D is for Double-Deckers! 1 - Blue Box

Not the best images I'm afraid, so I'll chuck them up here with a few nots and post something else later tonight or close-after midnight, so this can begin its slide down the page, with slight embarrassment at its paucity!

Yeah! Bright sunlight! Great!

 

Useful information for some!

 

Welp! It's better than the shot I took! This is a 'large scale' set, as far as the figures go, and there's still no room for 'that' artillery piece!

R is for Rack Toy Shelfies

There's a few of these posts in the queue now, so we'll get some of the current stuff up here! Brian Berke, our roving toy-spotter in New York, sent me a bunch of shelfies the other week, in time for RTM, and while some have gone off to the near eternal Coventry of the long queue as being not figural enough for this Blog (they will eventually be used on the A-Z pages or in more thematic stuff), here are a few which hit the spot perfectly!

 

Superhero types, clearly aping the Power Rangers, and similar to the ones in our (UK's) pound shops a few years ago, but lacking the five minis that came with ours, and having some level of articulation - at the arms only I fancy?

 

Nice bunch of Dinosaurs, one day I'll put all the dinosaur bags and cards we've looked at on one page, so they can be more easily sorted and grouped, and so we can see easily which lots are in more than one branding/packaging! There's about fourteen in the bag, it's hard to see them all, and they look to about the same size as the next lot, so that's plenty of bang for your ten-bucks?

These are particularly nice for what they are - cheap rack toy animals - as I thought the paint was particularly good for the type? They are also on the large side, and I think that Panda (and possibly one or two others) are in the queue, loose, so a UK issue (probably in different packaging) is a certainty on this one! . . . No, we saw it here the other day, in the charity-shop round-up - I think it's triple-A or AAA under the generic card?!

 

I shot this in The Works the other day, I think we may have seen it before, so, if we have; ho-hum! But if we haven't, I think we've seen other items in this line, graphical-speaking? What I call medium-sized; 6/8-inches, and quite well modelled, but paint is a little uninspiring.

From the metadata on the shot, this was inches away from the previous set, but the price label was not a standard 'Works one, so I managed to confuse myself, medium smalls at about 4/6-inches, and paint/detailing pretty much matches the others so the same source in China? I rather like the Plesiosaur arching across the top!
 

And . . . that's three sets of dinosaurs, with no Dimetrodon? WT very actual F! You used to get a Dimetrodon in every set, line, range or bunch of dinosaur toys, now you hardley ever see them? It's discrimination, that's what it is, I'm joining the Far Left to militantly campaign against this injustice, 'caus the woke middle are ignoring this obvious slight against Dimbo!

Many thanks, as always, to Brian, for everything he does for the Blog.

F is for First Line Troop Set

Back to Blue Box, and one of the earliest sets they did, this may actually date from the late 1950's, but I suspect the early 1960's, also it's not that rare, I've seen several over the years and got a second one last year, contents shot, but better box than mine!

 

 

It came with a play-mat and is obviously competing directly with the Marx Miniature Masterpiece sets, and you may recall my comments on that previously, with specific regard to the two company's German Infantry, it's as if they came from the same factory, or the same figure sculptor?

 

 You get two identical 'armies', one in green (Allies, good!) and one in grey (Axis, bad!), two tents and the play-mat, so obviously the grey stuff is the excitement, as while the green-stuff was reconfigured in dozens of sets through the 1960's, 1970's and even, maybe, the early 1980's, the gray seems only to have been in one or two sets back at the start, while the Bedford trucks - not in this set - were continued in grey with the German infantry, in the later single vehicle sets and the odd multi-decker window-box.

 

My grey trailer is broken, and propped-up in the previous shot! Indeed, a grey trailer is the only Blue Box military vehicle I still need a good example of, but it's not a priority. I would however be interested to know if the trailer has a donor-sculpt, and if so who it was, as it's quite distinctive, but predates the Hasegawa one buy a decade or so, could it be Fujimi or Tamiya? Someone earlier, Monogram or Revell?

 

These are fun! Filler to keep the play-mat flat in the bottom of the box, themselves weighed down by the vehicles above them, they are following the old pattern of hollow-cast lead 'Big Box' sets, with cotton, glued to a card base, and raised by a wire prop. Set-up on the left, packed flat on the right.

 

Flags are just paper price-label stickers, folded round the top of the wire, serving to prevent the wire falling-back through the hole in the cotton fabric.!

In the upper shot you can see how the sides of the marquee are glued to the underside of the card, which is then covered with a sheet of paper, while in the lower shot you can see how the wire works.

These are from that lock-down photo-shoot I did in bright sunlight, which I thought would be a good idea, but in fact, it was not a success, with the light too bright really, anyway; gets it out of Picasa and into the public domain!

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.