H is for How They Come In - Theo's Parcel 1 of 2

This lovely parcel of Euro-treats (all the more so since the uneducated mass voted Brwreakshit!) arrived at the start of October . . . where's that gone? I don't know about you but someone's just stolen more than six weeks from me, that's nearly two months-full!

Anyway, I'd all but forgotten that Theo van der Werden asked for my address ages ago, and despite his own real life tribulations, he managed to send these to the blog and there's a fair lot to look at so let's get stuck in!

I actually came home to this on the doorstep, as it came via a courier, not Royal Fail, so it hadn't been with whatever came that morning and by the time I came back from town (with a dinosaur in my grasping mitts) it was sat there, "Hey Dude; look at me!" you will notice that Theo put his beloved Snakes & Ladders game on the top, a gift I appreciate more than the rest of the contets of the box, which are all lovely.

As an aside, anyone in the UK notice Collectors Gazette managed an article on Snakes & Ladders a couple of months after I'd posted the subject twice? They just did military trains too . . . again; a month or so after we looked at them here, twice . . . filed under the 'fancy that' news department! But then we've had ten-years of their A-Z trope, which began about six months after this Blog was born with, err . . . an A-to-Z trope! [whispers . . . they also seem to use Moonbase for ideas, but at least they sometimes credit that site!]

Now, these are really Easter gear, but a donation report is a donation report, so here they are with two broken legs courtesy of the courier, easily mended the same day, but we'll look at the close-ups next Spring. On the right is the catalogue image from DS Plastics (also courtesy of Theo - the dog is from another set), which lets us know who was behind them! Aren't they sweet; they're all little Easter-eggs!

Evolution! My town purchase the same day!

Also from DS Plastics, these are smaller (60mm), soft polyethylene versions of the footballers we saw both marked to Pak-Me-Mee (white plastic) and unmarked (flesh coloured) in a 110mm (four inch) size, whether this means DS Plastics made the [earlier?] original hard polystyrene ones is still anybody's guess, but is seems more likely?

Next to them, on the left of the upper image are two of the Manurba athletes, but when I say Manurba, there's always the caveat these days that they may be Dom Plastic or Heinerle, and no one seems quite as sure as they used to be about all three!

Ancients and Medievals include a small soft 'ethylene Marx mounted knight from the late window boxes (picked-up two interesting ones at Sandown on Saturday), a larger silver Marx, Supreme sculpts from two of their sets (top left) and the copies (middle and bottom row), a really nice catapult, Jean rider in the less common black plastic and a Hong Kong horse taken from Timpo.

A wodge of Revell WWII figures (with WWI French) in 1:72nd scale, mostly US forces; Infantry, Paratroopers and Marines) and some British Para's in need of some paint stripper.

Army Men and Astronauts, accessories and a large roller! The ruined wall is particularly interesting, being a single moulding with a 90° turn. A couple more Supreme copy knights are joined by the small combat  soldier (top left by the barbed wire) who might be French 'bazaar' production; he's got his sleeves rolled-up and a M1 carbine which could put him in Vietnam, but as a fighter in the earlier Indo-Chinese conflict I suspect?

Note also the Arifix copy 'Afrika Korps'-man who's converted by the simple expedient of adding the Infantry helmet to an originally cap-wearing sculpt!

Wild West and a unusual superhero type who is a solid, and probably from a blind-bag or capsule line/rage? The two painted cowboys are new to me; similar to those you can find in the UK, whether Herald, Lone Star or Crescent copies, and in the same pale plastic of some oblong-based figures I've got, but here (two Swoppet copies) with cloud-bases and brighter paint.

The flesh-coloured trio are Airfix 1:32nd set copies, but not in the usual creamy-white either, I may have brands (or set titles) for them on one of the dongles, I know I have had some luck identifying two lots of the paler ones and may have ID'd these too?

These premiums are lovely, and a whole set; to my shame I thought I'd scanned the Albert Heijn insert sheet and accidently put it with all the other capsule stuff, but I can't find it, so I must have forgotten to? Anyway they all went off to storage weeks ago, so we'll have to return to them another day, I think I have another set by the same maker, so we'll do them together with their inserst, in the meantime - they aren't the Ziani set (12 rather stilted figures), nor the Kinder set (a basic 10 figures), but 15 main/supporting characters, 17 if you count the chipmunks!

Many, many thanks to Theo, he has sent lots of images to the blog, but usually one's and two's waiting for me to get round to them, or around to them again, and I know he's having his own real life difficulties, so it's very kind of him to go to such effort right now, if at all and I'm very grateful - Cheers Theo!

Missed Sunday by a hour; Doh! Part Two sometime tomorrow later today hopefully!