E is for Explorer Cars . . . More Space Tanks!

Good things come in threes, although there's been a bit of a gap between the 2nd and third posts 'cos I was busy elsewhere! We're back with LB for a look at a few Space Tanks which have come in over the last six months, five in fact, taking my fleet to nine or ten I think, but I know two are trapped behind blisters (an LB generic and the Mikephil), however, one is a  duplicate of one of those seen below anyway! The other was here.

These came almost together a while ago, a single boxed reconnaissance vehicle and a three-deck set, over-branded to Delamare with a sticker firmly, almost hysterically, stating "THIS IS A TOY"! I think these three-deck sets had several brandings and a generic version? The contents however are all LB.

This might confuse your brain for a second, I just couldn't work out how better to present the three scans as a single collage, but it's just for fun, the artwork is infant-oriented and definitely - no futurist classic!

Note the box has two codes, the '7536' being Delamare's, while the '704' is common to the various boxing's of this I've seen and must be Lik Be's own stock code, similar to the Explorer Car's 404, 405 and 406 series'ing? 

The trays follow the order of similar sets by Blue Box, Lucky, Woolbro and the like with a larger piece and a few smaller items, in this case the soft polyethylene small-scale versions of their astronauts/spacemen, the middle tray getting two of the 'cake-decorating' pieces.

Of particular interest with the two tanks; another recce' vehicle and the troop-carrier/living accommodation 'space bus', is that one of the track units has the holes for a bulldozer attachment, the other three don't. Presumably these [specific sets] were issued after those small-box 'construction' versions and they were just using-up the old track-units by throwing them in the same picking-bins as the blanked-off ones; the packers only having to colour-match a left and right unit?

The three together; the other one on its box, a tad-smaller than the Airfix readymade's boxes, but somehow compatible, in thought, if not in deed!

Box art; I don't think I've ever seen a blue one or a silver-blue/metallic one, but the two shades of orange (reddish and yellowish) and the deep olive-drab seem equally common, grey ones have been reported (?) and while the occasional one gets the later bright green tracks, some get silver, most seem to get black.

The boxed one had so much glue blobbed on the aerial mounting-hole it melted the plastic after the machine was put in the box, leaving it with an attitude somewhere between rakish and daft! I don't think it's mendable due to the amount you'd lose cleaning it up, leaving it permanently loose, a problem which already afflicts the spot-lights on several of mine.

We've seen this one before I think - with a dozer-blade. Note the 404 (box code) is on the base plate, this is true for the 405 versions as well as the 406's, the code differences being explained in the packaging.

The other two came in a few weeks ago, courtesy of 'Tony'. Now . . . Tony says nice things about the Blog, and I bought from him a few years ago and gave him a shout-out in one of the subsequent posts involving that lot, only I didn't know he was using his mates' eBay account then, so I name-checked someone who probably doesn’t even know the Blog exists, let alone give a fig about it! So; Hi Tony, here they are, in their new 'good home' and thanks for the kind words and past-bargains!

Top left is another dark-olive green recce' vehicle and I temporarily added the dozer-blade to the above Delamare boxed sample for this shot (top right), while bottom right is an orange rocket launcher, my first with a push-and-go motor, next to the older (in the collection) newer (in issue-time) one with high carpet-wheels.

The launcher is quite a common design, originally from Lone Star die-cast army trucks, although they got a late space theme in blue and chrome, we saw it recently attached to a Hong Kong copy of the Crescent rocket launcher!

The bottom image shows the three types of wheels hidden behind the Panzer IV track-units, from the left; push-and-go motor with rubber wheels, free-wheeling plastic still with the old push-and-go base plate, and the newer, lower-cost (?) all polyethylene base plate and clip-in wheels giving it a more toy-like (as opposed to 'model' like) appearance. The image also illustrates the three known track colours.

P is for Payton, Winneco, Palmer, HG Toys . . .

. . . and now could be Victory Buy for/or by BMC? And there's bound to be a Hong Kong version somewhere!

Another post which grew organically over time, starting with Brian Berke's purchase of a re-issue in a local hobby store in N. East USA, prompting me to locate a couple, in the course of which the riders were identified (they've been in the unknown's for years!) and Hong Kong squeezed in at the end!

2.99 seems like a steal to me, Toy Soldiers Depot have some at 1.99 plus postage, so about the same in the end, if you grab a few. Now manufactured in neutral grey plastic so paint will be everything!

I don't know for certain if the originator is Victory Buy, and the packaging is generic/near-blank but they seem to have a lot of this old stuff now? It never stared in BMC publicity as far as I know (they have been carrying the Payton twin-flak 'space tank'). . . and can anyone hazard a guess as to what CHD might mean or signify - Cargo Handling Detachment? Could just as easily be coming-up from Mexico?

