M is for May's Visit - Civilian and Sports Etc . . .

You know the score by now, so no pack drill, just running through vaguely thematic group shots of known or unknown figures, with a bit of my blurb to try and explain some of the many, many figures out there, with the civilian and/or sports, being often among the more interesting of the posts.

 

 

Seated; I think I've decided (or found?) that the Napoleonic hat figures (two sizes, right) are actually firemen from smaller garden/beach toy fire engines, while the huge blue one is from a very larger racing motorcycle and sidecar, the smaller blue is the Budgie motorcyclist, and the painted-blue, from a 1:24th'ish racing car.

 

The little red one on the left is from the might be Kamley / might be Marty artillery/speedboat crew, as seen on the But Is It Giant blog, the grey naval-looking chap in the middle is still unknown, but keeps turning-up so his toy must be common, a jeep or taxi, plant, maybe? While the other is also one who turns up from time to time, an arabesque/LRDG type, possibly from a 'dessert' vehicle toy, but just as likely to be a helicopter/fighter-pilot, or B/Op' Tank crew, and one of two poses, if I recall correctly.

 

Various farm/civilian types; I think one or two might have been marked I can't rememeber1 Best pleased with the orange one which is another of those 'animated' novelty figures, we saw a pink tennis player from the set of a while back.

 

I think we've seen the synthetic rubber guys at the back, in ones or twos, before, but this looks like it may be a complete pose line-up, or set's figure contents? The rest are larger carpet-toy figures, four Casdon and a damaged Poplar I think, with a simplified copy of the Corgi cherry-picker cage chap.

 

There are tubs of these waiting to be sorted in the main stash and bags of them in the TBS (to be sorted) zone, and one day I'll have a session uniting all the flippers, masks, tanks and accessories, with the correct figures, and we'll have a better look at them all and ID a few!

 

Board game figures from the Charity shop, no idea, yet, but obviously aimed at younger players, and having some kind of nature-walk or safari/hunter theme, not 100% sure the bush goes with the four figures (slightly different base design), but they came together and look to have similar sculpting?

 

Mechanics and construction workers, there are so many of these, but I have, over the years downloaded or shelfied many sets, with figures, so again, a big ID session and better look will happen at some point!

  

A cake-decoration baseball player, small novelty Olympian, from Hong Kong, and taken from larger-scale sets, and two figures who are more interesting; they seem to be more HK rack-toys, but I have a couple with silver belts, a bit like the MPC ring-hand chaps, but these are much smaller and more sportsmanlike with bare-heads - but helmets could be missing? I suspect Christmas cracker novelties, as they have come in, in ones and twos.

 

Another couple of firefighters, and two policemen, the fully painted is the Hong Kong copy of Cavendish's policeman, which Cavendish also carried/wholesaled to the tourist trade at one point, and two Matchbox figures, I think those with a touch of paint were earlier than those without.

 

Two Bell Games (foreground) footballers, from the magnetic sets, three Gem, and damaged, larger 'kicker' figure from Subbuteo, along with a small-scale copy of Airfix's goal-keeper, or, at least, he looks similar to the Airfix guy!

 

A chalkware figure, probably a cake-decoration, possibly of a good-fairy, or fairy tale character, sleeping beauty? Dated 1964, with what could be a logograph, or cypher mark, but the crudeness of the writing suggests they may be more of an ownership thing, by the kid, or a parent, it's quite fine, but not formal, if you know what I mean . . . a real mystery figure?! 'Betty's Birthday 1964' . . . that kind of thing?

 

Farmers and a cuckoo-clock/barometer figure (left), we saw a similar one the other day, and I've recently discovered you can still buy them, as craft items for home hobbyists, although they look to be poured-resin copies!

 

I used to confidently say 'Thomas' for all these rubber seated figures, but having found similar figures with Tudor Rose stuff, I'm not so sure these days, and some poring over old files is needed! Probably Thomas, or similar!

