T is for Two - B is for Big Boys & Blow-Moulds

The first of these came in from Chris Smith a while ago and have been languishing in the 'Follow-Ups' folder, an odd folder with most of Chris's-, some of Brian's- and the odd bit of my- stuff and a few screen-caps or scans! But they are worth a stand-alone post . . . 'cos they're lovely!

Chris thinks they may be Spanish, which might make them single purchase kiosk items (but not 'sobres' as they'd be hard to hide in a paper envelope!), and I think they are superb. Slightly generic, slightly GI, blow-moulded combat infantry types ready for beach, bath or garden!

Shared with everyone - cheers Chris!

These aren't blow-moulds, but they are big! From Mr. Berke; the US-packaging version of the figures we initially saw here at Small Scale World from - the now defunct - 99p Stores under the PMSlabel (firefighters as well) a couple of years ago.  4" clone-conversions of Tim Mee and Matchbox GI's, although the hidden 4th-one was a bit Airfix German, running, I seem to recall!

No brand but look for the distinctive card if you're in the 'States - cheers Brain!

A is for All Hallows' Eve - Skeleton Army

The only thing to fight a mummy army is a skeleton army, so lucky for us Brian managed to find one of them too, and if I understood him correctly he had to keep looking in Dollar General for them and only managed to find both sets the other day, so many thanks to him.

Also from Dolgencorp LLC, these were also issued last year with an orange card and in the UK under the PMS brand by 99p Stores and we have seen them before, but new packaging means new post! Only eight poses, so you get two duplicates but luckily they have used 'trooper' poses rather than the horn-guy, maybe another 'Hell's Angel' would have been nice?.

Over here they were only eight, while last year's offering from the 'States was also 10 and it was the same two poses duplicated. I also rather like that the horn-player seems to be using a giant-catapult's bolt as a personal weapon.

Another look at the figures, this year's batch are slightly lighter-sand in plastic colour, but I haven't noticed any other differences, and like the mummys are a bog-standard ethylene polymer, a bit more rigid than Airfix's formula, and the same as last year's issue.

Playing! We've had this image once today already (or a near identical one from the same sequence), so I've launched these guys strait out of hell in a technicolour nightmare with the heat-map button in Picasa!

See! The snake is 'main man' in a skeleton army, although I'm not sure if you would apply AFV rules or siege-engine rules? As it's 'sword & sandal', I guess siege-engine rules would be the more applicable until play revealed limitations and someone sat down to write-out proper rules for 'giant undead zombie snake skeletons'! That head, used as a bettering-ram, would make short-work of the main-gates at Troy . . . just saying! Stuff yer' wooden 'orse and get a bone snake!

Many-thanks again Brian!

A is for All Hallows' Eve - Haunted House

I found this among a pile of similar press-out card booklets, in a charity shop (Help the Aged/Age Concern) back in the summer, from the size of the pile they were being sold as clearance, probably donated by Poundland when they took over 99p Stores, and taking a while to filter through to the shops.

Branded to PMS, there was also a nice football one with whole teams (larger scale I think?) which I intended to go back for, but the next day they had all gone, no doubt some feeBay bottom-feeder or car-bootie bog-troll saw a profit in them?

The reason for getting this one wasn't the simplistic card building, but the six stand-alone press-out figures which cover the main tropes of horror characters - clockwise from headless; zombie, vampire, Dr. Frankenstein's monster, knife-murderer/serial-killer, witch/hag and mummy.

Two other figures complete the line-up of 'usual suspects' a much-alive skeleton and a ghost, although both are to be slotted into the finished model rather than having independent bases,  while a living tree ('Ent'!) is another useful stand-alone . . . 40p the lot - bargain!

I may try to get some spare game-board slotted stands (for cards) as their press-out stands actually get in the way of the artwork - at least four designs commonly available.

F is for Follow-up - Fighting Fellows

So, I posted a bunch of posts, whenever it was Last Friday I think, up the Library as I was rushing about, and one of them was the two bagged sets of 'Army Men', got home to find a big parcel of stuff from Peter Evans (lovely gashapon set  . . . probably save them for Xmas), among which were these five chaps and their header-card . . .

. . . which I instantly realised were the figures from the bagged Wow Toyz set Brain B had sent the shelfies of, and which I'd posted an hour or two earlier, with no further plans to go online 'till the following Monday (just gone)! Not all the poses and I don't think they are all ex-New Rey, but some are, with a couple of odd ones - th eleft-hand yellow one would paint-up as a WWII US paratrooper BAR-gunner and the lefthand green one could almost be an early arrival in theatre for Rommel's DAK!

