News, Views Etc . . . Kwong Shing et al.

I've added the Kwong Shing entry (Kamley-Kositoys-KS) to the Khaki Infantry page, to which we can now add Larami (LIC) as another importer of their output. The above comparison image is from Brian Berke in New York and shows two sub-piracies, or probable sub-piracies, one lot may well be KS's own? I've included all the similar copies under the same heading until more is known about any of them.

P is for Preserving Popeye's Poorly Packaging

Just a brief one, this is almost a re-run of a post I did with a similar box-frame from SAE of South Africa back at the start of the blog, but it may help someone somewhere fix something similar!

How the parcel in yesterday's post unpacked; the combined results of various postal services 'duty of care', coupled with the sellers decision to send an old and already torn carton in a heavy paper envelope with lose bubble-wrap and a sheet of card, the bubble-wrap rolled and bunched under the floating card and ripped the end of the box off!

Slide the contents out, unseal the glued flap and flatten out the carton, damp it and iron it flat, on the printed side I use a couple of sheets of printer paper (there's a change in my lifetime; 20-years ago I would have written 'typewriter paper' there!) between the work and the iron.

Bookbinder's licky-sticky adhesive paper-tape; Butterfly Brand is commonest, indeed, it might be the old one still extant, I don't know? Really it should come back as it's far more eco-friendly for parcels, if a bit messy!

Run the tape through the water so it gets quite wet, place it where required and then 'squeegee' it flat with dry cotton cloth or kitchen paper.

Cross-ply over particularly damaged areas, tares etc. And you need to cross the 'grain' of the tape, as it will help keep everything flat, over time the tape has a tendency to memory-curve back to the roll position, it's why you want to get it quite wet. Iron it dry, but with a lower heat, you don't want the tape popping-off, just consolidating flat.

Then cut back to any edges you've gone over, and here, I'm cutting the line of the original die-cutter, where Popeye overlaps the front as the material beside him folds down to make the frame-box. I use the fine No.11 blade from Swan Morton (No.3 handle)* as it has a very fine tip, and I use a new blade to get a sharp, instant cut with no snags. Obviously this is a posed shot, I would never use my left hand to do something requiring such accuracy and light touch.

* I have not been paid for this blatant commercial!

Apply a contact adhesive to one half of the previously sealed side. Allow it to go tacky. Bostik haven't offered any cash either!

Likewise with the opposite surface of the other flap of the join, watching for strings, all contact adhesives seem to veer toward stringiness, that's one of their properties!

Bring the two surfaces together, dropping the camera so you can line up the other end and get the whole thing straight! When you are sure it's all good, press them lightly together, you will have a nanosecond to change your mind and pull them apart again, or slide-squeeze them into line, then run you finger down the laminate with a little more pressure.

Finally I use a metal-edged designer's ruler to press the join heavily with a bit of back-and-forward 'sawing' action, getting into the two edge-folds to ensure a firm join. Again, you need to loose the camera, to hold both ends and press down, then 'saw' back and forward. You could use a piece of square-profile dowel or wood-strip, but you wouldn't get the required firmness in the middle.

The finished item can be seen in the previous post (forth image down), which will either be immediately below this post or can be found by left-clicking the 'older post' hot link below.

P is for Plastic Pastoral Play-sets

I think my enthusiasm for these was fully displayed last time we looked at them, following a  donation from Chris Smith, to which I was able to add a few which turned-out to be different, well, there are now three or four  types/sources and some additional components!

Also; reader 'jhnptrqn' if you are still following the blog, several clues to your quest follow . . .

So, I found this one first, from the hard, polystyrene cover/lid, and the full photo-graphics I think we are looking at a date around 1972-4? And I suspect it was probably commissioned by a department store, or big-store chain. "Up to 5 years of age" . . . caught red-handed, doh!

As I said last time; if it were found here (in he UK) I’d say Conran/Habitat or Heals, maybe Debenham's at a push . . . but it was found over the pond in the US where my knowledge of funky, modern stores of that era is zero! But it is an unbranded generic, of an overall quality you'd expect from a major departmental or mall-chain retailer, or maybe the 'big book' mail-order listers?

