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.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

C is for Contribution Fortnight - XIV - Silvercorn from Tim/Gisby

Closing Contribution week, and closing the Silvercorn sets! It was going to run to 18 parts, but I've pulled a few for 'later'! Thanks to everyone who's contributed, and there is more in the queue, but a special thanks to Tim for sending these; twice (is anyone else having problems with images in the 'new' Hotmail/Outlook?) after they turned up the first time as thumbnails!

They are the things I was thinking of, but I only have a few in storage, while Tim has sent all the different vehicle types and the case etc. I don't have the Pinzgauer looking ATV for instance and I think I only have one tank, so we would have been a long time waiting, even if I'd got everything out of storage!

A closer look at the soft-skins and LAV/Piranha types - they are all pretty generic, but the Hummers are pretty clear (except the Chines have their own copied version I believe!). Tim says he found a few more after the photo-session, but all of the same types.

The undersides with the teeny-tiny little wheel/axle arrangements which have to be fitted without braking . . . on my little sample I put green axles on sand vehicles and vice-versa!

Scale of these is constant with the tanks smaller than some of the other vehicles, but for war-gaming, they are a tad bigger than the 1::300th scale 'standard', although there were ranges of 1:260 or 285 stuff kicking around in the early 1980's - I seem to recall?



Close-ups of the tanks. There's one clearly taking it's turret design from Soviet equipment, and two have all (well; 'some'!) of the hallmarks of either the M1 Abrahams or Challenger series' while the fourth design (middle image of the three) is more interesting - looking like some of the smaller-run medium-tank designs coming out of Brazil, Argentina or Italy over the last 30-years?

The packaging brings this one to a close, and that seems to be all the Silvercorn 'Military Case's' covered on the Blog now, three of them due to input from other people so many thanks to all - Brian Berke, Uncle Brian and Tim/Gisby.

5 comments:

Gisby said...

Hugh, the original pictures were small because I SENT them much smaller. I redid them and sent them again.

I also found more yet: A tan truck and turreted APC, and a green tank. So all in all, five more vehicles than in the pictures.

Gisby said...

GHQ and C-in-C were doing 1/285 armour in the USA, and indeed still are.

Hugh Walter said...

Cheers Gisby - you can almost work out from what's not there what's missing if you know what I mean...the animals went in two-by-two and all that! Although I'm realising the packing of these little boxes was pretty random vis-a-vis the numbers of each runner or colour!

I had a 1:285 Tiger with a heavy-gauge steel wire rod barrel (like coat-hanger wire), which was always 'last man standing' against my 1:300 Skytrex!

H

Gisby said...

It finally seems to have worked out at 12 vehicles per side: As you say, they may have supplied sprues randomly, but I am surprised nonetheless. Surely it would have been cheaper for them to have identical sprues for both sides rather than making a selection to choose from. But I do wish they were still available, for some reason.

Hugh Walter said...

The funny thing is - They probably ARE still available in some local general store 'off the beaten track' somewhere!

Back in the late 1990's when I was a sign-fitter; using someone else's van and diesel to swan about the UK (100,000 miles a year!), I used to get excellent old HK stuff - cowboys, pirates, farm and zoo etc. - from a mixed gift-shop, hardware stare and newsagents behind a car park somewhere south of Uckfield off the A22 (Hailsham?).

We had several jobs around there, and I'd always volunteer! Hah, those were the days!

H