H is for Hong Kong Hounds?

The reason I was digging out old images of Dorset hounds was because I was raiding the unused 'Dogs' folder, for the Hong Kong dog images, which tie-in to those Adrian gifted the Blog, a few weeks ago, and of which I mentioned at the time, a follow-up was in the queue, this is that follow-up!

However, first I'll raise a few points over this shot, which I took as a load of stuff headed-off to storage, back in 2021, and which were mostly - then - recent acquisitions, also including some of the attic stuff, but not the storage stuff from Berkshire, which was somewhere else!

 

Those starred in yellow are the Kellogg's premiums, issued more than once, and probably manufactured by Crescent, their other production for Kellogg's neatly bracketing the issues of these, but that is speculative, and the only point to note is the variations of caramel or butterscotch, one being a darker orange, the other a paler yellow. 

The five starred in white, however, raise several questions, not least who made them and how many sets are they from? The two boxer-dogs in creamy-white are most likely to be Marx, Swansea, the smaller (which I used to think might be a Bulldog, to the larger boxer, I know, legs are too long!) is a dead-ringer for the US/Hong Kong productions of Boxer dog, from several Marx sets, while the Pekinese also resembles the Marx version, but is not the same, while the short-tailed setter/spaniel type doesn't equate to any of Marx's as far as I can tell, and the Dachshund, smaller than the Kellogg's one, is, like the Peke', not exactly the same as the Marx one.

Obviously, Marx wouldn't issue two different sized Boxers in one set, while the lack of sculpt-similarities with the other three suggest three or more origins for the five, and any help from readers would be welcomed. I think the slightly smaller Corgi on the Cereal Offers page may go with some of these five?

Below them is five-of-six of the Airfix dogs, from their early days, fully covered on the Airfix Blog now, here (mostly toward the bottom of the post/page), these had slowly revealed themselves to the hobby, on these pages while I was in Fleet, but with the final one coming-in after this 'conversational' shot was taken - added below.

Below them are two of interest; the inner pair, one of which is a perfect scale-down of the Airfix fox-hound, the other - an Alsatian type - being little alike the Airfix sculpt. They may be Christmas cracker prizes? While the outer pair are from of the Hong Kong set, we saw the other day, and are about to look at fully below.

Quickly though, a reminder of the sixth Airfix sculpt, a Spaniel, seen before here, but clearing Picasa and getting all six together for only the second time, it is intended to shoot all six together, properly, in the not-to-distant future!

These cards seem to be aping another set of larger dogs, made in the US by Ajax (Blue Ribbon Canine Pals, as Joy Toy), and titled Blue Ribbon Kennel Club [now added at the end of this post], not to be confused with Marx's Blue Ribbon Dogs which are smaller, usually hard polystyrene and factory painted in Hong Kong.

 

The actual dogs are copies of Tim Mee and are reported to be slightly smaller. As I have no definite Tim Mee ones, I can only go on sight, and, well, they look alike, with the quality of the two sets being so similar as to suggest the tool may have made its way to Hong Kong?

 

And I say this, not to stoke controversy, but because a UK seller has a whole bunch of these, and I bought a set a while ago, and shot them before the six came in from Adrian They are lacking the caramel ones of the Hong Kong cards, but have additional black plastic examples*, and knowing there was Tim Mee European production, I wonder if these are in fact the Tim Mee versions, the colours - apart from the lack of caramel - are the same.

 

And, until I can compare them to the six from Adrian, the two I shot a while back, and any others in the stash  (and there WILL be more in the stash, there's a whole 'really useful box' just of domestic dogs, somewhere!), I can't say whether there's any size differential between any of them!

 

*To further confuse, Adrian's six includes black and caramel, along with two shades of the oxide-red!

 

A slightly washier white version of the Alsatian was kicking around at the time, so I managed to shoot a comparison with him and a duplicate Boxer. Whether they are all from the Tim Mee tool, or from two sets of moulds, they are not rare!

