T is for TN Thomas Toys

Brian Carrick sent me some images, which he suggested should go on the Khaki Infantry page above. Although I'd not put them there, I suggested I would do, as the officer is a clear take from the Britains pose.

But I've umm'd and ahh'd about it for a bit of a few days, and I'm not going to! I had already posted the figures (albeit rather fuzzy 'archive' images) as Taffy Toys a while ago...back at the beginning of the blog, and then posted my few examples also as 'Taffy', not so long ago, and so wasn't going to put them on the Khaki Infantry page for both that reason and: that they are not the direct copies which the page is aimed toward.

However I'm always grateful for contributions, especially from someone with their own excellent Blog and if I post them here they can be linked to the original Taffy posts through the tag list, which can't be done from the Khaki Infantry page. Although hot-links will tie them all together anyway!

Also, Brian has reminded me that they were originally issued by Thomas Toys (TNT; TN Thomas), the Taffy thing being an apparently un-PC (by today's sensitivities) marketing/branding exercise rather than a separate entity?

The figures have failed to get on to the Khaki Infantry page because while several of them are sculpted 'from' or after the Britains figures, they are at the same time new sculpts, rather than direct piracies, and they are 70mm giants Like the Lilo figures, I suspect they were aimed as much at sea-side holiday makers as more general 'high-street' toy sales.

There seem to have been six foot poses, all bearing some resemblance to the Britain's figures, the officer being the obvious one with his lean forwards, pointing left arm, and service Webley revolver held in the slacker right hand, but the standing firer and Radio operator are also close to the better, smaller figures from Herald.

The kneeling firer and grenade thrower are further-off, and while the running guy is clearly based on the Britains pose, equally he's quite different in attitude (and carrying quite a good take on a GPMG). The EM2's are very crude sculpts and look at the firing pose adopted by the kneeling chap: presumably blind in the right eye - he's crossed his head over the rifle and is about to blind the other one with the infantry sight! His standing mate is about to do similar damage to his cheek...even bullpups have some recoil, especially at 7.something mm's calibre. One has to wonder if that awful sculptor from Cherilea had some hand in these figure's development?

The seated Jeep driver pose is Thomas's original motorcyclist sculpt from the US arm, originally PVC and also used with a sombrero as a donkey-rider (and with cap, as a police patrolman?). A stretcher-case seems to make-up the count of 8; I've never seen bearers, and the handles are probably too short, however it has substantial feet or rests, which may help clip it to the jeep or trailer in some way?