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!

F is for Follow-up - Hing Fat Egyptian Relics

I said - when I showed the Hing Fat bits Peter Evans sent to the blog - that I'd do a comparison with the similar sets from Safari and K&M/Wild Republic at some point in the future, well, by chance I had to wizz the relevant 'Ancients' box back to the house for a couple of hours on Tuesday, so this is that - brief - comparison!

The main elements, Hing Fat's on the left, both Safari sets in the middle and the K&M stuff off to the right with a Pharaoh's head variation I'd forgotten, All three sets are clearly aimed at both museum/heritage gift shops and middle-school project work more than actual playthings, but they are fun - and all the Mummies are figurals!

The semi realistic Safari Bastet statue sculpt, flanked by two slightly dog-like offerings from Hing Fat, the Hing Fat all come in a gold finish and a salmon-pink which is probably trying to be/represent a bare stone-effect?

Typically, the Atlantic 'styrene one is well-lost in the storage unit, so we'll have to do this line-up again, but we have three resin's, one with a rams head, all showing/sculpted as- a presumed 'how they were',  then the Safari and K&M both showing it as how it is now, with broken nose and severely damaged/eroded lower region and finally a rather stylised one from Hing Fat with a chubby sit-up-and-beg countenance, again more fanciful of what was rather than what it.

While the Safari/K&M stuff is PVC, Hing Fat's are a dense polyethylene or polypropylene, and many thanks to Peter for the Hing Fat sample.

F is for Follow-up - Belgian Footballers

This is following-up on this post, but these aren't marked Pak-Me-Mee, and are a pinkish-flesh off-white, rather than the creamy off-white of the aforementioned pudding-mix premiums.

Luckily, with eight to find (in any variation) I managed to score two more, so that's five in the bag now; an instep-pass and a flicky back-kick.

I shot them against an 1898 atlas I found, I don't think the boarders have changed much, even after two World Wars, but I recall a Belgian farmer helping himself to a piece of France a while back - top lad!

Not much to add really, they are what they are; unknown maker, simple but nice sculpts (although the back-kicker is the daftest pose so far) in hard polystyrene and around the 4-5" / 100-130mm mark - that back-kicker again, he's much taller than the others! I tagged them 4" and 110mm last time, so that'll do, and I've included the Pak-Me-Mee/Dumortier tags as they were the same tool-production.

R is for Reprobate Resin Robber Rascals

Now, I have to confess, I've lost track of some stuff this year, so while I'm sure on bulk of these being from Peter Evans, I'm not so sure on the last pair, they may have been a charity-shop or (from the photograph-dates) a Sandown Park thing, but many thanks to Peter for the bulk of them, if not the lot!

I think we've seen a set of these, which were a Charity shop purchase, years ago (2014) but here's another, sort of channeling Fontanini with a bit of PotC thrown in for good measure . . . and good sales! He's 60mm'ish.

Well . . . no fighting over the plunder here, they all have a stash at their feet! I wonder if they are from a set of 'known characters', not because of the obvious 'Blackbeard' as there are two here alone, but because the woman on the right seems to be based on a famous painting or woodblock of a lady pirate?

There's a more 'chicky-babe' piratess on the left, but as you can see some of them come with two base types, a sandy-beach or a ship's deck-boards, although f you look at the middle chap (another Blackbeard). you can see the pistols are cruder on the beach-version, so he's a copy, or second of two?

How many there are in the whole set and whether or not they all come in two versions is anyone's guess and do the three treasure-chest ones have a deck-version? but it could mean as many as 16 in a full set? 54mm (65 with base).

The two who may have come from somewhere else, slightly more comical, but also more animated, they (like all the above) are around the 70mm mark, and are also with the above, probably aimed at seaside tourist, as keepsakes, although they'd look good in a sandcastle!

H is for Hard-plastic Hussar!

It's beginning to look as if just about everything Fontanini produced (most of which they themselves produced in several sizes, materials or finishes) between about 1965 and 1985 were pirated in Hong Kong (in several sizes, materials or finishes), this is yet another!

