F is for Fort Mavrick, without the E!

Heay! For years, they thought I was 'only' dyslexic! We had a group-project at Uni', where we had to renovate/rebuild/replace (the choice was rather ours, but front and back walls had to line up) a crescent, down near Elephant & Castle, and after weeks of individual project work, Design crit's, building crit's, more crit's and so on, we were required to place them altogether for the end-of-year exhibition, to which parents and the like were invited, which left us having to fill the empty corner with something, we whacked in a roundabout I think, and some formal beds, but I thought the kids who might live in our eclectic collection of . . . . dewllings (?) might like a play area, so this was born, literally overnight, as it wasn't part of the marking process!

The base was just a sheet of sandpaper! The whole thing got a bit warped in storage over the years, and realising I'll never be an architect now, it went on the fire back in 2016! I had no use for it, everything dies in the end, and at a scale of 1:50 it could really only be used by Space Marines, and they are too busy with Morlocks and Slitheens and suchlike, to find the time to relax on my wobbly rope & log bridge!

 

The two end pieces however, taken from old Hi-Fi equipment I think, or a TV set, are that compressed, die-cut hardboard I mentioned in the previous post. The one having bundles of wire directed through the holes, the other separating wires on the prongs . . . it must have been a TV!

 

There's a PC element to the construction, with no gates, easy access and the lookout accessible from the fort, but outside of it, although the leftie elements are balance by the fact that they could hurt themselves easy-enough, but - I like to think - in a non-terminal, character-building sort of way!

F is for Forts

A couple of 'seen elsewhere's and a more recent scan from . . . probably Military Modelling, I can't remember! Forts and things, mostly wooden, all scanned from the archive.

Some confusion over this one, I thought it had come from the James Chase collection and been supplied to Plastic Warrior at the same time I got mine, but in fact it was an A. Hood of Cumbria, who sent it to PW (issue 62, 1997!), my cutting (with surrounding articles) came into my possession around 2005/6? I thought it was probably die-cut, printed, pressed hardboard, but Mr. Carrick reports that they are individual slats tacked into place, probably box-wood or a similar knotless-softwood?

 

This was in the James Chase ephemera, and I think it's a FAO Schwarz catalogue, but I can't swear to it, as there was a fair bit of SS Kresege stuff as well. And we have the Crescent Hollow-cast, Tudor Rose (?), Lido et al., here as T Cohn, wild west figures, with those comedic pot-bellied cannons which can fire both matchsticks and BB pellets! The fort and rock emplacements are tin-plate.

 

While this is card, and designed for displays/shelf backgrounds, with a shallow countenance and two shelf-battlements, I don't know what happened to CTA, but they advertised for a while in the modelling press, around the turn of the 1980's?

 

And as a bonus, to bring a bit of colour to a grey post, here's an old Hamley's catalogue page from 1972, with a mix of commercial (Britains [riding school], Exin [fairy-tale castle] and Blue Box [garage, I think, or Fisher Price?]) and more locally sourced/craft stuff in wood, ply I suspect, certainly for the slot-together Western fort, not so sure about the medieval castle, while the farmyard is probably that pressed hardboard.

P is for Plastic Toys!

The title of Bill Hanlon's excellent book on Dimestore Dreams of the '40s & '50s, and the core of this blog, no matter how much metal, wood, glass or card sneaks in! Alongside the military vehicles, which Mr Berke sent us the other day, was a plethora of civilian transport delights, most being of the 'dime store' variety, and this post is looking at the larger examples.

Left to right we have here, a 1911 Maxwell Roadster, a 1911 Daimler and a 1911 Renault, all made in Hong Kong, and my initial thought - given the leery colours - was Wilton's cake decorations, but they are different, so these may have just been pocket-money rack toys, like the ones we saw in a bit of a mini season a while back, but lovely additions to that particular oeuvre!

