S is for Seen Elsewhere - Wild West

A few bits I've posted elsewhere on the internet in the last eighteen-months or so, all on a Wild West theme, nothing to get too excited about, but getting them up here, so I can get them off the new Laptop, which I still hate!

 

 

These chaps, which were donated to the blog by Theo Van de Werden elicited no response here or elsewhere, but I found them looking for something else! They're Baravelli, who seem to have contracted quite a bit of unique stuff from the former British Crown Colony, so while they may have had other branded issues elsewhere in the world, Baravelli is good enough for me, and being 100% 'toy soldier' polyethylene I will hang on to them for the time being, thanks again to Theo!

This was funny - not my pun, which was predictable, but the aftermath; I posted this back in January, as a joke, which read "Jean Hoefler trading as 'Big', got . . . err . . . very big!", only for Deadleaf to post all six figures a few weeks later, then some other futwit sent them to a magazine (whose readers would mostly have seen Hairband's already!), now . . . I know my 'eemies' are desperate for any crumb that they can award points too, but really?

 

This stuff is German, both subsequent 'contributors' are Germans, it's not rare, and I would expect two middle-aged German collectors to have their local production to hand? Indeed, why hadn't they shown us their 'treasures' years ago? Why wait 'till I've posted one, for a laugh, a cheap-laugh at that, before stampeding to the public sphere with their take on it?

 

Aber ich habe auch einen, tatsächlich habe ich sechs! It was a joke . . . but it's deadly serious to these pathetic point-scorers, when they're not trying to hide their purchase-guilt from their 'fat, psychopathic wives' (thanks Pink), by doing the housework! There; I just clawed some of the points back! Pathetic, isn't it?

We've seen another Argentine copy of this Timpo Hopalong Cassidy copy, on the Blog (dirty-white on a brown horse?) already, but I managed to find another pair, second Hopalong and a copy of the Herald Indian with full war-bonnet, on the same Timpo horse piracy.

We saw these in full here, so it's just clearing the picture, Hong Kong/China solid copies of older HK copies of Timpo and HK 'swoppets'.

News, Views Etc . . . Mighty Rome in Miniature

Bit of a Brucey-bonus; I'm supposed to be doing about five other things I said I'd get done in the last-few/next-few days, but I wanted to get this off the desktop . . .

. . . an update to the Hong Kong small-scale Romans page, with Baravelli's foot and mounted Giant sub-piracies added at the bottom of the main section. I will try to sort out those last bits as well; still needs text and the Britains full-sized sculpts, which I Blogged a while ago, should have done it then . . .Doh!

G is for Growing . . . 'Brown Water Navy'!

In the bag that was part of Peter's latest parcel, were these three, which are a perfect addition to the fleet we saw here, although neither plastic toys, nor celluloid tourist trinkets, being manufactured of a base-metal or whitemetal, probably with a high lead-content?

Following the patterns of the celluloid keepsakes, these will probably be the next price-bracket up for tourism; ceramic and ivory being above these, silver-neff at the top? A bamboo-raft punter who looks like one of those fishermen who use trained ducks (. . . cormorants?), a small fishing vessel with three crew and a larger vessel with two crew - I'd like to know how they pulled-in that ton of fish without a winch!

From the other side; the five loin-clothed fishermen are all the same basic sculpt, the arms and legs bent to fit their final position/task, the punter seems to have been built in situ with a soldering iron, or at least - his legs/feet have been?

The 'real' Brown Water Navy liaise with a shore-patrol to check out two fishing boats, paying no heed to the old man on a raft . . . death can come quickly to the un-alert, but when your imperialist occupiers are supplied by Baravelli (figures) and Hong Kong (vessel), what can you expect!

B is for Baravelli

Not Barabelli! That's something you get in Tunisia if the hotel's chef doesn't cook the fish properly!

Today's post comes courtesy and as a collection of contributions from three people, so I'd better name-check them first, Kostas X from Greece sent me several of the images about a year ago (?), and I was holding them for the HK Blog (where they will still appear, but now as duplicates!) when the other day I got an eMail from John Roquas in the Netherlands, offering me Baravelli images someone had asked him about.

Given other stuff which was occurring at the time; I was a mite confused and replied in such a manner as to confuse John in return! However we then arrived at the fact that Tim ('Gisby' in comments) had been the one asking! So thanks to Tim for facilitating, John for supplying, and Kostas for all he's sent the Blog[s] (most of his contributions are on the Airfix Blog) over the years.

I believe some of these images have recently been seen by some of you on The Facebook, so I've tried to enhance the post with stuff from the collection, where it's ID'able as being the same Hong Kong stuff as was supplied to Baravelli, but apologies - if it's all 'old hat'!

Also as mine are all in storage we will look at them again one day, but their absence is not a great loss as the only set I think I have which is not here is the foot Romans, which are simply copies-of-copies of Giant.

The earlier boxes were parroting Airfix (and/or the first version Atlantic boxes), although with the same bloodthirstiness - as the old guy gets blown-away - that Airfix had with their dying card-sharp type.

