C is for Chris's Autumn Parcel - Animals

Some lovely stuff among the animals this time and I've thrown plants and scenery into the mix too! And with ten images to get through, we'd better make a start, in the order I shot them . . . flats first;

The trees seem to go together but the one on the left is common in several sets and we looked at a variation of it here, slightly better sculpted than the above, but the one to it's right here (Scot's Pine?) seems unique to the pair's set.

The seal may well go with the silver rearing horse seen in the ceremonial/historical post, they both have a flared body-part 'base' rather than a flat sheet base, which would make the previous suggestion of a circus set more likely, although this one must be from a circus set, he's balancing a ball on his nose!

A slightly frowning cat observes several toy dogs! Yeah, that was an attempt at a joke; poodles . . . never got the poodle thing! Anyway, a matching pair of cracker toy charms, another in bright yellow who looks like he's got a damaged charm-loop, but it's just a bit of runner, while the painted one is Corgi I think.

The cat is aping older chalkwear stuff, and may be a direct copy, although the chalkwear type wear on his ears is just coincidental, but certainly helps with the over-all effect!

Modern China goose and a really nice pencil-top of some tropical, North American (?) or imaginary species, sandwich a new duck which is a copy of that duck with the solid, conical base which keeps turning up, this one has a thinner, diamond base and might be French.

Lovin' these . . . a few years ago, you may remember I bought a huge lot of capsule and cracker toys for next to no money in one of those not-often-in-a-lifetime deals and Blogged them in thematic posts over a whole December, well, it is my intention in a year or two, once I'm settled and everything is sorted, to re-run those posts in the same order/same days, but greatly expanded to reflect everything which has come in since and everything which has been hiding in storage, that Frog post will now get these three, any others we've looked at and a fair few more besides!

The one in the middle here is one of those jumpers but without innards (or a lump of bitumen!), whether he lost them or was retailed as a cheapie, without them I can't guess, while the one on the left is from one of many frog versions of tiddlywinks, and I think the one on the right is a finger puppet type, his hole is too big for a pencil?

Again a nice top up of cracker novelties (red giraffe, camel, elephants, ostrich) here, a breakfast-cereal premium (bottom right, bison), goofy (or Goofy?) walker, Preiser (?) deer and a novelty panda who's seen better days! The bear is probably newish, but a nice sculpt, and there's a bag of similar items waiting for the snake! I think the rabbit is from a board-game; he keeps turning-up in different colours and materials. Which leaves 'Kong' . . .

. . . who has two sprung mechanisms, one of which doesn't return and I can't work out how to get into him to replace what is probably one of those small dentist's brace rubber-bands? He's unmarked and too big for a Kinder egg, or even most similar products, but he's not the one I'm also on the lookout for from the board games with the mountain and the running players, so anyone know where he's from or who he's from?

Meanwhile the ostrich has the same framed-base/base-mark as my favourite Christmas cracker guardsmen, so while we may never know the Hong Kong maker, at least we can lump two products together in their otherwise anonymous oeuvre!

Best thing in the box . . . alongside the Aluminium artillery! An Ichthyosaur/Dolphin hybrid with a pencil-sharpener up his poop-shoot! It just doesn't get any better; A Swoppet knight? Mounted? Pink caparison? Fuck-that, I've got a googlie-eyed dolphin who sharpens pencils via his bum!

The shark's quite nice too, he's a classic 'gape mouth' counter-top, pick-box toy from anytime between 1968 and yesterday, but with some age! AND, it's quite a good representation of  . . . a mackerel shark? One of them anyway! A Shortfin Mako?

Vac-formed accessories, I imagine probably space-fillers from a dinosaur and/or cave-men play-set tub or toob, with the upper two the same moulding and the lower two more unique (to the group), one clearly painted-up as a volcano, the other more caldera-like - it's what an Atoll looks like if you take the water away - which has been given a cursory slash of lava in red-orange/oxide paint!

Speaking of Dinosaurs, there were three in the parcel, one modern mini, one modernish gape-mouthed Chinasaur and a old rubber job from the 1970's done as a key-ring.

Key rings are a funy one, this is so rusty (and looped)  it's obviously genuine, but these days a lot of stuff, both animals and other figures (Phiadal for instance) and toy soldiers (including crappy rack-toy lumps) are all being given key-rings (with threaded eyes screwed into the tops) by Etsy or evilBay sellers, while the companies (Schleich, Papo, Polytoy et al.) are putting key-rings on their smaller sculpts, so it's getting hard to tell if a modern-looking key-ring started life as a key-ring or not!

