ITLAPD is for Arvast Me'Aarrties and Splice da' Main Brace!

It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Woo-hoo! And I remembered it this year - woo-hoo! And I had stuff to post - woo-hoo! And I've posted it - Arrrhaarrrr Jim-lad, no flies on this old cove! This be act'chew'ley the firrrst of fourrrr posts today, just furrrr fun, so if you don't be enjoyin'em I'll hav'yurrr guts furrr fiddle-strrrings, yerrr sorry bunch'o lilly-livered, warrrm milk-suppin', land-lubberrrrs!

Stad's tells us these were issued in Dollar General over the pond; I haven't the faintest who issued them here, but a pound to a pinch of shit it was Funtastic, PMS or The Works! Apart from the European-looking captain (who appears to have been sculpted separately), the rest look more fitted to pirating the South China seas (or the Indian Ocean) than the Med' or Atlantic.

These are smaller, and although they look similar with the red-black thing going on there, are actually PVC rubber and are both quite soft, and mostly distorted, might they be capsule toys? Sqiudgged into a little plastic vessel that holds no other treasure! One of them is so keen to have a hook for a hand, he's holding a hook in his hand . . . and look-out! He's got a ray-gun! Thanks to Peter Evans for some of these. Possibly at least one pose still missing?

The largest of the new recruits in this post; a Ja-Ru import, they're nicer figures from a Western perspective than the first set, but similar quality. They came with a set of skeletons to fight which we looked at a while ago, but I held these chaps over for the 19th of September!

These were all from Peter Evan a few years ago, and have missed at least two ITLAPD's despite languishing in Picasa for both of them! They look like the kind of figure you still occasionally find in a counter display box (but on a bottom shelf or in a wire 'pocket money' rack) for 25p-each or something like that; I don't know if that's how Peter encountered them? They're made from a very dense ethylene or a polypropylene?

Negotiation; Pirate style - The Ja-Ru guys divvy-up the spoils of their last voyage with all the decorum you'd expect of such fine and well-bred gentlemen of . . Lurrrnin'; Ah-Harrr!

T is for Two Toy Ambulances

Shot these two up at Sandown just over a week ago, I guess one's about 1:48th scale, the other about 1:55?

Mettoy Playcraft . . . sorry; Mettoy Playthings (!) produced this, which although not part of the large hospital play set, would nonetheless look good delivering casualties to the main entrance. A tin-plate floor holds the fly-wheel motor, which is set forward in the cab in the manner of Wells' and Brimtoy's little lorries.

If it was part of the big hospital range, it would have the same stretcher, but it doesn't, having instead a chunky thing which seems to be designed with robustness in play, rather than realism, as its starting-point.

The box cleverly allows for the selling of a police van as well, by the simple expedient of folding the ambulance flaps in first to lay the police ones over the top. As kids we were often threatened with the 'Black Maria' (pronounced Mer-Rye-Er) if proving a tad over-exuberant or disobedient, and I always wondered what it meant, a throwback to a different age - I think!

Marked HP, this is a pretty standard piece of generic push-&-go Hong Kong tat (and TAT may be the operative word!), being a VW camper-van, given ambulance stickers on white polymer, the yellow 'council' beacon-light suggests the likely nature of other versions in the range!

Cheers to Mercator Trading for letting me photograph them. Fancy new banner Adrain?!

P is for Polish People like Plasticom?

We looked at a couple of these a while ago I think, but I thought I'd bring them all together, although there is a problem getting the images from Konrad Lesiak in Poland to Hotmail via the Wibbly Wobbly Way, so I have had to blow them up on-screen and then screencapcha them to work on, but they get across what they need to.

I have one of these which we have looked at before (as an unknown - reproduced below), but here are a couple of far more useful ones than my cornucopia blower (or whatever he's called!); both copies of Elastolin poses.

They have different bases from the Plasticom Soldabar figures originating in Belgium, with their squared-off corners and a flat-edge.

Konrad has painted a couple-up in a 'toy soldier' style and they look all the better for it, his blower (cornier?) has the same hunched appearance as mine, which I put down to mould shrinkage last time, I'm glad to see it's how it should be - one less figure on the 'wants' list!

A similar base is seen on the pink GI, possibly a piracy of a Spanish figure (these lollypop figures are all copies of something!), but the Airfix Japanese clone has the squarer-cornered base of the Romans, with the collar of the Plasticoms, but on a longer base? It looks like progression of design or evolution, as much as different makes?

