R is for Royce's Rocco Rascles

So, before the last post of June 4th's show-plunder, we ought to look at this rarity, although I will shoot it again for the Khaki Infantry page, as Dave Skrivener's image has been doing sterling work there, for over a decade, while I never dug my own sample out!

 

How I spotted them, except on a table with other toy soldiery stuff! This is a shop-stock box, possibly the only surviving shop-stock box, although I may have seen another, a fair few years ago, and while he may not want to be spotlighted, I think it's worth mentioning that Brian Carrick, the seller had next to nothing on this, as we used to say in the motor trade, he washed his face on it.

 

Meaning he let it go, for what it owed him, without much attention to inflation in the meantime, or what someone might think it's worth. And while that may be a moot point, beyond box-ticking collections of early British plastic, there may not be much demand for it, and once you have it, you are the custodian, there's not much else you can do with it?

 

However, I still think it was silly-cheap, and while I think I made him take a bit more for it (something I often do, I'm not one for exploitation), and then gave four of the figures to a friend who has done a lot for the blog, I can only hope I am as strong-minded and generous when the time comes to pass my collection on.

 

As far as I know, this is the full line-up, Dave's image is missing the 3rd figure from the left, influenced by the Hilco clone of the French Clairet (Acedo?) SMG gunner, which, strangely was the one I'd had for years, before finding some or all of the others, who are, of course Britains' copies, not the Lone Star I'd thought, although the conversion to Para' berets is partly responsible for that attribution! Berets - it has to be said - which are more Military Police (MP's), in colour, than any paratroops from the UK!

 

The stock-box has been rummaged through over the years, and some extra figures have clearly been added to replace some of the missing ones, so it's hard to state facts about the contents, But it seems, after digging down through the layers, that each layer (of four) has a 4/5 mix of two poses, with an officer, for a ten count, or forty, in the box.

 

This leaves this box heavy in grenade throwers, and SMG guys, with four officers and only a few charging figures, one has to assume the next box off the line would have had more charging figures, and a shortage of one of the other two soldier poses, and so on, but that is pure speculation. 

 

Colour variations exist, both with the usually marbled plastic colour, from oxide reds through to olive drab, and some paint differences. Although I say that grandly, as if there are mountains for them, there aren't, there were a few production 'tranches' and one of them is quite brown, one quite olive, and Dave's are more of a dung-khaki, and not marbled, while paint seems to vary between a bright apple green, and more pastel herb-green for webbing and puttees, which don't (the puttees) always get painted!

 

I have a feeling, some or all of mine might have smooth bases*, but that might be a complete falsehood, so for now, assume they are all marked as above on the base underside. Markings which are not found on the small range of seperate horses and mounted figures, or the single-moulding, galloping guardsman. The only variation is that the grenade thrower has his marks stretched over two lines, the other three figures get the mark spread over three lines.

 

*Equally, they might have a mark on the upper side of the base, a simple 'Made In Great Britain', without the Rocco? But, again, that might be a false memory, and until I dig them out, shouldn't be taken as more than this footnote. 

 

I shot them again, because the angle on the second image above was a bit severe, and these need to be done justice, and to that end, as I said, I will re-shoot them in a similar vein, for the Khaki Infantry page in the next few days.

 

The set, I believe, came from Royce's daughter, whom Brian was in touch with, in the past, and - with the obvious changes -  it is literally, ex-Factory stock. It must also be pointed out, that these are incredibly brittle now, with Dave's played-with charging figure the only one I know which still has the bayonet, and following the break-up and auctioning, in parts, of his collection, that figure is rather lost to the hobby.

M is for Medieval Metal Men

So to the other half of 'antiquity', the newer half, although where you place the line is anybody's guess, hidden as it is, in the murk of the Dark Ages . . . is it Arthur and the end of Empire, the rise of the Carolingians, or the fall of the Carolingians, or likewise the Byzantines, or the fall of state fortresses, and rise of private castles?

 

War gamers place it later, with the coming of gunpowder, as a series of major rule changes!. . . If I asked you, you'd all have a different answer! But in toy-soldier land, it tends to mean fully tinned-men, or men in tights!

