F is for Follow-up - Wavyline Magic Roundabout

So, re: the red set of Magic Roundabout premiums in the previous post (see below, or click on 'previous post/s'), the colours usually associated with the known UK issue, are as these;

 

To which you can add orange, we looked at them in more detail here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/09/f-is-for-follow-up-magic-roundabout.html

 

in part as a follow-up to the previous post here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/01/c-is-for-contribution-week-iii-tatra.html

 

And while some sources still call them 'cereal premiums', we know they were issued with biscuits here in the UK (above colours) and as Olá ice cream premiums in Europe, as a much wider range of colours, they were probably also issued as individual gum packet premiums in Europe, under more than one brand, and now; 

 

Wavyline Magic Roundabout

 

Promotion

No.00997

 

Wavyline premiums. This is at least the second set of these to appear on-line, there is one on there now (same given code, which might be the promotion-code, rather than a carton number), but I would never use live images, I know someone who would, but he has the ethics of an ally-cat, and the morals to match! Scally's, what can you do?

 

Do we start with the image, or start with the history? Wavyline was a small, independent supermarket chain, in the Co-Op model; smaller, local 'supermarket' or convenience stores, down here in my neck of the woods, indeed, I think the current Tesco in Hartley Wintney was a Wavyline once, after it was a butcher's? Then an International? But, I might have made all that up? I was a kid! And, we used the Keymarkets in Farnham, now a Sainsbury's superstore!

 

The image above, shows each pose/sculpt in a separate bag, and while I don't know the nature of the premium/prize issue, I'm guessing it was a bit like Green-Shield Stamps (other stamp collecting schemes were available!), except with instant gratification, i.e., spend a pound, get a figure, spend five - get six figures, something like that? The similar Codec stores in France, were running giveaways in their rural shops, using multi-issuer premiums; ex-Van Brode, ex-Bonux etc . . .

 

EFE Bedford TK as articulated tractor-trailer for Wavyline

HO-OO gauge/scale

(http://www.modelbuszone.co.uk/efe/trucks/bed/22002gy.html)

 

So, if you did live in a village or suburb lucky enough to have a Wavyline, or a smaller market town, where everyone knew everyone else, and/or you knew the staff in the store, you could, upon qualifying for the dividend, ask for them to be red, so long as red ones were still in the bag, or you could ask for the figure/character of your choice? If your aunty/Mum/older sibling worked in the store, they might put aside the ones you were still needing?

 

Which would enable you to build a set of red ones! Or blue ones! So, the set I picked-up in DEBRA the other day were probably Wavyline, not Nabisco (who put one (random colour) in each pack), not that you would know, when you find them loose, they were all coming from the same factory, which still hasn't been identified, either side of the Channel. But the point is, we've lost more than we know, with a lot of this stuff, and it's only lucky feeBay hits, which fill the blanks we didn't even know were there!

J is for Jug Band

I will make an effort this Christmas, to finish the railway figure series, started two years ago, I meant to do it last year, but it never happened, and it's high time it got done. In the meantime, and as a taster (it's the only image on the firm in the queue), is this, which was donated by a Blog follower who prefers to remain anonymous . . . don't worry, I get it, I'm a loose cannon, and it's a brave man who would be associated with me!

Imported into the UK by Bachmann Europe, is this hillbilly Jug Band, in HO from Woodland Scenics, and it's absolutely lovely! The only thing missing is a couple of drunk neo-Nazi bikers, loosing a fight with Bo' and Luke Duke! We've got a wash-tub bass, a washboard and a guy playing an actual jug, with three more conventional instruments, charming. Cheers Dude, you know who you are!

L is for Look What I Saw!

Driving out to Alresford for a drop this evening, I saw signs for 'Ride with Thomas' and 'Steam Spectacular' on the road between Farnham and Alresford, and assumed it was something to do with the Watercress Line.

