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, December 4, 2011

M is for Megland

I love a bit of a mystery and here's a good one - This fascinating item turned up at the Sandown Park swap meet a couple of weekends ago, an almost perfect 25mm/1:72 scale The Thatched Cottage made by a B L Megland and apparently part of a set or series of similar sets.

Fully assembled from a multi-media of parts including a composition/plaster cottage, flock, lichen and rubberised-horsehair matting, wood and cast soft-metal components like the green ladder. The whole arranged on a medium-card base and packed in a sturdy box.

Close-ups to give an idea of the amount of work that must have gone into the little vignette which is about 10 inches on a side. It has - as you can see - also been painted with all the techniques known to modern modellers such as dry-brushing, weathering, dark undercoats etc...and to a high standard.

Shots of the packaging reveal the range to be 'England's Fairy Toys', with B L Megland being based in Torrington; Devon. Was Megland an individual or a small company with employees? How many other items were in the set? What date would you put on this; it could be 1900 or 1950 from all the clues!!? Does anyone have any other information on the range or Megland?

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