O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Ancient & Medieval

So, the 'Ancient and Medieval' vein was both rich and numerous, although I've got them down to ten images and a close up. Probably my favourite section, after space, and maybe ceremonial, although you find a lot of interesting Wild West stuff, and new civilians are always turning-up to amaze, farm, zoo, jungle . . . Pirates, pirates are my favourite, or they bloody-well should be? Anyway, we've got the opening paragraph; Let's play show repooooort!

 

Small-scale; Another bag of our Auther and his mounted Roman Gladiator Knights! To be compared with the other bags, as I think there was a hint at one point, the content's supplier changed, or the horses got diluted with a second type or something, none of it's actually Giant, but the story still needs to be accurate!

 

A few of the other Hong Kong knock-offs, Quaker and Elastolin Romans, and a Britians Trojan War figure, along with a broken Airfix and the ex-Montaplex runner of BuM Slot's Vikings. The mast and furled sails on their cross-spar have to be made from the central tree-runner!

 

Someone came and asked me about it, and I told him what I knew, then I either bought it off him later, when I found I still had cash in my pocket, or he just gave it to me, toward the end of the show? But he's not in the credit list? One of the Liverpool or Birmingham 'gangs'?

 

Hot on the heels of the three we saw the other day, both blog wise and literally, as the show was a couple of weeks after I acquired the others, came a fourth Marx 6" Egyptian pose, on the right here, and a broken duplicate, on the left. The good one needs a bit of a clean to match the others, while I intend to give the broken one a Kopesh curved sickle-axe-sword, and I'll use quite thick Plasticard, to match the chunkiness of the originals.

 

Between them, a Gashapon Samurai (not well shot!) and one of the Lik Be/LB cavemen. 

 

Hong Kong Timpo piracy on the left, also carried by Ideal in a fort set I think? Cherilea in the middle, and another Hong Kong (Britains 'War of the Roses' swoppet-copy) on the right. All good stuff!

 

These are very interesting, copies of the Lone Star/Hubley/Kresge 'Metalions' (it's increasingly unclear just what the history of those die-casts is/was), I think someone did give me some info' on them at the show, but so much goes-on, on the day, I'll be damned before I can remember what they said! In the style of some French reissue/Bazaar stuff and may be by Norev?

 

Did I say fourteen Richard I's the other day? Make that fifteen! And Bonux here, have simplified the folds of the cloak to such an extent it's getting back, closer to the Lone Star original, and further from the Jem/Norev it was copied from, for these washing-powder premiums!

 

Dom Landsknecht, Lone Star medieval and three Cherilea's, two of the early 'swoppets' and a solid in a nice greeny-yellow plastic. There is a forthcoming post on the swoppets, as you may remember I got four at the previous year's show, and have since obtained more besides.

 

More modern stuff, the old Marx/Tudor Rose knights, and the Romano-Greek motorcycle-raider 'knights' currently still findable on Amazon and similar platforms, all grist to the mill; colour variations etc . . . 

 

A bunch of Starlux, I think I picked a few of each a few years ago, from the same seller, but they went on clearance near the end of the show, so I just bought them all, doing him a favour, really, you understand, I didn't need them, they don't even look good en masse!

 

Bloody-lovely, that's what they is! And the unpainted one is a Starlux moulding, but perhaps issued as a premium, by a third party? We saw the white, polyethylene ones from Spain years ago.

 

Me box-ticking, or bag-ticking (playing catch-up) on Replicants!

 

Biblical figures are a difficult one, they can go with the civilians, or get their own section (which they often do at Christmas!), but as they are ancient, they might as well go here, two Marx nativity animals, home-painted (?), a French Santon, looking a bit like Mary, mother of the bloke standing next to her! He is also Marx, and was called Jey'sus'ah!

 

Again, many thanks to - Issack, 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, including the BuM Vikings (?), and which I have forgotten to add.

L is for Late Show Report - Combat Types

I don't tend to look for khaki/combat/20th Century types at a show much these days, simply because there's other more uncommon things to look for, so most of these were from the 'blind' bags and tubs which various mates and contributors passed my way during the show, but nevertheless there are some treats among them, and lots to see . . .

 

As with all these posts, they are in the order I shot them, which tends to put the better bits toward the top of the post, depending on how they were lying about as I grouped them, and so this clean sample was first, and with the next shot, were, I think, both from Barney Brown, who gave them to me.

 

We've seen one or two of these before, and while obviously marked Marx, I now think they were issued with a 'big box' tank or truck, rather than one of the playsets. Although they are from unpainted PVC originals, these 45/50mm figures are in factory-painted hard plastic, possibly after the US moulds had been transferred to one of the Hong Kong domiciled entities?

