D is for Donation - Chris - Odds and Sods

It's always a bit sad to come to the end of these donation posts, as it's fun to cover so much eclectic, unknown, or odd stuff, in one post, let alone a series of them, but all good things come to an end, and here we are, with the 'odds & sods' of Chris's parcel.

 

Should have been in the vehicle post, and I can't remember why I shoved it in the odds' folder, so it might have been by mistake? Jig-Toy puzzles from Kellogg's, or are they, as with all things, premium, we've learnt over the years that there were usually multiple issuers, and often more issues than the first two editions of 'Cluck' listed, and given the detailed breakdowns of colours over the years, the fact that we see five different shades of blue here, would suggest they can't all be Kellogg's! But they are all the same polyethylene, probably UK made ones.

 

Another take on the little 'bears in bags' (fridge-magnetic bags!) were these broach-configured ones, although this chap is a cut above the blow-moulded versions, having four points of articulation at hips and shoulders.

 

Half of a rudie-nudie lady key-ring we've seen before here, and a golf tee, I saw a set of Gophers the other day which were an amusing reference to the movie Caddyshack, but these naked babes with their heads in the sand have been around much longer, and I'll be adding it to the 'Adult' post, with a few other bits which have come-in, soon.

 

A mix of Blue Box (Hidden Adventures), Blue Bird (Mighty Max) and similar micro-action-figures, and one which appears to be magnetic. I didn't shoot her well, but the beauty of this stuff is that we will see it again when we have proper overviews of their sub-genres.

 

"We want . . . a shrubbery!!", the rubber lump on the left is from the HG Toys cavemen sets, and I used to think it was Bata! The big fir is almost certainly from the same Tri-Ang railway set as the hopper-car in the vehicle post the other day . . . last month!

 

This is interesting; unmarked, the horse-stalls and walls are hard-plastic, the roof is soft 'ethylene, and the whole has a lot in common with the Jean Höfler buildings, from their carded sets, but the buttressing round the corners is very-much in the same style as the 'wall' jump in the Palitoy-Parker horse-jumping game? Not to say it's by either maker, it remains unknown to me, although Jean did do a Wild West town, that might have had a stable?

 

Kinder, Onken, and similar parts, from an early Pixie type (centre), to quite recent, and I've explained before how these go with all the other bits, to be built into whole examples from time to time, in sorting sessions, so all useful stuff!

 

This was a lovely find by Chris, but it's started to annoy me! I have done lots of Googling, and evilBay searches, over the month or so since it arrived, and while I've found all sorts of Plasticine sets and tie-ins with various licences, I can't find the farm-themed set I have to assume these fences were designed for, can anyone help?

 

A fine piece of 60's or early 70's key-ring, novelty tat! This seems to be a better, more robust version of the rather flimsy all-plastic ones I remember from our childhood, and which often turn-up on feebleBay, so I assume it's a bit earlier, with riveted construction and metal parts. Next job is to identify the correct pellets/bullets, of which there are numerous in the stash somewhere!

 

A cornucopia of odds to finish; the 'Snap!' picture dice and tumbler may be quite modern, and definitely Christmas cracker prizes, the bubble pipe seems to have had somebody try to use it as a real pipe - bet that tasted nice! Two score-spinners (also Christmas cracker fayre), a chromed knife, which could be cracker, gum ball, or something more like 12" Wild West dolls?

 

A windmill/whistle, traditional tin-plate clicker and a 'joke shop' severed-finger, complete a nice mix of novelties. The black fleck, might be off one of the hard-plastic, kit trains, I'll have to check!

 

As always, I feel I can never thank the guys enough for all this stuff, it really does fill holes, complete pictures' and ask new questions. So many, many thanks to Chris for the above, and to both Chris Smith and Peter Evans for all the stuff we've seen in the last couple of few weeks. This will be the 885th use of the Tag 'Contribution', which I didn't use for the first few years, so, some sixth of all posts have involved other people sending/saving other stuff, pictures, or data for/to the Blog, that's awesome kindness.

 

I don't know what my favourite was this time, possibly, strangely, the diminutive Marx/Blue Box rack-toy soldiers, simply because they were new colours and had both runners complete, but both the stable and the Harbutt's fencing in this post were good finds, and I've highlighted others - the WWI US bubble-stalk, the bobble-head tank, the pencil sharpeners? All sorts! While from Peter's lots, possibly the four colour/four 'team' Sci-Fi set in the MUSCLE style, or the China pack with Duke Kaboom, maybe the two wooden farm flats?

 

Thank you both.

