M is for Magneto's Magnetic Men & Maidens

I'm not going to suggest Magneto is responsible for all the magnetic novelties copied in Hong Kong from the 1950's until, well, now! Nor will I suggest they were necessarily first with any of them, but I suspect they can claim ownership of some of the originals of/and or some classic firsts.

 

This all (a huge Google session) came about after Chris Smith spotted this in a charity shop cabinet and realised it was ID'ing a past unknown here at Small Scale World, it's the Oompah dancer in his Tyrolean get-up and his lady (not seen before) in her Dirndl outfit.

 

They have a mirrored drum to dance on, with - presumably - a pair of clockwork magnets under the glass/polished surface providing them with their gyrations. I would add that 25-quid takes East Anglian Charity Shops onto a retail universe all of their own, so Chris left it there!

A reminder of mine, on the right, and another Magneto on the left, he usually has a lady to dance around his 'rock', who looks nothing like him having a round base (which won't catch on his rock's corners), and from the styling, I reckon the white ballet dancer we saw on another occasion may be Magneto too, but I haven't tracked down her set yet.

Although when I say tracked down, it was just Googling, and I found all the usual cars, Scottie-dogs, frogs, flying carpets, bath beauties and the like branded to the same German firm, and of better quality than the HK versions, but these things go back to the days of wood, lead and ceramic toys, so the true origins are rather lost. I did purchase the non-magnetic farm by the same company we saw a month or two ago.

 

The one on the right has lost his magnet, while the one on the left, fully marked, has lost power (as has the ballet dancer), but these novelty magnets often do, I found a horseshoe magnet the other day with no power left in it.

 

When I have more time I'll track down a few of the better toys from this company, and we'll have a couple of posts box-ticking their output and comparing them with the British (Bell, Merit, Fairylite), US (Lionel, Commonwealth) and Hong Kong products, but that probably won't be for a few years.
 

However, thanks to Chris, Magneto are now ID'd and can easily be found as the general toy collectors knew about them all along, and they are regularly on evilBay, Etsy and the like, if you want to find them.

B is for Best Show on Earth! 8. Civilian Vehicles

Lead here by the two non-show purchase carts this afternoon and there is more horse-drawn stuff (along with elephants; another great favourite sidebar of mine), but we've got all sorts to look at.

 

We've seen this in more than one Hong Kong iteration, here at Small Scale World, but I have a fancy this one is actually French or Italian, someone like Cle or Jouplast issued them as beach toys I think, and supplied some (of the smaller ones?) as premiums to people like Bonux, while in Italy, think I they might have been married to Texas and their plug-in based figures?

But don't quote me on either point, it's only memory! Suffice to say the finish is sharper than the Hong Kong ones (previously we've only seen stagecoaches), and the plastic is chalkier. The design of this one is a tad ridiculous, with over-sized tools stuffed through two unrealistic holes in the removable, but not working, tailgate. However, if you're moving sand on a beach, quite playable, if not terribly practical!

Tudor Rose beach- / bath-toy tugboat, small Hong Kong pleasure cruiser and A Bruder vessel make up the merchant navy in this lot. I believe the TR Tug, was reissued by Springwell in a retro header-carded net bag!

 

There is a bag of the HK ones slowly growing, and when I think I've found most of the body-type variants I'll blog them, in fact there are lots of bags of similar things all slowly growing . . . or at least some are!

 

Mixed road transport, a magnetic racing car we'll look at below, Praline and Minic (Triang-Mettoy) model railway HO/OO (respectively) compatible cars, a jig-toy truck (which will join all the others) and two classic 'dime store' or - in the UK - corner-shop/pocket money vehicles; a car marked 'Made in England' which could be Kleeware (?) and a Fairylite road roller.

The steam road roller is either a phenolic plastic or an early, unstable polystyrene, and is beginning to warp, while the racing-car, also Fairylite is quite stable.

A handful of Quaker racing car premiums to be checked against the master sample, and a comparison between the number-3 car (also used - as a sculpt - by Parker/Waddington's board-game Monopoly) and the previously seen Fairylite model.

 

Which is here for a third look! A simple magnetic novelty toy where you used negative-to-negative to push the car around with the hand-stick, a simple thing for simple times, what would they make of today's all singing-all dancing, digital Frozen dolls, or Super-deform Star Wars Angry Birds!

 

The jeep is supposed to be Tudor Rose, but smaller and less accurately portraying the real-life version as we saw the other day in military guise, and being unmarked, I'm only considering it an 'unknown' vintage beach/garden toy for now?