The middle-yellow is communicating with the brigade-net on a conch; prevents enemy-interception don't you know!

Set JL 668-4 Military Action from PMS who were the phantom brand for 99p Stores before their demise, whether they are still supplying other people or not, now Poundland (the one which hasn't gone bust yet) own them is anyone's guess. The artwork seems to be borrowing a tank from Games Workshop!

So the previous are a UK-available version of the set Brian sent from the 'States, Peter also sent me these (above) a while ago (three or four years ago?), they were loose with a bunch of other stuff and no header-cards, so I shot them together before they were sorted-away, but they then missed last year's four-part'er, as there were no figures easily identifiable as going with them.

One of the elements is clearly visible in this commercial ad' from a generic 'location China' seller on feebleBay a while ago; the watchtower. The figures seem to be drawm for a couple of other common 'line-ups' with some being even poorer copies of New Ray, the others . . . worse!

But look at the tanks, a rather nice - if over sized for the others - M3/Grant medium-tank, it appears to be missing its main sponson-mounted main-armament, so a CDL conversion perhaps in the offing?

To which you can add an Airfix 'readymade'-sized Leopard I/II and an MI Abrams/Challenger type, along with what looks to be an inter-war Russian 'land-ship'? We've seen similar vehicles here (a LVTP7 and Indiana Jones WWI'ish) with the same paint, so clearly one of the generic contract-manufacturers has quite an eclectic catalogue of these things?

Not forgetting the pedestal-mounted 155mm gun with what appears to be two crew riding the barrel - rack toys; doncha just love'em!

For completion, a rather fuzzy screen-capcha of the old Marshall's catalogue, with the same figures as those at the top of the page or in Brian's Wow Toyz set.

A is for Army; Army of Skeletons!

A Bit of a stop-press post, in that Brian Berke sent me these the other day and they got thrown in the Halloween folder quite late, but I'm publishing them earlier in the day so I can alternate skeletons with other things of a Halloween or horror nature!

I think got them as Funtastic from Poundland or PMS from 99p Stores? A year or two ago now, no matter; in the above guise they are now being peddled in the 'Staes by an outfit called Dolgencorp LLC of Tennessee.

I shot the previous lot again so we'd be reminded of what they look like out of the packaging! Although it could be due to the lighting; the Dolgencorp ones look distinctly greener?

A is for Army Men - RTM '17 - Part IV - Mostly Smaller Scale Crappytoys!

Or at least, this was going to be the small scale post but a number of larger ones crept in so it's not, also the numbering rather peters-out around the time we find out what happened to the 16 some of you may have noticed yourselves not noticing so far! In other words - it's the loose ends of what has been no more that 'What's in the Fritz-helmet/Modern Chinatroops' unknown's box'!

Seen before on the Blog, more than once I think and being carried by various brands at the moment as the default small scale, they are actually around 30mm and a second shade of silver-grey - distinct from the silver - surfaced in the 'Big Bag' from Peter Evans.

I re-shot the shelfie (right-hand picture) I got so fuzzy last time and we can see rust-brown still to enter the collection here at Small Scale World Towers while Brain Berke shot the left-hand bag when he was last in the UK, it showing an apparently darker green set of figures.

Here the same figures are being offered on Alibaba by an 'E-Toys', made-up brand if ever I read one, but clever and you wonder why no one else thought of it first, but maybe they have!

Number 16 has been in the collection for a while and may date back to the Hong Kong era, but he has the chalky look of more recent China production.

The broken figure seems to be Hong Kong, but without a base it's not clear, he also seems to be quite original? Next to him is a green, soft PVC, copy (?) of the believed to be Galoob for Realtoy (et al.) in denser plastic. I've put the question mark in brackets as he may be from the same factory/mould, just for a different contract, and some of Micro-Machines own figures - especially the early, unmarked, small scale 'combat' ones were in softer PVC anyway?

The other three are small-ish scale (all in this shot are around 40mm) copies (or homage) to the ring-hand MPC figures, I have no weapons or helmets for them so don't know if they had them but suspect they must have, if only by going by the little belts - which are removable! I'm guessing gum-ball machine capsule toys, but they may have had a header-carded bag, or blistered outing too?

Speaking of Realtoy and moving up a scale, if anyone tells you the figure lower left is Realtoy, tell him he's making it up as he goes along - again! The Realtoy one is bottom right and we looked at them here a while ago.

