About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

E is for Elastolene . . . Geddit?

Not Elastolin; those filthy enemy toys only still available from Yorkville's ImporthausOh; no, no, no . . . these are good British toys, British made by plucky Brit's in stand-alone British Britain don't-yer-know!

Hurrumph! Fussa-russa! . . . you can see where Brwreakshit came from!

Brent Composition; Brent Toy Products Ltd.; Brent Toy Soldiers; British Army Red Cross Unit; British Army Toy; British Infantry In Action; Composition British Infantry; Composition Toy; Composition Toy Soldiers; Dispatch Riders; Elastolene; Infantry Group; Infantry In Action; Infantry Regiment Series; London W2; Practically Unbreakable; Red Cross Unit; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soldiers In Action; Soldiers of The British Empire; Stretcher Bearers; Toy Models; Vintage Brent Figures; Vintage Composition; WWII Toy Soldiers;
"Practically unbreakable", actually quite frangible! Although - to be fair - you don't see these with the same damage you can find on playworn Elastolin or Lineol, but that may be because once they start to go, they go all the way, quickly?

The work of Brent, these are the smaller - 54mm - figures and dated by the gas-mask cases on their chests, take us back to the early years of the war; to the BEF and Home Guard, but presumably after the war-privation of materials had come into effect?

I assume the fluffy padding in the Stretcher Bearers set is a modern addition, they would have been sewn onto card-inserts or set in wood-wool or something, the farm (coming next) had a slotted card but with a much deeper box.

The 'Group' set has slightly random contents with two duplicates (grenade thrower and advancing with respirator on), while missing two poses.

Brent Composition; Brent Toy Products Ltd.; Brent Toy Soldiers; British Army Red Cross Unit; British Army Toy; British Infantry In Action; Composition British Infantry; Composition Toy; Composition Toy Soldiers; Dispatch Riders; Elastolene; Infantry Group; Infantry In Action; Infantry Regiment Series; London W2; Practically Unbreakable; Red Cross Unit; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soldiers In Action; Soldiers of The British Empire; Stretcher Bearers; Toy Models; Vintage Brent Figures; Vintage Composition; WWII Toy Soldiers;
There were eight poses in total, I don't have the grenade thrower yet, and actually don't have all these now (swapsies), but within the sample you can see colour variations and the size/pose differences you'd expect from oven-dried [inedible] 'dough' figures!

Brent Composition; Brent Toy Products Ltd.; Brent Toy Soldiers; British Army Red Cross Unit; British Army Toy; British Infantry In Action; Composition British Infantry; Composition Toy; Composition Toy Soldiers; Dispatch Riders; Elastolene; Infantry Group; Infantry In Action; Infantry Regiment Series; London W2; Practically Unbreakable; Red Cross Unit; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soldiers In Action; Soldiers of The British Empire; Stretcher Bearers; Toy Models; Vintage Brent Figures; Vintage Composition; WWII Toy Soldiers;
Five of the poses in close-up; note the colour variations of the ready/sentry challenging guy (bottom right), weapon barrels are provided by small panel-pins, the head used to give the idea of a muzzle or flash-eliminator, I've never encountered Brent badly damaged-enough to reveal whether or not there is a whole wire armature, but I suspect not?

Brent Composition; Brent Toy Products Ltd.; Brent Toy Soldiers; British Army Red Cross Unit; British Army Toy; British Infantry In Action; Composition British Infantry; Composition Toy; Composition Toy Soldiers; Dispatch Riders; Elastolene; Infantry Group; Infantry In Action; Infantry Regiment Series; London W2; Practically Unbreakable; Red Cross Unit; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soldiers In Action; Soldiers of The British Empire; Stretcher Bearers; Toy Models; Vintage Brent Figures; Vintage Composition; WWII Toy Soldiers;
Three more; clearly there is an armature for the machine-gun, which is less Vicker's own and more Bugsy Malone's splurge-gun! The prone figure is similar to several hollow-cast shooters, but not connected to the 'unknown' early-British plastic prone figure I've had a stab at attributing in the past.