 

These are nice, soft plastic versions of the frangible, hard-plastic copies of Gem and Britains ski-wearers, Arctic/Antarctic explorer on the left (ex-Britains sculpt), more Gem-like sports skier on the right. The righthand figure has ring-hands, with the broken remains of sticks, so will need a pair of them and they both need skis, but there are bags of this stuff around, so hopefully the best of everything will make-up good samples one day!

 

Two Airfix German Infantry, who were left over (we're working 'up' the folders, so, last shots first), and the larger-scale 'Lawn Jockey' (for trying-up horses) statue from a Marx playset. I have a whole bag of these somewhere, in various colours and conditions, vintage and reissue, as I was literally one of the few small-scale guys in the room for years, and people didn't know what they were (including me), so I would buy them as 'unknown, odd-scale', from 10, 20 or 50p rummage trays!

P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Sports

The next section of Chris's wonderful parcel is the sports and pastimes, which are sometimes thrown in with the civilians in these cover-views, but there were quite a few this time, so they get their own post!

 

Three from Subbuteo, one home-painted 'fan', one unpainted goalie and a factory-painted press photographer, behind a bunch of simplistic chaps from some beg-board board-game or more interactive table game with wires and springs or even a blow-football type thing, I'm not sure, but I have ID'd lots of similar sets via feebleBay, over the years!

 

Not strictly-speaking 'sports' but cake decorations, but most of them are sporty and there weren't so many images in the folder! We looked at the skaters back at Christmas, the cowboy and footballer have been covered a few times, and another part drum-kit from Gemodels helps with a future 'Battle of the Bands'!

 

The skipping girl is from a larger set of various figures via Hong Kong, stocked over the pond by some of the minor makes I think (Grandmother Stover, Unique, Carousel et al) rather than Wilton, but may have been Culpitt over here? And the Santa' was a new pose, also made in Hong Kong, and similar to the Crescent pose, but not the same.

 

Three boarders, from three sources, all unknown to me, there is, or has been in recent years a lot of this in the proper toy-chains, which I haven't paid enough attention to, but the near one is probably a cake decoration, back left some rack-toy generic maybe, while the girl on the right should be plugged-in to a missing board, and is somewhat reminiscent of the late Britains Petite sets?

 

Obviously from North America, but whether the 'States or the never-to-be 51st State of Canadia is anyone's guess, two base-ball players with magnets in their bases, and a more modern PVC ice-hokey player. Help needed on all three?

 

The beautiful game! Another of the Hong Kong vinyl, football keyrings we've seen before here, a cereal premium we've also seen a few of the others from, but I've forgotten which set/when/where, and a novelty footballer bear which may be Kinder, or a recognised mascot, or both!

B is for Bowling

Mentioned this-morning in passing, or this-afternoon? I forget! I also forgot I had the Wilton ones in the queue! So here they are as a late box-ticker!

60mm, polystyrene, cakes, for the decoration of! Everything else is in the tags, and they might be the origin, or more likely an extension, of those novelty sets with a marble, from Christmas crackers?

C is for Cakeboards

Sometimes a contribution is perfectly timed to get a load of other stuff out of Picasa, and with this lot, that's exactly what happened, so before the highlights posts, here's some resin figures which were in Peter Evans's big bag the other day.

These Cakeboard figures, from Peter, are the modern equivalent of Gem for Culpitts (or Wilton in the 'States), between 54 and 60-mil, depending on the sculpt, and I would have said contemporary, but I can't find a website, so recently deceased is probably more accurate? They do/did a range of nicely-finished resin figurines of civilian, sports and hobbyist/pastime types, for thematic cakes, or targeted cake decorating.

 

I have got them in the Tags three-times already, so we've had one or two looks at them already, while these were added to the stash and shot back in the early-summer of last year, the lady bowler is missing her ball-hand - ohh-err missus!

 

While the chap in the middle is an older sculpt in polystyrene, who I might have thought was the aforementioned Wilton, but he's almost too good (they had a cruder hard-plastic one in the 1960's), so maybe a French make (he has that certain je ne sais quoi!), or just a British minor-make lost to the mists of time?

