cat so that should go swimmingly!

P is for Plan's Changed . . .

. . . so I'm throwing this up here for a 'something'! I was going to post a bigger something later, but that will have to wait until tomorrow for Wednesday, so here's a quicky which ties-in with the previously seen Land Rover from Chap Mai's large Hercules play-set.

There, that's it! Big ol' gun-barrel!

H is for Holding-out Against Rome!

Everyone's favourite Gauls - unless they are emotionally dead from the toes up! My sample of the recent (that's my: forgotten-how-old-I-am 'recent') Kinder egg Asterix figures, not a full sample, but this is a rush post - I don't know if it showed; but I had scanning problems on Thursday night which put me behind and left the weekend's and this post a bit rushed!

Some of the main characters, Obelix, the fishmonger, Getafix making his potion and Fabula, the girl who Obelix is always flirting with! These are all from the 2000 set Asterix and the Romans.

The Romans being named, from the left; Centurion Numerus Clausus, and legionaries Marcus Konfus and Claudius Lapsus But they are from the German insert and may have differed here, to reflect names in the British edition of the original graphic novel?

The Claudius variation (with sword) may be from a later set, or a nation-specific issue? There was an earlier set: Asterix in America, but I rather lost track of Kinder after around 2008.

Dogmatix gets the chief's shield (and bearers!), there was a separate sculpt of the chief (Majestix) standing on his shield, itself resting on the legs of an upturned table!

I think there is a mix of English, German and French 'original' names/titles above, blame the Internet!

G is for Grey Guy's from Gidromana

Not much blurb as I ran out of time this week! Looking at a vacuum-packed 'envelope' of 50mm die-cast Russian infantry from the soviet era I picked-up at a small local evening show or car-boot sale about 20 years ago!

They didn't photograph very well so here's the two best shots much enhanced; to not much improvement! They are Semi-flat (Demi-rond) mazac/zamak castings of troops on parade; basically the USSR equivalent of parade 'toy soldiers', such as the Britains produced hollow-cast red-coats.

The insert was printed as two panels on one sheet which was folded in half and placed over the figures before the plastic sheet was vacuum-sealed over the whole; consequently it has been a bit scrunched-up!

Two similar figures to the right of a spare I have. The spare has traces of an overall layer of silver paint which has mostly worn-off. The gold figure is similarly coated and from a similar set, while the female medical soldier is from a more realistically posed set.

When I first discovered the Russian forums (about ten years ago) I spent an afternoon downloading all the images I found without knowing what I was doing, or which 'thread' I was in; due to my lack of Russian language skills.

I can therefore only say that there are quite a few of these sets and they are all slightly different, but as far as English-speakers go, we now know (thanks to Mimi) one of them was from the Gidromana plant in Melitopol - now in the contested (by Russia) area of Ukraine!

V is for Vintage - Waddington's

Sorry Germans, that's a toughie of a title! Because Parker bought Waddington's they share the KPH box, and this is the tail-end of the photo-shoot, we'll look at more Waddington's another day, and Parker's Risk figures will need a post of their own one day.

Waddington's Table Soccer carries 28/30mm statuette type figures of footballers which we looked at just over a year ago, the 'master collection' is only a bag of oddments which have come in, but there is a boxed set somewhere in the garage along with a set of the next lot (below) so we'll return to them here one day for completeness sake!

I think the yellow and brown figure is an early goalkeeper, but the other may be home painted, and I can't remember if the black ones are referees or late version 'reduced paint' goalies? Another reason to return to the set when I find the big boxes of games!

As a playing mechanism Camelot is a sort of simplified draughts (checkers) / fox & geese hybrid, but with the kings present from the start! These are the 'pawns' and are a reasonable 25/28mm-compatable knight, relaxed, in full armour, there are ten each (of both colours) of them and I bet a few of you have some of these in your junk, WTF or TBS (to be sorted) pile!

The 'kings' are closer to 15/20mm-compatible for those looking to beef-up their armies with unusual figures, and you get four of each, this one is an earlier version on a double-plinth base with ogeed edges, manufactured in a softer polystyrene or phenolic of some type, compare with the sharper single disc in brittle 'kit' polystyrene above.

Again I have a set somewhere, so I'll replace the vague description with something more solid when I return to them someday.