P is for Paper Pictures, Prizes, Puzzles and Piscine Pronouncements

The really cheap end of a really cheap corner of the really cheap arm of the same industry that brings you your Airfix kits, your Hornby model railways, your Britains farm, your Monopoly and your Schlich for Revell 'Epix' warriors is here. A bit of printed paper could do the same job as any other plaything, keep junior happy or quiet (or both!) for half an hour or half a day!

I would imagine that the house which doesn't have a pack of these somewhere in a drawer is a rare house indeed, newsprint paper with fluffy edges, you can't shuffle them and getting them out of their pack results in bent and dog-eared cards in seconds.

Fortune telling fish, and why not! They used to be printed to look like a fish (left), now they are just a scrap of red celluloid (right), do they work? (wrong).

The trick 'mystery calculator', clever numbers, it's why I hate them! Small puzzles (this one a Halloween specific capsule toy), Kinder loves these, books of water-slide 'tattoos'...or tatoos even! And a joke book illustrated with thumbnails smaller than er...thumbnails!

B is for Brum-Brum Autos

Mostly Cake decorations or pocket-money toys, but there were a few in the lot the other day, and these are the sorts of larger items which - like the larger musical instruments - would have come in those plastic-netting Christmas stockings we used to get as shut-em-ups a day or two before the big day!

I've probably got three-times these in storage (including a nice Marx die-cast of the Corgi style), with few duplicates so we will look at them in greater depth one day. Of interest here are the red one on the top right - it is an absolutely mint Irwin, still smelling like it's just been made (of a phenolic/celluloid polymer) - and the cream and blue ones with a wide track which are Italian pocket-money toys. The drag-racer is probably an earlier Kinder toy, while the blue one top-centre, is a hard styrene early HK piece, possibly Blue Box, but unmarked.

C is for Charms

Just about everything in the world of ephemeral or novelty plastic shite can be found in a charm-looped version, that loop sometimes substantial enough to be used for key-rings/key-chains; sometimes as charms, on a necklace or as earrings; sometimes so full of flash or so mis-moulded they can't be threaded by anything or onto anything! Here are a few.

These are all from the recent evilBay purchase and are a reasonable cross-section of mid-70's shite plastic tat, with hard and soft polymers, lightweight alloy mouldings and a tin stamping. The black hand is a wire-threaded, beaded construct, the Bible can hide a very small, very short message, and the boots come with brittle polystyrene, laces/bows, which brake all to easily.

Themes of luck, zodiac signs, religious symbology and cats and dogs are common, as well as household goods...a camera, a burger? Boots and shoe, especially the US cut 'cowboy boot' are also common as are pistols or guns but we looked at them a while ago - they've been added to!

The main picture here shows the remaining contents of a set of 1950's mini 'tree' crackers, labelled 'Old World Series' there doesn't seem to be a proper 'Brand' and they probably pre-date the takeover of Hong Kong for supplying this kind of thing, likely being UK sourced generics.

Of interest in that there are both lead/white metal mouldings and the 'new' plastic, clearly packed/issued as the technologies were changing over, as well as the fact that there is both a flat elephant and a semi-flat one. Clearly these were all mixed together in a bin (either as charms to go in crackers, or as crackers to go in the box), with no thought to mix. Elephants are as popular a theme as cats and dogs!

Bottom left is a recent set of what seem to be Nursery Rhyme related charms, I can recognise Red Riding Hood, Jack and Jill, Jack Horner (probably the same Jack, what with the bean-stalk thing - a very pesky kid), and a shoe for poor people to inhabit, but the other three? Finally a random dog I had kicking around after the dog-shot the other day was done! We'll be seeing more elephants for similar reasons in a day or two.

M is for Micro-Mini Motors

Those who remember the Formula 1 Project, will see that cars, and choises, have been added to the starting line-up with the acquisition of these.

The pink and dark yellow 'Monopoly' ones are now definitely ID'd as gum-ball toys (not as I suggested [with question mark - phew!] last time: board game pieces) as is the little green one with the yellow wheels, the green one at the back is very well-detailed (apart from a crushed roof) and may be from an N-gauge railway flatcar/car carrier?

