S is for Sandown Space Car!

 I know, but I ran out of civil, military and Wild West, so it's back-to-back space this evening! This was less of a calculated purchase than the other three (LB space cycle, Scout 2 and the Firefly), and in point of fact, I sort of let the seller of the Firefly talk me into this one at the same time!

 

The 'Space Car', more of a space liner, but scale is a moot point, entirely down to your own imagination! No box, and it's hard to love, as it looks a bit like a cross between a guppy and a knuckle-duster, but I think it will go well with the streamlined rural coach, also in metallic maroon, from Beeju/EVB, which could be parked-up on the apron, transferring passengers!

 

Because I try to only use internet scrapings in context, these have been in Picasa since 2014, that's 11-years and two laptops! But now I have a better one, there's no need for them, and they don't add much 'in context' either! Hey-ho! But we do have a black plastic motor-housing as a slight variant. It's obviously missing space-headlights and space-windscreen!

 

It's the game we love to play, and we can play it all day, Copice. This was on evilBay a year or so ago, and is also a bit chewed, but was worth a download for the box, but then, in August just gone . . .

 

 

. . . this sold to a lucky new-owner, I've only kept one of the machine images, as it's a better angled ¾-view than I took of mine! The X-20 Space Car, very much a generic, which may have been an early issue by someone who would later go on to use a brand-mark, like Hover, Hoover, Jimson, Lucky, OK, et al! And, I'd say, not that rare, given the number that turn-up? But I've never seen a blue one, still, there's always the next Sandown Park show!

 

'Images from eBay', hee-hee, and I've got thousands of them, if that's how we're gonna' play it?

S is for Swing-Wing Sword Scout - no Woggle!

Errr . . . I mean, 'no missile'! But I think the missile was in one of those 'odds & sods' shrapnel shots at the end of a mixed lot or show report a few years ago, so, despite going unidentified at the time, it is waiting in the mixed rockets and missiles bag to be united with this! And, of course, it meant that, even for Sandown,  it was cheap!

 

The box isn't the best, but it's all there! More of an Earth-bound 'delta-dart' fighter than a spaceship. Especially with the swing-wing technology, which is all about negotiating atmosphere, at speed, and manoeuvring without the wings falling off, rather than cruising through a near-vacuum! Maybe a Trigan Empire 'Atmosphere Craft'!

 

It has the same engines as the moon-bus, so probably doesn't need the wings at all, just a diesel pump every 180-miles! It's a fun thing, not much bigger than the Spacex/Golden Astronaut stuff, and lacking the charm of the old Dime Store pulp-stuff, with a standard push-and-go motor and cycle-wheels! Century 21, Project Sword, Scout 2, box-ticked!

 

We'll see what we can find on the 15th November! 

S is for Supersonic Set!

Starting to wind-up the Sandown plunder posts, and we have this interesting little carded set of - probably - 1950's plastic, bought from the same vendor as the Poplar Plastic canoe-race set, we have three small aircraft in two designs but raising more questions than they answer!

 

 

Two sort of 'Shooting Star's, and something with the lines of a Hawker Hunter or Sabre, but the nose of neither! We saw an unmarked version of the 'Hunter' here, from Andreas in Germany;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/09/c-is-for-comedy-of-errors.html

 

and, many years ago, a green one, marked Tudor Rose, with a more substantial pair of tail-planes, and lower wheels;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2009/04/t-is-for-tudor-rose-part-2-lose-ends.html

 

. . . all suggesting this was one of those early designs and/or tools which 'did the rounds' of early plastics manufacturers, at the small toy/novelty end of the market.

 

And, while the odd thing turns up (like this unidentifiable card) on evilBay or at shows, the fact is, we have mostly lost that information forever. We don't know who companies like Codeg (Cowan de Groot) or Chad Valley were commissioning things from, what people like Rosebud were making to produce cashflow while they developed their dolls, who supplied Tom Smith, where old moulds went, when Kleeware or Bell were finished with them, add the international aspect, and a bit of tax-driven mould swapping or greed-driven piracy, and this stuff is likely to remain 'unknown' forever?

