L is for St. Labre Indian Catholic High School

Wikipedia suggests not all is rosy at this establishment, and I could dig deep and make a few more 'eemies' with my usual revisions of history toward a more accurate truth! But this is really only a quick box-ticker, while the eventual A-Z entry should have a better historical sketch.

We've seen some of this issuer's products before, quite recently with the canoe mini-season (thanks Brian) and ages ago with the semi-flat, relief tipi/tee-pee & children, as well as one of these totems, way back at the start of the blog, but here's a few more of the figural/toy figure output - an output which seems to have been quite prolific, due to the attachment of a Cheyenne Indian Museum & Gift Shop to the school, although there was clearly also a mail-away or direct-sales thing as well.

I've had the one on the left for years, and I have no idea how many there are now! Two lines, with the thinner more realistic ones being simple Totem poles, the other two seem more figural (legs and feet) and I wonder if they represent another type of 'totem', maybe dance costumes like the pueblo Indian clay heads, or stylised 'Welcome Poles'?

 

I could Google it for hours, but life's too short!

One of mine is missing its top-cap piece, so it was but a second's work to confirm you could stack these to infinity! I have seen one with black or green I think but the same design with the same three slip-in/slip-over, silhouette elements - 'Thunderbird', owl and wolf or bear? Beaver?.

I'm pretty sure I saw a third design of these too, on eBay at some point, so it looks like both lines ran to at least three variants, possibly more, and the construction of these is slightly more complicated than the straight poles, with no interchangeability. They also look like 3D forms of the designs you find on some of the rugs and blankets woven by Native Americans?

 

Additional to the Native American we saw with the canoes is the lady with papoose, this just plugs in to her back with two studs, and with the boy/chief makes three in the pile now. The figures are hollow polystyrene mouldings, the straight poles are polyethylene, while the 'totems' are a denser, possibly nylon polymer.

B is for Best Show on Earth! 12. Military Men

Into the twilight of PW show reports, with the 20th century combat types, and in the end, there were quite a few, with a few AFV's this time, mostly from the donation bags, but various other interesting items including some - shock horror! - metal!

Starting with the ubiquitous parachute toys, and we have an original 'Poopertropper' from Imperial (a US importer/jobber), but I suspect someone over here also carried them as they do turn-up quite often without having to look to eBay for a current import.

 

The two complete with parachutes came from Brian Carrick and the chap with the tangled one will reassemble, I've checked, one of the shroud-lines has come off it's 'hankie corner' and got tangled in with the other three but it shouldn't be a big job to restore him.

I think I picked this up from Steve Vickers, Jon has already ID'd it! So without further ado . . . 

 

. . . the Crescent navy in a pocket set! My title of course, there is no title on the box, although there maybe one in a catalogue? One each of the small scale (approximately 1:72nd) figures seen here lose, years ago, and one of the vessels, as the submarine would also fit the slots, I'm guessing it was a bit of pot-luck or a sneak-peak to see what you were getting, and perhaps a sixpence toy - replacing the previous generation's penny-toys?

 

From the far-eastern shores of Hong Kong came two bagged sets of those Britains Swoppets, but in solid form, two small samples of rack-toy 'Army Men', the left trio being Airfix clones and the right-hand group being rather mashed Marx copies. Six painted Blue Box GI's make-up the numbers in this shot.

 

Closer to home in the upper shot here, with some Sikhs from Cherilea, another blue Crescent 'artilleryman' (as close to Germans as they ever got!), and - by sheer fluke - a fifth pose (the berserker!) to join the four I already have, so only one to find in that relatively uncommon set.

 

Another of 'those' MG Gunners, undecorated (maybe BR Moulds?), a bog-standard Herald Hong Kong officer and a Lilo SMG-gunner I really didn't need, but he seems to have come home with me!

 

The lower image has spread it's net wider with Hong Kong's finest chromium-plated tat from Kwong Wah, cloning a Deetail Japanese MG-gunner, an Effelder East German soldier in camouflage, a Nardi 60mm Alpini, two ceremonials (from Argentina I think?) and another Comansi (a fair few of them have come in recently), with another Argentine figure in white and a small flat from HK in an unusual colour.

