E is for Ephemeral Extras

A couple of Supreme related scans, just now, one I'd forgotten I'd had, the other I thought I'd lost, and we'll start with the second first!

 

This is from the Christmas flyer from the recently defunct Wilkinson's Stores / Wilco, and was around 2001-4, they ran them several years in a row and I managed to get three, but I know I missed one, as I saw some of the vehicles in missing colourways, as part of a Santa' window display in the travel agents next door to the Wilkinson's in Farnborough (or Aldershot) in the third or fourth year!

Anyway, we've looked at two non-Command Central sets over the years (Mini Wheels) and most of the stuff loose, so I've given everything-related a 'Command Central' tag, if you click on it, you'll get everything in reverse order of posting!

The Strawberry Group's 2002-3 catalogue has these, and I've mentioned them before and fingered the Knights as Supreme, and the Wild West are supposed to be them too, and while I've only got the word of some 'Old Guard' on that, it sort of makes sense.

 

I was buying these for other people a few years earlier as I drove around the UK, and while Tiger Hobbies would take over the running of the Knights a year or two later, I don't know if they took over the Wild West, or when exactly the current pale-brown, floppy, flat-based ones replaced these Deetail-alikes? I think I now have all four cowboys, but not sure if I have any Indians, the prone-firing maybe?

On the same page, and as an importer like Strawberry might put all one supplier's products together, while we have yet to find any animals credited to Supreme, it's reasonable to assume these might be from the same stable! But that's pure conjecture/a guess, not gospel! Funnily enough, some of these horses may have come-in with the recent donations from Jon Attwood, so we may see them again soon!

M is for Military Force from 'Mini Wheels'

The moniker used by a variety of sets from the small generics we looked at here, through this intermediate sized 'play set' to the big-box huge-box sets Wilkinson's (Wilco) carried each Christmas for several seasons around the turn of the century. Twenty years . . . this shite's been in the collection for twenty years; where does the time go!

In its entirety; there are 29 items, small and large, 32 if you count the tractor/trailers and rocket separately, and at half-price I must have paid £2.49p or - more likely - £2.50p! Which is no more than 8p per item . . . bargain!

Shipped-in by Ackerman, this is SP Toys/Supreme's sojourn into small scale, with decently scaled 1:72 scale AFV's (for the most part), but with oversized figures and undersized aircraft.

The whole caboodle came in sand (as here) or green plastics/paint-finishes and the jerry-cans are a triple-moulding (only useful for vehicle-loads or enhancing SAS jeeps!), but the oil drums are separate, both are more suitable to 1:35th scale modelling, while the figures are the poorest thing Supreme have churned-out to date and were only ever going to be box-tickers' in collector's lists!

Because we've looked at the AFV's (a long time ago, but fully; Tracked AFV's, Wheeled 'Softskins', Articulated Trucks and Engineering/Plant) and the figures (link at the start), and because I junked all the aircraft from the sets I broke-up (leaving the one above!) the only things left to look at are the street furniture (another day, there's a tub-full somewhere) and the low-relief building fronts.

The small sets got one of the little US-style 1930's urban 'station houses' with attached garage-door, with red and blue versions for fire and police sets, the medium sets all got the equally American-looking 'small-town municipal' town hall/public library type, while the huge trays Wilkinson carried had two or all three, which sometimes included the European barrack-style vehicle/MT shed or Fire Station with three garage units.

The flag is more often absent than present, I suspect that due to its propensity to break-off, it was discontinued? And note you get both unit command buildings and places where Henry VIII could store the cerebral body-parts of his victims!

An alternative inclusion in the larger sets was a ruined central-European farmhouse which came (as here) in dun and cream, or a more traditional black timber on white, with red roof. There were other buildings for the civilian sets, some of which we've seen, but there was also a larger service-station/garage type thing.

S is for Supreme / SP Toys...and Titan...Ackerman et al.

We looked at the vehicles for these sets (or at least the military sets, some of which had militarised versions of the civilian or police vehicles) a while ago Here [I've linked the 'Supreme' tag, so this post will be at the top of the page after you click it], so it's about time we looked at the figures!

