T is for Two - Donations

On two recent meetings Adrian Little of Mercator Trading has given me small tubs of odds and sods, some of which are quite rare, unusual or interesting, and having found the errant pig hiding in one of the folders yesterday, I thought I'd better get the rest up here and shared with you.

Two of the pretty ugly, but quite rare Cherilea dinosaurs start this little parade of past plastic playthings, and while the Pterodactyl is reasonably complete, if rather playworn, the something ...nodon (tyranodon?) has lost a leg and the bit of the tail with the start of its name on! But, these will go with several others, some also a bit broken, in a growing sample.

 

Another handful of Blue Box Japanese, I will have some spares for swaps once they are all brought together and sorted for a final time, which is ironic, because for some time I had so few Nazar Marchenko sent me the missing figures as one of the first contributors to the Blog. Since when I've found and shown colour variations, painted examples and several mounted have either come in or been seen courtesy of Chris Smith!

 

Four Marx and a Deluxe Reading/Topper 50mm air-force/space types, very timely, as with the others in storage, they will be useful for a forthcoming comparison shot, and quite compatible with each other.

 

Another of the Taiwanese issue of the old European Asterix ice-cream/bubble-gum premiums, I opened the previous bag to shoot for a post here at Small Scale World, so I'll be leaving this one intact, as it's the less common one with shield etc . . .

 

I think these may be from Starlux, but are unmarked and probably from a boardgame, issued as premiums or possibly sold as die-cast vehicle set accessories, a' la Solido? I honestly don't know, and Starlux did have some unmarked stuff, and did issue unpainted toward the end, so?

 

Two of the figures from the MPC playset, on Planet of the Apes, the figures are in the style of Marx's made in Hong Kong WoW and Disney stuff, gloss-painted hard polystyrene, and while quite common are nevertheless nice examples of a subject which didn't get many toys outside the Mego action figure types.

This is fascinating, and anything you can add will be eagerly digested, it's a polystyrene novelty elephant, which is in two halves, apparently joined by a large ring and cavity thing which had me momentarily thinking it was a secret safe, hidden cavity type thing, before realising it's glued to its base (which also looks like the lid of something), even though there's no glue between the two halves which join tightly with no flash.

 

It could be the [sliding] lid of a vesta-case, cigarette case, or visiting/playing card case of some kind, maybe another version without the base does do service as a secret stash? Quite a good shade of 'ivorene', it's a charming, yet enigmatic little thing? 

Then, the other day, Adrian gave me a small tub of mostly die-cast vehicle accessories ad model kit figures, and these are the smaller ones with Lledo, Scalextric, Hornby and an unknown lead/whitemetal figure (O-Men?).

 

While these would appear to be the incomplete contents of both versions of the Airfix Old Bill/Omnibus kits, a Matchbox, a Dinky and a Britains Stage Coach lady passenger. I wasn't sure about the standing figure, but he's a heat-shrink which someone has painted-up anyway!

H is for Horse-drawn Hose-artists

Writing the blurb for the previous post reminded me I had shot all the Lledo back in the summer! So here's the firefighting element - Days Gone: DG5 Shand-Mason Horse Drawn Fire Engine - as a non-follow-up, follow-up!

There were three figures in two poses, and variations exist in painted (it wasn't just the dray master) and non-painted figures, a batch of washed-out blue (middle left)* polymer (properties of a nylon or polypropylene) and a frame-runner variation with 'ears' on (upper pair of arrows), possibly due to a change in the production cycle, they look like they were to be grabbed by someone or something, but whether they was later added or earlier removed I don't know. The same runner looses a small tab found at the bottom of the other type - lower arrow.

* The brighter-blue ones in the previous post were created by my colourising the photo's which were washed-out by shooting them through glass.

I have two still boxed and this is - I'm pretty sure - the earlier (1983'ish) one, following the general pattern of the Matchbox model which Jack Odell would have been only too familiar with. Some of the limited edition sets also had the manes and tails painted on the hoses and/or the collars.

Numbered engine 27 of the Chicago Fire Brigade (it's not only 'Engine'-v-'Appliance', there's been a move away from 'Brigade' to 'Service'?) and showing only six models in the line, on the back of the box, which has windows both sides to better display the complete assembly with painted figures.

