E is for Eye Candy - WWI Cavalry

I shot these at the BMSS (British Model Soldier Society)'s show in Reading, two years ago, on Mercator Trading's stall (thanks Adrian), and they are pretty special; Holgar Eriksson's finest, WWI British Cavalry in the charge. Probably from Comet-Authenticast's set British Cavalry, Field Uniform, 1914, which was unnumbered.

The brown one may be Chinese or something, Eriksson's lists included dozens and dozens of nations, and often it was just a paint-job to create another catalogue listing, but only Boxer Rebellion types are listed to my knowledge, although #56 was an 'unused' number in the later sets. The same - painting to order - was true of the first Malleable Mouldings lists. Or, it could be one of his own figures, from Sweden?

B is for Box-ticking Bountiful Bags from the Boot!

I picked these up at the last BP toy fair at Sandown Park  . . .

 

. . . Dulcop bagged Wild West sets from Italy, and I think this might be how Plastic Warrior magazine imported them, way back when, but I could be wrong about that, they may have got them all loose, hence the melty ones Brian Carrick gave the Blog a few years ago?

 

The tall slim one is the Indians, with totem-pole and wigwam, the cowboys (to the right) get a tent and the short bag is American Civil War, with a small selection of cavalry from both sides.

 

The ACW set, I think it's two mounted from each of the Union 'Blues' and Confederate 'Grays', a pretty basic set compared to the other two? I have a cross-section of the loose figures, which we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2015/09/d-is-for-dulcop.html 

 

Not clear what's in the tent, but I think it's four foot and two mounted (same as the ACW), but it might be three mounted and five or six foot? You also get a camp-fire to cook your beans on, outside your tent!

 

While with the Indians you get a full set of foot figures, I think, six, eight? A mounted figure, the same camp-fire and a totem pole. There's also something which looks like it might be the sticks for the Tipi, and there's a sort of weapon-stand thing, which is plug-in decoration for the Tipi, other accessories may be hidden under the figures/inside the Tipi, which could be a selection from a stretched skin, carpet, sack, cactus, tree with vulture,  &etc.

S is for Shelfload of Shelfies!

I shot these a few years ago, not long after the multi-part overview of Fontanini and musings on Fonplast, back in 2017, but they were put on hold, because as I said at the time, I knew someone else was working on the military range. That author was Peter Evans, and those articles with the sets/generations and original Military Modelling adverts were published in Plastic Warrior magazine (which you can subscribe to, details below) over a number of issues, back then, but these then got forgotten down in Picasa's 1950's!

I thought fifteen-quid each was a bit steep, especially for a charity shop, the mounted maybe, on a good day, but all of them? I like to pick these up for between two-fifty and seven-fifty at most, but they all sold, within a week or so, and that's good for the charity.

 

At the end of the day, Fleet may have a bit of poverty, round the back of the football club, or hidden at the margins of the Ancell's or Elvetham developments, in the single-mother blocks or starter maisonettes, but overall it's an upper-middle-class dormitory town for London commuters, and there are many smart homes with trophy-wife curated decors, and I'm sure they found a good display or two, for their hundred-odd quid!

PW is contactable here:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PlasticWarrior?fref=ts 

Blog. - http://plasticwarrioreditor.blogspot.com/ 

eMail - pw.editor3@gmail.com

Tel. - 01483 830 743

And it's only five months 'till the next PW show!

P is for Polski Sklep . . . They're Everywhere!

After posting those others an hour ago, I remembered I had this chap in the queue, so went off to find the shots in one of the 'Eastie' folders, then thought there were those other three, which I think we've seen before, but anyway, more shots have been fired-off and uploaded, so here's more Polish-made Wellingtonian cavalry!

He's 70mm, with a more 'Spanish' (production) looking horse, and is a lancer officer I think?

 

The other 40mm trio included another-one of the white cuirassiers, so I now have seven of them, and he had a slightly different horse which I gave to the trumpeter, further swapping resulted in this pair being odd-men-out, and the six cuirassier troopers match! Ulan and Hussar here, I think?

 

 

Quick comparison shot!

K is for Kirasjerzy, Polscy Kirasjerzy

And the 14th Regiment of, if my cursory research in anything to go by, and it probably isn't! Looking for something quick to post after work, and these are a 'seen elsewhere', so let's get them in the Tag list here, PZG's Polish Cuirassiers.

I'm not sure if the horses are correctly distributed/allocated, but they all came together, and if I know anything about Wellingtonian troops, it's that musicians often had the odd/opposite colours to everyone else! And they are small, they're only about 40/45mm.

D is for Dark Ages

Some eye-candy I shot on Matt's stall at the London Toy Soldier Show the other day, some Dark Age/Early Medieval/Norman cavalry types, as sold painted, you can always purchase the bare castings instead.

