T is for Tente - Tank Transporter and Tail-ends

So, the last of the Tente stuff in the car-booty found by Peter Evans back in the Summer, and it's 'most of the rest', of what seems to have been a ten-kit set, although I've got bits of naval vessels in the same 'army' green, still not a colour offered, in any quantity, by Lego, so the full range may have gone to 12 or 15 boxes?

 

The tractor unit is vaguely based on the Kynos Aljaba 8×8, but that was an 8x8 (obviously) not a 6x6, so it's a very loose resemblance, some Soviet tractors look similar, but usually with a closed cab, as do/are the Faun SLT's of the Bundeswehr.

 

With the trailer, which is even more generic!

Always hard to photograph tank transporters (or large ship models), simply because of the horizontal dimensions! But these give you some idea. The previously seen Tanque, and the Ambulance, before I had found its loose bits and reattached them!

 

It came with its own (2nd model) tank, the bulk of which was missing from the car boot find, and which is closer to the ex-US Patton or Pershing M46/47 & M48/M60's that were common in the Spanish inventory for the bulk of the post-war/Cold War era. But most of the turret was in the bag, and with the barrel off the other, I could produce that, for a photograph!

 

Alternate suggestions mostly involve slight tweaks to the configuration, but the half-tracked transporter is spacey! While the tank becomes a chunky-monkey personnel carrier or wheeled tank.

 

The ephemera awaiting scanning, includes a half-track which was also missing, however, I think bits of it might have been in the less-than-colour-matched ambulance truck, we saw at the start of this sequence.

 

 Reverse of its instructions include a vague weapons-platform, and a cargo-truck.

 

Missing numbers are the Missile Helicopter, a quadruple SPAAG, based, clearly, on the Soviet-era ZSU-32-4, while, not illustrated anywhere here, was a large 8x8, wheeled APC, coded #0751, which was probably the weakest model in the range - body too big for the wheels, giving it a very open and top-heavy look.

 

All the important bits of the helicopter (cockpit, rotor, tail, skids) were also in the bag, with a handful of bricks which may have been helicopter, but may have been half-track, if you were to follow the instructions! Another bag of bits and a pair of the shorter tracks, and I will be able to complete both!

So, many thanks to Peter for spotting these, and saving them for the Blog, something a bit different!

U is for Umteenth Crimbo Post

. . . and there's more to come, but here's a few bauble loose-ends to put away. Some going on the tree, some viewed in passing as it were!

 

I actually bought this back in March, it was . . . is, technically, an Easter bauble, presumably to be hung on some silver-sprayed twigs, or another 100% consumerist, modern, non-traditional, 'interior-decor' shite! But I thought, well, it's a blown-glass bauble, it can go on the Christmas tree! It'll probably lose the bow, though! Very much in the style of the set of four (with the dodgy elephant) I found late last year.

 

I always try to add at least one cone, they are all over the tree in every size, and this Decoris one was big, but the first I saw, a while back now, and a nice colour, so it's gone in the box awaiting a tree!

 

Not baubles, but rather nice, I thought, slightly stylised Magi, as candleholders, sent to the Blog by Brian Berke, you can see other colourways behind the facing trio, so you can have quite a caravan, if you so wish!

 

And I love their headdresses, which have the look of non-Disney Aladdin/1001 Nights stuff from illustrated fairy-story 'comics' of the 1960's, like Pixi Tales, or Once Upon a Time. Turkish or Gourd turbans, now - of course - there's a specie of gourd called a Turk's Turban!

 

Brian also spotted this figural pair, I think the one on the left is Ms Vogue, the po-faced Meryl Streep character from the movie, you know, wasername, just retired, Crewella something-or-other? I'm not sure on the other one, is it supposed to be Ellen DeGeneres? She's not known for colour, or glasses? Fun, but too much appliqué stuff for my tree!

 

Adrian had this vintage one on his stall, last month, and I was tempted, but the flat-paint face and white beard & fur put me off, I like my vintage ornaments to be spirit painted, so the mirrored interior surface shines through the colour.

As mentioned above, I'm no fan of 'stuff' glued-on, there are a few in the family collection, but only a few, and Mum found them all! Now, Mum would have loved this, but, because it's pink, and she didn't have pink on her tree, she would have given it to me, for the 'gay tree', and because it would have been a present, I would have accepted it with the love intended, therefore, I bought it, if that makes sense?

 

I bought these three, unbranded, from the new/old (they moved to bigger premises and changed their name) hardware store in Fleet the other day, pretty sure I recognised them, but I primarily grabbed them because they are quite small, and the smaller ones bring a bit of interest to the higher portion of the tree.

 

And damn me if they (inner pair) aren't the better quality originals of the ones I got from TKMaxx (outer pair) back in November! It's not just in Toy Soldiers' that the Chinese copy each-other!

T is for Tanque!

No messing-about with autoblinder-carro-panzer'whatsits, if the Brit's are calling them Tanks, we'll call them that too, but with our spelling - Tanque! We arrive at what is probably the penultimate Tente military post; I could squeeze two more out, but one would be pretty weak!

Not really resembling anything in service, but quite a mean looker, with a nice long tank-hunting barrel, although the turret is a bit boxy. The tracks and hull might be a bit Sheridan? This was one of two tanks in the series, the other came with a tank transporter, while this was boxed separately, as #0750.

