N is for Nostalgia - Badges!

OK, well, after a seven-day figure-fest, let's have something completely different with a bit of a nostalgia hit to boot, after all if we collect toys we already have an interest in juvenile popular culture!

Another of the magic drawers shot on the way to storage, it's where all the badges that come in with mixed-lots end-up, after the drawing-pins, building blocks, broken chalks & crayons, buttons, Lego, lumps of hairy, brown Plasticine, marbles, Meccano, and other detritus have been removed!

This might . . . I stress MIGHT . . . and only 'might' . . . be the only surviving example of the badges in this Giant Plastics Corp., set (third image down), but it may be from another source altogether! A photo-realistic (because it's a 1:1 photograph, as a print!) army badge, reproduced as a paper sticker. It's actually quite an unusual higher-function/rear echelon logistics/construction unit - ADSEC Wikipedia.

Figurals; A cat stamped from polished sheet steel (stainless), a relief-flat setter, a similar Tyrolean/Bavarian [very-]young couple stealing a kiss, the two dogs came from Bulgaria, while the rabbit is channeling both Miffi and Hello Kitty (or even the new Chi) but is none of those franchise's characters, but rather a generic; possibly a gum-ball machine prize?

Finally the National Children's Homes (NCH) crocodile/alligator in Santa suit is a teeny-tiny example of multiple-shot moulding, a technique akin to over-moulding, but with each colour laid side-by-side, originally; separately, increasingly now; at the same time.

Also figural, this is interesting both for being a motorcycle (speedway memento?) and being marked on the back with the Injection Moulder's logo, whom we last saw selling Thomas cord-pull helicopters here.

This is a lovely little thing, a simple pin-badge in pressed, tin-litho, not sure if the alphabet is Chinese or Japanese but I think the latter, and the equivalent of a 'penny toy'? The sort of thing 1960's or early '70's parents would buy a whole card of, and hand out as 'attendance' prizes to all the kids at a birthday party . . . "I'll be ya' best friend . . . "

Oh, if I had a decent sample of these I'd need a new Blog! Brass, die-cast alloy, plastic, card . . . stars, medallions, shields, name-plates, we all had several of these on our way through childhood, Sheriff, Deputy, Posse, Marshal, Fire Chief, Police, or here (in plastic) 'Special Agent' . . . where would a 20th Century adolescence have been without at least one of these?

I hate this creature with such a vengeance he's got 'air-pellet receptacle' written all over 'im! However, some, many, were taken in by the Disneyfication of the whole planet, so just for them . . .no, I'm not going to clean the little shit!

Look at his dimwittedness, shining, beacon-like from his fizzog, listen to his whining voice (it's there, in your head, right now! "Oooh! helloooo pluuu'tooo!"), wonder at his inordinate earning-potential, imagine my extra Google-traffic - whatever I say about the horrid, mawkishly-sentimental little fu . . . deep breath Hugh, deep breath . . . calm down; go and have a coffee!

At the other end of the badge spectrum from anthropomorphic plastic twats are these, given away by arms manufacturers, to adults, at defence shows! Heavy alloy, base-metal or pewter models of whichever killing-machine they are flogging that day, here we have a faux-gilded 105mm howitzer (presumably from BAE Systems) and an Oerlikon ship-defence auto-cannon.

I may have some more of these somewhere (tanks, helicopters and 'planes), I've had a lot of luck with the Farnborough Airshow over the years; Dad used to get us all-area tickets when the Tiger Moth was on display, while in the 2000's I was working as a chauffeur and a lot of our work was for BAE or their clients, so we were in and out, all day, for the whole gig and got given a lot of stuff.

At that level of corporate hospitality the stuff is given-away like rain, indeed; umbrellas (full size, posh ones) were another common freebie, leaving me and family possessing a lifetime's supply of them - I recently took half-a-dozen to charity! Once I had a party of Turks visiting Thames Water facilities for a whole week (8-seat V-Klass) and they left all their umbrellas with me and I struggled to give them all away! We (they - the rich and powerful) have killed the planet with this shite!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - May - 6

Drawing to a close, but if you've caught any of the previous five episodes, I think you'll agree is been an interesting lot, with a few revelations (not 'discoveries', just revelations!) with Commander Rourke's Command Car and the Poplar Plastics / Playthings Two-in-One pair!

This is the TV/Movie, sci-fi/fantasy and space items, which includes any superhero's or cartoony things.

