T is for 'There Be Dragons'!

Probably a title we've had before, but whatever, we're over 5000 posts now, so you're bound to lose track of a few, or at least I am! Had a nice chat with the Westair guys at Birmingham the other week, unlike Ancestors of Dover who wouldn't allow photography . . . you go to a fair to promote your products, hire a stand to display your products, and then don't allow attendee's to cover your products?

 

But while I was chatting I shot off a few pictures of things which caught my eye, and this is them;

 

Various busts and things, busts are a side-arm of the hobby I've not really travelled to, although there are a few plastic ones in the pile, mostly the old famous/historical persons or footballer/Wild West cereal premiums, and a number of tank crew/commanders, but I know some people almost specialise in busts - for their display potential, if nothing else.

 

We saw these a while back, but worth another shot, they offered me one as a sample, however, I reminded them they had given me one last time, and I'm really, really not at the shows for the scrounge, but to genuinely see what's happening in the hobby, or to the hobby's advantage/disadvantage!

 

Necklaces! It's funny, but they could just as easily be key-rings, phone-hangers or luggage-tag ornaments, and, in the case of those little plastic guardsmen, all four and more - earrings and snow-shakers! Once you move away from the purism of Britains, Timpo, Elastolin, Marx or Starlux, and throw your eyes wider, there so much of this stuff, you'll never find all of it!

 

We've seen all three on the Blog now, in one form or another, but not the Pyramid, which I shall now be looking out for! Many versions of the gun over the years, and I think I have more than one design of the trebuchet, so copies-of-copies abound!

 

Figural, sculptural, Teddy Bears and Rodin's 'Thinker'!

What's not to like?

 

These were all new, I have a feeling the Rep' said they were retailing a lost cheaper than the Schleich/Papo stuff, but price is always down to the end-seller, and if the trade price is low, it could encourage scalping? 

 

Also I think I was impressed to find they were a substitute PVC, rather than resin, so quite robust, but I'm now not sure if that's a false memory or wishful thinking? But twelve, out there now, and excellent enhancers of a Nottingham Mafia game table!

 

Westair Reproductions website

https://westair.co.uk/

P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Historical & Ceremonial

Arguably my favourite 'grouping' in these mixed-lot sort-out's, as the breadth of the subject and vast quantities of tourist keepsakes issued over the years, means there's so much to find, and there are some real pearls in this latest lot from Chris Smith.

Starting at the beginning; early city-state dwellers from the Fertile Crescent! These 60mm'ish, PVC, biblical figures are similar to those BibleToys Inc., sets Brian sent to the blog a few years ago, but not quite as cartoony, but still styled for infant play, they will be from some kind of bible-related play-set I guess?

 

Perfectly illustrating my 'tourist' comment above, despite seeing over half a dozen on the blog, and possibly having more in the stash, both these Welsh national dress ladies are new to me. The one on the left probably 1960's and hard polystyrene, while the PVC one is likely 1970/80's and was a key-ring ornament.

 

I love finding these with their loops cut, not because I still cut them myself; I used to when I was more of a Philistine. But because they tell me other people were finding and converting esoteric figures to join their Toy Solders & Model Figures (where key-rings have always been a source of unusual subjects), as I was, way back when I was a silent, solo/lone collector!

A tad damaged, his horse will need a hoof and a tail, but I think this is one of those French MDM figures, and they are so nice, even a damaged one is a joy . . . And a sample!

 

And on the subject of damaged samples, these two are both a bit on the battle-casualty side of things, but both useful additions. If you've been following the development of the KT story here, you'll have worked out/seen that there are more damaged than whole Beefeaters and Guardsmen (similar story with the HK Cavendish!), but, they are polystyrene so easy to glue, mend, convert etc, therefore maybe a future project, while the more samples, the easier to see paint variation between batches or over time.

 

The resin Highlander with be a gift-shop special! Unfortunate that he looks a bit like Prince Andrew! Similar to the Sculptures UK figures we've seen previously, but a different maker and tartan treatment, which I think is very effective. Until a better one turns-up, he's very welcome here!

RP issue of the old CoMa Roman signifier, we may have seen him here before, more than once or twice, I can't possibly recall how or why, but people like to see them from time to time!

 

This is brilliant because it's a second sample of the 4M knights, clearly these were/are a heritage-site gift-shop thing, and I'm tempted to take myself to Windsor and see what's available there, but something which was free (as a national asset and educational destination) when I was a kid is now 25-quid or more, plus parking! So I may just hope Chris and charity shops continue to send them my way, occasionally - current rhythm is one every eight years!

