M is for Musings on Multiple Mounts

This post is a narrative conversation with myself, and you, if you're reading, and comes out of a conversation I had with Chris Smith before Christmas, at which time, I think I said I'd publish this in January, or at least that sort of 'after Christmas' which might lead someone to think it was imminent, but with 120 posts in less than 90-days, I can hardly be accused of idleness!

 

And I say 'conversation', or, in the title "Musings" because there are few facts here, and those bits which are facts can be taken with a pinch of salt, the whole aimed at preventing TJF rushing-off to correct me out of someone else's great tome, everything here is open to question, even the absolute facts . . . except that the Japanese officers in some of the shots really are Blue Box!

 

First a reprise of mine, except that the ones we saw last time have gone off to storage and these are all new, I think? From the left in both shots we have the Blue Box Japanese officer on his mule-looking pony, then the Blue Box farm horse and finally a clone from one of the Hong Kong neighbours, who probably got it into a dozen generic bagged or carded sets!

 

Belly-marks suggest that the farm horse was around for a while before his owners cloned him for service in World Carpet War II, the generic - in this case - is unmarked, often they would have some sort of mark, even a poorer third version of the Blue Box's neat DIN-font.

Chris has one of his officers on a Blue Box farm horse, but the other came with another horse, of which he's found a second in white, and both have the rider peg, and he was wanting to know if it was a Blue Box design (an alternative Japanese mount), or something else?

 

Both are copies of a Britains horse, from the civilian-farm-show jumping-equestrian lines, and both are the straight-legged version, saddle-cloth might be original, but I suspect has been added, from a Wild West horse/set, and the reins may or may not be likewise original/added later?

 

Both have the sort of mark I just referred to, more of a 'typewriter' font, or uneven engineers-stamp, actually, one of the better ones, in that nothing seems upside down or mirror-reversed (which a lot are/have elements of), but they do read opposite ways, however not really the neatness of the Blue Box?

 

At which point we have to hark back to this morning's post, and any follow-up feebleBay search you did at my suggestion . . .

. . . where hopefully you found at least three sets? There were about five before Christmas, maybe seven with other search terms, but this afternoon I just briefly found three. One of which proves the theory I couldn't have proved back then, so maybe there are less question marks now, than there were going to be, but never mind, I think I've caveat'ed myself against blundering oafs trying to correct me!

 

You can see here, that the set has a pair of Britains production horses, one with the straight front legs (slightly different from the Hong Kong copy, where they are less splayed, but it's the same sculpt), the other with the bent leg, here though both riders are the woman with the dark riding jacket.

All four images in this sequence are from auction sites, but I've cropped-in to the bit we need. here we see again, Britains, again, two ladies, but this time it's both bent-leg horses, and the expanded polystyrene foam tray seems designed to take both types, with the bent-legs snugger than the straighter legged horse.

 

To be fair, both Britains horses are variations of the same sculpt, just with some leg/tail position changes, well brushed and groomed competition types (where you see those pointed tails) all look very similar!

 

Here another version of the game has the same pair of bent-leg Hong Kong production as mine (previous post), but with cream-plastic riders, he in pinks, she in her chic number! Indeed, the rule apparently established at this point is - always contrasting colours of horse, but not so bothered about the riders?

 

Confirmed by another Hong Kong set, now a vac-form 'styrene tray, and again both bent-leg versions, and we're back to two girls riding. The point being, these sets had either/or a pair of mixed, or only straight/bent legged horses, in contrasting colours, which for some time were sourced from Britains, and some equal time, Hong Kong. Riders shared the source with horses, but could be either opposite sexes, or the same sex.

 

Caveats - so far (and apart from today and Christmas, I have searched for these before, not least when I bought mine, from whatever was available that day, a few years ago), the white horse hasn't turned-up in a set, yet, and two male riders, together, haven't been seen in a set yet, either.