The Cakeboard bases are usually marked (C) CAKEBOARDS around the rim/edge of the often quite deep bases, but can be unmarked, particularly on the thinner bases. 'Handmade' means hand-poured (into a mould) and hand-finished, not all have the sticker. I've also shown the interloper's base, in case it triggers any memories which might help ID it.

 

I also shot these, back in 2016, when the cake decorations shop in Basingrad was closing-down, the proprietor did look for useful catalogues, but all she had were price lists, which she thought were no use, and while I tried to explain they might be, it was a losing battle against her thinking I didn't need them or me making an offer I couldn't afford for a stack of what would have been mostly useless paperwork about four-foot high!

But you can see some of the figures already seen above, some we've seen before here at Small Scale World, (the cyclist was between the footballers before I purchased her) and a few others, and clearly some came in different colour-ways over time, like the swimmers, or footballers. The snowboarder may not be Cakeboards?

M is for Musings on Multiple Mounts

This post is a narrative conversation with myself, and you, if you're reading, and comes out of a conversation I had with Chris Smith before Christmas, at which time, I think I said I'd publish this in January, or at least that sort of 'after Christmas' which might lead someone to think it was imminent, but with 120 posts in less than 90-days, I can hardly be accused of idleness!

 

And I say 'conversation', or, in the title "Musings" because there are few facts here, and those bits which are facts can be taken with a pinch of salt, the whole aimed at preventing TJF rushing-off to correct me out of someone else's great tome, everything here is open to question, even the absolute facts . . . except that the Japanese officers in some of the shots really are Blue Box!

 

First a reprise of mine, except that the ones we saw last time have gone off to storage and these are all new, I think? From the left in both shots we have the Blue Box Japanese officer on his mule-looking pony, then the Blue Box farm horse and finally a clone from one of the Hong Kong neighbours, who probably got it into a dozen generic bagged or carded sets!

 

Belly-marks suggest that the farm horse was around for a while before his owners cloned him for service in World Carpet War II, the generic - in this case - is unmarked, often they would have some sort of mark, even a poorer third version of the Blue Box's neat DIN-font.

Chris has one of his officers on a Blue Box farm horse, but the other came with another horse, of which he's found a second in white, and both have the rider peg, and he was wanting to know if it was a Blue Box design (an alternative Japanese mount), or something else?

 

Both are copies of a Britains horse, from the civilian-farm-show jumping-equestrian lines, and both are the straight-legged version, saddle-cloth might be original, but I suspect has been added, from a Wild West horse/set, and the reins may or may not be likewise original/added later?

 

Both have the sort of mark I just referred to, more of a 'typewriter' font, or uneven engineers-stamp, actually, one of the better ones, in that nothing seems upside down or mirror-reversed (which a lot are/have elements of), but they do read opposite ways, however not really the neatness of the Blue Box?

 

At which point we have to hark back to this morning's post, and any follow-up feebleBay search you did at my suggestion . . .

. . . where hopefully you found at least three sets? There were about five before Christmas, maybe seven with other search terms, but this afternoon I just briefly found three. One of which proves the theory I couldn't have proved back then, so maybe there are less question marks now, than there were going to be, but never mind, I think I've caveat'ed myself against blundering oafs trying to correct me!

 

You can see here, that the set has a pair of Britains production horses, one with the straight front legs (slightly different from the Hong Kong copy, where they are less splayed, but it's the same sculpt), the other with the bent leg, here though both riders are the woman with the dark riding jacket.

All four images in this sequence are from auction sites, but I've cropped-in to the bit we need. here we see again, Britains, again, two ladies, but this time it's both bent-leg horses, and the expanded polystyrene foam tray seems designed to take both types, with the bent-legs snugger than the straighter legged horse.

 

To be fair, both Britains horses are variations of the same sculpt, just with some leg/tail position changes, well brushed and groomed competition types (where you see those pointed tails) all look very similar!

 

Here another version of the game has the same pair of bent-leg Hong Kong production as mine (previous post), but with cream-plastic riders, he in pinks, she in her chic number! Indeed, the rule apparently established at this point is - always contrasting colours of horse, but not so bothered about the riders?

