S is for Sandown Park - Ancient and Medieval

With the vehicle post being broken-up now, this is the last of the plunder posts from September's show, although sliding into the long queue are some things I shot, but didn't buy at May's show! Technically we're looking at ancient and mediaeval subjects, but there is a bonus 19th Century figure at the end!

 

 

I actually saw these at Plastic Warrior's show in June, and the seller brought them to Sandown, believing I wanted them, because I'd mentioned my interest to a third party, so, here they are! The Rojas e Malaret army builder sets, designed to enlarge the armies for their board war games on the battle of Hannibal and the Catheginians against Rome, at Mutaro and Zama. Obviously these are the Roman cavalry!

 

 

While these are the Carthaginian infantry. The box's contents seem to have been made up with a figure from another set, who has a far more tanned countenance, not that surprising, given the variations we saw with the Little Big Horn set from Waddingtons, which, along with the early sets' contents, originated with Rojas e Malaret too.

A mixed bunch of Timpo knock-off, swoppet knights, possibly from or with parts from two sets, it's not exactly clear, but with much cleaner samples in the stash already, these will be sorted eventually, and with red, white and yellow tending to be commoner, the black and green here will prove to be useful toward building full samples.

 

More swoppets, here a mix of Britains, Crescent and Timpo, with what looks like a Lone Star solid's plume and an unknown weapon/standard? There's even a Supreme 'Silver Knights' shield! All useful spares for the time being.

And more Hong Kong knock-offs, here lesser quality, but again, all useful grist to the mill, to be compared and sorted into the right pile, then used to build a one-of-each sample, the rest to go on to other causes/owners!

 

There's a theme here, isn't there! I've a good sample of these Britains piracies too, but with all the small parts/little pieces, there's bound to be something useful in this 'donor' pile!

While these will be from one of the above lots, probably the lot two images above, they seem to have some mounted legs. I can't remember where all these came from, but it may have been a donation from Isaak, so many thanks to him, I know he gave me something at the show?

 

Finally, this chap. I've never seen one before, it's a hard styrene, never seems to have had a base, and only the uniform, or its accuracy will direct us to a maker . . . Polish, Russian (green) or something South American? But it's quite well done, and suggests a touristy thing, maybe in it's own little window, or clear plastic box?

 

And this is the stuff I live for, things I've never seen before, this kind of figure will enhance any future post/s on Napoleonics in general, all those oddities from Hungary, Peru or Portugal. Starlux are lovely, but they were mass-produced, Deetail are still basically 'modern' production and the Timpo Nappies are to be found in most mixed lots on evilBay, or rummage trays at shows, although often in a shocking state of home-paint, or just a shocking state, and many are getting brittle now!

E is for the Elephants in the Room!

This is a fun post, mostly new to hobby, Blog and Internet - except eBay, where they all came from! Credeco, a new name to me a year-and-a-half ago when I bought the first of these (a couple were on another blog years ago), and while these have mostly been posted elsewhere in dribs and drabs over the last year, the article folder has been on the desktop for most of it, slowly being added to!

Where we 're up to now were up-to when this post had 12 images! Although there are more to find, a strange mix of wholly original sculpts of some ingenuity or imagination, and crude cut-n-shut copies of Britains Trojan warriors, from this lesser Spanish make, in the bazaar/rack-toy style.

This was the first one in the bag, he came with two other non-Credeco lots, and the seller (Miguel Angel) included a freebie (some Italian swoppet Wild West figures)! How could I not buy a War Elephant I'd never seen before!

Following up the seller's other lots while leaving feedback for the first three purchases lead to two more! One has a hole in it and I wondered if someone had cut the rider out, but I've seen another one others, which are the same (and now have a second, see below), with a rider in a different colour, so they may seem to have had single-moulding and two-part lines?

Equally, I'm not sure if this was factory paint or home paint, but I wasn't convinced as to the latter, so deciding on the former, shot the hell out of it (in case) before sending it to the bleach vats for an overnight snooze. Either way it's not good painting.

