A is for Airforce One . . . Hundred and Eighty!

I know, I know, but if you think about it, there is some sense in that, a method in the madness!

 

I like to think that over the years a lot of the important ID work on both Zang (composition) and Palitoy (early plastic) aircraft has been done here, slowly, as I've found them, not knowing Mig Bonnefoy already knew more about the Zang than me, but wasn't publishing online!

 

In recent months I've had a couple of good chats with Mig, on the subject, and shared two of these Zang revelations with him, but in the meantime a loyal reader 'Down Under', sent more revelations on Palitoy and some Antipodean angles on 'dine store' plastics, therefore this post is full of interesting stuff, new to Blog, Internet and some further corners of the Hobby!

 

So, in the order in which they were revealed to me, let's get stuck in!

 

We've seen the Boeing B17 in both silver and camouflage, and both British and USAAF markings (indeed, the examples on that occasion, came from Mig!), but for years, people have always been careful to say things like 'believed to be', 'said to be' and such like, when discussing the 'Zang for Timpo', I know I have, and the confusion, aided by Joplin's big yellow book, was always best left as Zang if loose, Timpo if Timpo-carded!

 

But here we have, on opposite tail planes, both a Timpo mark and the Zang mark, as a nice underlining confirmation of the relationship, and the first time I've seen it. And many thanks to John Begg for saving this one for me.

 

Then, a couple of weeks later, I found this at Sandown Park, and I've pulled it from those plunder-posts, to get it all together here. I was able to show it to Mig, literally minutes later, and an eMail exchange then ensured to decide whether it was a Yakovlev Yak-3 or an Ilyushin Il-2 (Flying Tank), and the Yak was settled upon! But nobody knew these were out there.

 

No Timpo blue-triangle label, although there may have been one where the paper blemish lies under the nose of the righthand Yak, but the box is quite fancy, and reminiscent of the JE Beale's department-store one, which reminds us they are still all Zang first, and only Timpo if so packaged . . . or, now, sometimes, marked!

 

Mig also gave me an updated list of the Zang/Timpo 'planes;

• Airspeed Horsa (Glider) 
• Boeing B17 Fortress
• Boeing B29 Super Fortress
• Bristol Blenheim 
• De Havilland Mosquito
• Gloster E28/39 (Jet)
• Hawker Typhoon 
• Lockheed P-38 Lightning
• North American P-51 Mustang
• Supermarine Spitfire
• Yakovlev Yak-3
•  
• Fairy Battle (mentioned in an Article by Sue Richardson )?
• 
  
• While we both think there should be a Hawker Hurricane!

So I still have at least, four to shoot, five to find, as the Horsa we saw here wasn't mine! 

 

In the meantime, a loyal reader who doesn't want naming, but is happy to go by the moniker 'Ozi', sent me this, from Australia, and it's clearly a metal copy of the later/better Palitoy spitfire moulding, under the name of Merry Toys, missing its landing gear and propeller, but, there's no missing those lines, as we've seen them here, on the Blog, most recently this January, just gone. 

 

Ozi said: "I will attach a few pics of the “Merry Toys” metal cast item; which I think owes a great deal in parentage to the Palitoy “Spitfire or whatever it is”.  The wingspan of the Merry Toy is spot on four inches.  I don’t have a Palitoy Spitfire” to go alongside it.  The casting of the Merry Toy is pretty crude anyway.  Would you please let me have your thoughts on the possible parentage of this item?  I found it in a model shop about twenty years ago" .

 

Well . . . my thoughts are, who copied who? There is clearly a relationship, but the Aussie one is both lacking the strange indented line down the fuselage (of the Palitoy one), and has a better cockpit. So I am minded to think, given how poor Palitoy's version-one Spitfire was, that they are also responsible for the first iteration of this beast, and Merry then improved upon it?

 

Also, haveing placed the Palitoys firmly in the 1940's, there is something of the 1950's tinplate about this Merry antipodean one, albeit, it's actually a die-cast alloy model?

Ozi also sent a very clean Mossie . . . from Aussie . . . sometimes I should just be jailed! Ozi found it on Gumtree, down under, so some made their way down there. I think I read, there is both a real Mosquito and a Lancaster being rebuilt in that part of the world?

 

It's not the only Mossie being rebuilt I believe, and likewise I think an American (or second Canadian?) Lancaster is under rebuild. Having seen the then, only two, flying Lank's together, at Farnborough, a fair few years ago, now, imagine what four would look/sound like, and likewise, three Mosquitos! 