I can say there's a size differential here, though! The one on the left being a clear copy, probably from gum-ball capsule machines or, again; Christmas crackers, and I know there are plenty of these in the stash, we've seen a fair few here over the years, particularly sheepdogs, but others too.

 

The kind of Hong Kong sets the above yellow jobbie appeared in, they also tended to be found in the previously mentioned crackers and as capsule toys. Quality is usually pretty poor, with deformation, flash, miss-moulding or short shots getting past the - non-existent - quality control!

 

This is actually a better set, again there are probably a few in the main stash, and when everything is brought back together, we'll have a revisit of all this stuff, if I live long enough! I'm not sure who's sculpts they are copying, but they will be copying someone's!

As a full stop to the post, this strange combo' is a doll's clothes set from Germany, out of Hong Kong, and included is a charm-looped dog, very similar to the copies of Thomas's dogs, as we saw back here, and may very well be part of a larger set, catalogued by a Hong Kong producer for various end-users to chuck in crackers, gum-ball machines, or, indeed, doll's outfit sets!

 

There was a follow-up to the Thomas post, here.

 

As a 'Brucey Bonus', the Ajax dogs mentioned above, from old evilBay lots, you can see the similarities with the Hong Kong cards. These are much larger though, and one of the amusing things about researching toy dogs, is that Marx, Ajax and Kellogg's all did almost identical Poodle sculpts, which were then copied endlessly, and there are so many variations out there (also saw a few here once), from the huge blow-mould infant/beach toys down to direct copies!

F is for Foxhounds

Having had Giles Brown of Dorset mentioned the other day (the 'Good Solders' question-marks were almost certainly Dorset), I am more confident that these are indeed Giles' work, having been designed to augment the hunting sets of various hollow-cast and 'new metal' makers over the years.

"The Honourable member should realise what Dirty Dogs do to Palings"

(Churchill, replying to Sir Wilfred Paling's accusation that he was a Dirty Dog!)

The Sandown pack!

A wonderful scratching pose, sitting and slumped

The leg-up from another angle, three poses of 'actually working', and a darker brown colour variation!

These are modern whitemetal solids, painted in a glossy 'toy soldier' style and would look lovely in a display cabinet, mixed in with the old 54mm/1:32nd scale, hollow-castings. Foxhounds look like Beagles, but have slightly longer noses, are five to ten or more inches higher, considerably heavier and more energetic!

And as an indication of how appalling the Picasa situation is, I must thank Adrian Little for letting me shoot these . . . five years ago, this November, pitiful, on my part! There's tons of this stuff in the long-queue/archive.

N is for New Old Novelties!

There is a useful expression for searching old toys on the Internet, New Old Stock, indeed, on eBay the abbreviated NOS is good enough to find all sorts of nice things, it means old-stock which is still unused or new-looking, and 'unopened' or 'not played with' are variations, however in the case of today's title, it actually is, 'New', but a version of an old novelty!

 

You may recall, a while back we saw several articulated novelty figures, two from Chris Smith I think and another came in from somewhere else, a skeleton, a bad-Santa and something else, if memory serves, and I suggested they were trick-wire novelties from the 1960's or '70's (as I could vaguely remember them, or something like them!), and here they are, in the shops now!

I found this first, Cheeky Chimp, about six months ago, and it was in a small, independent 'corner shop' credited to a Candy Castle Crew, but also claimed by Monmore Confectionery, and is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of when we saw the vintage parts a while ago.

You press the two buttons either side of the ornate cap, and the attached arms pull two strings tight, they are in curved 'cams' built-in to the monkey's swing, and this causes the monkey to gyrate erratically, like a demented Olympian on the rings! He's also sold as Cheeky Monkey.

 

Then about three months ago, this Sloth turned-up, supplied by Bobby's Foods, who - along with Red Mill - are a common branding in the few independent convenience stores left, as the virtual cartel of the big-four/six/eight (Lidl and Aldi haven't joined that fight yet) buy-up all the sites for their bland, choiceless, mega-store satellites.