Last but by no means least, and we've visited insects several times here at Small Scale World, we have two Christmas cracker/gum ball spider rings and a similar bat, with four flies which seem to be from three sources (1 and 3 from the left are the same, 2 and 4 have differences);"Ooh, flies" go the top three, "Oh shit" go the bottom four!

All good stuff and as always - my profound gratitude to Chris, for saving all this stuff and sending it here, for me to share with the rest of you.

A lot of this stuff gets chucked in the bin, not just by eBayers or car-booters', but some of our fellow collectors, who will just gash it, so when someone chucks a tropical-bird pencil-top in a lot of mixed toy soldiers to bulk-out the lot, and it wends it's way to here, it's been saved, whether it's your 'shtick' or not, whether or not it's mine even, so I am always very grateful to the likes of Chris or Peter for sending these things to me.

O is for Overview - Art's Nativity Again!

So, we've looked at the small scale, and we've looked at the larger ones in a set, this is just the main set of figures, from two sources in close-up. I seem to have shot two sets of comparison photo's, the 'before glue was removed' shots on the white bedspread, the after glue was removed shots on the black background.

Those sold separately, or in sets (without being glued into a vignette) have card or cartridge-paper seals on their hollowed bases, which presumably help them stand on uneven surfaces like the pillow case 'snow' my Mother always placed round the tree, a tradition I've carried-on!

The cards are coded and have a clear Art Plastics logo-mark, it seems the Kings' codes can be interpreted as White King, Coloured King and Kingly King - he can't be King of Kings, 'cos that one's in the manger! The inset close-up is COw!

Speaking of the cows; the glued-in set had a paler wash than the separates, and I found the easiest way to get the glue off (an old brown contact-adhesive of the Evostick type) was sit them in hot water for a few minutes which softened-it off enough to peel away, without, it was more flaky, but firmly attached.

The other animals, having said I don't think these are Fontanini copies (one is, see below), I'm pretty sure they are copies of someone else's (European) sculpts, the sheep are very familiar, as is the 'mirror' image sculpting of the pair, but I haven't ID's the donor yet? Or if I have - they are lost on the Blog somewhere!

The Holy family, and a King, showing the difference in the brown wash (actually a semi-transparent airbrushed coat), The left shot taken before the grub was removed from the bases.

The Wise Men . . . or definitely Kings in this case! A major colour-scheme difference in the kneeling monarch, gives a collecting aim, and hope for wider variations still to be found in the other two? As we can also see with the red Arabian headgear chap; some variation in the existing scheme too.

This shepherd-boy IS from a Fontanini sculpt! In fact we will be looking at his donor in a few days time if everything pans-out, and it doesn't always! He's quite a common figure in various forms, and I think it's down to the rather unique was he's carrying he lamb, it appeals visually, so was much copied.

The vignette's figures were also very dusty, the bases were much darker than the loose set, after cleaning!

I'd shot the loose sample at least twice in the more distant past and these are those shots! stuff does just pile up in Picasa, and one of the things I've tried to get done this year is a better system, or more ordered way of storing them all so I can find older images or supporting stuff!

The angel; it (they are sexless I believe . . . when they aren't impregnating virgins for their boss!) has a hollow back and you can see where it was glued on the wings and the back of the head.

An Art Plastics variation next time, after more of Chris's donation.

C is for Chris's Autumn Parcel - Transport

'Planes, Ships which might have seen trains and automobiles'! Some interesting items were among the vehicular portion of the parcel from Chris, and we're looking at them in this post, starting with my favourites . . .

. . . two anodised aluminium artillery pieces! One slightly crushed! I mean on one level they are the cheapest of cheap tat (and Chris is in agreement on that point I think, I'm not slagging-off a donation!), and as Chris pointed out, probably made yesterday, but on another level they are fantastic, you will by now have figured I like the eclectic, the unusual, the not necessarily seen-before, and these tick all those boxes!

Imagine for a second, these, on a shelf, with some of those 'home cast' spirit painted semi-flat colonials, or sub-scale hollow-cast penny toy soldiers, in shiny pink, heliotrope red, apple green or turquoise? D'you see? Fantastic!

So really pleased with them; they are constructed in a similar fashion to tin-plate toys - slots, folds and soft rivets - but are all lightweight aluminium, and while you may well find similar in an Asian import emporium tomorrow, equally, items like this have been around for years, and this kind of stuff barely ages if looked-after, so they may have some age?

