About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

M is for Mes Matelots de la Marine!

Well, I nearly published these this afternoon, since when two other posts have published Starlux of one sort or another, that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes, never sure if it's coincidence or synergy?
 
Not sure if we've had a brief look at these before or not, either, maybe as an early show-plunder post?, anyway, here they are, again? I have a similar box of WWII/post-war French Army figures which Andy Harfield saved for me years ago, it's closed (no window), but has the same ratio of fresh-air to figure-plastic, but on three shelves!
 
It's been 'restored', by me, poorly, by which I mean I usually make more effort, here I just taped some tears back down, and you can see the 3M clear tape on the window, but it holds it all together, I suppose!

The 30mm figures, they have been mucked about with, there should probably be a standard-bearer, and the four pure-white ones are almost certainly additions, they haven't the ultraviolet (or paper/card acid?) yellowing of what were probably the originals.
 

Saturday, March 16, 2024

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Lone Star's Swivel Animals

I didn't manage to shoot the brown cows before they sold, however the cart-horse and a white cow, came home with me, and I think we saw a black one here at Small Scale World years ago, from the 'archive' shots?
 
The cart horse is actually the best of the five, as it's got the extra knee joints, lacking in both the other four animals and the similar Noddy licesnsed figures, also seen here in the past, so he's got 8-points of articulation, quite the 'action figure'! The saddle is very distinctive and must take the draw-bars of the older 'hollow-cast' (lead) carts, while the collar is similar to Britains' one.

To be honest the swivel limbs don't add much to any of them, as only one or two subtly different poses look 'right' the rest (an almost infinite variety) just look a bit daft! And in the case of the horse, any departure from standing or a gentle walk just unbalances it! The cow additionally, has an articulated/nodding head.

I've never seen the donkey or the foal, and while I've seen the pig, I don't have one, although I do have a very similar, 30-odd year's younger one from Kinder (also on the blog somewhere?) which is almost as good, but with a slightly cartoony face?

Now, guessing here, but I suspect the pig only came in pink, while white, brown and black plastic versions of the other four may have been produced, with airbrushed black, white or red-oxide highlights? In addition to the spot-painted pink and black detailing of hooves, eyes, nostrils, a halter &etc.

T is for Two - Rack-Toy Dino'cards

I had occasion to stop at one of the few independent convenience-stores/corner shops the other evening (Lower Bourne, Farnham/Aldershot hinterlands - dodgy part of the world!), with the intention of grabbing a fizzy drink, and I came away with two BJ's . . . ooh'err missus!

The ones on the left look like a larger set we saw a few years ago, as a generic, stiff polyethylene hollows, pegged together (pegging and BJ's; it gets worse!), while the others look like those kids comic ones, but will probably turn out to be from a more common two-colour (plastic and one paint, sprayed) mini's set. They don't have the dotted-in eyes of the comic ones, either.

The trio is actually on a smaller card, and having had this stuff rather trashed (for understandable reasons) in the comment the other day, I now feel slightly guilty posting them, but a blog needs copy, preferably new copy, and while these posts aren't my finest hour, they are what they are, and if you like/collect Dinosaurs, these are both out there now.

The shop also had an 'army-man' set, but it was one of those sets with a rigid 4" figure, two 54mm'ish Matchbox copies and some travesty of an over-scaled, inaccurate Jeep or something, I mentally rejected it before I'd fully noted the contents!

S is for Selley Manufacturing Company 'Finishing Touches'

Another one I don't know enough about to more than present the archive imagery, which will form the basis of the eventual A-Z blog entry, but for now, and because I mentioned it in association with Weston's as 'coming soon' in a comment the other week, they can follow the Weston figures in this sequence!

1940's, I think?





1950's, this could be the 5-cent list mentioned above, but is more likely to be the 25-cent catalogue listed next, inflation, even then!
 
1960's . . . it says!
 
A list I copied from somewhere?

Walther's 1998 catalogue.

One suspects that by the time the Selley had been dropped, and Finishing Touches was the only branding being used, it was in the hands of a new owner? It's another one which seems to have disappeared in the last decade or so, although a few dealerships seem to have a few bits left in stock?
 
