M is for Mookies

 Quick update from Barney at Herald Tots & Models;

"...we are now adding the Darlington Herald Farm collection to our website, starting with Pigs, Cows, Calves and a fine Herald Brown-and-white Bull. The collection comprises many early farm models dating from 1955 to circa 1959."

J is for Just a Quick One! F is for Follow-up, T is for Two . . .

. . . Three . . . Four? We looked at this oddity here ages ago, can't remember when now, but I know I've highlighted the weirdness of a Pz.Kfw. II 'Luchs' (lynx) light-tank chassis on a M4 Sherman medium tank, however I was convinced mine had a broken driver (Matchbox Battle Kings piracy), so when I saw one in a charity shop days (or hours?) before the latest Lockdown . . .

. . . top left, I bought it. I got home to find a parcel from Chris Smith, which had another (top right), and they were different, so I dug-out the third (bottom-middle, to find the driver was fine!), and found more differences, not great, but they are there.

Chris's on the left here has the Hong Kong in a sort of 'postmark' cartouche, the Charity shop purchase has added carpet-wheels, while the old one is a hybrid of the two, sans wheels but with the same mark as the wheeled one.

Like I say, not great differences, but they confirm the evolutionary nature of such things, as we looked at previously with the pencil sharpener/tourist figurines. I have no idea which order they go in, so it's only for curiosity's sake . . . and 'completism'!

The current iteration of these common-enough tourist trinket/gift shop/museum novelty pencil sharpeners, as far as armour goes, is an M1 Abrams I believe, but there was also an M60 with an ERA (Explosive Reactive Armour) suite, and I've picked-up one of those at some point. Its running-gear is not much better to be honest, having more in common with those cheap Pioneer knock-offs of Matchbox 1-76 type die-casts.

The two together, they're 'box-scale', but might suit 1:100th scale war-gaming? I won't bother with branding on these; there are maybe 20+ boxings around the world, most of the main importers/jobbers and some odder firms more normally associated with dolls house accessories, games and such-like have also had a go, although Play Me in Spain (tag'able) may have been originator on some?

While the superstructures on my three are the same, when we get on to the canons (yeah . . . one day!), we'll see that there are different versions as well as variations within one version, with two or three different Mortars, Naval Guns, Catapults, Trebuchets or Battlement canons, so it's quite complicated!

Thanks to Chris for my third [different] M4 Sherman pencil sharpener!

M is for More to Come . . .

. . . but we've sort of sorted some of it out, for now!

This wasn't in the queue a few days ago! I bought a nice (well; tatty!) set of Shackman novelty pencil sharpeners from New York a few weeks a ago, which were going on the back burner, but Chris Smith posted some nice thematic shots on the Friend's of Plastic Warrior Facebook group earlier this week, which lead to a flurry of activity there and here at SSW Towers, leading to this post!

First a quick look at that Shackman set; it's been mucked about with - I suspect end-of-line/ex-shop stock, put back in a box and sold as a set when it's meant to be broken down in a small stores? There's an extra Beefeater and the Indian is a suspect inclusion, but a nice sculpt in a civilian role as hunter rather than war-path warrior.

Quick confirmation of the empirical evidence for the doubting Thomas's and make-it-up-as-you-go-along-brigade, Shackman were a jobber specialising in the novelty/tourist trinket end of the market (a bit like HCF here in the UK), I'm also collecting their novelty-matchbox pencil sharpeners with 'Mocherette' in them (I know, I know, I'll get round to it, but probably next year now - most of the photo's are done!), although, further back (1950's), they also imported some of the Erikson/Authenticast copy sets from Japan as more mainstream playthings.

If the boxes were sold as sets, I suspect the chap here would have been one (?) of the missing figures, the pair in the two central shots are Chris's, the sharpener on the left is mine now and the other pair on the end are an Internet couple! Tyrolean dancers who could be German or North Italian . . . Austrian or Eastern/Alpine Swiss!

Back to the set, and they all (including the Indian) have plug-feet and separate bases, which are glued to a standard pencil sharpener which I remember being included in cheap Christmas crackers, and have seen on gum-ball vending machine cards. The Indian however plugs straight into a flimsier pencil-honeing device.

Chris's however are integrally moulded with base and figure as single moulding, not two pieces. Now I already knew - and you may remember - we had seen the Beefeater before here, when by coincidence Chris and Adrian both gave me examples a few days apart, neither of them are marked, but a policeman we will look at in a minute has a small KT on his base in an oval cartouche reminiscent of the aforementioned HCF's little gold stickers?

