L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown Park, November 2024

Not much in this one, but I think we've seen some on combined posts over Christmas and the new year, some has gone in the long queue, as it was manufactured in the country of Trump's puppet-master, and we don't Blog them at the moment . . .

 

. . . and some more of the items in this folder were 'shot at' the show, rather than purchases, so I'll do them as separate posts, but there are a few bits of interest, so let's see some of what we got back in November;

A lovely Codeg (Cownan-de Groot) earth-mover, or wheeled shovel, it's marked-up to them, but would have been bought in from someone like Tudor Rose, Kleeware, Rafael Lipkin or another of the early users of polystyrene. The design is similar to one I have by 'believed to be' Manurba, and I've just picked-up a military one from Noreda, so a future comparison of plastic heavy-plant beckons from the archives! It's quite small, a nice OO-gauge railway-compatible piece

Seen before, and mentioned twice, I said last time we looked at these (https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/12/very-much-follow-up-to-this-old-post.html) I thought it had joined the stash, but obviously that was the Cheerio one! This has now joined the stash, so it is - following the language in the previous post - the six-and-a-half'th, with the KUM being the half!

 

A lovely flocked Timpo bison, given the passage of time, and the lack of packaging, we won't know if it was flocked for Timpo or by Wend-Al or someone for zoo gift-shops, and we probably never will!

 

These were fun, and odd, they would seem to be knock-off's of Tom & Jerry, the 'Tom' being a pink blow-mould, the 'Jerry's being solids, one with a bum-spike, one without (there's a clearly undamaged join-line), all three polyethylene, and my guess is they came, out of Hong Kong (or Japan?), with some larger novelty, possibly a tinplate or 'styrene vehicle, where they had different positions, or functions/jobs?

 

A vintage die-cast Midgetoy half-track, it makes the same mistake of one or two toy half-tracks, in depicting the M16 GMC Quad .50-cal, with the drop-down sides and cut-outs for the gun traverse, but without the gun. It does - as a/the toy - tow a small semi-fictional gun, which I think I have somewhere, but in the darker green!

 

I will thank Adrian again, as I suspect some of the above came from him, and if it didn't, other stuff at the show did. In fact, the helicopter and shovel both came from him!

F is for Follow-up - Cherilea Walls and Various Fences

As stated above, a quick look at Cheilea's little window-box enhancers' first;

Very crude, single-sided detailing, and among the earliest 'large scale' things to be collected by me as they are better suited to small scale scenarios! With the exception of the corner piece they are all stood on small 'pod-feet', the corner piece has a more amorphous base arrangement.

Comparing the Cherilea corner with Speedwell's shows how 'small scale' it is, but then these pieces were mostly used with the 45 and 50mm medieval and 'khaki' infantry window boxes, so it sort of makes sense!

I've shown this question-mark castle before, years ago, but it remains a question-mark! having features in common with various British makers, I assume it is a British piece, but it could be Spanish. Colour is similar to one of the sand-bagged emplacements we've looked at, the 'ear' baselettes however are pretty unique, and scale is 'sub'!

Speedwell, top/front left, with a mystery piece behind it. The mystery piece has the whole Speedwell moulding to the left of its moulding (yellow and red rings) with an extension to the right (beyond dotted-line). Elements of the 'original' are repeated (yellow boxes) but not the whole 'run', and the longer moulding has only the one central foot, which is more formal or engineered than the landscaped blobs of the known Speedwell version.

Which of the two is the original and which the copyist is anyone's guess and they may both be Speedwell? The smaller one is - I'm pretty sure - Taylor &/or Barratt.

These are all recent in-comer's, I have yet to find the small-fences box, where I know I have some in cornflower-blue. I say 'I'm pretty sure' as I seem to recall you get a pair (same colour) tapped together with Sellotape (or a similar proprietary sticky-backed plastic!) inside the small T, T&B or B thatched-cottage/hovel?

This is from Codeg's Camberwick Green sets which we looked at here and is one of the scenic pieces from the boxed sets which each had a building, two or three figures and a couple of scenic elements one of which is this charming little dry-stone wall with cottage gate.

I suppose these are from something like Playmobile or Sylvian? But I took the shot, so it might as well go here! Useful as an unpainted picket-fence in large-scale, or a substantial, but more toy-like barrier in small scale - at about 25mm high.

J is for Junior Motor Assembly Plant

'A Codeg Production', so before they saw the light and became a contractor/jobber of licensed (and not so licensed sometimes, I'll bet!) TV-related and novelty stuff from the Crown Colony, they must have been manufacturers in their own right? This has been sat in Picasa since November 2017, so high-time I got it 'out there'.

Did all toys come in red boxes once! Except at Christmas, of course, when they came in patterned boxes with holly leaves! Slightly misleading artwork gives the impression you will construct a whole fleet of eight-foot lorries, but covered by the blurb; against complaints.