We have seen a bit of Selley here, my 'Road Gang' which was at the time 'unknown' despite all this sitting in the archive, sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees, and it was Jon Attwood who made the connection, the other day! Indeed, the kneeling guy with the hammer is also to be seen in one of the Comet catalogue versions of Jon's carded set, which would be a fourth piracy in that set, or some iterations of it?

Friday, March 15, 2024

B is for Blasting off Again!

My evilBay treat to myself this month was the other configuration of the Blast Off eraser set from TJM, for nine-quid-odd with postage on a Buy-It-Now. It was preferable to drive to Basingrad to see if the Home Bargains there had taken delivery of the other set (Fleet's branch of the TKMaxx subsidiary still has a stack of the set we looked at last time!), only to find they haven't, which would cost the same in petrol.

The two together, for those who need to know, the yellow is a good match, the red is pinker, and the green and blue are different shades, brighter and darker respectively. Pencils and box are identical.
 
The blasted additions, the rocket can lose the column of flame, to stand on its stumpy fins, and the two planets are the same moulding, which is also the one used for the 'rings' planet in the other set, as I suggested might be the case, last time, and that's them, box ticked!

P is for Potted Plant Problems and Phuqing Phungus Phlies

We haven't had as much garden or insect stuff as I'd imagined I'd post, but that may change at some point, as it's all piling up on the PC, but here's one I've been battling with which might be of some help to some of you.
 
One of the most depressing things of the last few years has been the loss of the garden, which will obviously go to the new owners of the house, and while I managed to get as much as I could to Mum's friends and neighbours, I've ended-up with 20-odd pot plants which are down the bottom of a neighbour's garden, but they need to sell now, too, so I may lose them, unless someone knows someone in North Hampshire/Surry with a quiet corner of a farm or estate where I could leave them for a few month 'till a year or so?
 
In addition, there were houseplants and cacti which wouldn't survive down the bottom of someone's garden, so I gave away as many as I could, and brought the rest to the flat, where I have one of each I think, with a few duplicates where the flowers or foliage are different, like the Geraniums which apparently aren't Geraniums (Pelargoniums), I think one of the Cacti has finally died, and the Amaryllis is looking poorly, but I think they always do at this time of year, and I should cut off the floppy old leaves and wait for it to go-again, later?
 
But in the biggest pot was this thing, I think it's some kind of Iris or Lily, but a non-hardy one, it may be perfectly happy outdoors though, I don't know, however it was in the 'summer-room' (a fancy kit of plastic panels and oversized Meccano I built for Mum, with Mimi's help, about 14-years ago), so it came here, and as you can see, a week ago it was not looking very happy.
 
Six months ago this pot was full of greenery, up to 8-inches tall in the middle, but shortly after I moved it here, one of the last to arrive, I started noticing these little flies, and took great delight in dealing with them every evening after work four, one night, eight, another, Ohh, more than ten, I've lost count!
 
However, I soon noticed that the plant was dying off slowly, and I'd water it, it would put out a few new shoots, but a dozen old ones would die-off! Google revealed the problem was these little fruit flies, called Fungus Gnats, and I re-started my efforts at eradication with more earnestness, getting dozens every night, and a bunch in the mornings before work (my PC table is next to the plant, so I was 'on site'), days-off were fly-carnage!

But still the plant ailed, as you only have to miss a couple of adults long enough for them to get together and do the jiggy-thang, get the eggs in the pot, and another batch of grubs has to be waited for, until they hatch, meantime they are eating the roots of the plant! So war was declared, more Googling done, and the little yellow thing above is part of the campaign.

The first purchase was these sticky pads, from the cheapie-hardware store up in town (Fleet Essentials, previously Ziggy's, but with one of the Ex-Baker's staff now helping them get in the right stuff), and this was the 'right stuff', look at it!
 
You have a single line of sticky on the back, which you peel to stick the sheet down, then you peel the backing sheet off the front (almost an oxymoron there?), and all the little flies go "Wha-hay a sunflower", and die, slowly, and quietly, producing little guilt as you can see what they and their kids have done/are doing to your precious plant!

