O is for Old Crock ID'd

I've found the card for one of the old fashioned Mercers we looked at here, it turns out it's from Henry Gordy, who would become Gordy International later; From the price I'm guessing early-to-mid 1960's, for this toy, while the 'International' was added in the 1970's,  when similar rack toys were around .49 or .98¢?

It's definitely the right car, as the code - 814 -  ties up, even if the car is labelled as a Minimite and the card as a Gordy Mite! Nice thing, and nice to ID it, with Prosperity on the middle one, it's just the cheapie on the right to get that trio nailed down!

Of course; once you know what you're looking for, you find they are all over Etsy and feebleBay, with Wells-Brimtoy knock-off trucks and sports cars to add to the oldsters - and they instantly lose their mystery . . . heay-ho!

LB is for Look, Box!

I found this in the arched-file archive last night, god knows where it came from, it's hideously discoloured by sunlight/smoking, it's missing what should be its top and has been ripped from gizzard to guts, but the label in intact, and gives us a code to join the one in the catalogue we saw awhile-ago, that was a set of six I think, this is three, although you can see from my dodgy mock-up, that all eight would fit.

AB068

SPACEMEN

SILVER   boxed   3

Produce of more than one country

You can see how maybe six or all eight might have been available in the same packaging (presumably with different codes?), and would certainly fit. While I remember in the late 1990's buying them for Paul M, from a large round plastic sweet-jar, as a counter-top dispenser, which would have held 30-40 figures? That's it, just a curiosity which turned-up and got shared with everyone!

G is for Grand Prix

Not really a Rack Toy, nor even a pocket-money toy, but I'm slipping these Blue Box posts into everything else, and BB certainly started at that end of the market! We're looking at quite a nice set today, the Grand Prix Racing Set.

Mine is on the left, the other was on the Internet somewhere, it's a slightly better one with all cones (I'm pretty sure I have the missing trio in the spares piles somewhere) and bales (likewise), and the cars still have their race-number stickers, but two red cars is a little disappointing?

It's all about the figures here at Small Scale World, and while I've called these as Blue Box in the past, it's always nice to prove your critics are only critics with a bit of empirical stuff!

 

The third figure is a straight copy of the Corgi one, even down to the vehicle upon the roof of which he is perched! A Commer minivan/minibus, the Corgi original is usually blue with a white upper, while in plastic there are several variations.

 

The cars; they are all the same moulding, which may be a copy of a Corgi or Dinky, or even the made in Hong Kong Marx die-casts? I don't know my racing-cars that well, and by the time it's been converted into plastic, it's going to look like several prototypes if they are all true to the real machine?

 

Accessories; the oil-drums and bales (copied from Scalextric) are blow-moulded, while the fuel pump is after the Barton one I think, also sourced in HK, and mostly die-cast, some better hobby shops still have a few of the generics on cards!

 

The green number, found scudding around in the box, may not be original, all the others I've seen (not a rare set) are black-on-white, or white-on-black, and switching them would have resulted in their loss, stickers on old toys are best left untouched!

 

Pretty standard markings on some of the accessories, best reproduced by the Ariel Rounded font, it ties in with a lot of Tai Sang's output; Blue Box, Redbox and both Generic 'Hong Kong' & 'Singapore'-marked stuff. Other makers use similar marks, so it's not a golden-rule, but it's a good guide, especially if you're looking at something less common than the usual round of Airfix or Britains copies.

 

The back of the box, manages to hint at other sets of earlier racing cars and sports-cars, reference the other figures (some of which we've seen here before) from Blue Box, and has some extra scenic accessories to cut out, and use to mark your racing circuit!

R is for Really, they WERE Rack Toys

Continuing with the theme of personalities from the previous Blue Box post, and incomplete sets, well it's about the collecting isn't it, and we can return to both subjects when they are complete!

 

And no apologies for plagiarism, this has been sandwiched between two Blue Box posts on the desktop for a week-and-a-half, and was always going to be here, just coincidence Moonbase dealt with some other Gilbert 007 stuff yesterday!

 

I picked this chap up last autumn, or at the start of the year, I have a Moneypenny already and possibly a Dr. No, so it's a question of slowly building the collection on the cheap, as these figures are hideously overhyped and over-priced! I thought it might be Q, showing bond some gadget which hasn't been painted, but it's M holding something?

But then, also at Plastic Warrior I think, I picked up another six, including all three Bonds, they are all from Sean Connery movies, and as mentioned above, an outfit called Gilbert, but out of Hong Kong, not the US or France who both had older and longer lasting Gilbert's, or Guilberts!

 

And three baddies! So I still need to find Domino and possibly Dr. No, then I can worry about replacing the tattier ones, that Trump'y chap in the red is a bit play worn! But, I'm absolutely, positively, in no hurry; . . . 