The later boxes (which I think we've looked at?) were a more disappointing generic, with six artwork 'thumbnails' on each side, and a sticker or marker-pen mark to indicate which of the 12 the contents were most likely to represent!

These are John's, and their contents have been somewhat enhanced! With a box normally having 15 mounted or 42 foot figures, it appears these have the contents of two foot sets, a mounted set and a few more. John explained that that was how they ended-up as his boxes became the casualties of childhood!

Points to note are that the foot figures are all Airfix piracies while the mounted figures are late copies-of-copies of Giant. The Indians have two poses made from Airfix mounted figures, while the Cowboys have one made from the crawling guy, who now seems to be being shot, nosily and messily? They also have three clones of the High Chaparral's 'family-in-residence', namely Blue Boy (pointing), Uncle Buck (bottle!) and Manolito (designed for riding - See the AirfixBlog post)!

But, in Kostas's box, it all goes a bit 'Pete Tong' and not because the contents have been added to post-purchase, but because the contents have been cobbled together to fulfil an order/contract on a Friday afternoon . . . or something like that!

The majority of the contents are copies of Britains and Crecsent 'combat infantry' usually associated with Woolbro, to which have been added four mounted cowboys and Indians with their horses (neither hoses nor riders the usuall Baravelli types) and a lone ex-1st version Airfix 8th Army man running.

The bag is identical to those in mine which came from a mint batch Andy Harfield had in his lists back in '97, even to the very small-sized staples, so I'm sure it's 'right', just so wrong!

So these are the figures filling the bulk of the bag in Kostas's box of Cow Boy A Piedi; we looked at them as a tail-ender on the Khaki Infantry page but will have a quick look now. The six common poses of Britains' Khaki Infantry and five of Crescent's Desert Troops, all scaled down to approximately 25mm.

While the bag's contents are a bit of a shock, over the years there have been various Baravelli sets appear on the web with odd or non-standard contents, so I think they weren't that fussy?

The sets they are more commonly associated with.

I don't have any yellow ones here, but I do have some blue ones (UN!) along with the more common green ones. The mounted figures are found in the Fort Cheyenne Frontier Set from YF (who carried ex-Giant knights and Mongols), and we will look at them in detail on the Hong Kong Blog when I pull my finger out and finish the posts - there's 69 in various stages of editing in Picasa!

Back to Baravelli proper and this is a set I don't have - so a bit of jealousy, but only really for the box which is so cool; it's half-Airfix artwork and half Army Men rack-toy artwork, with a quite 1960's French-looking armoured patrol in the background.

Although this set doesn't have as many foot figures as an Airfix box, it is heavier on the cavalry, which back in the 1960's/70's made this stuff very useful if you were looking to build cheap war-games armies.

Because Baravelli were shipping generic HK Airfix-clones as imports in/for their branded packaging rather than either sourcing their own more unique figures (Solpa), or making them themselves (Montaplex), they do turn-up elsewhere and we've looked at them on the Airfix Blog, but we can touch on them again.

This set is pretty much the same as John's, but exactly half the contents; all figures in a similar neutral sand colour with one each foot and two each mounted on horseback and mounted on camel.

They were also available in other colours!

Roman Cavalry; again there's the contents of about two-and-a-half sets here, and I know when I got mine from Harfields there were exactly 15 hoses and 15 riders in each little sealed bag - although after that bag in Kostas's cowboys; the rule seems to be . . . anything goes!

These are sub-piracies of Giant's Romans, sort of 2nd/3rd generation, mounted on the horse I call Mexican and we have looked at several variations here, but will look at them all again on the HK Blog. One pose each from Marx and Britains Herald and one converted from a Crescent foot figure.

A close-up of what appears to be a good match, as we saw on that Roman page; the differences can be quite subtle, and without the Baravelli's in my hand, it can only be guesswork but I've tried to match the figure colours; just couldn't find a black horse at short notice!

The foot figure is only a guide, but I think he is Baravelli, and we will look at the Infantry properly one day when I get my sartorially rather fetching mauve'y, purple'ish puke-pink sample out of storage!

Thanks again to John Roquas, Tim Peterson and Kostas for creating this post.

F is for Figures

There are a few figural elements to the world of plastic novelty shite, and here are a few...at this size mostly capsule or gum-ball toys from vending machines, but some are also cracker toys, others the full, carded, rack-item.

Guardsman, cartoon caricature, space-warrior babe and a Marx Tinkerbell piracy from the Miniature Masterpieces range. The caricature is - I think - an Ed Roth/surfer-culture thing, we've seen the pirate here before, and there are a few others (storage!) so we'll come back to them.

Below them are the 25 (and a 30) mm copies of the Commonwealth dolls, along with a male musician  who is similar to one from the Van Brode sets,

The Angels/Putti flats are still current (although these are earlier [1970's] examples), turning-up in crackers every year, they are floppier and thinner these days.

Three from capsules, the RAF have already gone on the Airfix Blog with comparison shots. The para's we looked at a week or so ago and the various guardsmen march below.

