News, Views . . . Toy Soldier Workshop!

Got kids? Nephews and Nieces? Grandkids? Live near Wilmington, North Carolina? This is for you dude, or dude'ess!

Toy Soldier Workshops 1st July

It's TOMORROW!

News, Views . . . it Had to Happen Dept.

Toy soldiers as currency!

Full story -

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/whats-on/eating-out/quirky-new-after-work-drinks-venue-for-kelham-island-1-8616019

T is for Ticking Boxes

Only a box ticker, the sample is tatty (and dirty) but that slightly damaged lasso bloke the other day made a set of six, so they can go up for the hell of it, and while they are tatty; there's enough of interest to post.

Crescent Cowboys and Indians, as with most of Crescent's output you have two sides, six foot figures per side and six mounted - three for each protagonist, but we're not looking closely at the mounted figures today.

Due to the condition of these I will probably strip and clean most of them, as late versions were issued unpainted anyway (standing six-shooter), but I'm not sure it works [as a minor fraud!] for the dark blue figures - I think they were always painted?

Base markings are usually quite clear and there are a number of base types. Here we see - from left to right - a larger base with a heavy, deep frame, a smaller base with a lighter frame, a frameless, flat base and a longer base with slightly more rounded corners, these are all from the same pose, the kneeling firer.

Here we have the standing firer with the second type above (on the left) and the final mark type, a Kellogg's premium base. The readers of Plastic Warrior magazine have been turning up unmarked bases, so with premiums and plastic colours there's a lot to look out for!

Then this guy keeps turning-up with different base shapes altogether! Note how the marking itself is inverted between the two to the top right; there was clearly no 'rule' on positioning the marking. Additionally they have the Kellogg's variant too - bottom right shot.

My favourite pose from this set is the 'Eagle Dancer' and one has decent paint! Also I have managed to find a couple of mounted figures, one each side - officers; clearly!

B is for Bloody Brittle Buggers

Having pointed-out earlier that it's all mass-produced, over-priced, plastic tat for infants (!), there are - of course - the exceptions that prove the rule, damaged moulds, cancelled lines, factory fires as so on all lead to genuine rarities and (as I caveat'ed earlier) certain additives lead to a frangibility probably not anticipated at the time, which has rendered some items to be less and less common over time, these intermediate-scale figures from Rocco are among them

So this is what I have here (with the lose leg pretending to be attached). In storage I have a similar sample but with more bits in the bottom of the bag! They are also to be found with green highlights I seem to recall, not sure about blue and I believe they are Rocco (Royce Co.)? [Now confirmed!]

One day I hope to be able to cobble two whole pairs together from the bits, but will continue to buy them whenever I see them to have a fighting chance of enough horse bits. It seems if you get an intact tail, legs are missing and if you get intact legs, the tail's gone!

These are Rocco for definite 'cos Brain said so and he knows more than me! Again I have a much larger sample in storage, but of the same overall quality, just another pose or two and lots more bits!

Although, top left is a complete pair and the guards officer is passable, so with two whole knights now, it's [whole] horses the search is on for, and you will note I've two pinkish 'ski-base' fragments in this lot which may help coble one of the storage ones together one day - even if only with tape or blue-tac for a photo!

There are many of these 'intermediate scale' mounted figures, in both metal and plastic and they were literally pocket-money toys, being cheap "Shut-up and play with this" stuff by the till/checkout. Rocco was unusual in doing them as separate riders, although there are some others; most makes produced integral horse & rider mouldings.

The originals - in metal, usually hollow-cast, but due to their size; sometimes solids - would have been penny toys, maybe a tuppeny between the wars, later sixpence (?); they were then replaced by plastic versions, often taken from the hollow-cast moulds.

Just as an idea of the opposition here are a few, we will return to these in time. Below the Rocco cowboy is a hollow-cast Crescent metal hussar type (RHA? HMQ?), with two of the larger Crescent plastics to his [her?] right; Crescent followed (?) Rocco with the 'ski-bases'.

