PZG is for Polish Zone of Goodness!

Because I've not been posting any of the stuff from Putlerland, I've rather neglected the Polish stuff too, because all the Eastern European folders are in the same bit of Picasa (1982!), so, by way of redressing that imbalance slightly, here's a load of Wild West stuff from Poland, which has come into the collection in the last three or four years.

 

Some of it has been seen elsewhere, some of it has probably been seen here, in show reports, some of it I can't remember where it came from, or why I didn't blog it sooner, and some of it may be from Adrian, Chris or Peter, so thanks to them for all their help and support. And some of it got multiple photographs, mostly back in 2022.

 

And while most of it IS PZG, some of it probably isn't, and I can't remember what's what, and am no longer on the Faceplant group where I can check, so just an 'eye-candy' overview, to get some more Polish stuff tagged-up!

 

These are probably the oldest, and I kept re-shooting them as they came in! I think they're all the same maker, but possibly not PZG, I seem to recall the two pin-marks being associated with another brand, by the Polish collectors on the Freinds of PW Faceplant page?

 

I think these are earlier PZG, they are bigger and based on old composition figures, again they came in as the ones and twos of the collage, and then I shot them as the upper image later! All a bit damaged or incomplete (except shiny-minter tomahawk guy!), they are, nevertheless, 1st samples

 

Possibly PZG, from the larger-scale 'plinth' range (60/70mm), which also included figures from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (which included a non-Russian Ukraine . . . just sayin' - history is not what the Kremlin claims it is!), along with some lovely medieval knights, we've seen one or two of, here, in the past.

 

These are all the common, late PZG, which seem to have had an export to the UK, probably in the late 1980's, under the loosening of Glasnost, as they turn up quite often. Very colourful; but a tad smaller, maybe between 48-54mm, but with nice accessories - I'm pretty sure we've seen the semi-flat Teepees/Tipis before now? And note the Britains Deetail scenic copy.

 

I think the campfire set, lower collage, actually came in first (and may be mixed makes or lines), then the big lot, and finally a year or so ago, the five and the pair from the middle collage, with the three in the base-shot, taken from the big lot, these go surprisingly-well with the Herald Hong Kong vinyls, as the size and colours tie-in! But, I need a horse, for hop-a-long!

P is for Pratas, Portugal, but not Plastic!

I picked these up at the races! Totally new to me, and while Brain Carrick did know them, he couldn't remember the name, as he had sent them to someone else and eased the data out of the mental pending tray, if you know what I mean, anyway, I digged a dugging and now think they are Pratas a family firm (the Pratas family), who have apparently given their name, as the generic 'pratas', to all composition figures in Portugal!

 

Bases are in the Lineol style, but unmarked and smooth, I rather like the touch of the stands of wool for the plumes, redolent of the old British hollow-cast knights, with their airgun dart plumes!

I believe these are cadets, but whether officer-cadets, or something less elevated, I don't know, and could only find one image that sort of matched? Uniform seems to be loosely based on old Napoleonic-era garb, but in a paler grey-green, than the darker greys of the earlier period?

 

Not wishing to make the same mistake I made with the French swoppets a decade and a half ago, I am pretty certain that the green beret is a Paratrooper, and the red are commandos, Portugal does or did have a maroon, darker than ours, technically a brown, which was worn by the Light Infantry, now disbanded or replaced, with the beret possibly phased-out in 2019? But the green and red berets serve on.

 

The DPM uniform here is compatible with the Army's operations in Mozambique and elsewhere in the 'Colonial War' which ended in 1974, but worn through to the late Cold War. It has now - like many nations - been replaced with a smaller-fragment, more generic patterned one.

 

Scale is between 54 and 60mm, depending upon your ruling regarding deep bases, and they did do some smaller (50+mm) figures. The flags are making little sense, clearly meant to be the Portuguese national flag, I suspect a non-stable green-dye has completely faded? I have some fabric markers somewhere!

T is for Tattle Tale

Mentioned at the time, but not included in the post, the third Tattle Tale from Phidal I bought back in 2023, it still needs to be cleared out and ticked-off, so here it is;

 

As with the others, it contains four figures from one of the larger sets, and we'd only just seen the 10-figure 'Lightyear' set at the time, hence it's being held-over for a bit (three-and-a-half years!), and again, I don't know if some of the other figures are in another Tattle Tale, and would advise not buying any of these if you already have the larger sets.

E is for Eye Candy - Marx Babes in Toyland Soldiers

Picked-up this little doozer of a lot at Sandown Park the other day, and at the pre-sale, car-boot scrum on the terraces, before the doors opened, too! We've seen me slowly collecting them loose, here on the Blog, and the Wilton knock-offs loose and bagged, but these are the icing on the cake!

