E is for Eye Candy - Tootsie Toys Boxed Set

I shot this at the Sandown Park show in September 2023, almost certainly on Adrian's table, when he was still Mercator Trading, and it's interesting for two reasons;

 

The first reason is that it ID's that funny little man, in die-cast alloy, who turns up infrequently at the older toy-soldier shows, in mixed rummage trays of lead and hollow-cast stuff, of whom I have a few in an 'unknown' bag, now known!

 

And secondly; it's got the same trucks as those Charbens ones we've seen (and did Johillco have some?), but as it represents the US Militor 3-ton truck, Ordnance Department Model 1918, or Mack AC, I think it's fair to say Tootsietoys were first, and the UK-produced examples are copies?

 

As you also see various versions of the 'plane (half eindekker, half Lindbergh) about the place, it can probably be assumed these sets were imported into the UK at the time - between the wars, making piracy of the elements easier?

D is for Donations - Peter & Chris - AFV's

On the Military hardware section of these posts, and both Peter and Chris have included a few AFV's in the stuff they've saved for the blog, which, being not figures, tend to be more incidental, so I've shoved them into one post;

 

Micro armour odds-and-sods, I think the hull is a challenger, and that these are probably GHQ, the quality is better than the Skytrex I had as a kid, and the lack of cut-wire gun-barrels also precludes them?

 

Largish jeep, from the wheels I'd say pretty modern, so kind of grist-to-the-mill, but still a useful sample, especially if I don't already have one!

 

Ideal board-game pieces, these are rather piling up in a tub somewhere, and I'll have to think of something to do with them, they are fictional, and fun, and there are a few variants to be sorted out, reverse colourways etc.

 

One of the mini-tanks we looked at some time ago, but will return to, there's more on them in a download folder somewhere, and a couple of trees which escaped the 'odds' folder, the one on the left, a copy of a Cherilea-Phoenix window-box accessory, the other a current'ish Poplar, and a very new re-sculpt/evolution of the old Lego Lombardy Poplar, whose evolution we looked at in a previous post once.

This was a superb find by Chris, as I have a pair of these bobbing-commander tanks, unmarked, and possibly in a darker green, which is how you can find them across the pond too, so this one with its clear Peter Pan marking adds a whole 'nother paragraph to the story, which includes a different tank and those easter-bunny trucks! Presumably - a mould-swap?

 

Three micro-armoured cars, which we will return to one day, as there are three types of these Daimlers, two types of the little gun which often accompanies them, and only one version of the 'carrier', but with sets to look at and different wheel-axle types, worth a proper dive, one day.

 

Behind them is a probable Kleeware, or Pyro original on the right, and one of the metal axle trucks from the river-ferry sets, I call Type 5 or 5/6/hybrids;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2011/10/m-is-for-mini-trucks-part-6-types-5-6.html

 

Click on the 1-ton Humber Tag, for more on them! And many-thanks again, to both collectors, for finding/saving/getting this stuff to the blog, for me to share with you.

W is for Wehrmachtsmodelle

Wiking, the company best known to railway-modellers as a manufacturer of HO vehicles, and now owned by Siku, began life before the Second World War, as a maker of a larger range of small-scale (1:1250) ships and vessels in a lead-based Zamac, these ships were used as recognition and training models by the German Army, and were joined by 1:200th aircraft models, a range to which, AFV models known as the Wehrmachtsmodelle line, were added, and that's what we are looking at here.

 

Sadly not in my collection, I shot these on Mercator Trading's table about six years ago, and the group shot is taken with a Britains limber (#1726) for scale. The sample would appear to a complete air-defence unit.

 

Heavy trucks, a command/control 'office body' vehicle and GS troop-carrier/ammo-truck, both variants of the Mercedes G3A I think, but that's off a quick Google, not personal depth of knowledge! The nearer one may be a Krupp L3H?

 

Opel 'Blitz' and a command car/utility vehicle.

 

Staff car and two of the guns, which I think are the WWI forerunner of the famous eighty-eight, the 8.8 cm Flak 16, also known as an "Acht-acht" by the Germans, which became anglicised as "Ack Ack".

 

Two Krupp Protze medium trucks in the passenger configuration, one towing the searchlight and the other a generator needed for the power to the searchlight, and the equipment in the command vehicles, lights in the tentage/shelters &etc. Not the best shots, but they are very, very small, and shots at shows are always hurried!

