K is for Kit Bashing

Funny, I got back last weekend from the show to find someone had 'found' an internet image previously seen here, and posted it without context, but with the usual 'What do you think readers?', and fair enough, this stuff is out there, but if we're going to change the rules to cover stuff like that, I'd just point out I can now repost about a third of everything he's posted in the last nineteen years, while he will struggle to reproduce about 1% of my Blog?

 

Probably not something he wants to establish, but thought and action need to be coordinated first, and they're clearly not being - what to you think readers?! Anyway, as that image appeared on a kit-post, here's the kit stuff I picked-up last weekend, while Bushy was following me, again!

 

I think these are mostly from the Gowland & Gowland 'Highway Pioneers' line of old fashioned car kits, later taken-over by Revell (UK), before going worldwide, through the parent company. Useful to get them without the large (1:43rd) vehicle kits, and most will be easy to ID, the red stuff might prove problematical though!

 

There is a variation between them, with the green chap bottom-right, having the post parts, at a six-count, while the dark green racers (?) are single mouldings, and you have everything in-between, with two, three, four and five-part figures.

 

Some (the really early [1951] ones?) having a cartoonish caricature look about them, while others are more realistic or anatomically correct. And there seem to be colour variations of one or two.

 

Funnily enough, given the premise of the post, I have a ton of these Aurora 'Snap-a-roos' in the archive (some used by Bushy, most not seen over there yet!), but they can wait a few more years, becasue I picked this up on Saturday, and it's arguably the best of the bunch, being space themed, while some of the others are more assorted 'transport' collections, taken from R&L.

 

And while I'm sure these have been credited to R&L elsewhere, there's no evidence of the Rosenhain & Lipmann mark on the frames, and, as we we've seen with both Rubenstein and De Gruyter, it's never that simple, plus, there were several Italian makers of these micro-kits, too. So I'm wont to 'call' on these, although the fact they called them Snap-a-roos, gives them an otherwise inexplicable Australian link!

 

Modern, and most of the contents are cheap cardboard tat, but a re-boxing of an old 1:24th Jeep kit, and it was half the going rate I've seen on evilBay! Commemorating a date in 2019, the instructions dated 2021, it apparently didn't hit the shops until 2022, so current really! Presumably, the production schedule got hit by Covid19?

 

The chrome-coated runner is for the civilian 'Surrey' version, although it you drive an open vehicle toward a monster Kaiju or two, you deserve everything coming to you! The card stuff will go with all the other paper/card stuff, when I get round to making-up the Jeep.

 

Right let's see how many feeBay space images I've 'saved', that I can post in the next 28 days . . . oh, hold-on, I've got so much original copy and imagery, I don't need to copy him, or hoover-up his Internet scrapings!

A is for Autumn Assortment - Gift Fair

Peter Evans, roving reporter in London, roved to Birmingham for the Autumn Gift fair, which I had hoped to attend, but Space, Time and Nathaniel waits for no man, and it wasn't going to happen, still, we do have these from Peter;

 

Possibly a bit big for war gaming, but in the garden the rules can change, they're only counters, when all's said and done! No figures though!

Variation on a theme, I don't think we've seen the packaging before, but we have seen the figures now, the ones with 'vignette' bases.

 

Kawong is a new name, so a new Tag! The stuff looks similar to the New Ray stuff (next shot), so fans of modern farm equipemnt can have a field day . . . field? Geddit? I'll get me coat . . . 

 

Just mentioned.

 

Dinosaurs, it seems you get a window-visible realistic dinosaur, and a dig-for-it skeleton, to match whichever Dino' is in the specific bag?

 

I think we've seen these before, but you can't have too many images of things!

All the above look to be from Padgett Brothers (A-to-Z) 

 

Definitely seen these before, I think several times, Tobar, House of Marbles and others, but we like a bit of paratrooper action here at Small Scale World!

 

Gotta get me one of these, preferably a Hugh? You don't always find a Hugh in these pre-personalised sets, but any company which does Anna and Annabelle, Ben and Benjamin, must surely do a Hugh? Also, note one of each colour are supplied with a blank lable (top of display), so you can write what you like - "Kiss my shiny metal arse"!

 

A Japanese merchandise store had a full range of Gashapon, including those which can be presented as Christmas baubles for placing on a tree (lower shot), although Peter noted "unfortunately, no Samurai". And many thanks to Peter for sending these over to the Blog.

A is for Autumn Assortment - Local

A few shelfies which were meant for Rack Toy Month, but missed it, as I had other stuff to post and ran out of month! And it's off to B&M for the first two, shot in June and July respectively, so availability may be dodgy now, they have quite a quick turnover on some stuff.