While this perfect sample of Bonux premiums was rather dismissed by me when Barney first showed it to me, purely because I have a full sample and many duplicates now, marked and unmarked, Johnson &etc., so wasn't in a hurry for more, but later, Barney gave them to me anyway, and they are a very clean sample.

 

To the eye they are all pretty-much a muchness, but under flash-light they have gone to various rich shades of something which looks like it came out of the wrong end of a caterpillar, colourwise, but are also, somehow, beautifully rich?  Waxing lyrical on shades of dung-green, never a dull minute at Small Scale World!

The casualties of war! These will probably all go to recycling one day, but - as I have too much of it - I may just sell them by weight with a 99p start on feebleBay or similar at some point in the future, as some modellers can do a lot with stuff like this? Strangely, there's a lot of Napoleonics in this condition, both brittle Timpo and chewed Airfix!

Mostly Hong Kong production but there's a Marx reissue, back right, and to his left a slightly chewed Australian semi-flat, I have a few of these in various corners, but mostly the smaller ones, and as they don't turn-up here often, it was worth a grab from a cheapie-tray!

More mostly HK, the squatting German - I believe - has factory paint, the copy of a Lone Star German surrendering is unusual, the Jap is a 2nd generation variation of the Star/Marty types, missing his belt and there's a useful Spanish (Pech/Reamsa or an Oliver re-issue?) UN soldier in blue helmet.

US GI/Marine types, the two painted ones probably go with the German above, but the large chap was, I thought, interesting, as he's clearly based on the Blue Box medic, but has been sufficiently redesigned to be a slightly different pose, so maybe not BB, but by one of Blue Box's smaller rivals?

Three Russian 'kit figures' from Aurora, a Galloob irregular from the 'Army Gear' line, a Marx USAF/Rocket forces ground-crew figure and I think the gold one is early Italian, Torgano possibly (?), later copied in soft plastic by Montaplex across the Med'.

I missed out on a bunch of the one painted, centre, but managed to grab this one at the end of the show, he'll be joining various other 'Argentine' copies, and at some point I must add them to the Khaki Infantry page, while behind him, a nice marbled Hilco, a Britains clone, with three tatty 'minor British makes'.

A trio of Toy Story 'army men', referencing Tim Mee's finest GI's, I may have them already, but there were a flurry of these back when the movie/s were headlining, and until I can check them against the master, they can stay! Probably Mattel?

Difficult to come up with meaningful blurb on these, they are what they are, and the 8th Army will be checked against a master collection which has many variants of these Airfix clones already.

The small scale, mostly grist to the mill, but the slightly marbled oxide-brown ones are from one of the lesser sources of the Lilliput piracies, all stuff to come out on the 'But is it Giant' blog one day.

A large bag of the current 30mm figures we've seen here several times, but usually in shelfies, rather than purchases, although Mark, the 'Man of Tin' gets good paint-conversion (and more) results from these figures, almost exploiting their nondescript design! And their sample grows as they have been issued in many packagings, colours and brands/brand-marks since the early 2000's.
 

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

M is for Merry Mass of Malleable Model Mayhem! 7 - Military & Marine

A shorter post, I suspect because Chris himself specialises in 'khaki', modern combat, WWI, II etc . . . and will hang on to any interesting things in that vein, although he sends plenty of shots as well as these donations, so it's no whinge, just an explanation for the shortage of images, also, I shot them in groups . . . but I've added Marine subjects at the end to make up the numbers!

Small scale; the most interesting is probably the chap on the far left, who needs a paint-strip, but seems to be a Hong Kong copy of an Eko copy of Airfix's first series 8th Army, we've seen similar here, but not that pose I think, and the base is the giveaway!

 

The US marine pointing is also interesting, as he's not from the Aurora 'HO' sets, but is in the same style, might be AHM? Three from Redbox's Motormax (ex-Zyll), a Blue Box vehicle-mounted equipment operator, three commoner Airfix piracies, a Skybird and a kit figure (at the back) make up the company!

The big guy is marked C-P Inc, which/who, I believe, are a subdivision of US Toy? They who make the sets of ten in two colours (five of each) mostly civilian 54mm rubber figures. These are a very brittle (from new) polymer, of the Nylon/Propylene feel, and I have some others somewhere (among the first large scale figures I got), and equally damaged on the extremities, so early-to-mid-2000's, maybe the late 1990's?

The heat-shrinkage Lido-copy German from HK, is fun for being a 'new' pose, albeit, dying backwards, and the Monogram which looks like many other copies, is hard plastic against the copies usual polyethylene, so may be one of the shop-display figures which came out of those early kit-makers, as the painting has a casual, but practised 'factory' look about it?

