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Tuesday, September 26, 2023

C is for Contributions to Charity Coffers!

I've not been 'doing' the Charity Shops in the last few years with the same diligence I used to, not enough time/inclination, and a different life-routine means I just don't pass them like I did, but there have been a few small purchases in recent weeks/last couple of months, and this is a quick view of the resultant plunder!
 
A few bags in the Blue Cross, which I always check as that's where I got those Britains Herald ECW when I first started checking Charity Shops again after a hiatus of a few years, and the other week they had a bunch of nice bagged animals, from which I selected three (the lady in front of me in the queue had a nice bag of Dinosaurs!), to which I added a resin Hippo from the 'White Elephant' (ox-blood hippo!), or knick-knack shelves.
 
Clockwise from the top left; A bag of Britains in various states from very play-worn (tiger) to quite mint (baby hippo), then that lump of resin mud-lover, a nice group of Chinasaurs, including two gape-mouths, and a new version of my favourite childhood rubber Dimetrodon, but in a more ridged PVC-alike, than the usual silicon-rubber of the originals, but nice to know the tool is still out there and in use!
 
The last bag had a mixed lot of smaller animals, and while I'm not sure about the orange pig, the other three in that corner (green and blue) probably do go together and look like they might be modern lesser-brand or generic chocolate egg prizes. The startled lion-cub is probably Kinder?

While the larger bag was a whole bunch of MEG Kitty in my Pocket toys, which gave a whole shot each of gingers, black & white and/or or floofy types, smudgers and a more oriental looking group of greys! I have a few in with the cats, but always knew they'd turn up cheap eventually, so nice sample for pennies!
 
I was actually passing the next day and popped-in to see if there were any left, I don't like to be greedy and had only grabbed the more interesting looking bags, the day before, and found two more bags, while a couple of larger animals were procured next door!

The biggies from DEBRA UK; I can't remember now which was which, but there were a Papo, Schleiech and Triple-A among these, and I think this is a Schleich rhino and generic elephant? It'll all come out in the wash, when we look at them again in more thematic posts, another day!
 
Again I can't remember which brand the tiger was, or the elephant, but the moose is interesting, as it's Kinder, but far too big for the normal eggs, so it must be a Maxi-Egg toy? I've noticed they are gaining popularity, especially at Christmas/Easter.

The other bag was a right-old mix, with farm and zoo, branded and unbranded, for some reason the pig-shot snuck into the collage twice, so you can see what they look like, before I sort the contrast! Doh!

These - found in Phyllis Tuckwell  a few weeks ago - weren't really Charity-shop priced, but lacking only the backing card, were a clean sample and I've since seen what people want for them on evilBay, and decided they were a bargain! And the rest of the packaging went to recycling weeks ago, so the missing card - was not missed!
 
Being Disney Stores, they are more tourist oriented, lacking firm set/line lists, coming and going, not necessarily found in all territories and unbranded beyond the carrying store, who isn't a toy manufacturer. one of the other sets online - for instance - is much bigger, while some small die-cast vehicles (Luke's 'landspeeder') are in the rather bitty range!
 
They look very similar to the Applause set, so maybe there's a connection there, but they are - at least - solids, so 'toy soldiers' rather than action figures, although action figure size at about 100mm!

Finally, this pair came in a week or so ago, £1.10p for the lot, and it's for charity!

The sea-life are all equipped with pencil-topping holes, the dragon is another capsule/Christmas cracker looking type and the two Fairies are, I think, from the Flower Fairies (Interplay - IP) which we looked at in a London Toy Fair revue a few years ago, and which, again, I suspected would, if successful, end up in mixed/charity lots, so more samples procured against future thematic posts!

Monday, September 25, 2023

W is for We Do This Shit . . .

. . . so you don't have to!

You may remember when Peter Evans sent the home-making moulds by Irwin RX to the blog? Four years ago, where does it go! Anyway, having not bought a couple of the 'ovens' in charity shops because they were too expensive (I'm not paying 20-quid for a second hand novelty-toy in a broken box!), I did find a cheap one, so we can now look at them properly!
 
 
A reminder of the set Peter sent to the blog, although the 'oven' is prominent all over the box, you actually get a few plastic moulds with reminders to buy a "3D Magic Maker available separately"! Which I had previously shelfie-shot, in TKMaxx I think?

