A is for Ancient Archaic Antagonists of Antiquity!

Into the final furlong as far as the 2026 Plastic Warrior Toy Soldier Show plunder and loot is concerned, and I've split this lot into ancient and medieval posts, with the older soldiers first!

 

So, we'll go back 3000-odd years, to the siege of Troy, a probably real event, heavily fictionalised, the facts lost to national and region mythology, and the demented whitterings of priests, or bards, or priest's bards, no doubt, and thanks to Matt at Hobby Bunker, who brought these over.

 

I'd actually bought three other sets from him, either at last years show, or at the London Show in December (?), either way, I forgot to shoot them, and knowing these two were still to be found, never got around to it, but in all there are five sets of 'Troy' era figures, these two, and the sets:

• LOD 015 - The Amazons
• Figure Set #1 - The War at Troy - Commemorative Set, Ten Years of LOD
• Figure Set #19 - Amazons, Aeneas and Ajax

And the aim now is to open them all, and have a decent photo-shoot of all the pre-classical Greek sets from LOD, my first by them, and probably my last, just because I'm not doing the post 1990 stuff in the larger scales, there is tons of it, other people are collecting it, other sources are annotating it, and I haven't got the room, or budget for it, with so much vintage still to be found, but I do like ancient Greeks!

 

Similar point of discussion with these Supreme sets, I buy them as box-tickers when I see them cheap, we've done the Knights - of all types - to death, here at Small Scale World, and looked at the Romans, Crusaders, and was it the Vikings? I think we've seen three of these now, and while I haven't tracked down the Arabs/Saracens, one of their camels is in the Egyptian set above, and these both have one each of the two common horse poses.

 

Interestingly, the Greek looking commander figure and archer sculpts, usually smaller, from some of the medieval sets, aren't actually included in the pose-count for the Alexander set! But with their segmented-armour, knee-pads they'd look a bit silly, or even sillier than normal!

 

Unknown, probably still on Amazon if I look hard enough, and marked 'CHINA', I'm not sure if they are supposed to be cavemen, predating Troy by about 500,000-years (give or take a few 100,000), or 19th-20th century Zulu warriors, but they are fun, and were in one of the donations I think, so basically free, to share with you and tick the box! AND . . . they're not that bad, as sculpts, but the axe is a bit OTT, and the lady isn't going to be doing much damage with that hand-trident!

 

Two lovely sculpts, both purchases, the Athena is probably not that rare, being a tourist souvenir, but he joins a foot one we saw years ago, while the Nardi is quite a bit less common, and you can tell I really like them - multiple shots; gotta' do them justice!

 

Despite being late to the larger scales, as far as collecting goes, there aren't many massive holes or gaps in the UK collection, but this is one, and while I have the Cleopatra somewhere I think, on her chaise-longue/daybed thing, and, you may remember, I picked-up the Sphinx a year or so ago, I don't have many of this double set, half tan-plastic Egyptians, half brown Nubian slaves/captives.

 

And, yes, I know the Nubians were in charge under the Kushite kings, but Cherilea decided to sculpt them in chains, holding fans or cowering! Also, I've really got to get the cheetah and handler. But in the meantime these are a useful addition to a couple of play-worns, and maybe some reissues? I'd forgotten how colourful the series is, too!

 

Roman Gladiators as issued by Quaker Sugar Puffs and Tom Smith Christmas crackers.

 

Lucky Clover and other non-Giant Romano-Greek stuff.

 

Non-Giant Vikings.

 

The small scale stuff, as sorted mostly from Trevor's bag, and the similar early-purchase bag of hollow Hong Kong horse stuff, The Quaker have been done here, the Vikings, gold 'Trojans' and black forts have been covered on the But is it Giant Blog, the rest are pending, but some are covered on the HK Romans page above.!

 

Thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin again, there's a fair bit of their stuff above. 

M is for May's Visit - Historical Bits

We reach the penultimate post in this series, but there's still July and September's lots to go through, so there will be plenty more of these mixed posts, which do seem to get the traffic, even if it fell off a cliff on the 1st October, and probably ain't coming back, something called the 'The &num=100 Parameter Change', which, as I've never chased traffic, doesn't concern me, I post stuff even AI isn't interested in!

 

Two 70mm's from Papo, both women who lived and died [young] in a man's world run by men who didn't like 'uppity' (that's 'successful') women! Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), and Cleopatra, and I can imagine her, wandering about her palaces, with a cat in her arms, a mini-God for a God-Queen!

 

Nice pose sample of Spencer Smith Miniatures 30mm Wellingtonians, with a colour/mould-purge gun-carriage. It's funny, but when you encounter a sample like this, you know he saved-up his pocket-money, and bought a few of each, just to see what they were like! We all did it!

