B is for Big Box of Bounty - Vehicles, Bits & Bobs

Well, luckily I have a day off, today, as I have a ton of plastic shite . . . Sorry, 'polymer loveliness' to sort and photograph, from the BP Sandown Park toy fair, yesterday, where I had a excellent day, but before I get started on that, here's the latest instalment of the plunder-posts from Chris Smith's most recent donation to the blog, which is all the man-made stuff! 

 

This is rather nice! A probably French farm-cart, in that heavy, hard-toffee-like polystyrene material, which I suspected was probably French, but sent these images to the authors of FIM, just in case they hadn't seen it, however, they were familiar with it, and were also of the opinion it is French.

 

It has a lovely tipping-action, via a lever at the front, and may be missing a probably removable back-board or ladder-rave, wheels seem to be the same polymer, while the white tyres are a polyethylene, I think? Maker still needed though?

 

This is how it came out of the box, with a Pokémon (?) hitched-up!

 

A Blue Box Austin champ, which seems to have been deliberately cut-back, in preparation for some conversion, or super-detailing? It will go in the spares for now, while the little PVC Galoob knock-off is new to me, Blog and the collection.

 

The weird landing craft belongs with various generic rack-toy 'army men' and diver sets, and while having various holes in which it looks like something should be plugged-in, is found just like this, in sealed sets!

 

More rack-toys with a militarised executive jet and one of the MPC mini-plane piracies, all useful, and the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar (which Dad jumped out of, on many occasions), seems to be one of the slightly bronzed-silver versions which are harder to find.

 

The submarine is from a modern rack-toy, or rack-toys, and we've probably seen it here in sealed/shelfied set/s in recent years, and is a useful loose addition. The racing car is from one of those credit-card shaped (and material) novelty sets, I have dinosaurs in the collection somewhere, and there are several sets of jet fighters.

 

The sports-car with lenticular 'window' is an old 1d or 2p gum-ball capsule-machine prize, while the locomotive is a modern (possibly Kinder) take on the old erzgebirge toy, where several wagons, or coaches, would be hooked or tied-together as a full train.

 

Three cracker-toy type bikes/motorcycles in the front-left 'row', with the larger bike we've seen before in various greens or spray-camouflage, associated with the Supreme/Ackerman, 'Fritz-helmeted' PVC figures, while the chap on the right is a Hong Kong rider, I think, used for both motorcycles and the quad-bike type machines?

 

A couple of flags (Norway (R) and semi-fictional 'African', left ) and what I suspect is the top of an animal 'toob', being a spinning map of the world, possibly seen here as a shelfie, I can't recall, but it looks familiar? One feels it's just the accessory for a evil Doctor's lair in some superhero or Bond'esque scenario, as the conference table!

 

I'd love to know where the axe comes from or who it belongs to, the shovel will be from one of the eight or ten-inch Action Man/GI Joe rip-offs, the pistol looks like a Christmas cracker prize, and more specifically, the mini, tree-crackers? I think the lantern with clear-marble lens is a doll's house accessory, due to its diminutive size, similar tourist items tend to be larger and have a pencil-sharpener secreted about them!

 

Part of a rack-toy bridge, an oil-drum, which may be Airfix and a rather nice, probably Hong Kong made wheelbarrow, which could have conveniently been for that yellow figure (Chris reports Eric Critcley as confirming him being a French farmer and not a cowboy), but it's too big!

However, with so many farmworker and construction/road-worker figures in the 'unknown civilian' zones, I'm sure it'll fit someone, even if it doesn't actually belong to them! Soft polyethylene with a very small wheel, is it from something cartoony like Bob the Builder?

 

Bits of the 'Bucking Bronco' jig-toy puzzle, a Richard I label which may prove useful one day, clearly it belongs on the base/plinth of a statuette or figure of some kind, which may come in, or already be in the stash, without a label?

 

The other casualty of Royal Fail's comprehensive parcel-mashing programme, was the blob to the right, which deserves a restoration! It's got the Airfix Reconnaissance Set's German dispatch-rider at it's core, with the wheels of a US M3 half-track either side and something on the back, and would seem to have been a home-made sci-fi bike thing, with the rider, now headless, painted up like a Soviet general on May 1st!

 

Marx (?) on the left, modern rack-toy/play-set boulder on the right!

 

Manta Force from Bluebird/Tomy, both missing bits, but both usable, and while other Manta stuff is in the forthcoming Sci-fi post, one day we'll redo all the Bluebird overviews, which were back near the beginning of the Blog and well overdue for an updated treatment, and these will be useful for that!