Some of you may have heard this already; my mate JB once sold a Britains Garden kiddie's lawn-slide to a chap on feebleBay, who immediately gave him a negative feedback and complained it was a misleading description because it was a toy!

It was listed in the toy section, under vintage figures and Britains, sold for a few quid and was posted to another continent for less than a pair of shoes, what the f*** did he think he was getting? A ten-foot, polished-steel, piece of outdoor play-equipment - with postage - for less money than a shoulder of lamb! Terri-catta . . . lightweight Caribineri!

The sum of the parts! If the artwork in the previous image is to be believed there would have been green parts as well. Also some of the blue pieces are a different shade, so it wasn't a case of dropping whole runners into the box, or even stripping runners or sections of runner, but rather picking from bins of assorted coloured pieces.

Instructions; by today's standards this could be seen as a simpler toy for simpler times, one-and-three-part 'dimestore' trucks in a box, saves on glue huh?!! But suppose it was a crew-cab Toyota Hi-Lux with four clip-in body types? Suddenly it would be all 'modern' and OK!

The design is similar to the lorries carried by Beeju, who did do some scaled-up versions I think, maybe they supplied these to Codeg if they weren’t making them themselves, if they are Codeg-manufactured, then definitely 'derivative'!

Thanks to Adrian Little for the pictures!

T is for Toys of Toy People from Toytown

I've got all the pictures in the wrong order, so this will jump back and forwards but it's a post of bits and bobs anyway, so we'll press on. I have mentioned the origins of the 'Golly' moniker before, so to recap, I'll copy the entry from the abbreviations page, which I hope sums it up succinctly without causing offence...

Golliwogg/s - Ghul/s Working on Government Service (led to; 'Wogs', a now extremely derogatory nickname for Egyptian natives employed on British government service in the 1800's, which then gained wider use as a general racist/racially-derived slur word)
Golly / Gollie - See; Golliwogg/s

However, it is the only word we have to work with, and when it comes to Robinson's (Jams and Preserves), a sort of 'pax' was called on it's use due to the fame of the brands logo use, and the fact that Robinson's never used him in a negative context...not that most of the thousands of other 'Golly' products, books and soft toys did...Enid Blighton's (sometimes bad Golly) being the exception rather than the rule!

Adrian had this on his table back in the summer and I shot it when I had the chance, it was empty, but I had an idea I'd seen the HFC label before somewhere, without even noticing the image between the jar and the orange above, but that'll have to wait 'till the end of the post...

...in the meantime, the above shot shows some of the larger Marx (UK) figures (which may or may not have been supplied to Codeg / Cowan de Groot?), the two to the right have been paint-stripped, probably by Ron Good of Good Soldiers who casts them in metal and sells them in sets, in red gift boxes, like old Britians! I'm not even sure they're not from two Marx series, as Big Ears seems a tad too large?

Below them, are some finger-puppets, possibly from Christmas Crackers? But unknown in the provenance department and could just as easily be from a pocket-money craft set. Litho-printed paper faces glued to a felt loop, which on some provides the hat or other detail.

Back to Marx (UK) the upper-shot here is of a figure also from the above set (sets?), but which was languishing in the 'Unknown, probably Blue Box' box for years due to his similarity to other Blue Box (or Blue Box-like!) figures that follow the Marx (US) Disney production. It is actually (I assume) Mr. Bear; husband to the Mrs. Bear finger puppet above.

Below him and we're back to the top...where I'd recognised the HFC from; a bit of a disappointment, but it was illustrated on the lid, and pretending to be a Golly Badge (we think the link with Robinson's - established on the box - is tenuous, if not; non-existent) when it's actually a pencil sharpener! These were sold in newsagents and corner-shops back in the early 1980's although; note no date on the (C), a sure sign of everything being not as it seems in the licensing department?

This image was in my files, I suspect evilBay, but I'm not sure, so if you're the owner of the image, recognise it and want it removed, that's not a problem, eMail me...I rarely use downloaded images, and it's presented here for research purposes.

As a footnote; in 2001 Robinson's ceased to produce Golly memorabilia and he was dropped in 2002 with this press-release;

"We are retiring Golly because we found families with kids no longer necessarily knew about him. We are not bowing to political correctness, but like with any great make we have to move with the times"

C is for Codeg, Cowan de Groot, Camberwick Green, Censorship and Criminal

An interesting little series tonight and one you won't find in your local definitive list of other people's eBay images reduced to black and white thumbnails! Generally agreed to have been supplied by Marx (Swansea works) and probably made in the ELM factory in Hong Kong, these figures and the accessories that went with them were sold under the Codeg label by Cowan, de Groot, who by the time these came out were a large multinational PLC with a finger in every pie.

Cowan, de Groot was founded by S.D. Cowan and A. de Groot in 1919, and while initially being an importer of all sorts of stuff from around the world (Empire?!), among which were early tin-plate toys from Germany and Japan, they would go on to become one of Britians biggest wholesalers of toys, diversifying into the supply of plastics machinery and non-toy retail such as The Russian Shop in London and - I believe - an International property portfolio.