Two of the vehicles had been enhanced with 'ticker-tape' type-written graphics, which had seen better days, but with weathering/discolouring looked like a comercial exercise, until you realised one was a Marx tanker, the other a Dillon-Beck 'Wannatoy' utility/tool-locker truck, so I removed the remnants, which proved easy, as the glue was some water-based animal-stuff, like the old 'Gloy' pots at school!

 

There were actually a fair few Wannatoy or DB marked examples, including the boat and three 'rigid' trucks - we saw the artic's here, years ago! Indeed i think there were five different markings between the seven items. One of the spare cab/tractor-units had a different hitching mechanism/method, and I thought I might be looking for new trailers, but the aforementioned Hanlon book put me right.

 

I had seen the unmarked yellow bit, and decided it must be part of a construction vehicle or earthmover, but it turned out it's the other half of the 'new' Wannatoys cab design, but I'm still looking for the outer-end of the arm, for now it can do service as a tow-truck!

 

A lot of red, in the parcel, it has to be said! Three lovelies here, with a Renwal delivery van, we know it's a delivery van because it has DELIVERY written across the roof for police helicopters!

 

In the middle a Thomas Toys marked sedan, or at least I think it's called a sedan, in the UK it would be a 'family saloon car'! With a soft polyethylene dream to the right! I thought it might be a T-Bird and was googling with image-results by year '51, '52, '53 etc. . . and getting nowhere, before switching to Processed Plastic soft top, and finding it was a '56 Cadillac El Dorado, which I should have recognised, but I only drove the hard-top!

 

Stop me if I've bored you with this already, oh! You can't, it's a Blog . . . Hay-ho! Many years ago, like about 25, I worked for a stretch-limo' firm for a bit, actually ran into a childhood mate, but have since lost touch with him again!

 

Anyway, they were mostly shitty-old Lincoln Towncars from the 90's, ratted, sparking mother-boards you had to hold against the shocks with your spare hand to keep the gizmo's shining for the punters, awful things which had been hammered doing the LA-San Fran-Las Vegas triangle, 100's of thousands of miles. And in various liveries of silver, graphite, grey, white (weddings!) and two-tone.

But, there was one original 1960's 'Beatles & Stones', presidential Cadillac El Dorado ('68 I seem to recall), in black, with all leather, slightly stretched with a little B&W TV, and mahogany veneer bar, it only sat about six (some of those Lincoln's could hold 12 or 14 topless tarts!) in a small broken-U, but compared to the modern shit, it was one classy lady!

 

One summer evening I parked-up in the big Sainsbury's at Hatch Warren in Basingrad, while my fare did their function, and I went in for a snack and when I came out I had a crowd! She was lovely, and this little toy, albeit an earlier model, will remind me of her! She broke down as often as the others, though!

If you need a Limo', go to a reputable firm, with new cars and a landline, stay away from the local-press guys with their old cars, a mobile number and maybe a hosted webpage, you could spend half the night by the side of the motorway, or miss your flight, and you rarely get your money back!

This was funny, I'd literally mentioned it in passing a few days before it dropped on the porch, unannounced! It's the dairy boardgame, which was from Hasbro, and four players go around delivering milk, eggs and butter (I think) which fit over the different studs on the back! There was a green one in the parcel, but Royal Fail did their worst, and I have a bag of green bits waiting for a glueing session.

 

Some more polyethylene, the two to the left are in the style of all that German or Scandinavian vinyl, but in 'ethylene, and probably some similar infant/first/early-learning type thing, 1970's maybe? The tractor is lovely, marked Hong Kong, it is a direct copy of the Jean Höfler one which I have in military and civil types, so it will be nice to compare all three sometime.

While the sports car [muscle car!] is in a similar vein to the first two, I suspect enhanced with aftermarket or old leftover kit transfers, and while I would clean them off if I was sure, I'm not, and I'm even less sure about the blue paint, not obvious in the shot, but which runs around the lower quarter, and might/might not actually be factory-finish, so I wouldn't want to lift that at the same time?

