E is for Eye Candy - Sort Of!

I think we've seen this before, in passing, but I took it apart and cleaned it of a lifetime's kitchen grime, a while ago and seem to have taken far too many photographs, which need to be out of Picasa and on the Wibbly Wobbly Way!

 

 

Obviously you need a kettle with the right kind/diameter of spout, and when the water starts to boil, the inner sliding component moves and the bird starts whistling! Before modern automatic cut-offs (which work the same way - pressure, try getting one to work if you haven't closed the lid properly, it'll boil dry!), this was an ingenious solution, to a minor problem!

T is for Tilnar Art

Something completely different now, chunky 'arty' aluminium, but we don't get many chances to get the Aluminium Tag dusted off, so it's overdue! I saw these Tilnar Art products, at the Spring Fair in Birmingham, back in early February, and loved the fact that they had the same deep, metallic lustre as those Jada figures I like, so here they are!

 

Various products, including dinosaurs and penguins.

 

Longhorn Cattle, or not so shaggy Highlanders!

 

Deer.

 

Also drilled for keychains.

 

Love these, deep, almost glassy-red Elephants, in various sizes!

 

Art Deco'esque Elephants!

A blue family of the other design, just visible in the background. 

 

Puffins.

 

relief-flat Angels.

 

I had a chat with the chap behind Tilnar, and it seems to be pretty-much a one-man band, although there were staff, so a growing enterprise, and by using recycled aluminium, helping to try and save the planet!

Obviously aimed at the gift and tourist markets, expect to find them in little bijou boutiques about the place, or gift-shops, while on your travels.

F is for Fanssi

Another Toy Fair piece from Kensington Olympia, these waxed aggregate toys were something I think we covered first in One Inch Warrior, about 25 years ago, but it may have been PW itself? Anyway after that launch (Magic Sand I think?), there have been several lookie-likes, and now this 'magic snow', which I have to say felt really weird, it's basically crumbs of foamed rubber, and it's clammy, but fun!

 

Obviously the attraction - as far as the Blog's concerned - is that there are two sets of arctic animals; one lot on foot, with an igloo, and an Asian tiger! And a set of penguins, with a polar bear. Imported by Teleview Limited, and out there now, try Zoo and Wildlife Park gift shops?

The Fanssi website doesn't seem to be working, but Teleview are here;

https://televiewmarketing.com/gb/

T is for Two - Peterkin

When we looked at the Peterkin's I both purchased and shelfied in a garden centre near Borden, back in the autumn, I mused that there must be cats, if - as there were - they had a set of dogs, and sure enough, in another garden centre I found the 'missing' cats, and a set of birds, so grabbed both!

 

Cats on the left, birds on the right!

 

The birds can stay in their bag, they look OK and it's reminded me I should pop-up to Birdworld and see what they've got in their gift shop, it must be 50-plus years since I was last there! 

 

The cats are a bit disappointing to be fair, a bit lacklustre, particularly the tabby-cats, although half an effort has gone into the grey, but the two gingers are very poor, while I'm not sure what species the one in the top left corner is supposed to be, but, still, cats is cats!, and under the poor decoration (the Calico is the best, I think), they are characterful sculpts!

T is for Two - Freebies!

Except at £4, 5, or 6.99, these modern kid's periodicals aren't exactly cheap, so whatever they Sellotape to the cover is not entirely 'free', but it brings down the unit cost, and none more so than this rather generic mag' I found back in November - Everything Jungle!

Two stories and forty-four stickers, sort of explains why we are going extinct, doesn't it? Sort of explains why we aren't rioting in the streets over the 300,000+ excess deaths of our loved-ones in the last four years, why we aren't protesting outside No.10 about the closure of 700 libraries? When you compare Look & Learn, World of Wonder or Tell Me Why to what kids get given these days, it rather explains everything.

