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'.

H is for How They Come In - London Show December 2022 - General Purchases

And so to London, as the saying goes, with the final toy soldier show in the calendar at the Haverstock School, Chalk Farm, where I had quite a good show, given it's mostly metal these days, but various 'Plastics' guys are there and between them gaps were filled and rarities found!

This came from a mate, and he actually had two different, but I only grabbed one and it'll feed my need for regular injections of horse-drawn stuff, but it is both a delicate and space-consuming heft of packaging, so one is fine, my first Brumm, known from the catalogues which aren't rare and of which I have a few and very well-made when you actually get to see/handle it.

Modern combat forces got a good boost, with a bunch of Frenchmen from Cofalux, Starlux and one or two others . . . I picked up a few more a week or two later, then got some more in the machine-gunner lots, so I've done well on Frech plastic this past autumn/early-winter!

To their right are a bunch of Japanese from Britains Deetail range, I knew I only had one or two, and realised (quite late in the afternoon) I had seen all of them on two different stalls, so having some cash still warm in my pocket rushed round as people were starting to pack-up and purchased both lots.

Thus giving me five of six poses, alternate painting of the advancing chap, and two different treatments of the LMG, along with the US recoilless rifle re-purposed to the Land of the Rising Sun, to keep Britains' costs down! I'll have to hope the missing pose is among my existing few!

Below is two shots of a very clean Trojan jungle fighter, I seem to be building my Trojan Japanese, Australian/Anzac and 14th Army samples one figure at a time which isn't the cheap way, but it'll be fun when I find the last one - about another ten years at the current rate!

Now, I didn't shoot or record the maker (on the back of the cards) before they went up to the unit, but I may have some of these already in the collection (I've certainly seen them before), so when everything is sorted out, we may well de-card a duplicate, set them up and have a return post with all the details . . . modernish (1970's?) and aimed at the tourist trade I suspect.

Had a good score on Gem/Gemodels, with four knights (from the 'orange paint batch'!), one of the King's Men from the Humpty Dumpty cake decoration vignette (he appears to be laughing and pointing at the 'scrambled-egg'!) and two others, the snowman with an icing spike and a skater in yellow base polymer, along with a Hong Kong copy of the Crescent Santa Clause, I already have one or two in that section, but I think the paint on this chap is far superior to previous finds?

These were from Matt Their at White Tower Miniatures, and while you know my views on 'new' poured metal (as displayed in the last post!), the smaller guys aren’t so expensive (despite having higher overheads/unit costs), so I try to support them when I can, and while I always admire Matt's stuff I haven't previously bought any, so I thought I'd better rectify that with a  swift purchase!

I bought one glossy 'toy soldier' style finished figure from the Robin Hood series, and one matt painted figure from the Wild West range, and they are both really nice figures, Robin himself summoning the Merry Men for some shenanigans, the Indian is from an older hollow-cast moulding I think Matt said, but now done as a solid. Matt also sells all of them as unpainted castings.

This MTB/PT-Boat was nice, some age (dime store type/era), and pretty clean, but there is a small question mark over the opening beneath the conning-tower, and the two openings just in front of it, I can't work out if something is missing, or if someone has had a dig to fit a couple of figures, now missing, no brand or brand-mark, nor the typical Kleeware/Tudor Rose circular mould-release/blanking disc marks, so maker is totally unknown but could be an early Thomas or Lido/Pyro/Reliable type thing?

A pair of beautifully painted Commonwealth 'World Dolls'; Ms's Hawaii and Holland, and painted by George Hanger, who used to paint stuff for the BMSS museum and their magazine articles, indeed, given who I bought them off (who also gave me their history), I'm guessing those Mokarex/Figurines Historiques Musketeers (bottom of post) were painted by George as well?

Polish [French] cavalry from PZG, going for a song in a little bag, I'm not sure on the horses, so gave the most obviously different one to the Trumpeter, and the other odd one to the 'officer' in white!

Smaller single/rummage-tray pick purchases include (going vaguely clockwise from the top left); Kinder fantasy figure, I've several of these come in recently (so not rare) in both blue and green, a large native American Indian type from . . . Lido? Tudor Rose? Someone like that, he's in the archive somewhere and probably tied-in with a Lone Ranger or similar movie? And finally in that shot -  a US MP with pod-feet, again I should know, I've seen him before and I think I have him in dark blue, so this may be a 1990's reissue?

