F is for Farm Friends - Odds & Sods

I haven't photographed my LB (or other) farm 'funimals' yet, and with the bulk of them in storage that'll be a project for another day, but I have found a few bits around and about, which we're looking at here, with one or two shots I have taken while sorting or whatever.

 

Pretty sure these are all Lik Be, as I said in a previous post, there are more than one sourse of these cartoon animals, and different sets (like the band, and the circus sets - smaller animals riding/climbing on larger animals while wearing hats!) within makers, and many similar smaller sources, so it's not an exact science.

 Even within the oeuvre of LB's offerings, where the A/B- coded numbering helps, it's complicated by unmarked examples and the fact that the winter-sports funimals, band, cake decorations, dinosaurs, cavemen, wild west and 'Gygax monsters' (six posts - coming soon . . . I hope!), are also within the list, quite randomly, although usually in blocks, with the unnumbered fishermen, spacemen, astronauts and robot/aliens and others, probably accounting for some of the gaps (also blocks) in the list!

 

Colour variations of the rabbits we saw in the other post.

 

One shot I did take, to show colour variations of the pig!

From Mike B's catalogue image, the trio of chicks is sometimes broken-up and sold individually, or as individuals, I should say, the other three are from a sub-set of more anthropomorphic animals with items of clothing or human accoutrements. The farm boy on the music box will be a hard polystyrene version, and came a little later than most of this stuff; in the mid-1980's

A better sample of the farm range, with both cows, both donkeys (one with loud, pink-paint detailing), separated chicks (two of each), the goat and an adult duck, who's huge! If I recall correctly, the seller had multiple sets, but had opened one for the sales shots, but it was before I was an active buyer on evilBay!

The set we looked at in the previous post, but I think this was the seller's image, although I take similar images, I rarely use the same colour of both surfaces, and try to hide gaps! But it worked, as I bought two of them, a few months apart!

This is from the 'box'-something guys in Germany, still available, but, after a few successful purchases from them, it all went a bit pear-shaped - after Brwreakshit-proper (Boris the clown's 'deal'), they cancelled an eBay sale, didn't reimburse me, and bombarded me with eMails, in German, trying to get me to make an off-eBay sale (against feeBay's rules) elsewhere, so I've never bought from them again, and they got my fifty-odd quid, but have lost more over the subsequent few years? Branded to both Wello and LB.

The 'farm kids', there are a rarer farmer and wife, who are more realistic, still cartoony, but slimer or more proportionate, and so go better with the tractor driver, found in a larger set or sets - no pictures yet!

A tragedy! Some people shouldn't be on feebleBay! This was the sum-total of the sellers images? They look to be two further examples of the same sized card as the Wello-contracted set above, but this time all-Lik Be. And that says "Paint High Impact, not Taint - Ooh-missus!
 

I'm not

 

I'm not going to look at the other vintage makers here, but this is the modern take from someone called NPRC (somthing-People's Republic [of] China?) on Amazon, clearly a made-up-name! Twelve animals with more than a hint of homage to the oldster funimals, Lucky Luke and a bit of Hanna-Barbera!

F is for Farm Friends - Smaller Set

So this is the other set I have, it's a smaller set, and has the boy again, although the girl does exist, I think we've probably seen her here, in a donation or show-plunder post in the past, but of interest is the reverse sculpt cow, flat tree and Dutch barn.

 

The flat tree is in the style of, but not a copy of the Lego trees of the era, while the Dutch barn, with a stain/wash and dry-brush, would make an excellent war gaming scenic piece, albeit with a rather 1950's silo, but still, you could hide an anti-tank gun in the doorway, behind some straw, or a strategically-placed wood-pile!

 

The window-box and liner, I bought two by accident, so unboxed one set, after I realised I had two! As with the 'funimal' band and critters in the Animal Fun Fair set (previous but one post), these are glued in with Hong Kong's take on what was called Evo-Stik in the UK and over time it dries right-out and becomes brittle.

