P is for Playplax Plastic Play Pieces by Patrick Rylands

This is one of those nostalgia hits for people of a certain age, as if you didn't have them yourselves, you knew someone who did! In our case we never had these, but various other friends did, and they tended to be kicking around, but didn't get that much play, as we were older, as friends, and these were leftovers from earlier childhood.

I can't remember the exact date of this Sunday-supplement cutting, or the title, but they were a batch from mostly 1969-74'ish. The toy had won it's designer a Duke of Edinburgh's Prize for Elegant Design in 1970, among a tranche of other toys he, the Patrick Rylands of the post's title, had designed for Trendon Toys. He would go on to work with Ambi Toys in Denmark, not in the Tags yet, but I think there is something in the files for the A-Z entries!

 

He was - and I believe remains - the youngest ever recipient of the award for which the citation, as published in the June edition of the Design Journal that year, reads;

 

"The Duke of Edinburgh's Prize for Elegant Design 1970 has been awarded to Patrick Rylands for a range of toys designed for Trendon Ltd. The judges were impressed by Mr Rylands's creative approach to the design of toys and by his sustained contribution to toy design in the development of this range. They particularly commended the abstract qualities of the toys, which encourage children to use their imagination and introduce them to ideas of structure, form, colour and balance.

The best known of Patrick Rylands's toys is Playplax and this illustrates all the features which the selection panel praised. Playplax consists of simple tubes and flat squares of transparent polystyrene slotted so that they can be constructed in a multitude of ways. Red, yellow, blue, green ond clear pieces are included in each set so that children learn about colour combinations while exploring the wide variety of constructions which can be achieved."

 

He had originally designed them in ceramics, which he read at University (Hull and the Royal Collage of Arts), before creating these for Trendon in ABS/Acrylic, which was quickly replaced with polystyrene. There's plenty more on the internet, under Patrick Rylands or PlayPlax!

My own memories of them are mixed, I did have a few plays, the friend's samples tended to have lots of broken and cracked pieces, it was, in fact, far too easy to break them, either by forcing, or just sliding them together or apart at slight angles, and equally - they cracked easily.

 

As you can see from this shot, they were also quite wobbly constructions, that needed a flat surface, and steady hands, if one was to produce anything lasting and/or memorable! And actually, they had a pretty limited spacial-geometry, the tubes being far better for constructing substantial things, than the plates, which tended to spread quickly in space, without producing much of practical application!

Colours varied over the years, or between sets, and the one thing you can say for them is that they were colourfully eye-catching, especially when new and shiny! One US licensor (or pirate?), added triangles at some point which you see on evilBay from time to time, but what would have really given the line 'legs' would have been square or triangular tubes, like the round ones, or . . . and why did nobody ever do it, small joining clips, which would have allowed for long, flat runs, or side-by-side mounting?

 

The stuff is apparently still made, by Portabello Games, in the original colours and the original factory, still polystyrene (still brittle!) but no further innovation since the 'flower' pieces were added, or, are they knock-offs?

Instruction sheets from the first two sets, I don't know when the flowers' hit, but it must have been quite late, as you don't often see them in feeBay lots? And they may be a piracy thing, but I do seem to remember some of our mates having them in the larger samples?

Where they come into their own however, is in futuristic settings, think: Logan's Run, Babarella, or some of the early alien city's in Dr. Who or Star Trek! Not to mention half the props in Blake's Seven! Here I've managed a garage for space car number five! But it is huge, and you still have a very low ceiling!

 

Slightly more success with a rocket tower, but the inspection platforms are breaking all the rules of Playplax, being half-set at an angle and not locked in! But not too shabby for what was basically an infant's hand/eye coordination, 'early learner' toy.

 

There were the inevitable knock-offs, here made for a US 'jobber' (The Toy house), in the British Crown Colony (should we call it the long-term lease, now?) of Hong Kong. Pluses were more colours or - at least - different shades, minus were that they sometimes had different dimensions which either made them looser, or more likely to jam and split/break the not so cheap UK production ones!

C is for a Cat and a Canary!

Recent purchase from I can't remember where, eBay maybe, or some stuff I got off a mate a while back (lovely parcel from Brian today, and another from Jon last week!), but it's a very early piece of plastic, a novelty whistle from Combex.

