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!

F is for Follow-up - Britains Trojans . . . again!

I Found this after the follow-up, but it's not a follow-up to the follow-up, but rather 'just' a follow-up - if that makes sense, which it won't to Mr. Erwin Sell; he's too stupid to comprehend the literary concepts of narrative-thought, stream of consciousness or thinking out loud and consequently thinks I'm mad!

To be honest I'd rather be mad than that stupid, still - at his age - it's his choice to remain so. My writing is obviously too . . . err . . . 'clever' for him, but he insists on reading it and jumping to medical conclusions or psychological diagnosis . . . sort of making it up as he goes along, again? What do you think Hugh? I think he's probably the mad one. Are you sure? Yes, he's twice as mad as I'll ever be, can we get back to the post now? Do we have to? Yes, I'm afraid we do! Oh . . . OK then.

I knew I should have at least one copy of Hector (the Trojan!), is anyone else listening to the new version of the Iliad on R4? Achilles wasn't very nice to Hector tonight . . . not very nice at all! In fact; I would go so far as to say he rather ruined Hector's day.

A sub-piracy from that unmarked set which may be French or Italian bazaar (rack toy) figures rather than HK, but may be sourced in Hong Kong anyway, and a rather insipid pink polyethylene, he had been missed when I rounded the others up for the main post the other day.

F is for Follow-up - Greco-Trojan Warriors

Following-up on the recent Trojan Warriors post Brian sent me a few images of his very 'clean' group and something a little more interesting, a Hinton Hunt metal Greek hoplite with the proper 'Bell' cuirass from 1972.

Here he is, he's in the queue for a re-paint and Brian reminisces;

I used to shop at the Hinton Hunt store on Camden Passage, late 60's early 70's. A wonderful eccentric place depending on whether the husband or wife was manning it.

From the stock I would say production over several days or a week was one range only. This meant that if you arrived just after new stock there would be a range of hundreds of one subject. I remember this one figure had dozens of variations of just the arms and weapons. I must have put this one aside when I ran out of metallic paint.

To which I would add that Rose Miniatures had some lovely Greeks too, around the same time, of which I have some small scale versions somewhere.

Posed with Brian's Britains; you can see he fits right in and scaled to within a gnats-crochet of his plastic brethren, although with a thinner base he's probably the equivalent of 55mm! It would appear that Herald's Trojan Warriors haven't taken kindly to his presence though?

Thanks Brian!

T is for Trojans . . . except most of them are Greek to me!

I don't know if this is a follow-up, further stuff or big box-tick, but I've put the two lots of Britains 'Trojans' together and here they are in all their glory, well, the original Herald issue are pretty glorious, the rest are borderline OK, but they have a timeless toy-charm and we all had some when we were young . . . didn't we?

Agamemnon, hero of the Greeks, became 'Trojan General' and for some reason he's got a Roman standard and is carrying a polished hoplon shield . . . on a horse! Much copied in several scales, he was the duff one really as he wasn't armed with anything useful in mortal combat! Oldest at the top, newest at the bottom, there aren't as many versions with this figure as it's all in the bases, and being baseless, he's harder to sub-divide!

From the rear with a Hong Kong copy on the far right end of the row. The close-up shows how the HK mark is similar to the Britains Reg.Des mark! And the horse marks; I couldn't get the top one to come clear, but the Herald is obvious and the top one's a very glossy polyethylene, odd when the rest of the HK-production was PVC?

Paris, cause of the whole Iliad thing wot 'appened! AND . . . the only Trojan in a set catalogued as Trojan Warriors, but that anomaly will explain why the names were never used commercially.

The earliest is top left, the final incarnation with the separate base is to the bottom right, and above them the earlier HK production, and the 'austerity paint' herald is the broken one; lower-left.

Hector, another Greek Trojan! We won't see another!

Of all the figures, this is the one where there's no real difference in quality with paint versions. While the early Herald figure (top left) has a red hem and the brown shield straps of all 1st versions, the later ones - including the 'austerity' paint, have their bell-cuirass straps painted and leather-shoulder pads/epaulettes painted in, so it's swings and roundabouts with Hector.

Note also that the HK sculpting was cleaned up and late versions (bottom right and right centre) are smoother than the earlier Hong Kong moulding (bottom left). Hot water can solve the bent-spear shaft 'syndrome', but not too hot or it'll shrivel-up like a sun-dried worm!

