So, this is the chap we're looking at
today, the Britains 'Herald' kneeling
firing cowboy figure. Here are six, at the top the Multi-colour originals in
brown, chalky ethylene plastic, the yellow-shirted chap having six
paint-colours, the red shirted chap seven.
Below them is a pair of the later
'simplified' paint scheme figures, with four colours each on a more stable grey
plastic and at the bottom a final pair of Hong Kong manufactured rigid PVC
vinyl cowboys.
They too are four-colour, but changing the colour
of the plastic makes them 'go further', while re-sculpting or a new tool has
led to them shooting upwards more markedly, not quite the skywards of Airfix's paratrooper, but at the sneaky
guy who was always in the upper-floor of the saloon!
UNA actually improved the figure slightly with a decent foresight on
the rifle, they are also easy to spot with their television-screen shaped
depression in the base underside of a three part mould. Speedwell are marked round the edge of a two part mould with the
split-line running straight across the base. They are also slightly smaller
figures.
The last figure in this line-up is unmarked
and unattributed, but the suspicion is that he's a Hong Kong copy, both from
the glossy paint and the glossy plastic. He has also had his head tilted over
slightly and along with a general loss of detail over the previous figures is slightly
thinner, a pointer to pantographing.
On the left is a definite HK version,
courtesy of Darius who sent him from Italy, he is joined by another two Speedwell figures. The grey one looks
different but only because some vandal has clipped his rifle tip, only for his
pistol grip to be lost later to brittleness!
Markings on the HK copy include a very
feint HONGKONG on one side of the base and either 03001 or 100ED on the other -
I favour the former but it's not clear.
Benbros made some effort to pretend they hadn't bought a handful of Britains Herald originals before
starting their own set, and Trojan -
seeing an opportunity for 'originality' (bloody-hell Hugh - you've used
single-quotes correctly!) among pirates - stole the Benbros cut-n-shut rather than the Britains rifleman!
For which you have to admire their chutzpah
and logic; you can't be sued for pirating a pirate (by the pirate) nor are you
as likely to be sued by the originator for a while, who will be after the first
pirate, first - if at all?
Lone
Star (above) also spotted the guy in the saloon
bedroom, but clearly with help from Britains, although I think a previous owner
may have spotted the shirts? While the chap from Cherilea (lower four) is a new moulding, only similar by dint of
doing the same thing; not because he's a copy.
Helping the different look; he's wearing
gloves and his holster is further round, and we see three base versions here
with the small oblong depression in the base underside to the left, two with
the shallow penny-depression and one (darker plastic) smooth.
For completion I include - here - the two
kneeling figure poses from Hilco,
these are pirated from earlier French hard plastic (or even metal?) figures and
can't be mistaken for anything else with their wide-brimmed sombreros and
dinky-little, chorus-line, cowgirl-booties!
The ultimate ignominy; Britains Hong Kong contractor is allowed to retire the kneeling guy
and replace him with this piece of bent-rifled shite, a squatting,
one-shot-and-he's-on-his-arse pose, apparently painted by trolls with
broken-fingers! Four colours, separate base.
But it's not the end of our journey; as the
cut-n-shut merchant at Benbros was so
pleased with his six-gun conversion of the cowboy, he decided to use the
cast-off to create an Indian kneeling rifleman; taking the head and legs of Britains archer to marry to the rifleman's
torso.
Really - it's probably the topless torso
from the standing Indian firing pose, but it's a nice idea! Trojan copied this pose from Benbros too, but I don't have one to
show you, sorry!
Which gives us an excuse to visit these
again (we've looked at them before here), just for the comparison. Two
six-colour early figures to the left (the first is damaged, or maybe it's the the
rare firing-last-arrow variant!), two four-colour intermediate, simplified-production
in the middle, then from Hong Kong - a PVC integral based figure (five colour)
and a late separate base on the far-right; four-colour paint-job.
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