Poplar tractor (another!), an aluminium totem pole (Wend-Al or Aludo?) and a tin of my favourite brown! I have the old Authenticast semi-gloss leather version and the bog-standard gloss, but this matt dark-brown is hard to find these days, or seems so to me, so I thought I'd grab a 'newie' when I saw it!

A Toumoulage French soldier in metallic mauve polystyrene (why not!) and a rather nice-paint Cherilea Egyptian share the line-up with a less common cake-decoration deer sculpt and one of the Airfix (or Frazier & Glass I think . . . now!) cadets.

Finally another big Indian I should know, and another of those teeny-tiny Topo Gigio (Louie Mouse) figures from Italy, which I keep finding (or being sent), I have four or five now, I think in three colours, but all the same pose? Board game pieces maybe . . . or were they an early Kinder or a gum-ball capsule-dispenser thing?

The Toumoulage Indians we've already looked at above, with a mix below; the big guy is a Marolin, probably post reunification? Next to him is a better-quality Hong Kong copy of a Herald sculpt, with a French-made cowboy on the end of the row. In front a Marx 45mm PVC-rubber cowboy and a French (or more likely Polish) Indian with peace pipe, one of several (with pipes) who've come-in recently.

Big Joe from Big, what Jean Höfler became, a Gulliver late-issue copy of an Atlantic cowboy and a Pech y Hermanos artilleryman, the gun in front is similar to the Pech one he should be found with, but bigger and a Hong Kong (or early British garden/beach toy, it's unmarked?) Aussie jungle 25lbr without splinter-shield.

Quick note; I've finally bitten the bullet and switched from Firefox to Chrome, still getting used to it, but it has changed the gaps between images and paragraphs, nothing I can do about it, the Internet like most everything else these days seems to be slowly fragmenting and getting worse not better!

J is for Jean Höffler - 1: Wild West Jean Originals

I don't have a very good sample of Jean originals, a few odds and sods which have come-in with mixed lots and a bunch of mounted which I think came as a single lot? As a result I shot all the copies and things, but then ended-up with too many images for a post, so broke it into three, leaving the rathey-crappy sample of Jean originals as an intro'!

The samples we will be looking at - with a few additions - there are smaller copies, lots of them, but they are of little merit and poor quality so can wait for another day! The trouble with the originals (as far as my acquiring them goes) is that there are loads of them and the best place for a check-list/images is Kent's page.

My cowboys; the two prone ones seem to be additional poses, less easy to find and mine look to have never been painted, I also think they were on another tool, while scale wise they are a little larger too, but probably the same sculptor? The white horse has no signs of paint either.

Foot Indians; hardly worth showing and no prone figure, but I have the female with papoose which is another less common sculpt so you win some, you lose some!

However I can chase down Mr. Custer and give him a good spanking, as I have  a decent load of mounted Natives, albeit rather tatty on the paint front, but rather like Crescent or late Cherilea (&etc!) the later, shiny polyethylene meant the paint stayed on long enough to get them to the shops, and little else! It's fair to say these are play worn, and some of the horses have silver manes!

I shot this on John Begg's stand at Plastic Warrior a couple of years ago, and the horses are of note as we'll see some similar ones soon with a question-mark over them. Similar to the Cofalux one, but with a really naff slot-base system for the horse-team.

Variations on a theme; A Hong Kong version in pink (next post) stands with the Manurba-Big swivel-waist and a 30mm figure (another 'left-hooker'), both also used (like the set we're looking at here) as various premiums and in the Wundertüten 'sweetie' bags.

So that's a bit of a box-ticker, but it gets them out there and we'll look at the Hong Kong marked ones next.

LBJ is for Little Black Dress? No . . . Little Baby Book [wi' ma' poems in!]? No . . . Little Baby Jesus!

Ah?! Was that the sound of a penny dropping in Pennsylvania? No matter, it takes them a while! Onwards and upwards here at SSW, and I must clear the rest of the Christmas stuff before twelfth-night, or it'll be some kind of bad luck, for whoever believes in that superstitions nonsense, but . . . then . . . you can never be too careful!

The family shot! Manurba's nativity set is a sharply-sculpted, traditional group of eight figures, the animals being drafted-in or provided from the based, brown or gray sets of farm (sheep, goats cow, donkey) and zoo (camel) sets available previously/separately from Jean Höefler (who also carried these figures with their stable/Krippen) and as other toy lines; so are not illustrated in this post.

The LBJ appears to have been pinned-out for the ants or something and both parents are looking slightly vexed by the situation. They'd be better occupied swaddling the little chap, before he gets a chill (or eaten by ants) and we all need another pan-dimensional mega-being to believe in!