 

Confirmed by another Hong Kong set, now a vac-form 'styrene tray, and again both bent-leg versions, and we're back to two girls riding. The point being, these sets had either/or a pair of mixed, or only straight/bent legged horses, in contrasting colours, which for some time were sourced from Britains, and some equal time, Hong Kong. Riders shared the source with horses, but could be either opposite sexes, or the same sex.

 

Caveats - so far (and apart from today and Christmas, I have searched for these before, not least when I bought mine, from whatever was available that day, a few years ago), the white horse hasn't turned-up in a set, yet, and two male riders, together, haven't been seen in a set yet, either.

 

But the point I'm suggesting, is that to have the mounting spigot for a rider, the white horse must be from these sets, as Wild West wagons, say, for instance, even if given Britains standing horse piracies, wouldn't need the rod, and the other Hong Kong source of Britains show-jumping/hunter piracies use the gate-jumping horse.

 

This one, seen in singles, pairs and fours.

But this also turned-up during the shenanigans for the above, and it's another take on the Britains standing horse, but around 1:30th, and almost certainly from a horse-box or animal transporter of some kind, probably cheap and plastic in a colourful box, and now over a hundred-quid for a good one!

 

Here compared with the Japanese officer's one, as I don't have Chris's to hand, and my Salter examples are both bent-leg, and were shot years ago anyway, all three show-jumping posts were shot a while ago, which I why I had to go back to feeBay in December, and do it all as two posts!

 

You can see why I consider it a mule, it's got a face only its mother would love! But the bigger one is actually quite a nice version, and in a heavy, dense plastic which might be polypropylene?

 

While this pair, similar sculpt, seen here back in 2019, are Redbox, the Redbox of Blue Box's younger brother, another sibling of Tai Sang Toys. And you can clearly see the Hong Kong mark is the same as the farm horse, with the Redbox addition, and also probably from a horse-box/transporter toy. Which makes it all far more interesting that it looked when Chris and I were messaging three or four months ago!

 

This having the same splayed legs which takes it slightly away from the Britains donor, and clearly (as a much better model) itself copied by the unknown jobbing contract-manufacturer who supplied Salter. And possibly also the donor for the Blue Box farm horse, however I'm not so sure about that, while poorer, I suspect the Blue Box one is earlier and was a seperate pirating exercise, with the turned head, odd face etc . . . ?

And the bigger one, well, it's had the tail (long, pointed and linking all the others, Britains, Blue Box, Redbox and unknown-for-Salter's) attached to the rear leg and is marked Made in Macau, but in a very 'Tai Sang' font!

 

And we know from the research done in the height of the 'port Tai Sang' (don't look for it on a map) battle with TJF and his fuckmonkey, that there were several facilities in Macau, one of the Blue Box Vinyl (PVC) factories (and PVC copies of the above rack-toy fence-jumper turn-up as well!), Blue Box Die-Cast, and eventually (I think?) the facilities of Zee/Zylmex (turned-over to Redbox), some of which were there? Not sure about that, though.

 

However, there is every possibility this is another Tai Sang piece, issued by Blue Box, or Redbox, or one of the other in-house Tai Sang brands we found back then . . . or a contracting client?

So there we are, left with as many questions as we started with, or more, depending upon how deep you want to dig, but slowly the pieces do fall into place, and keeping an eye on the Salter sets from time to time will hopefully yield the white horse? It could, just as easily, turn-out to be a bagged horse and rider, but I've only ever seen the two riders copied, not the farmer, not the soldier and not the two gymkhana kids? Equally, searching for 'Horse Boxes' might help with a brand or branding's for several of the above!

Anyway, it's mostly conjecture or theorising, thanks to Chris for the images, and add your thoughts, if you have any, it's that kind of post!