 

Oh, look out! We've got a new upload screen! It's got a colour graphic and a dotted boarder, that was worth the geeks' wages, wasn't it! How many changes since 2008? The original was fine, all the images went in a temporary folder as thumbnails you could return to, and import in ones or multiples. Every change since as either been pointless tinkering, or actually a negative experience/detrimental . . . Sigh.. And while they used to be hosted on Googles servers, they're now all 'in the cloud' to be lost in an instant, if the Internet breaks!

 

Anyway, onwards and upwards, these Cherilea 60mm's were, I think, given to me by someone, possibly Isaac, as 'unsellable', and while they don't have a huge fan-base, all box-tickers should be after a set, and while even I didn't have many of the Crusaders, I've always liked the standard ones, of which the chap on the right is one, and he has the shield with the late Sharna Ware shield motif which matches my lancer! 

 

Marx 'Men in Tights' (was it called 'Men in Pantyhose' across The Pond?), a bit scruffy, but a good clean will spruce-up the priest, while Robin (or, would it have been Robyn?) needs a dab of glue. Not sure if they are Marx originals or tatty Rado rissues?

 

A couple of nice Markus Hinton marked 25mm knights, painted to a nineteen-seventies standard, and a pair of nice box-tickers.

 

As are these two, indeed, almost every recent show lot or Chris parcel, has produced a variation of this shot, with both a Hong Kong copy (left, new colour?) and an MPC original on the right, of the 40mm medievals.

 

Another pair, and more Titan/Strawberry Group handled Supreme knights, I should have all the poses by now, but they are in various different places, and I don't know how many I have in silver, how many in black? And I've always rather liked the all plastic, yet Deetail vibe of them. While there was a gold issue, but possibly not in the UK?

 

On the right, a useful addition to the stash of Cherilea 1st version we saw here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/10/d-is-for-dustbin-lids.html

 

And a lump of chewed polymer from Shotts in Scotland, which will head straight to recycling, but I photographed everything for completion!

 

I've said before you can never have everything, but you can have a damn-good try, and this Dulcop man-at-arms, seems to be one I didn't have (or don't recognise), although, of course, now I definitely do! And two of my favourite 'toy' knights, the Lido pod-feet chaps, also in need of a good clean!

 

The 'orphan' photo! One belongs in the sci-fi/fantasy post, and two belong in the previous post, but for two ten-counts the executive decision was that it go here!

 

A nice Cherilea smallie, in the less common green, a small Italeri, the game piece mentioned a couple of times, here at Small Scale World, recently, and the two figures from the Revell/Miniature Masterpiece decorative chariot kit - I seem to remember the Gowland & Gowland  instructions suggesting it be used with a table-lamp stand, or bookends! In this insipid white 'styrene, however, probably the Glencoe reissue?

 

I'm never too sure about these, but I think it's three (slightly darker) PVC-rubber ones from Marx, behind, and two polyethylene ones from Tudor Rose, in front, but they could all be Marx, and have been reissued several times, including the multicoloured rack toy knock-offs a few years ago - and yes, I know we're into RTM, but one thing at a time, it's too damn hot . . . and now, humid!

 

Closing shot is all small scale, and unlike yesterday’s ancient clones, these are all Giant Originals, mostly the late versions, but one, in green, of the trio of strange dancing loons I question-marked in my original One Inch Warrior article.
 

And, again, thanks to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for their input at the show.

A is for Ancient Archaic Antagonists of Antiquity!

Into the final furlong as far as the 2026 Plastic Warrior Toy Soldier Show plunder and loot is concerned, and I've split this lot into ancient and medieval posts, with the older soldiers first!

 

So, we'll go back 3000-odd years, to the siege of Troy, a probably real event, heavily fictionalised, the facts lost to national and region mythology, and the demented whitterings of priests, or bards, or priest's bards, no doubt, and thanks to Matt at Hobby Bunker, who brought these over.

 

I'd actually bought three other sets from him, either at last years show, or at the London Show in December (?), either way, I forgot to shoot them, and knowing these two were still to be found, never got around to it, but in all there are five sets of 'Troy' era figures, these two, and the sets:

• LOD 015 - The Amazons
• Figure Set #1 - The War at Troy - Commemorative Set, Ten Years of LOD
• Figure Set #19 - Amazons, Aeneas and Ajax

And the aim now is to open them all, and have a decent photo-shoot of all the pre-classical Greek sets from LOD, my first by them, and probably my last, just because I'm not doing the post 1990 stuff in the larger scales, there is tons of it, other people are collecting it, other sources are annotating it, and I haven't got the room, or budget for it, with so much vintage still to be found, but I do like ancient Greeks!