Different lighting and angles, I'm studiously failing to get a grip of this new camara! The Marx toy soldiers, from the Disney movie Babes in Toyland. There is a 'Warriors of the World' style issue with them named on plainer boxes, two of each for an eight count I think, among various packagings, but I prefer these unnamed ones in their generic sentry-box cartons are nicer, and you only need four to complete!

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Wild West

We've been slowly getting through the Sandown Park stuff, for a while now, on-and-of, and I've just spent 20-minutes sorting a folder only to realise it was the BMSS purchases, when it makes sense to finish-off the Sandown bits, given what else in now in the short queue, and how far I've slipped already this year, so I quickly hived these off, technically Wild West, but there's a duck and three Spaniards in here!

 

Timpo Teepee, which was going cheap, and I grabbed at the end of the show, I've got a better sample in storage, but there are a couple of Tipi posts full of Wigwams in the queue, so I thought it would be useful for enhancing those!

 

I got in a muddle at last year's Plastic Warrior show, (next one, just over a month away!), and consequently missed out on a couple of the Mohicans I need, but in the aftermath correspondence, at least worked out I need the archer, and the guy with rifle and tomahawk, but I knew I also needed a 'better paint' shooter, than the one I had, so this chap on the right ticks a box nicely!

 

These two were in a biscuit tin of proper 'new to market' stuff Isaac offered me, and he didn't want much for it, in fact he may have been trying to give it to me, but I got very excited by the 'jumper' alien (we've already seen) and then spotted these two, told him they were worth 'proper money', and gave him said dosh. The rest was mostly grist-to-the-mill wild west (most of the below) and ceremonial types.

 

Hong Kong Confederate, half Crescent inspired (horse), half Timpo solids, issued here in small, generic rack-toys, but in the 'States in Ideal play sets I seem to recall?

 

Cherilea 60mm 5th Cavalry, the 'Black Knights', busied themselves with the genocide of the locals between the Missouri River and California (which "...was an almost unknown territory, occupied by powerful and warlike tribes"), sorry, sorry, upsetting the guilty again . . . 'Delivering civilisation', is - I believe - how Congress put it? Trump and Netanyahu are doing it in the Middle East, now!

 

Strangely these must have sold well, back in the day, as they often appear in mixed lots, and between odd purchases, these (the bag is all standing firers!) and a semi-brittle bunch a few years ago, I should have a complete set now.

 

An errant Spaniard (Hilco-Phoenix-et al), a Disney Mc-duck ('Euro' premium or Marx reissue?) and two Crescent 60mm's, one, a confederate in average condition, and the other, a rather poor cowboy!

 

A Tudor Rose rider, and two US figures, who might have been licensed over here, they seem quite common, and Tudor Rose might be in the frame for that contract, but I don't know, they may be later imports, they're not rare, and ran for years - I think in the USA they are Lido?

 

A mixed lot of odds, including two tatty Herald cowboys and a camp fire, an 'Early British' (Kentoys?) copy, a Herald Hong Kong shooter in good nick, damaged Cherilea mountie, and a Cherilea Indian on his back, also injured!

 

Crescent Wild West, the guy with the whip (slave owner? Never made sense to me!) is probably the best here, but both white ones need cleaning, and checking against the master sample. In point of fact, all three to the left are saveable.

 

Cherila 60mm, again it's a case of checking them against the master sample, sending the damaged ones to recycling, and either swapping the rest at some point in the future, or selling them to fund further purchases!

 

As one Spaniard had already snuck-in, these two can go here as a full-stop, two reissue Cherilea bullfighters, from the Marlborough-Dorset production era.

N is for New World, in the Old Country!

I must confess, I've not been as active as a purchaser, this year, so while there are Sandown Park and BMSS purchases to come, and lots of new production for Rack Toy Month, most of the stuff in the 'this year' section of the short queue, is donations, and this is no exception!

 

The Blog's roving reporter from across The Pond; Brain Berke, was back here in the motherland, for a few days, the other week, and took the opportunity to send us something nice from the breakaway colony, without the reciprocal postal charges that is 'The World of Trump'! Although, he may have been equally shocked by our domestic charges! Luckily, I managed to get Charles to pop-over, last week, and pour oil on the troubled waters of an illegal, tariff-free transfer of rare matériel!

