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.

Saturday, September 30, 2017

I is for I Bought a Beautiful Thing . . .


. . . for a pound! And by the time I've loaded this I may have bought another for £1.75!

Clearly the 'time from purchase to discard' for board games is approximately ten years! I bought this set in a charity shop in Farnborough the other day for a pound; it was absolutely mint with everything present bar one purple counter.

I took all the photo's and sorted the images for a blog post, added the last image as an afterthought, announced it here on the Blog in passing the other day, and then yesterday (Wednesday 28th - about a week later), saw another one for one-seventy-five in a local charity shop! I passed on it as it was a bit tatty, but will see if it's still there tomorrow and if it is I'll get it, for the missing counter!

I feel I can't get across fully, how beautiful this is, issued in 2007 as a joint venture between Identity Design of the Netherlands, New Line Cinema (presumably the licensor) and the UK's Re:creation and designed by a Lucia Haakman it is a joyous thing to handle.

The tin with its dimensional pressed lid and with lenticulars is a harbinger of the contents which don't disappoint.

The quick start fold-out and rule booklet, DVD and case and some of the board components; all beautifully illustrated and in keeping with the 'Steampunk' look of the original movie's setting in a slightly-alternate or parallel, fantasy, future-past, which I've seen and enjoyed in its own right.

The board is a large disc unfolding from four-quarters around which are arranged the arcs of the clock/compass - seen in the previous shot - with three double-sided play-areas set into the middle; where your players are situated.

And then there are the players! Aren't they gorgeous? The best has to be the female villain of the piece - Mrs. Coulter (65mm); agent of the Magisterium - and the model even looks like the actress who played her in the movie; Nichole Kidman.

The other two are Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards; the 11-year old heroine) and Lord [007!] Asriel (Daniel Craig taking time-off from MI6) who helps save the day (with the aid of an armour-plated bear, a bunch of good witches, the Gyptians and assorted other fantastical elements including the eponymous Golden Compass - actually an Alethiometer . . . of course; who didn't know that!

All three figures come with their familiar or Daemon, with Mrs Coulter's (an nameless, evil little-shit Golden Tamarind) and Lyra's - Pantalaimon ('Pan', some kind of polecat or martin) being moulded as part of the base, having the human figurine glued-on afterward, while Lord Asriel and his 'snow-panther' (Himalayan snow-leopard) Daemon - Stelmaria - are both added to a slightly thinner base.

I can't remember who's Daemon is the cat . . . Mrs Coulter's lackey, the Headmaster, the politician-type from the Magisterium or the 'Klondike Pete' chap Lyra finds? Anyway, there are counters for up to four players, although any number can join in as everyone is working to help Lyra.

The three figures are indicators of game play - Mrs Coulter is commanded by the DVD and Lord Asriel is controlled by play-outcome rather than player-turn; indeed one of his jobs is to indicate player turns! While the Lyra figurine shows how she is progressing, independently of the players.

The tin also has the three Daemon lenticulars stuck-on the lid; it's all about small touches adding to the richness of the game as a whole.

However, I fear this may be a case of the style being greater than the substance; I remember toward the end of the era of cassette tapes having interactive board-games with a cassette you had to keep fast-spooling forward and back to find spoken instructions on the next piece of game-play, then in the VHS era, similar games were tried, now we have a DVD version.

I tried it and it's slow . . . and complicated. It says you must have a remote and DVD-player, well . . . a laptop to hand does the same job; faster, but it still slows play and requires a level of concentration you don't get with most popular board games.

It's as if the rules are being created as you play, yet the fact that the game-play is contained on a DVD as a series of .flv files and some old-school hierarchical coded instructions ("If X, then Y, if Y then return to A" type stuff) means that ultimately it's going to be a foregone conclusion with a simplistic outlook, likely to favour the 'heros' (you; the players helping Lyra) more often than not?

Except that one player can win - by having more credits at the end (a list-minute cop-out to competitiveness in a cooperative game!) and I haven't bored you with cards or dust chips!

A game of chance where the odds are fixed and variables limited is not one you are going to return to regularly, is it? I really hope the companies involved got their money-back, just for effort because it is a beautiful, beautiful thing, to handle and look at!

I'm sure it was tested by gamers before issue for playability, equally I guess the increasing army of board-game fans will have a fine 'session' with it, but for your average, Joe-public, family - looking for a Boxing Day time-killer - I suspect this was a game too far, hence two turning-up within a fortnight, less than five miles apart?

