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 Donations - Peter - Animals

The sorting of the animals is going to be one of the bigger tasks, one day, the hobby is probably bigger than Toy Soldiers, certainly, it supports several vigorous forums, and there are as many makers, if not more, while mine are rather in an anonymised heap within the bigger stash, but they keep coming in, and here's some more!

 

A nice cat, which looks like it might be an accessory from a non-animal set of some kind, the lizard is from the little small-scale, rack-toy play sets from Toy Major/Ackerman, while the bear is both a bit crude and a bit unusual!

 

A whole sub-genre are this smallish scale, softish vinyl sets from toobs, tubs or bags, which are sort of 35/40mm compatible, but really 'bag-scale' or unit scale, and while some are marked, other's easy to ID, many sets are to be found on FeeBay-Amazon-Alibaba, as generics or under obviously phantom brands. These seem to go together, but a couple of them are questionable. Nice, different, cactus!

 

Two generic rack toys, over-stickered to Toys As Fun, which I could have saved for Rack Toy Month, but I think there's plenty for then, and this is the next size up, again, a bit unit-scale (elephant undersized, pig oversized), but mid-sized animals are coming out as 54mm-compatible, which is useful for dioramas and vignettes . . . big cat stalking a patrol, that kind of thing!

 

A couple of proper antiques, I love these! The pressed-wood farmer seems to match the common girl feeding chickens we've seen here before, in point of fact, she or her chickens, turn up so often she must have been from a popular set, for several years, but this chap I've not seen before. Although the blue paint has suffered badly, the other colours remain in sufficient quantity to give a good idea of what he looked like new!

 

While the horse in tin-plate might be a cigarette premium, while we, here in the UK, had cards and silks, as giveaways, some brands on the continent had tin-plate flats, prior to replacing them with the numerous plastic flats used as premiums with other products too. You fold the base out, after the item has been slid out of the packet of cigarettes.

 

From a more recent pick-up in London is another Toy Major lizard (used as a dragon/monster/dinosaur in both the cavemen and medieval sets), two tree frogs and a very daft-looking sauropod!

 

Some larger animals, I think a couple were Triple-A marked, and the green pony is from the Tupperware interactive building blocks, we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/11/g-is-for-great-grey-green-greasy.html

 

Where they were used as, removable, playable rattles, in opaque blocks, unlike the transparent ones from Airfix and others.

 

A large lump of dense vinyl, makes a rather nice Hippo', and these are starting to grow as a side collection, purely by accident, and we did look at a load in a lazy post a while ago!

 

This is from PMS, and I ummed-and-arrred over whether or not to open it, in the end I though I had to, or I wouldn't know what I was dealing with, and was quite suprised to find a gold mokey!

 

I don't know wheather it's a 'chase' figure, or if the whole range is finished in a similar fashion, nor do I know how many there are as there;s no flyer/leaflette . . . probably a £1-shop thing, and therefore stripped to the minimum on unit-price!

 

Another group of - probably - related small vinyls - wild!

 

And another - domestic!

 

Mentioned the other day I think, and seen with a few others a while back, oh yeah, it was the post on mixed shots, a week or so ago. Anyway, here's the farm one, courtesy of Peter, and these sets annoy me, nice animals in a vague scale, so why add huge dogs and ginormous poultry! They haven't even got the excuse of box-scale, because there's plenty of room occupied by the plastic end-filler!? I know, it's a cost thing!

 

Again, many thanks to Peter for all these, they're not just grist to the mill, but also 'bricks in the wall', gaps filled in the archive.

M is for More Balls - Bouncy Balls!

A bit of an image dump today, as we roll-up, on the balls! The first tranche are quite low-res, but illustrate a few points about how this stuff reaches the stores, while the others just show what's out there, often in the few remaining, smaller, independent Toy Shops, often in smarter towns (Farnham!) or the up-market or 'nice'  areas of larger conurbations. These are also exactly the kind of novelty you'll find in Gift Shops and Garden Centres.

 

I can't remember the company's name, but this was an online, trade catalogue for one of the Chinese factories, I think they might have been called Superball, rather unimaginatively, but here we have Wild Animals on the left, Farm/Domestic on the right.

 

Guinea Pigs & Otters!

 

Panda's and Dinosaurs, and, not those carried by Keycraft Global.

 

On the left Fishes, with a few cetaceans and penguins mixed in, on the right the set which Henbrandt obviously carried all those years ago, with plain, 'slush' and iceberg balls, and a crab?

