News, Views Etc . . . Herald Toys & Models

Latest press release from Barney's site;

"...this week we are delighted to offer for sale the Langley Collection of plastic model toy soldiers, including the most complete collection of Britains/Herald English Civil War figures we have had, together with a number of American Civil War figures and Wild West Swoppets, including a number of boxed sets."

H is for How They Come In - Francophone Lot

I was round a mate's a while ago, John Begg, who many of you will know as PTS52 on feebleBay, and he talked me into a junk lot, well, he sort of shoved it at me and I accepted it with an unbecoming over-eagerness . . . I'm addicted to this stuff, but you've probably worked that out for yourselves by now!

Four 'SINGAPORE' marked animals; without the box, or a bit of research I can't say whether they are Blue Box or Redbox, but Tai Sang owned all three (? see the Blog passim) factories, so it's all a bit academic! Along with a Jean Höfler one-humped Arabian camel; with that factory paint - I think an earlier version.

A charming polystyrene cockerel which I suspect might be French, or Danish? Pretty little thing either way and new to me, new to the collection  . . . and now - new to the Blog! Can you tell I had no blurb for this? It's factory-painted!

Interesting but damaged solid copy of a Britains Swoppet Indian, again, possibly French (hard plastic) rather than a Hong Kong knock-off, a nice Wagoneer, who is Hong Kong, but a cut above the usual pirated swoppet crud, with a separate vinyl jerkin and PVC whip. He's not rare, but it's nice to get him with the whip.

While the loose 'styrene flats, are downscaled copies of the Gibb's ones, and finding a few more loose justifies my not de-bagging the set we saw here, and nice to find a couple of the teepee/tipi's, but still waiting for the cavalry to turn up? They are also Hong Kong.

I have quite a few of these, they have a distinctive 'drum' of plastic, usually around the feet or on the base, which might be a mould-release pin-mark, or something more technical, and I assume French 'bazaar' or Spanish late-production?

This sample increased my pose-count and revealed that they come in two sizes, or were themselves copied - the bright, fluorescent-yellow chief could be younger as well as smaller! Remember the Hugonett beretted combat figures had a saluting chap in a smaller size too? Lifted poses are a mix of Britains and French figures I think?

These are mostly Cofalu and include my first mounted Indian from them. I'm not sure about the hard-plastic chap, he's similar to my 60mm swivel waist Cofalu French infantry, but he is glued and doesn't have the swivel head, if neither Cofalu nor another French producer; might he be an Italian make?

Medievals; again, I think mostly French and a fair-bit of home-paint, but the important one (bottom left - Cyrnos) is still in his factory finish. The figure next to him could be Hong Kong or French bazaar and is clearly a copy of Timpo's early swoppet line, the two top right are Cofalu again I think, while the Elastolin siege-engine crew copies are more (home-painted) bazaar output.

Combat infantry; a Reisler wire-cutter from Denmark leys alongside two 'multipose' kit figures, and while the DAK MG38 operator may be Airfix Multipose, I suspect the Italian is Italeri (or Italaerei as the name probably was when the kit was first issued!), or even Heller?

Behind them two Starlux 35mm's which from the state of the paint (cursory flesh on one, none on t'other) I suspect are 'for' Solido (Belgian) die-cast model vehicle accessories.

While towering over everyone is other Belgian, a WWII/Post War infantryman, in his British inspired beret and battle-dress (poor Belgians!), who's base is thinner than the Durso one's I thought were here somewhere, but I think they must be on the languishing composition page, so he maybe by someone else?

These are interesting, in that I've not seen them before (but did see a lot again the other day!), and they are based on the larger Silver Knights by Supreme, but without the moving arms, and some of the poses of the smaller Supreme figures we've seen here before, and my suspicion is that they probably are Supreme, but possibly a specific contract for someone else, maybe even a generic?

Soft PVC in black and chocolate brown, the reborn Starlux 'brand' had a similar set in silver/black a while ago (Le Chateau Noir), which was a partial re-badgeing of a Simba set (also Supreme contents) and given the French/European nature of most of the contents of this tray, it may be a rival product from that market? I think the painting has had 'help' at someone's home!

