M is for Military Stuff

So we turn to the more warlike contents of Chris's donation, and it had a lot of interesting stuff; not in this post were a number of Hong Kong copies of Airfix Japanese I recognised from smaller scale versions (flat sheet bases, primary colours) and I will put them on the Airfix blog in time.

A large bag of Tylers/Mundi Toys bubble-gum premium figures were also included; we looked at them briefly early in the Blog's life, but I will return to them when I have all of them, at the moment I'm a GI and several Jap's short! In the meantime, I posted a link to a very good post on them on Akela's kiosk Blog a while ago, here it is again.

Among the pile of plenty from Chris were a large number of parachute toys from 30mm Christmas cracker novelties to 90mm blow-moulds which will all prove useful on the forthcoming 'Poopatroopa' page! The guy adjacent to the two arrows is the same guy - for scale/continuity.

One was a different pose/type altogether, a bootleg Toy Story figure I suspect, so he got shot separately, while the yellow one (who isn't glow-in-the-dark) is made of a very odd plastic which is semi-transparent and seems to diffuse light, the photographs don't do justice to how he glows with the pen-torch in his cavity!

The Poopatroopa page is in preparation, but now I'll have to re-sort and re-shoot a bunch of the images (I'm not complaining!), but seeing how I seem to have ended-up with a rainbow theme of backgrounds through the running-order, I'll re-shoot with other backgrounds to mix-it-up a bit!

Fantastic! A new Hong Kong tat'm'cycle . . . with rider! AND stabilisers! Look at it, it's too cool for TT school and it's the stuff like this which sets the Blog apart from others! What you can't tell from the image is that one of the wheels keeps coming out, but hot water will sort that, and what would you expect from something which back in the day probably cost an old sixpence!

The shot below is various figures of merit or interest, from the back left we have a 1:16th/18th German tank commander, two New Ray copies (or late production, their current catalogue has figures equally poor and unpainted compared to their early production), an Airfix Commando piracy, head-swapped to the ANZACs, I vaguely recognise him and may have some others somewhere, but they may just be similar based (kidney/figure-eight) Airfix 8th Army copies?

Next is one of two (the other crawling in front) original sculpt, modern made in China 'Army Men', he's a bit comical (like those zombies we were looking at a year ago - same sculptor?) but his mate is a very nice figure in an unusual pose. I wondered if the grey one goes with them but I don't think so.

Finally a nice Airfix Russian/GI hybrid knock-off, there were a couple but I selected this one for the line-up as it's the most obvious.

We've dealt with two of the front row, the other is very odd, and just the sort of thing I like to add to the collection - he looks like he's been taken out of the mould too early and received a burst-tumor of his own hot polymer at the waist-line, but closer inspection reveals helmet-netting and while I can't imagine quite how it happened, it would seem something went wrong either during moulding or at the point of mould-release leading to a second runner, or the other end of this figures runner got welded to this chap and by the time the operator had sorted it, he was in the for-retail product-stillage with his mate's head still firmly part of him, and his own legs now making him a contender for Pontin's knobbly-knees competition!! Underneath the mess is the common'ish copy of Lido's first version GI's, we looked at them here.

The Wild West threw-up some treats too, with two Plasticom premium/lolly-sticks, a CMV totem-pole, an ABC Indian (front right) and interesting HK copy in 40mm (red), a brown Wing Lung Indian - Airfix copy, two premiums and a huge Mohican Indian (back right) who's like nothing I've seen since the Peco's Unbreakable Toy Figures and is hard to date, it's a two-part swivel-waist toy, with separate arms, head and rifle, all glued in-place (bar the waist which pops-off) and may be modern'ish? He has no marking beyond a double-imprinted 2 on his foot, probably a mould-cavity marker.

The two premiums are from Collonil (red cowboy) and the other is marked Plume Brisee (marbled-pink Indian) but I'm not sure if that is a brand or - more likely - his name (Broken Feather)? According to Ludo's premium site he was made by Alkastap in France and (/or also) issued by Café Legal, Codec, Bonux, and others. I particularly like the Indian, I think he's pointing at a red-necked white Texan, possibly in El Paso and saying "You; illegal, go back where you came from!" Both are polyethylene.

The overall winner was the Britains-copy sucker-Guardsman on the right, I think I have one (standing firing) which has been on the blog, but if memory serves he's grubby and a darker red, this one is a bright-scarlet minter!

The two weights are a bit of a quandary? Are they joke weights for a comedy/clown weight-lifter in a circus set, or are they test-weight or counter-weight wagon-loads from a model railway or heavy-haulage lorry? Maybe from a crane model? If anyone knows, put us right! They are a dense PVC, which is stable and the integral lifting-loops are quite firm and unbroken which could point to good quality or recent production?

The other two figures are from the same franchise (Walden?), presumably a movie, but I can't think what? The dwarf looks like Gimli, but the armour is wrong I think, while the centaur wasn't in Lord of the Rings, nor was Disney involved, so I thought maybe the Lion/Witch/Wardrobe series but I don't think they started filming until much later; 2012'ish?

Anyway, one (the centaur) seems to be a Nēstlē premium in hard polystyrene plastic, the other from a set of Hasbro PVC-like toy or action figures? They are marked as follows and I will do a little research when I post, to see if I can ID the film, which I will add below.

Nēstlē

CЄ

© Disney/Walden

China TAG

18M+

(Centaur - Hard styrene, single piece)

© Disney / Walden

© Hasbro

2005 China

(Dwarf - PVC three points of articulation, ring-hands, separate axe)

Both about 50mm

It IS The Chronical's of Narnia - the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - I must say I thought they were later films, show's how quickly I'm getting how old?!

Many-many thanks to Chris Smith for all these, and everything else in the parcel, which will prove very useful on the blog going forwards, and has already added to the sheepdog story and enhanced the recent sentry-box post - cheers Chris, much appreciated!