O is for Oriental Oldtimers

[Heh-heh! I'd written this up at the time, so this was the Hong Kong shite which was supposed to go in front of this morning's Citgo post, while the French stuff was all found in the garage after I'd prepared this one and started the Citgo! 2022 additions in square brackets or with strikethroughs]

A couple more days with no figures I'm afraid, but these need to be ticked-off, a lot are or were rack toys and they were a big part of our childhoods, whether the expensive Yesteryear's from Matchbox, or cheap rack-toys, and whether toys or place-mats, mugs, ash-trays, linen kitchen-cloths, tin waste-paper bins, bathroom tiles . . . d'you remember the bathroom tiles! Yet; they've all but disappeared now?

I love these; they have that cusp of the sixties look about them, half-psychedelia, half early-'70's glam rock, seen in both the card artwork and the plastic colours. The only clue to maker is a submarine-logo which seems to be made from WS and while the card-back shows six vehicles; there may have been more.

It's tempting (and for some time was my general thought on the subject) to think these are Yesteryear copies for the main part, but in fact there are lots of sources, not least several French plastic Marques - as we shall [have] seen in later [earlier] posts.

Here we have what appear to be three Mercers, all plastic but all different when you study them, the support for the front mudguard (fender) for instance has three different design-treatments, the seats all differ, one has a radiator/headlight plug-in, one has only the separate headlights and the third has that whole section as a single integral moulding with the bonnet (hood).

15th August 2023 - The left-hand, better one, is now known to be a Henry Gordy 'Gordy Mite', see card here.

From a production point of view; the plastic also differs with the Minimite all hard polystyrene (apart from the tyres), the unknown all soft polyethylene and the one marked Prosperity Toys being a mix of components in both plastic types - it's also missing it's spare-tyres! [While the Minimite, arguably most likely to be based on the European one we saw in the Fuilor post, has its spare tyres in a different place?

[I've failed to find the links to the similar stuff on Moonbase, despite an hours search, even though I know it's there somewhere!]

Two more, both unmarked, the white one has the look of the Walgreen generics in the first shot but not the whacky colours, and it's not on the card-back, while we had the Matchbox version of the Rolls Royce as kids and the finer bits tended to break (windscreen, headlights), which they are less likely to on a soft ethylene copy!

I think this is a Renault? It's also a fifth or sixth origin/maker to those we've already seen and gives an idea of the 'parts-list' of one of these. Pulled from bins by assemblers working in a hurry; you end up with different coloured seats!

This is also Hong Kong production, but is as good as some of the better French examples we will look at later, branded to both KMC and Mini Models, the polyethylene tilt/cover and tyres are added to an otherwise well made polystyrene model, with the problem of the spoked wheels (simplified on the proceeding models) here solved with clear discs.

D is for Dem' Bones, Dem' Bones, Dem' Plaaaaasssstic Bones - Carded Sets

We have seen these before, the last two years-running I think, if not the last three, but they keep changing the packaging!

Last year Brian sent us shelfies of the purple card (they had an orange one the year before!)*, but then donated a sample to the Blog, which arrived after the event so I've been sitting on them even since, this year he sent shelfies of the new black-card! I've only gone with another shot of the orange one in the card, as there are lots of loose ones now, and it's the only carded sample here, but you get the idea!

In the meantime I'd found an aluminium-silver and gunmetal-bronzy one in the storage lot, so the sculpts must be over ten years old, probably older, although maybe not - then - Dolgen Corp., or PMS? The samples from Mr. B from two years ago, and the 99p Stores ones (from nearer Christmas, I seem to recall?) vary in shade slightly with light and dark tans, the lighter being the UK (PMS branded)  and some Dolgen ones.

Also shelfied from Brian (in 2017) were the Walgreen set, which he also then sent to the Blog last year, so a quick close-up of them; you get 4x4 poses for 16-figures in an 'onion-bag' net, and they are rather floppy!

They are also rather tall! but there are no rules for fantasy undead skeletal corpses brought back to like and they could have come form god-knows where, or when!

