I is for Italian Rack Toy

We've had this before but it was years ago and I shot it again while shooting a load of other stuff the other day, so we're having it again!

Cane (as in canine, ie 'dog' or hound, hence the brand-mark) were prodigious producers of rack toys, so the fact I only have the one is slightly remiss of me, but then there's lots out there in Internetland, indeed Mr Sell hoovered them all up and pretended they were his a year or two ago so they are all plagiarised in one place somewhere on shitestuff!

I picked this up back when I was a small scale-only collector and there are no figures, even though -  as Grisoni - Cane did do some smallish 'combat' Marine figures which could have occupied one of the blisters here?

The vehicles, clockwise from top left; A vaguely AMX turret on an upside-down Lilo provides the heavy armour, a Whites Scout Car/Bedford truck hybrid sits above a French municipal rubbish-van, the Jeep's actually not bad compared to the others and while the Saracen is recognisable, equally it has more in common with the locally produced vehicles of the inter-war uprisings of the 1920/30's than anything used in Northern Ireland!

My favourite, the smallest non-Hong Kong copy I know-of, of what is clearly the 1-Ton Humber from Dinky, in this case probably via Sam Toys own copy, but much reduced and simplified, or Matchbox but theirs was a radio-shack body, the Dinky was the GS 'pick-up'.

F is for Follow-up . . . to some stuff we just had!

When posting the 'big set' from Peter Evans the other day, I was talking from the position of thinking these had been posted previously; they hadn't! Taken almost exactly a year ago (14/08/18), they obviously fell by the wayside, so we'll quickly look at them to make slightly more sense of the other-day's post . . . and to make up for the lack of figures in the first post!

Obviously the new - mid-sized - polyethylene figures aren't here, but the other two types are, and this is otherwise a duplicate of the fuller image we saw last Friday.

The original larger sized figures all share a base-marking/code which is the same on all the poses unpainted and some of the painted ones. It reads MADE IN CHINA 593 - [A-F] with each figure possessing its own (cavity number?) code; 1-6, the numerals reverse-stamped and matching the A-F

The exception - some of the painted figures lack the main mark - I don't think has any significance, but if the other (currently marked) poses turn-up similarly blank, or if the same (unmarked) figures turn-up with marks it may point to multiple contracts, one of which might have stipulated no marks? All the smaller yellow/black ones PVC aren't marked, neither are the new polyethylene ones in the previous post.

As to branding, the large PVC sets were originally handled by Ackerman here I think (who have a history of importing from Supreme/SP Toys), the tank we looked at - shelfied with the larger painted versions - was Ackerman or HTI (but I can't find the post), while the base numbering is similar to some stuff contracted by Toy Major, Strawberry Group and Tiger (again; all known for connections with SP Toys), so I'd expect them to turn up in Shilling sets and possibly past Tobar output? They're not rare!

The smallest set (black and yellow PVC) got their own post I think, but I can't find that either (did I forget to tag a rack-toy post in the past?), and the new ones were posted with some tenuous branding on Friday last)

H is for Hard Plastic Animals

I really don't know what else to call them! This is a bit of a box ticker, and represents the efforts of seveal people, over about the last three years, everything being chucked in a folder until publishing, which you nearly got last August, but time waits for no man!

The phenomena or trope we're looking at here is hard, polystyrene plastic toy animals, manufactured in a hollow-cast style, with the hollow in the extremities (legs mostly) visible, this due to or caused by the act of not bothering with undercuts by creating the animal in two halves - in a shallower, two part mould, and then gluing the halves together. This is presumably cheaper that having a more complicated three-part mould, to create a similar solid/single-piece model from polyethylene or PVC; with the undercuts filled-in?

These two were shelfied by Brian Berke over two years in new York and are branded to Lan Jia Da (left) and Rong Xing Toys (right), one of which (if not both!) has to be a phantom brand.

Contents are identical and scale is 'large' but not consistent. The actual sculpts are quite good, the panda possibly a bit dog-like and I'm not sure I'm familiar with the monkey species, but they are dirt-cheap rack-toys!

