T és per 'Tienda de Campaña de Jecsan'

The search term I used to find the images I needed to cobble this slightly controversial post together at short-notice, but a bit of controversy at Easter seems like a good idea, people shouldn't get too comfortable, sat at home stuffing themselves with chocolate as they celebrate the apparent wrongful conviction and state-sponsored murder of the claimed Messiah!

But is it British?

Following the posting of the tent in the 'What The !&*$?' section of Plastic Warrior magazine's issue 173, I wrote the following to the Editor;

I was slightly surprised to see the request for information on the tent in PW173, as I'd assumed (never assume!) everyone thought it was Trojan, so I thought it was Trojan too - still learning this big-scale malarkey!

I now offer the possibility it may originate next door in Speedwell's stable? The colours on mine match the more mixed, marbled Speedwell Germans that came with it?

I also thought Trojan as they list both a red cross and camouflaged version in their catalogue, and I'm sure I've have seen plain-white ones (cat. 1134), assuming mine is 'camouflaged' (cat. 1133)?

Might the tent be one of the either-maker items which plague study of both . . . and others! Perhaps supplied by Speedwell to Trojan?

Only to be slapped-down with the news that it was in the big book of Spain and that seemed to be the end of the matter!

Hoovered-up study material!

Now, there is no doubt that Jecsan (who were revealed in the latest PW; Issue 174, to be the originator) have a number of these tents, indeed a couple of Google searches have revealed that as a Spanish toy, it's not even slightly rare, there were lots on Todocolecction last week, both colours, with and without the 'bedding insert' and all variants.

However in answer to the original question in PW173; "Does anyone know who made the military tent, below?" I am going to say, yes; probably Speedwell and/or Trojan. For the simple reason that it is camouflaged, or at least it is marbled/flecked with at least three colours in an attempt at camouflage.

But, let's look at the Spanish oeuvre first to get our bearings and . . .

Grrrreeeeeen, pure grrrreeeeen!

. . . spot the deliberate mistake - if you haven't already from the previous image; it would appear the Spanish forgot to sell themselves any 'camouflaged' ones and shipped them all to Britain, where I have now seen at least four?

It is a fact that while there may be marbled ones in Spain, I have yet to find one, but, all the non-white ones I've seen in the UK (and been told are 'Trojan') are marbled. At which point I should add that I've seen white ones over here too, but they are - by design - going to prove harder to ascribe, although I have a feeling one of them had painted red-crosses?

But the Spanish green ones are flat green, several shades, from a yellowish-olive green through a darker olive-drab to a pale-olive, some of which difference may be due to lighting, but that there are different greens is for sure, however; they are all flat, monotypes.

Whites

Now the white ones - definitely Spanish - raise several other points, which as I am only proposing a theory here, are worth looking at, although it's not all that clear and it will take/needs a Spanish collector to study and annotate them properly.

Most (but not all) the Spanish white tents, have a thinner window-bar on the open 'vent' window, it also has a more delicate rolled-up vent-cover relief-sculpting than the 'cheese slab' on the mouldings with a thicker window-bar (the tent outlined with hatchings - centre-left). However there is evidence for thin bars on some green ones too, so there were clearly at least two machine-tools.

I'm not so convinced about the differences I marked on, for the over-hang wavy-bits, I think it had more to do with angles of shots and a short-shot moulding (the 'scalloped' one).

Fully Glazed!

Another major difference between the tool shots is that some tents have a second window on the back wall of the 'canvas', a rather fetching dormer-type with six framed panes in two panels meeting in the centre, and presumably opening and closing - if the carpenter remembered to put the hinges in!!

One of the things that needs more work (and if a Spaniard doesn't do it soon, Todocolecction will provide me with enough evidence to confirm or disprove myself) is the possibility (likelihood?) than those tents with rear etched-windows are the tents which also have . . .

In a flap

. . . a straight-edged flap to the left of the door, as opposed to the more common curved edge, and again, while I think I saw a green one with rear-window, I couldn't find it on a second search, so for now it has to be assumed to be a white tent 'thing'.

Comparison

While the other Internet images here today have been screencaps or crop-outs, I am using this one (on the left) whole for the legitimate 'research purpose' of comparing with mine. You can see that they are the same tool, but the Spanish one is a flat green, and poorer-finished, being both more flashy, and less fettled.

