Today's post comes courtesy and as a
collection of contributions from three people, so I'd better name-check them
first, Kostas X from Greece sent me several of the images about a year ago (?), and I was
holding them for the HK Blog (where they will still appear, but now as
duplicates!) when the other day I got an eMail from John Roquas in the
Netherlands, offering me Baravelli
images someone had asked him about.
Given other stuff which was occurring at
the time; I was a mite confused and replied in such a manner as to confuse John
in return! However we then arrived at the fact that Tim ('Gisby' in comments)
had been the one asking! So thanks to Tim for facilitating, John for supplying,
and Kostas for all he's sent the Blog[s] (most of his contributions are on the Airfix Blog) over the years.
I believe some of these images have
recently been seen by some of you on The Facebook, so I've tried to
enhance the post with stuff from the collection, where it's ID'able as being
the same Hong Kong stuff as was supplied to Baravelli,
but apologies - if it's all 'old hat'!
Also as mine are all in storage we will
look at them again one day, but their absence is not a great loss as the only
set I think I have which is not here is the foot Romans, which are simply
copies-of-copies of Giant.
The earlier boxes were parroting Airfix (and/or the first version Atlantic boxes), although with the same
bloodthirstiness - as the old guy gets blown-away - that Airfix had with their dying card-sharp type.
The later boxes (which I think we've looked
at?) were a more disappointing generic, with six artwork 'thumbnails' on each
side, and a sticker or marker-pen mark to indicate which of the 12 the contents
were most likely to represent!
These are John's, and their contents have
been somewhat enhanced! With a box normally having 15 mounted or 42 foot
figures, it appears these have the contents of two foot sets, a mounted set and
a few more. John explained that that was how they ended-up as his boxes became
the casualties of childhood!
Points to note are that the foot figures
are all Airfix piracies while the
mounted figures are late copies-of-copies of Giant. The Indians have two poses made from Airfix mounted figures, while the Cowboys have one made from the
crawling guy, who now seems to be being shot, nosily and messily? They also
have three clones of the High Chaparral's
'family-in-residence', namely Blue Boy (pointing), Uncle Buck (bottle!) and
Manolito (designed for riding - See the AirfixBlog post)!
But, in Kostas's box, it all goes a bit
'Pete Tong' and not because the contents have been added to post-purchase, but
because the contents have been cobbled together to fulfil an order/contract on
a Friday afternoon . . . or something like that!
The majority of the contents are copies of Britains and Crecsent 'combat infantry' usually associated with Woolbro, to which have been added four
mounted cowboys and Indians with their horses (neither hoses nor riders the
usuall Baravelli types) and a lone ex-1st
version Airfix 8th Army man running.
The bag is identical to those in mine which
came from a mint batch Andy Harfield had in his lists back in '97, even to the
very small-sized staples, so I'm sure it's 'right', just so wrong!
So these are the figures filling the bulk
of the bag in Kostas's box of Cow Boy A Piedi; we looked at them
as a tail-ender on the Khaki Infantry page but will have a quick look now. The
six common poses of Britains' Khaki
Infantry and five of Crescent's Desert
Troops, all scaled down to approximately 25mm.
While the bag's contents are a bit of a
shock, over the years there have been various Baravelli sets appear on the web with odd or non-standard contents,
so I think they weren't that fussy?
The sets they are more commonly associated
with.
I don't have any yellow ones here, but I do
have some blue ones (UN!) along with the more common green ones. The mounted
figures are found in the Fort Cheyenne Frontier Set from YF (who carried ex-Giant knights and Mongols), and we will look at them in detail on
the Hong Kong Blog when I pull my finger out and finish the posts - there's 69
in various stages of editing in Picasa!
Back to Baravelli
proper and this is a set I don't have - so a bit of jealousy, but only really
for the box which is so cool; it's half-Airfix
artwork and half Army Men rack-toy artwork, with a quite 1960's French-looking
armoured patrol in the background.
Although this set doesn't have as many foot
figures as an Airfix box, it is heavier on the cavalry, which back in the
1960's/70's made this stuff very useful if you were looking to build cheap
war-games armies.
Because Baravelli
were shipping generic HK Airfix-clones
as imports in/for their branded packaging rather than either sourcing their own
more unique figures (Solpa), or
making them themselves (Montaplex),
they do turn-up elsewhere and we've looked at them on the Airfix Blog, but we can touch on them again.
This set is pretty much the same as John's,
but exactly half the contents; all figures in a similar neutral sand colour
with one each foot and two each mounted on horseback and mounted on camel.
They were also available in other colours!
Roman Cavalry; again there's the contents
of about two-and-a-half sets here, and I know when I got mine from Harfields there were exactly 15 hoses
and 15 riders in each little sealed bag - although after that bag in Kostas's
cowboys; the rule seems to be . . . anything goes!
These are sub-piracies of Giant's Romans, sort of 2nd/3rd
generation, mounted on the horse I call Mexican and we have looked at several variations here,
but will look at them all again on the HK Blog. One pose each from Marx and Britains Herald and one converted from a Crescent foot figure.
A close-up of what appears to be a good
match, as we saw on that Roman page; the differences can be quite subtle, and
without the Baravelli's in my hand,
it can only be guesswork but I've tried to match the figure colours; just
couldn't find a black horse at short notice!
The foot figure is only a guide, but I
think he is Baravelli, and we will
look at the Infantry properly one day when I get my sartorially rather fetching
mauve'y, purple'ish puke-pink sample out of storage!
Thanks again to John Roquas, Tim Peterson
and Kostas for creating this post.
6 comments:
Nice Baravelli stuff.
Cheers Jan, but Tim was the catalyst and the other two the contributors, so very-much a team effort!
H
Tim is a great guy, happy to have him around. Always helpful, and a deep well of wisdom & knowledge. We need more like him.
Indeed! We do!
H
I have a small collection of maybe a 100-150 pieces of these small plastic pieces. They all appear to be hand painted, but have seen some use and the paint is flaking away. I am 99% sure they are the Baravelli stuff you have here. I was going to throw them away, but I figured to do a bit of research first. Are these worth anything?
Hi Anonymous, to be honest they'll be worth more with the paint off! Also they are easy to mistake with 'standard' Hong Kong rack-toy smallies, if you want to send me a picture or two I'll try and put you right?
H
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