B is for Big Box of Bounty - Ancient, Medieval, Historical & Ceremonial

Another interesting assortment of figures from Chris Smith's latest parcel, and it's all the other 'Toy Soldier' periods. I keep meaning to do a post on the classification of these things, as it's never an exact science, do you put Huns with ancient, or medieval periods, what about Aztecs, or Ninja/Samurai, when are ceremonials also soldiers (1850's say), or further afield; the whole sorting of civilians, is a nightmare!

 

So, I'll put the Asians first! The Budda votive statuette is a nice piece of scenery for HO/OO type figures, it can even be an objective for your ANZAC's on the war games table! The large figure is actually marked Marx, with the full Hong Kong disc-mark, and is from a set of tea premiums.

 

The guy carrying the straw bundles is from a Hong Kong rack toy called 'Villagers', which we have looked at here, and another of the Kinder Samurai archers, this one complete, will get the base off one of the damaged/painted ones, in my determination to have one of each, in all three (?) colours!

 

Three Ninja's, two from Hasbro, one painted, one in a clear, blue polymer, and the other, smaller one in the middle, from the Panosh set of Lucky Bag giveaways, and other sources? I have tried finding the Hasbro's, but with little success, and suspect they aren't actually Ninja or Samurai, but from something else entirely, Star Wars semi-deforms? Anyone know?

 

Two Crong medieval horses, sans riders, and there's a post in the queue on developments there, courtesy of a Loyal Reader, a Kinder musketeer, Hong Kong copy of Britain's Robin Hood, probably sold as a cake decoration, colours tie-in with things like the Britains arctic explorer piracies, and a contender for 'best in box'. A Hong Kong clone of the MPC small scale medieval knights, and one of the little Blue Box 'Hidden Adventures' castle figures.

 

The little blob in front, is the jester-puppet, from the tip of a jester's wand, as there are very few such figures in the entire canon of toy figures, I guess it must be Starlux, Mokarex or Café Storm? As they often break-off, it may prove to be a very useful spare, one day?

 

Two lead chaps who've lost their armies, on the right looks like he's probably Minifigs, the one on the left looks to be 'a cut above', and might be someone like Stadden or Suren? But I may just be being over-enamoured of his helmet! Equally, he has an interesting detail in the tin-can sword-fist thing, is he a known character from history?

 

Giant-like but no Giant, the reason I didn't attach two of the towers to the wall ends, is because the wall is from a different issuer and the locating studs don't match up with the holes in the towers! We looked at the different types here (https://butisitgiant.blogspot.com/2021/08/golden-trojans-non-giant-gold-plastic.html), but I didn't think to measure the holes/studs; next Time!

 

Three Euro-chaps, the one on the left, I think, is by the maker located in Monaco, and is a Crescent knock-off, the other two probably premiums, and possibly in JC Peiffret's book on the subject - Les Figurines Publicitaires.

 

The Imperial Guardsman has a furry plume, caused by the fraying of a layer of plastic, which cooled quicker than the core (cold tool?), and has lifted and frayed! I could probably restore it with a pass though a lighter flame, but think I'll leave it as it is, as a fortuity?

 

In a similar vein, these plug-ins are part of a series of similar French and Italian types, from the better known Texas, through to several premium issues, each with different bases, but many figures in common, one day I'll cover them properly, but I haven't the time to try and tie-down these, or the previous ones, right now!

 

A lovely Napoleon, possibly made of casein, and a real treat, as I know Chris has a sub-collection of such things, so this must be a duplicate he's kindly sent us, it did feature here in a question-time, and I think Chris is still looking for a formal ID on the figure.

 

The larger figure I think we've seen before and is a . . . no, it's gone, I'm sure he's been ID'd here, or had his ID told to me, by someone, at some point, but it's escaped me now! I thought he might be Tringa, but he's not in my flyer?

 

The big one is almost certainly missing a sand-timer, off the right-hand spigot, and utilises a Deetail figure, unusual as it's more often seen with Hong Kong Herald figures, but he's meant to be in there, he has a large hole in his posterior for the plastic spigot seen in the second image, which is pushed through from the back of the chalkware sentry-box.

 

To the left, one of the sucker blokes, he's in a bit of a state, but rather a sample, than no sample! The little chap looks like he was made yesterday, and is polystyrene, so he may be, as he's absolutely mint, possibly an accessory for a tourist die-cast vehicle set which has avoided me, or is he a doll's house toy, as in from the playroom of a doll's house? A lovely little chap in any event, but ID needed!

 

Uncivil war, with a marked ABC figure fighting slavery, and a small lead figure (Hinchliffe?) fighting the Norman landed-class for a smidgen of democracy - they went a bit over the top on protestant dourness though, they sort of banned Christmas for several years!

Crescent conversion OBE, and a figure which could be home-made, or one of those 'Oojah-Cum-Pivvy' figures imported by Shamus Wade from India, between them is what I believe is an ocean-washed, sand-ground, or smoothed, Deetail Arab horse rider!

 

Many thanks again to Chris, some interesting stuff here, and still at least three posts to come. 