I think the 'napoleon' gun once had some kind of wire or tube trail, which slotted into these two fold-backs, so I will at some point make a replacement with a piece of heavy-gauge brass wire, or tubing, but to stop it tarnishing I'll have to varnish, I suspect? Bending tubes this small is hard without kinking them and would require long thin springs, so it'll probably be wire . . . a sharp A-frame with two tabs to slot into these channels?

Likewise - with the naval gun, I have inherited a brass ring-sizer, and various tiny silversmith's hammers, so I think some gentle tappity-tap-tapping will restore both ends of its barrel and a gentle squeeze in the middle with a leather wrapped pair of pliers will sort the whole thing out . . . then I'll probably find one, pristine, in a charity shop! 

The truck on the left is marked Snap, so had to be Kellogg's Rice Krispies, and there's a page for that! Cereal Offers have the whole story! I had thought it might be a Kinder Unimog upon first sighting, but that'll be for another day. The bulldozer is one of the early, post-war replacements for the card counters in Monopoly sets!

These need further work, probably French premiums, others exist but I don't recognise the ASM mark on these. In 'the stash' I have several sets of these; Bonux has a set I think and they are similar to EKO's commercial set (Spain), while some of INGAP's are already on the Blog, but they were probably copied from someone else and 'W.Germany' was in there too?

On the right the Hong Kong copies of the MPC 'Minis' we've seen before, but there are variants and it's always worth checking them against the rest, while on the left is what I suspect is the forth model in the British comics giveaway we've also seen here, but not this one, which is a Stirling Bomber I think?

This makes sense as the other three I've found (bits of!) are two figuters (Spitfire and Me.109) and a German bomber (Heinkel?), and they were sold in packs of two, so maybe you got two bombers or two fighters, OR two Allied or two Axis? Anyone get Fury, Valiant or Warlord back in the day and can tell us?

The little concord is a mystery, possibly a cereal premium, but a bit small so more likely a capsule-machine/Christmas cracker type, I may have one, in red or green? The rest are 1/600 scale naval aviation machines from model Aircraft Carrier kits, the twin bomber probably being from a USS Hornet kit of the 'Doolittle Raid' (Revell?). Look how big the Tomcat is compared to its WWII ancestors; it can probably carry more war stores than the weight of one of the old planes!

Motor cycles consist of a rack toy in chrome-finish which is new, a cracker/gum-ball type in hard plastic (never have too many of them!) and Indie's ride, loose which will help future comparison shots, along with two larger scale figures for the tub of such chaps, one of whom appears to be an Evel Knievel knock-off!

While on the vessel front we have another lovely Viking tourist memento, but, is it from Scandinavia, or York? The motorboat is a real treat, I have somewhere a survivor of childhood in a badly painted (by me) MTB, which came as a set of four, and while I've seen them on the card (a whole trade carton full at the NEC show), the seller wanted far too much for them, so I passed, therefore it's nice to have one come in, out of the blue.

The two life-belt rings (another came-in today, red/white one!) will go in that bit of the spares zone dedicated to such things, they are often off-the-shelf separates in various sizes, sold through Hobbies, Polk's or Billings and turn-up in loose lots when collections get dispersed by surviving relatives! While the last item is in one of the canoe posts already, and lacks a Smurf crew-member!!

Another 'thank you' to Chris Smith for all this, it should have published much earlier, but today was bitterly cold, and the fire nearly went-out twice, keeping me busy staying warm, or keeping Boysy-boy warm . . . what - he's got four bare feet!

A is for Art's Artisan Accouchement!

Don'tcha' just love Google! We looked at several uses of Art's smaller Nativity figurines last year, and some of these (next few Nativity posts) were supposed to publish then too, but time waits for no man!

This is the smaller (12 items) set of Art's take on what are - I think - old Italian Precepi, in the larger size; not Fontanini sculpts, as far as I know, and there are several sets to look at one way or another, but this is another of those ready-made vignettes with a small assortment of the main characters, a few wood off-cuts (actually carefully formulated pieces, for mass-production!) and - not forgetting - some moss!

Carried/commissioned by Birthdays, the card & gift chain, I took the opportunity to look up Gloria In Excelsis Deo and find out exactly what it means (so you don't have to!), and it's "Glory to God in the highest" which makes sense, it then gets complicated and starts talking about the 'greater' and 'lesser doxologies' . . . at which point I lose the will to stay interested!

