C is for Canoes - 4 - Star Toys

Possibly the most amusing of the Hong Kong copy canoes, is the Star Toys effort . . . 

. . . as they copied the Timpo design with the 'stitching', but the material and style of the Herald with marbled polystyrene, in similar colour palates. Brian's is the light/dark-grey one and mine the sand/dun one, I seem to have taken a few shots trying to get some without too much reflection!

 

And while the boat is all Timpo in design, the crew are all Herald! So it's a fifty-fifty split on donors with no cut-n-shutting! The crew on the instruction diagrams bear no relationship to the actual figures. Like a lot of Star's production, they are both soft, PVC copies of the Britains men.

 

The bits in the background are too mixed to attribute, there are what look to be three Star bases, but there were dozens of issuers of these Timpo, Britains Swoppet and/or Lone Star copies and with the fourth base not Star, we have to assume they have/might have - all been mucked about with!

 

Mint sets are the only way to attribute all these properly, and that's a big job for another day, although we looked at a small import/jobber's set by Benkson, not that long ago - Britains and Lone Star poses if I recall correctly?

However, the boat and paddlers are the Star Toys one, in the same colourway as my carded example, but courtesy of Brian Berke, I think (it may be a feeBay image?). That's Star, a bit of a brief box-ticker, but most of these canoe-posts will be!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Uniformed Personnel and Historical Troops

The 'historicals' and emergency personnel get unified this time, by a matching pair, and I filled the post out with some pirates, well, you would, wouldn't you? It's add them or walk the plank!

The usual shake of Tudor Rose and similar beach-toy/big-box 'ethylenes in the top corner (Theo has given me most of the 'gen on them, for the planned firefighter page), while the motorcycle cop is obviously off another big-box (very big box) toy!

 

He could be re-painted to match the pale fawny/tawny . . . 'taupe' uniforms of Officer's Poncherello or Baker from ChiPs, one of our favourite early evening entertainment slots when we were kids, Harley' Electra-Glides? Only a Sportster trumps them!

 

Two chauffeurs,  the larger having something of the Hong Kong clockwork/push-and-go about him, the smaller could be from anywhere, and a policeman on traffic duty. Now, I think we've looked at him before, and a shout went out in Plastic Warrior magazine - they're having some sort of get-together on Saturday I believe - I think I'm washing my hair that day?

 

But as yet there's been no comeback on what must be a largish toy. He's a hard, but glassy, early polystyrene, with a heavy metal mounting rod, internally set, I suspect a clockwork Hong Kong traffic Island toy (not very British, but a change of figure, and you could produce the same toy for various markets), but equally he has the look of an early British-made figure, so any glues gratefully received.

The pair; they are equally interesting, the breadth of subject would suggest tourist items, but they are quite small (about 45/50mil) and there's no sign of key-ring chain etc . . . yet, while they look quite new, the material on the chipped base appears to be a form of vulcanised rubber, similar to vehicle tyres . . . so I wonder if they are in fact pieces from an older, London-centric board-game, also aimed at tourists?

 

Meanwhile, the pi . . . err officer of the law to their right, is too-humorous to be making 'that' point, and who'd try to get away with it in public, so I'm guessing one of several/many similar pig-occupations, from one of the jewellery-shop window sets of overpriced resin tat?

There were five piratey pieces, two of which are beyond the scope of the Blog really, and have gone to charity, but they have been shot for ITLAPD, and that's why they were sent! These are well within the scope, and we've seen the lady here, the figure on the left is new, PVC and probably from a cheap rack-toy, but I bet there is another pose, if not three (two pairs maybe), so that search is now on!

 

While the one in the middle probably has some age, and is best described as a pre-Soma, Soma-type! Squat, softish polyethylene or rigid PVC and rather play worn, but a nice find on Chris's part.

 

To the above I've added a few full-military types; of which the Victorian paper 'scrap' is probably the nicest item, I will scan it in and post it on the Airfix Colour Party page as a painting guide type thing! The Speedwell is damages and home-painted, but I'm not sure if I have one, so it stays as a sample for now, while the pair of Risk figures will be checked against the rest for colour variance! Even the semi-flat finding is fun, and will get a bag for now, probably an old Schneider?

C is for Canoes - 3 - Timpo and Copies

Some of those children of the 1960's and 1970's who failed to receive a Britains Herald or plain Britains canoe, did so not due to parental cruelty, but because they got given the Timpo one/s instead! This post will look at them and some copies.