 

But the point I'm suggesting, is that to have the mounting spigot for a rider, the white horse must be from these sets, as Wild West wagons, say, for instance, even if given Britains standing horse piracies, wouldn't need the rod, and the other Hong Kong source of Britains show-jumping/hunter piracies use the gate-jumping horse.

 

This one, seen in singles, pairs and fours.

But this also turned-up during the shenanigans for the above, and it's another take on the Britains standing horse, but around 1:30th, and almost certainly from a horse-box or animal transporter of some kind, probably cheap and plastic in a colourful box, and now over a hundred-quid for a good one!

 

Here compared with the Japanese officer's one, as I don't have Chris's to hand, and my Salter examples are both bent-leg, and were shot years ago anyway, all three show-jumping posts were shot a while ago, which I why I had to go back to feeBay in December, and do it all as two posts!

 

You can see why I consider it a mule, it's got a face only its mother would love! But the bigger one is actually quite a nice version, and in a heavy, dense plastic which might be polypropylene?

 

While this pair, similar sculpt, seen here back in 2019, are Redbox, the Redbox of Blue Box's younger brother, another sibling of Tai Sang Toys. And you can clearly see the Hong Kong mark is the same as the farm horse, with the Redbox addition, and also probably from a horse-box/transporter toy. Which makes it all far more interesting that it looked when Chris and I were messaging three or four months ago!

 

This having the same splayed legs which takes it slightly away from the Britains donor, and clearly (as a much better model) itself copied by the unknown jobbing contract-manufacturer who supplied Salter. And possibly also the donor for the Blue Box farm horse, however I'm not so sure about that, while poorer, I suspect the Blue Box one is earlier and was a seperate pirating exercise, with the turned head, odd face etc . . . ?

And the bigger one, well, it's had the tail (long, pointed and linking all the others, Britains, Blue Box, Redbox and unknown-for-Salter's) attached to the rear leg and is marked Made in Macau, but in a very 'Tai Sang' font!

 

And we know from the research done in the height of the 'port Tai Sang' (don't look for it on a map) battle with TJF and his fuckmonkey, that there were several facilities in Macau, one of the Blue Box Vinyl (PVC) factories (and PVC copies of the above rack-toy fence-jumper turn-up as well!), Blue Box Die-Cast, and eventually (I think?) the facilities of Zee/Zylmex (turned-over to Redbox), some of which were there? Not sure about that, though.

 

However, there is every possibility this is another Tai Sang piece, issued by Blue Box, or Redbox, or one of the other in-house Tai Sang brands we found back then . . . or a contracting client?

So there we are, left with as many questions as we started with, or more, depending upon how deep you want to dig, but slowly the pieces do fall into place, and keeping an eye on the Salter sets from time to time will hopefully yield the white horse? It could, just as easily, turn-out to be a bagged horse and rider, but I've only ever seen the two riders copied, not the farmer, not the soldier and not the two gymkhana kids? Equally, searching for 'Horse Boxes' might help with a brand or branding's for several of the above!

Anyway, it's mostly conjecture or theorising, thanks to Chris for the images, and add your thoughts, if you have any, it's that kind of post!

T is for Thomas Salter

A Scottish toy firm with a convoluted history of its constituent parts following bankruptcy in the early 1980's, which had little to do with the failure of Linka to set the hobby world alight, and more to do with mismanagement, but, while better known for their science and chemistry sets (friendly (?) rivals to Merit and Lott's), they carried, for quite a while, this 'approved' show jumping set, in the style of the Britains one.

Early (most?) sets contain the actual Britains horses, either standing or walking were used and can be found (see next post for more musing on this aspect of the set!), while late sets contained Hong Kong piracies, as mine does, here, both the walking sculpt.

 

Jumps are similar to the Britains ones, with flat-topped or angled wings, what sets them apart from Britains and the Parker-Palitoy sets, is the addition of a base, with the arms of the jump wings moulded into them, they could benefit from some green paint to help hide the bases and highlight the base struts.

