S is for Sloppy Research?

Was he going to have a pop at me, but got so old, stoned on med's or drunk that he totally forgot to? Hahahahahahaha! You can't make it up, and there he is scuttling out from under my shadow to tread on my coat-tails again! There are bars in Berlin where my arse is a bigger legend.

 

I have these, as I think I mentioned more than once when covering this stuff over the last few weeks, at the moment they are back in storage, but they'll come out again and and I still won't be that interested in the dates, except on the A-Z entry, if and or when I get around to it!

 

I also have scans of a rival publication which employed square thumbnails of the figures rather that the line-ups in these, while we covered Paul Revere here, 12 years ago - with pictures! Too funny!

T is for Two - Paint Your Own Catalogue Images

These are both 'seen elsewhere's, and it was pure coincidence that I happened to find, or isolate two different 'Pain Your Own' ad's from two different catalogues, which were both branded to classic British plastics manufacturers.

This was from the 1975 Crescent catalogue, and shows the cake-decoration vignette and an incomplete circus set as paint-your-own's or Paint & Play, but I suspect they never made it to the shops? Or if they did it can't have been in large numbers, as pure white or home-painted white versions of either are not something I have found.

There is a large number of the horses from the circus set in white who turn-up, but they are missing their holes (for the acrobat lady) and seem to have been supplied by Crescent for another job? I remember having a debate with the late Dave Scrivener on the subject and neither of us were convinced as to the possible reasons for them!

While the - usually - cake decoration Santa' is always factory-painted (or tatty!) when found, and most unpainted circus figures are in the multi-colours of the Kellogg's iteration, although a few white ones were issued in that promotion, but only in proportion to the red, orange, yellow and two blues?

Note also, the lower 'useful piece' count of the Santa set, compared to the nine-piece (? the weight-lifter and hula-hoop clown seem to have been omitted?) circus set, is bulked out with a couple of standard green 'monkey puzzle' trees.

These - new for 1993 - are from [a] Charbens (the original was bought out and renamed Charpack a decade earleir!) and WERE issued, as I've seen them on feebleBay, or at least I've seen the European Heritage ladies, I think the 'Soccer' footballers were in Plastic Warrior magazine; probably at or around the time of the ad'? As you can see from the hand, these were 3½ or 4" figures and I think they are polystyrene, against the polyethylene of the Crescent sets.

I would add that these Paint & Display sets aren't from a Charbens catalogue, but rather a retail catalogue or flyer (I've lost the reference now, it's around here somewhere, Rainbow or Lion?), so it could well be a Charpack thing (the trays the figures are presented in?), or even a Prindus (Prison Industries) effort, but they wouldn't have had the rights to the Charbens brand mark, however they could have licensed it?

F is for Five! . . . Four! . . . Fire Main Engines! . . .

A while ago . . . February last; Bill 'Wotan' Bulloch, informed the members of an eMail group that a lot was on eBay "Too Good to Miss!", he was right and I didn't miss it, but with no other bids I rather stole it from someone, not that it was 'bargain-basement' but it often goes for twice what I paid, or more, so I was very happy.

I only need the cake-decoration boxed set and the space-station now! Although carded I've  a few gaps still in the Triang cards and still have one US Golden Astronaut card to find. We are talking Triang Spacex today, and Set 1172/16 Mobile Launching Pad, although this set was branded to Raphael Lipkin, not Triang! They were both part of 'Lines II' Triang by that time.

Looks good huh? Nice bit of cartoony psychedelia - with the electric colours and black background it's getting into back-light poster territory! And referencing the Apollo 8 launch, dates itself, or its sales-meeting conceptualisation to sometime in 1968, although the design wasn't registered until November 1969.

Instruction sheet has suffered a tad from atmospheric damp over the decades and got a bit crinkled, but if Putin is preparing the West bank of the Kerson Oblast for a nuclear strike, it may well be incinerated in the next few weeks - too close to Aldershot for comfort in a populist's Armageddon!

1. This is a constructional toy!

Five-stage rocket components; harking back to pulp space-ships rather than the NASA launch vehicles they should have been familiar with at the time. If a man is supposed to occupy the chromed spaceship at the tip, scale is about the same as an Apollo launcher though? And the Russians were using launch rockets with fluted engine-venturi arrangements.