Chris has only gone and found another pop-up astronaut/spaceman! Based on the old LB sculpt, missing his spring and sucker but a nice, muted, mustard-yellow. In front of him is a Bluebird Karnoid, or knock-off (?) I can't get an exact match with my catalogues? Next to him what looks like a gum-ball capsule-machine knock-off of a Japanese keshi robot in silver.

Next to the Action Fleet Vader is a Chewy who looks familiar while being neither Galoob nor Wizards', so must be a more modern Mattel or Hasbro thing, I have half a feeling I have a Han or Luke on a similar base? He would go well with the Wizards of the Coast stuff though, or the Imperial Assault board game from Disney/Fantasy Flight?

The two larger figures look like 'action figures' but are solids, one a MUSCLE or knock-off (blue) the other new to me; anyone know? Front row are a sidewinder type missile in a hard plastic but not kit-plastic and from the size, some big-box 'China' electronic aircraft I suspect, an Airfix kit figure from the Moon-Lander and a triple-point, vaginal-stimulator with hand-grip . . . wot? Oh cummon . . . they RUINED it - Thunderballs, no double-oh-seven! It looks like a dibber for spuds! It goes in the tub with all the other micro-Anderson stuff and is gratefully received!

Which leaves the large chap at the back . . . I knew literally nothing about Quentin (for it is he!), but Chris knew all about him, and we worked-out I was mostly out of the country, without telly, or drunk during his run at popular-cultural fame!

Quentin for those equally not paying attention back in the day was the mascot for Lloyds Bank, and he had TV adverts and everything; Chris found one on YouTube -

It might have been a squeaky toy that's lost its squeak, or just manufactured in the same way - PVC blow-mould? And a brilliant box to tick - cheers Chris!

This looked like a rather non-descript civilian type, sans head until I noticed he wears a Starfleet breast-badge, so . . . board-game playing piece? I've had a cursory look but didn't draw-out anything beyond the fact there are lots of Star Trek board games! Behind him a Swizzles Matlow Bone Shakers candy-container coffin, to keep you cough-drop'in! You can get tickets from the box-office, I'm here all week!

Two Teenage Mutant Hero Ninja Turtles, the one on the left (Mirage Studios/Playmates Toys) is action-figure'y with five points of articulation, the one on the right (Mirage Studios/Bully) is a solid, and both seem to be new to collection/Blog, but the Playmates' may go with ones we've seen before, as there are a lot of product-related figures out there for these, there being only four joint/main characters, and a lot in the collection still to be Blogged.

The Post Office failed again, foxy will need superglue, the 'wraith rider' should accept poly-cement! I don't know if the figures are from the LotR's Risk, or a French board game of 30-odd years ago called Dragon-something, or something-Dragons, but it's all in the archive and will come out in the wash before they go on the A-Z pages!

Quality merchandise! A Brickwoods publican 'brewerania' figure, a resin footballer and his dog, a polystyrene crocodile (or alligator, I'll have no species'ism here!) playing a saxaphone - as they do - and an old silicon elephant which I think might be an Esso Petroleum premium.

An Action Fleet Tie Fighter pilot who should have been in the first shot, and a Captain Scarlet who's probably been ripped from a Century 21 or similar Hong Kong make's Spectrum Patrol Car?

Kinder Disney, sans stickers, a wooden nodding toy removed from its nodder and re-tied as a floppy donkey! And the best; a smoking dog bendy! I thought it might be a Hector knock-off from Hector's House, but Chris found a couple more with cigar and cigarette, so they are 'the smoking dogs' bendies!

What looks like a Harry Potter figure, but not Harry, one of the bad-guys, they always have pale skin, or green skin, or red skin, or blotchy skin, even sweaty skin . . . odd-skin = bad guys! A Battle Beast in a pink leather leotard . . . and why not? He's missing an arm, but will join a slowly growing pile of them, whole ones are getting pricey on feebleBay these days, and the weapons are like gold-dust! I think there's a spud-dibber round here for him!

And an action figure of 54mm proportions brings these parcel overviews to a close. He is probably a character I should know, but you can't know everything! Seven Points of articulation, and possibly a wrestler figure but from which franchise! Many, many thanks to Chris Smith for everything we've seen in these six posts, we cover/re-cover a lot of ground with them, each time.

V is for Vikings, Vandals, Varangians, Visigoths and err . . . Goths!

Plain old Goths . . . with a G! The same comments re. this post apply as to the Roman post - mixed lot on eBay about a year ago, posted a few elsewhere, a couple of unrelated photo-shoots, finding the Heimo/54mm's while putting them away in the loft, shooting them against the small scale before they all went to storage and then having to be a bit vicious with the pile of images but still ending up with some duplication!

