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, September 1, 2018

G is for Gloriously Garish Guardsmen!

These are my absolute favorites among many 'absolute favorites'! By which I mean, of the 12 or so smaller-scale Hong Kong guardsmen these are the main men, and it's all down to their almost edible colours!

Airfix Guards; Britains Eyes Right; Britains Guards; Bubble Gun Guards; Cake Decoration Figures; Cake Decorations; Changing The Guards; Coldstream Guards; Colour Bearer; Copies; Cracker Toys; Cymbalist; Drum Major; Escort To The Colours; Fifer; Flag Bearer; Flutist; Grenadier Guards; Guards Division; Household Guards; Irish Guards; Made in Hong Kong; Mr. Lucky Bag; Novelty Figurines; Novelty Toys; Palace Guards; Piper; Piracies; Queens Guards; Royal Guards; Saxophonist; Scots Guards; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Standard Bearer; Welsh Guards; 1 Hong Kong Christmas Cracker Guardsmen Plastic Guards Toys I Overview of parade
It doesn't come any leerier than this lot; does it? They look like they were moulded from tooti-fruity flavoured, bubble-gum chews, five minutes ago, but in fact were Christmas cracker novelty 'gifts' a few years ago, although when I say a few years ago, I'm forgetting the passage of time, and I mean the 1980's!

It has taken the full thirty-odd years to amass this lot, they have come in one or two at a time, three if I'm lucky, but some years there will be none added, and it wouldn't have been possible to mount this parade without the help of people like Trevor Rudkin, Michal Melynic, Peter Evans, John Begg, Chris Smith, Adrian Little and Gareth Morgan, who've all added the odd figures to the bag over the last 20-years.

Airfix Guards; Britains Eyes Right; Britains Guards; Bubble Gun Guards; Cake Decoration Figures; Cake Decorations; Changing The Guards; Coldstream Guards; Colour Bearer; Copies; Cracker Toys; Cymbalist; Drum Major; Escort To The Colours; Fifer; Flag Bearer; Flutist; Grenadier Guards; Guards Division; Household Guards; Irish Guards; Made in Hong Kong; Mr. Lucky Bag; Novelty Figurines; Novelty Toys; Palace Guards; Piper; Piracies; Queens Guards; Royal Guards; Saxophonist; Scots Guards; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Standard Bearer; Welsh Guards; 2 Hong Kong Christmas Cracker Guardsmen Plastic Guards Toys I1 Individual figures close-up
There seem to only be the five poses, but never-say-never; I've only found four fifers . . . fifers four! [Brit's will get it - it's a Scottish football reference] Which is a small enough sample to suggest at least one may still remain 'un-found'.

Similar to - but distinct from - the Shackman 'Mocherettes' that came in little matchbox pencil-sharpeners I guess they must be based on the Eyes Right guards band from Britains (their anatomy is too good to be from the Herald Hong Kong efforts!), but they may be more original than that?

Airfix Guards; Britains Eyes Right; Britains Guards; Bubble Gun Guards; Cake Decoration Figures; Cake Decorations; Changing The Guards; Coldstream Guards; Colour Bearer; Copies; Cracker Toys; Cymbalist; Drum Major; Escort To The Colours; Fifer; Flag Bearer; Flutist; Grenadier Guards; Guards Division; Household Guards; Irish Guards; Made in Hong Kong; Mr. Lucky Bag; Novelty Figurines; Novelty Toys; Palace Guards; Piper; Piracies; Queens Guards; Royal Guards; Saxophonist; Scots Guards; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Standard Bearer; Welsh Guards; 3 Hong Kong Christmas Cracker Guardsmen Plastic Guards Toys DSCN9272 Comparison with similar figures from other makers or sourses
A scale guide; we will have a proper look at the other small-scale guards now they are all out of storage and put together with the ones we looked at a while ago, but on the relevant Airfix posts, rather than here, while the 35mm chap we looked at recently, will be looked at again later today.

Airfix Guards; Britains Eyes Right; Britains Guards; Bubble Gun Guards; Cake Decoration Figures; Cake Decorations; Changing The Guards; Coldstream Guards; Colour Bearer; Copies; Cracker Toys; Cymbalist; Drum Major; Escort To The Colours; Fifer; Flag Bearer; Flutist; Grenadier Guards; Guards Division; Household Guards; Irish Guards; Made in Hong Kong; Mr. Lucky Bag; Novelty Figurines; Novelty Toys; Palace Guards; Piper; Piracies; Queens Guards; Royal Guards; Saxophonist; Scots Guards; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Standard Bearer; Welsh Guards; 4 Hong Kong Christmas Cracker Guardsmen Plastic Guards Toys DSCN9267 Comparison with copies of Band major Drum Major
The Drum-Major has provided the means for several copies, but as stand-alone figures with no additional musician poses.

The first four came from Mr. Lucky Bag's in the mid-1990's and I managed to get a handful (well a soggy pocket-full) when I helped clear a snack-food wholesale warehouse in Mychett after a fire! Note that the four are on two base types - thick and thin; while the blue and green ones are shorter, this is true for all colors and points - beautifully - to a multiple-cavity mould-tool.

The next two seem to be sub-piracies of the Mr. Lucky Bag moulding, and the last two who have just started appearing in mixed lots are very poor quality shite, probably from £1 store/shop/land type Christmas crackers, using a copy of the tool of the previous pair (the release-pin marks running through the feet?) but with no QA/QC leading to consistent shot-shots and no mace, while poor pantographing has rendered them semi-flat and flashy round the join-line.

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