A 'Bonux' FFL shaking his fist at someone, but unmarked, normally the unmarked ones are in brighter colours, not the Bonux olive-green, so I think he's a useful addition? Some Hong Kong to sort, more of those Naval looking hard-plastic vehicle/vessel crew, and the one on the left is a colour-variaton I think, while the one on the right is probably home-painted?

 

Three useful HK copies to be sorted into existing samples, another US truck-rider and a couple of more interesting figures, the sandy one modern'ish, the other part of the ever-expanding 'might be Pioneer for somebody else' oeuvre?

 

Pitrates! It's all you're getting, as I never know, at this time of year, with an empty or near empty Pirate Zone, what I may have for next year's ITLAPD, so they have all gone there, in order that I at last have a few shots for the Intro-post! What can you spot anyway?

 

Ships and vessels, two of the Hong Kong copies of Triang Minic's waterline battlefleet, a smaller one with added hull from another maker, a yacht which looks like it should be from a board-game, but wouldn't be very playable with that keel, so maybe a 'working' sink/bath-yacht from a Christmas cracker, or a real-water race game?

 

The tug is another Triang copy, the raft is a Manurba copy, yellow boat is a Kellogg's cereal premium, and a more recent take on the old baking soda novelty and the orange cruiser is a novelty candle-holder for cake-decorations!

 

Many thanks again to Chris Smith for all these lovelies, and if you keep scrolling past the gold-lamé nutcrackers, I added a couple of images to yesterday's Crescent/Kellogg's knights post.

B is for Bright Red Bonus!

Getting into the Christmassy spirit with this little charmer, I think this in the third or fourth piece of horse-drawn, washing-power premium we've had here on Small Scale World now, courtesy of Bonux in France, and there's not much to add to what will be on the tag, via the previous posts, so enjoy . . .

 

The horse is a variation of the old Britains Hollow-cast horse which gave us all the Bergan-Airfix-Riesler-Reamsa-F&G horses, but in a less active pose, and the red is almost orange, so I guess 'scarlet' is the term!

Grabbed this from an evilBay auction back in May '21, you can see Bonux issued all sorts of pocket-money stuff, you'd also expect to find on carded rack-toy sets, individually in Christmas cracker, or lucky-bags, or even larger capsules in 'gum-ball' machines. We looked at some of the 'planes way back at the beginning of the Blog, and I keep meaning to track down a couple of the trains to compare with Kinder and Hong Kong's efforts!

T is for Two - Euro-Armour

To go with their largish '54mm' Airfix resembling 54mm combat infantry, technically US troops, but aimed at a NATO , or Bundeswher recogniseing fan-base, Jean Hoefler produced a Leopard Tank, and to utilise the chassis tool, a nice conversion to this beast . . .

. . . the Flugabwehrkanonenpanzer Gepard (Cheetah), an all-weather-capable day-and-night, self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG) currently doing sterling-service in Ukraine, bringing down Russian tactical missiles and their 'indestructible' hypersonic bollocks, as well as drones, large and small!

Seen-elsewhere shot, you can see it goes well with pretty-much any large-scale toy soldiers you throw at it with Crescent, Cherilea and a couple of Reisler, used here as scale/size compatibility guides.

 

While this is - I'm pretty sure - a Bonux premium from France, next-door, but it's unmarked, the ex-Manurba-Tallon stuff they carried is marked with the soap-powder's name, but it seems the more unique items weren't. Fictional but fun!

S is for Sharper & Sharper!

Really, an 'F is for Follow-up...' on pencil sharpeners, but as the collection of these 'KT' and related figural pieces grows, there's a sharpness there to the sample as a whole! And I've said before not every title works, but that was my thinking, and if I try to think of a better one, I'll lose interest and can-it for another few months!

 

 

I managed to acquire the guardsmen on a sharpener, confirming a previous suggestion that he was part of this set, so I get to use the 'Told You So' tag again, which annoys my 'eemies' and pleases me! Anyone out there in the hobby who thinks I'm going away hasn't smelt the coffee yet. Anyone out there who thinks I can be cowed hasn't been paying attention.

In all the follow-ups, contributions and acquisitions of these I forget what's what and what I've got, but suffice to say we saw the boxed one a while ago, and I've now found the pair of non-pencil sharpener dancers, just for completion, there may be a connection with Magneto (post forthcoming), and if Christian Hardy goes and looks it up he could be a day ahead of me instead of a day behind, I'd say the same to Mr. Ripoll but he's too busy clutching the monarch's shaft! I had no idea I was being followed that closely, here and elsewhere, by all these nonentities!

I've also picked-up both the Asian dancers previously supplied as images by Brian Wagstaff, so there's more completion there, and despite looking out for others, it seems to be the same ones which keep turning-up?