The upper image shows the unknown 50mm figure, a couple of the denser/harder PVC Realtoy (et al.)'s; they have also been marketed as Daron and Sky Marks, while I've been told they were Galoob, and certainly follow Galoob poses; along with the softer 'copy'.

In the lower image we see the various colours now found, the sailors being consistently painted the same, the others coming in desert-sand, olive-green, a 'Russian' SF/SWAT/Urban camo', a general camouflage and the woodland green 'copy', however there is a commoner reverse camouflage with sand as the dominant background and blobs of green and brown but I don't have one in this pose!

Similar figures (looking odd as they have no belt-order/webbing) are being offered by Smile Station on Alibaba and evilBay (upper shot) or at least they were a year or two ago, I can't find them now, but that's made-up brands for you, easy come; easy go!

Another set of similar figures were Blogged here.

While the various unknown carrier-deck ground-crew in the lower picture manage to look like both the unknowns; the five in black PVC are very similar to the green chap but a tad taller, while the lower three are in a soft silicone-rubber and look like the not-Realtoy figure!

However, I now know the lower chaps aren't carrier-crew, they were sold in a Realtoy-like, but unbranded/generic window-box 23710 Die Cast Metal Airport Play Set, two per card, so that may where the larger unknown figure originated, not the civil airport; but another generic window-box!

Found these on Alibaba, they look to be all new poses, of some merit and in a smaller scale; mabe45mm judging by the accompanying vehicles? And - note two new variations of the CAD-CAM-hulled AFV we looked at the other day.

Those Tamiya 1:48th copies (which Arlin Tawser ID'd here a while ago) came-in again, in a larger sample with the 'Big Bag', still unknown, but by adding one 'missing' figure gave a photo-opportunity of 6 poses x 4 figures x 2 armies for a 48 total which I suspect will prove to be the/a full-set/set-count? Miss-moulding has reduced a couple of the B.A.R-gunners to mere riflemen!

Finally, we looked at Skylark yesterday with a nice set of figure sculpts in a larger scale but in the smaller scale they are offering these really poor copies of some pretty poor 1990's copies of copies of Airfix, which (the 1990's ones) were also issued with Majorette AFV's.

A is for Army Men - RTM '17 - Part II - Newer or Smaller Crappytoys!

But maybe not as new, or not all as new as some of yesterdays so my note then, about the titles, holds-fast - they're bullshit!

The top row are quite decent figures as far as finish goes and would paint up well, the Rambo-Murphy with his linked belt is a pain, yet seems to be in most of these modern sets! 17 is a small sample of no consequence and very poor quality, but we'll be looking at worse in a minute, while the 18b's come - surprise, surprise, chooks - with those I have numbered 18A! But first . . .

. . . these are the same as the 18B's, but so far haven't come with A-equivalents; different contract: different mix! They are the figures that came with the two better-plastic Tiger-Sheriden-T62 hybrids we looked at the other day, but not the Rex take on Imperial where the AFV was from the same mould, but the tank, Jeep and figures different - different contract: different mix.

So the additional A's for 18 are a larger size, even to having some of the same, but bigger poses! Material type and colour is identical and they will have been added to give each set a better appearance/play-value; today's kids weren't raised on war comics or war films and don't critique rack-toys as we might have, back in the 1960's or 70's, but they do know when they are getting total shite as opposed to vaguely cheap shite!

To be honest, the size difference is down more to the bulk of the sculpting, the A's are better-fed!

The Hunson sets (nice tanks) are carrying 18B only while Jaru's carry the full range of both A's and B's.

Bases are the same but each marked differently to reflect the contract, whether the request was made by the shipper, importer or originating factory will be down to the vagaries and structure of each contract, while some importers will request a . . .

. . . personalised base-stamp! Here Jaru [Ja-Ru] making sure you don't forget who sold you the figures long after the packaging has gone, but they are the same figures that at least two other concerns have marketed in recent years . . . possibly through or via Jaru! And you may remember Brian burke sent us a shelfie of sandy ones with different cart art (#1658 Army Command) but the same base-mark, last year.

This base marking is a recent thing with China, and as I've mentioned several times recently is down to improvements in QA/QC, the clamping-down of health and safety and - coupled to both - the resultant need to have traceability in toys (or all consumer-goods).

In recent weeks I've seen several toys asking you to keep the packaging "for future reference" and "dispose of carefully" or "recycle packaging please", you can't make it up!