 

By 1936, these were being made in plastic (probably the same grey plastic as the WHW's we've seen here several times, I've suggested Siku as a source for them, maybe it was Wiking?), so these metal ones are quite early, and quite rare. Ironically, they would fit-in perfectly with the Skytrex range of my childhood!

A is for Ambulancia de Campaña

Continuing to mosey through the Tente car-boot sale find of Peter's, and we're with the 'Field Ambulance', Ref. 0755. One thing I have noticed with all this sample, is the variation in shade of brick colours, but that's probably down to the same-shaped bricks being swapped between kits, but it does, still point to poor quality control, that different kits/batches would be different colours?

 

The vehicle is in the style of a Steyr-Daimler-Puch Pinzgauer, a light utility/GS vehicle with off-road capacity but no war-fighting or front-line role, and I don't know (and can't find) a similar Spanish make of vehicles, nor is Spain listed as Pinzgauer users, but all the vehicles in the set are pretty fictional really!

 

Rather like the 'war', or undeclared fight between VHS and BetaMax (where Beta' was netter, but VHS 'won'), Tente is the superior system, with more flexibility in construction, brought about by the fact you can either hug the studs (like Kiddycraft's pirate, Lego), or lock on to the central holes in each stud.

 

Another couple of alternate builds on the back of the instructions, each model seems to get two suggestions, with two-step build photo's you have to work through. I seem to recall, at one point, Lego used to put similar illustrations on the outside of the box?

L is for Lanzamisiles

To be specific, the Tente military set - 0753 Camion Lanzamisiles, and I know, I try not to do army/death stuff in December, but the queue says otherwise, this year! And this is exactly the sort of stuff you might have found under the Christmas tree in the late 70's, or 80's, especially if old Aunt Maud didn't understand about the vagaries of Lego-compatibility!

 

When we fire brightly decorated missiles at each other! Such marking goes back to the German V-Programme (Vegeltung - retaliation, retribution, revenge, or reprisal - like Trump, the philosophy that it's always someone's else's fault, if it's not going the way it was supposed to, when you started it!), and painting the test rockets in such a fashion, was to be able to tell (from the video [film] footage) how they performed, where or why they spun, and/or exactly where or how they failed first. Target drones are similarly decorated for visibility.

 

Lanzamisiles is simply 'Launcher of Missiles', or missile-launcher, and the toy, once completed, does not fire the missile which is locked to the launch-bar with a row of the more-complicated-than-Kiddycraft studs! I think the truck may be a loose Pegaso 3000 series?

 

When these came out, Lego were still producing pretty box-like, civilian vehicles with few specialist or 'cool' parts, and even when the space sets first came out, we only got a few new parts, dishes and hand-tools mostly. Indeed, when the ariels were added to the Lego space sets, they were far simpler and more toy-like than the one Tente had been using for some time.

 

Spain remains non-nuclear, so this would have been a tactical, battlefield artillery missile, to deliver a high-explosive, heavy-punch, with - hopefully - more accuracy, or devastation than fire-and-forget artillery rounds or heavy mortars!

 

Some ideas for alternate models which could be made from the contents of the box, the whole point of construction sets for kids, something lost on the Kidults, who can spend $1000 on a Millennium Falcon, which takes ten days to build and never gets touched again, except in house moves, or when the partner attacks it with a broom-handle upon exiting the relationship!

 

"I took the sofa apart, but never found the second air-tank in the smugglers' alcove, it's just not the same now!"

K is for Khaki Kattle-truck!

There is a tendency, particularly among cheaper toy makers, for military versions of civilian vehicles to be produced, by the simple expedient of manufacturing the civilian toy in military-coloured plastic, this third Jimson post covers one of those! And I should point out, yesterday's Land Rover was based on the Daktari one, not a clown/circus one!

 

These came with the Land Rover and futuristic Transporter/Tank combo', and while I don't think the figures have anything to do with the vehicles, I shot them with this one, just in case! They are high-grade piracies of the Matchbox American Infantry from 1974/75'ish.

 

Compared with the transporter's tractor-unit, the body is longer, and the stake-sided superstructure is held in place with the same clip used on the transporters. It would seem these late-cab toys are harder to find, so must have been made right at the end of Jimson's reign?

 

The mounting hole equates to the other position on the tractor-cab, which is the further-back one, not found on the first version, so clearly there was an attempt to mount some other bodies on the tractor, before the newer stretched-chassis was designed, as seen on the cattle-truck? The newer chassis, like the transporter cab-units, has no mark/number.

