P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Historical & Ceremonial

Arguably my favourite 'grouping' in these mixed-lot sort-out's, as the breadth of the subject and vast quantities of tourist keepsakes issued over the years, means there's so much to find, and there are some real pearls in this latest lot from Chris Smith.

Starting at the beginning; early city-state dwellers from the Fertile Crescent! These 60mm'ish, PVC, biblical figures are similar to those BibleToys Inc., sets Brian sent to the blog a few years ago, but not quite as cartoony, but still styled for infant play, they will be from some kind of bible-related play-set I guess?

 

Perfectly illustrating my 'tourist' comment above, despite seeing over half a dozen on the blog, and possibly having more in the stash, both these Welsh national dress ladies are new to me. The one on the left probably 1960's and hard polystyrene, while the PVC one is likely 1970/80's and was a key-ring ornament.

 

I love finding these with their loops cut, not because I still cut them myself; I used to when I was more of a Philistine. But because they tell me other people were finding and converting esoteric figures to join their Toy Solders & Model Figures (where key-rings have always been a source of unusual subjects), as I was, way back when I was a silent, solo/lone collector!

A tad damaged, his horse will need a hoof and a tail, but I think this is one of those French MDM figures, and they are so nice, even a damaged one is a joy . . . And a sample!

 

And on the subject of damaged samples, these two are both a bit on the battle-casualty side of things, but both useful additions. If you've been following the development of the KT story here, you'll have worked out/seen that there are more damaged than whole Beefeaters and Guardsmen (similar story with the HK Cavendish!), but, they are polystyrene so easy to glue, mend, convert etc, therefore maybe a future project, while the more samples, the easier to see paint variation between batches or over time.

 

The resin Highlander with be a gift-shop special! Unfortunate that he looks a bit like Prince Andrew! Similar to the Sculptures UK figures we've seen previously, but a different maker and tartan treatment, which I think is very effective. Until a better one turns-up, he's very welcome here!

RP issue of the old CoMa Roman signifier, we may have seen him here before, more than once or twice, I can't possibly recall how or why, but people like to see them from time to time!

 

This is brilliant because it's a second sample of the 4M knights, clearly these were/are a heritage-site gift-shop thing, and I'm tempted to take myself to Windsor and see what's available there, but something which was free (as a national asset and educational destination) when I was a kid is now 25-quid or more, plus parking! So I may just hope Chris and charity shops continue to send them my way, occasionally - current rhythm is one every eight years!

 

A few pirates which aren't worth hiding until September, a PVC generic in the ELC style, a Soma, the Black Chine mascot and a Poplar pirate in a new colour for that pose!

 

These two are resin, and while I suspect the one on the left is another gift-shop/touristy piece (very ECW), the one on the right looks like he;'s from a Christmas village, and I couldn't tell you which range, as there are many, I recently acquired/inherited a Hong Kong/Netherlands Edelman B.V. 'Luville' catalogue, and there is tons of this kind of stuff out there, although, very little in the collection!

The small scale is a gang of Shreddies/Tom Smith gladiators putting the jump on a smaller squad of non-Giant 'Romans', from two or even three sources! They'll be sorted into their rightful samples at a later date.

 

Thanks again to Chris for all these, some lovely additions to the collection, and they will all enhance future posts on all sorts of things.

S is for Scammers!

We saw one of these figures last year and I thought I'd try and get a full set for this year, and while there have been several on evilBay, they were either honestly claiming to have no figures and/or accessories, or two damn expensive! However I did find one which was both reasonable and 'appeared' to be complete . . . you know the rest Readers! But, more plaster-of-Paris in the stash!

Anyway, it was far too heavy to send back economically (what the seller was counting on!), so I scanned the box, archived the instruction sheet and took his pathetic excuses in exchange for a neutral feedback! If it had been more obvious he would have got a 'red', I like to give out two or three of those a year!

Anyway . . . to help you ID them in mixed or loose lots (how I will do it now; slowly!), here they are, and they are nice sculpts, although they are in two colours on the box, I've only ever seen them in silver?

The accessories may help you ID a mixed lot where the figures are buried under army-men, or mixed-in with the similar Redbox and Toy Major-Toysmith ones! That's it; 4M Brick'N'Build Pirate Fortress, half box-ticked, or box half-ticked!

R is for Return - to 'Probably' Redbox?

I mentioned back in 2017 that I'd seen two versions of these some better-fed than others! And that is one reason they remain 'probably' Redbox, the other being that the only commitment to an absolute "Redbox" come from someone who A) I wouldn't trust to give me a weather-report if he'd just stuck his arm out of the window and B) he didn't make clear (or know) which lot he was dealing with?

These are the smaller ones, and have three different base-marks, rowed from the top;

• ·         CHINA
• ·         CHINA 1003
• ·         MADE IN CHINA

As you can see from the figure middle left, the figures are available in both colours, but all poses seem to be mark-specific, so the suggestion - for whatever reason - is that the marks are all on the same tool.

Apologies for the poor photography, but yellow-on-green is another of those colour-combinations I forget to remember don't work! The different marks caused me to look again at the larger ones (which we've seen before here once or twice) and found that they too have different markings!

