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!
 

B is for Bergan and Beton!

This is both a quick box-ticker and a bit of fun! In the parcel from Jon Attwood, there was a Bergan Toys (Beton) figure, which didn't seem to have been photographed either in the lots we've seen, or another still in the queue, and when Jon mentioned it the other day I got worried in case I'd not shot a bunch of figures, but I found him in the first post, I just didn't mention him in the blurb, anyway by then I'd shot everything I'd found, so we can have a quick-look

 

This is what has come in over the last 18/24-months; less any which went to storage last autumn, and they are an ecclectic snapshot of some of the variations you can find of these figures.

 

With - from the top left - A Plastic Toys copy in hard 'styrene, another hard plastic early figure with paint, one (from Jon) with the leachate you sometimes find on these figures, in soft 'ethylene, a similar soft one in blue (for Navy or Army Air Force?), and a later stable-green one with no leachate below.

Bases, the one from Jon lacks the formal information in the middle depression, but you can see the clear 'B' intertwined with a 'T' of the logotype on all three of the Bergan/Beton bases, the Plastic Toys copy is unmarked!

 

This rather dented chap has been hanging around in Picasa since I shot him in 2013, and is another copy, from Reliable of Canada, in soft polyethylene again, he's suffering a bit of sun-fading in addition to his surface dinks!

While two of them came-in just under year ago, along-with an early seperate-based cowboy, and they were also in Picasa! It's a measure of my lack of imagination that I'm still using the same sheet of black cartridge-paper!

We looked at my existing small samples here, while the last (and best) words on the subject are on Ponylope - this link is to the 'WWII' page, but then click on 'WWI' and '*Beton Variations' in the left-hand menu to get far more than I will ever be able to show you!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 2. Airfix and Related

I had some luck with early Airfix at the show, and there were some related bits, so I shoved them all in one post, except the two early motorcycles which ended-up in a mixed shot in the Civilian Vehicles post!

Two of the Airfix mounted figures after Bergan/Beton, both mounted on soft polyethylene horses (with the correct bent tail and cavity mark), although being a hard polystyrene themselves. The lefthand shot is missing the hunter, who turned up later, hence the rethink on how to do the posts!

 

As a result that image also has two probable Argentine figures a ceremonial type (top right, integral moulding) and a Native American (bottom left, separate rider) along with two other 'styrene riders, one of whom seems to belong with the marked-Ajax horse, the other is from the Magnetic 'Bucking Bronco' novelty act - the third I've picked-up in a few months, typical; isn't it, like buses; you wait ages for one, then three turn-up together!

A mixed bunch of the early 'eight figure set', being, from the left; Airfix Paratrooper, possible pair of BR Moulds Japanese and three of Peter Evans' home-casts. The first having the clear mould-release pin-mark which seems to differentiate the Airfix originals, the two Jap's missing an obvious mark, hence the possibility they are BR and the trio being a sharper, rigid resin to the softer pink one we looked at last year?

 

In the last lot from Chris Smith, I held over a bunch of these from the plunder posts, and I picked up a few more the other day, so a major re-hash/addition to that page will be forthcoming, as are similar changes to the mounted 'Bergan Beton' page where an awful lot have come in recently, in addition to the two above.

This is a fun shot, or at least the upper one is, the lower one is a closer look at the five Gulliver Japanese infantry, one of which is based squarely on an Atlantic 'Sendai' sculpt (Gulliver's go-to for piracies when they weren't copying Reamsa, Comansi or Jecsan!), the other figures being four old Airfix Sculpts.

The upper shot has, in addition, two rather wreaked Airfix originals for a not-very-useful comparison (they've both had their feet mucked-about with), suffice to say the Gulliver are a little smaller, but well sculpted. And in the foreground, a gloss-painted 'Toy Soldier' style home-cast piracy in lead/whitemetal with a wire bipod.

