E is for Eye Candy - Pilots

Specifically a comparison of the various Zang, Zang-for-Timpo and similar pilots, currently within range of a photo-shoot, allowing for a few more being in deeper storage, than the more recent stuff!

 

There are three of these line-ups I keep returning to; this one, the various Britains and similar khaki infantry sentries and marching chaps, and the Acedo-Speedwell-Russian paratrooper, along with the paratrooper plunder line-ups, but they are less comparative.

 

I've annotated it, and we've looked at them all before, so nothing to add, just an image to obsess over!

C is for Combat Contributions

Bit of a theme this PM, but it seemed to make sense to get a bunch of toy soldiers up on the Toy Soldier Blog! There's so much stuff in the short queue, I'm spoilt for choice, on one level, but on another I keep wondering how to do them all justice.

 

Some subjects will make show reports, or more than one post, some are a bit thin, and with stuff from Adrian, two lots from Peter and other bits, they'll go together in the end. This is from all three donation-purchases, in that I paid for them, but at definite 'mates rates'!

 

German Red Cross WHW's, this is the last of Adrian's recent stock, from which I and others have been picking for a few years, now that I've identified at least three issues in bare, and one painted on black plastic, I feel I need to enlarge the core sample, to see how many variants I can identify?

  

 

A nice tin-plate Sikh, possibly a cigarette premium, another Zang Tommy (slightly drunk), and what I thought was a Spanish-made Spanish paratrooper, but I can't find him in the big book, so he might be Italian or Portuguese? Marked '185' on the base underside.

 

From one of Adrian's junk drawers, came these metal bits, including one of the Timpo die-cast machine-gunners.

 

From Peter now; ABC 8th Army types after Timpo 'solids'.

 

Small scale - with a bag of Airfix 1st version German Infantry and 8th Army, two of the Chap Mai figures who need de-gate-mark'ing! And a tatty Blue Box G.I.

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Hong Kong/China odds! Taken from Airfix, TimMee and Lido originals.

 

More ABC or related - I can't remember what was on the base!

 

Modern rack-toy junk, still have their place, but I've probably got them all, I think the bag is the HTI stuff we saw when they were in the shops (probably still are!), while the lot in front seems to be further-generation copies, in that crumbly, over recycled plastic you see men in sandals making from unwashed plastic bags in weird 'industrial' video 'shorts' on YouTube!

 

MPC, need to be sorted against what I already have, but I think the blue chap is new?

 

Late  production New Ray, or good quality copies of the same?

 

A pair of Deluxe Reading and three rack-toy skinnies!

 

The two on the left look like late Speedwell, the Hilco on the right matches them rather nicely, colours wise! I'm looking forward to sorting all the finds from the last few years into the master collection, and giving the Khaki Infantry page a good update/correcting session!

 

God knows! Marked Hong Kong, so copies, but there are so many versions of these; several US, a couple of Canadian and a few HK lots, I will have to do a big sort-out one day, and matching-up the little silver accessories will send a Saint insane! originally MPC.

 

These have the satin sheen of a fine-nozzeled 3D-printer about them, and they are all, indeed 3D printed, Peter may have mentioned a maker, or download library title, I cant remember, and they are a bit 'Army Man' or generic G.I.

 

The sandy figure is a Monty, complete with both cap-badges, but a little dumpy I feel, smaller, and better fed than the Timpo solid one!

 

Crescent swoppets, a nice clean sample, although I think the colour variation in the green accessories may be down to sun-bleaching?

 

Anyone who saw the shot of the French/British paratroops I sent to Plastic Warrior a while ago, will know I didn't have the sand-coloured one, so despite the missing top of the string-loop (a common fault with these after seventy-odd years), a really nice addition to that line-up!

 

And, after my minor disaster at this years PW Show (the Aussies who weren't!), here's the desert version of the M-Toy or Star (lesser quality?) swoppet copy, stretcher-case I just need to find the porters now! 

 

Finishing a rushed blurbing (got stuck behind a Nissan Juke going no-miles-an-hour on the way home tonight - some people just shouldn't drive in the dark, or in the rain, or at all!), a few of the soft plastic versions of Marx's Miniature Masterpiece Americans, being scale-downs of the larger figure ranges.

