S is for Smallest of the Small!

Well, you may have thought we'd got as small as it comes when Brian B sent us that mixed lot of space/sci-fi kit figures', from New York, a few of years ago, but I think we're going an increment smaller now, with the smallest of the small, here branded to Henbrandt's Harlequin Brand, although these are available elsewhere, and in other branding, we saw the more recent Keycraft Global iteration of these inclusion balls, a while back too.

 

The first few posts of this new series will be looking at Henbrandt, simply because I bought an initial sample, over a few years (1997/8-2005/6'ish) from the same party shop in North Camp, long gone now, called The Balloon Shop, if memory serves (I think it's a Kebab place now), they also carried the last version, smooth-based iteration of the Lik Be (always, and still LB!) 54/60mm spacemen.

 

They let me have the tub, when I bought all the remaining arctic animals, so I keep all the 'inclusion balls' in it! As well as the Arctic animals, there were soldiers, footballers, and the smallest of the small, hobby skydivers, practising formations over micro-scenes!

 

As you can see, from the Airfix ceremonial sizer, they are about 3.5 or 4mm, no more! With the magnifying effect of the clear PVC ball, enlarging them to 5 or 6mm to the eye! The scenery, looking more like a 3D map, is made from PVC, as are the diminutive little figures, and I only found them in red and blue jump-suits.

 

Where/when I accidentally, or deliberately bought duplicates, I would dig them out with some scalpel-surgery, and apart from this set, most just have a card disc, or an opaque/solid-coloured 'other half' of the ball, as a curtain-backdrop, while a few have further 'scenic' inclusions. The parachutists are set a couple of millimetres above the disc, to further enhance the 3D impression.

 

I produced this little 'heads and tails' sketch (R = red, B = blue) of the four arrangements I found, at the time (2000's), for the archive, while the shots above were taken in 2021, when they turned-up during all the moving/sorting, which means the Keycraft Dinosaurs jumped the queue, but then, there's always order in chaos, if you follow quantum science!