N is for Nuts!

While sorting out the house over the last few years, various things came to light which had long been forgotten, among which was this childhood stash of paperback-format bound volumes of Peanuts cartoons by Charles M. Schulz.

 

And then I found another one!

 

We were early fans of Snoopy and Co., and it was always Snoopy, it was Adults who thought of Charlie Brown first, because he represented the trails, tribulations and failures of adulthood, Snoopy was just a funny dog who thought he was a WWI fighter pilot and talked to yellow chicks, who coded back in scratch marks!

 

My brother and I had a shared bedroom until I was sixteen, and when we were little, there were loads of snoopy posters on the walls, similar to these book covers, a single image and some pithy aphorism about not liking Mondays (a decade before the Boomtown Rats), or something. Except they weren't actually glossy coated posters, they were matted wrapping paper!

 

I can't remember where we got them, but I guess it was WHSmith, in Fleet, or maybe Webb's, in Hartley Wintney, folded-over their wooden bars, you'd keep an eye out for a new colour, as like the book-covers they were single-colour sheets with a black-on-white snoopy, the paper an off-white, and about the same paper grade of brown parcel-paper, which they were near. I guess the idea was you used a whole sheet on a big-box gift, and the unwrapper got a cartoon! And, or course, they were much cheaper than the posters from the wire racks!

 

I seem to recall, Coronet, the publishers, also supplied a fair-few of my sci-fi novels a few years later! 

 

I also found these! Because we spent all our holidays running about on Hazeley Heath, climbing trees, shooting at each other with airguns (nope, we've still both got two working eyes!), from the tree-house or similar shenanigans, we tended to wreak havoc on our trousers (jeans or cords), and Mum would cover the holes (knees or bums!) with these patches, to give them a little more life. There were others, some more 'hippy' and I found a bunch of them too, they'll be a future post!

B is for Box-ticking Boy's Toys in Bottle Bags!

At the PW show, John Begg had a whole bunch of ex-shop, or out-painters stock (there were loose figures) from Charbens, and Colesmith Plastics (the moulds have a convoluted history which can be read in Plastic Warrior's Charbens Specialist Publication), to which I availed myself of what you might call a cross-sample, certainly not everything they produced, either figure or packaging wise, but a nice example for box-ticking their latter production, which I remember being in the shelves, when I was a kid.

 

Charbens own-branded packaging.

Unpainted Wild West.

 

A generic branding as 'Pic-a-Pack'.

Guards Band and Beefeaters. 

 

American civil war, an odd mix of plastic colours with the Union outnumbering the Confederates more than two-to-one, in both sets, with an apparently measured content count of one sky-blue figure, four dark blue, and two grey

 

More mixed ceremonials, here branded to Colesmith.

A Highland piper, and Lifeguards join the mix.

 

Mixed paratroopers (green bases) and Tommies (sand).

 

Comparison of the cards, I don't know why Colesmith got to brand some-up to themselves, maybe to pay off a debt, or just for a cheaper quote to Charbens? or did they inherit/hang-on to the moulds? I haven't got the Charbens Special to hand!

 

Note, also; the Artist's palette painting sign, used - rightly - on the unpainted Wild West set, but rather spurious on the pre-painted sets? I'm sure I remember the Colesmith sets in WHSmith around 1978/79?

 

"Jenny? What colour are Native Americans, really?"

 

"Dunno' love, try one of each!"

 

The 'Blues & Royals'.

 

Mixed, painted and unpainted.

Highlanders, Nelson, Lifeguard trumpeter and mounted cowboy.

 

Guards band in various treatments.

I is for Is This an AI Blog?

Three posts in 2020, and not one of them makes more than a gnat's crochet of sense?

https://jeffreyantiquetoys.wordpress.com/ 

AI has improved exponentially since 2020, but I don't know what was going on there, one wonders if it's auto-translating from another language, but the subjects - of the three posts - are all based in and around London.

And then . . . you go here:

https://jeffreytoysnews.mystrikingly.com/#_blog

And find the same strangled English, this time with four posts? Did the 'Bot responsible;e succumb to Covid a few weeks later? Does anyone know the history behind all this?

There's a rumour that the owner of Mint & Boxed was convicted of fraud and sent to gaol, but I have no firm knowledge of such happenings, and it looks like it was before these two sites (how many were there?) were churning out their pidgin rubbish! The Internet is groaning under the weight of this garbage.

I was actually searching because I picked this up the other day, thinking it was a book in the Shire Album or Self Publishing oeuvres, but in fact it's a sort of glorified catalogue, of really rather pricey stuff, and I wanted to find out more about the shop/auction house, only to find the above-linked weirdness!

