H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop Backlog - 2021, 1 of 2

Continuing to clear the charity shop plunder shots, I seem to have kept more up to date in 2023, but there's more from '21 and '22 to come, then I'd better start clearing the shelfies, or the Toy Fair stuff, or . . . !

 

A nice haul sometime in April, with three DVD's (I don't do television, there's little of merit on there now, and what there is, gets reissued as boxed-sets, I've just caught-up on Black Books and Spaced!), a British Museum dinosaur from Invicta Plastics, I have four or five now, and not one paid at evilBay prices!

Two nice WWII British softskin's from Oxford I think, a similar plane, I can't remember the provenance, and it went to storage, with most of this, back then, along with a bag of mostly modern funimals and a couple of Mini Bogglins! And I almost missed the pair of Chinese lions or 'Dogs of Pho', which will mage excellent photo-backdrops/props in the future.

 

A week later and I added another Invicta, being a better version of one we've seen here previously, also as a charity-shop purchase, I think? It turned out they were different shades, so I kept the tatty one for now, too!

 

I left this Schleich skinny Dinosaur (Tawa, issued in 2018) in the bag for now, I assume a blind-bag duplicate, sent straight to charity without being opened! Like Invicta, Schleich and Papo hold their value, however, they can be found cheap in charity shops, but not if the staff use "The 'Bay" to price, then they're all five or eight-quid!

 

Another mixed lot, with more viewing pleasures, some Phidal or Phadal-like (Disney stores?) and a ceramic cat. A bag of small 'ornamental' teddy-bears and I can't even recall what's in the bag, bottom left, but it looks like a mole-penguin-troll!

 

 

A bit of a question-mark over these, I'm assuming some sort of board-game pieces, or even chess-set pawns, it's the snake from the Jungle Book, 'Kaa', and I don't think they have much age, there were both a restored re-issue of the original and a new version released in the last few years, and it will be tying-in with one of them? The 1, 3, 4 numbers are probably just cavity marks.

Finally, a catapult pencil-sharpener and another ceramic cat, probably a fairing, the catapult being a Hong Kong copy of the old Spanish Play Me one.

Q is for Question Time - Wizards' Wizard?

And odd question as I know it's marked Wizards, presumably Wizards of the Coast, but what it he exactly, is he a giant from the 30mm sets, is he from a stand-alone board game, or is he some kind of mascot, or convention freebie?

The Star Wars, 2000AD and Lord of the Rings sets were also a factory painted, black rubberised-polymer, while he is unpainted polyethylene, in an odd shade of puce/mauve.

 

I know where I got him from as well, Graham Apperley, at last year's Plastic Warrior show, and he probably told me something about the figure, but that's a day when the brain is sent more information than it can store in short-term memory!

 

Anyone recognise this chap, and know what his role or employment looked/looks like, within the Wizards empire? An empire swallowed by Hasbro since we looked at them here, back at the beginning of the Blog!

M is for Minor Metal Makers

More box-ticking to get these guys and galls into the Tag List, I know little about the histories of these makers beyond the fact that they mostly produced small ranges for a short time and have mostly disappeared without leaving much trace, beyond the original publicity and any examples in collections, or pinned/glued to layouts!

 

Starting in no particular order, Cromer Models were obviously more of a transport maker, but items 6, 7, 8 and 10 come well within the parameters of figure collecting, or, if you know me, wagon collectors!

 

And, like all seven makers in this post, using white metal (or 'whitemetal'/white-metal) a catch-all for low-melt, lead-free, pourable soft-metal alloys, usually a majority tin-based, with various additives including antimony, cadmium, bismuth, and/or zinc . . . obviously, if you start adding aluminium and/or magnesium, you get harder alloys as used by die-casters. Add a bit of copper and you can get pipe-weald or solder, which more experienced - than me - modellers sometimes use, to glue these models together.

Already in the Tag List, as I think I have a couple of Wyatt & Tizard (W&T) wagons in the collection, and again, more of a vehicle range, but some nice horse-drawn items. The horse is a copy of a Britains beast, which they themselves scaled-down for the Lilliput line.

 

 

 

Mastercast are another which came and went before I was even aware of their existence, but clearly they had the beginnings of a nice range of scenic accessories, indeed, I may have the gravestones in the master-pile somewhere, I know I have a set or two, but one may be a late addition to the Linka sets, Linka having had several owners now!

 

As far as I know this was it for Kemco, if they ever made it to shops, and they look to be influenced by Hornby-Triang and Airifx figures, but it's only an artist's impression, still, it may help someone (including me!) ID some 'unknowns' in the stash?

