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.

Friday, November 12, 2010

W is for Wüsolin...not Düsolin!

Badly needed help with this one and it was rapidly forthcoming after I published a fine post on Düsolin - that well known (once, now long forgotten;) manufacturer of floor-polish made from crushed beetle-juice and camel-dung!

In the last photograph it's so clearly a 'W' now, I don't know how I could have struggled with 'D' for two weeks, although in my defence I had tried Oüsolin and Wüsolin! Anyway thanks to the efforts of Paul from Paul's Bods (link to left) we now know it's Wüsolin and that they are apparently very rare, appearing quite infrequently on German eBay and were designed with the intention of enhancing the small range of 40mm composition figures issued by Lineol alongside the 70mm biggies.

40mm Composition Toy Soldiers; 40mm Figures; Composition Hitler; Composition Toy Figures; Composition Toy Figurines; Composition Toy Soldiers; Düsolin; German Composition Toy; Hitler and the Black Shirts; Hitler and the Brown Shirts; Hitler Figure; Hitler Model; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toy Soldiers; Vintage Composition Figures; Vintage Toy Figures; Vintage Toy Soldiers; Wüsolin; Wüsolin Composition Figures; Wüsolin Toy Soldiers;This was given to me by Adrien (Mercator Trading) at Birmingham, and seems to be an unusual piece of Nazi memorabilia, if such a thing isn't an oxymoron...Nazi nightmarebelia?

This one is clearly [Ha Ha! the beauty of the edit feature!...read the comment section!] marked 'Wüsolin' (and the sharper-eyed among you will also have realized that my camera's CCD is failing, so we'll see what Fuji have to say for themselves), it could be named after the brand of what would have been - then - a 'new' plastic?

This [Still] needs input from German, Austrian or possibly (?) Swiss-German readers/followers, as apparently the firm is still in existence, indeed, they may be modern figures? But that doesn't really tie in with the asking-price of a couple of non-character figures on evilBay recently.

Questions then; Does anybody remember this or the other figures in the range? How big was the range? When did they florish? Has anyone got some in their collection or tucked-away at the back of the hall drawer, or in the attic/cellar/shed/garage?

40mm Composition Toy Soldiers; 40mm Figures; Composition Hitler; Composition Toy Figures; Composition Toy Figurines; Composition Toy Soldiers; Düsolin; German Composition Toy; Hitler and the Black Shirts; Hitler and the Brown Shirts; Hitler Figure; Hitler Model; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toy Soldiers; Vintage Composition Figures; Vintage Toy Figures; Vintage Toy Soldiers; Wüsolin; Wüsolin Composition Figures; Wüsolin Toy Soldiers;Clearly depicting the single-gonad equipped, short-tempered, arm-wagging, foot-stomping, war-mongering, young-men in uniform loving, Parliament-burning, poor-footballing, crap painting, take-us-all-to-hell of many a rhyme or ditty...Herr. Adolf Hissler (as Nostradamus tells us he should have been called) is painted in the style of a composition figure, and has the rough texture of one too, so may BE composition? The paint is also slightly tacky/sticky, but I'm not going to start scraping/poking what might be a very rare figure?

More for British/Antipodean followers - It is interesting to note he seems to have ended-up with one of Baldric's theatrical 'licorice' mustaches? I guess Baldric left it in the dug-out the morning of the Big Push and the opposing unit's painter & decorator found it while measuring-up for new wallpaper, once General Melchet had moved his drinks cabinet 18 Inches back in the direction of Paris? BhaaH!

Joking aside (and I'm half-German, so it's not like when I have a go at the French!) it looks scarily like Hitler...and while the figurine may be composition...