My dancer has a fuller set of marking (as do the 'Internet pair' in the second image) and a stock/cavity number/code; 315, while Chris's lady (who's base has been home-painted/re-painted white over the original balck) is coded 673, her partner 674 and lacking her ® mark? The sharpeners, meanwhile, can be found with or without a pretty bog-standard HONG KONG.

The earlier Beefeaters, along with the stationary policeman from the boxed set have a disc-shaped blemish which people (including me) would more normally, and erroneously describe or assume (never assume huh?!!! Heeheehee!) as/to be mould-release pin-marks, but which are clearly blanking plates or pins to hide the smaller mark of the policeman.

In the conversation at FoPW, Chris had managed to find another figure on-line, which reminded me that Brain Wagstaff had sent two to this Blog ages ago, as they were clearly influenced by the Commonwealth/Van Brode/Codec 'dancing doll' sets. The 'Brain pair' having no mark on either side of the integral base, while the Internet one - also having an integral base - on a pencil sharpener; neatly tying all the above (bar the Indian?) to the same series.

Meanwhile, or actually closer to the Beefeaters and the start of this little odyssey, Chris had spotted a policeman on feebleBay ages ago, back near the start of Lockdown One, and I thanked him for the heads up and watched it half-heartedly for several months (it was really too pricey), now . . . I can't remember if the price came down or the seller listed something else to combine . . . but in the end I did get it in the autumn/recently.

Here we see pencil-sharpener and non-pencil sharpener versions of both Beefeater and policeman together, along with another Internet shot of a new sharpener colour - new to this article mind; many colours dropped out of Christmas crackers!

By this time ( a couple of days ago)n it had dawned on me that the Highlander was also rather familiar, as we saw him here at Small Scale World not that long ago - green sharpener! Now, a point of note; it would appear one is attempting Black Watch (left, 'new' one) and the other the Gordon's (right, 'old' one). It may be the out-painter was just running out of yellow on the brush, but it seems to be a deliberately different shade of green and has not been applied to the haggis-bag or the lower reaches of the pipe's webbing?

Which leaves us with the Indian from the boxed set and a conclusion to formulate!

The Indian, is lovely, I don't know if he's based on a donor, most of these seem pretty unique - only one of Brian's is a direct copy - as sculpts, and the hunting with raptor is quite a German/East German pose (if you know what I mean), however, he is plugged into a thin-walled base which has a different sharpener, glued in, and it - the sharpener - has a different blade design.

The differences outweigh the similarities; plug-in feet, gloss-paint in a stab-and-hope style, so for now he must remain a question-mark, there are other sources of figural, novelty, pencil-sharpener as we saw not that long ago here.

But I suspect he is from the same source, but the thin-walled case for the sharpener was easily damaged, and the extra glue-step of a separate sharpener was more expensive, so he's likely an earlier variant.

The conclusion is that with the possible exception of the Indian, these are all from one, evolving series, from the same source, and differing either for reasons of increasing the ease of production, over time, or to comply with caveats from different clients, such as Shackman, from contract to contract.

They can be plug-in, or moulded with a base, which may or may not subsequently end-up glued to a pencil sharpener which is also available separately elsewhere. A variety of marks or no-marking can be found on the separate bases, the integral bases and/or the sharpener-units.

There must be more 'world dancers', possibly another Indian or two, and matching quantities of cowboy, still to be found, maybe a Welsh lady and etcetera. I would also put a fiver, at least a fiver, on HCF being found to have shipped some of them into UK, and dare to say Tom Smith was in-there as well?

The only likely "KT" I can come up with is Kitoys Traders Co., who were making/marketing mini-deform, pull-back-and-go, 'hot hatch' novelty cars in the late 1980's from Connaught Road, West, Hong Kong and may have been responsible for something like these figures a decade or two earlier, if they were around then?

Despite the question-mark I will put them in the tags, as I have one of the little cars to Blog - one day! And many thanks to Chris Smith for several involvements in this 'Discovery', plus the photos, Bill B for the Kitoys reference and to Brian Wagstaff for the other images.

Small Scale World - weaving magic, with lots of help . . . and more to come!

H is for "Hi, do you know who made these?"