. . . there's a rack toy on ebay at the moment, doesn't matter what it is, someone posted it on Brian Heiler's Faceplant group the other day, something naff like a pair of handcuffs or a water-pistol, tied into an unrelated (to the toy)'s TV-series branded backing-card - the seller wants nearly $3,000 for it!

Now, NO rack toy is worth more than 20-quid in any currency, and their intrinsic value is no more than a fiver, and yes, we will all go 20, 35 even 50 maybe, for an aitch-tee-eff set, or something we've been looking for, for ages, or had as a kid; a 'grail' item, but really, they're not worth that. There's a set of these - in a fake carded bag - currently up for £90 . . . ninty-fucking-quid? That's nine-pounds per figure!

Added to which, these Gilbert figures, often MOC as above (minor auctioneers' lot from a few years ago - Potter Auctions I think?) aren't even rare, pretty-much every TV/Movie auction at Vectis has one or two sets, SAS general toy auctions have them as often as not, and there's always a few at Sandown Park or similar larger fairs,

 

So, I'm not going to pay the silly money people ask for them, when they will turn-up lose for a quid or two, if I'm patient, which is the point I'm making, as you can't ever have everything, you can afford to wait for the right things at the right price, and someone made a super-tanker's worth of these!

They were RACK TOYS! They aren't particularly animated, they aren't painted well enough to be display statuettes, they are in an odd scale (90mm) and there's only ten of them? Hold out for a couple-of-pounds each, is my advice, or less, they're often to be found in mixed junk-lots! But, yes, the ten-figure window box IS worth the premium, as it's rarer and easily damaged, so good ones are further between!

T is for There's Only 12, or 24!

And definitely not the 33 reported elsewhere by a couple of idiots who've never corrected, removed or apologised for their nonsense, being delivered as fact, and argued over! It's the Blue Box individual Famous Historical Characters tonight!

 

We did look at a couple of these right back at the beginning of the Blog, I picked-up a couple of painted ones in an early large-scale purchase, both duplicated here, along with a later damaged Duke of Marlborough, also duplicated here but in chrome, the damaged one is painted, all are hard polystyrene plastic.

 

But here are two new ones, Alexander the Great and Richard the Lionheart (or 'Lionhearted'), and the Alexander sculpt has since reappeared as a pawn in die-cast mazak/zamak chess sets, I believe. A straight lift from Blue Box, or are the chess sets a Tai Sang thing too, they did have die-casting works?

Two loose ones which I think were PW Show purchases? Did I hide them in those posts? They may have been evilBay or contributions/donation, I really can't remember, all these Blue Box posts have been in edit, slowly growing over a few years now. These are both new in this antiqued/chromium finish.

Comparison between the two Lord Nelson's, you can see how the 'chrome' is just sprayed on, people banging-on about vacuum-plating are talking about something completely different, which is the thick, sharp (when it flakes) layer added to larger, smoother, plastic components, or die-cast toys . . . think those huge robots in the 1980's and 90's. this stuff is a separating substrate, where the 'shine' layers-out or films on the surface of a carrier/holding medium.

I've yet to find the packaging for the painted ones, but suspect it's the same cards, either run alongside, or issued a year or two earlier or later, these would have been aimed at museums and gift shops who might have ordered one or other of the two types, or only a few of the 12 different figures, which were;

 

Painted on Cream Styrene (chronological listing)
- Alexander the Great
- Julius Caesar
- Richard the Lionheart
- Robin Hood
- Henry VIII
- Sir Francis Drake
- Duke of Marlborough
- Napoleon
- Admiral Lord Nelson
- Davy Crockett
- Geronimo
- Buffalo Bill
 
Silver-Chromium Finish (Alphabetical listing)
- Admiral Lord Nelson
- Alexander the Great
- Buffalo Bill
- Davy Crockett
- Duke of Marlborough
- Geronimo
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- Napoleon
- Richard the Lionheart
- Robin Hood
- Sir Francis Drake
 

So with Buffalo Bill I now have half the sculpts, but even with other-finish duplicates am no more than a quarter of the way to full sets of both! Another reason for suspecting the same cards for both types - they only ever come in ones or twos! I may have the Nappy Blowapart somewhere, too?

 

And thanks to whoever corrected me on a couple of the titles a while back!

M is for More Airfix Updates

I seem to be half-and-half Rack Toys and Airfix Blog housekeeping this week! I've added a few bits to the Farm, RAF Personel, Arabs and WWI French, with smaller tweaks to the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood and Combat Group pages, Hong Kong stuff, conversions & OBE's, some AHM catalogue images and/or box scans.

