M is for More Mashed Military Men

But these aren't original sculpts, although as the exception that proves the rule, one of them is! Also they ought to be on the Hong Kong/Giant blog, and will reappear there when I do all the Khaki Infantry together, but for now I've nicked one image from those posts to add to these new ones for a quick overview!

Not the in-depth stuff of the US figures, but after some eMail correspondence with a German reader, following-on from the Wild West flats day, about the shit I post, it is clear some of you like the 'shit' and the coverage of it here, and these figures - on one level - are about as shit as it gets!

These are the least shit of the lot, and only barely related to the others, being both larger (50mm+ for the radio operator) and better quality, but they are taken - in part - from the Cherilea 54mm Khaki infantry so they can kick this box-ticker off.

Radio operator is by-the-by, but the other is interesting in that he's a leg-reversed copy of the advancing Lone Star figure, further converted to an artilleryman with the addition of a large shell. I'm guessing therefore, these two may be play-value additions to a plastic (or cheap die-cast) toy cannon or field-piece?

The next sample, a little smaller at 40-odd millimetres than the previous trio; runs to four! They differ in having a machine-gunner who is relatively unique, lying on two sandbags draped over the rear leg of the MG's tripod it's had some thought dedicated to it, makes you wonder why they didn't produce a whole set while they were at it!

The other three are common sculpts, but these seem to be earlier that the other two sets we'll look at, and despite the warping of the gunner and chewed state of the flamethrower, these are quite good in comparison with the next two lots, and are a chalky, 1950's polyethylene plastic in 35mm.

These have thicker, slab-sided bases compared with the previous or next lot, and seem the commoner of the three types I've identified (and when got them out for the photo-shoot it was 'five types'!), although that's in part because I got a large lot of 40-odd+ of the dark 'staff-car' green ones at one go, probably the contents of a similar bag to those Pal's on Kent Sprecher's site the other day.

There were five types because whenever I get mixed lots with 'numbers' of HK stuff similar to stuff already in the collection, I tend to bag them anew until they get a sort, and their sort came at the start of the photo-shoot,; using a magnifying-glass to compare etching detail, pose signals (the officer's pistol is a grenade!), machine marks and the bases, quickly broke two bags down into the other three.

The bottom row has come-in in one's and two's over the 41-years I've been collecting, but are the same tool, although the hose of the flame-thrower has less segments, so a re-cut tool or multiple cavities? This and the next lot only seem to have the five poses - two lifted from Britains, two from Lone Star and a Crescent, the first lot - given the MG gunner - may have had more.

These are the poorest quality, and my loose sample is even poorer for being mostly distorted by early removal from the tool, much simplified, and hand-cut copies rather than pantograph; they may yet prove to be actually commoner than the previous set, but I haven't found a similar large lot yet.

The grenade of the previous two sets has become the officer's bottle, now that's how to do war in style - "Crack a tube Bruce!" Although with the distorted blue one it looks more like he's chucking a Molotov cocktail.

I also think these are copied from the first lot, not the second lot as they have the same clipped-ends to the bases.

Upper shot has the 50mm on the left (due to his posing he's the same height as the other three, but his oppo' on the com's is much taller than all of them, see below) and then the three Cherilea/Lone Star copy sets in the order I think they [probably] hit the toy racks of the West.

Lower image is a carded set from the Opie collection, but undated (due to the over-all plastic sheet cover I suspect), possibly referencing the Gloucester's show in Korea, it also gives some of the other colours you can find for this late, glossy version and these aren't distorted, so my lose ones must be a Monday morning or Friday afternoon lot!

I've seen them (some/any of the above - not the very first lot) on display cards for gum-ball machines, I know they came in crackers and I bet they were available for lucky-bags?

Finally a scaler between today's figures and those from Tuesday; you can see that the Radio Operator is getting on for a full 54mm going down to 40-odd for the common ones.