 

This Pullman image came from Jon Attwood, and shows two examples from his collection, he sent them with some Roger Saunders bits which I've given a seperate post to, and from the accompanying text in Jon's eMail I don't think there was a connection - but I stand to be corrected Jon!

 

I think this ad'/puff-piece was actually in Military Modelling, but would have been shared with the publisher's stable-mates, which included Diecast Collector and Railway Modelling, I think, where I might have hoovered it up? And Highway Models aren't to be confused with the US maker Highway Miniatures.

 

Lovely set of firefighters, and it's funny, or ironic, as there are hundreds and hundreds of firemen (as they were still called in the 1980's!) in metal, plastic, composition, wood and tin-plate, but very few decent ones in a good OO-gauge compatible size!

 

Finally, the only other bit of colour in a B&W post, this is from a relatively recent PPP-Peco-Guagemaster catalogue (15-20 years old?), so these may still be around, but there are so few model-shops left now, you'd have a search-on!

 

And if they are THE Rose Miniatures, long-gone? However, various lines/moulds were taken-up by other makers, so there's every chance someone else is still making them as Rose, for the name, I don't know?

Many thanks to Jon for the Pullman shot, and I've just found three more emails from him, so there'll be these Railway Figure posts, 'till the end of March, at this rate!

BMC is for the Wing Wah Plastic Factory!

This was - as far as I was concerned, I'm sure some of you know more than I did, certainly Ed Berg helped - a mystery, then it wasn't a mystery, then it sort of was a mystery again, maybe, now I don't think it is, but it does point to the firm who might have been supplying early or pre-BMC mouldings.

 

Firstly, let's get clear that these are not rare figures, they are in fact, all over the place, in various configurations and colours, of which this azure blue is perhaps marginally less common than the current darker blue, but the dark chocolate may be more common than the paler shades, a situation made harder by different sculpts. And then there's a paler sky-blue and a mid-brown!

This larger 'rack toy' set, badged to Wing Wah (formerly, and for some 30-odd years, of Kennedy Town, Hong Kong Island, before moving to the New Territories, where they seem to have folded in 2021, or thereabouts), who's over-imposed WW-mark is quite common in rack-toy circles.

 

And it was bought from Greece, where the air-miles of an HK import would be considerably less than from the States, especially if they were so imported, before BMC ever put their moniker to them?

A limited pose-count (which may not be original, the blister was loose), has a nice firing line of the shako'ed Mexicans and a handful of armed Texan terrorist-insurgents.

The guy on the left had escaped the packaging, but I didn't find him until after I'd taken the card-shot, I have more of these in storage, from years ago, and hope I have a couple more of the poses, but I only previously had the Texans I think, if I have the Mexicans, they will be the newer ones with rimmed bases, and the poses with the wide-brimmed 'Poblano' sombrero, rather than these shako wearers, although I think I have the CTS ones somewhere!

 

Anyway, I wasn't sure of their heritage, as the ones on the Internet seemed to have BMC on the base underside, and sometimes the extra rim, so I asked Ed, when he was Blogging his 'Frankenset' a while back, if they were BMC and said he thought so.

 

But me being a Doubting Thomas, without empirical evidence, still didn't post them for a year or two more, until I was clear they were all the same Wing Wah / early BMC stock, which I'm now convinced they are! The three to the left are BMC, rimless, but the newer colour, I bought last year, at PW's show, specially for this post, which has been in edit-hell since 2020!

I seem to be missing a pile of boxes, to which the two small ones were positioned either-side, in the blister, and I keep seeing various gun ramps, but I think they're all CTS, Marx re-issues or TSSD!

 

I'm not one to comment on the exactness of the authenticity, but they don't look that accurate to me, especially the Texans, and they are definitely not Action Figures in the normal use of the term among both collectors and the wider toy trade, but when did the Hong Kong toy-men pay more that lip-service to accuracy?

 

1965-1990-something (?) on the left, terminal logo (1998-2021?) on the right.

Wing Wah - formed in 1965 and - apparently - the original supplier/manufacturer of BMC's Alamo figures/accessories, joining the Wing's Luen, Lung and Mau in the Tag-list. There is a current Wing Wah (Wing Wah Precision Mould & Plastics), in Dongguan City, Guangdong, mainland China which probably has no connection.

 

And, of course, this is a red-letter day for your diary's, as it's the date after which Deadleaf Hairband, Master Baiter Sell and Pericles over at the HK toy soldier site, will all start using the Wing Wah attribution, like they knew all along!

Above we see an early BMC set with the same rimless figures as the Wing Wah set, with the current Amazon image of the side-rimmed versions. I have also seen the Texans in the paler blue of my Mexicans.

