B is for Beefeater

I hope I had Y is for Yeoman of the Guard last time, 'cos if I've used B twice I wasted an opportunity to get a Y in the tags! Since looking at one before Christmas, I've combined the various odds on this subject and shot the Charbens' one while I was at it!

The 'odds' first and from the left; The Doll which came in a Charity shop purchase just before Christmas, only because I'd got the same doll in a household cavalry uniform a few weeks earlier, but I have no good excuse for that prior purchase! Next to him on the plinth is a wooden pop-up, which was from Wilkinson's (Wilco) I think, I also think we've seen it before?

The third figure is [more!] resin, and only joined the team a couple of weeks ago, Peter Evans gave him to me in London the other day, he's presumably a current or recent Tourist thing, but - interestingly - is in the uniform of the old Elizabethan tower-guards, although at that time they would have been guarding the city gates, Bishops' palaces and Windsor castle as well - I imagine?

The fourth was among the first of Britains 'New Metal' figures back when my brother and I were just getting out of toys in favour of hard rock, beer and cigarettes! He has a small square base in a Deetail style, but is himself all-metal with a plastic partisan that seems impossible to replace.

Then the Hong Kong one we saw recently and lastly a little PVC/vinyl-rubber key-ring tourist keepsake (his loop's been removed - it arched over the top of his headdress) I picked-up years ago as a small scale curiosity.

The Charbens one is an odd cove, he has the sort of googly-bug-eyes you might expect to find on Hong Kong sub-piracies, not home-grown figures, but there you go! The unpainted figure is a re-issue and the one on the far right seems to be an attempt to re-ignite the spark of tourist trinkets inherent is the figure, using the recent re-issues, but may just be a gloss home-paint in the Hollow-cast 'Toy Soldier' style.

The group together make a nice sample of different treatments, which I've lined-up in what might be the age order, with earlier, better painted to the left and latter re-issues to the right?