Q is for Quis Es Quo Vadis . . . or Question Time!

In the last donation to the blog from Chris Smith, you may remember there were a couple of small Romans, around the 50-mil mark, we;; they were interesting and in the correspondence that accompanies such donation I mentioned to Chris that while they looked new-ish - production wise - they were also 'new' to me.

A day or so later Chris sent me a link to some on feebleBay, and I started watching it, in the end I watched it for two, possibly three cycles before I felt I had the funds/excuse to bid, put in the minimum bid required crossed my fingers and stopped watching it (fatal if you keep watching, that's how you get in bidding wars!), a couple of days later I had a 'please pay' message in Yahoo, and Bob's yer' uncle - they were on their way!

These are they and they seem to be A) a complete sample of one of each, of eight poses, in B) two colours, with C) four more-military looking types and three who are closer to gladiators in general costume/equipment, with one who's a bit Bi!*. But I stress, there could be more poses and/or more colours, however - I haven't seen them!

As to the origins? They have features, 'signature' features even, in-common with the smaller sized pirate or Ninja output of RedBox (HGL in the UK), Toy Major and/or Dollar General (or Dollar Tree?), or even those Imperial 'vs' paired sets and are very similar to a set of nights currently under dozens of phantom brands on Alibaba and Amazon, in various configurations, with and/or without (or only) mounted company, and/or siege equipment. Ironically the knights are sometimes called Roman Soldiers!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000858094738.html

and

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001166827243.html

But I have been unable to find these as current, or in any packaging just the odd lose one? They could just as easily have come from Funtastic, Funrise, Peterkin, Ja-Ru, Playwrite, Unique or any other import 'jobber' who issues bi-coloured sets of protagonists, cheaply manufactured in the Far East as rack-toys or party-favours?

* Shield-wise they could all be Gladiators, and I have searched as hard under that moniker and 'Toy Romans' or 'Roman Soldiers'? I shall call them Etruscan's!

In the searching for info on them I found these all over the place as un-packaged generics; buy the cheapest you can find with free postage is my advice, all-in with postage they vary from the £6.18p I paid, up to 40+quid!! There's one born every minute - don't let it be you!

He's in the style of the 'antiqued' novelty pencil sharpeners which have been a staple of museum and touristy gift-shops and stationers since the 1960's, but a larger piece, and modern, Chinese-made - obviously! He's in a die-cast alloy and carries no clue to manufacturer either in person or on the sales sites, but ticks a box and makes an excellent statue for smaller figures!

Playing in Picasa!

A quick sketch I managed to fire-off out of the bus window as we went through a village with an unpronounceable name somewhere near Rimini! Do you have a brand for the little plastic ones?

Both Peter E and Mark the 'Man of Tin' confirm Funtastic - Phew, at least I had them in the long-list! See comments.