About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, October 1, 2022

M is for Micro-Mini Military Miniatures in Matchboxes

It seems to be an inescapable fact that the longer you collect and/or the wider you cast your eyes, the more obvious it seems that everything made by Western toy makers, under a certain size (about 4-inches), was pirated in Hong Kong at least once! Case in point . . .

Army Ambulance; Boardgame Piece; Britains Beetle Lorry; Centurion Tank; Collectoy; Dinky Die-Cast; DUKW; E.L.M.; Elm Toys; Empire Made; Empress Toys; F; F54; M44/M53/55; Matchbox 1-75; Miniature Military Vehicles; MP NY; No.242; No.243; No.244; Novelty Toy Tank; Panhard ERB; Patton Tank; Playtime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soft Unbreakable Plastic; Staghound Armoured Car; T34 Tank; T34/85; Triang Minic; Wheeled Tanks;
. . . here we have the Triang-Minic push-and-go mini-tank (loosely, very loosely based on a Centurion tank) pirated in polyethylene, in a reduced size and sold as a ersatz Matchbox 1-75 type! Simplified with a pair of carpet wheels, it can't have come from anywhere else, as no one else made such a monstrosity of the accurists art!

Army Ambulance; Boardgame Piece; Britains Beetle Lorry; Centurion Tank; Collectoy; Dinky Die-Cast; DUKW; E.L.M.; Elm Toys; Empire Made; Empress Toys; F; F54; M44/M53/55; Matchbox 1-75; Miniature Military Vehicles; MP NY; No.242; No.243; No.244; Novelty Toy Tank; Panhard ERB; Patton Tank; Playtime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soft Unbreakable Plastic; Staghound Armoured Car; T34 Tank; T34/85; Triang Minic; Wheeled Tanks;
To accompany it, here's a vague take on the Britains 'Beetle lorry', done as an ambulance. There's no obvious brand on either, a letter 'F' on the ambulance being probably a cavity mark, and an imagination-medal on the box ends holding no clue. A US pattern 6x6 truck and Jeep (probably ex-Dinky) were also available, to my knowledge.

Army Ambulance; Boardgame Piece; Britains Beetle Lorry; Centurion Tank; Collectoy; Dinky Die-Cast; DUKW; E.L.M.; Elm Toys; Empire Made; Empress Toys; F; F54; M44/M53/55; Matchbox 1-75; Miniature Military Vehicles; MP NY; No.242; No.243; No.244; Novelty Toy Tank; Panhard ERB; Patton Tank; Playtime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soft Unbreakable Plastic; Staghound Armoured Car; T34 Tank; T34/85; Triang Minic; Wheeled Tanks;
These are in similar 'matchboxes', and are branded to ELM or Elm, a company which was known for producing small vehicular novelties for Louis Marx, in the Dinsneykin size. Indeed, some US sources would have it implied or have you believe Elm were a subsidiary of Marx, but these and what we're about to look-at, would seem to suggest they were only sub-contractors for Marx, free to issue their own production under different brand-marks.

Army Ambulance; Boardgame Piece; Britains Beetle Lorry; Centurion Tank; Collectoy; Dinky Die-Cast; DUKW; E.L.M.; Elm Toys; Empire Made; Empress Toys; F; F54; M44/M53/55; Matchbox 1-75; Miniature Military Vehicles; MP NY; No.242; No.243; No.244; Novelty Toy Tank; Panhard ERB; Patton Tank; Playtime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soft Unbreakable Plastic; Staghound Armoured Car; T34 Tank; T34/85; Triang Minic; Wheeled Tanks;
As they are also sold under the Empress Toys label, as kits, now this is where this post falls-down somewhat and could have stayed in Picasa for another year or two, the photo's get a bit muddled/poor, shots weren't taken which I meant to take, and we'll have to return to them at some point, but heay! What the hell!

Anyway, here we have, from the box above, the dark green M44 ('ish) SPG with its corresponding kit, and a loose vaguely Staghound armoured car I had, with its kit. The bi-coloured A/C suggests a third issue at least, at some point?

2-days later - the other one's here!