As this is a Toy soldier blog, we'll start with the military figures;

The very large '800' series sets that contained all the really quite nice vehicles found in the above link came with a number of figures, the contents of three of which are illustrated above, with a shot showing some of the colour variations. Camouflage blobs were a dark olive or dark chocolate brown going onto a yellow or tan field, weapons were black and flesh varies from a pale tone to a bright candy-pink.

There were only four poses though! And the figures are not award-winning sculpts, being generic 1970's infantrymen, who can presumably be marketed anywhere, including at home in China! As can be seen there was some variety between contents, but with each figure in a shaped coffin-section of the larger tray, the contents of each numbered set was always the same.

These sets were all either green vehicles or 50/50 green and 'desert'. As I stated in the original posts, I have seen desert versions of some of the vehicles I only have in green hinting at what the contents of some of the missing numbered sets were, the rest may have been civil versions - in the large size - of the smaller sets...

...which can be broken down into Police, Fire, Trucking ('Road') and Mechanics 'Speedway' as well as the military themed sets. All the above being '900' series; there are medical/ambulance sets as well, while the '600' series included space sets - in storage!

The truck set and the garage are both over-stuck with an Ackerman sticker, they are Still Going and are an import agent for cheap toys, household and other 'bargain' goods. As I recall the three large sets were all 'Ackerman' despite being bought in Wilkinson's two years running, where they were only made available at Christmas (mid/late-2000's), these smaller sets can still be found on the odd 'dollar tree' rack about the place - and not just under the Ackerman, Titan (see below) or standard Supreme labels.

Note the close-up, about 25% of the figures carry numbers; the numbered/not-numbered figures sharing space in the same sets.

On the left are the numbered figures, all poses can be either A or B, and each pose is then numbered 1-4, so the guy with binoculars is either un-numbered, or he has A1 or B1 on his base. All the civilians I have found so far are smooth-based, but numbered ones may be out there?

The smaller accessories from the larger sets are real gap-fillers in the insert tray (compare with the other vehicles we looked at way back when), but I guess the top three have some use, the semi-flat, detail-on-one-side-only motorcycle is however a complete disappointment!

So - the above were all 30mm, but there are also given 'HO'  (23mm) and '1:72' (25mm) figures from the same source (Supreme / SP Toys), while Titan also carried unpainted 35mm figures in other sets (yellow figures above). As can be seen in the top left image, Titan were/are another importer, but they prefer to have their sets printed-up as Titan, rather than accepting generic Supreme sets. Although, as we can see bottom left, so did/do Ackerman - sometimes!

Titan Toys International (one of at least four Titan's in toys!) seem to have ceased trading, while FunFings has been usurped by a craft jeweller's on Etsy!

Some of the small figures have a similarity with other Chinese makes like New Ray or Soma, but there are differences and in the larger scales Supreme have issued some interesting 'toobs' we can look at another day!

The various scales, with the exception of the yellow figures - probably not sourced from Supreme - and the numbered soldiers, all figures have smooth bases, no more than four colours and usually a glossy appearance, and there are a few more civilian poses in the 30mm range, and probably many more in the 23/25mm ranges.

The figures in the Cargo Express set from Titan have squared-off bases more in line with the 23 and 25mm ranges, not the ovoid ones of the other 30mm civilians illustrated loose above with the soldiers. Note how the 'Germanic' fireman, is a copy of the better detail - also Chinese production - figures with flesh-coloured bases issued in various sizes, in imported play-sets sold by Tesco's and others from the late 1990's through to today (Carama? Yat Ming?).

F is for Further Follow-up A

Not the post(S) I've been struggling to edit for two days now and which will have to be redone again! But a little something to follow-up the Rafael Lipkin tank transporter I posted the other day.

The big Dinky die-cast in 1:60 was quite a beast and in my day only the rich kids at the end of the village or up on the heath had this, there was a civilian version in red and yellow (?) with a transformer load, but this baby was 'The Kiddy' in my hood!
Various smaller ones, top left are SP-Toys/Supreme and have been covered before, next to them is a 1:300 micro-armour Scammell, probably GHQ, but could be Scotia, below him is the 1:87th scale 'Dragon Wagon from Roco (with a few bits missing I fear!) and bottom left is a Hong Kong Ford or ERF type low-loader from the 1970's with an Imperial Toys staff car...yes the same people who produced Poopa-troopa's
Finally the small-boys from Matchbox (near, 1-75 range) and Budgie (far), the Budgie one is not inaccurate, just purporting to represent an International tractor unit not a Mighty Antar from Scammell.