These, in yellow or blue (so far!) are marked with a plain CHINA, but others are more interesting . . .

. . . these have the same CHINA mark, but an additional letter underneath which in this case and from the left read; I, C, K, D, E & H. There is an additional polymer colour too; silver, and duplicates tie the three colours to all poses with the letter-codes, but no un-coded silvers have turned up (so far!). With 12 (or 14?) poses we could be looking at a sequence going up to L or N?

Yes, Yellow's not much better on black! The chap on the far left came-in recently in a mixed lot and seems to be one of the figures from the mould-your-own plaster fort kit/set I shelfied years ago and thought I'd put on the blog, but I can't find it (it did go to Plastic Warrior) so I've just (16.23) added it below!

As to the others, it's all still speculation, but I think the smaller ones are true fakes, trying to be the 'believed to be Redbox', while those larger ones had at least two contracts, one with the letter-codes, one without. Toy Major often have - usually longer - codes on the stuff they market to the Industry, so they might be in the frame, while Redbox might have used the plain CHINA ones, but the only piratey thing I've seen from them is the ship I shelfied in TKMaxx and that had action figures!

Those 4M pirates, the pose I've found may be a copy (reversed pose, detail loss), or the box art may have a reversed image of a master/test-shot? There are eight poses in the image, and if they were two tools, may only come in one colour each . . . do you have any and what color are yours?

We'll know for next year, I've just bought a mint-one, half-price on feebleBay! And I'll work on . . . or work-on working on, on . . . the 'believed' to be Redbox, to finalise the codes of the larger, and the number of poses, colours and origins of all, hopefully for next year, too.

S is for Submarine - on a Card

I purchased this at the same time as the Tank in a Tin although it was a more reasonable pocket-money price of three-quid-odd I think? Also; it's the 3rd or 4th 4M thing to appear in the Blog now and I think I muttered 'up and coming' last time!

I love the card-art, an ocean filled with submarines like a school of dolphins, but then I guess a German wolf-pack would have looked something like that - if visibility in the North Sea was anything like an artist's imagination!

Because it's not that long since the last 'Subs' round-up I've no other images to fill the post with, so it's just a case of here it is; another bath toy, submarine. The slot for the coning-tower is slightly tapered so you can't put it back in the wrong way - helps the watch-officer navigate if he knows which way his 'fish' is pointing!

Shades of the old Kellogg's sub in the deck-slots and shades of another, more silvery modern one, in polystyrene (this one is propylene I think, with a nylon plug) which we've seen here before at Small Scale World, another novelty baking-soda submarine, or baking powder, it's all the same stuff!

Shipper's are Great Gizmos in the UK, Toysmith in the US and Playwell in Canada.

N is for New Arrivals I - Figures

All these came in during Rack Toy Month, or the last week - it is a fact that you will never have 'one of everything' unless you chose a narrow field or genre. If you do choose the latter path, you will soon get bored!

This was in the Toysaurus clearance bin, for 49p! I'm not sure it's worth 49p, but I have a Blog to feed so I bite the bullet . . .

. . . as it has a Hummer, and you may remember; it's one of many 'side collections'. The other three vehicles are a '40's Willy's, and '50's 'Wrangler' type (M38? Or something?) my favorite jeep as a kid - Entebee, Aurora's Rat Patrol, Congo, Brazzaville, Yom Kippur! And a 1990's pick-up/'Technical' type.

It also had more Matchbox clones, although the cloner seems to have dropped a lot of the DNA on the lab-floor! Four poses from three different Matchbox sets; about 45mm.

50p from a charity shop last week, he's a softish PVC around 70mm and well detailed, marked 4M, you may remember they produced a nice pirate set with mould-your-own bricks, around Christmas, about four years ago?

Under the eye-glass traces of gypsum-plaster were revealed so he's probably from one of those dig-out sets. Pity the Pucator pirates weren't made in a similar material! He also has the same hexagonal mounting-hole as Galoob/Kenner/Hasbro's Micro-Machines, which both suggests the same vinyl-factory and/or a missing base!

The Hasbro/Takara Battle-Beast has actually been around for a while, but he got left-out in a recent sort, so he's ended-up in this shot. Don't know if the two foam-ball figures (another 50p) are craft or factory, nor whether they are Japanese or Chinese, I began by thinking the latter (Eastern-Chinese muslim Uyghur or Hui and an Imperial court lady), but now suspect the former, Imperial court lady and Ninja?

The final one (10p) is marked Tomy, so might be a poky-man or some TV/Movie tie-in?

 

In the course of the exercise I noticed the Battle Beast was bloody filthy, so had him go into the robot workshops for a service and full valet!

My only evilBay purchase in months was a dodgy-photographed lot of apparent 'chuck-out crud' I was worried might have been shot deliberately to entice, but when it arrived not only was the barman (the only decent figure in the photographs) in one piece, but half the set (Cherilea Bar Brawl) was there!

Although 'Blue Boy' is posed to hide the fact that he lost a hand in a tragic 'sheep-rescue gone wrong' incident! No chairs though . . . but there was also a bunch of Cherilea Romans we will look at as a box-ticker in a day or two and three Britains Musketeers (with two swords, doh!).