More foreigners here (heay, I'm happy to welcome them all, diversity is everything, it would be a boring land if we all carried on like Borsetshire's Archers!), with two of the hard plastic versions of Marx's 45mm figures, a French alpine soldier, another Guilbert and a US 1950's cold-war kit-figure.

 

In front of them are four ceramic WHW figures, two military, one civilian ('Industrious Germany', issued in March 1939) and an undecorated factory blank.

Small scale; the bulk from Trevor, with some from Brian, mostly grist to the mill from Rado/Ri-Toys or similar, but a few oddities and interesting figures are always in the mix with these mixed-lots. Here, that included the WWI French clones in a pale yellow, some Tri-Ang 'Battle Space' marines from Blue Box and three Redbox/Motormax little rubber guys!

 

US comic flats, so-called because they were advertised in US comics, always useful as my boxed-set turned-out to have a mix of several batches, so it will be nice, one day, to fill it with a complete set of the/a matching batch's mouldings!

 

Crescent bunkers providing cover for two rather shot vehicles, the one (Dinky Saracen), ahem . . . 'worked-on' with soft-soldered tubing, the other (Timpo 25lbr.) missing its shield and having melty-tyres! Weird that the tyres melt, rather than the 'styrene gun, but it was an odd [experimental?] foamed polymer?

 

Aircraft; these all have a home in the mini-aircraft zone, and one day there will be a super-sort, reckoning and series of Blog-posts on all of them! Also, a bag of missiles, bombs, drop-tanks and other under-wing/pylon 'stores' and weapons, they too, have a zone!

 

Other AFV's; mostly rack-toy fayre, the two larger lorries remind me that there's some similar ones from Brian Berke in the long queue somewhere, and I think I have shot a set with these two in, so a possible follow-up there, certainly a future post on the more 'infant toy' AFV's.

 

Finaly the Supreme copies of Italeri's WWII Russians, also taking advantage of the Crescent bunkers in one shot! I had a few more come in a few weeks earlier, so hopefully there are a few of the missing poses somewhere, but with two plastic colour/paint finishes available for all 12 figures (only seven above), I still have a ways to go before I have all 24!

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

F is for Follow-up - Marx Birds!

An unscheduled post, in that I wasn't planning one, but an old friend came round while I was gardening, and a coffee and beer later, and quick trip over to the new flat to show him, and I've lost the light, so the gardening has been halted early and will be finished tomorrow, just hope the beer doesn't affect my spelling! Or should that be 'effect'?!!

 

I mentioned these the other day, they have been in Picasa for a while now, and it was clear the contents were all muddled-up when I shot them, so I'll just chuck them up as a box-ticker, and to confirm that that one the other day was also a Marx bird I think, same design, not sure anyone else did anything quite like these?

Clues on the packaging suggest at least three tranches/print-runs for the boxes, probably only one main run for production of the models, with an earlier and later issue (red or black text for the bird names) and a UK specific issue (/UK codes)?

Simple pre-coloured kits of 5-7 pieces, depicting relatively common species, and a little card with a water-colour sketch of the bird (if you want to repaint in slightly more realistically?) with a thumbnail biography on the reverse. Box-scale but maybe between 1:6th/1:8th, for the smaller tit-birds at least? The owl probably around 1:12th.

 

Similar 'match-box' packaging to the Zoo/Wild Animals (which explains my Hippo being in two parts!), as copied by the lesser Hong Kong sourced stuff from Shackmann, they must have been fun!

Now fully covered on Moonbase, via Paul the Antipodean, although it's probably the sixth time since Christmas one of the Paul's have used my Posts for their follow-ups! It's getting boring now guys, 23,000 toy companies to Blog from and you need to keep following me? Sign you're running out of original copy, isn't it? And it's not his work, it's everybody else's efforts! Tedious; but there's that bell-curve, in the background!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 11. Plasticine

I shouldn't be blogging I should be painting, but I've had a couple of manic days and frankly my brother is being a c**t, so I've about had life, the universe and everything human in it! So, let's have some toys! Continuing with the show reports from Plastic Warrior's show, now over a month ago, so less than eleven months to the next one . . . bargain!