If anyone has played it perhaps they can tell me different? I know there's boardgamegeek.com for this sort of stuff, but covering the odd game or three each year will not make Small Scale World any threat to that site! And - to be honest - the new layout at Boardgamegeek is worse than the old one!

However, if it's starting to appear in charity shops, look out for it, the three figures are quite literally lush! BBG lists about six Golden Compass-related games and one other has five figures, so that's on the target list!

Equally, I know there are or have been various plans to make sequels to the movie, which have so far not materialised, but I'd recommend it as a stand-alone anyway;  if you haven't seen it - but do like a bit of fantasy, although if you are a fan of the books (Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy) you may want to give it a miss!

Footnote - Got the other one - spare figures and combined minty-set!

Friday, September 29, 2017

News, Views Etc . . . Books

There's so much in September's 'News, Views' folder I've broken it down into three posts which I'll break-up with other stuff in-between. Today; news on books which are out, about or on-line.

FIM 3 Online
Starting with the on-line work, it has been decided by the authors (Robert Newson, Peter Wade-Martins and Adrian Little) that the third volume of Farming in Miniature (FIM) will be an on-line, real-time upgradable resource, allowing them to add new farm vehicle toys as they become known, this means that despite the two paper works containing some pretty rare, unusual or previously unknown toys; the website will likely carry even rarer stuff!


Lindholm Forres Books
News of two new titles from this brand-new publisher, a general history of collecting by Michael Driver and Mike Richardson (who with his wife Sue wrote the definitive work on die-cast aeroplanes) and Mr. Driver's solo work on Jaguar toys in all scales and materials have been published so far. Having seen neither I can't comment further but full details are to be found here;

Tel: 0207 243 2149
Web: www.lindholmforres.co.uk (due to 403 Forbidden's I can't link to the actual new books page?)


Britains Racing Colours
Limited numbers of Peter Kirk's work on the 'Racing Colours of Famous Owners' range of large scale figurines by Britains are available from Mercator Trading if you missed them first time round, details from Adrian through his website, the self-published pamphlet contains the colours for 235 known models, with spare graphics for new discoveries to be added at the back.


Amberley Publishing . . .
 . . . have two new titles out, one on Dolls Houses by Moi Ali (which I will wait-for, to be remaindered, not because there's anything wrong with it, but just because I only buy dolls books when they are cheap, as they are a far branch of the hobby for me!) and a far more interesting one for figure collectors by Matt McNabb; on the toys tied-in to the Ghostbusters franchise - with a forward by no less a personage than Dan Aykroyd himself - which I intend to track down.

Tel: 01453 847 800




Lego
Finally, there is a new book out featuring the 'Evil Empire' (see forthcoming 'News, Views'), from the son of Ron Good (Goodsoldiers) which I hope to obtain in November, so we'll return to it then, I had a brief look the other day and it seems to be a fun guide/introduction to Lego.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

N is for Not Known Nappies on Nags

This has been in the queue since a week or so after the last lot (Feb/March sometime?), and for some reason or another has been pushed-back, ignored or forgotten, not least that I haven't taken the rest of the shots for what were going to be accompanying parts, they WILL be a separate series now, which means this can shoe-horn in here as a standalone!

All 'unknown' with any clues/ideas I may have about them, and all mounted Wellingtonian cavalry types, or slightly earlier/later . . . some may be Crimea types?

These are 'nice', they have an indefinable quality, albeit in a parade or 'Toy Soldier' style; they could be Stadden/Tradition or something like that? Willie/Suren maybe, Phoenix or Rose? Anyway they need a better ID than that, as does everything in today's post!

They are bigger than most, 35/40mm and the white  horse has 'had work' in that the reins have been filed/sanded off. There are no visible marks, but the riders (with integral saddlery) have been soldered-on so they may have marks - now hidden.

B1 - Artillery/Wagon draft-horses, are they nappy?

B2 - Another closer to 30mm, and there seems to be a mark on the horses belly but I'm buggered if I can read it; even with a pen-torch playing across it and a jeweller's eye-piece I can only get it to look like 'MINX'!

B3 - I have a feeling these are Prince/Prinz August, but confirmation would be nice, or an alternative! It's that worn, silver, spray-paint look and the shiny cuirassier, along with some short/miss-moulding to the corners of the bases?

I'm guessing these are Minifigs and the horses for some of the figures in the next few shots, but - again - confirmation and/or alternative ID are still needed for all six. Why four of them have the same number is a mystery, I assume they were each created from the original master, with a casting being taken after each stage, picking-up the code from the first version, or that they came as a set?