The gold one (front right) is cast iron, could it be Gray Klip/Grey Iron? It's got the same look and feel? The one behind is probably a board gaming piece, while the other gold on and the silver one are actually plastic. Most of these will be from the smallest gum-balls or the little decorative tree-crackers, which used to have miniature novelties, but now tend to have a 'Motto & Sticker'!

F is for Figures

There are a few figural elements to the world of plastic novelty shite, and here are a few...at this size mostly capsule or gum-ball toys from vending machines, but some are also cracker toys, others the full, carded, rack-item.

Guardsman, cartoon caricature, space-warrior babe and a Marx Tinkerbell piracy from the Miniature Masterpieces range. The caricature is - I think - an Ed Roth/surfer-culture thing, we've seen the pirate here before, and there are a few others (storage!) so we'll come back to them.

Below them are the 25 (and a 30) mm copies of the Commonwealth dolls, along with a male musician  who is similar to one from the Van Brode sets,

The Angels/Putti flats are still current (although these are earlier [1970's] examples), turning-up in crackers every year, they are floppier and thinner these days.

Three from capsules, the RAF have already gone on the Airfix Blog with comparison shots. The para's we looked at a week or so ago and the various guardsmen march below.

There are several types of these small guardsman, and I need the rest out of storage before I do the comparisons on the Airfix Blog, but from left (yellow) to right (pink);

Common type, current in really cheap Christmas crackers, found in Lucky Bags in the 1990's, there are three sub-versions each less well defined than the previous and with ever thinner bases. Limited to a few colours and only the one pose: Band/Pipe/Drum Major.

From the upper image, and the largest 'small scale' guardsmen, Christmas cracker and capsule toys of the 1970's, no Band Major yet found, but standard-bearers and various instruments have, seem to be based on Britians figures from the Eyes Right series. Always in deliciously 'edible' colours!

The purple Airfix copy is the smallest of these copies (sub-piracy/copy-of-copy) has a diagonal 'Hong Kong' mark, and seems to be so uncommon as to only be a capsule toy.

The yellow chap and the rows behind him are smooth-based (no mark) and may have been carded rack-toys as well as having a capsule origin, or even the Baravelli issue which still escapes me? They might even be from two sources with the sharper-cornered ones in the middle row being Baravelli and the yellow and pink chap from capsules/gum-balls?

Behind them are pink'ish versions of the commonly (and common) red ones from the 50 & 100-figure carded sets we've looked at in some depth here and on the Airfix Blog's two Guards posts.

F is for Fake French Flats

Actually a couple of these are the original French food premiums (there's a full set in JC Piffret's Figurines Publicitaires) a book you must have on your shelves if you wish to study plastic shite! I haven't got it in front of me so I can't remember the make/issuer (if anyone's got theirs to hand?), but it matters not....

...as this sample contains vehicles from at least four sets; French originals (green sedan), Hong Kong and China (most of the rest) and an unknown lumpy gold one. They are also a mix of hard styrene, soft ethylene and a harder propylene, so here as a guide only, because they've come-in and because they're plastic shite!

B is for Ball Games

A box of Christmas crackers without a ball are rubbish! That's why posh ones with useful prizes are crap! You have to have a ball for one of the adults to tread-on while carrying the goose to the table, or the gravy!

Footballs and a rugby ball, very useful for when you lose you Subbuteo balls, the small white one is a hard but hollow polystyrene, in two halves, the red one at the top os a solid lump of styrene and would guarantee flying gravy, the others are blow-moulds.

Keepy-upee with the power of air and the scoring-bat can keep party-people (little party-people) happy for a while, but this one has a hollow insulating liner as it's stricg which is too stiff to work properly! These are larger bits of shite and come in Lucky Bags or as bulk packs of party favours.

Bouncy balls, given the number that have gone through my hands since 1964 this is a pretty poor image really, but these are earlier ones and the mini one is new to me.

The black one is made of a peculiar material called Zectron (similar in feel/look to a vulcanised rubber), it's a Mini Super-Ball by Wham-O, and if you squeeze it, you find it's full of cracks and creaks like an old ship, but seems to retain its integrity?

Mini roulette wheels, that's it that is; mini roulette wheels. The line's not long enough to make a paragraph...did I say they were roulette wheels, that are miniaturised AND some of them've got charm loops...that'll do!

B is for Bug Life

Flies in sugar-lumps, flies in fake icecubes, flies in gum-ball vending capsules, flies in er...packets of flies! The universal, timeless novelty item...

