L is for Late Layabouts Languishing in Limbo!

As well as lots of old Charity shop stuff, there's also a lot of toy show/toy fair stuff, which will probably be broken-down into box-tickers, or thematic posts now, and a few Shelfies which seem to have missed previous round-ups, including these, most of which are from the Autumn/Christmas just-gone, despite the fact we did have several 'shelfie' posts from both my Camera and Brian Berke's? But there you are, they hide from me!

This is actually from 2021, so a real hider! It was, then, the latest iteration of the rather generic and poorly-detailed/sculpted 30mm'ish figures Mark, the Man of Tin, has such success, and apparent delight with, in turning them into spacemen, monsters, Napoleonics and colonial thin-red-lines, among other things!

 

We've had various shelfies of these, over the years, since they started appearing, not long after this Blog was born, and Poundland, Poundstreatcher, the defuct Poundworld Plus and 99P Stores (along with others), have all carried them, often in more than one packaging, while Amazon has carried dozens of generics and phantom-branded stuff, tubbed, carded, bagged, blistered and clam-shelled!

 

Which is why I only shelfie them, I have samples of various sizes, in dozens of colours, and they will be findable, mint, on evilBay for decades to come, as ex-stock, if you really need them in packaging! 

I hate this shite, I phuqing hate it with a vengeance, and to be fair to my sensibilities, I hated the big-head/bobble-head/nodding crap of our childhoods, and I hated the Corinthian cricketers and footballers of the 1990/2000's, it's awful stuff. I think it's an extension of clown-phobia?

 

I even hate the 'Nutty Mads' from Marx . . . "Let's apply teenage, 50's surf-culture to World War Two murderers, shall we? Make them look silly! The Butchers of Nanking will look harmless after we've given them some racially-profiled extremities!", said no sane person, ever. Garbage!

"Yeah, but the kids like them", go the supine, brain-dead, left-of-bell-curve parents! Because unethical, immoral, capitalist Toymen, who have a greater love of money than the future mental well-being of the human race, have sold them the concept, while you were getting drunk and watching porn, to blot-out current-affairs and drown the misery of your existence, you dullards!

Deep breath Hugh, take a moment, and then see if you can find some nice dinosaurs . . .

Self-branded/in-house from B&M, I think these are the latest from HGL (Grossman) or HTI (Halsall), repacked for B&M, and at less than the price of a single larger Schleich or Papo, a bloody bargain! Who wouldn't like this under the Tree on Christmas morning?

 

These - Wenno - might be a phantom brand (also for B&M) or an actual brand mark for a China toy maker (I haven't seen them at the trade-fairs?), but they seem to be newish sculpts (albeit, maybe copies of other makers) and relatively well done for the price-point, which, again, beats the big-names hands down, and I thought the giraffe was particularly well done, compared to the rack-toy giraffes of our youth!

 

 

 

We're on safer ground with Teamsters, having seen them several times before, an imported sub-branding of HTI, covering a variety of die-cast or 'toy car' lines, and I wouldn't buy any of these, new, but they will help ID loose dinosaurs at some point in the future! Also shot in B&M.

And finally a similar set, in B&M packaging, really a generic, but helping to pinpoint an origin for some of the many teeny dinosaurs, if no better candidate comes forward in the future.

P is for Perfectly Planned Paint Patterns for Plastic Premiums

As seen elsewhere, the colour sheet for collectors who were collecting the French Mokarex coffee premium, medieval chess set. I don't know whether you got it at your coffee supplier, it was included with early issues of the coffee, or you had to mail away for it?

 

Not that rare, nor are their similar competitor next door, Café Storm (Mouscron, Belgium), but often over-priced, using the 'Polystyrene is brittle' argument, but lots of people collected them straight into display cabinets, 'granny drawers' or biscuit tins/cigar boxes, and they do turn up all the time, in good to mint condition . . . the thing to do is look out for bulk lots going cheap.

H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop Backlog - 2022, 2 of 2

All the two's! Clearing the backlog of stuff down in Picasa's 1960, except for 2023! Slightly more interesting stuff for the purists than the last post, but it all has its place, and I make no apologies for any of it, unless I apologise first!

A rather nice two-headed dragon, I don't know who it's by, and it went to storage ages ago, but I think it's the same line as the black one we saw recently with the two different wing arrangements, so someone like Toy major maybe?

 

Another of the Jada die-casts, again I'm not sure of the franchise (so far all their offerings have been licensed) but it could be Roblox or Blockworld or whatever they are called, I liked it, despite its chipped nose, as it reminds me of the morphing-cubes robot in the water world scenes of Interstellar, the movie!