 

While these last two are larger mixes, with fish predominating in the first set, and turtles/crabs (bottom feaders, shore/beach dwellers?) the second, but with cetaceans, sharks, fish and the odd polar animal mixed in. The point being that you (Henbrandt, Keycraft, Playwrite, Ravensden . . . whoever) go to the Chinese manufacture, and get a tailored selection, which suits the needs of your perceived customer base, budget or forecast trends.

 

The Playwrite (WH Corneilius - WHC/Success) catalogue from a similar time (2006), showing that they were carrying animal faces and insects, in addition to the more obvious stuff, as seen above. This, and the next two images, should enlarge properly.

 

Ravensden catalogue from the same era (2010's/20-teens), also has a full range of subjects, including some familiar looking ones, either from the recent, previous posts, or from the trade images above. And between them all, there must be a couple-of-hundred of these incredibly small sculpts, most of which are quite well done, and nicely decorated, down to species/subspecies identification, in some cases.

It's worth noting most of the above are either clear/tinted-transparent balls, or the bi-coloured, half-opaque ones, there are few of the background discs which were a feature of most of the Henbrandt imports. There are a few more in the last post of this series.

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Kinder Animals

I put these on the animal forum, in two tranches, some quite a while back, some more recently, but good to get them off the PC and onto an archive dongle! Kinder animals, older and newer!

 

1980's, I think these were from a set of four buffalo - African (black), Asian 'Water', N. American Buffalo and Wisent, but which is which (on the green one), and whether that's a true fact (set of four) are both open questions! Simple four-part clip-together toys.

 

Also the 1980's or maybe the 1990's, lift the tail and the head drops, push the tail down and the head rises - clever!

 

Deffinately the 1980's, I had one for a long time, which came with my packed-lunch egg! I lost a hoof, and it was years before I found another one! This is a polystyrene, ten-part, clip-together 'kit'.

 

A more modern take on the giraffe, his head also moves, but without the complicated hidden-gear mechanism.

 

These last four are more contemporary; since the late 2000's Kinder have had an almost constant series of animal sets, some more realistic, some more cutesy, some downright cartoony, but all under a theme-umbrella of wild-life, endangered, save the earth, kinda' stuff. The reindeer may be from a Frozen line?

N is for November's Sandown Park - Civilian

Welp. Cleared some crap out of Picasa yesterday! But I'm running-about today, so don't expect the same posting rate! Here's another bunch of the odds from the recent Sandown Park show, and it's the civilian stuff.

 

I'm pretty sure these are French Dinky/Hornby (Meccano), but a quick Google just questioned that belief, I couldn't find them, although Google is so commercialised and generally shit these days, that's an indicator of nothing!

 

I have a larger sample in storage (these aren't that rare), and have had them for years, and I'm sure I found them or someone told me they were French Dinky, but they could be someone else? They are O-Gauge railway figures, and a vinyl rubber, of the old-school, quite dense/rigid, but stable (no weeping oily shite) type, and there were two tranches/issues, one with the little domed, concave cavity in the base, the others flat-bottomed.

 

Not sure on these either, I'm pretty sure they aren't the Marx set, one's similar, but the other isn't, and orange isn't a colour that associated with Marx, but they are more likely a US maker, than Hong Kong, just from the detail level?

 

One day I'll have to bring all the American Football players together, which will force me to research them properly, at which point I'll probably find a web-site with many more than me, that ID's all of them! And thanks to Gareth Morgan for these two, he let me pick through a mixed lot he'd found.

 

Copies of the Marx Power Mite road menders (two to the left), and a knock-off of the Blue Box copy of a Dinky to the right. One day I'll have to do a page or post just on the three - Dinky, Marx, Blue Box and all the copies!

 

Merit newspaper seller from the magnetic Driving Test game, a pretty-good knock-off of the Britains farm-girl, and another cracker-sized athlete.

 

Another question-mark here, it's not the common Hornby-Triang set, still being issued today I think, included with most of the steam locomotives, and many train-sets, so maybe Playcraft, Bachmann, or someone like Jouef? Driver, fireman, and some accessories for the locomotive?

 

These are also a bit of a mystery. The figure sets, as accessory sets, were vinyl, and issued on small runners, so I think these hard polystyrene examples must have been from a gift-set of some kind, it needs a Corgi expert, which I'm not!

 

Four bits of metal, the first is probably a coalman from one of the British minor-make wagon/cart toys in slush-cast lead or die-cast mazac/zamak, the little lead/whitemetal ringmaster, might be a cake decoration? But doesn't look to be that old, while the other two are obviously modern, aftermarket accessories for model racing cars, being Graham Hill in white, and . . . Andretti or Villeneuve, senior? Looks like Senna (again), but the helmet would/should be yellow?