There are several types of these small guardsman, and I need the rest out of storage before I do the comparisons on the Airfix Blog, but from left (yellow) to right (pink);

Common type, current in really cheap Christmas crackers, found in Lucky Bags in the 1990's, there are three sub-versions each less well defined than the previous and with ever thinner bases. Limited to a few colours and only the one pose: Band/Pipe/Drum Major.

From the upper image, and the largest 'small scale' guardsmen, Christmas cracker and capsule toys of the 1970's, no Band Major yet found, but standard-bearers and various instruments have, seem to be based on Britians figures from the Eyes Right series. Always in deliciously 'edible' colours!

The purple Airfix copy is the smallest of these copies (sub-piracy/copy-of-copy) has a diagonal 'Hong Kong' mark, and seems to be so uncommon as to only be a capsule toy.

The yellow chap and the rows behind him are smooth-based (no mark) and may have been carded rack-toys as well as having a capsule origin, or even the Baravelli issue which still escapes me? They might even be from two sources with the sharper-cornered ones in the middle row being Baravelli and the yellow and pink chap from capsules/gum-balls?

Behind them are pink'ish versions of the commonly (and common) red ones from the 50 & 100-figure carded sets we've looked at in some depth here and on the Airfix Blog's two Guards posts.

M is for Mean Marine Machine

I think I have Peter Evans to thank for two of these, I say 'think' in that grudging way, what I mean is I know I have to thank him for at least one of the carded sets, but can't remember if I picked the other one up or whether he in fact gave me both...but thank you Peter!
Baravelli were to Italy what Giant were to the US...no they weren't, they imported all manor of stuff, and held franchises for Fujimi and other household names, so were much bigger than Giant ever were. However in the Toy Soldier world, they were very similar; a limited range of Hong Kong imported figures in various packaging formats produced between sometime in the 1960's and the late 1970's.

Before the Airfix rip-off boxes similar the the Atlantic 'blue' boxes, they used rack-cards like these, and a peer into the gloom of ancient worn bag reveals a right old mixture of figures, but we'll look at them in detail below.

Another set, only two figures this time along with the quite common HK ships they turn-up all over the place and a couple of hard plastic MTB's

The later boxes for 50460 American Marines, I don't know where I got the Blue-box artwork from but if you recognise it let me know and I'll remove it if you wish, sadly it hasn't reproduced well but the later 'red' box is a lot better, being a direct scan.

The full set of poses as found in the upper bag, all 7 of what would (at the time) have been the 54mm Airfix US Infantry, along with a couple of Russians and a German also from the 54mm range. The others are a French WWI standard-bearer and one of Monty's Desert Rats.

The contents are all the more confusing as they - Baravelli - did produce a set of the 1st version Marines in the later boxes? The real similarity with Giant is that they used one supplier (apart from those ships at least!) so they have a certain Baravelli 'feel' to them, slightly better than the average HK figures and with decent Airfix style bases, glossy plastic which rarely brittles- if at all?

T is for Totem Pole

One of my 'side collections', like trees, all totem poles are far too small for the figures they are issued with, so actually some of the best - height wise - for 1:76/72 scale figures are the poles issued with 54mm figures, although if you include realism, the only ones that come close out of all those below are the first one from Playmobile/Fisher Price/Exin, the Reisler and the second two from the left in the second photograph (unknown and Greg Wolf). All we need now are decent Northern or Backwoods/Woodland Indians to dance round them, as they have all been issued with Great Plains or Southern Indians who never used them!!!

Left to Right;
Playmobil, unknown european polystyrene (probably French), Labere School, unknown tourist item from Canada, Reisler, Commansi/Novalinea

Atlantic 1:32 (see 1:72 below), unknown - Marx re-issue?, Greg Wolf - "Handcrafted in Canada", Modern "China", two piracy's of the Britains pole, Feu Orange air-freshener - possibly made by Brevete S.G.D.G.?

Cherilea 60mm (See 54mm below), Britains piracy, Britains Herald - late polystyrene, Timpo, Timpo colour variant, Britains Piracy, Timpo Piracy.

Britains piracy, Unknown, Timpo Piracy, Two different unknown cereal giveaways (came on small sprues with other scenic items), unknown european vinyl - possibly Koho or German Marx late production, Charbens, Cherilea 54mm (see 60mm above), unknown metal - possibly also Cherilea?

Factory painted Korona Imperial giveaway, unpainted Jean original of previous pole, two Britains piracy's, Speedwell/Trojan/Kentoys/Hill?, modern vinyl from micro-machine type playset - Hong Kong/China, Marx - Miniature Masterpiece, two Atlantic 1:72 (see 1:32 above).

Notable absentee is a Britains original from the Swoppit/early Herald era, It's around somewhere with a few more big ones, but I can't find where I hid them! It came in two versions (big ovoid and smaller round base) and many colour variations, both base plastic colour and paint-job.

Baravelli Indians have been used as a size comparison, they are both piracy's of Airfix mounted Indians who have been given bases.