W is for Wild West Warriors - 2 of 2

I shot these first, of the two post's worth, but they ended-up as the second post for reasons I've already forgotten, half the bagged/carded stuff, and a bit of detritus at the end, but all good stuff!

 

Sorpresa . . . Italian for Sobre, Spanish for surprise! And Natale Luigi (NL) is a new one for the Tag list. I remember ten lira being about half-a-p in 1977, so it's not going to break the bank, not even the piggy-bank, pocket-money being the target of very small 'lucky bags'!

 

Apologies to Peter Burgner, I was chatting to him about this find, which he'd observed at a distance, and I said they were the same figures as the Lucky Clover sets, but they're not. The foot figures are larger, while the mounted are the standard 'Giant' size.

 

Still a useful find. I suspect two sets of mounted are missing from the top of the card, and while you could do without the shop-keepers stickers, they do at least date the thing to the mid/late-1970's, the sort of thing which was sixpence in d-money, and became 5-new-p, briefly, before the oil crisis 'invented' modern inflation! Who remembers when 1st class post was 3p!

 

While we had the Sorpresa/Sobre equivalent in Lucky Bags, at the larger end, here in the UK, these were the equivalent of the smaller ones, cheap polymer stuff, sourced in Hong Kong, or occasionally, especially with tin-plate, Japan.

 

A painted figure, marked Hong Kong, of the same size, against the unmarked bases of the figures in the bags, which came-in the same day. All Britains copies, and these 35mm's were cracker fodder, too.

 

Alkastep; a scruffy card, and a ripped bag, but a sample is better than no sample, and it means we can look at the figures. All marked 'France', on the rear-edge of the deep bases, these are to be found as other premiums I think, or were supplied as such to third parties, without rebranding?

 

Post-Giant wagons, the buggy was branded National and others, the small gun-team a cracker prize, while the larger gun and limber combo' was issued with unmarked copies of Giant's ACW and Napoleonics. The other three are more generic.

 

The Poplar-Quaker Foods-Tudor Rose wild west set, really just looking for colour variations or gap-filers now, they aren't rare, and most mixed lots/donations, or show plunder has a few! They could mostly use a god clean, common with these, that obviously got a lot of play back in the day.

 

Likewise, the Crescent hollow-cast and Bergan/Beton copies, these are two Airfix late type (back right, the Indian has been given black, fabric-tape chaps!), and the rest hard styrenes which may also be Tudor Rose, in the case of the mounted certainly, the foot figures seem to have been carried issued by several unknowns, at some point.

C is for Cap Bombs and Chessmen!

Two themes presented themselves as last weekend developed. In previous years it's been Merit, Blue Box, or Sports Figures, one year in was Gem-Culpitt/Cake Decorations, all of which had quite small, or no representation this year, but as I pointed out in a comment the other day; you don't pick them, the themes choose themselves! And this year, I had three lots of chess-pieces come in, and a handful of cap, and other bombs, so that's where we're at, in this post!

 

 

I got this set of Crescent's chessmen from Colin Penn, and they are rather nice, with all bar the Castle being fully figural, and with a sort of late-Norman / early-Plantagenet feel to them, or their costume. Maybe a bit more Wars of the Roses to the Knight and Pawn?

 

Also interesting, and often the way when you discover stuff outside a company's normal (or known to you) oeuvre, the material is not the normal Crescent 'Airfix' figure polyethylene plastic, but a denser, slightly soft polymer, it could be a PVC, but I suspect not, we exported the filth, pollution and health-hazards of vinyl-production quite early! But certainly a hard-wearing, and slightly spongy plastic which might still be a PE?

 

Colin then gave me these! They are from a contemporary company, Professor Puzzle, but differ slightly from the set currently on their website. Wooden, both sides are incomplete, but there are the 12 you need for two of these line-ups, which is the proper way to display them for sale, and that's not me lecturing you, I had to research chess twenty years ago, and that was one of the factoids I unearthed! King to the left, down to pawn, although I've placed the Queen first, Doh!

