O is for Odd & Ends

Well, we've had a T is for . . .  already today! When I said we wouldn't look at Hing Fat in the last post, I sort of lied as we're looking at them right now, but these were latecomers to the queue, and just happened to fit as I'd used the figures to scale the Pen Plax fish-tank ornament earlier in the year!

So the Pen Plax fish tank ornament; just a bit of fun and it's supposed to be derelict, but with both wheels intact all you actually need to do is rebuild the chip in the barrel with some two-part epoxy-putty (or similar modelling compound) and give it a better paint, it could be used to defend the coconut grove on X-marks-the-spot Island!

Which leaves the Hing Fat; actually Billy V for Imex, and when I said the 'recently defunct' the other day I used a question mark to cover my arse as I wasn't sure they actually have gone broke, I'd just been told they had.

I think they are still going, but they seem to be running out of steam, the weekly deal is 'not found', they have lovely pictures of the Bismarck where there should be a Chinook heavy-lift helicopter, the Faceplant page was last added to in July and the website has no news, nor any Covid-19 info., so there's a air of tiredness to it all?

However, there's still stock of Billy-V's repacked Hing Fat to be found in Hobby Stores and Brain Berke added this to his stash the other day and sent a couple of images by way of a follow-up - cheers Brain!

U is for Update - Airborne Airfix 1:32nd Scale WWII US Paratroopers

When I said it might take a few or two to finalise the update post over at Airfix (as I did yesterday) I was doing so a couple of weeks ago! Consequently, that content has gone-in already, and can now be viewed.

A rehash of yesterdays collage is joined by a view all four types, the new colour (from and thanks to; Chris Smith) and a trade-image of the Billy V version of Hing Fat's output, circa 2000-2010's, slowly building the whole picture, one puzzle-piece at a time . . . unfortunately the puzzle has 23,000 pieces and some of the pieces are mini-puzzles themselves!

101/30 is for Airfix US Paratrooper Clones

Had the dithering desperadoes over at shitestuff (see this-morning's post) managed any sort of cursory search for some Hing Fat stories with real merit, they might have placed a feather in their cap with this, as it seems to be the missing set of Airfix US Para-clones, I having only managed to ID the two types; from Henbrandt (and others, I think Hans Postler (HP) might have handled them too) and Artform Industrial.

Most of the images on Hing Fat's web-site (which is so poorly maintained it shows different results depending upon which page you're on, so a folders-within-folders/leftover's thing going on there), show what are clearly the un-attributed copies on the Airfix page (I will re-use this collage over there).

However, it's now not so clear which set is which re. these and the Henbrandt-carried ones and I will have to pore-over all these crappy images to decide; it's alright looking at them together, you can see one lot are slightly smaller (or larger depending on which lot you finger first!), but deciding which is which from dodgy catalogue promotional's and evilBay images is less easy.

However we have some clues to work with, we know - for instance - that the pirates have at least two sets of base-marks not including the better originals (with extra poses, almost certainly not Hing Fat), we know that there are at least five versions of the astronauts, some of which (the better ones) probably aren't Hing Fat . . . so, with effort, it will all become clear.

And I think I have a better image of Billy V's set from Hing Fat, but a further complication is a fourth type and new colours have both turned-up, so the Airfix update may be a week or two yet.

To further muddy the waters, Hing Fat appear to have a second set of very good versions!

I think these are actually the Airfix (CTS or TSHQ/Present Past?) figures, shot by Hing Fat for - falsified - publicity purposes, the join-lines, base dimensions  and the flat edges to the bases all seem to match the Airfix originals, the bases are more typically Airfix than Hing Fat, and no figures of this quality have turned-up in rack-toys sets, Hing Fat-marked, or generic!

Returning to one of the collaged pictures and a point made earlier today, the minimum you could order would appear to be 288 sets, not many people can drop orders like that and you'd probably have to order far more than that,  the first few times to become a trusted-enough customer to then purchase single cartons, this stuff has to go in a shipping container and travel half-way round the world; they won't go to that effort for an order which has a cost price of less than, what? 200-quid?

Someone like the Toysaurus could order multiple container's worth and have one sent to the UK, one to Aus' and the others to the States, where they can be broken-down and road-or-rail transported to distribution hubs and stores. But they would order these, or astronauts, Pirates or Wild West, as would Jaru, Imex et al, not rugby footballers, or - sadly - Terracotta Army?