Above them and to the right of the Rocco is a Cherilea Indian, ex-hollow cast. Bottom right is a Hilco also from a hollow-cast mould, the last one; top right is probably also Rocco Hilco, I don't think it's been ascribed and while Charbens probably have some out there, although the four legs out is very Johillco-like!

A is for Arabs

Continuing with the images I took as I was putting away Tuesday's plunder we arrive at a quick comparison of the various Arabs available in polyethylene in the late 1950-1960's for the recreating of Beau Geste or Lawrence of Arabia type scenarios on the carpet.

A motley bunch of mostly blade-wielding ner-do-wells and self explanatory as far as the makers go - everyone seems to have taken Timpo's lead, in colours if not poses! Cherilea's Arabs (and the accompanying Foreign Legion) are often brittle and mine's no exception with a split across the base.

The two from Charbens are both damaged; missing the butt's of their rifles and making them look even more like the Timpo pose they were taken from, but they also look like they're holding clubs - so they stay.

S is for Swoppets

Probably had that title before, but then I think we may have had the earlier post today's title before too! It is a fact that I have detractors, people who dislike my manner, even 'enemies', but as I've said before I'm not here to make friends; I'm here to waffle and rant - 'cos that's what Blogs are about! I tell my friends that I posses the ability to bring out other people's worst opinion of me - on the Internet!

One of the ways I annoy people is by pointing out from time to time that we collect infant toys, like little babies, we're all little babies! They were/are made of a mass-produced, near-indestructible material (certain additives notwithstanding!) in their millions and have a the intrinsic value of tuppence-ha'penny!

Tuesday's addition is second from the left - strangely with a blue tomahawk blade to match his jerkin? Ten, no eight-year's ago I had err . . . none. And I haven't paid dealer's prices for any of them. I say again - they were made in their millions, and while we've looked at these before here, I though it was illustrative to show how just one pose continues to grow, especially if you are just starting out, or on a tight budget, these were all next-to-nothing in job-lots.

The paper label - which clips round an ankle - was a floor-sweeping from the Sandown Park show about a year ago. If I put all my floor-sweepings over the years in a single heap it would fill a family sized ice-cream tub! Me and Paul Morehead's nephew used to sweep the old PW show-venue together, as we put the tables and chairs away, and we'd both get a handful of 'stuff'; each! It's all grist to the mill, and free.

And then there are all the empty boxes, packaging and catalogues left behind, possibly the same Sandown (or it may have been this Spring's?) gave up a whole pile of catalogues some chap had abandoned as he A) hadn't sold them and B) couldn't be arsed to carry them back to his car - or to another show!

ECW is for English Civil War

Following on from the purchase of Tuesday, let's have a closer look at the range, or at least those I have ferreted away in 'the pile' over the last few years.

 I think we've had these comparison type shots before, but I took them again, and everyone likes new images! The ABC copy has been given a cut-n-shut pike-man's head, while the generic is a straight piracy, and while the cavalier is of poor quality with a pitted surface to the plastic in places, the ABC is a more reasonable finish, yet with that typical Hong Kong glossiness!

New addition on the left with paint-loss to the elbow, older chap on the right has scruffy legs! It may be that they can be touched-up with matt Humbrol, but I tend to leave them in the manner to which they have become accustomed.

This is what I've got in total, there may be a couple more HK copies in storage, so I still need a good 'Rupert' (mine is 'directing from the rear' sat on a saddle!), but as I often say to the chagrin of my detractors, this stuff was mass produced; for kids (6-12 was the customer-base), in plastic, and it does turn-up - apart from a few in the Autumn 2010 purchase, these have all come-in for pennies, in job-lots, and as the big-buy was a car-load for a few hundred quid, they too probably work out at pennies per figure.

F is for Finder's Keepers, Looser's . . .

