I've been checking charity shops for years
and this year has been a particularly good one for finds; no rhyme or reason
for it, it just has! I used to get the odd bag here and there, through the
1990's/2010's but I was only looking for small scale, yet would only see - to pass
on - the odd larger-scale bag of farm or dinosaurs, while occasionally noticing
the Fontanini stuff which is a perennial
staple of these shops; only the other day I let a couple - of poor-paint clowns
- go.
Then I had a bit of luck when I started
moving to large scale back in 2009/10, from shops in Newbury, but this year's
haul has been quite sizable and varied, with something every week or two.
Back in Rack Toy Month I was discussing in one post the Jaru sculpts and their
similarity to those of Ocean, Soma and Shing Hing's sets. In the case
of Shing Hing I was using
shelfies I'd taken in Smyths'
bloody-great, empty-hanger in Farnborough, and what do you know; they turned-up
the other day, loose, in a charity shop!
I'll probably save the comparisons 'till
the next RTM or the next time we look at all the figures together, but as a
box-ticker on Shing Hing, let's add
them to the tag-list! Four nations, German, US, British and . . .
. . . Japanese troops, all in the same soft
PVC as those aforementioned makers and pretty-much run of the mill China-troops,
but all worth a comment or two.
In the case of the Japanese it's worth
noting that while four of the poses are ex-Airfix,
the other eight (for a 12-count pose total) are taken from the Ecsi/Ertl poses previously copied back
in the 1990's by Rado Industries and
others as we saw here, previously in polyethylene, quite tinny in the case of
the Ri-Toys, but a softer Airfix-figure style polymer in the case
of the copies-of-copies.
The' enemy' for the Iwo Jima battle I seem to
recall suggesting back in RTM, although six of the poses are
the common 'Fritz helmet' post-Cold War China-troops common to many current
Chinese manufacturers and their shippers.
The other six are good old Matchbox's US Infantry set, copied with
little attention to detail, ironic as the half-dozen modern figures are among
the better versions of these common poses.
The ambiguity of the US soldiers is not a
problem carried-over to the British set, again 12 poses, but all taken from Matchbox; their 8th Army this time. Only
missing the Monty character, the heavy-weapons and crews and the surrendering
German DAK 'Schultz', I've also kept two pipers so I can paint-up one at some
point!
These will need comparing with the Ocean Desert Sales figures to which they
look very similar, but Ocean don't
have the second figure from the left on the top row - as far as I know.
The Germans pull from three original
Western manufacturers 1970's-set's; two Matchbox
(Afrika Korps - 7 poses, and German Infantry - 2 poses) and one Airfix original; German Infantry which
provides the three poses bottom left.
There is a small amount of colour variation
among the figures, most noticeable with the paler and darker greens of the
Japanese, who also had a miss-mould, shooting downward, as he's curled-forward
a bit.
Every figure is marked with an 'S. H. MADE
IN CHINA', following the newer trend we've watched unfolding here for Chinese
and HK-Chinese companies to build brand, and brand-recognition in a way few
used to.
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