So I managed to track down what I guess is an earlier one (olive green, stickers) and a later one (cabbage green, no stickers), and I should point out - as we go through the post - my olive one has the slightly smaller, wider-axle'd wheels of the gun/jeep as it's front pair, not that noticeable, but it needs to be sorted at some point!

You can see from the series of mould-damage 'glitches' on the right-hand door's interior surface that all three trucks have come from the same tool.

I hadn't noticed to begin with how filthy the cabbage-green one was, I think it's been knocking-about in a box/tin/tub with lead (hollow-cast/pod-foot) or whitemetal (war gaming) figures for a couple of decades or so . . . but it might have been a pencil case, whatever the cause, static had given it a good coating of some graphite-like substance!

A scaler from Brian with one of Crescent's finest, it's really carpet-wars scale! The flash round the rear corners and on the foot-step/running board has got worse over the years as the mould ages, but it easily removed with a sharp blade.

More shots and the bedspread one shows them after I gave them the TFR treatment, almost factory-fresh!

We looked at the figures briefly ages ago in an ostensibly Marx post, but I didn't - at the time - clock the seated figures that went with them (or I might have, and not mentioned it/soon forgot it, as they were in storage at the time!), they are dead common in mixed lots, junk lots and rummage trays at shows and on the internet, so the sets must have been almost as common as the Tim Mee 'Vietnam' GI's sets were, over the years.

Brian actually sent some of them (the other figures) too, a couple of years ago, we saw them here briefly (in a bag!) and when everything's sorted we'll have a proper look at it all again.

Hong Kong took the seated chap, added a loop to his helmet and dropped him out of a perfectly serviceable aeroplane on the end of a bed-sheet! MS could be Ming Shing, a known novelty issuer from Chai Wan, Hong Kong, but there's nothing concrete.

I'm pretty sure there's an Italian branded import version of this somewhere, but I can't find it or the images, so that's a big question-mark against a possible false-memory!

Thanks to Mr Berke again for the shots (all the grey ones) which got me tracking down the others and pulling it all together a bit; Payton subsequently owned by Winneco and Palmer, issued by HG Toys in a 'rack toy' style boxed play-set and now . . . by . . . someone? And the grey one's not a 'recast'; you cast metal, it's a re-issue of moulded product from the original tool.

C is for Carpet Warrior Clones

A slightly bitty post this one, as I'd already got some images in the long queue when - as a continuation of the series of Jungle Explorer set's revelation posts a year or two ago, I think (?) - Chris Smith sent me his shots, only for me to take some more, lose the post, find it again, delete the duplications between the two lots and then - the other day - get some more in and take a separate shot which hung around for a few weeks as I couldn't find the folder again! In the end I found it didn't have African, Warriors, Lone Star, Jungle or even Tarzan in the title, but the rather obvious Zulus!

Anywhoos, it means this is a bit of a meander rather than a straight narrative, but I can sneak a separate Charbens shot it, so hopefully some of it will be of some interest to some readers!

We'll start with Chris's main shot as it is a comparison between some of the better clones and the Lone Star originals (which I haven't been able to locate (one reason the post was on hold in the 'long queue'), and may not have, although I thought I had them somewhere - maybe only the Cherilea 'Nubians'?); Lone Star black plastic, Hong Kong clones; brown. In Chris's words;

"Fairly common Hong Kong copies of the Lone Star natives, I happen to like them even though they are turd brown lumps of plastic!"

"I had a single black one then recently got a yellow/cream one so thought I would do a comparison shot it is then I noticed they are a slightly different mould, smaller with a squarish base and Hong Kong mark on the upper surface . While sorting out the best brown copy for the shot turns out I also had a brown one in this smaller size. Thing is all three of these smaller figures are the same pose, okay there maybe others out there but another possible diecast accessory or cracker gift? The black and brown ones are painted, the yellow one isn’t, both the black and yellow have one feather missing."

My sample a while ago now, and I have a few more of the black copies (no originals in this shot, they're all HK), some coloured ones which I think came from the legendary Barry Blood's sell-offs back in 2009/10, and which I also think are where Chris's cream/yellow one belongs, and another smaller black chap (bottom, yellow shield) who I used to suspect to be from a third source; he's not, he's a probably earlier version of the 'monochromatic' ones in bright colours. As you can see i think most poses will appear in all types - see caveat below!

I have had one Lone Star come in with a odd-lot recently and here he's compared to one of the brown ones in close-up, the larger brown- (and black-) plastic ones are the first generation copies I suspect, certainly they are the closest size-wise.