From the commoner sculpt-set of Napoleonic troop types and in the style of the blow-moulded knights we've looked-at in the past, the main difference is that this isn't a blow-mould, being a solid, very-dense, polyethylene lump. Finish is the same as the knights though with a metallic bronze/gold dry-brushed over a flat black.

Over eight inches with the base the figure is a good seven-odd.

The base does seem to be slightly hollow, which may be due to shrinkage (the result of injecting such a large piece), or the use of a blow-mould/Rotary-mould tool with a large shot of plastic designed to be slightly hollow for cost, but tough-enough to survive handling? The little sticker is a generic version of the ones used by HCF, but lots of from-HK import novelties had the same or similar, still do, but now they read 'CHINA'!

The depth of the plinth and strange pinch to one end may be a sign that the statue was pleased in some kind of receiver or holder of some kind, maybe a piece of kitsch furniture or a lamp stand? The Sabretache has a florid, copperplate 'A' on both sides - as per the Fontanini original.

C is for Caryatids

Caryatids are a specific form of column, used in Classical Greece and to a lesser extent in Rome, where the main body of the column is carved into a human figure, usually female I think, but some males exist (as 'Atlas' . . . architecture stuff is all in the garage!), and occasionally only half-columns (like relief-flats) coming forward from a load-bearing wall, due to their being less able to take weight, but a small temple with a relatively light roof, or a porch for a small building have whole caryatids - I think there's one among the ruins on the hill-side at the Acropolis.

The TARDIS Temple to Aphrodite! Hic!

My mate John Begg - who some of you will know has links to Greece - had one of these on his mantelpiece as a memento, and when he was visiting Greece I asked him if he could get me one, empty or full of ouzo. . . a couple of weeks later he gave me this; empty, sadly!

I had intended to undo the caryatids and hot-glue them (polyethylene!) back to back to make two full-round columns, as photo-accessories/scenics. Two of the faces would have needed to be turned into hair, and a fair bit of fettling and filling would have been required around the join-line, the whole then needing painting, but in the end I didn't have the heart to damage them, so it is still in its little bag, marked Ouzounis 'Maiden Ouzo'!

All polyethylene; I hope you can see from the photo's the 'miniature' bottle is a blow-mould with the wide shoulders on top of the flocked 'box', the caryatids come as a flattish moulding with thin hinge-joints between the figures allowing it/them to be wrapped around the 'box' and clipped into place, the clips are under the stickers somewhere, if they exist; the stickers may be the 'clips', the column bases also become the bottom of the bottle and the figures are 45/50mm?

S is for Soma's Silly Sailors

Although the first set-post today, they were the last lot to fully come-in, with four out of storage a month ago the rest purchased couple of weeks ago, and a missing one (seven) arriving the other day!

In the 1980's Soma who had been contract-manufacturing for some time before that, began issuing their own branded lines, and by the late 1990's several of these slightly childlike figure sets had been issued, the pirates arrived in 1991 and unlike other sets where you find two colourways (Robin Hood for instance), they only got the one scheme, Issued in three blister-sets of four, two sets of six or a window box with all twelve.

Number 10 (each figure is numbered on the underside of one foot) looks like the love-child of MacDonald's 'Hamburgler' and the popster; Boy George, while I think you could use the facial expressions to make the 7-darves out of some of them, well, seven of them! Number 12, with the all important swag-bag, seems to have been equipped with a fully-automatic Walther or Berretta?

He also looks mighty pleased with himself, possibly because he has possesion of the loot!

I bought these two Penn-Plax fish-tank ornaments a while ago and they seemed ideal for these chaps to discover! I don't know if Pirates ever put-in at Easter Island, but it seems like a nice place to hole-up, chill-out, get drunk, sing bawdy songs, bury some loot and draw a map with a big X on it!

News, Views Etc . . . Highlander in the A-Z

Starting to sort the archive in the evenings has resulted in a find I'd forgotten I had - an old article from the Sun-Sentinal newspaper of Broward & Palm Beach, Florida in the in the USA on the Highlander range. It firms up the companies start date to 1976 and reveals an interesting plan for foreign troops!