The 3D Magic Maker, it looks like an oven and while there is nothing in the instructions (or online, then (2018/19) or now), I am 100% sure it is nothing more than a couple of small ultraviolet (UV) 'tanning' lamps!
 
The gel is quite soft, think mayonnaise, and here you can see an empty cavity on the left, new 'squeeze' in the middle and smoothing the gel into the cavity on the right, I used a cocktail stick, but something like a credit-card would be better, a Plasticard offcut, something like that?
 
Once you are satisfied that the moulds are prepped as good as you can get a semitransparent gloop, into the 'oven' it goes, and after a few minutes, out come the slightly warm, soft rubber figures, as halves!
After trimming ('fettling' the 'flash') you glue the two halves together with a slip of the gel, and give them a couple more minutes under the lamps, a single base needs to be manufactured twice more, and if you're still persevering with the project, similarly glued. I think we can assume I won't be making any more.

I can see this being fun for kids between about seven and maybe eleven years of age, but the fun will be in the doing and the mess, not the finished product! The gel however, in combination with the 'oven', may have further uses for hobbyists, for scratch-building, by producing specific parts, bits or scenic items?
 
There are other ranges of UV-setting resins out there, so A) there must be other similar products and B) you could extend your available pallet and even mix shades before 'cooking'? So I may well have a go at something more 'free hand', at some later date!
 
Most of the data online pertains to 2016, so they were probably already in clearance by the time I found the one in TKMaxx, and while there are a few other moulds out there (sea life etc...), Irwin RX seem to have had a better launch/presence in the US than Europe (distributed by Boti), although Russia seems to have got them as well.

As always; many thanks to Peter for the donation of the moulds.

Sunday, September 24, 2023

T is for ♫♪♪ "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines . . . " ♪♫♫

An odd one here, as reader Brian Berke sent me some images in relation to a post, a while ago, and I can't find the post, or whether I posted one of the images, since when I grabbed a few from Adrian's rummage tray, and as a result a post with 50/50 Brain's and my images!
 
Brian's group, with what I hope is a Sopwith Camel, if not it's probably a Spad? Brain was wondering if they were Johillco (John Hill & Co.), which they were, or are! And we have a pilot in leather overcoat, a rigger (in blue greatcoat) and a mechanic with a spanner, a rather large spanner, more suited to the bolts on a sub-soiling plough - I was going to say, sarcastically (having worked the bleeder, with two extension poles!), before realising that propellers and the drive-shaft behind them would probably have huge nuts - fnaar-fnaar!

Brian's above mine below, all marked COPYR for copyright, across the shoulders. The base colour is a known variant, and Joplin doesn't state it, but I suspect the green bases are earlier, the uniform-matching colour later, as a cost measure? And if you think my mechanic is looking thinner than Brian's . . . 

. . . it's because he is! If I'm right about the bases, then we can further deduce/assume, there was a re-jig/re-sculpt of the mechanic toward the end of the run? He could be a copy, of course? Those hollow-cast chaps did a lot of plagiarism! As well as a thinner head, he's looking forwards while the [earlier?] figure is looking up and to the left - toward 'his' pilot?
 
Many thanks to Brian for kicking this one off!

B is for Brenner?

Sorry, got a bit lazy after the Pirate-fest! It's always nice to add a new name to the tag-list, or sum-total of the hobby's knowledge, and to add two, unrelated lines in the same post is a bargain-bonus! Except there is a US Toy in the tag-list already
 
One of those situations where I sort of knew I knew, but couldn't remember where from. Turned-out it was an old dealer list from the 1990's which either Paul Morehead or John Begg gave me a very 'black' (no contrast whatsoever) photocopy of a copy, years ago.
 
Warrior Ants from US Toy (Brenner) is what I have, and of course, trying to Google US Toy just gets you a million US toys, same on evilBay and Etsy, so what was a patriotic company name back in the pre-internet days, is now a liability lost in a miasma of Adsense, Google-Ads, spam Ad's, hidden-Ad's. pop-up's and all the other marketing shite which has been tacked-on-to/embedded-in the Internet in the last 15-years!
 