 

Poles, planks and a gate were issued, and the red of the red/white visual markings were thermo-printed, on one side only. No wall, brushes or water feature were included though, nor do they give us little Christmas trees in tubs! The jumps are all polystyrene, the riders are polyethylene (Hong Kong) or ICI Alkathene (Britains - also a polyethylene!)

 

The male in hunting pink and the lady in a chic-cut riding/sports-jacket from Hong Kong, are also direct copies of the Britains sculpts and one wonders what Britains thought of losing a small, but useful contract for their product, to cheap copies of the same, from Hong Kong?

There will be a follow post which features these, but musing on other things, and if you can be arsed - a search for these on feeBay will reveal three sets currently listed - one the same as mine, one which might have been mucked-about with and one with two Britains stock, one walking, one standing, and that's important for the next post. in December there were five sets listed with similarly mixed riders.

C is for Comet: Comet-Authenticast and Comet-Gaeltacht

A play in two acts, opening in New York and closing in Eire! That's Eire with a 'F'!! I won't bore you with the history today, that's one for the A-Z entry one day, but there is a book which deals well with most of it, and we're really box-ticking here, although with a lovely set from Jon Attwood to start us off!

Their HO scale figure set, as produced and carded in the Republic of Ireland, there are a few lifts from other makers not least Hornby's pre-war sets, while some others have the unmistakeable signature of Holgar Eriksson's sculpting style about them, one wonders though, if he had been happy to know (if he knew) or would have been happy to know they were side-by-side with piracies?

 

A gatefold flyer, with the O-gauge on the front, a mix of both scales in the middle, and a plug for the Authenticast soldiers and sports sets on the back. Jon's set can be seen middle-right on the opened centre pages.

 

Reminds me I have some of the shrubs, and they work for either size, at about 2cm high, they are actually very crude and look like home-painted Skytrex! For all the hype about centrifugal casting, the 'authenticast' process, the railway stuff was mostly pretty basic in the paint finish?

The box Jon's card came in, it's the standard artwork for the time fitted to a smaller, squarer area, to the more normal long-thin toy soldier boxes, but a lot of the railway range had similar dimensions, as one can see in the flyer above.

 

The obvious lifts include two figures from Hornby, flanking a Horton-Trix-Britains Lilliput passenger in the middle, and, given the era and subject-matter, it was more likely laziness than any idea of fakery, which led to these three?

Copies of copies of old Xerox or 'Electrofax' sheets, from the James Chase collection, again the O-gauge leading with HO on the second page, now with vehicles, but all really aimed at the parent company's US market.

 

Probably Eriksson's, but could be the work of Frank Rogers, who was clearly influenced by the master. Those O-gauge which are Eriksson's are often marked HE, as the male in the recent show-plunder post was, but in the HO, it's not so clear, and we have the piracies to contend with, which I don't think he would have countenanced?

 

I have posted some before, both O and HO I think, but under which Tag I can't remember, it was quite early in the blog's history I think? Many thanks to Jon, again, for the rare card and box. We are slowly coming to the end of these, but there's still a few to come!

P is for Partially Seen Elsewhere - Acédo African Scene

I posted my small sample of these elsewhere, the same day, I think, but I shot a better sample on Mercator Trading's stall at the show (last London show of last year?), so we can have a better look at this French production now.

Acédo, the plastics 'arm'  of Domage et Cie (Domage and Co.), the company also behind Aludo (aluminium production), are responsible for this little set-up! Obviously made in polymerised cellulose acetate, and apparently depicting a peaceful, or civilian take on African life in a rural village, sans modernism!

 

I wondered about the trees and huts, as they looked a bit homemade (huts) and converted from something like Playmobil (trees), but a quick Google that evening revealed similar huts and some similar, but very different-shaped trees, so I think the pieces were made as flat sections, or bare boughs, and then assembled, with heat, glue and hand-held pyro-gravure work - to hide the joins. Portable hairdryers were invented in the 1920's, and can be set 'too hot' (for scalps!), so all very doable.