Many years ago, well, 2008 or 9, so fifteen-odd years ago, I was helping the guys up at the Potter's toy show at the NEC in Birmingham, when someone can up to us with one of these figures, or someone had brought it to show everyone (yes, it's one of those anecdotes where nothing is quite remembered!), and no one knew what it was, although there were some good guesses including something like clay modelling former, but the next day, someone sent some photo's (maybe me but I haven't Blogged them, so probably not?) to someone else (probably Paul Morehead at Plastic Warrior magazine, but maybe not?), who said Plasticine sets.

 

So far, so good, and if you had asked me at the show, last month, I could have filled you in with chapter and verse on it, as per what I have been told, or what others were saying about it, which is;

 

Cherilea for Plasticine, six figure sculpts taken from hollow-cast, who've had their midriff's scooped/scalloped-out for the purpose of modelling onto them with the Plasticine as if they are the maquettes they sort of are? And each having a name originally - two are named above; Lola and Lucy, but by a previous owner on paper tabs?

But . . . 

• By 'originally named' do they mean in Plasticine publicity (in kids comics, it would have been back then), or as the original hollow-cast dancers?
• The Cherilea dancers in Joplin don't look anything like these? Don't run to six poses, and don't seem to be named?
• Similar circumstances apply to the Charbens dancers in Joplin's book, the above sculpts being almost more Charbens'y than Cherilea'y?

 

So, I don't know what to think, as I've only been told what I've been told by members of the 'old guard', some of whom are always quick to correct me when I get something wrong! But apart from [possibly] Paul (or someone else, one of the Brummies on the day perhaps?) being correct about them being Plasticine, nothing seems to stack-up as reported. So I'd welcome not just facts, but any thoughts you may have on these!

 

If anything, the fourth from the left looks like the Women's League of Health & Beauty figure, also in Joplin, from Hill & Co.? Were there six of them, did they have names . . . all a bit pre-war and slightly fascist-sounding to me! There's nothing in the PW Hilco special publication (ISBN 1 900898 36 5)?

 

Clearly they are dancers, and they could be from hollow-cast sculpts and are more-likely to be commissioned or bought-in than manufactured by Harbutt's, the makers of Plasticine, but who made them, were they ex-hollow-cast, were they named, who by (supplier or Harbutt's), while the box reveals more . . .

. . . as there is a mention of 'mens' dress, and the box-art, itself, hints at male dancers (there are males in both Cherilea and Charbens sets), clowns, historical costume, foreign dress, Kings & Queens and a policeman!

 

So there were obviously high hopes that this would be the first of a whole new line of Plasticine sets, but while the Pres-to-Shapes press-dies did run to further sets, this would seem to have remained a one-off and doesn't turn up that often?

While this image shows other vaguely contemporary sets. I thought this image was from the Graces Guide page, but it isn't, so if it's yours I apologise, it's been in the archive for so long it's lost any note, or the 'X' I tend to use to ID such stuff, it's here now for research purposes, but if you let me know where the original is I'll gladly link to it with full attribution.

The Graces Guide page does have some interesting stuff, not least a large-scale lifeguard and an illustration of the Pres-to-Shapes dies, which look to be a hard rubber, like the Linka building system moulds?

More here - Brighton Toy Museum - Plasticine

And here - Brighton Toy Museum - Harbutt's

 

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

News, Views etc . . . London Toy Soldier Show

I thought it was next week! It's tomorrow!

http://www.toysoldiershow.co.uk/

News, Views Etc . . . Memorabilia!

I've actually added two very different books to the library this week;

The Bill Hanlon one has been on the radar for a while, and in the end its delivery was a nightmare for me and the seller with Evri (still leaving Hermes cards) bringing it to the door twice before losing it, the second one being a bit flawed (pressure patterns in the dust jacket and a coffee (I hope?) stain), but I'll do it a full post on it, one day, it really is a monumental work.

The other is a bit of fun which has slid across from my late mother's library to mine, and is a reasonable coverage of Royal Souvenirs from just before the Fergie/Diana 'tart' years! Took them over the flat yesterday and this appeared in my Faceplant feed today;

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/12/thatcher-nutcracker-trump-toilet-brush-political-memorabilia

 

It's as if the gods were watching, anyway it's an interesting read, and a fine collection of mostly figural items!