S is for Supreme/SP Toys, Part 1 - Armour

Having looked at old plastic AFV's last month, I thought I'd have a look at some new plastic to address the imbalance! In particular a rather interesting range, which should be readily available if you search for it.

Supreme/SP first appeared as a standard Hong Kong rack-toy producer about ten years ago, with little carded play sets, each containing 2 or 3 30mm PVC vinyl figures (which I will cover another day), a building fascia and a vehicle or two. All the usual subjects were covered - Fire, Police, Construction and Ambulance - and tie-ins/re-badging for FunFings, Titan, Ackerman and other UK/European toy importers resulted (sometimes with different figures - hence the need for a separate article at some point).

Around 2003, they started producing large military play sets for Wilkinson (the successor and contributor to the demise of Woolworth's) each Christmas several years running. These sets had a variety of vehicles, simple aircraft and various scenic elements in a large window box. Theme was either desert or temperate, and not all vehicles got all treatments.

Above is the heavy armour, a rather non-descript Abrams in around 1:87, and two generic SPG's which are a M109/FH90 hybrid in a larger 1:76. But for war gaming, especially the Terry Wise school, they are fine!

They also issued a nice Bradley MICV/IFV close to 1:72, although 'Health & Safety' have got hold of the cannon and made it 'safe and healthy', so they would need to be replaced if you were to war game with them.

MLRS, these have a very simple hollow Launch-pallet, as can be seen from the elevated one front left. However, a simple floor plate could be added, and after a repaint you'd have a nice battery on the cheap.

S is for Supreme/SP Toys, Part 2 - Soft-Skin Transport

A trooping bus and a variety of Hummer's/Humvee's. These are closer to 1:72, and fully compatible with the better offering from Hornby a few years ago, and the metal ones from Matchbox.

6x6 trucks, the tankers have a WWII Chevrolet type cab, while the GS/troop carrier has a more modern chunky design. I once saw a window display that had used the contents of a couple of these sets, and therefore know the GS truck has been done in desert colours, but don't yet know if the tanker came in a temperate scheme?

Smaller soft skinned vehicles, most are militarised versions of the civil carded sets, with a red Fire engine to compare. Again we find a WWII Beep rubbing shoulders with modern stuff. The silver van is an armoured car of the bank delivery type.

These Oshkosh M977/985 HMETT's only need a quick re-paint and you have some nice modern vehicles in several configurations. I'd drop the ore-carrier though! Note two different crane designs and body types. The tractor unit - without the ore-wagon trailer leaves scope for scratch building another variant such as the M984 wrecker.

S is for Supreme/SP Toys, Part 3 - Articulated Transport

The various cab-units, The standard cabs are just civil models in military colours while the half-tracked cabs are quite Gerry Anderson!

The half-tracks pull the three smaller rocket carriers in the foreground, the 'Big-Rigs' tow the TEL's (Transporter/Erector/Launcher) at the back, and other designs shown below. It has to be said the TEL's seem to be carrying SCUD's in US markings! But a quick paint job would turn them into nice Iranian or North Korean equipment or even the fabled Iraqi WMD's!

The other trailers I currently know of, there may well be others, and again I don't know for sure which came in both Desert and temperate schemes and which were only issued in one colour variant?

Fully loaded and ready to hit the Basra-Kuwait city highway! Most of these would be equally at home with a bright coloured re-paint and a job to do on a model railway!

S is for Supreme/SP Toys, Part 4 - Armoured Engineering

My favorites from the Supreme stable are the three engineering variants on a rather generic chassis with dozer-blade...

An extending shovel/back-hoe and long-reach crane both fold up nicely for travel, while the gloss, puke-green road-roller is clearly an afterthought taken from the civil construction sets!

The Bridge-layer is a hell of a piece of kit from a HK/China producer, especially one selling at pocket-money prices. Fully working and far more robust than the Roco one, every modern army should have one!