Again a year-apart and again 'stateside, but the same branding (Zhenkai), and scale is further apart with the domestic cat posing a threat not just to the zebra, but the giraffe! They are also manufactured slightly differently with the hooves/ankles fully-round, so the possible savings hinted at above my not have been involved here, which begs the question; why any hollows at all? I guess material is still saved?

These are of a larger size again, and carry AAI branding on the sticker and tampo-printed onto the side of the Donkey. We've previously seen them here shipping-in dinosaurs from the Far East sub-branded to Bely, also courtesy of Brian - both the animals shelfie and the past dino' set. Design is the same as the first set we looked at.

I love the artwork (Photoshop or I'm TJF), one sheep is saying to the other "Don't look now, but there's a giraffe in our field" while the horse clearly let Lady Gaga do its hair!

Red Deer have gone with a giant duck  and tiny horse! The left hand one was sent to the blog by Peter Evans, over a year ago I think; although they are now on a hook in Fleet here, as the new pound-shop has them (right hand image) where they were shelfied! Added play value comes with two pieces of fence! And some greenery . . .

. . . which are no more than sections of budget plastic plant! It's naff isn't it; not even cost can be an excuse for not including a couple of 'proper' flat trees!

A few close-ups showing how it's the backs of the legs which end-up still hollow after the two separately-moulded pieces have been glued together. This allows for the animal to be shot in a shallow mould-tool, like a kit, before being assembled and given a touch of paint. The duck and hen however seem to have a third 'gusset' piece, or to have be manufactured slightly differently, possibly more expensively, but it's the unit price of the set which matters.

I also had these come in (from Chris or Jim?) in an odd-lot, the deer is missing his antlers and they have some age to them, probably weren't 'rack toys' but are manufactured and assembled the same way as the others. You can see they have been given fully-round legs but at the cost of a flat section running up to them from the join-line.

These resemble Tri-Ang/Mettoys 'wheelimals' in size and execution, but without the wheels and I suspect they may be Marx? Whether US or UK I wouldn't like to guess, especially as there's no evidence for them being Marx at all beyond a similarity between this Hippo's pose (and painting) and the little HO Miniature Masterpiece one?

I guess an infant's ark set? And that's large hollow, polystyrene animals for while. Thanks to Brian, Peter, Chris and Jim for the 'stuff' of the article.

B is for Blue Box Black-top Bitumen Barrow Boys

Except one of them isn't Blue Box and it should be a 'T is for Two . . .' but I got carried away with the alliteration! Having looked at stretched versions of the common Mobile Combat Team sized sets, I thought we'd better look at the civilianised version!

This is it and that's that . . . moving swiftly along . . . what? Alright, alright, I'll put a bit of effort in, but it's Rack Toy Month, I'm supposed to be having an easy time while you all sit on the beach ignoring the Blog!

Basically you've got an all polystyrene playset (with metal axles and ethylene tyres), glued onto the card by someone holding the glue-brush on the end of a stick by the looks of it, the road-roller's half covered!

The two vehicles are Matchbox 1-75 Series copies while the figures and accessories are taken from the Dinky road-menders set. Why there was a sudden need for road-menders on the top of an escarpment in Monument Valley (link) is anyone's guess, a tourist helipad?

Trying very hard to look like the Blue Box Bedford truck sets we looked at here years ago, this is an unbranded generic from an unknown source (well - an unknown Hong Kong source!)

Source and course - what's that all about? It should be Sourse or Cource! It's not even an alphabetical rule! Fussa-russa . . . have we had that rant before? We'll have it again!

This set is all polyethylene even unto the integrated axles, and the vehicles are copies of other Blue Box copies of Matchbox 1:75th Series models. There are no other marks on the box. Note how the manufacturer has half-copied Blue Box's vehicle fixing system, but instead of gluing the underside of the vehicle to a flat-topped bracket, they have glued an arched bracket over the axle and then clipped the vehicle in!

