B is for Box of Britains Babies!

We looked at the Britains Lilliput 'Tr'oo'scale' figures, reductions of the larger Khaki Infantry, way back at the start of the blog, and today we're looking at the one form of packaging not seen then, the shop stock, pocket money dispenser tray.

The box is near-mint, with a couple of dinks and a small pin-hole on the underside, and you can see that it's quite small, smaller than a paperback, for instance, and one supposes it was kept very close to the shop's till/cash register or certainly within reach of the shop-staff/proprietor! Most toy shops I remember, of the period, had at least one glass cabinet near the till, and it would have been displayed in there.

 

I suspect the paper insert is a reprint, but a quite good one, with the Lilliput range on the reverse (you can just see the prices missing from the third column), and a full colour promotional image on the obverse, while the clear dust-cover sheet, with thumb cut-out, is almost certainly an original.

 

There are eight little compartments to display one-each of the eight figure sculpts, with larger compartments for the stock, which I think it's believed should contain nine figures (for a total of 80), but I've seen people suggest eight (for 72 figures) or ten per compartment (88). I don't think it's known for sure, but with things in those days often sold wholesale in dozens or grosses, it may be that each larger compartment should have 11 figures - a 96 count? There's certainly room for them.

 

We've seen them before, but it's always worth a second look as they are lovely little figures of the crossover from WWII to Cold War era, standard infantry, most in Fighting Order, but two in full Movement Order webbing, and with the Enfield EM2 semi-automatic assault-rifle, much discussed elsewhere, and 58-pattern webbing, and are probably based on the Warminster garrison demonstration battalion's troops.

 

This set came from Belgium, where the collector had two (I know!), and it's obvious he or the previous owner/s have built-up the contents of the tray, from occasionally encountered loose figures, completely separately from me/my sample, and from different sources, at different times, yet the sample has ended up with all the variants I've previously highlighted, gaining suggestions from some, that many of mine are home-painted.

But the gloss-green webbing batch would appear to 'be a thing', as would the very pale flesh batches, while others have the very reddish-pink flesh of the 'lozenge' (or Toblerone!) window-carton issue. Of particular interest here (given most examples have a version of the mid-green) is the kneeling firer on the left, who is the first I've seen with the same (correct for late WWII/early post-war) charcoal grey as seen on a few of the full-sized 54mm issues.

There's no obvious reason for the variations in painting, beyond home-painting of the unpainted 'envelope' set, but when you look at variation in the larger figures, which is not so marked, but is there, even to semi-gloss greens on some, I suspect something like the following;

It may be that Britains decided to give these diminutive figures to only a few of their better out-painters, one of whom was bad at stirring their green! While they were all trusted to mix their own flesh from red and white, with or without a touch of yellow? If the range was not terribly successful (it didn't last long), there would have been small batches with periods of inactivity between them, leading to an even grater range of paint-variants than the 54mm set? It's all pure conjecture though!

 

Final thought: someone at the show where I bought this immediately asked "Who would buy the 'being shot' figures?", and it's a fair point, but collectors, even one figure a week with their sixpence collectors', whould want one of each, wouldn't they?!

Three days later - Courtesy of Paul Morehead, editor of Plastic Warrior magazine, we see the Britains catalogue states only six of each figure, so five per large compartment plus the eight display samples, for a total contents count of only 48! Many thanks to Paul for this nugget.