L is for Let's Make it a 'Space Day'!

Seen briefly in passing the other day, I took some more detailed shots as I love these 'pulp' space and/or futuristic vehicles, they don't look remotely sci-fi now, they just ooze 1950's matinee silliness! Indeed, it looks more like an experimental electric-trolley in a car plant or something, rather than a 21st century motorway-choker?

Not only did the pulp stuff reflect the 1950's, but it reflected the 1950's retro-referencing the 1920's art-deco movement or the 'jazz age', this is more Empire State than Palpatine's Empire, more Metropolis than Martian!

The flatbed is slightly too short to take the little car we've seen before and I don't know if it came with any load? Often these 'dime-store' vehicles were sold lose from counter/shelf display boxes and there is usually a few different vehicles in a similar style, but a cursory-look hasn't found much on this one; a similar tanker was all I could find?

The 'U.S.A.' has been removed, but the Ideal remains, suggesting a UK or European partner was leant or given the mould, probably the Leicester thread of the Ideal Empire? Scale is a hard one, what sort of engines will they have in the future-past of the 1920's, is it a light utility vehicle or a heavy planetary-expedition vehicle with crew-cab?

Going on the windows (and the little car) it's a large lorry/truck vehicle in 1:72nd scale, but going on the contemporary die-casts, a 1:43rd'ish van! Also it's a soft polyethylene where you'd expect the US production of the time to be hard styrene or something less stable!

And similar to the larger (and nicer!) Archer vehicle Geoff posted the other-day.

G is for Going . . . Going . . .!

A cheap segue to look at the Hilco space figures, but there you are; I'm clearly a manipulative bastard! No, I thought there were similarities between my broken unknown spaceman and the Hilco figures (although I think 'technically' these were/are the full "Johillco"?), not least that he's in the same state as most of them, who are getting increasingly brittle!

He is similar to one of the [Jo]Hilco figures, but probably only because both are channeling the100-odd-mm  Archer 'space' grenade-thrower (looks like a foam or Velcro lawn-dart!) pose. The picture on the right is from a series I took in 2012 and destined for a future post, the guy on the left has (at time of shooting) just had his weapon's tip glued back on . . . ohhh! Misses!

Because this is how I found them - for the second time in recent years! The kneeling guy was OK and the shooter just needed a little work on his . . . err . . . tool! But panic-central guy was in a hell of a state! The two yellow arrows show previous mends, and getting the left hand guy back together was exactly like working with chalk.

How they look now (March 30th), and they won't move until I've bought a box of cotton-wool, at which point the bubble-wrap will be replaced with a bed of the stuff, and a second layer will be placed over them, thick enough to hold them firm when the lid pushes it down, but not so wadded it breaks them again!

I shot these on Adrian's table at Sandown Park's toy fair (back in 2012), you can see the kneeling guys tend to survive (with care) and fifty-years from now he'll be the only pose in collectors' collections! But the waist of the robot is a definite weak-point.

I thought I had a robot, as I remembered gluing one (at the waist), but I think I must have mended some of JB's years ago. In the meantime I shot this guy when I posted all the robots a while ago, and as well as the comparison/group shots, I posed him separately (as I must have subconsciously known I didn't have him?), so we have four poses and a broken duplicate in the whole image.

I don't know how many there are altogether; the early PW guidebook (B&W editions) have a similar figure with a base which they think isn't from the set, while the full-colour edition has a very nice pre-production test-shot never released (which looks to be in a non-chalky, therefore, lasting polymer), along with a walking figure which takes the set-count to five?

Also, despite the Hilco/Johillco comments at the start I wonder if they were only ever Cherilea? Firstly; Cherilea are known for their early, chalky, explosively-brittle shite and secondly while these are from Johillco hollow-cast moulds, later, Cherilea also issued them in hollow-cast . . . looked at here, where a sixth pose is the crawling figure.