Both my machines are of American subjects; Lake City is in Florida. By 1986 you had to fit your own unpainted figures which were tucked behind, where one of the windows used to be, but the range had increased to 16 with plans for three more. I quite like this version with the steam-pump painted red.

An older shot (2014) which has been sat in Picasa waiting for the main chance, only to be overshadowed by the 'storage lot'! In both sets of photo's the colour variation is not clear, but the greyer-blue is the lower runner here.

F is for Fire Engines

Now called Fire Appliances, which I've never been happy with as a hose-end is an appliance, an axe is an appliance . . . fire 'trucks' are mighty engines and should be called such. Equally and on the other hand I still have to change the tag from Firemen to Firefighters as that's the right-and-proper thing to do.

I've been keeping an eye on the display cases at Fleet library, hoping for another Christmas toy exhibition/spot the spider, which still hadn't happened (as of Thursday evening), but maybe this weekend will see a change, in the meantime they (Fleet and Crookham Historical Society) have had a display on the history of Fire Fighting in Fleet, and knowing there are several ex-firefighters or firefighter figure collectors watching the blog, this is for them!

I think this line-up is Matchbox original in the middle and two Lledo's either side? The green one has 'Guildford' transfers (which is only 20-minutes up the road), the Matchbox is labelled 'London' and the other seems blank.

We compared the figures years-ago, but I can't remember if it was here or in One Inch Warrior? Basically the two riders are reversed poses in Lledo's Days Gone (DG5) of the Matchbox, the driver's differences are more subtle, but Matchbox's Yesteryear's (Y-4) are smaller.

The little one here is again a Matchbox oldie, from the origianl 1-75 line, but the other two I'm not so sure, they look very alike, but there are subtle differences (the ladder clip-in for instance) so I think we may be looking at Lledo for the red & white one (DG12, Essex?) and 'new' Corgi for the WWII National Fire Service one?

Which would make these; two Lledo and an Oxford Diecast N-gauge example? The green one is Auxiliary Fire Service (also WWII) while I can't read the red one! Lledo issued up to 30 variants of their earlier models in each initial release, both commercially and on contract to corporate entities and premium issuers, as well as - later - some private collectors clubs, and with the older models having the more versions, and the Fire Engine being among the earlier ones, there will be whole cabinets full of these somewhere!

These were in the low glass table display only, the three-tier had photographs of fire stations and other memorabilia, hopefully; they'll both be full of toys any day now, we've got too used to it after three years to not see it over Christmas!

O is for Odds and Sods - Incoming!

A while ago, in some post on some toys somewhere, I used the following excuse - or something like it - to explain some point or another . . .

I've just been sorting a bag of swords, a Japanese APC and a ceramic cat!

. . . I thought it would be amusing to photograph the said items!

This was the bag of bits, mostly Britains with a lead torch, boy-scouts or Shaggy - for the use of! I kept one each of the swords and gave the rest to a dealer mate of mine. The street lamp is someone like Matchbox (petrol-pump stand) or possibly Peco?

An ACW arm from the Swoppet range, part of a cannon's metal-work, a Timpo Indian's necklace (red) and HK copy (lime-green) are also there along with a Deetail pole-arm handle, a ramrod and the little brown thing which I think is something to do with the Britains' seige engines?

Bag o'bits; whenever you see a bag of bits going cheap - grab it!

Japanese APC; loosely based on the M113, it's only Japanese because of its sticker. The running-gear is a bog-standard generic design which I have some tank-hulls on somewhere, if I could be fagged I'd look it up, but this is a fun/lazy/holiday post, likely to prove ephemeral - traffic wise!
 

The superstructure though is really quite good, if a little high-sided, and it is quite large, scale-wise, maybe 1:58th/50th, so probably better-suited to a Space Marine army from the Sherriff of Nottingham, which would allow for all sorts of markings and transfer crap on those flat, slab-sides!

A ceramic cat! Or at least I hope it’s a cat, it might be a particularly ugly snark, or a lesser-common, whiskered rock-owl from Planet Zolgon Snnikkitti IV?

