E is for Eye Candy - WWI Cavalry

I shot these at the BMSS (British Model Soldier Society)'s show in Reading, two years ago, on Mercator Trading's stall (thanks Adrian), and they are pretty special; Holgar Eriksson's finest, WWI British Cavalry in the charge. Probably from Comet-Authenticast's set British Cavalry, Field Uniform, 1914, which was unnumbered.

The brown one may be Chinese or something, Eriksson's lists included dozens and dozens of nations, and often it was just a paint-job to create another catalogue listing, but only Boxer Rebellion types are listed to my knowledge, although #56 was an 'unused' number in the later sets. The same - painting to order - was true of the first Malleable Mouldings lists. Or, it could be one of his own figures, from Sweden?

H is for Holy Self-Signed Toy, Batman!

I bought this at Sandown Park, I won't tell you what it cost, but suffice to say it wasn't cheap as chips, and I was initially a little disappointed by it, suspecting a mug had been seen coming, a little buyer's remorse crept in, but, like last night's cartoon, that's something which often accompanies the post show sort-out!

 

Holy boxed battle-taxi, Batman!

First, it was sold to me as AHI (Azrak Hamway International) when it's not, it's the later Australian reissue from Len Hunter Trading, and dating from 1989 (AHI carried this in 1977), and that it was signed, which I quickly convinced myself was a bit dodgy? However, having seen the prices of a few unsigned ones, and enough samples of Adam West's signature to be slightly more convinced by its sloppiness, I'm much happier about the purchase now!

 

 Holy facsimile figurines, Batman!

 

The main body of the Batmobile is all-plastic, so it ticks one box, and has two figures, of The Batman and pesky Robin, The Boy Wonder, so it ticks another box there, and is clearly a scaled-up copy of the Corgi die-cast, where that was 1:43rd, this is closer to 1:35th/32nd scale.

 

Holy Batbath brum-brum, Batman!

 

The boat is the same, and while I initially though they were blow-moulds; so many of the bootlegs and knock-off's have been, it is actually a couple of lumps of polystyrene, the frangibility of which means they are far worse survivors, than the original Corgi die-casts.

 

Holy crime-fighting combination, Batman! 

 

I think the figures can be used in the Batboat, but the seats are closer together, so maybe only one at a time? I noticed, before purchase, the blister had been off at one point, and not replaced brilliantly, so there's an option to remove it again, in the future, photograph the combination in close-up, re-set the Batboat in it's trailer properly, and try resetting the blister a little better?

 

Does the fact that the autograph is 'To Robin' from Adam West, give it a little extra caché? And, as I said to the seller, with all its faults or potential faults, when was I going to see another one? Holy philosophical fuckwittery, Batman!

C is for Concord, Cloned

We use 'clone' in the hobby as a shorthand for copied, pirated or knocked-off, but given as how a clone is supposed to as good as or hard to tell from the original, it's never better used than for this quite amazing model, which a mate kindly bought for me the other day when I spotted it going cheap, on that there evilBay.

The plain shipping box, and that's you, shipping it home in your car, revealing it's really being aimed at cake decorators, not aimed at retailed-toy customers! And one supposes a bigger stockist/store may have had six or eight in a larger carton? Wilton also ran a mail-order facility through their annual 'yearbook' catalogues.

Recognised it straight-away! And this is possibly Wilton's finest! A millimetre-by-millimetre copy of the Britains model of the Concord Overland Stagecoach model, with only two items seemingly not reproduced, and graphics/stickers switched-out (to use the US expression!) for Overland Stage Express Co., but in the same red & gold livery.

Three smaller bags contain all the little add-ons, a third, out of shot, took the seat seen here with the riders/crew, and even the luggage has been faithfully reproduced, or blatantly stolen, depending on your viewpoint, and a 1970's kid's viewpoint was very different from a Britains executive's!

Some of the colours have been changed, but otherwise, the whole thing is remarkably similar, upon first look you think it must have used the same tools (maybe after they'd been shipped to Hong Kong with everything else circa 1971), but there is a slight drop-off in quality, most noticeable on the horses.

An unusual detail of this copy over the more typical output of Wilton, or the Hong Kong pirates, is that different polymers have been used, as they were on the Britains original, so finer details are in flexible polyethylene, as are the horses.

Clearly marked Wilton on the underside of the base (which I neglected to photograph), one obvious difference is that they've only cloned one of the two horse poses, although the manes are different, so all four are roughly the same, where Britains gave you one each of two quite different horses, in opposite colours.

The other obvious difference/omission is that the passengers weren't cloned, but both crew are faithfully reproduced, even down to the long strip of PVC sheet/strip used for the driver's whip.

While the colours of the coach are matched quite closely, in fact the paler tan for the yellow on the bodywork is almost a better choice, and the crew, loosely followed, the luggage is a little more leery.