A few orphans, the painted ones may be earlier, this pick and silver, stab and hope paint-job was very 1970's, and if it wasn't for the inclusion of the Audie-Heston with his linked-belt you'd easily think these were earlier than they probably are?

24 and 25 may go together, but as lone samples looking slightly different I'm not making the connection - except conversationally; as I just did! The 26 figure carries the same New Ray note as 11/12 yesterday? 27 aren't; being yesterday's 7!

Huicheng are offering a set which looks familiar but the standing ready guy sets it apart as another set of clones, but with a thin thread of its own 'DNA', while I just can't make out any of the figures in the Zhorya set ("Millennium edition" so been around a while?), which means it may belong with yesterday's post, but they had 10 images and this post only had 9, so he got collaged with the Huicheng!

This set was missed in the first photosession, but they are so poor as to not be worthy of inclusion, but I'm not fussy here at Small Scale World, so, here they are; awful - aren’t they?!

They seem to have taken at least one pose from all the other sets we've looked at so far, yet were sold is such small mixes you wouldn't have got every pose - although that a fair criticism of lots of these sets.

They were so poor when I saw them 'on the hook' I shelfied them in rejection of the idea I might part with a quid - yet somehow have ended-up with a bag-full anyway, in three colours!

Yet; it's gets worse than Poundland's - much worse! Look at the backs of the figures in the left-hand pile and you'll see the best thing to do with these is paint them as mutant-zombies! While you can't see or judge the backs of the Ming Tong's, it's clear from the bases and pose-count they are the same as the Chengji figures, and probably from someone else!

But then these are probably sold so cheap, if you're a 5-year old kid from a low-income family in Samarkand, Ulan Bator, New Deli or from the slums of Lagos, Nairobi or Sao Paulo; you're not going to be fussy; indeed; you're probably not going to know any different.

The sad fact is; here in 'The West' . . . that is the 'developed' West . . . our own kids (not to mention their younger parents) are becoming so distanced from the military and so oblivious to the tradition of 'toy soldiers' as a staple of the toy-box - they'll accept this shite to keep quiet for a hour, too, because they don't know any different.

C is for Chinatanks!

Except a fair few of these are Hongkongatanks, but I think they all qualify for the one moniker! Similar procedure as yesterday, but more examples, yet not enough to be more than a gentle mosey through the oeuvre!

What I found to shoot without digging too deep in the attic, and allowing for the fact we've looked at the bubble-gum ones and the mini-tanks recently and that a lot of the smaller ones are still in storage.

Going from the Imperial Patton at around a large 1:48th or small 1:35 at number 1 to whatever-size at number 8 (small), these are mostly classic 'Chinatanks' being simple polyethylene mouldings with (or without!) revolving one piece turrets and the odd-pair of carpet wheels hidden behind integrally-moulded track-units/running-gear.

The exception being number three; which is (was!) a battery-operated toy, albeit with hidden wheels and a single-mould hull and chassis.

We've looked at 1, so moving swiftly on . . . a Space Tank! Looking like (or having several of the features of-) a few things on the drawing-boards of the Third Reich in 1945, this beast is too cool for automated, fire-control gunnery-school and would look quite at home supporting Dick Dastardly's space marines is some far flung, rim-world colony of some farfetched Star Chamber's 'Imperium' vs. Aliens parody; being ideally sized for 28/30mm figures.

Picture 3; tank number 3, exploration of the battery-compartment lead to three exploded watch-batteries and severely corroded contacts. As I can't find any on-off switch anyway, it's SOP's remain a mystery although there's clearly a hidden-speaker for sound effects and a light in the end of the barrel.

Interestingly the wheels are all free-wheeling, so it may be that deliberate movement, by hand application, produced default sound and light? Anyway, a vague M46/47 in vaguely WWII Japanese camouflage is all VERY Chinatank!

These were quite common in the 1980's and I'm afraid when I wasn't collecting the larger sizes I sent a lot of these to charity! I've kept all six for now but intend to hang on to the asterisked-three, after moving one of the Union flags to the Centurion, so I'll have one of each colour-way/flag/turret-type . . . you'll have noticed the hulls are all identical M48's!

They're crude, but again - very useful for carpet wars, or garden gaming, quick spray and wash/dry-brush and you've a large unit - cheap! If the German's had had Chieftains in 1945 - we'd all still be talking German - and if that thought is a bit beyond the pale; think - no Putin and no Trump - bargain!