...first available in the late 1940's/early 1950's and still a firm favourite in independent toy shop's pocket-money lines today. Other bugs are made, including glow-in-the-dark ants and large rubber...er...what the heck is it? Hornetsquito?

F is for F.A.B. Breakfast Ma, Schoolkid is GO!

Not shite...or....Quality Shite! Issued with Kellogg's Sugar Smacks in 1966 (Thunderbirds) and 1968 (Captain Scarlet), there are 8 of these to find, I'm up to four...the easy four! I might have a red Patrol Car in storage?

A T'Bird 3 joined 1, 2 and 4 in the '66 issue, with a helicopter and Spectrum Command and Patrol Cars joining the Pursuit Vehicle in the Scarlet issue of '68.

Of note is my T4, which has apparently factory-painted silver highlights on the headlight, windscreen and propulsion nacelles, which wasn't on the food-stuff abutting originals, hinting at a post-premium issue, possibly in crackers (Tom Smith often hoovered this stuff up), or gum-balls?

P is for Pooch!

I've got tons of these somewhere, we looked at a few - rather fuzzily - here, but this lot has accumulated recently with mixed bags in May and the vending novelty purchase...

...Poodles and Scots/Highland Terriers always dominate these lots, with crude copies of old food premiums coming second. I think it's (Highland Terrier thing) down to the original (and much higher quality) gifts associated with whiskey brands, they were in glass, wood, ivory, Bakelite or 'ivorene' and we will look at them another day, along with the similar cats.

Lots of them are fitted with charm loops, some finding their way to the thin-end of a key-ring/key-chain. The two big blow-moulds will be infant or beach toys I suspect, rather that capsule toys or Cracker novelties, and speaking of 'crackers'; another source for these cheap plastic bubo's is the American food brand Cracker Jack, and the brown flat to the top right is from them I believe, and possibly the white one above him?

P is for Perplexed!

A great favourite of both Christmas crackers and gum-ball machines is the puzzle, coming in five basic forms; the  mini jig-saw (in card or thick paper), the 'Jig-Toy' dexterity puzzle (see top of page), and the following three themes...

Wire Lock Puzzles - Fun when you are younger, but as you get older you realise there are only two mechanisms, and they both involve bringing two junction/joints together into a four-way wire bundle and then either sliding or twisting! Still popular, they used to be issued in  bulk in both magic sets and more generally by toy companies like Merit, as boxed sets.

Chinese tangrams come in various formats, with the aim of making a square or oblong - with no gaps - from a series of triangles and parallelograms, they often came with a little sheet of other pictograms to be made from the shapes, the rule being you must use all the pieces.

The bulky ones in the centre have only one solution and are more modern/current, while the pyramid 9and related cannon-ball pile) are a simple puzzle, when very young it could take a while to get it without help. Indeed, trying to get the balls to make a pile for five minutes, only for a sibling to do it in 2-seconds flat was an invitation to murder becoming a viable lifestyle choice!

Mini ball-bearing dexterity puzzles are the fifth 'group' you often find in both Christmas crackers and gum-ball machines, some easy, some frustratingly hard, some impossible, usually due to the cheap nature of the materials and construction meaning something won't do what it's meant to!

I is for I'm calling this: "Five Girls Have a Picnic"

Clockwise from the large one: rubber hanger (elastic missing), Rubber, Rubber capsule toy, ethylene, rubber and an ethylene Cracker novelty chap in the centre...lunch!

C is for "Contain Hat, Novelty and Motto"

Q. What happened when the dog ate the Christmas decorations? A. He went down with tinselitis.

So, we've got a party, we're making the music, and now we need hats, don't we? Yeah! Let's have some hats...easy if we live in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and some other parts of the Commonwealth, if you're elsewhere you'll have to get the glue out, or pop down the costume hire shop and get some expensive felt and feather contraption bejewelled with lumps of coloured plastic!

Q.On which side do chickens have most feathers? A.On the outside.

Q. What do you call a fish with no eye? A. Fshhh.

We have a competition every year to be the last one wearing his or her crown, the stubbornness which is one of the plus values of Asperger's means I have an unfair advantage and often win, sometimes I fall asleep after the Christmas Feast and lose my crown to the back of the sofa!