New this time - but seen in the feeBay image last time - is the dog, pine tree/fir, the twin-tower/gateway arrangement/thing and the picket fences I still think I may have a few of somewhere else. Also the two sizes of building. Still no pigs . . . wishful thinking!

Posed similar to the box-art; I seem to have the same 12 picket-fence pieces but one less of the two-bar fencing, maybe the fence-packer was having a bad day counting, however I suspect a loss!

Now, all this was happening about a year ago, and while I was taking mental notes I didn't write anything down, so I can't remember which set was the same as either mine (Hong Kong) or Chris's (unmarked), and I say 'which set' because another set turned-up a week or two later!

Also from the 'States, and clearly ascribed to Larami and their long-running visual-recognition line of Popeye brand-marked (but nearly always nothing to do with Popeye) rack-toys, is this set.

The postal services of evilBay (global shipping delay) and Roayl fail conspired to wreak the box, but that the seller put such a thing in a jiffy-bag didn't help! The next post will cover my fixing-it after a fashion!

Comparisons between the two show that the one is of a different class to the other (better box, rigid lid, twice the content-count), yet dimensions are similar so  one is based upon the other and both are probably - as I suggested last time - aping a Western product? Note: both Popeye and Popeye's are used.

As to that Western product . . . last time I suggested such luminaries as Galt, Hestair Kiddycraft or Triang Pedigree, to which you might add Pippin/Raphael Lipkin, or even the Design Centre in London who were behind a lot of modernist/post-modern toys, but I wonder if I/we shouldn't look further . . . Scandinavia, Germany maybe, Denmark? My British link was based upon the policeman we saw last time, but he's quite generic and some European countries had similar police helmets back in the day, if only for traffic direction or ceremonials? While 'jhnptrqn' remembered a possible French connection?

I don't know, but I remain on the hunt (if only to see if there are piggy-wiggies!), and finding out will be fun, which we will, one day, all this stuff is mass-produced and all survives somewhere.

Larami's set is on a blister held into an open frame by the fold-back sides, and the most notable difference (as I didn't record my notes on marks and release-pin dimples) is that some of the animals are in colours as leery as the packaging, with orange dog and horse and cows in pink and blue!

Combining the tower sections! "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down you hair!" I also remember (now) that the buildings in the two sets were slightly different, even though the tower stacked, with different dimensions on the Larami barn (right hand) and a roof with an inner ledge more like the smaller building's from the anonymous set.

One of them was the same as my loose ones (the unbranded one I think?), but with Chris's unmarked sample, we seem to be looking at at least three sources, which is not uncommon for this kind of stuff . . . how many spinning UFO disc-toys, how many ramp-walkers, or jig-puzzle issuers!

There was also an inclusion! The hair of a paint brush (used to clean or lubricate the machine-tools) or a factory cat's whisker managed to get caught in the blister-sealing iron, and survived for another four-odd decades untouched, stuck under the rim of the clear plastic cover!

We shall return to these, for sure, I like them and their design and place in plastics history is worth a study, while with three professions and a farmer, you feel there must be more figures, where are the women and children? And pigs . . . gotta keep the hope alive; farms need piggy-wigs!

D is for Dinky Firemen are so Lucky!

I was going to do a Lucky Toys page like the World Dolls/Dancers, but it's actually easier to break it down into pieces, as some bits are simple, this is one of the simple bits! Lucky Dinky got enlarged by Luck-y . . . yeah, I'm labouring a bad pun here, let's move swiftly on.

I had forgotten that I posted these a while ago, so re-shot them; if you click the Dinky tag you'll get the other post a little below this one. Dinky's firemen; older than other Dinky figures; like those we saw yesterday, so not showing the distinctive hand of Charles Stadden, but rather the smoother style of some unsung sculptor.

The base marking (not a brilliant shot but try tipping your screen - or moving your head up or down - and it may become clearer); similar to the rail staff that came in the same blue plastic, but they were in an OO-gauge compatible size, rather than the approximately 35mm of these firemen.