 

While these are the Mokarex coffee-premium chess set, and, possibly not by coincidence, all from the 'white' set. We saw them here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/02/p-is-for-perfectly-planned-paint.html

 

You'll notice the two outer mouldings in the five-shot, are a darker plastic, suggesting that the tool was run for some time, and that they're probably not rare, like cereal premiums, there would have been millions, as there were millions of coffee jars during the promotion. But I've still got more than half to find!

 

In the order in which I bought them, I think, four cap-bombs, at a toy-soldier show? Shocking! I removed them from the room, as a matter of common courtesy! I took the plunger from the damaged silver one, when I realised it fitted the blue/yellow one, which has the anvil/striking-plate, but another plunger, striker and two springs are required to get them both up to scratch - there is a tub of these, with various bits, so one way or another something will be completed!

 

Sizer!

 

These two had been in the odds-drawer stuff the night before the show, so presaged the theme, obviously the one on the left is a sucker-bomb, or dart from an infants shooting/target game, while the metal one has some similarities with the bomb on the Dinky Toys model of a Junkers 87 Stuka, so I'm guessing a similar toy, but no moving parts, so no cap-firing capacity - anyone recognise it?

 

Thanking, for help, support or 'stuff' at this year's show; Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin. 

J is for June's Jubbly Jackpot!

So, to the stuff on the day, as the saying goes, and because we'll be looking at everything again in future posts, we can keep the blurb light, just a few lines to keep the bots happy and give them something to trawl!

 

Contributions/donations/freebies to/for the Blog include a box from Peter Evans (top left), a bag and two tubs from Trevor Rudkin (top centre), various bit from Adrian in the two trays (top right), a bag from Brian Carrick (bottom left), with a free bag of chess pieces from Colin Penn, an armoured car and some crusaders - also free - from Isaac, pirates and Space from Martin Fahie, and Paul helped me find all the Deetail mounted (bottom centre) after I'd commented on my failed search for some!

 

Initial sort of Trevor's bag, lots of Giant or Giant-like stuff, which is literally grist to the mill, but useful grist, given the colours and variants available, across the oeuvre, with tubs of wagons (and a Lucky Clover chariot), and a less common 'navy' coloured Hong Kong truck.

 

After further sorting.

 

One of my first purchases in the hall was a bag similar to that from Trevor, and again, initial sorting produces similar stuff . . .

 

. . . with three new-to-collection aircraft, and an Airfix dog, along with the non-Giant Vikings and a cracker-toy gun-team.

 

Breakdown of Brian C's bag, and the two Realtoy/Dacron figures (top right) were a nice surprise, as they are both poses I was missing, and it's funny, 'cos Brian always hands his bag to me with a "It's just a load of junk", and there's always interesting stuff in there!

 

Adrain stuff! The space bag joins one from the box in the previous post, along with enough loose figures to make a separate post in the sequence. Top left is a large bag of smaller kit-figures I'll still be sorting/ID'ing in a decade!

 

I paid full whack for these, but they were kept for me, so credit will be in the breakdown posts, as part of the final paragraph credit list, but aren't they beautiful? Polish winged hussar and standard-bearer.

 

Peter's bag, given its first sort, lousy picture (I'm just not getting my head around this new camera properly), but . . .

 

. . . after a further sort by subject-matter, highlights include two Airfix motorcycle riders (which I need; bikes outnumber riders about two-to-one!), and several of the Soma Sci-fi figures/Pilots, but in the large size.

 

Boxed, bagged, and blister-carded purchaes from the room, highlights have to be the shop-dispenser card of pocket-money Wild West mini-packets, the Thomas submarine and the plain-box, middle right, it is a shop-stock of Rocco (Royce) combat figures, which Brian left me have, so cheap, I made him take more, but he still might as well've thrown them at me! It's an interesting example of how things are worth different amounts to different people, and we'll have a proper look at the contents in a subsequent post.

 

A new name in Sobres (except it's an Italian 'Sopresa'!) and the boxed Tresco diver also stand out, and the rocket contributes to one of the themes this year. While there was six sets from Replicants to obtain at this show.

 

Loose room purchases, a stand-out is probably the bag of loose (47!) Mokarex/Historiques demi-roundes, we've seen my various bagged ones and those painted by George Hanger, but this lot will help complete the loose, unpainted sample.

