A is for Available in Any Colour, as Long as it's Fast!

I seemed to do quite well in the racing-car department, at Sandown, I rarely go to Sandown with anything like a shopping list, it's a question of what's there (and cheap) on the day! And, a month or so ago, it was racing cars, apparently?

Rather highfalutin instructions, and blurb, bigging-up a basic mechanism in this Maserati, which had been known to aficionados of balsa flying machines for several decades before this was issued? And the addition of a crown and bevel makes the 'starting handle' a harder wind than the propeller usually employed for the winding of rubber-band models!

 

To be honest, and given the quality of some more obvious 'facsimile' boxes I've seen recently, I have my doubts over the authenticity of this box, it's just too good, too clean? But the jeweller's loupe seems to suggest it's litho- or screen-printed onto an absorbent card, and shop stock stuff does turn-up, from time to time, but I'm not confident, either way?

 

This is my second FROG (Flies Right Off [the] Ground) Penguin (flightless bird), but is very different, the previously-found jeep being a heavy, vulcanised rubber, almost composition in consistency and weight, while this is a lightweight, plastic (early 'styrene?) and tin, novelty.

 

A future post (currently in storage) will be two of these helmets, one of which, in silver, is identical to the one depicted on this driver figure (the reason vehicles started to gain traction in the collection), with the set-forward or stand-off, drop-down perspex sheet, mounted around the front of a rigid visor.

 

They both came from 'Old Mr. Bening' (might be Benny or Benning), who was a silversmith, in a little shop/workshop, I think at the T-junction of the B3004 (Forge Road) and A325, just shy of Bordon, Hampshire, although the premises seem to have gone in a junction remodelling over the 50-odd years since he died, and we last visited him.

 

It may have been somewhere else, nearby, the memories are weak, and Google is no help with everyday, local historical stuff, there might as well have been no world prior to 1997! But he had been a racer in his younger days, and gave us a couple of his old helmets.

 

Ingap large scale Porsche F1, my first larger Ingap, and another in that classic fifties or sixties metallic blue plastic! I don't know if the box is original (packing from a larger carton?), or fashioned by a previous owner, but it fits well, and keeps the car protected, so I'll hang on to it! Both the above are about 1:43rd/48th scale.

 

Not a racing car, and closer to 1:35th/32nd, but just for fun, it was one of the items missing from my flood-damaged set, which we looked at prior to my discarding the packaging as beyond saveable a few years ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/08/ab-is-for-vidalis-brothers-joy-toy.html

 

And given the price Greek sellers on evilBay want, for everything, it was a bargain! I guess it's trying to be a VW Carmen Ghia, or early Porsche Carrera? Bonnet's not right for either! Equally, the Greek Hellas sports-car, might fit (after a quick Google!), but whatever it wants to be, it's still, a nice find.

Q is for Quickie! Seen Elswhere

And actually seen here! I was going to do a longish post on Ambulances, but I was up at 4:40 to drive to Luton and have successfully battled the salary mongs on the M25, back again. Now fatigue is catching-up, and I'm going to have a snooze before work, so here very much as a reminder, are a few bits from last year's Plastic Warrior show, which - as far as this year's - is only four Saturday's away, three and half weeks peeps! We did see them in last years show report posts, but these went on a Faceplant group at the time.

 

A pair of 1st version British Paratroopers from Airfix.

 

A trio of Trojan 14th Army figures, joining a growing sample.

 

Four of the Hilco ANZACs cloned from Timpo, which had been on my shopping-list last year, I'm not sure what's on the list this year, in fact, I don't know, because I've given it little thought, beyond the one or two 60mm Crescent Mohicans I still need! But I've three weeks to give it some thought, and save some dosh, and, so do you!

 

Contact details, I expect Brian Carrick (who was to feature in the Ambulance post!) will do a detailed travel guide in the next week or so, and there'll be more on Faceplant for those still there.

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C is for Catalogue Cluster

Variously taken from the 1972, 3 and '75-79 catalogue scans the other day, they are sort of eye-candy, but mostly low-res, or not that clear, so to draw the curtain on the recent miniseries, and to get them off Picasa, here they are with a few notes, and in no particular order!

 

Larger playsets.

 

1st version Americans, with 2nd version in the boat, but they seem to have been given 1st version German helmets! I refer you to my previous comments on art-departments m'lud - muppets!

 

Ist version in the box, 2nd version outside the box! Americans again. It's not clear what the Bren-carrier crew have on their heads, but I think it is British helmets.

 

This shot was reversed in the 1976 catalogue, obvious from the red beret!

 

Window boxes.

 

Big beast, post-war British Chieftain Tank it was also issued in German grey, along with this one in a big-box play set, it's expensive when you find it, and rarely complete!

 

More art-department shenanigans here, some of the bases are wrong!

 

A bit silly, the Centurion turret is underscale and won't go through tunnels!

 

More art-department shenanigans here, some of the bases are wrong!

Have I already said that?

 

I think this is a mock-up too, the kneeling guy doesn't look right in the card-art, or in the blister?

 

That's it, I could have done a few more, but the effort of cropping them all was a faff!

 

 =============================================

 

Later the same day - 

 

I've added the Timpo paratroopers to the Parachute toy page, which you can find here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_14.html

J is for Jeeermuns!

Except these Jeeermuns are enemy Fokkers! An oldie, but a goodie, unless you're a German reader, in which case my apologies, but in the original, it is funny! The internet can't agree whether Roy 'Chubby' Brown or Stan Boardman were responsible for the original, but I first heard it from Brown, so tend to credit him, however Boardman himself, credits an episode of This is Your Life, with Eamon Holmes, while other sources claim WWII Ace Douglas Bader, or the RAF in general for an apocryphal wives-tale!