B is for Box-ticking Bountiful Bags from the Boot!

I picked these up at the last BP toy fair at Sandown Park  . . .

 

. . . Dulcop bagged Wild West sets from Italy, and I think this might be how Plastic Warrior magazine imported them, way back when, but I could be wrong about that, they may have got them all loose, hence the melty ones Brian Carrick gave the Blog a few years ago?

 

The tall slim one is the Indians, with totem-pole and wigwam, the cowboys (to the right) get a tent and the short bag is American Civil War, with a small selection of cavalry from both sides.

 

The ACW set, I think it's two mounted from each of the Union 'Blues' and Confederate 'Grays', a pretty basic set compared to the other two? I have a cross-section of the loose figures, which we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2015/09/d-is-for-dulcop.html 

 

Not clear what's in the tent, but I think it's four foot and two mounted (same as the ACW), but it might be three mounted and five or six foot? You also get a camp-fire to cook your beans on, outside your tent!

 

While with the Indians you get a full set of foot figures, I think, six, eight? A mounted figure, the same camp-fire and a totem pole. There's also something which looks like it might be the sticks for the Tipi, and there's a sort of weapon-stand thing, which is plug-in decoration for the Tipi, other accessories may be hidden under the figures/inside the Tipi, which could be a selection from a stretched skin, carpet, sack, cactus, tree with vulture,  &etc.

T is for Two - Four-Wheeled Wonders!

Between civil, military and space, there were lots of vehicles in the last lot of Sandown show plunder, but that's not such a surprise, given as how it started life as a train/die-cast show, those tables groaning under the weight of Furby 'plushies', Bratz dolls, Lego and Transformer stuff you see these days, are far more recent additions to the halls!

 

In its day, this must have been a common-enough pocket-money toy, as it's at least the third to be added to the stash I think, and while this isn't the best one, it comes with the driver, which previous examples were lacking, but which I probably have in the loose passenger/rider zone, so will hopefully now be able to properly crew the others with! It's a pretty-standard Poplar/Thomas PVC figure, but in white rubber, rather than the usual flesh/pink/brown tones; possibly to match the wheels he was shot with?

 

While this, Jean Höfler or Manurba (?) toy is another Mercer, and it could be the Mercer all the other plastic Mercers are copied from, but I don't think so, it's not even the best moulding out of all those US, French and Hong Kong ones we saw here at Small scale World, a while ago, so I suspect it's a copy too, from whichever was the better Mercer, one of the French ones, Schuco, Matchbox 'Yesteryears'?

 

I don't recognise the boy-logo, and Jean used a drum-logo, but the text is very much in the style of either maker. I've found the rest of the set on a locked foreign-language site, associated with the name Rosenberg, and have possibly ruled-out early Siku and Bruder?

G is for Gorgeous Grail Garnered in Great Gewgaw Gala

It's funny, but since I picked this up (at Sandwon), I've seen about ten on evilBay, all boxed, all with the handle-bars in their little bag, so it would seem someone has found a carton of ex-shop stock, and either broken it up at [hammer] auction, or divvied it out among a few dealer mates, and they are trying to off-load them at the same time . . . Well, either that, or it was once (mid-1970's?) as common as muck!

 

Box.

 

Our old friend Lik Be with their daft monster hugging an LB marque! 

 

And, it may well be that the latter scenario is the truer, as there is often one or two on evilBay, always silly money (I didn't pay anything near what the current ones are up for, mild water-damage to box), and I have vague memories of seeing them in newsagents when I was still quite young, and being raised to believe all Hong Kong production was poor, cheap, naff and 'no good', so I've always hankered after one, and it's nice to tick-off a proper grail item.

 

Somewhere between a 1960's racer (shades of motorcycle & sidecar combinations, in the fairing), and the Fireball XL5 Jetmobiles (other sit-astride future transports were available!), for now I'm leaving the handle-bars in situe, but at some point I may get them out for a better shot or two. There are colour-reversed versions out there . . . New grail?

