L is for Last May's Lots of Lovely Loot - Everything Else!

Given that I got a shed-load of good stuff yesterday and still have to clear the Plastic Warrior Show stuff first, I'm rather glad to be putting May's plunder-posts to bed! Mostly civil subjects, with a couple of oddments, there were one or two treasures among them.

 

This was one of those frustrations, only associated with those who don't carry a farty, nerdy 'wants' list around with them . . . step-up that man, 'cos it's me! The seller had several of these, but I really couldn't remember which ones I already had, and thought this looked like one I didn't, when I did, doh! And while I looked for them again yesterday, I didn't see them!

 

Should hold this for ITLAPD, but there's some nice stuff lined-up this year, so they can go here, they are soft, PVC, factory-painted, generic versions of the unpainted Webb's Supertoy pirate set, which is also still contemporary, somewhere, as both me and Peter Evans have been finding them.

 

Tudor Rose seesaw, I got it primarily to help ID the babies, and was surprised to find they are PVC like the Thomas ones (I was expecting polyethylene), which means I'll have to be doubly careful, when I come to sort all the pink babies!

 

Also, it's a bit odd that both companies chose a material which can melt the accompanying polystyrene toys they all came with, but then, at the time of manufacture, neither knew the potential for the melting, which AFV kit owners would be learning about by the 1970's! Not to forget the proud owners of Action Man diving suits - that sticky, orange hood!

 

Unpainted castings of possibly game-playing pieces, but I have to compare them with the Lilliput one, before I decide if they aren't actually just home-piracies of the Britains ones? If they are copies, I might paint them up, at some point in the future, before the task is beyond my eyesight!

 

These are composition, and a pumice type, which suggests British or French production, but the little red collars mirror those of wooden erzgebirge stuff, so they maybe from the Ore Mountains area of Saxony (Germany) or Bohemia (the Czech Republic - formally Czechoslovakia)?

 

The two nearest the camera are larger and lack the scenic bases, and also might be bisque porcelain or chalkware, they seem a little harder (but you don't casually test things this small) so I bagged them separately.

 

Some Japanese stuff I guess?, I don't know if they all go together or not, some are harder, some softer, some have pencil-holes, some don't, a few won't stand up, alone, some are transparent, others opaque, so I arbitrarily grouped them into three for shooting, and await further info' on what they actually are!

 

Circus! A Frazer & Glass clown, who has no signs of being glued to any of the accessories, or his compatriots, so one assumes that when they were being sold from the glass-compartmented shelf-displays in Woolworth's, you could purchase single, unadorned clowns? Of course you could, and he was in the sets as well; A1 Clown!

 

Two of the Merit 'Travelling Circus' wagons, which gave rise to various Hong Kong copies, both of the wagons as wagons, and as trains, and a lovely spirit-painted, wheeled, Japanese novelty, a celluloid blow-mould, of a monkey, in a fez, on a hobbyhorse, of course and why not!

 

These are definitely bisque, and probably French fèves, fox-hunters in hunting pink, with their hounds, around 35mm, they are a bit bigger than the common, modern fèves, so may have been more decorative, or even cake decorations, in which case they may be British; but, they need black boots?

 

These were a lovely find, Sima (Sixtus Maier, of Fürth, Germany) model railway flats, these were made for Märklin HO railways, back in the 1950's, although they measure a little larger, and presumably pre-date Märklin's own sets, and the similar Wettig sets? Note how the gosling doubles as a rearing chick!

 

I found another bird on the floor and retook the image, but the colour is all wrong, so I left it down here, purely for compleat'ness!

E is for Egyptian Eye-candy!

Having recently taken the 6" Marx Romans to a six-count (once I mend one and 'restore' the other), I have recently done well with the equally wonderful 6" Egyptians, with these three, below, and a couple more still to come, in the PW show-reports.

Colourful versions of the unpainted soft-plastic ones we looked at on the Blog, years ago (try the Ancient Egypt Tag), they are a fine sight, and I happen to know these have been on a window-sill for decades, without noticeable fading or any apparent move to further brittleness, beyond that expected of quite robust 'styrene mouldings!

M is for Marx Space - Space Patrol

Some of the stuff which did belong in the box, the Space Patrol figures, and basically a set of generics who could also fatten out sets with the Tom Corbett or Rex Mars figures at their centre. Indeed, they have, pretty much, the same uniforms as the Rex Mars, but make useful 'ground crew' for the Corbett's.

 

Family Photo', I'm missing the two girls, one standing one crawling, and a seated figure (for the 'office furniture'!), and again these seem to be home-painted, and not brilliantly, with the black, particularly, splashed all over the place!