The tanker is usefully marked Banner Oil, so clear piece of Dime Store tat there! And the old-fashioned car is another of the better detailed Hong Kong copies of a French original I think?

The motorcycle side-collection took a real fillip in the last few weeks with another Airfix the following week, a second French Bazaar police motorcycle and then two more Airfix a week later.

 

What we have here are, from the left; that French bazaar copy/late issue of Cofalux's policeman, a Hong Kong with the base we were lacking when we sorted all that out with PW's help a few years ago, the motor-trike by Poplar Plastics / Poplar Playthings (they used both, and Poplar Plastic Products!), and the two Airfix 'dispatch riders'.

So soon after the gold one from Chris Smith, comes a full colour Gondola in the larger size, Brain Carrick remembered these being sold (or cleared?) through Woolworth's, but as this would have been the beginning of the age of mass-consumerism we're now trapped/locked-in to, there is the secondary reasoning that rather than being clearance of unsold Italian tourist trinkets, they are aping the silver neff which the rich had on their dining tables or sideboards, in a more affordable material?

 

It seems to be missing a couple of components down by the Gondoliers feet, and there appears to be two hinge-covers for a storage-compartment flap behind the customer's throne, so I will now look out for a cheap bashed one which happens to have the missing pieces.

 

 

Finally, a couple of 'box scale' wagons from Kleeware, from US tools (Pyro-Bachmann-LifeLike?), note that the buggy driver is about HO/OO compatible, while the fire-pump's driver is closer to N-gauge! Same sculpt. I have a bunch of these somewhere and will look at them all one day.

Thanks to all for everything last month; Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans and Brian Carrick.

T is for Two - Civilian Horse-drawn Transports . . . 1hp!

Looking at a couple of very different single-horse power toys today, one the equivalent of a natty-little Triumph Spitfire, the other a Morris Traveller with a misfiring plug! Both are soft polyethylene plastic with a metal axle.

We looked at EG Toys once, a long time ago, and I doubted, at the time, we'd ever return to them here, but this is they, here they are, and isn't it a peach! No mere copy of Britians or Timpo, Morestone or Barrat, but a from-the-floor-up, local-design I think, although the horse has been nicked from Marx!

 

The driver sat easier after I'd moved him to the right-hand side, thereby proving by real sciencey stuff, beyond all reasonable doubt (shut-up at the back there!), that Napoleon was wrong, and the British do, in fact, drive on the right (as in proper / correct), right (as in orientation) side of the road! It's only what the Romans gave us, and it's what ships do!

That Marx horse in full!

 

While I suspect that this unmarked little sports model is a French bazaar type rack-toy? It's a harness-racer, 'Trotter' (also sulky, spider, or chariot), or trotting cart (to make it a pacer you'd need to replace the horse - different leg poses required), and while it looks like Hong Kong tat, it's unmarked, so the French connection is more likely, anyone got a brand for it, Hugonnet-Féral? It could be a premium too, soap-powder boxes would have room! It's a little smaller than the EG, at about 45/50mm.

And apologies for the fact that everything's getting the same background at the moment, but it's a bare table in the new flat, with chair, and window behind, so until I cover it in crap, it's just too convenient!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 7. Animals

Not a dinosaur this year, not a one, but it's not the show for dinosaurs, so that's hardly surprising, and a lot of these were in the donations, but there were some nice purchases too, so without further ado;

Mold-a-Rama Elephant, I like Elephants as those of you who've been here for a while will know, and I've known about Mold-a-Rama for years, but never had an example, as it's quite an American-specific thing, although it's also touristy, so a few should make their way over here from time to time? Mine came from Milwaukie County Zoo as you can see!

 

Having now found one, the first thing is how big they are (that's two of my fingers poking through in the bottom-right shot), and, because I'd always thought they were smaller, I'd always assumed they were solids and possibly some kind of wax (of the glue-gun type), to be able to be produced 'while you wait' (these are made in coin-operated machines at various sights and venues all across the US), and when you read about them, it usually just says "plastic", with no technical details!

The fact is, they are heavy blow-moulds, probably from a 'slug' or 'plug' of polyethylene which will look something like a 2" mortar round, Sodastream gas-bottle or extreme sex-toy . . . a round-bottomed bottle, they look like a round-bottomed bottle! This needs to be sized/weighted to whichever mould is in the machine.