These are lovely, WWII-era US composition, and, while I'm guessing Playwood Plastics (ultimately bought by Transogram) or Moulded Products, I don't know for sure, and they could even be Empire Forces or Historical Miniatures. In the style of, and maybe after actual poses of Barclay or Manoil slush-cast, pod-feet toys? Obviously - further input appreciated on these!

 

These are also really nice, clearly marked with the Bergan-Beton BT (Bergan Toys) cypher/cartouche, they are the hard 'styrene set of interim figures, coming between the glued-on base, first version (whose tool seems to have gone to Reliable, in the independent sovereign nation of Canada) of which I have a few, and Canadian ones, we saw here recently, and the soft plastic versions, of which we've also seen both US and Canadian examples.

 

They are a fine sight, and, of which I had none. In fact, handling them, they have the same charm and historical heft, as those game-playing pieces from a recalcitrant Germany, we saw here, the other day.

 

 

With the Beton's toward the 60mm, you can see the composition chonka is closer to 80mm, hence the possibilities of them being from any of the four above-named, known for such stuff. There was also a single polystyrene figure from Archer, later issued in soft plastic by Plastic Craft, and while he's missing the tip of his weapon, he's a first for the stash, I think, so gratefully received - thank you very much Brian!

E is for Eye Candy - Crescent Highlander Swoppets - Late Follow-up?

I have a folder simply marked 'George K', dated July 2020, which I suspect might be the follow-up images mentioned in the comments, last time we looked at these, back in 2018;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/11/s-is-for-swivel-not-swoppet.html

 

Or related to them in some way (there are two years between the events), in which case, this post is a follow-up which never happened, but it was a bloody odd year, and, with Mum and Girly-Girl both leaving this world, over Christmas, a rather shit one, in which I had other things on my mind, but many thanks to George K for sending them, and here's the officer who was missing last time.

 

This time the marching rifleman's the missing chap, Crescent's 60mm 'swoppet' Highlanders, marching, fighting (the Officer) and dancing, I think that sums-up Glasgow on a Saturday night? Thanks again to George K.

T is for TAG

Which may or may not have stood for something longer like 'Toby and Garry' or 'Turner and Griswold' but nobody seems to know? The general acceptance being that it just refers to the tags they came with, but I feel it may be a chicken-and-egg conundrum, especially with the capitalisation of the TAG, on the tags!?

 

RAF Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps, Infantry (with a camouflaged beret!), and the Parachute Regiment, done in what is almost a Belgian (Durso) style, the same sculpt being used with different paint on the berets to represent several of the main protagonists of the British Army in the then, just finished, World War.

 

The reverse of the tags have a small thumbnail sketch or written vignette of the unit/figure represented. Their post-war issue being revealed in the text - 'served', and 'earned', in the past tense.

 

 

 

The officer corps were also represented, and here we see a standard Army officer, and RAF 'wallah' and their corresponding tags, the arms of the flyboy are uncomfortably wrong, in that the left arm should be slightly forwards, in time with the right foot.

Our Allies were also modelled, and here we see two GI's, and it's nice to see them in both 'white' and African American skin-tone paint-jobs, because we appreciated everyone who helped. Although without the tags, the black soldier may have been representing Brazil, who sent troops to the Italian campaign?

 

This seems to be a better rendition of an Infantry beret, but again, might be representing Canada or something like that, I don't know how large the series was, or how many nations were represented?
 

A comparison between the two shows a marked size discrepancy between the different mouldings, and is that a fledgling (at the time) UN flash on the GI's shoulder, maybe he's the Brazilian?

Ceremonial uniforms of both our own and allied armies, with a 'Highlander' (no specific regiment given) and a Cossack. I have one in another colourway somewhere (seen on the blog years ago) and have seen others, there may be as may as four different treatments of the decoration on this sculpt, even six - black, red, and white coats, with reverse versions?

 

A difficult subject, the Cossacks, as they fought in large numbers on both sides, mounted troops being very useful in winter snow, and for covering distance over the steppes in summer. Those fighting with us, were of Russian descent, those fighting agin' us, were fighting for Ukrainian Independence rather than in support of Nazism, while atrocities were committed by both sides.

 

The Women's Royal Army Corps weren't forgotten . . .

 

. . . and both the Monkeys and Snowdrops got a look-in!

Quality of finish varies, my Cossack is so tough or dense, and so smooth I thought he was resin, for years! While the figure on the left is a much rougher moulding, almost as lumpy as the worst examples of wood/linseed composition figures.

 

The first four again, showing the berets a bit better, the Para's is far too dark, as well as the odd Infantryman's two-tone headdress! Also showing the identical obverse of the tags through this sample, I don't know how many series' there were, or even if they ever got round to a Series 2?