 

Similar point of discussion with these Supreme sets, I buy them as box-tickers when I see them cheap, we've done the Knights - of all types - to death, here at Small Scale World, and looked at the Romans, Crusaders, and was it the Vikings? I think we've seen three of these now, and while I haven't tracked down the Arabs/Saracens, one of their camels is in the Egyptian set above, and these both have one each of the two common horse poses.

 

Interestingly, the Greek looking commander figure and archer sculpts, usually smaller, from some of the medieval sets, aren't actually included in the pose-count for the Alexander set! But with their segmented-armour, knee-pads they'd look a bit silly, or even sillier than normal!

 

Unknown, probably still on Amazon if I look hard enough, and marked 'CHINA', I'm not sure if they are supposed to be cavemen, predating Troy by about 500,000-years (give or take a few 100,000), or 19th-20th century Zulu warriors, but they are fun, and were in one of the donations I think, so basically free, to share with you and tick the box! AND . . . they're not that bad, as sculpts, but the axe is a bit OTT, and the lady isn't going to be doing much damage with that hand-trident!

 

Two lovely sculpts, both purchases, the Athena is probably not that rare, being a tourist souvenir, but he joins a foot one we saw years ago, while the Nardi is quite a bit less common, and you can tell I really like them - multiple shots; gotta' do them justice!

 

Despite being late to the larger scales, as far as collecting goes, there aren't many massive holes or gaps in the UK collection, but this is one, and while I have the Cleopatra somewhere I think, on her chaise-longue/daybed thing, and, you may remember, I picked-up the Sphinx a year or so ago, I don't have many of this double set, half tan-plastic Egyptians, half brown Nubian slaves/captives.

 

And, yes, I know the Nubians were in charge under the Kushite kings, but Cherilea decided to sculpt them in chains, holding fans or cowering! Also, I've really got to get the cheetah and handler. But in the meantime these are a useful addition to a couple of play-worns, and maybe some reissues? I'd forgotten how colourful the series is, too!

 

Roman Gladiators as issued by Quaker Sugar Puffs and Tom Smith Christmas crackers.

 

Lucky Clover and other non-Giant Romano-Greek stuff.

 

Non-Giant Vikings.

 

The small scale stuff, as sorted mostly from Trevor's bag, and the similar early-purchase bag of hollow Hong Kong horse stuff, The Quaker have been done here, the Vikings, gold 'Trojans' and black forts have been covered on the But is it Giant Blog, the rest are pending, but some are covered on the HK Romans page above.!

 

Thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin again, there's a fair bit of their stuff above. 

F is for Farmers, Firefighters, Fishermen, Footballers and Other Functionaries

Right, now I've really got to photograph the other two bags, as it won't be over 'till they sing, and Rack Toy Month is fast approaching, with plenty to amuse and entertain, or at least add to the whole! In the meantime, the last of the previous photo-sesh' is the civilian stuff, and there some interesting stuff in there, so let's 'ave a luke!

 

Sportsmen, with a large Charbens footballer, from the paint-your-own set we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/10/t-is-for-two-paint-your-own-catalogue.html

 

Another of the cake-decoration (and other sets) footballers, the less common cricket fielder from Gem/Culpitt, and while he may only be uncommon to me, when you get the sets of three, they rarely have this chap so I think it's an accurate identifier.

 

Another of the cereal premium imports for Canada, playing ice-hockey, and one of the Ajax baseball figures, but a late unpainted one, which may have been issued by somebody else? We looked at the painted ones here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/08/i-is-for-its-not-rounders-and-its-not.html

 

And, where did that seven years go?!

 

The smaller components of a firefighter set, probably a rack toy, and the probably chunky vehicles are missing, but it's another sample, another box ticked. I like the no fires sign, with a large FIRE underneath, glad they had time to get that up, to warn people entering the smoke-filled area, past the fire engines and sooty-faced, sweaty guys, in heavy overalls!

 

Two very useful Airfix motorcyclists, I have many more bikes than riders, so these were a must when I saw them, along with a soft PVC sidecar rider, of the racing variety, who may be from a small die-cast, maybe by one of the smaller makers? It's not the Britains one, and I don't think it's Budgie either, but might be a copy?