Not Airfix but of the same era, the same rarity value as the 'eight' and the same esoteric range, are two on the left from BR Moulds, a Lifeguard which is almost certainly from the Trojan set (post coming) and an Indian who doesn't seem to conform to any of the known BR mould-tool catalogue descriptions, and has something of the Sacul guards in his plastic colour, but seems to be from hollow-cast, so got included here!

 

These were mixed in with everything else! They go in a big bag which gets sorted into the master-collection/future stock every few years! I actually found a Prussian advancing from the Waterloo sets the other day, trod into someone's lawn, so Airfix 'HO-OO' have become a standard feature of the Anthropocene geological layer, along with crisp packets, chocolate wrappers, drinks bottles & cans, cigarette filters and vehicle parts/metal or rubber fixings!

 

Thanks to all for everything last month; Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith and Peter Evans,

Thanks to all for everything last month; Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan and Micheal Mordant-Smith.

T is for Two - Carded Western Sets

Well, having split the Past the Post folder yesterday, these Indians might have languished for a while, but in looking to see if Brain had sent anything that might have gone in the previous post I found some Indians he sent last year, which reminded me I had an Ajax set which needs Blogging (I had posted it on a Faceplant group a while ago), so a quick search in the big folder and we have another T is for Two... !

This is the other Past the Post set I have, also from James Opie, but not dated, however it's safe to assume they were bought together and will have been available in July 1964.

A  mix of clones from Crescent and Britains (including another iteration of the running guy we've managed to see three or four times in the last few weeks here at Small Scale World!), along with an odd stumpy chap (far right of the left-hand - yellow - half) who also has several piracies, but I'm not sure I've ID'd his donor yet . . . if he has one? Hilco, some European make? There's some duplicates, so I don't know if this is all the poses available, there may have been more.

Base mark is not the same as the Monogram GI's we looked at in the previous post, and the base shape of the donors is copied, so increasing the likelihood of sorting loose figures into two separate groups?

As we can see I have done here in one of the unknown/TBS boxes! A few points to note, by the asterisks:

• ·         Yellow have similar bases to Chris Smith's UN Infantry (previous post)
• ·         Red are from the canoe we saw a few days ago
• ·         Blue are three, unrelated, unknowns who don't have their own bags yet
• ·         Green are a good lot (LH) and true fakes (RH) pretending to be the other lot!

And this is the sort of image where everyone who's ever saved stuff for me or the Blog needs to be thanked, as it's only by gathering and collating all this HK junk, that the tales - eventually - get told!

And note this is only the Britains/Crescent/Lone Star section, there is a big section of Airfix clones and quite a few Jean copies elsewhere (but they were both later (1980/90's) and I am having more success with brands/carriers for them), while these are mostly from the late 1950's and through the 1960's.

This came-in a while ago, and I posted it elsewhere with the joke "I'm still waiting for the 'Flower Arranging Indians' but in the meantime I guess this will have to do!". A small 'dime store' set from Ajax with ex-Bergan/Beton sculpts all in a hard polystyrene.

Brian had sent these a while ago, Ajax copies of Beton, with a nice selection of colours; I rather like the one on the right who appears to be mottled blue/yellow.

A sizer; while the mounted figures match the 50mil'ish of the originals and the Airfix/Reamsa/Reisler (and others) copies, the foot figures are heading for 70mm, nice big toys for little hands to grab!

News, Views Etc . . . Airfix Entry Update

Really? He follows his tragic JIM thing with an attempted WWII spoiler (showing nothing special) 48-hours after I'd moved-on to esoteric ceremonials? And it took two of them? It's a slow-burn, as comedies go, but mildly amusing.

Then he has a whinge over the weekend, after saying - only the other day - he wasn't going to bother any more (not for the first time, as I pointed out on that occasion!), in which he seems to notice the PSTSM thing for the first time, despite having acknowledged it in the past? Has he the memory-problems of a goldfish?