 

Starting to sort by theme, for the in-depth posts, and you can see Wild West on the left, Ancient/Medieval to the right-hand side, sci-fi and TV?movie stuff next to Vehicles at the rear and various bags (civilian, historical/ceremonial, animals, bits/accessories and combat), so maybe ten plunder-posts proper, to come? With a few bits still to sort in the foreground.

 

As I said in the previous post, I haven't started shooting the contents of these bags yet, but the thematic post is 'in the bag', haha! And there's a quick post on the obtained ephemera which will both come next.

F is for Further Follow-up - Micro Vessels

I'd forgotten I'd picked the bits up from the storage unit, to do a comparison, so here's a bit more on the small or 'micro' vessels we looked at a couple of days ago, and some more bits from the Internet downloads folder on naval stuff.

 

Both this and the previous should be viewed in the context of the original post on the very small vessels, which was part of a series of seven articles;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2012/03/s-is-for-ships-and-other-vessels-part-7.html

 

There were also some comparisons in the MPC series a few years later; 

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2015/05/mpc-is-for-mini-ships-part-two.html

 

Which was a two-parter, both series have become dated by the scope of the collection now, and one day I intend to re-do all seven of the first lot, in the same order, but as longer, fuller articles, in the meantime a few more points arising . . .

 

. . . including a colour fan of the Quaker samples which are here at the moment, I know the original sample with all ten mouldings, and other accrued duplicates is elsewhere, so a better version of this shot is in the Blog's future, and looking at these, I think there's some merit to my hypothesis re. Tom Smith?

 

Furthermore, I'd suggest that whoever made these ships, made the Gladiators, both are relatively common in small quantities (down to single samples in mixed 'junk' lots), more common than other cereal premiums, and while there are none here, the metallic green in the original post, is matched perfectly in the Gladiators, originally, also Quaker.

 

Nine of ten, by size, with a hole for the missing one!

 

The two Sanella superstructures I have here, there are at least three, and they have a common hull, sometimes found loose, sometimes found glued together, like that water-film novelty I got from Steve Vickers recently. However, I'd forgotten . . .

 

. . . the larger., better finished liner, also marked Sanella, which is almost certainly a later model? The Manurba seem to have three hull types, not the two mentioned the other day - my bad! Pointed, rounded and flat sterns, and maybe only three matching superstructures? Although, like the Sanella - lots of colours, albeit brighter/primary, as opposed to Sanella's more muted or pastel hues.

 

Recently, with the help of Chris Smith (pink, middle), and - I think - another purchase (red, front), I've picked-up three vessels with WWI/turn-of-the-19th-Century forward sloping prows (there was a silver warship, from Adrian Little, still in a separate bag!), and it turned-out I'd found them online some time ago (2020);

 

Apparently sold in waxed-paper bags of twelve vessels, there are possibly only four sculpts/mouldings; twin-barrelled warship, single-barrelled warship, merchantman/tanker and liner? But with three marking variations (prow - my red one, stern - this set, and none - silver warship), there really aught to be more in the collection than there are?

 

The fate of all this Hong Kong bottom-end/pocket-money stuff is that it was always unappreciated and mostly went to landfill decades ago. So, if you have any going spare, bring them to the Plastic Warrior show, this Saturday, and I'll give you real Earth money for them!!

 

Finally, found in 2021, and as an addendum to that part-7 link above, another game which contains a micro-navy, to add to the games in that post, is the Ariel Games one, Manoeuvre, also sold as Strategy, from 1973;

 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8905/strategy-the-navy-game-for-all-the-family

 

Which is quite bloodthirsty, if you contemplate the number of troops you can have on a troopship! I'm sure there are more games with these micro vessels, and - of course - we've ID'd the slightly larger Silvercorn stuff, since those early posts.

A is for A Few Follow-ups!

A few things raised by stuff we've looked at recently, and despite a slower than usual posting rate so far this year, we've covered quite a bit one way or another, and here are a few bits and pieces related to some of the odds & sods, seen here in the last couple of months, or so!