However, they are still going and have a lot of novelty/party/rack toy stuff, including some of the figures featured in Plastic Warrior magazine (courtesy of Les White in the magazine, Brian Berke, here, the tag mentioned above - firefighters), a few years ago, but not, sadly, either of these sets, I don't know the significance of the Brenner in brackets, as annotated in the old dealer list, but will add it as a seperate tag?

Aren't they brilliant, probably taking-off the insect movies of the 1990's; such as Bugs Life  and Antz (both 1998, which may help date them) rather than the earlier Hasbro/GiG franchise Army Ants/Kombatini, there is also something of the Trigan Empire about their Greco-Roman get-up, but I accept it's a tenuous link, verging more on wishful thinking!
 
As is often the case, Shaun at Fantasy Toy Soldiers is the only other source of info' on them and he has had them as unknown, for some time, which I've just been over and solved, but a larger sample, with a better selection of colours.
 
Also credited to US Toy (Brenner) is this set of anything but grey 'Grey Aliens', in a palate of lovely metallic shades. A bit bigger that the Warrior Ants at around 54mm vs. 45mm, and both sets are supposed to have eight poses for a full set, ants in four pastel shades (I have no green ones, yet!) and hopefully each of the aliens available in all six of these shades?
 
Seen elsewhere only the other day, a quick alien comparison with, on the left an unknown 65mm, glow-in-the-dark figure (I may have a note on them somewhere?), the silver chap is a pencil-top, we saw the next two here (Soma on the left, Imperial on the right), then the US Toy (Brenner) and finally a counter-top/point-of-sale type, pick-tray/carton novelty, 45mm alien of unknown brand'age!

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

M is for Matters Arising!

Well, I've pulled the last big post, which happens to be one of the posts pulled last year! The other was the Premium Pirates, so very convenient that Kent moved first! I'm not pulling it because I've run out of time or got flue, but because I couldn't be arsed to finish it off this afternoon, went and did other things and am now looking forward to a late chicken stew which will take 'till midnight (needs deboning), if I get this out quick!

And what this is, are a few shots I took as a sort of follow-up a couple of hours ago while I was round at the flat getting the tins of chicken soup and mushrooms for the base of the stew!
 
The yellow one here is the Webb's Supertoy pirate one, but I've had several of the pink ones from Peter Evans, and while I suspect something more 'princessy', the figure makes a good period C18th lady-pirate, or pirate's moll, and an ID would be nice, the embarrassment may be that she's on the blog in one of those pinky-mauve sets from 99p Stores or Poundland around ten-years ago! Anyone recognise these pink ladies?

Having waited years, over a decade to get a full set of these (finally managed a year or so ago), five came along at once - the Supreme / SP undead pirates!
 
I mentioned the likely compatibility, and you can see here the eight Crazy Pirates from New Zealand and Aussie-landia (there was a Peruvian issue too), do fit in well with the other set of twenty, so even more fun, pity nobody knew that in 1970! Many thanks to Glen again for those.
 
Comparison between the PVC-alike production of Papo (50mm), Plastoy (45mm) and the Pirateology game-piece figure (40mm), all a bit 'ish, but all out there now, and relatively affordable!
 
This (Supreme for Halsall - now HTI) should have been covered in the ITLAPD into' post last year or the year before, but a loose boat came in, and I had the spare figure here, so posed them both together!
 
And that's it for this year, much gratitude to everyone who's helped and/or contributed; Brian Berke, Peter Evans, Glen Sibbald, Chris Smith, John Begg, Jon Attwood, and you, if I've failed to mention you . . . no, not YOU, you ate all the biscuits and wandered off, I'm not even inviting you next year.

Ah'haaarrrrr mee arrty felloows! Until next yearrr, may the wind get behind yerrr sails and yerrr mast stay up! Ooo-urrh missus!

A is for Additional Adventurers

Bit of an odd one this; I'm used to these modern 'toob'/tub guys issuing a replacement set occasionally, we saw it with one of the Egyptian sets (Safari or K&M?), but this being only five figures is not a replacement set, unless shrinkflation is getting serious, but rather a sister set?

We saw a Plastoy lot of ten items, two years ago, on this exact, austere date, the day of piraty talk! But here's a set of five figures with a sixth accessory, and I can't remember where I bought it, however, given the shot and the date of the photograph, I may well have got it in Waterstone's, Basingrad, around Christmas-time?
 