On the reverse of the article is another puff-piece (I think the 'C' suffixed pages are the 1970's equivalent of 'weekend' or 'magazine' pages?), this one on a Floridan called Billy McCarty who's reported to be in the UK doing interior design, well, if anybody designed that for me I'd beat him to death with a carrot, slowly.**

But there are a couple of military looking brasses involved in the 'make-over' a knight or conquistador type on the mantle-shelf, and something unclear which might be Caesar at Calais pointing vaguely at Eastbourne and saying "Let's go there...", on the quite small coffee table.

But it's funny - figures on both sides of a page from a 42-year-old newspaper!

** I'm joking - I would probably just sue them for emotional distress! Sadly he has passed away

P is for Pak-Me-Mee's Powdered Pudding Players!

Continuing with two of yesterday's themes;- premiums (Lever) and football (Pink Panther); it's always fun to find new stuff, especially when it's A) foreign of origin and B) has some digging to be done or research to indulge in, I picked these up from the one of the Belgian dealers at Sandown Park, and have had fun tying them up enough to pass the bare bones on to you!

They were obviously premiums of some kind and the seller explained that the under-base marking 'Pak-Me-Mee' (see below) roughly translated as 'pick me' (or 'choose me'?) and that was it - as far as the purchase went. They weren't cheap, but given they are 'new to hobby' and the best part of 110mm (or four-and-a-half-inch figures); they weren't expensive either!

So, Monday (when I should have been posting something) found me digging around Google for Pak Me Mee premiums, which proved fruitless - as far as premiums goes - but did give me the basic story behind these, which don't seem to represent individuals (as other football premiums have) but are rather just generic 'statuettes'.

P. Dumortier Brothers still seem to be in business (now based/headquartered in France; at Tourcoing) as a grain/cereal-mill and producers of powders and dry sauce mixes for cooking or the catering trade (think Colman's, Baxter's or Knorr), however my nascent Googling would suggest the Pak Me Mee pudding powder (something like a blancmange or similar 'milk pudding'?) was originally thought-up by an A Vanhecke and Sons, who were presumably taken over or merged with Dumortier?

Due to the bilingual nature of Belgium however (the seller is quint-a-lingual!) it's not that clear and it could be that Vanhecke and others (A V Roeslare and H R Kortrijk) were wholesalers or agents? My French is poor, my Walloon and Flemish non-existent! However these figures are marked Dumortier and they are the surviving name.

There was another pudding-name in the line-up: 'Prenez-Moi'; which I think is the Franco-Walloon for the Flemish Pak-Me-Mee, i.e. also 'pick me'? And - as well as these footballers - it seems collector's cards of some sort were issued a'la Brook Bond with send-away-for albums (available in either language) to put them in.

My camera was dying when I shot these (it has now died! New one's in the post) so these shots both needed stopping right-down on the 'shadows' setting to show anything, which is; both marks (on the left), the P. Dumortier Fres moulded integrally to the figures, the Pak-Me-Mee heat-stamped after manufacture - suggesting a Prenez-Moi series as well, or other brands/goods carrying the figures.

On the right - a sizer with the Airfix 54mm figure; "Can I 'ava go Dad . . Dad! Can I 'ava go! Gi'us the ball Dad . . cummon, let'us 'ava go!". There are eight to collect, each showing a 'standard' or named move, pass or trick in/with a football

F is for Fontanini - Part 5 - Chinoiserie; the Oriental or Asian Statuettes

Firstly a big thanks to Cristianu Hardy ('Ludoprimophile' on the Forums) without whom this post would be a very complicated text-heavy, hard to follow affair with few images! He kindly allowed me to use scans of his original web-posts from ten and more years ago, to illustrate the points/figures as we go.

They have been taken from word.doc documents - as the links from his homepage have become problematical over the years - so are low-resolution, and I've filled the gaps so they are a bit mixed-up. As you'll see lower down, these are a mess really (not on Cristianu's original pages - I hasten to add), as over the years people have added figures to the wrong sets, swapped bases to fill gaps in their collections and not properly annotated the changes, or the finds, so try to ignore the bases until you get to the bottom of the post, where hopefully it will all start to make sense!

Cristianu's website seems to be still viewable from the sub-sections; Elephas Maximus (Andrew) on STS recently found a working bookmark to the animal section, and the home page may still work on older machines, but newer ones won't allow the old Windows Frontpage coding to work; specifically the 'fphover' button hot-links on the homepage.

