A is for Ashes-to-Ashes, Dust-to-Dust . . . errr . . . Books to Compost

As some of the more loyal readers, or even just regular readers - my 'eemies' are here most days! - may have gathered, a few years ago now, I got the storage stuff out of storage and put it in the garage, it was rather at my Mother's insistence, for valid financial reasons (it was my money not hers), but it wasn't a brilliant idea.

 

It rained just after we'd unloaded the last van, but I'd managed to get a handful of tarpaulin's from the magic, wonderful, now, covid-gone Baker's in town, just before the heavens opened, so everything was saved that first night, but it became obvious that the Jenga pile on the drive was never going to fit, and over the next few weeks a lot of the metal furniture and filing cabinets went to a passing scrap-merchant, and over that winter most of the wooden stuff was burnt . . . heay, it kept us warm!

But a bunch of 94-litre Really Useful Boxes ended-up under tarp's for a few years, with some cardboard boxes on top, two of which suffered water ingress, resulting in the loss of most of my bedding and most of my coat-hangers! But, on the bottom, one of the Really Useful Boxes had a crack in the base!

Here on the left is the offending box, the two contained the bulk of my Sci-Fi papaerbacks, and luckily the one on the left also had a large, old-fashined sweet-jar, filled with marbles, and a glass flagon type thing filled with glass-beads (which I think they use on the roads, for reflective paint), and can just be seen behind the two obviously shot Bradbury's, the two jars reflected light nicely, and were heavy enough to act as bookends. I should add, for context, that I let the hardbacks go years ago.

 

The box on the right is fine, and now cleaned-up, resides back in - even more expensive - storage, waiting for this minor nightmare, which I certainly didn't think would last three years and see the passing of not just my Mother, but both cats, to end. And the box seems to include or go from F-Z?

But . . . that leaves Aldiss, Anderson, Asimov, Ballard, Bliss, Bova, and the penmanship of Aurther C Clerke, as well as Deleny, among others, now (or. 'then', this was the summer of '22), as a solid mass of damp pulp, half of which had already been converted to a fine mahogany slime, by snails, worms and woodlice!

 

It was, in its entirety, spread along the hedge-line at the bottom of the garden, where its remnants have now had two years-worth of leaves and garden-clippings, dumped on top, and I doubt you can read a word of the tens of millions in that box now. Even the wipeable foil-coatings on a lot of modern books are only cellulose, so apart from a slight rainbow-shimmer when first dug-over, you will never know the greatest works of Sci-Fi were left there to die, along with some space-opera trash!

 

The jar of marbles is under what was once the boxed-set of Herbert's Dune trilogy, he missed the saviour box, despite his surname, by having a bulky outer . . . a lesson there for all of us - eat less, exercise more!

However, I can report that the Library has started clearing out it's old novels, and they appear to be doing so alphabetically, consequently I have started to replace the missing chunk of my library, under the confidence that even if I've read them, anything authored by a before-F is 'new' to shelf . . . when/if they finally have a shelf again!

 

Do not mourn my misfortune, or, if one of my 'eemies'; do not celebrate it. Firstly I had half an idea things were not good in that box, and probably could have saved the top layer if I'd acted earlier, and second, nothing lasts forever, everything dies, whole galaxies with a billion stars each, crash-into each other, ripping their very atoms apart, and starting again with a big cloud of coalescing gas.

 

You are only remembered while people still alive, remember you, once the last of them has gone, you have gone too. Whole civilisations disappear with little to remember them, the city's of Mohenjo Daro and the 'Indus Valley' culture - millions of people over hundreds of years - all gone, leaving so few clues as to their coming, or going, we are at a loss to explain them, or their end!

 

Ohhhh, you may survive as a statistic for another century or two, on a list, as someone who served, someone who received benefits, someone who held a licence of some sort, someone who paid bills, or, if you get your fizzog in the local paper, you may live-on for another century or two as a microfiche thumbnail a few millimetres square, but ultimately everything dies, including your favourite books!

 

I had, after all, already read them, some more than once, or I wouldn't be the fusty, anti-establishment cynic I am, so they had done their job, while I was still a teenager.

H is for a Handful More!

Back with key-rings, keychains, key fobs, they are different things to different people! I think this lot was a charity shop lot a year or two ago, I can't honestly remember, and I made the mistake - a mistake I regularly make - of trying to shoot them on a red background!