 

Then, while at the customer's house, a gurt' weezin' and a'puffin' was occurring behind their house, and I said "That Thomas is a noisy chap isn't he?", and she said it's not Thomas, it's Nigel Gresley, you should to talk to my husband about it!

 

Anyway, I got on with my route, only to find the road over the line was closed, so taking it as a sign, I parked up at the barrier, ran up to the bridge and managed to get these . . .  

 

 . . . somewhere in all that, which is mostly coal-smoke, not steam, is Sir Nigel Gresley, one of the few remaining streamlined biggies from the height of the steam era! And it was a still evening, after the storm of the last 48-hours, so it (the smoke) wasn't clearing, and while I had to get on, I knew I was 20-minutes ahead on my route (it's all computer and satellite driven these days), so I formed a quick plan, and shot-off to one of my favourite tea-break spots, more in hope than anticipation, and started to clean my windows, which I'd already told the internal camera needed doing - you need an excuse to stop, off schedule! When I heard them . . .

 

 . . . and managed to get these three off! Halfway between Ropley and Bishop's Sutton, on the embankment which runs from Arlesford to the Four Marks hill, I was about a quarter of a mile away, so they're not the best, but they are still awesome beasts!

 

Full steam from both of them, I think the leader might be 506 (30506) LSWR Urie S15 Class, with the 'Gresley behind, and the setting sun (6pm'ish) shining right at them! Apparently, they'll be performing again, this coming weekend;

 

https://watercressline.co.uk/special-days/travel-behind-sir-nigel-gresley/

 

Now, I'm no 'spotting' train-buff, but there are certain things, old tanks, tall ships, steam long-boats, Massey Furguson 135/165's, which are literally living history, and you only fail to be moved if there's something wrong with your soul, so if you're not doing anything next weekend, get your arse to Arlesford!

 

That's it - happenstance! Made a reasonable shift, memorable!

B is for Bibliography - 1 of 2

I've had a fair few books come-in over the last 18/24 months, and the folder was getting unmanageable, so I've split it into 3, arbitrarily, as photographed, not as they came in (like you care!), and will chuck them up here, as two posts on collectables books, and one on non-toy stuff! This is the first of those collectable's posts.

Back in the 'day', the Burn's guides were THE guides, rather eclipsed by the excellent Scalemates website, now. They provided a good guide to what had been around when, and this came in a few months ago, I have also got the Sci-Fi specific volume, which was a little earlier, this is one of the later 'whole' lists I think.

This was recent show plunder, and I only got it because someone else had left it on the guy's table, after being tempted! Anything New Cavendish is worth a punt, and this is both an authoritative and academic work, and also beautifully illustrated, and has a comprehensive listing of toys made by the iconic tin-plate manufacturer.

One of several general books on games and/or puzzles, but each always has the author's own favourites, or unique finds, so each has something to add, and between them, they have most of the odd lead-flat or microscale wood vehicles and things, I post from time to time, and one day I'll sit down and ID everything, and we'll have some roundups here of ships, cars, horse racers/riders &etc. It may, however, be a duplicate in the library, I'm getting familiarity-vibes, from the cover?

Bought for 'completion', a kids book really, a primer on what to collect, or sugegstions for collecting, but even a basic book will have something to give, especially if it includes fields outside your own interests. Language/jargon, tools, renovation or cleaning hints or techniques, from other hobbies/pastimes.

It's funny, you can be involved in collecting from an early age, and still be totally unaware of a book, which, when you subsequently research it, becomes clear is quite common and well-known - this is that book, for me, recently! I have a couple of the other 'Advertorial' books; 'The Hornby Book of Trains', which ran to several editions, and would, after the amalgamation, include Tri-Ang, but this had slid totally under the radar.

 

To be fair, none of them add much, being only 'chatty' illustrated catalogues, but they are nice coffee table eye-candy, and would have been popular dream-time, wish-list reading for kids, at the time.