G is for Gorgeous Grail Garnered in Great Gewgaw Gala

It's funny, but since I picked this up (at Sandwon), I've seen about ten on evilBay, all boxed, all with the handle-bars in their little bag, so it would seem someone has found a carton of ex-shop stock, and either broken it up at [hammer] auction, or divvied it out among a few dealer mates, and they are trying to off-load them at the same time . . . Well, either that, or it was once (mid-1970's?) as common as muck!

 

Box.

 

Our old friend Lik Be with their daft monster hugging an LB marque! 

 

And, it may well be that the latter scenario is the truer, as there is often one or two on evilBay, always silly money (I didn't pay anything near what the current ones are up for, mild water-damage to box), and I have vague memories of seeing them in newsagents when I was still quite young, and being raised to believe all Hong Kong production was poor, cheap, naff and 'no good', so I've always hankered after one, and it's nice to tick-off a proper grail item.

 

Somewhere between a 1960's racer (shades of motorcycle & sidecar combinations, in the fairing), and the Fireball XL5 Jetmobiles (other sit-astride future transports were available!), for now I'm leaving the handle-bars in situe, but at some point I may get them out for a better shot or two. There are colour-reversed versions out there . . . New grail?

 

Loosely related to their other space figures, but the suit on this 100mm-odd figure, is more motorcycle-leathers than anything USAF/NASA-issued, however the double air-tanks and pistol holster are similar to features on the other eight sculpts! Plug-in, moving arms provide help with dynamism, but odd moulding has resulted in hollow legs/feet.

 

And I nearly wrote 'simplified' moulding there, but looking at it; at the angles required to remove the product from the mould; and the 3-way-split join-lines, it may have been anything but simplified, and in fact quite a technically advanced 3-part tool, with 2-phase moving parts, in each moulding-cycle?

 

Vroom, vroom! Although, the artwork shows multiple rocket exhausts, so more of a xchkkkkkrrrrrrrrrrrrr! And is that a standard Honda seat, or a Kwaka!

L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown February - Other Figures

The final post in this sequence is the rest of the figures, I think we've caught-up with 'London Loot' too, but there will be some 'H is for . . . s' to come, with more Toy- and Gift Fair revues to intersperse with them! And Easter's coming, and there's other stuff in the queue, and, and, I seem to be in a productive phase!

 

A couple of hollow-cast WWI French (Britains?), although they went to war in 1940 with pretty-much the same stuff, just in khaki! Both from Adrian's pound-tray, with the little unknown tin-plate howitzer/gun from his five-quid box, of such gems! It probably fired little wooden balls or dowels?

 

Two post-Giant on the left and a Quaker mounted Gladiator on the right, square-up for a bit of argie-bargie, at the feet of Cherilea's Sphinx. I was so pleased with the Sphinx purchase, I got it out to show a mate, and he pulled the same one out of his pocket! I think we'd both bought them from the same seller!

 

Late Blue Box (polyethylene) Britains copies on the left, Blue Box for Triang-Hornby (polystyrene) on the right, also squaring-up for what looks like it will be a fairly uneven fight, so unfair! With an explosion between them, which I think is a modern re-mould of the old Lineol shell-burst?

 

Early Westair ECW type. In this packageing they predate Kinder by several, if not many years, the full story will be on the 'Mocherette' page, whenever I get round to it!

 

These are nice! Two of Charles C. Stadden's war-gaming figures, around 35mm, home painted in a glossy, toy-soldier style, I spent some time googling Nappie's marshals, before switching to 'Russians', with no more success, but other uniforms I found, suggested they were more likely to be Russians (1812) than French, but then I tried 'Prussians' and found images of Frederick the Great (not Blucher), which looked like the chap on the right, so we go back a ways, to the 7YW and all those successions, and find the chap on the left is probably Hans Joachim von Zieten? Seen here as a flat, the blue on the Stadden being a little too pale, while 'Old Fritz' should have a silver breast-plate with those shoulder straps!

 

Clockwise from the greeney; who is a1990's Lucky Bag piracy of Marx's Pecos Bill, and a Kinder piracy of Lone Star's 'Metallion', Pat Masterton, who's full sized version was seen entering the stash, courtesy of Chris Smith last August!

 

A Hong Kong copy of, or 'after' Crescent (I think), in the style of Blue Box, but not one of theirs, a Kinder knight, from the two-part horses, these are nearly always found with their weapons broken these days, very brittle shafts, so a good find, another of the Morestone Stagecoach drivers, and, in the centre, the old 1960's Lucky Bag Indian in gold 'styrene.

