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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, February 16, 2019

H is for Hard-plastic Hussar!

It's beginning to look as if just about everything Fontanini produced (most of which they themselves produced in several sizes, materials or finishes) between about 1965 and 1985 were pirated in Hong Kong (in several sizes, materials or finishes), this is yet another!

Blow Mould Figures; Blow Moulded Toy; Fontanini Hussar; Fontanini Piracy; Fontanini Statuette; French Hussar; Hong Kong Copies; Hong Kong Plastic Toy; Hong Kong Toy Soldier; Hussar; Made in Hong Kong; Museum Keepsake; Napoleonic Hussar; Napoleonic Toy Hussar; Napoleonic Toy Soldiers; Plastic Toy Soldier; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tourist Keepsake; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Toy Soldiers; Vintage Toys;
From the commoner sculpt-set of Napoleonic troop types and in the style of the blow-moulded knights we've looked-at in the past, the main difference is that this isn't a blow-mould, being a solid, very-dense, polyethylene lump. Finish is the same as the knights though with a metallic bronze/gold dry-brushed over a flat black.

Over eight inches with the base the figure is a good seven-odd.

Blow Mould Figures; Blow Moulded Toy; Fontanini Hussar; Fontanini Piracy; Fontanini Statuette; French Hussar; Hong Kong Copies; Hong Kong Plastic Toy; Hong Kong Toy Soldier; Hussar; Made in Hong Kong; Museum Keepsake; Napoleonic Hussar; Napoleonic Toy Hussar; Napoleonic Toy Soldiers; Plastic Toy Soldier; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Tourist Keepsake; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Toy Soldiers; Vintage Toys;
The base does seem to be slightly hollow, which may be due to shrinkage (the result of injecting such a large piece), or the use of a blow-mould/Rotary-mould tool with a large shot of plastic designed to be slightly hollow for cost, but tough-enough to survive handling? The little sticker is a generic version of the ones used by HCF, but lots of from-HK import novelties had the same or similar, still do, but now they read 'CHINA'!

The depth of the plinth and strange pinch to one end may be a sign that the statue was pleased in some kind of receiver or holder of some kind, maybe a piece of kitsch furniture or a lamp stand? The Sabretache has a florid, copperplate 'A' on both sides - as per the Fontanini original.

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