Q.What has a bed but does not sleep, and a mouth but does not speak? A. A river.

Usually made of tissue paper, you do get tougher cartridge-paper ones and the metal-foil embossed crowns of 'posh' crackers...posh crackers are a bit shit, as they actually contain useful things, rather that the possibility of a micro-plane, mini-truck or cowboy wagon!

Q. What is E.T. short for? A. Because he has little legs.

The only 'vintage' ones in the above shot are the scrunched-up ones with a rubber band (centre of picture), which is how they were packed in the 1960's and '70's. Very useful as the band was just the right size for replacing the lost tie-downs on Lone*Star Treble-O trains car carriers. Now they are folded and curved round the inner card tube, with the motto.

Q. What do you call a little lobster who won’t share his Christmas presents? A. Shell-fish.

Q. What sits in the fridge, yellow and dangerous? A. Shark-infested custard (people who don't have Christmas crackers will probably miss the custard reference as well).

With the crown and 'novelty' comes a 'motto', originally (Victorian/Edwardian times) these were mostly little love poems or perhaps an aphorism of some provident or spiritual value, although no longer actually mottoes, they are still referred-to as such. By my childhood it was just a riddle or joke (Tom Smith original, top centre), a bad joke; usually a pun or other play on words, or even an idiotic cultural reference...

Q. What's Miley Cirrus having for Christmas? A. Twerky!

In the 1980's, you started to get either/and a piece of trivia, or a suggestion for after-dinner charades, we now have a situation where the class-system that has been so divisive in Britain, is writ-large in the world of buying Christmas crackers, with budget crackers sticking with a single - bad - joke, or maybe a joke and trivia factoid, while as you pay more for the crackers, you will see additional jokes, charades, puzzles or a mini crossword added, in the end you get a double-sided slip, screen-printed in silver gel. the irony being they never get used fully, we only want five minutes of this nonsense - before the food gets cold - however many people a round the table, so added 'functionality' is wasted! But paying more for slightly larger slips of paper makes some people feel superior apparently!

Q. What do you call a Snowman in Summer? A. A puddle.

One other change in my lifetime has been in the crackers themselves, for the longest time they were crushable crepe-paper, now they tend to be tougher materials, sometimes multiple layers or tissue laminated over card, or with the stiffening of metallic-foils.

More:
Wikipedia
Historic UK
Tom Smith

I is for Instruments

So, it's the 7th birthday of the blog today, not something I've celebrated before, but I happened to notice the fact last night, and as it's the party season and we're looking at plastic novelties for a while; let's make some noise!

Kazoos (one marked Hohner so probably not that cheap a toy!), Pan-pipes, Harmonicas, Horns and Trumpets, Swanee & Penny Whistles, Football Rattles....who didn't have one of these at least once in their childhood and drive some grown-ups to distraction with it? That's nostalgia, right there...plastic shite!

More - smaller - whistles and a tiny harmonica (top right: blue and yellow), one has a windmill attached for extra 'play' value, while another highlights one of the problems with classifying/categorising this stuff, is it a whistle first or a key-ring? As the charm loop fitted to several can be for a 'charm' or a key-ring, it's a moot point, but this crossover is a feature of a lot of these cheepie toys, not forgetting - does it go with the instruments, or the unknown Wild West? Or, if you collect enough of this shite...does it go with the horns or the Indians!

M is for More Motorcycles...

...also; Again! (I think?)

These are mostly non-Hong Kong in origin, but there are some: The steel-blue scooter is an HK copy of one from the old Matchbox 1-75 range (except it was 1-50 during the period when the scooter was part of the range I believe), in which guise (die-cast) it was equipped with a side-car. While the pile of three are also HK; I'm not happy about the rider, he came on the green one but wouldn't sit right, however he seems more comfortable on the blue one, so may well 'go' with them. The answer may lie in the stored collection?

The rest are - or seem to be - Kinder, with the definite exception of the scooter and side-car with passengers which is a Spanish kiosk Sobre, but I'm not sure it's a Montaplex one, so maybe one of the lesser brands?

The yellow one came in a Kinder capsule, but seems a bit crude for Kinder? It could be an early one. The blue one has spikes on the wheels (which helped in stand-up on the counterpane) so seems to be missing a stand or base of some kind? The red and black racer is hard plastic and missing a screen or bar or something on the side-car.