 

If, or when I'm replacing/restoring sets with remnants of this glue I use small spots of a modern clear contact adhesive like Bostik (yeah, they all drop the 'c'!) or UHU, which dries near invisible with the chocolate brown underneath.

 

One of the better B's, clearly a heavier whiteness on the right, and while it's a shit logo, I went into all that while we were still trying to promote the 'LP' red-herring, and wean people off 'ID' or 'IDL' which are both still being used on feebleBay! Now we know it's Lik Be, we know it's an LB!

F is for Farm Friends - Larger Set

The Farm Friends trope was a sort of under-branding carried by quite a few sets, some generics, or supplied and otherwise branded to other firms, but this set is fully marked to Lik Be (LB) and is the first of two we're looking at for now (I might dig out all my evilBay/Worthpoint shots later!), and having been in Picasa since '21, is well overdue.

The full set, the Farmhouse is actually a money-box/bank, with the smaller pieces stuffed inside, along with a blow-moulded grain-silo which also has bits in. The artwork suggests the traffic-light sticker, placed here, on the roof, should be engine 'detailing' on the tractor!
 

The artwork listing is also not quite complient with the contents, a 'pony' is actually, clearly a donkey, no matter how cartoonish, a pink and white farm is also hinted at, and the farm-girl has been replaced with a farm boy! There's two dogs and an extra chicken, too.

 

The other dog - if we assume the referred-to one is the sheepdog - is this small black puppy, and the boy is pretty dwarfed by both of them! The boy and girl are in the style of, and may be by the same sculptor as the Native American Indian kids, seen before here at Small Scale World.

 

The smaller animals, the problem with researching these is that as well as at least three sets of knock-offs (nominally, at the moment; Betta Toys, Colonial and Holly), some of these are not marked or numbered in sequence with the A-codes, while the odd piece has a B-code, so I'm rather keeping my powder dry on that score, to which end we've seen the rooster on his log/stump a couple of times without me letting-on his LB connection!

 

The larger animals, all 'funimals', with the pig being one of the commoner finds, and the cow being among several versions, clones, and a reversed-sculpt, in several sizes. A cat as big as a sheepdog, why not?

 

The money-box farm-house, a sort of Dutch-American design, with a simple key to open/close the flap, also equipped with a carry handle, it's not bad for a bit of Hong Kong tat, and would have made a poorer kid happy, even under the tree at Christmas!

 

The tractor has a driver who is channelling the Fisher-Price 'Little People', who were themselves mirroring the earlier wooden infant toys, like our racing-car driver (seen here passim), the whole design, scale-reduced, is taken from Fisher-Price, a rare instance of plagiarism from LB, who usually designed their own stuff?

 

The grain silo; made of two blow-moulds which just sleeve together, the silo-body being decorated with relief sculpts of corn-cobs, a deer and something in a nest which may be a catdog or a dogcat, it's not clear, and it might be a pig!

 

The farm-fencing in hidden in the silo, and with only four pieces, not much cop! Having been sticking these in the 'unknown' fence section for years before I knew they were Lik Be, I have quite a few of them somewhere, and one day we may have a photo-session of a proper set-up with all the LB farm - there's another set of chickens and a pair of kittens on the yellow plastic, and more animals, including some realistic sculpts.

 

The much-missed and not-yet replaced Boysie-boy helped me investigate tractors!

And Godzilla monsters!

K is for SS Kresge, Kids, Kmart and Super K!

Nearly history now, but the Australian operations continue as an independent enterprise, several stores outside CONUS are still going and a limited presence on an old Floridian site is still doing business. But back in the day, they were big!

 

Claimed by a Chemtoy Corp of Circero, Illinois, the set also states the contents are made in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, and to anyone who's been following this stuff, clearly contains the products of the Lik Be Plastic & Metal Factory of the territory, but not carrying the LB logo on this occasion. It's then further branded to SSK, the short form logo of the earlier iteration of Kmart, - SS Kresge.

 

I said, in a post on other things (astronaut-spacemen I think) a while ago, that I had two farm sets to post, but don't seem to have got round to doing so yet, however, as one needs much editing before it goes first, of the pair, I thought I'd shift this out of Picasa as a warm-up!