Yet, it was a slow process, and I was still killing lots of flies by hand, every day (f'ousands of 'em since December Sah! F'ousands!), so after a return to Google I spent £4.50 on this at B&Q, chemical warfare had come to the flat!

Ladies and Gentlemen, two months later, and it hadn't killed a single fly, the plant was looking as it does in the first shot, and I was clearly losing the war . . . against phuqing flies! Indeed, the only use I will ever get from it is as a possible rocket-engine on a scratch-build!

The apparently non-toxic (and non-attractive to Fungus Gnats) liquid went down the drain, revealing seven glass beads? The magic ingredient in this complete rip-off of a fake solution (in both senses of the word) is the remains of some shot-blasting, sunk in snot? Somebody should go to jail for this scam!

Yeah! In the spares pile they go, they're not even the same size - so not much use for anything!

I then took the pot back to the old house, took it down to the bottom of the garden, and dug-out the remains of the plants with a desert-fork, carefully, as the greenery is very snappy. And with two bits of root (Holmes, Rhizomes?) and three plants, drowned them while I was at work, to kill any hidden larvae or eggs.
 
You wouldn't believe the pot-sized ball of dried, hollowed-out, root remains, that tumbled out, it had been fighting the grubs for years, and while looking OK on top, was being absolutely decimated underneath. Another couple of weeks and it would have been gone.
 
Heading off to Redfield's garden centre, which I discover has become not a garden centre, but a multi-function, high-end, leisure-destination/tourist-facility, mall, restaurant and day-care centre, for the young and old? 
 
Almost single-handedly responsible for the death of half the shops in the High Street, including the aforementioned Bakers (another post for another day), they even have a clothes section, not out-door or garden apparel, but chic, fashion and everyday-wear? A toy shop and grocery store, it's like the world's most expensive Trago Mills!

AND, you are forced by shelving, and displays, and phuqing little-phences, to go round 9/10th's of it! Fortunately, a fifth-columnist in the houseplant section let me go through her secret passage, direct to the tills, so I got a fresh-bag of compost, and saw a surface layer, expressly for Fungus Gnats!

This was all last week, and I re-potted last Thursday-night, after washing the pot (and crocks) with bleach, and drying thoroughly, before the remains of the plant drowned as well as the larvae/eggs, and after pay-day last weekend, I went back for the surface treatment, a crushed pumice, which I applied as above, about a centimetre deep (that's about half a banana stalk for our N. American readers), on Saturday last.
 
As you can see, three fresh shoots are already up/out, and I'm hoping the two little pieces will germinate in a few days, they are buried at 4 and 7 if you know what I mean; on the clock face as viewed. There will be a follow-up photo' if anything happens!
 
Now to maybe being of some help to you - 
  • Don't buy the liquid traps, they are just another capitalist rip-off.
  • Do buy the sticky-traps (there were four in the pack, about a fiver), the second is now on the window, just in case!
  • Understand the sticky-pads won't cure the problem, but they'll hold it in check for a few weeks while you work-up the will for the serious bit of faffing!
  • The pumice would make ideal model-railway ballast, and there's a lifetimes supply in one 9-quid bag, ten times cheaper than modeller's scatter, and probably the same stuff?

Over the next few days I killed another four flies, which were probably lone operators who'd meandered to other parts of the flat, and came back looking for a feed, or somewhere to lay their eggs, but since last Monday or Tuesday, it has been fly free!

H is for Here's Something a Little Different!

Loot bags! A modern thing, for those 'consolation' presents I mentioned back on the Marx 6" figure post a week or so ago, in our day we just carried our Indian home, letting him look out of the window of the Morris Traveller. Now they get so much stuff, toys, sweets, a sticker sheet, gods - and harassed parents - know what, that they get a bag to put it all in!
 
I'm sure it's just a CAD-CGI-Photoshop mash-up (Don't tell Princess Pure, she'll have the kids on a 'real' spaceship for the official Christmas card!), but I thought the two ships looked plasticky enough for the Blog! In fact, they are somewhat channelling elements of Toy Story or its toy lines?
 
