D is for Double Deckers and Double Decker's

Which is important because one of them is a single decker! B is also for a Blast from Christmases Past!

 

Christmas (and Easter) is a time when all the chocolate manufacturers, some of the biscuit makers and a few other snack-food guys like to play with the packaging (and pricing) as part of the consumer-fest which is the Western holiday season, and Cadbury's iconic Double Decker bars used to pull all the stops out, I haven't seen anything like this for years though, now it's all more blatant 'multi-packs' . . . sniff!

 

The actual, big red double decker 'London' bus, even though it's actually in the distinctive orange of the Double Decker bars, and it contained four bars so it's a bit broader that UK roads would allow-for, especially with all the cycle lanes we have now!

 

Posed with two of the 30mm copies of Commonwealth national costume ladies/dolls of the world, and calling for a bus to stop with an Alpine Horn wouldn't endear you to a British bus crew, no matter how multicultural the area!

 

Please note: the mug says 'I think, therefore I am not a Daily Mail reader'!

The weird thing about this is that it came out long before the UK had 'bendy-busses', yet was almost certainly a UK specific issue? It's also presaging the corporate colours of Stagecoach, many years before the chaos of privatisation! And I hope you've noticed the number-plates, on both models!

This too, was four bars, but two in-line stacked pairs (double-decked Double Deckers!) so is better proportioned. The Esquimau is slightly overdressed for our climate, and waving a raw, unwrapped fish is not going to go down well with the other passengers, these girls aren't really helping themselves fit-in with the locals, are they?!

B is for Bright Red Bonus!

Getting into the Christmassy spirit with this little charmer, I think this in the third or fourth piece of horse-drawn, washing-power premium we've had here on Small Scale World now, courtesy of Bonux in France, and there's not much to add to what will be on the tag, via the previous posts, so enjoy . . .

 

The horse is a variation of the old Britains Hollow-cast horse which gave us all the Bergan-Airfix-Riesler-Reamsa-F&G horses, but in a less active pose, and the red is almost orange, so I guess 'scarlet' is the term!

Grabbed this from an evilBay auction back in May '21, you can see Bonux issued all sorts of pocket-money stuff, you'd also expect to find on carded rack-toy sets, individually in Christmas cracker, or lucky-bags, or even larger capsules in 'gum-ball' machines. We looked at some of the 'planes way back at the beginning of the Blog, and I keep meaning to track down a couple of the trains to compare with Kinder and Hong Kong's efforts!

U is for Updates - Various

I've added, or started a wants/swaps page above, as and when I will add things I'm after, and things I have to swap in the hope of mutually filling gaps in collections, it's not got much on it, but it will grow, and the pictures of the swaps will disappear once a deal is done!

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/p/wants-swaps.html

 

 

I added a Type 3 copy Astronaut set from Grandmother Stover's to the Giant Blog, a week ago, here;

https://butisitgiant.blogspot.com/2023/11/grandmother-stovers-c3-spacemen.html

 

 

And a whole bunch of HO-OO additions went in on the Airfix Blog a few weeks ago, can't remember what they all were now, but about 12 pages got new text, images or scans.

http://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

I've also dealt with a couple of recent comments over there and will check the other Blogs later, at the moment I'm not getting the notifications, and tend to only cheak this 'Home Blog' daily, it's because of the Hotmail problem, so it's still maverickatlarge[at]gmail[dot]com for the time being!

 

 

And here's a gratuitous picture of something . . . I'm just going to find in Picasa!

 

Hamley's 1972

K is for Crescent!

Because they're Kellogg's of course! Quick box-ticker here now, we've seen them before, again, more than once I think, but they are fun nevertheless, and most kids had some in their biscuit-tin or cigar-box of such things!

Complete set, all with the Kellogg's bases, and therefore sold (given away!) unpainted, six Native American Indians, relatively generic I think . . . mid-plains Indians? And pretty nice sculpts, with three fighting, one dancing, one . . . dancing with fire, or fighting? And a 'How' character!

 

Crescent marked on the left, Kellogg's to the right, he may have lost paint or be a late issue, late Crescent Wild West could be unpainted, or one paint. There are subtle differences between the two sculpts, but it seems Crescent had multiple cavities for at least these, and both 54 & 60mm Combat Infantry sets, maybe others?

