100 is for Monsters . . . Not . . . quite!

With any luck I'll have this up before midnight and we're back where we started, with SCS Direct, this time it's the Horror set, now listed as Horror Set I on the back of the Fantasy box, but still Monsters on the toob.

Having the same contents and carrier as the one which confused me back in 20218 on Shaun's site, but not the same as the ones Peter Evans sent me the same year, missing here are all the zombies bar the one eating an arm! Although between the two I don't think I'm missing any now, but there must have been a Zombie mix at some point?

So a briefer visit than this morning's as we are reprising a previous post - with the packaging as the 'new information' - and Shaun's already there! This time you're getting around seven-boxes equivalent of Airfix for the money, but the contents are a lot shakeir than this morning's with little consistency and another short-count!

I've highlighted the more obvious anomalies in red, the only real pain is the spider; only two and neither of them in light grey, one gets the feeling there should be four? The gravestone also gets an odd mix, while with the Mummy and the man-bat, it's just overload!

It was the 'Mothma' (for Godzilla to play with!) and everything on the bottom row we didn't see last time, although - obviously - apart from the spider, I now have all of them in both colours. Comments last time apply equally here but the moth is not very good, I mean they are all a bit cartoony-harmless, but the moth is too cuddly by half!

From the backs/undersides, really I'm a bit pissed-off with the spider situation and will have words on my Amazon feedback! There's more too it! So, that's Halloween; coming-in over-budget but on time!

H is for Halloween - Odd's and Sod's!

This is a bitty post, with everything else! Some of it came in a few days ago (thank's to Brain), some has been in Picasa since last year (and may have been seen before, some came from Peter, some from Chris (which has all got mixed-up) and I've got so confused waiting for the day I took some duplicate shots, then had to take some more a few minutes ago 'cos I hadn't done the finger puppet, so it's all a bit muddled, anyway, we'll meander through a eclectic collection of Halloween novelties:

The one we may have seen before? A couple of old header cards from the archive and branded to 'Funworld' they seems to have contained something similar to the following . . .

. . . which managed to be forgotten in the pair's post this morning (I'd accidently put them in the 'done' folder with the six images from the three collages . . . doh!) which otherwise would have T is for 8 and Four! New shelfies from Brian Berke and fortuitous I had the cards above as they made me think Where's those screamers Brian sent?! They also look like those bendies we saw a while ago, maybe the same design team?

I think these were all from Peter Evans and we'll look at the outside two in a minute, the other three are interesting, similar to the 4-4½-inch figures from Charbens, but modern and slimmer, they have quite pinched waists which suggest they may have been gripped by something or pick-up-able somehow? Anyone know what they are/where they come from?

And - more Egypt in what is definitely Egypt-year here at Small Scale World! The mummy is obvious for Halloween, the other two are more 'God & Man', and could have been blogged on another occasion, but the three definitely go together.

So, 'Bluey'; I suspect a Macdonald's or similar premium? he's a dense polypropylene and when you press down on his head his arms pop-up and he has limited articulation at the waist . . . another mummy! But still 'unknown' and clues welcome?

The other one which I think was from Peter's mixed lot, he could just be a 'phone or luggage 'dangler' who has been cut-off and knotted-back to the purple swivel, or he may have had a more significant part? He's a modern PVC substitute with articulation at the waist and shoulders only (through the neck, like Galoob Action Fleet figures), but closer to 54mm - otherwise unknown - clues welcome!

Other novelty skeletons who have come-in over the last 12 months, and this is where the order breaks down, as these would have come from all over - Chris, Peter, charity lots, possibly even one from Adrian, and I don't know where the little green skull came from, but it's a flanged-swivel, so probably from an action-figure around 3 or 3½, maybe 4-inches?

The chap with the yellow 'thing', seems to have either been attached to two sticks, or intended for one or two pencils, clearly he is supposed to do tricks, but without an instruction sheet I could only guess at the nature of the missing apparatus and or hint at the mechanism by posing him? However you can see how he should be flick'able in some fashion to maybe catch a bead in the cup or dance between two . . . something's?