Becoming slightly comedic now, but also very useful. Originally Chris Smith (who's Mum worked for Hawkin/Tobar) sent, first images, then a whole copy, to enhance/back-up stuff being blogged here at Small Scale World, after I'd shown a photo or scan, I couldn't remember where from, then I got confused about what I'd shown, when. Then, earlier last year, sorting the whole library, I found a couple more, one in with the books, one or two in the box-files . . . then these three came in from the Late Micheal Hyde's estate!

 

So, allowing for a duplicate or two, I should have five or six of these, from the early 1980's through to the 2000's, with the odd page in a couple of the general catalogues, giving a good overview of the 20-odd years the tin-plate ran for.

 

And it's clear this was a membership thing, a collector's club for a whole sub-branch of the hobby, with regular/annual issues of these catalogues, each of which has a mail-order form, and where all the ZZ/Rogazz, Shilling, Japanese imports and German/Russian reproductions all sit side by side with Chinese retro/fakes! But all accurately described, sometime s with a potted history of the origins of how the tools/stock was found, put into production, or reproduced, etc . . . 

 

Above are from 1983 (October), 1996 (Cristmas) and the Spring 1998 editions. 

Mentioned the other day, one of two or three issued in a rather fantastical sting/fraud which seem to have been set up over several years! There's an interesting reference to it here;

 

https://www.qualitydiecasttoys.com/articles/35 

 

and I quote "We even had Jeffrey Levitt (of Mint and Boxed infamy) calling in as he passed by on his way to Maidstone Prison. He was serving his time on weekdays but allowed home for the weekends. He did this for about a year, still trying to deal in toys whilst jailed for masterminding a massive fraud dealing in toys!" 

Another general book, or that's what it looks like, but this is co-authored by the parents of 'our own' James Opie, and they did more for the early research of all aspects of 'modern' Childhood, than anyone else, and - while better known for their work on playground/colloquial rhymes, fairy tales and children's song - they also covered the toys, and this has some very interesting chapters on play.

 

The social science of play and childhood is a fascinating field, with the well-meaning Jocasta's of Islington trying to raise 'gender-neutral' offspring, only to discover, on a walk in the woods, that the boys will pick up sticks and use them as guns or swords, the girls will pick up fir-cones and treat them as pets or babies!

 

And as a life-long Radio-4 fan, I've absorbed some of it, indeed, I dare say I've listened to one or other of the Opie parents' discussing it over the years, I've certainly caught James' brother being interviewed on consumer products, more than once!

I think this was an eBay grab, I can't honestly remember, it may have come from John B, and it's the commercial edition, of a book I may also have bought (without the shiny resin badge) as a self-publish/print-on-demand jobbie, from that there Wibbly Wobbly Way, a few years ago? It's a superb, single-subject work, with all the Reamsa rarities.

I was lucky to get this! It was earmarked for 'The Doctor', but he only wanted to check a couple of images on a specific page, then he left it, and I grabbed it with glee! Slightly deflated by realising there are several more volumes in the series! But it will help me ID stuff I know little about - French lead!

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Civilian & Sports

We reach the penultimate plunder post from the PW show in June, but with several lots from Peter Evans to come, more car-booty/Charity Shop stuff and another Sandown (nice space surprises, for those who get excited about such things), there'll be mixed-lot posts through to Christmas, on-and-off!

 

This was one of the first things I bought 'in the room', and I just couldn't resist it, I already hate it for the space it takes-up, probably why the owner was passing it on, but it has a figure, who - despite literally thousands there - isn't in the unknown seated drivers, passengers & riders zone! Looking at the two brackets either side of the seat, it's missing a 'buggy' canopy, but is otherwise complete . . . with hat?

 

Very similar to the Tudor Rose 'Veteran Cars', in size and material (soft polyethylene), but more of a fictional marque (?) somewhere between TR's 1910 Ford "T" and their 1904 Darracq, with the spare wheel from the former, plonked onto the side of the latter, who's rear cargo space is now blank, but, I'm not enough of a car expert to know for sure, however, it's a lot of fun.

