F is for Fairy Snow

Not the preferred 'powder of relaxation' and social-intercourse employed by - it seems - most Tory leadership campaigners (which is most Tories!) but rather a domestic washing/laundry powder; I thought probably from the Lever Brothers/Unilever combine, but it turns out Fairy Liquid and the earlier Fairy Snow are Procter & Gamble brands, 'non-bio' and originally produced in their factories at West Thurrock and the [now] Republic of Ireland.

I had no idea these existed, although I think I may have a baksheesh axle and tyres combo' in the spares box somewhere, so when Adrian Little sent me images I was very interested and managed to grab some more shots at a subsequent Toy Show.

Jaguar MkII 3.4 litre

We had a maroon one of these when we were kids (it even gets a mention in Charlie Beckwith's Delta Force memoirs!)* and Dad used to screech the tyres on every roundabout between the North Circular and Retford on the old A1 'Great North Road'! Back in the day - there were a lot of roundabouts!

It ended its life as a glider-tug at Farnborough, sans roof. I don't know if it was cut off as a safety measure or ripped-off by the slipstream on the runway after rust set in, but I like to imagine the latter - the roof skidding away into the mown-grass like a demented umbrella!

You could still see it down the back of the water treatment works, behind the old hangers' until only a few years ago, where - if visual-memory serves - it had a Scammell wreaker and an old AEC tanker as companions!

Kit is simple, with white rubber (not plastic-melting PVC) tyres to be fitted over the wheel-stubs of two clip-in axles which are placed in a belly-pan already attached to the upper-bodywork. All found in a heat-sealed polyethylene bag.

* "...Major Walter jumped into his flashy maroon Jaguar and took off for London..."

https://www.scribd.com/book/163581917/Delta-Force-A-Memoir-by-the-Founder-of-the-U-S-Military-s-Most-Secretive-Special-Operations-Unit

Citroen DS

Scale is largish; around 1:24/25th or 1:30th which would make them compatible with a lot of figures? And presumably it was a range of sporty types, or 'sports-saloons'?

That Jaguar had plenty of room in the back for two small boys, but the polished leather seats combined with those corduroy shorts which were de rigueur for small boys back in the 1960's meant that as Dad screeched the tyres, my brother and I would slid about like corks in a storm, the fold-down arm-rest saving us from each-other! We - of course - would over-emphasis the movements until giggling set-in and we were shouted-at to "Behave yourselves!" by some miserable 'grown-up' in the front!

So, there you go; plastic car premiums from Fairy Snow, blurb rather replaced by reminiscing, as the pictures tell you as much as I can, and thanks to Adrian for sharing them with the rest of us.

T is for Two Coaches

A couple more bits photographed at the recent PW show, both wheeled, both on the large size for what they are, one a British rendition of an American vehicle, the other, hummmm.....

As far as I know this is the largest size of Stagecoach Tudor Rose made, like yesterday's SPG, it's 'beach-toy' scale and exactly the sort of thing you'd find in the seaside kiosks when I was a kid; in a poly-bag or net, with a cardboard header and a couple of the larger mounted figures from the same maker.

It is marked Tudor Rose but it doesn't show in the photograph and I assume the bar has been taped-in to strengthen the draw-bar/centre-pole manufactured in TR's usual soft ethylene polymer.

This is from Wilton in the 'States, clearly a cake decoration (as that's what Wilton does do in'nit!), it was lacking a team, but I suspect it never had one (there's no obvious way of attaching one anyway), or if it did they were probably unicorns or something daft like that; Pegasus's (Pegasii?)!

I guess (that's like an assumption but less firm!) it's aimed at wedding cakes, but 'trailer-park' rather than 'society'! Anyway it's about the largest thing I've seen in the cake decoration stakes at around 1:30th. You might be able to read the marks - Wilton - Chicago - Made in Hong Kong - on the hard styrene body.

H is for 'Howitzer Tank'

Yeah! Kids just don't feel the same about 'self-propelled' artillery; might as well just call it artillery and watch sales tank . . . heh-heh-heh! "Better add 'Tank' to the box Dave"

I shot this at the PW show on Adrian's stall, what a peach; and an interesting choice for a model as this M55 was part of a relatively short-lived family of post-WWII SPG's with common parts, quite quickly replaced by the M108/9 family.

The model's big too, around 1:24th, maybe 1:18th? - It's about a foot-long anyway, and all in a dense silver polyethylene, what I call beach-toy scale!