Two of the little Pyro's, an Ideal 'aerodynamic' trailer (very 1950's), which is a fair lump of stable cellulose-acetate, a Banner road-grader, I think I have the military-green one somewhere (?) and a locomotive conductor's caboose from Lido Lines!

 

While this is a mystery, there's a feint USA mark under the right corner of the bonnet/hood, but no other markings, and it clearly had some interactive properties which are now half-missing, a hole in the rear only reveals that which is no longer there, while a sliding piston thing at the front has no obvious stop, trigger or function? I don't think it's dropping low enough to fit in a road-slot?

 

I suspect either a jump toy, with the trigger in another component (ramp or launch-mechanism), or a magnetic novelty with parts/a corresponding magnetic-wand missing? So any help tying this down to a maker or a set would be happily accepted!

 

And many thanks to Brian again, for this pile of brightly-coloured treasures!

L is for Last-cast Round the Attic with a Torch!

Does it need blurb?

Didn't think so!

T is for Two K's!

There should be another round-up of American makes here, but I'm starting to lose where we are in this odyssey, so I'm going to start getting the final post together, as a 'page', at the top of this page, so it can stay out of the way, in edit for a few weeks! Purely, in order to get the order back, in my own head and make sense of it all.

 

However, here's a couple of K's, just to get them up here! And they can then share the link, with Kibri appearing below them on the final listing page!

 

Kato taken straight from a Walther's catalogue, I was wondering if we weren't missing a bunch of Japanese makers, but with Minikin now covered, and most of the miniature artists we have looked-at elsewhere seemingly using Preiser or Noch for their wonderful creations, I'm suspecting the Japanese market was either quite small, or dominated by Western Imports, prior to the proliferation of Chinese knock-offs we all now have, but Kato was a domestic producer, with a small line of figures who exported the other way!

 

While these - image gratefully received from Jon Attwood - aren't strictly model-railway figures at all, being instead Kemlow's die-cast vehicle accessories, but, obviously, coming from the same stable as BJ Ward's Wardie Mastermodels, and at around 25/30mm useable on a home layout in the 1950/60's! Morestone/Benbros also produced a number of HO or OO-compatible die-cast figures with their wagons and carts.

M is for Mammals, Mostly Horseflesh!

In Brian's parcel were a couple of bags of useful animals, which happen to be mostly horses, although one or two other animals were present, including one of my all-time favourites - “Ruh-roh–RAGGY!!!”!

Four horses, the one at the back left is probably an Empire Toys Grand Champion, with brushable hair, they came with such accessories (brushes, curry-combs, bows, rosettes etc....), while the white foal is a common enough Hong Kong sculpt, originally copied from Britains Herald by Blue Box, but subsequently copied by many others. Blue Box also used it as a Zebra foal, with the necessary stripes! As a horse; less common in white, usually brown, tan or black plastic.

 

The other two are more interesting, for being unknown to me, but A) good quality models, and B) the probably domestic American product which gave rise to other Hong Kong copies, even though one looks to be a copy of the Cherilea grazing horse, any info on either/both gratefully received.

Scooby-dooby-Doo! He's a pencil top, how cool is that, it's a pencil-topper of Scooby-Doo! The black dog is looking quite menacing and a hard polystyrene plastic, so may well be from a model-kit by Pyro or Aurora or someone like that, the Hound of the Baskerville's, something prehistoric, or a monster's companion? [the next day: GI Joe's 'Junkyard', see comments]  

 

While the cow is a generic cartoonish 'funimal' aiming for the same market as the Lik Be (LB) Farm Friends or Holly Toy's similar Funny Animals, both hawked to many other brands/jobbers.

 

These are definitely Grand Champions from Empire, but from the Micro-Mini's line, a nearer 40/45mm range, and you can see the GC 'brands' in silver or gold on the rumps. They tended to re-use the sculpts with different sets, so the horse's title depends upon the horse's decoration, but I think we have an Arab in the white one, and two quarter-horses from an earlier wave . . . However, don't quote me!