40mm Composition Toy Soldiers; 40mm Figures; Composition Hitler; Composition Toy Figures; Composition Toy Figurines; Composition Toy Soldiers; Düsolin; German Composition Toy; Hitler and the Black Shirts; Hitler and the Brown Shirts; Hitler Figure; Hitler Model; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toy Soldiers; Vintage Composition Figures; Vintage Toy Figures; Vintage Toy Soldiers; Wüsolin; Wüsolin Composition Figures; Wüsolin Toy Soldiers;
...the glued-on base is clearly an early injection-moulded piece of plastic, and here you can see (through the rainbow tinted lines of a 60's TV, indicating the failure of expensive modern photographic technology) the machine-tool marks, as the recess in the mould was ground-out in a circular motion.

If the figure is plastic as well, that might explain the tackiness of the paint as industry had to relearn paint technology in order to deal with the new plastics as they came along. It's not the polystyrene of the WHW figures, but seems too 'good' to be a phenolic/cellulose-acetate from that time (mid-1930's to 1944'ish?), which one would expect to see warping/shrinking/cracking by now.
[the above was written when assuming an age they may not - now - have, so does not apply if they are modern'ish of course! And the two on eBay are much smoother looking, I'll try and get permission to use the image...]

Disclaimer; The subject matter and all images pertaining to it including the part-Svastica/Swastika symbol are presented here as a historical artifact/curiosity of possible importance or interest to the small community of Toy and Model Soldier Collectors and/or any Militaria bods who may find it, and in NO WAY represents my views, political affiliations or approach to fascism, and should not be taken as any attempt to glorify or form of glorification of; The events of the mid-20th Century, the National Socialist movement in Germany, The Holocaust and/or the Second World War.

Indeed, having mounted guard on Hess, I can tell you they were nasty pieces of work.

PS; I'll re-post these photographs at some point when I have a better camera, but a new camera is not on the horizon - budget-wise - for the foreseeable future.

Which I did nine years later - here!

17 comments:

Paul´s Bods said...

It says Vasolin...they made addy bods like this one for commercial purposes.
http://www.ioffer.com/i/75557946

I hope the link works
Cheers
Paul

Hugh Walter said...

The link took me to a Durso figure? But they are Belgian, 60mm, with integral base and while it could be a 'w' rather than a 'd' when I tried that it provoked no info. at all on Google. Also this is definitely a 'u' with umlaut, not an 'a', but thanks for trying.

Adrien deals in old composition and Hollow-cast so if he doesn't know...

Paul´s Bods said...

I will try again...there´s a couple of dealers I could ask....if I can upload the pictures??
I tried virtually every combination of the Ulauted Ü and with the written ue form...got some pretty odd results as well.
Cheers
Palu

Paul´s Bods said...

I might be getting closer

http://www.auktionshaus-loesch.de/cgi-bin/l_katalog-64neu.php?id=88&r=4&page=47&ops=

Paul´s Bods said...

Right..I´m pretty sure...I put in Wüsolin 40mm figures and this came up:
http://cgi.ebay.de/Wuesolin-Lineol-4cm-Kartentisch-General-Adjudant-Top-/170555232178

God eh?
Cheers
Paul :-)

Paul´s Bods said...

Sorry...I didn´t mean to write god...I meant Good (miy speling theze deys)

Hugh Walter said...

No! There are some nice 40mm there (the big dais scene), but all Elastolin or Lineol, and the first picture has one that looks like a 50mm Layla amoung others, but this is not they!!! Feel free to click-copy the images or take screen-shots.

Cheers for the effort!

I love the German for Kettle-drummer...Kesselpauker, 'cos he pokes the kettle!!!

Hugh Walter said...

Well! Clearly I wasn't trying hard enough!! That's them, and a tasty start price...I better delete the post before Adrien see's it!!!

Thanks Paul, I'll follow it up as soon as I've got all these broken Timpo horses off my keyboard!

Bablefish gives;

Wüsolin Kartentisch + general + Adjudant for Lineol 4 cm soldier, Kartentisch is hinged, height of the figures 4 cm, very good ones condition/much rare (see illustration)

Katentish = Maptable

Note 'for' Lineol, so they are a separate firm, and with the Lineols around 15/20 Euros each for a good one (Ihave some tatty ones!), these are clearly less common?