 

Divers and their vessels; I think we've probably seen it all before, and it's nearly always the same pieces missing, but there's always colour-variations to pick-up for the master sample, if nothing else, so whether bought or donated, it'll all have some use.

 

A huge Cake Decoration footballer, in hard polystyrene, a scale up of similar 45/50-mil figures from hong Kong, two of the more recent cereal premiums, and an earlier similar, chap Billy Bremner I think, I forgot to note them!

 

Other sports, including a Starlux bullfighter; a bullfighter got gored to death the other day (oh dear, never mind, it's all part of God's plan!). Four horse riders who are almost certainly from a board game, just finding out which, is the remaining problem! Soft plastic footballer, I have a feeling we've seen a few of this set now, a pair in pink and maybe a green one, so it'll be a premium of some kind, but late, it's 'ethylene, not 'styrene.

 

The rather damaged novelty boxers are polystyrene, and although battered, are a useful addition to a growing sample of the sliding-action toys, probably cracker things, or lucky-bags? And one of quite a few athletics/sports sets, most of which got an outing or two as cereal or washing-powder premiums one side of the channel or the other.

 

Babies, they're all babies, but enough of the Republican Party, here are some toy infants . . . boom-boom! A trio of the very early Torgano figures we've seen before here, but not painted, and the matching schemes, suggests factory/supplier, rather than end-owner?

 

The Hong Kong baby in cot was a common 6d (old pence)/5p pocket-money rack-toy, for dolls houses, or pockets! The big brown baby might be from a Mattel set, but I think it's an older set I do have a sizeable sample of somewhere, but I can never remember who issued them, Topps, was it?

 

Not sure on the jet-black figure, while the smaller brown one is probably Thomas/Poplar? 

 

The wooden flat must have been a big-seller at some Christmas in the 1940's or 50's, as she or her poultry keep coming-in, and often in this good-to-mint condition? In the middle is a Tara Toys teenage Tiny Teeny fashion figurine, a glaring absence on the Blog, and more so as I have a whole bunch of them somewhere, while I don't have a clue on the last one? Early leaning stuff? Modern anyway.

 

A trio of Spot-On, useful grist to the mill!

 

 

Coming on the back of several lots from Adrian and my own scrapings, here a bunch-more farm from Hong Kong, one day it's hoped most of these will have been ID'd to makers, or at least generic-set titles, and that will be by minor details, base type, base marking, even the paint variations. But, you can see here, how they are all different.

 

Speaking of the unknown riders, drivers and pilots! An Airfix motorcyclist, third from the left, and a Tudor Rose tractor-driver/plant operator on the far right, with two unknowns, one possibly a crude firefighter, the other from a large carpet racing-car.

 

Mixed civilians, including a Marx reissue, Britains, Corgi and a Blue Box knock-off.

 

And to finish, another loose lot of the Hong Kong semi-flat cartoony clones of old Märklin railway figures. I hope the orange chap with suitcases, or the red lady next to him is the one I needed to have two of each loose, so in the final, definitive post (we have looked at them more than once), whenever that is, we will have everyone from both sides, with the carded set in one shot!

3D is for Other Blogs, Really!

Or why I stopped worrying and learned to love tolerate the polymer printer!

 

Donation!

Many Thanks to Tom Clague

('Tomholio' around the Internet) 

 

Many years ago, although it seems like yesterday, I just don't know where it goes? And, it goes there quicker every year, but many years ago, 2007/2008, on the HäT forum, which was a very different beast then, it has since been heavily bot-edited by 'H' for perfectly understandable reasons, no criticism, and moved home/platform a couple of times, and is now a more corporate or pro-brand site, but many years ago we used to have a lot of fun on there, sometimes it would degenerate into silliness, other times the less humorous' would take offence, often about something which wasn't actually aimed at them, but there you go, all humour requires a certain level of grey-cells, some more than others, but many years ago, the Brit's, Antipodeans and some of the Canucks/Yanks would have some real fun . . . but we also had some more serious discussions, and many years ago, we had a thread on 3D Printing!