Brian's is in a nice - if slightly unrealistic - duck-egg blue, the colour of one of our childhood ones, and while things are slightly calmer than they looked in the introductory post, matey in the stern still has his knife out!

 

I have a couple of the smaller ones, in fawn/sand and cream, and the larger four-man one, in screaming red, which came a bit later I think. But not much later as both these have the earlier painted designs on the prow, done with a print-maker's rubber roller, I'd imagine, highlighting the raised areas of the designs - later issues weren't painted.

 

Also a tad later (I think?) was the trapper version, with the coonskin cap on standard body/legs, but a pink 'white man' head! There was also a pile of pelts/furs in the canoe with a cooking pot and musket (left-hand example) or Winchester (right-hand one) which plug-in to the load.

 

Undersides of both with the smaller counter-weight, I don't have the larger one yet (if anyone has a spare?) and the Britians copy is only there to prop both the Timpo canoes in place for the photograph!

 

Timpo used a copper-plate or anodising to protect their keel-weights, so they are less likely to be set-rigid in the canoe, with rust, like some Britains ones, which had a thin and rather ineffectual layer of galvanising.

 

From the old attempts at 'photo-realism' folder (there's still about 20 shots in the folder!), which must be about 12-years old now? In order to get the shot without the giveaway shadows, or something technical like that, I had to cut most of the bottom off, can't remember exactly why, but that's how it shook-down!

 

Hong Kong copies; I don't have a set/brand or even identified crew for them yet, but they are given away by their more pronounced 'shark's teeth' edges (gunwales?) and slightly more flimsy colours!

 

Brian has an even poorer one, hard to judge, but I think it's a lot smaller and thinner, and as you can see semi-transparent plastic with even sharper shark's teeth! And when I say poorer, that's a judgement on the manufacturing quality, not the fact that I won't grab one when I see one! Also, Brian has managed to colour-match with his Timpo original!

 

The crewman is, again, a poorer copy of another maker's, the Red Box (Redbox) 'Buffalo Fort' play set, however as this pair, will be from a cheaper, probably bagged, rack toy type, and equally-probably modern CHINA production.

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Monsters!

It is always the unexpected oddities which make 'mixed junk' lots so interesting and fun to unpack and sort out. I've had an odd finger puppet in the collection for many years, a vaguely Kaiju looking monster.

One of the first things I saw when I'd lifted the bags of small scale Hong Kong Wild West off the top of Chris's parcel contents was another, a frisson of disappointment crossed my mind, because when you find a second of something, there's always the possibility that 'that is that', a one-off, of which you now have two . . . 

 

. . . but then I found a second, buried, and instantly thought 'another', then saw it was different and looking again at the first one, realised neither is the same as my hanger-around (who has a smoother 'skirt'), so immediately went to officially bloody chuffed with these! I further have a vague memory of a fourth now, in brown, but I may have invented it in my head?

But, yeah! When it comes to 1970's (or even 1960's/) rack-toy tat, these will take some beating! And I love them, cheers Chris!

Another oddity in the most recent lot from Chris was this, which is sort of a bull, sort of something more fearsome and nameless, Devil'some even, yet also cartoony!

 

I'm guessing it belongs to one of those double string things, with the discs at either end. Where it would dance up and down the lines, due to the holes in hands and feet. Like the skeleton and Devil-Santa we looked at in [a] previous lot/s from Chris. But it could be a sort of Jacob's ladder climber type thing - fun anyway, and new to Blog!

C is for Canoes - 2 - Britains Herald and Copies

So, who didn't have one of these when they were a kid? You didn't? You may have a case at the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, or wherever - 'parental cruelty'! I think we probably got ours in our Christmas stockings around 1969/70? But they may have been a summer treat to play-with in the inflatable paddling pool?

 

This was a different packaging than I remember, although it changed several times, in fact the following of the canoe-cards, the Elephant-boxes and especially the catalogues in the 1960's & 70's is a journey in itself from B&W, to psychedelia, through flower-power and glam-rock to something more conservative and boring in the 1980's!

Brian has two, both manufactured in the earlier marbled plastic which was to try and recreate the natural wood and hide products used in real life, but, it has to be said, the design itself was 'Theme Park', I remember hiring canoes like this from Wellington Country Park, and they were aluminium shells with fibre-glass-reinforced plastic seats and fittings!

 

The crew of his fawn one have the later, more colourful, paint-jobs, the grey boat's crew have the earlier 'buckskins', and the boats had stickers of the US interwar pattern, international military-aircraft recognition roundel!