Classic Chinatank layout of four pieces, two hidden wheels, body and turret.

We looked at 5/6's the other day so; on to 7 . .

. . . .and this is only two parts screwed together! But another pretty cool 'Space Tank', clearly based on the M2/M3 Bradley/A-Cav.-thingy, it nevertheless has a futuristic look to it.

Despite its simplicity I like it so much I shot it twice! Hollow, fixed-turret, no redeeming features but damn, it is cool! I even love the air-rifle's iron fore-sight! Stick your head out of the turret and get a bead on the enemy . . . left a bit, left a bit . . . oh dear! Love it.

Looking at the plethora of photo's it appears something may have broken-off the back of the cupola-ring? Machinegun or aerial of some kind? If it's a space tank it probably needs a sonic-beam, killerdegrator-dish!

We've looked at these before (Poundland or 99p Stores in the tag list), but there were a couple of new mouldings in the Big Bag from Peter Evans, so here's a few comparison shots with the two rocket-launchers again, left out of the Chinatank group-photo.

This is also classic CAD-CAM, the hull and running-gear is identical for all the models but can be seen here in five or six sizes.

You 'CAD it up' as a solid, then shell it (hollow it out) and then take copies to add whatever secondary details (turrets/superstructures) or hidden constructs (screw-channels/release-pin points) you want, scaling up or down in cyber-space (or on cyber-paper; accurately - 'paper-space') and sending each finished variant to a CNC-milling machine to produce the tool.

No, I don't know why I took so many either! Especially as we did give them a good look last time . . .doh!

Ri-Toys take on the old Blue Box polystyrene blob, itself a copy of a larger battery-operated . . . oooohhh - déjà vu! We had this entire blurb the other day with the LB sets in the Jeep post didn't we! Ri-toys; home-painted, period.

I was meaning to take a few shots for a collage of tank 9, the diminutive Centurion, but I never got round to it. It's a common inclusion in rack-toys from the late 1970's through to the mid/late '80's and beyond and I've more in storage so we'll come back to it, some time.

Smallies - we looked at the apple-green one with it's Matchbox piracy figures last year, the other two could be taken from the Imperial one, which has been around for years in one form or another, or the Airfix 'poly'[ethylene] one?

They are quite common and have been around for a while now in various colours/qualities for several sources. I think I have a whole bunch in storage so we'll have a better look another day.

The dark green one went with yesterday's dark green truck, while the other two came with matching figure; we are due to look at in RTM, but I'm running out of month so I think Rack Toy Month may over-run!

The apple-green one is a vague AMX-30 Napoleon; "A what"? I hear you ask . . . exactly!

Copied from the set of mini-tanks we've looked at here - a while-back - and behind them both is a funny little hard-styrene tank in two plastic-colours with a die-cast metal turret from really cheap - usually window-boxed - play-sets.

Late Additions

So not in the numbered line-up at the top.

Two teenies - the one (hex-turret) seen here before, the other (Tiger I with a turret covered in gas-alert paint!) probably from a board game.

These are all from the old, defunct, imageshack.com account and consist of some of the more unusual examples from the collection otherwise in storage - from top right clockwise:

A rather too narrow and/or too tall M48 with push-and-go action motor which I'm hoping; when they are together, will prove to be a maker-match for the lorry we saw yesterday? It’s certainly got some age and like the bigger - and more realistic - Jimson (and for Fairylite) version, carries a soft plastic polyethylene turret on a colour-matched hard plastic polystyrene hull.

These two (bottom) are - I suspect - copied from Galoob stuff, I think there was a larger 'Action Fleet'-sized Indiana Jones line, from which the WWI'ish tank has been taken, while the Marine Landing carrier will be from the Battle Squads/Defenders lines (with the rocket-firer removed), but it's only a suspicion and other, similar toys are around to be pirated! However; they are both unusual which makes then pretty neat for Chinatanks!

Finally, this little chap (top left) who does have an on-off switch somewhere, is from those track-puzzle toys where you join the plates-up to make a course and then set the tank/London taxi/cartoon jumbo-jet to go round and round the channels until you get board and switch it off!

It came with some nice, slightly cartoony GI figures we'll look at when I get them out of storage! If we haven't already? I'll check, we may have looked at them a long time ago? Link below if we did.

We did . . . first week of the Blog! First - but not first figures and by some coincidence this is the 1900th existing post, including stuff in edit, excluding stuff deleted in the past and stuff on other Blogs!