A close-up of its mechanism, slightly different to the Chimp's, but I suspect the same factory in China - the similarities are greater than the cosmetic differences? His buttons are set into the lid, and there is a second darker colourway, closer to the Chimp, which is why I took the orangey one, for contrast!

 

Side-by-side, both still out there, I see them regularly, on my rounds, sometimes in the same shop, but having that pretty dire, overly sweet, yet somehow chalky candy, I won't be getting another, unless it's a new design, of course!

 

Obviously not toy soldiers, not even that realistic, but Betterware flats were the second post ever, on the Blog, sixteen years ago, so novelties have always been part of the mix, and, for those with children/grandchildren; these will make ideal stocking-filler's, in the forthcoming season of goodwill and consumption!

News, Views Etc . . . London Show Tomorrow

Well, this is new, I was going to write 'weird', but it's not really weird, just 'new', I'm coming at'cha from a car-park on an industrial estate having paid 4.99 for an hour's internet, which seems excessive but that's end-stage capitalism! However, I happen to have an hour to spare, and remembering to tell you about this at midnight, would be a tad late!

 

Going to give the London antique toy fair a go tomorrow, I suspect it will all be wooden games. barley-twist marbles, balding Teddy Bears and old dolls, but there might be something of more interest, and it beats sitting at home avoiding showers, and definitely beats going to work!

 

Kensington Town Hall

Hornton St

W8 7NX

 

October 13th 2024

 

https://www.200yearsofchildhood.com/

H is for Haunted Hallows Halloween Hangable . . .

. . . Plaster Paint Your Own Kit! Shelfied in The Range the other day, this chalkware/plaster Witch comes with a half reasonable paint brush, which is excuse enough to part with a quid?

 

From two angles, just because of the flash, and the store's own lighting, there's not a lot else to add, it's a figural, it's seasonally relevant, and it's out there now . . . fun for kids! Purple and orange paints too!

Q is for Question Time - Whimsical Lead

Again, not so much of a question, as I feel these are likely to prove to be Good Soldiers, but they came as a bulk lot of 'shop stock' with no packaging, which would be an uncommon escape from the garage concern that is Good Soldiers, I haven't seen them in Ron's immaculately-cut, foam-lined 'toy soldier' boxes, on his stall either, and they don't seem to be copies of other, older, plastic figures, as his more whimsical, or fairy-tale-TV-Disney stuff tends to be.

 

These are more 'Good Soldier' like, as the two larger bears seem to be taken from a commonish sculpt, both sides of the channel, and both sides of the pond, often found with backwoodsmen or other Wild West, not holding bowls or spoons, mind!

 

And the girl holding a straw boater behind her back also looks vaguely familiar, but as a group a rather nice Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I would add that Baby Bear is doing a pretty good impression of Mary Plain, while Daddy Bear seems to be a stretched Mummy Bear - owch!

Whereas these Rupert the Bear snowball fighters appear to be unique sculpts, in that they weren't cereal premiums or similar as far as I know, The Tournament Collection did a whitemetal set back in the 1980's, but theirs were smoother finished I feel, and all just standing. From the left Rupet, Podgy Pig and the mischief-makers, Freddy & Ferdie Fox, although how you tell them apart is a mystery to me!

 

So anyways, any ideas, on either set, gratefully received!

A is for Another Donation!

Another mixed lot of all-sorts on the back of Adrian Little pushing a slightly overflowing, ex-somethinglikebutnotbutter tub over the pub table the other day, as these were the eclectic but nevertheless useful contents . . . 

The die-cast traffic lights are interesting, I wonder if they may be US products, but they also have something in common with the items in the Tuf Tots set from Lone Star, which we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2021/12/t-is-for-tuf-tots-toy-trucks.html

Except that they already had a finer-stemmed, one-way set in the N-Gauge Treble-O model railway line? 

 

The windmill might be De Gruyter, I have half a memory of one similar in Jan Boers' original article in Plastic Warrior magazine? The plane is Hong Kong, the boat could be British or European and is typical 1950/60's fare, there's a tub-full somewhere!