 

I don't know if BMC licensed the 'generic' Wing Wah set for Greece, or other territories it wasn't then interested in, or if it was before BMC's involvement, most likely, while a third option is that WW were just being naughty behind BMC's back, or didn't have an exclusive with BMC for the sculpts/production.

W is for Westair

A year old, but not of any consequence, despite TJF's opinings about 'timely manners', it's all still out there, and all this museum gift-shop stuff from companies like Westair and Timeline Gifts (Ancestors of Dover) tend to run for years, but still, box-ticking a couple of points:

In recent years the old 1960's die-cast mazac figurines from Peltro/Fontanini sculpts have finally been retired and replaced by new sculpts produced in a softer, poured whitemetal, and here we see the Tudor set, four figures (probably also sold individually at a pocket-money price-point), we have Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare and Sir Francis Drake . . . Raleigh lost his head!

But what actually caught my eye was these rub-down sheets, in the style of the old Patterson-Blick/Lettraset/Waddington's (et al) ones of our childhood, but all new artwork and transfers. They look familiar, especially the WWI and Battle of Britain ones, but I checked with this website, and they are all-new artwork.

The website. I think I've posted the link before, but it's worth posting again as it is quite the monumental work, with nearly every set ever issued, and many I remembered for the first time in decades, like all the cereal premiums!

They kindly gave me the fifth as a sample, and while I haven't opened it yet, it's a gatefold scene with a sheet of rub-down transfers and a colour-in picture on the back with a potted info'panel on the theme/subject of the card.

G is for Gonfalonieri

Standard Bearers! Shot these at one of the London shows last year, I think they were King & Country, very nice but hideously expensive poured-metal!

Italian standard-bearers of the age of the Landsknechts, a German-Swiss word, while Gonfalonier is Italian, I think! Factory-painted whitemetal in the 'Big 54mm' - a silly phrase for 60mm figures! Love the novelty on the end, I don't know the history behind him, but I assume some memento of one of the old Russel Square toy soldier shows?

A is for Apollo Astronauts

Is that how you spell astronaut, I wouldn't want to tear the arse out of it . . . "Oh yes you would!". Another box-ticker now, more NASA types, courtesy of Weetabix Weetos breakfast cereal.

 

I have been picking these up for years, and there's a decent enough sample somewhere in the stash, but I didn't have the floating command/return capsule, and for years I kept finding them only in yellow, and had begun to think the other colours might be mythical, however, eventually I started to find the odd red one, then a blue, since the advent of Google and evilBay, they have become common enough to find in all three colours!

These first four came in a while ago, and while the three figures are 'smallish' scale at around 45mm, hence my picking them up over the years, the other three items are 'premium' size, or unit-cost sized! And here we have the command module and mighty Apollo (with extra wings!) in its launch gantry.

These came in at that Autumn show, from which show-report's folder I have been raiding for images recently! The one on the right is my first sample of that sculpt, and the third figure is to the left here, although there are two diminutive frogmen clambering onto the reentry capsule to open the door!

 

I have yet to find any in white, but they seem to be hen's-teeth rare, as usual, the better article is on Cereal Offers, with details of two sculpt changes I haven't even noticed yet, so will have to check against mine when they are all reunited in one place, which will give us an excuse to revistit them!

A is for Arstornuat!

Which can only be pronounced arse-torn-out I think, but you'd have to ask TJF, as I'm getting this gift from a legend-in-his-own-lunchtime Loyal Readers, and I'll definitely be tearing the arse out of it, it's not every day your self-confessed 'eemie' drops such a prize in your lap, so gently, and while he's been back and corrected some of his 'egregiousnesses', the spelling's still up there!

Box-ticking these semi-flat 'novelty' figurines from CP Inc./US Toy, you get six poses-each of astronauts (are you taking notes at the back there?) and aliens, they look like they were probably party favours, issued in the last decade or two, C ― P marked stuff started appearing in second-hand lots round about the mid/late-2000's?

 

The aliens, shades of Mars Attacks (exposed brains), which could further narrow down the issue date, and while one is armed, they seem more occupied in getting their first semaphore lesson off-pat! Approximately 50mm and manufactured in a dense polyethylene or 'propylene.

 

The Astro [star] Nauts [sailors], it's all Greek to me! NASA-like with no weapons or killy-things. "We . . . come . . . in peace . . . to do . . . no harm!", said Captain James Tiberius Kirk, before shagging one of the lady-aliens! I thought I was probably missing one pose, hence the reversed figure, but they are just similar poses.

M is for Moshi Monsters!

We haven't had a board game for a while, nor a decent LRG type post, so killing two birds with one stone, here's a fiver's worth of Charity Shop purchase from a while back, well, March '22 it says here, I don't know where the time goes, I really don't! The Moshi Monsters related Monstro City Game from Vivid.