 

Several catering firms had similar dough-men mascots, this one - Turkstra - is Dutch, and appears to have awarded itself 1st and 2nd place in something, at the same time, their biscuits must be bloody good!

And I thought this was fun, as you could remove the chain-ring and have a perfect egg-box for a dolls house! I'm guessing, from the lack of a mark, that it's missing a sticker, and if it had a sticker, may have been offered to several egg-producers, so could be missing any one of a number of stickers?

Common 'Jig Toy' design of the family saloon, made key-ring, my experiance of this kind of key ring is that if you actually wore in on your trouser loop, you quickly found pieces missing, so it's nice to find it in one piece!

 

Not really my thing, but it will join the other novelty key-rings, alongside the other novelties and next to the figural key-rings, paperwork-wise! Quite a survivor too, as it's quite delicate, especially the visor, which has two little ethylene pins, and there is plenty of opportunity for loss, breakage or cracking, not to mention the sticker going missing, so a bit of a find I guess!

 

Relief-flat - a cockerel and grapes, is it a French regional mascot/logo thing? A winery? Or just a generic? Again, outside the main collection, but early plastic ephemeral, novelty/plaything, it has its place.

 

Another automotive subject here, with a small base-metal old-fashioned racing-car, might be based on an Edwardian board-game moulding? Not Monopoly, a lesser thing? But fun anyway!

 

Looking at the pre-'publish' close-ups, I think it's actually plastic, not base metal, and while possibly still from a board-game piece, is more likely to be taken from a charm-bracelet thing? Could even be homemade from a Christmas Cracker prize!

 

Another relief-flat of a cat and kitten, a bit bitter-sweet right now, I still miss Boysey-Boy every day, but these are black, and it's many years since we've had black cats, although once Dad brought six home in the staff-car, in a catering-sized cornflakes box, after rescuing them from the bin-stores at Browning Barracks!

 

Little Topo-Gigio, the Italian kids TV puppet, I wonder if some of the several similar small versions I have may also be ex-key-rings? I'll have to investigate them for loop-removal. This one was so hard to shoot on the red I gave-up and pulled up the winter cover, complete with cat hairs, only to find one of the red shots was actually useable!

A is for AaaaHaaa! Once you know what you're looking for . . . .

Someone in France has a shed-load of these, but there was one in the UK with a fiver on it, and I was paid on Friday, and the parcel was at the old house when I dropped off the recycling, on my way to work, so I've just shot/scanned this little beauty!

These are boxed and have a B prefix to their codes, so I suspect the others had a W prefix for 'window pack', and another look at the logo reveals it's probably CWT or WTC?, these lack the painted details of the others, so may have been later, or a budget line, and I think are the sort of thing you might have found as fair-ground side-show prizes - hook-the-duck, hoopla or the coconut shy?

 

Properly set up, and in fact both her hands were blocked with PVC-paint, so you have to force them, but it was an easy job. Accessories in white this time, but the drumsticks are green as last time. The French lot were mostly white too.

 

Box art and codes, still only the six instruments/one pose, but we now have more colours hinted at, while the French lots include the mustard yellow, we're still looking for red and pink, and a darker blue than the lot the other day.

 

To fill the post, I think we've seen these all before, but these are the bendies which have come in over the last few months, including the Brabo-marked soldier, and possibly the first bendy ever, the 'Little Rubber Man' who's clearly a Witch? The smoking dog came from Chris Smith and is one of a series of smoking dogs! The two littlies I can't remember, one's a Mickey Mouse knock-off, the other a small, daft-looking dragon type.

L is for the Little Tramp

Couple of figures which have come in over the last few years, one possibly from Peter Evans, the other found by me or Chris? I give you Sir Charles Spencer 'Charlie' Chaplin KBE, actor, filmmaker, and composer.

One of the few who successfully transitioned from the silent era to the speakies, lived to a ripe old age, and is presented here as a resin caricature and a PVC figure around 60mm, which might be marked but I forgot to note any markings!
 

G is for Glow-in-the-Dark Space Troopers

A real "Bloody Hell, this thing's taking off, find something we can put out there NOW!" moment, as Toy Box rushed to exploit the excitement being generated by events far, far away and long, long ago, back in 1977!

This auction was brought to my attention by someone on Brian Heiler's Faceplant group three or four years ago, and I was pretty sure they looked familiar (beyond obviously being the old Archer sculpts), so I grabbed the images, against one day blogging them.