 

This is Thomas, but much mucked-about with, painted and with a replacement set of handle-bars, which are attached with a lump of god-knows-what, it could be play-doh! So, again, at some point in the future, I think I'll try it in the ultrasonic cleaner, and see what that leaves me to work with? Pretty-sure I have a good one anyway, so I can afford to 'try something' and see!

 

Adrian found a stash of Hong Kong farm figures while sorting his stock (he is semi-retiring as I write), and passed them to my stash, and while the hope is to attribute a fair few of these to makers and/or named-sets, one day, this isn't that day! So it's just eye candy for now.

 

I have tons of this, lots of it from Chris, Peter, Trevor &etc, tubbed (large scale) or bagged (smallies) by pose, and most of these will be duplicates, but you can see the many variations between them means a few will be the first sample.

 

Strangely, various makers (or issuers) used the same colour schemes - blue/white, red/blue or red/yellow, which I suspect is because lots of smaller makers (sub-pirates, all of them!) in the blocks of the Kowloon Walled City slum (demolished in the 1990's), were being employed to produce all the farm and zoo stuff for repeat orders, for the pocket-money/rack-toy jobbers of the west, a similar situation with all the sub-Giant Wild West, and various generations of 'Army Men'?

 

Differentials include size, base shape/type, base marks, holes or pin-release marks and plastic colour, and they are all copies of other people's sculpts, with the obvious exception of the New Ray 'Country Life' chap holding the lamb-poodle-piglet hybrid! He comes in different colourways too.

 

Again clockwise from the far-left, we have an Airfix motorcycle rider, of whom I still need a few for my fleet of machines, I'll leave the paint (chocolate brown, on chocolate brown?) for now, after the lesson with the bikes! Next to him is a construction-worker/driver, and I think he may be French? He's a hard polystyrene, and well detailed, so I don't think he's Hong Kong, and he may be in a vehicle catalogue somewhere in the archive?

 

The robber is Lledo, the race-horse and jockey will probably be from a board-game, while the seated figure would appear to be from a model railway line/range, but I don't recognise the figure, or the charcoal styrene under the paint?

L is for Lesser & Pavey

Shot these at the Gift Fair the other day, these are tin-plate and resin piles of shite, the sort of thing you find in 'boutique' shops, garden centres and TKMaxx, bought, put on a shelf for 30, 40 years, knocked-off by the odd cat or grandchild, then dumped in a skip by the executors or sent to a charity shop, who, if it's obviously damaged, dump it in a skip!

 

The tank is a sort of Italio-British Panzer II! While the helicopter is a mishmash of several, but the Jeep and Land Rover were quite good.

 

There were civil items too, quite a few, but I concentrated on the military stuff, you'll be familiar-enough with this stuff, from the 'smarter' end of your high-street! And it's another box ticked - Lesser & Pavey.

 

Website;

https://www.leonardo.co.uk/

P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Vehicles & Accessories

Continuing with the look at Chris Smith's recent donation, and there were a number of vehicles or non-figural elements/items in the recent parcel from Chris, and they were next in the stack, so here they are!

 

The plastic armoured car is one of those really cheap rack-toy accessories from the 1970/80's, and may be missing the central pair of wheels, however I may have one in a similar condition (more chewed?) from where I can nick the missing wheels to make a whole sample!

 

The wooden one could be a wartime thing, but I suspect later, we had such things, made from off-cuts of 2x1 batten, which Dad was using on the roof of Tai-Hirion, the cottage he rebuilt from the ground, up. Ours weren't painted though, and had 5" nails as gun barrels! But I suspect that what we have here, is someone's once much-loved homemade toy, lost like ours, but saved, unlike ours!

Two guns, the one on the right probably from a big-box infant toy/play set type thing, maybe knights, maybe priates, the one on the left a similar source but more eco-friendly, being all-wood, and possibly somebody like Le Toy Van or ELC?

Vessels includes a hull for one of the Euro-premium ranges, there are tubs of them, with various hulls or superstructures waiting for their oppo', so a useful addition, likewise the two larger blow-moulds, which come in many colours with lots of plug-ins like the 1-Ton Humber truck sets, so again, all parts gratefully received, against future matching-up!

 

Two of the Christmas cracker/gum ball type micro-minis, and a possibly Hong Kong-made, demi-ronde sailing vessel, which is so similar to both some Euro-premiums, and some very early Airfix toys, which were sold in little cigarette packet type boxes, that it may be either? And being unmarked and painted in a fashion which could be 'home' or play-worn, it's not possible for me to say, with any conviction!