I believe that when the type 2 appeared, it first appeared in this guise, as a trapper's boat with a Native American Indian . . . mate, partner, guide . . . servant? Both vessel types had the bent wire-rod counter-weight, which serves as a keel and keeps the otherwise very buoyant toys level and realistically low in the water.

 

Mine; I too have a marbled 1st type, with the trapper-era type 2 in the middle and a final iteration on the right of the trio, new mouldings of crew are given a Deetail compatible 'wash' finish in a leery orange!

 

Although the crew of the third canoe are genuine Britains, the boat itself is from the Red Box (Redbox) 'Buffalo Fort' play set I think, which has mostly Airfix figure copies - Indians in red and the cowboys in blue - for US cavalry!

 

Comparisons, the pictures pretty-much say all that needs saying, the new ones were a tad bigger, but then with Deetail, everything was bigger than Herald, with heavier sculpting too.

 

Brian has a nice copy, no brand attribution at this time, but similar to and probably 'after' the Supreme one, but it's superior for having a crew!

 

The Supreme one is a bit more colourful, but didn't get a crew, so I've used a couple of 'unknown' crew, which I've also shot in close-up, as we won't see them again in these posts. 

 

One of the Supreme sets which the copy came in, we saw a copy of the copy in the introductory post, smaller, but copying the same colour-scheme as the Supreme/SP Toys example. Note also; the raft and oar.

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Animals

So, an eclectic bunch of animals in the latest parcel from Chris, dinosaurs, wild, farm, zoo and domestic, it's all grist to the mill!

Particularly interested in the larger version of my childhood favourites, the rubber 'jiggler' Dimetrodon, immediately below one of those childhood steggie's, who is next to a Natural History Museum one from Invicta, the collection of those is growing now, I think I have four, with a duplicate Tyrannosaur, always look out for them in charity shops! But the highlight . . .

 

. . . was another of the 'cracker toy' dino's and it's another Dimetrodon (four in the parcel!) . . . my favorite Dino! As with the other example Chris found (see Blog passim) it is bigger than the wild/domestic animals I have been collecting for years, but has the same block-design to the third part of the tool.

 

A couple of Hong Kong novelty hollow 'styrene horses, the one on the left new to me, the one on the right is a 'realistic' colour version of some I have in chromed gold I think? Not sure if bottom right is a sheep, a goat or a something else, adult or kid? But it's new to me!

 

I thought the swan might be for matches or toothpicks, but Chris said probably a pencil sharpener, and there is damage suggesting something was set into it, so I think he's right, it's a very delicate moulding. While the pink cow seems to be from a peg-board type infant toy like the one we saw here from Raphael Lipkin, but with more realistic animals?

 

The sausage dog is a relief flat, probably from a Christmas cracker, likewise the little poodle, while the other - white - dog, is the Matchbox pointer/gun-dog.

Two of the Merit/Cereal premium animals, a wooden lion which might have been part of a mobile, maybe off a pram? A lovely blow-moulded lion and two cracker/gum-ball elephants. The rhino is another cereal premium; Kellogg's, while the gorilla is a new sculpt to me and the slightly-daft looking giraffe is resin and probably a modern gift-shop piece?

 

Chris pointed out the smaller, better detailed, novelty/charm elephant which I had noted was hard 'styrene and better sculpted (early), is actually marked BERLIN with a sash/swage across his body, which I hadn't seen! So he could be a memento of the Zoological Gardens ('Zoo') which I knew quite well as the two pairs of ornate entrances opened onto the busy area of pre-unification West Berlin, and I did visit it once. And something that small may have been a premium gift with a child's ticket?

 

Taking to the water, and we have a rubber jiggler crock', two pencil-tops, a frog and a shark, a magnetic novelty tortoise, who might be meant to be a turtle it's not clear, but they look like feet, and a flying fish. There is a bag of magnetic turtles/tortoises, and they will - eventually - all be paired-up. And a hooped duckling - from a home fairground-sideshow type game, or a gum-ball, capsule-machine charm?

 

The rest, a Hong Kong novelty pig, a pretty blue lemur, a Hong Kong ape, sans arms and a really nice composition rock ape, which Chris did try on evilBay, but no takers, so I was the beneficiary of apathy and disinterest! The closest match I can find is Lineol's Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus), but the face is forward, not turned as is the Lineol, so a lesser makes copy?

Thanks again to Chris, a couple of monsters next, but more canoes tomorrow!

News, Views etc . . . PW Show!