If you have working links/bookmarks to any of the other sections/sub-sections, let me know and I'll do a post with them on, which can be linked to the original link (top right) through tags. In the meantime the animals are here.

I'll kill the myths at the start

Chinese 'Dog of Fu' (pronounced foe)

or lion guard, carved in celadon jade

Myth 1 - They are 'Chinese' sculptures

The common mistake (going back to Fontanini's original issues) is of calling them Chinese (chinois), they are not necessarily Chinese in origin or particular influence, and definitely not in style and while some of the characters depicted are clearly of Chinese dress or origin, others aren't.

All original Chinese sculptural figurines whether plain or stained (pigmented) soapstone, the harder celadon-jades, 'Blanks' (or 'Blanc de Meudon' - white glazed porcelain), Famille Rose & Famille Verte (porcelain decorated in the Western style) or the carved bamboo (often lacquered in reddish-brown to give the appearance of an almost plastic finish), are in - or tend toward - an anatomically rounded or fuller (well-fed) style; as are most Japanese Satsuma figures, no . . . the output of Fontanini (and their copyists) we are looking at with the 'oriental' sculpts are actually aping Japanese Okimono ivories or bronzes. Chinese Tang-ware is older and more stylised sculpture - you may be familiar with the painted pottery horses, or think of the Terracotta Army.

But back to Okimono - they ape them well; both to the caricature aspect and taller slimmer styling and with the fact that they were originally produced by Fontanini in various shades of white and cream plastic, sometimes wash-stained to mimic aged ivory.

A set of six early Fontnini sculpts are to be found here.

Further complications come from the fact that some characters have several conflicting stories with origins in fact and/or fantasy. They can have up to four spellings of a Chinese name, another Indian (Sanskrit?) name and/or several alternate names - with subsequent spelling variations. Characters can move between myths, fairy-stories and history rather too fluidly and several religions (Buddhism, Dao/Taoism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Japanese Shinto) claim several of the characters - for different reasons.

(thanks to Peter Fox for letting me shoot these)

These are Chinese in influence (and origin?) and may even be Fontanini, but I am not aware of them being such, have no evidence of such, and firmly believe them to be Hong Kong tourist figures, which do ape the 'Blanc de Moudon' figurines from China - the reason for their inclusion here; you can see they are after a very different style, like Fontanini however, they are an 'ivorene' plastic, antiqued with a dark-grey wash, worked into the incised detailing.

However, as well as priestly personages or religious deities, Okimono are known for both their depictions of occupational/craftspeople and/or 'everyday' subject matter as well as for - specifically - figures with fish, and this set has five or six fish or fishing related poses, another sign of its Japanese or part-Japanese origins.

Within the figures below are Gods, priests, rural craftspeople, classic tourist tropes, a couple of possible known characters, some dancers and - hiding among them - Kinder's apparent made-up-names, several of whom have parallels in the stories of old! And one must also bear in mind that culturally speaking; China, Japan, pre-Mogul India and others in the region were closer once, than they maybe now.

One figurine looks more Siamese (modern day Thailand); the female dancer in a tall hat, another looks more Indo-Asian; the chap with his arms folder and having a large sword hung at his waist, while two do have very Chinese-looking top-knot hairpieces (striking octopus tentacles with a sword and playing flute), but such hair was worn by the Japanese too, while the chap with an alligator/crocodile (salt water?) is a known Japanese tourist thing. So the jury's still out on this one, but not Chinese overall, maybe 50/50?

It would be easier and more accurate if everyone could get in the habit of calling them the Fontanini 'Oriental' or Asian figurines!

My two (I have a bunch of similar figures in storage), both sourced in the UK and therefore possibly Lyons Tea? They are very rough, poorly finished versions of the Fontanini originals, with no sign of having had a plinth, while the integral bases are crude and misshapen.

Myth 2 - They represent the 'Immortals' or other specific groups

Several commentators have tried to tie the 8 Daoist (Taoist) 'Immortals' or even the 18 Lohan characters into these 'sets' [see Myth 3 below], but only three of them pass muster as such characters - and then only barely!

