News, Views Etc . . . Herald Toys & Models

Barney's had some new stuff come in, get it before it's gone (it doesn't hang around over there!);

"This week we are very excited to offer for sale a small collection of Cherilea plastic Spacemen, Robots and Dinosaurs, together with some very hard to find Trojan sand bags, including unusual sand colour plastic which we have not seen before and are extremely rare (we have only previously seen khaki plastic). The Cherilea Spacemen are painted as Martian "Little Green Men" with green faces and are in great condition considering they are more than 60 years old and are complete with their plastic helmets."

F is for Follow-up - Action Fleet Speeder Bikes

I was wrong to suggest I didn't think they'd never done the Imperial pilot/trooper for the speeder bikes, and further, it seems I need two figures and some - possibly - paler brown Speeder Bikes.

On the back of my Hasbro (2002) Dewback carded set, there is an illustration for a set I don't have, which clearly shows an Imperial pilot and someone; who one assumes is Luke Skywalker, but he doesn't seem to have the black-gloved hand of the other set?

The set I was remembering (earlier Galoob branding), and of which I do have the loose figures too; they are Leia and Luke and come with seemingly darker-brown machines than shown in the previous image, which are the ones we looked at yesterday. The trouble is the previous image is publicity material, and may not reflect what was issued, or even that anything of the sort was issued at all?

C is for Civilian Composition

Again we have Adrian (Mercator Trading) to thank for the boxed set shown here, which is also a Brent product and probably also from the war years; between 1939-45.

The lid is gorgeously reminiscent of 'Boys Own' annuals or hard-back novels of wild adventure for the younger readers of the time, with their inset colour picture on the cover, even the later Rupert annuals, which seem to had had an affiliation with those bright, yellow-greens!

The original contents of the box seems to have been six larger animals, the two seated figures (milk-maids), two stools and something in the central slot, possibly the three other figures, but clearly other animals (and possibly the poultry) have been added and I didn't get them out and shoot them all separately, so the next five images are shots from various angles, to which you can add your own thoughts!

Whether the added items are fom another (smaller?) set or could be purchased individually from a counter display or wall cabinet I don't know, but we have ducks and hens, the prone cows and some extra cows and horses buy the looks of it?

My Brent consists of a farm hand and two farmers; one of whom has a smaller stick (and way more playware!), all three show signs of the pumice having been dyed or stained black before setting and painting.

I did shoot the two ducks, they both look to have a fair bit of auk or even vulture DNA! That's Brent, on the Blog, with many thanks to Mr Little.

E is for Elastolene . . . Geddit?

Not Elastolin; those filthy enemy toys only still available from Yorkville's Importhaus. Oh; no, no, no . . . these are good British toys, British made by plucky Brit's in stand-alone British Britain don't-yer-know!

Hurrumph! Fussa-russa! . . . you can see where Brwreakshit came from!

"Practically unbreakable", actually quite frangible! Although - to be fair - you don't see these with the same damage you can find on playworn Elastolin or Lineol, but that may be because once they start to go, they go all the way, quickly?

The work of Brent, these are the smaller - 54mm - figures and dated by the gas-mask cases on their chests, take us back to the early years of the war; to the BEF and Home Guard, but presumably after the war-privation of materials had come into effect?

I assume the fluffy padding in the Stretcher Bearers set is a modern addition, they would have been sewn onto card-inserts or set in wood-wool or something, the farm (coming next) had a slotted card but with a much deeper box.

The 'Group' set has slightly random contents with two duplicates (grenade thrower and advancing with respirator on), while missing two poses.

There were eight poses in total, I don't have the grenade thrower yet, and actually don't have all these now (swapsies), but within the sample you can see colour variations and the size/pose differences you'd expect from oven-dried [inedible] 'dough' figures!

Five of the poses in close-up; note the colour variations of the ready/sentry challenging guy (bottom right), weapon barrels are provided by small panel-pins, the head used to give the idea of a muzzle or flash-eliminator, I've never encountered Brent badly damaged-enough to reveal whether or not there is a whole wire armature, but I suspect not?

Three more; clearly there is an armature for the machine-gun, which is less Vicker's own and more Bugsy Malone's splurge-gun! The prone figure is similar to several hollow-cast shooters, but not connected to the 'unknown' early-British plastic prone figure I've had a stab at attributing in the past.