 

Seen before I think, some things do tend to get more than one outing now I'm shooting stuff for other platforms, my latest Fontanini on his chunk of Carrara Marble, and a bigger one at about 100/120-mil.

 

 

Nappies in various sizes, the one on the right is the fun one, it's a well [home-] painted slush-cast tourist statuette! The other small one is a 'figure painters' whitemetal figure, I don't know the maker while the ceramic is a fairing type, which was going for a couple of quid rather than some Meissen/Worcester type, but a fun addition to the growing side-collection of naughty Mediterranean (remember the rules of French Warfare) corporals!

This was a 50p jobbie, and worth the read, probably collected articles from a history magazine or periodical or something, not exactly in-depth, and not revealing anything which isn't in AJP Taylor or Liddle Heart, but maybe a tad-less jingoistic.

 

This wasn't that hard to pin down, the artist being revealed as Eija Seras, a Canada-based Finnish artist of the 1960-70's, but the base mark with the 'H' seems wrong (the 'E' is as she did it), so it may be a maiden or married name from one end of her period of productivity? If you google her, you find lots of chess-set pieces, this doesn't seem to be one of them, so just a touristy piece.

"Seras produced a range of Inuit figurines, hand sculpted from terracotta clay, in the late 1960s through the 1970s based on her four years living at the U.S. Air Force base in Goose Bay, Labrador in the mid 60s . The artist was awarded the Canadian Design of Merit citation in 1974 by the National Design Council of Canada for her native figures"

 

'How they came in'! I forgot to load this picture in order, and if I slot it in now I'll have to rewrite the blurbs on the other two, and I'm intrinsically idle, so that's a big, fat no! I seem to recall they were a couple of quid each, from the BHF in Farnborough. Really showing the superiority of plastic in certain situations, as seen by those, back then, who couldn't foresee the pollution problem careering down the tracks.

H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop Backlog - 2022, 1 of 2

I think we're looking at the later stuff first, but that's how it worked out and I reckon you don't care! Trouble is I'm a details' person, and with the Asperger's, tend to worry more than I need to, about facts, or other things, of no consequence? Anyway, some nice bits among the dross;

Two bags of mostly dinosaurs,  but there were a few figures and wild/domestic types in the larger one, which was a bit pricey at a tenner, but had over a hundred items in it, so it worked out at less than a quid each?

Most of them, the left-hand bag seems to be missing, I don't know if they went back to storage, or I hid them from myself as they are a bit naff, pull-back motor toys, but the over-mouldings were quite good!

 

The farmer guy definitely went back in the next donation, infant action toys are a no-no, it's not that they won't need to be listed, or at least mentioned in passing on the A-Z entries, just that I haven't the room to collect something I have no interest it, and little connection to, we didn't have such stuff when I was a kid, infant figures tended to be wooden or plastic 'plugs', likewise Playmobil, although I have allowed myself a Roman and a Pirate . . . as examples!

I regretted buying this bag, I hadn't noticed the broken (missing!) barrel on the semi-deform Elephant/Ferdinand, but I could see it was rack-toy shite, and it was really greed which brought it home. The AFV's will prove useful I suppose if I ever do get round to sorting all the Mings, Wings and Wah's out properly?

There are animals in the tub here, which are missing in the photo, whether I forgot to take a shot or what I don't recall, it may be that they were damaged? But it was a reasonable lot for probably four pounds, with a PVC Giraffe and Lion, some cereal premiums, a couple of nice paint survivors (Hong Kong copies of Britains Ibex and Zebra), and even the two cows have nice paint, not top-collector standard, but not ratted either!

This was a nice find for 50p I think, quite big, about 7/8-inches, and has an arrow on the front of the base, I don't know if it's an instruction to whoever was melting the foot-plugs into the base, or an instruction to the buyer for lining up on a bigger display base? Probably one of the newer makers like Mojo or CollectA, not that I've seen them with bases, but someone like that?

 

The wooden one was already in the collection, but I thought it should be posed with the 'polystone' job, as they have a similar simplicity about the pose/sculpting. We will have a big season on cats one day!

 

£1.40p? Cheaper than chips these days! Although the chap on the Aldershot road out of Guildford (Google says Empire Fish & Chips, I was in a hurry!) gave me what looked like a fivers-worth for two-quid the other night, and they were bloody good chips, so many thanks to him!

 

The green lad with the orange glasses went back, with the farmer, but the rest were useful enough to head for the stash, we looked at the Spanish granny-lady a while ago, for some reason, but it's all grist to the mill! More to come.