 

The machines are changed from time to time, for instance; the silver Seahorse has been swapped for a pink Flamingo today (yesterday now), in the same Milwaukee County Zoo! And each mould, or whole machine (sometimes they change-out the whole unit) will require a different plug to rapidly produce the model (from a kept-hot tool?) while the punter waits, without filling the machine with flash or other waste.

 

So not exactly rare (although they were getting so before their recent renaissance I think?), but it's nice to have one at last, and there will be a greater rarity of those marked from now-defunct venues, one-off issues or long-gone events/exhibitions . . . I believe some of the dinosaurs are particularly sought-after. All the remaining machines however do date from the 1960's, so there is a finite life left to them, they won't last forever!

 

Inanimate objects are also featured, along with seasonal (Halloween and Christmas) items, there's plenty more here; they have a website!

Various birds came in, both purchases and donations, with a nice gull (or poor pelican sculpt) which might be Spanish or Portuguese, a Japanese novelty rocker in blow-moulded celluloid, it has a set-in weight to keep it upright, and predates Weebles by at least a decade-and-a-half!

A similar floating duck and one of the Marx Miniature Bird Model-Kits I think; the green one with separate wings - another post which has been in the queue since . . . well, September 2017! So I'll try to pull them out as a follow-up

I can't remember if I need the Vitacup reindeer still, I know I've had a broken one for ages, but I may have alleviated that problem some time ago, and I fear this one might be 'good one number 3' now! They all came together and mostly need a clean!

 

What can I say . . . board-game pieces at the infant level? I'll keep one for the 'sample'!

 

Two nice groups, on the left we have Tudor Rose in polystyrene, I have a decent sample, but these were clean, and I'm trying to get all colour variants of each animal, and don't carry wants lists at shows, so just grab them if they are affordable.

 

On the right a small group of composition animals, who seem to be all babies - calf and foals, and seem to be too good to be Brent (and we have looked at them in the past), so I'm at a loss, but they may be French?

A mixed bunch of horses from across the day's acquisitions include an early British (far left, Gemodels?), a flocked Cherilea (?) behind the probably New Ray foal pair, we've seen the white version before here. The kicking foal is Cherilea, I used to think it was Hilco, but the two are related so . . . and the Crescent foal on the far right. The red-and-gold one is probably a Hong Kong/China knock-off from a fantasy set (?), while the hard plastic foal with airbrushed tan is a mystery too.

 

A whale-tail pencil top! A third of a camel (Italeri or Heller WWII Western Desert kit, or Historex?) and a polar bear which - from the feet - looks like he goes with a construction-brick set. The two prehistoric mammals are Safari, and big-cats are big cats! The bags behind are all those smallies from Blue Box et al., with the odd Corgi and Bachman.

The polar bear from another angle, he's not Lego, as far as I'm aware, theirs is hard plastic and graphically simplified, but I don't think it can be Mega Bloks either as we've seen theirs here in the past, and it was different, or was that a yeti? Might be Mega Bloks then? But there's a lot of these improved Hestair-Kiddybrick issuers out there, and he could just be kinder with construction-toy stud-sized holes in his feet!

 

Odds; the rubber dog in grey on the right needs a brand, the Airfix pointer/greyhound/lurcher means I now have colour variants/duplicates of all six of the dogs, a Marx Miniature Masterpiece farm calf is mentionable, with a couple of Hong Kong's behind.

 

This is a bit of fun, in need of both sorting and - eventually - some ruthless recycling, but as an image, there's a story here I think. They all came in one of the donation bags, and are clearly someone's attempt to build a set of ammunition pack-mules for a wargames army or diorama, after the old Britains Hollow-cast set of British/Colonial mountain artillery!

Thanks to all for everything last month; Adrian Little., Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans, Brian Carrick and Trevor Rudkin.

J is for Jungle Shooting Match

Berwick Games attic find! Very redolent of its time, hunting big-game is just not something you'd make a game off now! This was absolutely filthy and nearly went in the recycling; the roofing-felt in the attic is a fluffy variety about 130-years old, and for some time has been collapsing under its own weight having dried to the consistency of cold-war Eastern-Bloc fag-packet cardboard, covering everything in the attic in a black snow.

But, as you can see it cleaned-up OK and was in better nick than I expected, so it's gone to storage for now, and I will chuck it on feeBay at some point in the future. I can well remember this, we had hours of fun on wet winter's days, lying on our bellies and sniping*(1) some of the rarest animals on earth!*(2)

 

The animals were (are!) only vac-formed polystyrene sheet, and it wasn't long before we literally blew one apart, so Mum, who was nothing if not ingenious, made them all backing cards from corrugated-cardboard, and here they are 50-odd years later, almost as good as new . . . Except the gorilla!

