HK is for Chinatanks II

This post was going to have a few more shots, but as I started editing them I realised I didn't even know why I took them, despite having some notes, but I think the notes were more for my own benefit, or curiosity than anything else, anyway, I'm going to share them with you just to clear them from the 'system'!

Starting to sort, we looked at these a while back with a view of a couple of the sets they come in, and here I'm bringing the loose ones together and sorting them, on the table is the stuff I had here from the TBS (to be sorted) box of AFV's just visible to the left, while the large bag was in storage, with a few other odds that were kicking around.

Which lead me to this tank-park - that's what they call them! The apple green AMX30 to the far right (Marine la Pen's?) is the latest version of these, is the only one found so far, and came with Matchbox-copy infantry and one or two other bits, via Peter Evans a few years ago. it's either unmarked or marked with a plain China, I can't remember. Also it's re-cut to a higher standard than the old ones.

While the three slightly herby-green ones in the centre are a smaller sample/issue/copy-set, who are all marked with a 'Hong Kong' and a capital letter thus;

• ·         T54/55 - 'O'
• ·         Chieftain (missing turret) - 'R'
• ·         Centurion - 'X'

They are all in storage now, and the notes have become as confusing as the rejected photographs, but I think the letter is on both halves, the HK on the hulls?

While the bulk of them have a more complicated set of markings, indeed if the notes are accurate (?) they have one or the other of two or more, but there is a consistency and with the two minor variants above clearly spottable, it's all a bit academic!

The turret numbers, are to help the packing staff get the right turret on the right hull, something which seems to have sometimes been strictly adhered to, sometimes totally ignored, consequently I've all these and still not colour-matched a lot of them - as you can see!

The number is found inside the turret and somewhere within the turret-ring moulding on the top of the hull, all the above are good-enough for 1:144th war games. Make of all that what you will, it's pretty nerdy-farty stuff, but it's out of Picasa and on a storage dongle, phew!

Because they were the next lot down in the box, I reshot the bubble-gum tanks while I had a parade-ground for them! We've seen them before once or twice, and I think I've bored you with how nasty the gum was, that it looked like a pencil-eraser and that we were 4/6 when we had them so late 1960's as a vague date. And we've also seen an earlier (1950's) Manurba one from which these Hong Kong ones were copied.

M is for Moon Shot

Have we had that title this year already? Apologies if we have, I know we've had a few posts on the 50th anniversary, not as many as I'd been planning, but I wasn't anticipating a three-month hiatus, anyway, this is only a quickie . . . the cabinet in Basingrad library, which had the vintage toy display, now has a moon-shot display and I fired off a few pickies last time I was up there.

The whole display, it's a simple display, but an eclectic mix of items which gets the 'temperature' of the thing quite well I think, with collector cards (Topps?), models, posters, postcards, a few key-rings (chains, fobs, hangers; whatever you call them there . . . where you are!) and an old copy of Analog magazine with an Apollo launch on the cover..

The bigger poster to the left is fascinating, but - if you're me - you need glasses to read most of it as it's smaller than a standard rack poster, but packs a mass of information, the most interesting being the timeline - and titles - of the various space-suits from the pre-Mercury/Gemini days up-to the current EVA-suit (extra-vehicular activity suit), and I'm going to see if I can find a copy on-line.

A similar graphic has all the rocket/launch-vehicle types - in scale with each other, while a time-line of the whole space programme in liner-form is down the right-hand side

I:48th scale kit of the command module with return capsule has been made to a high standard, I'm not sure who's kit it is, or whether it's a modern or vintage kit? We looked at a 1:96th scale one currently on sale from Revell earlier in the year as part fo the Toy fair reports, they also do a 1:32nd scale version which would be excellent for those Hing Fat and other figures we looked again at a few days ago.

While Airfix must be in the frame, but I don't remember a 1:48th scale kit of this type, and their issues for the 50th this year were as piss-poor as all their other 'anniversary' coverage in recent years, not dwelling on WWI, but their WWII has been no better and for the moon-shot they only re-issued three; their 1:144 Apollo and in 1:72nd scale the polyethylene figure set and the Eagle Lander kit - as a starter- or craft- set with paint, glue and an additional set of figures . . . and that was it.

Likewise, if this mighty Saturn V rocket is 1:144th it could be the Airfix model, but it's not easy to judge, trying to fit (mentally) two seated Airfix figures in the Lander it might be the Airfix, as the two modules look a tad small, however Revell do a 1:96th one and I suspect this is that kit? They do also have a 1:144th one! When did Revell take Airfix's crown . . . it must have been a decade or two ago now?