Hugh Walter said...

Fantastic and swift detective work! Thanks,

Paul´s Bods said...

Glad to have been of help...anytime mate, I love trying to solve puzzles and find answers...:-)
Cheers
Paul

PS; the Firm Wüsolin is still going, they had an advert at a Model trade fair recently...If you want I´ll hunt them down.

Hugh Walter said...

I'd love you to, I tried to find out more last night and found something interesting...both Google and eBay are 'regional' and show bias. I could only get to the link you gave by copying it in full. If I just used the lot description, I couldn't get it to come up in either Google or eBay, and I was searching 'completed/worldwide', so I would never have found it.

But I was forgetting, you're in Germany, so obviously your settings are slightly different. I wounder if people know how much stuff they're not finding on foreign trading sites? All these kit-collectors searching Japanese eBay must miss-out on tons of stuff?

If they are still going the figure might be post-war, but - from the price - discontinued and sought-after. But still it would be nice to see if they've got any info in the office archive (down the back of the filling cabinet!).

Paul´s Bods said...

I will give em a bell..as it was..The search method I use is pretty involved and independant on location..tricks I´ve been taught and learnt which would take a while to explain but if it´s on the web...anywhere..I can usually find it. :-)
I´ll get back to you on this one
Cheers
Paul

FIXED BAYONET METAL SOLDIERS said...

you never told anyone you were a jerry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I just told derek Malcom

Anonymous said...

What a wanker...and whoTF's D.Malcome!! delete!

Hugh Walter said...

Anon; Exactly...who is dereck Malcom (small 'd'), but watch the language, I hope the odd younger person passes by!

Fixed; You're a helmet!

Anonymous said...

My its so easy to beat a dead horse isn't it? You managed to get every piece of Allied/Zionist hate filled nonsense and slander in as possible. If he were what you say,than he would of never rose to have a figurine made of himself;save his nation,and almost Europe,from those who DECLARED WAR on him,September 3,1939,than DEMANDED NO NEGOTIATIONS UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER... Try finding a popular figurine of drunk in Churchill,lovely Stalin,or FDR,those Jewish Bankers toady's. Your offensive,and only know comic book Jew Crucifixion hostory

Hugh Walter said...

Anonymous said...

My its so easy to beat a dead horse isn't it? You managed to get every piece of Allied/Zionist hate filled nonsense and slander in as possible. If he were what you say,than he would of never rose to have a figurine made of himself;save his nation,and almost Europe,from those who DECLARED WAR on him,September 3,1939,than DEMANDED NO NEGOTIATIONS UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER... Try finding a popular figurine of drunk in Churchill,lovely Stalin,or FDR,those Jewish Bankers toady's. Your offensive,and only know comic book Jew Crucifixion hostory


Right Troll - lets dissect this shall we, just for a laugh, you do do this stuff for a laugh don't you?

Hostory? What's that then? Historical hosiery? Do you wear girls underwear? You sound like you probably do.

Actually the contemporaries of Elastolin, Lineol and Co. did produce figurines of Stalin, Churchill and all the French and American leaders, so one of the main tenets of your 'argument' is totally false, while the makers of modern figures who have bothered with Hitler, have also made allied characters (Roco-Minitanks and the eastern sets).

Far from getting-in every Zionist whatever, I made a swift joke about the number of gonads he retained in later life...jokes are what we call humour, clearly something of an alien concept on your planet so I won't bother explaining.

As for saving Europe, he ruined Europe, left it on it's knees, created the conditions for somewhere between 70 and 120 million people to die and then committed suicide like a little coward who dresses in girls-underwear!

You too - we have just discovered - wear girls under-garments and as an 'anonymous' commenter are clearly a little coward...

MY GOD - Hitler lives!!!!

Fuckwit!

Hugh

PS - try paragraphs.