A base comparison; better one coming below.

Charbens only did the three Africans but they go quite well with the Lone Star set having the leg-feathers if not the head-quoits of their stable-mates.

I had a few more of the coloured ones come-in, enabling this better shot of them, I am suspecting the 7th pose (knobkerrie) wasn't copied over to this smaller set, as the Lone Star (8th pose) stomping 'chief' (channeling a bit of native American he is!) wasn't carried over to the larger clones? But, I stand to be corrected on both musings, neither Chris nor I have large enough samples to draw firm conclusions from either absence?

Lone Star originals, Black and brown larger copies and painted and unpainted smaller copies, I can't call the single sample black or brown, he's a dark, damp-looking khaki, while Chris has brown AND black, so they may have had several plastic-colour issues under the paint? It's also confusing that the throwing spear figure is a heavier/larger sculpt in both lines, while the waving spear pose is lighter/smaller in both!

Improved the contrast! Assuming the absences mentioned above are held over time, this gives us a target of 21 (8+7+6) figures to collect to have one of each physically different figure, but many more if plastic colour or paint variation is to be sought to the n^th degree!

Lone Star have a pretty standard mark, for them, the larger figures have a crude and roughly engineer's-stamped 'Hong Kong', most with a mould-release pin-mark, while the smaller figures as Chris pointed out above are marked on the upper surface of the base with a neater stamp; 'Hong Kong', as two small blocks.

Something else I would point out (against an eventual return to them, here at SSW) is that the base markings on both sets above tie them in with the similar Crescent/Lone Star Wild West copies and some Britains/Monogram/Timpo 'Khaki Infantry' clones, some of which we've already looked at here (Past The Post for instance) in the past, so we'll compare that way another day, in order to try separating some of these copies into potential manufacturer 'families'! Indeed I wouldn't be supprised to find some of the above figures (larger?) came from/in those long Past The Post boxes?

That's it, a bit of back and forward, but hopefully something of interest? I think I can say both Chris and I are rather enamoured of these funny little piracies!

F is for Follow-ups; Recent'ish Posts!

A trio of shots I've taken in the last few months which add a little to posts seen here in the second half of last year.

In August last year we looked at the Star Rider Space City play set by Soma, to which I have added a few of the missing green versions to the loose figure stash, giving the above line-up. There is - at time of publishing - another one on feeBay, which has the outer box-lining missing from mine, unfortunately the postage from Australia is a bit sheesh!

While in November 2020 a quick post on some Polish swaps and a Russian gun covered some plastic flats which I mentioned were from old home-casting moulds, probably Schneider, the above shows one of the plastics against a modern home-casting mould catalogue, to show they are still around!

Taken from the Shilham Miniatures catalogue, Google suggests they are no longer around, but they were about ten years ago and other suppliers still exist.

Finally, last November I did a quick post on 'what had come in' re. birds/poultry, and within weeks of posting it had found the above! Anti-clockwise from the top left; a resin owl (who's trying to escape the photograph?!!); a novelty kettle-whistle (possibly French); a Culpitt (et al) 'love-doves' wedding-cake decoration; a vinyl duck (possibly Macau-via-Portugal), and another PVC piece; a vulture of unknown origin, which could be Wild West toy related? It keeps coming in!

L is for Let's Look at Some Quality Hollow-Cast!

Back to flocking flocked flockers . . . that's the de rigueur puns out of the way! I managed to pick these up a while ago, only bidder, which is good for the buyer, but slightly sad in the round?

Absolutely mint, they've no dirt, no bald patches, no smell of smoke or tobacco - a real treat. These are all poured-lead hollow or 'slush' cast metal animals, which have been flocked and sprayed with an airbrush or even a mouth blower? Details (eyes) pointed in with Indian ink in black or sepia and the elephant gets a couple of dibs of paint.

Here you can see the pink 'nose' and ivory tusks painted-in on the elephant, while the camel's halter-rope is a bit obvious 'under the skin'! The llama just looks a little tired. All three were also available without flock and - of course - would reappear in plastic. Just nice, fun things, with no guns in sight!

N is for Nostalgia Hit "Yeah! Hit it!"

There will - over the next few years - be more general nostalgia here at Small Scale World, as I'm finding all manner of stuff both in my late Mother's estate and in the combining of the stuff here and the stuff in the garage (which was in storage), and one of the first things to turn-up has been this old toffee hammer!

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the patented [not], not sharp, Sharp's Toffee toffee-thwacker!

