N is for Northfield Products

Do you remember this image, from one of the earlier donations from Chris Smith;

 

A resinated slate (or coal?) lady on the left, what turned out to be Tringa Toys, via Toyway in the middle, and a Britains Highland Piper, trapped in a bottle. At the time I said of the right-hand item: "The final piece is very interesting, clearly a Scott's tourist thing, he is a HK-production Britains Herald piper, held on a cork plinth with a piece of textured green Plasticine . . . and a blob of glue? The tartan band, other than hammering-home the Scottish nature of the item, is probably hiding a clever join at the base of the bottle, or a not-so-clever join bodged with glue?"
 

And, a few months later, I found marked items on feebleBay, of a similar nature, employing the same tartan ribbon, which have been in Picasa for a few years, waiting for the right moment to show, which following a purchase at Sandown four weeks ago, is now!

 

Revealing themselves to have been entrapped by a Northfield Products of Edinburg, I fear they are a little disingenuous as to their London design or Hong Kong manufacture! The contents have actually broken loose, and slide up and down, but you can see how the figures are landscaped onto a piece of hardboard, with green Plasticine, and shunted in from the wide end, before the join is hidden with the tartan tape!

 

My hand looks strangely stunted in that third shot, I can assure you, I currently have perfectly normal hands, and will blame foreshortening, or AI? . . . buzzztt . . . pling! "Northfield Products refers to several different businesses, most prominently Northfield Farm, known for high-welfare free-range pork, beef, and lamb sold online and at markets like Borough Market; Northfield Furniture, offering handcrafted wooden items like toilet seats and trays; and Northfield Freezing Systems, an industrial brand by JBT Corporation for large-scale food processing. Other mentions include school uniforms and even a shoe model." 

 

This is a wind-up music box, with the mechanism hidden in a tartan gift-box, and the same bottle as the loose one, Chris sent to the Blog. It also has the Frea Scotland (from Scotland) sticker, which is missing on the new, larger band-bottle from Sandown's show.

 

And the shipping box the larger bottle came in, this also has the sticker. Now the next question, because there's always a next question, is: were there earlier ones which used the better quality, UK-made, Herald figures? Anyway, for now, that's another one put to bed - Northfield Products, purveyors of quality tat, to the passing tourist trade!

 

And I bet there are other Northfield items, you could probably build a nice little niche display or cameo collection of them?

 

As we're doing an 'Answer Time', here's confirmation, via a couple of dodgy colour scans of B&W copies, of the earlier (pre-RHA figure) Tringa line-up of 90mm figures, sold through Toyway, and also aimed squarely at the tourist trade.
 

F is for Festive Finger Friends!

Getting very close to the sharpest point of what's acceptable on the blog, or within the collection, but, it IS Christmas, they ARE Figural, and it's a bit of fun in a darkening world!

 

I picked up a load of stuff from Peter Evans the other day, but it was owed quite a bit on the shekels-front, so it'll mostly be filtered away into the archive/collection, against future use as 'my stuff', rather than being labelled as contribution, however, there were several items which Peter had obviously grabbed or saved for me, so he'll get credit for them, and this is another of them!

 

Festive Finger Puppets!

(Gem Imports, Barnsley) 

 

Certainly a figural sub-genre or category, and not the first time we've found room for finger-puppets here, they are - again - ideal Christmas stocking-fillers for younger kids, and it's a non-electronic form of imagination stretching, to make up and act out stories in a theatrical fashion. And, it's the second time Peter has found a Gem Imports thing, so many thanks to him, for finding this!

Y is for Yule Lads!

It's always fun finding out how other people do Christmas, because it's not all the modern iconography of Albert, Prince-consort, The Saxe-Coburg-Windsors or Coke Cola, endured by the English-speaking world, with or without crackers! And I well remember nearly having a fight with Krampus and his 'pals' in an Austrian pension one cold night in December!

 

In Iceland, they have the Yule Lads, a bunch of Icelandic Troll types (more to come on them), who fool about at this time of year, each having a day between the 12th and the 24th, in the lead-up to the big day, almost an half-advent of annoyance! Brian Berke, roving reporter, sent some shots he took in Iceland, and off down the rabbit-hole I went!

 

They actually leave little gifts in children's shoes, the equivalent of our stockings, but lesser, yet daily! However, if you've been bad, you might get a rotten potato, or a sour-onion!

 

This is Pottaskefill (Pot-Scraper, December 16th), he scrapes the food remains from the pots and pans!