" Over the years I have been called many things, most are unprintable here. Then I get called something that just does not make sense. The latest from sad Hughie is a case in point. He has called me Penn State Mafia. When I saw it I had to laugh. Clearly someone did not do his homework. Penn State does not mean the state of Pennsylvania for most people. Penn State for most people means Penn State University of which I am not a fan. This goes back to my state college days of seeing them always crying for more state money. I do not even support their sports teams.

I know Facebook has a Penn State Mafia group, I do not belong to it. So where Hughie could have gotten this term I have no idea. I do know that the late owner of Toy Soldier Thoughts call me Pennsylvania Mafia. That term is wrong as the word mafia is defined as a closed group of people in a particular field having a controlling influence. My site has always been to share news and information. I have no interest in controlling the hobby, I let that to other people.

Hughie amazes me with his calls of me damaging the hobby. I don’t see it from no one else saying the same thing. Also, he gets into fake news about me trying to top his showing of two Jim figures. On this matter, I just put two figures at random. they happen to be Jim from France. I look over his diatribes to see his latest silly attacks and care less about what he is talking about."

I haven't called him 'Penn State Mafia', ever, I refer to his coterie of acolytes and supporters as 'The' PSTSM, not him; I called him The Jabbering Fuck on day one and have stuck with it as it is particularly apposite. But again we've had this before; his whole first paragraph is a repeat of something he tried about 18-months ago - at the time I provided links/screen-caps to the commonality of Penn State as a short-form for Pennsylvania-something (trains, haulage, burger-chains and yes, even the university), so why is he repeating the point he made last time with equal ignorance and pointlessness? Goldfish!

Although it's nice to see he's Googled the cultural term 'mafia' and pasted the definition; managing to get five long words in a sentence, in the right order and correctly spelt for the first time since someone else wrote-up an 'interview' with him! Of course, in the last paragraph he's back to pure pidgin! It's just funny, listening to his brain work, 48-hours later!

Now I don't know the owner of Toy Soldier Thoughts (was that the odd, humorless Blog with no pictures that whined about everything and everyone in the hobby?), but if two people have independently chosen the same moniker for you, or yours, it's probably because it's appropriate, or deserved . . . or both! And again - said it before; but there's a history of Standinger falling out with people in the hobby.

And - of course - he IS controlling! In his first attack on me (back in 2016) he said I should '...go and do something else.'! What's not controlling about that! He has spent the three years since bombarding people in the hobby with eMails (and - I believe - telephone calls) telling them (not asking) what they should do with me and my blog, how they should support him and his blog, what and when they should comment or contribute &etc . . . all very 'controlling' behavior.

Both he and his little PSTSM fuck-monkey have suggested off-line organisations should have nothing to do with me, even publically; that's controlling! His whole approach to comments is an orchestra of control!

I rarely eMail people in the hobby to volunteer my opinions on anything, I never request, demand or cajole for comments or contributions, and I've never asked anyone to stop reading his blog, or to stop talking to him, although people who clearly get off 'the fence' earn my opprobrium . . . but we are like chalk and cheese. And those of you who know me, or receive TJF's missives will know both above points to be true.

This was funny; "Also, he gets into fake news about me trying to top his showing of two Jim figures." Well, I made a humorous aside connecting his constant sitting in my dust to gambling, specifically poker, but as with the 'Little Black Book' reference a while ago it went over his head like a fast jet, and we get his pathetic excuse for repeatedly posting stuff I've just posted, in a way no other Blog or Website does or ever has, just as we previously got a list of his note-books and what colour they were! A very stupid man.

'Fake News' is telling people three time that Blue Box Australians are in fact Hing Fat, and never correcting/explaining yourselves! Fake News is claiming to be number one plastic site when you're not, even though you're throwing money at tag-share! Fake News is dressing other people's customer announcements up as 'discoveries'! A very stupid man.

And it is the bain of stupid men that A) they don't know how stupid they are, so continue as if they aren't (because it's all they know), and B) they assume everyone else is roughly at their - stupid - level, because it's the only level they know!