 

A few pirates which aren't worth hiding until September, a PVC generic in the ELC style, a Soma, the Black Chine mascot and a Poplar pirate in a new colour for that pose!

 

These two are resin, and while I suspect the one on the left is another gift-shop/touristy piece (very ECW), the one on the right looks like he;'s from a Christmas village, and I couldn't tell you which range, as there are many, I recently acquired/inherited a Hong Kong/Netherlands Edelman B.V. 'Luville' catalogue, and there is tons of this kind of stuff out there, although, very little in the collection!

The small scale is a gang of Shreddies/Tom Smith gladiators putting the jump on a smaller squad of non-Giant 'Romans', from two or even three sources! They'll be sorted into their rightful samples at a later date.

 

Thanks again to Chris for all these, some lovely additions to the collection, and they will all enhance future posts on all sorts of things.

M is for More on Minikins

Adding to the small scale railway stuff we looked at earlier in the month, here's a couple of dodgy pages from a Corr's catalogue, of the larger scale stuff, most of which is listed in O'Brian, but not all of them illustrated, although he has more, and better pictures, but ti all adds to the whole.

The war elephant is - I think - the important visual-addition to the hobby?

 

While I don't think this adds anything to the hobby's knowledge-base, but I might as well get it up here while I'm going through all this stuff! Dates and times for this is all, probably, 1950's? An eclectic collection of stuff, in a variety of scales, and a lot of it seemingly aimed at the gift market or museum shops?

M is for Merry Mass of Malleable Model Mayhem! 6 - Ancient, Medieval & Ethnic

The sixth part of Chris's donation stuff, and there's some really nice bits, including at least one other contender for best in box! But there's some other really nice bits, not least these large knights;

At first glance you think modern, Chinese take on the old Fontanini museum gift-shop stuff, and in that you're not exactly wrong, they have the appearance of blow-moulds, but are pretty solid, so some form of rotary-moulding I suspect, and are about the same size as that large Hussar/Chasseur we looked at the other day.

 

But they have the little gold sticker associated with old museum stuff, or the novelty imports of HCF, which if nothing else means they have some age to them, and would have been competing with Fontanini!

But back to the ancients which were going to be first, and these are the small scale bits, two Quaker Food's mounted gladiators who were missing their horses, untill they turned-up in the big bag of hollow-horsed cowboys!

 

A Lucky Clover chariot and crewman, a really nice find as one of the few non-Giant's ID'd (here at Small Scale World!), and several post-Giant Romans, including two who may be new, the bases on the two orangey-flesh coloured ones look particularly thick?

A headless Hong Kong copy of a Britains Trojan is better than no Hong Kong copy of a Britains Trojan, the Marx/Marx-knock-off (Cane?) needs a sword, and the Viking takes the prize here, he's a Horrible Histories pencil top, I think!

 

Best in box? It's only a green Tatra 'Soldier of the World'! The two silver ones are East German copies of other-peoples better figures, and I have quite a few now, were they Marolin or one of the lesser 'peoples brands'? Two spare shields, although I'm pretty sure one is a French farm-door from a Matchbox kit!! But it would make a very good, crude shield for a man-at-arms, while the gold knight, is interesting . . . 

. . . as he is quite well done, in a late Britains Deetail style (and about the same size), but has a peculiar plug on his underside, which I hope someone will recognise as a distinctive 'system' from someone, somewhere. The other figure is a 'Warriors of all Nations' premium figure from Tatra, in green, how cool is that?!!

 

The funny thing is, like the dark brown Zulu who turned-up a while ago, he seems to have been gold once, and the gold having worn-away, has left a base material, slightly translucent (like the Zulu), but green rather than brown? the similar Egyptian was a flatter brown, but the hint of gold was there too.

 

Exin Lines prince, archer and ghost, stand behind two Blue Box micro-playset knights. They are next to one of those rack-toy Asian civilians and a Giant medieval horse, behind which is an MPC or copy (I didn't look, and there's not much in it) 40mm medieval and finishing-off the line-up, is - strangely - the second 12" Airfix Black Prince's crest, this year!

These are charming, and like most new finds, pose a new question or two, why has one got a definite region written into the sculpt, while the other is blank? The other looks North Coast thought, with that sow'wester, so, Normandy or the Cherbourg peninsular? And are they for stopping wine, or oil, bottles or casks?

 

Lovely additions to the stash, though! And a sort of resinated polymer which doesn't seem to be poured PE-resin? Yes, all polymer is 'resin' in the trade, but you know what I mean.