We'll start with a comparison line-up this time; on the left is the Warriors of the World, hard polystyrene plastic 60mm Marx original with full factory paint. Then an unpainted copy from the former Soviet Union or post-Soviet Ukraine.

As the former they can be the Ukrainian DZI,  Донецький Завод Іграшок - Donetsʹkyy Zavod Ihrashok (Донецкая фабрика игрушек - Donetskaya fabrika igrushek in Russian) whether Russia steals it again or not - Slava Ukraine! 

As the latter: Ark Models, where they are often described as "recast Marx", well, firstly you cast metal not plastic (you run, shoot, inject, 'push-through' or mould plastic) and secondly, they are copies, possibly stolen from the German Charmore production, not even reissues, although Ark are reissues of DZI! More on DZI here.

You can see however, they are very good copies, even down to the blemish on the spear shaft, and there may have been a nod-&-a-wink, from Marx, via East Germany (?), but they are too small to be 'from Marx mould tools', a very good example of the pantographer's art, but the size difference can't be explained by the [marginally] greater shrinkage of polyethylene, over polystyrene!

Then we have a 54mm Viking from Marx (with home paint) and finally a pair of the Miniature Masterpiece ones which led to the confusion of my thinking I'd also shot 30mm Romans the other day! Of note here is that the right-hand (late, soft plastic version) figure has had his spear re-tooled, I think the back-end of the shaft may be 'short-shot', but the pointy-end has been re-done, with a new spear-tip, placed short off/of the base

Last year's additions, allowing for front and back shots of two, and these are often found damaged, due to the fine sections and frangibility of polystyrene. They're fun, and while as Verangians, the Vikings were enemies of Rome, it wasn't the Rome of Marx's legionnaires, but rather the Arthurian/Dark Age, late-Rome, beloved of fantasy set-dressers.

Again, what can I say, it's a good shot! Note the arrows are threaded behind the bow, not as you would sport-shoot today.

Base marking and plastic colour, one white the other a cloudy/marbled neutral-granule grey, neither have the full Marx-X of the Romans, but just a HONG KONG, which makes them look bought-in!

The other chap, I rather like him, he looks like he doesn't take nonsense from fuckwits, which is not a bad life philosophy! It's like he's daring you to say something . . . anything untoward!

The Ukrainian copies, I don't have the whole/complete lot in any type, but I have them all in 30mm, and I thought I had at least one larger example of each in larger iterations, but I am actually missing one - guy with a sword and shield, similar to the clubbing guy, top middle!

An equally incomplete set of the 54mm's, but a mixture of originals (top row) and reissues (bottom row). I think we all know by now that horns and wings were more of a ceremonial/burial-goods thing, rather than a practical feature of war-fighting, skull protection!

Miniature Masterpieces, all eight, for some years, from childhood until taking the hobby up again after the Army, I only had the chap on the left and always thought he was an Assyrian or something else more Biblical . . . Hittite or something! And with that cone shield he would/does make an excellent Goliath with HäT Industries Assyrians!

And there's a nice diminutive slinger in the Revell scale-downs of Elastolin Romans, who can be David!

In the putting-away I found a Heimo licensed-production figure in PVC; with the white beard he looks like an avenging God! Full Marx-X marks on the small scale figures and some size comparisons, the Heimo has no marks.

How they went away! Hard polystyrene and soft polyethylene go together, reissues, copy and PVC are in with the Rojas y Malaret elephant for some reason - enough room for an elephant I suppose! The PVC figures get a separate bag, as they have a chemical effect which can affect other plastics or paints and I don't want to find a tub of sticky goo, next time I go into it!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - May - 5

And so to the military portion of the goodie-box from Chris Smith the other week, excepting that two ceremonial's have snuck into two of the preceding posts . . . Doh!

Traditions creep-up on you, and it's a fact that as these posts have gone from 'highlights' to 'most', the poopertrooping parachutist shot has crept-up to regularly occupy pole position, whether it's a Chris lot or a Peter lot, and they both send parachute toys, most times, so who am I to trash a new tradition!

The first on the left is of interest, I think he's the largest of the less-common pose ones so far, while the dark green one, forth from the end, is unusual in the smaller sizes, although common as a larger blow-mould in which guise he's still around. Note also how the orange Airfix clone is a disarmed version of the red one!

The rest are grist to the mill, but you can see the variation here, in a small sample, so you can imaging what's happening in their box or boxes - there are three now; Airfix copies, others and novelty/space, with a  larger tub for the boxed, carded and 'toob' samples. So with my own purchases at four shows since lock-down, the nascent sections of the Parachute Toys & Novelties page (posted or not) all require updates, which will be a while yet!

