News, Views Etc . . . Show Report - Plastic Warrior's 32nd Toy Soldier Show; Twickenham, London, 13th May 2017

Oh no! I lost the 'who can get a show report out first' competitive-blogging race for the umpteenth-year running, anyone would think I wasn't playing!

I don't know if anyone told you there was a toy soldier show at the weekend; best in the world, so commiserations if you missed it, but a brief resume of the day needs to start with the weather which threatened to be damp and drizzly, and started as such, but about the time the tables turned-up it had started clearing, and continued to improve to the point where we had the post-show 'autopsy' chin-wag on the lawn, in shirts, with tea and bisk'wuits!

Paul Morehead, the inimitable editor of Plastic Warrior was pleased with the turn-out, and table-space was over-subscribed in the end (so dealers: book early for next year!), while I thought the show stayed busy for longer than some years, with quite a buzz 'till well after lunch. I spoke to several stall-holders who'd all had a good day and I think everyone found something they needed, wanted or liked the look or price of!

As well as the two new 'specials' shown here on Friday evening last, the show was also the launching-point for the usual (or 'annual'!) new release from Peter Cole at Replicants and this year's was a delight; four Comanche warriors. I did take the middle image with Peter and the Westons in the background, but it was not the most flattering shot I've taken of him, so I hope he'll forgive me for cropping out the wider angles!

Wonderfully animated figures, with Peter's natural style to the fore, I particularly like the charging guy, reminiscent of the old Britains Swoppet chap, but while the Britains pose always looked to be dancing, Peter's 'local resident' is clearly bearing down on an illegal migrant from across the pond - with intent!

The archer reaching for a second arrow is nice, the kneeling firer is a very well observed pose while the rather gruesome scalping vignette has the perpetrator standing on a victim who - while wearing a fringed jacket - has few other defining details (and not much hair!) so can be painted up as a cowboy/settler/backwoodsman, or another - rival tribe - Indian. He could even be given US Army (cavalry) blue trousers with a nice yella' stripe down the seam - if only the natives had had a wall . . . a really big wall folks!

Also on sale at the show, and still available from Replicants' retail-agents (Steve Weston's Toy Soldiers) were the last set of figures from 21^st Century. They were described as 'WWII British' in the last Plastic Warrior, but are really British Paratroops, equipped as per post-D-Day, and might like to have their smocks repainted to reflect the Denison scheme.

Their helmets also being wrong for infantry as they are neither the old rimmed 'Tommy' or 'Brodie' (as the Yanks called it) nor having the distinctive shape of the Guards Brigade's MkIII 'Turtles', and as well as having the look of the Para-helmet, they have the chin-strap for it. However a couple of the figures are in other headdress, shirt or jumper, so are a bit more flexible.

However they're very good, highly detailed sculpts which would benefit from further paint whoever they were representing. The Bren-gun's magazine on one of mine needs a hot-water treatment to straighten it, but otherwise lovely figures which may prove hard to get in the future, so grab them now!

Five bags of other plunder were returned to Smallscaleworld Towers and their contents will feature in a future post.

The big difference this year was a lack of European visitors, most of the German faces were there as always, but the French and Belgians were missing, as were all but one of the Portuguese? I don't know if this was a Brexit thing, a currency thing or just a busy weekend for events elsewhere.

I hope it's due to developing support structures for the hobby in other places reducing the necessity to drag one's arse to Blighty - certainly it seems the French hobby has progressed a lot in recent years, and that means someone is digging-out and saving the stuff there, so it can in turn find it's way to evilBay for everyone to have a punt at! It didn't seem to effect attendance, and only time will tell if it's part of a trend or just a one-off?

Finally . . . 

Blimey! It's only less than a blinking year until the next Plastic Warrior magazine's Toy Soldier Show, the best toy soldier show in the world!

H is for Hangin' on the Hook!

Returning to the 'meat and two veg' of rack toys if you are a toy soldier collector: toy soldiers, or as I call most of them: Chinatroops! And a mix of stuff from Brian Berke, the £1 shops, both Peter Evans' and Brian Carrick's bags from May's Plastic Warrior show and a couple from further afield.

Brian sent me the Bely set (pronounced Belly or Beelee? Or even Beelay?) Warrior - Ready To Play, now there's an honest set title! While the now defunct 99p Stores 'own brand' of PMS gave me the Army Soldiers. Same figures, same little fort (why I shelled-out my 99p!), same modern take on the old pile-of-earth flag-stand, now a pile of robotic rocks! The green ones were PW show-booty.

Top picture was just for fun, most were in Peter's bag, one came from Dario (pale grey one - top right) in Italy a while ago and the painted one (21st Century) shows how far China has come when it puts its mind to it! The figure next to the painted one is a clone of the recent CTS set, no flies on the Chinese - see BMC below! The figure to his left is an unusual take on the Airfix pose with cut-n-shut legs while the guy top left might be a Lido original?

The lower picture is of the Matchbox figures we looked at the other day but with their 'enemy' - I think? They came together in a bag and are the same softish PVC!

A few more groups of random Chinatroops and a set with a Chinese maker's mark (Zhenhai Toys Factory), something which will hopefully become more common now the Chinese government controlling party elite have decided that's what their people are going to do!

Research reveals it's probably the Ningbo Zhenhai Wantang Toys Factory, and further research (a quick five-minutes on Google!) into the second name Magic Source International Inc. reveals the state of play these days . . .

. . . a probably unrelated (to the shipment which the above set was in) bill of lading (BoL) shows Magic (US, probably as an Importer [jobber]) taking delivery from Top Source Trading Ltd (HK-based shipper) with all parties notifying Flegenheimer International Inc. (the US shipping agent, contract manager or FoB'er) of progress of the shipment on-board the MV GEMINI, a ship owned by CMA-CGM (the French carrier).

The cargo was described as "Plastic Toys ( Invoice No.: Ts-928) Plastic Toys ( Bowling, Kitchen Playset, Beauty Playset)", probably from the above Chinese mainland-based Zhenhai, all those fingers in the pie (add at least three trucking journeys, and a similar story on both raw and processed materials) yet it only costs a dollar a unit in the store!

Poor copies-of-copies, covered in a deposit of leached additive!

The problem with getting your toys produced in the East is that they are rendered easier to clone . . . in the East! BMC GI's cloned in China by an outfit called Dan Hai - nothing on Google? Assault Military (as opposed to 'Stay at Home and Watch the TV Military'?') I rather like the two bunkers, but the control-console is a tub-filler, large piece of plastic with thin walls taking-up space which would otherwise be occupied by heavier (more expensive) figure mouldings! Imported into the USA at the moment by Lollipop (L.P.).

These are one of many samples of old Airfix piracies kicking around, I rather like them (enough to photograph and Blog!) because they are quite good copies which have kept the faith with the Airfix base, and they are unusual colours.