Two TN Thomas PVC dogs in the foreground, and six (of twelve?) Hong Kong dogs behind, there's more on the Hong Kong dogs in the forthcoming queue, but these arrived after the shots for the other had been collated!

 

I think we've seen the chimp here a few times now; a contemporary tub/toob toy, but the pair of crocodile/alligator types are totally new to me, and coming on the back of the three-example, probably Blue Box family, we saw a while back, have further extended the smaller-scale corner of that sub-collection!

 

Standard, late generation piracy of the Britains goat from Hong Kong is grist to the mill, while I love the little - probably Christmas cracker - cat, and the other four are Bullyland small-scale which were a revelation to me, and they're not bad sculpts, around 1:64th I think . . . same size as the larger Matchbox livestock.

 

An odd mix of oddments, of which the unpainted 30mm Comansi/Novalinea Indian is interesting, the little pink roadworker (?) more so, he could be connected to those Hong Kong copies of Merit's plastic versions of Wardie Mastermodel die-cast sculpts? The yellow blob may be a Gogo Crazy Bone, or a knock-off?

 

A pair of Marty Toys fantasy figures, two rack-toy Matchbox American machine-gunner rip-off's, an Italeri 1:35th scale kit figure, a version of an Esci red-beret and a Blue Box Japanese shooter, in a similar size.

 

Finally, an actual Merit matelot, and three HK clones of the Airfix US Paratroops from WWII, which may be the Artform Industrial Co., ones, or a new 5th (6th?) version? We've looked at them here,

 

http://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/2020/01/1975-wwii-us-paratroopers-51464-51464-8.html

but I know more have come in and will all need adding at some point! Thanks to Adrian for another bunch of useful gap-fillers and new question-marks - that diminutive pink chap, and the two croc's!

Q is for Question Time - Astronauts

Not really a 'question time' per se, as I know they are converted key-rings, and from the sculpting style, from the same stable as the PVC footballers we've seen here once or twice now, so Hong Kong originally, but these are actually solids in a dense polyethylene, so possibly a little earlier?

 

I just wondered if - given the faces - they aren't trying, despite the garish space-suits, to be the crew of Apollo 11? The chap on the right looks particularly specific, rather than the usual generic baby-face of the later (?) footballers?

Collins in the middle, Armstrong on the right and Aldrin on the left? I know the orange hair's all wrong, so am probably being over imaginative, but it's nice to think they might be caricatures of the original crew!

V is for Very Fine Sight!

During Brian Berke's recent sojourn in Italy, he bought this pair of larger scale items, as rather brilliant toy-related mementos of their visit, and nothing more iconic than a Vespa moped . . . with added babalicious babe from Babalonia!*

 

In Brian's own words;

"The two wheeler riders in Naples and surrounding area are positively demented.

This may be part of the universal road rage post Covid lockdown, though I suspect they were this way before.

The roads are narrow, which does not deter 2 wheelers from passing cars both into oncoming traffic and curbside at the same time. They go down pedestrian only streets. There are the equivalent of Zebra crossings. The custom is walk across and ignore traffic? Do not make eye contact. It was quite unnerving. Two wheelers don't stop they weave around you as you cross.

So I had to purchase this as it represents the most notable memory of the trip. The scale is larger than I would like but I wanted to buy it in Italy rather than later. The figure was the only one I could find, bought in the US which surprisingly it pretty accurate in terms of rider dress code near the beach!

It has gone on display temporally while the trip is fresh in the memory."

For a speculative purchase, they work very well together, and at 1:18th scale (approximately 90/100mm or 3-inches) the bathing beauty from American Diorama looks perfect on the Maisto moped, and one can imagine her posing in the warmth of the evening's setting sun, in one of the Piazzas, while her beau fetches a soft-scoop ice-cream cone!

