B is for Big Set!

Which is how it's been known in Picasa for nearly a year; RTM - Big Set. Peter Evans sent this as part of a parcel back last autumn, and I nearly posted it then, but thought it ought to wait for RTM, and so we'll look at it now.

Gotta' love the Spelling! Branded - if you can call a small, white, paper import-sticker 'branding' - to an S.B. Toys of Manchester, what I like about this set is that it’s packed with stuff! Almost 'Old School' rack-toy, except they tended to have less stuff, but I do have sets (we saw a Blue Box one the other day) where 'planes, ships, AFV's and figures in different scales were shoved together, sometimes with parachute toys (one set has parachutists in two sizes), and in that respect this is the same - although without a parachute toy or ship/boat!

The contents of the left-hand pocket contains the motorcycle which I did include in a post a while ago, but it's out now and nestling with the others in 'their' tub. Familiar figures we'll look at below and some scenic stuff of low grade/quality. I don't know if the flag is a vaguely accurate representation of one of the former Soviet Republics, or a strange Indo-Franco-Argentine hybrid!

The right-hand pocket is probably the more interesting with various figures in three sizes and some more odd's and sods including a more obvious Argentinian flag and some useful 1:32nd'ish POL drums with separate lids.

Below is the contents of the middle pocket, a shiny, semi-metallised play-mat (think: very thin crisp packet) and three larger vehicles/aircraft. Above is three piles, the left hand pile is 'keep', the middle pile is 'charity shop' (got to share the generosity and encourage the next generation of collectors - or I'll run out of readers before I've finished blathering!) while the right-hand pile is 'bin/recycling'!

The figures have been seen here before, associated with the odd brand-mark or two, but these are new, smaller and polyethylene rather than the PVC of the originals and there were only three poses in green, but all six in yellow.

The growing family, to which you can add sandy ones with red-oxide patches of camouflage which I think have been shelfied here in a boxed set with a large tank. The six to the right (which may have been the cause of the last look at these) are even smaller and like the originals are in a PVC or PVC substitute.

The new ones would appear to be second generation copies of a 'family' of figures already on to a third generation. The black one on the right would be even smaller if he didn't come with the thickest base!

This is rather neat, harking back to the 1970's with the Marx-copy stretcher and casualty, but the bearers are newer sculpts in a more generic 'Army Man' style. I failed to note the pillow and posed the casualty the wrong way round!

Three very poor copies of better US-firefighters make-up the rest of the useable figures as far as the collection goes, although the chap in a breathing mask would make a good alien in a sci-fi setting!

While Americans will instantly recognise the middle pose some other nationals may not; I think he's holding two of those slow-burning flares you sometimes see them using in night-time roadblocks in movies? They seem to stick them on the road, or spike them in (?) to direct or channel traffic into lanes.

A quick sizer tells us the stretcher team and firefighters are an almost perfect 54mm, while the modern GI's around 60mm.

The team! Some dodgy stamping-out of the flag-machine has left the new guy looking like an outlaw biker with an interesting 'colours' patch! He's also a slightly different moulding and probably the original donor for the three copies to his right.

Thanks Peter - you don't see sets as busy as this one very often, these days!