 

Somewhere between 25 and 54mm compatible, but I thought they’d be of interest to some, maybe for garden war-gaming, or as 'Market Garden' OP's! Shot at the end of June, this year.

 

A month later and I left these on the shelves, they were twelve-quid plus, for not a lot, and most of it slime or plaster? The skeletons will appear in mixed lots over time, and if they were in the 'dig' eggs, what was in the slime . . . four instantly rejectable novelty lumps of something?

 

These next four were shot the other week, in two garden centres and all should still be out there? These look like they come from the same factory as those glasslike resin Kodama we saw a few years ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/02/l-is-for-lets-ave-some-more.html

 

And, while 'mere' mini rubber ducks, a definite sub-branch of collecting!

 

In the same garden centre I saw these figural lip-balm tops, sadly the shot didn't take, but I failed to realise at the time! Again, not something I'm going to fill my pockets with, but nevertheless, they may well turn-up in mixed lots of figures in the years to come?

 

Legami are becoming  a regular here, and these seem to me to be a complete waste of human endeavour and resource. They 'protect' a couple of centimetres of a much longer cable, so protect nothing, and if fitted as shown, will only pull on the connection between USB and device?

 

Also Legami, and while I think we've seen several Sloths or Pandas as shelfies or actual collection entrants, I don't know if Koalas have featured yet? Both the last two were shot in Haskins near Alice Holt, not sure about the other two . . . possibly a Squires garden centre?

 

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PS - My reading list hasn't updated for at least 72-hours, and my link-list on the visible Blog, hasn't updated for over 24-hours, so you may have posted really interesting stuff, but I haven't a clue, something which has been getting worse for a few weeks now?! And with problems uploading images, recognised on the forums (reduce the size of the edit window, and drag-&-drop), it's clear Google is tinkering in the background, not in a nice way, and telling us fuck-all about it!

T is for Two - Tinplate Tuk-Tuks!

About as far from plastic toy soldiers and/or model figures as possible, but the collection has extended it remit over the years, and micro-mini's has been one of those extensions, through such things as the mini 1-ton Humber trucks, and somewhere there is a small tub of mini tin-plate novelty vehicles, so this pair from Peter Evans are gratefully received additions.

 

Both imported by a Mechato, of the Netherlands, the single Tin Treasures sports car in a faux matchbox is made in India, and while the set of five racers says Made in Japan, I think it might be a facsimile reproduction of a 1960's or 70's card, and actually be from the same Indian source? I'll tag both though.

 

Note how the No.5 driver has been given an element of eccentricity, by riding roughshod over the rules established with cars 1-4, having rings round his tail numbers, a more pointed arrowhead graphic and a pair of feet motifs on the nose of his car - my kind of driver, I'm off down the bookies to put a fiver on him, each-way!

R is for Rack Toy Roadies

I tend to grab the odd die-cast from time to time, usually to ID a figure or animal, for future reference, but occasionally I'll buy a figureless one because . . . military or space! They, or their images, have been building in Picasa for a while now, so let's get them cleared out!

 

This actually dates back to 2015, and may have been seen, possibly in a green version in another post, but was grabbed, along with the more accidental find of the Chap Mai one, and in addition to others seen on Small Scale World, for an eventual follow-up to this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/04/h-is-for-hummer-humvee-hmmwv-humbug.html

 

If I recall correctly, these High & Drive, were 99p, in the - now - long-defunct 99p Stores, which were still going that year.

 

The same year, this was added to the pile, and I didn't even get it out of the card, it's the Jackle AFV, I think, a hurried replacement for the Land Rover Wolf, WMIK and RWMIK's which were proving so vulnerable in Afghanistan, and excising the tabloids. The front's a bit wrong, but it was quite a new vehicle back then, and in real life, the type remains in service with Light Cavalry as a reconnaissance vehicle.

 

This bit of fun was bought in 2021, and I really only purchased it because, a quid! And it's military green, but all fictional, a bit surfer culture, a bit post-apocalyptic (and 'straight to video'!), with a hint of suitability for the Gaslands or Car Wars role-playing/war-gaming rule-sets? Corgi's 'Rod Squad'.

This was a funny one, the first of three purchases in 2024, it was bought for the bike, and purely as a future ID'er, for the chopped Harley/'US Custom', but what was weird, was that none of the other vehicles on the rack had the necessary or even 'a' tow-bar/hook to pull this trailer?