Also missing from my collection (and manythanks to Adrian Little for letting me shoot his, from/and also the boxed sets above), the stretcher is a simple affair of cartridge paper wrapped round a couple of stiff wire 'handles', the casualty seems to have been involved in the same incident as Timpo's swoppet, maybe they banged heads getting out of little Johnny's biscuit-tin!

Differences between two examples of the same pose, I thought the shorter pack was down to a misplaced thumb or finger catching the top and squishing it down a bit! But in fact it's shorter at the bottom end, so different cavities, or separate moulds, these may have been produced with hand-clamp type tools?

Despite their crudity of manufacture, they are OK figures, and with no lead available, you'd be happy to find these under the tree at Christmas; if you were a toy soldier fan . . . did anyone do composition footballers?

I also have two of the 60mm versions (upper shot), we have to assume they did all eight combat poses in both sizes, but I don't know about the stretcher teams, nor do I know if one line replaced the other, or if they ran alongside each-other?

The lower shots compare one of Adrian's Brent 60mm's (left of each picture) with an unknown figure (stylistically different, they're probably not a third Brent line) marked 'British' (we will look at them in a separate post), who is closer to 80mm and has lost his rifle tip.

This lot was in the recent Vectis sale, I don't know if Brent produced the 'egg-box' papier mâché dug-out/bunker, but it's a beautiful thing, and god knows how it has survived in that condition! If you return to the top, you'll see there are various lines mentioned along the top of the box, maybe Chris's ceremonial Guardsman is among them?

News, Views Etc . . . Vectis Wednesday & Thursday Sales

The rest of yesterday's press release, Wednesday's sale; . . .

Lot 1112

"The Specialist and Tinplate toy sale to be held on the 4th of December starts with 120 lots of Dinky Toys, including road and racing cars, Trade Packs, trucks, military, aircraft and figure sets, plus others from Corgi, Automec, Hot Wheels, Tekno and more. White Metal, Resin & Modern Collectables feature from manufacturers such as Brooklin, Lansdowne, Pathfinder, Somerville, and ASAM Models, plus World of Miniatures "Billy Smart's Circus". There are 95 lots of Slot Car related items, predominantly from Scalextric, and includes cars, track, boxed sets and accessories, plus the sale will also feature Tinplate & Plastic vehicles, Robots, Games and Novelty toys from Lehmann, Triang, Telsalda, Ideal, Nomura and many others, including Triang Lionel Famous Inventor series. The sale concludes with 1/48th Scale Aircraft from Franklin Mint, Gearbox and Yat Ming Air Signature."

. . . and Thursday's;

Lot 2186

"The General Toy sale to be held on the 5th of December features 698 lots of boxed and unboxed models, including buses and coaches from EFE, Corgi The Original Omnibus Company; Corgi boxed groups including Heavy Haulage, Aviation Archive, military related, Eddie Stobart and TV and Film. Other lots include Atlas Dinky boxed groups, Atlas Editions Ultimate Tank Collection, military vehicles and planes, AMER COM military aircraft and vehicles, Oxford Diecast, military, haulage and commercials.  Plus, Lledo, Matchbox, Sunstar, Brooklin, WSI models, Tekno, and others including Minichamps Ayrton Senna groups, road and racing cars. The sale will also include Lego, Royal Doulton Bunnykins ceramic figures, board games, Star Wars, books and magazines, Subbuteo, Scalextric, DVDs, computer consoles and games, display cabinets and cases."

S is for Sally's Silver Band

A box-ticker, but one I'm happy to have as it's a lovely set, and happy to keep brief, as it was fully covered in Plastic Warrior magazine not that long ago and I don't know enough about silver bands, musical instruments (as we've seen before!) or even the Salvation Army!

The 'Salvation Army Trade Department Hong Kong' apart from being a mouthful of words also sounds frightfully grand for an organisation I can't remember having ever seen associated with another product? But there you go; possibly a phantom brand for reasons of tax or charity status, or maybe a/some Christian Chinese produced them at cost or paid for the contract or something?

Figures - vinyl/PVC - are a tad on the large size, coming in at around 65mm, although you can see they are not the same height, with the lone side-drummer quite noticeably smaller than his band-mates at 62mm all-in. That's them, ♫♪♪♫ Onward Christian Soldiers ♫♫♪ and all that; Christmas is coming!

Q is for Quicker Than I Thought!

Glanced at one of these the other day and I said it was bigger than the others but would make for a good forced-perspective shot when I dug the rest out . . . well; I dug the rest out and did some forced-perspective shots!