 

In a follow-up eMail Ozi sent these four pictures (above and below) of smaller 'novelty' 'plane models, and I'll post his musing on childhood fandom and memories of toy aircraft at the bottom. Here a rather nice Vampire, in marbled pinkish-maroons.

 

 

 North American P-51 Mustang and De Havilland DH.106 Comet

 

Grumman F9F Panther

"In my school days, growing up in a smallish country town in OZ and later in a City, with only my imagination for company, it was natural to have a liking for toy aircraft.  It was a bit after WW2 and no one wanted reminders of it – but I was curious about the aircraft.  Over several years, I saw the Dinkies, the Timpo “Bomber Station” set (with what I later recognized as Lightnings!), a small scale plastic set of apparently locally produced items and – best of them all – the plastic Palitoys.  Particularly the Wellington with its transparent gun turrets with guns!

 

They were all out of my reach and I just had to drool. The Defiant and the Wellington were moulded in a sort-of camouflage pattern [the distinctive marbling of early Palitoy's. Ed.]; which made them very distinctive. 

 

And then there was a series of plastic toys contemporary with the Korean War; Panther, MIG 15, Shooting Star a nice Sabre with RAAF markings and they had wheeled undercarriages. In various colours; blue, yellow, red.  I managed to somehow get a couple of them.  There might have others in that series. I am pretty sure they were local knock-offs of the US Empire brand – or they might have been licensed copies.  I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody knows now.

There was another series out about the same time – no undercarriages on this lot ; a Hawker Hunter (Only saw red ones), a Canberra and a DC3.  And a bit later were the giveaways with packets of “Aeroplane Jellies”.  I have illustrated the only one of those I have ever seen.  A Vampire, not very well moulded in a dark purple colour. Similarly, I somehow managed to swap for or find examples.

 
The first pics are of the “Aeroplane Jellies” Vampire.  Wingspan about 2.5”. Next are a couple of examples of the small scale locals – a Mustang and a Comet in silver.  Wingspan about 2.5”.  Only ever saw these in silver, and I am pretty sure there was a Canberra in that series and also a Lincoln.  Next is a pic of an American Empire Grumman Panther.  Wingspan about 4.5”.  Despite looking for years for examples of the OZ made Panthers, MIG15’s etc, I have never seen a single one.

In more recent times I have obtained locally a very distorted Palitoy Defiant, a couple of Lockheed bombers; plus eBay examples of the post-war Wellington and Sunderland.  The occasional Timpo Lightning crops up here, and also their B17.  Usually very play worn.

 

A couple of ZANG Mossies were a welcome find a few years ago.  A local site had a listing some time ago of a collection of small plastic toys; FD2, Lightning and others and I put in a bid, but it was not good enough.  Apparently they were local KELLOGG'S giveaways and dated rather after my school days. . . . 

. . . I should mention seeing the toys section of one of the new supermarkets (COLES) having Palitoy “Spit-whatevers” and Vampires and possibly other types finished in what appeared to be chrome plating."

The 'small scale locals' would seem to be yet another iteration of the MPC 'Minis', also done in hard plastic by Blue Box, but possibly only one or two? And many thanks to John, Mig and 'Ozi' for helping bring this lot together!

O is for Original Artist!

Shot this on Adrain's table, at the May Sandown Park toy fair, by BP Fairs, which is a good excuse to remind you there's another one (show, not painting) this coming Saturday!

 

Gouache (I think) and airbrush on art board, and we'll call it 'UFO'! There is a Dave McCoy on Faceplant, an American Artist with similar work, but more natural or abstract subjects. He also seems to always sign with a small 'c' on the Mc., so it may not be him, does anyone know who painted this?

G is for Gygax Monsters - Part VII - Round-up & Summery

OK, it made sense to post this in sequence, even if it's a new month! As bitty as last night's and more of the same really, but we'll see how we go, as I have these in front of me and can take more photos as I go!

 

 

So with Peter, Chris and Jon to thank, along with my own efforts, this is what's come-in over the last 18-months or so, none of which was in the shots taken between 2020-22 for the other posts, it makes for a typical 'mixed lot' and adds a couple of new bits, while confirming some of what's been said already.

