A is for Archive...Sorting Plunder!

These are collages of scans of old photographs I took in pre-Internet times, so not the best quality, but this is how it used to come in...

I've looked at the large bi-planes on the Blog, but the medium ones and these (above) smallies are still to come. The Starlux set has starred here, as has Tallon and I think the Plasty farm has had it's Warholian five-minutes here once? The rest of it's not terribly clear, but I can see one of the D-Day sets...and a windmill!

This was a Plastic Warrior show, in richmond, from around 1998-2000-odd as I remember looking at it first at Paul's house over a coffee before I drove home, they are both too fuzzy for me to take you through them point-by-point, so what can you spot!

The same lot a couple of hours later, I've already put a lot of minor stuff in their little 4x5½ click-shut's, leaving mostly Hong Kong to be sorted, which morphs into Blue Box as your eye travels anti-clockwise round the right-hand corner, and then turns to Marx bits as you travel up the back edge of the table toward the mostly unmarked post-Giant fort bits...these used to be so easy to find, now - with evilBay - they are all silly BIN prices! Those Napoleonics are non-Giant, but I think we've looked at them here on the Blog...or some very similar ones!

From the size of this sample and the date I think it may be the contents of a mixed bag, possibly one of the Trevor Rudkin swap-bags...he had an Atlantic Greek warship off me, on the promise of bags of stuff going forward to the value of the Warship...he's still saving me bags 21 years later, but I've been paying for them since about the 5th bag?

Interesting here are the Marklin railway personnel I was bemoaning the lack of bloggin-on the other day, with - next to them - some more of the Lone Star clones we did see the other night, as you can see - more colours! Next to them are some of the even smaller Cracker toy Cowboys & Indians (which are in the queue, but a smaller sample than I have in storage), and Guardsmen from lucky-bags and Airfix clones, two of each.

Also in this shot is the higher-quality version of the Centurion tank we looked at in the post before this, a hour or so ago, some Corgi vinyl, an early version of the Merit trolley, Lone Star Treble-O telegraph pole, a bunch of foot Cowboys & Indians we haven't looked at yet, some non-Giant knights in an unusual colour-way (pink, red and chocolate brown), two cereal pirates, a Blue Box farmstead'er/hunter and the larger HK Cowboys & Indians from the Lucky Clover sets which - if we haven't looked at yet - we will look at soon.

Best bit in this lot is the cake-decoration (?) skier in polyethylene - true 20mm; I've never seen another and he had both skis and both ski-sticks.

This looks like the sort of stuff I'd bring back from an evening toy show in the local school, about 1991/2? I'd keep an eye on the local paper and wander up for an hour about 7pm every eight weeks or so, it would usually be trays of tatty-to-mint die-casts, with a couple of Lego or McFood premium dealers and the odd tub of well playworn action-figures, but I'd rummage my way round the couple of dozen stalls for a while and bring home something like this!

It's all grist to the mill, and even with door entry, was probably less than a tenner...a cheap evening's entertainment, and I may have had the odd bigger piece or a catalogue or two, not in the photograph? Highlight? Back then it was probably the Axis & Allies German from MB Games, but following the recent (or 'since', some of this happened years ago now!) re-issues and spare-figure set releases, they're pretty common figures now!

I'm still looking for more information on the horse which is marked S.A.E. (if memory serves) and has turned up several times now, looks to be jumping, but with no sign of fixing/s for base, fence or rider? And from Hong Kong; not the other - South African - SAE 'en gin ears.