And the whole gives a lie to Donald Trump's "Chiiinah stole from us!" crap, actually, the Americans stole from Britains, running-off to Hong Kong and giving it "Here, make us a copy of this, and keep it cheap, we're going to sell it as a cake decoration"!

As a bit of a Brucey Bonus/'Question Time', the seller included these, for free, they weren't listed in the sales-spiel or images. And I'd love to know who made them, presumably a more craft-oriented US maker, possibly two, the wooden barrel and drinking 'spoon' being one, the printed cotton-sacks from another, can anyone help with a name/names? Doll's house accessories? 50lbs of 'Old Mill' sugar and Idaho potatoes!

T is for Two - Green Machines

Dropped into Blue Cross, the animal charity the other day, to drop-off some stuff for them, and managed to walk away with some stuff for me! Neither is that exciting, but we'll have a look at them anyway!

 

Timpo Bren-gun Carrier, nice and clean, with two, apparently unbrittle, crew, but needing a Bren and a set of wheels, I'm pretty sure the former is in a bag of spares somewhere, the latter may be found under a tatty one, at some later date!

 

Not so clean, but otherwise complete, a generic (for now?) Hong Kong tank, in the style of those which are usually die-cast (Zee), with the black-plastic plug-ins, for aerial and MG, but is, in fact, actually all-plastic, and recognisably a Panzer IV, albeit, 'only just! The barrel looks damaged, but in the flesh, seems fine, just a little loose. And it's not far of HO-OO 'readymade' carpet-toy scale!

M is for May's Visit - Purchases

So, back to May, and a visit to London, to pick up some stuff Peter had found, saved or got at a car-boot for me, but while I was there we dived into a couple of shops on the journey to/from the Toy Project charity shop, and I managed to find a couple of things of interest.

 

The pictures say it better than I can, on this one! A couple of daft animals on motorcycles (not 'cars'?), which are neither terribly cartoony nor caricatures, or any kind of licensed character, more like realistic big-heads, so heading straight to charity, where they will find similar trike-mounted dinosaurs, currently in Poundland!

 

But a nice bag of model animals with four of the 'big 5' (tiger instead of leopard) and other iconic ones including North American (Grizzly) and Asian (Panda) animals, along with some useful scenic items, and a strange modular base, which looks like it might interlock with some of those white-button vehicle track-ways?!

 

Probably a generic with a phantom-branding to Toey Play®, who have a presence on platforms like Amazon, but aren't on the Animal wiki's so are probably other recognised Chinese manufacturer/s products? But, for such a big box, it was cheap as chips in an anonymous general store.

 

These, seem to be very good for what they are, which is dirt-cheap rack-toys ffromKandy Toys, certainly both compatible with and of equal quality to the current Tomy-Britains or New Ray stuff (where I think they may from, or be copies of), so, if you're into farm animals, look them out?

 

I also bought a few bits at the Toy Project, but I broke them down and photographed them with all the figures in Peter's box of bits, for me, so they will be sprinkled through the next series of posts, but you can spot paratroops, Phidal's and board game pieces!

B is for Box-ticking Boy's Toys in Bottle Bags!

At the PW show, John Begg had a whole bunch of ex-shop, or out-painters stock (there were loose figures) from Charbens, and Colesmith Plastics (the moulds have a convoluted history which can be read in Plastic Warrior's Charbens Specialist Publication), to which I availed myself of what you might call a cross-sample, certainly not everything they produced, either figure or packaging wise, but a nice example for box-ticking their latter production, which I remember being in the shelves, when I was a kid.

 

Charbens own-branded packaging.

Unpainted Wild West.

 

A generic branding as 'Pic-a-Pack'.

Guards Band and Beefeaters. 

 

American civil war, an odd mix of plastic colours with the Union outnumbering the Confederates more than two-to-one, in both sets, with an apparently measured content count of one sky-blue figure, four dark blue, and two grey

 

More mixed ceremonials, here branded to Colesmith.

A Highland piper, and Lifeguards join the mix.

 

Mixed paratroopers (green bases) and Tommies (sand).

 

Comparison of the cards, I don't know why Colesmith got to brand some-up to themselves, maybe to pay off a debt, or just for a cheaper quote to Charbens? or did they inherit/hang-on to the moulds? I haven't got the Charbens Special to hand!

 

Note, also; the Artist's palette painting sign, used - rightly - on the unpainted Wild West set, but rather spurious on the pre-painted sets? I'm sure I remember the Colesmith sets in WHSmith around 1978/79?

 

"Jenny? What colour are Native Americans, really?"

 

"Dunno' love, try one of each!"

 

The 'Blues & Royals'.

 

Mixed, painted and unpainted.

Highlanders, Nelson, Lifeguard trumpeter and mounted cowboy.

 

Guards band in various treatments.

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Speedwell Medievals

A trio of Robin Hoods, including a rather nice heat-conversion, a pair of Little Johns and two of the Sheriffs men, or eight, but you know what I mean, see elsewhere a while ago, not much one can add!

 

That's it, that's them, enjoy!