L is for Late Show Report - Combat Types

I don't tend to look for khaki/combat/20th Century types at a show much these days, simply because there's other more uncommon things to look for, so most of these were from the 'blind' bags and tubs which various mates and contributors passed my way during the show, but nevertheless there are some treats among them, and lots to see . . .

 

As with all these posts, they are in the order I shot them, which tends to put the better bits toward the top of the post, depending on how they were lying about as I grouped them, and so this clean sample was first, and with the next shot, were, I think, both from Barney Brown, who gave them to me.

 

We've seen one or two of these before, and while obviously marked Marx, I now think they were issued with a 'big box' tank or truck, rather than one of the playsets. Although they are from unpainted PVC originals, these 45/50mm figures are in factory-painted hard plastic, possibly after the US moulds had been transferred to one of the Hong Kong domiciled entities?

While this perfect sample of Bonux premiums was rather dismissed by me when Barney first showed it to me, purely because I have a full sample and many duplicates now, marked and unmarked, Johnson &etc., so wasn't in a hurry for more, but later, Barney gave them to me anyway, and they are a very clean sample.

 

To the eye they are all pretty-much a muchness, but under flash-light they have gone to various rich shades of something which looks like it came out of the wrong end of a caterpillar, colourwise, but are also, somehow, beautifully rich?  Waxing lyrical on shades of dung-green, never a dull minute at Small Scale World!

The casualties of war! These will probably all go to recycling one day, but - as I have too much of it - I may just sell them by weight with a 99p start on feebleBay or similar at some point in the future, as some modellers can do a lot with stuff like this? Strangely, there's a lot of Napoleonics in this condition, both brittle Timpo and chewed Airfix!

Mostly Hong Kong production but there's a Marx reissue, back right, and to his left a slightly chewed Australian semi-flat, I have a few of these in various corners, but mostly the smaller ones, and as they don't turn-up here often, it was worth a grab from a cheapie-tray!

More mostly HK, the squatting German - I believe - has factory paint, the copy of a Lone Star German surrendering is unusual, the Jap is a 2nd generation variation of the Star/Marty types, missing his belt and there's a useful Spanish (Pech/Reamsa or an Oliver re-issue?) UN soldier in blue helmet.

US GI/Marine types, the two painted ones probably go with the German above, but the large chap was, I thought, interesting, as he's clearly based on the Blue Box medic, but has been sufficiently redesigned to be a slightly different pose, so maybe not BB, but by one of Blue Box's smaller rivals?

Three Russian 'kit figures' from Aurora, a Galloob irregular from the 'Army Gear' line, a Marx USAF/Rocket forces ground-crew figure and I think the gold one is early Italian, Torgano possibly (?), later copied in soft plastic by Montaplex across the Med'.

I missed out on a bunch of the one painted, centre, but managed to grab this one at the end of the show, he'll be joining various other 'Argentine' copies, and at some point I must add them to the Khaki Infantry page, while behind him, a nice marbled Hilco, a Britains clone, with three tatty 'minor British makes'.

A trio of Toy Story 'army men', referencing Tim Mee's finest GI's, I may have them already, but there were a flurry of these back when the movie/s were headlining, and until I can check them against the master, they can stay! Probably Mattel?

Difficult to come up with meaningful blurb on these, they are what they are, and the 8th Army will be checked against a master collection which has many variants of these Airfix clones already.

The small scale, mostly grist to the mill, but the slightly marbled oxide-brown ones are from one of the lesser sources of the Lilliput piracies, all stuff to come out on the 'But is it Giant' blog one day.

A large bag of the current 30mm figures we've seen here several times, but usually in shelfies, rather than purchases, although Mark, the 'Man of Tin' gets good paint-conversion (and more) results from these figures, almost exploiting their nondescript design! And their sample grows as they have been issued in many packagings, colours and brands/brand-marks since the early 2000's.
 

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.