 

Straight out of the printer. 

 

At that time, the first commercial machines were just becoming something a semi-affluent Western hobbyist, within the 10%, globally, could look at affording, and a lot of potential was held by the nascent technology, or series of technologies, as there are various methods employed in Deposition-Modelling, or Rapid Prototyping (which includes CAD/CAM and CNC)*, as 3D printing is known to those at the cutting-edge of the Industry.

 

*Computer-aided design, computer-aided manufacture, computer numerical control['ed machining].

 

When cats'll fly!

I was quite hopeful at the time, but also pointed out that it might end the toy soldier industry as we then knew it, however, and thankfully, time has shown I was wrong on that one, and despite many friends, acquaintances and fellow-Blogger's having 3D machines of their own, or using the bespoke print-on-demand sellers around the place, most of the then new names in the hobby are still going, including HäT Indusrie!

 

This one's got no name!

 

The other criticism I had, or shared with others in that conversation (long since deleted by the forum-police 'bots), was that it would cheapen the concept of figure collecting, by making anything and everything available to anybody (who could afford it) in any scale, at any time, and that has come true!

 

Is there a doctor in the house?

 

Anyone, with the necessary skills, software, or scanner, or a useful mate so equipped, can scan any figure ever made, or design any figure you can dream of, in your wildest imagination, manipulate the file in an infinite number of ways, and print the results in increments of any scale from a couple of millimetres to whatever size you floor, drive or yard can sustain, without damage!

 

Airfix knock-off, and with naked girlfriend!

 

And that printing can be via simple filament feed, liquid or powder sintering, or deposition of layers, or that was the situation when we were having that conversation, with the new, affordable 'home PC' machines mostly being the filament type, now known as Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), it's probably still the commonest form of home printing. And is also the technology in the rather very disappointing pen I looked at, here.

He used to drive the Millennium Falcon, you know?

But not in these threads!

HO/OO (left), 25mm (right)

 

Increasingly sintering is becoming affordable for the home printing enthusiast, and you can 'sinter' powder or liquid polymer, and metal (now called fusion), they alll have their own jargon! Vat Polymerisation (VP, for liquids) or Powder Bed Fusion (PBF, for powders!), with VP broken down into Stereolithography (SLA, usually using lasers) and Digital Light Processing (DLP), with fusion further divided into

 

Selective Laser Sintering (SLS - for plastics), and Selective Laser Melting (SLM) or Electron Beam Melting (EBM) for metals, these can be called Directed Energy Deposition too, althogh technically that's a sub-type with at least six systems!

 

HO/OO Turkey - incredible levels of detail.

 

Other systems are Material Jetting (deposited droplets of photo-polymer material, are then cured by UV light, we looked at a simple version of it, here), Binder Jetting (A print head deposits a liquid binding agent onto a bed of powder material, layer-by-layer, to hold the powder together, developed many years ago by the movie industry for scenic backgrounds, I believe?), and Sheet Lamination, where, thin sheets of material are bonded together and cut to form layers/shapes.

 

 ♪♪♫ She wants to break free!

She wants to break free from your lies
You're so self-satisfied
She don't neehee'eed you

She's got to break freehee'ee!

God knows!

God knows She wants to break free! ♫♪♫

 

And all the above, is only simplified, for modellers and wargamers! There are more than ten forms of Vat Polymerisation, eight types of Powder Bed Fusion . . . µSLA anyone?That's Microscopic Stereolithography, to you, Sir!

 

Anatomically correct nudes above,

Brazilian Turkish surgeon's 'skills' on display below!

 

And if you can afford a metal fusion printer, you can make yourself an indestructible copy of the Hong Kong/Laramie jungle superhero The Phantom, in a material designed to withstand the strains of motor-racing engines, aerospace components, or satellite thrusters! While meat (pork, beef and fish), replacement skin (also meat!) and concrete are all being successfully 3D printed.

