F is for First Line Troop Set

Back to Blue Box, and one of the earliest sets they did, this may actually date from the late 1950's, but I suspect the early 1960's, also it's not that rare, I've seen several over the years and got a second one last year, contents shot, but better box than mine!

 

 

It came with a play-mat and is obviously competing directly with the Marx Miniature Masterpiece sets, and you may recall my comments on that previously, with specific regard to the two company's German Infantry, it's as if they came from the same factory, or the same figure sculptor?

 

 You get two identical 'armies', one in green (Allies, good!) and one in grey (Axis, bad!), two tents and the play-mat, so obviously the grey stuff is the excitement, as while the green-stuff was reconfigured in dozens of sets through the 1960's, 1970's and even, maybe, the early 1980's, the gray seems only to have been in one or two sets back at the start, while the Bedford trucks - not in this set - were continued in grey with the German infantry, in the later single vehicle sets and the odd multi-decker window-box.

 

My grey trailer is broken, and propped-up in the previous shot! Indeed, a grey trailer is the only Blue Box military vehicle I still need a good example of, but it's not a priority. I would however be interested to know if the trailer has a donor-sculpt, and if so who it was, as it's quite distinctive, but predates the Hasegawa one buy a decade or so, could it be Fujimi or Tamiya? Someone earlier, Monogram or Revell?

 

These are fun! Filler to keep the play-mat flat in the bottom of the box, themselves weighed down by the vehicles above them, they are following the old pattern of hollow-cast lead 'Big Box' sets, with cotton, glued to a card base, and raised by a wire prop. Set-up on the left, packed flat on the right.

 

Flags are just paper price-label stickers, folded round the top of the wire, serving to prevent the wire falling-back through the hole in the cotton fabric.!

In the upper shot you can see how the sides of the marquee are glued to the underside of the card, which is then covered with a sheet of paper, while in the lower shot you can see how the wire works.

These are from that lock-down photo-shoot I did in bright sunlight, which I thought would be a good idea, but in fact, it was not a success, with the light too bright really, anyway; gets it out of Picasa and into the public domain!