 

Badly damaged, but I was buying the lot for the Tank Transporter and Land Rover really, and, as I say, I don't think the figures belong with the set, but they might?!

M is for Mohawk and More Military Miniatures

At the recent Sandown Park show I picked up a parcel from our roving reporter in New York, Brian Berke, which was very useful, as while I've mentioned them once or twice over the years, I've never encountered the sample while transferring things between different places, so they've remained rather absent from the Blog, but we can now tick that box - Mohawk's mini 'dimestore dreams'.

 

The one on the right is the colour of all my sample, so the pale herb-green ones, to the left, which made-up the bulk of Brian's donation were new to me, and this is a slightly larger version of the jeep we've seen before here more than once.

 

Brian also included a few marked-Lido mini's, so we can compare the two mouldings, as a full-stop to this original post, here, which compared the other three contenders for who's the pirate, who's the licensee, and who did the first version!

 

So that's six (Kleeware, Lido x2, Merit, Pyro and Mohawk) in total now, with the soft plastic Hong Kong version, Lido seem to have sanctioned themselves, toward the end!

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/08/l-is-for-lido-not-load-of-limp.html 

 

The lorry on the left, a sort of 1950's pantechnicon, is also a homage to other mini 'readymades' of the era (the Pyro 'artic'), and also scaled-up, while the Ambulance is a more original moulding. I know I have a tanker, to look at another day, but I think I was missing the pantechnicon, so lovely to get both colours.

 

The car is also based on another model, and while less obvious, joins the Empire-Ideal-Kleeware-Lido-Pyro (2 sculpts)-Wyandotte family of small post-war family saloons, for an eight-count! While Brian himself sent us the Carzol coloured versions of the Tank not that long ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/07/n-is-for-new-stuff-from-new-york.html

 

Lido on the left, Mohawk on the right and there's more on the cars here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2013/03/s-is-for-siblings-take-2.html

 

Among the Lido's was a lovely bronzed version of the 'StuG III' which was new to me, and while rather washed-out by camera-flash in this shot (left-hand tank), is - in daylight - a distinctive goldish-bronze colour plastic, like some of the Captain Video figures!

 

At the same show Adrian had a few dime-store's saved for me, both of which are useful, having seen marked tractors and or guns from Banner, Bell and Merit, I'm not sure who issued this unbranded pair (left, the tractor has a 'Made in England' which I'll compare to others in the collection at a later date), but in a batch of British stuff, Kleeware, Tudor Rose or Merit (licensed or copy) are in the frame, and with the wreaker-truck a marked Kleeware copy/mould-swap of the Pyro, the clever money goes on Kleeware?

 

As with the Jeeps and 'Staff Cars', we've looked at many versions of the gun here at Small Scale World, already, but getting two new versions in one show is a feather in the collection's cap, with the unmarked green one, and a full-sized Hong Kong copy, in silver polymer, with eye-damaging ammunition!

 

There were a couple of more conventional/less contentious British 'Dime Store' AFV's from Tudor Rose, not copied by five other people, or licensed to anyone, the rather good Churchill IV, and the more dodgy armoured car.

Many thanks to Brian and Adrian, it’s all a dimestoretastic show-plunder and donations post, folks!

F is for Follow-up - Combat Plunder Post

Basically looking at the 'who are they' figures, I'm afraid it doesn't add much, but is a useful reminder of where we're at with these. I had a couple of other supporting images in Piacsa, so I've put a few up, at the end of the post.

 

This is a shot of the versions I was originally told were Galoob, and which are copies of the Galoob Micromachine smallies, or were pantographed-down for them, but there is no evidence to date that the 40mm versions were actually, ever sold by Galoob, however they are quite common as Realtoy, Daron or Sky Mark. I'm now pretty certain these came from whichever Chinese factory was supplying Galoob.

 

While this set is the softer copies, which I have pencilled in, with the minimal of circumstantial evidence as being from Pioneer, or whoever supplied Pioneer, given they were primarily a die-caster. Here in Imperial/Buddy L branding, we have also seen them as Stonegalleon and Woolbro/Toy Leader, while the smaller, unpainted copies, are more likely Pioneer. This is a poor shot, which I think must be the seller's picture of a set I bought, as . . .
 

. . . I have managed to scan the lining-card! You can see several of the firefighter figures which have come in with mixed lots, and some construction workers, I hadn't even made the connection on! The prone figure is not a Galoob sculpt.

 

Shipped into the UK by Titan, which puts Supreme in the frame too, but only loosely, they had their own sculpts, the larger Ackerman et all., set. I'll try to remember to do a follow-up or 'roundup' on them too, once the Chris donation posts are done.

 

The best way to understand it (or not!) is to click the Realtoy Tag, but it's all getting a bit confused, and I'll need to bring everything together in a larger post, with all the sets, and the many loose figures (no duplicates so far, due to three sizes, two materials, and a dozen or so plastic colours and/or paint-ways), set side-by-side.

 

And then, are the bigger (50/54mm) ones we saw from Greece (Zita Toys) also Pioneer or another supplier, the evidence is they are Pioneer, and they have some of the firefighter poses too. The fact that the rough, oblong based versions are now being found alongside the smoother, ovoid 'Galoob' bases, suggests one source for all bar the Realtoy, and what evidence we do have, is that Pioneer (or their supplier) may be that supplier?

 

Some more of the poorer copies of Marx's 45mm GI's, in two shades of green, I have a few of these too, somewhere! We looked at them quite early-on in the Blog's history, here

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2012/07/l-is-for-late-thanks-to-blogger.html

 

The hard-plastic, painted-polystyrene versions turn-out to have been a troop supplied with this battery-operated ("Bateries not included"!) Power Mite truck. A similar yellow truck with (I think?) cement-mixer OR aggregate-tipper bodies had the six (?), very finely sculpted, 35/40mm construction workers, like Blue Box's copies of Dinky, but much nicer, and very brittle. They may also have had a later, window-box issue? I think a comment on that old post may have been confusing these with the smaller Miniature Masterpiece sets?

 

A reminder of the smallest packaging variant of the Supreme/SP Toys issues.

L is for Last May's Lots of Lovely Loot - Vehicles

Before I can get on to the very late Plastic Warrior show reports, I need to get the previous, and even later, Sandown Park's loot out of the way, which was purloined a few weeks before the PW show, so let's get them out of the way sharpish! Although I don't think you can say sharpish, when the posts are three months overdue!

 

A small Gescha/Gama style tin-plate tank, bearing more resemblance to some early post-war APC's, with a small turret, and high superstructure. I can't remember if it had branding, or if someone gave me a brand? Space Tank!

 

Two mystery (when I saw them) die-cast military vehicles. a nice inter-war armoured car, actually Charbens, it is die-cast alloy, but has lead wheels, and a British tanker-truck, which was marked Britain or England I think, the trouble with doing these posts so long after the event, is you forget stuff! But while in the style of Dinky, it's not, and is probably a re-painted Benbros Esso tanker - note the red on the paint-chips! Interestingly, a re-issue of an old Timpo mould.

 

Vintage Tootsie-Toys AFV's, one marked the other anonymous (can't remember which was/is which), I think the lorry may be pre-war (1930's), while the Armoured-car might be just post-war? But that's going on the wheels/tyres (or 'tires', they're American after all!), which could, just as easily, be replacements? You won't believe the trouble I had, getting the two MG's to look right, they are suspended, free-floating or hanging, between small bumps in the moulding, and loose with age, and were a bugger to get right!

 

Another Charbens, this all die-cast, wheels and body, and darker green than some I've seen, and while not the most accurate version of Humber out there, it's a darn-sight better than the plastic one they did later!

 

Two more French 'readymades', one each Noreda (front, Jeep-like) and Injectaplastic (behind, DKW with Jeep trailer), we've seen them both before, but they were clean, and cheap, so I took them home with me!

Banner 'row-crop' tractor in military green, possibly depicting an Oliver tractor (US Readers?), and two copies, the copies are slightly smaller all-round, and have a few detail differences, unmarked, I hope they are in Bill Hanlon's book!

 

Again, newish to me, similar to some Archer space cars from the 'States, I was told these were actually British so Kleeware or Tudor Rose, but the larger one is a Marx future car, the smaller however is a Pyro/Kleeware moulding, so could the Marx also be a mould-swap with Kleeware?

 

Two teeny-tiny battleships, probably from a late-Edwardian board game, and a larger lead yacht, which could also be a board-game piece, or a smaller component of something more decorative? It's covered in what appears to be black paint, but which could just be severe oxidation?

 

Because they came with a T4, these two reprobates have got themselves into the vehicle post! In the style of MUSCLE or Kinnukiman, these two Thunderbirds Keshi are new to the collection, along with the little Thunderbird Four.

 

A damaged Manurba coach and spare helmet crest for a Lone Star knight are snuck in at the end, just to get them off the laptop!