I saw another one online the other day, but can't remember the branding now; it may have been Blue Bird, or some Australian brand on Worthpoint? Strangely the commonest in junk shops seems to be the Walker's hammer, not the crisp-people (chips to heathens!) but another Walker's altogether I think!

They are not rare, indeed you can still get them on Amazon, but it's nice when an old friend turns-up, and why don't you seem to see sheets of hard toffee anymore? Did you have a toffee hammer, what branding did it carry?

S is for Soviet Space Tanks!

You know I like the odd space tank and you know we often see early Soviet toy AFV's here, so let's combine the two!

These are clearly trying to represent the old air-mobile Russian BMP (or at a stretch the regular-force's BMD) and the ASU mini assault gun, but by using running-gear more reminiscent of an MT-LB's or the BTR50 (fully-tracked cargo trucks)'s and using identical superstructure, what we've ended up with is a 'new' family of space tanks . . . bargain!

Waiting for the 'Off'

Crewed by gum-ball copies of Giant Aliens (shades of 2000AD's Invasion and Bill Savage fighting the Sov's to liberate Scotland!), the BMP-alike is in the foreground, the ASU-alike behind, you can see that both have too many road-wheels for either real life vehicle, while the identical superstructure is clear.

Airborne Infantry;
'Seek & Destroy' missions

The fact that they are bright blue (Soviet 'Airborne' blue?) helps with the off-world theme and here supported by Giant originals (note the better quality of the mouldings).

Construction is a simple clip-together and the hard polystyrene equivalent of Airfix 'readymades', but with less accuracy! I don't have a maker for these yet, they are unmarked, but I haven't looked for them on the two main forums yet, so that will probably come with time.

'Bivouac'

I love them, clearly recognisable as Soviet armour, they are also and undeniably 'Space Tanks'; yeay! I've marked them up as 28mm, but their fictionalisation makes them what you want them to be.

Some Wiki-pages so you can make up your own minds;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMD-1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASU-57
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT-LB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTR-50

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP-1

H is for How They Come In - Hairy Hutch Herd

I saw this lot going for a song on evilBay a few months ago, I put in a bid fully expecting to get sniped at the end, as it was obviously a good lot, forgot all about and won it for a song including postage, which I relate not to show-off per se but rather to illustrate that bargains are out there - every day.

My Mozilla was playing-up earlier in the year and I couldn't get hover-enlarge or 'view image' to work in some ('most' for a while) feebleBay lots, so this is a very low-res' version of the original, but it's enough to show you how they looked, and also why they might have been ignored in the search results, busy backing-cloth leaves it looking - in 'thumbnail' - like a bunch of white blobs . . . i.e. Hong Kong crappy-rabbits!

I also can't remember what the description header said but it was something like 'lots of plastic toy rabbits' so it should have peaked interest? Actually . . . looks back through own feedback record . . . "plastic farm series of very small rabbits and cats - really small and quite rare", so no reason to not pique interest!

Probably the best of the bunch; four Britains rabbit families, all ears present and correct and it makes you wonder how many variations of this sculpt's painting-v-plastic colour there were? the dun-plastic family (middle left) have lost paint, the white-plastic family at the back are factory fresh and note the thin ears of the forward family suggesting more than one mould cavity.

Also Britains; grazing, alert and ready poses (we saw the running one here at Small Scale World, earlier today - this was originally going to be the second post today for that reason/connection!), and again a lot of variety between them.

From the left I think; Cherilea, Timpo pair, minor make (Taylor I think, or Barratt) and another Cherilea, both the Cherilea's are huge, while the white one is a bit of a blob - from hollow-cast! I have somewhere a damaged Timpo sitting-up, which I converted into a passable Gopher!

Hong Kong rabbits from a handful of sources and in various poses, mostly common, the family are based-on, but not straight piracies of the Britain one and the single crouched one (centre) is quite nice.

The rest; another Britains family, which is only conversion fodder, a tatty HK one and the three feline subjects, a Barratt cat (minus basket and kittens), the Timpo pair with ball (we saw a PVC version here before courtesy of Chris Smith), with a Britains lying cat, sans tail (Manx!).

I have more cats and rabbits elsewhere, so when these are finally sorted into those with a few others, we'll revisit both and look at them in greater detail.

F-UPP is for Follow Up to the Previous Post!

From the "If you're going to mention him in the text you might show them the bloody thing Hugh" department, come not one but two miners, one of which is definitely Australian!

Forgot I had this one (hiding in the 'mocherette' folder with all the Westair, Peltro and Kinder crap), his axe is broken, but a semi-precious stone that size will break most tools! In a copper alloy and 'antiqued' to match all those tourist pencil-sharpeners (probably retailed off the same shelf!), he's digging some interesting stuff - I think the pale one is a piece of Larimar, the dark blue a poor (or low-value) piece of Opal (Sapphire cabochon)?