 

In the old days of the 1-75 Series (originally 1-50), several vehicles in each tranche, would have the hook necessary for whatever towed caravan, boat or motorcycle was in the range at the same time, but, despite looking at every rack, pile or box of Matchbox since this purchase, I have not yet found a towing vehicle?

 

 

Actual surfer, this was bought purely to ID the figure in future mixed lots, and I could have shelfied it, but again this stuff is always between 99p and a couple of quid, so, what the hell!

 

 

Siku, apart from a Leopard Tank in sub-scale a few years ago, there is very little from them either these days, military anyway, but I managed to find this in vague 1:72 scale (I think most of this stuff is closer to 1:60?), and again it's more about ID'ing in the future than anything else, but, a nice horse sculpt.

 

While this Pass N' Go from Mattel's line of Hot Wheels came in the other day, and I just thought it was fun that the old Monopoly car had been 'given life' as it were! Nothing to do with the collection, core or peripherals really, just a fun, impulse purchase!

Note - This is the first post using Grammarly for Firfox, instead of the old LT Spell Checker which decided it wanted money now! I had to re-start to get the Grammarly activated, but it seems to be working, however, apologies for any typos which get through.. 

B is for Bunk House

I mentioned in the first part of the Wild West plunder from last month's Plastic Warrior show plunder posts, that I'd got a post in Picasa's 'long queue' on the subject of the orange log-cabins. In fact, it was down in 1971 with the rest of the RTM stuff, and as a fortuitous post elsewhere has just covered them in passing, we might as well have them now - it's nice when a plan comes together!

 

 

Three of the boxes I found in the garage, when I was sorting everything back in 2021-'23, and combining (or part combining!) garage and attic with bedroom stuff, and the large number of purchases I was making at the time (a story for another day).

 

With the heavy box being all the Skybirds and similar, while the middle one is just loose Greeks in sets and part sets, conforming to known runner ('sprue') layouts, but the other one is the 'small scale' log-cabin, in orange polyethylene, with about 12 complete and a dozen or so spares to which, two ends are obviously about to be added, in the above image!

 

I've used small-scale in inverted commas as it's only turned-up in sets with larger figures, but is ideal as a bunk house for 20-25mm US cavalry or ACW scenarios, although it can equally be used for a gold-rush trading post, or mine accommodation, even a Midwest, claim-stake shack. Josey Wales, turf roof, porch made out of barrels?

 

And it comes in various shades of orange, from a quite dark mandarin or Chinese Orange (my favourite shade of Windsor & Newton gouache!), through to a bright, almost international 'emergency' orange, with wishy-washy versions.

 

Now, Ed just added a set to his collection with one of the log cabins in it, ascribed to a Basic Line;

 

https://toyconnect.blogspot.com/2026/08/basic-line-corp-f002-cowboys-and.html

 

While we saw a similar set contents from Pikit here;

 

https://smallscaleworld-n-o-p.blogspot.com/2023/08/moneyitem-limited-pikit-toys-limited-pt.html

 

Both with the very-poor 'final generation' of the Jean copy figures, also associated with Hong Kong Toy Exporters . . . 

 

1986 catalogue image courtesy of Bill B.

 

. . . where the contents are pretty-much the same; however, accessories differ between them slightly, so each jobber, whole-seller or importer had their own ideas about what constituted a 'Cowboy & Indian' set, or value for money - while remaining profitable, or just having sufficient playability?

 

 

These have been harvested from feebleBay over the years (both in 2021 as it happens!), and now we have the windmill (post on that, in this Blog's future!), and one of the Blue Box water-well clones, along with a copy of the Britains Hong Kong trapper canoe, in the upper set, which is otherwise a generic, there's an unreadable importers sticker (top right) and what appears to be an obliterated branding, from the original (?) artwork - top left.

 

But a fundamental difference is the figures which look to be second-generation Airfix 54mm copies? The first generation tend to the same cream/white as the Airfix origianals and can confuse newbies. And another set, has a common-enough wagon, also found in other sets of the era, the 1980's

 

You can also see (as I didn't expand on the photoshoot of the boxes, with anything as sensible as all the pieces, or an assembly!), that it has six parts, a rear, with two firing slots, a front with two windows and a door, two identical gable-ended short sides, also with two windows, and two identical roof pieces.

 

The four sides interlock, leaving the ragged corner of a log-cabin, while the roof sits on four blobby studs, which can rip off on more played-with examples. There are also similarities with a Wing Wah set we saw a while back, but hatchets have been buried there, so I won't link back, and no log-cabin, anyhoos.

 

 

The smaller, soft plastic version, seems to be based on the 1970's Star Toys 'blockhouse', which forms the corner of the hard polystyrene fort, with two deer-skulls over the gate, itself a copy of an earlier European fort, with four corner towers, possibly also sourced in HK, but I'm not going there, we're doing log cabins today, not forts, or windmills!