 

Many, many thanks to Adrian Little and Peter Evans for constantly putting this stuff to one side for me, it's all grist to the mill, and there's always interesting bits among it, cheers guys! 

S is for Sandown Park - Combat Troops

We're clearing some stuff out this week aren't we? Mostly khaki chaps in this post, the actual 'army men' from the September Sandown Park visit, and we've seen some of them before here, but this is how they come in!

 

Three from Replicants, I think I have two already, but the executioner is new to the stash, if memory serves, two of them (sentry and sailor) are PW show exclusives, so it may be that all three were, although, after their show debut's, they usually go on to the Weston's site for wider distribution.

 

Seen before, and to be found on the WWI American page of the Airfix figure Blog, here's the Montaplex 'New Zealanders', with German Obergefreiter's rank badges! Utilising the Airfix Americans and the baby kangaroo from one of the zoo sets, although without the adult from the other set present, is it just a wallaby?

 

Three composition TAG's, including a new identification (Free French ally, 2nd figure from the left), and yet another Cossack painting (seven found, seven paint ways . . . and three poses?), and an African soldier, who I think might be . . .

 

. . . Solido Belge? I know they made some composition in that period just after the war, and while the mark is not actually readable, I think with a little wishful thinking, it could be Solido Belge!

 

Charbens 'Great White Hunter' reissues, not an urgency, and not really toy soldiers at all! But in a dense polymer and new colour (presumably from the Marlborough/Dorset era), so worth grabbing for both completion and a wider-ranging sample.

 

All seen before - 

Speedwell German, Cherilea UN 'dancing loon' and some Britains Swoppet parts!

 

From the subjects, I assume French production, at first glance I thought they were chalkwear, but they are a pretty standard 'olin' composition of wood flour and linseed oil with wire weapons, two have bases, but from the styling I think they are all the same maker, I just don't know who . . . or whom?!

 

I think these might be Acedo (Domage et Cie), but I'm not sure and need to check, the MG gunner needs a bit of a mend, but I'd do it obviously, nothing worse than faking it, and there's so much fake stuff around now.

T is for Targeting Target!

Back to our Halloween dispatches from the New World, and we're looking at the shelves in Target. As we've had Costco here for a couple of decades or more now, it's a wonder why Target have never tried, but if they did, they'd probably destroy what's left of the High Street, and two of our smaller supermarket chains, so maybe a good thing they haven’t bothered!

 

Dastardly Duckies! I love the bat-duck in the background, and is the one on the left channelling Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice . . . Beetl . . . ooh, nearly!

 

A huge orange pumpkin skeleton, but what's that, down the bottom right? How quintessentially American is a Road Runner skeleton? That's what it is, isn't it? That's as WTF cool, as the alien/monsters in the previous post!

 

Andy Warhol’s pop-eating-itself here, with Star Wars stormtrooper skeletons! They look to be fired ceramic too, proper novelty ornamental tat! And loving the pumpkin-snowmen next to them, too!

 

We love erasers here, we love pencil tops, and we love finger-puppet figurals, so with this set triggering all three nostalgia buttons, we're happy, until the next post! Two of them, the Mummy and Pumpkin, were found in the TKMaxx set, last year, so I'll be looking out for the others? Many thanks to Brian Berke for popping down to Target for us!

WTF is for Whacky Tall Fellows!

These came from Peter Evans a couple of weeks ago, and are, well, whacky tall fellows . . . or fellowesses? I mean WT-very-actual-F? Clearly the Hong Kong 'old guard' in China, jumping on the Skibidy Toilet/Brainrot bandwagon, and it's so nice to know this shite is still being planned, designed, and issued!

 

No brand, no branding, no marks, no date, no nothing, just a bag . . . full of bags! Totally generic, and I thought they might be bendy toys, but it turned out they were just polyethylene novelty figurines, presumably picked from a counter display box or outer liner of some kind?

 

There's eight in total, about 80mm, two each of four polymer colours, most (five) having a skeleton as the central frame, and with open speaker/cone shapes being found on four of them, the red one on the left having shark'y mouths in the open ends of the cones. All have one colour of paint, stab-and-hoped, with some having two colours, and the giant eye having three.