Well, you can't say I haven't been busy! We're only four and-a-bit-days away from the big one, the best Toy Soldier Show in the world, by a country mile, but a couple of things to note;

Peter Evans has pointed out there's a rail strike on Saturday (just fucking pay them, Christ; the amount of money the Tories have shovelled into their own pockets or let Truss piss up a wall!), which will affect travel in the area of the show;

"For those of you planning to come to PW on the 13th

At present, there is a train strike on that day.

 

The Tube and London overground will be running, National Rail will be affected

From Richmond station, buses 110 and 490 leave from the front of the station and go to Whittham.

 

Journey takes about 20 mins.

 

Hope to see many of you there."

 

To which Brian Carrick added;

 

"If taking the 490 bus, you will need to change at Twickenham Green and take the H22 to Whitton Station.

 

There is also a major event on at Twickenham Stadium (date moved due to the Coronation) causing restricted parking in the streets around the venue north of the A316 but no restrictions to the south of it in the streets off of Meadway (TW2 6PW).

 

The A316 can be crossed by a subway (underpass) from the top of Meadway to Jubilee Avenue, see map:

 

https://www.bing.com/maps?q=meadway%20twickenham..."

The 'event' is the Army v Navy match . . . now, having in my past been responsible for signage at both Twicker's and The Stoop, I can assure you that The Winning Post can be heaving on an International or Cup Final match day, it shouldn't apply so much to the services match, as many of the audience/supporters will be bussed-in and bussed-out by their units, and probably won't head up to 'our' venue.

But it may get busy nearer kick-off (2pm), there will be some private travel up the M3, from the Aldershot area (home of the Physical Training Corps who like a sports event!) and Portsmouth/Southampton (Navy) so I'd advise sellers to travel early to guarantee a park (but there shouldn't be a shortage in the morning) and buyers to travel early for pedestrian traffic reasons.

And if there are parking problems toward midday, The Stoop, halfway between The Winning Post and Twickenham Stadium (on the other side of the road) opens it's parking for what I believe is a reasonable rate - for London! As does the field between The Stoop and the Hotel, so there won't be any real problems.

See you there, and if you've got a bag, box, tin or tub of 'interesting' junk, bring it along and I'll probably give you money for it! The guy's on the door can point me out!

C is for Canoes - 1 - Introduction

Voyagers Canoe - image origin unknown

 

So, this has been building for sometime now, and I can't remember if Brian Berke started it or answered a call, but back in the Autumn of 2020 he sent me a shed-load of stuff on Western canoes, which got me digging out and shooting mine.

 

Then something happened and it all went on hold, then Mum passed away, then time, then I posted something else, then I ran out of time again, then I lost my Mojo, then my Brother, then HMRC, then HMCTS, then I posted something else, yada, yada, and, and, and . . . they're here now!

 

This is Brian's 'sizer', we'll be looking at all these and more over a series of, err, about 22 posts? Which with real life and other stuff will get us pretty much to RTM, given I will alternate with other posts, so you don't get Canoe'd out!

Also, because it was a while ago that the notes were taken, Brian may have to correct the odd detail as we go! So, from left running down the column, then the right, we have;

• Don't know! Big, polystyrene.
  
• Hong Kong copy of Britains trapper/2nd type
• Dulcop
• MPC
• Timpo 2-berth
• Hong Kong 
  
• Hong Kong Knick Knack 1-berth 

-

• Post Giant 25mm figures with 6-berth canoe
• Not sure, I think it's the Cherilea/Dorset re-issue?
• Star Toys copy of Timpo 2-berth
• Tim Mee
  
• Hong Kong loosely based on Herald/Briains 1st type
• Hong Kong Knick Knack 3-berth

My storage sample, it has since received all the ones here and gone back to storage (as have the Totem poles been reunited and shipped off again, so we'll look at them again in a year or two!) We did manage to look at the rafts a while ago - they were supposed to be the opener to this season!

The pale one on its side is similar to Brian's dark one, two from the bottom in the right-hand column of his photo, see also below. It's a basic line-up, to which I haven't added that many, a few HK ones and the copy raft seen previously.
 

One of my Sizers;

• Supreme copy of Britains trapper/2nd type
• Copy of Supreme, even down to decoration!
• Hong Kong  copy of Britains trapper/2nd type
• Hong Kong loosely based on Herald/Briains 1st type
• Hong Kong rack-toy rubbish (Rado, Hing Fat, a lesser brand?)

