M is for Mohawk and More Military Miniatures

At the recent Sandown Park show I picked up a parcel from our roving reporter in New York, Brian Berke, which was very useful, as while I've mentioned them once or twice over the years, I've never encountered the sample while transferring things between different places, so they've remained rather absent from the Blog, but we can now tick that box - Mohawk's mini 'dimestore dreams'.

 

The one on the right is the colour of all my sample, so the pale herb-green ones, to the left, which made-up the bulk of Brian's donation were new to me, and this is a slightly larger version of the jeep we've seen before here more than once.

 

Brian also included a few marked-Lido mini's, so we can compare the two mouldings, as a full-stop to this original post, here, which compared the other three contenders for who's the pirate, who's the licensee, and who did the first version!

 

So that's six (Kleeware, Lido x2, Merit, Pyro and Mohawk) in total now, with the soft plastic Hong Kong version, Lido seem to have sanctioned themselves, toward the end!

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/08/l-is-for-lido-not-load-of-limp.html 

 

The lorry on the left, a sort of 1950's pantechnicon, is also a homage to other mini 'readymades' of the era (the Pyro 'artic'), and also scaled-up, while the Ambulance is a more original moulding. I know I have a tanker, to look at another day, but I think I was missing the pantechnicon, so lovely to get both colours.

 

The car is also based on another model, and while less obvious, joins the Empire-Ideal-Kleeware-Lido-Pyro (2 sculpts)-Wyandotte family of small post-war family saloons, for an eight-count! While Brian himself sent us the Carzol coloured versions of the Tank not that long ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/07/n-is-for-new-stuff-from-new-york.html

 

Lido on the left, Mohawk on the right and there's more on the cars here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2013/03/s-is-for-siblings-take-2.html

 

Among the Lido's was a lovely bronzed version of the 'StuG III' which was new to me, and while rather washed-out by camera-flash in this shot (left-hand tank), is - in daylight - a distinctive goldish-bronze colour plastic, like some of the Captain Video figures!

 

At the same show Adrian had a few dime-store's saved for me, both of which are useful, having seen marked tractors and or guns from Banner, Bell and Merit, I'm not sure who issued this unbranded pair (left, the tractor has a 'Made in England' which I'll compare to others in the collection at a later date), but in a batch of British stuff, Kleeware, Tudor Rose or Merit (licensed or copy) are in the frame, and with the wreaker-truck a marked Kleeware copy/mould-swap of the Pyro, the clever money goes on Kleeware?

 

As with the Jeeps and 'Staff Cars', we've looked at many versions of the gun here at Small Scale World, already, but getting two new versions in one show is a feather in the collection's cap, with the unmarked green one, and a full-sized Hong Kong copy, in silver polymer, with eye-damaging ammunition!

 

There were a couple of more conventional/less contentious British 'Dime Store' AFV's from Tudor Rose, not copied by five other people, or licensed to anyone, the rather good Churchill IV, and the more dodgy armoured car.

Many thanks to Brian and Adrian, it’s all a dimestoretastic show-plunder and donations post, folks!

N is for Not a Follow-up!

As a sort of [pretty tenuous] follow-up to the last post, and the mention of Crong, I'm posting something which was already in the queue, but isn't coming in the order I'd like it to, and doesn't tell all the story, but hopefully still of some use to some Loyal Readers!

 

Donated by a friend of the blog who prefers not to be named, but occasionally comes up with little treasures, Battle Knights by Feva UK, is one of the more recent iterations of a carpet 'wargame', commonly known as Crossbows and Catapults (Tomy, Base Toys, Action GT, Zatu, et al), but also having iterations as Weapons & Warriors (Pressman), and Battground (Moose), which has been around since the 1980's.

 

The originals have produced several generations of two figures, a small squat fantasy figure (Doomlords of Gulch) in a putty-coloured polymer, and a sort of Hollywood Viking/Barbarian type (the Impalers of the Clannic Shelf), in various shades of brown or ginger, which we have seen, in various mixed/plunder/donation posts over the years, but which I haven't posted-on, formally, yet as my main sample has always been in storage.

