Farm figures: Minor UK makers

[david_scrivener]

As not much is known about some of the UK's smaller farm toy figure manufactureres, and pretty much by definition ('minor') they didn't make many items, I thought it best to put them all together here, rather than have separate threads for each of them.

Fylde was a short lived (1947-50) company set up in Blackpool by some of the people involved with JoHillCo (then in terminal decline) and Cherilea (the longest lasting and biggest of the successor companies). The sitting horse is slightly different from the JoHillCo sitting horse, note the ears & tail.

These fences etc were made by Kemlows, and many were sold by Wardie. Both companies are mainly known for railway layout accessories and petrol station items, Corgi & Dinky Cars, for the use of.

Nothing much seems to be known about Noble, the company who made these small scale hunting people. London, circa 1951. Britains hunt figure included in photo to show scale.

These very attractive farm figures were made by Roydon, based at Wallasey, Cheshire, circa 1949-52. Since taking this photo I've bought a few more colour variations of the milkmaid with buckets, but wish I had a lot more Roydon figures.

Edited May 13, 2012 by david_scrivener

[david_scrivener]

The first photo shows some plastic figures made circa 1960 (I know because i had a couple as a kid back then) by an unknown UK manufacturer. I think it was Paramount, a successor company set up by Mr Lucas after he closed down his previous lead figure company (best known for his very shiny electro-plated knights in armour). I included the plastic cowboy, marked paramount underneath, because it seems to be the same shiny white plastic. The hen & chicks might be JoHillCo (it is in the Plastic Warrior JoHillCo book, but I'm not convinced). The small dog might be JoHillCo or early Cherilea, as Cherilea did make a similar plastic dog in much larger size. There are a lot of 'Unknown' farm & zoo figures by smaller companies because no illustrated catalogues have been found by the collecting community - if they ever printed such things.

Now some plastic farm figures by the Speedwell/UNA/VP group of companies.

Now back to lead figures, these by Stoddart (probably). They were in operation 1916 to 1939. In addition to their own moulds, they may have bought moulds from Pixyland/Kew. During or after the 1939-45 war Stoddarts sold moulds to Timpo, which Timpo used to get started before they had their own moulds made. Paint style is a help to assess the age of a figure & therefore possibly pin down who actually made a specific figure from a mould which seems to have changed hands twice. So, were the two milkmaids with buckets made Pixyland? Kew? (after they bought out Pixyland circa 1931), or Stoddart? or Timpo? Cutting edge toy history stuff!

Edited May 13, 2012 by david_scrivener

[super6]

These Speedwell et all ones are they marked? I have a version of the black farmer, I think, in brown plastic with a little bit of paint for features, waistcoat, boots,walking stick and base. There are no markings on it at all. Photo to follow........

[david_scrivener]

Not marked. I was only able to identify them from the Plastic Warrior guides to these companies, and they were only able to identify them because they had some boxed sets. As one of the PW people said to me, it is pretty much impossible to identify cows, horses, etc from the loads of unmarked plastic cows & horses which are found without a photo. Once a few in a range have been positively identified, it then becomes easier to identify the rest by style of design, painting & type of plastic.