 

A painted and paint-loss Cresent above, Kellogg's pair below, I used to think the pointy bases were an early thing, but Cereal Offers have both with the kneeling firer (link below), so it's obviously just a cavity thing?

More here;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/06/t-is-for-ticking-boxes.html

 

And Cereal Offers has them here;

http://cerealoffers.com/Kelloggs/Frosties/1950s/Indian_Warriors/indian_warriors.html

T is for They're Only Robots!

I know, I know! It's not Christmas yet, but everything else is out of the way over here (they've still got 'Thanksgiving' over there), so we can begin to get in the spirit, can't we? It's not like I've put a tree up or anything, and, b't . . . THEY'RE ROBOTS! Remember we had that trio of heavy, resin lumps of Robot, Christmas tree decoration from Poundland a year or two ago, well, check these plastic puppies out!

In Homebase now! And they are ridiculously cheap at a Pound, or even 90p each, I can't remember, but it was pin-money! They are only blow-moulded plastic, and normally I try only to buy glass ornaments (tradition), but we had that blow-moulded astronaut from Primark a few years ago, so why not, especially 'cos they're ROBOTS!

 

There's three! There's three of them, and did I say: they're ROBOTS!

F is for Follow-up & Farm, S is for Seen Elsewhere, T*R is for Tudor Rose

Third visit to these I think, but that may be my posting elsewhere, whatever, these are examples of the colours you can find, the early, hard, glassy styrene Tudor Rose farm animals manufactured in.

Seen elsewhere, a while ago now, so far cows are in the lead, but I think when this sample (now in storage), the original sample (always in storage of some sort, so far) and the last shot here (below) are brought together the pigs will win by a nose!

 

The cows in their corral!

So, we now have a white pig, but I wonder if it will be a long wait for a grey one, which will leave sheep as a joint first (assuming they don't have a pink version), but if neither have a brown iteration, it will be four-all across the board!

And we now have a black pony, although I think there are one or two in the never-seen sample? Finding the colours has become a fun game, as they only ever come-in in dribs and drabs, and colours within each sample seem tight to two or three, so they may have gone-out as batches. There are also several shades of white, which I'm ignoring for now, and so fare the fences have only been seen in brown, but white and black should be believable?

J is for Japanese Machine Gun/Gunners

Paul Woozley kindly sent these in, in response to a conversation on one of the old Almark  / Minimodels posts, with reference to my comment of never having seen the Japanese MG and team;

They had to be there, as both figures were on the Almark reissue runners, but they aren't on the four-page gatefold flyer, and I'd never seen one despite sorting a large collection of these for someone else, a collection with had multiples of the US mortar and mule, and the German version gun-team, indeed I think the baseplate and MG are the same as the German one?

But it's nice to see them in the distinctive Minimodels paint scheme and plastic colour, so many thanks to Paul for sending them, and if anyone can help Paul with a replacement/spare machine-gun, I can get you both in-touch.

H is for How They Come In - Peter - October

Hot off the postal van, this is Peter's third parcel recently, and very recent, like last week! Another nice group of his chuck-outs, but I want to address the Hing Fat thing hinted at in the previous post first . . . 

. . . . this is the publicity shot from Hing Fat's Faceplant page (not regularly updated), and you can see all the poses (except the prone figure) have the oblong bases, including the two poses we saw with ovoid bases in the previous post . . . 

 

. . . while this is another lot from Peter, and you can see we now have three different figures sporting the ovoid bases? I don't know if it's multiple cavities (per pose) in the one large tool, or more than one tool? They [ovoid bases] don't seem to be as common (maybe 1-in-4?), so I suspect a few extra, duplicate cavities tacked on the end of a larger tool, but I don't know, and now wonder how many poses have the two versions?

 

Lovely elephants and a box-ticking hollow-cast cow who's seen better days, two hollow, two-part animals in a fetching orange polymer, I think they may be Red Deer, some of their other stuff has the same construction values? Flocked bear key-ring and a cake decoration dove, marked-up to Anniversary House, but a copy of a much older model.

 

And another hollow, two-part jobbie, which is obviously a gargoyle, and possibly a touristy thing, or a Harry Potter thing? If the former: it might represent an actual, real-world gargoyle, if the latter: purely fictional?

Papo pirates, in the small size; Papo have promised to send me these about three years running (with lockdown - over the last four years), but never do! But I'm really happy to have the chap firing a cannon from his shoulder with a cross-belt for a satchel full of cannon-balls!

