B is for Brown Shirts

I don't really have a 'wants' list, as the dozen or so 'big ticket' items I'm still looking for are obvious, while the list of things I still haven't tracked-down probably runs into the tens, or hundreds, of thousands, so a list would be pointless, although I do see people going round the shows holding thick wodges of A4, with double column lists in what appears to be 8pt. text, so clearly some do try to list them all!

However, this was definitely one of the absentees...only I had hoped to get it in the smaller pack as I have the 'other' four sets in the little packs, but beggars can't be choosers!

The artwork...like a lot of Atlantic stuff; this set is surrounded in myth, and while I'm sure it wasn't on display in every country it was available in, I'm equally sure it wasn't a universally 'under the counter' item, being one of the first of the Atlantic sets and running for some time...however, the nature of the subject and it's treatment by sellers and collectors over the years have made it undeniably hard to get.

This was my final purchase at the Plastic Warrior show, and I nearly lost it to one of the chaps up from ACOTS in the antipodes, but luckily for me he was tempted by an Airfix play-set instead, and I was able to take it home and then settle-up the following week at Sandown Park!

The two different frames (the only difference is an additional character figure of Hitler with the resultant snuffling down the runner of the other figures), from both sides.

It is another of the oft-quoted myths that Atlantic put anything in a box - I've handled many sets in all scales over the years, my own collection, a collection bought-in from the States and a dealers stock, and can say that actually with the odd exception, the contents are usually pretty consistent.

If there are anomalies, they tend to be the total sprue/runner count in the larger HO play-sets, or the figure count in the later 1:32nd scale blister packs. There is also a problem with the two artillery sets in the red 'export' series, in that the box-packers couldn't get their heads round the two variations, so both sizes can appear in both boxes! (that will be a future post!)

However, while the sets content are usually consistent, there is the problem of the contents not matching the given contents as stated, here the six frames are way off the advertised contents of "94 pieces"...

...so back-of-a-fag-packet maths was called for! The closest are the five runner combinations, specifically the 1 Hitler-runner and 4 others combination, but it's not quite there.

The six runners (3 of each) included in my set make the box bulge, so can't be right, and with one a little less opaque than the others I decided to 'de-sprue' it for a photo-session, my lose examples being in storage. I suspect this is one of those cases where the artwork was signed-off with a typo, as there is no way you are going to get the maths to tie-up, no matter how you cut it? Later boxes did away with a contents total!

So here they are, I will post better images of the large-scale versions one day as they came in the big purchase in 2010 but are also in storage.

The 'jeep' looks more like one of the post war Iltis/VW Safari vehicles than anything that rolled into the land of the Rus in 1941, and unlike the 1:32nd scale set where the windscreen clips in, with this set the pantograph has reduced that clipping-in detail to the point where it just 'sits in', and is therefore easily lost.