And Chris sent three for the novelty sections too; an original Poopa-Tooper (pre- or unnmarked- Imperial), the newer copy/homage which we've seen on the card a couple of times now and a Super-Pooper Man Bat (AHI I suspect), posed with the larger one from the previous shot, to give an idea of the size/scale.

Assorted combat types, a nice PZG running WWII Russian, another Rambo set figure in the huge-size, the rack-toy German figure in blue is a heat shrink, now shooting at paratroops, into trees or upper windows, while the stretcher man is new to me, sadly missing his oppo' and a stretcher/case.

The three kneeling Airfix paratroops have the HGL marking on the base, while the Navy guy; seated, blue, is the third now, in various states of play-worn (in fact I think this is the best paint so far) clearly removed from a larger - probably Hong Kong, probably mostly plastic - vehicle or vessel, but still no clues . . . and I do keep my eyes open?

These keep turning-up and this one looks to be the best so far, so is probably the donor for some of the others we've seen, and needs to be compared with the rest to see whether he's a colour variation of the other good ones?

Mostly generics to sort into the 'master' collection, but a - possibly Revell - kit figure; center below, whose paint points to one of the store display models, but there's not much between store-display and 1950/60's home paint stab-and-hope!

There's another kit figure hiding in the top row, on the right at the back, while the three flats; bottom left, look to be a brighter green than most of mine, which we saw here. Well, I seem to have one, the flamethrower, so now I have four - thanks Chris!

The strange doorway, is actually the gun-rest from the Corgi armored recovery-vehicle! Smallies, with a Starlux Para, Galoob pilot, another kit figure (kneeling) and some rack-toy fodder. the three in the foreground are truck troops who have been separated at the shoulders!

Jean's sentry box, a lovely thing which is in two colours by the cleaver device of having the red moulding slide under the white one, to provide a colourful plaything, and another addition to the side-collection, or sub-category of sentry boxes!

We've actually seen these ABC and clones recently in the 'matters arising' post after the Plastic Warrior show-posts, where is was actually Chris who spotted the white ones on Brain Carrick's table, although I then filled my boots too! And with the darker one I found the other day, at least one of these is new to those we looked at here, while with the white one, we are up to eight or more variations now, not forgetting Chris has found green and red-plastic examples.

These are fascinating, I'm guessing French? [British] Both missing plug-in arms, so now I know they exist I will try to find more, with arms, but what lovely samples to get free in the post; ceremonial/colonial period (mid/late Nineteenth Century?), and probably 1970's bazaar toys [1960's], they seem to be a cut above the usual types in that category, so may have another origin/explanation? There's something Poplar or Tudor Rose'y about them too!

Anyone know anything about them? Arab officer, or white officer of an Arab unit (red) and someone looking like a Balkan or Greek ceremonial type (blue), or even a Cossack? I have a feeling I should know, I have a feeling they were in Plastic Warrior magazine many moons ago?

The next morning -  from Mr. Paul Morehead the legendary editor of the aforementioned Plastic Warrior magazine: ". . . those two mounted figures with missing arms on your site are Thomas Toys Two-in-One figures. For some reason you get two figures and one horse in a box. I think they're in our old Poplar Plastics Special [publication]." As I replied to Paul; I thought I'd seen them somewhere and it could only be there! I now recall there was a cowboy/native American Indian pair? And possibly a third?

Closing with the medievals; two Kinder, incomplete, but again - they go in the relevant bag until the right bits come in and I can assemble a good one, the silver Knight just needs a base (I may well have) while the Samurai needs a torso with a sword intact, a tougher call as the RP (Res Plastics) figures of that era (mid-1980's) are notoriously brittle in the fine-detail parts.

And two MPC mini-knights, the red a mounted original, the black a Hong Kong copy I think, I can't now remember, and while there's not much in it, the copies tend to slightly less well-defined detail, but copied the same MPC colours, while the MPC originals have a numeral in one of the release-pin cavities.

Thanks as always to Chris Smith for sending all this to the Blog.

G is for the Glory of Rome!

I had a lucky score on eBay about a year ago, showed them elsewhere, took some extra shots for here, and sort of lost them in Picasa, shot them again when I was putting them away with the other Roman stuff, including other Marx, and had (possibly 'in the meantime') shot a comparison with some smaller ones.

I thought I'd also shot the 30mm's (Marx's idea of HO, being their [America's] slot-racing 1:64th!), even unto mentioning them as coming in this post, the other day, but I hadn't so we'll have to wait another day for them . . . if they exist. But more on that below.