Taken in the last hour to make more sense fo the next few images, these were both from the 'Interim Parcel' Chris Smith sent for ITLAPD and today! A ghost and a sort of imp/pixy finger puppet. I suspect there's a pink 'half' missing from the front of the ghost, but it's not clear and it would have needed to locate in his eye holes?

The cut-out in the 'cape' suggests a pencil top, but it's not clear, two other ghosts which I think were both from Chris include the little movie one (Casper?) on the left, and the green one which clips onto a larger toy and swivels/hinges.

A novelty ring and further comparison with some of the previous to give a sense of size across the lot! it all gets archived, it all has a place and hopefully, one day will all be properly itemised and ID'd? If you can help brand or otherwise ID any of the above you'd be helping with that 'one day'!

Brain also sent what little he found in Scully & Scully's window this holiday season and while not a lot, they are both rather nice, this is the 'box-ticker' pumpkin; there's everything in that fine etching except Dracula and a bowl of candies! A Full Moon, bats, owl, crow, good fairy, black cat, spider's web (?), witch/crone, skeleton, living tree/Ent, ghost, evil (Bavarian?) gingerbread-man and a pile of pumpkins!

Finally; another witch and her - rather sweet-looking - cat; a cottage which is probably hers and home to several ghosts; and an absolutely lovely tree, just on the turn to its autumn colours.

Many thanks to Adrian, Brian, Chris, Peter and all who send this stuff to the Blog as actual objects or images, it will all appear here in the end, even if I lose track of it on the way here!

N is for Novelty Nonsense!

Just a bit of fun peeps, on no account should you use this post as a judge of my character or collecting philosophy, whatsoever, no, no, no; not at all and perish the thought!

I'm a member of a Faceplant group affiliated to Plaid Stallions (new Blog site here) and the other day someone put some vintage add's up for - among other things - some Halloween cutlery, figural cutlery mind, none of your non-figural but probably more efficient cutlery, but yer; actual, figural stuff! I went off to feebleBay to see what was available today, and found these!

I bought them immediately, only for four sets (12 items) to turn-up a week later, direct from Hong Kong, for what appears to have been less than the postage, on which level I can only say There isn't enough planet left for this shit! But it's done now and it's a Halloween post!

The are actually hollow-backed so only novelty items, and I took the other three sets up to the Blue Cross animal charity shop the next day - I was in there yesterday and they had gone, so hopefully, someone younger than me is getting more enjoyment from them this evening!!

But these three will go in the collection for perpetuity, along with the photos' and stuff to on the archive dongles.That's it - unbranded novelty Halloween cutlery from China, polystyrene, gloss paint, hollow-backed, box ticked!

T is for 6 - a Trio of Terrible Twosomes!

These only came-in yesterday, and they were gratefully received from our correspondent in New York, as A) shelfies have had a poor show this year - for obvious reasons, and B) I haven't got much for Halloween this year, but we should end-up with five posts?

Except that at midnight last night I hadn't actually blurb'ed any of them and two still need photo-editing, while the last's photo's are still on the camera, so we'll see what I get done before the pumpkins turn to mush at midnight tonight - watch this space . . . in the meantime; Shelfies!

Bobble Heads! Bodies' look resin with a spring set in to the material, so the heads probably are too, to get the necessary weight to jiggle the spring! Both standard Halloween fare; a skeleton (with a dicky-bow!) and a pumpkin-man (who looks pre-George III, harking back to a better era!), you'd give them shelf space, wouldn't you?

Bobble-bodies! These guys are those solar-powered dancers a certain kind of taxi-driver likes to place on the dash-top . . . "You dan'sin for ME?!", and I know domestic lighting is enough to keep them going for hours!

Bobble-butt's! An improvement on the pooping Trump we shelfies a while ago now, as they both poop candy! Although I'm sure the candy on the left will taste all the sweeter! Think; if Biden looses on Tuesday, this will become a very collectable piece of 'also-ran' memorabilia in a few years time!