It appears to be the only edition ever issued, with several on sale around the Internet, but all Issue 1 Winter 1990/1991, so a short-lived enterprise, whatever happened to the owner! Although I have also found a Summer 1989 copy, in a different format, which is unnumbered? And there are two versions of this, one (2nd printing?) cuts the logo's of Wells and Brimtoy off the bottom of the artwork.

One hobby site says, "Possible [sic] the largest vintage toy shop that ever was. Now closed." , but they like their hyperbole over there, and this mint Dinky-Corgi-Matchbox stuff goes through Vectis by the lorry load, umpteen times a year! Whilst Modeller's Loft had a pretty big store or two?

The internecine goings-on at the top of the hobby, where a few people think there's a fortune to be made from old toys? A couple of auction houses do OK, a few top evilBayers do OK, many bottom-feeders keep from starving, and the odd gentleman-amateur throws money at a loss-making enterprise, because he enjoys doing it, and can afford to.

But when a millionaire pays £250k for a tin-plate liner, or locomotive, or over a million-quid for a plastic Boba Fett, that's not our hobby, that's the Art World, the world of investment, and that's a very different thing.

And damn-me if another one hasn't appeared as I write this!

https://levytoysboxes.tumblr.com/ 

U is for Up the Smoke!

Except it's been smokeless for most of my life, people under 40 have no idea what fog was like once, I remember going to pick our pet rabbit up, from the pet-rabbit people in Rotherwick, a journey which would normally have taken maybe 20-minutes, round trip, but which took over an hour, because Mum had to drive at ten miles an hour, in the hope that if she caught-up with someone going 9-mph, she wouldn't hit them! Fog-lights became visible at about 20-yards!

 

Anyway, I was up to London the other day, and as is customary, had a look, first with PW's roving reporter; Peter Evans, then, on my own, while returning to Waterloo, for items of use! And these were the things which came back to Ash Road Towers, or not!

 

This was the 'or not', £7.99 is too much for such a piece of rack toy shite, so it stayed on the peg (keeping it warm!), hopefully one of the Bocheng Jin tanks will turn-up in a mixed lot in a few years, and I can see if the red flash-eliminator is easily removable? Daft soldier may also reappear at some point!

 

Timeless pocket-money, rubber-jiggler, 'finger fright' shite! A set of six from House of Marbles, I think we've seen theirs before, but these seem to be new and better colours than those seen previously (Waterstones?), I particularly liked the metallic gold one!

 

Imported by Thomas Benacci, I thought these 40mm figures would prove to be poured PE-resin, but they are, in fact, PVC, so well within the scope of the core project! And I think we've seen the policeman already in a mixed lot or show report, so they don't take long to filter down!

 

And I'd bought these earlier than the others, but they got shot last, so yah-boo-sucks to them! Four quid's more like it, and I thought the painting of a couple (Spinosaur and Sauropod) were better than the common offering. Unbranded, but it's a rack toy!

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Civilian & Sports

We reach the penultimate plunder post from the PW show in June, but with several lots from Peter Evans to come, more car-booty/Charity Shop stuff and another Sandown (nice space surprises, for those who get excited about such things), there'll be mixed-lot posts through to Christmas, on-and-off!

 

This was one of the first things I bought 'in the room', and I just couldn't resist it, I already hate it for the space it takes-up, probably why the owner was passing it on, but it has a figure, who - despite literally thousands there - isn't in the unknown seated drivers, passengers & riders zone! Looking at the two brackets either side of the seat, it's missing a 'buggy' canopy, but is otherwise complete . . . with hat?

 

Very similar to the Tudor Rose 'Veteran Cars', in size and material (soft polyethylene), but more of a fictional marque (?) somewhere between TR's 1910 Ford "T" and their 1904 Darracq, with the spare wheel from the former, plonked onto the side of the latter, who's rear cargo space is now blank, but, I'm not enough of a car expert to know for sure, however, it's a lot of fun.

 

Divers and their vessels; I think we've probably seen it all before, and it's nearly always the same pieces missing, but there's always colour-variations to pick-up for the master sample, if nothing else, so whether bought or donated, it'll all have some use.

 

A huge Cake Decoration footballer, in hard polystyrene, a scale up of similar 45/50-mil figures from hong Kong, two of the more recent cereal premiums, and an earlier similar, chap Billy Bremner I think, I forgot to note them!

 

Other sports, including a Starlux bullfighter; a bullfighter got gored to death the other day (oh dear, never mind, it's all part of God's plan!). Four horse riders who are almost certainly from a board game, just finding out which, is the remaining problem! Soft plastic footballer, I have a feeling we've seen a few of this set now, a pair in pink and maybe a green one, so it'll be a premium of some kind, but late, it's 'ethylene, not 'styrene.