 

While Skyrgámur (Skyr-Gobbler, December 19th) loves skyr (Icelandic traditional yogurt-type dairy-produce), and if you don't leave some out for him, he'll just steal it!

 

Ketkrókur (Meat-Hook, December 23th), he steals meat, gripping it with a hook! Another steals sausages!

 

Þvörusleikir (Spoon-Licker, December 15th), he steals spoons to lick them clean, but there isn’t much food left on spoons, so he is supposed to be scrawny, this one looks well-accommodated with bounteous spoons! Presumably, the spoons quietly reappear in the drawers when little people have forgotten them?

 

You'll have to Google the rest yourselves! And there are a couple of equally (supposedly) execrable parents and a dodgy cat! Many thanks to Brian for the introduction, to something completely different!

F is for Feelin' Feline!

An obvious title, I'm surprised I haven't used before now! We actually had a roundup of cat stuff not that long ago, and while half the stuff in this post is recent, some of it was found elsewhere in the unused archive!

A largish resin lump I picked-up at a charity shop back in '22, made by Sheratt & Simpson, I guess it's from one of those overpriced series of such stuff in jeweller's windows? But it's a reasonable sculpt, and when £20-something becomes 50p or similar, I ponce . . . like a cat!

Boysy-boy eyeing it with a modicum of suspicion! I still miss him every day, his weight on the end of the bed, his little complaints when he thought he ought to have a treat! But I miss both his Mum's too, and that's the burden of getting to this age, dealing with more and more death, in one's life.

Large Japanese blow-mould, marked on the other side with a three-leaved clover mark, and Japan in ink, and moulded on the body.

This is a modern set from Shing Hing, the people who brought a four-nation 'army man' tub to Smyths a few years ago. There's a lack of imagination in the decoration, but otherwise they are reasonable sculpts for a rack-toy type thing.

Three from Schliech, we looked at five back in October and I think two are duplicates, but the Egyptian-looking one is a definite paint variant, and the long-haired Persian is a new addition.

They are no better as cat's, than they were as dog's, who buys this shit?

Shelfied in Home Bargains.

Oh . . . I do! I actually grabbed these at Waterloo yesterday, a series of mini-adventures I could have done without - Travellers closing Charing Cross, football hooligans, and cancelled trains - led to my browsing the 'boutiques' on the new mezzanine, and I thought these were particularly stupid! The cord already hangs over the side of the vessel, how is a cat's tail going to make any difference, or improve things, one iota?

I found they preferred to sniff the fumes of sloe gin!

What? It's Christmas! 

A is for Another Retro-Rocketeer!

This one's courtesy of Peter Evans, I said we'd probably see more, before the end of the year, and this is current, PMS carried, and a slightly different take on the pull-back motor/white-button oeuvre, but again following the trend this year, for deformed NASA astronauts, and/or cartoon spaceships.

 

You push down on the Rocket racer's head, and an energy storage spring is set to fire, a quick release and off he whizzes, release slowly though, and you get a limp phutt! It's a bit of fun which will probably get passed-on to charity, but imagine getting this in your Christmas stocking, as a kid!

N is for Not Really A Follow-up!

Notes on previous stuff seen here though, and images pulled from three folders and added to a set I got off Steve V yesterday, at the London Toy Soldier Show in Camden, and which opened-up a narrative for the other shots.

Marx's 45mm Air Force figures, with a rouge Space Patrol chap, in the same metallic blue plastic, waving his gypsy earrings about, at the back there! You get seven ground crew and four pilots, which, it being then, the 1950's, means the guy in a leather jacket is probably a milk runner from Transport Command (or whatever the USAF called it), next to him is the SR71 Blackbird or X-Plane pilot in high-altitude 'space' pressure-suit, along with two more conventional, fast-jet pilots.

 

With the exception of the sci-fi interloper who has the older flat base, these are all the later version with the raised under-rim base, and it's interesting to notice that the last pilot on the right has been sculpted to hold something? The hands are the wrong angle for a cockpit rim, and the arms are the wrong-angle for an access ladder, so I wonder if the sculptor's efforts fell on stony ground!

 

I think these are the ones sent by Brian Berke a few years ago, I thought they were gray, and I thought I'd published them, but they may be somewhere on the Blog already, without the needed Tags? Anyway, these are the recent reissues, and came in grey or this flat, sky-blue.

