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.

Saturday, June 30, 2018

C is for Cool; Too Cool for Space School!

It's another space-taaaaannnnkk! We love space tanks here at Small Scale World; to misquote one of those Georgian ladies, it is a fact universally recognised that you can't have too-many space tanks at one Small Scale World or not find yourself in need of another space tank . . . or two!

The right way up this time! How cool are these . . . oh, yeah! I've done that!

They're squat, they're heavy, they're ballistically protected, they're mean looking; they might be Kaled? Supplied by Waltii Industries*, they appear to have two smoke-generators either side on the sloping armour, but they might be retro-upgrade, killersonic audiodeath-weapon, speaker-covers?

There's a large hull-mounted kenetik-kannon to the right of the turret which is itself, equipped - of course - with a death-ray!  And six hypersonic, depleted-uranium rod, multiple-warhead, rocket-launching tubes lie behind the low-profile turret.

There's a small automated MG cupola atop the turret and a forward-firing .50-Cal! Of course there is; .30's, .50's, MG3's and GPMG's will be widely used across the five galaxies in 2525, due to their reaching the pinnacle of small-arms development in the 20th century back on Old Smokey, called that because in 2525 'Terra' will still be smouldering from its man-made demise, five-millennia earlier!

Both were in the plunder pile from Chris Smith and I've posed them with a figure from the same lot, he's one of the little polystyrene Italian-made troops later copied in soft polyethylene by the Spanish sobre issuer Montaplex.

While both have been on the Blog, I don't think we saw a complete grenade thrower? His helmet is half rebel-ship troops from Star Wars I - The Start Of The Franchise and half beegly-beegly (or whatever the hideous little robot-boy was called) from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - R2-3PO-and-a-half?

Now - the 'unknown' bit. I wondered if they might be old soviet-era toys, but they have certain elements of Hong Kong about them too. Chris used to carry a lot of Eastern toys but his thoughts are as mine, he says he had them in the Russian zone of his collection but moved them to the Hong Kong section!

As HK usually marks something this size and the Russians would normally have a Ruble or Kopek price engraved in them somewhere; the fact that there are no obvious markings anywhere leaves us still firmly in the dark!

We have two stars on the port hull side, astern, to go on, they don't help either as the Russians and Americans both use stars, HK would liberally place stars on war-toys, as did the Soviet toy makers!

I would like them to be Russian, as they would be doubly unusual and the single moulding with no carpet-wheels is a quite Eastern European 'novelty' or pocket-money toy thing too . . .  however, I suspect they are HK for three reasons;

One - I think I have a little turret in the spares box, which probably came-in with a bag of HK stuff when I was a dedicated small-scale collector. Two - the .50-Cal!  And Three - the track-guards/side-skirt armament/plates are more Gulf-war Challenger add-on . . . than Dalek!

Suggesting an influence on/by the sculptor which precludes (post-cludes?) excludes (!) the Soviet era, therefore I suspect they came with some of those rack-toy copies of Galoob Space Marines (or something similar) and probably a dinosaur or two! Can anybody confirm one way or the other? But they are brilliant, for cheapies - whoever made them!

*Remember space-generals - Other space tanks are available and the human cost of intergalactic war can go up as well as down! Failure to adhere to the scheduled maintenance program could affect your space tank's warranty. Your planet is at risk if you do not keep-up repayments on your space tanks. Waltii Industries reserve the right to pass your customer details to affiliated .50-Cal salesmen, Kaled envoys or the enemy! Any killersonic audiodeath-weapon technology retro-fitted could affect the mental state of the product's crew, for which Waltii Industries accept no responsibility. Waltii Industries after-care package is; we don't care, go, pink monkeys; kill, destroy.

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