 

The Pressman version changed the dynamic slightly, with press-pads instead of loose walls, and other innovations have tried to make it more fun or keep it relevant to new generations of electronically-distracted kids, here it's spring-loading. Pressman also changed the figures, to medieval types (Castle Storm), along with a pirate version (Pirate Clash), both also seen here, in past mixed-lots/shots. 

 

This Feva version adds mounted figures, and they are the unknown figures from the Crong post (the tentative link being used here!), although this set has green bases. The foot figures are scale-downs of the Pressman set, and I now think they are all Games Workshop knock-offs?

 

 Other useful bits!

A couple of banner-flags (or pennants?) missing 

 

Could be useful, but would need work to hide the nature of the balls or discs all these sets fire at each other, the oversized culverin for instance has quite an Elastolin look to it . . . fill in the hole and give it an antiquing, with washes and dry-brushing?

These turn-up in every junk-lot on evilBay, the Supreme medieval knock-off's from several brands have versions of them, and there have been large bow-like ballistas and larger cannon, but they'd all need a lot of effort to get realistic-looking.

 

As a Brucey Bonus, these are the Moose Toys figures from the other more recent iteration, Battleground Crossbows & Catapults, and were also a donation, I think from Graham Apperley, but hidden in a PW plunder-post a few years ago.

 

Smaller at around 25mm (the Feva are 30'ish, the older sets closer to 35 (C&C) or 40mm (W&W)) and a soft PVC, against Crossbows' polyethylene/propylenes and Weapons' polystyrene. It's quite a franchise, with many US and foreign-language/foreign-market sets, and worth a proper study, which will appear here one day!

F is for Follow-up - Vehicular Plunder Post

A bitty post, but I'm trying to do a follow-up to each of Chris's donation posts, if only to clear some crud out of Picasa, but also to add to the previous, or illustrate a point made, with this one it's the landing-craft 'thing'!

 

Here it is, on a generic 'U.N. Army Set', and you can see what I meant about all the plug-in holes, there are at least six, but nothing plugged into them! I've never understood what the section of Bailey Bridge is for either, half unsuccessful WWI tank's steering mechanism / half bridge-support?

 

I think it's meant to be a depth-charge launcher, as there's a double row of blobs immediately in front of it? But for Old School war-gaming a'la the Terry Wise school of doing things, it could be used as one of the fire-support rocket launchers, from D-Day!

 

Further to the aircraft shot in that pervious post, the Stuka here is also ex-MPC 'Mini', but i don't think the other two are, however there's a chap on eBay at the moment selling a bucket-load of them in 20's, there are several more sculpts, another of which might be ex-MPC, the others like these two more chunky chaps! The Stuka is a fourth or fifth generation copy, with a large allied star added to the wing, as ahve the others!

 

And, another 'executive jet' pressed into service as a warplane, but the real interest here is the peculiar AA-gun, on a tripod mount, which isn't terribly clear in this shot, but the blue rendition on the card is an accurate likeness.

 

I've picked up several loose ones over the years, and was struggling to work out from none-too-clean samples, which small-scale (or other) figures they went with, but you can see here, there are no figures, just a dodgy pair of knock-off Action Man binoculars . . . You are the spotter AND the gunner!

E is for Everything Else - Odds & Sodds!

There were a few smaller pieces and loose figures picked up at the Last Sandown Part show, which was, in some respects, one of my best yet for purchaes, but in conversation, there's a feeling that while prices are down, this stuff is coming out of the woodwork at the moment, I got a really nice, never seen before piece off of that evilBay the other day.

 

I've never really followed this stuff, nor felt the need to, poorly acted 'C' movies, for kids, in the 'over the top' style of kids programming, never grabbed me, but there is a big following for the whole Kaiju, Gojira, Ultraman, Atomic-boy stuff, and these are probably quite modern 'Ultramen', and may be from one source, but two are realistic 54mm'ish solids, well within the scope of the collection, the other two are a super-deform (right) and big-head (left), both of which, leave me pretty cold.

 

A Christmas cracker bike, and two micro-trucks from Italy, another 1-ton Humber knock-off, too close to the Dinky original to be considered the donor for all the Hong Kong copies, but could be based on the Pyro/Kleeware minis? And a post-war US 'duce-and-a-half' probably an M39 era/generation?