 

Circus, a clown bendy, and another part- (or most-) clown from Kinder, along with a second example of the strange, flatish, but solid, stylised, possibly die-cast, or harder base/whitemetal like spelter or pewter, ringmaster.

 

The fact that two have turned-up now, years apart, without any other recognisable elements of a circus set, suggests some kind of token, freebie, mascot or corporate thing? Anyone know?

 

Three additions to the Japanese celluloid/styrene trinket side-collection, which, as it consists mostly of teeny wagons and carts, equally diminutive 'brown water navy' vessels, or the larger blow-moulds, makes these a nice addition, being a selection of rural occupations, a fisherman and two woodmen.

 

The one that was missing! We have looked at these several times now, Brian Berke and Chris Smith have both helped with images or sample, on those visits, and possibly even shown us a Tresco original, and while I may now find there is one among mine, loose, this boxed one will start the full overview, one day, as there's about a dozen in the stash now, while we've seen more than twelve, so we can do full comparisons?

 

Farm stuff, the larger ones are modern/current, owe a lot to Elastolin and are a growing sample. I thought the blue chap was from a set of semi-flat animals we have looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/11/q-is-for-question-time-animal-flats.html

 

But he's not, he's a much heavier sculpt, with a thicker base, and might be an early board-game piece, from the metal to plastic switch-over, but aping the flats of earlier gaming pieces?

 

While the other two are metal, and might be Charbens, a tractor diver, who's quite common, and a slightly different figure with half-crossed legs, who might be operating a reaper-binder, a job I have done, for my sins, and bloody hard it is too, with several leavers to mind, adjusting height and angle of cutting bed, while keeping another eye on the knotter, and a third on the contra-rotating packing belts! And you have to keep checking the sheaves you're leaving behind!!

 

But he might just be a chauffeur!

 

We've had loads of these from Adrian Little and Chris in recent years, and I already had a large sample (some 60-plus bags), but they all differ, and will need a huge sort-out one day, trying to tie them into known sets, either from the collection, or from catalogues (Holly, Blue Box), or from the hundreds of images I've downloaded over the years, of sets online.

 

Likewise! But Small-scale.

Two Crescent lead to the right, and a metal dog, complete, but refuseing to stand-up!

 

Road/construction workers and race crew/garage attendants are another subsection with literally hundreds of unknowns, from 60-plus-years of vehicle toys with figural accessories, and there tends to be a wider verity, than in the much-copied multi-generation farm stuff, which has few pose variants (it's all in the size, base type or plastic colour), so I'm looking forward to sorting these and ID'ing as much as possible.

 

Can I get away with a second 'likewise'? Emergency personal (Police, Fire and Ambulance), are another genre with many, many variants, and while I have promised to get a firefighters page done, it's rather languishing at the moment, but police and ambulance crew/stretcher cases will need similar treatment!

 

Rail staff and passengers are another area, where stuff keeps appearing, which isn't from the obvious perpetrators, and here it's possibly Hong Kong copies of the Tri-Ang/Hornby dinning-car and driver sets, two flats in lead and a reasonably common Hornby 'Binns Road' era solid.

 

Everything else! The scout, while similar to the two flats above, will be from a board-game, with that coloured base. The small girl/doll seems to be a cake decoration, while the seated lady and gentleman with cigar with be from US model kits of cars, or 'automobiles'! Funny, when I showed the unknown Chauffeur the other year someone else quickly found him and added him to their HQ, they'll have to find these two now!

 

Many thanks to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, without their contributions, and those of Chris, Brian, Tony H, John Begg, Gareth, Steve V and others, at other times, these posts wouldn't happen. 

B is for Bags, Barrels, Bases, Bits & Bobs, Boxes, Bullets, a Barrow and a Bell!

Among other things! It's the bits and bobs, the accessories, the spares, the detritus, the orphaned elements of other toys or models, and peripheral/consumable stuff, which, due to the drawer of bits on show's-eve, is greater than some years, and full of things I can get a couple of lines of blurb out of!

 

Firstly; the accessories! These were new in Replicants inventory, and are obviously designed to go with the cart we shall see in a future post, bundles of sticks, which are beyond kindling, or fascines, and may be for tool-handles or walking sticks . . . Proper cargo, anyway! Along with sacks (not bags, but sacks didn't alliterate!) and some useful looking barrels.