. . . make a bit of money for chahrridee!

Popped into Blue Cross yesterday to donate a few books, assistant was near the door, so I handed the books over and left the shop, then thought "I'm here; I might as well have a look", returned to the store and wandered over to the toy section. Saw a bag . . .

. . . it looked interesting. It's a poor shot, but it's been sorted now so I couldn't re-take it! Rocco (?) knight's horse was obvious, as was the Timpo Arab, better stuff the other side, but what's that red-yellow and blue lump (left-hand arrow)?

It was only a Britians ECW musketeer, complete, with two others and a slightly damaged 'Prince Rupert'! Although the sword of the mounted Lobster-pot was a bit chewed.

Another leg turned-up for the standing knights horse after the photo-sesh, but three just doesn't cover the role; "Need I say with over much emphasis that it is in the leg division that it is deficient, the role requiring a quadridexter!", while the other one has all his legs and no tail, hey-ho! At least the knight is complete.

The plethora of Kellogg's guardsmen premiums served (with small scale shrapnel) to camouflage the quality of the lot and only two items were in the recycling by midnight, this chocolate brown Tudor Rose horse (by which time it was in three pieces - brittle as a biscuit!) and the Herald Indian in the previous shot.

A nice group of Timpo Arabs surfaced, one straight in the spares box, but the other four and the mounted figure having all parts and good paint. Nothing else exciting here, mostly swaps, but the bear-fighter from Lone Star is a nice find.

The smallies; basically a clean sample of Airfix Russian, Japanese and Combat Group, all-three a few short of a full set . . . and a propeller - Fairy-something? Dart?

The bear fighting cowboy thrusts and Little Cub dances away, both this and the mounted swoppet Indian had/have all feathers and thin or pointy-bits, sheath-knives are present and paint is OK on both, the Lone Star are more played-with.

Arabs and ECW in close up; a bit of a tug and a trim made the Lobbster's sword more presentable and he will need a replacement scabbard, but I know a man who has a few spares, they are  tin-plate stampings so it shouldn't prove a problem.

Two questions remain - no 'khaki infantry', excepting the Airfix, is some kid somewhere in Fleet playing with a bag of rareish/early British toy soldiers? And why are some pieces played-with to gash-point, while others are quite pristine? Odd - but a bargain! And you could ask why no animals or civilians?

News, Views etc . . . Toy Soldiers Versus Bugs!

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L is for Little and Large

Bears;

Little and Large!

Carved, painted wood, probably from Bavaria or the Black Forest region on the left, an off-cut of elephant's tusk on the right. It's still hot. Is he on the right or is he underneath? Is this a duplicate post? My brain's not working . . . the heat, the heat . . .

D is for Danger Mouse

Too cool for Secret Agent School, which given the heat here this week; is no bad thing!

Bendy Toys!

DM, Penfold, the other one and a 'bad-guy' frog*. Made in Hong Kong for Telitoy, 1981, factory-painted, wired PVC, between approximately 50 and 100mm. That's your lot, it's too hot.

*Yes I could Google them, but it's TOO HOT!

W is for Who's Wild West Won What Where When?

A quick question mark today, some sort of premium, but who's? There are at least three versions of these Wild West flats, some (seen in Plastic Warrior magazine 155, courtesy of  Rainer Maul in brown and a puce-maroon colour) have the base - with similar pod-foot, chamfered-edge  design - connected directly to the base, there are soft plastic versions I can't describe accurately as they are all in storage, and then these . . .

. . . where the base (or 'baselette'!) is separated from the bulk of the figure moulding by a little pilloti or 'columnette'? Again I have a larger sample in storage, but nothing noteworthy, maybe more of the brighter, primary colours like the reds and blues seen here, greens, yellows, that sort of thing?

The two inset below were being sold as WHW's and while I doubt that moniker, they may well be contemporary . . . 'ish? While the connecting rod might be designed to locate into a card or holder for sale or display they are not all that clear; the cowboy standing with rifle hardly has them at all, so I think they may be more incidental to the whole.