S is for Seen Elsewhere and Sharna Ware (Cherilea)

Posted these elsewhere a while back, the figure pages from a larger Sharna Ware catalogue, dated 1974, Sharna being the buyer of Cherilea. I nearly wrote 'buyer and last iteration', but the solids all reappeared in recent years (Marlborough-Dorset-Imperial, Monty and Rommel are now in metal, shock horror!) while some of the swoppets (not in this catalogue) went to Italy (Tibidabo) and others were pirated in Hong Kong!

 

Typically, they've loaded in reverse order and I can't be arsed to sort them out, these (top two) were bought-in from Timpo, while I have a similar triangular flag in white, very crude. I'm not sure if the fort even got issued, it looks to be an original design (if plastic) or routed-wood, probably a particle-board, but I'm not sure if I've seen one with walls that high, however I do stand to be corrected, I can't know everything?

The medieval fort was sometimes sold in a Sharna box, and the knight we saw here as one of my early 'star purchases' after I began collecting the larger scales (when the blog made it inevitable, we discovered with One Inch Warrior magazine, that once you've covered a few rarities and some smaller makes, you rapidly run out of sufficient copy to keep a small-scale thing going!), had the same dragon as the flags on the fort, hanging from his lance, and despite not being in the shot above, probably came with the fort as it's 'Lord and Master'?

 

Below it, is all Timpo product, presumably as they got into difficulties they looked to expand the range without the expence of production-costs, and Timpo would have been happy to shift more stock, even/especially to a rival! Note the gun team kept both their Timpo horses and riders.

I think I'm right in saying the Covered Wagon/Buckboard was an earlier all-Cherilea design, albeit quite similar to Timpo's, while the Stage Coach was later bought-in from Timpo, but given Cherilea's bigger horse team and driver?

I have a few of the ACW, and one or two Crusaders, but I've not sought-out the Mexicans, I always thought they looked a little silly, and will wait 'till they are part of a mixed-lot or bulk-purchase, one day, if ever? I might have some dodgy Hong Kong copies though, somewhere, all semitransparent cloaks/ponchos in purple and pink?

Love the 'Commandos', and have decent examples of all three generations now, while the space sample is growing, and I've a couple of the Union, on foot. The spacemen have been much copied over the years, but the others are stand-alone!

Love the knights and I almost can't stop buying them, but I do stop myself if they are plain silver, the other colours however . . . I'm a sucker for them! While the Wild West I'm not so enamoured of, they aren't the best anatomically, and while not as silly as the Mexicans, I'm in no hurry to fill a quota!

From Companies House;

Solarprior Leisure Limited 30 Dec1957 - 10 Jan 1992

 

T/A

 

Sharna Ware (Mfg.) Limited 30 Dec 1957 - 09 Jun 1983
Sharna Tri-Ang Limited 09 Jun 1983 - 20 Dec 1988
Tri-Ang Leisure Limited 20 Dec 1988 - 09 Oct 1990
Dissolved 17 Mar 1994

 

Liability/debt litigation carried on until at least 2020!

P is for Panits Laszlo, or is it Laszlo Panits?

There are four things I can say about these, and with little else to say, I might as well get stuck in without a long opener!

 

The first thing is that I could have sworn we had these on the Blog about 15-years ago, but I'm damned if I can find them now, they are not in the Tag List, yet the above image was taken before I ever had a Blog, and had gone to the dongles as 'done', so they must have been posted somewhere, maybe they were on my long-defunct Imageshack account, which I had for about 18-months, about 16-years ago! In which case they may have been posted to a long-gone HäT Forum article or something?
 

I think the upper ones are copies of Preiser, the lower set a mix of Esci-Ertl and Airfix sculpts.

 

The second thing is that I genuinely don't know if the firm/shop/chap is called Panits Laszlo, or Laszlo Panits? In trying to research the company (Google has got shit in the last ten years), I discovered quite a few of both, but without the comma we'd use in English - Hugh Walter or Walter, Hugh - it's imposible to work out which is commonly the surname or the forename, how they are typically presented, or if, indeed, in Hungarian, there's no difference, but the fact that there are quite a few, suggests it's the equivalent of a John Smith, or Andy Brown.

 

And neither point is meant to upset any Hungarians reading, I'd love input from them, to explain the points? But it's Panits Laszlo on the back of the card, so that's what we are going with.

The third point is the obvious stuff, they are factory-painted, HO/OO sized (1:76th scale), whitemetal piracies of Airfix, mostly RAF Personnel, or Esci NATO Ground Crew, here, I suspect, painted up as Warsaw Pact Hungarians, with the other sets painted-up as WWII USAAF-USAF, and with at least one figure taken from Airfix's set of that American title.