"No, sorry, all I know is what you know, Hong Kong copies of Britains garage mechanics, the bases look a bit like Marx's 45mm air force figures . . . ohh! Hold-on, yes I do know . . . read on!"

It's really nice to discover the answer to a regular question in my inbox, although when I say 'regular' I've been asked about three times since the blog started so about once every half-decade!

And when I say 'discovery' it's really more rediscovery, as all this stuff we seek was once common knowledge to various people or groups, from toy fairs to sales-rep's visiting newsagents! Sculptors, pantograph-operators, polymer-granule wholesalers, marketers and Christmas present un-wrappers!

The 'offending article', copies of better mechanics by more household names (Britains & Auburn?) which turn up quite often, indeed 'mysteriously often', given the evidence, but I'll get on to that in a minute. I have a fair few of them, but only the three poses, which again will be addressed below.

The Britains' sculpts are either-side, the one in the middle is from a US maker's donor, I think, but a cursory search didn't throw-up the actual figure, Auburn have the hat on a casually walking figures, but no oil can or pourer/measuring jug, while Kentoy here have similar poses without the hat? He looks like Sgt. Bilko with an illicit or purloined urn of coffee!

Anyway, the answer - which will be specific to the UK - is Home Paraphanalia! Some tup'penny-ha'penny mail-order outfit offering cheap deals in the Sunday Supplements (Sunday Telegraph 1974) to get peoples contact-details so they could bombard them with shite from a dozen other companies for ever-after!

The 'Fabulous' 2-Lane Road Racing Set; from the side-fencing, would seem to be a knock-off of the Scalextric system.

Now . . . there is a forth pose, holding/rolling a spare tyre, who is also reminiscent of several other peoples' figures, but I've yet to find one and a figure in a publicity photo is never a guarantee of an actual issue . . . do you have one? I have several similar figures and we may have looked at some a while ago, so I'll check them at some point , see if he's been miss-directed to the wrong tub/bag.

Once you know it's a Beach Buggy slot-racing game, Google quickly reveals that the same game is common as both a generic (two on evilBay right now) and also branded to Eldon (dozens findable) which will be good for most everywhere, but, neither seem to come with the figures? Yet for the figures to be so common, they must have either sold this mail-order offer bloody-well, or we'll find the figures to have been included in various other, similar sets?

The ones I've found don't even seem to have a space for the figures, but it may be they all had them as a bagged addition shoved into a space, and to have just lost them? The generics would have been sold from markets, the old newsagents and general stores, sports shops etc . . . I was discussing the old Aldershot market with Adrian from Mercator the other day, and we both remembered it fondly, it had several stores selling this kind of stuff.

A couple of mine have been conscripted due to the efforts of other buggers; army green Hong Kong'er on the left and a FANY boiler-suited Britains on the right, like a certain HMtQ!

♪♫♪♫ "Iiiiii'm toppin' up my Space Car
  kickin' at my white-walls
               dylithium's for snails . . . " ♫♪♫♪

The premises of Home Paraphernalia is now a Majestic Wine Warehouse with offices above, the company doesn't seem to have a presence on the 'web, and probably folded decades ago.

ДОСААФ is for the Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army, Aviation, and Navy

Or; DOSSAF is for Добровольное Общество Содействия Армии, Авиации и Флоту! 'Dossaf' was a semi-civilian or paramilitary organisation, technically centrered on sports, but probably best described as a Soviet version of the Hitler Youth (a parallel some Russians will hate me for, but history is history!), membership went a long-way toward your later progression in society or through the 'party'.

Like most State-owned (or in this case 'regime' specific) organs of the Soviet system - as practiced in both Russia and China - they ended up with a few industrial plants, among the output of which were toys and playthings.

The plant at Odessa being best known [by us collectors'] for their Timpo 'Swoppet' clones, slightly comical for being more African than Eurasian/Amerindian in the old skin-tone . . . have to be careful what I say here (readers in the future will need to reacquaint themselves with the March 2021 appearance of Prince, Duke the posh, his ex-Majesty Harry the Harry-not-Henry, and his missus, on the Oprah Winfrey Show) . . . , but were available in a lovely palate of 'toy' coloured legs and - more importantly from my fandom point of view - bases.

I also have a number of mixed loose figures (upper shot) while the packaging has a lot in common with the aluminium set we looked at here from Gidromana, being vacuum shrunk-wrapped onto a piece of card.