Many thanks to Brian Berke for these shelfies and there's more Halloween stuff to come but I have to go and finish editing them!

SCS is for Scary Creature Selection . . . II

And no, we haven't had 'I' yet, but this is only a box ticker, due to they not being in the tag-list yet, and Shaun having done a better job already, but it IS Halloween, and these were on UK Amazon the other day so I grabbed them and here they are; 'Monster Scary Good'

And the first thing to understand is that while they may look a bit expensive in on-line sales listings, what you are getting is a huge box, with the equivalent of four or five Airfix 54mm boxes'worth of stuff, and they are ten-times cheaper than some of that stuff coming out of the East right now!

However, SCS Direct are a bit naughty in short-packing the sets as per the advertised contents, no doubt something they would counter with the 'Contents May Vary' term, except . . . hold on a dang-minute . . . there is no such term - I think they are counting the headless rider and his horse as 'two figures'; the cheating monkeys! Heay-ho, still cheap-as-chips for what you get!

Clockwise from top left, the 'wolves' are err . . . just wolves! I suppose you could use them as werewolves, I've called them dire-wolfs to big them up a bit (I don't want them getting insecurity issues!), but they are just wolves, nicely sculpted servants of Dracula, Satan or the Lords of Morrrdorrr, but just wolves!

The wingless dragon is among my favourites in the whole set if not THE favourite, it conforms to none of the specific traits of it's kind having no wings and a bipedal posture, however it's crest/spine ornamentation reminds me of chess pieces (rooks/castles I guess) and you can imagine him/her heading-off the Red Queen on a flag-stone chess board in an Alice III?

The female barbarian is nice, but hardly a F. Frazetta or C. Achillos' Amazon; she'll do! The frog-warrior though; lovely, and a cheat that we only get two, one of the smaller sculpts as well, if they gave us four they wouldn't be taking the piss on the content count? And for painters out there, he's crying out to spar Little John on a log over the brook - my money's on Phinius Froggie!

Same pack drill; The male barbarian is similarly so-so, they are lovely sculpts, but more cave-men than 'fantasy' monsters. While the headless horseman is more 'horror' than fantasy, which is odd, as SCS Direct do Horror sets too?

The winged creature is closer to a wyvern than anything else (Cockatrice/Gryphon in the above listing) but with birds wings not dragon/bat wings and a big bird at that! Not my choice and suffering the worst distortion in the packaging due to it's size and softness.

Cerberus is lovely, the Cyclops is equally everything you'd want from such a chap and will go well with the 1:72nd scale one from Atlantic (seen here before I think but I'll try to arrange a comparison shot soonish?).

The 'winged female pan/siren' is also a nice figure . . .

Dance of the evil witch-bitches!

. . . who would benefit from paint, but again shows the influence of the G. Gygax and Nottingham Mafia world's on these things and how far they have moved away from the traditional heraldic, 'classical' or even Tolkien'esque picture of them?

The distortion (which plagues these - as delivered - like a Corona-virus) is obvious in the two unicorns who should be identical poses! I'm actually going to try and keep them like this, but both bases will need re-setting with hot water. I also shot them with the set of ex-The Works Paint Your Own's (now Unique) we looked at back in August's RTM.

I think while half the problem is the soft material, the other half is their own weight in the box, which in warm Amazon warehousing or going out in trucks on hot days, leaves them settling onto or into each other in the box, all the thin parts and the sheet material (wings, bases) suffered some bending or distortion.

Finally the 'mermaid'; another really nice but un-traditional sculpt, if the winged one is more pan that siren, then this one is a siren or sea-harpy, whist also being clearly a  mermaid (fish's tail, she's no hog!), but with the sword & shield she is also a bit of a sea-amazon. The shield is the weak-point, but paint would hide that.

As you can see they all come in equal quantities of Mediterranean- and Atlantic-grey, in a substitute PVC and that's them!