There are also two (Cherilea-only) monsters (a cata-slug and a running gecko-dragon thing) neither of which have I ever seen in plastic? However, I think I have seen the rocket and separate launch-ramp in plastic? Joplin adds a Buck Rogers Treen-type and a vending-bot, along with a seventh 'human' (the plastics are always painted as green 'Martians') spaceman holding a dumbbell aloft! Joplin believes the boxy-bot and 7th humanoid never went to Cherilea.

But it's not clear when the mould went to Cherilea, and what packaging any Hill plastics might have appeared in, but for Cherilea to issue them in late space boxes already printed for the hollow-cast figures seems sensible?

Wilfred Cherrington is credited with designing these, and it may be that - with or without permission (?) - he took the mould as part of his severance from Hill, which would make the plastic figures a Cherilea thing.

Summing up of the preceding text!

M is for More of a Ramble than a Return!

We looked at these a while ago here, when I got my main sample, both carded and loose, but since then a few more have joined the 'legion' and more details have emerged which change the narrative slightly, so we'll have a meander through  them . . .

. . . starting with the most recent additions, which are two of the original (except they aren't 'original' anymore!) Legione Spaziale (Space Legion) figures from the previous post; an orange one and a fleck-marbled yellow one, along with two much better versions - in the 'proper' pulp-era metallics!

New ones added (orange asterisks) to the rest I already had, along with a bronze one kicking about and with a helmeted bronze version in the poorer sculpt-finish of the [not] originals, gives me six poses and three generations; poor, not-so-poor with helmet (1) and good (2).

But what we saw previously is only half the story, the better moulded ones are the originals, the poor ones are complete piracies, even down to . . .

. . . the packaging! They are a little bigger and it's a tighter-cropped image, so they appear even bigger, but basically one set - on the left - is a pulp-era set (1950/60's), the other is a cheaper fake (and that's the correct term when you're copying the product and the artwork), designed to look like the original, possibly as late as the mid-late 1970's?

That was sort of 'it', as while I had these two images and was pretty sure that they were mine and that they were the small copies (they are a mix of old Archer and Premier/Tudor Rose poses) I couldn't find them, so I didn't know for sure!

The blue guy is the Premier/Tudor Rose pose; also covered by a company in Australia - if memory serves - in the larger scale.

Then - looking for them - I managed to find two lots, which with the new pair and the bronze 'kicker' gave me twelve, or a small shed-load! Which I haven't photographed as they are only the three poses and the information is in the other images above and below, but I'll show them in the future when I've found all the poses in the better sculpts.

I also found the Christmas cracker prize ones, and another oddity, so thought 'fuck it' and grabbed the Lido (et al) box while I was at it . . .

. . . to get this comparison of smaller 'pulp' spacemen done! We'll look at the helmeted one (unknown I) in a second, while the blue one with an added base (unknown II; ee's 'armless! Or; it's der Milo from Venus!) will be back in the next post, the rest are - hopefully - annotated with clarity?

The Post premiums are the smallest, while the cracker giveaways are heading toward a standard size, the rest are less than half the size of the Archer and Glencoe (Archer re-issues) sets - which we will look at another day, with the originals (a) slightly taller than the copies (b and unknown I).

I saw another of these the other day, same colour, same helmet foxed with a tub of glue-fumes, different pose (but from the six), so I suspect (guess, assume, presume, imagine!) that A) he was/they were possibly a single thing, bubble-gum, cereal, pasta? Something like that, and probably Italy (as per the other two versions) or France, and B) is the original of the multicoloured copies, being ever-so-slightly better detailed, but much worse that the true originals, i.e.; the chronologically second of the three versions, and the first of the two generations of piracies.

So, someone made the original Legione Spaziale and may have given them helmets (which have been lost?) but I've never seen them, then someone-else copied them, with badly or heavily glued-on helmets (which do survive!) and issued them singly (?) as some kind of premium/giveaway or capsule/pocket-money toy? Then a while later; they (or a third party) found (or obtained) the tool (of the copies) and re-released them in candy-colours without helmets (there were no helmets in the big stock-bags from which my previously-seen sample came from) on a copy card of the original Space Legion. But . . . that is all, mostly conjecture?

