Just before the May show I received a big
parcel from Chris, which was lovely, but
I explained to him that while I was trying to keep up to date with the H is
for's, I would probably do the show reports first, and with Sandown immediately
after PW, and a few other things to hand, a month has gone by! So, let's see what
the blog got . . . around the date of my birthday, as it happens!
Sorting, left of two; I tend to go through
Chris's parcel picking out all sorts of treasures and quirks until I've no room
round me (I sometimes a take a shot at that point, but forgot this time!), then
I realise I need A) some order and B) to empty the box, so I pile by theme,
which doesn't take long.
Here we have from top left to bottom right
- paratroopers, 20th century military, historical/colonial/ceremonial, Wild
West and part of the civilian pile, then, below, small-scale Wild West/Giant/Giant like, cake decorations & premiums, cartoon/TV & movie
related and finally animals, birds & fish . . .
. . . while, starting with that part
civilian pile we have; civilan/sports, aircraft & water vessels, fantasy
& Sci-Fi and a bag of Hungarian stuff which will feature in future posts,
so only a tantalisation today!
The bottom row is civil vehicles, biblical,
military vehicles, odds & sods/scenics and a bag of Toltoys figures, which
again, we will look at another day, in fact I think both bags have gone to
storage now, so it will be a while! And a small toffee hammer we will look at properly
in the next post!
Then I used to photograph the highlights,
however traffic-stats say you like these posts, so most of the more recent ones
(and the show reports) have taken to showing most items, even if we've seen them before,
there's something fascinating about the breakdown of a mixed lot, isn't there?
This time the animals got enough shots to
provide a post/fill this post, and were shot first so here we go. Very pleased
with the mouse, we HAD this mouse when we were kids, I'd recognise those relief-flat
whiskers anywhere, despite many similar mice being issued by the former Crown
Colony. Ours discoloured after a lengthy sojourn in the garden, lost his tail
and went the way of all flesh, I’ll look after this one!
The other three are similar silicon 'rubber
jigglers' with one of my favourite Chinasaurs, a seal and a snake which also -
along with the Dimetrodon - has childhood familiarity!
Polyethylene and polyvinyl here with
another snake, an unusual (in age and subject) Narwhal whale and a dolphin apparently
from the same set, a ladybird ('ladybug' if you have to!), a per'terra'dacktill
and a Natural History Museum dino'
from Invicta Plastics.
Two Torres wine-bottle tag/mascots above and three
deer below, I don't know if they are Preiser
or Merten, but it will be one of
them, and they might have been home painted which makes it harder to decide
without pouring through the catalogues which are all in storage! I think Preiser, purely from the smoothness of
the finish?
A santa sleigh deer here, which will be
useful, as mixed lots of cake decorations of the sort I get occasionally are
often missing one end of the team or the other! Three Quaker horses, very useful, and a Tupperware alphabet animal make-up the rest of the shot.
Domestic[ish] animals and a zebra! The
highlight here being the dog, which is clearly another of those cracker animals, but in a larger size than the wild/farm ones, and like the
dinosaurs (also discovered by Chris) points to a set of dogs? Cats? More to
come on them anyway, I suspect!
Tacked the Biblical's on at the end as a
make-weight! The two on the outsides have probably been seen before although
there are variations, the two in the middle will add to a growing collection
and fill gaps which will complete future posts, I think the smaller one in from
ART out of Hong Kong, who we have
looked at in the past, but he might be a better finished original 'donor' for
the subsequent copied ART ones . . . and - in which case - like the larger
one, possibly Italian?
Often in the background but rarely interfering
helping like his Mum, although he has a habit of wanting to help, with his
teeth, if really valuable stuff is being looked at! Many thanks to Chris for another cracker of a 'red-cross' parcel and part two will be Wild West
and bits.
