I is for Invicta

We've seen one or two here, as they came in from Charity Shops, and there may be one or two more in storage, but I happened to be up early one Sunday back in July, and went to the big car-boot over at Borden, off the A325 Farnham Road, where I found a chap selling a shit-ton (an official measurement somewhat larger than a shitload!) of the Invicta (for The British Natural History Museum) dinosaur models, and I sort of bought one-each of most of them!

 

I then went and got an egg & bacon bap and a coffee, the real reason for going to a car-boot sale, in my opinion, went back to the car to eat said burger, and sort the plunder, and decided I might as well go back and get the others, which proved problematical, as everyone was starting to pack-up and leave, and I couldn't find the stall for a while, then nearly tripped over it, and this, below, is the result!

 

All the big boys together, I think I have one in storage, but couldn't remember which one! That's a three-foot table, so 'Dippy' is nearly two-and-a-half feet! Despite having looked these up in the past, I either failed to learn or didn't notice anything about the painted version in a softer PVC, so they came as a surprise to me, and means that despite this haul, I am no nearer to even half of the possible versions (there are a couple of complete colour variants among the old PE ones too), but I do now have more than half the sculpts, at least once. Technically, there's a modern Blue Whale to find too!

 

Cetiosaurus

(painted PVC)

 

Diplodocus

 

Mammenchisaurus

 

Apatosaurus

 

Brachiosaurus

 

Stegosaurus

(PE on the left, painted PVC on the right)

 

Ichthyosaurus

(surface-coated polymer)

 

Plesiosaurus

(surface-coated polymer)

 

Woolly Mammoth

(PE on the left, painted PVC on the right)

 

Left: Glyptodon

Right: Baryonyx

 

 

Left: Iguanodon

Right: Tyrannosaurus (Rex)

 

All undecorated polyethylene unless otherwise stated, the two later additions, both marine subjects, have a shiny coated-surface, almost like resin or fibreglass, with fine age cracks revealing a softer substrate as the bulk of the model, which is probably some form of polyethylene or polypropylene? Also, the tusks of the two version of the Mammoth are quite different, and were clearly redesigned between issues.

 

What was daft was that, despite two visits to the guy's table, I didn't take a Triceratops, even though he had several, as I thought I'd got one, but I'm pretty sure now I haven't, I had the Scelidosaurus which we saw here a while back, along with a couple of Megalosaurs over the years. And, or course, the one I most want, the Dimetrodon, remains elusive!

 

You can find pictures of all of them here:

http://www.dinosaurcollectorsitea.com/invicta.html

 

And details of all variations here:

https://dinotoyforum.proboards.com/thread/4110 

 

Less than a month later, and we have plagiarist eBay scrapings from you know who! His insecurity must be eating him up, and the commenters are only encouraging him! 

L is for Lord of the Jadas

I can't remember where I found this now, I have a feeling it was discounted, so probably TKMaxx, but I can't swear to it, it was in the last few weeks though (July shots), so may still be out there, if like me, you do regularly irregular sweeps of all the likely sources!

Having waxed lyrical about these Jada die-cast figures in the past, and specifically their decoration/paint-finish, I have to say I don't think these Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) figures, are quite as nice as some we've seen, but the green cloak guy has the lustre I liked so much on my first figure, while the silver chap could march straight into any 28mm biblical force, although at 40-odd-mm he'd have to be a specific Philistine!

M is for Marx Space - Rex Mars

I don't know if the Corbett license had expired, or if its sales were dropping to a market saturation-point, which Marx would have recognised from other sets histories, but for some reason they 'invented' a non-TV/Movie, royalty-free property of their own, Rex Mars, with figures similar to both the Tom Corbett and the Space Patrol these were issued with in bigger sets (I haven't even tried to work out the sets, there are dozens of them, stretching over three decades). And that's what this post is looking at, with more of the scenic detritus from my two partial sets.

 

The family portrait! I seem to be missing one sculpt, a chap holding a walkie-talkie near his face, and again, paint is going to have to be removed at some point! 

  

The landing party helping a 'red shirt' back to the shuttle! This time I have the female sculpt, but it's unclear who's who, as it's a made-up set with no TV serial or Movie to help guide the eye, it's all down to the kid's imagination who's boss! I put the lady in charge, she's the tallest!

 

The slightly more active component, they have the same rubber-ducting on knees and elbows as the Space Patrol, but other details are closer to the Tom Corbett sculpts, but with circular helmet-collars, they take the bobbled helmets with a couple of protrusions in the clear-plastic, which turn-up in mixed lots from time to time; I have a few somewhere in the spares pile, so some will get protection!

 

The Aliens, six in total, and rather like Lik Be's robots, all completely different! Which is fine if you want them from six different planets, but not so logical when they are the 'Moon Men' of the Moonbase set? They have their own post, probably next in the sequence.

 

There were, again, two unpainted ones in my sample.

 

The quadruple sonic-death-ray-beam traginator weapon, or boring radar thingy, depending upon your propensity for war toys - there were lots of them in the box, in three colours, but most in the mustard yellow! And something which equated to the morse-signaller boards we saw in an earlier post, apparently it's a solar battery!

 

Three of the landing pads for the Mercury capsule, it has a little hole in the heat-shield! And a ribbed, domed building/laboratory/accommodation unit, which is so remarkably similar to a gold-chromed lid off a touristy bottle of plum-brandy (with the plums in it), from Spain or Portugal, which I've been carrying around for about 50-years, after the Christmas we polished it off, waiting for a chance to scratch build (Terry Wise and the rest told us to keep everything!), I can't wait to dig it out and compare it with this, as I suspect one is based upon the other? But I'll have to wait, won't I!

 

The space-station, which I think can be similarly stuck on the rocket-engine building in the previous post? It's hopelessly out of scale, but so are most of the vehicles, in both my/all the sets!

 

Welp . . . I don't know . . . on the left we have the closest thing to an infantry heavy weapon/death ray, but it's too tall for any of the figures in the three sets we've looked at so far! In the middle, we have an 18thC telescope drilled through a 1950's parking meter! ! While I can't work out if the thing on the right is a sightseeing glass, or a 'What The Butler Saw' peep-show! Cum'on, design department - you can do better than that!

 

Help needed here, what I do know - the two tripods and two bent legs are from the MPC space station, the triple-disc thing is a broken instrument we'll see in a later post, the basket (front, left) also returns (and is part of the thing I mentioned in an earlier post, with the TV desk thing), but that's it.

 

I think the blue loudspeaker, may be from a vehicle, possibly a Hong Kong plastic toy, but it could clip into a tinplate 'wall' of a building? While I have no clue on the bowl (front, centre) which is hollow, the red bit might be a 'sprulette' (my own word), but there's a better shot of a silver one in a later post, so it seems to be a feature of these sets? And the two 'mine detectors' would seem to be from a 3 or 4" action figure? Anyone got any ideas on any of these five?

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.