Everything else! Three flat lead, horse-race, game-playing pieces, two Giant horses and a cowboy, Matchbox Adventure 2000 (boy, were they a few decades out!) spaceman, early British intermediate-scale horse (Rocco Household cavalry), Minie Mouse (Combex or Heimo?) and a Supreme pirate who is a color variation of those previously seen here, I think?

Which leaves the chap all tied-up. Now I was sure I should know who he was, and searched quite hard, but I'm stumped, he's similar to the Domplast/Heinerle/Manurba one, but his chaps are far more flared, Jean's is moulded integral to the tree, while I have a similar one somewhere, tied to the tree with little button-thread ropes, but I think he's smaller (storage!) and possibly Timpo, so, I'm out of ideas - he could be French bazaar (given the rest of the lot), and I wondered if he may be from a helicopter toy's casualty basket (with flared jeans - very 1970's!), but I would like to know for sure!

Anyway, all useful grist to the mill and many thanks to John for saving them.

V is for Very Sad News

Nuno, over at Soldiers in Miniature has posted on yet more appalling news from Ukraine;

http://soldadosminiatura.blogspot.com/2022/04/valeriy-grygorenko-ilustrador-da-roden.html

S is for Some Shots from Sandown Show

While I was at Sandown Park back in February I took the opportunity to shoot a few things on Adrian's Mercator Trading stall, some of which may still be available if you want to eMail them via the website.

Mentioned in the previous post; these are 8 of 10 sculpts from the Quaker cereal premium ship set. I have most of the colours seen here in my small sample, but I don't think I've found a yellow one yet.

Sticking with ships, this is confirmation of the 'believed' Zang for Timpo composition vessels we looked at a while back. An actual Timpo box, the label a bit faded and the set is submarine-heavy with a carrier, battleship/cruiser and two destroyer types, all painted in the same dark grey-brown and green camouflage scheme we saw with the loose set last time.

He also had this loose card (which may originally have had a smaller matching box- see thoughts below), however, this time they are all one colour, and the Battleship seems to have utilised an old slush-casting lead-mould?

A close-up of the carrier, which - with that heavy mast/tower - could be trying to depict the inter-war/early-war carriers Hermes or Eagle (both lost in the war to enemy action), and the rather scratched and faded Timpo labels on both sets. the simpler paint on the smaller one and corner label may hint at a 'budget' set, available from a counter-display box with multiple cards?

Bill & Ben, the flowerpot men! And Weeeeeeeeed! Hollow-cast figurines of the early 'Watch with Mother' TV characters, made by Sacul, there are repro's out there now, but these are oldies! I never really liked them, they were a little too close to those weird Eastern European TV-puppets, we used to import, for my taste and consequently it was years before I realised Weed was actually a sun-flower - Slava Ukraine!

This is a bit of fun, Adrian knows someone who makes fun figures from the remains of old, bashed, hollow-casts, and here we have a Pirate (or Gypsy - there were a few Gypsy wagon sets, camp-fires, knife-sharpeners and the like, back in the hollow-cast days?) playing a squeezebox, married to a farm foal!

Clearly a set of board game counters, but who or what I don't know, the figures and bases have a look of Crescent hollow-cast production about them, but what do I know about hollow-cast? Very little!

All nice things, and thanks to Adrian for letting me shoot them.

S is for Show Report - Not So Late - Sandown February

It's only 'not so late' because we're still in April, actually more time as passed since the show than between the September show and the January post I think? Hey-ho, it looks better! I got my purchases at the show and Adrian Little's (Mercator Trading) brought-for-me's mixed up in the packing so I've Blogged them all together.

The loot, the plunder, the ill-gotten gains, the 'stuff'! We'll look at most of it below, or the figural stuff, but I also bought three Weetabix 'Workshop' card premiums, an armored car, a DUKW and an RAF Queen Mary Recovery Trailer, only to also find a guy selling Micromodels who had a complete threshing team with steam engine, threshing machine and walker/elevator. the Thresher looks sufficiently like our Marshall's to guarantee a sale to me!

The Taiwanese Asterix figures (bag of blue) are bigger than (but based on) the Euro-premiums (Olá  et al.) and will be seen in their own post, while the SAM-2 Guideline from Airfix was going . . . reasonable, in a tatty box with loose parts, but it's all there and I'm hoping to pick-up a better one soon.

