I is for International Brigade!

You know that Paris - France / Paris - Texas thing right? Well today's post is a bit Texas - Italy or even Texas - International . . . it's Texas anyway and another treat to host, almost all from other people, mostly Angelo, who sent the bulk of these a week or two ago, since when I've added the first image, gone back and muddled a couple more and then Theo managed to tack-on the last image by accident!

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 . . .

https://soldatini-ado.blogspot.com/2012/12/quelli-del-tide.htm

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!