T is for Two - Blue Box Mini Farm Sets

A couple of the smaller-scale sets from Blue Box here, and two civilian farm sets, but not the Britains piracy stuff from the 54mm farms, but the mini ones we looked at the loose animals from an RTM or two ago.

Box; about four inches square and the artwork places it among the early 1960's ranges. Contents list is accurate, but the blub is so much salesman's hot air, as is the 'Plastic Toy Series' line; they didn't have series' of any other material at the time!

Also seen in Marx 'Majestic Series' sets (as supplied by Blue Box . . . or Tai Sang!), these are mostly Merit copies (all fencings, horses and cows), with the pigs possibly Blue Box sculpts (they were also issued by Redbox) and the house being one of many, many Hong Kong copies of any one of several German, Austrian or French model railway trackside accessory producers.

The figures are more interesting, as they might have been copied by Marx first (for their Miniature Masterpiece farm sets) and then passed to Blue Box during the Majestic Series negotiations, but equally Blue Box may have pantographed them down from their own 54mm piracies, with Marx doing some parallel 'lifting' straight from Britains, whose figure sculpts they actually are!

A smaller set, pretty-much the same layout as the Majestic Series set we sawhere, but bagged with a header-card. We saw similar sets with fewer contents, both branded as Success (WH Cornelius - now PlayWrite) and unbranded generics, in the loose figure post. The pigs have escaped - they do that! While Britains features more obviously with the inclusion of copies of their lambs and rabbits in 1:32nd scale.

Note; I may in the past have described the Majestic Series as the Sunshine Series, this was a Wild West line also supplied by Blue Box to Marx, so if I have - soz!

B is for Blue Box; Long Sets

To a certain extent these are the 'next size up; from the Mobile Combat Team sets we've looked at recently (and in the past, when we probably looked at these too . . . doh!), while there were stand alone and bagged carded sets, Blue Box adopted a tier system for their boxed sets with one, two, three or four tiers, however - if the Mobile Combat Team are to be considered 'standard' single tier; "These are double-plus good Citizen Smith!"

Different contents same box, just as with the Combat Team's, but here the contents include at least two vehicles and a bunch of scenic accessories, the scenic accessories are the same in both sets - one each of both blow-mould copies of the Crescent sandbag walls/entrenchments (also pirated in hard plastic by Marx in their Miniature Masterpiece range) and two sections of barbed-wire fence, held to the card with the same plastic piece used to glue in the vehicles.

However the lower set having a smaller second 'vehicle' (a small helicopter) also gets the motorcycle, a late one with the block underneath (where the glue goes!). Figures are a mix or British (ex-Britains), US and medics (both Blue Box original sculpts).

This is an earlier version of the same retail 'package', this time with three vehicles, no scenery and less figures. The lid folds up into a display card (with odd scaling!), there were probably a bunch of these in an 'outer' or liner; a shop-stock box, and one of the sets would be so displayed at the back of the box, to show the contents, with the customer taking a sealed one. Sometimes this one would be sold at a discount - once the rest of the stock had sold-out.

The contents of the earlier set from a better angle, I've seen several of these over the years, so it was probably quite a common one at the time. Mine's a bit tatty now but I saw a much nicer one go through Vectis a few years ago, very clean.

Box ends, the later set (77547) was sold in 1968, the older one (7406) might date from the late 1950's but is probably from the early 1960's.

Thanks to James Opie for the rocket-lorry set - and the date!

M is for Military Stuff

So we turn to the more warlike contents of Chris's donation, and it had a lot of interesting stuff; not in this post were a number of Hong Kong copies of Airfix Japanese I recognised from smaller scale versions (flat sheet bases, primary colours) and I will put them on the Airfix blog in time.

A large bag of Tylers/Mundi Toys bubble-gum premium figures were also included; we looked at them briefly early in the Blog's life, but I will return to them when I have all of them, at the moment I'm a GI and several Jap's short! In the meantime, I posted a link to a very good post on them on Akela's kiosk Blog a while ago, here it is again.