 

KT Tyrolean dancer, sans pencil-sharpener, two of the predominantly French premium copies of Fontanini orientals and a late Commonwealth (or copy) Austrian premium type.

 

While this is a really eclectic mix with the Little Baby Jesus, probably rudely removed from a snow-shaker, or hollow Christmas-tree bauble, a large Alpine figure, probably from some household object like a clock or ashtray? An oriental lady from a vaguely 54mm rickshaw, and the puller from a larger rickshaw, and finally, an exquisite carved-wood farm lady of the Erzgebirge type.

 

All very useful and some fantastic things, I can't thank Chris enough for all this, but to share it with the rest of you. It's Willian Tell! Green . . . Tatra!

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Ancients and Medievals

Although we're starting with part of a fantasy vignette, which sort of covers both periods while actually being of neither! It's a odd genre, fantasy, sort of mythology without the real people or places, yet always with the extraordinary odds, but mostly a more medieval setting, with lots of iron and steel dragging it away from the Ancient period, which is technically set in the Bronze Age?

McFarlane Toys have a series of Lego-likey sets pertaining to the recent phenomena known as Game of Thrones, and each of the sets, alongside all the standard and shaped bricks, have a number of PVC vinyl figures, this is the  . . . can't remember and it's in storage now, black throne, iron throne, throne of steel . . . as you can tell I haven't followed it at all! There's a dragon I think, and some snow-yetis who live in a wall, and a 'babe' who keeps getting her 'tits out for the lads'?

Although they look like action figures, they are more like the stuff we've bee seeing from 3D/4D/4M; plug/slot together, soft polymer 'kits', and while the standing chap (character or generic guard?) has slight movement in his helmet and a separate sword (which keeps falling off!), he's no more sophisticated than a swoppet, just better detailed, but with little interchangeability.

The semi-dead, skinny-cadaver bloke on the throne is a 'site specific' sculpt and just sits there looking bloody miserable and a bit evil. But they are nice figures; about 55/60mm, they'll fit-in with all sorts of other stuff.

Ooh, these are nice! Proper 'Ancients'; they're Greek Greeks . . . from Greece! Sculpting is similar to the Crio premiums, but they are 120-odd mm, I have one somewhere, but this quadripartite squad are 54mm and while they may share a sculptor, and could be another Crio issue, I suspect from the colours and single pose (I bought them individually, but from the same seller) that they may be from a local (to Greece) board-game? Help appreciated on this one!

Fun shot - there are several sets of Hong Kong Romans, taken from various sources, but these conversations (mostly paint) from Crescent knights are the most fun, Peter Evans gave me two or all three of the small scale (25mm) ones, and I think the 54mm's may have come from Chris Smith - cheers both!

These two are the larger figures from the Design Eye books which we looked at on Small Scale World a while ago, but I also shot them both for another place - Horus and a generic royal who could be one of Eleanor's brood; Richard I or John?

Ultimate Explorers - Ancient Egypt
Ultimate Explorers - Castle

Taking us nicely from Ancient to Medieval;

These are Acédo, late soft polyethylene production (I think I have some hard 'styrene, earlier ones somewhere, but the chocolate/maroon bases and colour schemes are the same I think), and rather nice, there's a late Norman look to them and a clear French'ness, I feel, to the sculpts?

I wasn't sure about this chap as he was hard plastic, but came with the above, however I was assured he was another Acedo, so he'll do! He needs a sword, but I have a bag full of old swords including broken ones, so I'll have a look and see if there's something suitable for a blob of glue!

I scored these at the Spring Sandown Park show I think, and they may have been on the blog - checks; yes they were, and so were yesterday's Elastolin aliens, but that's the nature of these posts! Compare this catapult with the probably Ougan one in the above Design Eye castle-post link, a much nicer finished item altogether!

The maneuverable mantlet shields and blacksmith, back with his wheel! As we have seen them before I can't add much, but they were a nice group of lesser-common siege accessories and crew in the smaller 40mm range, happy to have them!

N is for Not Going in the Queue!

And so to the London Toy Soldier Show, a rather muted event in a new (to me) venue, but these are the times we live in, and while the Internet is the ultimate winner, society is losing something of itself every day. I thought that rather than adding it to the 'H is for...' long-queue; I'd get it out of the way and try eating down on that queue, going forwards!

I won't bore you with pictures of the show, the organisers (publisher's Guideline) took loads of photographs and video, someone else was taking video, there was a bloke with a dumb-phone taking footage which may already be online somewhere, and another photographer managed to get a candid shot of me - for his mate - which almost certainly won't be seen in public, but ought to be!