That's it, a small, plastic shopping bag (approximately A5) on Small Scale World, box ticked! And I'm being unfair I know, we had pass-the-parcel, which always had a prize, sometimes some smaller-ones, hidden in the many layers, so some kids did take home a few things? Or a slice of cake, if it was a fruit-cake, which some were . . . in fact, I demand loot bags for 60's kids, now! Sooooounfair!

Thursday, March 14, 2024

D is for Damn Shelfies!

I swear to God (with something more believable as my witness) these shelfies are hiding in Picasa, and every time I think I've rounded them all up, three more pop out of the woodwork! These are from October, December and the other day!

We looked at these infant-like Teamster trucks in a previous shelfie post, but I had shot another of the 'water tank' version with sharks in, really just a box ticker, as these animals will turn-up in mixed lots years from now, and need ID'ing!
 
A rather poor shot, like the previous taken in B&M, this one at Christmas, and these were in those bog-box stacks above the groceries in the 'entrance' isle you are forced to go down the full length of before you can navigate to where you really want to be! But it means they may have cleared after Christmas? If they haven't, I'll try to get a better shot next time I'm over there!
 
The brown Polar bear looks like the cream ones in the common charity-shop group, so they may be new colours of those existing, so-far generic, sculpts.
 
Seen in Lidl a few weeks ago, it looks like an Ariane or similar Euro-satellite launch-vehicle? Siku, and a long-box - twice the price, of so, of their little Matchbox types.

N is for Nursery Rymes!

Whatsisname Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on a Tuesday,
Married on a Wednesday,
Took ill on a Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,

Still believing Stevens International (US importer/jobber) and Sunjade (wholesaler/shipper) were the names behind the output of Supreme - SP Toys, poor chap! How does such ignorance persevere in a hobby where the facts are known? Is it that a certain type feels they can only shout at the world for its unfairness, by being idiots within their own 'community'?

Buried on Sunday,
That was the end,
of Whatsisname Grundy

T is for Two - Freebies!

Except at £4, 5, or 6.99, these modern kid's periodicals aren't exactly cheap, so whatever they Sellotape to the cover is not entirely 'free', but it brings down the unit cost, and none more so than this rather generic mag' I found back in November - Everything Jungle!

Two stories and forty-four stickers, sort of explains why we are going extinct, doesn't it? Sort of explains why we aren't rioting in the streets over the 300,000+ excess deaths of our loved-ones in the last four years, why we aren't protesting outside No.10 about the closure of 700 libraries? When you compare Look & Learn, World of Wonder or Tell Me Why to what kids get given these days, it rather explains everything.
 
But let's not worry about that boring real-life stuff, we've got free toys! I'm not sure if you'd call the upper cat a Leotah, or a Cheepard, but comparison with the other big cats will eventually clear up that attempt at a lame joke, by forcing it into one bag or the other, and for either cat it's quite well decorated for a Chinese generic.
 
As is the tiger, 90% of all tigers ever, having being pretty poor in the decoration department, over the years (and I include all generations/materials of Britains in that damming statement), obviously Schleich/Papo it 'aint, but better than most, it is. A reasonable [baby - if they are in-scale] elephant makes up the trio.

But then they gave us these as well, Iwako style/rip-off, plug-together erasers, two parrots, and - more amazingly - two designs, bargain! Kennedy Enterprises go in the Tag list and everyone is happy . . . aren't they?

P is for Petroleum

On one level this is just a nostalgia hit for people of a certain age, and not a young one, as this is from a mid-1970's colour supplement (I forgot to note which one/when), and the mid 1970's were, now, fifty years ago!


So which ones do you remember, these were all brands at the time, and the article makes clear there were more besides. Mex and Maxol are obviously sibling brands, while Sky and VIP look to be related. Some (six or seven, ten maybe, Mobil seem to have disappeared in the last decade or so, along with Chevron and Murco? Fina?) are still with us, with new ones like Q8 (Kuwait). We were a Shell family and had an account at the little garage on Phoenix Green, where they would come out in their khaki overalls and pump the fuel for us!
 
