T is for Thar' She Blows! (Brucie Bonus)

Not technically a pirate-themed item, but then over here ITLAPD has been and gone, but there's still a few hours of it over the pond, so very much on the cusp of the day; here is a lovely diorama from Brian Berke up there in New York, in which an early nineteenth-century whaler (the Charles W. Morgan - originally from Pyro) get a ship-to-ship message delivered by Captain Nemo of the Nautilus!

No blurb, but Brian said;

"A few months ago we went to see the Charles W. Morgan at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut before VOVID-19 closed everything down.

The whaling ship is the last of it's type. Whale oil was not needed when oil was discovered in Pennsylvania and the fleet of whalers was mostly sunk by the Union Navy as blockades to southern ports during the Civil War.

That's the background. I recently dug out a plastic kit of the Morgan and here it is on it's maiden voyage. Sadly it was seen by Captain Nemo, that's life! "

he added . . .

"Captain Nemo wasn't a pirate though revenge against authority started many a pirate on that vocation."

The Captain being actually consumed by a hunger for vengeance and hatred of imperialism; the British Empire (a fledgling America in the recent Radio plays!) which is explained further on Wikipedia!

Also - superb photography from Brian there, I thought?

As mentioned the model has had several boxings under three labels, Pyro commissioned the original tool, Life-like got hold of it in a tranche of ex-Pyro tooling in the 1970's (?) and dropped the name, although it was retained on the runners ('sprues')!

While most recently Academy-Minicraft had a shot, although that's a 1980/90's 'recently' I fear, I don't know if Academy still have it, but Minicraft went off to concentrate on hobby tools (I think) some time ago!

And many thanks to Brian for closing 'Pirate Day', as I think the organisers have simplified the title to, this year . . . in order to expand the concept?

R is for Roman Bums

Look, we need to get this straight now . . . every time we look at the output of this strange half-resurrected Montaplex, half resin-pirate, we will make a joke out of their name, because they want us to! They didn't call their track-racing system Bumslot for nothing you know; I'm sure there's at least one British ex-pat' in there somewhere!

I think I intended these to go on the Airfix Romans page, where they are still an obvious absentee, but I seem to have shot them without any comparisons to the aforementioned UK-made figures, so we're having them here, now, and I'll re-shoot some comparisons for the other page another day!

Very crude copies, they get round-tipped (Republican?) shields with Imperial-era uniforms, so . . . Spanish mercenaries? And most of the Airfix figures were copied, but - mercifully - not the running-waving-pilum guy, who was quite idiotic enough first time round, although, the marching chap hasn't been cloned either and he was one of the more useful ones, along with the Persian archer type.

The chariot has had a complete redesign in Ed Roth's workshops and now looks more like a field conversion of a Celt's muck-cart! And it has been reduced from 4hp to one, often the way with those custom jobbies, lots of noise and a fancy paint-job, but as soon as you join 'Run to the Sun' they burst into flames . . . some summer weekends that A30 South looks like a technicolor, smoldering, retreat from Moscow!

There was a 'big box' set as well, but I think the vessel-kit was bought in, I haven't studied it but would imagine it's probably from Academy rather than the older Aurora or the Heller/Směr ones? The same single runner of figures won't provide much in the way of useful crew though and the transfer sheet (there's another in the first image) looks like the bastard-child of Revo and Games Workshop . . . on acid!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Toyway - General

There wasn't much of any substance on the Toyway stand, but there was enough for three posts, so that's today's endeavour and we'll start with the bits and bobs and then look at a couple of things they are distributing for other people within the UK.

Divorced from Minicraft (who may have gone the way of all flesh?), Academy are still out there somewhere (Korea?) and producing the eclectic range of kits they were always partly known for, and it doesn't come more eclectic than a range of box-scale kits of Leonardo (he's not a real turtle Mr. President!) da Vinci's 'inventions'.

I use inverted-commas as some of these were only ever drawings, and where models exist, they tend to be either incomplete or disproving of the theory behind the original idea. That armoured car must be in someone's preferred scale . . . 54mm?

While half-out of shot you can see AFV and aircraft kits, a steam-pumping engine (I think?) and tools - under another brand - off to the right.

A rival range of die-cast aircraft in 1:72 scale from Aviation 72 are designed to give Corgi a run for their money. The Gazelle was always a favourite of mine; only went in one once, but you could (still can occasionally) tell them from kilometers away due to their high-pitched turbine whiney-whistling-wooshing! Sea Hawk above.

Tucano huh? One minute you're blowing them away, next minute you've got so many you may as well start using them. Don't cry for us Argentina 'cos we've got all your T1's! I know it's not that simple, but it's still funny! Folland Ger'nat for a Ger'nome!

De Havilland Tiger Moth, my father actually had one, although it was sold a while ago and spent most of the last forty-odd years in a yellow and blue stripy-number, but it looked like this when it was sold-off by the MOD in my childhood, I sat in it a few times, but never flew in it . . . sniff!

But these! These are branded to Toyway themselves and must be about 1:8th or 1:9th? They're Chopper's, Raleigh Chopper's; I would have stolen one if they weren't in a sealed Plexiglas case (they knew I was coming!), just too cool for the swing-park!

If you remember trying to change gear, finding you couldn't shift the 'shift-stick' looking down and then crashing into something you know what I'm talking about! Go [over the handlebars] Chopper!