 

Alternate suggestions on the back of the instruction sheet include a very chunky APC of the tank-hulled 'Kangaroo' type, and a front-engined SPG, which is closer to the British Abbot, than the American M109, but with the gun set back too far, and too high, practically-speaking?

N is for No Goldilocks . . .

. . . and there's four of them! This year's bears; I tried to be careful, but in the end I found there were four more waiting to be hung, next time the tree comes out. Actually I've seen a lot of bears this year, so I have been quite restrained, they are making a comeback, although the big trend this year has been mushrooms. I have seen dozens upon dozens of mushrooms, in all styles and materials, everywhere I've been. There are no mushrooms on the family tree, and I'm not about to start adding them!

 

I got this one a couple of months ago, so long ago, in fact, he got shot twice! If you remember we had a plain'ish, gold'ish bear with tartan scarf last year (or the year before?), so I thought they' balance each other, on opposite sides of the tree! Pretty sure it was Gisela Graham?

 

But the tree gets turned twice each cycle, and is actually dressed in thirds, so this makes far more sense! Or at least that's the justification . . . TK Maxx for this chap, and he's a proper blown-glass, a bit on the larger side.

 

Then I found these smaller ones from Decoris in the Haskins garden centre near Forest Lodge, and couldn't leave them on the hook, although I guess, as a respectable couple, they will have to be hung close-together!

That's the Bears, this year! And I forgot the drummer we've already seen, so that's another five!

C is for Cañón Autopropulsado

The next piece of semi-fictional military hardware in what the Spanish know as the Scorpion line, but without cultural knowledge of the little icon, the rest of us just tend to call the Tente military 'stuff'! Based loosely on an M109 US Self-propelled gun.

 

Another two suggestions, one a rather chunky-monkey in the vague shape of a Russian/Soviet SU-something-or-other, and the other an asymmetric, side-mounted SPG, looking like a mean space-tank hunter!

It took about 20 shots to get one with as little reflection as on this shot, so once I've got the scanner plugged in again, I'll get all this stuff scanned, although there's plenty online for these models.

H is for Hairy Horrors!

When I was a kid, Trolls were a simple thing to get your head round, they were slightly larger, toad-skinned goblins who lived under bridges and ate slow, or dim witted goats.

 

Then Tolkien arrived in teenage'hood, with trolls the size of land-tanks who breathed fire, while the Nottingham Mafia and Garry Gygax's D&D monster handbooks, along with dozens of whitemetal manufacturers split Trolls twenty ways, and suddenly they could be large, small, relatively harmless, existentially dangerous to the planet, green, brown, orange or yellow, or anything between!

 

These trolls, the 'Scandi trolls', fill the slightly larger, relatively harmless, goblin niche, I think, but clearly this lot are strangers to the barber's chair!

 

The final tranche of Brian Berke's Icelandic shelfies and he thought the chap with the shield reminded him of Eccles from The Telegoons, while I thought those (red background) reminded me of Michel Bentine's Potty Time, characters which was a sort of second spin-off from The Goons!

 

Many thanks to Brian for all these, they've been a lot of fun!

T is for Two - Christmas Plastics

A couple of plastic sets turned-up in The Works back at the start of September, which was a bit too early for crimbo' posts, but it's not often you see new, plastic cake decorations these days, so here they are now!

 

Two different sets, each providing for a typical vignette for the cake, only a vignette from a 1970's cake! I don't think people do cakes like that any more, or if they do, they use the 'family' decorations, to do the same traditional cake each year?

 

Looks to be a mix of polystyrene mouldings (the two figures), poured resin (tree) and air-dried-clay - the candy-cane, so ancient and modern in the one teeny bag!

 

Penguin delivering Christmas prezzies!

A is for Ambulancia de Campaña

Continuing to mosey through the Tente car-boot sale find of Peter's, and we're with the 'Field Ambulance', Ref. 0755. One thing I have noticed with all this sample, is the variation in shade of brick colours, but that's probably down to the same-shaped bricks being swapped between kits, but it does, still point to poor quality control, that different kits/batches would be different colours?

 

The vehicle is in the style of a Steyr-Daimler-Puch Pinzgauer, a light utility/GS vehicle with off-road capacity but no war-fighting or front-line role, and I don't know (and can't find) a similar Spanish make of vehicles, nor is Spain listed as Pinzgauer users, but all the vehicles in the set are pretty fictional really!

 

Rather like the 'war', or undeclared fight between VHS and BetaMax (where Beta' was netter, but VHS 'won'), Tente is the superior system, with more flexibility in construction, brought about by the fact you can either hug the studs (like Kiddycraft's pirate, Lego), or lock on to the central holes in each stud.

 

Another couple of alternate builds on the back of the instructions, each model seems to get two suggestions, with two-step build photo's you have to work through. I seem to recall, at one point, Lego used to put similar illustrations on the outside of the box?

T is for Tröll sem eru í Treyjasum!

Apologies to any Icelandic Loyal Readers who may have just chocked on their elevenses, for my miserable attempt at a line of Icelandic grammar, and even I know (now) Treyja are really cardigans not jumpers, but sometimes my desire to be a clever-dick outweighs any need to be more sensible!

 

More Trolls from Brian's visit to Iceland, and these are your every-day, regular tröll, not seasonal guys, and it seems even the locals need jumpers to meet the weather in those northern climes! The jumpers themselves are part of the resin moulding, but I think the little woolly hats are actually real, knitted apparel, while, obviously, hatless tröll have too much hair for hats! More on the hair in the final part of Islensku tröll.