 

Amorces, I need'em for ma'forces . . . is one of the most often visited posts on the blog, creeping toward the top twenty posts, and while that traffic is probbaly more about the bombs, with a few other caps, in other posts, caps are worth a better overview one day, in the meantime these have come it to join the master-sample we saw then;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-is-for-amorces-i-needem-for-mahforces.html

 

And while I well remember both the red and blueish-white rolls, along with the plastic strips and discs, the separate shots had been phased out by our childhood (the bulk of which was spent in the 1970's), and are more of a '50's thing, I think?

 

Bullets and shells, the sets of marbled ones in fives look familier, but I can't remember from which gun/toy the came, while the yellow rocket came with the Dinky Striker (one of the Scorpion Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance, Tracked, or CVR(T) family of FV10*-coded AFV's. My brother had the build-your-own kit of it, and I well remember the missiles, all over the floor

 

There is a zone for these guys, somewhere in storage, and the hope is they will eventually be married-up with their original gun, cannon, catapult, vehicle or whatever! And , with regard to things like the Striker missiles, always nicer to have the originals, than some after-market 'replacement' fakes.

 

Tyres, and a Dinky/Hornby sack-barrow; again always useful to have spares, I've been tasked with finding the wheels for a trolly bus, and I'm as likely to find it in the stash, when I get to it, as I am at a show like Sandown, but you have to look or you never find!

 

Road signs and street furniture; some of these look like they're from infant toys, and beyond the [pretty loose and wide-ranging] remits of the collection, but you never know, all sorts get thrown in rack-toys, as make-weights or space-fillers!

 

Older stuff, and all interesting. The set of cards are the 'mini' size, you get out of Christmas crackers, but  have the Quaker Foods logo, and were issued with Puffed Wheat in 1961, but could be another clue to a close, or 'closer' relationship between Tom Smith and Quaker than that already known? And previously hinted at here, only the other day, with regard to the set of ten ships? There was a set of full sized cards issued with Quaker Oats and Bran more recently. Both on Cereal Offers;

 

https://cerealoffers.com/Quaker_Ltd/quaker_ltd.html

 

There's also a nice stained, bone counter or tiddly-wink, and three card stands from board-games, the ovoid one on the right, I think went with early versions of L'Attack, Dover Patrol and the others in that series. The green wooden one may be a home-made replacement. 

 

A very small, but perfectly formed bell? It is unlikely to be from a Euro-rail kit, that pearlescent green is not a Faller-Kibri-Noch-Vollmer-Wiad (et al) church or chapel colour, yet it's too small to be a decorative Christmassy thing either? Possibly just a cracker charm?

 

The windmill is a new colour variation of one I already have several of, while the ad-hoc signage is likely to be from a model kit in the 1:35th/32nd bracket, maybe a car kit, or Western wagon, but more likely something military?

 

Mini spanners, I think they are the same size as Meccano, but it's not their design, and their hex-nuts arrived quite late, so a rival like Erector, or a knock-off? Or, having just mentioned the Dinky kits, some kind of build-your own toy, or assemble at home car kits?

 

The clockwork keys are grist to the mill, with two marked Penguin (Frog) on the right.

 

Spares; The spanner is a styrene, novelty one, and is large enough to have been in one of those 'Pick-up-Sticks'/Spillikins sets, with recognisable tools, although they are usually a bit longer/thinner? The Crescent lance is very useful!

 

Farmyard and battlefield accessories.

 

A marble (modern), two balls (one wooden) and a palm tree!

 

Two board-game racing cars which escaped the vehicular post, they are both from mid-20th Century board-games, and I have other examples of both, or very similar beasts, as I recognse both desings, hopeful they are new/missing colours, but that's probably hoping too much!

 

The little packets are, I think, spare felt-tips for marker pens, and, with that square-section, possibly the old pump-action, liquid-filled Edding's I remember from my youth, but they make useful additions to the 'greeblie' zone!

 

Everything else! The two ladders are probably the best bits here, as I'm pretty sure they are both from small die-casts in the Matchbox 1-75 or Hotwheels bracket, but the yacht's sail is also a good find, as is the spaceman's helmet!

All this stuff, if not quickly reunited with its owner, has a tub, box or bag to live in, and the smaller stuff goes in three of those multi-drawer cabinets, the old ones from Argos (or Index?), back when they still came in spot-welded steel cases.

 

Again thanking  Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for their contributions.