F is for Follow-up - Wild West Plunder

A couple of things in the archive pertaining to this morning's post;

 

On the subject of pencil sharpeners, I caught this on feeBay last year sometime, very 1950's, so quite a quick cloning! The die-cast mazac/zamak tourist trinket, a copy of Britains Herald's campfire chap in full war bonnet, probably came from Hong Kong, and the headdress looks sharp-enough to open a finger while you're honing your pencil - these days you'd get a recall notice from 'Health & Safety!

 

From 2023, is this colour-sample of the Torgano archer, not really clear if it's a boy or a girl, and all of them missing their bow, I don't know if they were always a short-shot, or if they just snapped off? Below them is a yellow chap, who looks to be a Tyrolean in lederhosen, along with four of the Lucky Bag pod-foot Indians and, bottom left, an unknown flat of similar ilk, but on a more standard base.

B is for Big Box of Bounty - Wild West . . . and Pirates!

You can't know everything, and I learnt something pretty fundamental last week, while I was sorting-out Chris Smith's latest parcel to the Blog, to share with you lot, but let's look at the Wild West component first!

 

A card hoodlum, rearing on a tamed mustang! The hoof needs glueing, one of two miniscule victories by Royal Fail's vandalisation Elves this time, he's lost his Stetson too, but one supposes, some time ago! The Man in Black, a pound-shop Lee Van Cleef, looks a lot like some Supreme output, but is not from their well-known series, nor, as far as I am aware, did Papo ever do more than one modern cowboy on horse, which is a clue . . . ?

 

A Hong Kong, 45mm copy, of a Gulliver copy, of the Atlantic Sioux Camp seated brave, and another of the probably Euro', possibly premium, Indians (no cowboys have turned-up yet) set, of which I have quite a few now, but that Chris has probably found more of, than me!

 

The 40mm, AHM, Culpitt, Injectaplastic, Jouets Super Plastic (et al.?) set, and it's extraordinary that despite collecting these for years (as a small-scale collector), both poses and colour variations continue to turn up, I'm still looking for an Indian archer (and most of the accessories), I knew I needed the dancing guy in orange trousers, and the standing firing cowboy is a new (4th) colour variation! They will both get bases from other figures in the larger sample.

 

The Crescent hollow-cast/Lido Wild West chaps, and an oddity! On the left, grist to the mill, he's a bit bashed, but will still join the sample, to increase the size of the sample, against future looks/comparisons; we've seen several variations of the set over time.

 

In the middle, an absolute mint, 'Germany' marked, novelty pencil sharpener, an incredible find, and so generous of Chris to sent it here? And remember, as well as some of the better KT sharpeners, it was Chris who found the Ichthyosaur/Dolphin hybrid sharpener!

 

While the third chap could be Wild West, a clown or a farmer, and may be Hong Kong, or . . . French? Anyone recognise him? He looks like he should have a wheelbarrow, and may be a French farmer? He could be a Marty clown; paint and plastic are right, but also looks like some of those old hollow-cast cowboys with their furry sheepskin chaps and soft felt hats, so got sorted into this lot for now!

 

These were on the top of the box, so I spotted them straight-away, but baseless it's hard to know if they are French or Italian cheapies, or some Hong Kong knock-offs? But New to me and Blog for sure! Obviously taken from the Britains Herald 'Swoppets', solidified, does anyone know what bases they should have?

Small scale, Chris is very good at keeping samples of these separate, it's the only way to use them for research, the larger bag is a clean-looking sample of 'Wavymane', and while there's "always" a clean looking sample of Wavymane, I never turn away from such things, as it would be churlish, and you never know when a completely new horse type or figure pose might have been buried among them by a previous owner!

 

The smaller bag is more mixed, while the real odds are spread out in front, and include useful wagon parts for the Giant/post-Giant pile and the National and others' pile!

 

While up a band (25-30mm), we have, from the left; two Torgano Indian boys (or, from the rest of the set; boys dressed as Indians), both missing their bows (very delicate), and a Comansi horse, although, with the flash, and saddle-spike, possibly a Sobre or similar knock-off? And a small handful of the Blue Box smallies, to the right.

Finishing off with three interesting pirates, or 'a potential pirate', in the case of the right-hand figure, another one new to me, also with elements of Supreme/SP Toys output, but is he a cowboy, a pirate or a civilian of some kind? Possibly, a rather ephemeral figure from one of the many 'big box' pirate ship play-sets, over the years? Or, does he belong with the glossier, obvious cowboy (or detective?!) figure at the start of this post - I don't think so, but you have to look at every angle? Simply marked 'CHINA'.