 

But let's not worry about that boring real-life stuff, we've got free toys! I'm not sure if you'd call the upper cat a Leotah, or a Cheepard, but comparison with the other big cats will eventually clear up that attempt at a lame joke, by forcing it into one bag or the other, and for either cat it's quite well decorated for a Chinese generic.

 

As is the tiger, 90% of all tigers ever, having being pretty poor in the decoration department, over the years (and I include all generations/materials of Britains in that damming statement), obviously Schleich/Papo it 'aint, but better than most, it is. A reasonable [baby - if they are in-scale] elephant makes up the trio.

But then they gave us these as well, Iwako style/rip-off, plug-together erasers, two parrots, and - more amazingly - two designs, bargain! Kennedy Enterprises go in the Tag list and everyone is happy . . . aren't they?

L is for Last of the Season's Best to You!

I like to post something before midnight, when I get in from work, but I've been faffing about with a Carbonara, washing-up and vape-batteries, so, what can I say, mere culpa! Anyway, here's a quick shot of the items that went on the tree, new for 2015, which we may have had here already, which makes my self-convicted crime even worse!

Just in time, as they must all come down tomorrow, and that's Christmas for another year, I painted over the mawkish message on the bear, so he was just carrying a parcel, the smallies came from TKMaxx, Paperchase or Tiger, but I can't remember, they've all been doing them for the last few years, but none of them had them this year . . . well Paperchase have gone, of cource! All very useful for filling gaps at the end, and they leave the tree rainbow bright! The missing one was bright pink and went with the 'Gay Tree' stuff!

The two little glass ones are birds, and the other four were charity-shop baubles I think, all glass, with the clear one having sort of glass 100's & 1000's glued on. The nights are drawing out, the shortest day has been and gone, Easter-eggs are on sale, and soon it will be summer, then there's Christmas to look forwards too!

D is for Ducks, Dogs, Deer, Dairy and Dobbin Dudes!

The penultimate post of Jon Attwood's parcel brings us to the domestic animals and farm stock, although some pesky penguins snuck-in under the classification radar while my back was turned, changing batteries!

Dogs; we looked at an overview of collie-dog sheep dogs a while ago, yet here appear to be several new sizes/sculpts/makers! In addition to the other perennial favourite, scot's terriers or 'Scottie Dogs'! The Alsatian, the brown one (pointer?) and the Airedale (?) look like they belong to a 'toob set'?

 

The penguins are shooing the poultry back to the yard for bedtime! Most of the front row are also from a toob or rack-toy set I think, and there's a fair bit of this stuff around, all to be sorted-out at some point in the future! The exception, is the white goose, who I don't recognise, but is polyethylene, and with a bit of age I think, so early British or US production?

 

Oooh, is that a Gem lamb? Just what's needed for Mary and Bo'Peep as they are always losing thiers, or chucking them in the air! 

 

Mary had a little lamb

It's fleece was white as snow

And everywhere that Mary went

The lamb was sure to follow

So she led it to the abattoir

I'm sure you can guess the rest?

Now Mary's having cutlets

For her roasted Sunday best!

 

Randolf the red-nosed big sheep and other China'mals, the two deer and - possibly - the grey sheep also being toob-types?

 

Piggy-wigs! Four China'mals and a marbled Blue Box!

Onkey-donks, there is a post of Donkeys in the long queue, a couple of 'lazy-post' group shots, like the Rhino ones, which have risen to become the most popular post ever? And a few more have come in, so I might do another group shot and get them out over Christmas?

Mookeys; or is it Mookies, I don't think I've ever given it much thought! I like the two large ones, modern Chinese production, but rather nice sculpts I think? The two littlies are also China, (toob set again), as is the brown one, while the Guernsey/Jersey is an earlier Hong Kong jobbie, with Blue Box DNA, and the calf down the bottom is from our own Crescent Toy Co.