Ghosts in the machine!

I is for Intermediate Scales - 40mm Wild West; Introduction

The following image is the comparison shot for the three posts which should have appeared immediately below it.

Both images consist of a Merten 40mm Wild West figure on the far left of the line-up, followed by - from left to right - an early Culpitt's cake decoration with separate base, also issued as carded rack-toys in France by Jouets Super Plastic (JSP) shipped into Portugal by Injectaplastic, a late Culpitt's version with integral base, a - probably Hong Kong - copy of Atlantic in that tinny plastic of the 1990's and a similar Waddington's clone - except it may not be a clone, but more on that in the relevant post below this, so scroll down if you want more on all four types.

I couldn't find the Elastolin box, so I couldn't add one each on the right of the line-up, as I had intended, but they are much-of-a-muchness with the Merten's, only Elastolin's sculpts tent to be slightly sharper in the sculpting/finish.

I is for Intermediate Scales - 40mm Wild West; M is for Macau

It's also for Injectaplastic of Portugal, Jouets Super Plastic of France, and - as we know them here - Culpitt's the cake decoration people. We looked at them years ago, and as far as the figures go I haven't got much to add, but hopefully the imagery is a little better this time . . . or at least - I think we've seen them before, but finding the old image un-cropped in the dongle folder, I'm not so sure, and  - in case I don't have time to check - I've added it to the end of this post.

So - the Indians or Native Americans first, and the upper row are the earlier versions, the lower two rows are the latter ones, possibly only issued as cake decorations, but the more we learn about all this stuff the more they turn-up elsewhere as something else or claiming to be someone else's!

The separate-based set has more poses and are slightly larger/better etched and - as stated - here in the UK were cake decorations handled by Culpitt, on the continent however they were imported by Injectaplastic of Portugal, and - through their packaging - we know they were made in Macau (a 'free' colony (similar to Hong Kong and just along the coast from it . . . also 'handed back' at around the same time?), they probably also supplied the sets branded to JSP over the Pyrenees mountains in France?

Unlike the cowboys we'll look at in a mo', the Indians are pretty original is sculpt/posing, with a slight nod to other makers in the spear-thrower and maybe the chief?

From an evilBay-lot a while ago, the Jouets Super Plastic set from France, as almost certainly supplied by Injectaplastic, these sets don't have any more poses, but they do have various accessories including both a teepee (or tipi) and a totem-pole, both of which seem to equate to the 'eighth pose'. There was also a camp fire and the fort, along with some rock piles which were issued with both cowboy or Indian cards.

Note the different coloured trousers on one figure, from the 'UK paint-scheme'?

The cowboys; here there are eight poses, and a definite Marx influence to most of the poses, from the larger 4 and 6" figures - much copied, particularly in Hong Kong? Unlike the Indians, the cowboys get different-coloured bases, with consistency between pose and base . . . or at least there was consistency before the green ones which match the Indians started turning-up! They're possibly Portuguese/French examples (?) and the two in the full row always have green bases, so it's not an exact science!

The upper row are darker fleshed (possibly Injectaplastic/JSP) and seem older, below them the full row is Culpitt, then the replacements with the moulded bases and finally a set which seem to have an all-over tan paint (on tan plastic!) before the other-colour highlights to match the usual scheme?

Each generation gets paler flesh . . . they go from the harder tanning of the early figures to almost white!

Backs and bases, the drummer and the native woman could almost be used as pencil-toppers, but I think it's just a material-saving device on the part of the manufacturer?

I may have shown you this already? Anyway; I showed more colour variations but in a less clear fashion and with the earlier figures in the centre of a sort of exploded graphic or pictogram. And with a smaller sample in those days (shot was taken in 2009) the separate base cowboys are a mix of [what might be] earlier and later figures.

I is for Intermediate Scales - 40mm Wild West; Atlantic Copies

Presumably Hong Kong but unmarked so no guarantee, they are however in that tinny polyethylene which was quite prevalent in the rack-toys of the late 1980's and 90's and follow the style (and size bracket) of figures from DFC and others.