Among the loose ones are (or is?) another pair of running legs, giving three types; just off the base (white), leg near-parallel with the plane of the base (green) and a bit of a donkey-kick (pink and yellow), but there are other differences.

One of them has a separate weapon (top left), you may have noticed some alternate weapons in the second image (a club, a spear, a Barberry pirate's cutlass!), but others differ (top right, rifles) and the base on one is very different, while I have yet to find the figure for the bigger bows (which may be unconnected) and a third rifle also comes as a separate moulding.

This all points to at least three sources of these figures, whether or not they were all Dossaf facilities or some other collective outfit/s is unknown at this time, but as-per those Progress flats we've looked-at before, there would have been duplicate moulds for other sources or other makers . . . and it makes collecting them more fun!

K is for Khaki Madness!

Which isn't very mad at all; certainly no madder than trolleys and a lot less madder than reefers, but there's a lot of it about at the moment! Mostly in PW, but . . . as part of a conversation which used to be 'These might be Trojan' or 'Are they Kentoy?', and which is now 'Could be BR'.

But as these are metal, I thought they could go here, I have sent some of the polymer stuff to Paul at PlasticWarrior Magazine where the conversation has mostly taken place, and there will be more here and/or there.

I saw these going for a song back in September (if the photo-dates are anything to go by, sometime in the late summer/early autumn anyway!) and got them for the initial bid, they look to be a set of home or 'shed industry' soft-metal casts, given a commercial twist, probably around Christmas time . . . at some point in the 1950's?

They were rather dirty and the card had 'had-it' (seems to have narrowly avoided immolation!), also by the time they got to me several figures had broken free, so I determined to remove them all.

The card (which may have lain in a long-gone box) had been cut from a crate of Chivers canned fruit! For those with better research tools than me this may help date them as while I think Chivers are still around as a brand-mark for set-jelly deserts, and have vague recollections of them being behind a range of jams and/or marmalade when I was a kid, I certainly don't remember them producing canned-fruit?

And even if they are still around (I haven't looked in Sainsbury's) they will be no more that a trade mark for a subsidiary of some global behemoth like Nestle, working through a subsidiary like Mondelez or De Monte, out of some anonymous carcass-rendering plant on the edge of a rural market-town somewhere!

Cleaned-up they were quite shinny! Twelve poses/items, and all pretty recognisable, with the slight incongruity of a colonial-era highlander in a kilt with neatly blanko'd webbing and solar topee!

You get eight combat poses and four guys in more base-area or sentry-duty type attitudes . . . almost a 'Home Guard' line-up! I think Crescent are the origin of most, although - believe me - these are lumps of solid stuff which probably contains more lead than was healthy then, let alone now! And not the hollow-castings of the donor's figures.

When mentioning these types in the past I've muttered Agasee under my breath (only because I happen to have a copy of their catalogue somewhere), but there were several makers/suppliers of this kind on home-casting mould, and people are always quick to 'correct' with the German originator of most; Schneider!

Where these differ from others is in having a sort of waffle-pattern to the bases/undersides, which I suspect might be a hinged plate closed on the hot metal to force material into the extremities with excess liquid squeezing out of the waffle channels? It would make a hell of a mess wouldn't it?

Scratch-that, I'm over thinking it!

But it's an oddity nevertheless and does point to a three-part mould, as you'd have to lift the 'waffle-plate' before you could remove the figures from the other half of the main mould OR hinge both halves away leaving the figures on the 'waffle-plate'?!!

There were two reason for my investing in some heavy-metal tat on this occasion; the obvious being that I seem to have found [one of] the donor[s] for my plastic one, I won't add much as I think we've already visited it about four times in the last couple of years, but that's four sizes now, in two types, two materials and one games manufacture's name (Glevum Games 'Dirt Track Racing'; thanks to Adrian Little) associated with what is basically the same sculpt!

Returning to the conversation around BR and the other reason for purchase; the prone figures are of the most interest to us in the plastic's-wing, here compared with a couple of my 'Trojans', they are not exactly the same - the polymer-lots' prone rifleman for instance, has a straitened right arm and a reinforced left arm, simplified rifle and there are differences to the small pack and pass-pocket - but that's not the point I'm illustrating, just that these sculpts were common at the time, and there are different mould sources for a number of figures whether designed for white-metal or plastic.