These look much more like the usual Plasticom figures, two new poses, one ex-Britains the other Starlux I think? But the bases are a little smaller than my main sample (and below), rounder than the ovals on mine.

Then we find two lightly different ones; with a radius-edge to the poodle's base, the other having a sealed-cone rather than the usual collar. He's also a copy of an Eastern European flat, as you might expect to find in Poland!

These are the Belgian figures issued by Plasticom, as Soldabar lollies, and we have looked at the two Frenchies recently, but I thought I'd get all the additions together in one shot. You can see from the sticky remains in the lower shots that the figure appears to have been presented as the handle, with a boiled-sweet type sugar-candy lump of some kind hanging below, probably anchored in the hole/collar. And note that they have longer bases than the polish figures.

There's an addition to the additions! And my 'Cornelius' chap - unpainted, again. Answering my own question from the Buried Treasure post the other day; I guess all these figural confectionary 'handles' were phased-out for the choking risk?

And thanks to Konrad Lesiak for the polish figures.

M is for Most Marvellous Model Marx Made!

I posted a 'Best Toy Ever' article quite soon after the Blog began (Triang Battle Game), then a few years later I tripped myself-up by posting 'Best Toy Ever' again! The Britains Land-Rover long-wheelbase 'technical' on that latter occasion, the other day I suggested something was 'Best Something Ever', and have already forgotten what, while ". . . too cool for school!" has become a common trope here; so it's obvious that 'Best' is subjective and depends on a number of variables, of which - how you're feeling that day is as important as any other reason!

Today's post limits the criteria to one maker, so you have to believe the claim of the author, and therefore, without further ado I give you a guest post; in his own words, Brian Berke's . . .
Most Brilliant Marx Toy Ever!

In 1971 I owned a real 1960 Austin FX4 taxi (YYX 790) it had a 2.2 diesel engine coupled to a Borg Warner 35 automatic transmission.

The vehicle was incredibly slow and loud. It was purchased as a transition vehicle between an Austin FX3 taxi and a hoped for Beardmore taxi that was still licensed and wouldn't be available for another year. Life didn't turn out that way.

I bought this toy taxi and it wasn't until I opened the box and tried it with a battery that I appreciated how brilliant it was.

As the leaflet explained, use one battery with the metal plate and the cab crawled along making as much noise as the real thing. No other toy was ever as realistic in operation as the real thing. Usually anything battery powered shoots off at a scale speed of 200 mph

The detail of the model from hood ornament to chrome hub caps was accurate; the colour plastic is all that let it down. It was about the same size as the Tri-ang version which was unpowered.

Brian also included the instruction sheet, which is useful as I have definitely seen that tin plate in dealers junk-trays in the past, now I know what it is.

And I would add that I'm sure at lest one company had metallic mauve taxis when we went to London as kids in the late-1960's/early-1970's, they were mostly black, but one company had white ones, there were the Evening Standard striped ones (orange, black and white chevrons, like the delivery vans), and the odd 'British Racing Green' one, but I'm sure there were some in this colour? As far as the toy goes, I saw a battered one in bright red at Sandown the other day.

It is pretty lovely isn't it? The Crescent berserker says 1:24th'ish? So - what's your favourite 'Best', and would you like to share it here, with a few pictures and a bit of blurb?

C est por Cavallo Del Cromoplasto Lucca

A box-ticker and no mistake! Fury - Horse of the West as he was known in the 'States; licensed to ATV in London and sub-licensed from them to Cromoplasto as a tie-in to the series on Prima TV; an Italian (Free) TV station.

It's a horse . . . 60mm . . . 'ish? Ethylene?

From Wikipedia: "Fury, known in Italy as Fury and later as Furia horse of the West, is an American television series broadcast ... from 1955 to 1960 The Italian title comes from the words of the acronym, in the USA the series was renamed "Brave Stallion" in subsequent editions."

Furia? He was absolutely Lividia!

What was it about the 1950's and early '60's we had at least three dogs, a kangaro, a dolphin, a lion with glasses, a monkey or two, Black Beauty and 'Furia' - "What's that, today's talking animal? Little Billy's trapped down the old mine shaft?" and if it wasn't talking animals it was those nausiating kids getting in the way- in Wild West gun-towns, helicopter doctors, Foreign Legion forts, fire-stations,
buggering about with railways . . . but then she went walkabout and got her kit-off . . . Result!

S is for Sandown Park

I've never really done a follow-up from Sandown, which I attend pretty regularly, but here's one!