 

This, of course explains the firing loopholes in the rear wall, it's the outside of the fort's corner; however, it also highlights a flaw in the Star Toys fort - the Indians can force the two windows on the outer end! It also has a chimney, not reproduced in the smaller clone.

 

There is a third version, which, size wise, is between the Star and the generic, and while is otherwise the same as the smaller one (orange 'ethylene, four stud roof, no slots, interlocking corners), has painted highlights, the windows and door frame being painted blue, or red, I can't remember, but I do have a couple, so we can look them when we have a better look at the components, next time!

 

And returning to my boxful above, I tend to colour-match them, as I make up complete examples, but I've seen them with different shades together, so clearly there was a huge stock of them, possibly with one of the smaller family concerns in the Kowloon slums, with their single tool and a hand-pressed injector, and they were supplied to the end-users, bulk, in mixed shades? 

R is for Royce's Rocco Rascles

So, before the last post of June 4th's show-plunder, we ought to look at this rarity, although I will shoot it again for the Khaki Infantry page, as Dave Skrivener's image has been doing sterling work there, for over a decade, while I never dug my own sample out!

 

How I spotted them, except on a table with other toy soldiery stuff! This is a shop-stock box, possibly the only surviving shop-stock box, although I may have seen another, a fair few years ago, and while he may not want to be spotlighted, I think it's worth mentioning that Brian Carrick, the seller had next to nothing on this, as we used to say in the motor trade, he washed his face on it.

 

Meaning he let it go, for what it owed him, without much attention to inflation in the meantime, or what someone might think it's worth. And while that may be a moot point, beyond box-ticking collections of early British plastic, there may not be much demand for it, and once you have it, you are the custodian, there's not much else you can do with it?

 

However, I still think it was silly-cheap, and while I think I made him take a bit more for it (something I often do, I'm not one for exploitation), and then gave four of the figures to a friend who has done a lot for the blog, I can only hope I am as strong-minded and generous when the time comes to pass my collection on.

 

As far as I know, this is the full line-up, Dave's image is missing the 3rd figure from the left, influenced by the Hilco clone of the French Clairet (Acedo?) SMG gunner, which, strangely was the one I'd had for years, before finding some or all of the others, who are, of course Britains' copies, not the Lone Star I'd thought, although the conversion to Para' berets is partly responsible for that attribution! Berets - it has to be said - which are more Military Police (MP's), in colour, than any paratroops from the UK!

 

The stock-box has been rummaged through over the years, and some extra figures have clearly been added to replace some of the missing ones, so it's hard to state facts about the contents, But it seems, after digging down through the layers, that each layer (of four) has a 4/5 mix of two poses, with an officer, for a ten count, or forty, in the box.

 

This leaves this box heavy in grenade throwers, and SMG guys, with four officers and only a few charging figures, one has to assume the next box off the line would have had more charging figures, and a shortage of one of the other two soldier poses, and so on, but that is pure speculation. 

 

Colour variations exist, both with the usually marbled plastic colour, from oxide reds through to olive drab, and some paint differences. Although I say that grandly, as if there are mountains for them, there aren't, there were a few production 'tranches' and one of them is quite brown, one quite olive, and Dave's are more of a dung-khaki, and not marbled, while paint seems to vary between a bright apple green, and more pastel herb-green for webbing and puttees, which don't (the puttees) always get painted!

 

I have a feeling, some or all of mine might have smooth bases*, but that might be a complete falsehood, so for now, assume they are all marked as above on the base underside. Markings which are not found on the small range of seperate horses and mounted figures, or the single-moulding, galloping guardsman. The only variation is that the grenade thrower has his marks stretched over two lines, the other three figures get the mark spread over three lines.

 

*Equally, they might have a mark on the upper side of the base, a simple 'Made In Great Britain', without the Rocco? But, again, that might be a false memory, and until I dig them out, shouldn't be taken as more than this footnote. 

 

I shot them again, because the angle on the second image above was a bit severe, and these need to be done justice, and to that end, as I said, I will re-shoot them in a similar vein, for the Khaki Infantry page in the next few days.

 

The set, I believe, came from Royce's daughter, whom Brian was in touch with, in the past, and - with the obvious changes -  it is literally, ex-Factory stock. It must also be pointed out, that these are incredibly brittle now, with Dave's played-with charging figure the only one I know which still has the bayonet, and following the break-up and auctioning, in parts, of his collection, that figure is rather lost to the hobby.