V is for Voracious Verdite Vertebrate

An alternate title-idea was G is for Great Grey Green Greasy Limpopo River, but - although I can't find it - I think we did have that, many years ago?

 

A bit off the beaten track tonight, but a figural nevertheless, and a rather fine one! I believe it's carved from a form of stone known as Verdite (green-ite?!!), but something called New Zealand Jade can look similar, but should be much harder, this is quite a soft rock I think, not that I am any kind of expert!

Also known variously as Verdite Serpentine or Fuchsite, a group of rocks from Southern Africa, this was probably carved for the tourist trade, in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) by a member of the Shona tribe, and no, I didn't know any of the above until I started googling 'green rock animals' half an hour ago!

 

 

Crocodile rather than alligator, from the backplate and nose shape . . . and . . . Africa! I know you are supposed to know about teeth and stuff to really know what you are looking at, but this is a representative piece, not going for full realism, and as such I think the sculptor has captured it well?

I love it, it is a very characterful animal, with not a small amount of evil about its countenance, as it creeps-up on a wildebeest crossing somewhere on the veldt, waiting for a straggler, or a young fool to cross first!

It had an accident a few years ago, revealing a quite granite-like granularity to the unworked stone, which thankfully soaked up a couple of blobs of superglue and went back together perfectly.

The other thing I like about it, beyond the character of the sculpt, is the colour, or range of colours, which vary from deep olives and duns to flecks of malachite-green. During the resent Googling the last search was 'Verdite Crocodile', revealing this to be one of the better examples, sculpt wise, with modern ones being far more crudely sculpted/finished.

 

And it's about the same size as the late Britains beast (with moving jaw), so we'll probably look at them together with others (the Charbens is similar) one day.

DUK is for "APION" Amfibies Jeep!

This is an odd one; sometimes I just don't understand how the hobby works. What we have here is a never seen before, may never see again, South African toy of a military vehicle in 'around' a 54/60mm compatible scale, yet having shot it at length back in the early spring, [not] watched them not-sell on evilBay, watched them not sell at the Plastic Warrior show and bought an orphan - at the end of the show, I wonder how that happened?

Most 'large-scale' collectors, or at least the more generic or ephemeral collectors, the completist or competitive collectors or the curious (which is all bar the subject-specific collectors, i.e. most of them) would happily have a bright red Tudor Rose Land-Rover or bright yellow Pyro or Banner 'dimestore' Jeep in their collections, yet no one wanted these?

Yet, I also half-understand, as despite sliding the first image between the two introductory paragraphs, and sticking another above this continuation of my opening point, I am going to struggle to find enough blurb for the post, as there's hardly anything to say about them, but having taken a load of images when I first saw them and some more of my example (red one) I now have five collages to write up! Now obviously, the next paragraph can be all about the Box . . .

Which comes in at least two colour-ways, both are three-colour processes, but different colours, litho'd, not dot-matrix, so green/orange are reproduced by overlaying. Each box also has two panels and one end with the the written details in Afrikans and the other three faces in English . . . like the contemporaneous stamps!

This leaves maker and the vehicle to describe; but you've already seen it as I spread the images through the text! It's an amphibious Jeep in leery colours, reasonably accurate for an infant toy, and in a phenolic resin which is starting to distort - in the case of the yellow; particularly so. Opposite colours are placed as 'small parts'; red on the yellow vehicle and vise-versa.

Final image leaves us with the maker . . . African Plastic Industries (Pty) Limited trading as Apion and the price . . . three shillings and ninep'nce, for something this large, which has probably been sent half-way round the world on a tramp steamer, places them in the nineteen-fifties I suspect, while there's nothing on Google!

Phew! Got there, can't understand why no one wanted them, can half-understand why they generated so little interest, but . . . humans are weird! Still they join the Haarlem and SA marked SAE in the collection, what next from that part of the world?

C is for C&T Auctions - Forthcoming 12th December 'James Opie' Sale - Catalogue

Just a quick reminder that the catalogue for next Wednesday's sale is now available; ring +44 (0) 1233 510050, it is also available to be viewed online in either of two formats at the other ends of the below links.

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James Opie’s Pre-Auction Newsletter No. 10

 

Sale is on Wednesday 12^th December 2018 10.00 a.m.