 

Likewise, the Indian girl, who we saw last time we looked at these (a straight lift of the Commonwealth sculpt), was needed as a physical entity, but she does suggest a cowboy might still be out there (on a round sharpener) in addition to those we've seen from 'W. Germany'.

 

 

Comparison of the bases revealed that the new guardsman has a slightly different sharpener with an opening in the 'wall' of the sharpener's case, at the far end. Probably only a batch/age of design thing, or a KT specific thing, the guardsman is the only KT-marled plug-in, but I'm not about to start looking for another version of each found so far! The other four additions are the unmarked ones, with the base and figure as a single moulding.

 

 

Finally, I saw these, and thought they were fun, some age to them; 1950's I'd imagine?

 

And for those who missed it, or have forgotten it, here's a link to a completely different subject, which I posted elsewhere yesterday, in all innocence to help a chap out - seems to have caused a ripple, in the lake of idiocy!

B is for Bonux

Which I believe means 'bonus' but there was also an actual Bonus kicking around which may be the same product in other countries, those without the love of 'ux' we find in France, but whatever the truth, in France (and near neighbours?) Bonux washing powder also included premiums for many years, among which were some Old Fashioned Cars.

Like the previous Huilor, Bonux are still going, but also like the cooking-oil brand, no longer include collectable premiums with their product or in their marketing strategy, although if the 'cost of living crises' becomes entrenched as an extended recession, we might see a return to premium use?

I bought this at the 2018 Plastic Warrior show in West London, and it probably kicked-off this series of posts? And it's the 'how they come' shot! A small, loose bag with a printed instruction sheet and all the kit-components off the runners, with two steel axles cut to size.

Described simply as race-car 1906, it's a largish 1:48/50th scale, probably best directed toward 28/30mm gaming, where it could be a natty staff-car for a French officer in WWI. To be honest I'm hopeless at judging the scale of vehicles (there's small medium and large . . . beach, mini and micro!), and didn't measure any of these, so all sizes will be approximate! But you can judge this one from the driver who is about 30-32mm!

The whole thing is clip/plug-together; no glue needed and I didn't even trim the flash as it was going back in it's bag, but if you treated it like a kit, trimmed, sanded, test-fit, then glued, it would make a very robust model, as it's all quite heavy polystyrene, except the tyres.

My French - as you know - is not good, but up to instruction 1, I think it reads;

"Car, Race, 1906, France. Place all the deviant pieces on a very table and respect the orders exactly or die a fool."

 . . . probably . . . ?

I had another four in storage, sadly all the same model, but in two colours, and two colourways - black/white and red/white. Labeling of the insert cards has evolved over the years, and I couldn't work out why two were in one bag, but it turned-out they are both complete and unopened?

A bit cruder than the Huilor's, or even the previous example above, but this may be a later one (hence it's apparent commonness?), with all the white parts being polyethylene. Indeed; the lack of a driver and two-colour/two-plastic types nature of the kit is probably pointing to a separate line a while apart from the orange one?

How they come, the instruction sheets are smaller too, another pointer to a separate issue at another time? More of an intro' than an overview, I don't even know who's believed to have made them for Bonux? A few more French Tacots next.

L is for l'Hommes de Lune

I was going to post these a few weeks ago, but realised I didn't have one of the poses! Bonux washing-powder premium, astronauts, I think [someone said] they are based on someone else's sculpts, but can't seem to find out whose?

The missing chap, I did have him, but with all his thin bits broken or chewed-off! Fortunate happenstance or synergies lead to Moonbase Central posting a picture of a guy wearing something similar the other day and it's obviously meant to be some kind of jet-pack as rendered by space/sci-fi artist Robert 'Bob' McCall - original hanging in the University of Arizona.

As you can see they are biggish at 70-mil with base, but manage to enhance the LB figures out of Hong Kong, having similar, figure-hugging X-craft/Gemini space suits, rather than the chunkier stuff we've since found you actually need to wear; to go into space in!

The other nine poses, a decent number of 'ray-guns' are distributed among them, but there's also a lot equipment being moved about, and one chap has taken his helmet off (or never bothered to put it on!), and all poses were available in black and silver, in what's quite a soft polyethylene.

"What do you mean 'nobody's brought the machine that goes *ping*'? We're surrounded on three sides by brain-sucking alien reavers who eat humans for breakfast and all we've got is a 'good luck' ray-gun made by my six-year-old from a toilet-roll to conform with launch-weight restrictions . . . brilliant!"

Yeah, well, I was so pleased to track him down, I rather over-shot him as a result!

Herding Zombies . . . it turns out they are quite docile after they've had a whole pack of Tunnock's Caramel Wafers each! Zombie figures from the now defunct Box O'Zombies/MyGeekyGoodness (MGG) dot-coms.

Yeah! He got a .gif as well!

That's Bonux astronauts; box ticked!