But I do wonder if they are from cigarette packets, possibly German, hence them turning-up in WHW lots. The grey and silver ones are very similar to some WHW's as we have seen here and the marbled one is very 1950's.

Also, while I have sorted them into three versions in my master collection, these additions - if studied closely - could themselves (all polystyrene) be sub-divided. The marbled/mottled one has differences from the red version, the blue cowboys have thinner bases with hardly any chamfer to the base edges and the silver mounted Indian looks very different (and could be WHW, but from a set unknown to me?), while the mounted cowboy has lost his base so can't prove anything!

However, if a mass-appeal, consumable product like cigarettes, selling millions of packs a week or month carried them for some time, years even (they do turn up all the time, but in little mixed lots), that would explain older and newer-looking plastics, design differences &etc.

I think they were also seen in PW139 (provided by Pekka Allan Manninen), but my copy is in storage, and while both correspondents have sought an ID, one has as yet not been forthcoming. As I believe there is a disconnect between Online and Print Media subscribers of around +10%, maybe a viewer here recognises them?

News, Views etc . . . All Sorts!

It's funny, I thought I was doing too many 'News, Views' this year, but looking at the dates on some of these newspaper stories it's a while since we had one, I must have filled the Blog with other stuff? So anyway; well overly time for another!

In one of those synergic acts of coincidence which happen from time to time, and - indeed -have only recently happened to this very brand (Noki) on the Blog already this year, I saw the other set in a charity-shop window the other day (right-hand shot - the same one my Fontanini came from a few months ago!), which happened to be the day-after I found an old Amazon sales image of the same set it different packaging on the 'unknown' dongle - left hand image.

Seen before - just Picasa clearance!

They both confirm my assumption in previous posts that the bread 'soldiers' cutter would be the same as the one in the E1 tank we looked at last time; not the first time an educated guess has won-out here. Worth noting also that there are slight differences in the old sales image over the actual retail version (different spoon, sharper nose), this is often the way with catalogue images or press-release/sales shots, as they call upon pre-production items to photograph so that artwork is ready for the launch date.

The first catalogue image of Airfix's 1:32nd scale Stalwart amphibious artillery re-supply vehicle was very different to the finished product, as was the contents of their HO Waterloo Assault Set, even on the sides of early boxes; one of the reasons for the 'Items may differ' disclaimers many catalogues and packagings carry.

Colin Penn - who most of you will know from the pages of Plastic Warrior as a collector who uncovers some real treats in his searches - was corresponding with me the other day on a pretty special find of his which I won't detail here as it is destined for Plastic Warrior itself (so subscribe - if you don't already!) but if anyone knows anything about a toy company called (or logo-branded to-) F&G / An F&G Product; he'd like to hear from you (almost certainly not FG Taylor & Sons), and I can pass info on or you can go direct to PW. 04-04-2019 - Now known to be Fraser & Glass!

He also kindly sent me the above two shots of Vitacup animals he's obtained, including a gazelle/deer (with curved horns) which wasn't in previous posts on the range, nor - I think - was it in the listing, so this set continues to grow! Thanks Colin.

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Having just looked at WHW's again, an interesting recent snippet in the press at the beginning of May concerns the auctioneer Breker in Koln (Cologne), Germany who were visited by the police with a view to removing what sounds like rare 70mm Lineol or Elastolin's from a forthcoming sale. The Nazi era figurines - including Goebbels and a moving-arm Hitler - had been flagged-up as banned Nazi 'memorabilia'. The auctioneers were ordered to 'cease & desist' the distribution of the sale's catalogue, while Astrid Breker, current boss of the company stated "Those were normal toys in that time - you cannot deny history", it seems however that the catalogues had already gone out and Breker now wait to see if they will face prosecution, as some of the toys had not had the swastika's obliterated from the images.

