H is for Hiding . . . in plain sight!

Back in November 2011, I posted the below image as part of the early draft of the '1949 - 1960 (approximately); Early Toy Soldiers' page on the Airfix Blog, saying at the time:

"...various mould variants of the Paratrooper seem to exist - both versions shown in the Plastic Warrior publication 'Airfix - The Early Days' have different arm-gaps from mine - and each other."

Then - in 2014; whenever I did the Khaki Infantry Page, or soon after it was posted in its early form, Barney Brown kindly sent me a bunch of images for it. Most of them were clean examples of easy ('ish - for Khaki Infantry) to ID stuff which was slotted into the appropriate sections of the page. A couple were more problematical and went under the question marks section, one of them was the image below, which remains there, un-annotated.

I now think; as all the above has been screaming at anyone caring to notice; that they are not Airfix, but both the still to be identified (until Saturday-gone when it struck me!) Trojan figure/s from set 1193 - Parachute Battalion, which, according to the little A7'ish buff-covered catalogue I have, contained 3 carded figures.

Now, it may be that you got three of the same figures, or a mix with the ex-Timpo 'solid' GI's binocular guy and another, yet to be ID'd pose. Equally; it may be that some of the other unknowns from the Khaki Infantry page (with similar paint) were part of a larger [un-catalogued] boxed set, but whatever, there are no other 'unknown' figures - like the two above - that I know-of, which would fit the bill, so I suspect you got three copies of the Airfix-Pierwood 'Airborne' figure on your [complete] carded set 1193?

The most obvious difference between the two figures (Airfix-Pierwood and Trojan) is in the base, where the Anglo-Antipodean figure has one foot forward of the other and a neat, smooth-domed, sharp edged base with a clear release-pin mark dead-front-centre (arrowed), while the Trojan figure's feet are together and the base is a lumpy, blobby thing that looks like a cast of a piece of used Blue-Tac!

Apropos nothing in particular - what the hell happened to Pritt 'Buddies' . . . anyone else remember the little rows of squidgy, pink squares, lined-up like a brigade of Napoleonic map-markers on their grease-proof sheets?

Equally obvious is the difference at the other end of the figure, where the Airfix chap wears a helmet-net on his helmet, the Trojan having a slightly lopsided smooth 'blob' which is found painted as both a herb-green helmet or a maroon paratrooper beret, but rather fails to convince as either!

Other differences are in the gaps between the arms and the body where the Trojan has more of an ovoid 'atoll', while the Airfix has more of a shoulder-of-mutton shape! The quick-release buckle is actually better rendered on the Trojan figure than on the Airfix, where it looks more-like a Tunnock's tea-cake, and the main-member of the open-frame 'para' butt - on the pop-gun both figures are equipped-with - differs slightly with Airfix having a broader tube which appears to taper toward the working-parts, while the Trojan one is a thin wire of constant thickness.

The two (Barney's on the right and mine to the left), look to be quite different between them, but carful study suggests most of the differences are down to the lighting and angles of the two shots, along with the fact that mine is  a little more play-worn, although different cavities or even tools can't be ruled out, especially given the numbers of 'Unknown' still in the Khaki Infantry ourvre, some of which seem to have 'Trojan' paint matching these.

But I wouldn't present these to you as I have, if I wasn't pretty sure they are the Trojan Parachute Battalion figures. And thanks to Barney for one of the pieces in this jigsaw, bit's of which have been hidden in plain sight for years, here - on Small Scale World . . . what else is lurking?!

Due to the vaguries of 'Pages' over 'Posts', I have already updated the other two pages as some of you may have noticed on the Airfix blog yesterday afternoon!