 

Kinder and Phiadal bits and a Superman key-ring in a soft, foamy, rubberised polymer, or elastomer! I'm loving the 'pink section' (of the toy shop!) walking-out/church on Sunday cart, some kind of Polly Pocket thing?

We saw the parachuting skeleton and the three mummies on the 31st, lovely things to get in the post without warning! But equally interesting is the diver, who seems to be a recent/current model and new to blog/collection. The Ninja is a capsule toy, and seems to be from the same people who produce the footballing/skating aliens, another footballer cake decoration and a Hawkin's Bazaar ger'nome make up the shot.

All much appreciated here at Small Scale World, and thanks to Peter for sending them, and having missed the pirates, at least I got those last four out in time for Halloween!

H is for How They Come In - Peter - July II

Right at the end of July another parcel came from Peter Evans with all sorts of goodies in it, and it's all right here, right now!

I think the upside-down blister card is a set of sea-life, which I meant to blog a few days/weeks later, in what was, then, about to be Rack Toy Month, but I ran out of time or something, 'cos there's plenty of sea-life for another round-up . . . soon maybe?

 

Hing Fat's current US infantry on the left, with late Ri Toys (Rado Industries) or early Hing Fat clones of Ri Toys on the right. The US are interesting because while the publicity shot shows everyone having oblong bases, rounded ones keep turning up as we shall see in the next post, for now though, both the kneeling firer and flamethrower operator here, have oblong bases in Hing Fat's own catalogue image! Matchbox DNA in nearly every pore!

A very pastoral scene, of various sheep and sheepdogs, some new to the Blog and/or collection, while you can never have too many of the Britains farm-family clones, because there are so many to find!

 

Mixed poultry, another growing corner of the collection, and ducks particularly have their own collector-base, so there's always new ones to find!

 

Scenic stuff, there is - you may not be surprised to read - a whole tub of traffic cones somewhere, and I guess one day I will do a page of them and try to ID as many as possible, they are actually quite easy to ID, once you start digging through catalogues, as they are mostly big-box/play-set stuff!

 

Civilians - Matchbox and Britains on the end, probably Pioneer in the middle, an old Hong Kong farm-girl, now out of China and two of the little Supreme GI's. The spinning novelty looks Christmas Cracker sized, and will go in the tub with all the other spinning-tops and suchlike!

 

While we have two more 'maybe Pioneer' here; fireman (Zita) and soldier (Realtoy/Dacron), with an unknown mechanic and the firefighter carrying a baby whom we saw in HTI packaging (early 'Teamsters' sets) a few years ago I think? I thought I'd keep this pack sealed as a sample of The Toy Project's packaging 'for posterity'! 

 

Thanks again to Peter for a useful collection of bits and bobs which will all find their use going forwards!

H is for How They Come In - Peter - July I

When I said I had three posts to clear from Peter's donations, I was thinking of the previous lot, but then a parcel arrived last week, so there are three! This little lot arrived in July . . . well in time for ITLAPD!

So it's rather pitiful that I then forgot to Blog the Pirate Treasures which I had hidden behind the Pucator spares, imagining I might do this post closer to the time (the one thing you can't accuse me of is not posting much since late July!), so, having them forgot to do this post and the ITLAPD post they'll have to wait until next year, but with the pulled post, that means we already have two for then! And - in my defence - I have been running-round like a blue-arsed fly!

 

These came with the piratey bits, a nice late PVC Britain tiger, one of those 'H' marked Deetail clones (which it looks like may be a Kwong Wah brand-mark), another of the smaller version cake decoration footballers, a lovely academic pig (who might teach me to spell academic!) and a paratrooper!

 

Many thanks to Peter Evans as always, sorry I forgot to blog the Pirate treasure!

T is for Two - Alien Academic Accoutrements

Oh, we like a bit of novelty stationary and stuff here, whether it's WWI rulers from France, 'Erasersaurs', or pencil sharpeners, and in particular, recently, the KT-marked pencil sharpeners, and, related - very recently - the cake decoration astronaut, so we shouldn't be surprised to find more KT novelties . . . 

. . . even when they are a PVC-flat/Ethylene-cap combination, rather than the polystyrene of all the previous finds! Aren't they lovely? Over-sprayed with random blasts of transparent 'glass-paint' giving the soft vinyl a metallic sheen, the black cartoon outlines over-rolled.