This is the one I mentioned in the previous post; one has to assume he's from Wales, Scotland (at a pinch) or even Cornwall, but he too could be Australian, from the Ruhr, from the former Czechoslovakia (Ertzgibirge?) or even somewhere more exotic like Chile or South Africa; without a label we'll probably never know, although the stones should be a clue, he's standing on Marble (Italy?) and attacking something which looks to be a bit like unpolished Black Tourmaline or Enstatite?

The coppery one is around 25mm, this one is closer to a war-gaming 28mm and manufactured the same way; whitemetal in cold-cast rubber moulds, although I think the blob of Araldite is a post-retail 'mend'!

H is for How They Come In - They Come Back!

My late Mum was a hoarder, not the daytime schedule/early-evening, TV reality-show, whacko-piles of damp newspaper that eventually kills the occupant in a stairs triggered landslide of old news and sports reports type hoarder, but rather someone who went through the war and it's deprivations, and determined never to throw anything away which might be useful. Consequently the sorting of her estate has been a long, slow process - which is ongoing - and which has thrown-up some interesting stuff, among which was this . . .

. . . I'm not sure if it's an old J&J/Boots fabric-plaster box, or an early Cotton-bud/Q-Tip container, but the contents were momentarily a complete mystery to me (given that she knew I collected this stuff and would pass on the odd bit she did find), until I remembered she had taken a few pieces from my Brother and I, years ago (mid/late-1970's) to try her hand at casting them in silver, using the 'lost-wax' method, but with pre-formed plastics rather than wax sculpts . . . she may have intended to experiment with plaster moulds too, I can't remember.

The reminder of this event was actually a small Britains baby bear (of which I had several in my Ancient Briton army!), which is missing, but I seem to recall both the bear and a small elephant or lion 'not working', so they must have been lost in the 'losing' process?

You can see she took items which might be commercially popular as novelties, Guy the Gorilla was still popular in the national memory, big cats, little cats and pigs are always popular as are rabbits, the highlander was once one of my most prized possessions, like the 'last man standing' Airfix German Paratrooper officer, I had gone to some effort over the painting of him!

There is also the possibility that another incident started the thought process which led to this micro-hoard . . . we were on holiday somewhere, and Mum had made us follow her round some antiques place, you know the sort of thing - with lots of 'kiosks' or bays - and as a reward for our behavior whilst obviously bored, asked us if we'd like to chose something from a cheapie cabinet, I can't recall what my brother chose, but I chose a piglet, landscaped on a plinth; a mini vignette. She then tried to talk me out of it with a disdainful "You don't want that"!, but I was adamant, and the thing was purchased, what she had spotted which I hadn't was that it was a Britains piglet (as above) heavily glossed (black & white) to resemble glazed ceramic, landscaped with Pollyfilla^TM stained with watercolours, on a stack of old coat-buttons, glued together and painted gold! She pointed all this out back at the car, but hadn't wanted to be rude in front of the dealer! I was still happy with it, but the pig soon broke-free of the filler and joined the other animals in the farm tub!

And no - I don't know why there's a Christmas Cracker miniature compass in there with them!

Point of focus was different on the two shots! Highlights include the Britains running rabbit and sitting cat, along with the piglet being fed from the later farm figures' set.

Now . . . I thought I had one of these, but it hasn't turned up in all the sorting and consolidating I've been doing since January, so finding our childhood pair (Mum bought us one each in Fleet Toys, not because we wanted them but because she thought they were dinky!) has been a useful bonus, although one of them has been more chewed than the other; I'll blame my brother as I just don't remember playing with them that much!

This article - on stone animals - has been in the 'long-queue' since 2014 (ignore the given date - it's how I sort stuff in Picasa), and now needs a complete re-shoot, which won't be done for a while yet, but one image was worth pulling-up and adding to this post as it's . . .

. . . another Duck Billed Platypus! Although if you know anything about these critters Duck Billed Dinobeast is more apt, they have a poison spur and a bad temper! But if you are the last/only living species of your entire taxonomic family and genus AND used to be hunted for food by the pink monkeys; you'd be a bit mad.

This one is bronze with 18/22ct gold-leaf on the bill and webbed-claws, the whole soldered/braised (?) to a stone! He's about twice the size of the Britains plastic platypuses, -pusses? Platipii? And must be an upmarket Australian tourist memento thing . . . I have a cheaper miner with pick-axe, in whitemetal, similarly attached to a piece of stone, which might be Antipodean, from the Ruhr or Welsh?