 

How it arrived from the 'States!

 

 

After I had matched up glue marks and restored a bit of order!

 

A mix of three from the anthropomorphic animal band (bases marked with the LB hugging monster, as per the divers/fishermen/astronauts) and seven of what I call the cartoon 'Funimals', we also get five sections of the distinctive LB farm fencing, in two blisters, heat-welded and dated to 1971.

 

There is no relationship between the Key 1 code here and the British supermarket chain Keymarket, which, although having a similar logo, was not related to Kresge at all. The first supermarket locally was a Keymarket,, back in the late 1960's, it's now the - totally rebuilt - Sainsbury's site in Farnham, we would go there, very occasionally, to do a 'big shop', and it was a big deal!

L is for Legami

Mentioned twice recently, and both products make a reprise in this post, the Italian (Milan-based) Legami is a new name in stationary, or new to me at least, and as a follow-up to the previous post, continuing with the theme of pencil tops and etcetera!

 

Pencil Tops - We've seen the Panda here at Small Scale World

 

Foam Unicorns!

Definitely a theme at the moment! I'll have to look out for the [scented? really?] eraser, and the light-up pencil-sharpener, although both are cartooney, it doesn't stop us buying them/shooting them so you don't have to! There's also a spaceman on the three-colour highlighter, with an ariel on his helmet, like the Stingray crew!

 

Clingers and moulded finials

 

Looks to be the same as the ones I found in WHSmith, a few years ago now, during the height of the Iwako (and clones) moment - although they are still everywhere; I think the initial flood has retreated from the doorstep! So could they have been re-badged Legami all along?

 

All the above shot at the 2025 Spring Fair at the NEC in February.

P is for Puffy Projectile Pen!

As the Actress said to the Bishop! Real life seems to be intervening again, but here's something I picked-up in Home Bargains a couple of days ago. As well as small pulp-rockets trending these days, pen and pencil tops are also enjoying a renaissance, with the big displays of such items, in The Works and some garden centres, and the many museums and 'end-destination, high-end, tourist leisure-facility' gift shops, where such things have always been the pocket-money staple!

 

So, combine the two tropes, with a soft-foam, spring-loaded, cartoon rocket on an teathered elastic string! Branded to TJM worldwide and Maxi Save down-under, it's a bit of fun and another Retro Rocket, which is not the same as a retrorocket!

F is for Follow-up - LB Spacetronauts!

I picked this set up in the November toy fair at Sandown Park, and it's interesting for a couple of reasons, one wouldn't necessarily get from online images, or, without the benefit of poring over it and comparing it to other examples.

 

Whole set.

 

Full extant of the graphics.

 

Card slid-out and opened-up.

 

Moon-shot landing module, and this is the first interesting aspect. Obviously it's missing its little antenna-dish, but I think I have a spare one, possibly in white, but there may be a chromed one kicking-around somewhere, so? And, if I only have a white one, you can get this media in paint-marker pens now, the Ad's keep appearing in my Faceplant feed!

 

However, you can see from the off-white at the hole, this seems to be the same lander which came as a cake decoration with the late NASA suited pair & flag, from Lik Be (LB), via Culpitts, which matched the robot aliens. Something that may not surprise the average viewer, as the figures look to be the larger LB figures?

 

But, as you can see here, they are actually the smaller ones, which were new to me with the little chromium-plated one we saw last time we had a catch-up of these old favourites. The original is on the left with a dodgy paint-job!

 

And, as a reminder that there's no fool like an old fool, a friend picked several of these out of a bowl I'd already ignored at a show (actually the September Sandown!), because I thought I had them all, but then I looked at these two remaining ones, and under the show lighting, they looked to have different paint, so I grabbed them both slightly chagrined I'd missed the other six, only to get them home and realise in the cold light of day, that the red, the gaiters and the silver on the rears, are all some other Muppet's home-painting! Hay-ho - a full strip awaits them!

