H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop, November

To be honest, while sorting all these out I couldn't remember when or where I'd got these, but I remembered picking the four Timpo 'Action Pack' Arabs out of a bin of mostly shite, and with all the shots dated together, they must have been a charity-shop round-up, I didn't shoot the bags of?

 

They came with a medium-sized Supreme/SP horse, I think it was 20p each or something, so I just grabbed a quid's-worth, I know I have the Timpo Arabs somewhere, but it's a mixed tub of painted, Action Pack and later re-issues in beige, by Marlborough or Dorset, but I thought it would be nice to tick the box here with a matching set of the mauve ones, whether I already have them all, or not!

 

I suspect a mix of Kinder, Phidal and someone else here, all grist to the mill, and it'll all come out in the wash! God knows what's happening with the Pirate parrot, or the chaps either side of him, anyone recognise any of them? The pink t-Shirt is probably a 'Shopkin' or similar blind-bag, pocket-money collectable.

 

This guy was with the above, beyond the fact that he's some sort of robo-alien, in around 45/50mm, with a very, very big sword, I have nothing else!??

 

While these are Phidal, we've seen the two on the left, before, but the greenish-guy with the claw is new to me, however, a few have come in, not from the sets I've tracked down, so I know I'm missing a a few figures from some of the early Superhero issues.

M is for Monty and 'is Mob!

We had a whole bunch of these when we were kids, I can't now remember what happened to them, but they have gone, they may have gone when we were moving house in 1980, or I may have used them as swap-currency for small scale stuff a few years ago, I honestly can't remember, but they were home-painted Action Pack and I wish I could shoot a group-shot now, as they were well done - not my my brother or myself, but some unknown OB!

Ten infantry and a character: Lord Monty of Stuborn! These are the origianls and factory painted to a 'toy' standard in mostly matt paint, which adhered quite well, but only for the talc (fine chalk powder) added to the polymer, which now renders them bloody brittle!

Paint varied over time, with the worst version being the brown-booted (late/simplified?); Mr. Marx may have had the excuse of being far away and a toy-man not an army-man, but Timpo had no such defence, and while you can pretend they are wearing dessert-wellies, it's not quite kosher, is it?!

Later (during my childhood - 1960/70's) they were packed to compete with Airfix in Action Packs as unpainted sets of 'army men' rack-toy-alikes, with the orange running for some time and (I think - don't quote me!) the green coming toward the end?

Some of my Action Packs have had the distinctive mould-release pin-marks removed, and there's a bit of a colour-variation there as well. While some colour variation was more marked and why did the out-painter's end-up painting (or NOT painting) the hem of Monty's iconic jumper, below the belt, as if he's tied a cummerbund round his waist?

And - of course - we know it's supposed to be Montgomery as he is wearing the two cap-badges (against King's regulations!) on his beret! Only the Gloster's were allowed two cap badges and they had to represent the same unit and one of them had to be round the back!

I can't remember if I produced this chap from a damaged duplicate recently, or if someone else did it years ago and it came in with a mixed lot, but it's a work in progress, needing one-and-a-half new/replacement feet! And a mug! I intend him to be brewing-up with the Britains Indian camp fire and a mug of char!

Always (along with the mine-clearer) the first to go, I do remember dropping the tub when moving a while ago, so finding this (bottom left) in the tub wasn't a surprise, and as you can see they've gone together well-enough for a decent shot or two; Loctite Superglue Plastix and activator-pen. At least my mine-clearers were all OK

Couple of comparisons, we saw one of them the other day, while the other shows Timpo sitting nicely between the small 54'mils and the bigger ones, such as this Atlantic gunner.

Overseeing the late ('stop press' on other posts) sorting - HK and Chinatroop army-men!

T is for Tin Men

But not THE Tin Man (Aurora did one!), nor actually tin at all, they're plastic and armour was thin wrought iron I think, not tin or even steel? Yeah - I'm waffling again for an opening paragraph aren’t I, shocking! Never mind - it's only a box ticker for the insectophobes!

Timpo, more from that folder I found on the dongle, paint colour variations of the early versions of Timpo's 'solid' knights.

Plastic colour variations of the later Action-packs.

That's it - they're common as muck in a mess-tin!

FFL is for Foreign 'French' Lot!

A quick post today and a box ticker at that! More from the hiding folder, bit of old, bit of not so old and should be familiar to you but it gets them in the tag-list!

Timpo 'solid' French Foreign Legion, first type above; with factory paint, second type below; with (I'm pretty sure?) two plastic-colour variants from the Action Packs on the left and two from Toyway on the right - but it was about 11 years ago I took these?