 

The running boy and drummer being not warlike, although the full set does include a warrior with spear and shield and a white hunter in pale safari-suit, the warrior is sort of waving his spear & shield as if 'beating' the game toward the hunter.

Close-up of my previously seen sample, other colours of loin-cloth turn-up including dark blue and white, but I don't know what other animals might be considered part of the set, a rhino, hippo, ostrich and more monkeys were in the 'zoo' sets, so there was a species-bank to pick from!

 

Usually found decorated, and the only one seen, on the day, I don't know if it's a late production thing, unpainted, or if it has been stripped, due to poor wear of the original decoration?

I is for I Was Going to Post Something Toy-Related Tonight, But Went and Did This for Faceplant Instead!

The West is ethically and morally bankrupt, wedded to a broken economic system which is working for no one but a few billionaires, and sliding in to a sort of everyday-workaday, fake-news fascism!

 

C is for Christmas Cracker Cosmonauts

These were first identified in Plastic Warrior magazine a while ago now, with the presentation of the original ad' in a trade publication, I think, there is another one kicking around, but that's for the Thomas (or more likely Poplar ethylene's) spacemen, issued in Tom Smith crackers, if I recall correctly these were in a more generic advertisement, but I've forgotten the issue number!

 

Equally, I can't remember which of these images were taken on Adrian's stall, which came from evilBay and which are mine, and some of Adrian's eventually came home with me, so may have been shot twice!

 

The thing is, they used to share space with the Lido (previous post), although marked-up 'Rex Depose' which I now know they aren't (but I'll put Rex in the Tags, to correct past musings), so they've also been sharing the same folder here since at least 2012, when I started collecting the images for both posts!

 

You can see from the Ajax/Archer type helmet that they are smallish, compared to some of the 'pulp' stuff, but still come-in at a reasonable 54mm each, and sculpted to slide into Christmas crackers, and fly out again without doing themselves, Granny's eyes or the Christmas spread too much damage!

Basically they come in three colours, metallic silver, petrol-blue and jade green'ish, the pink ones here are purely a trick of the light and I can assure you they are as silver as the other two, because two of them ARE the other two, and I just got them out to measure them!

Four poses, two command-types with their legs apart delivering sterling speeches of an ordering-about, sacrifice, for-the-flag/glory/humanity's future variety, and two trooper types, at attention, preparing to eat-dirt - again, on someone else's shitty home-world - again! And like the previous post's Lido Space Rangers, each has a groovy logo on his suit, which is unique to that figure.

This, captured in the wild from feebleBay, is an abomination, and almost certainly started its public life at Vectis Auctions in the North East, where a lot of similar 'carded' stuff has appeared over the last fifteen or twenty-odd years or so, often pretending to be Zang/Herald for Britains half-moon cards. Which isn't necessarily Vectis's fault, they sell what the clients bring them, and they do tend to caveat the listing, to alert, but they must know who keeps turning-up with these Dr. Moreau creations!

 

What we have here, are, top-left and bottom right; Cracker spacemen, in the middle; a Texas/Isas alien, and top-right/bottom-left; the rockets from Triang's Battle Space launcher, which are probably worth more, being sold separately, than on this cobbled-together stale-confection!

So we have two polyethylene & rubber model-train accessories, two polystyrene cracker novelties and an Italian plug-based, 'ethylene toy soldier, the figures material-colour matched, and further given a splash of casually painted (as out-painters would have) silver highlights to further 'unite' them, all on a card which is one of the relatively common cards (see Tags) from Italy, which has had the legend cut-off!

It's a fake, a phony, a curates-egg, designed to deceive, and many of us know who's behind them, but Western law is designed to protect landowners, Politicians, capitalists and yes, liars and fraudsters, from the truth, and if I named him, I'd leave myself open to a charge of defamation! If you bought it, sorry, but you were sold a parvo' pup!

In its natural habitat!