In eleven years, you can count on the fingers of your two mitts the number of times I or any number of other Blogs have parked our tanks on the other's lawn. If I have done so (and I have a few times) it is usually due to genuine coincidence, and likewise, when someone parks their hardware on my lawn, it is clearly just 'one of those things' and happens very rarely!

It's true there is one Blog I occasionally get a bit close to, around Halloween , but I always post a link to the earlier article to acknowledge it's pre-eminence, and excuse my 'copy post' as the seasonal synergy it is. Likewise there is a newer Blog (no names no pack-drill!) who posts similar stuff to me, as I do to him, because we both like the same stuff (an eclectic bit of everthing!), but neither he nor I regularly post exactly the same stuff, within a few days, as Stadinger does, after me, all the bloody time!

But the author of shitestuff - being incredibly stupid - thinks no one's noticed his lack of originality or the fact that he just hasn't got the stuff, but he's a dealer! Not a collector, he has no vision, no grand plan, no imagination, all he's got is Russian customer announcements (increasingly posted elsewhere, first, these days; eBay or Facebook!) and chewing-the-cud on my leftovers! A very stupid man.

He has stated (after a year-or-so of denial) that he is following me 'very closely', so posting JIM (not Jim!) immediately after me is not 'random', it's calculated! As are all the other 'coincidental' postings on stadsshite, when he has 23,000 toy companies to chose from!

In the same post as his whine, he shows us his Marx lift-attendant (for the 2nd, or 3rd time? I call it shitestuff for a reason!), the day after I've posted a possible doorman/chauffeur (civilian in uniform), it's no coincidence, it's millions-to-one this keeps happening! And the fact that he thinks we're stupid enough to think otherwise says an awful lot about his opinion of the rest of us, and 'awful' is the operative word!

He has stated he will post the same as me 'but add information', yet he rarely adds as much as a jot or an iota. I am now following him, but I do it properly, add lots and am only doing to get through his thick-skulled, stupid head that the war - he started - is unwinnable, and - that what's good for the goose is equally good for the gander.

As to the damage being done; well, I said it was the group of them, not just him (but it's always about him - that's control-freaks for you!), and as far as the group goes, damage is being done, not only to friendships but the constant stream of bullshit . . . bullshit about Blue Box and Hing Fat, bullshit about Redbox-Blue Box and Tai Sang (Port Tain Sang!!!!!), bullshit about ZZ and PGH . . . DNG, Schylling, Supreme, Star and M-Toy, Coma/Basa, bullshit about aluminium moulds, bullshit about pricing . . . bullshit, bullshit, bullshit; they make it up as they go along, awful little Toy Soldier 'Mafia'!

And am I 'sad man', a 'sad boy' the 'saddiest person' or Hughie, am I 'a rival', 'one of our critics', 'my critic' or the 'emie' (that's shitespeak for 'enemy' to the rest of you)? He's the Jabbering Fuck, period.

●  ●●   ●●●    ●●●●     ●●●●●     ●●●●    ●●●   ●●  ●

Anyway - to the original text;

Nothing exciting today; I had a lazy weekend photographing wildlife (two new species - for me - a weird bug-thing and the most beautiful Rosemary Beetle - Google it; it's pretty as a peach) while the weather was nice, so a quick bit of 'housekeeping' today and 'another' Best Toy Ever from the archives tomorrow!

Following the F&G revelations in Plastic Warrior magazine I needed to update the early mounted figure post/page, which proved to be less of a problem than I thought it would be, most of the text is suitably questioning of the subject as to remain pretty clear if not accurate, and/or images to stand as they are for now, but the two recent comparison pictures need an 'Airfix' removed and a 'F&G' slipped in which has been done, and I've added a graphic for the hunters/dogs.

News, Views Etc . . . Early Mounted Airfix Page

I've just added the three new images above and some attendant blurb to the aforementioned page with all the 'Bergen Beton' style mounted figures and will do a further piece on the F&G revelations of Mig Bonnefoy, seen in Plastic Warrior magazine 173/175 when I get a moment . . . and the table needs re-doing!