D is for Donation - Peter - Odds and Sods

Isn't it typical? Last week I probably lost a few pounds working a six-day'er in that heat, with gardening at both ends, tonight I got rained on! Anybody would think the weather's trying to get rid of us . . . oh! Still, before we slip of this planet, there's still a lot to do, and this is the penultimate post of Peter Evans and Chris Smith's recent donations to the Blog, being all the stuff which didn't get put in the previous posts, and haven't been sent to RTM!

 

An assortment of novelty bits, parts, and what I suspect are the rubber caps from a clothes-horse or drainer? The pea-shooter brings back memories, and you can see from the damage where it was bent against the missing mouthpiece, the downfall of many such weapons!

 

Kinder horse, farm trailer, barbed wire and other scenics, this stuff all has a place, they all have a tub or box where they are sorted by type, annotated when ID'd or otherwise wait for more info' to turn-up, often in eBay lots or old catalogue shots, Argos and Index are useful, but so are the earlier home-shopping ones from Freemans, Grattan, Littlewooods and the like.

 

'Made in Hong Kong'

 

'Hong Kong'

 

'Blue Box'

 

'Superior'

(T. Cohn) 

 

I don't really want to be accruing this stuff, as I have no interest in doll's house accessories, except - of course - that they are part of the history of early plastic toys, and the companies behind them, and I was well aware that one or two members of the Higher Council of the Old Guard had a few shoe-boxes of this stuff, purely for research purposes, and now it seems I am fated to have some too! A car-boot job lot, if nothing else, it's a clear sample of the Superior mark, and Blue Box colours!

 

All brittle polystyrene, except the Superior items which are in the polyethylene soft plastic.

 

Various items of Britains Garden, and the original lead stuff, not the plastic, of which I also have quite a sample, more by accident than design, but it was almost the Lego of its day, fiddly, construction toy with endless configurations, and I think I'm right in saying it was a wider range than the later plastic set?

 

A lovely sheep with lamb, and a home-cast or penny-toy battleship, which has seen better days, but if it's the only sample, it's very welcome!

 

A cake-decoration Robin, needing foot surgery, but fascinating in painted plaster and lead, and more dolls house accessories, but with the sort of age which makes them ornamental, or decorative 'white elephant' bric-a-brac, rather than tacky-placky!

 

The two jugs (or jug and vase) are lovely, they are bisque, and probably German, although they could be Japanese, but very fine work, compared to the white glazed earthenware of British doll's china of the time (which you often find while gardening in older locations), while the smoothing-iron's stand seems to be die-cast?

 

This is fun, and an amazing survivor, from the 1950's or 60's? It actually works as a bell, is clearly a tree-decoration, but is also figural, with a Santa Claus handle, If I wasn't giving these things a home, they'd be lost!

 

We would have never been allowed something like this, our parents had a dim-view of plastic, and all things Hong Kong, and it's a bit kitch, but sixty-years later, it's pretty extraordinary!

 

These really should have been in the TV/Movie post, except the guardsman belongs in the Ceremonial and Historical post, so they ended-up here, they are all Phidal, and I can only assume the Guardsman is from some London/London Sights-related book?

 

This is also amazing, and I don't know if it's Hong Kong, something French, or even more local, it's marked on the sidecar R C I, of which I can find nothing, and in conversation with Peter when he showed it to me I said "I can shoot it in a comparison with the Airfix and the other one", but I can't remember who the 'other one' was by (Fairylite? Co-Ma?), and I was thinking of the ice-cream carts, while this is actually a motorcycle and sidecar, so I was talking nonsense!

 

Mostly Airfix, but mixed so they ended-up here, the yellow chap at the back is from a board game called Fortress America, which I haven't covered yet, despite having them in the stash, from MB Games, and a cross between Risk, Shogun and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (which all play for zones or chunks of territory), it has recently been reissued in an updated form, from Ink Voltage.

 

Cones! There is a whole tub of them waiting a proper sort and ID session!

D is for Donations - Peter & Chris - Dinosaurs

As with the military and Sci-Fi, there was a fair amount of carded and bagged in the folders, particularly in the stuff from Peter, which has been sent down to 1971 in Picasa, where lay the RTM folders!

 

Consequently, I've combined what's left into one folder, and we'll have two blind-bag/capsule toy posts before the final pair of donation posts - Odds and Sods. Then we've got the recent BMSS and Sandown show stuff in the queue!

 

These should have been kept for Rack Toy Month too, but I happened to find them myself elsewhere, just before Christmas, so the whole set, and various sister sets are already in that queue! But these are currently to be found in more independent corner shops/hardware stores, and they are quite well executed sculpts, each identified as a specific species with a potted 'thumbnail' history on the back of a collector card.