 

Lido on the left, Hong Kong on the right. The Hong Kong goes with those copies of European wagons and coaches, while the Lido are usually found bi-coloured, but with a clean and dirty yellow, I suspect these halves were unioned years after they left the factory!

 

At last! Loyal Readers who've been with the Blog for a while may remember several posts on these a few years ago, as both Chris Smith and me, kept finding another, then another, then another pose, and it ended-up with Chris having one more pose, the tied explorer above!

 

Which raises the question of the nature of the - as yet - unfound set, one of the Great White Hunter's is free to wander about with a gun, the other is tied up? Shades of H. Rider Haggard or Burroughs about the whole thing! And he looks like a 'Bad Guy'!

 

Papo 40mm pirate and the painted version of the lady we saw, bagged, as a generic, in Rack Toy Month, and whom we had seen before, unpainted in the Webbs' sets, it took me a while to work out she hadn't got her hands tied behind her back too, but is hiding a pistol, to either defend her honour from a pirate, or slot a Revenue Man, if she is a pirate!

 

Three 15mm war games figures, may be one for Gisby? They look to be a command group, with officer, standard barer and bugler, all mounted, for the English Civil War? Thanks again to Peter Evans for all these.

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Ancient & Medieval

So, the 'Ancient and Medieval' vein was both rich and numerous, although I've got them down to ten images and a close up. Probably my favourite section, after space, and maybe ceremonial, although you find a lot of interesting Wild West stuff, and new civilians are always turning-up to amaze, farm, zoo, jungle . . . Pirates, pirates are my favourite, or they bloody-well should be? Anyway, we've got the opening paragraph; Let's play show repooooort!

 

Small-scale; Another bag of our Auther and his mounted Roman Gladiator Knights! To be compared with the other bags, as I think there was a hint at one point, the content's supplier changed, or the horses got diluted with a second type or something, none of it's actually Giant, but the story still needs to be accurate!

 

A few of the other Hong Kong knock-offs, Quaker and Elastolin Romans, and a Britians Trojan War figure, along with a broken Airfix and the ex-Montaplex runner of BuM Slot's Vikings. The mast and furled sails on their cross-spar have to be made from the central tree-runner!

 

Someone came and asked me about it, and I told him what I knew, then I either bought it off him later, when I found I still had cash in my pocket, or he just gave it to me, toward the end of the show? But he's not in the credit list? One of the Liverpool or Birmingham 'gangs'?

 

Hot on the heels of the three we saw the other day, both blog wise and literally, as the show was a couple of weeks after I acquired the others, came a fourth Marx 6" Egyptian pose, on the right here, and a broken duplicate, on the left. The good one needs a bit of a clean to match the others, while I intend to give the broken one a Kopesh curved sickle-axe-sword, and I'll use quite thick Plasticard, to match the chunkiness of the originals.

 

Between them, a Gashapon Samurai (not well shot!) and one of the Lik Be/LB cavemen. 

 

Hong Kong Timpo piracy on the left, also carried by Ideal in a fort set I think? Cherilea in the middle, and another Hong Kong (Britains 'War of the Roses' swoppet-copy) on the right. All good stuff!

 

These are very interesting, copies of the Lone Star/Hubley/Kresge 'Metalions' (it's increasingly unclear just what the history of those die-casts is/was), I think someone did give me some info' on them at the show, but so much goes-on, on the day, I'll be damned before I can remember what they said! In the style of some French reissue/Bazaar stuff and may be by Norev?

 

Did I say fourteen Richard I's the other day? Make that fifteen! And Bonux here, have simplified the folds of the cloak to such an extent it's getting back, closer to the Lone Star original, and further from the Jem/Norev it was copied from, for these washing-powder premiums!

 

Dom Landsknecht, Lone Star medieval and three Cherilea's, two of the early 'swoppets' and a solid in a nice greeny-yellow plastic. There is a forthcoming post on the swoppets, as you may remember I got four at the previous year's show, and have since obtained more besides.

 

More modern stuff, the old Marx/Tudor Rose knights, and the Romano-Greek motorcycle-raider 'knights' currently still findable on Amazon and similar platforms, all grist to the mill; colour variations etc . . . 

 

A bunch of Starlux, I think I picked a few of each a few years ago, from the same seller, but they went on clearance near the end of the show, so I just bought them all, doing him a favour, really, you understand, I didn't need them, they don't even look good en masse!

 

Bloody-lovely, that's what they is! And the unpainted one is a Starlux moulding, but perhaps issued as a premium, by a third party? We saw the white, polyethylene ones from Spain years ago.

 

Me box-ticking, or bag-ticking (playing catch-up) on Replicants!

 

Biblical figures are a difficult one, they can go with the civilians, or get their own section (which they often do at Christmas!), but as they are ancient, they might as well go here, two Marx nativity animals, home-painted (?), a French Santon, looking a bit like Mary, mother of the bloke standing next to her! He is also Marx, and was called Jey'sus'ah!