The base of the 'MLP', properly a Missile Crawler Transporter Facility (now just called a crawler-transporter) is a simplified affair, but a stunning thing for what would have been a 1960's pocket-money price, OK, probably a "Save your pocket-money for a few weeks darling and we'll see - your Birthday's not that far off" price, but Raphael Lipkin weren't noted for top-end toys!

The gantry-tower comes in three sections (the top is photographed from both sides) which you won't be surprised to hear are called bottom, middle and top around here!

Added to the tower are a crane visible on the original (see end) and two service walkways scaled around N or Z-gauge compatible.

Start putting them all together and realise it's a perfect scenario for a .gif image, so go and make a .gif image . . .

. . . which goes like this! Forward and reverse; it's very hard to get these .gif's 'just right', I tried slowing it down by a few hundredths of a second, and it became too slow and jumpy, but as it is, it seems a little fast, however it's quite mesmeric, so you can lose a few minutes waiting to catch the exact moment the walkways disappear . . . they appear quite obviously, but disappear in the blink of a fast eye!

And a still image of the crane preparing a Swizzles Matlow sherbet-stuffed Spaceflleet 2000 supply-ship for launch! Although with that ring on the deck of the launch vehicle, it looks like it's about to suffer a drop-test . . . gotta' get the sherbet out somehow!

The outer liner of the box is a slip-off, which always carries with it the danger of losing small components, so it was extra luck that everything was in the box. Also a close-up of the little space-craft which sits atop the giant firework!

End panel of the inner box, not terribly exciting, but it's one of those posts where I'm showing/covering everything, or trying to, if you want more though, Paul Vreed's got it all here!

The real McCoy courtesy of Wikipedia! The crane is quite good, but look at that plethora of service gantries and walkways! Sorry Mike; it was't Bill, it was me, cheer Bill for telling us!

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Torgano Alpini

Bit of a box-ticker this one, I collected an incomplete set of Torgano alpine troops or 'Alpini' a while back, and as the weather was good, I took them outside and shot them in the garden, these shots were the result, and I've shown them elsewhere, so here to tick the box!

54mm semi-flat, or demi-ronde; do you use French for Italian figures? Five of six figures I think, the missing one being a kneeling machine-gunner and the weakest of the sculpts as far as realism is concerned!

The plaque is one of two from our childhood, the other is a squirrel I think, or a badger; I can't remember? But they were obviously bought at a craft fair or some holiday destination as keepsakes, and we had one each hung on the bedroom wall at the ends of our beds - we shared a bedroom until I was sixteen!

Hand-carved sandstone, it originally had a knotted leather bootlace to hang it, but when I found them last year, they are perished brittle with age. Anyone know where they came from? They may have come back from America in '69?

News, Views Etc . . . Kwong Shing et al.

I've added the Kwong Shing entry (Kamley-Kositoys-KS) to the Khaki Infantry page, to which we can now add Larami (LIC) as another importer of their output. The above comparison image is from Brian Berke in New York and shows two sub-piracies, or probable sub-piracies, one lot may well be KS's own? I've included all the similar copies under the same heading until more is known about any of them.

H is for Haha-Haha-Haha-HA!

Or; follow-up to Smash mashed powdered potato Martian Alien Robots!

I have an annoying habit of shooting a post (probably leaving it Picasa for an average of six months!), editing the images, maybe taking  a few more, doing the text/blurb, and then chucking it up on the Blog, trying to check for typo's and finally publishing it, then, and only then, I think "Ooh I wonder what's on eBay related to these?"!

And - imagining all the Loyal Readers have had the same thought, I then rush off to eBay and grab something I probably didn't really need, before any other bright-spark does . . . the other day, after publishing the Smash Martian pencil-tops, was one of those occasions!

And this is what I found! Aren't they lovely, I found some Marx stuff and a chunky bendy-toy too, but these were affordable! Small polystyrene badges of the robots as 'flats', with chrome-effect plating blue-on-white and silver-on-red and green, with a standard safety-pin heat-welded into the rear for attaching to clothing. No obvious maker - for Cadbury's Smash.

I is for Is It Just Me, or Is It Getting Chilly?

We had two heat-waves here, the first breaking three-year old 'new' records by 3°, a trend which if it continues would render large parts of Europe, Asia and the SE of Britain uninhabitable by humans - in a heat-wave - within about 20 years? But after the second, not so hot but more humid, so equally uncomfortable heat-wave, the weather has gone rapidly downhill, and it's got quite chilly, but then I guess it is October, maybe the summer just lasted too long!