 

Did they belong to cheap 'Biro's', or were the caps designed to be universal, they are a bit narrow for most writing implements, so the feeling is they were specific to something? But what? And are they 'Bots or humanoids . . . humanoid droids!

I present a new tongue-twister: A Human boy, called Floyd, annoyed a humanoid droid, named Boyd!

 

The clear K.T. mark, as seen on all previous examples with the distinct full-stops, and they are modelled after one type of cookie-cutter, with the detail raised as low walls on an otherwise flat slab of PVC. The googlie-eyes giving them a certain character, which paint, or raised black-lines wouldn't have!

 

We actually saw this guy (girl, hermaphrodite . . . insert crude joke about female couplings here, well, it's an Alien; it could be a polyp-reproducing hive-mind for all I know!) the other day on a comparison shot, but he obviously got shot a lot! A modern 'CHINA' pencil top, nothing else to say about him, out there still, probably, somewhere!

**********************************

31st Dec. 2023 - Shaun Hite over at Pod Stallions, quickly ID'd the pencil-tops as being characters from Robocon, a Japanese live-action 'Tokusatsu' children's TV comedy, from Toei, with the short fat chap being the eponymous and hapless Robocon, the silver one is his boss-creator/teacher-mentor called Gantsu Sensei I think, while the other might be RoboWaru? Images from a third party, if they are yours, and you want them removed, that's not a problem.

 

From the Mai Kee (MK (T)) catalogue, 1986, courtesy of Bill B

 

Shaun was looking for similar flats to his, and while they are the same as mine (flat yellow, black cartoon line 'walls', transparent red/green spray-wash patches), his are key-rings (with the same gold-anodised connecting ring) and represent characters from another set, possibly Anime, of the Transformer type, not Tokusatsu. So these tops were part of a larger line of items - note the sharks and dinosaurs.

OOO is for N-Guage!

The Trebel-O-Lectric trains from Lone Star, or at least the unpowered version, which was just called Lone Star Locos, and a bit of a box-ticker as there's plenty more online, and I don't really collect it . . . much!

No, seriously, I had our childhood collection in a biscuit-tin for many years, but sold it in a moment of madness, when skint, and doing car-boot sales with a bunch of mates (you wanna' learn human nature, run a car boot stall for a few months, Jesus, we're scum!), back in the 1990's, anyway I got a good price from some chap who knew what he was looking at, at the Wavell School sale in North Camp, I think I asked 20-quid, and we settled on £16 or £17?

But a friend gave me his chuck-out set a while ago, also push-along, and very similar to my old set, but better paint! I had more track, more flat-trucks, the micro-vehicles for them and some Shell Oil tankers, along with a streamlined Mallard Loco, with I think was early Lesney (?), it wouldn't run, just sort of bumped-along the sleepers, but it looked stunning parked-up in the sidings!

In fact, I think there was a smaller Matchbox 1-75 loco, which Mum managed to get Lone Star wheels in? We also had the footbridge ('we' shared everything at that age), of which there is one in this lot, but it's missing a pillar, so I didn't shoot it, and we had a little die-cast level crossing.

 

I will look out for some of the missing bits!

 

Sidings

 

Vinyl cottage from the Gulliver County range

 

 

US style

 

 

UK style, but very-much a European-looking locomotive with those red wheels!

 

 

My favourite as a kid!

 

 

Junction box

 

The electrified version had dedicated left and right crossovers, but in the push and go range it was a single universal job! The lights had 'jewelled' red and green 'lights', replacements for which could be purchased from the gemology shop in Chobham, Martians allowing!

 

As a British Rail liveried locomotive it's considered a Deltic, but really it's a North American design, a market Lone Star were keen to tap, Deltic's were reversible with a cab at both ends.

S is for Supertops!

Bloody knackered, and I'm off to bed, in a nice warm room after a nice warm bath! But I thought I'd shove this out before I retire to the reward for the weary! We saw them here, a while ago now, but not all of them I think, and I seem to recall someone put me right on the Batgirl!

On the left what I think is a complete set of six DC superhero pencil tops of Hong Kong, but otherwise unknown heritage - I need a better paint Batman! Then a colour variation of The Flash, with a bootlegged, fatty-copy, bottom right and a -probably - late issue/reissue from the original tool in generic coloured plastic, a'la Diener Industries and others.