O-my-god- it's-early-o'clock. The 'car-boot' on the steps before the show, there's a strange milling around period at some shows and at Sandown that's been used by a few dealers to set-up boxes of stuff on the terraces and get a few deals under their belt before the doors open!

While others try to save five minutes (on an seven+ hour day?) by blocking the entrances with their stock!

'Big Ticket' items; I don't often mention money, it's filthy stuff at the best of times, but I think this lot came to thirty-three quid, which is pretty reasonable. We looked at the blow-moulds yesterday, the Airfix knight should be on the Airfix Blog by the time I post this, the three Mertens will join the stack, but we'll look at two of them soon.

The three Hong Kong vehicles will be held for a while as they are all destined to be compared to things - or Blogged with things - currently in storage; The friction-motor army-lorry (possibly TAT, but unmarked) is half Pyro/Kleeware and half Dinky/Blue Box so needs to be compared with them and they were all Blogged early in the Blogs history.

The rocket-launcher is lovely, an all ethylene copy of the Crescent die-cast vehicle, with copies of the Lone Star launcher and a Corgi rocket! I do have the die-cast, so we'll put them side-by-side one day, while the motorbike will be saved for a large-scale bike post.

A big-bag from Gareth (1) which he didn't charge me for (thanks Gareth!) and two tubs (5) likewise from Adrian (thanks Adrian!), with a sad tale attached - see below. (2), (3) and (4) were things purchased around the show and (6) was the floor-sweepings at the end of the show!

Initial sort of Gareth's bag, a few useful bits hidden in there, an Elastolin roman copy needing paint-stripper, some interesting bits hidden in the animal pile, a teeny Tiger-tank from a board game - I guess? Some more ME109 bits for the bag of comic-giveaway aircraft we looked at a while ago, trees (you can never have too many trees!), a 1970's monster'saur, Kinder bits, Poky Man type things, Noah figures - all good!

A bag of animals I bought; highlights include the bendy gorilla! Isn't it typical, we've only just done bendy things on the Blog (thrice with follow-ups!) - so he'll go in the long-term wait queue, but it's a decent enough shot for now?

The comic animals were on Moonbase a while ago and have since turned-out to have been Imperial tub-sold, although I know I have two (different) magazine add's for them, both from the 'States, both from the late 1950's/early 1960's, also as you start to study them, you realise there are four (?) types/sets!

Two cereal premiums and a green Merit camel add value, while the HK pile includes Blue Box, Arco and some sub-piracy crud!

A 50p bag I got for the guardsman and the piano eraser, although the Dinky copies will be useful, I've already got them in the Picasa queue, and I'm not going to re-do the photographs for two new figures! [Quickly checks Picasa; I've got a yellow digger, but photographed a green driller, need to paint-strip the red one anyway!]

Another; more of those unpainted pink versions of the Tri-Ang HO-gauge railway accessory figures we looked at ages ago now. There's evidence of marbling in some of these.

Adrian's tub and a bunch of HK copies of MPC 40mm knights which appear to have been factory painted, the rest of it is grist-to-the-mill HK small scale and a bit of Blue Box.

But it appears these came as shrapnel in farm/zoo auction lots the other day, and I have the sorry task of reporting the passing of Dave Scrivener.

I didn't know him well enough to do a full obituary, but he had been a regular eMailer and provided photographs of several nice items for the blog, a few of which languish in the Composition page, unpublished.

I don't know if his passing is known to the STS Forum people, but if not perhaps someone could let them know, as I can't log-in there at the moment and he was a regular contributor to the forum.

It appears he died round about Christmas/the New Year, maybe more recently? But the sobering lesson to all collectors it that his collection, which I believe was of importance, has been broken-up, auctioned (poorly lott'ed, poorly described, poorly estimated) or otherwise disposed of, and lost as far as a group of knowledge is concerned.

Indeed knowing how old farm and zoo buildings look to the uninitiated (especially all the inter-war stuff with nailed wood and straw roofs, chicken-wire and sawdust), I suspect a lot of it has been trashed. I know he had done important work on early farm and zoo buildings, civilian hollow-cast and latterly; early British plastic including military and it's a crying shame that that knowledge and the collection of buildings has just gone.

Glad I got to chat with you Dave and sorry you're gone. I know you wouldn't have bothered painting HK knights that badly, and I know you would have kept one of each pose/colour 'for the archive', so will keep them likewise - with your name on them; nice find Dude!

Found on the floor after the show - it's all useful!