T is for Thomas Salter

A Scottish toy firm with a convoluted history of its constituent parts following bankruptcy in the early 1980's, which had little to do with the failure of Linka to set the hobby world alight, and more to do with mismanagement, but, while better known for their science and chemistry sets (friendly (?) rivals to Merit and Lott's), they carried, for quite a while, this 'approved' show jumping set, in the style of the Britains one.

Early (most?) sets contain the actual Britains horses, either standing or walking were used and can be found (see next post for more musing on this aspect of the set!), while late sets contained Hong Kong piracies, as mine does, here, both the walking sculpt.

 

Jumps are similar to the Britains ones, with flat-topped or angled wings, what sets them apart from Britains and the Parker-Palitoy sets, is the addition of a base, with the arms of the jump wings moulded into them, they could benefit from some green paint to help hide the bases and highlight the base struts.

 

Poles, planks and a gate were issued, and the red of the red/white visual markings were thermo-printed, on one side only. No wall, brushes or water feature were included though, nor do they give us little Christmas trees in tubs! The jumps are all polystyrene, the riders are polyethylene (Hong Kong) or ICI Alkathene (Britains - also a polyethylene!)

 

The male in hunting pink and the lady in a chic-cut riding/sports-jacket from Hong Kong, are also direct copies of the Britains sculpts and one wonders what Britains thought of losing a small, but useful contract for their product, to cheap copies of the same, from Hong Kong?

There will be a follow post which features these, but musing on other things, and if you can be arsed - a search for these on feeBay will reveal three sets currently listed - one the same as mine, one which might have been mucked-about with and one with two Britains stock, one walking, one standing, and that's important for the next post. in December there were five sets listed with similarly mixed riders.

R is for Return - or Not? Palitoy-Parker Horse of the Year Game, Anyway!

Something weird seems to be going on, with me and/or my blog, I'm absolutely sure we've actually looked at these twice now, horses and riders only, once briefly as a foursome, once in more depth with variations, which should all be on the Palitoy and/or Parker Tags, but coming a few days after I couldn't find the Jungle flat set I was equally sure I had posted, I now can't find hide nor hair, of raiders or beasts, anywhere on the blog?

 

It doesn't matter as we are about to look at them anyway, but I would have shot more images of the riders, if I knew I wasn't going to find the posts I thought were here, and while I can understand accidentally not tagging one post (which may have happened with the jungle set?), nor noticing it isn't tagged as it makes its way down the front page over days or weeks, I can't believe I would do it three times, twice with the same set?

 

First, let's hear it for the anonymous sender (it was 2021, and I've lost any record of it) who packed this to defeat the best efforts of Parcel Farce and Royal Fail to totally destroy it, but it's the large things with a full wrap of bubble which do tend to survive against the tendency of smaller things to get massacred!

 

Issued under both Parker and Palitoy branding (in that order - I think?), it was the BBC coverage of The Horse of the Year Show back in the 1970's to which I was referring last time, and this set clearly sold well as there's never a shortage of them going cheapish on feebleBay, and well worth the purchase if you also have/collect the Britains gymkhana/show jumping stuff. Although the playing-board is more cross-country/three-day-eventing than a London arena!

 

The fences which look closest to Britains, giving a real variety with full interchangeability between the two end-types, flat and angled, and the various ways you can arrange the boards or poles, along with a gate. Makes you think what you could do with Britains white gate and the wall sections it clips into.

I arranged these as a triple, but they can go anywhere on the board, the little one could also be used for the Britains kids on the Shetland Ponies, in a proper gymkhana! Or, you could put it just in front of the taller lattice-ends one to make a longer-reach jump? Officially, jumps have type-names, and I'm probably inventing stuff which wouldn't be allowed!

The wall and the water, there is one permanent water jump printed on the board, but you can place another one, somewhere else. I haven't played the game, but it seems to be a simple progression through 'jeopardy' cards and dice. I just wish I'd shot the riders better, it is a figure Blog! Still, an excuse to return to them another day, unless the missing posts 'turn up'?!!

 

Riders are a dense/stiff PVC, with one-each of another military (Britains post the other day), police, hunter's pink and female types, while the jumps are all polystyrene and the water-jump is card.