Among the pile of plenty from Chris were a large number of parachute toys from 30mm Christmas cracker novelties to 90mm blow-moulds which will all prove useful on the forthcoming 'Poopatroopa' page! The guy adjacent to the two arrows is the same guy - for scale/continuity.

One was a different pose/type altogether, a bootleg Toy Story figure I suspect, so he got shot separately, while the yellow one (who isn't glow-in-the-dark) is made of a very odd plastic which is semi-transparent and seems to diffuse light, the photographs don't do justice to how he glows with the pen-torch in his cavity!

The Poopatroopa page is in preparation, but now I'll have to re-sort and re-shoot a bunch of the images (I'm not complaining!), but seeing how I seem to have ended-up with a rainbow theme of backgrounds through the running-order, I'll re-shoot with other backgrounds to mix-it-up a bit!

Fantastic! A new Hong Kong tat'm'cycle . . . with rider! AND stabilisers! Look at it, it's too cool for TT school and it's the stuff like this which sets the Blog apart from others! What you can't tell from the image is that one of the wheels keeps coming out, but hot water will sort that, and what would you expect from something which back in the day probably cost an old sixpence!

The shot below is various figures of merit or interest, from the back left we have a 1:16th/18th German tank commander, two New Ray copies (or late production, their current catalogue has figures equally poor and unpainted compared to their early production), an Airfix Commando piracy, head-swapped to the ANZACs, I vaguely recognise him and may have some others somewhere, but they may just be similar based (kidney/figure-eight) Airfix 8th Army copies?

Next is one of two (the other crawling in front) original sculpt, modern made in China 'Army Men', he's a bit comical (like those zombies we were looking at a year ago - same sculptor?) but his mate is a very nice figure in an unusual pose. I wondered if the grey one goes with them but I don't think so.

Finally a nice Airfix Russian/GI hybrid knock-off, there were a couple but I selected this one for the line-up as it's the most obvious.

We've dealt with two of the front row, the other is very odd, and just the sort of thing I like to add to the collection - he looks like he's been taken out of the mould too early and received a burst-tumor of his own hot polymer at the waist-line, but closer inspection reveals helmet-netting and while I can't imagine quite how it happened, it would seem something went wrong either during moulding or at the point of mould-release leading to a second runner, or the other end of this figures runner got welded to this chap and by the time the operator had sorted it, he was in the for-retail product-stillage with his mate's head still firmly part of him, and his own legs now making him a contender for Pontin's knobbly-knees competition!! Underneath the mess is the common'ish copy of Lido's first version GI's, we looked at them here.

The Wild West threw-up some treats too, with two Plasticom premium/lolly-sticks, a CMV totem-pole, an ABC Indian (front right) and interesting HK copy in 40mm (red), a brown Wing Lung Indian - Airfix copy, two premiums and a huge Mohican Indian (back right) who's like nothing I've seen since the Peco's Unbreakable Toy Figures and is hard to date, it's a two-part swivel-waist toy, with separate arms, head and rifle, all glued in-place (bar the waist which pops-off) and may be modern'ish? He has no marking beyond a double-imprinted 2 on his foot, probably a mould-cavity marker.

The two premiums are from Collonil (red cowboy) and the other is marked Plume Brisee (marbled-pink Indian) but I'm not sure if that is a brand or - more likely - his name (Broken Feather)? According to Ludo's premium site he was made by Alkastap in France and (/or also) issued by Café Legal, Codec, Bonux, and others. I particularly like the Indian, I think he's pointing at a red-necked white Texan, possibly in El Paso and saying "You; illegal, go back where you came from!" Both are polyethylene.

The overall winner was the Britains-copy sucker-Guardsman on the right, I think I have one (standing firing) which has been on the blog, but if memory serves he's grubby and a darker red, this one is a bright-scarlet minter!

The two weights are a bit of a quandary? Are they joke weights for a comedy/clown weight-lifter in a circus set, or are they test-weight or counter-weight wagon-loads from a model railway or heavy-haulage lorry? Maybe from a crane model? If anyone knows, put us right! They are a dense PVC, which is stable and the integral lifting-loops are quite firm and unbroken which could point to good quality or recent production?