I bid on this at the same time, but missed it - despite a broken bi-pod! Anyway, he's been discussed in the conversation, the Johillco Bren-gunner, with a variant at the front (raised head to compensate for higher weapon) but the same legs!

And here he is in a scan from the Shilham Miniatures catalogue, along with several of the others,  Shilham was operating about ten years ago when I picked the catalogue up from one of the London shows I think, but I can't find the firm on-line so they may have gone the way of all flesh, it could be longer (15-odd years?) and they were probably using old Agasee moulds, although - as I've mentioned before - there were a couple of mould (or mold!) suppliers in the US until quite recently (one may still be going?) and there will be others . . . have you seen what these moulds go for on feebleBay, it's all maths - "How much is the ingot-metal, what can I charge per-figure/per-set, how much have I made from the moulds I've already bought, ergo; I can bid this much silly-money!"

Indeed, when you start looking, there's tons of it around, one bloke is charging lottery-winnings for old Johillco and Reynolds pirate re-casts, and he'll get the money from the same guys shelling out 60/70/80-quid for a new metal radio-operator! I only bought this set because it was so clearly dirty and with a card on its last-legs; it had to be genuine!

K is for Kulikov, the Battle of Kulikovo

We looked at these briefly a while ago when Mark (Serge) sent us a shot I couldn't resist putting-up, but I did say at the time we would return to them, as they are quite simply some of my favourite figures / one of my favourite sets. And while I'd always intended to show them, and knew all about them from 2009, it's taken a while to do them the justice they deserve . . .

. . . as for the longest time I only had the three, two bought from Chris Smith back in the Queen Charlotte Hall days (probably - from the subsequent correspondence - 2008?) of Plastic Warrior Magazine's show in South West London, the third coming in since?

He had one of those 'bar meal' baskets with a load of them and being a tight-wad (and STILL - at the time - a small-scale only collector) I chose one each from either side in two of the nicer colours (I now wish I'd chosen one of the putty grey ones as they seem the least common!), because I'd gone 'over-scale' with Russian flats a few years earlier!

This autumn, I got into the habit of buying one or two stand-out pieces every fortnight on feebleBay, and one of those purchases was the latest iteration on the Kulikov set, which are currently available in 'Army' bags from Plastmaster in Russia and this is how they arrived, the one; short and fat the other; long and thin (shades of André Maurois' Patapoufs et Filifers!), both half-empty . . . but complete!

Header artwork differs on the two, and the crinkly, card-less bags with a metallic-foil like printing is very Chinese and redolent of other rack toys prepared for European jobbers and the bazaars of the Middle East, I've found a few now and Peter Evans has sent some to the Blog (see RTM's passim).

Here they are from one side . . .

. . . and the other!

Issues over the years seem to follow this order, but it's not nesseserily accurate or definative, and there may be a step missing, in addition, TSC (Toy Soldier Company) seem to have been the main source for them in the USA and I don't know if they went-out lose, in Russian or Chinese packaging or re-packed in TSC bags?

LKZ / Leningrad Carburettor Factory - Original Issues (1980's)

• ·         Red/Blue
• ·         Red/Charcoal
• ·         Red/Navy Blue-black
• ·         Turquoise/Orange
• ·         Yellow/Sky Blue
• ·         + Chalk-marl/Putty Grey, Brown, Dark Turquoise, Gunmetal (and others?)

Alisa / 1-Toy (Moscow) - Interim Issues (1990-2000's)

• ·         Gold/Orange

Plastmaster - Recent/Current Issues (parent was Playdorado, now Knopa-Knopatoys)

• ·         Gold/Silver

Vita Productions (Hong Kong) - Holder of the Tool/s? They also re-issue one of the 1917-1922 Civil War sets with a tchanka-wagon and seem to re-bag Supreme/SP Toys Knights and Saracens sets

Which gave me a nice battle with  the three extra chaps!

While I waited for the overdue set from the USA, and as the Blog post (you are now reading) started to take shape, I asked Chris if he had any left and he sent me a shot of his in nice subdued/pastle shades of pale blue and yellow.

As metioned above Mariya translated these back in 2009 and I sent it to Chris, who'd provided copies of the inserts to any interested customers.

[I have a literal translation, but this is the grammatical one]

HISTORICAL NOTE

At the beginning of the 14th century, while [as?] the power of Moscow grew, the wider Russian people began to fight against the Mongol/Tartar hoards for their freedom from slavery.