The small fairing (or similar novelty) is a slip-ware item, manufactured similarly to poured hot-lead hollow-casts, but with a cold, thick, liquid clay-slurry run round inside a mould slowly until it sediments out and the water is poured away leaving it hollow.

I have three bags of TBS (to be sorted) kicking around, within reach - at the moment, one with the dregs of the PW show stuff and early charity shop stuff from 2018, another with the rest f the charity shop stuff, anthing waiting to be sorted from the four Sandown Park shows wich has also had some 'from storage' stuff added to it as I combine, and a third, bigger bag which I stated the other day, it contains the Chris Smith parcel's contents, the lose figures from Brian B's autumn parcel and a few charity shop things from the last five or six weeks.

The above is the second bag's contents! To which you can add a box with Peter Evan's finds, another with the animals from Jim's big box back in the summer (sorting animals is a big job!) and another bag with mostly TV/Movie and cereal premiums cartoon stuff going back a few years, they are all in the attic.

Although they are all sorted to some degree, by type or maker in the 4x5½ or 5½x9 inch bags which are my two main sizes, I've never had so much not yet put away at one time, and it's in part because of the time I've spent on the storage stuff, the generosity of other people and the amount of stuff you can find if you simply check your local charity shops a couple of times a week.

I think we've seen most of this lot on the Blog now, one way or another! The trouble is, once it becomes 'easy' to sort into the little bags and chuck them in a bigger shopping bag, the tendency is to keep doing it!

I will now have to go through the three bags here, putting some things duplicated between them together (Dinky, Corgi, Matchbox, Subbuteo, Blue Box and Airfix are the chief culprits!), then sort the animals out, for transfer to the Jim box, then start putting them in their final homes . . . as I continue to consolidate the attic and storage samples - it's going to be a busy year!

But I'll continue to photograph as I go, so lots to look forward to on the Blog. This eclectic bunch came in on the 29th December, when I shot-up into town in the afternoon to get ham for the cat! Six of seven charity shops were open and this was the loot - it never ends!

Lledo wagon, two accessories (from one of the electronic gaming systems I think?), a Tin Tin character key-ting, a robot with a Kinder 'K' but too big for a standard egg, so presumably a Maxxi-egg toy and a flocked parrot which seems modern, but it still rather clever. I was taken by the elephant made of beads thread on steel-wire, has he looks like one of the suits of elephant armour in a museum somewhere!

There's a post on the electronic gaming figures in the queue and it's been there for over a year, maybe it'll get finished soon, but time waits for no man and there's always new stuff to shot and post!

M is for Moggie Traveller

A bit of pure nostalgia today, we had two of these, a second-hand grey one made in the 1960's which was a good runner, and a factory-fresh, dark 'Trafalgar Blue' one made under the union troubles of the 1970's which never quite lived-up to expectations and helped explain how we handed the British motor-trade to Japan and Germany - rather as Trump is currently surrendering US global influence to Russia and China!

Basically a Morris Minor with a box on the back, whenever our parents went to a dinner party, drinkie 'do' or whatever (what happened to all that formal socialising, it seems to have died a death! I blame Aynge!), my brother and I would be taken along; with our sleeping bags and left out in the car . . . saved a fortune in babysitter fees!

The weird thing is I can still remember the number plate - POT 698G - over most of the vehicles . . . err . . . all the vehicle's I've ever owned!

Vanguards from Lledo, box is a bit sun-faded! If I recall correctly - our radiator-grill bars were colour matched to the car bodywork, rather than having a big wide cream or white grin, like some models, that was the height of sophistication through factory customisation or 'optional extras' in Post War Britain!

Also while the date given on the enclosed papers suggest this is meant to show an earlier model, they had saluting 'wing' indicators recessed into the side-pillars which later vehicles like our second one and the depicted model didn't have.

We also used to get left in it while mum went shopping, and once in the no-horse village of Hartley Wintney's high street (the A30!), we got into trouble after getting bored, opening the sliding side window and shouting "Bloody-bugger-shit-bloody-bugger-shit-bloody..." at passing traffic - until some offended old lady called the police!

The Rozzer's found mum, she told dad, we sat-down very gingerly for a day or two, those where the day huh? A bit of casual violence toward children - begat half-sensible adults! Kids - "Banana-car!" is a safer game.