The other two figures are from the same franchise (Walden?), presumably a movie, but I can't think what? The dwarf looks like Gimli, but the armour is wrong I think, while the centaur wasn't in Lord of the Rings, nor was Disney involved, so I thought maybe the Lion/Witch/Wardrobe series but I don't think they started filming until much later; 2012'ish?

Anyway, one (the centaur) seems to be a Nēstlē premium in hard polystyrene plastic, the other from a set of Hasbro PVC-like toy or action figures? They are marked as follows and I will do a little research when I post, to see if I can ID the film, which I will add below.

Nēstlē

CЄ

© Disney/Walden

China TAG

18M+

(Centaur - Hard styrene, single piece)

© Disney / Walden

© Hasbro

2005 China

(Dwarf - PVC three points of articulation, ring-hands, separate axe)

Both about 50mm

It IS The Chronical's of Narnia - the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - I must say I thought they were later films, show's how quickly I'm getting how old?!

Many-many thanks to Chris Smith for all these, and everything else in the parcel, which will prove very useful on the blog going forwards, and has already added to the sheepdog story and enhanced the recent sentry-box post - cheers Chris, much appreciated!

C is for Civilian Stuff

So, looking at the 'highlights from Chris Smith's parcel, I know Chris is always interested to see what I pick and why, but there was so much good stuff in this last lot, I can't possibly do it all justice in a coule of posts, and haven’t even selected things from every pile after the first sort, but here's some of the more interesting pieces.

The Elastolin and Britains copy farm people are generic China-marked soft (probably silicon of some sort) figures of the kind you get in vehicle sets or rack-toys, but are both new to the collection, the little red chap I know but can't remember! I think he's either from Ship Wreck or On the Buses . . . some other bus or ship-related board game, Abandon Ship? Possibly Waddington's?

The two lifeboat crew are interesting, they seem to be from a kit, and while I don't know it for sure, I've a feeling it may be the Frog kit which ended up behind the iron-curtain with . . . Kader? Something like that? But several lifeboats have been manufactured over the years so confirmation still required!

Which leaves the fat policeman! Now, in correspondence with Chris I've already chosen the sucker-guardsman (from the next post) as my favorite thing in the whole lot, but if he hadn't been there, this chap would take the medal. He's marked Hong Kong, but the lack of a base suggests cracker novelty or gum-ball, capsule-machine prize, rather than a die-cast or plastic vehicle set's accessory? He had an approximation of a British 'Bobbies' helmet, but a double breasted jacket more in-tune with 1950's New York cops and while he may be a copy of a less common hollow-cast, he's new to me and I think he's rather lovely.

All the footballers, I've Blogged them (footballers) so often in the last 18-months, if I didn't show all these now, I don't know when we'd get round to them again!

And three new to me, the Perspex flat far-right, middle, is probably an early type of Subbuteo figure, possibly from the Rugby game? The blue-and-white pair below him are quite statue-like and I wonder is they are a late replacement for the even more stolid Waddington's soccer set we've seen here previously?

While the Claret and Blue fella' (he's Hammer's!! Not poxy Palace) is totally new to me and a really nice figure around 35mm. the rest have been seen in one form or another here and consist of the ball-kicking novelty figure, a Culpitt, some Subbuteo and various blow-football figures, but why there are three colours of one type is a bit of a mystery.

So soon after the trio from Kevin (?), comes another, not the missing pose, nor the missing colour but neither a full duplicate either, so that 'group' or sample has grown! And I was wrong with the fractal-face thing, they are smaller ones; copies of these, this one has a separate plug-in face, held in place by a larger plug-in 'fish-bowl' visor.

There was also a small space novelty, which has particular resonance in this of all years, I spent sometime trying to get the metal ball to go down a hole, before realising it didn't have a hole, it's more of a rattle to annoy a cat with! I must exercise my glasses' prescription.