But this also helps illustrate a point I try to make from time to time . . . we all know the premiums issued by the bigger boys, even if, like National or Cleveland, they are no longer with us, because they were made in the sort of numbers where a fair amount survives; coin collecting albums (Shell and Esso), comic-book adverts for the promotion (Cleveland), surviving packaged examples (Jet), &etc.
 
But many of these would have issued some sort of incentive from time to time, and some of those would have been toys or collectables, which were never issued in the numbers to leave a trace, hell, half the above have no mention on the whole Internet!
 
But when things keep turning-up, like the 'Euro-premium' colours of Magic Roundabout figures, rather than our own Nabisco cereal premium colours, chances are they were issued by one of the above, or another, not illustrated above, or a smaller/regional ice-cream brand, or fleet of ice-cream vans, or even a regional chain of convenience stores, long since swallowed-up by the big-six?

Not generic, just lost! And what is the yellow disc one - CW?

Next day -

The link I mentioned in the comments is still there, it's changed appearance in the decade or more since I last looked, and has a legacy-page look to it now anyway, but a useful list and nostalgia read which also educates!

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

W is for Weston Figures, then Campbell Scale Models, Now Gone?

I don't know enough about these to do more than post the scans as a guide, and to tick that box in this series of posts, they seem to have been around as Weston since the 1940's, and we looked at a few sleeper-car/restaurant-car figures back at the beginning of the Blog;


Unknown, but 1970's - from the price?


Mid 1950's flyer.

1960's US model railway magazine.

The 1975 Walther's catalogue has them as a division of Campbell Scale Models who also did building kits and a range of scenics, so they had obviously bought the old company, or its IP/mould-bank, to give them an instant figure range!
 
From a British model railway magazine about 20/25 years ago.
 
Walther's again, 2000's.
 
They seem to have finally folded in the early summer of last year, whether anyone will pick-up the tools seems to be for the birds, or the Gods to decide?

E is for Expelling a Few Myths!

Not exactly the best spacemen ever made, being very toy-like, but in common with
the 60mm Knights from the same Cherilea stable, having a charm all of their own, and as they are quite common, with a relatively convoluted history, worth collecting, for their position on the oeuvre.
 
Well, that's a bit metaphysical! I don't have that many, when I had the chance to grab a few I was actually helping someone else collect them, and he snapped up all the good ones, each time, before I could shoot them, but I've collated enough to tell the story.
 
Here are the two main types of Cherilea production, baseless, or based, which helps banish the first myth; that Marx were the ones without bases, while Cherilea had bases. The fact is Cherilea added bases to their own 'pod-feet' designs, as the 70's resulted in the popularisation of 'deep pile' or 'shag' carpets - an abomination of dirt, dust, food and pet-hair storage, which went bald in paths (desire-lines) and rucked-up in the corners as the substrate stretched or broke-up.

Bonus Hugh's Handy Helpful Home Hobby Hint - the dust from the perished rubber backing, once sieved, makes an excellent scatter material for modelling, and a jar of it lasts for decades longer than the carpets were ever going to! And the stuff left in the sieve, once you've picked out the lumps and hairs and things, makes excellent ballast for model railways!

There were six poses, and this is a mix of originals (top-left/bottom-right) and copies, which we will get on to in a minute, the black-suited chap here always seemed designed to be driving or riding some kind of space-vehicle or hover-bike, with outstretched arms and open hands, but as far as I know nothing suitable was ever released, so he makes the best space-zombie!

Not 'swoppets' in the traditional sense of the word, and, apart from the addition of bases - they never got the move to swivel bases which the khaki Infantry did, with their third series.
 
But they did have clip-on life-support packs/tool belts and plug-in heads with slip-over helmets, I think there were six designs of 'webbing and helmet' so you could technically seek to procure 216 versions, without looking at plastic colour or base/no base, but that would be very boring, these are better held as a small, eclectic 'sample'.
 
