A is for Another One

Coming so soon after the recent expanding of the envelope with a B17 Flying Fortress (erroneously described as a B29 at the time), in part in answer to Collectors Gazette's apparent attempt to précis this Blog's work on the range over the years, comes an actual B29 Super Fortress!

Not exactly a rack-toy (yes, this August has been a bit of a wash-out on the RTM front), but I bet it was cheaper than a bag of chips back in the day! Another believed to be Zang for Timpo/Model Toys composition (Timpolin) aircraft model to add to the previous post's listing;

• Boeing B17 Flying Fortress
• Boeing B29 Super Fortress
  
• De Havilland Mosquito
• Gloster Whittle
  
• Hawker Hurricane (or Supermarine Spitfire?)
• Horsa Glider 
• Lockheed P-38 Lightning
  

Alphabetical this time, and new to blog, Internet and hobby, I think, what will turn-up next?

P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! Sci-Fi, TV & Movie

So, we reach the end of Chris Smith's latest donation, and while, obviously, toy soldiers/ceremonial, ancient/medieval, civilian and Wild West are the core of a collectors' stash, I always like this group for having some of the quirkier stuff, rarities and smaller production-run figures (even 'non-toy soldier'), and this lot was no exception!

 

A selection of Bluebird's Manta Force/Viper Squad and Exin Lines' Lego-likey astronauts, some arms missing, but the master sample will provide, or these chaps (and/or chapesses, they're all in suits) will donate!

A larger troll, a hard plastic, probably polystyrene, but could be a propylene polymer, robot type space warrior, who l;ooks quite recent/contemoray, but might not be, just clean! And a large PVC robot, who could be a specific character, I have a feeling I might have a smaller version in the plastic-pile somewhere?

A GLJ-Toyway astronaut, a Galoob Putty (?) from the Power Rangers franchise, a nice whitemetal Genie from some fantasy gaming range, an alien from Toy Story and a skeleton pencil-top guarding a keg of rum!

I think the Birdman is from Thunder Cats or He Man, while we saw the Star Wars Episode I/4 board game figures a while back, the daft lizard is from a recent Disney kid's thing, I believe, but is also a bendy and they have their own tub these days!

Have we seen these before? It's like all the cereal premiums, but in a soft PVC-type polymer. A mini Thunderbird 2, done here as a desk-toy hanger/fidget toy I think, but it could be flown in a Christmas tree, I wouldn't, I like my trees traditional, but many would, witness those Disney tree-hangers we looked at back in December, last year.
 

Speaking of Disney, one of the 7 Dwarfs, but not the usual set of generic cake-decoration/garden ornament ones (gardeners and musicians), although in the same two-polystyrene-halves, glued-together design, but a rather more obvious Disney character, I think Bashful, but could be Sleepy?

But back to the opening paragraph, and this was lovely, quirky as they come, and while I don't know how many pieces it left East Anglia in, Chris had put it in its own bag, so I'm assuming more than one, it arrived in five, one piece, being no more that a speck of dust, was ignored!

So, having had some success with the baking-powder/super-glue technique, recently, I prepared a station with a pad to soak up excess glue, a puddle of the same, some baking powder, a toothpick for applying glue and manipulating the white-mud, with a nail-file, filling-in for a snuff spoon! Once I'd begun, I remembered the applicator pen for Superglue Plastix, which helps speed everything up!

 

And a half-decent result was achieved! From the back it's a bit of a mess, as you would expect, but from the front it looks factory-fresh and ready to blast across the room from a sprung-loaded sucker-pad, although if I were to try, it'd disintegrate!

 

And, while cruder in the mirror-imaging than the previously found examples, it is another of the LB (Lik Be - it's so obvious when you give it some thought) knock-off's, given a less-robot, more-alien look, and raises the question of how many sculpts did they copy for the set, four, six, maybe three spacemen and three robots . . . only time can tell?