News, Views Etc . . . A Little Housekeeping

Airfix Blog

I've added yesterday's rubber key-ring knight to the Sheriff of Nottinham page on the Airfix figures Blog (http://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/2010/06/1964-sheriff-of-nottingham-s21-hooo.html), probably not something you need to rush off and look at again, but it's done!

 

Sad News

Don Pielin, giant in the hollow-cast branch of our hobby has gone off to play with his toys for all eternity; an obituary page has been set-up here.

Another fellow-collector; Steven C Rowe, has passed-away, and Covid-19 has been fingered as the culprit. More here onWYDaily where they may also make you watch a video on why you should be wearing your mask!

 

Forthcoming Auction

Norman Joplin's Old Toy Soldier Newsletter are holding their 'OTSA 58' auction as an online event on Sunday 8th November (just over a week) more details here;

https://www.facebook.com/events/261020408579198

 

Toy Shows

With the above in mind, I will not be publicising toy soldier shows or toy fairs until we have got a grip on novel corona viruses full stop. It's quite easy once you understand the science; either you are

• ·         Protecting yourself by protecting other people
• ·         or
• ·         Protecting other people by protecting yourself
• ·         or
• ·         A selfish, self-centered wanker.
  

You should be wearing a mask whenever and wherever you can! Not just when you absolutely have to, but at every opportunity; it's a virulent killer and it's airborne! It's only modern medicine which is preventing higher death-tolls, and a quick mutation over the winter could still see death-tolls rise sharply, in the meantime people continue to die, every day.

There have been two toy soldiers shows recently and two toy fairs, they were all in the US and all poorly attended and rightly-so.

Recent coverage of a toy soldier show has one chap with his mask off his nose, I hope he gets a worse dose than his President (if you believe his President ever had it!), another is shown with his mask pulled under his chin . . . fuckwit, if he dies I won't be posting his obit'!

People promoting, dealing or buying at shows - right now - lack basic common sense, or have consciously surrendered common-sense in preference for serving their greed.

T is for Two - Contributions

We've had some pretty eclectic stuff here at Small Scale World in the last week or so haven't we! I'm sort of clearing the decks for other things which doesn't mean the other things won't get thrown on the back burner at some future point, but I mean well as I'm going-about it! Here's a couple of things of interest sent in by loyal readers in the last few months;

Theo van de Weerden picked this 150mm figurine up cheap-as-chips (I believe) in a mixed lot at a sort of car-boot sale a while back, and isn't she a cutie . . . no, no, she really is  . . . a 'Campus Cutie' from Marx and one of the ones I would imagine it's harder to find in perfect condition as that oar she's holding must be a candidate for damage? Nice find Theo, thanks for sharing!

While Brian Berke sent this as a follow-up to his own donation of HO/1:87-90th scale Pyro figures, and which I then forgot when I did publish a follow-up the other day . . . also from Brian (who didn't remind me these were in the queue, so it's easy to lose track of this stuff!),  it's a model Tug outfitted with the very figures we looked at the last two times! Thanks Brain and sorry I lost track of them!

K is for Kick-ass Key-ring Kurassiers

I scored this pair for a song of-off that there feebleBay the other day, thinking "They'll go well with that knight" (I have a knight!), but in going to look for the knight A) found he was much smaller, softer and chunkier and B) that I had another from this series, so, as is often the way, the post grew from what might have been one collage into this - enjoy, loyal readers!

So my purchase, which was only a week or so ago - they came yesterday; Two rather over-dressed or flauxy, foppish chaps from the - vaguely - Napoleonic era, in all their finery trotting out to do some hawking or handkerchief-dropping or some such? They would complement the 'Prince' from Exin Castillos or maybe some of the Merten medieval court stuff.

Off to the 'unknown/unbranded pre-20th century military' box for the knight I knew I had and found both another of the 40mm'ish ones and that the knight was actually a bit of a stumpy-runt! The 3rd figure being in the same dense PVC Injectaplastic (and JSP) use while the knight is more of a silicon-rubber? I say that because . . .