 

The rather damaged novelty boxers are polystyrene, and although battered, are a useful addition to a growing sample of the sliding-action toys, probably cracker things, or lucky-bags? And one of quite a few athletics/sports sets, most of which got an outing or two as cereal or washing-powder premiums one side of the channel or the other.

 

Babies, they're all babies, but enough of the Republican Party, here are some toy infants . . . boom-boom! A trio of the very early Torgano figures we've seen before here, but not painted, and the matching schemes, suggests factory/supplier, rather than end-owner?

 

The Hong Kong baby in cot was a common 6d (old pence)/5p pocket-money rack-toy, for dolls houses, or pockets! The big brown baby might be from a Mattel set, but I think it's an older set I do have a sizeable sample of somewhere, but I can never remember who issued them, Topps, was it?

 

Not sure on the jet-black figure, while the smaller brown one is probably Thomas/Poplar? 

 

The wooden flat must have been a big-seller at some Christmas in the 1940's or 50's, as she or her poultry keep coming-in, and often in this good-to-mint condition? In the middle is a Tara Toys teenage Tiny Teeny fashion figurine, a glaring absence on the Blog, and more so as I have a whole bunch of them somewhere, while I don't have a clue on the last one? Early leaning stuff? Modern anyway.

 

A trio of Spot-On, useful grist to the mill!

 

 

Coming on the back of several lots from Adrian and my own scrapings, here a bunch-more farm from Hong Kong, one day it's hoped most of these will have been ID'd to makers, or at least generic-set titles, and that will be by minor details, base type, base marking, even the paint variations. But, you can see here, how they are all different.

 

Speaking of the unknown riders, drivers and pilots! An Airfix motorcyclist, third from the left, and a Tudor Rose tractor-driver/plant operator on the far right, with two unknowns, one possibly a crude firefighter, the other from a large carpet racing-car.

 

Mixed civilians, including a Marx reissue, Britains, Corgi and a Blue Box knock-off.

 

And to finish, another loose lot of the Hong Kong semi-flat cartoony clones of old Märklin railway figures. I hope the orange chap with suitcases, or the red lady next to him is the one I needed to have two of each loose, so in the final, definitive post (we have looked at them more than once), whenever that is, we will have everyone from both sides, with the carded set in one shot!

T is for That Tortle, No, Turtapin, no, Terratoise . . . Doh!

Speaking of Holly musicians (as somebody might have been?!), here's a small orchestra of them from my own collection! I've mentioned this tortoise several times over the years, and I think we've seen him in a mixed-lot post, and this picture has been sat in Picasa since 2016! And, actually, he's got cartoon hands (four digits), so he's neither a turtle nor a tortoise, and definitely not a terrapin! While, maybe only two of these are Holly!

 

The two probably Holly are to the right, neither associated with the Gygax stuff we looked at recently, and not seen together, in a set, I mean, yet, nor do they have the 900-codes of some of the Holly funnimals. But on the left, are cruder copies of both, in the style of stuff by Diener or Imperial, but not marked to either brand, however, manufactured in the same soft silicon-rubber which makes for shite erasers, but excellent pencil-smudgers!

 

The pig will be a lesser-make cake decoration, probably a set of musicians, but maybe just three (the 'Little pigs'), I don't know, while the Topo Gigio character (another left-hooker!) could also be the Portuguese Balin, but I don't think so.

W is for What do You Think Readers?

I've been trying to ignore the sniping from across the road, it's mostly low-level and trying to 'tick' my Tags into your Tag list with evilBay scraping's isn't exactly the height of sophistication, when 99% of my stuff is original copy, but it's all getting a bit silly, isn't it! Nor is posting 'LP' every time I post LB (Lik Be), especially if you have to shake-down feeBay to do so!

 

These are mostly internet images, and are only the ones in Picasa, I haven't looked at the dongles, but we saw most of them as a follow-up to a mini-season on farms, using the set from my own collection, back in April, and there's always more to say!

 

One origin of the guitar-playing turtle!

 

Although the lower set is on a Wilton's catalogue page alongside Lik Be (that's an LB, because it's B for Be), I think the set is actually by Holly although some of the animals are similar to those issued by Colonial Studios, so were probably also supplied by Holly to them.

 

But the zoo-keeper is certainly, like a number of the animals, in the style of Lik 'the LB' Be's products, although here "Created by Jak Pak" ? . . . I don't think so!

A mixed internet lot with some US stuff down the foreground, but with the Lik Be (where we get LB from) tractor in the background, it's a safeish-bet these two more realistic farmers went with the more realistic farm stuff from LB (for Lik Be), which I think I've mentioned before! Perhaps , as I write, Copisey is scraping some off evilBay, or Worthpoint, what do you think, readers?! Certainly the bases are similar to others in the L for Lik, B for Be oeuvre!

