G is for Ge-Models Gemodels and Gem, but never Gem Models!

The full story for which is covered in the Plastic Warrior 'Gemodels Special' but suffice to say they seem to have been briefly Gem Models at the start and everyone refers to them as 'Gem'! I say "they" - it was a he; George Musgrave, and he was quite prolific, but it's all in the aforementioned publication, and we have looked at their output before here, as well as these Lifeguards, however following-up on May's post Jim sent an interesting item in his recent parcel...

... a carded set of Ge-Models Lifeguards; a full set of four poses, beautifully minty with 98% of their paint (gem are terrible flakers!), although as we look at the item in more depth you may begin to suspect repainting - for obvious reasons!

I have the standard bearer loose in storage along with all the Horse Guards (my preferred choice of the Household Cavalry, don't ask why? I don't know!), but it seems Lifeguards have been coming in quite regularly this last few years!

Base marks are often not terribly clear, but there's usually a smidgeon of a mark if you hold them to the light and angle them properly. Marks can vary from a simple 'Gem' to a full 'Gemodels Made in England [with code number or registered trade mark number]'.

Very like the Festival figures, and a quick note here; I have in the past suggested a link between the two, even to discussing it with Barney over at Black Dragon once, I've since noticed that there are plenty of Festival items in the Musgrave museum displays, so the link is firm, but the relationships remain to be sorted - particularly with Culpitt's, for instance; why are there so many Hong Kong versions of Festival figures compared to Gem copies?

The officer has a bigger base, I don't know why, as it's the standard bearer who needs it most!

But back to the card; first mystery . . . it's clearly a copy, it's a high resolution scan and print, but it's the same side twice, with the old staple-marks not Photoshop'd-out, and from the size of the staples used for the copy, along with the smallness of some of the text on the card, the suspicion is that the original card was bigger?

Not that Mr Musgrave wasn't above a bit of plagiarism himself, if you thought the card's artwork was looking a tad familiar, it's because it is! While lots of people used scroll logos in the past, these are a little too similar!

And it doesn't stop with the logo! It's not exact, and certainly different enough to keep it out of court, but I'd argue the one has influence over the other? Even to both showing a red plume, despite the fact that Gem always painted theirs white?

I think the unreadable-bit probably read 'High Impact Material'

A quick comparison with what I have here, left to right;

Top Row

Gemodels, Britains Herald (ethylene), Britains Herald (vinyl), Britains Hong Kong, Britains Herald (ethylene), Britains Hong Kong x2 and Gemodels.

Bottom Row

Gemodels, recent from-hollow-cast (Charbens?), Hong Kong copies of Britains x2, unknown (Cavendish or Hill?), Timpo (looking a bit 19thC despite being the same as the others!), unknown from-hollow-cast and Gemodels.

All (other?) versions of Charbens still missing, still in storage.

And many thanks to Jim for putting this curiosity to one side for me to share with you, now we need to find an original and compare card-size; also - you can see why I suspect the four in the pack may be re-paints, it doesn't matter; as if they have been, it's been done to the same style (standard/quality) as the originals, but if you've gone to the trouble of reproducing the card, it's a small matter to strip and clean a tatty set and re-paint them? I think they are original paint though . . . just exploring possibilities!

The second mystery is - why haven't more of these cards shown-up? Who was behind them and when did they appear? The one sent to me has seems to have some age of its own, over and above the reproduced stains of the scanned original.