This was a charity-shop job earlier in the
week, and I was trying to gauge the size of the thing from the very small box,
and whether it was the same as the one I bought years ago, after another
Blogger (who I'm afraid I've forgotten the name of) highlighted them on his
Blog (The Works it was). I reckoned
it couldn't be the same; in addition it was only 95p, so I figured it was worth
a punt?
Once I'd shot the pictures for Friday's 'News,
Views . . . ' I began to suspect it was the same, the puzzle-mat seemed
the same and the stones also felt/looked familiar as they fell into place,
especially the L-shaped ones in the outer circle, but once it was all in place
I thought it looked too small to re-do the battle I'd done on the previous
posting. Also I couldn't find the old one on the dongles!
Eventually I found it on the Airfix Dongle
as I'd posted one image there (reproduced above as I still haven't found the
original sample!), and it's odd, but clever . . .
. . . both sets are by the same
maker/publisher; Running Press, and
to the eye, the stones seem to be about the same size, but the puzzle-disc base
is about 30% smaller, and the whole thing has been contracted - the inner
circle are all closed up (you wouldn't get a chariot through the new gap!),
while two big gaps in the outer circle have been done away with to pull the
whole thing tighter.
But closer inspection reveals that the
stone may be smaller too. I will dig the old one out and do a proper comparison
at some point (soon'ish - I think I know where it is), and I suspect the stones
will be the same 30-odd% reduced. It's hard to judge as these are in a very
small box while the others were spread-out in two or three layers of blisters.
Looking at the stones they (or some) look
similar but not all identical and it may be that pantographing, or a scaling
down of a CAD .dwg for 3D printing was employed in the production of new
masters? Their finished state, like the earlier set is poured, cold-cast,
two-part epoxy 'polyresin'.
I think these are part of a range of
novelty 'things' (toys, games, pastimes and executive trinkets) in little
boxes, that you find in places like Waterston's
in a dedicated rack-tree; we've seen a Dalek here, and [foam] paper-planes? While
the other was a kiddies activity book, but between the two, I may be able to
produce a better 'complete' example one day, as it wasn't in its current state
when the Romans arrived!
Although for those finding this one only,
there were lots of stone circles once, with none of them the size or scale of
Stonehenge, so imagination is the only limit and it'll make a great focus-piece
of scenery in war-gaming . . . the message of the original post elsewhere I
think!
2 comments:
You have somw very nice game scenry pieces.
I'll try and dig the first one out Jan and compare them properly!
H
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