Wishing all dear friends a safe and peaceful Christmas, whoever and wherever you may be.
The little plastic stable at the back is simply marked "Italy" I was with my mum when she bought it from a Woolworths store in London in 1965, the figures are 30mm semi flat. Woolworths carried a lot of Italian decorative plastics at that time, I remember the gondolas on little plinths and snow globes in particular, they must have struck a chord with people because everybody seemed to have them in their house.
The larger plaster/chalk figures in the foreground appear to have come from three different nativity sets, the taller wise man on the left is 90mm, the infant in the manger is a later design and the remaining five are matching 60mm models. I picked them all up together at the Porte de Clignancourt fleamarket, it was 1989 and we'd gone to Paris for our honeymoon, they were in a massive box of assorted plastic toy soldiers, many damaged and I started rooting through it, "no no no" said the dealer, they were all rubbish and he didn't want the stuff tipped out all over the floor "100 francs the lot" (about £10 back then) there were several hundred figures in the box. I took the lot and it was the kickstart to my love affair with French figures. I would guess they were also made in Italy or maybe Spain. I've put them out every Christmas since then.