Overnight snooze in the bleach vat!

Gives me a unit of 35mm Carthaginians! They're not terribly realistic, obviously, but no worse that certain Cherilea output I could mention - and often have! They are, after all, proper 'toy' soldiers first, and I imagine if not actual sobres, as least kiosko! The red soldier may be missing a spear-tip, standard or sun-shade of some kind? Also they fit quite well with the Rojas e Malaret board-game war elephant.

By now I was on a roll, or a quest, found the mounted ones I'd remembered elsewhere, and managed to grab these two with the blue one in the final image, obviously taken from Britains Trojans, one is just near copy ('Ulysses', right) with a head swap, but the other ('Ajax') has had his broadsword replaced with a rather crude spear.

The Ulysses knock-off has a hole in his shield which seems deliberate, but has no apparent function and may be something like a broken mould release-pin that somehow got stuck or fired into the figure?

'Paris', Troy! The archer gets the biggest makeover, losing his bow, arrow and quiver in favour of a sword and dagger, which rather leaves him looking like an over acting character hamming-it-up in a pantomime!

The final purchase (for now then) was these three, it was the Roman on a camel I'd remembered (or found in the archive folder for Creadeco, which is the same thing; that's the whole point of the archive!), 'Hector' loses his javelin in favour of an axe, and a wood-axe at that! He also gets a head swap, while 'Achillies' now has Hector's head and a move of his sword-arm, both have been given new hoplon shields.

The mounted figure is the best (and I love the elephants), and why not, the Roman empire had a vast desert boarder in North Africa/the Middle East, camels are recorded as coming west with Darius and/or Xerxes, so whether Roman or Greek (Carthaginian or Trojan) why not have him on a camel, especially as his protagonist is an Arab! He's half Britains 'Agamemnon', and half the Marx cut-and-shut with came out of Hong Kong courtesy of Giant and others!

Yeah, I seem to have taken and awful lot of shots of them for some reason! Checking the old Trojan post here I wonder if these aren't actually copies of the 'believed to be' French bazzaar rack-toys, some of which are in that post?

The above has been ready for publication for some weeks (some months for the early drafts), but I took delivery of what will be it for a while, the other day so we plow-on, although no 'family photo' as the rest seem to have gone to storage!

This is another of the elephants with the hole, and you can see how a little diminutive figure is just stuffed in the hole like a cheap Hong Kong turret crewman! I think the silver on this is factory-paint, and having stripped the other, will probably leave this one as it is?

A couple of close-up's really taken to help me see if he was 'meant' and yes, that's all tool-machined marks round the feet, not a figure taken from a base. The trouble is, with my eyesight these days he could be mistaken for a damaged figure, and while it wouldn't stop me keeping him as a sample/example if I found him, I bet a lot of loose ones have been chucked-out as being [or; appearing to be] both damaged and odd-scale.

The horse is a ringer, taken off of a wagon team, so I still need another camel, but the figure is lovely! Tumanbay eat your heart out, my General Qulan rides again!

A few recent sellers on Todocollection, I think the archer may be an Atlantic roman stuffed in the hole? Evidence, so far, seems to point to four slightly different elephants, being two pairs of similar variations of the same sculpts, the one providing two with separate crew (head-spike and no head-spike), the other two with integral crew (sword & shield and sword & spear/parasol/standard?), and all possibly being variations of an original master, with leg and trunk changes?

Finally, not Creadeco - this guy was bought with the two red ones, as I figured he might go with them, but he's a lot taller and was obviously a copy of something else - he looked familiar? He was neither the Elastolin or Reamsa pointing chaps (which I thought of first) the former's holding a scroll in the left hand, the latter is pointing the other way!

In the end he turned-out to be a copy of the Jecsan Centurion! He also looks slightly effete, like he can hardly be bothered to point anywhere with any seriousness! "You! Soldiers! Err . . . go over there and do . . . something useful, but don't trouble me again"

Creadeco Punic Wars - box nicely ticked I think!