C is for Combat Contributions

Bit of a theme this PM, but it seemed to make sense to get a bunch of toy soldiers up on the Toy Soldier Blog! There's so much stuff in the short queue, I'm spoilt for choice, on one level, but on another I keep wondering how to do them all justice.

 

Some subjects will make show reports, or more than one post, some are a bit thin, and with stuff from Adrian, two lots from Peter and other bits, they'll go together in the end. This is from all three donation-purchases, in that I paid for them, but at definite 'mates rates'!

 

German Red Cross WHW's, this is the last of Adrian's recent stock, from which I and others have been picking for a few years, now that I've identified at least three issues in bare, and one painted on black plastic, I feel I need to enlarge the core sample, to see how many variants I can identify?

  

 

A nice tin-plate Sikh, possibly a cigarette premium, another Zang Tommy (slightly drunk), and what I thought was a Spanish-made Spanish paratrooper, but I can't find him in the big book, so he might be Italian or Portuguese? Marked '185' on the base underside.

 

From one of Adrian's junk drawers, came these metal bits, including one of the Timpo die-cast machine-gunners.

 

From Peter now; ABC 8th Army types after Timpo 'solids'.

 

Small scale - with a bag of Airfix 1st version German Infantry and 8th Army, two of the Chap Mai figures who need de-gate-mark'ing! And a tatty Blue Box G.I.

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Hong Kong/China odds! Taken from Airfix, TimMee and Lido originals.

 

More ABC or related - I can't remember what was on the base!

 

Modern rack-toy junk, still have their place, but I've probably got them all, I think the bag is the HTI stuff we saw when they were in the shops (probably still are!), while the lot in front seems to be further-generation copies, in that crumbly, over recycled plastic you see men in sandals making from unwashed plastic bags in weird 'industrial' video 'shorts' on YouTube!

 

MPC, need to be sorted against what I already have, but I think the blue chap is new?

 

Late  production New Ray, or good quality copies of the same?

 

A pair of Deluxe Reading and three rack-toy skinnies!

 

The two on the left look like late Speedwell, the Hilco on the right matches them rather nicely, colours wise! I'm looking forward to sorting all the finds from the last few years into the master collection, and giving the Khaki Infantry page a good update/correcting session!

God knows! Marked Hong Kong, so copies, but there are so many versions of these; several US, a couple of Canadian and a few HK lots, I will have to do a big sort-out one day, and matching-up the little silver accessories will send a Saint insane! originally MPC.

 

These have the satin sheen of a fine-nozzeled 3D-printer about them, and they are all, indeed 3D printed, Peter may have mentioned a maker, or download library title, I cant remember, and they are a bit 'Army Man' or generic G.I.

 

The sandy figure is a Monty, complete with both cap-badges, but a little dumpy I feel, smaller, and better fed than the Timpo solid one!

 

Crescent swoppets, a nice clean sample, although I think the colour variation in the green accessories may be down to sun-bleaching?

 

Anyone who saw the shot of the French/British paratroops I sent to Plastic Warrior a while ago, will know I didn't have the sand-coloured one, so despite the missing top of the string-loop (a common fault with these after seventy-odd years), a really nice addition to that line-up!

 

And, after my minor disaster at this years PW Show (the Aussies who weren't!), here's the desert version of the M-Toy or Star (lesser quality?) swoppet copy, stretcher-case I just need to find the porters now! 

 

Finishing a rushed blurbing (got stuck behind a Nissan Juke going no-miles-an-hour on the way home tonight - some people just shouldn't drive in the dark, or in the rain, or at all!), a few of the soft plastic versions of Marx's Miniature Masterpiece Americans, being scale-downs of the larger figure ranges.

 

Many, many thanks to Adrian Little and Peter Evans for constantly putting this stuff to one side for me, it's all grist to the mill, and there's always interesting bits among it, cheers guys!