. . . the 35/40mm European premiums of Wellintonian types also go quite well with the riders, and also have that Macau-sourced, via-Portugal, look about them! And bases in the style of the Wild West we looked at recently. Mine are both Bonbon-marked Napoleon-brand premiums (small sweets), but Nestle had a set, Kinder have been credited (pinch of salt there?) and Huilor as well.

I seemed to take more shots of the old figure than the two new ones - he was the only one who would stand-up before I took the chains off! After removing the key-chains; I used to cut the loops off as well, but that was when I was a philistine, now I just slip the ring out and leave the key-rings in the bag with the figures.

The funny thing was the seller had them listed separately, so it was 'shopping-cart and see what they look like together when they turn-up', then, when they turned-up, I wondered if they might be (from the colours) an old 1976 [1776] novelty opposing-pair, but after finding the third I'm now just wondering how many more there are in the set and/or; do colours change on the same figure? It's another rabbit-hole!

They would also probably go well with Spencer Smith as a bunch of foppish, Old Etonian, staff officers or ADC's, wot-wot! And they will look good with those cake decoration copies of Airfix's Washinton's Army?

O is for Old School!

This is a fun piece, Theo van de Weerden sent me this shot with some items he was hoping I could ID (some, but not all!), and while it didn't need ID'ing itself, it's clearly marked . . .

. . . Dulcop of Italy; I couldn't work out from the photograph if it was complete, incomplete or smashed-up! Nor was it clear how it was supposed to work, so I asked Theo if he could explain further!

He then kindly re-shot it and found a link to one on evilBay with the bullets. The second set of shots are odd-coloured due to the remnants of what seems to have been a uniform coat of silver paint (mostly now worn off) reflecting back at us - which had gone some way toward confusing with the upper image too. Once you've seen these shots, the first one become equally clear!

What we actually have here is a nice, probably early production, Dulcop novelty piece which fires two large shells (which clip onto the two strange cut-outs in the shield) using a sort of 'pop-gun' action and may not have been connected to their later toy soldier line at all, but rather sold purely as an interactive, if slightly violent plaything.

It would though, make a lovely howitzer or mountain-gun for old school set-them-up-and-knock-them-down carpet wars. Thanks to Theo for sharing it with the rest of us.

B is for Box-ticking Barges

In some of the several Egyptian posts we've had this year half by accident (working with what Peter Evans sent to the Blog) and half by design (the stuff I subsequently purchased) to compare, complete or because they were dirt-cheap (the disappointing pens), which actually didn't disappoint as I expected them to disappoint, so they met expectations; we saw the odd piece of Atlantic HO giving size/scale to things, and in the getting-out and putting-away for photographs I found a bag of painted stuff from somewhere-somewhen, we're going to look at them now!

The two barges from set 1505 Boats on the Nile, there was a larger Pharaoh's barge with set-sail and covered throne-canopy-thing, these are the more workaday vessels plying their trade up and down the Nile from the Mediterranean to Sudan.

The box shows oarsman but I'm not sure I've ever seen them, I certainly don't have them and it seems to be a complete sets otherwise, have you ever seen them? There are plug-ins on the lager vessel in the other set but they don't seem to have oars either? The curse of art room pre-publicity photographs/artwork again I suspect (think Airfix Polish Lancers or Esci Carthaginians!).

Both together; these are OBE's as far as painting goes, I picked them up like this as part of a Job lot some time ago, but I can't remember where/when. basically reed-vessels with a sun-shade/cabin.

The two swan-necked finials at port and stern are plug-ins and don't line up terribly well with the hull, or not smoothly as they would if they were tied-in reed bundles, but then; beggars can't be choosers and it was hard to credit anyone issuing Egyptian warships, in small-scale, in the 1980's, and the fact they didn't go with anything on the market - time-wise - was irrelevant!

They came with a complete army, painted by the same guy I think, although with more detail he has done a fine job, compared to the basic blocking-in of the boats. A complete set also contains a full Pharaoh's Court runner, which I may have sorted into their section, or the seller may have split-away or kept them?