C2 is the only one marked under the base; the rest are marked to be visible after painting, and I'm presuming (having already felt, assumed and guessed) that HCH is for Heavy Cavalry Horse and LCH . . . for 'Light....'!

I think this and the following three shots are showing some of the riders for the six horses above, now this either means I'm bloody short of horses, or more horses were identifiable and have already been labelled-up, so are in storage [he hopes]!

While this would mean I think they are all Minifigs, it's clear some are by other makers and one is marked Hinchliffe. They are mostly smallish, 25mm, some marks (in black).

Cuirassier and Life guard types?

Prussian-looking or General/Staff Officer types. E1 is marked inside the saddle '13' in green chinagraph, E2 is likewise marked 12? I'm assuming it's Blucher - with the pipe? E3 (PF7) has the full Hinchliffe mark and all three are closer to 30mm.

E4 is a different maker (or sculptor, with thin, weedy arms) while E5 is an RHA outrider, they are both 25mm to the Prussian's thirty.

Busbies and Bear-skins! F3 has a very heavy, thick, saddle-moulding.

Frenchie/shako types - G1 and G2 are the same figure, G1's lance has been cut free, but he has been marked with an engraving-tool. G7/8 are closer to 23mm and G9 (British infantry officer?) is barely 20mm.

These have all been semi-assembled with solder and given additional reins and tracings, the horse's bases carry a code, sometimes two, but if the riders are marked it will be on the hidden saddle-insides, also they'll not necessarily be the same makers, vis-à-vis horse and rider? I used to think they were Hinchliffe, but am open to suggestions!

H5 raises the possibility that the codes may be home-applied as it has two, one tying-in with horses further up the page and the other over what may be a Hinchliffe mark? Both H5 and H12 are annotated in the order the numbers read across the base.

H8 has had his head cut-off . . .

"Tiger Sah?"

"A Tiger? In the Iberian Peninsular?!"

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

PRB is for Plastic Rastignano Bologna

John Roquas (all images this post: courtesy of!) sent me a quick eMail the other day, with an image, asking me if I knew who had made the figures, I thought they looked familiar, but couldn't place them and being short on Internet-time that day got on with what I had to do, while the figures were at the back of my mind.

Just before I signed-off for the day I fired-off a quick reply to the effect that they might have been Cofalux; late replacements for their swivel-head 60-mil's, but that I wasn't sure and would check that night and get back to him the next day.

An Army of swivel-heads!

Well, I got home and quickly divested myself of the Cofalux 'idea', only problem was - when I tried the other obvious candidates they drew a blank as well! So I started to run through the dongles one at a time searching swivel and swoppet until on the second to last dongle I got a folder marked PRB in the results, "Ooh?" thinks I; "what's this one?" . . . Bingo! Plastic Rastignano Bologna; an importer/jobber from Italy.

13 ex-Domplastic poses

Sent off an eMail to John the next day; 'Not Cofalu; PRB, blah, blah, blah . . . ', and the next day found all these images in my inbox, so many thanks to John for helping give these a wider audience!

The figures are scaled-up copies of the smaller (54mm'ish) German Domplastic solids, which PRB imported into Italy, whether they had permission to turn them into 70mm swivel-heads or not is anyone's guess! They are generic post-war/NATO types, but PRB's addition of swivel heads allowed for WWII Germans and other types to be 'imagined' by the young owner.

There are 13 poses, one prone without a base, 12 upright on integral-bases; which are trying to be or look a bit like late-version Cherilea swoppet bases!

- Advancing with Assault Rifle, Optical-sight Fitted
- Crawling/Waving Forward Following Troops (no base)
- Firing Bazzoka
- Firing SMG
- Kneeling Firing M1 Carbine
- Kneeling Flamethrower Operator
- Kneeling Radio Operator
- Marching Infantry, Assault Rifle
- Marching Paratrooper (both chutes, assault rifle, arms resting on reserve-chute)
- Marching Paratrooper (parachute harness, unarmed, large-pack, arms swinging)
- Officer Holding Binoculars (and testing the wind with a damp finger!)
- Throwing Grenade, Holding SMG
- Waving, Holding SMG

Seven headdress types

All the headdresses are available in all the main-body colours, with the berets having additional colours allowing for (depending on where you are in the world) Armoured/Infantry (black), Marines/Paratroopers (red and green), the UN/Russian Paratroopers (sky-blue), or other Special Forces &etc.