 

The 'Friendly' Gygax,', on the left, who was never actually a Gygax, and goes best with the 'Disney', it's a pretty standard Holly Plastics one, with the longer marking. On the right, a clear copy/knock-off, following some of Holly's rules, re. paint/plastic colour, but maybe just following the now standard Chinasaur rules? However, with both the remains of MADE IN CHINA and HONG HONG, in different fonts, a much mucked-about with tool cavity, and a more recent, post 1990 issue?

 

Lik Be on the left, China copy on the right, the LB is a bit chewed, but the purple poser is still slightly smaller, so probably pantographed from the Lik Be, and then sharpened-up in the/on the tool. Again probably quite recent (the copy) so the moulds are still out there somewhere!

 

The Friendly came with two mates, two Ankylosaurs and a blatant rip-off copy, the copy having even less going for it than the crudeness of the Holly's. But that's the whole point, these are the 'Chinasaurs' whether recognisable dinosaur species, Gygax and associated monsters, or the more dodgy sculpts, their charm lies in the nostalgia - we all had some!

 

There are two kinds of Chinasaur, these; hardish polyethylene ones, and the soft, gape-mouthed PVC critters (with stretchy, silicon 'Rubber Jigglers' made of both types)*. What they all have in common is, poor sculpting, with arguable species sometimes, poor finish, with short-shots, flash & surface blemishes, a stab-and-hope paint scheme, no constant scale, a dirt-cheap retail price, and a rack near the checkout tills!

 

* The Fleetwood set we saw here.

 

It's a market which has almost totally changed now, with a lot of the cheapest dinosaur toys being actually quite good sculpts, realistic to not just species, but subtypes, and while there are poorer ones out there, the hollow-bodied cheepies from BJ Toys, for instance, even they are recognisable to what they are depicting, and better finished.

 

Another Holly Gygax on the left; Gator, with an unmarked, sub-scale, possibly sub-piracy to his right. The Holly has a partial MADE IN and the full HONG KONG, while the darker grey, shiny PE clone, has lost an arm, but is decorated to resemble the Holly!

 

More Holly, recognisable from the catalogues and previous posts, two Spiney's, with the full mark, as has the Bullette, while the LB Fan Whiskers is actually unmarked.

These are all non-Gygax, and with one exception - the green on grey plastic Sauropod - are all Holly, with the yellow standee (one of the questionable species Chinasaurs) having just the HONG KONG, and the pretender a clear CHINA in engineer's stamp lettering (a Roman caps font, sans), we have two unmarked, the Dimetrodon and 'Phoenix', and two with full marks.

 

Because the unmarked pair, are clearly Holly, we can assume the three main mark/no-mark types ran alongside each other, but assuming the larger-font stuff was a separate line for contracts like Enzinger's, is not so safe, they could have been earlier, later, or subcontracted., while it's a similar question over the obviously removed-mark issues, they could be client-requested, or post Holly ownership, or post-1997 handback?

 

This chap, with a larger HONG KONG stamp, is in the bag with them for now, but I sort of know he doesn't belong there. He has a friend, a guitar-playing tortoise, sitting on a box, and both can be found in this hard ethylene, or in an eraser rubber type material, and I think one has been seen as a key-ring, and I'm sure there's more to the full set. No evidence for him being Holly or Lik Be, but he could be the third 'Funimal' source, an outfit advertising in magazines as Colonial, and now I've 'shot my bolt' on the Gygax, a bit early, maybe, I might try to get the Funimals moved-up the long-queue lists!

 

So, to summarise these eight posts - 

• Gary Gygax and/or members of his team, took three of the more monstrous sculpts for their AD&D bestiary, the other [at least] nine sculpts, were never, and will never be 'Gygax Monsters', and they were all, always, Holly Plastics Factory / HP production, in the first place, later copied by various back-street outfits, ancient (1970's) and more modern, including one now-named firm who should have known better - Lik Be / LB. But they may have had permission?
• There may be a Kaiju element to one or two of the monster sculpts. 
• Holly were also, possibly the main producer/influencer of the typical, poor-quality, cheap rack-toy Chinasausrs, and had a stable of mould-tools with different marks, different sizes and even different sculpts of the same species.
• Holly may have farmed-out or licensed production to some of those back-street outfits, but that's never likely to be empirically known, nor their trading names, if they had them.
• In recent years China-made copies and reissues have been available of most, but the Owlbear Gygax and Diplocaulus amphibian dinosaur do seem to be harder to find, but, really - not $500 harder!
• All twelve, thirteen, however many monster/dragon-like fake dinosaurs are out there . . . will always be known as the "Gygax Monsters"!