The previously mentioned, likely line-up; In front is the most recent from Mattel's line of Hot Wheels 'Starships', it's a much more detailed machine than the others, but - as I thought - looks better with the others behind it. The second machine is the Galoob Action Fleet beast, which I believe only came with Luke or Leia figures, but also takes the civilians (two shots down) and here, the giant lizard rider from Tatooine, who with his giant-lizard prod, looks regal enough to lead the charge!

Behind them are two paint versions of the Galoob MicroMachines speeder with the slightly longer, but slimmer Hasbro MicroMachine from a few years ago (in-line - movie VII?). There's a new film out any day now isn't there? Let's hope there's something for us, there's been precious little from the out-of-line and back-story movies - none of which I've seen, it's all become a bit of a whore to Mammon!

This is a little simpler, but I have more of them! From the front Action Fleet Luke, Action Fleet Leia, and four MicroMachine rebels with the Hasbro Luke among them. Clothing colour variation (the rebels are supposed to be Leia I think) leads to a nice squad!

The climbing machine comes courtesy of a heat-bent stand, although in the movie they stay parallel with the ground even when climbing or dropping?

The old back-path weaving it's way through the brackish salt-swamps between Moss Eisley and Jabba's palace is busy with pirates, smuggles and hoodlums going about their nefarious tasks for the Hutt's!

From the front; Galoob Action Fleet speeders with un-named (?) bit-part hoodlums, Ray's Jakku speeder (Mattel), two Galoob MicroMachine civilian speeders from Tatooine and at the back, from the left Hasbro MicroMachine Ray's speeder, Hasbro MicroMachine Jakku Landspeeder (looks like a beach-bum, hippy speeder!) and a diminutive civi' (from one of the Galoob MicroMachine three-vehicle sets?) who's even smaller than the other two.

Snowspeeders; Mattel at the front, Hasbro 'Platinum Edition' die-cast in the middle and the Hasbro MicroMachine at the back, make a nice machine-gun platoon from long, long ago and far, far away!

Last time we looked at all three (I'd forgotten I'd done that or I wouldn't have sweated over the previous image!) I shot them from above without the stands, this time I played with Picasa to remove them, number them . . . and added some banana-bullets!

Full size-comparison;

GAF     -   Galoob Action Fleet

GMM   -   Galoob MicroMachines

HMM   -   Hasbro MicroMachines

HPE     -   Hasbro Platinum Edition

MHW   -   Mattel Hot Wheels

P is for Palm-flat Palm Flats

Another one which missed tree week, although the planting in the UK (it was 'our' tree week I think?) of palm trees outside of the South Cost, Scilly- or Channel Islands can be a bit of a fool's errand, but as the climate inexorably changes I dare say the line of success is moving firmly northwards!

On the left is Britains set of coconut palms which was based on their old Hollow-cast palms, if not actually from the same mold-tool? Much copied in Hong Kong we have two better ones from Blue Box (For Cheyenne among other sets!) and a more recent generic both of which designs have bracing across the trunks, probably to try and prevent warping upon removal from the mould?

The three together; you can see how much smaller both the copies are and the loss of detailed etching on the 2nd generation copy, which is also manufactured in an insipid, wishy-washy polymer which would benefit from a paint-job.

Charbens cheeky chimp climbing for coconuts! Actually he's easy to remove resulting in a far more useful tree in any scale which - going on the size of the monkey - is otherwise, a very small tree in quite a large scale!

Above; we have variations in the bases of the Charbens trees which 'had some work' at some point, I'd like to think one was from a hollow-cast mold or something, but the hollow-cast tree was quite different and had no stupid monkey!

Below; are two designs from that Manurba (Manfred Urban) / Heinerle süßwaren Wundertüten (confectionery surprise bags) / Dom (Domplast-Domplastik) group. They did produce a larger double coconut palm and a banana palm, but I either don't have them or have put them in the Manurba box, which is still buried in the garage! A rather nice tree-fern (Australasia) and a fruitless 'generic' palm.

I think this is Starlux, but the mark (in a little recessed cartouche) was obliterated by glue or early-removable from the tool, so it could be Befoid or Clairet? Any way it's supposed to be a coconut palm, by the look of it?

A Modern hollow-backed pair of bass-relief coconuts from some 'armyman' set; it may be a make-weight in some pocket-money rack-toy thing, but it adds to the collection of palm-flat flat palms!

R is for ♪♫ Rolling, Rolling, Rolling, Keep Them Novelties Rolling . . . Crackerrrrr! ♫♪♪

Just a quickie, it was going to be three images but really a single collage is more than enough on these here-today (or here the 25th) gone tomorrow (unless you archive them for a future Blog post. Doh!) Christmas cracker and capsule frivolities!

