My Texas
sample was looking a bit poor with only two natives and seven cowboys, but I
could remember showing the bronze one in a show repot or something a few years
ago, so I dug that picture out, only to find him in the attic a couple of
nights ago along with the eagle dancer (Crescent
pose below), but he (the dancer) was a bit tatty , thus; I didn't re-shoot the
pair!
So, let's look at Angelo's instead, 'cos
he's got most of them and shot them beautifully. I've collaged them down to a
few larger images (which has led to them appearing to be harshly cropped, that
tends to happen with larger collages, or collages of collages - which the next
five images are) as I can't produce blurb for 52 shots, or even 26 collages! If
you're using Mozilla though, they should blow-up nicely. AND - I've kept the
bare images, so they can always appear again in a different format, or in rows
on the A-Z?
As you will have noticed they are all
copies or derivative of other makes figures, with Crescent and Britains
predominating, but Elastolin, Koho and others (French?) are there too,
all made in a softish polyethylene, and plugging-in to an offset hole with a
locating stud or prong on one foot . . . or a knee - in the case of the
stalking Indian.
Also; the paler-base above appears to be a
clear variation with much smoother walls?
I hope Angelo won't be offended by the next
comment; but it seems that some Italian makers liked to use prone (and mounted)
figures as foot figures, when making up these derivative sets; back at the
start of the blog we saw Baravelli's
1:76 Airfix copies, with just such 'conversions' both of the mounted Indians
and crawling cowboy. I guess the one above is shooting that sneaky-guy who's
always behind the clock-tower with a bead on the hero!
Red Indians! On coloured bases, we have
three Crescent poses here and two
others which look familiar but I can't place them this instant. The Pow-Wow
guy has lost his spear and believe me; my eagle-dance guy doesn't look anything
like Angelo's . . . I think a mouse may have got to my guy's extremities -
outch!
Red and Yellow with darker bases; the
distinctive Koho pose (bottom left)
has had his more Peruvian look westernised with a new wardrobe, but you can't
mistake that headdress. In the two images, there's one foot Indian missing
(there are twelve of each); a running brave with tomahawk.
The mounted figures; I think there are at
least three of each to find, certainly I've seen a mounted Indian bowman and a
chap with full war-bonnet, and a cowboy with lasso, but I haven't seen a third
mounted cowboy yet?
There is a mounted wagon-team outrider,
with whip, but he has a separate hat - in fact the Texas wagons (link in a mo') are the basis for those Hong Kong oneswe've looked at here a couple of times now.
The horse is the donor for the small scale,
hollow-bodied horse coming out of Hong Kong and which I've always referred to
as 'Mexican &/or Mexican Small' not knowing any better! I'll have to go
through my unsorted wild-west and see if I have any full sized/Texas originals lying about unloved and
un-attributed?
Marked clearly on the upper surface of the
base with a Texas, they are sometimes
less clearly marked 'Made Italy' on the underside, but it's usually still
readable. The Wild West bases are shared with the GI's (unlike the two GI's I
have with Hong Kong shite on their feet!), other lines had their own base
designs.
However my bronze Indian (which I've never
seen ascribed or attributed to Texas per
se) has had both marks deliberately obscured on the tool with puddles
of weald (or soft-solder?) leaving slightly raised blisters where the mark
should be. As far as I can tell both figure and base are in every other respect
the Texas mouldings, so I guess a
premium or contract of some kind supplied by APS or Politoys - the
respective parents?
To the right are a horse team from Dario
which may be Texas, but look to be
more like the French premiums mentioned before (Brian's two wagons), and
with foot figures being copied by several other marques, Paul Plastix is one, another out of Monaco I think, both the horse
team and the bronze figure must remain question-marks.
While the above was going on, Theo van der
Weerden had sent me this and asked if I knew who made it - in part triggered by
the Bonux sleigh post. I didn't know
it, but remembering Kent Sprecher had both the Marx arctic set and another on his site, and thinking it looked a
bit Thomas-like, suggested Theo ask
Kent. Kent tried but couldn't find it either, so it came back here for a Q is
for Question Time post, but looking at it again and thinking it was
both a bit Poplar/Tudor Rose toy-like
and a bit backwoodsman'y, I wondered if it might be one of the (French premium-) Texas copyists, so gave it a damn good Googling
on Wednesday and found this . . .
What a brilliant blog! I don't know how
I've missed it, but I suspect the language thing - there were a couple of good
French blogs I added last year that had both been going for some time. Also no
one else seems to be linked to him, I now will be. I wonder what other good
blogs are missing from other-people's and/or my links-lists?
Suffice to say Theo's chap is Texas too! He seems to have had the plug
for a bobble hat/beanie-hat trimmed-off and needs a sledge, but he's Texas alright, so that's him cleared-up
to finish! And another Indian turned-up on Sunday, so I have five now!
Thanks to Angelo (Italy) for the photo's of
his collection, Dario (Italy) for the donation, Theo (Holland) for the puzzle
and Kent (USA) for the effort, this is the UK signing-off!
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