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!

A comme les Anciens

More eye candy, and all French, all ancient'ish, and all pretty old . . . boom-boom!

 

I've picked up a couple more of the Clairet Greco-Romans, one a cleaner version of my first, the other of my second, so no new poses, but - previously - two green tunics and now, two blue, which will mean a nice Peloponnesian War vignette one day! Note the second figure has his original weapon, and it's more Viking farmer than anything Greek or Roman!

 

The separate shield and forearm was barely glued or glued with a non-solvent type? I seem to recall re-glueing my other one two, the join is to obtain dynamism without complicated undercuts, or the odd lumps you find on some figures.

 

A pair from Cyrnos, both in need of better swords, but otherwise pretty clean!

 

One the left a rarer, non-Elastolin Viking type moulding (they fought a set of Normans) from Ougen, fending off a poorly home-painted gladiator from Café Storm, and I think he's supposed to be a Samnite, like a Murmillo, but with a smaller shield?

 

Base mark of the Ougen figure, with the letters of the brand revealed in a tower's castellations which I think is pretty neat!

 

Historia Saracens, two versions of the same moulding, with different heads and plug--in weapons, a cursory search on Google revealed the same figure with the head on the right and an even more ridiculous 'Ali-baba' sword, from the pantomime's prop's department!

 

Issued by a magazine of the same name, not with it (as premiums), but, rather as a separate product line, in little boxes, like Starlux's Luxe range, so maybe aimed at Museums and gift shops?

 

Base marking.

 

This three-piece, 50mm guy,, I'm not so sure about, he might be an early Beffoid, or something else entirely, a minor make; it might not even be French! Obviously from well within the arctic circle, but with a bird of pray, more Siberian peninsular than North America?

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. 

D is for Donation - Peter - Historicals and Ceremonials

Always the sub-heading full of interesting things, the three lots here having the emphasis on ancient and medieval figures, the middle lot, of three tranches, have poor colour I'm afraid, I'm struggling with the setting on this strangely expensive (compared to the previous half dozen) camera!

 

An interesting bunch of contemporary medievals, in that Russo-Livonian style, of slightly oriental armour, and copies of other figures on the market, we're looking at them below, so just enjoy the rich colours of these pocket-money rack-toys!

 

Three very clean examples of the vintage 'Romanised' piracies of Crescent's knights in polystyrene, odd, as Crescent also did their own Romans, who were copied - in polyethylene - by another Hong Kong jobber! I've not given it much thought, but the anachronisms would help, if they were repainted as fantasy figures for 54mm role-play gaming!

 

Knackered flat, Hilco-Phoenix Conquistador, Worlds Apart Egyptian from their Horrible Histories experiment, and a home-coloured (felt tip marker-pen, I think!) Crescent Arab, all toy soldiers, all very different styles/treatments!

 

A couple of Pirate types, the one on the left clearly channelling The Pirates of the Caribbean, and specifically the anthropomorphic crew of Davy Jones ship, he's one of the 'other' pair available with a still extant pirate ship, we saw a pair a few years ago, when I got one of the ships, but some ships (presumably half of them!?) come with another pair, and he's one of them, hopefully the other will turn-up in one of these mixed lots one day - I'm not buying another ship! The other figure, in a nutcracker/toybox style, of semi-Napoleonic, will be from a similar ship, but aimed more at infants/younger kids.

 

Copies of Supreme/Strawberry Group/Tiger Hobbies medievals, we looked at them all in a mini-season on Supreme and associated knights a few years ago (2022's Rack Toy Month), and they are what they are, probably coming via Toy Major.

 

Nice group of the 40mm Landsknechts from Elastolin, not sure how 'original' they are, there are signs of home paint, and some of the same 'kit' parts, we saw with the ACW a couple of days ago, but equally some of it is factory-finish, so some home 'enhancement' going on, a bit of mix and match?