Farm Stock

RAF Personel

'Bedouin' Arabs

WWI French

C is for Charity Shop Round-up

A quick round-up of recent Charity shop finds, I haven't been as diligent this last two-and-a-half years as I had become, in checking the shops, too busy running about, or sorting stuff back at the house. But as the end-game creeps nearer I have got up to town with a few minutes to spare more often in recent weeks, and this is what I've found since the last post of this nature!

This was no money at all - two punds I think? The shots aren't brilliant, but then none of it is likely to interest most of you, but it will all prove useful in comparison, round-up and thematic posts or pages going forward, being mostly figural, and it's an eclectic mix of  pieces in ceramic, wood, resin, glass and mixed-media.

 

While I paid a little more than I like to for these, there are actually four posts in the long queue on these, and several other posts on similar recent or current blind-bag 'playground' collectables (Panosh, Zomlings, Moshlings, Shopkins etc), which have been building since we last looked at these, here, back in  . . .  2014/15? But they aren't a priority and can wait.

 

In the meantime, here's a reminder of the variety of both the shapes and colours of these Gogo Crazy Bones, which date back to the 1990's (frighteningly, if you're my age; some 30-odd years ago!), and aren't hard to find in quantities like this, you may remember a jar-full at The Toy Project charity in London.

 

I had this tin in a previous purchase, not sure if Blogged or queue, but it was full of the coloured ones and only one or two of the gold-chromed, so the previous owner had obviously swapped some out, however as a commercial set, it's probably not worth as much as some of the earlier individual ones can go for, if deemed 'rare'.

 

In the queue articles I have now got Star Wars (I think?), Disney and Israeli knock-off's, among others, so they were very popular for a while, and one day I will get the rest out of the queue, maybe as a stand-alone page?

 

Mixed lot of mostly 1980/90's Kinder toys, a couple of superhero/Barbie types and a few of the more recent luggage/mobile 'phone hangers, but I thought the frog pencil-top had a bit of age . . . although, he may just be dirty!

 

A whole tub of animals for a fiver the other week, it's an odd selection with very modern cheapies rubbing shoulders with vintage, mid-range Safari, and Schleich top-end stuff, all good gap-fillers!

 

Can't say "No" to happy cat fairing types and the Schleich Dino' was a quid, so this trio came home with me.

 

While this lot was three purchases last week, a bunch of Whimsies from Wade, which brought back memories of childhood (we used to have ours from Christmas crackers lined up on the narrow shelf above the curtains in our shared bedroom), a nice, probably Indian figurine of a musician in wood and Compo from Last of the Summer Wine, who I think goes with a recent Corgi-branded die-cast vehicle - he's a lump of whitemetal.

E is for Emergency . . . Empire or Emson?

A closer look at a couple of the sets in the packaging-post from the other day now, with a look at the Blue Box emergency set, and what I've suggested is the Lucky 'version', however in preparing the images, it became obvious that it's probably not Lucky, but E (for Empire? Or Emson, see past article on Thames Trader trucks!), the people who made some of those Tri-Ang Minic ship knock-off's.

The two sets side-by-side, ignoring the illustrative card coming off the front side of the Blue Box carton, you can see the two boxes are roughly the same height and depth, but the unbranded one (sold as Lucky but probably Emson) is wider for double the contents.

 

The Blue Box turntable ladder truck is a bit of fun with a fully traversing, elevating and extending, sectional ladder (a very delicate structure in polystyrene, I don't suppose many have survived outside the packaging!), but purely fictional on a Bedford RL chassis I think?

 

The ambulance, on the same chassis, has been (along with the figures) quite badly discoloured by sunlight (ultraviolet), and you can see that while the far side isn't so affected, the cab/chassis moulding is untouched.

This confirms my own theory much expanded-on in an interesting thread on plastic diseases, on the old HäT forum, long since deleted, when H adopted the 12-month cut-off! Basically, I believe all problems with old plastic are related to errors on the day they were formed, with incorrect temperatures, pressures or additive quantities resulting in hidden flaws with will come out later, I'm guessing the body and figures were probably overcooked in the tools, while the cab-chassis went through their birth without problems?

The other set is aping the 77xxx series from Blue Box, with a window in front of each element, and similar packaging dimensions, and confirms the link between the round-based mechanics and the oblong-based firefighters, previously made here at Small Scale World.

I thought the artwork was rather atmospheric!

 

I don't know my cars well enough to call either of these, are they US vehicles, with that soft spongy suspension which makes kids car-sick, or are we looking at a Ford Zephyr or Zodiac for one of them? Corgi did an Oldsmobile staff-car, could one of these be a clone of that?