 

Then, when I was up the storage unit in Jan. '22, putting space-stuff away, which had been in the garage, I spotted these in a tub, so shot them poorly, in a confined space, better than nothing, and you should have seen the shots I deleted!

 

I think they are from the old soft-ethylene Hong Kong copies rather than the proper Archer moulds which Glencoe cleaned-up/repaired a few years ago, well, a while-ago now. Although they do claim to be 'American Made'?

Finally, last year, these were up on feebleBay and I nearly bought them but the BIN-price was a bit steep for loose, seventies, rack-toys! They do seem to suffer from brittleness, but it may just be the tool, and I'm missing the chap with the longer ray-gun. Only the six poses seem to have been produced, with only two armed, and they are helmetless, but glow in the dark!

 

Space Trooper Action Team, from Toy Box Inc., absolutely nothing to do with Star Wars!

Not Archer . . . Ajax sculpts . . . Doh!

V is for Vitriform Venusian Villains

Well, they don't look very friendly, they're as likely to be from Venus as anywhere else, given they are FICTIONAL, and they are definitely glasslike, as they are made out of glass! I shot these oddities on Adrian's Mercator Trading table back at one of the London Shows in the year just gone - torch-welded rod-glass alien figuriens

They look like the kind of thing you get in the sort of gift shop which isn't tied to a major tourist attraction, or a posh/independent Hotel's gift shop - "Something to take home for the relatives"? Clearly in a Murano style, but not well-executed enough to be such a renowned mark, and these were unmarked, in generic plain stock-boxes, but still - rather fun!

I think the two on the left are variations of the same purple/mauve chap/ess, while red and blue are to the same design, but obviously different colourways (red is quite opaque) and the green amphibiman one is altogether different, maybe from Mars! They could - of course - be qualification/end of term pieces from a glass student? The bases are also glass, opaque, white glass, like and Old Spice bottle!

B is for Big-Box Play Set

I've mentioned before that we never really did big play sets here in the UK, houses were too small, I think? The closest we got to such things really were the 'HO-OO' assault sets from Airfix, and a few similar things in the late 1970's from them in 1:32nd scale and/or Matchbox, who's were a tad poorer I thought, but this set from Supreme / SP Toys is of similar thought.

Scanned from an old Wilkinsons catalogue from the 2000's, these were piled high each Christmas for several years, and Index (the UK catalogue shop) may have carried one or two. Strangely, for what is supposed to be a publicity shot, this in the set with the poorest contents, most of th sets having fewer 'planes and more, better vehicles, but if you're a fan of 'planes, I guess this would have been the one for you?

 

We looked at the contents back at the start of the blog;

 

AFV's - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/03/s-is-for-supremesp-toys-part-1-armour.html

Soft Skins - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/03/s-is-for-supremesp-toys-part-2-soft.html

Big Rigs - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/03/s-is-for-supremesp-toys-part-3.html 

Combat Engineering - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-for-applause-part-4-armoured.html

and a few years later;

Figures - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/s-is-for-supreme-sp-toysand.html

 

And I suppose there were about six or eight different ones, as far as contents went, of which I maybe saw about five in person, plus this one, and one with more desert versions of the vehicles I only have in green, which I know existed, as a shop in Farnborough used them in a window display one year!

D is for Dirty Daimler Done a Decency!

I picked up a ratted old Airfix 'readymade' polypropylene 1:32nd scale Daimler Armoured Car a while back, and thought to get it cleaned-up over Christmas, this post is a quick report on the results of those efforts.

As you can see, paint and markings had seen better days, a few of the smaller pieces are missing and what you can't see is rusty axles one of which was bent two ways!

The various plug-ins were hot-screwdriver welded in the factory and while the hope is I can find a worse one, with it accessories, going cheap, most of the second-hand ones in a Google image search are missing the spotlight, so hope isn't high!

After disassembly, all the pieces went in a bleach-soak which got a shaking every hour or so for most of an afternoon/early evening, after a few shakes you can see the colour of the bleach suggesting things are happening! The wheels, being a different material, were easy to clean with a bottle-brush, it was only a bit of overall grubbiness, and paint-overspill on the insides.

Before (above) and after (below), axle before straightening.

 

Where the paint had worn-off, presumably years, even decades ago, there is some sun-fading, rather oddly to RAF dessert-pink! Silicon bumper-gel might bring out the colour, but I'm not sure if I can be faffed to try, it looks a whole lot better as it is.