By the time this range was issued they were known for their commissioning of toys from third-parties to service the TV licences they were establishing with the BBC (Dr.Who/Daleks) and independent production companies (in this case; 1966 BBCTV). More recently they were the importers of Jotastar plush toys and bears from China, apparently ceasing to trade in the early-to-mid 1990's.

The evidence for these being from the Marx stable include both; that some of the larger CdG Daleks and Trumptonshire toys were resplendent with the Marx moniker (despite the fact that Marx had their own ranges (they wouldn't turn down a opportunity to shift product!) both as Marx and under the Combex label, and that while the base mark here isn't particularly a Marx style, the shades of pink plastic are identical to the Marx Miniature masterpiece American Indians and other Marx product from Hong Kong (the 40mm road crew for instance).

The above image is a near complete set of figures (missing the Murphy's daughter) and one of the accessories and should remain here in glorious technicolour for the next thousand years (Google or visit-stats willing!), with a list of the characters by name and other known items in the series below;

Left to right in above photograph;

Roger Varley the chimney sweep [but not much like the original - hat's too short], (the brush is missing the top part)
Farmer Jonathan Bell
Windy Miller
Doctor Mopp
PC McGarry Number 452
Mrs Honeyman and Baby Honeyman
Mrs Dingle
Peter Hazel the Postman
Pillar-box/Postbox
Mickey Murphy the Baker
Mr. Carraway the Fishmonger
Paddy Murphy
Mrs. Murphy

Not shown but known to exist

Mary Murphy
Section of Wall
Tree (almost certainly the Britains apple tree - sans apples)
Street Lamp

Not Shown/Not known to be part of the series;

Mr Crockett the Garage Owner
Thomas Tripp the Milkman
Mr Dagenham the Salesman
Captain Snort
Sergeant Major Grout

Sets;

Set No 1 - Mr. Murphy's Bakery
Srt No 2 - Mr. Carraway's Fish Shop
Set No 3 - Post Office
Set No 4 - Dr Mopps House

- Camberwick Green Village Set [all four buildings, wall, lamp post, pillar-box and Britains tree]
- Camberwick Green Village Folk [all 13 figures and the pillar-box]

Close-ups for identification; The bases are quite distictive with their little hole, the two women with dresses and the piller-box being solid while the rest of the figures have a very light, thin base with little 'overhang' The figures are all between 25 and 30mm with the Piller-box being exactly 25mm and the Dr. Mop (with his tall hat) being an almost perfect 30mil.

For foreign readers it should be pointed out that Trumptonshire is the collective fan-title for a set of three children's TV series from the BBC's 'Watch with Mother' feature at lunchtimes in the 1960's, which consisted of 13 episodes each. Camberwick Green was the first series set in a small English village, this was followed by a series set in Trumpton - the local town, and finally 13 episodes set round the big house/estate of nearby Chigley. They are noted for being among the first colour TV productions here in the UK, and - it must be said - I have fond memories of them myself! "Pugh, Pugh, Barney Magrew...Cuthbert! Dibble! Grub!

And so to the 'Censorship' and 'Criminal' of the title bar!...

Two things came out of the research for this post, firstly; That despite being a major movement in Toys for 70 years and going under long after the coming of age of the Internet, there is almost nothing on CdG to be found other than the odd side-note to an eBay auction or other toy listing, this shows that despite the Internet becoming a more and more comprehensive (if often - still - inaccurate) source for the sum total of human knowledge, there is an undeniable undercurrent of censorship, and it's practised by the rich, powerful and corporate, who will ensure they delete the things they don't want you to know.

The other is the 'one born every minute' lesson; There are several of these figures on FeeBay at the moment, the seller is asking £29.99 for each of them...that's thirty quid folks...60-odd dollars! These things have an intrinsic value of less than 50p and shouldn't be worth more than a couple of quid each to collectors, I've never paid more than 50p-each for mine, yet this person who probably hoovered them up with something else at a local auction-house or car boot sale wants a third of a ton for them?

While someone else has some on his little antique toy site which - while well described - include things that have absolutely no connection to the series whatsoever; An HK Tree, an HK import of a European model railway building copy, a polyethylene windmill by Taylor & Barratt or similar (which has its own value in the correct guise anyway) and some HK dolls house copies of the Britains garden...now, the fact that the descriptions are so good means - to me - that the seller knows damn well he's ripping people off?

But the real tragedy is; the 'one born every minute' are the sharks, there are a hundred born every minute to pray-on; and rich know-nothings will pay those prices! I don't often mention money or value but it incenses me to see such profiteering of mass-produced plastics from the second half of the 20th century, the stuff isn't rare, I keep saying it because it's true; people used to think Giant was rare but a warehouse full of the stuff was sold-off a couple of years ago! Truffle-hunt round the car-boot sales and evening toy fairs and you'll get these for next to nothing, just be patient.