 

On the left is a new-to-me, off-white, colour variant of the Thomas/Poplar pirates, we only looked at the other day, on the last Interrr'nationaaal Taark Like a Poirut Daye event, while in the middle is another of the revelations of Chris's box . . . 

 

. . . a marked Papo pirate, from the 1990's, who has nothing in common with the current range, which has been in the catalogue for years now, but that clearly provided the donor-sculpt for the smaller, Supreme pirate with similar blunderbuss?

 

Now, Papo themselves only claim to be 'nearly' 30 years old, so this (1999 CHINA) must be one of the earlier products in their range, and - I've just spent some time trying to Google them and only found the current set - so, I guess, A) they were a short-lived line, making this uncommon, or uncommon outside France (?) and B) the rest of the Papo set must be the other donors for the Supreme set?

 

And while I'm sure some people knew all or part of the above, nobody seems to have Blogged it, there's nothing on the Forums (or Papo's website), and nobody has pointed it out/corrected me, on all the occasions I've Blogged the Supreme set, which is now neither as old, nor as cool as I thought it was! Now I know, it's gotta'be about finding the others, and did Papo originally do the six SP Toys skeleton 'enemy' too?

 

And, all this is not to say I shouldn't have known, I have the early Papo catalogues somewhere, mostly donated by Peter Evans or another friend of the Blog (have they been in a show-report in PW magazine?), and, I guess, the set must be in some of them? But many thanks to Chris for sending it, and everything else above.

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!

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Cowboys & Indians

I seem to have done particularly well on the Western front, out there in West London, last June, with a lot to look at and eventually sort into the main collection, and with bits from all over the world, and at least two lines here, now, it's best to get started looking at them!

 

Indians.

 

Cowboys.

 

In their boxes.

 

A fantastic start to the day, when Adrian Little showed me these, I was sure they were Torgano, but thought I'd check, so, this is what GoogleAI had to say on the subject . . . 

 

"The term "Torgano Cowboys" likely refers to Les Cowboys Fringants, a popular Québécois band, and the phrase is a play on their name, which translates to "The Frilly Cowboys". The band is known for their folk-rock music and socially conscious lyrics."

WTF? Obviously Google didn't add the accents to 'Québécois', and it didn't get a single detail right, either! It was simply making it up as it went along, to please it's human task-master - me! All these AI bots are filling the internet with falsehood, inaccuracies and complete bollocks! Bucket-loads of it. It could have defaulted with "Did you mean . . . ", but chose to lie through its teeth instead!

 

These are early (1950's?) Torgano, they did the space sets the same too, with an interim version (1960's?) in one-colour, undecorated hard plastic, and integrally moulded bases (the ones here are glued on), which may have been someone else? And finally the soft plastic, slightly rounded-out copies, of the 1970's blister-cards, in various coloured polyethylenes.

 

This was a nice find as well, as we've seen the Stage-coach version, or bits of it, under a couple of Hong Kong or phantom brands, on the Blog, in the past, copies of various European makes/premiums, from people like Alkastap, Texas/Isus or Clé (?), but it's nice to now have a complete wagon. Elsewhere in the last year or two (possibly not on the Blog) I've found the mounted figures that clearly go with these, so when they're all brought together it'll now be a decent, semi-definitive post!

 

Also Hong Kong, I think, copies of Jecsan, but they may be Jecsan, I didn't have samples of either to judge-from, and the Spanish makers do like a bit of sandy-yellow polymer? Perfectly scaled to go with the slightly less hideously-caricatured Lik Be/LB Westerners, and some of the larger Lucky Luke stuff, a market the Spainsh figures were probably aiming for!

 

Don't know! Probably Hong Kong, or even 'China', they are very clean, and copying other figures, both Swoppets and Jean Hoefleur solids, new to the collection though, and new to Blog!

 

These we have seen, under several brands now I think, and were the default rack-toy/paty favour Cowboys & Indians about 15-years ago, so keep turning up now in mixed lots, happy to receive them though, as with limited colours and poses, there’s a chance of getting a complete set of every pose in every colour without much effort!

 

A mix of bits here, with a lovely flourescent yellow-green copy of Britains sitting elder, two Supreme accessories (canoe and totem pole), which think I already have, but wether I bought them, because they were cheap, or they were in one of the donantions, they will need to be checked against the master-lode!

 

The little runner is the accessory 'sprue' for the Timpo chuck-wagon I think, while someone ID'd the camp fire a few years ago, I can't remember the verdict then, but it'll be labelled in the stash! And who can refuse a purple tee-pee, or Miniature Masterpiece totem-pole from Marx!