 

This was an internet sales shot I downloaded a few years ago, I download a lot of stuff which illustrates stuff I don't have, but which it's not worth bidding on, or because I'm not - at the time - bidding, and this is one such. I downloaded it for the little blue Bisque pilot (whom I didn't know was bisque then, I assumed composition!), and, of which I've since picked-up a sample, seen in this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2026/06/bmss-is-for-more-plunder.html

 

The other stuff above is mostly common lead, some of which I've obtained in the last few years from Adrian's rummage trays, but it seems I'm still looking for the sub-scale chap. top, far-right, or is he the Crescent pilot (which I do have)? And the guy next to the blue pilot, also slightly smaller than the 54mm's. I think the sailor/lifeboat man, two along is a modern production, whitemetal solid?

 

While this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2026/05/d-is-for-donations-peter-animals.html

 

Reminded me I'd downloaded these wooden flats, when I saw them on sale, again, not the common poultry girl and chickens, but in the same vein, and like the farmer in Peter's donation, slightly better decorated. I've never seen the Wild West figures before, but will look out for them.

 

On the subject of the mazes we looked at, on the London Underground, it struck me, back in April, that the tiled panels at Warren Street (geddit? Warren = labyrinth, maze), should get an honourable mention! I think there's a deliberate mistake in this, but need to check it with the other panels, and there are several per platform and four platforms to check.

 

But if you look at the 7th tile along from the left in the second row from the top, it's not right? Breaking at least two rules - two red lines adjacent, and a shadow-wall falling away at the wrong angle?

 

The various Hulk's we've seen since Christmas! I think the oldest is the pencil top, and there are others to look at one day, so we'll return to Hulks at some point if I'm granted the time, by the powers that be, but the weather this week has suggested we might, none of us, have the time left, we've been hoping for or counting on!

 

I've got the blues! I thought there were six shades here, but actually there are seven, so the early works on Kellogg's jig-toys were pretty generalised in their colour lists, and clearly there were many runs of the tools, and cereal premiums was only one of several issues, for these polyethylene jig-toys.

 

These got left off one of the Peter Evans' donations, and are mostly Hong Kong small scale with a few kit-figures and other bits (central bag), but all grist to the mill! When I'm better organised, these will all go on the But Is It Giant? blog (no, none of them are!), and with both my own quite large collection of carded, bagged and blister sets, and the many I've also downloaded from the Internet over the years, we will make sense of them all, and annotate most of them!

 

Further to the recent purchase from Isaac's friend at Sandown Park;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2026/06/t-is-for-two-diver-sets.html

 

I took this image from evilBay back in 2021, and you can see the same soft 'polythene' ships (sans the hard 'styrene submarine), with one version of the sailors, taken from Britains hollow-cast US Marines, but what it would seem to suggest is that there's an ABC-CMV-HK link to some or all of these sets, more work needed, or a couple of confirmatory finds!

 

Sticking with vessels, these are a purchase a while ago, of the Quaker cereal premiums, we added five the other day, courtesy of Chris Smith, including a new colour (white), and while I haven't managed to shoot them all together, one day we'll unite them all and cover all the colours and all the vessels (ten?), however, I suspect, from the breadth of the colour range, these, like the Gladiators, found their way into Tom Smith crackers at some point?

 

I should have credited the seller at the time, name long-lost, and they probably don't even know of the Blog, let alone follow it, but this was a cheap BIN I got back in February '23, and this is how they arrived in an otherwise standard envelope, and I thought they were beautifully packed to ensure they arrived as they were seen in the auction shots.

 

The cereal premium submarine has all four periscopes/air-tubes/exhausts up, which was the real reason for bidding, the Quaker and Manurba vessles (middle pair) were grist to the mill, and the yacht might be from a board-game, but the keel suggests not? Maybe the water-bowl equivalent of Blow Football?!

 

And mentioned in passing in another plunder-post recently - the Tallon (UK) packaging of the Manurba vessels, I have quite a few Tallon packs now, but this one has eluded me so far, it'll come; nothing made after 1950 is 'really' rare!

 

There are two common hulls (flatter stern and pointed at both ends), to which two or three superstructure types are added, to each hull. We've also seen similar ships from Sanella, who had the one hull, and several suprestructures.