The guy holding a 'dragon' fish as tall as himself over his shoulder could (and only 'could') be either a 'Lung-man' (with a sturgeon) at the Dragons Gate from Chinese mythology or Pan-t'o-chia (Panthaka in Sanskrit?) the 10th Lohan who charmed a Dragon, while the man with a feathered fan could (again; 'could') be interpreted as Chung-li Ch'uan (Zhongli Quan)- one of the eight immortals, or Chu-ch'a Pan-t'o-chia (Chota Panthaka) the 16th Lohan. Of the women - the lady holding a bunch of flowers can be taken as Ho Hsien-ku (He Xian'gu) with her lotus, one of the Eight Immortals? Yet the flowers - as modelled - don't look like lotus blooms, let alone a single 'magic' lotus - so it's a stretch to take her thus.

Six of the characters have been given Chinese names on one or two websites, but these seem to be the names awarded them by Kinder in their set of diminutive, die-cast copies, which came late to the oeuvre and I can't find them in Derek Walters' Chinese Mythology, the book I've been working from.

Google revealed that two may be taken from The Water Margin, with one also having the further choice of being mythical or an Empress, while another could choose between a scholar or a Prince; the other three drew a blank, so I guess - as a group - they may be fictional 'Chinese' Ferrero-names, with some happening to be common enough names to attribute by random happenstance!

Likewise, the various premium issues in France gave their sets Chinese titles (Chinese Occupations, Chinese Saga's etc...), but with some Fontanini-sourced exceptions, these are or can be crude copies, possibly from Hong Kong (they mostly aren't marked) and pull various poses from the larger range of original sculpts with little or no sense of order. Mir (washing powder) went with "Chinese Statuettes".

Myth 3 - That these are all made by Fontanini*

While you can call it 'a' set (the whole line/range), they seem to have been designed/used for issuing in pairs, sixes, twelves or eighteens with more than 34 sculpts - that I know of - and not every figure was issued in every style or size, at least four (like the Napoleonics) being confined to the larger sizes, another two being re-cut at some point, while one has a mirror-geometry version.

With most of them more easily available to people lucky enough to still be in the EU, that's where the work still needs to be done, to find out which sets in which sizes were supplied by Fontanini, copied by someone else (who? With or without a license from Fontanini? Where?), or sourced from Hong Kong.

Although it's equally likely some may have been sourced closer to home - the number issued by French or French-based companies suggest France, but if they were unlicensed it's likely somewhere more lawless like Yugoslavia or even a factory beyond the 'Euro' law of the time; maybe Spain, might be in the frame?

*Not really a 'myth' as I don't think anyone's claimed them all 'made by' Fontanini, but the origin of manufacture is questionable for the bulk of them, also while they are all originally Fontanini sculpts, a few of them have been taken directly from the Japanese Okimono originals.

My recent purchase (95/110mm; higher number is guesswork due to absence of plinth), cleaned-up and perched temporarily on a knights plinth - he is clearly marked HONG KONG MADE IN on his kilt-hem - possibly a UK-issued Lyons Tea figure?

In both cases (the various premiums or the later Ferrero/Kinder issue), we are talking throwaway playthings aimed at younger children, and just as one talks of 'Chinoiserie' in English when talking about things which may be Japanese, Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese or Korean, so I suspect these figures ended-up 'Chinese' through a combination of laziness, ignorance and a lack of a need to care terribly how accurate the moniker was.

First appearing in the 1960's, from Fontanini they were quite striking figurines, especially in the larger sizes, with various shades of faux-ivory (white, cream and pinkish shades) polythene (PE) they were later made in the same dense vinyl (PVC) as the rest of the Fonplast work's output and found their way onto Carrara marble sample blocks/tiles for tourists to take home - all over the world.

Ageing/antiquing was applied with washes in black, brown, dark gray or an oxide red-brown, and these often prove to be water-soluble so on tatty examples can be removed easily to clean the figure up. This is true for all Fontanini, Premium and marked HONG KONG versions in the larger sizes, but not always for the smaller sizes.

Now, the various sets of premiums come in two sizes, but different finishes and on several different plinth types, and I can't be too specific with my three here and few in storage, all copies of Fontanini, but not Fontanini! While the Fontanini originals came in at least four or five sizes and with various - more ornate - plinths.