 

The History of Grand Champions took a very odd turn in 2000'ish, when they were bought by Alpha International, an outfit best summed-up by this US bankruptcy judge's summing-up of an interim hearing, of a battle-royal, with Super Wings, one of three rulings I found, spread over half a decade!

 

The whole thing is rather hilarious, with wives, ex-wives and sisters in Grand Rapids, Hong Kong and mainland China, holding each other's shares, companies, moulds and tooling (specified and unspecified), internal loans, subsidiaries, serial bankruptcies, past histories of wrongdoing and the IRS apparently far too busy on another planet to pay any attention, while none of the judges seem to care a jot for neither the word nor case-validity of either party!

 

I don't know what happened in the end but J.Lloyd now seems to be connected to Tim Mee (also claimed by BMC ? Some more digging to be done there?) and Alpha International's websites are dead from 2013, and only to be found on the Waybackmachine! That Mr. Keener sounds like a charmer, he should run for President!

 

Finally, some lovely old hollow-polyethylene farm animals from one of the early US makers, Lido I think, and among a few of this hollow-type from over there, I have. All useful stuff, and thanks again to Brian for sending them.

A is for Also Avon Again - Astrobot Astrigent-Amphora!

 

 

Captain Bubbles, reporting for duty, Sah!

(He'd be a good foil for those blow-moulded, lenticular-eyed doozers!)

A is for obviously, how could it possibly be anything else but, of course - "Avon Calling!"

I've scanned these 1:1, but have no idea how they will show on your system, and being press-out, it's not that clear where you will be required to cut, should you chose to try and make one, but I've darkened the instruction side to try and make it a little clearer, and the things to get 'really' right are the four slots in the engine tubes.

It's naff, it's very simple, and it was sold as a Christmas 'mobile', still, it probably made someone very happy way back when (1980), and was apparently supplied by Ccai Como, which sounds Italian? And it's a robot, so no scale, it can be a mile long or a nano! Avon calling, but not the 2nd Captain of the Liberator, although the walls are just as cardboard!

And - speaking of the BBC, for it was they - apparently as part of their maths programme; they made 4 (or 14?) 'Print & Do' Starships? Anybody know anything about that?

R is for Renwal . . . or not?

Further to the earlier post, and in part an answer to Andy B's comment on that earlier post, I already had one of the tanks Brian sent, but mine was marked Renwall and is silver and green. Brief research (a google images results page!) reveals that they come in reversed colours as well - green body/silver turret &ect . . . missile, gun, whatever. A rule which breaks-down on the single mouldings, as seen on Ed's Blog with the Army Ambulance, where you get one or the other!

 

Brian's donation on the left and my sample on the right, it's possible they are trying to depict the M103, a heavy tank designed to face-up the JS/T10 series of Soviet biggies during the early Cold War, which, unlike the Stalin's or Britain's Conqueror (that all looked 'heavy'), was more of a scale-up on the M46/7/8 series, and looks quite normal in some photo's?

You can see clearly, that where mine is marked 'Renwal' the new addition has a clear remnant of mechanical scrubbing on the tool to remove the maker's mark. I think Plasticraft bought some Renwal tooling, could the all-green (more realistic) one be a Plasticraft issue? It's also a different shade of green, but I've seen other colours/shades so that proves nothing!

Another silver/green marked Renwall combo', they all have other markings including a title block, normally on an upper (normally visible) surface, and a stock-code/tool-number, along with the branding, usually underneath.

 

And another, this being a sort of giant Sparrow Missile, doing service as a Nike/Ajax anti-Nuke' SAM. Sadly, it's not a working "You'll 'ave yer' eye out..." toy, but a useful item for space bases and the like.

 

Comparison with the Norada we saw the other day (back), possibly also trying to be an M103? The Airfix 'Pershing' (front, nominally an M26?) and a diminutive, carded Marx cap-firing die-cast to the right!