 

Again, many thanks to - Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, including the BuM Vikings (?), and which I have forgotten to add.

E is for Egyptian Eye-candy!

Having recently taken the 6" Marx Romans to a six-count (once I mend one and 'restore' the other), I have recently done well with the equally wonderful 6" Egyptians, with these three, below, and a couple more still to come, in the PW show-reports.

Colourful versions of the unpainted soft-plastic ones we looked at on the Blog, years ago (try the Ancient Egypt Tag), they are a fine sight, and I happen to know these have been on a window-sill for decades, without noticeable fading or any apparent move to further brittleness, beyond that expected of quite robust 'styrene mouldings!

F is for Faraones y Dioses

Pharaohs and Gods . . . just'a quickie, these are copies of the Safari set we've seen a couple of times now one way or another, and while I bought them bagged 'NOS', it was obvious the set had seen better days and several sets of staples had visited the header-card, so; as it's both 'modern production' and the Mexican equivalent of a China rack-toy, I felt no compunction in getting them out for a box-tick!

The front and back of the header-card; a high point of the clip-artist's Photoshop efforts and no mistake! We have a colony of pyramids, some movie undead characters who definitely aren't in the bag and a loose camel, just I case we haven't worked out where the set's set! Manufactured by Magic Toys and distributed by SHS Toys, we've got two new tags out of it!

They actually have a charm which leaves them with an apparent age they just have't earned, being crudely painted/washed over a softish silver PVC-vinyl (a couple are a cream or black substrate) rubber type material, very flashy, and somewhat worn (whether in the bag, or due to the several removals from the bag in the past I will ever know), they look like they might be from the 1950's and gum-ball machine prizes at that!

I can't compare them, as I have the other sets as they appeared over the last two years (Safari donors, two K&M/Wild Republic sets and the recent Hing Fat set from Peter Evans), due to the current storage situation/excuse! So we'll return to all-five one day for a full comparison of them together. Oh, and there are no actual Pharaohs in the set, just a wrapped-up dead one! For all their pirated daftness I quite like them!

A is for And so to London - Stopover

After we'd visited The Toy Project (previous post), we popped back to Peter's on the way to somewhere else, and I shot a few bits on Peter's 'bench' while he threw a small bag of goodies at me!

Following on from the mini-season of Supreme overview-posts in Rack Toy Month, here are a couple more, the rider is possibly from a Simba-specific set, but no doubting the horse or that rich, 'bright' gold as being Supreme's, while the foot figure (here oversized by dint of the collage process) is from the harder to find fantasy set, in the same style as the commoner pirates and skeletons (and believed roadworkers).

A semi-permanent feature of Peter's worktop was this rather fine Egyptian palace/temple frontage, with a mixture of Worlds Apart (Horrible Histories), K&M and what look to be Hachette and might be other resin partwork-type figures, Gods and artifacts.

Hong Kong originating mash-up of Britains/Timpo/Lone Star 'swoppet' style knight, I have some somewhere and meant to blog them but never got round to shooting them before they went to storage, I think we saw them in a larger image of stuff which came-in on the same day? I think the pair are ELC, or similar (Wilkinsons/Wilco have had a nice range on-and-off over the last ten or so years).

Peter also threw this lot at me; I particularly like the solid He-Man knock-off, while the footballer looks like a certain blubbing Geordie whose star shone bright, but not for long? Rabbits are from some 'in my pocket' line I think, or a kids comic/periodical, several titles have this kind of stuff on the cover regularly.

Star Toys Action Jack, next to a wrestler stamper, Kinder 'poppet' figure and some rack-toy wrestlers with a few useful PVC animals, which I'll hopefully make sense of in a single post or page one day, the blue fairies/Princesses are in close-up below.

In the style of or in-between the Blue Box fantasy set of a couple of years ago and that pink/purple set from Poundland or 99p Stores about eight years ago, I'm guessing some kind of rack-toy or cheapie-tub/toob, and it's always nice to get stuff like this which isn't the same-old Disney characters! Many thanks to Peter for this little lot!

F is for Follow-up - Hing Fat Egyptian Relics

I said - when I showed the Hing Fat bits Peter Evans sent to the blog - that I'd do a comparison with the similar sets from Safari and K&M/Wild Republic at some point in the future, well, by chance I had to wizz the relevant 'Ancients' box back to the house for a couple of hours on Tuesday, so this is that - brief - comparison!

The main elements, Hing Fat's on the left, both Safari sets in the middle and the K&M stuff off to the right with a Pharaoh's head variation I'd forgotten, All three sets are clearly aimed at both museum/heritage gift shops and middle-school project work more than actual playthings, but they are fun - and all the Mummies are figurals!