All available from White Tower Miniatures, where you will also find lovely Saxons and Vikings as well, many designed to make a shield-wall, along with scenic accessories and buildings. White Tower are here;

https://whitetowerminiatures.co.uk/shop

 

B is for Brush & Rail, Britians Show Jumping, Bits and Bobs

I don't have the big Show Jumping boxed set from Britains, it tends to attract a pretty penny, and most of the contents are available loose, but there are a few bits which were unique to the set, not least the jumps, fortunately, Britains anticipated some wanting to extend their set to a full competition ring (circuit?), and made most of the bits available separately, so by way of introducing a short season on jumpers and jumping, here are a few bits from the Britains line, which I have here - we will return to them and look at the whole range of riders another day, as they are in (back-in!) storage.

The add-on Brush & Rail fence as sold separately, you get three units of fence, basically wooden boxes with faggots of brushwood, or twiggy-twigs, stuffed into them. While the boxed area underneath the backing-card, contains a standard Post & Rail fence, two marker-flags and a spare stand for the horses which were only, otherwise available in the big set, the riders when sold separately coming with/attached to a five-bar gate, to jump over.

How they all go together, and the various components, the brush is made from horsehair, which was curled (probably under heat, a hot water dip maybe, or hot-air?), then dipped in a rubber-solution or latex before being compressed into sheets or 'bisquits' (Yes, I like to use that incorrect spelling, it's fun Panda Bear talk), and cut to shape. It was a forerunner of modern foam packing, and had been around, commercially, for some time.

 

The extra stand, replacing the gate the seperate riders came with, which could also be added to your show-jumping display, this enabled them to face-off against the various other jumps in the set/line. Some place it the other way round, with the base to the rear, but it balances either way.

 

Early and late versions of the 'Captain Mark Philips' character, he also came with as the gate jumper, but is here on a different horse, as either an early Herald/Eyes Right/Swoppet era figure (white horse) or in a Deetail iteration, black horse, rubber-band reins.

 

There were actually several riders who performed in uniform back then, a German (whom I think is behind the mind of this figure's sculptor), an Argentinian (I think?) and maybe a couple of Spaniards, among others, I well remember watching Show Jumping (and tennis, and the tedium of 1960/70's Test Cricket), because with two, latterly three TV-channels, there was often bugger-all else on, especially in the mid-afternoons! Phillips usually performed in the No.1 Dress uniform, a blue-black affair, known as 'Blues'.

 

12-03-2022 - It was the Italians I was thinking of (see FitzjamesHorse comment below), and I remembered I'd scanned this from the 13th October 1973 issue of World of Wonder magazine, expressly to add to this post, back in March '22! Honestly, the filing system is breaking down under the weight of stuff! Given when the Britains figure first came out, it was probably these guys behind the Military rider?

H is for How They Come In - London, December

The last show report of the year, and I've sort of caught-up, although there's a lot of older stuff still in the long-queue to be cleared, one day/some day. I've done them as one post, so there's a lot to get through, including two of the most interesting figures to come in this year, or any year, and they were both given to me.

 

Also, and genuinely without trying, I see that both the 2017 target of 468-posts and the best month (which I think was 81-posts a few years ago) are within my grasp, if I can get about 17 posts out in the next 7-days, so apologies if I post some crap to get there, but I'll have a go, although I am working five of them, so it's a tall order I may fall short on!

So, it's just gone 2pm, and as soon as I've blurbed this up, I've a Crimbo-dinner to cook, so let's get on, you often see these in this pinky-red, good ones are actually very red, but it's an unstable dye in the plastic which fades with ultra-violet light action.

 

Reisler, and I assume they did the whole set, although I've never seen the motorcycle or female soldier in this scheme, which could be a take on some African peacekeeper thing from the 1960's, the figures are always finished in an Afro-Caribbean skin-tone, as well as the loud uniforms? Anyone got any ideas?

My third (? I think?) Cavendish on the left, and not as explosive as the previously mentioned pair! Sadly, when Cavendish inherited the Britains Eyes Right stuff, they seemed to drop these, but they are lovely in their own right.

 

On the right a French premium, but in the middle a very interesting figure of an American Indian warrior with a swivel head? He might be Hong Kong, but isn't marked, he could be Argentine, but isn't marked, might he be Polish or Hungarian? Or even French bazaar?

Steve Vicker's gave me this, because he'd forgotten he had it and didn't know what it was, and while I did briefly discuss it with him, in case he wanted to change his mind and ask for some shekels, he was happy I have it, and it wasn't until I got it home and had a proper look at it that I realised it's very interesting indeed.

 

Obviously, it's a copy of an Elastolin Landsknecht gunner, but 1) it's in the same hard, dense PVC of the Azur-Culpitt-Injectaplastic-JSP (Jouets Super Plastic)-Prior-Rena family of PVC output, and B) it is carrying a base identical to the late Britains Herald Hong Kong production of Trojans and the Roman charioteer, when he - as over-production - was given a base and sold out of shop stock boxes with the Greeks.

We looked at them last here, and you can see this one has a 'NO 514' on the slightly smaller base (I suspect the figures is a straight lift from the 40-mil'), while they are randomly -618 or -619? But it raises the possibility that the/a factory in Hong Kong, being used by, or even owned by Britains, possibly the - previously mentioned here in passing - Herald Metal & Plastic of Kowloon, are going to link all the above together, and may also have been responsible for some of those generic antiqued pencil sharpeners, copied from the Spanish, and from which (one of the cannons) this chap probably came, with another pose/figure?