From the cartoon and TV/Movie pile comes a very eclectic collection of polymer and composition novelty 'stuff'. Woodie and Scoobie are both pencil-toppers of relatively recent manufacture, the little boat has probably lost its sail, but now goes quite well with the 'Brown WaterNavy'.

The composition thing is supposed to be a hedgehog I think, and is missing a pipe or cigar or cigarette, which is replaceable, but only once I've discovered whether it should be composition, a scrap of wood, metal or plastic? German? Easter thing? And technically a composite rather than composition, due to the stuck-on mohair hairpiece and the missing mouth-accessory.

The Beetlejuice 'snake' is fun. I was re-watching the film a few months ago and though "There's not many toys of this film?" when one turns up! It seems to be an accessory from a larger action figure set, but with the head around 54/60mm compatible I can see him reappearing at some point, wrapped round a ner-do-well! Soft PVC or silicon, he has set bends which don't equate to pencil-topping, but he must have wrapped around something or someone?

From the animal pile are a few items worth a mention now. The three dinosaurs are china-marked re-issues of earlier 1970's Hong Kong tools, but are useful as they tie two marks and two paints together by being of the same plastic, which helps sort the rest out of the 'unknown' zones.

The little Joal tiger is a bit paint-faded but a lovely sculpt, the turkey is another item for the Fontanini pile, while the deer (which looks quite new) has some kind of locating plug on its tail. I wonder if it's part of an early-learning thing were you plug him in where it says D is For Deer of something like that? I also think I've seen it before, but maybe another animal? If anyone knows, put the rest of us out of our curious misery by telling us!

Below we have four of the Merit animals we looked at in two posts back at the beginning of the blog, they come with a steam-traction engine circus 'train' and/or with a Noah's ark set, and there are so many colours I'll be ferreting them away until I die and not have all of them!

The post finishes with a die-cast Kinder elephant (left) and a nice little monkey (right) who's new to me, seems to be loosely-based on the old Timpo monkey with ball, but err . . . without ball!

D is for Donated Plunder Pile

Chris Smith sent the Blog a parcel, just as I came back online after Dad's passing, and although he'd sent me an eMail telling me it was on the way, I failed to read it properly, so it still came as a surprise to me! And what a surprise . . .

. . . We've seen this chap or chapess (or Chappie? A UK-centric joke, and then only 'gettable' if you bought dog-food in the 1970's!) before, as he/she was literally the first (or second?) thing I saw when I opened the parcel!

Arriving on a Saturday; I had a whole weekend to sort it out and starting about half-nine in the evening, I'd produced these piles by midnight! because I've been slack about putting stuff away, or just slow . . . . now I'm also trying to filter-in the two main lots - attic and garage - with the 'recent purchases/donations' stuff in my room, there are a number of bog-standard shopping bags, each of which is thematic, so these piles are destined for the second phase of a three or four-phase process!

From the top left we have; wagons and wagon bits/horses; bits & pieces including buildings and scenics; motorcycles, riders and drivers; Civilian and sports - less footballers, then returning along the bottom row; footballers; sci-fi and fantasy; a little pile fo cavemen (below) and halloween/horror stuff (above), whith all the farm and zoo animals - bottom left.

Again clockwise from the top left; all ceremonial figures, highlanders and guards; historical including ancient and medieval; Wild West, a small pile of novelty cats (with a couple of new ones, I'll try to do them as a fun post over Christmas); the two wooden sentry-boxes we've seen now; 20th/21st century 'army men', khaki infantry and such-like; cartoon and TV/Movie-related, and finally; trains, planes, automobiles and some boats!

I never cease to be amazed at the stuff Chris (or Peter, Jim, Trevor, the two Brians et al), send to the blog, often as their chuck-outs or because they think I may be able to weave whatever it is into a post at some point, and indeed the blog is a voracious beast, so the more oddities we have the faster we can stoke it - witness the speed those two wooden sentry-boxes proved their worth!

The next two posts today will look at some of the highlights, but Chris; thank you very much.