News, Views Etc...All Sorts

Since I've been diagnosed with Asperger's I am able to be both more critical of myself and more self-depreciating...while remaining arrogantly self-assured underneath!

One of my foibles is....I like order...and it was my intention to continue with the Hong Kong small scales until I'd finished the British from Britains and Crescent sculpts, then after a week or so - once everyone had seen them - was going to use the new time-of-posting change feature to stack them up in reverse order so 'Type 1' was at the top of the page with the others in numerical order below them! In the past I would have loaded them in the right order and published them all at once!

However the need to pop a panicked message up here last night re. the hacking of my eMail means that that plan is now untidy, it's not going to look right (in my head - you can only ever see one or two posts on the screen!), so I will publish a few other thing that are stuck in the queue, and return to HK Brits next week or so after I've taken a few more photographs. Having mentioned Giant at the end of the last post I know a few of the incurables will be twitching, but they'll just have to sit on their proverbial for a day or few!

In the meantime there are a few bits and bobs to clear so we'll have a quick News,Views etc...



One Inch Warrior Magazine

Paul Morehead at Plastic Warrior dropped me a line the other day pointing out that there are still a few back issues of the old small scale sister magazine; 1W.

Limited numbers of issues 3-11 are still to be had of what was (and remains) the only magazine dedicated to small scale figures. This author contributed a certain amount to the publication and I have published an index for it on here somewhere.

Anyone looking to fill their missing numbers should eMail Paul directly at; pw.editor@ntlworld.com



Plastic Warrior Magazine

I also popped round to see Paul the other day and drop off the Doctor Who kit figures I'd grabbed for him and mentioned the website wasn't working before Christmas and he pointed out it was a temporary measure in the Autumn and is now up and running again, but will eventually be dropped in favour of the combined new Facebook/Blogger platforms.

I've checked it and it is up and running again! Link is to the top right of this page.



Horrible Histories

Paul also mentioned that Peter Evans (PW's roving reporter) had dropped into the UK Toy Fair in January (I used to go and aught to start doing so again?!!) where he had seen the second tranche of HH blind Bag figures, these were said to be due to have an April release date I believe.

Yet I also believe it won't happen - The entire range was heavily discounted in the run-up to Christmas as I reported at the time in my attempts to track down the last few figures. And they were HEAVILY discounted - sets that were previously around 12-odd quid were going for £3 in Toys'R'Us as well as the Entertainer chain, while on-line everybody - including the traders on Amazon - was shifting all sets and figures for next to nothing.

Now it may be that the profit target had been met and they just wanted to clear the selves, but they were discounting the core and starter-sets as well, so I think it was 'claerance'. Equally, while they may have taken them to the show for real, I suspect it had more to do with saving face (they won an award at a previous Toy Fair) or because they had designed the stands and had nothing else to fill the gaps?

I hope they do appear; as you know, I've done what I can to promote them, they are a lovely bunch of figures, but I've heard nothing from the PR company since the late summer of last year and there's nothing happened on the website for the longest time?

What it does mean is that the new figures have been down the production line of some vast factory in China and - even if they don't see the light of day under the current marketer - will turn-up as clearance somewhere in the next two or three years for sure...lorry-loads of them.



Help Needed - I

Can anyone help identify/put a name to this company, it's a Hong Kong producer, copying German and Italian figures, tin-plate toys and animals.

Shown is my vague attempt at the logo litho-printed (tin-plate) or raised (plastic) on the toys/items produced by them...

Star Wars Names

This was passing round Facebook the other day....take the first three letters of you last name [Wal]ter and add the first two letters of your first name [Hu]gh to get your Star Wars first name.

Then take the first two letters of your mothers maiden name [Ha]ll and add the first three letters of the town or city where you were born [Ald]ershot to get you Star wars second name.

Walhu Haald is mine, what's yours?



Some Links of Interest

Jean Pierre Seguin This is a bit old hat now, and while some of the previous artists we've seen have used their imagination, this guy seems to have jumped on the bandwagon with a pixellation programme in tow...or am I being unkind?

Sd.Kfz. 8/DB 10 Rare as rocking-horse shit armoured half-track recovery and restoration.

Haribo - again! Where will the stupidity end!!



New Pages

The pages I've added so far have been up for a while now and had a few hundred hits each but little feedback - I take that as a good sign! If anybody would like me to produce other pages let me know and I will see what I can do, likewise corrections or additions are welcome and will be credidted.

Pages coming soon include; Gauge/Ratio/Scale/Size, Polymers, Other Materials, Manufacturing Terminology, Marks and Markings, Abbreviations and a 'general glossary', can anyone suggest other subjects they might like to see?



Help Needed II

Can anyone identify these....I know they were early premiums in - probably - breakfast cereal over here (UK) and always assumed they were Siku mouldings, but now I'm not so sure, can anyone tell us who made/supplied them and where else/with what else they were given away...margarine? Soap powder? There were wild animals as well and domestic/woodland types and they are a dense hard polystyrene 'Ivorene'

That's it for now, thanks for visiting, following etc...H

Animals now identified as Coleman's (the mustard people) 'Vitacup', they were also issued in Europe as Vitacup and it would seem there might have been an airbrushed 'stained' issue as well.