Four of the poses were subsequently copied in roughly 50mm by the Hong Kong firm Lucky Toys, who used them in various sets, both badged to themselves as The lucky Toys and their subsidiary brand Laurie Toys, however they were also supplied to the importers/jobbers Clifford, Cragstan, Fairylight, Jimson, and Larami (among others), sometimes with the Lucky logo retained on packaging (some Fairylite), sometimes not!

There were other sources through further contract manufacture (Century21) while other brands OK, TAT and Telsalda for instance may be connected through contract or subsidiary brand status it's not clear and further complicated by some of them having ranges in different scales of the same vehicles - mostly Corgi or Dinky clones. I can't possibly pretend to be an expert on them all, but there is a fair bit in the plastics section of Planetdiecast. [Thanks to Woodsey at Moonbase Central for that tip]

Lucky numbered all their figures in the larger scale and the other two poses may well be out there as there is a gap in the numbering which points to them existing? We will be returning to the numbering (and its gaps!) in future posts.

548 - Fireman standing, both arms forward   (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

549 - Fireman with breathing gear (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

550 - ?

551 - ?

552 - Fireman with hose end (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

553 - Fireman running, waving with right hand (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

Marking for Lucky Toys is a bloody nightmare, but fortunately - due to the unique (for Lucky figures) full square/whole base marks, they are a bit easier to delineate in this case; there being only four (so far!) types.

Top left is the probable first or Lucky original, with the HONG KONG removed from the right-hand one, possibly to facilitate demand from a client selling in a country that was finding the buying public adopting the 'all Hong Kong is crap' of my parents!

The other two will be for subcontracts I think, but it's not hard and fast and as we will be seeing in a day or two, there are actual Lucky brand base marks (with the horseshoe looping an 'L'), and as yet none has turned-up on these firemen's bases?

We will also find that the 1112 sub-number is a batch (or contract/customer) code being present on all bases of the same type, irrespective of the figure-pose, and applied to two of the round marks we'll look at later as well as one of the lozenge bases.

Examples of three of the base types and some paint/plastic colour variations, I have three figures with the fourth type base mark (or I wouldn't have bothered CAD'ing them up - I know some people will go to extraordinary lengths in their attempts to make stuff up, even to inventing a whole port - huh Paul? But that's not my way) however; they are all damaged and didn't get photographed.

Models they were issued with is - again - not my field, but among the few I know of are;

Lucky

114 - Fire Engine (with push-and-go gyro-friction motor, US style ladder truck)

178F - Fire Chief (Buick saloon-car)

195 - Fire Engine (Dennis?)

196 - Fire Truck (forward-control Land Rover)

- Land Rover Fire Service (series-3 Land Rover)

Clifford

22/4175 (? or ..73) - Fire Engine (AEC, friction powered with siren, ladder/pumper)

No. 232R - Fire Chief Ford Zodiac (saloon-car)

- Fire Engine ('No.21 Fire Brigade', Dennis (?) turntable ladder truck)

SYS

50411 - Fire Engine (friction motor, extending ladder, 1950's type vehicle)

Marx

- Fire Chief (copied by Clifford, station wagon)

Hover

- Snorkel Rescue (US style cab-over hydraulic ladder-truck)

Which of these models also appeared in another or each other's branding, or whether they all had all or any of the figures is also unknown - to me!

Other figures supplied to Cragstan were unpainted or minimal-paint versions of Lucky's (VW camper van for instance) and as I haven't found such firemen yet, I'm proceeding on the assumption they didn't carry the Lucky fire appliances, but Cragstan were a US concern, also imported from some of Lucky's rivals and seem to have concentrated on 'autos & race-cars' as the Americans would put it, but on fire trucks American collectors may know different, Erwin Sell probably went to all twelve factories the year before he was born; in Port Tain Sang no doubt?

S is for Skinfighters!

Fighting skin wherever it's found!