Brent Composition; Brent Toy Products Ltd.; Brent Toy Soldiers; British Army Red Cross Unit; British Army Toy; British Infantry In Action; Composition British Infantry; Composition Toy; Composition Toy Soldiers; Dispatch Riders; Elastolene; Infantry Group; Infantry In Action; Infantry Regiment Series; London W2; Practically Unbreakable; Red Cross Unit; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soldiers In Action; Soldiers of The British Empire; Stretcher Bearers; Toy Models; Vintage Brent Figures; Vintage Composition; WWII Toy Soldiers;
Also missing from my collection (and manythanks to Adrian Little for letting me shoot his, from/and also the boxed sets above), the stretcher is a simple affair of cartridge paper wrapped round a couple of stiff wire 'handles', the casualty seems to have been involved in the same incident as Timpo's swoppet, maybe they banged heads getting out of little Johnny's biscuit-tin!

Brent Composition; Brent Toy Products Ltd.; Brent Toy Soldiers; British Army Red Cross Unit; British Army Toy; British Infantry In Action; Composition British Infantry; Composition Toy; Composition Toy Soldiers; Dispatch Riders; Elastolene; Infantry Group; Infantry In Action; Infantry Regiment Series; London W2; Practically Unbreakable; Red Cross Unit; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soldiers In Action; Soldiers of The British Empire; Stretcher Bearers; Toy Models; Vintage Brent Figures; Vintage Composition; WWII Toy Soldiers;
Differences between two examples of the same pose, I thought the shorter pack was down to a misplaced thumb or finger catching the top and squishing it down a bit! But in fact it's shorter at the bottom end, so different cavities, or separate moulds, these may have been produced with hand-clamp type tools?

Despite their crudity of manufacture, they are OK figures, and with no lead available, you'd be happy to find these under the tree at Christmas; if you were a toy soldier fan . . . did anyone do composition footballers?

Brent Composition; Brent Toy Products Ltd.; Brent Toy Soldiers; British Army Red Cross Unit; British Army Toy; British Infantry In Action; Composition British Infantry; Composition Toy; Composition Toy Soldiers; Dispatch Riders; Elastolene; Infantry Group; Infantry In Action; Infantry Regiment Series; London W2; Practically Unbreakable; Red Cross Unit; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soldiers In Action; Soldiers of The British Empire; Stretcher Bearers; Toy Models; Vintage Brent Figures; Vintage Composition; WWII Toy Soldiers;
I also have two of the 60mm versions (upper shot), we have to assume they did all eight combat poses in both sizes, but I don't know about the stretcher teams, nor do I know if one line replaced the other, or if they ran alongside each-other?

The lower shots compare one of Adrian's Brent 60mm's (left of each picture) with an unknown figure (stylistically different, they're probably not a third Brent line) marked 'British' (we will look at them in a separate post), who is closer to 80mm and has lost his rifle tip.

Brent Composition; Brent Toy Products Ltd.; Brent Toy Soldiers; British Army Red Cross Unit; British Army Toy; British Infantry In Action; Composition British Infantry; Composition Toy; Composition Toy Soldiers; Dispatch Riders; Elastolene; Infantry Group; Infantry In Action; Infantry Regiment Series; London W2; Practically Unbreakable; Red Cross Unit; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soldiers In Action; Soldiers of The British Empire; Stretcher Bearers; Toy Models; Vintage Brent Figures; Vintage Composition; WWII Toy Soldiers;
This lot was in the recent Vectis sale, I don't know if Brent produced the 'egg-box' papier mâché dug-out/bunker, but it's a beautiful thing, and god knows how it has survived in that condition! If you return to the top, you'll see there are various lines mentioned along the top of the box, maybe Chris's ceremonial Guardsman is among them?

2 comments:

Chris Smith said...

I do like these Brent figures got a few in both sizes.
The big unknown figure does remind me of the Li-Lo plastic figure.

Hugh Walter said...

That's a bloody good point Chris . . . sculptor rather than company maybe? But there is a definite resemblance!

h