Also connected to WHW's is this, or at least it reminded me very much of the wooden flats issued as WHW's in such sets as the VDA (Verein fur das Deutschtum im Ausland - aid for Germans abroad) Schoolchild Collectors issue of 1935 or 1937's German Fairytales & Legends, both of which involved plain, block-painted, figural, wooden flats.

These however are life-size and of mostly Afro-Caribbean subjects, something that wouldn't have got past Goebbels! Actually these are by Lubaina Himid from her work 'Naming The Money' from 2004, Himid is one of the four shortlisted contenders for this year's Turner Prize, and the oldest ever nominated, being 62 years of age at the time of the press release.

Getting back to the Breker story and breaking in the tabloids today is the tale of a cashe of Nazi memorabilia found in the posh Buenos Aires suburb of Beccar, Argentina which includes toys "...used to indoctrinate German children of the time..." that's the language of the small-sheet press for you! But it does make you wonder if there is lickly to be a bigger backlash against the ElastolinLineol type toys?

Previously on Small Scale World

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A good walk spoiled, but look at that trophy! I believe it represents the clubhouse at the Augusta club where the 'National' was held this year? I can only see it in use as a fine full-veranda 'Southern plantation house' for the centerpiece of an ACW war game! You'd have to chuck the plinth, and obtaining the - probably solid silver - piece of scenery might be problematical!

March of the PC brigade

PC's and Laptops are gaining ground again after a few years losing-out to Tablets and dumb-phones. Having recently inherited a iphone4 which seems unwilling to talk to my Laptop by either Bluetooth or USB cable, and which won't allow me to the save music files on it to my Laptop in a Windows compatible form, I do wonder at the use of it and am therefore glad we may see a return to the more established and trusted form's of bigger, easier to use, larger memory devices

Could we hope the next generation of Laptop/Desktop will have built in mobile telephony technology, rather than the clumsy VOIP? If I can download music or view smallscaleworld on a dumb-phone, why can't I use the keyboard of my laptop to make a call - it's not rocket science!

Still on computing - I've seen (and heard) stories about the new Windows X-Box One-X, Nintendo Switches and the other things, along with the news that Atari (who have been out of the game - pun intended - for years) are to stage a come-back; so I guess we're about to go back to the console wars of the noughties? Can't say I'll do much but ignore the whole over-hyped business - as I did last time; but an ear will be kept to developments!

Other News

No longer a significant 'player' in premiums anymore, so a bit leftfield, but some may be interested to hear that Weetabix have just been sold again (to Post Holdings of the US), for £1.4bn, that's more than you can spend in a particularly extravagant lifetime!

As a fair few of you carry-out your hobby from your sheds, you might want to know that Cuprinol - the wood treatment people - have narrowed this year's entries for 2017 Shed of the Year, more info can be found at readershed.co.uk where voting is now over - sorry! I voted for the Tardis!

The Muppets - or fans of them - are seeking funding for their continued existence, albeit only as museum exhibits. New York's Museum of the Moving Image is seeking crowd-funding for a preservation package of around 32,000-squids at current exchange rates.

Stanley Gibbons have been in the news with three angles on a sorry story of the 'fallen mighty' in recent weeks, first it sold its stake in Masterpiece London (organisers of the Art fair) through it's subsidiary Mallet & Sons in order to restructure, then about three weeks ago it announced it was in takeover-talks, then - as they fell-through - it announced last week that it was putting itself on the open market.

While for teddy bear fans planning summer-holidays with younger children; the Spanish rental site spain-holiday.com is offering a reuniting service for teddies left behind (quite common apparently!), see details on their website for #NoTeddyLeftBehind.

Hornby Hobbies are expected to reveal profits down 6% this week, but given their tribulations over the last 18 months (specifically) and in recent years more generally, that will be a good sign of the restructuring going according to plan! However, the slim-line stock marketing-model is set to continue for some time, so no new lines for a while I'm afraid.