Thunderbird Two! No! But . . . when we were kids, birds peanuts came in long red net-bags (they also came in Christmas stockings and I still prefer them to salted ones) with a similar tie, but it had a bigger slide and more substantial loop which was shorter, fatter and more rounded, and it looked like a red T2, I had a whole squadron of them!

You don't need the warehouses' piled high with plastic tat, we've come to expect in the last forty years, kids raised to imagine, will. And as the planet's journey toward a looming death speeds up, this is something parents and parenting need to recognise and address.

*Checking the posts over the last few years it's all a bit complicated and we have almost over-seen these now, but I think the order of card-graphics is Orange-Purple-Black!

F is for Follow-up - Paint Your Own Toys

Just a quick one; following up on the Paint Your Own posts, Brian Berke sent me these last week, they are a bit cartoony, but then they are also piggy-banks, or Swineosaurus Geldii, as I believe paleontologists are wont to call them, and need to be fat to take all those pennies!

In Walgreen's as of last Tuesday; should you be fortunate enough to live where Walgreen operates! An excellent gift idea for younger relatives, and as they get older they can always repaint!

Brian also sent these a while ago as part of a mixed lot he was trying to ID, and while I couldn't help, I did suggest Paint Your Own sets, as I had just seen the sets I would later purchase for those posts the other week.

I took them (the pictures) home and had a better look (I struggle with images in Hotmail these days, partly down to limited time on the internet, partly down to the fact they make it as hard as possible to get them to show big enough!), spotted the 'CHINA' (on the rear of the left hand figure) and changed my mind, suggesting they were from a medieval play-set.

But now doing a bit of digging into these Paint Your Own sets (there's a fair few out there), I've changed my mind back to the possibility they are actually from a Paint Your Own set, possibly targeted at castles, museums and historical sites.

The Crescent 'Berserker' clearly booked his annual leave for the pre-Christmas period so there's an approximately 54mm ACW Union flag-bearer as a scaler.

Clearly medieval or early 'age of exploration', could they be from a Pilgrim Father's set, or touristy thingy of/from a US source, do you have them? How many poses were there in a set or what was the set called? Were there Local Indians in the set for the pioneers to trade with?

I found this (Kandy Toys) looking for something else the other day, and while they are more dinosaurs, it's further evidence that Paint Your Own sets are looking to be a rich vein for toy and model figures, animals and such like, have you found any useful ones? I've also seen Paint Your Own plaster figurines.

L is for Looking Spooky, but not in Boots!

More Spooky Spectres' of Undead Ancients, these coming from a Chinese outfit called Ningbo, via Walgreen's in the 'States and to us here at Small Scale World via New York and Brian Berke.

He only sent them the other day and the first thing I did was troll-off to Boots (a subsidiary of Walgreen) to see it they had them this side of the pond, they didn't, I asked the girl of they might have a Halloween section in the bigger stores and she ummed-and-erred, so I tried the website and for the 'Skeleton' search-term found a stick of nail polish, and a Minecraft horse in the Christmas gifts department . . .i.e.; no dice, no banana, no skeleton army!

Walgreen's promise 100% satisfaction; well - I'm 100% satisfied by what I can see (4x4 poses for a total of 16 figures), but I'm 0% satisfied by their subsidiary's stocking-of-skeleton-army's policy! I'll try the bigger stores next year, sometimes these things seem to be tested on the US market and then come over here a season later!

Close-ups of the figures; Shaun covered these about a week ago and everything said by him and the commenter's seems to stick, they are definitely derivative of the Amscan figures which we have yet to look at here.

Which reminds me, the PMS ones (earlier today) were issued here at Christmas, not Halloween? I'll have a bit of a shooftie round the discount store in December, they may yet turn-up sooner rather than later!

I love the chap with a meat-cleaver, I'm guessing a French chef who ate the wrong snail, stuck in limbo until he's paid the Ferrymen in souls! Again - as said on Shauns Fantasy Figure Blog - painted-up they'll make excellent additions to the other sets.

 

Pretty prefect for 54mm gaming or role-play, and with the Crescent 'Khaki Berserker' having Halloween off, we have a painted legionnaire (AIP) as a scaler - looks good with the sand-base as well; you have to get close to kill the undead! Don't worry; I've since taken delivery of more images from Brian and the British Berserker is already back on-station for the winter!