 

Not so the cork-firing pistols, one has absented itself entirely (decades ago), and the other is broken across the barrel, but I will try to fix it up at some point, maybe get a post out of that exercise? Quite a James Bond looking thing, I think?

 

Same mechanism as most toy artillery, pull back to the catch, and then fire, the plunger is near flush with the end of the barrel, propelling the cork with enough force to pop the animals out of their little die-cut card catch, and blow the feet off the gorilla! The animal then shoots up with an over-dramatic death throw, due to its elastic thread!

Two pea-shooter tubes were supplied to stand it up on a flat surface, but it's easier to prop it against a wall or piece of furniture. And I think this is a rare survivor, as I haven't seen one on evilBay yet, despite looking quite often, hoping for replacement parts?

 

*

(1) Kids; it's not good to shoot things!

(2) No animals were harmed in the making of this post!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 6. Space, Sci-fi, Fantasy, TV, Movie & Etc.

A biggie this one, I tried breaking it into two posts, but there was no natural split which would leave 7-images each and any other division would leave one still long and the other a bit short, so call it a Brucey Bonus!

Mostly vintage dime-store/pulp space from the 1950/60's, with (from the colour) a larger, original Archer, three smaller copies who could be one of several issuers and two of the Christmas Cracker chaps, with a fourth smallie in white with helmet in one shot, and in the other shot an unmarked-Linde premium type, could be DS Plastics or Siku?

 

The probably-not-Linde again, with a French soft plastic iteration of the Captain Video bolt-grenadier, and three modern PVC-replacement, rubberised astronauts who I think we've seen in harder plastic and a smaller size, so 'the sculpts du jour'?!!

 

A bunch of Bluebird Zero Hour/Mattel Code Zero rubber minis, came in two of the donations I think and will be sorted into the stash, hopefully helping make-up who sets, I know I still have a few gaps!

 

These are rather nice, probably 1960's or even 1970's, the seller bought them himself, and he didn't look older than me, younger if anything, gum-ball, capsule machine prizes brought back from the 'States on his return from those climes! A nice pulp-vibe and dime-store look with a touch of 70's styling!

Two modern game-playing pieces I suspect, either side, both heavily dry-brushed in a contrasting shade of their base colour, I haven't found the game yet. A Matchbox or Hot Wheels sci-fi 'type' from the Mega Rigs line or something, a Bluebird Havoc in need of a base (anyone who remembers the original post will know I have a few, but whether one to match him is another matter!), and behind them a Crescent for Kellogg's cereal premium.

 

He's actually a short-shot, his tool normally resembles a mine-detector with a bigger dish, but like this he really looks more like he has an actual 'space probe' with a specific job!

 

Smaller-scale robots, an overview! The painted four seem to be from the same range, even though one is more humanoid and a tad-larger, all four are unmarked and hard polystyrene - probably quite recent gum-ball prizes? The yellow sucker will be a knock-off/copy of something from Poppy/Bandai or Takara . . . someone like that, and is smaller than the similar LB-knock-off sucker types.

 

The really small one is from the Star Wars Risk board-game I think, the larger blue 80's mech' is from the eraser set we've looked at recently once or twice, the middle-sized bluey is a Mattel M.U.S.C.L.E. keshi (or copy; I didn't check for the distinctive marks!) and the similar greenie will be another gum-ball prize.

 

I thought I had a complete set of the Captain Scarlet premiums (Wheeto's from Wheetabix), but it turns out I had neither of the mini-vehicles, I now have the patrol car! But I also have all the figures lose and bagged! Pursuit vehicle is still to track down.

At the back is the one and only Superthunderstincar's Masterbraun, courtesy of Peter Cook complete with bushy eyebrows! "Eggcellent! Heh-heh-heh!" . . . also issued as The Hood by Kellogg's and Tom Smith.

I bought these from Colin Penn, when I first saw them he wasn't at his table (hopefully finding bargains of his own), so I wandered off, but when I went back round a while later, he said they were a full set (and cheap) so I grabbed them more as a box-ticker than anything else, as I still haven't looked them up and don't know anything about them! Obviously Star Trek, but which arm of the franchise I don't know (DS9, Next Generation?), and who or when? Modern and Mattel or Hasbro!

 

Playmates have held Star Trek licences as well, I have their 'Action Fleet' clones somewhere, but I think these may be older, but not the original series?