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Alibaba who have a retail platform model and are under-reported in the Western media and all but ignored by our hobby despite being bigger that eBay and Amazon combined; have seen their share-price rocket on the news of strong grown forecasts for the next twelve-months, around 47%! Coming on the back of a revenue increase of 56% (below expectations!) in the year to March; Trump and Brexit won't stop the march of China. The machinations surrounding Yahoo/Altaba are also interesting but I won't bore you with them!

However I will suggest that the news should be read in conjunction with China's new 'big idea' the Silk Road trans-continental rail link. At the moment there is a delay adding a day or two to the journey as gauge-changes lead to trans-shipping of each train's load twice en-route and locomotive/driver changes to boot. However, with The West pushing Russia and China closer with every speech, it's only a matter of time before a new correct-gauge direct route is established, and seeing how quickly they've (the Chinese) built the first part of their East African railway - we need to look out.

On the loss of Western hegemony and the rise of the - no-longer - 'Sleeping Dragon', a computer has played Go better than a human, a Chinese computer, that is; winning a complicated Chinese game (one of the last games to be bettered by AI) against a Chinese champion (Ke Jie, 19).

Which leads us neatly on to chess, also beaten by computers, but a while ago! The Association of Teachers and Lecturers have called for Chess to be taught in all schools in England as a 'mind sport'. This follows a similar call three years ago which fell on deaf ears in Westminster - too busy wreaking the country and flogging everything in the larder to their mates?

A story itself linked to one stating that school lessons should be broken-up with periods of juggling or Plasticine model-making! The research revealed that learning is best carried out in 15 minute bursts of information, with periods of ten minutes of 'unrelated activity'. This is a non-scientific study but seemed to gain results for schools in Sheffield under the Hallam Teaching School Alliance.

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No additional text needed! Seeemples!

The only event I've noticed recently is that the medieval fayre and jousting tournament which featured in a  pre-Easter 'News Views' will be at Herstmonceux Castle for the bank holiday weekend of August 26/28th with falconry, fire-play (?), costume and folk music, tag line: Party Like it's 1499!

Leo Baxendale, creator of the Bash Street Kids and Minnie the Minx for The Beano comic has sadly passed away. He was also responsible for Sweeney Toddler, Little Plum, The Three Bears, and Willy the Kid along with the co-creation of both Wham! and Beezer comics.

We've also lost Adam West the proper Man Bat, Peter Saliss (voice of Wallace from Wallace & Grommet), John "Down Shep, DOWN BOY" Nokes from Blue Peter and Play School's Brian Cant - the passing of the five all serving to make me feel a little older - but no wiser!

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Finally - who remembers these? On the backs of early-to-mid 1970's era Britains Herald long boxes, we have panels depicting - from left to right - Mini Sets, Herald, Herald, Eyes-Right and Swoppets, although - from the scenery - the second one can't decide whether it is depicting Herald Khaki Infantry or Mini Sets US Infantry?

H is for Heilpflanzen Des WHW

A bit of a bitty post, but like yesterday's it gets them in the tag-list and adds to the 'whole' on that tag - which you can find under each post (specific to that post) or down the right hand column of this page (all, alphabetically).

Taken from recent acquisitions and Adrian's stall at Sandown Park recently it's a return to the Winterhilfswerk Abzeichen or 'winter-help-work tokens'; some of the earliest plastics in our hobby, although there are a few non-plastic ones today.

Here we see five of the 1942 Berlin Guard set issued by the Gau (regional authority) of Berlin with one of the Police figures from a 1940 issue; he still has his hanging cord - with this you could pin the token to your collar or lapel to prevent yourself being 'button-holed' by another fund-raiser/seller down the road or the next day.