Copies of Atlantic, most from Laws and Outlaws, one (lasso) from the Cowboys on the Ranch sets, the forth figure is purported to be Wild Bill Hickock and is the only 'character' figure copied from the Atlantic sets to this effort.

The colours are a greyish-white (showing bluish in the above image) and a pure white (creamier above)which seems to be the commoner, but that could just be the serendipitous or coincidental way they've come in?

The Indians also run to six poses, taken half-and-half from the two Sioux specific sets; Torro Seduto Sitting Bull (smoke signaller and the two heavily-armed warriors) and Sioux Camp. Colours are brown and blue, with the brown seeming far more common but the same caveat applies.

Some other buggers effort, painted to a 'toy soldier level' it gives you some idea of how these would paint-up - he's clearly not to be engaged in an argument!

I wanted to add an HO one, but could only find the cavalry/ACW over-spill and they have no sitting figures, so it's just Torro' himself, which is not the best comparison, as he's huge, closer to 60mm size (1:30) than the stated 1:32nd scale!

I is for Intermediate Scales - 40mm Wild West; Ex-Waddington's 'Battle of the Little Big Horn'

Very similar to the next set (above; or click 'newer post' below) and equally unmarked and equally Hong Kong production-looking are these Battle of Little Big Horn clones of the old Rojas e Malaret sculps, except I suspect they aren't clones so much as a late running of the final tool of the two or three we saw here.

Whether the mould was in Hong Kong or was moved to Hong Kong is - currently - anybody's guess, just because some people have attributed HK without recourse to evidence or caviat is not really the point, the figures exist and while those late painted ones 'look' Hong Kong'y, there is nothing to say either way!

Indeed; these may be from a late version of the board game, paint is not necessary for 'playing counters' and while I've never seen a set with these, equally I've never seen a carded or bagged rack toy with them either?

They could just as easily have been run as cake decorations, the same as those very frangible Triang-Minimodels ones - who also have unpainted versions. Note: the second shade of brown.

There is a clear difference is in the horses where there are various horse colours (and I must thank Gareth from Morgan Miniatures for putting a few of these - foot & mounted - aside for the Blog recently), but I don't think there is any import by it, beyond a bit of variation.

The real American [not a] Hero who gets to be massacred again and again and again and again and again and again and again . . . although when I say 'massacred' I mean taught a lesson by the locals "Never go south of the River if you're not properly tooled-up and ready for trouble" . . . . everybody knows that, ask a taxi-driver!

P is for Plastic Power . . . ♪♫ I Gotta' I Gotta' I Gotta' Jigga' Jig-Jig . . . Yeah! ♪♪

There are moments when you struggle to believe you've done something, and at Sandown Park the other day week month one of those moments overtook my ability to escape them and I bought a twelve-inch doll in order to add a one-inch doll to the collection!

A crime; a sin; a monumental act of stupidity I have still to fall-for a possible four-more times! Still, it's a while since we added a Galoob to the tag list, and getting the Spice Girls into the metadata won't hurt traffic!

Probably my favourite spice-girl (if I have one?), Posh was a haughty, humorless, thin-lipped tart, Baby was . . . well; a baby! Scary wasn't and Ginger was a bit OTT, but little Mel C was just a spunky Liverpudlian with a bit of attitude and 'up fer'it, jahnowhatahmeeen yer scally!'

Years ago, we had half a pallet of these to shift at the on-line auction house I worked for and they were bloody hard work, with a 99p start-price 'business-model' at the firm, we let a lot go for 99p, even whole sets of five, some people got mega-bargains!

I nearly got my mate JB to bid on a lot for me at the time, but I couldn't bring myself to subject him to the ignominy of taking delivery of-, or providing house-room for- five Spice Girl dolls! I did get him to bid successfully on the Star Wars stuff we were selling at the same time!

