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.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

W is for World War One (Part 2)

Continuing the theme, a look at some other odd and ends in the collection...

We start with some siege artillery, the rear one (missing wheels) is by the American company of Tootsie Toys, who made vehicles and aircraft that were the die-cast equivalent of the old pod-feet era dime-store stuff, at around the time the switch-over from lead to plastic was gathering momentum. In front is a boxed-set 'enhancer' from Crescent, usually used with their 54mm range of hollow-cast lead figures.

I bought this the other day, I am hoping to make it a project on these pages, once I've set up a work area here at our new home. I have somewhere - in one of the many still unopened boxes, the original article on the A7V's in either a Military Modelling or Airfix Magazine, or one of the eponymous annuals, so intend to make it slightly more interesting by converting it to one of the versions not covered by the kit!

I bought this at the NEC on Sunday, from Mercator Trading

Mercator

It's a modern remould (or 're-pour' from the original mould?) of a figure from one of the minor French makes of the early-to-mid 20th C. What's unusual is that it's clearly a British Soldier, one would have thought that a French company would place one of their own 'Pilous' in the staring role of such an exquisite piece.

Size wise, he is somewhere in between the Suren/Tradition figures above and the Airfix figures in the picture, however as he is in a naturally awkward pose and hidden in the canopy of a tree, he goes quite well with either/both - just not at the same time!

I think these are two of the character figures from the Tradition range of Imperial Prussians, but as to which two I'm not so sure (the one on the left may be; GK3 General of Cavalry in Lancer uniform). Again I've used the Airfix figure as a comparison, these go well with the Stadden/Knight/Willie figures in the previous post.

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