Dear Collector,

My 10th C & T Auction, now online, is a full 600 lots with no gaps! It is now available, including nearly all the pictures, on www.the-saleroom.com. As usual we are also offering an online ‘flick-through’ version of the catalogue on the C & T website www.candtauctions.co.uk. This gives you easy access to the additional information included in the hard copy catalogue that doesn’t show up online on the auction site. Just go to the C & T website and click on “latest catalogues”.

There are 2,780 photographs, showing more than 14,200 items in the 600 lots. There are no gaps, but the subject sections are a little more complicated than usual, as I had to full some subjects into more than one position, and I wanted to keep the Arthur Smith collection together.

CONTENTS OF THE 600 LOT SALE:                                                                      

Britains and British Hollowcast Toy Soldiers:                                                                              

Early, pre-1918 (1 to 49, 160 to 175 and 382) 66 lots

Golden Age 1919-1941 (37 to 124, 176 to 204 and 477 to 499) 216 lots

Twilight of Hollowcast 1945-1966(122 to 202, 560 to 577 and 4 others) 67 lots

Britains New and other toy soldiers (250 to 299 and nine others) 59 lots

Britains and other Civilian figures (300 to 351 and 384) 52 lots

CJB Vehicles (Lots 361 to 365) 5 lots

French and German Toy Soldiers (381, 386 to 469 and 472 to 476) 90 lots

Courtenay Medieval Models (357 and 470 to 471) 3 lots

Military Models (Lots 500 to 504) 5 lots

Skybird (Lots 505 to 559) 55 lots

Plastic Toy Soldiers and Figures (371 to 377 and 578 to 600) 30 lots

As usual, the hard copy catalogue is also available online. The best way to look at the highlights of the sale is to take particular note of those lots I have chosen to illustrate, which in my opinion are the most interesting. Some of the many highlights are on the outside and inside of the cover at the front and back. 

Remember that you can bid online via the Saleroom.com (3% + VAT extra for this service), or you can place bids by telephone, e-mail or by the form in the back of the catalogue (please check to ensure they have been received) +44 (0) 1233 510050. You can also order hard copy catalogues on this number. The dollar continues to be at an advantageous exchange rate.

PLEASE do not send bids to my email addresses on the day before or the day of the sale, as I will not be able to transfer them.  Send instead to enquiries@candtauctions.co.uk, and the bids will be entered. Any queries about the content can be answered at my normal email jamesopie@yahoo.co.uk, or on my ‘phone: +44 (0) 20 7794 7447 (except day before and day of sale).

This catalogue features

THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE ARTHUR SMITH    Arthur was a Fellow of the BMSS, a keen modeller, painter and collector.

Lots 318 to 381 and 386 to 392

(Article re. CJB on SSW last week).

THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE PAT CAMPBELL part II, including the DELHI DURBAR

Lots 261 to 299

(Article on SSW last week).

THE DEREK GOLDBERG SKYBIRD COLLECTION 

Lots 505 to 55

 (Article and Highlights on SSW previously and last week).

SALE HIGHLIGHTS

Now to come to the highlights of this sale. In hollowcast Britains, the early section is yet larger than in the last catalogue, and there are some more gems, such as a complete blue jacketed mounted Band of the Life Guards, boxed rocking horse Omdurman 21^st Lancers and Middlesex Yeomanry, and a boxed Dr Jameson and the African Mounted Infantry.

Lot 23

Apart from 66 lots of early Britains, in this sale there are 216 lots of Britains manufactured between the wars, from four substantial collections. A number of rare items are included here also, starting with lot 88, the Welsh Guards. As the Welsh Guards were only formed in 1915, there weren’t any pre-war sets by Britains, and they only did their first issue of them in 1927, in one of the small two row display sets they were trying out at the time. Perhaps because they were a non-standard set and a bit more expensive, they were unpopular and didn’t feature in many collections. They are also somewhat difficult to spot if not in their box, as Britains seemed to be in some doubt as to how to paint them. Apart from the regular white plume with a green horizontal stripe in the centre, I have also seen them with a red plume on the left hand side, which would be the same as the not yet issued Canadian Governor General’s Foot Guards. In the set we have here, the only one I have yet come across in an original box, the plume has the green stripe of the plume left off, so they seem as though they are Grenadiers!  The figure count and type is right, however.