 

Useful odds-and-sods here, with Thomas/Poplar/Tudor Rose foot figures, two of the Hong Kong copies of the Britains/Paramount/et al six-shooters, a pair of early Hong Kong copies and the brown one to the right may be another Koho, in the smaller size, damaged, but a first sample of the pose?

 

I forgot to record whether this was a Brabo or Imperial branded chap, or just another Hong Kong generic, but still, more bendier bendy polymer for the bendies tub! And in near-mint condition.

 

Argentinian, and not in the best condition, but I now have five or six of these in a tub somewhere, so a growing sample of figures which tend to be hard to find this side of The Pond?

 

Slowly building a complete set of loose Supreme/SP Toys stuff, with this vaguely Alamo/Magnificent Seven chapel, being from the large sets and as background in the flatter 'window trays', I think I only need the raft, another building, and one of the wagons for completion now, the fun of collecting!

 

A box-ticker . . . in a box! It builds the complete story of the figures/sample.

 

This was gifted by Michael Mordant-Smith, and is another of the test shots from his new Toy Soldier company, which is finding, cleaning and getting back into production, a variety of moulds, and I love the purge-marbling of red/black on this figure.

 

Another useful Hong Kong item, is this Lido knock-off, as I have one or two in different packaging, all generics, but, again, building a bigger picture!

 

A mix of mostly Hong Kong, not sure about the big green guy, he has a base like Tim Mee, especially the German ones, while the Native on the left is Kinder, for the spare parts tub, although he only needs a correct weapon!

 

A mix of mostly British branded stuff, some in a bit of a state, 

along with a harder to find Jean and a horse from Safari.

 

Broken, metal, but an only sample!

 

More of the Lucky Bag figures form the 1950's, and a new Indian pose I think?

 

Very useful against one of the longer term projects, there is a tendency for some people to lazily state these all as either Star or M-Toys, but in fact there are about seven or more types out there (same with the Knights and ACW etc.), and with people Like Transogram and Blue Box also having their own lines, there's still a lot of work to be done on a definitive ID list of Hong Kong swoppet clones, and items like this will help. Note how the people (likely women) picking, tend to grab from one batch/stillage, leading to colour bias in each bag!

 

To which end (previous blurb) all these go in a large tub, sorted either by base, or sometimes material, with regular sortings to match-up all the odd torsos, legs etc . . . Until the picture is complete, and the loose samples can be matched to the sets obtained, or internet images accrued!

 

A similar project is the Hong Kong 'hollow horses' and their associated accessories/foot figures, here a mixed lot will go in a separate bag with a note, to be sorted . . .

 . . . while this clean sample of 'Wavymane' will be sorted straight into its correct zone, after checking weather they are type I, II or III (type IV is a variant!). But, they will get a separate bag, as this sample has the uncommon red horses, and again, note how the picker/packers have put green figures on all the red horses, because that’s the two heaps the line manager gave to them, to pair-up!

 

And again, this year thanks are due, alphabetically by surname, to - Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, I've forgotten to add! Thank you all.

F is for Follow-up - Space Flats

I don't know how I've ended-up with all this space stuff, it was supposed to be vehicle-figures-vehicle-figure post and then move-on to something else, but there's a folder full of the stuff and I just carried-on working through it! In the meantime, I shot this to confirm an earlier comment . . . 

. . . re the green semi-flat chap having been issued by Montaplex unpainted, and here we see two in yellow, they seem to be from the same tool, so someone must have bought a bunch to paint-up and sell at a different price-bracket, because you do see them like this from time to time?

 

Posed with two contemporary figures from Torgano (grey) and an unmarked white version of the Linde/DS Plastics (Plasticraft) spaceman we looked at here. The helmet is a non-canon one which happened to fit . . . 'ish!

11-Sep-2023 - definitely not French! He is pathetic, isn't he? "Neh! I got one too and mine is blue!"

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Torgano Alpini

Bit of a box-ticker this one, I collected an incomplete set of Torgano alpine troops or 'Alpini' a while back, and as the weather was good, I took them outside and shot them in the garden, these shots were the result, and I've shown them elsewhere, so here to tick the box!

54mm semi-flat, or demi-ronde; do you use French for Italian figures? Five of six figures I think, the missing one being a kneeling machine-gunner and the weakest of the sculpts as far as realism is concerned!

The plaque is one of two from our childhood, the other is a squirrel I think, or a badger; I can't remember? But they were obviously bought at a craft fair or some holiday destination as keepsakes, and we had one each hung on the bedroom wall at the ends of our beds - we shared a bedroom until I was sixteen!

Hand-carved sandstone, it originally had a knotted leather bootlace to hang it, but when I found them last year, they are perished brittle with age. Anyone know where they came from? They may have come back from America in '69?