Two of the figures are equipped with that old 1950's favourite, the Enfield EM2 experimental/trails bullpup-configured assault rifle, which dates them! Still, they made a few hundred which would have been (might still be) in a store somewhere, why not give them to the Space Corps!
 
In space, no one can hear your 1940's flash-bulb! Variation on a theme, illustrating how much smaller the copies are (second from the left), easy to tell, as they usually have paint highlights absent from the originals, and because they are manufactured from PVC vinyl-rubber, not the polyethylene Cherilea used.

And to the second myth, that Marx 'made' them or 'did' them, they didn't, these figures (the PVC copies) were issued by dozens of importer/jobber's on two, if not three, continents, and were sourced from a Hong Kong manufacturer, in every case except Marx, with no real difference between the batches.
 
Some Marx sets claim Taiwan, however, as the source, but they sourced other stuff from Taiwan, sometimes credit HK and Taiwan on the same packaging, and were - by the time they carried these - importing other stuff from the colony, both from their own factories and from people like Blue Box. These were just another line, just another possible revenue stream, bought-in like others, and from the same source as all the others.

This figure and the similar kneeling pose hark back to earlier sculpts from Ajax/Archer in the 'States and Johilco over here, following the in-space-you-will-need-a-small-piece-of-equipment-on-the-end-of-a-long-lead-plugged-into-your-backback rule! Try running from a bunch of Xenomorphs, carrying that shit!
 
Toward the end they got, first the four-hole sandy bases, then the large 'landscaped' bases also seen on some knights, clearly, deep-pile shag was winning the carpet war!
 
The third myth is more accidental, it was believed for years that the moulds had gone-on to Tibidarbo in Italy, but I suspect the Italians just bought a lot in, as they seem to have had a lot with the ovoid-cartouche bases, in green-sand-silver/two-hole and sand/four-hole, but none of the earlier baseless production, nor any of the late, large, marbled-base examples. Nor have the mould tools magically turned-up in Italy ever?

Comparison between the foot-marks of the baseless figures, Hong Kong vinyl-rubber copy on the left, polyethylene Cherilea original on the right. Some always claim these as mould-release pin-marks, but I don't think it's always the case, and here, the PVC one may have the small hollows to try and prevent the edge/rim of the pod-foot from curling-up during cooling, post-mould, and causing the underside of the foot to dome, making them even harder to stand up than the British donors!
 
In part included for Pompey Dave, as I told him the other day, that they were on the blog somewhere, when they weren't! And with thanks to Adrian Little for a couple of the shots, and someone whose name I can't find, but who corrected me on the green 'Mechaniod', for that is what they were called!
 
The correction being that I had been told the fully-open/lattice-topped Mechanoids were rarer Dalek command ships, and the alternate open/closed panel ones were common 'UFO's, but apparently that's a fourth myth! They are two of several design variants, which don't have a Dalek-non-Dalek rule, anyway, they are all missing a plug-in ladder, and mine's missing its electronic mast thingy!

To complete the spacey nature of the exercise, two Daleks! I've said in the past I thought my other was black, but it's actually silver, so I have three metallic ones and no black, or flat colour versions. Steven Smith has been posting the most extraordinary collection of them elsewhere, for the last four years, and there's quite a selection, especially of the Mechanoids.
 
It's more of an unmanned-probe isn't it! A quick scaler, the Daleks are pretty good for the 60mm figures, most Doctors (Dr. Whoms!) were about six-inches taller than the scabrous Skaro survival-suits, so baseless Cherilea spacemen are just about the right height.

A Nucorp set, as well as Marx, I've seen them in Larami, Unique and Jak Pak livery I think, and somewhere I have two unmarked-generics from Italy (I think I'd forgotten I'd got one, and bought another from the same seller a few months later!), with a squeeze foot-pump rocket launcher, they are not rare, in either form - HK or UK.
 
We've seen this 1974 catalogue here in full, not that long ago, but here's the 'Astronauts' cropped-out, I consider them 'spacemen' in my universe, due to the whacky webbing/backpacks, helmets and weaponry. It was this era of production which Tibidarbo seem to have received quantities of, mostly these white ones, but also numbers of the pale blue figures.