- Beret (very floppy or broad; Italian-looking or French Resistance!)
- Cap (like Afrika Korps, Alpinejeger or UK 'Crow-cap/Crap-hat'*)
- Cap (like 1950's RCP's or REP's in Indochina or Algeria)
- German WWII Stalhelm/Fire Service Helmet
- Officer's Peaked Cap (very 'totalitarian regime' in style, not UK/US flatter shape)
- US M1 Type Helmet (good for half the world post-way!)
- UK Mk1/2 'Piss-pot/Soup-bowl' or US 'Brodie' Helmet

There may be a kepi, but I suspect it's just the way light plays on the very pale grey versions of the DAK-like cap on auction sites?

* "I'mmmmm a Jockey, I'mmmmm a Jockey!" (an in-joke for anyone who did basic training in the 1980's!)

Coats of many colours!

I told John I wouldn't collage the images he sent as they were so good, but these two are taken with and without flash and illustrate the colour differences much better if placed side-by-side.

There are both darker and paler sand's than seen here, then the mid-sand on the upper row; dark, mid, light, pale and very-pale grey - middle row; with various greens, khakis, olives and olive drabs.

That very-pale grey is verging-on and looks white, especially if used with darker colours, thus; putting a very-pale grey beret on a dark olive figure will make it look white.

Inclusive 'World' Troops

Heads also come in various colours (not knowing what John had, I told him there were 'two'), and the sample John sent back has from the right - tanned/Asian/mixed-race, Afro-Caribbean, new-born Caucasian and a 'not very well'/sick-parade colour on the far left! Although it's fair to say (from the samples I've seen, including John's) the pink 'Caucasian' seems to be numerically superior to the other ethnicities.

When I replied to John I did some back-of-a-cigarette-packet maths and going-on the 13 poses x 6 hats/helmets x 7 colours x 2 flesh-tones in my notes, and assuming headdress would match figure colour (no other beret colours taken into account), arrived at a possible 1,092 variations, if anyone with greater maths skills would like to have a go, using John's samples and including the beret colours, I'd be interested in the result, I recon it's over 4,000?

Which is an amusing exercise, but the point is, you can - with enough figures - create distinctive armies by limiting headdress-type, figure colour or even grouping poses; they're really nice figures, with tons of play-value!

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

C is for Catch Up

[Or the original intended title;] K is for Canuck Key-rings

Except they're probably not Canadian, it probably should have been a 'C' and isn't really working as a title at all, but I'm getting the introductory paragraph out of it; so it works on one level! Better have a look at an image to bring clarity to the preceding nonsense, huh?

[But then yesterday didn't happen - these were going to be a PM addition, but other stuff happened - as it does! And today's running late! Anyway, I've now caught-up with all emails and comments, and downloaded three contributions - Thanks Brain, Brian and Tom, and tomorrow's post will be a lovely contribution from John Roquas.]

See - the bear sort of looks like a Mountie, but has a US style sheriff's badge? Do different National Parks have specific uniforms, or is he totally imaginary?

I'm guessing they are touristy things, and as well as looking like a Mountie, there's a parallel with Yogi Bear and didn't we/one of the Blog's followers find a 'mind the camp-fire' safety-bear a while ago - but he wears jeans? Have I already blogged this shite?

There's nothing else to add, they are unmarked, PVC vinyl, about 70/80mm, cartoony stuff; there isn't even a proper box to tick! Fun for kids!

Monday, September 25, 2017

N is for Nix, Nada, Nothing Prepared!

I had nothing ready for today, I'll try and post something later the afternoon, in the meantime here's a picture confirming an assumption in a previous post about some figures probably being out-worker's unpainted stock meant for something like a key-ring!

They were meant to be key-rings!

Sunday, September 24, 2017

T is for Two - Charity Shop Plunder

The other plus drôle  from yesterday's post is that A) I already had this post in the queue when I bought the Leprechauns last week, and then B) this week I had several scores, in various charity shops, in two towns! Among the new finds were a lovely board-game for a quid and several bags of oddities including two examples of figures already waiting in the pipeline from Poland.

Indeed - there's now so much in the pipeline I don't know when half of it will get Blogged! And the Blog will trip the 2-million hits mark, in the first or second week of October . . . it's all rather go-go-go at Small Scale World, but if you keep coming; I'll keep posting! Although; you will have to accept the odd dud, and for some of you - both these will be duds . . . I love'em!

Picked this up about three weeks ago, Blue Cross (animal charity - we have dominion over them and we treat them like shit), it's marked Chap Mai, is basically a Land Rover Defender and probably came with the figures we looked at a while ago hidden in a C130 Hercules or aircraft-carrier play-set.