 

One of mine is a heat-shrinkage victim, but as it just makes him look like he's bringing in a still hovering machine, or, waving it away before it hits him, or lands on his noggin, . . . it's quite a cool mistake!

 

I got two each of most (one each of the Aliens) so it would seem to have been a full set, and the missing figures, including a pair of the seated chap, really are missing!

 

The Moonbase station, I think you can mount the 'doughnut' station on the top of this three-part contraption, which looks more like how the V2 ballistic missiles engines were nestled within the rocket's outer casing, than anything else!

 

Fuel storage tanks, I'm missing the pipework for the yellow-green version, but the silver fits, which is useful for photography as without it, the whole moulding rocks like a banana! But, as you can see, it still has its stickers, so is the better example, and the fuels; Oxygen, Hydrogen and Florine, are the same as those labelled on the sides of the 'space tank'er!

L is for Last May's Lots of Lovely Loot - Dr. Barnado's Collecting House

One of the odder things to have happened at a show, where coincidence often occurs, or things you are only half looking for, happen to turn up was, my purchase of this little piece of social history, manufactured in papier-mâché, it's actually survived remarkably well. Scaled to a vague 25/30mm and sitting well'ish with Airfix'x old Lineside houses - the Dr. Barnardo's collection-box!

Sadly a victim of the development (under Thatcher and the post-thatcher years) of a propensity to steal these, or similar collection vessels from counter tops, by swiping. You won't find any survivors still in use now, but when I was a kid, these were pretty ubiquitous, often sharing shelf or counter space with the collection 'jars' of several other charity causes. The few survivors tend to be substantial plastic, chained to the counter or a nearby wall, and usually a lone/chosen cause per-premises!

I wanted one because of the cross-over with the Britains Lilliput and other scenic accessories, by W. Horton (or Hugar?) and had just been discussing with Adrian, Christian and Gareth, the fact that I had been looking for one, without luck, for years, and that I'd never found one on evilBay, when I saw this (literally, seconds later) near-perfect one on Ann Evan's table for a reasonable sum, and immediately grabbed it, expecting the gods to tap me on the shoulder and demand their pound of flesh!

S is for Shot at the Show

As I prepare for today's toy fair at Sandown Park, one of those dozen-odd dates which help the collecting year click over, here's a nice game I shot at last May's show, Spear's Games 'Targets in Space', a clockwork automated shooting game, which is almost a miniaturised fairground sideshow booth!

 

It's all about the artwork with these old things, isn't it?!

 

Reproduced on the inside with the far-distant sky, cut out for the target-wheel.

 

A large clock mainspring, behind the metal plate, is wound via the butterfly-nut.

 

 

Eight targets with variable scoring, not exactly random as you would learn the sequence!

But you could change the cards around occasionally.

 

Not the best image, but an old auction shot shows the rather futuristic, and robust sidearm, with pretty lethal-looking metal-shafted darts, used to achieve the task of blowing alien critter transports off the ring, or at least, folding them behind it, on their spring-clips! 

 

I love the spaceman, he's that classic Ajax/Archer type with the rubber ducting for stretchy knees and elbows! Cheers to Adrian Little for letting me shoot the other shots.

E is for Eye Candy - Lone Star King Richard

We've probably seen these one at a time, but here they all are together, they came in over the last few months, because I just can't pass one, since I found I already had more than enough! So that'll be twelve then!

The lighting was so different between the flash and no-flash shots, I've included both to give a better idea of the colours; paint and plastic. Hollow-cast original on the left, with three plastics, and I think they are all Lone Star, but the one on the right might be a home-painted premium - technicaly branded to somebody else - with that smooth base?

 

As well as being slightly shorter, the plastic versions have lost the undercut/s represented by the hole though the product, between the left elbow and body, and the sword has been shortened and tapered, probably to aid moulding/mould-release.

M is for Marx Space - Tom Corbett

For years, I thought this was Tom Cobet, I guess you read what you see, and the dyslexia (now known to be Asperger's) may have been a part, but I think a lot of people probably read words, new words that is, or especially names, wrongly! As a kid I read tons of Sci-Fi, and rereading now, you realise how poorly you understood the made-up names of aliens or their planets, and I suspect lots of us do it! Also, some of my LotR/Hobbit name-readings were way off too!

 

Still missing a couple of poses, and I think all the paint's going to have to come off, as I said in the Introduction, Tom Corbett - Space Cadet was a TV serial (as they were called before they became series (UK) or seasons (US)), on all four main US Channels (not just the NBC of my notes), and these uniforms seem to tie-in well, with the costumes of the TV series. The crawling figure, middle left, is an Alien.