The Larami overprinted import (LIC = Larami International Corp.) in my collection came with divers although I'm sure they would have had the mini-subs (see previous post) as part of an assortment. I've also seen the Larami card with larger single -moulding divers in black, sort of Lone Star clones.

The eponymous 'skinfighters' and their aquacar! Pretty poor stuff, there's no effort gone into these and this level of HK stuff is a mystery to me, why produce a heap of crap, when you could make the thing more realistic for the same money? The cost is in the sculpting and the tool-making, you could make a more realistic (but just as simplistic) vehicle for the same cost. This is lazy and careless.

The artwork (a bit James Bond - probably the market it was chasing) actually shows the better underwater 'sled' also available from other HK rack toy guys, which looks like a shark. I have some somewhere; I'll try to dig them out.

A comparison between the Larami, the Skinfighter and another HK diver. The yellow one is similar to the Skinfighter, but slightly better quality although missing his scuba-tank. He'll be the one 'skinny' is cloned from, and I think he also goes with those odd-looking landing-craft / washing-machine / mine-clearing flail things which turn-up from time to time - I think I have some of those here as well, I'll try to do a follow-up!

In fact, I think I've a carded one in Picasa . . .

[Time passes away from cyberspace, a whole few dozens of seconds (over a week ago)]

Yes, I have, and no, it's a smaller, blobbier, late copy figure with large hand spigots and a smaller scuba-tank! The hand spigots are far too large for any of the holes in the, err . . . 'veh'hick'ull', presumably he's been 'borrowed' from another toy to fill the bag! Despite seeing many of these over the years, I've never seen anything mounted in all those holes (except the front one), they look like they should have the little ex-Airfix/Minitanks riders you get on some other rack toy stuff.

We'll be returning to a lone (or loan) mini-sub in September.

Couple of hours later (the magic of the cyberworld!) and I dug the other bits out. The sharky things, a couple more 'landing craft' - both slightly different - and some more spear-guns; one damaged.

The landing craft would look better with the two shell racks (?) removed, along with the angle-iron frame thing. Stick a mortar crew in the pit and you'd have off-shore fire-support, but all very fictional!

M is for Mini-Subs

We looked at these once before but as I shot them again, and as it's Rack Toy Month we might as well look at them again.

The fleet has grown, mostly riders who've come in with odd-lots, but it allows for a full complement of crew!

Off to look for British Battleships in the Med' I fear! I love these, can you tell! There was an interesting development on these shown on Moonbase Central the other day; "Ah, Perkins, we need a futile gesture, it’ll raise the whole tone of the Blog; take the mini-sub, have a shufti into space, blow something up, don't come back . . . " (with more than a nod to Peter Cook!).

A couple of divers waiting for boats; normally when trying to date early Hong Kong stuff, you'd go with painted being typically earlier than unpainted, but the unpainted one here is of a much better quality (despite the mis-registered mould halves!) than the clone with paint remnants.

The paint, and the feathery silver plastic of the latter figure resemble the work of that little group [of companies?] known variously by their base-marks as ABC, CM, CMV and HK, I wouldn't be surprised if he was by [one of?] them.

U is for Underwater

Only the one photograph, but a lot in it. Centre top is the lose Mini-submarine from Manurba with the driver/pilot underneath, to the left is the same machine issued as Scuba Diver Set by Gordy in the US (another company that remains unsung under Giant's shadow, despite producing a similar sized range of similar products?), while below it is the more common Hong Kong copy, note the full-round cross-section. This is a hard plastic model with soft diver, the Maurba one is all soft.

To the right of the lose ones we see the carded presentation of the HK one, entitled Frogman Set with colour variants below.

The bottom of the picture shows from left to right; Baking-powder divers from Manurba (these are different from the Kellogg's one's and I will look at them all later), while next are a couple of Hong Kong Mini-sub's in soft plastic that have kept the Manurba hollow hull, and came in Christmas Crackers, Sobres etc..

Finally, the same card as above, but with different contents and marked L.I.C. (Laramie Industries Corp.) Philadelphia. In the very centre is a Manurba rubber boat (sans engine) to compare with the HK copy of the Airfix US Marines boat.