About Me

My photo
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.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

B is for Britains Swoppet Khaki Combat Infantry Hong Kong Piracies Bagged Plastic Toy Soldiers Part Something or Other . . .

. . . just trying to keep-up with current trends for title blocks elsewhere; I'd hate for Google to forget me!

So, following the ID'ing of one of the Swoppet poses as being in with the Khaki (or 'Combat') Infantry poses when sorting-out Kamley-Kositoys the other day, I thought I'd better return to the box and see how many of the other Britains Swoppet clones I could tie in with Britains Herald sets of Khaki Infantry copies.

It helped that in going through the HK carded boxes looking for stuff to photograph for RTM I'd found these two and was able to sort their mates out of the Britains Swoppet tub - where the clones and the originals have been rubbing shoulders for a few years.

The notable one here is the crouching mortar-man who has been converted to an officer with a crude automatic pistol. Although the standing mortar-man seems to be waving a bottle around . . . "Com'mon  yoooo wang'kers . . . I'll take you all on . . . bloody ruskie-sovs! Hic!"*

I took the opportunity to shoot some comparison shots, we have looked at the Swoppets in more detail previously, so this is really about the clones which as you can see are much reduced in size and quality and; having been copied without their webbing, look bloody odd! But then - the originals were all wearing barrack-dress ties, so . . . yer pays yer money!

With the Kamley and 'Soldier Set' figures gone from the tub, I was left with four figures to sort out, another of the crouching officer conversion, a marching and two - differently marked - being cut-'n'-shut's of the kneeling firer from the Herald Khaki Infantry set with the Swoppet standing mortar-man's torso.

Two have similar marks and the same shaped cavities under the base as the 'Soldier Set' figures, so I wouldn't mind betting (especially after seeing the generations of Kamley sculpting) they are earlier runs from the same source as the generics in the above bags.

Apologies for this and the next two images, they were taken in a heavy thunder storm with light-levels all over the place but I was keen to get-on and they're left looking like I hired Paul Stadinger to take them!

As the Kamley set had included one of the cut-'n'-shut' poses with an otherwise clean sample of Herald Khaki Infantry, I went first to that tub and found that yes, indeed, one of the unknown bags would happily accept one of the orphans, the shot notwithstanding - they are all unmarked with large release-pin discs visible.

The same exercise found a home for the other two-way, nice matching ovoid-cartouche recess with a neat, small "HONG KONG" this time, saw the chap home to his family, although it's only a family while you're still serving!

Which left the other two to join the three grenade-throwers in the mongrels bag! I still have about 14 'sets' to attribute, but have at least brought four lots together in the last few weeks.


* Humourless PSTSM readers and thicko Vichy-French should accept that that is supposed to be a humorous report on the fictional dialogue of a drunken cold-war warrior I invented, but in no way is intended to reflect my own opinion of my comrade-brother worker's from the East, nor is it to be taken remotely seriously by stupid people, of which - the world is currently, sadly, over-supplied.

No comments: