P is for Perfect Polymer Propine - Military

Apparently it's Scottish for 'sacrifice'! Theo, long-time friend of the Blog, has had personal tragedies recently, putting my own firmly into context, as a result of which he divested himself of his collection, but saved a few items of interest for the Blog, which arrived a while ago and have been sat on the laptop waiting for me to get a grip and post them, and, while I'd describe my grip as only tenuous, with many thanks to Theo, I'll try to get them posted over the next few days, interspersing them with a few new-purchase rack toys, to mix it up!

 

These were a real surprise, as they often turn up, but scruffy and weaponless, and usually only two poses, so to get three poses, with weapons and good-to-new paint was a real treat, and they were on top of the parcel, so got shot first!

 

And, these were with them, four different mounted figures in a similar state of near-new! Again, I may have seen the bowman, tatty, a few times but not the others, and like the foot figures, all are based on the Britains Swoppets, but you feel, probably hand-copied rather than anything as accurate as a pantograph?

 

9th Aug. - Peter Evan has suggested ABC for these, they are unmarked but could be, and I've posted a marked one on foot, ages ago, he also pointed out that the mounted legs are from the Herald Agamemnon, and you can see the sandals and greaves!

 

This may be the horse for the above, the other likely candidate would be the Timpo-copy with caparison (as found in the 'States in Ideal playsets), but I think they only have Timpo-copy riders. This one is a scale-down of the big Thomas/Poplar sculpt.

 

These are a useful addition to the Crescent Roman piracies, especially the chap far left and far right, who is one of the three Gladiator poses, and was missing when we looked at them last time, although I have an all-blue HK copy of the pose. It struck me that he would go well with the Charbens ancient set!

 

Marx 'swoppet' GI's, a real treat! I do have one somewhere, and a bag of bits, but there are three complete, here, sans one weapon, a B.A.R. I think, but at some point in the future it's going to enable a single photo of all the possible combinations!

 

An actual Crescent Roman! A damaged Cherilea knight, who may be the basis of a future conversion, he only needs a weapon to replace the missing lance, and one of many French 'bazaar' figures, or at least I think he's French (Koho, thanks to Theo - https://www.lastdodo.nl/nl/areas/4866119-koch-hofmockel-koho), and a bazaar issue, and he'll be sorted into the rest when they all come together, soon I hope, but I've been saying that since 2021!

Nardi and Lone Star, paint is good on both of them, and finding the Lone Star figure with complete spear is getting rarer, one of mine broke after the last photo-shoot, so being sent one and having him survive the postal services of Europe is another treat!

 

Three Cherilea; 54mm, 60mm and, err, gi'huge!

 

Two Tim Mee European issue, a nice Cherilea 60mm swoppet, first version with the separate boots, and four more of the smaller Monogram copies from Hong Kong, which will be filtered into a larger sample of them, for a definitive article one day, we had an interim look at them here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2016/08/m-is-for-monograms-men-made-much_10.html

 

with another set looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2021/08/t-is-for-two-khaki-infantry-rack-toys.html

 

And, it's the large number of variants of these Hong Kong knock-off figures, which makes all samples so useful, toward finding the full story of them, one day!

 

I can never remember who these are by (and I've been told often enough!), with scabards and base markings they are Timpo 1st version, but with plain belts and smooth bases they are . . . Charbens, Speedwell . . . someone like that?

 

Finishing off with a lovely, clean sample of the CMV-marked Hong Kong copies of 'khaki infantry' from old Britains Herald, Lone Star and Crescent sculpts, so clean they look like they were made this morning! Thank you, Theo, sorry it's taken so long to get them posted!

K is for Khaki Infantry Page - Update

I've added some images from Chris Smith to the Khaki Infantry page, they are up the top with the Britains sentries, so you don't have to scroll down the page!

I've also added some 828 stuff, started a section for them, below the Hong Kong generics section, moved some of their stuff from there and added notes to the effect the previous '823' attribution is probably just a poorly registered stamp. No firm brand, but enough for a seperate section now. And you will have to scroll right-down the page to find it!

K is for Khaki Infantry Page - Update

I've added some well overdue updates to the Khaki Infantry Page; a complete set of Benbros in near factory-fresh condition, another complete run of poses to the CMV section (courtesy of Brian Berke) and a new entry - ABC - courtesy of Chris Smith.

 

But as you can see from the screen-cap, there's plenty more to come, with new sections in the works for Kamley/KS et al., and  Dorset/Marlborugh/Weston. You can also see Airfix page updates gathering in the background and a mini-season on Lik Be-Holly-Jaru in the pipeline!

M is for Matters Arising

A few things which got a closer shot or a comparison of one sort or another as this year's show plunder was being put away . . .

A quickie comparison between the unknown cloaked fantasy figure on the left and a Dimensions for Children (DFC) cloak wearer on the right. The unknown one is more sci-fi than swords & sorcery though and I wonder if it might be from the large Toyco set which contains the solid copies of the Colourform space alien figures?

The pilots in close-up, the larger one is a patch above Zang to be honest, and like the better versions of the standing infantryman, has a much neater base, so I think definitely another maker, or a later second version?

Cleaned-up the Airfix bikes; but they're shot to bits! I needed two riders and I didn't have the cap-wearer, so they are useful, and two pairs of blue wheels will prove equally useful at some point in the future I'm sure. I suspect the 'cutter' was trying to make them look more like scramblers, and I may clean them-up by removing the stunted remains of the mud-guards and guard supports

Because they were both to hand as I was putting-away; comparison between the Cavendish (etc.) on the left, and the KT/Shackman et al, novelty plinth/pencil sharpener figure on the right. Cavendish is a stiff 'At Ease', the other is 'easy'!

I thought he'd gone up here already, but I got the left-hand figure a while ago, the one on the right - last Saturday (Sandown tomorrow!), they are the fourth Airfix non-beagle dog, so I now have all four which will go on the Airfix Blog's Bergan/Beton page shortly! I think it's meant to be a Springer Spaniel, which means they are all working/hunting dogs - Setter/Lurcher-Greyhound /Alsatian . . . or; farm dogs.

Three of these are from forthcoming posts on the latest donation from Chris Smith, one was here and five came-in on Saturday. Colour, shade, base marks, copies - the more we find, the more we discover we still had to find! Mostly ABC (or their tool) but there are others!

Two of the figures from PW's show needed the old hot water treatment to get them standing up, one also wasn't shot clearly the other day so I've re shot him here, I suspect another Argentinian figure (silver paint) but more original in the sculpt than the other five which were added to the pile last weekend.

The Jecsan circus (clairvoyant/soothsayer?) figure didn't really respond to the hot water, despite two pouring, straight from the kettle! She stands better, but not flat, the infantry man did much better but needed a jiggit pared-off first.

Well, the blue one didn't clean-up as well as I'd hoped, the black marks seem to be some kind of bituminous splashes which have stained the substrate, so I'm stuck with the 'new' faint ones but he is an improvement on a week-ago!

While the silver one did need a clean, it was only the flash than made him look cleaner, the two other colour ones however have cleaned-up to the point where the flash has rather washed them out! On the left a 5th which was hanging out in the 'TBS Space' tray, from Chris as well I think.

Not quite as nice as the other one, and more Romanesque than Greek (I've seen them online as 'guerrier Grec/Romain', so it's an acknowledged factor of the set), but still a lovely figure, this one has had his replacement weapon blobbed to his hand with glue, at the 'other end' I will drill the hand out as with the previous find.

H is for How They Come In - Chris - October 2021 - Military & Sci-Fi Stuff

So, the other half of Chris Smith's Autumn donation to the Blog last year finds us with the helmets and guns, mostly in khaki! But there is a couple of red-coats, some spacey stuff and an Esquimaux!

Always, always, always! They all get carefully sorted into bags of identical figures to eventually get matched-up to branded items or set titles . . . like the firefighters, the paratrooper page is another thing which is lagging, but the work goes on in the background - I found a nice novelty variant of the Trojan red-devil the other day!

ABC and 'probably' ABC; Chris returned the two sand ones I'd sent him, not out of churlishness, but because he found better ones! He sent me the - frankly better sculpted - green ones at the same time (which we have now looked at) and he sent me two - believed to be ABC - in colonial line-infantry uniforms (from Britains hollow-cast) and a variant of the standing sentry with a new arm and new colouring.

The sentry's pose is not a recognised drill movement. but is close to a left-handed "Raise weapon for inspection"! That 'colonial' era spiked infantry helmet still survives in bands, but with No.1 Dress 'Blues' not scarlet! I picked-up three more the other day from the legendary Joe Bellis, and a third pose is blowing on the instrument I get in to trouble for . . . an oboe/clarinet'y thing!

A nice selection of mixed figures, the crossbowman is Exin (seen here - fourteen years ago!), the guardsmen are the denizens of crackers/lucky-bags (seen here four years ago!), while the flat/semi-falt cavalryman with carbine may be Plástico Osul from Portugal?

The Argentine Oklahoma figure looks like the advancing pose also sent to the Blog by Chris, but it's a single pole he's holding, so I fancy he's a standard bearer missing a flag? Something I will sort with a print-out at some point!

Another Spanish Civil Guard in terracotta takes that sample three, the blue knight is similar to some capsule toys marked Saban, but he is unmarked, while the white plastic Britains copy knight is very interesting . . .  

. . . for being clearly marked Petrel. Now; it happens I have several rack-toys marked up/overprinted to Petrel (one or two seen here now), and would have happily accepted they were a phantom brand for someone like 1960's Woolworth's or the Dutch Hagemeyer, but here he is, claiming a factory-tool as his own! How many were there in the set, are they all Britains inspired, do you know? Damaged - but a first here!

Khaki types; The sandy one will be Revell, Aurora, Renwall or someone like that, early box-scale or 1:48/50th kit figure, possibly from one of the missile sets. The diver below him is a lot like the Chap Mai ones, but softer and equipped with a mean dart-tip, he's hunting Moskva!

The two 'army men' at the top are both uncommon, one channeling the Lido pod-feet chaps, but as a unique sculpt, the other seemingly a khaki copy of Deluxe Reading's white one, but without the slot in the base, I must assume therefore another DR piece, from a similar big-box toy?

The large chap in the middle will be for a 1:18th German AFV, but I couldn't tell you who's or which, I haven't followed the phenomena, except to be very impressed with a  mixed battle-group of 1:18th, 1:12th and 1:6th (action man sized!) AFv's running around at Beltring hop-farm!

Finally - another 'army man', who must be from some sort of interactive zip-wire/death-slide, or helicopter (with hook) toy/set; I can't imagine he'd be auctioning a bow-saw to the highest-bidder in the middle of a battle?

Very useful Blue Box stretcher-case in white, I knew it was out there as I have it in a boxed-set somewhere, but I didn't have a lose one, now I do! Posed with the WAAC nurse, also from Blue Box.

These two will be from a modern gaming system, which are similar to but not Bolt Action from Warlord Games, I will endeavor to ID them, to which aim I have ruled out Wizards of the Coast and Flames of War . . . so might be looking for a stand-alone boxed game? they are quite nice though, factory painted PVC, and they've gone to storage in a TBS box, so I can't for the life of me remember if they had base-marks? Same Day - Heroscape! Thank you Daniel - see comments!

I think this chap was on Moonbase, not that long ago, but I'm damned if I can find it, obviously a target for a shooting game, I think it was a little rack-toy pistol? With the Azco/Hassenfeld, Ideal/Kleeware, Kellogg's, Kwong Ming, Lion, Lone Star and May May ones, I'm building quite a pile of targets - with help! We'll have to have a target page here?

Going off-world; there's a probably Kinder (or similar Italian pocket-money toy) space ship, a Micro-Machines command module, some capsule toys, one as a pencil-top (three-headed Kaiju) and one as a charm (green robot).

Robin's lost his head; probably at the sight of the pink block-man . . . is he Roblox or Minecraft? He might be a Minecraft 'hex-fusion' figure whatever the hell one of those is! One day I'll do something with the damaged dime-store/Tudor Rose pulp figure, like graft a small propeller to the wrist?

While we've looked at the two rack-toy Power-Ranger knock-offs before. The blue fellah is a Pokémon I think, and I have no suggestions for the 25mm action figure with moving arms and legs?

Mentioned in passing the other day - this completed my MPC XL5 character line-up, Steve Zodiac I think a reissue in this grey and he was a bit shredded, but a very quick pass with a cigarette-lighter removed most of the jiggits, but it didn't restore his nose! I would never recommend the lighter-technique, it's something you have to be practiced in (or confident of carrying out), before you start, and practice makes casualties! But done right it disappears all those little 'tails' of a worn, sanded or badly-fettled plastic item.

Probably could have been in yesterday's post, a small collection of Kinder figure parts, which will go with all the others, if I ever find the big box, which is still somewhere in the garage! And the Attic stuff has long-gone to storage, so that's a job for next-home now! I think blue-top is an ice-hockey player, there's half a fantasy barbarian, the blue legs go with the Esquimaux, and the horses had those chunky brass-look knights riding them.

"Now you've sorted everything into their little bags and spread them all over OUR nest, can Teddy and I have our Cheesy Dreamies please? We're starving here and it's well-past our bedtime!"

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Found it! FBI Shooting Practice, by Day Fran so now I need to find the Captain Scarlet ones - Doh!

ABC is for Another Beauty Catalogued!

I received some lovely 'might be/probably' ABC figures from Chris Smith a few days/weeks ago, which are in a future 'H is for How . . . ' post (and which I have posted elsewhere recently for those who saw them), but I've also managed to track this down;

It's starting to lose its bonnet-graphics and is missing a spare-wheel (which may turn-up in the spares box), but is otherwise in good nick for something which probably dates from the late 1950's or very early 1960's. The next question is whether it goes with the green figures we've seen here before, or one of the various iterations of Monogram copy - we've also seen, and I suspect the later, so will be looking at them more closely when they come out of storage, but for now - new Jeep!

ABC is for Another Batch of Copies!

Why I haven't come-up with that heading before, given the number of times we've covered ABC here is one of those mysteries only the gods will have an answer to! Most of these are from Chris Smith who seems to have had a good lock-down as far as finding esoteric Hong Kong output goes, as he adds more poses/images to the ABC story and another (earlier?) chapter!

So, that new chapter first; Chris has found some unmarked figures, of higher production value/quality than ABC, but of the same poses ABC use. The conclusion has to be that these copies of UK figures must pre-date the ABC's and make the ABC figures, the poor 2nd generation copies they are.

Lower shot shows two of them with their Crescent 8th Army donors, while the sample also contains a Britains 'Khaki Infantry' pose, standing firing, which we haven't seen from ABC yet. You can see the bases are more substantial than ABC's and have a flat edge.

Here we see three of them compared to the green ABC (middle) and sand figures, at this point Chris didn't have a direct comparison, so they were a 'stand alone' set of 'new' Hong Kong Piracies, but . . .

. . . Chris then found some more sand ABC's, with two cross-over's, the Tommy-gunner seen here in the left-hand comparison shot and the running with bayonnet fitted, along with a grenade thrower - right-hand shot, although these don't have the ABC mark which could confuse, but those ABC US Marines in dress uniform, with the three versions, have some unreadable examples, so I think they all are ABC?

Which gives a [running?] total of six poses in the ABC set, seven with the Britains shooter and up-to nine (or more) if the missing Crescent poses ever turns up in either set, or more conversions/Britains sculpts?

Meanwhile, my only contribution is these two which I found while looking for the 'Zulu' versions a few weeks ago; two marked-ABC copies of Britains running swoppet in solid, but with the feathers (unlike the Africanised version), both of these are rather-poor short-shots, the brown one particularly, but I've never claimed these to be Hi-Fi, just high-interest!

I also had these Britains Herald-clone Union troops come in, they are unmarked versions of those issued within the ABC / HK / CMV 'family', a family to which we can probably add Past the Post, they may all have been independent but they seem to have shared ideas, production values or source material . . . packers, shippers or import agents!

Trees in the background are also courtesy of Chris I think, from one of the lots he's sent over the last year or so, the contents of which are languishing in a group of future 'H is for . . . ' posts, but they happened to be at-hand when I shot the ACW.

So many thanks to Chris for the images, donations and all round support - he found an absolute blinder earlier this evening (25th Aug) which I promptly paid a little too much for, but, well, they're for another day! Cheers again Chris.

G is for Get Shorties!

Or; F is for Follow-up - ABC Marines

Chris Smith sent these two to the blog, and they are well worth the sending . . .

This is firstly his versions of the ones we looked at the other day, to the left of the rank (first three figures), but to the right are four smaller sub-piracies who have had white gloves and trousers in the past, while retaining black-belts, so clearly close-in hand-to-hand combat experts, all four of them, lovely find!

While here we see them in new colours, but the smaller sub-piracies again; note the different reds of the far-right chap's arm-v-body. This is really what collecting's all about, Swoppet knights? There's 97 lots of them on eBay right now - half mounted, several with tags/packaging - they're not rare, just nice!

But if anyone finds these between now and Christmas, send them to the Blog because they'll be as rare as the above figures and we'd all like to see them!

Cheers Chris, definitely not box-ticking!

USMC is for ABC Box Ticking!

It's one of those things isn't it; time moves on when you're enjoying yourself! This, as a smaller post might have published a couple of years ago, I took the first shots within days of getting the storage stuff into the garage, two Augusts ago, but I didn't know what to say about them, then I lost the images, then I took a couple more (or found one in Picasa? I have this habit of forgetting I've shot something and shooting it again!) but wasn't very happy with them, only for someone; Blood, Pugh or Shalatain (?) to publish them in Plastic Warrior magazine (link), so the post got put on the back-burner, as if it wasn't there already!

I'd always thought of them as RAF regiment, despite (and indeed - ignoring) the fact that they kept turning-up with white trousers! But the contributor to PW (. . . it was Jack wasn't it, Jack Shalatain, who also showed some lovely pith-helmeted colonial Infantry read-coats, which I haven't found yet) made the connection (as I suspect other people had, while I wasn't listening . . . JB?), anyway, that was them and there's not much else to add, but I have found a few different ones over the years and can stake a claim for the 'Rock Apes'

The original of shot on the left has vanished, but after I'd done the collage, so it's been left in a folder somewhere, or accidentally moved to another, but it's definitely my laptop they are shot on! They are re-issues and could be quite recent?

On the right are two newer shots with base variations below (we'll return to in a minute) and paint variations above. There are two iterations of unpainted (who can be RAF regiment as they aren't dark-blue enough to be № 1 Dress), with the US Marine Corps to the right.

Second to last was always an anomaly (there's more, I just tried to pick the better ones for the shots) as he has a red cummerbund and trouser stripes, and looks like an inaccurately-painted Colour-Sergeant from the British Army, the cummerbund intending to be the cross-sash in heavy red linen?

Then, recently this chap joined the fold, he is similarly marked, so I think at least one issue tried to represent a British regiment in № 1 Dress uniform, but with the wrong blue? As the original Britains USMC in hollow-cast would pre-date the RAF Regiment's creation, I assume they were pirated from the American Marine sculpts though. And the marines (US) have all-blues but with a white hat . . . home-painting could do a lot more with these figures!

There are two main base types, the ABC, and another which may be a separate company running alongside, or just blank base inserts for ABC to use on contract-production. The arrowed two are the ABC lozenge-marked ones, while the other have a similar MADE IN HONG KONG but smaller and closer to the rim of the base - the ABC's quite centralised with the lozenge below the message.

Both have a US Marine painted version and an unpainted version, but the red-trim guys are both of the second, non-ABC version? All have the swivel-arm of the original hollow-casts.