Anyway, seems like a good excuse to get the cold-weather gear out and check it over, these are all Kinder; 1980's/90's, and they are ready for anything the climate throws at them! 20/25mm at the top, 28/30mm compatible in the middle and a decet stab at 54mm with the 'steckfigur' at the bottom, who has lost the backs of his skis, and his boots . . . sniff! The silver blob was off some cartoon thing; long-lost.

I have a blue/white one who has his boots, so if I ever find the missing ski sections I will be able to re-shoot them both in some sort of order? All polyethylene, and with moveable arms/articulated waist, they are a useful addition to Timpo and/or Britains polar explorer/Esquimaux/Inuit sets.

There's the colour reversed version of this on evilBay at the movement, he's more of a novelty toy, and winter-sports rather than polar explorer or native hunter, but fun, Kinder, polystyrene and possibly a bit earlier, although still 1980's I think?

K is for Khaki Infantry Page - Update

I've added some well overdue updates to the Khaki Infantry Page; a complete set of Benbros in near factory-fresh condition, another complete run of poses to the CMV section (courtesy of Brian Berke) and a new entry - ABC - courtesy of Chris Smith.

 

But as you can see from the screen-cap, there's plenty more to come, with new sections in the works for Kamley/KS et al., and  Dorset/Marlborugh/Weston. You can also see Airfix page updates gathering in the background and a mini-season on Lik Be-Holly-Jaru in the pipeline!

O is for Old-fashioned Odd & Sods!

The finale post in this hexapartite mini-season on old fashioned cars, brings us back to the Americans, even though one's a British brand! Yes - of course I Googled synonyms of 'sixth', I'm not that bright!

We looked at this years ago, but on that occasion we looked mostly at the figures, with a quick look at a car I had removed from the game-mechanism . . . this time we're concentrating on the car, as I found another going cheap in a charity shop and took photographs as I went about the vandalism! Love the artwork!

Made for Parker by Tonka, but as everything, box and components is CE marked, they must be recent enough to be from the Tonka-Hasbro-Funrise era, which - these days - also includes Parker Games, among many others! Hasbro's tentacles are very-much like the old Lines Brothers!

The spinning cars are easily removed with a sharp ker'nighff, and because there is a 'curb' running along the . . . err . . . running-boards, it's easy to get a nice straight line! I actually did the job without the driver in the way, proving that these shots are posed 'fake news'!

Which leaves us with a nice, if rather simplified 'ready-made' hoodlum's runabout, a mid/late-20's, prohibition-era, sports-convertible with the roof down. Would I be way-off to suggest Buick lines? And quite large, maybe around 1:40th in scale?

Last time we looked at this I think I may have said something about the small, simplified driver, but I've realised that as an American Mafioso 'drive-by' car, the non-modelled steering-wheel would be the same side as the shooter ("Get your hands on the wheel dude! Jesus!"), and what's actually modelled isn't a shrunken driver, but the violin-case associated with hiding Mr Thomson's famous, fully-automatic firearm!

These three are actually Disney! And a really nasty PVC which sweats an oily/greasy liquid, like a damp, chewy-sweet - they all had to be washed twice before they could be photographed! The wheels are non-turning, but are on a rigid - probably polypropylene - chassis which is clipped to the PVC body. Somewhere between my vague 'mini and 'micro' designations, they might suit 15mm figures?

I think they were made for the UK Disney Stores (most of which seem to have gone now, Reading's might still be in situ?) by Rainbow Toys, however, Rainbow (also connnnected to Toy Options) worked with LJN in the 'States, so it might have been that they are wider-known toys, possibly sold through actual Disneyland shops in the US or near Paris? Equally, Rainbow supplied Argos the UK catalogue shop, so there could have been several ways of getting your hands on a set?

'The Set' being a re-hash of the old 1960/70'sDisneyland play set from Louis Marx in America, which did have a car similar to the middle one above. It also had an omnibus, but a single-decked affair rather than this double-decker  . . . ♪♪ Big four-wheeler, scarlet-painted, London Transport, diesel-engined, Ninety-seven horsepower om-ni-bus! ♫

Did/do they have a red double-decked jobbie at the Paris Disneyland? I've ever been, something I'm quite proud of, almost as proud-of as the fact I've never watched the Kardashians! That's Old Fashioned Cars for a while, but we will return I'm sure, I found another couple of Hong Kong carded ones taking everything to to the storage unit, and we haven't done the Micro-ones yet!

