L is for Loose Lots for Last Local Show!

41 years ago, I did Street Lining for the President of Mexico, one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences which mould who you are, or who you become. The weather during the practices for the hideously complicated (until you've learnt it, then it becomes a piece of piss, I could probably still do today!) Half-Guard drills was average to cool, quite breezy some days (hard to hear the commands), while the actual day was overcast, drizzly, and foggy. Foggy in June, people . . . 41 years ago it was cold and foggy, in London, in 'Flaming' June.

 

Nobody said extinction would be painless or stress-free, and those people rushing out to buy fans, order air-conditioning, or book a visit from a pool-designer, are only adding to the problem, and making the end sooner, and more painful. Nothing like plugging some more shit in, or taking more water out of the cycle (and treating it with endless chemicals) to help end climate change, not!

 

There endeth today's lesson, but I'm getting mighty sick of the pink-monkeys and their idiocy. At least some of us have toy soldier collections, to take our minds off the gathering storm, and it's current, record-breaking, sticky evidence, and it's the tail-end of the latest Sandown Park plunder tonight/this morning, that might take our minds off the oppressive humidity - it's not the heat that kills babies, or elderly parents!

 

I couldn't resist this, it's a bit battered and hard to date, and I probably paid too much for it, but it has some age, and while you can get stuff like this today, I saw a new one on evilBay the other day, you can't fake the patina of age easily, modern ones have the lattice made from machine cut timbers, while this lattice is hand-cut from hand-peeled veneers, or carefully hand-split pine or box-wood. Upper image is the colour-true one.

 

Toyway-Timpo reissues, box-ticking exercise, box ticked!

 

I need a few reins, but they are the sort of thing I might pick up, in a little bag of ten or so, from the Plastic Warrior show, now only a week away! There was a lot of this stuff kicking around a few years ago, and spares are not hard to find.

 

More antique wood, almost certainly German, and again, some age to these, and a lovely example of something contemporaneous with the transition from horse to horse-power!

 

I know, we've pretty-much done them to death now, "How could you possibly need more, Hugh?", well, they were cheap, they were a largish sample, and there are new 'things', new colours, new combinations, and one day we'll return to them for one more long post, looking at each listed element (from the back of the box), and try to work out what other combinations/elements there were (in Woolworth's pick trays?), as well as trying to give a timeline to the variations between figures, balls, polymer material &etc.

 

I knew this soft-plastic version existed, as I had the broken off horse (still looking for a  red one!), when we looked at them a few years ago now;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/03/c-is-for-cake-coaches-cat-carnage.html

 

And there's something very satisfying about adding another item to a side-bar 'cameo', which has continued to grow over forty-odd years, with barely a duplicate - the mould-tool was hammered at some point, more than half a lifetime ago!

 

These came from more than one seller I think, certainly the dogs were from the 'terrace scrum' before the show, and everything in the shot is bisque, although the stork (heron?) has a more traditional porcelain glaze. The dogs are exquisite, and I assume German, who else did stuff that fine? I thought they were carved-bone or ivory, until they rattled in my hand! A few legs are missing, but very much a case of 'a sample is better than no sample' and the sheepdog is complete!

 

Adrian had less frontage than usual, so there wasn't much in the way of lead-rummage, and while I waited until the end so 'proper' customers got the best choice (well, nearly, P arrived just as they were about to go out to the car!), I still managed to pick out a few interesting figures to add to a growing, but barely sorted collection of such stuff.

 

The charging Britains piracy will be AHI or Minikins from Japan, the pair are like-Timpo on the left, throwing grenade, but CharbensI think? Copying the Timpo Brit', as a Yank! And Crescent (?) on the right, kneeling, radioing, the rest should be British, if not Britains!

 

Brabo idiot parachute toy. With help from Chris Smith there are a few of these now, and with help from feebleBay, their section on the parachute page is probably doable, it's more a question of me getting down to it! Known as Parafools, this is the 'Hippy', and I think they pre-dated the Imperial Poopatroopers!

 

I . . . just . . . can't say "No", there are so many variations, I seem to just grab them all, against a final shot of all of them! Lone Star, not Richard Coeur de'Lion, but rather, king of somewhere Welsh (that's a dragon!)! In blue, with sword, another example, for another 'cameo' grouping!

 

Likewise, this is something I might have already, but it was quite clean, and cheap, so as the die-cast replacement for the composition Zang version, there's quite a comparative sample of these mini-scaled P38 Lightnings (the first use of . . . are we up to four now, or three Lightnings?), as indeed, there is a similar sample of De Havilland Mosquitos!

 

More gash-lead, the cactus is possibly White Tower, or someone similar, I'll have to ask Matt? The Indian infantryman of the WWI'ish era is probably a modern kit, unmarked and has apparently been given a cap-gun carved from a broom-handle!

 

I don't know if the flag belongs to the Guards standard-barer, but it looks OK, although the red ensign should be in the possession of a merchant sailor . . . so I DO know, they don't belong together, doh! Possibly a foreign made flag, with or without the figure, Japan again? That diagonal cross is atrocious!

 

A wooden naval-gun which has lost it's wheels, but it's turned brass and could fire a black-powder (or Swan Vesta!) charge, with ball-bearing, and the motorcycle from the Merit magnetic board-game Remote Control Driving Test.

 

The show's mistake purchase! I thought "Oh, he's got his tyre, I don't think I've got one with the tyre?", but of course, he doesn't have a tyre, he's operating the storm-drain 'Hoover' tube, for the late Dinky Toy road sweeper, and in that capacity I already have him! Hay-ho - by our errors, shall we be known!