 

The black 'baby' being the obvious odd-ball, having nothing in common with the other seven, while two incorporate inanimate human-constructed objects in the red traffic light and black screen of some kind. Completely whacky, completely fun, hard to stand up, classic Hong Kong tat, from 30-years after Hong Kong stopped marking their output separately, but I bet that's where these have come from!

 

Thanks to Peter for finding and grabbing them for us. These are so bad, they’re WTF'ing cool! 

S is for Sandown Park - Wild West

Picked up a few Wild West bits at the last Sandown Park shenanigans, nothing rare or valuable, but always things of interest, grist to the mill, gap fillers and collection enhancers/improvers - so let's have a look at the plunder!

 

While the Reamsa stuff in Sobres seems to be copies, I think these are original Comansi supplied product, the 60mm backwoodsman/pioneer/trapper being the same softish silicon-rubber as the late Thunderbirds/OVNI stuff, while the 50mm Lucky Luke is one of their sculpts too? Their relevance to the Battle of Manila being a moot point, but typical of these cheap, pocket-money, Montaplex novelty envelopes!

 

Rather damaged, but new colours for these 'styrene large-scale versions of the SIKU manufactured Euro-premiums - carried here, in the UK, by Betterwear, as a smaller range, in soft ''ethylene . The yellow being the same shade as the British issues, and both will join the dun, fawn and bronze, painted and unpainted sample, slowly gathering in a bag somewhere!

 

 

So clean I suspect another of the East German production, like the military chap we looked at a while ago, but I'm not clued-up enough on Elastolin composition to be sure, a nice clean figure though, along with a huge (100mm+) Hong Kong copy of something Spanish, I feel? [Lafredo - see comments]

A pair of HK copies of Britains (one Herald, one Swoppet), a speedwell/Trojan type and what I suspect is a Hilco 'from hollowcast', it's similar to a couple of the Johillco metal sculpts, and turns up quite often?

 

Mixed cowboy lot, I don't remember where these all came from (with previous and next two image contents), there must have been a mixed bag of them, possibly from Isaak, or Martin? Two Lone Star, a Crescent, a Supreme and three to be ID'd, along with a wagon driver Charbens saloon figure (holding cards).

 

Mid-quality swoppet knock-offs!

 

One of the Crescent  (horse) Timpo 'solid' (rider) ACW copies from Hong Kong, carried by Ideal in the US, more generic over here, this one has been repainted by the owner, from the look of it!

S is for Spooky Sweets!

We (UK) may not be good at figural toys, compared to the ''States, come Halloween, but on the edible figural front, we always seem to provide, and while B&M had the same lollies as the last two years, I managed to find these iced jelly lollies in The Range.

 

Jelly Pops, produced in the Republic of Ireland (first for the Tag's maker list?), for CDS Group, they are iced with a sort of hard fondant, and we have two full figurals in the cat and ghost, along with a pumpkin and witch's head!

U is for Undying Undead!

This must be year eight, maybe year ten? Our roving reporter in North America, Brian B, has managed to visit three of the 'household name' discounters, to see what they had on offer this Autumn, and he's found a darn slight more than I've managed to, over here, and we're starting with the new packaging for an old favourite.

 

They've lost their blister-cards, in favour of card-headed bottle-bags, and there seems to be the one card 'Skeleton Army', despite the fact that some of them have the Mummies, but only the two types were to be found in New England!

 

Now claiming to be made in Vietnam, and imported by the Old East Main Co., Dollar General is carrying them. Thanks to Mr. Berke for shooting them for us, like the cyclamens under the cedar, they just keep popping up every year!

Q is for Question Time - Reamsa Copy?

A simple one today; can anybody ID the maroon plastic figure?

 

The figure on the left is clearly marked REAMSA 68, from Spain, and, unusually for Reamsa, it is in a rigid polystyrene polymer, rather than the vinyl of early production, or the polyethylene of later mouldings

 

The one on the right, also 'styrene, seems to have dropped the scalping knife, and may be French in origin. Note how they have both not only scalped, but cut the whole face off, and are both looking pretty pleased about it!