 

An eclectic trio here, with a Crescent for Kellogg's tromboneist, a Christmas tree hanger of a nutcracker, who is small enough to remain in the collection, it's funny I had avoided them, but after the giant ones were hidden in plain sight round Fleet, as part of a local business drive a fair few years ago, the Blogging of which resulted in a few posts on the subject and submissions from New York's Brian B, I started to take the odd small one home with me, and while they are in the pile, rather than the tree decorations, I should probably transfer them from the one to the other, but not before we've collected them all up and done a comparison post!

 

A 60mm Cherilea is the third figure, missing a weapon, his shield will make a useful spare, for my larger sample of these quirky figures, who are an odd favourite of mine, I think it's the charm of their toy-like execution.

 

Resin tourist keepsake, plays Harryhausen's Talos, to a bunch of post-Giant finds and a Quaker mounted gladiator! All very much grist-to-the-mill, and the damaged gold figure is interesting for being an apparent mould-purge between the gold and a dark green.

 

Also, probably Toy Major in origin/supply, and also contemporary (on eBay, Amazon and Alibaba), these are the better quality figures, pirated by those in the first shot, and while 'only' rack-toys, if you don't have good samples of them all in a tub somewhere, you've a missing brick in the wall!

 

Atlantic's nominally HO (closer to OO's 1:72nd scale) Romans, with the Infantry (and marines!) on the runners, and a loose sample of the cavalry, which the Romans rarely employed, and when they did, they didn't look anything like these! Very useful as I purchased a number of empty boxes from the estate of a late friend a while ago, and will be able to marry these up!

 

Thanks again to Peter for several useful loads, of our small plastic friends!

I is for It's That Horse Again!

The best thing in the recent pick-up from Peter Evans is this Hong Kong Roman chariot, it's the third iteration, I think, on the Thomas/Poplar theme, but it has very different horses!

 

And they are puke-green! Arranged in the Western Wagon configuration, the figure is the only real connection with the others, seen here previously, although the other HK copy uses the same horses, but the artwork and shape of this chariot is very different.

 

Is it based on one of the earlier lead ones, both the British and the French have some nice slush-cast chariots in the archive? One of the draw-bar connectors is broken, but I think I may have a set of these horses in the unknown horses tub!
 

P is for Perfect Plastic!

I don't, as a rule, 'rate' Timpo, Britains, Airfix, Marx, MPC, Starlux or Elastolin, nor the tranche of smaller companies immediately at their heels, simply because they were huge, popular and ran for a while, churning out millions of figures, from, often, ever-changing line-ups.

 

This is not to say I don't enjoy them, or appreciate them, just that it's box-ticking stuff which is all over the internet, in all the books, and the first things to be waded-through on Blogs or forums! Tables often groan under the weight of them at shows!

 

But, I do have a soft spot for the smaller-scale output of Elastolin, Merten and Starlux, so it's always nice to add a few to the master 'samples', and I bought this little lot at Sandown Park the other week, all Elastolin, and all 'clean', with no damage, little or no play-wear, and the correct weapons.

 

Romans

 

Huns versus Rus!

 

 Normans / Anglo-Saxons

 

Medieval

The sculpting of the plastics was a high-point of toy soldier production, although the price of Elastolin was always at a point where the use of the word 'toy' was a moot point! I do have a reasonable sample, indeed, a Journalist, sent to my home many years ago, went through it, and talked me out of one of the better Normans! But they are regularly added to, and one day they'll probably be used to illustrate the A-Z blog-entry, when I get round to it?

N is for Not Serious!

A few more toy or figure related funnies, and a couple of cats!

 

I believe this is genuine? But not necessarily a retail thing?

 

Ours were old, fat, bald and tattooed, with their brassy tarts holding the ladders!

 

Sigh!

 

Heehee!

 

Rubber jigglers!

 

Let's make death fun! And phallic!

AI from a couple of years ago - it was poor!

Check-out the white lines, crushed cars and dwarf in a pram! 

 

Real, but I don't know which model village?