You may recall the mass of horses in Jon's previous parcel, so these must be the escape committee, found hiding in a wooden glider? The two down the bottom are interesting, and I'd take any information given, they are odd poses, almost complaining about being shown the load, or being backed into the load, and the paint looks commerical, but the scale isn't model-railway, so I'm wondering if they're from maybe one of the many fund-raising models for the RNLI over the years? As a lifeboat-towing team, something like that, circus animals? [later the same day; Corgi Circus - tag added, cheers Jon!]

 

The really big one is a dressage horse from Schleich, with the small one to it's right being from one of those Revell/Pyro/Life-Like/Merit wagon kits I think, and we saw the Blue Box Japanese officer's mount the other day! It's all grist to the mill, and I thank Mr Attwood for them, as always.

F is for Follow-up - Marx Birds!

An unscheduled post, in that I wasn't planning one, but an old friend came round while I was gardening, and a coffee and beer later, and quick trip over to the new flat to show him, and I've lost the light, so the gardening has been halted early and will be finished tomorrow, just hope the beer doesn't affect my spelling! Or should that be 'effect'?!!

 

I mentioned these the other day, they have been in Picasa for a while now, and it was clear the contents were all muddled-up when I shot them, so I'll just chuck them up as a box-ticker, and to confirm that that one the other day was also a Marx bird I think, same design, not sure anyone else did anything quite like these?

Clues on the packaging suggest at least three tranches/print-runs for the boxes, probably only one main run for production of the models, with an earlier and later issue (red or black text for the bird names) and a UK specific issue (/UK codes)?

Simple pre-coloured kits of 5-7 pieces, depicting relatively common species, and a little card with a water-colour sketch of the bird (if you want to repaint in slightly more realistically?) with a thumbnail biography on the reverse. Box-scale but maybe between 1:6th/1:8th, for the smaller tit-birds at least? The owl probably around 1:12th.

 

Similar 'match-box' packaging to the Zoo/Wild Animals (which explains my Hippo being in two parts!), as copied by the lesser Hong Kong sourced stuff from Shackmann, they must have been fun!

Now fully covered on Moonbase, via Paul the Antipodean, although it's probably the sixth time since Christmas one of the Paul's have used my Posts for their follow-ups! It's getting boring now guys, 23,000 toy companies to Blog from and you need to keep following me? Sign you're running out of original copy, isn't it? And it's not his work, it's everybody else's efforts! Tedious; but there's that bell-curve, in the background!

C is for a Cat and a Canary!

Recent purchase from I can't remember where, eBay maybe, or some stuff I got off a mate a while back (lovely parcel from Brian today, and another from Jon last week!), but it's a very early piece of plastic, a novelty whistle from Combex.

Described by The Toy House over the Pond as a flute (inset image, bottom right), it's more of a swannee-whistle, with the canary (stuck in the cat's tummy with a hot wire) sitting over the vent, producing a trilling over the whistle, itself varying in pitch as you push/pull the piston.

The cat appears to have Godzilla's tail!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 7. Animals

Not a dinosaur this year, not a one, but it's not the show for dinosaurs, so that's hardly surprising, and a lot of these were in the donations, but there were some nice purchases too, so without further ado;

Mold-a-Rama Elephant, I like Elephants as those of you who've been here for a while will know, and I've known about Mold-a-Rama for years, but never had an example, as it's quite an American-specific thing, although it's also touristy, so a few should make their way over here from time to time? Mine came from Milwaukie County Zoo as you can see!

 

Having now found one, the first thing is how big they are (that's two of my fingers poking through in the bottom-right shot), and, because I'd always thought they were smaller, I'd always assumed they were solids and possibly some kind of wax (of the glue-gun type), to be able to be produced 'while you wait' (these are made in coin-operated machines at various sights and venues all across the US), and when you read about them, it usually just says "plastic", with no technical details!

The fact is, they are heavy blow-moulds, probably from a 'slug' or 'plug' of polyethylene which will look something like a 2" mortar round, Sodastream gas-bottle or extreme sex-toy . . . a round-bottomed bottle, they look like a round-bottomed bottle! This needs to be sized/weighted to whichever mould is in the machine.