Bigger stuff, including an 80-mil' Blue Box radio-operator, three 40mm Comansi Wild West, the 'Spirit of '76' figures are the plastics here, a composition Land Girl (from a planter or binder's seat?) in composition is the sole representative of that material, and increasingly I raid Adrian's chepo-trays at the end of the show for a few unusual or 'example' hollow-cast metal pieces and this time it was a box of khaki infantry.

I haven't checked them against the books yet so I won't try to ID them, but I'm loveing the WWI'ish standard bearers! The sub-scale Arab on horse-back and Aluminium camp-fire were bonuses.

One seller was clearing his father's estate so we had a nice, if poignant chat and welled-up a bit, but he had beautiful things, and I bought these three, I think the spirit-painted tin horseman is from Japan and depicts an inter-war period Japanese policeman?

The composition post-coach could be a continental fairing? I really don't know, it comes under the generic moniker of 'novelty' I think! While the Christmassy box contains . . .

. . . Christmassy contents! Tiny little 10/11mm figures of Victorian types with an even smaller post-coach, also in a continental yellow, designed purely as a novelty vignette for the festive season, although they would look good in a larger-scale doll's house's play-room (you could actually have a dolls house, IN the dolls house!), and not too shabby on an N-gauge model railway layout! Probably also Japanese in origin?

These were all from Adrian I suspect, and we'll look at two closer in a minute, but the two racers were nice, one a pale-blue colour variation, the other one of the slightly different copies. A pair of cuckoo-clock barometer figurines, he's lost his head but it hadn't gone far and the glue was to hand when I got home.

Below the rustic couple is a Codeg Trumpton postman, three of the other version Battle Space figures from Triang, the irony being only the casualty is complete! 3 home-painted Slater's seated passengers, a premium flat of a ship, bits of a jig-puzzle car (I save all the bits until I can build whole ones!), a modern PVC horse, damaged Dinky die-cast driver and PVC firefighter make up the lot.

The aircraft in the previous shot was a Tudor Rose 'Tornado', not one I was familiar with, but it appears to be trying to represent the North American NA/B-45 Tornado bomber of the early Cold War?

Adrian had a whole fleet of these Quaker ships, but I knew I had a full set (seen on the Blog somewhere) so only took the one marbled example, although it's mud-brown running through herb-green and just looks dirty!

After I'd shown Adrian the bits I got from the chap passing on his late father's collection, he went and had a look and came back with this plane, which I promptly gave him a quick profit on!

I also got one of the two missing bases I need for my Cherilea Batman & Robin figures, along with the Kemlows 5.5" Gun which is towed behind a Bedford RL or a Saracen with limber in the Sentry Box series, where it's described as a 25lbr, but the recoil actuators are all 5.5"!

That plane; after cleaning . . . it's only another Palitoy, init! And very definitely a post-war model, which doesn't affect much of what I've said in the past about wartime production, this is a very different beast, with very different construction/realism and different materials, producing a fine rendition of a De Havilland Vampire, and it only just missed the war. It's also a solid where all the others are 'dimestore flats', and has no metal parts which most of the others do - axles and propeller-shafts.

I think this was all saved for me by Adrian as well, model railway bits, mostly metal with the bulk being Wardie / Mastermodels, the telephone kiosks, for instance, although the one at the top is entirely scratch-built in cartridge paper, with [I suspect] Superquick windows!

The plastic sheep are Merit (now PPP's Modelscene) copies of Britains Lilliput except the one outside the bag who's Airfix or Hong Kong - I didn’t check! The taller lady in red will be the Irish Comet-Gaeltec with three Britains and a Hornby below her. The copper-effect die-cast is Kinder, while the brass chap is more of a mystery, and may be from a larger 'thing'

Kwong Wah; contents of two sets of six, three each Jap's and Brit's, all copied from the Britains Deetail range, albeit with integral bases, they were pennies for the bag, and a useful gap-filler/box-ticker.

Feeling blue at the end; these were both from Adrian, and they're great! A whole carton of Blue Box toys (I haven't opened it yet!) and a Steven Manufacturing Co. take-off of Britains Twizzletown's demented horse, in blue, as the original!

R is for Recent Purchases

Although I checked the image dates and one of them's from over two years ago, while another is over a year old now, but, sometimes I purchase a mixed lot, or a few parcels end-up being delivered on the same day and I shoot them for 'posterity'!