Nice figures, the female is particular chic and swashbuckling, while the Afro-Caribbean chap is very similar to the one in the previous set, decoration wise, but has the slimmer grace of the other four in this set, so I think we can conclude another sculptor was involved?
 
They are very heavily armed, the guy on the left is positively bereft of weapons compared to his compatriots who all have at lest three! But if you have a peg-leg, I guess balance is your first concern!
 
A raft is the accessory this time, but it means that between the two sets (if you've re-read the other article!) ALL trope-boxes are well and truly ticked now. And having two sets of Plastoy makes getting the Papo set for next year a bit of an urgency, they really are 'missing' from the Blog now!
 
In trying to find out if the other set is still available (it seems to be), I discovered the previous sample is missing a tenth figure and cannon for a complete 12-count . . . the search goes on!

2nd October - Except in conversation just now, I realised the other - incomplete - set is 40/45mm not the 54mm of these, so now it's a question of looking out to see if they are going to trend a change to smaller content-count sets of 54mm figures, as they have some nice licences, like Asterix?

C is for Cap'n Pugwash!

Brian Berke, pirate fan from New York, sent these just after ITLAPD last year, so they have been waiting a while to shine in the spotlight, and we have seen Captain Pugwash before, but I don't think you can have too much of the scourge of the High Teas, as he sailed his way through early-evening children's TV programming in our childhood!




Marooned on a desert island, with Safari's dead-man & chest, and a cannon (which has a nicer paint scheme than mine . . . I'll have to look out for that variant!), but under attack from a random Plesiosaur, which strikes me as being slightly rough luck!
 
On the shelf,; regular readers will have seen versions of the shelf before (last seen here 2019, I think), and it's nice to see how it evolves . . . or just gets busier as things are added, two Lik Be cake decorations, I can see there, in red, only one last time, they grow, you know!



Then Brian sent these the other day (I suspect as a subtle reminder of the forthcoming day, had I forgot - which I have some years!), and I've dramatised the borders! Hing Fat's finest crew, painted-up.

To be fair, if I recall correctly, there was usually more good than harm committed during the 4-and-a-half-minutes of Pugwash's adventures, and any harm which did occur was usually to the Captain's pride!

Cheers Brian! For those who don't know; you need to know!

S is for Seen Eleswhere - Piratey Pirates!

These were last year's ITLAPD images at another place, we've seen them all before here, so just a box-ticking exercise in colourful imagery that serves also as a Picasa clearer
 

Marx 'Warriors of the World' (WotW or simply WoW) and variants.
 
 
Safari 'toob' set.

 
Supreme / SP Toys later iteration.

 
Charbens and a re-issue or two.

Pirates is for Crazy Comic Piraten Serie Piratas Bucaneros Filibusteros Corsarios Berberiscos . . . and Then Some!

I didn't know how to tackle this lot, and ended-up with far too many images, some of which I know are other peoples, and which have been left out, although one or two have been kept in. Also, in the end I decided to go with the vague order they seem to have been issued in, but it's not necessarily a true timeline, so bear that in mind.

'THE' Pirate Premiums
 
Appearing around Europe in the early 1970's, there were different configurations of them, with the UK getting a paltry six poses which we have seen before, and other people getting the full twenty.

They first seem to have appeared in Spain (and Portugual?) as Arial soap-powder/detergent premiums, where they are subdivided into five groups of four figures, and next time we visit them - when I bring all mine together - I will shoot them in this order;
 
 
Full translation of that page;
 
Aunque estas figuras son mas grandes que las Dunkin, para mi es una serie totémica, la recuerdo perfectamente de mi infancia......
 
Although these figures are larger than the Dunkin ones, for me it is a totemic series, I remember it perfectly from my childhood...... 

En realidad son figuras de unos 5 cm, 20 piratas que venían en el detergente Ariel en 1971-1972 mas o menos. 4 colores mates preciosos (para mi los mejores del mundo, los europeos son mas brillantes y en america el plastico demasiado duro...) en plastico blando (lo que hace mas dificil encontrarlas sin defecntos) amarillo, verde, rojo y azul.

In reality they are figures of about 5 cm, 20 pirates that came in the Ariel detergent in 1971-1972 or so. 4 beautiful matte colors (for me the best in the world, the European ones are brighter and in America the plastic is too hard...) in soft plastic (which makes it more difficult to find them without defects) yellow, green, red and blue.