 

This farmer with rake/hoe, though, is more likely to be Colonial Studios, Holly, or another maker, being one of the 900-coded mouldings with no 'A' or 'B' prefix, actually just number 943. Note readers, how he's not got a base, like the zookeeper! I wonder if our Forest Friend up there in the Wirral is busy searching Worthpoint for the original image, even as I edit this?

 

"I love these silly little Colonial farmers", he'll say, as if he knew all along! What do you think, readers?

 

The one on the left is Farmer Straw from Noddy 

The one on the right might be a beer or tobacco promotional. 

 

There's tons more of this stuff out there, and there's plenty more in the archive, but I try to post empirical stuff, I've seen and handled, and only really use internet stuff, in context, to enhance a post with my stuff in it, and while 'if you can't beat them, join them' has led to my using more images than I have in the past, some of these have been on several devises without ever being used (this one came-into Picasa in 2014), and that's how I hope to continue.

 

But if Sticky the Woodentop wants a fight, he can have one? I used to get on with him/them, but then about three/four-years ago (?) he just started niggling, and ignoring the drip-drip of his nonsense hasn't been easy; I've had a couple of pops back, but this last few days it's been so obvious, it's getting silly!

 

Bad enough they post 'antipodean' aircraft the day after me (without, apparently, either of them knowing the relationship between Matchbox and Universal, or the logo of the latter), or pretend he's just discovered the Buck Rogers erasers (a couple of months after commenting on my post, on the subject), or try to tick-off Tags missing on their site, but seen here, often with the most spurious post of the thinnest gruel, however Forresty is older than me, and should be wiser?

 

What do you think readers? Should I quickly tick-off the few dozen Space and TV-related Tags he's got which I haven't, either from my archives, or a quick visit to feebleBay? Or should I just carry-on doing what I'm doing, and ignore the petty little phuqtard?

 

Am I a 'founder and administrator', readers? Or just a bloke shouting into the void, what do you think?

 

Comments are not required, Blog Traffic can go up or down, other Blogs' are available. 

A is for ♪♫♪♪♫ All-in-All, Theyyyyy're All Just Bricks in the Wall ♪♫♪♪♫

Definitely ticking the 'other collectables' Tag, these are a fun novelty which seem to have been with us forever, or at least the mid-1970's, when I got my first, but, being a magpie, I now have four! Fake sponge bricks!

 

The collection,

"More than two of anything . . . "!

 

My original Christmas stocking brick, one of the 'practical' gifts which were always included; novelty soap, toothbrushes, combs, wiggly straws, things which, however-much fun they were, were also meant to be used daily! It's a soft bath-sponge material.

 

This was my second, it's a harsher foamed polyethylene, still a batheable foam, but more like garden-game balls, or pet-toys, and was given away at corporate newspaper events, or even with a daily-paper? I can't remember the promotion now, but I dare say, given it's The Sun, that they were for throwing at 'Lefty' politicians, or foreigners?

 

Once I had two, the track was inevitable, and over a few years I picked up two of these, more modern brick design, and made of recycled foam-rubber granules, much heavier, and not so good for washing!

 

In the US, they remain a strong, current phenomena, with corporate logo's to the fore, I think they are for throwing at referees' in disgust at their decisions, although I've never seen a clowud of them hitting the pitch, so I guess, once you've paid money for one, your desire to retain your investment in bricks & mortar, mean you hang on to it and just shake it threateningly toward the Man In Black?

 

While this is Art! A design by Alexander May, for a concrete-block sponge!

 

There was a trend for mattresses made out of the same heavy, granulated-foam, of my third brick, but often in greys or neutral colours, and they were a favourite of early fly-tipping when they started to break up, and you'd see this stuff in the rubbish pile, odd-shaped lumps, which looked exactly like concrete!

 

A very commercial one here, from Milton Bradley (MB Games - that's almost like LB for Lik Be!), and hitching a ride on the trend . . . nay, 'craze' for all things Karate, back in the 1970's - "Ah, Soh, Grasshopper!".
 

Contemporary one, available, new on the Internet as I write, this is expanded-polystyrene, and looks to be pre-coloured, so a few chips or a knocked corner would only add to its aura of realism!

 

Also current, but a bit naff, and more of a face-cloth? There's a sponge-foam core, but it's covered in a printed-pattern fabric 'pillow', sewn-flush, and over-printed with crude holes, I'd leave this on the self, as the point of the collection is that they look vaguely like bricks, and this doesn't! Although, I guess it does, if you don't display the 'holes'!