These were a few of the highlights of a big mixed lot I grabbed, for a single figure I think, or because it was going cheap? Anyway, I know there were more of the Weston's Mexicans, a lot more, but mostly the same poses, so presumably the ones the seller hadn't liked, used or wanted!

We saw the ex-flocked Womble when I posted the renovation/conversion, while the three Charbens African are useful, the Butch from Kellogg's Sooty set (probably by Crescent) is a slightly chewed box-ticker; I can never remember which figures I've got in which colours!

An LB cartoon American Indian is a bonus, the Palitoy (and others) kicking footballer is always fun, while the Imperial version of an Impro Triceratops is my first, I have all bar the Plesiosaur in the UK iteration, but Imperial's are harder to find this side of the pond! I think the Dylan is Corgi, but he's not the guitar one?

Seven parcels? French Albator boxing of Space Captain Harlock from Atlantic, and colour variations of - I think - the Goldrake Vega set, which I have on the runner in bright apple green (Brian Berke as sent shots of them in this sand shade, but they're still in queue, with 90% of everything!), above which is a bagged set of the Humber 1-Ton's with all six fire engine bodies, one of which is shared with the military versions (ambulance) but here in silver.

We saw the pair of die-cast Play-Me and 11resin pirates on ITLAPD, while the Hussar got sent to Plastic Warrior as a follow-up to Chris Smiths excellent article on Kwong Wah Industrial.

I can't remember if I've blogged the larger vehicles, but I'm not blogging that country's stuff if I can help it, at the moment, I was right to call out those promoting the wrong side of the Donbas line's products (earned me more opprobrium from the Morlocks and Yahoos at the time) when I did, and I try to keep to my own standards/principles!

So many ironies; Dave over at PSR has also stopped promoting/reporting on that nation's products for the duration (?) while some of the producers on the Ukrainian side are still operating - if they're not in the actual combat zones, they're desperate to keep their economy running as normal, while if we end-up in a nuclear exchange with Putler, you can guess the choice words - for some in our hobby - my last 'I told you so' post will contain, even if it never gets out to the ether!

These were a cheap 'small scale' mixed lot, which were about half-and-half non-Giant Cowboys & Indians I really didn't need, and other items, which I'll look at now:

I suspect these are probably accessories for a die-cast or plastic vehicle or play set of some kind, very similar to the sets on the back of the box of the space set we saw here, but a rival line - we've seen the firefighters and mechanics from the same line before, and they are a dense PVC to the other generic's 'styrene, with key-slots rather than peg-holes in the bases to lock them onto the cards. Obviously, yet more Monogram copies! 

Miscellaneous 'civi' types, most already in the collection, but again - from a plastic-colours point of view - you can't find too many of the Märklin HO track-gang, copies, nor the Dinky road-gang clones! The Matchbox hunter, on the other hand, is just boring now, he came with at least two 1-75 vehicles and I have a bag-full, one day I might paint a squad up as ACW Confederate volunteers!

These were what the bid/BIN went-in for. The Romans are poor quality Giant copies, but tracking them down is a slow process so finding seven at once is useful, and they came with a genuine Giant tower roof and flag which I know I need, a probably Giant medieval/Mongol horse and two yellow 2nd type Giant knights.

The Mongols only ever seem to appear in red or yellow, and I've never seen a 2nd version Knight in red, but alongside the common black & silver ones, these yellow versions do turn-up occasionally, where they're from the Helen of Toy 'Gold Crown' game/comic-offer with paper board, not Giant at all!

The other items of interest in the lot were the Airfix animal knock-offs, the farm have been pretty-much nailed now on the relevant blog page, with two or three generations and various pack types, but the zoo copies are still more of a mystery, with at least two generations, the flat colours and the washier, cream-coloured ones with the eyes dotted-in, or red-lips &etc.

And there's a few of each here, although one of the gazelles has been converted into a short-eared Llama . . or Alpaca, or whatever the other ones are called; Vicarious Guanos?

These only came in the other day, and were going unloved, again I have most of them already but as with the stuff Chris or Peter sends, it's the odd one you don't have which makes all the difference!

Here it's the HK copy of the Gem diver (top left), the runner, mid-left, the chap top right and the PVC Flintstone in brown - I have a few, but again - colour variations! The bloke who looks like a composition pirate in maroon coat is just a cut-about Spencer Smith AWI gunner!