We have a scaler, with the Crescent shooter, it's a trope which has rather fallen by the wayside in the last few years, not least because of everything else which has been going on, but I intended to have a couple on the planned, dedicated photo-station, once I'm fully settled, and we'll get back to 'berserker' comparisons!

As part of an eclectic display of odds and ends!

Brian shot an actual one in situ!

Many thanks to Brian for these, it's nice to have something a little left-field, and with a first for American Diorama (poured PU resin), it also adds to the underused Maisto (doe-cast) Tag . . . and, it's a babe in a bikini!

* I think I nicked that from Bill & Ted!

S is for Shelfies - Morrison's

Morrison's supermarkets have taken a leaf out of the 'George at Asda' type business model, and invented the in-house Nutmeg branding for what is collectively, or sometimes rather euphemistically called 'homewares', and among them are the inevitable Poundland-type tat, of which a few are always figural, and I shot these back in April;

The world is groaning under the weight of this stuff, but, if it's figural, I have a sense of duty to annotate it when I encounter it! And, let's be honest, the picture has been the same in toys since the first Tramp Steamer arrived from Hong Kong filled with cheap polymer knock-offs, 70-odd years ago!

It's pored resin, which is pretty stable, so on one level will last forever, whether at the bottom of the ocean or in land-fill, without doing much obvious harm (except possibly confusing future alien archaeologists), but the trouble is, it chips easily, and those chips end-up being ground under-foot into micro polymers which will end up in the environment and/or the food chain.

It's no longer a question of if or when you get micro-polymers in your body, but how much is there already, and the family cats, dogs, local squirrels etc . . . Butterflies were down so much this year an emergency has been declared.

Mini pot-Gnomes, about 90/100mm maybe, they have those weird rods in them which I haven't managed to identify the material of, they may be a coated steel or something more exciting/exotic like a reinforced carbon-fibre?

 

I rather liked this, the mouse is a bit big for role-play, but if you fantasy wargame in 54mm (and some do), this could have a use somewhere in the background! That's it, a few bits I saw out and about, a while ago now!

T is for Two - Taffy & Thomas!

Except it's only the one gun, and it's a Poplar Plastic Product, but we're returning for a third/fourth (?) time to the Poplar-Taffy-Thomas 5.5" gun, and hopefully sorting out the difference between them, which I highlighted here;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/05/t-is-for-two-taffy-toy-and-twin.html

. . . a while-ago now! And worth a quick revision, so you can see what's being said here!

 

I actually shot this at PW's show I think, and had the opportunity to look at it more closely at Sandown Park the other week, and while it's a nice set on any level, it's also an explanation of the two types we looked at back in 2017, where a piece or two were missing, compounding the mystery then!

The [now] obvious screw-thread on the end of the barrel of the Thomas (?)/Poplar gun actually takes a pretty substantial moulding; the 'Flash Eliminator', which needs to be substantial, as it houses a firing cap, and needs to hold and direct the mini-explosion into the back of a 'shell'.

 

  

As per the instructions!

We sorted the Thomas (et al) Jeep/Jeep-driver out with the help of Chris Smith, around the same time, and here's another, pulling the under-scale (for the Jeep) artillery piece, note the hole for the plug-in's, one of which we saw in that post;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/07/p-is-for-problem-solved.html

Not terribly clear, but we have seen them in a plunder-post, I think, and I know I have some in the 'unknown ammo' zone, so we'll return to this subject again, just to cross the final t's and dot the i's! They look like micro' space-ships, little squat domes with four shallow fins toward the 'skirt' end, they obviously go over the heavy flash eliminator, and are propelled by the small charge of the cap.

Sometimes as kids, when you were firing-off a roll of 200 caps at your brother/mate, from behind cover with your little die-cast six-shooter near your face, you would get the odd bit hit you in the face, and - whether bits of powder or bits of paper - they stung, as they were/are coming off a mini explosion, and the power was/is there, if only in miniature!

Box end; and thanks to Adrian Little for letting me shoot this.

"Carefull, or you'll have somebodies eye out with that"

Is probably, now, the true reason for the second, simplified Taffy version!