The front (radiator area) however seems to contain some H2 / Hummer DNA! While there are two locating-slot type-things sticking down underneath that make it impossible to push over soft furnishing like carpets . . . Doh!

Saw these in Paperchase about two years ago, baulked at 4-quid'odd, happy with 75p! It's robots, five ov'em, with gears for eyes and radio aerials designed by a blind man who only had a broom-handle and some tennis-balls to hand! They look like mobile, clockwork, Norwegian stoves!

'Revenge of the Demented Toasters!' - Coming-soon to a theatre near you; be amazed by the lack of electrical flex; be horrified by the slightly orangey-red elements; be slightly miffed by the trail of crumbs; you'll never bath with the door unlocked again!

Saturday, September 23, 2017

T is for Two - Irish Figures . . . From Ireland

It's funny, you should be looking at something else here today; but I put it on the back burner after faffing-around for three hours, writing two-and-a-half lines, renumbering the images twice and adding a screen-cap . . . it needs more work! Likewise some lovely Swoppets were sent to the blog this week, but I'll sort them over the weekend, they would have been rushed if I'd posted them tomorrow (Friday); so I grabbed these two from Picasa.

Except that it's three but we'll look at the one first! Hailing from Comet/Authenticast's subsidiary Gaeltacht Industries' works in the Republic of Eire, and frankly not up to the quality one would expect from Holgar Eriksson, so possibly one of the other sculptors?

It's also funny that last weekend I shot tons of stuff at Sandown Park, yet still haven't blogged most of the stuff I shot at Sandown three months ago! This was one of them (from three months ago), nice ECW musketeer, spoilt by the daft firing-arm with its elbow pointing at the ceiling . . . or sky!

These came from a charity shop (British Heart Foundation - I think?) about a week ago, clearly the gods (or 'your' god, if you've only got the one!) wanted a T for Two Irish! When I first saw them I though "Ooh, Wade", picked up the unmarked one first and thought "No?", and then found the mark on the other. I think they are related, the blue glaze is the same, but for 'T is for Two' purposes, the one on the right counts.

They are similar to Wade's figurines (Seagoe Ceramics?) but they don't have the lines on the bases. Equally they are similar to the bisque cake decorations of yesteryear, but gloss-fired enamel, where the cake toppers used to get a matt-paint over the fired clay. They also show signs of having been glued to something with brown/animal glue; so maybe touristy something's?

Anyone got any ideas? I mean - clearly they are Leprechauns and I have to be very polite to them, but - any other ideas?!! The one on the left (Pádraig) seems to be carving a crib (Christmassy) while the one on the right (Pádraic) seems to be panning for gold to put in a pot at the end of a rainbow . . . of course!

Friday, September 22, 2017

OBE is for Other Bugger's Efforts!

As opposed to MBE : My Bloody Efforts

Even briefer than yesterday's post, but worth a punt I hope you'll agree, I took this shot years ago, I mean about ten years ago and they were in the stock of Plastic Toy Soldiers (PTS52 on evilBay).

The original is on the right, to the left are three home paints, probably from three artists and while clearly one is a straight Khaki transposition and the other wearing a tropical jacket (?), the third - on the far left - is beyond my limited 'Uniforminfo' skills! Is he a Gurkha? Were they shoved into kilts at some point?

Anyway, they make a nice group and hopefully will give people who paint-up rare'ish figures some ideas, there's just the finding of the figures to be done first!

Throwing this up here as a WTHIT*. I used (as a small scale collector) to think this was a scale down of the Britains Floral Garden Folk's teenage boy, but it's not, It's more like a reverse of the Hornby Hobbies diminutive PVC purple-shirted hippy sitting on the grass.

It's about 35/40mm and might be from a set of O-gauge figures (but I haven't encountered the rest of the 'set' if it's out there), so could he be a die-cast vehicle accessory, or from a kit (he's polystyrene), does anyone recognise him?

* What the hell is it?!!

Thursday, September 21, 2017

V is for Velodromatics

I bought this at the weekend from Adrian at Mercator Trading and it's brilliant!

I guess it's probably French, most cycling toys are, and while it looks like the Britains one, it also looks like several other ones! I think the rider's posed most like the Britains one, although the hats wrong however and pose is where the similarities end as . . .

. . . this chap is articulated, and attached to a offset-cam wheel mechanism which forces the raider to pedal furiously as you push the bike across a smooth by slightly gripping surface - shiny kitchen worktops don't cut it!