The military set; it's funny we've looked at these before briefly I think, and I now have a full sample of the foot figures in storage, but even with this post we still haven't seen them all here, the half-track is still missing as is the two-man vignette setting-up a range-finder, and this stick-grenadier is broken, so we will return to these at least once more, one day!

This was actually issued by the Deutschen Roten Kreuzes (German Red Cross) in 1941 and titled 'Examples of the Armed Forces'. Also absent are a second, more streamlined submarine (which - having no bow-wave - may be from the question-mark set we looked at ages ago, with the KMS Hitler-like carrier) sand a motor-boat with troops in.

It can be seen that propellers suffer loss and here all three types are missing parts of propellers.

On the left is a few more from the above set which have come in over the last few years, a Heinkel Bomber (early version with open roof-gunner position) which seems to be missing its propellers, but may have been converted to take little clear discs - now missing? The paratrooper - who was the largest-scaled figure in the set at around 35mm - is one of my favourites; this is my second, for painting at some point. Also a badge of a German soldier from a set for which I don't know the details.

On the right are various oddments; The bisque trawler-man comes from the occupations set of 'Industrious Germans' issued in March 1939, it was one of the larger sets with 20 figures (I think we've looked at the coal-miner before?) and all were given a pin-broach fitting on the reverse, again for wearing as a 'badge of contribution'! An earlier, similar set of regional costumes from 1937 in the same style look like a technicolour take on the Commonwealth dancing dolls!

The terracotta plaque has no method of wearing and was a common meme in WHW's, there being various sets of buildings, people, shields etc in the material, while the base-metal dog with semi-precious stone eye was part of another series of similar tokens which included sets of 'Germanic Swords & Daggers' (1939) and ' Historical Tomahawks and Battle-axes (1940), they're from page one of the 'how to militarise a nation' book!

Finally a vulcanised-rubber (or ceramic - it's hard to tell after 80-odd years) chicken's head which may or may not be a WHW token and may or may not be meant as a pencil top?

Some close-ups; The four artillery pieces donated to the blog by Wouter Wyland, shot from the other side from last time! My two planes, head on, and another submarine. The Pak-36/7 is almost HO-gauge compatible (wheels are a bit close together due to the semi-flat nature of the sculpt) and has a cavity number '2' on its underside.

The Stuka is slightly smaller that the MPC-Minis one we've looked at before, and both examples in these images seem to have miss-moulded wing-tips. Unsurprising in a nascent technology, and most are well formed with little flash or other signs of production problems; a few of the ships are miss-registered down the mould-split/join-line though.

The badge looks like it could have been made yesterday, not by a regime consigned to history 72 years ago! The glued-in sub-assemblies of the Stuka dive-bomber - if you invent polystyrene you have to invent polystyrene cement! - which has run up the sides of the fuselage, just as it would on my Airfix Boulton-Paul Defiant 30-odd years later; Doh!

NZ is for New Zealanders

You should have had this on Friday afternoon but it was postponed due to another unpleasantness, and while I said I'd do it for the next day I couldn't be arsed to bimble up the library on Saturday, so today's the day.

Also I've noticed he leaves his attacks on me at the top of the page for a day or two, so giving him a bit of his own dumb-juice medicine and ensuring the maximum number of visitors will have found it over the weekend, won't have hurt!

I was alerted to these by another blog, no need to name it, it gets enough self-publicity from its monkey-lizard's back-link posting about the place, and was itself alerted to Sanitarium by my Dancing Dolls page, prior to the publishing of which, the firm was 'unknown, probably Australian figures' to the Euro-US collecting community!

As a result it's only a box-ticker which will enable me to simplify the links on the A-Z page for Sanitarium by getting these in the tag list and deleting a now-spurious link over there.

A full set consists of two white settlers (farmstead couple), a white dignitary in top hat (carving-up someone else's land in the name of the Great White Queen Vicky), four Maori and a native levy type soldier for an eight-count.

They're big boys! "If only we could get them to stop fighting us for their land and learn to play rugby", said somebody, somewhere, probably!

