N is for Not Co-Ma . . . Except the Ones that Are!

Strangely these appeared on Shitestuff the other day, grandly announced to his eager readership by the 'legend' that is TJF (legend in his own lunchtime!) as Co-Ma figures, but . . . err . . . they aren't! Anyway, in the interests of setting things straight (again!) let's look at them here, now . . . and dispel a couple of recent myths!

I bought six (a 'set') of the seven above (we've looked at the gunmetal one - top left - in the past) at the recent PW show in Whitton/Twickenham, and - hurrying (so many bargains, so little time!) - failed to notice until I got them home that in fact half of them were Res Plastic's issues and the other half were the dwarfish copies/piracies of the original Co-Ma Romans and Barbari or (and henceforth-) 'Vikings'.

Knowing (after a call) that they would reappear at Sandown Park I prepared the above drawing (read scribble!) to help sort out any remaining figures (I knew they'd sold well on the day) and hopefully find some of the ones I needed.

Taking the picture above for the hell of it, I realised I didn't actually need the drawing, as I could just load the images of the figures back onto my camera and use that, so no real reason to subject you to my skeletal-zombie figures either, but I have!

Almost total success was achieved with another of the copies secured, and all three of the missing RP's truffle-hunted from the pile! The same Stadsshite post also explained to its readers that some of the figures had holes for weapons (as - of course - the Co-Ma originals did), this too was a failure of TJF's 'knowledge base' . . . and his abilities to study photographs; two of the figures have crude daggers where they used to have ring-hands in the original, which these aren't!

A similar exercise was carried-out with the Romans, but no similar success was forthcoming, so it's just the three to add to my Co-Ma originals and previously seen copy. It seems the 'fallen helmets' added to the bases (and passed on to the RP re-sculpts) were something conjured by the first copyists who made the above figures, each helmet lying approximately where a bump lays in the Co-Ma original's grass-etched bases.

A couple of comparisons; the copies are much smaller than the Co-Ma donors, but RP beefed them up again, a bit, and while the Co-Ma figures were hard polystyrene, the copies are a soft polyethylene. Note that the gold copy doesn't have horns, but rather two stumps or studs, which seems to be deliberate, but could be a short-short moulding?

More interestingly, the RP's are - mostly - also a soft polyethylene, but one or two of them are the harder ethylene or polypropylene of the gold Romans we've seen before . . . seen rather too much-of, some might feel, but I see Erwin was whinging (again) back at Christmas that he'd never used the RP's, even though the Vichy's limp-dicked hussar (born from the thigh of an angry, retarded troll) has taken my cropped enlargement of Erwin's 'Peruvian' RP figure to illustrate his (hussar's) RP entry in a spreadsheet!

Which is itself (the spreadsheet) equally interesting, as it's also full of my images, despite the limp-dick having gone on record as 'barely knowing' and 'rarely visiting' my site! But I'll be dealing with several of his utterances in a separate post.

They're all awful; the TJF & the PSTSM, the Vichy French and AFD's, along with the three lick-spittle Aussies (Hall, O'Connell and Pye)by turn ; hypocritical, shite-talking, envious, plagiarists, making it up as they go along, or sitting in other-people's dust and vociferously talking-up each other's nonsense in a group-hug of fuck-wittedness!

Although I let the gold RP go six-years ago, I had taken loads of images (although I think I'm using this one again? Doh!), so we can look at all three types together. Obviously, the Res' is scaled 'by eye' but when seen together, he will be found to be slightly larger than the copy but noticeably smaller than the Co-Ma original.

Co-Ma's sculpt is a well-proportioned, proud, graceful figure; sculpted with some care (for the 1950/60's), striking hard, two-handed, at an enemy he is clearly making eye-contact with, a sweeping stroke which will - hopefully - remove the protagonist's head!

The metallic-blue one is a much-poorer copy, the neck lost and the legs shortened leaving an over-developed torso. He is still 'in-line' with his base and remnants of the Co-Ma details (buttons and things) are there, but he's swinging his sword with less purpose!

While Res Plastic's figure is (like the rest of both their sets) a re-working, which seems to refer to both the previous versions; anatomy has improved toward the original, but the neck is still missing, the torso has been turned slightly, and with a further slight turn of the head he is swinging more wildly (in the 'ineffectual' rather than 'angry' sense of the word), the 'fallen helmet' has been cleaned-up (but retained), the buttons, however, have been replaced with some poor machine-tool marks aping the leather segments of the original's 'cuirass' - it's probably got some Latin name! Leatheretta-segmata jerkinius?