And that's all folks! But we'll hopefully return to them in a few years when more stuff has turned-up, and maybe clear-up some of the remaining questions, especially over the number of tooling versions, the Jaru re-issues, clones, China-copies &etc!

T is for Tobar Army!

I think we saw these years ago, in the now gone Debenham's graphics as a Christmas generic, but here they are in Tobar branding, and I think they are also, or have also been seen in House of Marbles packaging?

 

Matchbox WWII American Infantry clones, and err . . . that's it!

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Six, That's It!

The last of the Stateside shelfies sent to the Blog by Brian Berke, from New York, and I think this is the last of the stuff from the Queens' novelty stores or touristy speciality stores?

 

Buzz!

 

Big Truck!

 

Batman!

 

Not my scale, but an interesting line-up of unusual - to me - figures, from all these new movies I haven't seen, I guess! A dearth of accessories, though, so larger sets needed first? Or are they hidden behind the card/paper inserts?

 

There are so many Disney Princesses now, including lots of 'solids' who have come into the collection, in mixed lots, especially those from Charity Shops, that an ID page may be a future project? The early ones are seared into our brains, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty with their distinctive dresses, but in the last 20/30 years, they have been joined by dozens of new ones, some of whom are known for more than one outfit!

 

There is another glider/hand-powered 'plane post in the long-queue, and as classic rack-toys go, you can't beat flying stuff! The upper one though seems to be a sort of mini Nerf gun!

 

Couple of 'UFO' or 'Space Disc' launchers, ubiquitous when I was a kid! Many thanks to Brian for getting all these shelfies to us in time for Rack Toy Month, and I seem to have got back in the habit of posting, so I'll try to carry the momentum into September!

G is for Gygax Monsters - Part VI - Marks / Marking & Minor Makes

So this would have been the final post in this series, but there is another, sort of follow-up, which I shot the other day, and as this is the 31st, I think I'll do this one now, and then maybe do the other as a proper F is for Follow-up, in a few days or a week or two?

 

 

Image previously seen in Part I.

 

This is looking at all the contents of those tubs and bags in the original birds-eye view of my samples, with a better image of the smaller bags, the yellow one, bottom left in the previously seen shot isn't looked at here, I'm pretty sure he's nothing to do the rest, and the two bags of Lik Be (LB) aren't looked at again.

 

'Gygax Monsters'

 

 Dinosaurs

 

These are the most common finds, and seem to tie-in with the 1970 catalogue images most closely, so we can assume they are all or mostly Holly Plastics production. The mark, which can be in a straight line or more tumbled, consists of MADEIN HONG KONG, with the three groups of letters seemingly one each of three stamps in the possession of the tool-makers.

 

The mark is also found on other rack toy stuff of the era, especially farm and zoo, where it will have 'Holly' significance in the future here, but also on Army Men of clearly different makes and generations, which suggests they (the little stamps) were bought-in by different toy makers, from a machine-tool/engineers supplier.

 

Note however that the MADEIN is slightly larger than the HONG and KONG, not something you find with say, those 25mm Britains and Crescent Khaki Infantry clones, where they are all the same size and in perfect line, suggesting that the prefix may have been added to the cavities later, or purchased separately?

 

 

The above musings partly explained by these, basically some of the missing poses, which only have the HONG KONG, and not the 'madein', so it appears we are looking at a firm whose marking policy was neither a priority, nor rule-based! Again, they match the illustrations in the catalogue, so we can be pretty confident we're looking at more Holly stuff.

 

Dodgy photograph, but you can see, for instance, the standing yellow dino's above, in the catalogue in the brown plastic of other models in the range, while there are two Dimetrodons, a smaller better sculpt, and a larger 'gape-mouth' one on longer legs, possibly copied, by Holly, from an earlier 'rubber-jiggler' type? Not necessarily their own.

 

I'm sure there are lots of Holly products in the not so well sorted Dinosaur pile, and when we return to these, in a few years, probably, I will have hopefully brought more together.
 

 

These, however, matching most of the above in poses, plastic colours, paint colour or style, are all totally unmarked! Different contracts? Duplicate cavities, earlier or later generations? I suspect everything above was Holly, and it was pretty hit-and-miss as to what you got.

 

Remember, with the Einzinger set, clearly a Holly-originating card, we had some marked with just the dinosaur's name, others marked with another MADE IN HONG KONG font altogether, a more standard engineers stamp lettering, closer to a DIN type - in both senses of the word!