As with the posts the other day I've measured them both from foot sole to eye-line and from under-base to top of headdress. Semi-flat (demi-ronde), softish/soapy polyethylene.

Some of them have a fade-out of the colouring dye, which remains in the crevices like the old Airfix HO Guardsmen and they all have two little dinks on the upper side of the base, which may point to some production technique or process which remains a mystery to me.

Cereal Premiums. Sanitarium. New Zealanders. Box ticked.

Stadswatch - Really?

I see Stadinger is still bleating about Fontanini like an arsehole full of shit! Really, he thinks he's finally scored a point and he's going to labour it 'till Labour Day! The man's a fucktard. [http://www.stadsstuff.com/?p=9559]

You can almost hear the saliva hitting the screen as he rants like a fuck-witted fuckwit.

1 - He is now complaining about stuff I haven't included! I did a six-parter and he's winging because something's not there? Not 'in it'!

Covered my arse - obviously wasn't that bothered about the minutia of the thing; in what was a conversational post about a larger subject.

While it's heartening to know that someone took the trouble to show him how to use a computer, it's worrying that they've now left him unsupervised in front of one! Where's his carer, for fuck's sake?

He produces an ' article' on Cané which he as good as admits is taken from two copyrighted Italian books, neither of which is acknowledged in the text (nor are the authors named), illustrates it with images that have been around the Internet for so long most of us already have them in our archives and then has the neck, the gall, the dumb-as-fuck stupidity to make my not naming someone a bloggable 'offence', the man's a fucking moron!

2 - Bit of paranoia setting in there Paul? Or are you just too stupid to comprehend English? I haven't put words in you mouth.

3 I said it - I have used what you said to suggest [myself] that Mr. Lemmon was influenced by Mr. Simonetti as Mr. Simonetti had established his style a decade or so before Mr Lemmon's similarly styled figures started appearing!

Fuck! Too stupid, too funny for a comedy sketch, yet; tedious, risible stuff!

Anyway you'll be pleased to hear I'll be box-ticking Sanitarium tomorrow, which will enable me to remove a link to you from the A-Z posts - one less connection between us! You ignorant, illiterate, unschooled, plagiarist, twat.

More here - where you will also see I didn't say the other thing either! Yawn.

W is for What'EV'er!

Yep! I'm being lazy, it's hot, it's humid, web-traffic's down for the holiday season and I'm just struggling to find my mojo! You nearly got more edibles (from New York), you nearly got a news-views, you nearly got WHW stuff, but instead a bit of eye candy that needs little blurb!

With those long ribbons they are technically tournament knights, so the fact they have the same crest is fine - Knight practising with his bearer prior to 'his turn' at the tilt! Probably should have a leather sponge-pad on the tip of that pole-arm; ouch!

Britains Swoppet Knights - box ticked!

Rights-free image from a disc attached to a book on costumes - I can't find it on Amazon, so I'll give you the title tomorrow!

The next day...

Costumes (Library of Ornament) by Clara Schmidt

T is for Two - Loose Ends

Just a quick one today, bit of a lazy post, still working on that A-Z entry (keep my shadow's on tenterhooks!), so throwing a couple of 'odds & sods' at you . . .

  . . . following on from a post and comment about six weeks ago, they were from a part work, I picked this one up at the Plastic Warrior show in May, handled by Bisset elsewhere in the world and Hachette Publishing here in the UK, title varies and the run went to over 70 issues, but not all were these figural statuettes, there were other things Ankhs and the like!

Shot on Adrien's Stand at the resent Sandown Park show, probably Forest Toys and about 8/9-inches high, carved from wood, it's hard to be certain and although I've posted Forest before I think; it doesn't seem to be in the tag-list so it may be that I was posting [animals] on another platform, last time. Grenadier!

He has a little house, it's like a little box, it hasn't got a kitchen, but there's room for drying socks!