 

The names are Bond, Roger and Shaun!

 

But, another criticism, at the hobby end, a lot of the stuff is manufactured from low-grade polymers, deliberately biodegradable polymers, or polymers with unknown long-term properties! And, a secondary aim of this post, is to explain why I don't really post 3D printing, won't often, and chose not too, back at the start of the blog, really.

 

Aping around, monkeying about!!

 

It's not snobbery or superciliousness, but that the infinite parameters, of scale, pose and subject, along with the possibility that your downloaded figure, posted from South Korea might disintegrate in six months, along with my lack of knowledge of the subject despite following it pretty closely, and - while I was doing 3D CAD - with some interest, just means I'd rather concentrate on existing vintage, and modern new production.

 

"Sonta-haa! Sonta-haa!"

There are two people who do post a fair bit now, Shaun, over at Fantasy Toy Soldiers, has posted some exquisite figurines in the larger scales, which would be a joy to paint, and Russ over at Plastic Toy Soldiers has started posting the odd 'Combat' 3D prints. It's not that I won't post 3D printed figures, I will, from time to time, I have one or two, I think, but I'm not going to collect them, there aren't enough hours left in the universe to get them all!

 

♫♫♪ "We're only passenger, we wanna' get off" ♫♪♪♫

 

And, just in case you didn't get my attempts at humorous captions, here's what Tom said about this lovely little parcel from Down Under, with grateful thanks to him for this donation, and thanks to Adrian for receiving the parcel, while I'm stuck in Limbo! Tom posts some of his 3D prints on his blog;

 

https://tomertonvillage.blogspot.com/

". . . a bit of background: Often the 3D printers i've bought from will include a number of duplicates - ostensibly just to make use of the resin pool they load the printer with . . . in this bag, we have an assortment designed and printed from various places around the world.

Sontarans Designer Wayne Peters has a number of excellent free Doctor Who files on cults3d.com. I downloaded these boys, and had an Australian printer make me a 1/76 set - she kindly included these larger prints. 

 

Movie stars in pink Ebay is awash with sellers from China who have a cornucopia of 1/64 scale figures - to go with Hot Wheels type cars. Along I came, and asked if they could print in 1/76 scale. This caused enormous confusion, and led to them sending figures of all shapes and sizes.

 

Doctor Who piracies Warning: the Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy in your possession are wanted men, on the run from the law! These are indeed piracies of larger scale game pieces. I won't incriminate my source - instead, I'll quickly distract you with... 

 

Curvy ladies from Turkey, surprise surprise, what do middle-aged men want? Curvy ladies! Designer Phnix3d from Turkey obliges, with thousands of sculpts. His novelty is that he provides both a dressed and nude version of each pose. Model rail companies have done nudies before [I know, I have several of the 'naughty' Noch sets! Ed.] , but never to this quality (or ballooning imagination). The flipside is, he does a handful of male figures, who, dwarfed by their lady friends, frankly look a bit lost and embarrassed. The prints themselves have come all the way from the USA, where printer 'DoubleG Diecast' has these, and hundreds of other figures listed.

 

Planet of the apes, 2001; DoubleG also has these movie characters. As with the pink Chinese prints, I suspect the designs are scale downs from larger multi-part designs (copyright & intellectual property are not well respected concepts in the 3D printing world).

 

'Man who wants to break free', from Vietnam My model village could do with a good hoovering,Ii'll be setting Freddie loose once I've painted him.

 

. . . I've found it fascinating to keep an eye on 3d printing, asit'ss evolved from fairly naff filament types to incredible high-resolution resin machines now. Absent from this bag, I shared you the link to Smart Models UK previously; his are perhaps my favourite 3d printed model rail range, which he sells in neat little sets (alas with no duplicates), recommend . . .

 

. . . One to check out - I like both the style and the subject matter of his various figure sets: https://www.smartmodels.org/" 

 

2001 - The future was many years ago!