O is for Oriental Oldtimers

[Heh-heh! I'd written this up at the time, so this was the Hong Kong shite which was supposed to go in front of this morning's Citgo post, while the French stuff was all found in the garage after I'd prepared this one and started the Citgo! 2022 additions in square brackets or with strikethroughs]

A couple more days with no figures I'm afraid, but these need to be ticked-off, a lot are or were rack toys and they were a big part of our childhoods, whether the expensive Yesteryear's from Matchbox, or cheap rack-toys, and whether toys or place-mats, mugs, ash-trays, linen kitchen-cloths, tin waste-paper bins, bathroom tiles . . . d'you remember the bathroom tiles! Yet; they've all but disappeared now?

I love these; they have that cusp of the sixties look about them, half-psychedelia, half early-'70's glam rock, seen in both the card artwork and the plastic colours. The only clue to maker is a submarine-logo which seems to be made from WS and while the card-back shows six vehicles; there may have been more.

It's tempting (and for some time was my general thought on the subject) to think these are Yesteryear copies for the main part, but in fact there are lots of sources, not least several French plastic Marques - as we shall [have] seen in later [earlier] posts.

Here we have what appear to be three Mercers, all plastic but all different when you study them, the support for the front mudguard (fender) for instance has three different design-treatments, the seats all differ, one has a radiator/headlight plug-in, one has only the separate headlights and the third has that whole section as a single integral moulding with the bonnet (hood).

15th August 2023 - The left-hand, better one, is now known to be a Henry Gordy 'Gordy Mite', see card here.

From a production point of view; the plastic also differs with the Minimite all hard polystyrene (apart from the tyres), the unknown all soft polyethylene and the one marked Prosperity Toys being a mix of components in both plastic types - it's also missing it's spare-tyres! [While the Minimite, arguably most likely to be based on the European one we saw in the Fuilor post, has its spare tyres in a different place?

[I've failed to find the links to the similar stuff on Moonbase, despite an hours search, even though I know it's there somewhere!]

Two more, both unmarked, the white one has the look of the Walgreen generics in the first shot but not the whacky colours, and it's not on the card-back, while we had the Matchbox version of the Rolls Royce as kids and the finer bits tended to break (windscreen, headlights), which they are less likely to on a soft ethylene copy!

I think this is a Renault? It's also a fifth or sixth origin/maker to those we've already seen and gives an idea of the 'parts-list' of one of these. Pulled from bins by assemblers working in a hurry; you end up with different coloured seats!

This is also Hong Kong production, but is as good as some of the better French examples we will look at later, branded to both KMC and Mini Models, the polyethylene tilt/cover and tyres are added to an otherwise well made polystyrene model, with the problem of the spoked wheels (simplified on the proceeding models) here solved with clear discs.

Y is for the Yanks Are Coming!

Via France!

C is for Citgo Old Crocks

Sticking with the Hong Kong and rack-toy angles, these are petrol premiums, and it's a US brand I think . . . which would make them gasoline premiums . . . but they are made in France which means they are technically 'Primes' with a silent 'e'!

Original opening text (as far as I got?) suggests this post nearly followed some Hong Kong shite? Anyway, we're back with Cle's production, and like the Huilor post the images are pretty self explanatory so light on the blurb again.

These are remarkably common in the UK for a US petrol (gasoline) premium, especially for a brand 'Citgo' (still going, now technically Venezuelan, but it’s all a bit shaky and the fucking Russians are in there somewhere - bothers me, doesn't apparently bother the PSTSM!) which never had UK outlets to my knowledge, certainly; the odd feebleBay purchase doesn't explain how often you see them here?

So I'm guessing it's ex-factory stock from France (despite the 'packed in the USA' message), never delivered to the client (overstock or cancelled order?) brought over - probably to the BP Fairs Sandown Park toy fair - by French dealers? Mine are all series two, series one were packaged more like oversized book-matches in a fold-over card. Also I am missing number seven of eight.

The missing Rolls Royce 1931 is bottom-right.

Two of the above cars were also in the Huilor post; the 1922 Hispano Suiza and 1926 Isotta Fraschini, I'm guessing the others would have been Huilor premiums as well, Cle pretty-much only did premiums for other parties.