 

Many, many thanks to Chris for another fantastic parcel of odds, sods and unwanted's, those of you who know me, or who have followed the Blog for any length of time will know, I don't often wax lyrical about Britains or Timpo, Starlux or Elastolin, Marx or MPC, but rather tend to get excited by the ephemeral, quirky, oddities on the periphery of model-figure production, and it's all the stuff people save for me, give to me or donate to the blog which helps fill-in all the many missing links, such as the jumper-toy above. Thanks, Chris, much appreciated!

P is for Pet Shop Parade!

Not that close to the core subject here, but they ARE figural! Previously called Nose T' Tail Pet Supplies, I shot these in the window of Hook Pet Supplies a month or so ago, while taking my break one evening, and they're worth a post!

Cotton-balls and crochet, glued onto a wooden maquette/former, these may have been produced closer to home, and are in a different scale to the poultry below, most of which is life-size'ish.

 

These are all enamel-painted tin-plate, and probably from China, Vietnam or possibly the Philippines, but could just as equally be Indian, or even French (especially that last, filigree-pierced one), they like their cocks and hens there (no pun intended, it's their national symbol), and probably the sort of thing you'd go to a shop fitter's catalogue for, although, equally, TKMaxx can carry stuff like this in the homeware section?

 

This is closer to taxidermy, but the feathers are glued over a former, the eyes and beak plastic, and the wattle is red felt.

 

Just a bit of fun . . . I have seen giant - probably fibreglass - cows on the roof of a barn near Alton, and a large calf of similar construction in the yard of another farm nearby, which I keep meaning to shoot, if/when I do, they'll appear here too!

P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! Wild West

Nearing the end of the surprise box from Chris, and we find a Sobre, but more on that at the end of the post! Wild West, large scale, small scale, plastic, metal, cowboys, Native American Indians, horses, premiums and cartoony stuff . . . let's see what was in the box;

 

All interesting; the one on the left seems to be a soft plastic version of an earlier hard polystyrene premium, it's not the first time we seen them, Betterware used some (Mayer-Lippenhausen and Commonwealth) for their little salesman's envelope gifts, the Australian (and others) Nabisco Dinosaurs are another. This chap is from the Siku sculpts/set, supplied in two sizes, painted and unpainted, and various plastic colours to various European premium issuers, so, here, is probably via . . .

 

. . .  the Dutch DS Plastics, they show them in their catalogue - code 455, as some of the moulds they inherited from Siku.

The many Hong Kong copies of Timpo/Britains/Crescent swoppets are common as muck, two-a-penny and usually pretty poorly executed, although there are better ones, and whole ones attributable to their packaging are useful, these two in the middle are unusual for being among the better, and all-polyethylene, where usually some of the parts are PVC, the locating studs/holes have larger diameters too, while the chap on the end is from a US maker; Ideal, and is meant to be a Canadian trapper I think? I bet the trappers of both nations looked pretty similar and paid little heed to a line on the map!

Home-cast casting of an Indian on the left, probably a Schneider mould, what is likely a Lone Star Metallion in the middle (Pat Masterton), but other makers covered them and the paint throws you off, while the chap on the right is similar to others I have, but I don't think I've ever seen an attribution for them either as Western originals (Spain, France?) or as Hong Kong copies.

I know the one in the middle is from the Crazy Clown Circus of Frazer & Glass (F&G) now, but he got shot with his extended family, which included on the left a horse which was marked, but I can't remember if it was LIDO (I think so) or AJAX?, while the metallised 'standard' horse of the family, is new on me?

 

Obviously we have seen metallised foot figures from the 'set', in different sizes, so I guess he went with them, but I haven't found metallised riders yet? I'm guessing it should be Tudor Rose or at a stretch Kleeware, and one of the earlier iterations of them?

To which, we can add four of the polystyrene foot figures! The painted Crescent/Lido chap may be from one of the West germen pencil shapeners, as he has  alayer of glue on his base underside?