 

As a post scriptum, and given what I said about plastics, these came halfway-round the world in a jiffy bag, are all less than 30mm, and the only damage was a couple of bits of Sontaran, which will need glueing, along with Doctor the 7th's umbrella, Freddie's hoover and the wings of the flying Cat'sect. But Clint's cheroot and Connery's gun, survived whatever the international post can throw at a small parcel!

L is for Last May's Lots of Lovely Loot - Everything Else!

Given that I got a shed-load of good stuff yesterday and still have to clear the Plastic Warrior Show stuff first, I'm rather glad to be putting May's plunder-posts to bed! Mostly civil subjects, with a couple of oddments, there were one or two treasures among them.

 

This was one of those frustrations, only associated with those who don't carry a farty, nerdy 'wants' list around with them . . . step-up that man, 'cos it's me! The seller had several of these, but I really couldn't remember which ones I already had, and thought this looked like one I didn't, when I did, doh! And while I looked for them again yesterday, I didn't see them!

 

Should hold this for ITLAPD, but there's some nice stuff lined-up this year, so they can go here, they are soft, PVC, factory-painted, generic versions of the unpainted Webb's Supertoy pirate set, which is also still contemporary, somewhere, as both me and Peter Evans have been finding them.

 

Tudor Rose seesaw, I got it primarily to help ID the babies, and was surprised to find they are PVC like the Thomas ones (I was expecting polyethylene), which means I'll have to be doubly careful, when I come to sort all the pink babies!

 

Also, it's a bit odd that both companies chose a material which can melt the accompanying polystyrene toys they all came with, but then, at the time of manufacture, neither knew the potential for the melting, which AFV kit owners would be learning about by the 1970's! Not to forget the proud owners of Action Man diving suits - that sticky, orange hood!

 

Unpainted castings of possibly game-playing pieces, but I have to compare them with the Lilliput one, before I decide if they aren't actually just home-piracies of the Britains ones? If they are copies, I might paint them up, at some point in the future, before the task is beyond my eyesight!

 

These are composition, and a pumice type, which suggests British or French production, but the little red collars mirror those of wooden erzgebirge stuff, so they maybe from the Ore Mountains area of Saxony (Germany) or Bohemia (the Czech Republic - formally Czechoslovakia)?

 

The two nearest the camera are larger and lack the scenic bases, and also might be bisque porcelain or chalkware, they seem a little harder (but you don't casually test things this small) so I bagged them separately.

 

Some Japanese stuff I guess?, I don't know if they all go together or not, some are harder, some softer, some have pencil-holes, some don't, a few won't stand up, alone, some are transparent, others opaque, so I arbitrarily grouped them into three for shooting, and await further info' on what they actually are!

 

Circus! A Frazer & Glass clown, who has no signs of being glued to any of the accessories, or his compatriots, so one assumes that when they were being sold from the glass-compartmented shelf-displays in Woolworth's, you could purchase single, unadorned clowns? Of course you could, and he was in the sets as well; A1 Clown!

 

Two of the Merit 'Travelling Circus' wagons, which gave rise to various Hong Kong copies, both of the wagons as wagons, and as trains, and a lovely spirit-painted, wheeled, Japanese novelty, a celluloid blow-mould, of a monkey, in a fez, on a hobbyhorse, of course and why not!

 

These are definitely bisque, and probably French fèves, fox-hunters in hunting pink, with their hounds, around 35mm, they are a bit bigger than the common, modern fèves, so may have been more decorative, or even cake decorations, in which case they may be British; but, they need black boots?

 

These were a lovely find, Sima (Sixtus Maier, of Fürth, Germany) model railway flats, these were made for Märklin HO railways, back in the 1950's, although they measure a little larger, and presumably pre-date Märklin's own sets, and the similar Wettig sets? Note how the gosling doubles as a rearing chick!

 

I found another bird on the floor and retook the image, but the colour is all wrong, so I left it down here, purely for compleat'ness!