Anyway, it's a nice little display and I thought I'd share it with you, if you happen to be in Basingstoke, at a loose end, it's worth a five-minute close-up look!

I is for Ittsy-bittsy, Teeny-weeny, Khaki Over All Tankeenis!

Owh! I shouldn't be allowed! But they are very small...and khaki....

Compared to a 1:76th'ish figure (Quaker Gladiator...not Kellogg's!) who was to hand, the main subject here is a Cracker-toy/Gum-ball novelty, closest to a Churchill and around N-gauge scale if it's any specific size!

While the one in the bag is a scale-down to about 1:144th, probably of/based on the UPC copies of the Roco-Minitanks M44/53/55 family of SPG's but with elements of a Stüg to the front glacis and having a revolving turret! I'm pretty sure I have a made-up one in storage with an equally small British-looking armoured car, so they were probably sold as both kits and complete [capsule] toys, but don't quote me until I've shown them here!

R is for Recent Aquisitions

Various bits and pieces that have come into the collection in the last few months, other than all the loose stuff that is!

Three Imai caricatures based on Star Wars, or at least using the coat-tails of the Lucas cash cow to 'fly'! A robot 'walker' from Bandai, this is apparently 1:144, but as it's a lot bigger than the Takara 1:144 robots I covered back at the start of this blog, there's a lot of flexibility as to what scale it - or any large robot - actually is. With some being manned, and others autonomous, and with most either imaginary or based on TV cartoons on the other side of the world, you can make them any size you want. I'll probably make these up as they're all pretty modern.

Finally a nice early pattern StuG in resin and white metal from Alemany, not a bad kit but the tracks are quite poorly moulded, and as the cheapest item in the kit, could have been replaced at source.

Dkwookie on the HaT forum brought these to our attention the other week and I managed to pick some up that weekend, still available from 'The Works' discount book/craft shops here in the UK, at 1:90 they are passable for war-games in 15/20mm.

They also do three different M1 Abrams paint variants and some helicopters or aircraft.

The LCF train set came from Peter Evans, one of the founders of Plastic Warrior, who knows the eclectic, completest nature of my collecting well enough to buy a piece of Hong Kong tat - so bad it's good - whenever he sees it!! It also arrived a week before he said he'd send it, thanks Peter!

I've already put a battery in it and rolled it round the floor a few times. There are now 4 or 5 of these in the collection, mostly civilian (plus a Skooby-Doo tie-in), and another only adds to the whole! [That's two mentions for Skooby-Doo in two days?......spooky!]

The HK 'Cattle', copies of the Airfix farm were an eBay purchase a while ago, but as they were still sitting on the 'still to be sorted' table, I took them for the photo-shoot.

Finally, this came from Mercator Trading (link to right), I sometimes help out on his stall at shows, and had watched it not sell for a couple of outings, but people did keep looking at it, so in the end I coughed up and will cover it fully in a day or two. A whole box of Dregeno wooden tractors from the former East Germany...Bargain!

V is for Votoms

These turned up in a mixed lot the other month, modern production tied-in to a Japanese Animé cartoon, they are tiny; about N Guage!!

I haven't the faintest idea what any of them are called or who is on which 'side', but they get their own tub in the collection as a piece of the picture of overall toy figure production...Photographed on a 'moon-base' that I suspect came with a Kit as part of the stand for a space ship, or the base of some kids scientific educational toy type thing? Anyone recognise it?

This is clearly a recovery/robot launch vehicle of some kind, with a hook-equipped hydraulic lifting-arm and flat-bed. I side-lit with a red bicycle lamp to give an effect of far-off battle. Click on the photo and tell me the guy in the right foreground isn't sulking because the robot lost an arm and a leg!!

These are the robots, or; are they battle suits? Something that looks like a Gundam anyway (and; No, I don't know what a Gundam is either!!). Anyone tempted to rush out and buy some would be advised to glue them, as otherwise they will keep falling apart, and with most parts smaller than a 1:76 figure, they are easily lost (still - it gives the recovery vehicle a purpose!!).

I love the elephant-eared gun-platform!! There's another one in grey. Made by Takara, they are here photographed with an HK copy of the Matchbox US flame-thrower for scale.

Votoms - Wikipedia

[Now I know more than I needed to!]