I particularly like the rendering of the Nubian's/Sudanese/Southern Tribesmen; I have an old Humbrol Authenticolour paint-tin called Polished Leather, and it is one of my favourite paints, a semi-gloss or silk (you have to let it dry overnight) it's brilliant for dark-skin, horse-hair, wagon-details, baggage straps, rifle slings, puddles (puddled), oil-stains (thinned-down), all sorts, I don't know what I'll do when it runs out!

That's it, ancient Egyptians, vessels, Atlantic - boxes ticked, because . . . by accident - it's been a bit of an 'Egyptian Year' here at Small Scale World!

A is for A Little Bit of Silliness

Unless you worry about rubbish, in which case Wombles are very serious things!

I picked this chap up in a mixed lot the other day, I think he may have been Uncle Bulgaria once but he was beyond tatty, and it was either save him somehow or . . . off to recycling . . . sniff!

Now; I feel I have a close association with Wombles, my Granny made my brother and I very realistic ones in her craft group when we were kids which I still have somewhere; you often see similar really good unbranded Wombles in charity shops or on feeBay and I think they were all produced with the same plans/pattern by WI-circles and the like? They sometimes have sewn-in paper or card stiffening the ears! We had Uncle B and Wellington.

Also; we were big fans of the TV series anyway, and later we rented a field from the Author (Liza Beresford) who would sometimes chat to us over the wall while we worked it, so throwing Wombles in the recycling is akin to cold-blooded murder, ergo; 'Do something Muttley!' was the only option!

The flock had to go, I tried to save the scarf but it fell apart due to age! I saved the eye (2) and the nose (3), and would have replaced the missing eye, or both with glass beads, but the remains of his looking-glasses had such a long locating-stud (1), I managed to melt a bead on the end with a cigarette lighter (at the cost of heat-tendered finger-tips) and form a new eye. The key-ring chain-loop (⊂) was the last thing to go.

The scarf was then fashioned with a section of bootlace, which is looped through itself in the modern style and was held-tight and glued at the knot over-night, before being trimmed and the ends frayed with a hat-pin!

As there is already an Alderney ['she'], I shall call him Berlin and he can join the hard plastic ones we've seen in-part, a couple of times now, but - while I want to tick that box - I'm still waiting for an elusive Madame Cholet to turn up.

I suspect both these flocked blow-moulds and the similar-sized hard-plastic ones were HCF imports, certainly there were the remains of one of those little gold stickers on the underside of his feet, but it's a guess, not yet empirical.

Q is for Question Time - 'ello, 'ello, 'ello!

Another plea for help from Chris Smith with another interesting figure; going full civi' this time but remaining in uniform with an unknown Policeman;

In Chris's own words; "Another unknown, hard plastic 60mm scale well painted factory paint but sadly missing a hand  . . .  Metal square pin sticking out of the base, looks like it was plugged in to something which drove it round or was he the key to wind something?. Made a base stand out of an odd chess piece so it can stand."

And; "Pictured [here] with Timpo to the left, Kentoy/Cavendish to the right and a Hong Kong copy of Timpo (or is it?..)"

My own thoughts were that it might be a tourist keepsake type item, but not necessarily British, I was thinking somewhere like Gibraltar, Malta, even Cyprus? Or; one of the Caribbean islands? Anywhere that had the UK style uniform in the post war period?

The metal locating-spigot is a tad-too substantial and serious-looking for a toy figure, so it may have been on a bit of polished stone, or a wooden plinth similar to the one Chris knocked-up from a chess piece?

The sculpting style is similar to a polystyrene Tyrolean squeezebox-player I have somewhere (who is on a plastic plinth or pencil sharpener I think), so both may have come from the same manufacturer, supplying the museum/tourist trades? Equally; he could be from a board-game?

Anyone got any other ideas? Or on the far right figure in the second picture (BR Moulds?) Anyone got a complete one?