You can see how that pale one is more like a theme-park canoe, with smooth [aluminium] sides, and the trashy one is very loosely based on the Britains trapper/2nd type

Another, from the left and working up to the right;

• Beeju
• Junk one
  
• 'Theme park' one
  
• Herald/Briains 1st type
• Hong Kong copy of Britains trapper/2nd type
• Timpo 4-berth

Two of Brian's with his idyllic little island, which will reappear through these posts and serves as a further sizer/scale guide, here a Hong Kong copy of the Britains 2nd type which I'll be calling the 'Trapper' as I think that's when it first appeared, however by the end it was the only version still in production . . . during the Deetail years. Behind it, the pink Hong Kong one, it's actually quite dinky, but more of a hollowed log . . . for Amazonian Indians!

 

Here we see the 3-berth 'knick-knack', the previous two and a Timpo 2-berth, the Timpo look like they might be on dodgy ground here, he's drawn his knife and the other three boats are rather bearing-down on them!

 

Brian's blue one [is Dulcop] loosely based on Britains 1st version, but with a bowed hull, it has the stars on the prow (or stern here!), a detail Timpo also sort of copied, so the first post will be the Britains family as many of the others come-off them, although there were many metal, wood, US plastic and probably a few Hong Kong novelty ones (like the Knick Knacks) which predate the Herald, but we are looking predominantly at the plastics, and it's a starting point!

Ah, yes . . . if you're really lucky, you might find someone in the Deep South selling their exclusive Terricata canoes! Say it like you heard it dude (or dudess?), Google is obviously for 'woke' pussies! Somebody give them fifty-bucks, they've probably got a jacked pick-up truck to feed!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Intro'

As I mentioned the other day, Chris Smith sent another parcel of chuck-outs, oddments and things beyond his collection parameters to the blog the other day, and I've enjoyed the initial opening, the sorting and the putting away (the last of them went up to the new flat earlier this evening!

 

So it's time to share them with the rest of you, both to entertain as to what is out there, and in the hope you may be able to ID some of the odder items?

 

The parcel commeth;

 

The unpacking and initial sorting! Because they are heading to the larger agglomerations that are the 'To Be Sorted' (TBS) boxes, which contain most of the last four or five months of incoming stuff, from Chris, four or five shows, Peter, charity shops and evilBay stuff*, they first get sorted thematically, so I can then spend a few evenings further sorting them into those boxes, which are also thematic, at which both some go in existing bags with their own kind, some get new bags.

*And in this cycle a nice gift from Jon Attwood.

I though we'd do the 'regulars' here to flesh the post out, and there was another nice bunch of parachute toy figures, as always missing their 'chutes and as always, at lest one with the remains of his strings . . . they are always 'he'!

 

The large painted one is all new I think, current, and we have seen them in several iterations and two or three sizes, but the only other one this size is grey I think, so a single figure vastly improves the overall sample!

 

The blue blow-mould is nice and the third from the left may be an 'all new' version into the collection, the rest will be mostly colour, shade or size variations of existing figures in the wider sample. That page will progress once I'm out of here.

And then there was this guy! It's a man-bat, and probably an unlicensed version of THAT Bat Man . . .but look at his features, his plastic type/colour and his face/overall sculpting . . . then look at these . . . could they belong together? I'm imagining a two blister rack-toy card with this chap and his folded parachute in one blister and a handful of the 'Bad Bat Bots' in the other? Not exactly canon; but a distinct possibility, I think?

 

Seated figures are usually another handful or feature of any lot from Chris, Peter or Trevor, or most of the type of mixed, junk lot I like to bid on. Divorced from die-cast or plastic vehicles, beach toys or model kits where they were drivers, passengers or crew, there's many to find, and many to ID . . . a future project!

 

The green chap looks like he may be from a slightly comical wind-up toy? His arms are movable. I do have a Hong Kong brand for the Kinder-like guy on the right, but I think there are a few sizes of that figure, so they will need careful attribution. If he's the one I think he is, he drives a pull-back motor trike.

 

Finally, this can go here! It's a OBE conversion from a Britains Cossack, into an Indian or Burmese (?) drummer, which Chris got in a mixed lot, it's not the best, but I doubt I could do better, and it's a fun piece, I only hope it was a damaged figure before the work started!

Many thanks to Chris, we will work through the contents of the parcel over the next few days, alternating with . . . drum-role in New York please . . . canoes! If everything goes according to a dodgy plan wot I have got! This will enable me to restock on new plunder at the Plastic Warrior show and get that sorted and shot!