The fact that the slight musculature on the Co-Ma figure's right wrist/forearm has - by the incidence of the RP figure - become large welts or scales, suggests the employment of a pantograph in both copying exercises, but work has also been done by hand (body posing), and machine-tools (leather, 'fallen helmet') to change the copy-sculpts slightly.

Another comparison, Co-Ma to the left and two of the copies; I've placed a bit of Blue-Tac under the gold figure to give a suggestion of the missing RP version.

It is a fact, that despite seven or eight mentions, posts or forum threads on these figures over the last 24-months, here and with the derisible-duo, as yet, no evidence has come to light of fourth or fifth types, apart from that rather-odd set, looking like RP's but with hexagonal holes in their backs - where you might expect to find the RP marks! I believe they are an act of vandalism designed to win an argument - which the authors' had already lost?

There is little or no evidence of DSG figures either, except insofar as with both hard and soft plastic versions of RP-marked figures around, DSG may have run the mould (which they are known to hold, or have held) unchanged, or wholesaled/retailed the/some leftover RP-marked stock. I say "little or..." as - if they are genuine - the hex-hole figures seen on Shitestuff may be DSG, but they weren't presented as such by 'Cheech & Chong'!

Neither is there any empirical evidence of Basa having ever carried the Co-Ma figures (which they may have done) or produced their own copies - which they almost certainly didn't. As they (Sterwin) have led us round the garden-path several times trying to cover-up Erwin's original falsehood (that the gold RP's were Peruvian product), one has to ask why they still visit these figures? The figures announced the other day in the 'other place' (as he refers to me!) as ring-handed Co-Ma, are neither Co-Ma, nor ring-handed!

Indeed, while my own ministrations over the course of the debate have provided some facts by way of obvious conclusion, the pathetic pair of poltroons have provided piss-all of pertinence and only succeeded in confusing themselves and each other as we saw earlier in the journey!

The two figures have - in point of fact - been armed with crude daggers, made by simply drilling into one half of the tool and removing the little spigot with would have formed the hole in the hand, so that both the hole and the drill fill with polymer, creating a stumpy, stabbing instrument!

Or, at least, it would be how the originator might do it, the pirates' just avoid the hole while- (or fill it in before-) pantographing, and then only have to drill the stabber-stud!

On the subject of the copies; I don't know who produced them, it may be in the latest book on Italian figures (which I don't have), but I don't recall it being in the earlier volume (which I do have!), it'll probably be someone like Plasticrom (Cané/Grisoni), PRB or Ro-Plast who were all producing rack-toy/'bazaar' stuff and/or knock-offs, in the 1970's?

Given the metallic colours' similarity to those Cane 54/60-mil Vikings which were everywhere about fifteen/twenty years ago (I think PB Toys still have a load?), they may be a Grisoni branded thing?

One is tempted to wonder - given that other people produced several versions of their main earners (Britains khaki Infantry or Starlux combat troops for instance) whether Co-Ma were involved in the soft-plastic copies, but the copies are so poor, that seems unlikely.

True: Britains Hong Kong khaki infantry were as poor compared to their grandparents, but there was a longer period of time between the two generations, and the market had moved-on further when those late PVC atrocities came out of the Far-Eastern colony.

Comparison between the five 'pairs'; you wouldn't be hiding those shield-located marks so easily with a heated screwdriver!

When you look at something as closely as we've ended-up looking at these recently, you tend to end up with as many new questions as answers, and with these as well as who made the first set of copies it's also how Co-Ma allowed these copies to come-about, in the same country?

But looking - again - at Britains, who are known to have defended their intellectual property many times both in the hollow-cast and the plastic eras, yet still suffered loads of piracies, particularly of the khaki infantry, including a few UK-based companies, it may be that sometimes it's easier to turn a blind-eye than try to challenge in court, especially if slight changes to the sculpts will only provide a pay-day for the lawyers!

Also, Co-Ma did change direction, first toward kits and railway accessories, while by the 1980's they were producing more infant-targeted toys and big bath/beach stuff, and those changes seem to have begun quite soon, hence the interest in genuine examples of their [original] figures, in a sea of copies? Perhaps they granted permission for some of the cloning; perhaps they couldn't care because the clones weren't treading on their 'new lawn'?