These are the contemporary figures from Deluxe Reading, and this image is courtesy of Chris Smith, as part of an eMail conversation we were having, following one of his donations, and the revelation that the orange ones were issued, over here, by Thomas in a header-bagged, oversized Jeep of theirs, which we saw here.

While I suspect these (MPC, Pyro or Revell?) come from a model car kit, as racetrack personnel, but they could be from a 1:48th scale aircraft kit, and go very well with the figures above, and the other set we saw in the Kennedy Space Centre a while ago, here. The paint on them will be OBE's, and there were at least two shot-runs, one in grey, one in silver, both a polystyrene 'kit' plastic.

 

So, thanks to Steve, Chris and Brian, a quick overview of USAF (and NASA) air and ground-crew, from over half a century ago! And the reason I hadn't got round to them before this, is because mine, mostly rimmed cream, chalky polyethylene (Marx Swansea?), with a few flat metallic-blues, are still in storage.

News, Views Etc . . . London Show

It's the London show today, and I'm off! Chalk Farm tube station - helps if I know where I'm going, I've always driven it before!

 

Heres' a random shot of some cracker toys!

 

S&S is for Seasonal and Superb

Brian has sent his seasonal shots of Scully & Scully's window display, he said he was fighting refelction, but they all look good to me, and as we all know what's coming, we don't need any more of my waffle; enjoy!

 

Many thanks to Mr. Berke for these, it's an unpaid mission, to fight the New York shopping crowd, and get these images, not just at Easter or Halloween, but especially at this time of year, and they are the most exquisite examples of the slate-etcher's art, even if, these days, they are cold cast rubber, or even metal moulds? And they are beautifully painted as well, a real treat Brain, thank you. It's starting to feel very festive!

 

09/12/2025 - Late addition!

N is for November's Sandown Park - Civilian

Welp. Cleared some crap out of Picasa yesterday! But I'm running-about today, so don't expect the same posting rate! Here's another bunch of the odds from the recent Sandown Park show, and it's the civilian stuff.

 

I'm pretty sure these are French Dinky/Hornby (Meccano), but a quick Google just questioned that belief, I couldn't find them, although Google is so commercialised and generally shit these days, that's an indicator of nothing!

 

I have a larger sample in storage (these aren't that rare), and have had them for years, and I'm sure I found them or someone told me they were French Dinky, but they could be someone else? They are O-Gauge railway figures, and a vinyl rubber, of the old-school, quite dense/rigid, but stable (no weeping oily shite) type, and there were two tranches/issues, one with the little domed, concave cavity in the base, the others flat-bottomed.

 

Not sure on these either, I'm pretty sure they aren't the Marx set, one's similar, but the other isn't, and orange isn't a colour that associated with Marx, but they are more likely a US maker, than Hong Kong, just from the detail level?

 

One day I'll have to bring all the American Football players together, which will force me to research them properly, at which point I'll probably find a web-site with many more than me, that ID's all of them! And thanks to Gareth Morgan for these two, he let me pick through a mixed lot he'd found.

 

Copies of the Marx Power Mite road menders (two to the left), and a knock-off of the Blue Box copy of a Dinky to the right. One day I'll have to do a page or post just on the three - Dinky, Marx, Blue Box and all the copies!

 

Merit newspaper seller from the magnetic Driving Test game, a pretty-good knock-off of the Britains farm-girl, and another cracker-sized athlete.

 

Another question-mark here, it's not the common Hornby-Triang set, still being issued today I think, included with most of the steam locomotives, and many train-sets, so maybe Playcraft, Bachmann, or someone like Jouef? Driver, fireman, and some accessories for the locomotive?

 

These are also a bit of a mystery. The figure sets, as accessory sets, were vinyl, and issued on small runners, so I think these hard polystyrene examples must have been from a gift-set of some kind, it needs a Corgi expert, which I'm not!

 

Four bits of metal, the first is probably a coalman from one of the British minor-make wagon/cart toys in slush-cast lead or die-cast mazac/zamak, the little lead/whitemetal ringmaster, might be a cake decoration? But doesn't look to be that old, while the other two are obviously modern, aftermarket accessories for model racing cars, being Graham Hill in white, and . . . Andretti or Villeneuve, senior? Looks like Senna (again), but the helmet would/should be yellow?

Q is for Question Time - Fusilier in Fez

Can anyone ID this composition figure?

Possibly German made, but no base, so no base mark! And clearly an Ottoman infantryman from the period of the First World War, or from the blue, earlier . . . Russo-Turkish war of 1877? I'd love to put a maker's name to him. He's quite big as well; about 80mm?