H is for How They Come In - Peter - January

I posted the first few of these elsewhere at the time, but in clearing the section of 'H is for's', their time in the spotlight at Small Scale World is overdue, so a look at the fine lot Peter Evans of Plastic Warrior fame (don't forget the show this Saturday!) sent the Blog back in January.

Various bits for future posts, although we will look at Combat Force and the contents of the bag of loose figures in this post. A nice novelty gun pencil sharpener for the future 'Mocherette' page, a set of 'funimals' which seem to be, or include old Disney sculpts (the Elephant is from the Jungle Book?), a pair of carded WWF figures to balance the two loose ones in the same lot and Toy Story 'pooper-troopers' round off this shot's contents.

A 'previously seen elsewhere on the internet' shot, we'll look at a lot of it below, but the Kinder bods didn't get a second run in the photo-studio, nor did the Goliath from a bible-shop play-set, nor the towers, which are rather nice! Sort of Central European turret design, probably off a larger castle set, and fitted with holes for flags which happen to fit cake-decoration guardsmen!

The policeman has since been joined by another, either from Peter previously, or from Chris the other day, they are a soft silicon (which attracts dirt and pet hair!), in the style of Safari, but probably some minor-make/generic die-cast vehicle accessories? Marx boy scout joins or will join - at some point - the others, I think mine are chalky cream Swansea production, this maybe a Marksman reissue

Jean 'Krip', Redbox or Toy Major ninjas, bits of another nativity set and an angel from a third, all surrounded by a bunch of Mattel's 'CUTIE's'. As it happens their tubs went up to storage the other day, so I added them inn to the existing ones, some of which we saw here in the past, and there were only two full duplicates, and three colour variations, all the rest were new, it's quite a large line with about 50 to find, each in two colours I believe, so a ways to go yet!

A collection of animals were also in Peter's lot, with interest in the brown cow which was new to me, but a nice sculpt, a MEG horse with bucket, unusual sheep, an actual Jungle Book elephant from Disney, but a newer Phidal or similar, not the one referenced in the first shot.

Back to that mixed bag of combat types . . . I've seen these, or at least the upper - green - ones, in umpteen sets on Amazon and Ali', sometimes with Amazon's wacky phantom-brands, sometimes as generics, or on Alibaba under some middle-man branding, and had hoped to get some, when these turned-up out of the blue!

The fun aspect of them being they all have a vignette base with a bit of scenery or battle damaged infrastructure to share their polymer universe with! The yellow ones are more 'bog standadrd' fare, but have some very useful chaps in Jungle (or Boonie) hats.

And these are they; lacking all the trappings of modern webbing/body armour, if you can live with the slightly oversized and generic weapons, they would paint-up well for Vietnam, well . . . paint-up 'bareable'!

Box ticking the missing set from previous posts on the subject, probably PLA-funded toy soldiers of rather generic 'Fritz' helmet/NATO types, they follow the pattern of the previously seen sets from the same branding: Jeu, Jeunow, Vi!Kondo and CCTV7/The PLA. And given what's been happening since 24th February this year, I'll just reprise what I wrote last October . . .

"What I'm suggesting is that by purchasing these, you may well be financially supporting the army of the Enemy! Because, and make no mistake about it; A) That's how these things work in China (as they did in Soviet Russia), and B) despite the rapprochement of Nixon (another lying, narcissistic Republican with the gift of the gab, more interested in power at any cost, and profit over the best interests of most of the people most of the time), China were always the 'other enemy' and are flexing like never before . . . indeed through these toys! What do you think the wars in Korea, Vietnam and Malaya were all about?

Now, OK, if you're a simple-thinking, garden-gaming, kidult, you're not going to give such things a second thought as you squat in the yard going "piow-piow", but I served, and I served for a reason, with a sense of purpose, and I find it all a bit disturbing . . . this watching the American far-right getting into bed with Eastern-European disrupters and mercenary gangs in Donbass or Libya, on the Dark Web, watching Trump selling-out the Middle-East to Russian influence, hanging the Afghans out to dry next to the Kurds, watching Biden going along with it all while Boris kills 200,000 of us while banging-on about Vegemite!

We're fucking rudderless in the West right now, the only rock among all the self-serving wankers, populist liars and religious-Right nutters was Merkel and she's now just keeping the chairs warm for a few more weeks, in a caretaker capacity, while they sort out a new coalition."

Having also linked some of the anonymous new production out of the 'East' to Donbass separatists, I rest my case with my head held high, unlike some of the Trumpy-Orban wankers in the hobby. It's ALL politics, although I'd add that 'like Soviet Russia' is also like modern Russia, Elon Musk is only going to make things worse and my critics are on the wrong side of history!

Big breath, big sigh - here's two of them with their bases.

That bag of equally Chinese production, but no sign of the PLA, or their TV station! Imported by B&J Distribution and branded BJ Toys (who we've seen before), these are 2^nd or 3^rd generation copies of the old Matchbox 8^th Army and Afrika Korps, with a couple of German Infantry to confuse! And in well-leery colours!

Soon after Peter sent me this he found the set (funnily enough just posted elsewhere by Gareth!), minus the angel, so she went back! But I photographed the hell out of her first, as she is a nice figure and you never know if you'll ever find another! Her banner/ribbon reads Gloria in Excelsis Deo, literally translating to "Glory in the highest to God” and in conversational English, “Glory be to God on high".

Close-up's of a few of the figures from the mixed bag, two WWF stampers, and a rather evil looking semi-skeletal hoodlum with knife, he might be a gum-ball prize? Of more interest are the two die-cast 'Metallions', the Wellintonian is nice, but I've never seen the athlete before? I don't think Lone Star ever did them, so Hubley, Cragston, AHI? Universal or one of the generics - these have had quite a few packagings and not all of them originated in Hatfield!

These also came from Peter, but a few days later when we met at the Toy fair in London and are an excuse to post the Toy Project charity link again! We've seen them before, but this is a different 'seen elswhere' shot, with the highlights being the yellow 'Beatle' and the Pirate chap with the flat hat which looks designed to support something, possibly treasure tokens in a board game?

So many thanks to Peter for these and many other parcels over the years, I know I have some coming from other sources at the PW show on Saturday, and if you have bags, boxes or tubs of unusual, novelty or 'out of collection/personal interest/parameter' I'm always happy to take this stuff off people hands - one of everything is an impossible target, but I'm going to die trying!

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PS - I must apologise for any double 'nn's which might have crept-in/got-through in the last few weeks, or even missing 'n's, I have a problem with the n-key which a severe cleaning and a good wiggle of the rubber toggle under the plate have failed to cure, as the laptop will be 12 in November, and has been hammered - by this Blog and its imagery - I fear it's a terminal fault! I must look up the ASCII numerical code/shortcut for both n and N as I may need them shortly . . . Doh!