 

More here;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Corbett,_Space_Cadet_(TV_series)

 

I already had one of the missing chaps, with the mic, who I seem to have shot twice now, and there were two unpainted figures in the lot, which leaves two other blokes and the single female sculpt to find, I think, but that's the fun of collecting! Throwing money at complete sets, if/when you've got it, gets boring! All mine are PVC, aparently later ones were polyethylene, with bases added to earlier baseless figures.

 

These were pretty ubiquitous I think, and included in lots of the space sets, and while it looks a bit classroomy, they are all mean to be more 'control-room' than office! I think I got the small cabinet of component drawers on its side, without my glasses I thought it was a bookcase full of box-files!

 

Big important machine on the left and uppy-downy-side-to-side radar array to the right, there is a small hole in the top of the giant cash-register, which is for a mesh-cullender-dish type thing, missing from these two examples, but we'll see one in a later part.

 

Educational interactivity was provided by the morse signaler boards, which changed over time, with at least two versions of code sheet. On the right is one missing the code sheet slider-insert.

 

From behind, obviously by sliding them up or down, you can flash morse messages in either red or black, with the printed dots offset by just enough to allow for them all to go white on the push (red), or pull - black.

 

Close-ups of the two different sheets I have, there may be more?

Black includes numerals, red has letters only. 

 

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a big computer or a giant filing-cabinet, or should I lay it flat as a cargo-pod? The beauty of imagination in play! One thing I discovered while shooting all these was that the scenics/accessories were completely replaced over time, apparently by some pretty casual pantographing, resulting in the replacements being smaller all round.

 

Early versions were polystyrene, later stuff is in a tough polyethylene type polymer, with some (the red-orange stuff) having more of the feel of polypropylene?

 

Size difference is quite notable, and while I say I 'discovered' it, I couldn't find anything on the Internet about it, but I'm sure the experts in the defunct Plastic Figure & Playset Collector, or it's still extant offspring, Russel Kern's Playset Magazine will have highlighted such details at some point, and previous to my observations! The Americans take Marx as seriously as the Germans worry about the colour variations of Timpo Apache legs!

L is for Last May's Lots of Lovely Loot - Military Figures

On to the second post of the plunder from May's Sandown Park (the next show's on Saturday), and it’s the military stuff, which was a quite eclectic assortment from across the ranges of scales, materials, and eras depicted.

 

This was a lovely find, a very, very clean Kentoys guardsman, with the correct (for purposes of identification of several vertions ) Sentry Box, in a near mint box which also shows how the stretcher-party was sold from the same carton.

 

And, speaking of stretcher teams, this Starlux set came home with me, I know I have the small-scale set in several configurations of base-type, paint, or plastic colour, but I'm not sure about the big one, I think I may have a stretcher, but no casualty or orderlies?

 

And these were a nice find, despite being the less loved of the company's output, they are every-bit as historical (as artifacts) as their earlier Nazi brethren, being instead, the East German, collectivised Lineol factory's production of Volksarmee Cold War soldiers, with both the Soviet-influenced helmet and side-caps. The sculpting is much more 'wooden' that their pre-war/wartime stuff.

 

This came with them; I always like a bit of scenery! But I have no idea which side of the border, or even which side of the war, this was made! The pack suggests West, the quality post-war, so probably Elastolin, but unmarked.

 

 

Grist to the mill with these, and the foot figures are a bit bashed, but it's all useful stuff, and these Culpitt/Wilton cake decorations are polystyrene, so paint and glue is probably in their future? It would be nice to do a few of the French/Hessian uniforms.

 

I can never resist these smaller-scale, early British mounted subjects (here, Cherilea 50mm'ish), as there are quite a few of them (Cherilea, Crescent, Rocco & Hill), they tend to come in various plastic and/or paint colours, and are often a bit play-worn, so making sure you have the best sample, means grabbing them whenever you can!

 

A soap guardsman! Needs a careful damping to lose the white bruises, but I'll save that job for a day when I have the time, space and tools for the task, as you don't want to wreak it! I tried an Avon search, and he doesn't seem to be one of theirs (which were normally ' . . . on a rope'), so a minor make, a seasonal or touristy novelty!

 

Chess set figure, seen before, I think, but all need bringing together and comparing.

 

And from Adrian's cheapie tray I got some nice, hollow-cast lead samples. Without the books in front of me I won't try to ID them definitively, but US Marine and colonial Brit', on the left, colonial and regular French on the right, and some of them Britains (including the small one, a B-Series?), maybe a French made one or two?