R is for Romans! Co-Ma . . . et al!

Look what turned-up! Like the spare Frog Bloodhound-keeper I had no idea I had these, and they weren't in the Romans tubs, they were in the unknown military pre-1900 box! I do vaguely recall buying them as a set, in one of those boxes that 16 of the Ambassador's chocolates used to come in, at a Birmingham show, but whether it was the 2009, '10 or '11 show I can't remember.

A set of six, two are integral mouldings, four had ring-hands for a variety of weapons; I have a standard, two spears and a short-sword, although I don't suppose it would look that short sticking out of your Briton'ish clavicle!, but that is what they are called.

It is the separate weapons that supposedly tell us they are Co-Ma as ably demonstrated by TJF a year ago as he proceeded to contradict everything he and his self-abusing monkey-lizard had previously said about them, over the prior month or so!

Note; there are no remnants of spangle-helms in the mud of their bases.

With sword or spear; he's clearly been annoyed by someone or something, and is intending to take his frustration out on a soft, fleshy, target of non-Roman citizenship! Thus the pink-monkey's ever-were, and remain so to this day!

Again some alternate weaponry posing, with the kneeling guy, a spear works well for 'receiving the enemy', but it looks awkward in the hand of the standing guy; who seems to have been designed to take the standard. Sometimes the 'ring-hand' thing has more to do with sculpting and tooling vis-a-vis undercuts than any deliberate attempt at 'swoppet-ism'!

While the figure below and to the right is . . . I haven't the faintest idea! What I do know is that unlike the other six, I've had him for years (long before my short-stay RP figure) due to his sub-size, and that those other two f-witts don't know either!

Hell, he may even be the elusive Basa! But as last year's spat failed to provide a single figure they were sure was Basa, nor any empirical evidence that Basa ever 'did' the Romans, it's still up for grabs! And I got him in Europe, before the Internet was a 'Thing'.

My feeling is that he is an interim design - probably an Italian or French 'bazaar' toy - a piracy, coming between the Co-Ma originals and the RP (Res Plastics) figures, which may well be from his tool, but after it was cleaned-up and the RP moniker added. He DOES have a discarded helmet in his mud, and it's similar to RP's, but he has no marking at all. He also has a slight twist or turn-away compared to the older pose.

As we can see the RP one did here, against the donor! And again; the spangle-helm. Both the twists AND fallen-helmets suggesting RP's moulds WERE the cleaned-up tools of the silver-copy guy; they are - supposedly - the moulds which are now with DSG.

Now . . . IF and it's a big 'if''; Basa got the tools direct from Co-Ma, these main six above could ALL be Basa, they're clean enough to be later production (and not as sharp as Co-Ma original Barbarians or Astronauts), but I don't know - any more than those other two idiots did, once they were 'put on the spot' (just use the Basa tag for the whole sequence of Trumpundbrexidioscy a year ago) - so for now they remain labelled 'Co-Ma (probably)' in the box. What I do know is that my six aren't RP, aren't the poorer copies and probably aren't DSG.

The point I'm making here is that Erwin did use the RP figures on the Vichy site, claiming they were Basa, he then denied he's done so and with TJF's help (and possibly some self-vandalism involving a heated hex-driver bit) used a second set of figure shots to prove nothing other than their joint dishonesty, before they both managed to contradict themselves and each-other with the help of a Co-Ma original/figure matching mine!

Mine are currently commanded by a slightly over-scale Reamsa re-issue on a horse which I assume, presume, and guess is also a Marksmen-era, Reamsa re-issue mount, but I'm 100% sure - I'm not sure! Oops, did I just guess about Spanish toy sol... . . ? Have I just left mysel... . . ? Will TJF have a... . . ? Is he Jecs... . . ? Doh!