Also of interest is the juxtaposition of materials, metal handlebars, clipped to a - possibly - polypropylene frame with a hard styrene rider - everything then held together by the glue on his hands. 

Close-ups of the mechanisms by which the rider pedals, and you don't want to know how he's fixed to the frame, but we Brits killed a king with a similar novelty - ouch!

Briefer than I'd like today as my Britains cyclists are in storage (and not a great sample!) so I can't expand with comparison-shots and such like, so I've also added a pistol to the jig-toy page and another figurine to the Goebel 'Mainzelmännchen' post.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

News, Views Etc...Plastic Warrior No.168



A week adrift catches me almost totally 'on the ball'! Issue 168 is themed around civilian items this month but is still filled with all the usual goodies, and following the normal order;

Articles This Month
* Barny Brown begins a series on Cherilea farm animals with the 'from hollow-cast' mouldings (confirming my 'unknown' hen!)
* 'Comances' sees an investigation into the more realistic Indians produced to represent Southern States natives by Tom Stark
* The best article this month is Michael T. Hyde's 'Parade of Popes' which does exactly what it says!
* Converters Corner the one conversion this month; a rather nice paint-up of a Starlux figure by Eric Critchley to represent . . . still not subscribing huh? Try back-issues! Cleaver badge-technique too.
* Adrian Norman is also beginning a series, Scalextric Figures, with backgrounds and historical overview this issue and sets to come, a much-needed subject gets the PW treatment!
* The story of Total's golden footballer premiums ("Big League Football Stars of the 1970's") and the moulds is told by John Begg - the best article in this issue - since the last one!
* The reason for a shout-out by Colin Penn for information on F&G Products here on the Blog recently is revealed with the news the Crazy Clown Circus was boxed by them, as no one visiting here knew, let's hope the PW readership is more successful.
* Ashley Needham's piece on a Hong Kong set of Salvation Army bandsmen would get the 'best article of the issue' award, if we hadn't had two already!
* Ferrero's recent Kinder set of Barbie-doll figurines is itemised by Les White and I'm regretting ignoring the pink eggs as 'girly' now!

'What The !&*$?' has three question marks this quarter;

  •       Some idiot wanting to know about a PVC sailor/'heavy' figure clearly forgot to tell the Editor it's got a Heimo 'Marx' mark on the base along with the Hanna-Barbera 1979 ©! I'm sure it's in the PVC book, but mine's in storage!
  •      Brian Carrick shows a lovely little cavalryman he thinks may be Spanish
  •      He's also looking for an ID on two quite lovely Ancient Greeks

* 'Stone Age News' from Andreas Dittman brings news of immigrants from the Neander Valley, via Tomy-Takara
* Yours truly delivers a Spear's Game - A Shepherd and His Dog [Adrian mentioned at the weekend just gone that the cover may have shown Britains originals, but the original shots aren't clear enough to tell, the sheep were grey though and the shepherd had a green base - both visible in the PW reproductions]
* Colin Penn closes the latest Plastic Warrior with two fine shots of the Britains zoo set Chimps Tea Party in reverse-colours

Regular Features
* 'NEWS and VIEWS and other stuff ' carries
  •      News on a televisual presentation called Bargain Hunt, which seems to have been a bargain for the final buyer!
  •      A correction of capiera to Capiepa from issue 167
  •      More hysteria around the Timpo white-gloves (although as the previous hysteria was confined to the Internet; it's only fair!)
  •      C&T Auctions have an important collection coming-up for sale on the 10th October [www.candtauctions.co.uk]
  •      News on artist Volker Küne from Stephan Dance
  •      A call for readers to grab the last few copies of Andreas Dittman's illustrated guides on German toy figure, novelty and premium manufacturers; Domplastic and Manurba, for UK readers only though. Although I notice Kent Sprecher's still listing both along with Andreas's Lefredo guide on his site Toy Soldier HQ
* 'Readers Letters' is a post-show follow-up with penned contributions from Ashley Needham, John Cross, Stephen Wood and Eric Keggans and images from Les White and Eric Kemp
* 'What's New' takes a sabbatical to help make room for everything else!
Plus all the usual small-ads
Front Cover is a recreation of the crowd watching James Hunt finishing the British Grand Prix . . . I think! . . . I counted over 150?
Back Cover - Comanche!

Remember also; for subscription details or to 're-up', for contributions, letters or queries, Plastic Warrior is now on-line through various platforms:

And they are on Paypal.

Another vintage issue!