 

The other missing item is the stowage-box and rack which is more likely to be found, while the ariel needs replacing, really, I got it a bit straighter than it had been (along with both weapon-barrels), but really you can't do hot-water treatments with 'propylene like you can with PVC or even 'styrene or 'ethylenes - it's too rigid in its final form, especially when that form is the result of chewing or bending!

T is for Two - Mail, Historic Mail . . .

These may be of casual interest, curiosity-wise, and they certainly deserve to be published for what they represent historically, also they may have some specific philatelic interest to stamp collectors, who may or may not visit here occasionally?

Start with the easy one which happens, also, to be the first, chronologically, I assume it is from my Grandfather or Grandmother on Mum's side, and is only of cursory interest for having the "Past by Naval censor" stamp, bottom left, however, the scribble which seems to accompany it, and which is not recognisable as either of my grandparent's hands, would appear, nevertheless, to be in the same ink, and from the same pen, as wrote the address?

 

The suspicion being that someone in grandad's office, like his own secretary or batman (did they have batmen in the Navy?), had the necessary clearance to sign-off mail, without opening it or checking it properly, or to do so, upon the order from him? . . . The sort of low-level corruption in high places [sorry Grandad!] which leads ultimately to the Sub-Postmaster's scandal, or 'Lord' I-ruined-modern-Britain Cameron, or Rishi's wife having a $multi-million financial interest (through Israeli contracts) in what is, or should actually be, Palestinian oil & gas!

It really is the case that there's one set of rules for the rest of us, and another set for those in power. Although you can slide into or out of the select group who get away with such things, Grandad was cheated of his knighthood, as an embarrassment to two nations, one - Albion - almost as old as Rome, the other - The Republic of India - only months new!

 

And that he (or I) would expect him to have had a knighthood in the normal course of events, only proving also, that the honours' system has always been the meaningless, corrupt, box-ticking exercise it still is - no matter how many minor awards they gave to school dinner-ladies, before they got rid of them all!

This is also of passing interest, for the over-stamps indicating things taking a turn for the worst in another war zone, twenty years later. There's also an apparent conflict between the two types of stamp, one suggesting there's insufficient postage paid to forward the letter, the other claiming a suspension of service?

 

But this, which accompanies the Christmas card (see below), it of far more interest, as A) it reveals a time when we, as a modern, advanced, civilised nation, ran a universal postal service which would fully reimburse you (with a written explanation), if they failed to deliver a letter on the other side of the world - can you imagine anything like that happening today, after 45-years of Thatcherite-Ragnomic ideology having hollowed out all our institutions, and/or reduced them to their lowest, cheapest, common-denominators?

And B) it mentions Laos? The inference being that the Browns', as embassy staff, had been transferred to Laos, for reasons lost in the mists of time, and that for equally unknown reasons, the mail system to Laos, not Vietnam (which while still a hot war, was quieter for Westerners in 1960, only five US servicemen killed, probably all MAAG), had actually heated up, which it had, with both American bombing and a Communist insurgency, edited: I was thinking of 1970, 1960 was the start of the Laotian civil-war!

And, therefore, that while the lack of sufficient postage may have been true, someone nevertheless tried to forward the card 'in theatre' rather than send it back, before giving-up and adding the two 'service suspended' stamps?

I thought the card was worth showing you; beautiful oriental, stylised brushwork of sparrows digging in the snow below highland bamboo, I imagine Mum bought the card somewhere like the British Museum shop, or SOAS . . . somewhere like that, but she may have brought it back from her own diplomatic stint in Singapore?

O is for "Oojah-Cum-Pivvy"

Which is the word I've been searching for in past posts on this subject, as was also I searching for the name of the importer, who was the famous Shamus Wade, he went on to use the word/phrase for a range of lead figures made by/sold as Nostalgia Models, while the phrase itself has a very complicated etymology (in our family it's always been '[H]oojah-mah-flip'), well worth the crawl through the rabbit hole, and is currently the name of an alternative or 'indie' band.

One of the Oojah-Cum-Pivvy sets, as originally imported by Wade (while he was still in Ireland?), it was a part-set of these, my late Mother found in a charity-shop for me, which made the first post on the subject, and got me paying more attention to charity shops after a bit of a hiatus.