News, Views Etc . . . Marx Show

I'm too busy to blog for a few days, maybe even a week or two, but Rudy Panucci reminded us on Brian's site that the Marx Toy & Train Show, starts tomorrow at the Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum in Wheeling, West Virginia, there'll be all sorts there!

More about it / details on this blog;

Pop Cult Blog

 

 

A week later, full show report;

https://popcultblog.com/fun-at-the-marx-toy-train-show

C is for a Cat and a Canary!

Recent purchase from I can't remember where, eBay maybe, or some stuff I got off a mate a while back (lovely parcel from Brian today, and another from Jon last week!), but it's a very early piece of plastic, a novelty whistle from Combex.

Described by The Toy House over the Pond as a flute (inset image, bottom right), it's more of a swannee-whistle, with the canary (stuck in the cat's tummy with a hot wire) sitting over the vent, producing a trilling over the whistle, itself varying in pitch as you push/pull the piston.

The cat appears to have Godzilla's tail!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 10. Civilians

A right-old mix in this post, from the odd rarity, through unusual, to more run-of-the-mill stuff with a current rack toy or two, thrown-in there for good measure, and we'll start with one of them because it was shot first, before I collaged it, and it automatically went to the end of the queue!

Kidzon (which I fear - rather shockingly - is supposed to rhyme with zone) are behind the shipping-in of this little set of construction types from China. A near-1:72nd scale tipper-truck and three new figures, but there are so many construction workers out there, they are running out of decent, unique poses, and two of these look very derivative, but I like the chap with his sledgehammer! Everyone gets a palm-tree these days!

 

Two large rubber boys, who will be Thomas doll's house accessories, and a 'happy drunk' (I've another come-in recently!), who was - I think - used on ashtrays, phone-stands, visitors card racks and the like.

The pink lady will be from a Monogram, MPC or Pyro car kit, and I always wondered why she always has checked slacks when you see her on modelling forums, and it's because the checks are etched into the moulding! While the pink gent is a - probably French - cyclist, sans bike!

Seated Lido (et all) civi', a Taylor and/or Barratt girl from one of the zoo rides or carts, and the best piece here is the - also probably French - chalkware racing-car drive, he's from quite a big toy too, probably tin-plate, around 1:25th?

Kinder sports above with the 1986 Mexico World Cup mascot; Pique, a jalapeño pepper in a sombrero! Two Judo martial-artists and a cameraman who may not be a sportsman, but is busy filming them all!

More general sportsmen bellow (sorry, no sportswomen this time!), with Merit's 'Everest' boardgame climber, several  Subbuteo for those bags, a cracker horse-racer and a PVC-alike footballer, but the stand-out is another of those key-ring fishermen . . .with no rod! I'll find one eventually, they can't be that rare if this is the third! But it seems to be a short-shot thing?

One the left, a margarine premium from Ei-Fein ('fine eggs', presumably to convince you that you can fry eggs with it?) and three Siku railway workers in HO-gauge compatible miniscule'ness.

 

A mix of non-military stuff here, with a slide from a Hong Kong play-ground set - I've never seen one in the packaging, so I don't know if they came with some of those babies (see below) to play on the equipment, or if it was aimed at model railways, but they are that sort of size, and I have quite a selection somewhere (roundabouts, see-saws, climbing frames etc.), so we will look at them more fully one day.

 

One definite Kinder Barbie, and a possible second, both sans bases, a small boy in soft rubber/PVC who may be New Ray, Pioneer or similar. Matchbox stretcher bearer / ambulance crewman, a kit figure (flying boat pilot?) and a game-playing piece (purple) I think?

He's been in the general "Thank you" at the bottom of each post, but special shout-out to Michael Mordant-Smith for these, he had a box-full, but spent about 40-minutes sorting through the whole box, when he could have been going round looking for bargains of his own or socialising, getting them all into pairs, I think in the end there were four missing, which I'll track down (hoping one or two may be in my existing, small sample) and then I'll shoot them in their pairs for a major update to the World Dolls page, which has been in the queue for a while. Van Brode cereal and other premiums.

 

I've passed on these several times on eBay, just because even if the set is cheap, the postage usually isn't, but then these aren't they, these are Hong Kong copies of they, the Tim Mee 'atomic clowns'. There's ten poses in the set, so whether originals or Hong Kong clones, I have a way to go yet!