 

The chap in the middle is my first, of a set I've been after for years, and have already missed-out on a boxed set of, coincidentally, the only reason I know what he is, which is an Exin Wild West figure. They are cartoon-styled, very-much like the Lucky Luke premiums, and I'm sure that was no accident, as Comansi handled the latter and both are Spanish companies, seeped in Spaghetti Western culture at the time?

Five more of the Lone Star shooting game figures, I think we may have all poses in both colours now, and a lot of them have come from Chris over the last few years, so when I get them all together we will have another, closer look.

A small sample of small scale Blue Box, it's all grist to the mill, with two of the foot figures and a horse from Britians Swoppet sculpts, along with a stockade-fort section, copied from the Marx Miniature Masterpiece fort.

Sub-Giant piracies from Hong Kong - always useful!

A small group of damaged Minimodels 25mm's, they will go in the tub with the rest of the damaged ones against the possibility of me having a conversion session one day, as being polystyrene (the reason so many are found damaged) they are easy to cut, glue, sand and fill!

The figures Brian Berke remembered were in Lucky Bags back in the day, and lucky he did, as no one else had! The colour scheme remains pretty constant, with the Indians in the warm/hot colours and the Cowboys in the cold colours. And I think this sample balances out the bigger sample somewhat, which was getting a bit Indian-heavy!

There are new cowboy poses here, and the pose-count keeps growing, I think we may well end-up with about fifty, five-each mounted and up to 20 foot figure sculpts, per. 'side'? Some of the Euro-premium sets ran to similar numbers.

While this was a lovely surprise, a bagged Sobre, from Sobreplast, a name new to the Blog and the archive, if not the Hobby, an old kiosk toy, of more substance than the Montaplex type envelopes we usually look at here.

 

The figures/horses look to be Comansi copies, but they may be actual Comansi, until I can compare with the real-deal's, I won't know, but the wagon is not the Comansi one, so I suspect copies. A really nice 'sopresa', cheers Chris!

T is for Two BJ's!

Hey, it was bound to happen one day! Nearly halfway through Rack Toy month and this may be as good as it gets! Driving round Surry Hills and Hampshire Villages (God's own real country), I get to visit a lot of the corner shops, where there is mostly disappointment these days!

 

Those which haven't been taken over by the big-six's 'local' outlets are either in smaller chains or have done supply deals with one of the big six (Tesco seems to be in a lot), and few have a toy rack, but when they do, it's either BJ or Red Deer, while they still exist in some form, Grossman (HGL) and Cornelius (Play Write) have changed radically since Covid struck, and Halsall (HTI) is mostly in larger stores now, doing bigger toys, like the Teamsters I keep shooting in TKMaxx and B&M.

As well as mostly being Red Deer or BJ, when you find rack toys, the only useful ones are either those already seen here at Small Scale World, or dinosaurs! So, these are two of them! Single bagged animals in that hollow, two-parts-glued synthetic rubber . . .

 

 

 . . . and a set of the hollow clip-together polyethylene types . We last saw these as a trio, in a yellowish/mustard base polymer, and only three animals to a set, with similar accessories.

 

Close-ups of the two larger models, both sets are out there now, there are about five sets of BJ Toys dinosaurs out there, including the set of mini monochromatic ones we've seen here before now, and others we may have seen here? And I've seen a third model in the green bags since purchasing these two.

P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! The Animals

There's always some interesting animals in Chris's parcels, and this one was no exception, with all sorts of critters to look at, farm and zoo/wild, real and imagined, prehistoric and an invertebrate! So let's get stuck in and have a look at them.

These were very interesting, I've had a couple of cursory Google-serches for swappable-, plug-together- changeable- or multipart- Dinosaurs, with no luck, so if anyone recognises them, let the rest of us know in the comments, and they don't look to be that old, in the style of 4D Masters or similar? Fame Master do their lock-together 'jig-puzzle' types.