 

The machines are changed from time to time, for instance; the silver Seahorse has been swapped for a pink Flamingo today (yesterday now), in the same Milwaukee County Zoo! And each mould, or whole machine (sometimes they change-out the whole unit) will require a different plug to rapidly produce the model (from a kept-hot tool?) while the punter waits, without filling the machine with flash or other waste.

 

So not exactly rare (although they were getting so before their recent renaissance I think?), but it's nice to have one at last, and there will be a greater rarity of those marked from now-defunct venues, one-off issues or long-gone events/exhibitions . . . I believe some of the dinosaurs are particularly sought-after. All the remaining machines however do date from the 1960's, so there is a finite life left to them, they won't last forever!

 

Inanimate objects are also featured, along with seasonal (Halloween and Christmas) items, there's plenty more here; they have a website!

Various birds came in, both purchases and donations, with a nice gull (or poor pelican sculpt) which might be Spanish or Portuguese, a Japanese novelty rocker in blow-moulded celluloid, it has a set-in weight to keep it upright, and predates Weebles by at least a decade-and-a-half!

A similar floating duck and one of the Marx Miniature Bird Model-Kits I think; the green one with separate wings - another post which has been in the queue since . . . well, September 2017! So I'll try to pull them out as a follow-up

I can't remember if I need the Vitacup reindeer still, I know I've had a broken one for ages, but I may have alleviated that problem some time ago, and I fear this one might be 'good one number 3' now! They all came together and mostly need a clean!

 

What can I say . . . board-game pieces at the infant level? I'll keep one for the 'sample'!

 

Two nice groups, on the left we have Tudor Rose in polystyrene, I have a decent sample, but these were clean, and I'm trying to get all colour variants of each animal, and don't carry wants lists at shows, so just grab them if they are affordable.

 

On the right a small group of composition animals, who seem to be all babies - calf and foals, and seem to be too good to be Brent (and we have looked at them in the past), so I'm at a loss, but they may be French?

A mixed bunch of horses from across the day's acquisitions include an early British (far left, Gemodels?), a flocked Cherilea (?) behind the probably New Ray foal pair, we've seen the white version before here. The kicking foal is Cherilea, I used to think it was Hilco, but the two are related so . . . and the Crescent foal on the far right. The red-and-gold one is probably a Hong Kong/China knock-off from a fantasy set (?), while the hard plastic foal with airbrushed tan is a mystery too.

 

A whale-tail pencil top! A third of a camel (Italeri or Heller WWII Western Desert kit, or Historex?) and a polar bear which - from the feet - looks like he goes with a construction-brick set. The two prehistoric mammals are Safari, and big-cats are big cats! The bags behind are all those smallies from Blue Box et al., with the odd Corgi and Bachman.

The polar bear from another angle, he's not Lego, as far as I'm aware, theirs is hard plastic and graphically simplified, but I don't think it can be Mega Bloks either as we've seen theirs here in the past, and it was different, or was that a yeti? Might be Mega Bloks then? But there's a lot of these improved Hestair-Kiddybrick issuers out there, and he could just be kinder with construction-toy stud-sized holes in his feet!

 

Odds; the rubber dog in grey on the right needs a brand, the Airfix pointer/greyhound/lurcher means I now have colour variants/duplicates of all six of the dogs, a Marx Miniature Masterpiece farm calf is mentionable, with a couple of Hong Kong's behind.

 

This is a bit of fun, in need of both sorting and - eventually - some ruthless recycling, but as an image, there's a story here I think. They all came in one of the donation bags, and are clearly someone's attempt to build a set of ammunition pack-mules for a wargames army or diorama, after the old Britains Hollow-cast set of British/Colonial mountain artillery!

Thanks to all for everything last month; Adrian Little., Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans, Brian Carrick and Trevor Rudkin.