 

In front of them a buckshee clowns foot! From a very big figure, one of the larger (not Cherilea)'s Diddymen maybe?

Another carded set, with a knock-off Barbie 'fashion doll' from BJ Toys. A lovely little shooting set with anodised, pressed-tin flats, I think it may be supposed to have a rubber band to fire matchsticks at the animals? And I found Suzy on Steve Vickers' stall, we will look at her fully another day!

Rather fortuitous as I had a post on adult novelties ready to go, as good as, which I've been building for months, and for which I had all the collages and so forth done, it just needed text, but she's been added in and that will come when we get all the show repots out of the way (Sandown still to come), but suffice to say she's quite fun!

 

A clown walker and Spanish bull-fighting horse (Jecsan or Reamsa?) on the left and a useful firefighter (Deluxe Reading) on the right, useful in that he has a few of the accessories so often missing from these larger figures. We've seen the clown before in a different colour and I surmised then that he was meant to be wearing a pantomime horse round his waist!

 

So, two Frenchies; one either side, both of which look a bit Starlux'y, but probably aren't, maybe Minialux or early Cofalux for the policeman, and . . . Cyrnos for the girl with teddy (O-gauge?), I think they have usually green or brown bases - any help great fully received.

 

Between them are three composition/terracotta HO railway figurines which are pretty exquisite, and I think Andreas said they were Fröha, but I may have that wrong and will check with Reinhard Schiffmann's book, they are a better HO than the Berger's we saw last time I got his book out! Actually, I think I last got his book out for some Pfeiffer's, but they don't seem to have made the tag-list?

The yellow polo-player is a copy of a Marx figure I believe, but here found reduced in size and polystyrene, from one of the above-mentioned model-car makers I think, while the large doll's baby is a heavy chunk of composition, maker unknown (but in the dolls world there are many, many composition makers!), and the Hong Kong copy of the Britains Hospital baby is useful (I already have a large bag of such knock-offs) for coming with a stackable bunk-bed/cot!

Which leaves a line-up of relative sanity! From the left Kentoys; Pioneer or similar (New Ray?); Lucky Toys early; unknown - might be French, might be HK (clearly missing a barrow and a copy of Reisler or Dinky?); Lucky Toys late; modernish firefighter and a Spot-On Policeman.

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

W is for Wagon Train

Picked this up a couple of months ago, and it's definitely a 'grail' item, despite being pretty low on plastic, but it is there, and you must remember that until a decade ago I was a specialist small scale collector, where this was one of those 'must have one day' pieces.

An early example of the multiple branding we are more used to now as Morris & Stone (aka Morestone) under their Budgie trademark licence the Wagon train TV series from Revue Productions in the USA, utilising their little prairie wagon. I thought we'd looked at these in detail here, but in fact it's a pretty poor article from the early days of the blog, I'd now veer toward Nibblet for the sculpting, or even Les Higgins, but that almost strengthens the possible Aifix link?

 

There are four poses of figures, with the hand-up guy presumably meant to be the Seth Adams character (played by Ward Bond) and the other rider Flint McCullough (Robert Horton) with two generic wagoners? Wagoneers? Wagoniers? Spellcheck only likes the first offering!

Err . . . I don't think they're terribly rare! An old Vectis shot. And even as this large set, I've seen several over the years! Metal fatigue, though, is over twelve-years worse than the last time we looked at them; the white tilt one in my set is disintegrating, I'll try and replace it.

B is for Best Show on Earth! 9. Divers

Thinning-out a too-long civilians post, we find ourselves with some all-diver stuff!

In the centre we have the mini-sub from Hing Fat, with older bagged James Bond knock-offs (Thunderball - the original version) either side and a couple of the air-line uppy-downy bath toys behind.

 

We've seen (with much help from Brian Berke) various domestic and foreign versions of the smaller one, but the other is, as you can see, jai-huge! It has heavy-metal (lead?) feet, to which the body is melted on, presumably because the amount of plastic made the diver too buoyant even when filled with water?

 

The bags seem to contain sub-piaracies of the ones we looked at here, which had a handful of accessories missing from these bags, it may be that the moulding is the same, and price-cutting is responsible, but it's not clear without taking them out and comparing with something currently in storage, so a future post there!

 

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