On the 8th September 1380 at Koulikov in the fields by the banks of the river Don a decisive battle was fought between an army of the 'Golden Horde' under Mamai Khan on the one hand and a Russian army led by the great Count Dimitri Ivanovich Donski of Moscow on the other.

The Battle - where the Tartars were defeated - became known as the Battle of Koulikov

History states that the battle began with a dual between two 'champions', one from each side, being Peresvet, a warrior monk for the Russians and a Mongol warrior named Chelubei, both of whom died in the course of the battle.

"Koit", Narva. 4272-1991.20.000 [probably village of Koit/town of Narva?]

The other insert translates thus;

Manufacturerd [by the] Leningrad Component Factory [Possibly 'metal-fabrication factory']

Named Koybishev [Koybishev is a famous General]

Name [of game] "Kolikov Battle" [Battle of Kulikovo]

Item [Art.No.]: IPI-0231891

Price 10 Rubles. 00 Kopeks [Expensive for a toy of this type]

Standard Number 17-296-75       Technical Control No. 37.306.011-91

For children between the age of 7 - 12

[The next two pertain to the over-printed stamps]

Quality Control Stamp:   [18-OTK-22 ] Date of Issue: [26 Dec. 1991 ]

Contents List
1. Mamai Khan [x]1 [Leader of the defeated Mongols]
2. Hun warrior with saber [x]1
3. Chelubei [x]1 [Personality]
4. Hun Standard  ['bunchuk'] Bearer [x]1
5. Hun warrior with bow and arrows [x]1 [Composite] [this is the two-man vignette]
6. Hun warrior with bow [x]1 [simple] [this is the rear-shooter]
7. Hun warrior with shield on his back [x]1
8. Russian mounted warrior with sword and shield [x]1
9. Russian warrior with bow [x]1
10. Russian flag bearer [x]1
11. Russian 'Opalchenets' warrior with horn [x]1[militiaman with a bear-spear]
12. 'Peresvet' [x]1 [Personality]
13. Russian mounted warrior with sword [x]1 [raised?]
14. Count Demitri Donski [x]1 [leader of the victorious Russians]
15. 'Box' [carton/case/liner]
16. Box [outer]
17. Historical reference sheet

"Koit", Narva. 4271-1991.20.000 [Repeated]

Leningrad
Manufacturing
Alliance

'Toy' (Igruschka)

In the meantime, I had found another colourway, in the US, these matching the ones I'd originally procured from Chris all those years ago; 'aqua' blue and Chinese orange. But . . . these have a carbon footprint you wouldn't believe, well you'll have to! First is their trip to the 'States (which may have been back in the 1990's when these were suddenly available about the place, such as Chris's little basket of mixed colours), they then came to London . . . where they sat in a Royal Fail cage for three or four days before . . .

. . .being sent to Thailand for Christmas! So fuckwitted, and when I eMailed them they claimed no knowledge of the act, nor that they had even/ever been in possession of them, lying shitbags!

Well, if ever a seller deserved the feedback "Top eBayer . . . A++++" it's lg_minis, who finally got his money on the 20th January, for an item he'd posted on the 3rd or 4th of November! In the meantime, and despite much co-operative eMailing from him and I and the USPS (not our lying Parcel Farce though!) he had given me a refund when we basically gave up all hope of ever seeing it, only for it to turn-up about two months late!

While all that was happening I was having (ongoing) problems with Paypal, and despite ringing them and requesting several new passwords I can't get into my account, so he had to list something crummy for the full price so I could BIN, I suggested he list a stick or a chewed pencil, but he listed some tatty ('ish, but rather nice!) aviator sunglasses, which despite my paying within an hour or two; already had a watcher!

Oh Dear! It really was a 'mini adventure' and I register my thanks to LG again here!

All of which gives us a current total as seen above. And thanks to Chris, and Mark/Serge for their part in this story over the years!

I've seen a note that Chinese pirates copied the set, dropping one of the foot poses, but every set I've seen is complete, the author of the note didn't identify which pose was left-off the piracies and with the mould in China (Hong Kong) and in general use, there's no real need for a knock-off set?

The internet is full of them and they aren't particularly rare, but they are really nice! A link to Lev Razumovsky (the artist's) pages is to be found on the original 2017 article, where you will find the hard-plaster moulds, sketches and other toy stuff he was behind.