I feel doubly guilty as I believe Ed went
out and bought these especially as part of an exchange, I'd mentioned railway
figures in passing in an eMail as I'd noticed he was thinning out his Marx and
. . . whoever (Aurburn?) in a post on his Blog a few days earlier, then these
turned-up! And he's chosen carefully to find two very different but interesting
sets.
They are O-gauge or 027, which is a strange
railway system where the rolling stock is nominally scaled to 1:64th (even more
confusingly - 1:64th is US HO in the die-cast and slot-racing world!), while
the figures are scaled to 40mm which is also O-gauge compatible, although
strictly 1:45th, usually referred to as 1:48th . . . if I've understood it all
right; basically they are O-Guage model-railwy, 40mm figures!
In fact I feel triply guilty as I have an
O-Gauge set from ................... in ............. which he sent to the Blog
a decade ago and which isn't even in Picasa yet - I keep meaning to do a
Preiser versus Merten O-guage post and have never quite got round to it, both
boxed are so full it's hard work dealing with one let alone two, and when I did
the wagons and things a few years ago I put off the O-stuff!
Set No.
6193 Prisoners (Black & White Stripes); suggests
other colour-ways are probably available, and looking at the HO-gauge
compatible 'Roco' and Chinatroop sets
earlier only reinforces that suspicion. In this style of uniform they are
pretty-much 'steam era', but you can re-paint them to any, or your local prison
or penitentiary!
All the tropes of a jail or gaol are
covered, we have a Hispanic 'gang-banger' doing weights, a guy contemplating
his crime with a ball and chain, two guys in a chain-gang (or are they digging
a break-out tunnel . . . it's your layout, you decide!), someone waiting to see
the governor with his hands cuffed behind his back and a Hannibal Lector type
in full chains waiting for supper and a nice Chianti . . .
ffth'ffth'ffth'ffth'ffth'ffth!
The other set is also interesting being the
modern take on a set which - had it existed forty years ago - would probably once
have contained all national postal workers, but which now covers the full gamut
of people who come to your door these days.
The figures include a traditional postal
worker in blue uniform, a UPS guy in brown, an internet gig'er on moped, a US
Mail (?) guy with trolley and an owner-driver in jeans and a T-shirt subbing
for a major carrier. You also get a posting 'stand' (pillar-box) and one of
those uniquely-American end-of-the-garden-path post/newspaper holders, with the
little tin flag (that gets flipped-over if there's something in it) printed on
it.
The reverse of the card gives a hint at the
range of sets available in this scale/size and the most interesting one is the
Santa Land one, clearly designed to do seasonal front lawn or garden (front
yard over there) displays of the 'full Griswold' type! But they look familiar .
. . however we'll wait 'till Christmas for that one!
And many thanks to Ed for these two.
2 comments:
I have a memory of these gnome Santa figures being issued by Tobar 1990s with a political satire card header (sadly lost, along with most of the tiny gnomes ) describing some parody on the family gnome making business of PM John Major.
Similar Mark but gno banana! Major's Gnomes have been here for a visit . . . he says all smug, but a quick look at them reveals you to be right on the gnose!
https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2013/05/j-is-for-jolly-joke-against-johnmajor.html
Different paint!
Cheers - H
Post a Comment