The more interesting aspect than it's age (as a toy) or good condition is the shell-rack over the engine compartment, just like the Taffy Toys 'Pershing/Patton' tank we looked at back at the beginnings of the blog which was of a similar size. There are differences, the Taffy has no moulded track-link detail on the inward-facing 'walls' of the moulding and its shells are blunter-ended, but the firing mechanism is near identical, even to the flat blade trigger.

It raises the question as to whether Taffy were part of the Thomas group (as previously suggested - by me, on advise) or part of the Tudor Rose group of equally interconnected companies/entities as evidenced by the similarities with this SPG?

We looked at the two very similar yet different 5.5-inch guns last time too [Just checked, looking for the above link - no we didn't but I have the photographs, so I'll do a follow-up in a day or two! Tuesday!], it's as if there were two parallel lines, possibly designed to be sold side-by-side or at least - to complement each other?

New Product Review - Modelleisenbahn-Figuren

An odd one this, I received these figures as promotional samples at no cost to myself, and thought they were nice enough to wax lyrical about, I still do, but the review will contain a few caveats, and my feeling is 'You pays your money and you takes your choice'...caveat emptor and all that.

The first thing is that while they seem to be called Modelleisenbahn-Figuren, (Model Railway Figures) they are also called Modellbahnfiguren (model road figures?)...Modellbaufiguren (Scale Model Figures) and one or two other's to boot! Seemingly differing on each page of the website, presumably for Google search result optimisation (more on this below).

The second thing is that while I seem to have dealt with Germans from Germany (by eMail), the company claims the US of A as it's corporate HQ (Modelleisenbahn-Figuren Limited Liability Company (LLC), 16192 Coastal Highway, Lewes - Delaware, 19958, County of Sussex, USA), yet are clearly a Chinese/HK concern. The website looks like it came out of an early 90's of-the-peg website catalogue, and communication with the 'Germans' was how shall we say...'problematic.

Top and middle; 1:25th scale figures 'Old Design'

Bottom; 1:30th scale 'Indoor'

The company came to my attention through a junk-mail shot, I get a lot of junk mail from toy companies, plastics factories and general casting factories mostly based in China, due to the tags I use and the fact that my eMail in on the page...marketing robots trawl the bloggosphear and catch my eMail with die-cast or poly-something or toy-something and I get junk.

My standard reply to the toy and plastics mails is "Send me some samples and I'll review them on the blog", after a week or so I mark the mail as spam and never hear from them again, but this time some samples were duly dispatched and an eMail conversation ensued in which I tried to get a competition organised as is my wont, to get some freebies for you dear readers!

However this was all over a year ago and the closer we got to a prize deal, the less keen they were to return my eMails. Also; what you see is pretty-much what they sent, very small samples of a few figures for across the range. Read-on this is going somewhere....

Above; 1:87th scale 'Seated' figures

Bottom right; 1:50th scale mix

Bottom left; comparison between 1:50th and 1:25th scale figures - in the same pose

So, while I am happy to show these figures, and do like them and will recommend them for what they are, well sculpted civilians in modern dress, painted to a fair standard for 'toy figures'; I must also warn you that if you purchase some, you are likely to generate spam and or become part of a marketing exercise.

During the email conversation with the chaps, I said "...they seem better-painted than those bulk lots on eBay", in point of fact: They are those bulk lots on eVilbay! Not only that, the website will only allow you to purchase them in frankly huge amounts, not much use for war-gaming or diorama building, but useful if you're equipping a large railway layout, trouble is only the very wealthiest train collectors are likely to be doing so to such a degree?

 

Clockwise from top left; five popular gauges equating to 10, 15, and 20mm/1:87, 25mm/1;72 and 28/30mm RPG gaming sizes.

Recent Hornby US/NATO troops challenge some unauthorised civilians in a goods-rail siding

Merten Arabs compared to the new figures

Comparison with old Hornby styrene and new Hornby Hobbies PVC figures

However - every cloud has its silver-lining, and these are they...modern Muslims in typical North African/Gulf-Arab dress. Easily converted and/or coloured for other Africans, Asians or Afghans to pose a few ideas. A further confusion lies in the fact that while I have labelled them in gauges and compared them to gaming sizes, they are actually sold in architects ratios, so the Arabs in the top left shot above are 1:200, 150, 100, 87, 75 and 50.

So - well worth a look if you need civilians, or Arabs...but; The company is difficult to deal with, you need to buy them in quantity and you may have to put up with junk-mail as a result. They are reasonably priced though. I'm not knocking them, I'm just saying a few alarm-bells have gone off since they came to my attention.