L is for Lido's Louche Luna Lads

Not a mystery, although they were to me for a while, as they turned-up in 'Blast Off' the other day when I was looking-up Jet Cars! I used to think they might be the French Rex, but they weren't and for a long time I didn't have a clue, but they are to be seen in the aforementioned tome (pp.142) in a Lido 'Toy Parade' header card as Captain Video Space Rangers, which reminded me these were in the queue!

 

Four from evilBay back in 2014, and four from my own collection in three poses, I've never seen these alongside the robot/bird-man aliens of the more common Captain Video figures from Lido, so I think maybe they could have been a seperate issue within the line, or a seperate line using the same branding and accessories (the little 'train' of space vehicles), rather than a part of the larger set?

Knowing so little about them beyond Lido, 'styrene, 50mm'ish and Captain Video Space Rangers, they are just a fun box-ticker! Also while the common line has the cartouche/ovoid bases, these are pod-feet chaps!

S is for Seen Elswhere - Juguetes ALB

I wasn't sure if these were the Argentinian ALB figures or not, as the only other sample I know of, didn't have any sailors! However, I posted them elsewhere - or at least the dirty line-up, I've since cleaned them - and they were confirmed by another Walter; Walter Rodriguez!

Best described as baby-faced, they are clearly little caricatures, rather in the same vein as the terracotta figures from Spain, which we have seen here several times, and may make excellent adult supervisors for the bubble-gum babies, which we haven't seen here yet, but there’s a tub of them somewhere!

Those other samples;

https://soldaditossudamericanos.blogspot.com/search/label/%28C%29%20Juguetes%20ALB

And I think we're looking at, from left to right, merchant marine, two Argentine Navy, Summer Dress and a civilian pleasure-boat skipper? He's 55mm, the other three closer to 60-mil, and they are a rather sticky PVC.

M is for Marx's Massive Moorland & Mountain Men

A quick box-ticker today, these are the six-inch 'Scottish Soldiers' from Marx UK factory in Swansea, and were a standard 'going-home' or 'attendance' present, at Birthday Parties when I was a kid.

 

For those who don't, or didn't practice such a thing, this was when all the kids who went to someone else's birthday party, got a little something, usually of the novelty or 'Christmas stocking' variety, to take home, in part as a memento of the occasion, and in part because watching one child open lots of presents (at least one of which could have been yours, if you hadn't handed it over!) tended to bring out the green-eye'd monster in some!

There was a bit of a party circuit in the late 1960's early 1970's, and several of the members had large gardens or grounds (such as Elvetham Hall, now a hotel and 'village' development!), and these keepsakes would, if the weather was inclement, be hunted for, outside, like Easter eggs!

 

If you found more than one, though, you had to surrender the spares to those who hadn't found any, in the great divvying-up! I remember the hard-polystyrene Indians also from Marx, and little bags of the Minimodels/Culpitts wild west (very frangible!), card-tube kaleidoscopes one year, and the rubber snakes mentioned here yesterday. The whole concept was meant to teach, in the nicest way, sharing, fair-play and decency? Some just resorted to lucky-bags as everyone was leaving.

 

I only have five (5th below), but I found this site which has all six;

 

http://marxsoldiers.british-classic-motorcycles.co.uk/index.php/scottish-soldiers/

 

Which was funny-ironic, as I was expecting a second bearskin for three pairs, and actually it's a third Highlander, leaving two lowland/fusilier types (with odd headdress I'm thinking, sort of French colonial, 18-somethings, 19-oh-whatever?) and the one Scot's Guard. That site's are cleaner than mine!

The other 'Fusilier'

Slight colour variation between batches?

A couple of - also soft, unpainted, polyethylene, 6" - Wild West cowboys who have come in at some point, I haven't obtained the hard, factory painted, polystyrene Indians from my childhood yet, but they were the 'thin' sculpts also done in 'HO', and the archers and spearmen tend to damage when you do see them.

H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop Backlog - 2023, 3 of 3

So to the last of the Charity shop plunder from last year, a pretty average bag of mixed animals, but it did have a figure in, or did I buy him separately for 50p or something, I really can't remember and shot them together, so, whatever!

