T is for Two - Machine Gunners

As I may have intimated, I acquired a few machine-gunners the other day, and while most of them will just be filtered into the collection for future use, there were one or two which are worth a closer look as stand-alone figures.

This is the Belgian firm of JSB, you may remember I had a very poor figure from them which I seemed to save with a thick coat of plumber's sealant a few years ago (he was still fine and stable last time I looked), he was also a pretty realistic figure, not something which can be claimed for this chap, who's channeling American 'dimestore' sculpts from the likes of Barkley or Manoil; single-highhandedly engaging aircraft (or cliff-top dwellers) with a 40mm pom-pom!

His barrel was very bent (further up, like a priapic flaking flak gun!), but I mannaged to bend it the other way with the hot-water system, although I was very careful and had several incremental goes, as I do't know what polymer this is, some phenol, formaldehyde or cellulose-based material I suspect? Proper toy soldier!

As is this fellow, a seven-part assembly of blow-moulded and vac-formed polystyrene (or celluloid, but I think the former in this case) sheet from Japan, he has moving arms and may have had a moving head once; it's now glued, fixed to the front. I don't recognise the logo-mark, which seems to be a single China-Japan-Korea compatible ideograph character ' 金 ' ?

But what a fantastic survivor of 1950's novelty tat. And; out of six successful bids (and one bidding war) to get most of them (one lot was lost to someone else), not to mention some mail-fail, probably my favourite out of the whole lot!