M is for Miscellaneous Metal Marvels

This is the whole sheet from which the 'bikes we saw earlier were cropped-out of. I have a small collection of mostly accidentally acquired metal flats, and I store them on these A4 sheets of foam-core craft material, white for painted or 'odds', black to better display bare-metal castings.

They can then be stacked in a 9-litre Really Useful Box (I'm not being paid for this, they're just brilliant boxes), without damage, and bent or damaged flats can be carefully straitened by being pushed onto the sheet with a block of hard-wood, safe in the knowledge they won't get bent again.

Obviously, if I get a whole set, they get their own sheet, if I have a bunch of similar small samples (semi-flat red-coats in 20-30mm; camp scenes and marching, seem common 'odds') they go together on one sheet, which leaves a couple of sheets for everything else . . .

. . . of which this is the non-military 'Bits & Bobs' sheet!

And it's a real mixed bag; I have meandered over it - conversationally - planning the blurb in my head, but it'll be easier for you if I work left-to-right, top-to-bottom -

The shrub-line and hedge are actually just as likely to be from larger scale toy soldier boxed sets as they are from sets of flats, while the archer's pavise between them is not technically a 'flat', being a 25mm war-games accessory for fully round figures (Gisby - recognise it?), but it fits as a flat!

Two obvious game-playing pieces, then one of the most interesting things in my whole collection, it is in point of fact actually nearly fully-round, but the nature of the sculpt and the base means this is the best place to store it. It appears to be two sheets of brass, beaten into shape (against a steel former, or pair of steel formers?), which have then been braised together to create a hollow 'tin' model . . . but it's not clear. If it wasn't for the razor-sharp base I'd assume an old penny-priced bracelet-charm?

The next three (which came from Adrian Little I think?) are semi-flat and - in part - 'spirit-painted' (a kind of ink which shines metallic from the bare-metal showing through) in the fashion of old penny-toys, so I guess some kind of penny-toy group, incomplete, possibly characters from a German folk-tale? But they could be early model-railway figures; one seems to be holding a dipping-net . . . tadpole hunters!

The two cows we've seen here at Small Scale World, they came in a mucked-about with Heinrichsen box (I think) with an odd mix of Napoleonic casualty and colonial types.

Almost certainly board-game playing-pieces for the whole row, and probably both incomplete sets, with the three larger cars (also thanks Adrian!) being from a probable four, the smaller ones could have more missing brothers? They (the small pair) are also die-cast mazac.

The petrol cans (cooking oil?) will be from an early slush-cast vehicle (or dolls house accessory) set I suspect, while the tatty fence-line could be from a larger-scale, boxed, farm set? The owl is a more-modern casting, semi-professionally painted and seen here before - I think.

Doing the last two rows together - we've seen the tree from the same Heinrichsen set and the 'bikes this morning, which leaves another relatively modern animal - the deer, a dog of unknown orphanage and three pieces of railing.

The round-tipped piece is lead and from an unknown flat set, the two on the bottom row are a long-run and fragment of rigid die-cast mazac, railway-station railing from Wardie - Mastermodels and therefore - again - not technically 'flats', but flat enough!