En el paquete recuerdo que venia un dibujo de los piratas agrupados en 5 series de 4, Piratas, Bucaneros, Filibusteros, Corsarios y Berberiscos. Si reunias una serie te daban un premio en metálico y si conseguias los 20 supongo que te darian otro mejor.....

In the package I remember that there was a drawing of the pirates grouped into 5 series of 4, Pirates, Buccaneers, Filibusters, Corsairs and Berbers. If you collected a series they gave you a cash prize and if you got the 20 I guess they would give you a better one.....

Debajo os pongo un scan del trozo de carton donde venian los piratas Dibujados, Aunque no pone el nombre de cada grupo yo si recuerdo cuales eran, El jefe de cada grupo es el primero por la izquierda del dibujo. Como veis, el orden en que los puse segun los recordaba no era el mismo del cartón, pero iba bien encaminado ¿no?

Below I put a scan of the piece of cardboard where the Drawn pirates came. Although it doesn't say the name of each group, I do remember what they were. The leader of each group is the first one on the left of the drawing. As you can see, the order in which I put them as I remembered them was not the same as on the cardboard, but I was on the right track, right?
 
Just a note on the first paragraph, he's not saying Dunkin did these in a smaller size, but that they are bigger than the other Dunkin he collects which are usually around 25/30mm and also tend to come in 20's.

We need some pictures here . . . 

In the UK, Kellogg's issued only six (top left image), with Coco-Crispies and Puffa-Puffa Rice (a Quaker Sugar Puffs knock-off!), and the same colours as the Ariel premiums, there are all four versions of Cascanueces in the bottom-left image. The duplicated olive-green figure and the two white ones are oddments who have come in recently.
 

At around the same time Americana bubble-gum were issuing them in Germany (and South Eastern France/Italy?), as Piraten Serie, with these two images from old evilBay auctions showing that in addition to the 'standard' four colours, they also got creamy-white ones

The above three iterations were all manufactured by Tito, a premium maker in Portugal, and most carry the Tito mark somewhere, along with the given name. At some point in the late 1970's the mould-tools migrated to Peru, where the colour range got much better!
 
This is my Peruvian sample as they arrived, they are of mixed parentage however, or might be, so these are the notes I made when they arrived, I've listed them alphabetically for now;
  • Arrigon (the only figure marked on the feet)
  • Al Epacha (Tito mark on trouser cuff, name down cloak)*
  • Barbarrója 'Red Beard'
  • Cara Cortada 'Scar Face' (letter 'A' is visible, might be bootleg)
  • Cascanueces 'Nutcracker'
  • Corsario Azul 'Blue Corsair'
  • El Arana 'Spider'
  • El Bisco 'Biscuit' (no Tito mark, reversed letter 'F' is visible, might be bootleg)
  • El Jorobado 'The Hunchbacked' (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
  • El Manco 'The Lame' [hand not foot]
  • El Pecas 'Freckles'
  • El Pupas 'The Baby'
  • El Tuerto 'One-eye'
  • Ivan
  • Jack el Negro 'The Black'**
  • Morgan (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
  • Mustafa
  • Papatalo ('The Unbeaten, Unconquered'?)
  • Sebastian
  • Taric (no Tito mark, letter 'E' is visible, might be bootleg)
* might be Ali Epacha or Al Iepacha . . . 'The Pasha'?
* *Not apparently a racist epithet, the features being clear and of European or 'everyman' appearance, with long straight hair, so; black-hearted, or up to no good!
 
Check Juan's comment below for more on the origin/meaning of these.
 
A similar grouping but I moved them around and swapped a few colours out to make it a better image, a few months later, then kept both for the post anyway! The quality of these is as good as the Euro-issues, but you can see from the notes, that things are starting to go pear-shaped on the tool, specifically with the text and logo-markings, I now suspect these are all the ex-Tito moulds and not bootlegs, as we are about to look at some bootlegs!

At around the same time, some company in the USA, Rubenstein International Inc. (1977) started shipping these fellows in from Mexico, bags have multiple pose duplicates and what appears to be a limited number of poses, but that remains to be confirmed by multiple samples, and I suspect all 20 poses might eventually turn-up.
 