 

Note also, we are getting different sizes of the same basic sculpt, and for some there are clear small, medium and large versions.

 

So returning to the other line-up image, and we're going to look at the two larger samples in a sec', but first, you should be able to read my dodgy notes if you open the image in a new window and click on any plus-cursor you get. The annotation is thus;

• * - Probably Holly Plastics Factory
• X - Probably not Holly
• # - Likely from Holly, or old Holly tools 

So the big Tyranosaur (middle right), is one as supplied to Enzinger, to his left are four mono-coloured/undecorated (late production?) ones, which are otherwise all Holly, while the two smallies on the left of that row have clearly had Holly's marking removed, for reasons we'll never know, but equally likely to be contractual (end-user asking Holly to mask identifying marks), or, ex-Holly tools?

 

Below him, the other Enzinger mark on a Steggy'. Top left is probably a piracy, while the bag bottom middle seem to be another Holly marking variation, and we'll look at the other two bags quickly now;

Above the T-Rex, we have CHINA marks, but following Holly's rules on plastic and paint colours, almost certainly closer to 1997, than 1970? And a step on the way to the last lot, and the end of this post, below.

 

However, after all shots, annotation and above blub has been cast, looking at them in close-up, the fan-whiskers have been fused into a lumpen 'wing', so these may well be copies pretending to be Holly, either with permission or as straight band-wagon figures, as discussed in Part I?

 

Equally, they could be reworked tooling, deliberately thickened to ensure proper moulding . . . it's never going to be 100% clear with this stuff, millions were made, over decades! And . . . that IS one reason why they have a separate bag.

 

These are Holly'ish, and I suspect they are Holly, from the same era/generation/batch as the Enzinger, but include the unusual red-plastic version of a Triceratops, and the only example of the 'Disney' dinosaur I mentioned in the original list, he may be a Disney thing, he looks familiar? But overall, they conform to more Holly 'rules' than they confound.

 

These are far more recent, and have a mix of MADE IN CHINA, or CHINA A (B, C, etc...) markings, I believe these are from Holly tooling, whether it was still Holly manufactureing is not so clear, there are still a couple of Holly's, but in auto-parts, medical components and such-like, with different logo's, and one with only a 20-year history can't be 'our' Holly.

 

We did see them before, and they seem to be Jaru-issued as seen in the sets Brian Berke sent us from Liverpool, and of which I then found a bag-of myself, while the loose sample above was a charity-shop purchase who got a post at the time, they can all be found under the Jaru Tag, but I should add a Holly note?

 

The odd-one out, if we assume these are from Holly tooling, whoever actually made them, is the stripey tailed Parasaur, who seems to be a better sculpt, but Holly did have a largish one in their inventory . . .

 

 . . . Bottom right, mostly hidden by the card-art, but the same beast, with a newer, bigger Dimetrodon and large Mammoth sculpts, so it all ties-in nicely! But we don't have to assume they are from Holly tooling, they could be copies, or half-and-half, ex-Holly and new tooling, it's not an exact science! And if anyone has one of those electric-blue and heliotrope-pink Mammoths going spare? . . . It's a huge gap in my collection - how leery is that!

D is for Did I Mention Bagshot Garden Centre?

As well as the erasersaurs, I found a few other items of Rack Toy Month'able Blogging potential, up at Longacre's vast site on the old A30, and them be these . . .

 

Dimetrodon, one of several in the 'assortment', but obviously the one to come home with me! Quite a good one too, with the dog-like countenance which the better books tend to give this particular beast! Issued by an outfit called Free & Easy of the Netherlands

 

A colour variation of the freebie I got from the Keycraft Rep', back in February, which means (with the holy-cheese and pair of mice) that I've gone from none to three of this genre in less than six months!

 

Also keycraft (same display/dispensing 'tree'), are these, the latest edition of a set we saw a few years ago, in different colours, I hope, I think there was a yellow or blue one, but two yummy-mummy/trophy-wives were standing in the way of the stand, chattering away with three brats and a pram, five minutes from closing with no awareness of the rest of the world whatsoever, so I could only grab what looked to be one of each (it was!), without worrying about colours!

 

 

I also got these - Rex London, ostensively for the Jig-Toy page, but they can go here first, and I'll re-shoot them for there, another day. I did do a bit of an update of that page back in the spring, and can't remember if I said anything at the time, but there is a load more content on that page if you haven't visited it for a while!