 

Having removed the Plasma tent and British stretcher-team, we're left with a few shots of the Timpo Germans, so as a bit of a box-ticker . . .

 

. . . the 'eye candy' is the German stretcher-team and casualty, who is the same as the British one, but in grey plastic, the figures with their cross-straps and high-boots were a new sculpt.

 

Variations on a theme, the MG-34 gunner as issued on the left, in the middle a No.2 has been created with the ammo-box from the Vickers MG vignette, while a No.3 guard/spotter carries a rifle, he should have the tripod, but he seems to have lost it in the fog of battle, spare barrels and marker poles would be the responsibility of the No.2. Last version, over-moulded head on the left, with less-common oxide-brown base.

 

This shot, courtesy of Theo Van de Weerden shows a few more poses, including my favourite, the MP-38/40 SMG chap, also with one of the less common late colour bases, and this was the only set with two obvious officers - no infantry Y-straps, and a Luger/Mauser holster.

 

The 1976, '77 and '78 Timpo catalogues reversed the infantry set's image, so we get several left-hookers, something Airfix managed to do with their WWI reissue box-art a while ago! On the left is the donor for the rifle in my MG team!

 

Always worth remembering; the art & design and press/marketing departments are jobbing employees, not geeks, not historians, not modellers nor toy soldier enthusiasts, if they were, we wouldn't still be getting the Airfix Sd.Kfz.234 with those ridiculous toy mudguards!

E is for Eye Candy - Flamethrower

One of the rarest of the Timpo WWII or 'Modern Army' vignettes, and also, with the flame, one of the most imaginative, but it's the flame which helps make it rare, being marbled orange/yellow, the very fine locating stud at the hose end of the flame tends to fault-lines or brittleness, as does the quite thin silver hose, resulting in very few complete survivors.

 

Lacking accessories, and lacking the imagination of thinking they could use the shrub from the German mortar (in case it caught fire?), they - instead - added the bazooka rocket pile, which was more than a tad anachronistic!

E is for Eye Candy - Infantry Mortar

Back to the Timpo Germans, and their 80mm mortar, and the other of these little vignettes which you can switch-out the figures and swap (or swop!) for British or American troops, and given the differences between mortars at this scale, and the simplistic design, means it makes no difference who's serving it!

 

The shrubbery, or - more accurately - 'shrub' is as unique as the mortar, I thought it got further issues with one or two of the wild-west vignettes, but it didn't. Somewhere I have one reattached to a standard figure base, but it tends to fall sideways on the long-sides of the slightly ovoid base!

 

If you look carefully you'll see the fine crossbar is broken, it wasn't when I got it out of the tub, but it's definitely a weak-spot with this Timpo weapon-sculpt, and went the way of most others, I just hope the other end will stay attached, and one day I'll try a miniscule blob of superglue, off a pin, to try and hold it long enough to get a better shot for the final archive/A-Z Blog post.

E is for Eye Candy - Bazooka

This post was going to be the Plasma Tent, but in Googling it to see if it was really called the Plasma Tent (it was!), I found this post, in the results;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/01/b-is-for-bonus-post.html

 

So, that plan got pulled, and the British stretcher team have been taken out of the queue as well! I'm losing control of the queue! Anyway, I then plundered the catalogues for the WWII stuff (although Timpo tended to call them all 'Modern Army'), so we'll have an ephemera post at the end!

 

In the meantime, I only have two shots of the Bazooka, which came with the Americans, and I realised I was talking bollocks yesterday, only the two German sets lend themselves to being used by other nationality's figures, the others all have set-specific poses!

 

You might be able to get the SMG gunner from the first type British/Aussie to hold this, but, he'd be the only other figure with the right-hand hole/s, and I haven't tried! While the No.2 is even more specific to the US Army!

 

 I also had this shot of the Officer kicking around, so he can go here.

E is for Eye Candy - Searchlight

Part two of several, brings us to the German army searchlight, although like most of these vignettes, you can change the crew (the whole point of swoppets), something you can't do with the Vickers MG, or the US Flamethrower.

 

The operator is the mortar-bomb guy, with the mortar-bomb removed, or, probably more accutarately, the mortar-bomb moulding cycle not performed. Usually the officer with Luger came on his own base as a third figure, with the Binocular guy the other one on this base, something I will correct as I have spare bino' guys!

 

777 - the first cousin of the beast?

Note the extraneous hole under the searchlight's base-plate.

 

These are in photo-shoot sequence, so I must have tried the grenade thrower after I'd shot the more correct bloke?

M is for Master Figure

This is an odd one, it's 'believed to be', so not 100% accurate, which is not the best start, but it is a lovely figure, which deserves a horse, and painting, but if it is a Master Figure, it should really be left alone, however, I can't find it in any of the HM of GB catalogues, flyers or colour post-card type things I have in the archive, so . . . Can anyone confirm this as an HM of GB sculpt?

 

There are three parts, an ornate sword in sheath, a head & torso and legs/saddlery, and I think -from the jacket/frock coat - that he's from the Indian Raj period, but he could be a Janissary or Marmaluke? Although I don't think HM were noted for the latter periods, but they did cover the Egyptian campaigns, and a Jubilee procession?

 

The two halves assembled.

Believed to be sculpted by a Nigel Farnhill, for HM of GB, it's fashioned from a hard material, possibly the two-part epoxy, neutral grey, Milliput, with hints of a wire armature, in addition to the locating pin.

 

Was he an extension, or planned extension, to the On Foreign Service range, or something more Delhi Durbar related? If anyone can add anything to this less than informative post, that would be great, maybe the sculptor's right, but the figure ended-up in another brand's range?