 

And you can see the complete one looks a tad fictional? While half a kerthunkersaurus and bits of three others, hint at a decent range, where the joining-points, doubling as points of articulation, have identical dimensions on the faces, so all the heads, tails, forelimbs and back-legs can be swapped . . . Intriguing!

These vinyl-like copies of Britains also look to be modern, and probably die-cast vehicle/play set accessories, they are scale reduced, but not by that much and would suit 35-45mm figures?

I may have some of these in storage, under unknown small scale animals, but don't recognise the specific sculpts here, and with two domestic breeds and a lion, probably Christmas cracker prizes from the budget end, and new to the Blog.

 

A mixture here! The swan looks to be an early polymer bath novelty, the hen is a Hong Kong copy of the Britains plastic version of their earlier lead one (legs always break!), and the dog is probably a Playmobil puppy?

 

The green cockerel is one of those dimestore things which I think several people had a stab at, while the black sheep is a US-made item I think, but I forget the maker. Next to the sheep is a Merit camel, with an Airfix sheep bottom left and a daft-looking dog I have no idea on!

Which leaves the hedgehog which has lost it's fur/spines, and I thought it was one I may have somewhere, in better nick, but I think I have a very similar wooden one, from which this may be a later copy, so when I do the hedgehogs, I'll have a comparison between the two!

I know I have these in the unknown section of the old small-scale collection (they're about the same size as the larger version of Matchbox horse), possibly different poses, or additional poses, but what's interesting about them is that they are mimicking sets of real ivory carvings from the 19th/early 20th century, which I think are Chinese in origin and may be connected to folklore or myth/legend?

My father had a set, which he must have brought back from the Far East, I don't know what happened to them, but I know a few legs were broken over the years. The purplish colouring of the manes points to Blue Box, Holly or New Maries? Various cows, rabbits and other animals from all three had the same 'brown'?

 

Another mix, which is all a bit more 'don't know'! The dino' is a party-bag thing, we have seen here before under a couple of brands I think, with another in the pipeline, and the penguin is a white-button novelty swimmer.

 

The elephant is a cracker-charm, the seal an older rack-toy bag figure I think, the lizard likewise but probably more contemporary, and the monkey from a more sizable infant toy of some kind (maybe Playmobil again?). The rhino goes with a set of hollow-bodied novelty animals, we did look at years ago, and I have no idea on the scorpion?

Four interesting pieces, not least of which is the squirrel cake-candle holder, which must be a previously unrecorded Gem or Festival piece, from the same line as the resting Fawn, which is more common, perhaps by coincidence, but which rases the question of how many sculpts were in the set, four, five, six maybe?

 

The Zebra is another possibly Playmobil, but seems scaled smaller, a foal, or another toy line? You can see he stands, or rears up on his tail, while the bear is another American piece I think and the hippo is a resin lump from Scotland!

 

I don't know what to make of these, but they are figural, if only from the neck-up, and novelty, which, given the amount of novelty, cartoonish or tourist stuff in the collection now, guarantees them a place, but they can't go with the cats, nor with the dogs, so they'll have their own sub-zone! But fun, and as with everything else on the page, a big thanks to Mr. Smith for sending them to me to share with you . . . any ideas?

 

Finger puppets of some kind, lolly-covers, badges missing the attachments? I should have shot them from other angles, behind, and with a sizer, it'll give me an excuse to look at them again one day, in the meantime they are about 50/60mm across.

G is for Gnomeville!

I was lucky enough to shoot the gnome Village at Chez Evans a few years ago, but following some natural event, they have moved to a new town, South-West of the old metropolis, and I got to shoot it the other day, so, a bit of fun . . . 

 

Overview

Lesbian gnomes, off the Pride!

Newer houses have eco-roofs!

Top right is the same house Peter sent me, to start my own Gnome house 

once I've settled somewhere!

Maybe the streets of London are paved with gold

or have they found a Roman horde?

I think this might be the posh-end of town?

Village centre!

Guardian Fairy!

 

Many thanks to Peter for letting me shoot the inner sanctum!