 

It's not that clear-cut, as we know some of the above were credited to Macau, and two or more factories could obtain the same dense pink vinyl I'm sure, but it opens up new possibilities for avenues of inquiry, and I'm very grateful to Steve for giving it to me, to share with you, to extend the conversation, as it were?

I was a bit disappointed with these, they looked lovely in the bag, but when I got them home they were just repaints with a replacement stretcher, but I think I have a spare stretcher somewhere, so I'll make good on the investment at some point, late'ish Tim-Mee, and nothing to get too excited about without the dog, but I think I have him too, somewhere!

 

Gareth Morgan also gave me an early Christmas present in this Hong Kong copy stagecoach, it's got a little bit of damage to the luggage-rail, but I know I have a battered one in the spares, and I think a careful mend with have it back to parade-finish, they are clean-breaks at either end, and I have the driver, because we saw him here, not that long ago! While the catapult-plane is missing all its flying surfaces, but is a first example, and was from a cheapie rummage tray!

 

These two were from Mercator's cheapie tray, and I got them as the Frenchman is quite unusual, and the 'Afrika Korps' finished German even more so, I think they were marked, or one of them was, but I haven't got time to look for them now, so they can come round again, or I'll look them-up this evening and add something here?

 

Frenchie is marked Durso, a Belgian producer of composition figures, while the DAK chappie is unmarked and appears to be chalkware which could make him Belgian also, or French?

 

Also from the cheapie trays, were a few more hollow-cast lead 'Khaki Infantry', again, we'll return to them another day, but if you follow the Blog, you'll know I've had several lots like this in recent years, and am getting a half-decent sample of these types, whether originals or copies - as per one of the pair in the middle?!!

 

Well, this is getting silly now! A forth Argentine copy of the Timpo Hopalong Cassidy, but this one in more realistic decoration/plastic colours than the previous three! Along with two Lone Star because they were clean and unbroken!

 

And . . . having had the lovely Landsknecht gunner from Steve, Adrian Little gave me the figure in the middle, who looks to be composition, but is a crude plastic figure! And again he gave it to me because he didn't know what it was, I guess we both hope one of you do, Loyal Readers! I guess some Tourist thing, but where from? Lancers in black with New York cop hats? South America, smaller European state? Mystery figure, the second in one show! And unusual to be holding the lance in the left-hand?

 

To either side of him are a nice marbled Hilco infantryman and a dog with two locating-studs who is technically as interesting as anything else unknown, but I know he won't be rated the same as the Landsknecht or lancer by most of you!

 

Three clean ceremonials, with - from the left - Hilco, Charbens and believed to be Trojan, I don't think I had the Hilco previously, and the Charbens soldiery seem harder to find than their Bandsmen, who are very common?

 

Is it a Tresco? I don't know, but it's about the fifth in the collection and we've seen a couple of others from Brian B or on evilBay, so there are many variants of the Tresco original to track-down! It must have been one of the most widely used novelty items of childhood, ever, and you can still find new issues/piracies now, forty or fifty years after anyone wore something like that underwater!

 

And a little whitemetal bicycle?

The Gopher/Groundhog actually has a damaged (missing!) tail, but is unknown to me, so came into the stash as a first sample, while the Totem Pole was a speculative purchase against my not knowing in the moment what I had, but I think I do have one in this colour-way, with this base, as well-preserved, so one day I'll have to move one on!

 

In the bag with the gopher were a 'Funimal', an Aristocat premium and the two Kinder solids between them.

 

I'm not sure on the Pirate, he's sort of half Ideal, half Hing Fat, and I have half-an-idea I should half-know him, so I guess he'll be returning, when I remember! The Timpo copy obviously went with the Tim-Mee's above but was in a seperate rummage tray, while the ABC copy of Herald's ACW had good paint!

 

Blue Box doll's house lady, the 'atomic family's' stay-at-home housewife, all dressed up to do dinner after receiving her new Hoover from under the tree - no, she really, really wanted it! And a space-man rider/driver, I don't recall seeing before? He/she/it has a plug-in polyethylene or nylon ariel thingy, but is otherwise polystyrene and of a crudity that points to Hong Kong.

Hopefully, like with the recent Lady Penelope Chitty Chitty Bang Bang figure, the two Paul's will find and post the correct figure for their self-awarded brownie-points soon, and I can add a note here, and we'll all know!

Couple of make weights, a Gemodels/Festival I don't think I had, or if I do, in a different coloured coat maybe? And another of the now confirmed Blue Box firefighters, loose.

 

The organisers of the show, Guideline Publications, were giving these to anyone who wanted one, upon entry, and there are supposed to be instructions on their website, but I'm damned if I can find them, so? However, it should be easy enough to put together, one day, looks to be about 1:24th, and possibly a Model-T?

 

So less than 50-items in total, barely a cupped-handful, probably my least show-plunder ever, but I was being careful, and it's full of interesting things, Thanks to Adrian, Gareth, Guideline and Steve for the freebies!

Right! It's nearly four-o'clok, I must start cooking or |I'll be eating at midnight! Happy Christmas all!