 

Very obviously an ex-Giant chariot, we looked at them on the Romans page (above), and eventually will look at them again on the But is it Giant sub-Blog, in greater detail, but for now, this one needs a good clean, or at least, the horses do!

 

A couple of bags of odds I picked up on a wander, the gum-ball robot will go in a bag with several others and bits, in the hope his arm turns up one day! Two lesser characters from the larger, 'styrene set of Noddy figures, a Fozzie Bear pencil top, and another of the Rupert Bear pencil-top torsos, I think I have four now, two Kinder and an LB for Culpitt spaceman!

 

Adrian found these two for me, French clowns in hard plastic of the polystyrene type, but being French could be Phenolic or a formaldehyde resin of some kind, although both are stable. Cyrnos, Clairet; someone like that?

 

A bit of fun, it links a common-enough piece of scenery to a specific animal, so not that useful, but it also links marks together.

 

Swoppet knock-offs!

 

A nice, early piece of, probbaly German composition, around 45mm, and unmarked, he's obviously a WWI-era German soldier, and I rather like him, as a possibly very old survivor . . . 1920/30's?

 

Isaac gave me these two lots, the Cherilea 60mm's are clean, but have lost 90%+ of their paint, while the karki infantry might have all been home-painted to match, or are a new-to-me paint scheme, the radio-operator is Benbros.

 

Seen in a recent book-post, useful little monograph on Selwyn Miniatures.

 

I'm guessing this is American, but it could be French, or from down the road! It's a solid lump of die-cast Mazac / Zamak or pure aluminium (not light enough?) with wooden wheels, and may once have been a penny-toy . . . a whole penny!

 

Make your own caption! How cake-decorations are born!

B is for Back to London, July, 1 of 2

Lunch was moved from Islington to Essex, and we got there via a van driven by none-other than Micheal Mordant-Smith (thoughts with him, as he goes through what I've just been through), and a boy's day-out ensued, with toys, dinosaurs and all-sorts. But, a bag of Carbooty had come as part of the package, courtesy of Peter Evans, and that's what we're looking at here.

 

Rack toy air-forces, I love the little helicopter, I think I remember them coming in Christmas crackers, while the larger version (both loosely Sea Knights, rather than Chinooks?) has its stickers. I used to chuck this stuff, now I keep it, to check against a 'master sample', so I - hopefully - have one of each in the end.

 

Matchbox, just coming-in as we got out of such toys, and the ferret erroneously described as a fictional Weasel, when it is really a Ferret, a Big-Wheeled Ferret (FV711) at that! Along with two of the recoilless-rifle armed Jeeps and the toylike matchstick-firing gun, it did come with blunt-ended 'slugs' but they soon vanished and a resupply of matchsticks was called-forwards!

 

The Jeeps, interestingly, have different body mouldings, with one having a catch-plate over the hook, to hold the towed gun on, while the (older?) one has the better registered sticker on the bonnet, but it has discoloured, possibly due to something in its own glue?

 

Also interesting, because while I think I have both already, on cards, coming loose, together like this, sort of confirms the tank is Rado Industries as well, because the Armoured Car is marked Ri-Toys on the base, with the tree-logo.

 

More rack-toy plunder, again, it will all be compared and sorted with existing samples, and where possible ID'd to sets or catalogue imagery. We have looked at the smaller tanks, in some depth, and, I think, the recently mentioned Hans Postler was one of the issuers?

 

From the left, a Hong Kong copy of the Crescent Roman, being shot, a nice Lone Star spearman, with spear intact and the Crescent knight, unchewed, but tatty paint!

 

There were fascinateing, they are the Hilco sculpts, decorated as you'ed expect to find the Hilco's, but the HILCO mark itself, has clearly been removed in the factory, on the whole sample, so I must assume they are Phoenix, or Cherilea-for-Phoenix production, but useing the Hilco outpainters?

 

Army-men! The larger 45/50mm French (copies of Airfix WWI troops), being particularly welcome, I have lots of the HO-OO copies, but a very small sample of the larger versions. Behind, in the bags are various US Infantry and Paratroops, mostly Airfix clones, to be checked against existing samples.