A is for Ajax, Archer, Bergan, Beton . . . Not!

This pair was donated to the Blog by Brian Berke a while ago, he found them as old store stock ages ago, so many thanks to him.

Marked MADE IN HONG KONG down one leg, the horses are nicely finished but poor copies of the old Bergan Toys horse, although the riders are from Ajax poses, and a quick study of the horse - especially the mane - reveals it's a copy of the Ajax copy of the Bergan horse, specifically the Ajax 'Large Horse and Rider' range.

The un-carded bags don't have any staple holes or tape marks, being heat-sealed like old bread-bags! Therefore they probably [almost certainly] weren't mounted on a larger backing card either but rather; sold from a shop stock box, or transferred from a generic shipping carton to point-of-sale 'bin' type thing?

One of the bags wasn't sealed very well at all, and had opened itself with a little help from Royal Fail so the Indian can run free, his black Mustang carrying him majestically across the central plains his ancestors enjoyed; the cowboy will remain a prisoner where he will be unable to wave his 'legally-held' firearm about with quite the gay abandon he might otherwise claim a constitutional-right to so do!

Left over from a post a while ago (the shot was in another folder and I forgot it!), these are cheaper Hong Kong copies loosely based on European posts, the upper pair being found in a similar bag to Brian's two; it's a copy of the Britains Trojan horse with a swivel-waist Indian harking back to Crescent I think.

Below the 'mint' pair; are a few that appear vaguely related, from the right; a same size - as the Indian above - cowboy, again swivel-waist, but with heavier leg sculpts and factory paint. To his left are two smaller swivel-waist clones, following the pose, paint (and plastic colour in the case of the middle figure), these will be copies from a smaller firm of the larger figure, just to grab a slice of commercial-pie!

The middle guy being a direct clone, while the chap on the left only has paint on the upper half and seems to be an earlier version of the unpainted foot-figures we looked at here and which were carried in Baravelli sets Indiani e Cowboy - I noticed the other day that that's still 'Barabelli' to the PSTSM!

T is for THAT Horse . . . again!

Well . . . it's getting silly, the old Bergan-Beton horse rides again, this time yanking a chariot which is equally stolen; but from Thomas not Bergan!

I have been resisting opening this for a while now, but the damage being done to the bag by the sticky-out axle, along with the fact that someone back in the 1960's thought it would be a good idea to fill a warehouse with these - leaving them less than rare - meant that there was no good reason for not getting it out and having a play!

The central pole or drawbar is taken from Crescent's Wild West wagons, the chariot from Thomas Toys along with the driver (who's not doing much driving as he's had a shield added!) and the aforementioned Bergan Toys provide the horses (although to be fair I think these are taken from the Tudor Rose versions going on the saddle decoration).

Assembled, I love the colours of this toy, all metallic with a fine aluminium-silver for the horses, a gold spar, deep bronze for chariot and wheels and a metallic maroon plastic toy soldier!

Various close-ups; the toy figure has a locating stud to fix him in the chariot floor unlike the Thomas one which relied on flat-feet and/or hooking his arm over the side of the chariot.

Speaking of the Thomas one, I shot this on Adrian's stall at Sandown Park nearly three years ago (December '14), but never got round to this post! I would have bought it but I think I have both in storage (another reason why I was wont to unpack the above example!) and although not really what RTM is all about, they were - as Thomas - a 'dime-store' toy which is the same basic principle and - as a 'weekly-shop' or pocket-money item - was replaced by Hong Kong rack toys.

A is for Another Update!

Renovated in the last few days

I've pretty-much doubled the size of the Airfix 'Bergan-Beton' horse/figure page, and added another dog! Also there's a useful horse comparison on the Toy Animal Wiki.