Army Ambulance; Boardgame Piece; Britains Beetle Lorry; Centurion Tank; Collectoy; Dinky Die-Cast; DUKW; E.L.M.; Elm Toys; Empire Made; Empress Toys; F; F54; M44/M53/55; Matchbox 1-75; Miniature Military Vehicles; MP NY; No.242; No.243; No.244; Novelty Toy Tank; Panhard ERB; Patton Tank; Playtime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soft Unbreakable Plastic; Staghound Armoured Car; T34 Tank; T34/85; Triang Minic; Wheeled Tanks;
From the left; French Panhard ERB; Staghound and the T34/85 (seen again below), the M44 seemed to get lost at this point in the photo-shoot, while I didn't do all the card-fronts, so the codes are missing, to which I must add; I never found the one or two I got from Ash, which may be in different packaging, so a bit of a fail overall!

Army Ambulance; Boardgame Piece; Britains Beetle Lorry; Centurion Tank; Collectoy; Dinky Die-Cast; DUKW; E.L.M.; Elm Toys; Empire Made; Empress Toys; F; F54; M44/M53/55; Matchbox 1-75; Miniature Military Vehicles; MP NY; No.242; No.243; No.244; Novelty Toy Tank; Panhard ERB; Patton Tank; Playtime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soft Unbreakable Plastic; Staghound Armoured Car; T34 Tank; T34/85; Triang Minic; Wheeled Tanks;
The T34/85's compared, again this was a loose, unattributed sample in the collection until the packaged ones started to show-up, and neither of the boxed or loose pair have markings, but each of the bagged ones have a transfer sheet with basic markings. The kit has black wheels to the colour-matched wheels of the made-up one.

Army Ambulance; Boardgame Piece; Britains Beetle Lorry; Centurion Tank; Collectoy; Dinky Die-Cast; DUKW; E.L.M.; Elm Toys; Empire Made; Empress Toys; F; F54; M44/M53/55; Matchbox 1-75; Miniature Military Vehicles; MP NY; No.242; No.243; No.244; Novelty Toy Tank; Panhard ERB; Patton Tank; Playtime; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soft Unbreakable Plastic; Staghound Armoured Car; T34 Tank; T34/85; Triang Minic; Wheeled Tanks;
I have a loose turret, apparently from a smallT54/55 or T62*, which happens to sit on the armoured-car, while it waits for its body to turn-up in a junk lot (it will . . . one day!), the little one is an all 'ethylene, probably Christmas cracker/gum-ball novelty and we've looked at both the slightly churchill'ian one (probably a game-playing piece) and the Blue Box style DUKW, which is taken from the Matchbox 1-75 Series before. Finger for scale . . . and I forgot to get the Patton out and shoot it too . . . doh!

 

* When you have to start sending them to Ukraine, with called-up, old-man crews, you're scrapping the bottom of the war-losing barrel Vladimir Vladimirovitch you barking mad-dog fuck. We don't want a nuclear war, and if you start one we will vaporise Russia, you realise that?

5 comments:

Andy B said...

Lovely little models.
I had the EBR and the M44 as small kits in the mid 1960s, when they were in long (narrow and small) coloured card boxes, hadn't seen them since. Found them on a market stall. There were also some aircraft in the series, I remember an ME 109.

Hugh Walter said...

Interesting Andy! And if yours were in sensible colours, that could be pointing to a possible four issues; getting their money's worth out of the mould-tool!

H

Andy B said...

They AFVs were in mid to dark green, I have a feeling the plane was in red plastic! There was also a model X-15 rocket plane, also I think in dark green.

Jan Ferris said...

Nice finds. I like those fiddly projects. I find them very relaxing.

Hugh Walter said...

Cheers Andy, I'll be looking out for them. I have some nice Italian planes in the queue, although, when I say 'queue' I may not have actually shot them yet? There's a lot of these micro-kits which aren't R&L, evenn though they all get labeled R&L!

Cheers Jan, they ARE small! The Minic-copy is probably the biggest, ad the DUKW is probably the longest? More to come, but a bit bigger!