So it's straight to the few purchases I made on the day; and we're starting with the Sci-Fi fantasy stuff! Rear-left is an unusual Tonka figurine from 1988's Willow line, I was aware of them from some catalogue or Blog or another, but didn't know they used the Britains Deetail basing method, of a slotted metal base with vinyl lugs on the undersides of the figure (in this case Airk Thaughbaer)'s feet.

Next to him is a Kinder fantasy figure from the late 1980's, I have one with a blue lizard (and green pants I think?), but not the helmet (also lizardy), so he was a nice addition, while Adrian from Mercator Trading had put the robots to one side for me, similar in size and plastic-colour to the Ace Acme robots, I don't know their origins (beyond 'probably' being both Christmas cracker and gum-ball machine prizes) but will find-out one day!

Three Polish-made Napoleonic cavalry from PZG were not cheap but a steal to find at all, and go with a fourth I found - at Plastic Warrior's show - a year or two ago, while Adrian had also found these diminutive Roman/Egyptian copies of larger Marx figures for me, which will entail taking another shot for a post which should have already published!

Also from Poland's PZG came a better WWII officer than the one I have, and my first (I think) 'Four Tanker's and a Dog' figure. The pale copies of Timpo's GI's, probably come from Argentina, but could be Turkish, and feel-like/sound-like polystyrene, although I don't think they are.

Discussing them with several members of the 'old guard' during the show, more votes were for S. American than Turkey, but I still fancy the Turks, so it'll need something more definitive!

Adrian also gave me a box of Blue Box bits and bobs which included a spare cab-floor for a Bedford RL, so I can rescue one from the junk pile - where a dozen or more languish. What's also useful about these is that the Britains poses are the earlier 'kidney' based ones, not the later, commoner, penny-bases.

I also grabbed the Zang figure as every time I find the soldier at attention, he's a different colour, and I wasn't sure if I had this mid-khaki shade with no webbing highlights? Possibly the smallest plunder bag I've ever brought-away from a show, but all good stuff!

M is for Mare Mediterraneanus

Had a bit of a board-game photo-sesh the other day, one of them was this, mentioned before in passing, we may even have looked at one or two of the figures from time to time, but today we'll get the box ticked properly!

Seems to be clear!

The pieces; each player gets an 'army' (including naval elements) in one of four colours consisting of various numbers of four unit types; Elephants, Horsemen, Infantry and Ships. The colours are in the lower image and consist of an ivory-white or cream, black, red and blue, scale is all over the place!

The box-art is superb, mixing the naval battles of the Persian or Punic-wars with the Islamic migration/invasions and fall of Constantinople (when, although still oared, the vessels looked very different) , it's trying to cover the four great empires, who waxed and waned around the edge of the Mediterranean Sea over a few thousand years, in order to justify the game which pits them against each other!

The artwork is also similar to some of that produced by artists Don Lawrence for the Trigan Empire strip in Look & Learn, or Frank Hampson for his Dan Dare work in Eagle, but the box carries no signature or credit note, and I'm mostly basing my wild assertion on the treatment of the smoke & flames of the burning vessel!

A full 'army' in red, the single cavalry and elephant units being joined by three of infantry and two naval, in a similar way to the later Risc, there aren't enough to cover each point (towns & cities), so have to be set out with strategic goals and working with your partner, the game being designed to be played either with two pairs of allies as a four-player, or two players commanding two armies apiece.

The cavalryman in blue has warped and I think it's heat-shrinkage (technically; 'cooling' shrinkage) due to premature removal from the mould-tool, not latter deformation due to unstable-polymer ageing, as they are otherwise a stable polystyrene; the problem is common with these, and some of my lose acquisitions are similarly warped.

As I was having a session, I had the time to spend on generating a couple of .gifs, the other to follow later. It's basically unpacking the box to the Nth degree and then setting the table up for a game!

The board is generally to be treated as a diamond, evidenced by the angle of the titles and the rule-cheat boxes, with the four 'contemporaneous' City States (for the purposes of the game) being Ptolemaic Alexandria (red), Hannibal's Carthage (black), Western-Empire Rome (cream) and Eastern-Empire Constantinople (blue, Byzantines?), there are two each of the red cards (which photographed abysmally) and which are randomly-dealt 'go to jail' type things each player hangs-on to, until needed.

Play is by a pack of cards (made in Belgium, interestingly) rather than dice, and there's not much else to add - so I won't.

"What? Board Games? No, I don't do them, there's far too much space in the lid and the walls aren't high enough, they don't call them 'bored' for nothing, you know! Wake me when there's something I can make a real nest of"