I daren't check what they go for now, but suffice to say I paid too much for it, I won't be telling you what that was, and you can be assured that everything bar the little figure was dropped into the Blue Cross animal-charity shop last Monday [last, last, last, last, last, last, last Monday now]! Sometimes you have to cut your losses and run, to save face; not with your mates, but with the chap in the mirror!

The little figure, however, is in the collection for keeps, I've been waiting for them to turn-up in mixed lots since I first became aware of them, and that was so long ago I gave up waiting and bought a whole caboodle a fortnight ago, just to get one!

Marked with a number and based to match the later combat infantry and Star Wars Micro Machines, the Galoob DNA is clear and as a standalone figure, just a young civilian woman; suitable for O-gauge railways! I wonder if that's where they all are; waiting for trains!

By now you've worked-out that each of the Spice Girl dolls comes with its own doll, the packing of which mirrors the packing of the larger dolls box, I still have four to locate and that's it . . . a bit horrid, but it had to happen - Toys is toys . . . all of them!

News, Views Etc . . . Links

Best Title-headline Ever!
The beauty of Trumps crass stupidity is that he is actually killing his own voter-base! And before they march on Virginia in their cargo-pant shorts, waving their confederate flags, they need to get sun-burnt and inject themselves with Jayes Fluid, not only will it protect them from Covid-19, it'll make them whiter than white . . . doit rednecks, doit!


Toy Soldiers & Candy; what's not to like?
The First two artists in this line-up are worth a moment of your time-spent


The British Toy Soldier Company (made in Stoke-on-Trent!)
News on a new show (which is dated late enough to still go ahead) in an interview with Patrick Adams, collector and maker - I like the Roman cavalry bearing-down on the cricket match!


Nice Idea . . . but . . . 
I'd probably go with a slightly higher-class of rack-toy 'Army Man' if it was up to me!


On the Subject of Army Men;
The rack-toy army women you first read about here (despite the noise generated elsewhere since!), seem to be moving away from the 'pure' rack-toy principle, with some more detailed, real-world figures and a pink option!


New York Toy Fair
Not really 'our' thing as they are articulated action figures, but if you like your sci-fi, or your Halo, this is for you!


Vanessa Childs Rolls
Nice potted history of Canada's reliable plastics


Toy Soldier Confederate
We've looked at Vik Muniz's work before here, there was going to be a retrospective at the Sarasota Art Museum, I suspect it didn't go ahead (covid-19!) but the image can be found on that there wibbly-wobbly-way.


Playmobil - The French Way
The irony of German figures being used to depict French history possibly lost on the curators?

G is for Growing . . . 'Brown Water Navy'!

In the bag that was part of Peter's latest parcel, were these three, which are a perfect addition to the fleet we saw here, although neither plastic toys, nor celluloid tourist trinkets, being manufactured of a base-metal or whitemetal, probably with a high lead-content?

Following the patterns of the celluloid keepsakes, these will probably be the next price-bracket up for tourism; ceramic and ivory being above these, silver-neff at the top? A bamboo-raft punter who looks like one of those fishermen who use trained ducks (. . . cormorants?), a small fishing vessel with three crew and a larger vessel with two crew - I'd like to know how they pulled-in that ton of fish without a winch!

From the other side; the five loin-clothed fishermen are all the same basic sculpt, the arms and legs bent to fit their final position/task, the punter seems to have been built in situ with a soldering iron, or at least - his legs/feet have been?

The 'real' Brown Water Navy liaise with a shore-patrol to check out two fishing boats, paying no heed to the old man on a raft . . . death can come quickly to the un-alert, but when your imperialist occupiers are supplied by Baravelli (figures) and Hong Kong (vessel), what can you expect!

H is for How They Come In - Peter

A few days after Brian's parcel, another arrived without warning from North of the river, something some of you are probably expecting as he's scrupulously fair and seems to send parcels together so if he's name-checked at the other place he's shortly thereafter name-checked here, or vise-a-versa!

An interesting sample of mixed 'odds and sods' (which is right up SSW's street!); most of them happy to wear the 'Novelty' moniker. /the contents of the small bag (bottom-left) is now a separate post.