 

But, by the time I realised my mistake, I'd already shot this comparison with an Athena spaceman from Greece, a UK knock-off of Premier's fellow (I don't know for sure, if the paint is home or factory, but they do turn up like this, occasionally) and one of the diminutive copies of Ajax/Archer, both of which may be Tudor Rose or Kleeware? All of which, I picked-up at the same show.

 

This all, above, led me to shoot a couple more comparisons the other day, and here, only from the stuff which has come-in over the last 24-months or so, we can see various treatments of the LB (for Lik Be!) and clone figures.

 

Of note here is that the hollow-based copy (forth from the left, is copying the earlier LB paint, which extended to the rears, and was dropped (probably as a cost-saving) on later LB issues, before all painting was dropped around the time the robots/Aliens were converted to chain-hangers.

 

While the yellow issue is a solid based version, despite hollow based monochrome examples also existing in yellow, and the small chrome chap (middle-right), is the same as the painted trio in the new set.

 

Coming with the lander, there is a strong possibility that it/they (set/figures) may be later, reduced-scale production from Lik Be, for a specific client/contract. But equally, one has to maintain the possibility that a pirate just bought-in some LB landers? Until I've compared with the known Culpitt stuff in storage, I'll sit on the fence!

 

The robot/Aliens, we actually had a very similar shot, not that long ago, but with 90%  of the LB & clones in storage, since before I shot the space-tanks, it's only the recent stuff I have to work on!

 

In both cases I've used the same sucker on the jumper and while previously seen here as a clearer HF, on this one, it looks a bit like it could be a poorly registered HE, so I've annotated both images to that effect! Personally, I think it is HF, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Every time I post Lik Be (LB) stuff (or even mention them in the text), one of two or three individuals will post an 'LP' article, usually within two or three days, as their stubborn refusal to accept it's an LB logo, apparently knows no bounds!

 

Their logic being backed up by the fact they think (with no empirical evidence) that it (the 'LP') is arrived at from;

The Lik Be Plastic And Metal Factory Limited,

 

. . . which totally ignores all the rules of English, and/or abbreviations, acronyms, initialism or shortened form/shorthand! By their own logic it should either be LPM, LP&M, LBP&M or LBP&ML, it's not any of those, because it's LB for Lik Be, but stupid is, as stupid does.

 

Just as it's not [technically] Spacex, but LB for Lines (Triang-Hornby and Raphael Lipkin), or LB for MPC, or LB for Ward, Sears, or LB for whoever, and Lik Be went on to produce many other versions/formats/packagings, with other Hong Kong numpties responsible for all the many copies, some also bought-in by Western branding's. Lines, Multiple, Culpitt, Clifford and co., just bought-in limited parts of the range from a catalogue, or, after a sales-rep's spiel, from Lik Be, from a Lik Be sales-rep'! well, Clifford might even be an LB branding, or partner?!!

 

One of the 'LP'-stubborn brigade has even used one of my clearer LB images (with the heavy corner where the bottom of the B's lower loop is), without permission, to try and maintain it's an 'LP'! But stupid is, as stupid does, and it's LB.

 

The new boxed-set with the more recent carded LB and other acquisitions (the hollow-based yellows are in the Space Patrol set).

 

You can copy all the feebleBay, Worthpoint, Scalemates, SAS, Vectis or wherever, whoever's images you like, but if you're not holding the stuff, looking at the stuff and comparing it in the palm of your hand, you're pontificating half-blind. . . Sigh!

W is for Welgar

Also in the Nabisco section of the folders (see previous post) was this from the 1950's, credited to Welgar, the original branding of the Shredded Wheat factory, Shredded Wheat being a US licensed product, which Nabisco bought, Shredded Wheat is now part of the Kraft group, while Nabisco is owned by Mondelēz. Welgar is a portmanteau word for Welwyn Garden [City], where the factory was established.

Part of a set, the rest can be seen here, but sadly only as thumbnails. I might cut these out one day and stand them up with a few Britains Polar Bears or something! Not really to scale, the two figures are around 60/70mm?