Three copies, the first two marked Hong Kong and based on the Herald original as far as painting goes the last could be a French or Italian 'bazaar' rack toy, he's unmarked, a sub-piracy and they seem to turn-up over there (Europe) quite often.

Of the two definitely HK ones, the first is a by-hand copy, the other is a more typical [of HK] pantograph clone.

Ajax, main man, another Greek and my favourite sculpt from the set, he more than any of the others conjures-up those Greek warriors standing around the sides of vases and amphora. The first version Herald figure got the colour again! The first of the two separate-based HK figures looks quite sickly, and more like a copy than something Britains put their name to!

The guy bottom-left is the final clearance version with a large, ovoid, separate-base; this base was used with various figures as Britains slid into retirement! There are two versions, this apple-green one numbered 519, and a darker plastic numbered 518, I have no idea why!

One copy and the chap I painted to represent a statue years ago, when as a small scale collector I was clearly looking for an excuse to have one of my childhood 54mm favourites in the stash!

Another heroic name ringing-down the years, almost immortal, half-god, Myrmidon, lover of Patroclus, killer of Hector, Granddad's command, sister-ship to Ajax and err . . . renamed Delhi! When we were kids this and the next figure (below) were the best ones for fighting as they squared-up against each-other really well; being almost, sort-of, not really - mirror-images, but both right-handed.

I seem to have photographed them all with the feet of the top rows obscured, it should be noted that the constant difference with the Herald originals is that they all had their sandal-straps painted-in.

Two copies, Hong Kong on the right and a bright red 'debateable' on the left, again the Hong Kong one is following the Herald version one paint-scheme.

Note the two very different HK integral-bases, one matching the UK issues (middle), the other much bigger all round (purplish-pink, second from left) and probably later.

Oh yes! Ulysses - stroppy poppet - sulking for weeks with his Myrmidons , then, when Troy's burnt to the ground, the Trojans put to the sword and everyone else has pushed-off, he only goes and gets himself a second series; about his trip home - having feigned madness to not have to go in the first place!

Only the one copy and I'm running out of blurb-fodder?!! Plastic's an odd shade and he's following the 1st version colour-scheme again.

He WAS sold as a Roman, so the fact that he looks like a Roman is to be excused. Romans were planned, but only the chariot came out in the mid-1970's for a couple of years. Strangely it's quite common at shows, both boxed and loose, and I can only suppose this was due to poor sales leading to a lot of surviving shop-stock, filtering into collectors hands in later years? Finally they shifted the remaining figures as based foot-figures . . . driving slaves?

As they were sold, this is a late era catalogue image, and to recap on the names they nearly got;

Agamemnon - Mounted - Greek

Paris - Bowman - Trojan

Hector - Spearman - Trojan

Ajax - Standing - Greek

Achilles - Fighting, no cloak - Greek

Ulysses - Fighting, cloak - Greek

A Nobody - Charioteer/Slave Master - Roman

See! They both go so well together!

Now . . . THESE. ARE. NOT. RARE. It has to be said that the Herald 1st version and later 'austerity paint' issue are tending to brittleness now, but any day on feeBay you'll find all the 'Trojans' you want, just don't pay the 80-odd quid 'buy-it-now' someone was asking-for, for a set of six the other day!

The previous post I did on the Hong Kong production versions were from one lot someone (Micheal Melnyc? Thanks anyway!) sent me a while ago, and was one of each from a larger lot, while the mostly Herald stuff in storage was from the big-purchase in 2010. The HK-odds have been show purchases, and are probably the slightly harder to track down, especially in numbers and a couple have come from Charity shops.

Looking at the goldy-bronze highlights on the Hong Kong chap's shield reminded me; there was a very odd set went through Vectis Auctions a while ago, the original Herald set in a hollow-cast type gift/chocolate/tray-box, all the figures apparently 'mint' but all armour, helmets and shields painted dark bronze, it didn't look right . . . ? Although; Bronze WAS what they were using in their pre-historical 'age of mythology'!

I have a few 'total' duplicates and when I have all six (or all five foot figures) I may try painting them-up? And you can see from the pictures I don't have every version of each figure, so there's a few still to find!