M is for More from London, Third of Three Plunder Posts

Finishing this run of plunder-posts with a right-old mix of Wild West, ancient & medieval, pirates, Sci-fi, cartoon, TV and Movie stuff, and as always, some interesting stuff, some stuff you'll be familiar with, but perhaps juxtaposed with stuff they're not usually compared with? I mean - waffling for the opening paragraph - these posts get the traffic, and people seem to enjoy an assortment of new images with some interesting items buried in them!

 

Red-on-red, what am I like! From the left; European, probably French 'bazaar' figure, small, Comansi 30mm, probably Novalinea, but in a colour and tinney polymer I'm unfamiliar with, possibly a sobre knock-off, or supplied as a premium?

 

Hong Kong Timpo'esque cavalryman, but from the legs, obviously copied from the Hong Kong rip-offs with their plug-on boots, a small Britains piracy, I have a lot of these but always in one's and twos, so probably 'Lucky Bags' or Christmas crackers?

 

A modern PVC figure who seems to be a short-short with truncated lance, and one of those from hollow-cast cowboys, who were Lido over there, and might have been Tudor Rose over here, nobody seems to know, but something must have gone with the hard plastic set of mounted Bergan/Beton-Airfix copies, with the Thomas/Poplar being for the soft plastic issues - but nobody seems to know for certain? And the only TR catalogue image I have is for another set altogether (the large scale stuff), a situation complicated by Hong Kong's own output!

 

An assortment of wagon crew, it's more about finding the last colour variations with these now, and I have many more riders/drivers/guards than I'll ever have coaches/wagons for them!

 

Discussed before, a major job one day, sorting all these out, and not much data you can trust, from a small, mixed sample like this, so they tend to go/be put separately,, against themselves being sorted, once I have worked out which torsos go with which legs, heads and accessories, information you can only get from comparing clean samples to bagged/carded sets.

 

The one on the left is a better pose, and if clean; interesting, while the two to the right look 'correct', but running-waving guy is well-dodgy! 

 

Nice from hollow-cast guard, a probably Airfix cadet, a Tudor Rose knight in a bit of a state, and I think the big knight was ELC, or unmarked (now defunct Wilco?). The guardsman is Hong Kong, and the little chap is some fantasy thing, from a mini-play set in the Blue Box 'Hidden Adventure' style of semi-deform.

 

Two pirates from the K&M/Wild Republic tube, modern PVC.

 

A board game man-at-arms taking on a bunch of spray-painted China clones of Italeri, Zvezda or similar, other Bloggers have covered these, which you find on evilBay or Ali Baba and Amazon in - often - large quantities, but of limited poses, here only two.

 

Four Phidal's, I think we've seen three before, the tall, slim babe possibly being from one of the Barbie sets, which I know I haven't looked at yet, I should keep an eye-out for one, while TKMaxx are pushing them through for Christmas!

 

Hasbro's Star Wars 'Command' Stormtrooper on the left, then a fascinating chap, who could earn 'best of parcel', as I already have a white one, I think, and possibly another, but clearly a Hong Kong parachute toy, taken from the Major Matt Mason bendies from Mattel!

 

We then have a common-enough MPC-alike, and a limited-articulation action figure, who's only a couple of millimetres over 54-mil, and who looks like I should recognise him, but I don't, so if anybody can help ID him . . . ?

A mixed bunch here, if ever you saw one (and you're about to see a couple more!), I think the grey chap is from Galoob's small line of Micromachine 'Alien/s' sets, which only went to a handful of cards with one or two - larger than other MM - figures per card, but I'm not sure?

 

Loose Thomas-Poplar PVC Santa's are probably more useful than Western wagoneers as I have several of the sleighs now, in two designs, so for the 'definitive' line-up one day, the correct number of clean, tidy Santa's will be required in the stash!

 

The rest are a mix of modern Kinder, a damaged Games Workshop skeletal horse (useful as it's glueable 'styrene), a Michelin Bibendum, a cake-decoration Santa, &etc.

 

An older Kinder 'steckfiguren', two novelty monkeys which seem to form a larger assembly if you find all of them and a capsule dragon-thing, which folds up into almost a ball, and may be Kinder, Pokémon, Ben Ten or something else entirely - there's so much of this small, blind-bag, limited edition and capsule-toy catoony stuff around now, it's impossible to follow it all, unless that's what you specialise in!

 

More Kinder, racing cars, of one type or another.

 

Again, mostly Kinder I think, the Gnome has a bit of age, but comes from a sub-set of Kinder 'solids', of which there were about eight or ten sets issued, maybe more, and with between six and twelve figurines per set, I'm nowhere near having all of them, but I do have a fair few, so we will look at them, one day.

 

Many thanks as always to Peter Evans for saving this lot, or spotting it at car boot sales, and saving it for me to share with you, here at Small Scale World.

B is for Box-ticking Boy's Toys in Bottle Bags!