Box - check!

Paper stuff - check!

Ooh! That's starting to look a little more promising, are they gold?

Oowyeah! And about the same size as a lot of the blind-bag collectable shite (from which they've probably been bought-in?), seven Moshi Monsters I couldn't begin to name (the cover says the spiky one is Iggy), as I don't follow this stuff, just take it into the collection when it's cheap!

A is for Airfix, at Last!

A difficult one, as Airfx have their own pages, but so far only the two 'standard' figure sets, I will get round to the kit figures one day, and two of these images will be duplicated over there in the next day or so, as they are the only images I have, but as part of this walk through railway figures we seem to have embarked-upon, almost by accident in December (or earlier?), here's a few Airfix bits.

An early advertisement for the railway accessory range, in the model railway press, showed what I suspect is the two figures from the Scammell Scarab / 'Mechanical Horse' (we looked at recently), but they don't look exactly the same, and while I've not seen figures in the crane kits, or mentioned as being with it, in the catalogues (and Airfix tended to make a feature of included figures, with their kits), it must be remembered that they dropped the figures in the Control Tower kit at some point, so it's not unheard of for them to have had figures in a kit and then not had them! Anyone know for certain?

 

AHM (Associated Hobby Manufacturers - a marketing co-op and importer) carried Airfix for a while in the 'States (before the invention of USAirfix), and here is one of their catalogue images for the Station Accessories, basically it's the colour image from the Airfix eighth, and some subsequent catalogues, rendered in Black & White!

 

Having seen the rarer Triang 'Rocket' crew the other day courtesy of Jon Attwood, here's a scan of an old photograph of my Airfix crew, they are actually in a bright lemon yellow polymer, but have got a bit browned in the image. As a series one window-box, always a colourful point among all the white, silver and grey 'plane kits and khaki AFV's.

 

I have a note, somewhere in my files, that Märklin (or Bing? Someone like that) had a set of Victorian/Wilhelminian passengers and crew (probably lead) in an approximately HO-gauge compatible size, with their contemporary tin-plate Adler (eagle) locomotive and carriages.

 

The - probably - Hong Kong copies, which have been mentioned in passing, once or twice in the last month or two, I don't know for certain that they are a Hong Kong thing, but they are quite crude copies, note the rounded-corner undercut bases. Airfix have the split-line of a two-part mould tool, across the base underside, I think these have a third baseplate insert, but I'll have to check the figures before I say so with certainty.

 

A hard styrene, in an off-white/ivory colour, they might be European copies, for a premium set or something, but I think Hong Kong is safer for now? And another scan of an old photograph, which, while I thought that they were already up, over on the Airifx page, they weren't, so I'll copy this and the AHM images over there, forthwith!

H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop Backlog - 2020

Literally just clearing old folders, while I'm not currently adding much to the backlog, try to get the 900-odd folders back down to a more manageable 5 or 600 this year! These are all dated 2020, when a lot was happening, and while I did manage 377 posts (just over one a day on average) these got left on the shelf!

Must've grabbed these in passing, knocked off a quick shot and taken them up to the storage unit in a mixed tub, 'cos they're not here, and I've got stuff back to mid-2021'ish. Couple of cheap Chinacrap AFV's and three novelty elephants - one stained wooden Thai touristy thing, a similar soapstone one from East Africa (?) and a pot-bellied ebony one from god knows where!

 

Almost forgot to shoot these, and caught myself as I was putting them away, not that all the stuff in the bags has been seen here, but, whatever, I thought I'd better quickly shoot them as a lot, they'd come in a 50p-per-bear type purchase from a basket on a shelf! The Hillman's in the bag were a seperate purchase we may have seen, but they're not Tagged!

 

Confirmation of the attributions!

I don't seem to have shot the contents of this bag from British Heart Foundation separately/in close up, but it looks to be a mix of Kinder type novelty animals and a few of the smaller Pokemon, from Tomy prize-capsules perhaps?

An unloved Christmas stocking present? The silent witness to a child's death? I always get to pondering, when something like this appears, brand-new in a charity shop. One feels there is probably a sad tale behind it? I just thought it was fun, that the pencil is decorated as a piece of giant bamboo. I think the brand say Legami?

A bag of sea life, a growing collection, and the contents of another bag of mixed novelties, I think I got a second example of the wooden - probably French . . . or is it Charbens (!) - chicken, at around the same time?

The Hong Kong Timpo-copy ACW in butternut (chocolate?) was issued in various formats, in the 'States they made it into late Ideal playsets, if I recall correctly (with Crescent copy horses?), elsewhere more generic stuff, or small bottle-bagged rack toys of a few figures.