The semi realistic Safari Bastet statue sculpt, flanked by two slightly dog-like offerings from Hing Fat, the Hing Fat all come in a gold finish and a salmon-pink which is probably trying to be/represent a bare stone-effect?

Typically, the Atlantic 'styrene one is well-lost in the storage unit, so we'll have to do this line-up again, but we have three resin's, one with a rams head, all showing/sculpted as- a presumed 'how they were',  then the Safari and K&M both showing it as how it is now, with broken nose and severely damaged/eroded lower region and finally a rather stylised one from Hing Fat with a chubby sit-up-and-beg countenance, again more fanciful of what was rather than what it.

While the Safari/K&M stuff is PVC, Hing Fat's are a dense polyethylene or polypropylene, and many thanks to Peter for the Hing Fat sample.

D is for Design Eye - Ultimate Explorers 'Ancient Egypt'

Sad that the series only ran to the two sets, but then the recent Klutz sets with figures only managed four titles, while the ones a contributor found in Europe for PW magazine was only two as well, I think, but between the three similar lines you get a clue as to what a larger run might include - Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gladiators, Medieval, Pirates, Space, Circus, Farm & Zoo . . . I guess a Phidal Disney for 5.99 is easier - more figures less craft faffing!

Because similar things lend themselves to similar photogenicity (if that's a word, and if it isn't; it should be!), so this post is almost the same as the last one, just with different images, which might make the blurb sparser?

Cover and contents here, similar mix, but paints and an ink-stamper up the ante on craft in the absence of a catapult! The 30 (3x10) HO figures of the medieval set are replaced by only 12 (3x4) in this set, but there's less play-value in civilians I suppose! The booklet doesn't seem to have a byline/given author this time and another board-game is printed on the back of another fold-down . . .

. . . of an imperial or religious monument, this being a conglomeration of the Great Temple of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel (famously moved under UNESCO funding, several hundred meters, in my childhood to save them from being flooded by Lake Nasser after the building of the High Aswan Dam), married with a pair of obelisks and Karnak's restored Khonsu Temple walls as a backdrop.

They are rendered as they would have been at the time, so colourful and no missing heads! there's also a couple of Sphinxes and a pop-up religious procession, again it's all sized to use the small figure included in the set.

Card game playing pieces lye behind a two-sided painting guide for both sizes of figure, but the guide is clearly using larger-sized models of the three diminutive sculpts, it would take a master-painter indeed to get that level of detail onto the actual figures, also they look more Egyptian here!

The two finished 'wealthy Egyptians' actually looking more Babylonian or Biblical! I only have these in the hard polypropylene type plastic, I don't know if a soft PVC'ish issue ever occurred? The one thing I failed to record when doing these shots, was the other issuer (there's two versions [earlier publisher?] of one back-cover) and it may be that there's a link between issue and plastic type? I can add anything relevant to the A-Z post at a later date?

Upper shot is a reverse-order of the previous post's, the lower shot is the same image as last time - I forgot to take two slightly different ones! The Crescent 'berserker' was found to be only 50mm to his helmet top, so the king is approximately 54mm to his eye-line which is how some measure them anyway, you could call them 60mm at a pinch, it's all subjective and the Horus figure in this set has  a very deep base - he slips on to one of the card press-outs if I recall correctly.

Those press-outs include a number of Pyramids (about 10?) in various (7 or 8?) sizes, a gold-plated funereal-barge and attendant tender!

I also found an image which belongs on the previous post so I'll add it there later, while there are a couple of scans which will go on the A-Z entry, and which I'll try to get done later tonight.

P is for Previously Seen on the Internet . . . II - Ancients and Medievals

Continuing with my cheap Lazy Posts, and a quick look at a few figures depicting warriors of the earlier eras.

Starting in pre-Ptolemaic anciet Egypt, Tatra - the brown one is dark bronze and marked 'Made In England' as is the silver one below him, the rest only have the 'EGYPTIAN' name-plate mark on the chamfered edge.

Coming forwards 3000-odd years nearer the present-day and we find the Vikings! Sorting to move to storage temporarily (I hope!) I grabbed one of each for a comparison; they go better together for being a barbarian horde!

Another 4/500-years finds us in the medieval period with Lone Star - odd plastic colours, from the left; metallic green plastic (and paint), a pinkish-taupe, a putty-grey, a dove-grey and a white plastic figure.

I've also been posting a few links of similar ilk/subject matter about the place, here are two on the ancient/medieval theme;

Faceplant -
https://www.facebook.com/worldbeautiesandwonders/photos/a.105095208262327/202175238554323/

My Modern Met -
https://mymodernmet.com/3d-print-sculptures-scan-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR06Es2t-HjS6KWMIvorj13Z9FjAis-x11q44T4kR8X_iIGAsijzxYBqg68