So we will just go through listing them in no particular order (I've blocked them together by subject matter where I can - men first; in an institutionally sexist fashion!), numbering is pointless as different collectors have used different orders/numbers for different sculpts over the years, names/titles are equally pointless for the reasons mentioned at the start - some of them have dozens of 'original' (Asian mythological-) names, others have never been given a name by Fontanini, Kinder or any of the premium issuers, and I don't know the Fontanini cavity numbers - in any size!

The known sculpts (Kinder titles in red) are:

Male Sculpts

Weapons

- Large curved sword across body [Yang Zhi]

- Arms folded, large sword and flame/lions-mane headdress

- Holding large sword over and behind head

- With large bullwhip

- Striking downward with sword (Sculpt only available in larger sizes?)

- Carrying or wrestling an alligator or crocodile, sword hung at waist (Sculpt only available in larger sizes?)

- Striking at octopus legs with large sword (sculpt only available in larger sizes?)

- Running with sword or strap in right hand, rice lunch-box in left (Sculpt only available in larger sizes?)

The guys with bull-whip and crossed-arms both look to be from more exotic Asian countries, Thai or Siamese maybe, while a lady from the Oriental Ceramics Society (OCS) informed me the alligator/crocodile fighter/carrier is a popular Japanese tourist piece? Conversely the man wrestling three octopus tentacles is clearly very Chinese!

Fish or Fishing Related

- Basket of Fish, throwing carp over shoulder [Zhang Shun]

- Giant 'Dragon' fish (or Catfish?)

- Large carp counter-balancing basket of fish over shoulder pole/yolk

- Giant carp in right hand, fishing rod in left (sculpt only available in larger sizes?)

Again as a grouping these represent a very popular Japanese trope, but fish are also associated with various characters from the myths and legends of the whole pan-Asia region.

The guy on the right has a different base to mine; squared-off and may be a Fontanini original from a larger set - all the figures with the more ornate pierced-plinths are to be taken as such.

Others

- Playing flute, long top-knot

- Two fans

- With a hood/pack on his back

- Wagging finger and stroking his beard

- With fan [Song Jan]

- Holding a bird and a pipe (Sculpt only available in larger sizes?)

A similar sculpt to the flute player but with a sword was issued as a pirate in the smaller, painted, PVC set by Fontanini.

The last two on the right might/could be from the 8 Immortals or the Lohan, but their 'signatures' aren't clear enough, one is known for having his fat belly on show, another for being learned, but he should be carrying a book, which would look more like a box to our eyes.

Female Sculpts - Vase holding variants

- Low vase - no crown

- Low vase - crown

- High vase - no crown

- High vase - with crown

Are those with finer detailing from Fontanini, the others copies? Note that with the right-hand pair the vase differs, as does the holding forearm, the first figure having no lid and a heavier forearm.

Others

- Crowned dancer

- Holding fan up

- Holding folding-fan down [Zhang Shi]

- Shallow baskets on yolk

Was the first one (Thai/Siamese?) issued as a pair with the crowned chap holding a sword? A variation exists of the second girl, with the whole figure bending/glancing the opposite ways to the figure above.

- With flowers [Jiu Tiun Xuan]

- Balls or parcels on a pole/yolk [Pan Qiao Yun]

- Playing small lyre

- Playing large lyre

- Bird resting on a pole over shoulder

- Tai/Siamese dancer with dragon

- Holding open-sieve or pearl-diving basket? (Sculpt only available in larger sizes)

- With fishing rod and fish on board (Sculpt only available in larger sizes)

- Bird on branch, stick in left hand, simple shift/dress (Sculpt only available in larger sizes)

- Playing harp (Sculpt only available in larger sizes?)

Was the fishing-rod lady paired with the similarly equipped male sculpt? The pearl-diver could be Polynesian - if that is what she is representing? When I first found the Harpist I thought it was one of Fontanini's Christmas/nativity angels, but she clearly has an Oriental hair-style.

In total - 34 poses, 37 sculpts (that I know of).