The 'three kings'; I know I go on about it, but they are Magi or "Wise Men" and while three were named in one gospel, they are an unspecified number of science-philosophers, astronomers and diviners-of-signs, not kings! Also, two of them look to be - respectively - Orthodox and Catholic, or at least central/Eastern European 'high-church' types, despite the fact that neither church existed in the year 0!

The third chap looks to be a Barberry/Corsair type, which at least places him in North Africa or the Levant and - therefore - slightly more realistic in a set which always makes the same white-Euro-Christian-centric, historical-mistakes! Strangely - in reference to today's other post - this chap has some similarities with and was clearly lifted from the Nardi 70 and 100mm plug-together versions.

Not having to worry about the animals, Manurba made up the mould's eight-sculpt, cavity-count for what was likely to be a single-shot tool with the ubiquitous shepherd and a serving wench, she being also more in the Italian presepe tradition.

Both are standing over small saplings' cut-trunks, presumably over in the Holy Land they took trees indoors at census time and hung stuff in them? Even before the land was Holy, although it is full of caves, so maybe . . . !

Marked W.Germany and with a variety of hollows or mould-tool release-pin cavities clearly visible, that's them, there; Manurba's nativity set.

B is for Bits & Bobs

A bitty Post, but it all needs to be got out of Picasa, and as I try to always take photographs as I go, against those occasions when I'm "Damn, no camera" or worse "Damn, forgot to use the camera!" and in the hope that more I rememebr to get it out the less I'll forget if you know what I mean!

The upper shot shows the 'storage lot' of Spot-On polyethylene 1:43rd scale figures we looked at years ago, with the recent acquisitions on the left in bags, the lower shot shows them all sorted together with the colours in a larger tub and all the whites in the old tub. When I get round to it we'll have a better look reflecting the information published elsewhere since they were posted here.

Couple of tubs I shot while sorting last Wednesday, armoured cars and German Wild West/ACW polyethylene, they are already re-buried in the garage, but I will dig out the tin-plate A/C and get it in before the weather gets too bad, the garage is dry and airy (now!) but tin-plate will tend to get surface-rust in damp, foggy or misty conditions. Label on the figures is a bit out, there's Manurba and/or Heinerle in there as well!

Found the box I was looking for! It's contents are the larger inset, with the stuff we've covered in the last couple of years to be seen down the bottom right. Interestingly; I have a set of Sainsbury's party favours from 2010/11 which I think are the same as the Amscan Para-animals Brian sent shelfies of, about a year ago.

The stuff building-up here was not well annotated as I didn't know what would be duplicate, or already have a bag, in the end there were only about six empty bags by the time I'd finished, however I need to go through all my old posts and/or the dongles to get everything labelled-up properly!

I think what I'll do with the parachute toys is start a page like the Khaki Infantry one and they can all go there in their 'family' groups, with the odds, novelty and space ones separated.

This tub (a 35-litre Really Useful Box) is a complete mystery, some of it is the sorted small scale from the 2011 show, as seen here (2nd, 3rd and 4th images) but some of it is totally un-memorable and not remembered, and when I got to the bottom of the tub I found five OO-gauge passenger coaches and a diesel locomotive I have absolutely no recollection of?

There's a wind-up mouse, Snoopy in a wind-up dog-house, a tub of street-furniture, another of broken Timpo horses, the remains of the runner from a set of Cherilea 50mm re-issues, two bags of HK/Blue-Box type farm, a small bag of Britain's Saracen sabres (and a lead torch?), a whole mass of stuff - well; 30-odd liters of it!

It must have been the detritus of a junk lot at SAS in October/Novemeber '11 and the unsorted from Birmingham at the same time the both added to the broken bits from the 'Big Purchase' the year earlier?

I will have fun 'processing' it over Christmas, and getting a spare 35lt tub out of the exercise!

Even as I'm sorting/re-acquainting, I'm also buying the odd bit, four mixed figures on Monday of this week (snow-boarding Polar-bears! Board game?) and this nice card model of a windmill on Tuesday - both purchases from Charity shops.

Credited to a local firm, down the road in Hurst, near Reading; English Village Designs, and looking to be about HO-OO compatible - confirmed as they have an active website here;

www.englishvillagedesigns.co.uk

With the above model made-up, on the landing page! Very much in the home-spun style of Fiddler's Green and with [these] two sheets for .50p; looking to make a nice model, you can't complain!