 

Apparently generics, they carry product/re-order codes very similar to those of both Henbrandt's catalogues, or -  more closely - D&D Distribution? 

 

Interesting mix of car-booty or charity shop stuff here, I'd like to know the origin of the bright orange and blue Kerthunkersaur! And the Triceratops . . . 

 

. . . glows in the dark!

(and needs a clean!) 

 

These look to be from one or two sets, and are similar to the carded ones above, well executed, realistic sculpting and paint-jobs, it's only when you get all the odds together and sort by size, marks, plastic and even paint-colours, or, if you're lucky, against sets, or set images, that it all starts to make sense!

 

White button! I had no white button toys (excepts, unknown, the old childhood Christmas stocking yellow robot in Mum's attic), when this blog started, there's very little in the HO/OO oeuvre which calls for or necessitates white button toys, but since the expansion in scale, and extension into various realms of 'novelty', there's quite a sub-genre of them in the stash now!

 

Chris doesn't send so many Dino's, as he's not buying in that area, but nevertheless, the odd one gets through in a mixed lot, and he always saves the more interesting ones for the donation parcel, here we have the Holly 'Gygax' in red, which we previously saw, in the recent mini-season, as catalogue scans, and a nice very 'Chinasaur' [1] or gape-mouthed [2], rubber jiggler [3] - how does a crude rubber lump end up with three recognised, hobby-wide, terms of endearment? Childhood nostalgia is a powerful force!

D is for Donation - Chris - Military

Some lovely figures here, and a pair that have driven a follow-up, which will appear out of the current sequence, between this post and the last of the Gogo Crazy Bones posts. I seem to be in an odd rhythm at the moment of blank days and multiple post days, it's pure coincidence really, and it means you don't have to return here daily, but if/when you do, there may be a few posts to catch-up on!

 

A right old mix here, and because we've just seen the Marx 45mm link (in the previous post), here's two more of the possibly candy-holder vehicle/vessel plug-in/twist-in crew, and there's a strange deform behind them who may be a known character, but not known to me!

 

Chris filters out the rack-toy commonality, but sends the interesting ones, and here it's the two metallic olive-drab Airfix American Infantry piracies to the right, the Toy Story / Tim Mee clone to the left, another of the Timpo officer knock-off, and one of the large pound store ones from a few years ago.

 

These two 25mm Marx Miniature Masterpieces had not anticipated the thoroughness with which Royal Fail and/or Parcel Farce would explore their weaknesses and exploit the hell out of them! Sigh! But they were the only casualties this time, and it's bound to happen occasionally, with old figures.

 

A brilliant find, not only is it another WWI American clone from Airfix, not only is it another complete bubble-bottle handle/blower, but it's a new colour, and a new pose, and not just any pose but a prone pose, who, if you save him, after the bubbles end, by separating him (and his base) from the stalk, is now firing at 'planes.

 

And there's a lot of significance to this find. The first two finds (both by me) were in red plastic, if we now have green, we can assume maybe blue, yellow, even/or black? Certainly some other colours, second; we now have three poses, including a prone, so will most of the set be found? Will the wire-party be found as two separate figures?

 

Now if I've ended up with three, after 40-odd years (previous find was over ten years ago), how many centuries will be needed to get a full, or more informative sample?! The hope being that somebody, somewhere, made a decent hash of collecting a load at the time, and that they may turn-up poorly described on feeBay, or undescribed but included in a larger job-lot at a local auction house?

 

Other possibilities which become stronger with this find are that A) Airfix (or General Mills/Heller) might have licensed the figures, or even loaned the old cavities? B) They might be by Dulcop, who by the 1980's had moved out of figures* proper, and into bubble-bottles, in which field they are still globally known. With both the neighbours (Barravelli and Montaplex) also known for producing daft, upright/foot versions of Airfix prone/mounted figures, there is a Mediterranean thread running through the practice?

 

*The Dulcop figures carried by the - then - new, and growing, Plastic Warrior magazine, back in the late 1980's, were specially commissioned by them, and, from the plastic colours, consisted of half old-stock from the warehouse, and half new-runs, for the magazine. 

 

LJN GI's, another nice find, and there will be a follow-up shortly, Chris says the chap on the left is complete, as per the factory, but the chap on the right might not have the correct head, a problem with all these Hong Kong originating figures.

 

Again, I wondered if the poses might be taken from Cofalux or similar (see earlier post), but more on that in the follow-up.