A limited palette of colours includes red, blue, yellow and white, similar to the Euro-issues, but look at the flash and the overall quality, if there are bootlegs out there, these are they, or someone thrashed the tool to within an inch of its life, between Peru and Mexico!


This guy seems to have only used eBay images without captions or context, so it's not possible to conclude what any of this means, but interesting colours, and suggestions of other issues somewhere, I particularly like the jade-green set of 20 figures. But you can also see the olive and white ones I've started picking-up, so someone around here had issues of both . . . Bonux, Christmas crackers, Maltese festival treats?

It has to be pointed out that the size and levels of caricature of these pirates, means they would mix quite well with the Antipodean Crazy Pirates we saw here
 
But we finish with darker stuff . . . 
 
I was hoping Giselle over at Mokarex would have something useful for this post, as she still owes me about 40 images under the 10-for-1 rule, but her pirate page is shit, she's nicked the Cereal Offers artwork, but all chopped-up and low-res, while she's photoshopped some eBay Peruvian figures which are not the Kellogg's colours, the page purports to represent! Only two of them are right . . . Thieves are thick, you see, somewhere to the left of the bell-curve!
 
But we end with this piece of hilarity from Kent Specher in the 'States, image used for research purposes, with full acknowledgement, wouldn't want to blame anyone else for this dog's dinner of a complete joke.
 
First;  They didn't make tea, they made chicory-coffee! Ersatzkaffee! Then we find there are too many poses, Linde only carried 14 of the designs! Why is there a Tito/Ola ice-cream premium Roman from the Asterix sets in the middle of the already too-big group, at 'K'? And the colours are all wrong!

Unbelievable, staggering incompetence, make it up as you go along to make up for a lack of research; *sloppy* is - I believe - the term used in Pennsylvania! The truth, had he bothered to look for it, is here;

 
And I've posted links to that site several times I think; most recently when we looked at the spacemen! Again, I've translated the page for English readers;

14 Piraten gibt es von Linde. Von links nach rechts heißen sie: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon und Cara Cortada. Der Name ist am Rücken oder an den Beinen zu lesen, daneben sind die Linde-Piraten natürlich immer geprägt. Die zarte Kennung kann leicht übersehen werden. Am häufigsten ist die Farbe blau.

There are 14 pirates from Linde. From left to right they are: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon and Cara Cortada. The name can be read on the back or on the legs, and of course the Linde Pirates are always embossed next to them. The delicate identifier can be easily overlooked. The most common color is blue.

Wesentlich seltener sind sie in den Farben gelb, grün und rot.

They are much rarer in color yellow, green and red.

20 Piraten wurden von der spanischen Firma TITO produziert. Nur 14 davon gibt es mit Linde-Kennung. Ob es Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas und Barbar Roja (siehe Abbildung) auch von Linde und auch in weiß gibt, bezweifle ich. Die Tito-Piraten wurden in Tüten verkauft. Tito produzierte auch die bekannten Dargaud-Figuren. Die Linde-Piraten waren natürlich im Kaffee.

20 pirates were produced by the Spanish company TITO. Only 14 of them are available with Linde identification. I doubt whether Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas and Barbar Roja (see picture) are also available from Linde and in white. The Tito Pirates were sold in bags. Tito also produced the well-known Dargaud figures. The Linde Pirates were of course in the coffee.

And the Linde are logo-marked and likely to be slightly different-sized copies (I don't have any, so I don't know for sure), most of their stuff was copied, as Kent would know if he'd read the series of recent articles in a certain magazine I won't mention, by an author I won't mention either, as neither would want to be associated with this in any way, but Kent knows!
 
What Kent has here, what's in the above image, is either Peruvian  product, from the old Tito/Ola/Dunkin (et al.) group of tools (likely, with the Roman present) or Mexican bootlegs, and which, from the state of it, the colours. and the Roman (!!!!!!), is a test-shot or factory sample of some kind, probably off of evilBay, to which, with no knowledge of the subject whatsoever, he added a shit-ton of text with no research or checking of even basic facts with all the available resources!
 
19 pirates! Not Linde's 14, not Ariel's 20, but 19 . . . and a Roman, in a different size! "Look Ma, I gave them all letters!" But he thinks he can come over here and tell me I've got 'Lots wrong'? Staggering arrogance.

And if you're wondering why some of my Rubenstein images are the same as his, it's becasue we took them from the same seller about a year ago!