F is for First Show of the Season!

And so to Sandown Park racecourse and my plunder from the best show in the UK, I used to say the best show in the world, but some of those Dutch and Belgian shows are very big and very good these days, from what I've heard.

I didn't get much, but it was all good, interesting or unusual stuff, most of which we'll look at in a minute but above are a couple of 'Khaki Infantry' of note; the kneeling firer I thought might be Polish, but Adrian reckoned British (confirmed by the arrival of PW 178 this morning, reminding me I have a different one somewhere!) and it is a soft polyethylene (rather than the hard recycled mix the Poles used) so I'll have to sort them again and slot it in with whoever had those grey helmets, Speedwell over on the Khaki Infantry page? The other is an anonymous MG-gunner in a flecked-brown.

Below them is a pack of styrene kit-built (R&L style) racing cars (thanks to Gareth Morgan) which appear to be the same as, but likely the originals of, the ones we saw recently here at Small Scale World from Tito. The mouldings are finer than Tito's and the assumption has to be that Tito copied, but I haven't had a chance to compare them properly yet.

A small pack of probably 'box scale' ship's boats from an old Pyro or Revell-Monogram kit, some hollow-cast corn-stooks and a couple of Cane musketeers make up the rest of the stuff not looked at below.

The main theme of the day ended-up being Native American Indians; and while the bulk of these came from John Begg's stall (PTS52 on eBay), the trio of Waddington's copies were from Gareth and the Tri-Ang mounted cowboy came as a swap with Barney of Herald Toys & Models.

The polyethylene Thomas Indian in the centre seems to be painted the same as the earlier PVC pirates and costumed-children, so may (must?) be a crossover piece from between the painted PVC era and the unpainted PE-era? While the other Thomas pose (green, rear) is actually a smaller, semi-flat piracy, possibly a premium of some kind.

There were some other Wild West procured on the day, for a project I've been working-on for a while, and I left them out of these shots as I was going to post the article this week (or last week if the forecasts had been more accurate!), but I've learnt someone else has gone to print with them so I'll wait for them to have the first word on the subject! However thanks are still due to Adrian Little and John Begg for managing to find some for me, and also Steve Vickers who had some hollow-cast originals the same day!

I picked-up three 'colonial' types, the FFL from Cherilea is not my first, but he has the best paint I think, and while their bag is getting quite stuffed, I can't say the same for the Arab, where every example is damaged! While some legionnaires can be brittle, most are still supple; the same can't be said for the nomadic 'local' tribesman who's always brittle now! Really; I should give-up on finding a good plastic one and settle for a hollow-cast example!

The copy of the Britains Herald ACW officer is probably Argentinian*, but could be Spanish and the Grant's Whiskey premium (Britains-supplied) is a new pose in a slowly growing collection of the die-cast 'New-Metal' / Deetail style figures - which sounds grander than it is, I have five or six maybe, and one (initial offer?) seems to be far more common than all the others?

*06th June 2020 - Now known to be Oklahoma and indeed; Argentine

A bit of Sci-Fi, I can't remember how I ended-up with a bunch of 4" action figures (less than two weeks ago and my mind's a blank! Must have been cheap, or in a bag of something else?), the two 'actual' action figures (battle droid and un-panelled C3PO) will go to charity, but the polished C3PO is a vinyl solid, so will stay.

The bag of Hasbro's Star Wars Command figures were a quid! Mostly duplicates but the two in front are new to collection (and therefore to Blog!), while the Tomy Egyptian Pharaoh mummy-zombie thing (King Sphinx from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) came from Abid's stall with a couple of other bits. I love the Darth Vader key ring, he's been plated in an anodised chromium type coating, which make him look like he's been grown as a crystal of pure bismuth!

Finally the Rocketeer figure (Applause) came from a stall which always has nice stuff, I try to get at least one figure from him each time, this show it was The Rocketeer, which - strangely - I had been wondering about the likelihood of toys-of, a few weeks earlier - and for no particular reason; I saw the DVD in passing somewhere or something?

These - as a single bag - were bought on the cusp of packing-up time, and are an interesting mix, the lower shot of micro-planes will be familiar to some of you, they are credited to various brands, and I have them with three different slot-types in the undersides, and two materials; hard polystyrene and softer polyethylene.

The upper ones are newish (to me - Adrian gave me a yellow one about a year ago) and may face a call for 'Airfix' at some point, they are of two variations, the top five are firm, near-mint polystyrene, the middle pair are a less stable phenolic or cellulose/celluloid-based polymer, starting to curve downwards with age at the wing-tips, which raised the nose of the twin-boom (Vampire, Goblin?), while digging it in on the more conventional 'plane.

Now, I know they're not Kleeware or Tudor Rose, as I have both, marked, while the parallels with Airfix's early animal-flats and the micro-planes I've 'called' for Airfix (some years ago), not to forget the 12 'first' figures are hard to ignore; the colours and the two tranches of material; so I suspect I'll call them at some point, but for now they are unknown [probably] early British!

Of note - the PS five are marked MADE IN ENGLAND, the older pair are totally unmarked - which I think was the same situation with the mico-ones?

This was another of the items I picked at Abid's stall in the annex (more of a small, temporary State, all they need is a flag!), post-GIANT, and in need of a good clean, here's a before-&-after! Nice subdued colours for this 25mm 'plastic small', which are usually far more leery!

A lovely novelty to finish-up with, probably a Christmas cracker-prize and I have a matching diver in yellow somewhere, but she lacks a base (so I though; cake decoration), meaning that this chap (from Adrian Little - cheers!) tells the next bit of the story!