Premium Sets

This is the pose layout/pose count for the smaller premiums although some larger ones have been used to fill the gaps in Cristianu's original line-up and a couple have the wrong bases but right plinth (yellow dots). The green dots are figures with the better bases (arched-filigree edged hexagonal drums), the red dots are of poorer finish (beaded edges) like my two above.

Some issuers released these in three tranches of 6 figures which seems to explain the red dots; different source? They also seem the commoner poses - from what I can tell!

65mm 70mm (65/85mm)

Hegaxonal 'tablet' Plinths

Body - Cosmetics (UK)

Café Maurice - Coffee

Café Scarpia - Coffee

Lutin - Haberdashers

Mir 'Nylon' - Washing Powder

Pur Crem - Cheese

Oval 'basin' Plinths

Café Damoy - Coffee

Café Mokaden - Coffee

Grosjean - Cheese Spread

Unmarked (3 bars) - Unknown

Veuve Amiot - Sparkling Wines

No Plinth

Montblanc - Dairy Products

Cristianu's original larger set rearranged to fit the page for a screen-shot with alternate versions of the high-hold jar lady; again sometimes issued in two tranches of 6 poses.

90mm (80/100mm)

Crenellated Plinths

Cafes Maurice - Coffee

Lutin - Haberdashers

Rectangular or Wood-look Plinths

Axion - Washing Powder

Café Damoy - Coffee

Geigy Agchim - Agri-chemicals (UK: CIBA-Geigy)

Laden - Household/Domestic Appliances

Thé Lyons - Tea (UK; Lyons Tea?)

Valnoble - Wine

Oval 'basin' Plinths

Mir 'Nylon' - Washing Powder

Three of the products known so far have links to the UK, but with only one known to have issued in the UK (Body Cosmetics), yet the smaller figurines are quite common over here, and with a domestic appliance firm and agri-chemical company issuing them, it may turn out that someone like Hoover or Pifco may have given them away at some point? But - that's thinking out loud - not a fact!

(eight)

Additional-plinth types for the premiums and smaller Fonatini's; larger genuine Fontanini's come with more ornate plinths in several designs (some of which have found their way into the above screen-caps, they are also sometimes found on Carrara marble plinths

For the sake of completion, the actual names of the Eight Immortals (Pa Hsien - the Eight Fairies/Eight Genii), not to be confused with the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup - a bunch of drunken poets! Wikipedia name first, should you wish to dig further - I'm about done on mythological Asian celebrities;

- He Xian'gu - Ho Hsien-ku (female)

- Cao Guojiu - Ts'ao Kuo-chiu - Ts'ao Ching-hsiu

- Li Tieguai - Li T'ieh-Kuai - T'ieh-Kuai Li (Li with the Iron Crutch) - Li Yüan - Mung Mu - Li Ning-yang

- Lan Caihe - Lan Ts'ai-ho (androgen/sex unknown, debateable)

- Lü Dongbin - Lü Tung-pin - Lü Yen - Shung-yang Tzu

- Han Xiangzi - Han Hsiang-tzu - Ch'ing-fu

- Zhang Guolao - Chang-kwo Lao

- Zhongli Quan - Chung-li Ch'üan - Chi Tao - Ho-ho Tzu - Wang-yang Tzu - Yün Fan (Han dynasty)

While a little on the Kinder names;

- Yang Zhi (Sizu - Water Margin character, Eastern Han Dynasty official or EmpressYang Zhi (259–292), Jin Dynasty (265–420))

- Zhang Shun (Water Margin character)

- Song Jan (?)

- Zhang Shi (Prince (died 320, ruler of the Former Liang state during the Sixteen Kingdoms period or Song Dynasty scholar (1133-1181))

- Jiu Tiun Xuan (?)

- Pan Qiao Yun (?)

Rack toys - Bazar figures (severn)

In the course of researching this post I also discovered that the Patron Saint of sodomy is called Chou Wang - I kid you not! It's apotheosised from the last Emperor of the Shang (surly 'shag' - ed.) dynasty who was a tyrannical deviant, with an even more deviant concubine! I love this - do you suppose gays know they have a Patron Saint? Or that he's a wang chewer! It's priceless; someone tell Donald, he might explode with rage and do the world a favour! Whoops! There goes my entry visa!