M is for Military Marvels from 'Merika!

So, around the same time as the show the other week, I got a lovely parcel from the other side of the pond, and having covered the show a couple of weeks ago, and Peter's stuff from it, last week, it's time to show gratitude to Brian Berke, by sharing his plunder with the rest of the loyal readers, and we're starting with the military, in what was a vehicle-heavy donation.

This should be a Renwal readymade, very much in the same vein and size as the similar Airfix Attack Force, or stuff we've seen here from Injectaplastic, Jean Hoefler, Manurba or Norada, but this one isn't fully-marked, and has already led to a follow-up! It's quite 'space-tank'y isn't it?!!

 

Gilmark's Sherman behind and a lovely, early, polystyrene, US-made Lido jeep, trailer and gun in front. Following the pattern of the 25lbr and quads, I suspect some artistic licence from the 1950's dime-store supplier, with the very British limber added to a jeep, and a gun closer to the early war 37mm, which, although quickly rendered ineffective by advances in German armour, remained far from obsolete, retained as a very useful infantry support weapon, and which WAS towed by jeeps, among other tractor-vehicles.

 

It is a sad inevitability, that Royal Fail have to take their boatman's coin from pretty-much every parcel from Brian, Chris or Peter, and on this occasion it was the Auburn jeep which paid the price. No matter, I will glue it, and before the cyanoacrylate dries whitish, shoot it with the Airfix jeep for that post, on the Airifx blog.

 

Annoying though, as I'm pretty sure I have the original Auburn Rubber 'rubber' one somewhere (chunk of PVC), and having the polyethylene replacement turn-up is a fine showing of the other side of that coin!

Also the Auburn one I think, or 'based on', although we have seen various versions here over the years, not least the Banner, Bell, Lido and Merit ones, but unmarked and a clean mould-shot, so probably one of the US 'army man' issuers rather than Hong Kong's finest?

 

These on the other hand, are Hong Kong, but rather uncommon 'German' blue plastic, probably from Ri-Toys (Rado Industries), and one of their bagged or carded rack-toys of the 1970/80's, but equally possibly a sub-pirate, the tank being a cruder copy of the Blue Box one, than I remember Rado being responsible for!

 

Brian kindly put these to one-side when I mentioned them a while ago, and it's the Faun 6x6, NATO-era, 10-ton Bundeswehr truck from Roco Minitanks, with a load of assault boats and the larger rubber-boat.

 

Interestingly, I think that grey wheel, is the early sign of 'styrene-rot, and it's only the second time I've seen it, but on the other occasion it was A) also Roco product, and B) also from the 'States, probably AHM over-stamped stuff from the late 1960's? On that previous occasion, I rather blamed the climate in Florida - well, Americans themselves, seem to blame Florida for most things!

 

It's not like the brittleness of dying polyethylene, but more like the Mazak-rot you get in early die-casts, the grey bloom eventually getting fine cracks in it before crumbling, more like biscuit. As with other plastic diseases, I'm sure it's a batch thing, but whether it's down to too-high or low injection temperatures, incorrect operating-pressures or corrupting additives/inclusions . . . as yet, as far as I know, that work hasn't been done.

Many thanks to Brian for all these, and there will be more on the Renwall tank next!

P is for Polski Sklep . . . They're Everywhere!

After posting those others an hour ago, I remembered I had this chap in the queue, so went off to find the shots in one of the 'Eastie' folders, then thought there were those other three, which I think we've seen before, but anyway, more shots have been fired-off and uploaded, so here's more Polish-made Wellingtonian cavalry!

He's 70mm, with a more 'Spanish' (production) looking horse, and is a lancer officer I think?

 

The other 40mm trio included another-one of the white cuirassiers, so I now have seven of them, and he had a slightly different horse which I gave to the trumpeter, further swapping resulted in this pair being odd-men-out, and the six cuirassier troopers match! Ulan and Hussar here, I think?

 

 

Quick comparison shot!