 

More of the same stuff, the pink one is fun! Russians in red are probably Ri-Toys, the bag in the middle are Hong Kong knock-off's of Ideal GI's, and two bags of Airfix clones finish the line-up.

 

Current Hing Fat, French Infantry attacking a German who seems wholly unconcerned by the imbalance of forces! Indeed, he's not paying any attention to his imminent demise!

 

A pair of paratroopers, both the Rosebud sculpt (although I've found an equally good one with an American branding, so there may be a mould swap in there somewhere), both sub-piracies, one better than the other . . . sort of third- and fifth-generation copies.

 

Three more recognisable - Airfix, Cherilea and Britians.

 

Smallies, a couple of Airfix, the Matchbox pair which accompanied the guns above and some hollow-horsed Hong Kong Cowboys & Indians - a relatively clean, if small sample of Wavymane type two, I think. I did do the Intro to 'Wavymane' (ex-Crescent sculpt) on the But is it Giant Blog, but I haven't got any further with it, the posts are in the queue . . . maybe over Christmas, between railway posts!

 

Two Manurba clones, one better than the other, an Airfix copy cowboy, in the middle, and one each of the protagonists in the Condor game The Blues and the Grey at the far ends.

 

The Thomas-Poplar-Tudor Rose-Quaker Wild West.

 

Culpitt's Wild West, also AHM, Injectaplastic and Jouets Super Plastic, although only handled by the latter trio if with the separate bases, of which there is only one here, the Indian with the green base. I have a good sample of these, and we have looked at them in some detail in the past, but always worth a check against the master tub, to find the odd colour variations, orange-for-red being one.

 

Many thanks to Peter Evans again, and animals, civilians and space next time. 

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! AFV's

So, the other half of the 'Army Men' post (which was going to be one post, but I couldn't face all that typing in one hit!), their transport, and it's an eclectic mix with a few interesting bits in it!

 

I know, but it was a Jeep! It was a Hugonnet card! It's otherwise the same rack-toy shite churned-out by Hong Kong, but a worthy addition to the collection, and confirms loose figures I've got somewhere! Starlux piracies!

 

These were from Isaac, who's surname I've never caught, but he'd saved them for me (along with the Wild West swoppet bags and some other stuff), and they were a real revelation, as when I got them home I found they were confirming one of the possible combinations suggested by me in this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2015/09/p-is-for-pick.html

  

With the 'Long Tom' on the odd coastal-artillery type platform, as well as getting the 'Speedwell' tank, with/in the same card/bag, so a very useful addition to the collection Something I would have been even more excited about, back when I was a small-scale only collector, and new things were getting thin on the ground! Now I've seen the all-scale polymer mountain to climb, I'm a little more jaded, but these are much appreciated.

 

The CTS (now BMC) Sherman Tank, apparently a bit smaller than the rarer Airfix one, and in a hard'ish ethylene or propylene, I didn't get this from Matt, who I now know WAS Matt!, But either from Steve Weston or somebody near him? On one level it's a gap-filler/box-ticker, but on another level, also a nice model, and it looks the part, which is important with Shermans, get one major dimension, angle or curve wrong and they can instantly look very odd, or daft!

 

They need a clean, but for reasons you don't need to be bored with, cleaning's out at the moment. Also, we've seen them before, they are pretty common, but belong to a family of rack-toy stuff, including the Jeep-trailer/gun combo's we’ve also seen here,with and without plug-in crew, and with two or even three new colours, they are adding to the story, if we ever tease the full story out!

 

And the comments on Sherman's were specific, because this gets a lot wrong! Can't remember of this was a purchase or a contribution, but it's the sort of thing you see on eBay, and think "Even if I get it for 99p, it's not worth the postage!", but it was a box that needed ticking, and it has its own rack-toy charm!

 

Also, a generic, over-branded to Woolbro, and it has a telescopic barrel, to keep the box as small as possible, while the turret on the box art is even whackier than the turret in the box!
 

Thanks especially to Issack, but also 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, who I have forgotten to add.