You can see that the wooden components are machine routed (larger parts) or die-cut sheet materials . . . nowadays it'll all be laser-cutting! The plastic figures are glued below the moss in the same manner as the previously seen ceramic ones.

Note however; that Joseph is unpainted apart from a few gold-painted highlights, and the baby Jesus is moulded into his manger - as with most of these sets more of a Moses-basket (some irony there!) than a actual manger. And in doing so; follows the smaller scale sets we looked at last year.

C is for Chris's Autumn Parcel - Ceremonial & Historical

Less fighty-bitey, but still fighting men! Dealing with the ancients, medievals, ceremonials and other more colourful types and there were several interesting things among them, not least a childhood favourite, but smallies first;

Seven Giant or Giant-like, the green 'loon' being a less common moulding to find, three items from Quaker Oats's premium line of Gladiators, a broken Marx knight from the Miniature Masterpiece range, I have a whole tub of these, and being hard, glueable polystyrene; I have every intention of having a conversion session in the future, chopping some to save others as all-new figures! To his right (as we view) is the rarer soft plastic version from the window-boxes, which - as they only had a few figures per set - are hard to find loose.

Now, these were awesome! I'd actually found two, a pair in this colour-way and another pair, on feebleBay a day or two before these turned up, while looking for something else, both pairs were chipped, so I left them but, it reminded me we had a drummer when we were kids, he broke once or twice.

Mum dutifully glued him back together with Araldite and rubber bands, this, back in the days when Araldite left a brown vein through the work to show the mend, like cheap Kintsugi (another one for NZ Paul to Google)!

Anyway, to get half a platoon in one lot, no appreciable chips or scratches was a lovely surprise, so a mid-post 'Thanks' to Chris for these lovely chaps, our drummer was yellow or yellow/blue if I recall correctly, so other colour schemes may well be out there. The 'Foreign' probably masks a Japanese origin, although West Germany earned the same moniker between the wars (and immediately after the second!).

Chris even sent the originnal gift- box! As you can see, with or without the packaging, there is a fourth, smaller compartment; I believe that's where 'our' drummer would have been found. A lot of these would have been broken-down and sold as single mouldings in gift shops, tobacconists, corner shops &etc., or eve as actual Fairings so our drummer may have come singly, that way?

But I have no idea if these are 1950's (probably, more likely) or 1920/30's, in which case our drummer may have been a junk-shop find, or part of a mixed auction lot of the type Mum used to bring back from Persons here in Fleet, from time to time!

These have only ended-up in this post as opposed to one of the later ones by dint of the slightly military/ceremonial type on the right, but he may be a bull-fighter/gaucho type, or a Camargue horse-catcher type (their traditional dress seems to be black), or is he a mounted member of the Vatican Guard? The sort of thing you might get from a broken snow-globe, but no sign of glue, so we may assume a set, somewhere, factory painted?

The horse may be from a circus set, while the dancer must be a decoration for cocktail glasses, but she appears to have no damage or missing part, so seems to have been attached to whatever piece of fruit or vegetable (those f**king olives; they taste of soap or armpits), via her pointed foot, or equally pointed hand?

Two sucker Guardsmen; too cool for the photo-bay, so they were attached to the mirror in the bathroom and turned though 90° to make sense - he's actually shooting the ceiling! The Highland piper is one of the - previously seen here at Small Scale World - PVC key-rings, his loop removed and a base added!

Finally the third chap (40mm Hong Kong swivel waste) arrived just as I was shooting some others for a post (I know, we've seen them two or three times already, but I like them!), and he was a colour variation (a more-orange torso, paler trousers) so quickly got added to that in-the-queue post!

My first 'putty' coloured Kulikovo example, his lance-tip is missing, but I have some old Testors body-filler somewhere which is almost the same colour, so with a bit of Plastercine I should be able to mould a new tip straight on, using one of the existing sculpts?

Above the Hun is a Jean knight (or Blue Box? I'll have to compare side-by-side) in a darker gunmetal to the usual silver and below him another of the 'brown' Tatra for Nabisco premium figures, with this Conquistador it's clearer to see the brown is actually a dark bronze/gold than it was with the previously seen Zulu.

And this one is another marked 'Made in England'; I'm still looking for a made anywhere else mark, and having tracked down most of the Rubenstein bagged sets now, have still to find one for these - in any colour - so am starting to question the [exclusively] American 'fact' that they ever had anything to do with them, either as themselves or for, or on-behalf of, a third party / Cereal company?

Cheers to Chris, lots of useful, interesting things here!