The lesson being: you MUST have easily-found, clear, concise instructions for your collection and any archive; on what to do with it, re. disposal, should you cease to have a living interest in it.

I know this is a regular thread-topic on the War Gaming Forums, but those conversations tend to be concerned more with the value of the vast armies, or the faff presented to those left to deal with the bulky stuff, but with a vintage collection it's about how to keep it together, or indentify the - sometimes financially-valueless - rarities.

It's about ensuring filed 'paperwork' is reunited with the relevant objects, or objects with their boxes, before sale or onward disposal, or that a part-set on display, or on the 'lab desk' goes back with its other parts; it's about describing the stuff properly, if it is to go to auction, or making sure beneficiaries are named.

Dave was about my age and happily chatting-away a year ago, I don't know what happened (I have an idea, but that's private), and the belief that it won't happen to you is no excuse for not leaving a few notes about the collection for your executers, relatives or landlord.

B is for Big Blow-Molded Boys

Biggest purchase at Sandown Park was these three, found on Steve Vickers table, I had to have them; A) because they are so different from the run-of-the-mill 54/60mm stuff, and B) because I need enemy for the commoner Soviet Era Russian toy soldiers in a similar style.

Made in Hong Kong, and presumably sold as beach-toys, probably with a large jeep or truck type thing, one of them is quite clearly General George C Scott . . . err . . . S Patton!

All around 135mm (just over 5") and blow-moulded to a reasonably substantial thickness, they nevertheless have a few thin areas at the boot-tips having been blown from the helmet end . . . Ooh-err missus!

 

Compared with 5 and 6½-inch Russians of the same era, the Russians are more solid mouldings, although also hollow, I suspect these are produced by what is known as rotary moulding, like large pieces of play-equipment, agricultural sprayer tanks or traffic barriers and such-like (road-side salt or sand boxes) the walls being much thicker and having no thin-spots. They also hold greater detail than yer'average blow-mould.

From behind; the Russian figures are from a much bigger range, with historical and naval subjects, and they come in gorgeous colours, rich reds, purples and greens, Chinese orange, and I have a sailor in storage in a nice shade of malachite green in the storage unit. There is a set of Russian ones in the same type of blow-moulding as these GI's, but they have funny little disc-bases on.

Three against three will do for now, and I have a large fireman in a similar style somewhere!

The one in the middle looks a bit like a young (Deer Hunter) Christopher Walken? Aren't they brilliant! Steve's got a couple left.

C is for Chariot

Except some bloddy Brexiteer has obviously pulled the wheels off this one, and - apparently - has no plan for getting them back-on again!

Brian Berke sent me these, and I shot into the attic to look for the riders I knew I had, as I have some very different paint treatments of the divers, however, it was only after I'd failed to find them in either the 'Divers' box or the 'New additions - 20th C' box that I realised they must be in storage with my mini-sub, which doesn't have a box, so we will probably return to these guys one day; in the meantime just enjoy Brian's pic's of a superb set:

Lone Star's 2-man Midget Submarine S15, possible contender for best toy ever, definitely best bath-toy ever!

Y is for Your Author!

I thought it was about time you caught a glimpse of me! Just call me big'ed!

My brother looks to be about 6/12-months old, so this was taken roughly 50 years ago! Like the Brexiteers recently; I found it incredibly easy to rip the wheels off the bus . . . I think it's a Corgi? As is the tractor?

And - as the Brexiteers are now discovering; getting the wheels back on the bus is not so easy, especially when you have no plan, no plan and . . . NO PLAN! Fuckwits! And every single one of them has a different idea about what they think they were voting for, 17 million different ideas for a backward-looking paradise, most of which - it has to be said - involve a bit of casual racism, intolerance or plain stupidity!

No, this isn't the forthcoming rant either; it's just me trying to get me'wheel back on again!

Although, I notice the person the Rant'll be directed against has just been removed from the thread where he managed to slag-off or insult Engineer Basevitch, Plastic Warrior magazine  and Weston Toy Soldiers - in one paragraph!

N is for New Arrivals III - Star Wars

After yesterday's waffle, I can keep this short, especially as I'm somewhere else! While I was back at the Toysaurus, I picked up the last of the reduced for clearance Micro machines from Hasbro . . . these are they!

These are the only other sets with figures as far as I know - I did get a look at a transforming head play set in Basingrad last Friday and they do have 'unique' figures but I'm not paying what they're asking for them, even on clearance!