Back to the chap top right - in the late 1990's/early 2000's, a company or companies unknown (there may be a brand on the die-cast forums) was producing these flesh/sand figures in various iterations and scales (at last four sizes?), which were sold as generics and home-branded to various volume sellers; supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury's), Woolworths/Chad Valley and etcetera, as well as other branding elsewhere

The only way to tell them all apart is by the base-markings which vary greatly between issuers, and must have reflected contract data, and the base shape. One day we'll look at them all properly, the commonest is probably the German firefighter (in fritz helmet) who seems to have been in everyone's range and every size! I annotated some of them at the time, which should help make sense of them, but I only bought them when they were on clearance! Smaller sets usually had one vehicle, but often with useful accessories like wheelie-bins, street-furniture, skips (dumpsters), recycling bins, etc . . .

There were also three of these Hong Kong flat railway figures, and this shot which I took a while back reveals that I needed the green lady with umbrella and red case, loose, to complete the line-up, now I have her!

I'd actually bought two lots of these mixed/vehicle accessory lots a few days apart and this is the other one, and while - again - not only do I have most of them, we've seen most of them in the mini-seasons onMatchbox and Corgi I did about ten years ago (still waiting for shouty-man's corrections?!!) 

These are the new, the better examples or the not sures. For instance I know I have the chap with the hose from Matchbox's airport fire tender, but I'm not sure about the chap with the axe, while to his right is one who matches the Monogram guys above. Can't remember if I have the green clown (Corgi), and there are about four versions of the Dinky Moon Rover/Chariot crew, so he may be needed.

Another of the believed to be Hornby rail staff/loco-crew, but in a new, lighter blue, with the boy from the late Corgi straw-stack next to him. The little black figure (probably a bomber pilot) is sculpted similar to the Kleeware/Tudor Rose Space Clipper or X-400 crews, so might be early 'something'!

The middle of the right is a cartoony character from something modern I suspect, but I don't know who or what and the skeleton will be one of those Mattel motorcycles, or a similar knock-off! It's all good stuff, which fills the holes in the story of 'Toy and Model Figures'. Lots more to come . . .

News, Views Etc . . . U is for Update - Giant or What?

Quick look at the Giant Mongol Cannon has gone-up over on that Blog.

F is for Follow-up . . . to the Previous Posts

A few bits of relevance to the stuff Chris Smith sent to the Blog last October, and which have 'come out of the wash' in the last 48-hours, and in the order in which they appeared!

The Daktyl Perterrohsaw went in a block-rock but had been divorced from it by Royal Fail shaking the parcel to see if it was worth nicking! I made that last bit up. You can just see it in the first photo' on that post and, as you can see, it's not showing much compatibility with Lego's Kiddybrick rip-off, which had been my suggestion. The Bird'o'saur's gone to storage.

The clown with a giant bow, was also a pencil-top, so he has more in common with the tripple-headed Kaiju in the following 'military' post. The sculpt might be a Brabo rip-off?

Yesterday, Chris's mum suggested the fairy might be Titania, Queen of the Fairies, and subsequent image Googling by both Chris and I revealed a veritable cornucopia of sexy, alluring or even scantily clad Titania's so we were definitely on to something, but the truth (and the previously mentioned familiarity) is a little more pedestrian . . . Marx's Blue Fairy from Disney!

And she is a bit blue, or pert, yes I think 'Pert' is the word required here! She's a softish PVC though, so not from the chalky 'classic characters' range we've seen here before, and while the material was used for the painted 40mm Circus figures back in the day, it was also used on the reissue dancers I picked-up a while ago?

The sack turned out to be from the Dinky TK (civilian transport ancestor of the military MK) coal-delivery truck! They have been reproduced, in recent times, usually in black, but with the Dinky name now just a traded brand handled by several companies in the last twenty years (Universal and Atlas Editions for a start) the yellow ones may be for a modern-made greengrocer's truck; potato's, or miller's/baker's vehicle - corn? Seen above with an imported, rival, Spot On coalman.

From this morning's post, the line-up as it currently stands; the new Guardia Civil is a tad taller than the others, and you can see marked differences in say, the jacket flaps, but a general pattern is followed in the various potteries, look at the short, fat, round boots with their chunky soles, or the eyes!