Ph is for Phew!

I'm going to let you into a secret, well, not exactly a secret; just something I'd been keeping to myself while keeping my fingers firmly crossed, although without much hope, as I'd entered that mindset where you think of a worst-case scenario and then convince yourself that is what actually, probably, must have happened!

When leaving West Bershire in 2011, I had recently put a lot of the Giant 'original' stuff in a new box, and remembered it as being a longish, shallow, double walled box. When I got the stuff out of storage a few years ago now, I couldn't remember seeing it, and as I'd run out of time when moving the first time and left a pile of empty boxes for the landlord to deal with, I began to worry I might have left the box too - which would have never been seen again!

Fortunately . . . I found it this summer, on top of everything, but at the back and out of sight/reach, in the garage! It's not shallow, not that long, and a single-wall which was starting to go, so that's why I couldn't remember moving it - either time!

The boxes inside (my standard 150x150x230's and some Lidl's faux-wood salami trays I had started massing, but am now phasing-out) are all still OK, and the top one here is a mix of Mongols and medievals.

Phew! All there! Now you'll realise I've already Blogged the WWII and Aliens over on the But is it Giant Blog, the gold-metallic Romans also got a post and the spacemen/astronauts are in the queue, but the rest are now back in storage, having been sorted into what I had here.

All the missing 'Romans, Foot'; basically they were all covered on the Post I did here, but obviously when we return to them on Giant or What, the samples will all be a bit bigger and more instructive, vis-à-vis identification, bar the very small samples which will be Gum-Ball capsule machine toys, or Christmas cracker novelties.

While this is the mounted, sets and foot figures which had been added since 2011 and made the bulk of the Roman Page article above. Although more of the black forts were in the 'phew not missing' box!

Seen here with the Chariots; left, gonna be a nightmare making sense of them all, but it is doable, as I always keep the figures found with them 'with them', so I can match chariot/horse marks (or lack of marks) to the correct figures. The Tower Fortress With Soldiers set (seen here at Small Scale World in the distant past) is probably the same set as issued by MPC in the 'States?

These were in the attic, and we have picked at them occasionally, the Airfix copies (middle) are mostly on the Airfix blog, and we were working through the Britains/Crescent piracies, but strangely it was the the loose figures which, are elsewhere in their own box, this one is the carded sets, although we looked at all the 'beach landings' sets in the Blog's early years, while the top box is older earlier stuff, some of which has been seen in Rack Toy Month's, the rest will be!

The previous three with their lids off - top = left, a lot of this came in a single purchase from the master's master James Opie, at way below the market value, for which I will be forever grateful, as it is nearly all dated to the day he purchased/spotted them and is one of the more important archives in the hobby and needed to be kept together.

I would add they were never in danger of being 'lost', firstly they went straight to the attic and secondly, anyone who's got these boxes from Mr Opie over the years (a lot were passed through Bonhams in the 1990's/2000's) will know they are large and near indestructible!

I have found many myself over the years; James's are probably a third of the carded small-scale, and we have seen various bits of it here over the years, but all will also be Blogged on the Giant blog, on dedicated/thematic pages, and both 'individual set' and 'comparison' posts on the main Blog, while the odd set will still find its way here to the 'Home' Blog, especially the more generic stuff for RTM - farm, zoo, Matchbox knock-offs, ships, 'planes, nativities &etc.

How the Giant and Giant-like looked after I'd brought them all together, the latest addition (a Shackman tin - bottom right) is (was - this was back in the summer) waiting to be put away! the label/numbering system is a bit shot and will need re-doing at the other end, while the bulk of the loose Airfix and Matchbox copies are missing along with larger and the non-Giant-like rack-toys and the Crescent/Britains box. But, I hadn't lost any . . . Phew!