C is for Colorbaby's Colourful Combat Mission from CB Toys

Many Thanks to Peter Evans for sending this CB Toys branded rack-toy to the Blog, he found it in Gran Canarias (I believe), imported by Colorbaby of Alicante, Spain, there are other versions of these out there as we will see at the end, so keep an eye out if you fancy any of the componants, several of which are useful, and in both main scales.

Colorbaby have a website: www.colorbaby.es

You get; a handful of mostly Matchbox US Infantry copies, a 'rigid-raider' rubber boat (sans motor), a drug-runner's speedboat (!) a rather well done sandbag wall/emplacement and a sub-scale LVTP-7 (or are we up to 8 these days?).

Colours are wacky, which is how some of us like our rack-toys! And these are sub-sub-piracies, much smaller than the originals, with signs of re-sculpting; simplified detailing etc...

Two of the figures are taken from the New Ray (also Toymark) AFV set's crew of ten or twelve years ago and which (the figures) we looked at here (also see below) quite a while ago.

As I've said the sandbag sanger is quite well done, the bags are a bit uniform in shape and a pit rigid in the posing, but they have a nice texture to them and would paint-up well and let's face it; who's sandbags are actually that good?

Also; look who's snuck into frame - it's our old rack-toy friend 'Rambo-man' with his one-handed M60 action and the everlasting, never-twisting, magic ammo-belt!

One of the figures has a serious tumour which will require surgery, this is usually a sign of the mould-shot being removed from the tool too soon, allowing still-liquid, pressurised polymer to break out of a weak-point on the products cooling surface, like magma from a fissure in the Earth's surface!

The figures are otherwise unmarked.

So to the more useful bits (the sandbags are OK, they're useful too!), the rubber boat, it would benefit from an engine, but experience tells most collectors have a spare Britains or Timpo outboard kicking around somewhere, so that shouldn't be a big problem, failing that you'll need a paddler, today's is from Matchbox, who's own boat is in the comparison-shot to the right.

The LVTP is - on one level - good, but on another level; poor. It is very like the old Airfix 'readymades', with no under-detailing, just a big hollow space but not for carpet wheels, and the nose doesn't look right to me (could it be a model of a scaled-down Chinese PLA copy or Japanese SDF licensed version? [Wikipedia says no]. But it is otherwise a nicely tooled model for what it is - a rack toy - and will definitely be useful for war-gaming, if only due to the price it's likely to be found at . . . this one was only two Euro's - and that's if you throw the rest of the contents in the bin?

I was rather taken with the juxtaposition of consumer information panels giving the message that the soldier force might be a threat to 3-year olds!

The New Ray/Toymark figures in the centre, the reverse of the CB's and the much-modified dancing loon we looked at about six weeks or 80-odd posts ago, how many other variations are out there?!!

Here is a video on Youtube of a larger set with more realistic colours being opened and sorted, three LVTP's for a pittance?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ECU3YId70