Looks like one of those reusable fresh-veg' bags Sainsbury's were experimenting with, I think they've dropped them now, but they are useful for running bulk lots of paint-stripped figures through the washing machine, saves checking the filter afterwards, as all the larger flakes of paint end-up in the corners of the bag!

 

Mostly Dino's, and mostly generics, but when you think how many there've been in the last three posts, and how many Jon sent to the Blog in the autumn, and how many there are half sorted in that pile I shot on the stairs before they went to storage, and it'll be a mammoth task to make more sense of them all!

 

Wild animals, and a sea-horse which might have been branded, in fact it's here somewhere, and I could look it up, but I can't be arsed and does to matter right now, I've enough for a whole sea-horse post at some point, and such thematic posts are a definite plan for the future!

 

I think these go together and look like pretty current stock, in the two halves glued-together (to help with 'undercuts' on more complicated sculpts) style, they will be one of the carded sets you still see occasionally in the few remaining Independent corner-shops? BJ Toys, Red Deer, Funtastic, somebody like that?

 

This went straight back, or at least I think it's in the box of stuff to go back! McDonald's Happy-Meal thing, or something similar, there's a press-button to make him do something movie-related!

 

Well, I can't hold them all 'till ITLAPD, an ELC pirate, they're a bit big for my liking, but they are lovely sculpts and this is about number six now, with a few fantasy-types, and some knights from the same source!

H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop Backlog - 2023, 2 of 3

Continuing through 2023 backwards, although these are also dated December, so I think I must have either kept-up with most of 2023, or not found much charity-stuff to post until the end of the year, when we were already running through various other things like Christmas posts, Jon's donations, Chris's box, railway stuff &etc? So . . . more animals!

Six bags of mixed animals, or at least mixed themed animals! Two-each, sea life, dinosaurs & reptiles and domestic animals, all of which are rather piling-up against the day when I seriously sort them all out.

 

Some lovely tropical fish, a couple of huge star-fish and half a set of sharks/cetaceans, along with a few other bits, it's funny how some things become popular, in the last 20-odd years documentaries on Penguins have taken-off like nobodies business and as a result there are a lot of model penguins out there, and many have come-in, with purchases like these!

 

The other halves of both sets (future posts, obviously!) duplicates of the star-fish (I now have a huge 'starfish' bag with very few actual items - about six?!). The eel is interesting, as I have several now, and this one is new - I think - and I wouldn't have guessed that eels would be that popular or have that sell'ability?

 

However, my own childhood was full of tales of electric eels, giant eels, men fighting eels etc . . . and maybe that's still true today? I don't know what younger kids read these days, but they don't seem to have all those 'boys own' or 'adventure' books, they don't have the Lion, Tiger, Eagle or Hotspur annuals (Swift, was there a Swift, I seem to recall a Swift annual?), nor do they have anything like Look & Learn, World of Wonder or Tell Me Why? So I don't know where they would get an interest in eels, or giant squid, Pirates, the count of Monte Cristo, the Three Musketeers . . .?

 

Mixed bunch of Dinosaurs, I think the one back left had branding, while the snake is fun. I used to get a shot of nostalgia when I saw these rubber snakes, as we had them as kids, but actually they are a timeless toy and still very much 'around', most toy shops, chains or the few independents, have a tub or basket full of them!

 

More of the same, and the snake is definitely a modern one, ours were never that well decorated! But unless you sit down and research them to the same level as old Starlux or something, you'll never know (beyond the odd 'China' mark) whether they are old or new, reused or re-cleaned tools, unless it's as obvious as with this one, with the previous one it isn't?

 

A quite full sample of the late Britians (now Tomy?) sheep and goats, with a few other pieces and a nice Hong Kong setter. More of the wild 'minis' in the front row.

 

More of the same, larger animals, I think I've seen the slightly colourful horses in a blister somewhere, so we may get a brand for them when I do finally sit down and try to make sense of it all, which will make for some interesting, non-military posts in the future!