At the PW show, John Begg had a whole bunch of ex-shop, or out-painters stock (there were loose figures) from Charbens, and Colesmith Plastics (the moulds have a convoluted history which can be read in Plastic Warrior's Charbens Specialist Publication), to which I availed myself of what you might call a cross-sample, certainly not everything they produced, either figure or packaging wise, but a nice example for box-ticking their latter production, which I remember being in the shelves, when I was a kid.

 

Charbens own-branded packaging.

Unpainted Wild West.

 

A generic branding as 'Pic-a-Pack'.

Guards Band and Beefeaters. 

 

American civil war, an odd mix of plastic colours with the Union outnumbering the Confederates more than two-to-one, in both sets, with an apparently measured content count of one sky-blue figure, four dark blue, and two grey

 

More mixed ceremonials, here branded to Colesmith.

A Highland piper, and Lifeguards join the mix.

 

Mixed paratroopers (green bases) and Tommies (sand).

 

Comparison of the cards, I don't know why Colesmith got to brand some-up to themselves, maybe to pay off a debt, or just for a cheaper quote to Charbens? or did they inherit/hang-on to the moulds? I haven't got the Charbens Special to hand!

 

Note, also; the Artist's palette painting sign, used - rightly - on the unpainted Wild West set, but rather spurious on the pre-painted sets? I'm sure I remember the Colesmith sets in WHSmith around 1978/79?

 

"Jenny? What colour are Native Americans, really?"

 

"Dunno' love, try one of each!"

 

The 'Blues & Royals'.

 

Mixed, painted and unpainted.

Highlanders, Nelson, Lifeguard trumpeter and mounted cowboy.

 

Guards band in various treatments.

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Historical & Ceremonial

This post gets off to a good start, with the third boxed set I got from Adrian, and then goes downhill! No, I'm joking, there are several interesting bits here, but originality of text for the opening blurb-o-graph of repeat posts, like these, is not always obvious, to an amateur author!

 

It would be lazy to assume that these too, are Torgano, like the two Western sets in the previous post of this series, they are A) thinner flats, altogether less robust, B) they have thin, oblong bases, C) decoration is, if anything more leery than the previously-seen, already pretty-colourful samples D) the generic gift-wrap 'foil' covering on the box, is nothing like the set-specific artwork of those other sets E) they are slightly smaller, and F) the subject-matter is altogether more fanciful!

 

Definitely Italians though! Shades of Captain Nemo?

 

Also shades of Captain Video with the American-football/1930's tank-crew helmets!

 

Three figures duplicated, in different colours, everything else is a one-off, and there’s a lot going on, paratroopers, artillery, flying-boat, early rubber boat, spacey guys, a Tom of Finland sailor (everyone loves a sailor!), yacht, battleship and a sinking (?) liner, this set would have been a fantastic exercise of the imagination muscles! And there's a man fighting a giant octopus!

 

The Noris Ivanhoe game has similar unpainted flats, however Torgano's own mini's (space and 'dolls') do have oblong bases, while people like Tibadabo and Co-Ma must have started somewhere? What were PRB or Sam doing in the 1950's? I have the two earlier Italian toy soldier books, and a couple of maker specific things, but I don't have the most recent one, are they in there, can anyone give us a branding on these? 

 

American Civil War, a right old mix here, with 'China' copies of Hong Kong 'solid' clones of Timpo Swoppets, actual Swoppet clones, enough Blue Box for a skirmish and a Waddington's game-playing piece - all grist to the mill!

 

Back to Italy and a nice sample of the Nardi Union/US Cavalry types, you look at these and wonder if they didn't borrow one of Cherilea's sculptors! But their charm is the stronger for the dancing-loon look!

 

The Confederate sample is smaller and lacking more hats, as well as 'kerchiefs and heads, which explains the outcome of that war! Lack of logistical support and fighting men!

 

Ceremonial assortment here, with one of the just mentioned (BMSS post) Monaco guards, sans plug-on base, a broken metal figure, three HK copies of lone Star, a trio of Sacul musicians, four Café Storme Imperials, a Hong Kong highlander, and two Hilco, who rather confirm the Band-Major in that previous BMSS post! And a sucker-guard!

 

Three pirates, too early for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, these are the Fontanini smallest version, but in an usual colour of plastic, and polyethylene, rather than the PVC resin of my other samples?

 

More Café Storm.

 

Two early British-made Arabs, I can't remember who's these are (BMS?), we have looked at them all previously, in dribs and drabs, and I intend to do them all together one day, when they are all in one place!

 

Two probably Fraser & Glass, and one early Herald - polystyrene horses.

 

From the left, a kit figure, Pyro or Revell maybe, another of the growing sample of Spanish terracotta caricature figurines, a French (?) Santon, and a very French-looking sailor, from the novelty stacking sets, we've seen clowns and policemen here, and there are US versions of the same stacking figures.

 

There’s more on this in a follow-up, but here sold as Walco Products Inc., a similar outfit to Grandmother Stover's or SSCO, dealing with both craft items, novelty tat, and cake decoration stuff!

 

Small-scale bits bring the post to a close, with a few Risk board-game pieces and three of my favourite Christmas Cracker prize guardsmen!

 

And again; thanks are due 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, I've forgotten to add! Many thanks.