Three of the less-common HK copies of MPC mini-planes, in red, an Airfix spitfire, odd paper 'something flying' and more current rack-toy helicopter, are joined on the apron by several carrier Aircraft which I think are all Airfix - seven from the post-war HMS Victorious and one from the WWII HMS Ark Royal?

Micro's and mini's, we've seen similar before, and they all have bags or tubs of like-for-like matches, against better, future posts. Highlights here are a Lone Star land-rover in need of a wheel, a cereal-premium station-wagon, an early'ish Kinder jeep, in clip-together form, and another of the early board-game racing cars in some phenolic or formaldehyde polymer which leads to them always being distorted now.

Three motorcycles, two Kinder or similar, and a larger flywheel 'push-and-go' rack-toy type, useful for ID'ing another rider, of the type we always get in the unknown/minor makes, seated figures, shot!

"A place for everything, and everything in it's place", or at least it will be once I've got everything together for the final time; soon I hope! But there's a box of street furniture, a tub of telegraph poles and bags of luggage, small tools &etc.

 

The telegraph pole is very nice, and being around N-gauge compatible, and rather fine, but apparently having some age, a bit of a mystery? The suitcase will be The Lucky Toys or similar, the drum is Merit, and the water pump is probably another 'big-box' generic, but rather nice.

 

And the spinner is a cracker novelty, as may be the small hammer, but it could just as easily be an action-figure accessory, or even from one of those dime-store tow-trucks, two of which we've seen here now, I think?

There's also a huge blob of Blue-Tac somewhere with all the sand-castle flags standing in it, so these two Swedish standards will end-up there! Very useful treasure chest, to add to a growing sample of them, most ID'd but not all, and a weather vane which must be from a farm building, but who by I don't know, I don't think it's Britains or Timpo, so maybe New Ray or somebody like that? Maybe a stable-block?

Finally, a very useful sample of toy pistol ammunition, which will all be ID'd in the end, from catalogues or feeBay, and of which there will be a full post one day, as I have a whole bunch of these somewhere, including the Airfix and Lone Star SLR/FN bullets and so on.

 

The clip is quite small, and the slots would only accept the thin vinyl belts that tended to come with cheaper sets, the pricier stuff tending to leather or suede holsters/belts, however, it reminded me of 'S-Belts, or Snake-Belts (which it might fit over), belts that were ubiquitous when we were kids, but which seem to have totally disappeared? Our school uniform included one in 'claret & blue' which was useful when I ended-up supporting West Ham . . . long story for another day, and no, I don't know which league/division they are in at the moment, but they do seem to migrate regularly, like exotic ducks!

Thanks again to Chris for all this, it really is all very useful, and we will return to it all, again, in the future with fuller, subject-specific posts.

V is for Very Fine Sight!

During Brian Berke's recent sojourn in Italy, he bought this pair of larger scale items, as rather brilliant toy-related mementos of their visit, and nothing more iconic than a Vespa moped . . . with added babalicious babe from Babalonia!*

 

In Brian's own words;

"The two wheeler riders in Naples and surrounding area are positively demented.

This may be part of the universal road rage post Covid lockdown, though I suspect they were this way before.

The roads are narrow, which does not deter 2 wheelers from passing cars both into oncoming traffic and curbside at the same time. They go down pedestrian only streets. There are the equivalent of Zebra crossings. The custom is walk across and ignore traffic? Do not make eye contact. It was quite unnerving. Two wheelers don't stop they weave around you as you cross.

So I had to purchase this as it represents the most notable memory of the trip. The scale is larger than I would like but I wanted to buy it in Italy rather than later. The figure was the only one I could find, bought in the US which surprisingly it pretty accurate in terms of rider dress code near the beach!

It has gone on display temporally while the trip is fresh in the memory."

For a speculative purchase, they work very well together, and at 1:18th scale (approximately 90/100mm or 3-inches) the bathing beauty from American Diorama looks perfect on the Maisto moped, and one can imagine her posing in the warmth of the evening's setting sun, in one of the Piazzas, while her beau fetches a soft-scoop ice-cream cone!

We have a scaler, with the Crescent shooter, it's a trope which has rather fallen by the wayside in the last few years, not least because of everything else which has been going on, but I intended to have a couple on the planned, dedicated photo-station, once I'm fully settled, and we'll get back to 'berserker' comparisons!

As part of an eclectic display of odds and ends!

Brian shot an actual one in situ!

Many thanks to Brian for these, it's nice to have something a little left-field, and with a first for American Diorama (poured PU resin), it also adds to the underused Maisto (doe-cast) Tag . . . and, it's a babe in a bikini!

* I think I nicked that from Bill & Ted!