Described by The Toy House over the Pond as a flute (inset image, bottom right), it's more of a swannee-whistle, with the canary (stuck in the cat's tummy with a hot wire) sitting over the vent, producing a trilling over the whistle, itself varying in pitch as you push/pull the piston.

The cat appears to have Godzilla's tail!

C is for Canoes - 12 - Triples

Welp, I'm already at Sandown Park for a day of toy mania, but for those of you who aren't with me, or already wending your way to Esher or its environs, here's a few of the 'three-handers' available for your generic Native American tribe!

The re-issue of the Cherilea canoe is getting harder to find itself, but for those whose budget can't stretch to the original which we saw here (shot on Adrian's stall, at Sandown ironically - and equally ironically; I don't have either model yet!), it's a nice model, if a little hard to keep level, yet probably too heavy to float well?

Here it is off on a raid with a Dulcop-Timpo combination on the left, Dulcop providing the boat, while a Dulcop-Hong Kong combi' on the right have the crew coming from Italy! The Cherilea is in five parts, with each crew-member having a plug-in station on the deck insert.

 

Also from Brian, is this shot of the later (?) MPC offering, another triple-crewed vessel, this one has three of their own 60mm  'ring-hand' figures who had holes in their bases which slid over a stud in the deck of the boat.

 

While this (which won't enlarge much, I'm afraid) is from a Toy House/World Toy House leaflet and is probably a Hong Kong copy of MPC's other trio-boat, with piracies of Tim Mee's 60mm figures. It would fit with the wagon recently seen on Ed's Blog, and seen a while ago here. MPC also did a two-hander in the Jungle range.

B is for the 'But is it Giant?' Blog - Space Aliens

I knew there was a reason why I (in my 50's) talked my late Mother into buying me a string/rope dragon for my Birthday a few years ago . . . it goes perfectly with the Giant Plastics Corp's bug-eyed space aliens!

I've added three articles covering the basics of the aliens on the Giant . . . or What? Blog, and as they are now in reverse order on that Blog, the links are below in the correct order, but here's that heavy-cavalry first:

Their (the aliens) colours don't quite match the dragon, however, the palate is similar, I think you'll agree, but look what I found . . .

. . . on clearance in TKMaxx! And they are already running a 'clearance' model, so this was a quid-to-go; three bog-standard metals and three coloured metallics which will definitely bring a patrol of aliens closer to the dragon sometime!

So to the articles;

Loose Giant originals with space disc and comparisons.

Toy House carded set of Strange Men From Mars

Copies from an unknown Hong Kong pirate 

Some branded to Novelty Headquarters Inc., of Columbus, Ohio.

T is for Two; The Toy House Toys!

Or, T is for a half, as I won't spend much time on one of them, it's destined for the 'But Is It Giant' page, and already has an intro' article, to go here, so that’s for next week or something, after I've got Rack Toy month out of the way . . . although we're less than half-way through the articles in that (RTM) section, so I'll continue to work through them for a bit!

Commonly referred to as Toy House (even by them, themselves!), there is officially a 'The' in front! A large-scale Western buckboard wagon, in bottle-bag with header card and a blister-carded lot of repackaged Giant aliens (from Mars!) with a flying-saucer / space-station / UFO thingy.

So to the wagon . . . only nine pieces and simple at that but I couldn't resist the colours; muted oranges and a turquoise-blue wagon body! Design is a simple one-horse affair, for all those one-horse towns!

Riders are quite specific with an offset locating stud on the driver (I think the sculpt is a copy of a larger figure with a locating stud in the center of his butt, whom was seen here at Small Scale World in passing once. The 'guard' who is very casually posed has a more complicated and very specific locating 'key'. The horse - who is expected to pull a bloody large wagon - is a skeletal-thin semi-flat!

I also suspect this is locally (US) produced; there is no sign of Hong Kong on anything, the plastic is a bit 'western production' chalky and the design seems to be Payton's but with a single late '45mm' horse instead of a fuller team, interestingly, the card mentions 'horses' and shows two? Also; there are four locating studs for what must have been a tilt/cover, which is missing, and for which there isn't room in the bag.

The whole assembles into a lovely carpet/garden toy with tons of play-value - if you're five - and have a small handful of stuff to carry about!