The [UK] one has been cleaned-up, but had less flash to clean up, to begin with, especially on the four long internal mould release-pin channels, necessary to push the deep moulding off the male half of the mould. The strange off-set window cavity (with the thicker bar) is also the same.

It would seem that there are two tools identifiable from this early, slightly cursory work, one having the thin window bar, extra etched window and straight-edge to the door-flap, mostly white, and one with no second window, a curved flap and a thick window bar, mostly plain green if found in Spain, often camouflaged if found in the UK.

Different treatments of the figures

but both close to the tent's mix.

At this point the theory needs to speculate! I suspect that if the theory (and there's nothing wrong with a theory, it remains only a theory until proven or disproven) that Speedwell and/or Trojan are responsible for the UK found camouflage versions is true; they came after the thin window-bar version had been in production for some time.

The fact that the thin bars are often broken, along with the daft window on the rear wall led to the development of the second version with a more robust window-bar and no rear window, in the production of which the door-flap was also given a little more 'sag'.

However there may be other versions and I will continue to pore-over images as they become available!

Now it may be that any UK version is a straight copy, but I think they may have had first dibs on the new tool, hence the cleaner castings? The Spanish would have had a stock of the old mostly (all?) white ones, and switched to the latter version after it was returned - from the UK?

The reasoning for a relationship is not hard, there was a lot of mould-swapping back in the day, the whole Trojan/Speedwell and UNA/VP thing has Kentoy behind it, one of the Kentoy sculptors worked with the Spanish (Reamsa) . . . draw your own picture; it's only a theory!

Three colours clearly visible

at the neatly-trimmed gate-mark

With the addition of a fourth colour (sand) these Speedwell Germans are manufactured in a very similar colour-way and the other three colours (oxide-red, herb-green and black) are a good match - the herb green goes a bit appley where it mixed with the sand, but on the rifle's four-grip it's the same herby or pale-jade shade.

Trojan carried two tents in their catalogue, priced to match a stretcher team (one shilling and sixpence), which would be approximately right for the amount of plastic in this tent; 

• ·         Cat. 1133 - Camouflaged Tent
• ·         Cat. 1134 - Red Cross Tent 

. . . for which there are no other candidates, the only likely one I knew-of turned out to be Starlux years ago - a small two-man pup-tent, also marbled but in a phenolic or styrol polymer!

Also Trojan - who were (only a few years ago) a barely-understood 'minor make' - have turned out to be a prolific maker of toys, novelties and plaything's including flying models of aircraft and gliders, collectors cards, blow-moulds and solid plastic toy soldiers, with Colin Penn's recent discovery probably also involved and they (Trojan) may well have had the clout (or 'imagination') to hire-in a Spanish mould.

Some older collectors already thought this (the camouflaged) tent was Trojan, but the match being with Speedwell figures, that makes it a bit murkier. The people from whom I bought mine had been to the Trojan works back in the 1950's/60's, and large numbers of both Speedwell and Trojan figures were in that same 'big purchase'.

They also reported a vat of liquid in the stables, from which people were taking 'stuff', this is unlikely to be a polymer (even though the witness though it was - hot plastic, out of its containment vessel doesn't behave like a liquid, but more like a writhing and rapidly solidifying snake - or hot blancmange!) so they may also be responsible for some of the many unknown hollow-cast or solid lead figures in the back of Joplin's 'Big Book'? Or maybe they were casting components for the model aircraft?

The real point is that for the theory to hold until further evidence comes to light, one only has to accept that there don't seem to be Jecsan camouflaged versions in Spain, but there are a few in the UK, Trojan had a varied oeuvre and a camouflaged tent in their catalogue, there's no other obvious candidate for the Trojan tent at the moment and . . . err . . . that's it.

Speedwell and/or, of/for Trojan tent via Jecsan? I'm not saying they ARE, but I am saying they MIGHT be!

Hell - Jecsan may even have got the tent from the Brit's, they (Speedwell / Trojan) were active in the 1950's, the Jecsan set's which carried these are dated (by the Spanish) to the 1960's? But that's a mischievous-thought rather than a serious part of the theory!

 

19th May 2022 - Now (2022) to be found in the Trojan Special publication as Trojan! I still prefer Speedwell, but there was cross-fertilisation!

Boy Scout's on manoeuvres

Four very similar mould release-pin marks are to be seen here on a modern Hong Kong/China tent, again: to help 'pop' the moulding off the deep male half of the tool. Anyone know whose sets it was found in?