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.