 

These are brilliant too! In bright green they are sometimes (late issues?) the figures from the Lucky/Helen of Toy 'Woods Edge' or 'Tank Trap' comic-offer games, fighting the Ex-Giant Germans, in the mid-greens a common rack-toy figure, and I have a few in yellow/mustard, but I've never seen them in orange, or this blue, and I've never seen them on the runner, or in such a dark green, so quite the find! Copies of the Marx and Blue Box 25mm figures.

 

We saw the modern ones from Corgi Classics here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/08/t-is-for-tactical-strike-by-corgi.html

 

Right-back at the start of the Blog, but I had no idea there were WWII sets, and the 8th Army chap here, with a side-hat, is more LRDG/SAS than regular infantry, while the German looks to be an older man, possibly in glasses or with a monocle, and maybe Volkssturm?

 

More grist to the mill; I have meant to sort these 1st version Airfix clones out several times, and it's another project for the But is it Giant page (no, they are not Giant!), but it won't be for a while. These are one of the lesser versions I think, with the smooth base undersides.

 

Many thanks to Chris Smith for some very interesting figures. 

D is for Donation - Peter - Military

So, to the 'meat and two veg' of a toy soldier Blog (really I like to think we are a ' toy soldier, model figure and novelty' Blog!), with the chaps (and occasionally, chapesses) in Khaki, and it's always a mix of rack-toy rusk and quality seed!

 

A trio of odd figures, with what looks to be a Cofalu/x 60mm-copy to the left, solid head, rather than the plug-in of the original, a kit figure GI, Monogram or Revell? and a chunky Matchbox clone.

 

Originally Ackerman in the UK, these have now been seen in various configurations, and associated with various brands, and as generics, in two sizes, we looked at them here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/08/f-is-for-follow-up-to-some-stuff-we.html

 

with a link in that post to an earlier one, but more variants have come in, including other paint-ways, so a further sort-out and more definitive post will happen one day! It's the figure set which also, sometimes, comes with those big B/O tanks.

 

Miller's grist, the grayer ones might be Boley or similar, the greens very generic, and the reds very modern, and probably only ID'able from shots of carded or bagged sets shelfied, or downloaded from evilBay/Amazon etc.

 

A common set of modern (age and depiction) sculpts, many variants exist, and they will be looked at in detail another day, we have had the odd poke at them, already!

 

MPC clones, several variations of these, both from domestic US makers, and Hong Kong pirates, I tend keep two of each marking/colour variation, and put the rest in the swaps pile, but finding the right accessories is the hard bit!

 

Again, lots of variety in these Matchbox clones, not all ID'd yet.

 

More modern stuff and some old HO/OO Airfix bits.

 

The five same-colour figures are Fishel's unique mouldings, possibly worked off, or contributing to, their own US Police/SWAT set, and I think the brighter green chap is theirs too, but both the prone figures are unmarked. He looks a bit Speznaz, Afghanistan

 

Three generations of Hong Kong/China piracy; with the 1950/60's Tim-Mee in front, a 1970/80's Airfix clone to the right, and a modern (1990-2000's) to the left. A Blue Box GI with bayonet fitted for Jap-bashing, and a very good version of the Britains Swoppet clones, usually poor quality with the mortar bomb looking more like a kitchen implement or sex-toy, here it's well moulded, and the figure has a more substantial base . . . new to collection, I think?

 

Airfix original (damaged) and Hong Kong clones, almost certainly one of two apparent versions from Rado Industries (Ri-Toys).

 

Three tatty and paint-stripped Lone Star paratroops, could be useful spares or a future painting project? That peculiar mix of WWII battle-dress and 1950's 'futuristic' EM-2 Bullpup rifle, with overdramatic officer!

 

These are nice, probably from a big-box Chinese-manufactured play-set, and similar to some parachute novelty figures around in the last few years,. They're big at around 60mm, the chap in the right is more Russian in styling. Slava Ukraine!

 

Marx. Hard polystyrene plastic, 45mm, not the first found, but same pose . . . So, must be a Swansea thing? Possibly an accessory for a vessel or vehicle set? And might be related to the yellow one here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2012/07/l-is-for-late-thanks-to-blogger.html

 

Mostly Shing Hing (S.H. marked), with a comparison shot of the modern sculpt above, and an older Airfix figure in the upper/first shot.

 

 

Two mixes of modern/current production from various sources, copies of copies, of copies, in the end they get so poor they look more like Fantasy skeletal figures (back row, yellowish) and within set, often reference more than one other donor set! But all valid, and one-of-each, eagerly sought - 'for the record'!

So many thanks to Peter for finding some of them, and he's already eMailed me, with news of more finds.