 

But this post has its own chequered history, as the images below are all from Brian Berke, and he sent them ages ago, around April '22, I found them in a folder at Christmas last year, and excitedly told him I'd found this folder with all sorts of stuff in and would move it up the queue, only for life to intervene - as it does - and they didn't get posted that Christmas or in the new year, and while there were quite patches, overall, last year was pretty prolific for publishing, they just never got the attention, so I had hoped to post them over this Christmas, and looked at them a few times, but in the end, it happened just now!

Brian spotted these in a little store in New York (I think, or Connecticut?), and as you can see it's an interesting collection of British imports (Britains and Hornby 'O' I think I can see), and domestic American production including a Comet Authenticast (? Grey overalls) and early Beton plastic, front-right. There's also a rather nice Indian-made chalkware, in the back-right corner.

Which was obviously from this lot, in a neighbouring compartment! And . . . we have a brand! Only the third I think for India, a shameful situation given it's a nation of over a billion, but it is mostly either this craft-stuff, or the more-commercial, imported Western/Hong Kong-China shite.

They appear to be made by Ramdass of Lucknow (I once lived in Lucknow Barracks in Tidworth!), are slightly larger than Wade's Oojah-Cum-Pivvy's and as mentioned, chalkware, rather than the terracotta of the musician sets. They each represent a given trade or function, which is written on the base in English and - probably - Hindi?
 

Here we see the marking, which is simple pen & ink, as per similar figures seen on the blog from both Brian and Adrian, I think. And they are probably decorated in powdered poster-paint, so you wouldn't want to be getting them damp, for two reasons - paint and material!

 

Three more.

The jeweller, before and after having his hand fixed!

Along with a scaler - they are a good 70/75mm, without the bases.

 

I've also had this in the folder for a while, it's an old auction shot (Bonhams maybe?), and shows what are 'composite' toy figures, also from India, being a mix of wood, wire, cloth and plaster or papier-mâché? I love the cushion ticking/fringe on the elephant's howdah!

F is for Phoenix Fallen

Or at least I think they have? They were a staple of Military Modelling magazine (and Battle) in that late 1970-early 1980's heyday when the ads' were sometimes better than the content, or it seemed that way as you drew-up your wants lists and circled things in Biro or pencil!

 

Checks google, remembers we've had this conversation before . . . they're still going, but exclusively supporting the dolls house hobby, which, being bigger, will be more lucrative? Although the previous mention was way back when and the website (now based in Eire and incorporating Warwick Miniatures) doesn't seem to have been updated since 2018, so I suspect they are now defunct?

Phoenix Model Developments, possibly known to wargamers as Phoenix Renown (it's how I think of them), an aftermarket manufacturer better known back then for their 54mm antique furniture and ECW stuff or their 30mm ceremonial sets (we looked at the Toyal Tournement's Naval gun-race teams, last time), produced a small range of OO-gauge compatible figures, which may or may not have extended beyond these four sets?

They were also originally associated with Ravenscourt Miniatures, as Jon Attwood, who supplied most of these images, reminded me.

The figures, as mentioned in the cutting below.

 

The cutting, from a 1980's railway modelling magazine.

 

 

How they were packaged, as with the first image, and both cuttings, these are Jon's, there's not much I can add, beyond the fact that this article might help me ID some of my unknowns at some point, let's hope it helps you too!

From the archive, and the only other OO/1:76th stuff they were known for was a small range of WWII vehicles, I actually have the Kubelwagen somewhere (orange or scarlet header-card, I think?), but it has an interesting story attached to it, involving Crown Court, witnesses and other shenanigans, so we'll look at it another day and tell whole the sorry tale!

Y is for ♫♪♫♫ The Yanks Are Coming, The Yanks are Coming, the Drums Rum-Tumming Everywhere! ♫♪♪♪

Not the Confederates mind, the Yanks! "Over paid, over-sexed and over here!" went the saying in the early 1940's! And here we have some sailors on furlough from the Invasion Force gathering on the South Coast, who have decided to use the Summer Solstice for an impromptu barn-dance on Salisbury Plain!

Yes I know the shadows are all wrong thanks, and when I showed them elsewhere some fatuous little tick-turd (another of the men-with-two-names), said they were the wrong colour, well that's because they're phuqing toys, no, no; they're not even phuqing toys, they're phuqing novelty, phuqing cake decorations, you phuqing arse-bubble.

Possibly Wilton, but unmarked and of such poor finish/paint, you suspect they were probably issued by one of the lesser brands, such as Carousel or Gay-Gem, Unique or 'Stovers? having shot the above, I gave several away, so that shot can't be reproduced, or at least, not by me!