 

Set contents also vary from card to card, so you could - presumably - choose a card that would most closely allow you to set up your diorama, with whichever kit you were making? And I think the message stamped on the front just says "Model Figure Card" (blister/pack).

 

And I've forgotten what the fourth point was going to be, but it's worth mentioning that Panits Laszlo were probably responsible for the other Esci copies seen here in the past - which I also can't find, Doh!!

 

So, we'll have it 'again'? Also copies of Esci, also factory painted whitemetal, not seen on these cards, and here not divisible by six, there may be some damaged ones in the bag taking the sample to 24? But they otherwise seem to be the same idea/concept as the air force figures above?

And that's it, that's them, box ticked, I don't know a lot, I suspect it/he (Panits Laszlo) was also a model shop in Budapest, and if anyone can add anything, their input will be welcome.

H is for Hong Kong

I think that's the first time we've had what is such an obvious title! And it's an odd one today, as it's mostly musing on ephemeral stuff with little of substance, but a couple more HK companies for your archive.

 

Jon Attwood sent me this image of nominal OO-figures, copied from pre-Hornby Triang platform staff. I actually have the three on the right, but in storage, they come in various shades of blue, as here, and usually on/with the base of the second figure from the left, so I suspect the other two have been removed from their bases and given the little clear-plastic patches, while the one on the left I don't have, but he looks to be maybe a conversion?

Now for years I've been trying to ascribe them to a maker, or brand, they are Hong Kong, and I fancy - from the other civilian figures we've seen - that they might turn out to be Blue Box, but so far no banana! The closest I've got is this sheet from the archive, showing sets offered by a Moonbo Toys of Hong Kong.

However, the close-ups are less than conclusive, with the figures in the upper shot looking like they may be painted versions or copies of the Airfix hard-plastic rail workers, from before Dapol gave them landscaped bases, while in the lower shot, they just aren't that clear, but could be the soft-plastic figures Jon's sent, at a stretch?

 

But they also have the look of only being there for the press-shots, and may well have been replaced by other figures, in production, even the ones we're looking for here? 

Equally, I'm not sure Moonbo even made the stuff, as the (Saddle tabnk?) Locomotive 1928, is among the more common Hong Kong trains, appearing in various generic and branded sets, the above, on evilBay years ago were marked-up RBM, and came with card buildings and a mixed bag of mixed-scale farm, of the sort in all those generic Home Farm's and My Farm's.

 

While this one, imported by Janbo Trading of London, is accompanied by a bag of accessories more normally associated with Wild West rack-toys! A log cabin and various bits of greenery, along with a farm windmill!

 

Meanwhile, Kamco Industrial have a similar line, with a similar station, rolling stock is different, and the canopy stanchions are heavier, so I'm not about to suggest that they are related, or at least, not related to Moonbo?

 

The figures however, look to be similar to the soft rubber civilians which came with Blue Box's Airport play-sets, and consequently, there could be a connection there? With the chap in the sheepskin coat and the seated lad (Scooter Rider) being taken from the Airfix Civilians set, probably along with the other three, but it's not so clear with them.

 

I've also isolated the animals and trees, which, again, are standard generic fare, probably bought in, but again, as with Moonbo, they [Kamco] may only be a middle-man, with all of it bought-in? Calf is a Corgi-copy, also copied by Blue Box.

 

To which end, Motron Enterprises (a name which almost says 'shipper/jobber', but they are looking for OEM work?) have the Kamco set, side-by-side with Silverlit/Multimac space-tanks and some dodgy-looking, probably illegitimate die-casts!

 

As to my hopes for Blue Box's involvement, this set keeps turning-up, sans figures, as does a boxed clockwork locomotive, which looks to be HO/OO (the above is sub TT-gauge I think?), but which doesn't have figures either!

 

So, we haven't really proved anything, but we've got it all out there should anyone else like to join the hunt, or join-the-dots. Who made the pale-blue soft plastics, what sets do they go with? Is/are Moonbo and/or Kamco manufacturers, or just jobbers? Are Motron behind Kamco, or vis-versa? Did Kamco/Motron get their figures from Blue Box/are they the same figures as some BB airport sets? Questions, questions! RBM and Janbo are just importers/jobbers.

And with thanks to Paul Morhead and Jon, I think I just added four Hong Kong makers/jobber's names to the tag list while other people bang-on about Wello and Star as if they are the centre of a very small universe!