I'm not so sure about the large pink mouse, however the similar mini-bath duck is a happy receipt, so I can't reject his stable mate and one day there will be an overview of all rodents here on the blog (as there - hopefully - will be for everything) and when that day comes he/she-or-it will be ready and waiting . . . for a second viewing!

The three nutcracker'esqe (or 'Babes in Toyland' style-) guardsmen are part of a larger family which hung around in the late 1990's and early 2000's, I've pinned them to two or three brands and - in at least two sizes - they were used in snow-shakers, the sort of mini-trees truckers' put on their dashboards, as novelty earrings and possibly (as here?) cake decorations.

Both the drummer and the blue-jacketed chap were new to me and we will look at them all properly one Christmas, as that seems to have been their destination, whatever the end-use.

The Kinder eggs carried the latest figure type, and they are both nice (well sculpted and approximately 54mm) and disappointing at the same time.

The disappointment steaming from the fact that as stand-alone figures they are all in a silly pose, yet the point of the pose is a bit pointless, you have to balance the 'shield' on the two hands (not easy as a dextrous adult, god knows what kids will make of the job!) and then flick them [the shields], using the over-designed base, at the paper/card flat 'baddie' targets. The hitting of which seems more unlikely than getting the shield to stay put, but maybe I'm just a curmudgeonly old-git and it's easier on a smooth surface?

I had discovered them a few days before Peter's parcel, but typically in situations like this sod's law meant I had found the same figure as two of Peter's so now have three gold'n'green fish-men!

This is charming, possibly missing a few toes, but then he's probably over eighty and clearly survived Corvid-19 so one can't complain! Made in Japan and a fired bisque, hand-painted after firing there has been a bit of rubbing over the years . . . and another cricketer!

Now . . . we saw the female addition the other day and with another from Peter the total's become seven figures in a few months, from one, and five from Peter - here they all are together.

The new one is a second Spanish National Guardsman (like gendarme); an 'other rank' to my previously found officer, but the officer had a cartridge-paper board to his hat (as the Beefeater also has a card rim), while the new addition has the whole hat in the same clay.

He also has a slightly more expressive face, and while - like Erzgebirge - I suspect a regional aspect to the production, equally I suspect a different locale or town/village . . . the clay's a different colour to the other six, as well?

 

11th February 2021 - Now known to be craft figures (artesanos) from Alborox in Grenada

Another fisherman! Sans rod, so I put a 'pole' rod into the hold for the photograph, the original was probably a length of piano-wire with a piece of cotton-tread glued to the tip? Like the Spanish 'toristicas' in the previous shot, he's a terracotta/clay, rather than the bisque of the cricketer, but is also Japanese I think? And he's been glaze-fired rather than painted.

Aaaahh! I'm lovin' this! I already had the archer on the left and had always thought of him as a cartoony/anthropomorphic ancient or medieval type; a warrior archer, if you like, but the new figure from Peter makes it clear there is probably a set of 'sports cats' somewhere, and gum-ball capsule-machine inserts, or Christmas cracker prizes? Anyone else got some?

I shot it without flash (inset) to show the true colour difference.

Another excuse for a group shot was the china cat, which is also a different colour (darker grey), but the flash washed it out, so they look like twins (centre-left), and - as a group -growing ever larger!

I also have plastic copies/versions of the little kittens playing with balls of wool (front row), which are not direct piracies, being smaller, slightly different poses and . . . for another day!

The three Siamese's (top right) are chalkwear (plaster) and named, but I forgot to note it! The two dirty ginger's are Whimsy's from Wade the rest are porcelain 'ornamentals'.

Finally is this interesting chap, a Maori dancer from New Zealand, who has been glued to a paper or card base of some kind, I suspect as part of a tourist keepsake, but has a brand; G.L Models and may have had a second purpose as a colonial war-game figure, he's the right size and material under the paint?

And many thanks to Mr. Evans again, for another collection of eclectic stuff without the sending of which, I wouldn't have been able to share with you!