B is for Beton or the Bergan Toy Company

These are late and common soft ethylene examples of a line of toys going way back, much better described on Ponylope (link to right) or in O'Brien's books than I could here. I like them because they ooze 'toy' charm.

They have had the original WWI 'Brodie' copy of the British 'piss-pot' - with which the early phenolic or cellulose figures were equipped - replaced with something resembling...?...err a piss-pot! Except the paratrooper who was a late addition to the set, he actually has a reasonable rendition of the M1 helmet. Also of note is that these late figures often release a coloured waxy deposit as the lower-right hand standing firer has, the other range with a tendency to do so is Matchbox!

That's it; small sample in poor condition but they are up here, tagged and ticked-off! Enjoy.

B is for Banner, Bergan, Beton (in alphabetical order!)

The order is practically reversed alphabetically in that Beton, the trade mark of Bergan was bought by Banner! Having won a few late - ethylene - production Beton (Bergan Toy & Novelty company) 60mm figures I thought it would make sense to photograph them with their trucks. From top of helmet to underside of base they're actually 70mm.

Having only the older edition of O'Brians book, I'm not sure if another version of this - approximately 1:48th scale - truck exists, as he only has the same two body-types (page 252 - 1988 ed.), yet I have a vague memory of one other, similar to the Pyro/Kleeware ones, i.e. with smaller scale hard-plastic (styrene) sitting figures, the cab being completely different on the other makes.

Certainly the truck bed has little square holes cut for 6 'somethings' on the benches (three each side) and another 2 on the tailgate/step. However this moulding was used for civilian toys in brighter colours, and the holes might have been for milk churns, a wrecker-truck superstructure or something similar?

The Banner Staff Car, marked clearly (inset) on the bonnet (Hood) in the manner of US military vehicles of WWII through to the 60's or later. The scale of this is greater than the trucks at around 1:35, while its wheels are ridiculously small.

I don't know the make represented (any more than I do the trucks or final photo!), but it's what the Americans called a Woodie, and we named a Shooting Break, the Americans a Station Wagon and we an Estate Car. What they actually were is best described as an non-aerodynamic brick!

We had Morris Travellers when I was a kid, and they hit the air ahead of them like a turd hits a pond, while on the motorway the rear turbulence caused the fuel-gauge needle to drop in front of your eyes!

The figures, the best explanations of the history of these figures are probably O'Brians books, however Kent Sprecher's toysoldierhq has a good guide as well. Suffice to say they started life in Cellulose Acetate in approximately 1938, and went through various incarnations with/without separate bases, and have been copied/licenced/supplied to/by a dozen or so other concerns.

These are the commonest form, softish polyethylene, with the clearly visible BT mark (inset) of 'Bergan Toys' in a disc'ed indentation on the underside of the base, note the one on the far left has suffered from the release of an oily-powdered residue in the same manor as a lot of Matchbox Production, particularly the brown ones (British Inf., DAK, and 8th Army). There are more poses than shown here, and I'm after the kneeling MG gunner for starters!

Interestingly, the Paratrooper betrays his later addition to the range by having a nicely moulded M1 helmet, rather than the generic bone-dome/dime-store design of the older moulds. The marching figures - to be fair - also have a better helmet design (rifle, telephone, bazooka and flag), while early acetate mouldings have the British Mark 1 'piss-pot', called a 'Brodie' or M1917 in the States.

Finally and closer to HO scale is this Grader/scraper/leveller, I believe it can be found in the 'Army' green, but I only have a silver one! Notable here are the rubber wheels; Banner also made a gun similar to the one issued by Merit over here and Auburn (among others) in the USA, but they both used hard wheels, while the Banner one used the same wheels as this road builder.

O'Brian reports that Banner were sold to Rel around 1958, but Rel (Plasco - Plastic Art Corporation) only made Wild West stuff, so presumably either ONLY bought the intellectual property rights, OR sold/scraped the moulds. Selling the molds would explain why some Beton copies are both as good as the originals, and of 'younger' plastic?