 

Loosely related to their other space figures, but the suit on this 100mm-odd figure, is more motorcycle-leathers than anything USAF/NASA-issued, however the double air-tanks and pistol holster are similar to features on the other eight sculpts! Plug-in, moving arms provide help with dynamism, but odd moulding has resulted in hollow legs/feet.

 

And I nearly wrote 'simplified' moulding there, but looking at it; at the angles required to remove the product from the mould; and the 3-way-split join-lines, it may have been anything but simplified, and in fact quite a technically advanced 3-part tool, with 2-phase moving parts, in each moulding-cycle?

 

Vroom, vroom! Although, the artwork shows multiple rocket exhausts, so more of a xchkkkkkrrrrrrrrrrrrr! And is that a standard Honda seat, or a Kwaka!

C is for Carded Combat Crew

More minters from Sandwon, or, at least near minters, nothing 60+years old is ever that 'mint', bags fog with a million invisible folds, cards fade or discolour from sunlight or bleaches in the paper itself, but these two have held up pretty well;

 

No brand and a blank back to the card, so no clue to producer/issuer, and 43p (maybe around 50¢ US, at the time?), if only such things were still 43p! It looks like it might be the same quality as the Rosebud one seen here before, but I couldn't manipulate it enough to see whether there was anything in the parachute cavity? But still a nice item to add to the collection

 

I think these might be by Hugonnet/Féral, but it is by no means certain, they come in several different generic header-cards, but always unmarked/unbranded, so they could be another operation?

 

A site crediting them to Hugonnet pointed out that they are Starlux copies with the heads turned, usually through around 90º, and you can see for yourselves, they have been given oblong bases.

R is for Rack Toy Rascals

Not cake decorations! An excellent find at Sandown in September was this carded import by Merehall, more commonly associated with the larger, boxed plastic vehicles, from the old Crown Colony of Hong Kong, and doubly fascinating for being figures, previously known their role as Culpitts and other cake decorations, but also seen here (link below) as open-front, boxed teams.

 

"Collect your own team", it says, and with 12 figures, including the keeper on a card that’s possible, but, not all the known poses/shirt numbers are here, there's no referee, nor any other team strips?
 

So, were there other cards, with the other colours we've seen here before, were the other cards assorted to the point where all known poses could be found? And did some cards have the better team-strips of the carded sets we looked at last time - assuming each card was a singular colour-way like this one?

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/06/n-is-for-nearer-but-further-away.html

T is for Two - Far West Frenchies!

The last Sandown Park show was quite good for Wild West stuff, and in addition to the sets in the opener, and some Dulcop in a future post, I managed to pick this French production up, with established sellers Steve Vickers and John Begg , both stalled-out in the main/first hall, extracting not-many of my shekels, for this pair.

 

Starlux boxed stage coach; the trouble with boxed items like these, is that they are only ever box-tickers, by which I mean they sit there looking pretty, but can't be played with either in a child-like fashion, or something more formal and war-gamey! They can't be handled like loose figures, or compared closely with others, or not without getting them out of their packaging which can often lead to damage to the inserts, mounting cards, trays etc.

 

I believe I read somewhere that the coach itself was bought in from someone else, Manurba (?), or someone like that, and given Starlux horses and outrider, but I, or the person who said it, may be making that up, because the slip-in trays for the horses, are similar to other makers systems, like my own Cofalu set?

 

I also picked up this bag of 'bazaar' figures from France, as close to a generic as you can get, with graphics only for some child-safety outfit, which may or may not be official, and the contents, cowboys only, so assume bags of Indians too somewhere, being copies of Elastolin 70mm stuff from Germany.

 

 Some close-ups.

Hugonnet, Feral, LSP, 'PIH'? . . . Someone else?

 

1980 catalogue page.

 

The guy running with loot bag, shooting behind him, seems to be not only a late addition to the Elastolin line-up, but to bear a remarkable resemblance to the pre-existing Britians swoppet and/or Herald Hong Kong bank-robbers, not that it matters when the French rack-toy guys were copying everyone, including the other French producers, by the mid-80's!