This is all the figures, or figural I know of in the recent line, less the 3/4 in the play sets.

I bought one of the blind-bags; just for archive.

But . . . I also weakened and got the die-cast 'First Order Snowpeeder' in Action Fleet scale, it was a quid less than I thought, and isn't it nice, they don't have hand-held, wirless, mobile technology far, far, away, but they do have flying machine-gun nests - gotta' love the Military Idustrial Complex sometimes!

Comparison between the two.

 

N is for New Arrivals Part II - Animals

Having had a dinosaur post a while ago, then another in Rack Toy Month, I can't believe we're having a third so soon, but that's how the stuff comes in!

Monochromatic erasers from WH Smith, 2-quid isn't going to break the bank and they are bigger than the Paperchase ones although the 'kerthunkersaurus' is a poor sculpt.

These are also Smith's, at 3 for 2 and seven or eight sculpts, I chose three contrasting ones including a much better kerthunkersaurus - I must get the proper name of the poor thing! Here credited to Keycraft, these have been in boxed-sets of several animals in The Works for a year or so now under HGL (Grossman)'s moniker I think? But in such presentation - well outside my budget.

[Note - loading this just know (last Wednesday morning) I'm also downloading Target set images from Brian Berke which look like they might contain the same sculpts, will check at home!]

The Toysuarus was offering these at 79p each, well it would have been rude not to, so I got one of each! The Beetles are the ones we've already seen in two packagings at the beginning of Rack Toy Month (or even a few days before?), the Dinosaurs are yet another set of smallies, and I'm going to get them all back-out and compare soon, just for the hell of it, so they stayed in the bag for now, which left the frogs.

I was going to Blog them with the MTC set the other day, but they are in fact different sculpts, being three poses in various colours while the MTC's are all the same [four-ridged back] design.

The reason I went to the Toysaurus was to get these (also 79p), as I'd said they were the ones above when we looked at them last time, but they weren't! A nice lesson in false memory - hours after the event, because I'd forgotten the other set and conflated the two when posting the others, and mentioning I'd seen them in glow-in-the-Dark plastic in Toys R Us!

In fact, the Toysaurus had the normal ones in the party bags, and these from Grossman are actually new sculpts. This is why one should try to use maybe, probably or possibly if the stuff isn't actually on the table in front of you...I think?!

The ladybird is very similar, and while I'm sure standard painted versions exist somewhere, the spots on this one are textured within the sculpt, rather than reliant on paint.

Look! Charity Shop! 50p! Invicta Plastics megasaurus for the British Museum. Herein lies a funny story, well; it might only be ironic?

When I was a small-scale only collector (and a limo-driver), I used to have early-morning runs out to Gatwick or Heathrow on a Sunday; exec's going off to the 'States or wherever for Monday meetings, and I would do the car Boot sales on the way back*, sometimes hitting them as the traders were setting-up - still had to pick up the crumbs left by earlier early-birds like Collectakit's Pat Lewarne though!

Anyway, if there was large-scale stuff, cheap enough, I'd drop it round a mates house and he was always giving me small-scale lots so fair was fair (and he's given me far more over the years - JB for those who know), one day I got the Invicta set in full, in a BM box (lovely set, lovely sculpts, lovely colours), about 15? Maybe 16 in the set, there might have been one missing, but I remember making it up from spares on JB's lawn in the sun.

Fast forward 20 years, finds I'm buying them one at a time...and I had the whole lot in my hands! Still; it's more fun this way and I have got a couple of the smaller ones already in storage!

*It was a Mercedes V-Class, not a stretch - try parking one of those at a car-boot sale! Although I did drive Stretched-limos for a while too, horrible things, horrible customers - except the couple on a Wedding Anniversary who got me stage-side at Robby Williams and gave me £20 for a fish-supper and coke!

These were also a charity shop buy, 50p the lot, they're very small and each has its name on the belly, a definite irony as there is a kerthunkersurus here, but I didn't take note of it and they're in the attic now . . . what am I like!

It was a toss-up between ' I - Figures' or 'II - Animals' for this one, but 'figures' already had 8 images so Peter goes here! Paul Lamond Games, Charity Shop, 99p and it's been a while since we had some paper/card flats on the Blog, I must remedy that properly - he says cryptically!

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Apropos the date: Don't forget its Sandown Park toy fair tomorrow - if you're at a loose-end? 400-odd tables of other people's old playthings . . . I'm on the lookout for a motor for an HO-gauge Tri-Ang LT tube train!