 

Dr Who stuff, Games Workshop mostly, but the slightly bigger leading Kaled living-suit is the same little rubber one the Philosophical Toad sent to the blog about 14-years ago! It came from a Christmas advent calendar if memory serves, but who by, I don't know?

 

A random vinyl (possibly electronic game playing piece) figure of a fantasy-ninja type and an equally random Power Ranger type, who came in one of the donations, both need investigating!

 

We saw these the other day in the London show-reports, so simply duplicates which will serve as swaps at some point in the future, Kinder Egg capsule toys of the latest Avatar movie.

 

The two Jungle Book figures are a mystery, they look like Marx Disneykins, but they're not, they are hard plastic, but not Minimodels, so . . . ? Nice figures though; French maybe? 10th - A correspondent says Kinder, which would make sense, they are almost too 'clean'!

 

Next to them is a Bullyland Big Ears for Toytown, a rather knackerd Tri-Ang Perriwincle Penny Brix character, and two of the better fruit & veg' 'Munch Bunch' pencil tops from the 1970's, a carrot and a cucumber I think. Separate hats (or foliage from one maker/issuer) is usually the sign of better versions, the cheaper clones were single mouldings.

 

The Poplar Plastics sledge came separately from the Santa in two purchases, but was a nice find as it's a different design to the commoner one, which we saw here, and has a rigid frame/draw-bars, so can't be used with the cat or dogs, only the deer.

From the left; random fairy! Then a figure I'd like to know more about, we may have looked at them briefly once before, but I don't know anything about them (and this one is very damaged as most are), but I have two or three poses now, several of this green one, a red one and a blue or yellow one? All slightly hippy-dippy, fairy, fantasy dancer types, and I'm wondering if they're from some Hong Kong take on Marx's Miniature Masterpieces of The Trolls or Sword in the Stone variety, possibly by Blue Box, or LB, or early Maysun or someone like that? But then they might even be Marx MM's?

A Hong Kong gnome after Fontanini I think, two of the Matchbox 'Advanced Dungeon & Dragon' figures and two poured-resin anthropomorphic animals lumps, who probably go together and a little angel/putti type, probably a cake decoration.

Thanks to all for everything last month; Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, and Adrian Little.

S is for Sharper & Sharper!

Really, an 'F is for Follow-up...' on pencil sharpeners, but as the collection of these 'KT' and related figural pieces grows, there's a sharpness there to the sample as a whole! And I've said before not every title works, but that was my thinking, and if I try to think of a better one, I'll lose interest and can-it for another few months!

 

 

I managed to acquire the guardsmen on a sharpener, confirming a previous suggestion that he was part of this set, so I get to use the 'Told You So' tag again, which annoys my 'eemies' and pleases me! Anyone out there in the hobby who thinks I'm going away hasn't smelt the coffee yet. Anyone out there who thinks I can be cowed hasn't been paying attention.

In all the follow-ups, contributions and acquisitions of these I forget what's what and what I've got, but suffice to say we saw the boxed one a while ago, and I've now found the pair of non-pencil sharpener dancers, just for completion, there may be a connection with Magneto (post forthcoming), and if Christian Hardy goes and looks it up he could be a day ahead of me instead of a day behind, I'd say the same to Mr. Ripoll but he's too busy clutching the monarch's shaft! I had no idea I was being followed that closely, here and elsewhere, by all these nonentities!

I've also picked-up both the Asian dancers previously supplied as images by Brian Wagstaff, so there's more completion there, and despite looking out for others, it seems to be the same ones which keep turning-up?

 

Likewise, the Indian girl, who we saw last time we looked at these (a straight lift of the Commonwealth sculpt), was needed as a physical entity, but she does suggest a cowboy might still be out there (on a round sharpener) in addition to those we've seen from 'W. Germany'.

 

 

Comparison of the bases revealed that the new guardsman has a slightly different sharpener with an opening in the 'wall' of the sharpener's case, at the far end. Probably only a batch/age of design thing, or a KT specific thing, the guardsman is the only KT-marled plug-in, but I'm not about to start looking for another version of each found so far! The other four additions are the unmarked ones, with the base and figure as a single moulding.

 

 

Finally, I saw these, and thought they were fun, some age to them; 1950's I'd imagine?

 

And for those who missed it, or have forgotten it, here's a link to a completely different subject, which I posted elsewhere yesterday, in all innocence to help a chap out - seems to have caused a ripple, in the lake of idiocy!