Anyway, they all went in this folder, and I then had to be a bit ruthless in what I deleted and what I put in an 'unused' folder for now, but here's the result, still with a bit of repetition but not the amount of duplication which was here this morning!

From the purchase, the two sentry poses above and a couple of the more dynamic chaps below, front and back with some variation in paint, you can see what I meant about the 6-inch figure's shield arm in the previous but one post, on this figure it's far straighter giving a neater and more vertical look to the figure.

The choice of a man with a whip is odd, these were originally from the 60mm Warriors of the World line, and as such he was called Marcus Gaius, which seems to be a totally invented name (there are a couple of Gaius Marcus's in history), so is he whipping slaves (yuck) or propelling a chariot which would come later with the 54mm Ben Hur playsets?

Shot the previous top row again, with the addition - far left of upper row - of a soft PVC version from Heimo's European operation. These two are my favourite poses, possibly in part due to their having been copied by Giant and others in small-scale.

I like them so much in fact, I shot them again! Call it 'Trooping of the Colours', with the previously seen here on Small Scale World; pencil-sharpener statuette, and err . . . no colours!

The other guy from the top again, with a damaged orange polyethylene one who might be a good rack-toy copy or a reissue from Mexico or somewhere, I don't know? But a nice enough figure throwing a small spear or javlin.

I really like this guy as well, but he doesn't look terribly Roman! Some Illyrian, Thracian or Dacian 'barbarian' maybe? Equally, if you take him out of the time period, he's a Greek with the right helmet and a large Hoplon shield, but a very good sculpt with much dynamism.

My 54mm Ben Hur sample is incomplete and modern reissue production, so nothing to write home about, but that's alright I'm already home so I'll write it here as a box ticker. A few useful figures, but not a set which has ever got me excited, the seated figure is sitting on an ancient warship from a board-game which happened to be passing - Escape from Atlantis.

I shot these ages ago, they have been turning up in ones and twos, pretty much since I started collecting, so have some age, the most I've seen at once is three which came in from Peter Evans, but he'd probably also collected them over time, so the conclusion is something like Christmas crackers or gum-ball / capsule-machine prizes? Note that one of them is actually a Marx Egyptian pose - bottom right.

However, you can see here (taken after those three from Peter, or a Chris donation, maybe an Adrian lot?), that the bases are very Marx like, with two mould-release pin-marks, although also marked 'Made in Hong Kong', so . . . There were a few Biblical sets in the Marx Miniature Masterpiece lines, some of which may have contained the Egyptians (another - damaged - one added in the above shot, bottom left), which would explain the tool but not the base mark!

Equally, I don't know of any Romans being in the MM-sets, which is why I didn't photograph them, I don't have any, I do have Vikings, but they went up against the (very Tudor) Knights in this scale, and while the Knights get a soft-plastic unpainted version in the window boxes, the Vikings weren't promoted to those lofty, late production levels, let alone any no-existent Romans!

But, we have seen similar bases from Ri-Toys as Marx re-issues, mostly of known Miniature Masterpiece models as retailed in the UK by Marksmen and covered here once or twice now, but these Roman/Egyptian sculpts weren't among them and they (the Marksmen)weren't marked-up to Hong Kong.

All firms start small, even one which would get as big as Rado Industries did in the 1980's/90's (seem to have gone now, their place rather taken by Hing Fat!), and there's a possibility that if they got the HK Marx mould-tools which they clearly did (some at least), and if there was an Egyptian tool (for the biblical sets), there may have been with it, a Roman tool which didn't get used by Marx, maybe one tool, it would only be 12-16 small cavities.

Consequently, Ri-Toys might, early in their existence, have pushed both (Egyptians and Romans) through an injector and hawked them round the market as cracker/capsule novelties, with an added base mark? Lots of if's and maybe's, so I'm not saying that's what happened; definitely don't quote me! But it’s a possible explanation for these rare'ish and unusual versions of Marx sculpts?

As I was putting them all away, I found this chap, who is one of the missing poses above, indeed; the missing 'colours'! He's a chalky polyethylene in cream and probably Swansea production, home painted, you can see the white fogging of superglue near his left wrist, it's the only thing keeping him 'as produced'!

And thanks to the above named trio and others; my sample of the 30mm oddities is larger with duplicates and some probably came from John Begg, Gareth Morgan or Trevor Rudkin, it's all the oddities these guys save or send to me or the Blog/for the Blog that make the tale more interesting.