 

We've seen the figures before, they are copies of the Blue Box copies of the Dinky figures, but the sticker on the blue Police-car's door is clearly the branding of the 'E for Empire' toys, probably, actually Emson, seen on other toys of this type, which is not to say Lucky aren't in there somewhere, there was a lot of cross pollination between all those cheapo-platic makers, and having discovered that Blue Box (and Redbox) are only brands of Tai Sang, there's no reason to discard previous theories without empirical evidence, so I'll tag all three (Lucky Toys, Empire Made, Emson) until we know more!

 

The Thames Trader water tank (? Or tool-lorry?) is similar in lines to the real-life T55, but that was more streamlined, while the Dennis looks like a bit of a hybrid between a 1971 D600 (Mk 2) and the earlier F101. As different brigades would have replaced different numbers/types of appliances at different times, there would have been a gradual evolution in outline and fittings, as well as different decorations (some have more chrome), so it's a fair representation of a generic Dennis!

It was machines like this which attended our house, and saved it, back in the 1970's, when the heath caught fire (thoughts for the people of Maui, Greece, Portugal, Canada et al.) and the tar on the flat roof started steaming! The firemen gave my brother and I regular top-ups for our watering cans, so we could help 'damp-down'! We found tons of cooked Adder's eggs - sadface, and ended-up looking like a couple of Victorian chimney sweeps!

 

Being a local manufacturer, my childhood memories are filled with Dennis fire engines (and County tractors) being test-driven or 'shaken-down' around the area, and they often went through Fleet, sometimes as plain chassis, with the drivers' using motorcycle helmets and four-point, racing seatbelts, perched - as they were - on a temporary seat over the bare engine! I seem to recall the seats were held-on with a literal network of bungy-cords, but it was probably coloured rope!

 

While it is also similar to the Bedford RL 'Green Goddess' wagons of the Auxiliary [Army] Fire Service (AFS), and of the fire-strikes fame! All gone now, along with everything else in the cupboards - Thanks Tory voters, you know the price of everything and the value of nothing, least of all 'society'.

In both sets, the figures are slightly over-scaled at 28/30mm, but all the vehicles could carry-off service in 1:76/72nd scale armies or on HO or OO-gauge layouts, or maybe not the two cars; just the lorries/trucks?

U is for Update - Airfix Indians

 

I've added some stuff to the Airfix HO-OO Indians page, a few box scans, some OBE's a rack-toy card and conversions, which can all be seen here!

I is for In Space No One Can Hear You Blow Out Your Candles!

Cake decorations, not rack-toys, but the price-points and ephemeral nature of the products are pretty similar, and as I say most years, a few days in, RTM isn't just for RT's! Wilton today, and their quite eclectic output of Space Toys over the years, and probably not all of them but the ones I've been made aware of.

 

These are all generics, in that the rocket also comes as a stand-alone cap-bomb, and while I think I have one now (might be on the Blog?), it wasn't here when this post started to take shape.

 

Likewise the MPC copies are pretty common, these seem to be not the best copies, but not the worst, and from the colours (which I like) may be the same ones issued in rack-toy bags by . . . errr . . . Payton? Someone like that!

While the Ajax-Archer copies seem to be the soft-plastic with paint, Hong Kong figures also issued as both rack toys and bagged parachute-toys, in which guise the later, unpainted mouldings, are quite common. But the helmets would seem to be unique to the Wilton issue copies?

I can't find these in the catalogues I have, so they must have been a short-lived item, if they were Wilton, I was told they were but can't find anything definitive, I believe there's a second pose, I only have the one at the moment, but note, on his back; the same KT in an oval cartouche, as the firm which issued all those statuettes and pencil sharpeners, stationary stands etc . . . we've been looking at here at Small Scale World in the last few years !

 

He (previous shots) may even (with his mate) have been the production versions of the two in this catalogue image, with the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) or lander, as I don't think I've seen these either? Revell scale-ups? Behind them is the Gemini craft with two larger scale astronauts.

 

Here's the three of them, what do you think, could he be contemporary with the other two, having replaced the 'mock-up' press figures, or am I still looking for three other astronauts? And the bigger guys served to ID others in the 'unknown seated pilots' zone! the KT is about 45mm (50 with the domed stand), the other two 60+mm

We have also looked at the loose candle-holder figures here, not that long ago, but there was a second set with a UFO and one each of the two figures, so Junior could have space-cakes until he was eight, on two purchases! Then, if he makes it, the nursing-home staff could get them out for his eightieth!

 

The collection, as it stands, minus my loose UFO figures. The catalogue image above seems to show a transparent red-nose, mine is a totally opaque, flat red. And I'm not sure if the figures are even in the bag? I think they're stuffed into the ship, but I can't check as it's gone to storage.

 

 

I think I nicked this off evilBay to remind us of the figures without opening (or having to find) my bagged set!