The single horse is the 'vintage' here, it's been in the collection for years, the Bear is a more modern addition to the stash and differes from the others in being more one-sided, with a smooth back and a contoured front, against the rounded outlines on both sides of the others.

I found the Fultoys on-line, the image is from their current range (part of which is probably bought-in) and you can see they are simplified copies of the earlier horse - and his friends? I'm sure other brands could be associated with or found to have handled these, Tom Smith for sure!

24-days and you too may have one and just the sort of thing you may find flying out of budget crackers at a 'works do'.

News, Views Etc . . . Vectis Auctions Tomorrow

Press release for tomorrows auction was waiting for me just now . . .

"The Specialist sale to be held on the 3rd of December starts at the earlier time of 10am. The sale will include three private owner collections; The Devonshire Collection, and The Swiss Collection feature predominantly Dinky vehicles, including pre and post war vehicles, sets and trade packs. Lots include military, road and racing cars, emergency services, commercial vehicles, trucks and tankers, farm, buses, TV and film related and aircraft. The Norfolk Collection, features predominantly Corgi cars, Gifts Sets, wagons, trucks and catalogues, plus there are further lots of Corgi and Dinky models."

Lot 17

Note the earlier start time if you are planning on attending or bidding.

T is for The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

It's also for trees, terrible timekeeping and troublesome assistant!

This was supposed to be, or to be specifically accurate; was originally intended to be - the third post on the golf day we had a week or two ago, but, I thought, it would be better used for National Tree Week, once I had become aware of NTW, given it's about the trees with this particular set.

Obviously, plans went awry last week and I never got all the tree stuff out, so it might as well have been used on Good Walk Spoiled Day instead, but, hey-ho, there are no rules to this Blogging malarkey, unless you're my critics in which case apparently there's a whole bunch of rule books but nobody's got round to sending me copies! Anywhoos - here's Carpet Golf from Turner Research, late!

Did I say troublesome assistant? Straight into the packaging like a rat up a drainpipe!

Box was shite, but I didn't get it for the box (which was in the kindling bucket for fire starting minutes after this shot) and a poor box means a cheaper deal! We'll get on the the trees and figures in a minute, but I also kept the two bunkers and the water feature; they may come in useful at some point in the future?

I did measure the figures, but I've forgotten what it was and put them away! I think it was about 110mm - judging from the fingers below! The figures have a lever action which enables them to putt, chip or whack large expanded-polystyrene balls about the place with gay abandon!

I've also kept the green-flag (which is red!) and it will join a plethora of other, larger, wood, metal and plastic flags & standards in a tub somewhere.

Working the leaver to show how simple it is - both the golfer and the mechanism . . . tada! They are manufactured from a very dense PVC which I came to wishI hadn't separated for the 'how' shot when trying to get them to go back together again; but they went in the end with a bit of brute force!

There were only two clubs in the box, there should be six, but - again- I wasn't buying it for the golf!

I was buying it for the bloody trees weren’t I!

Over a decade ago, when I worked for JB, we had a couple of these come through the stock, and since then I'd had it on the 'long list', and from time to time would check it on evilBay; in the end I got one. It's not rare and if you're careful you can pick one up for reasonable money, not for the 'pre-executive toy' executive-toy elements, but for the trees!

Britains style trees, (marked Japan interestingly), but in autumnal colours, which, when placed with a couple of Britains copper-beeches, can make a believable autumn scene, clearly Japanese acers; they can be your very-own Westonbirt! The bases are Britains as far as it goes, but the tree trunks are more original.

As it happens; I think I'm missing an orange sprig, the box suggests using both colours for each tree, and going by the obvious studs (anyone who's made-up these types of tree will know extra fronds can be placed on twigs/branches not directly intended for them!) the two trees are supposed to take eight and six sprigs respectively, which could be 7 & 7 colour wise? But I'll be looking out for a yellow one!

This also comes in the set, also 'Japan', it seems to be complete but could have used a couple-more spreads of greenery? Also clearly channeling Britains, not only in the base-shape, but in the fact that the side branches both follow the Britains 'system' and seem to be copied from the Britains Cedar, despite the main trunk being more original?

However, the similarities are explained . . .

. . . by the fact that an original Britains Cedar was available to someone at Turner during the design phase! I dare say they had more than one Britains tree to so peruse?