F is for Farmers, Firefighters, Fishermen, Footballers and Other Functionaries

Right, now I've really got to photograph the other two bags, as it won't be over 'till they sing, and Rack Toy Month is fast approaching, with plenty to amuse and entertain, or at least add to the whole! In the meantime, the last of the previous photo-sesh' is the civilian stuff, and there some interesting stuff in there, so let's 'ave a luke!

 

Sportsmen, with a large Charbens footballer, from the paint-your-own set we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/10/t-is-for-two-paint-your-own-catalogue.html

 

Another of the cake-decoration (and other sets) footballers, the less common cricket fielder from Gem/Culpitt, and while he may only be uncommon to me, when you get the sets of three, they rarely have this chap so I think it's an accurate identifier.

 

Another of the cereal premium imports for Canada, playing ice-hockey, and one of the Ajax baseball figures, but a late unpainted one, which may have been issued by somebody else? We looked at the painted ones here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/08/i-is-for-its-not-rounders-and-its-not.html

 

And, where did that seven years go?!

 

The smaller components of a firefighter set, probably a rack toy, and the probably chunky vehicles are missing, but it's another sample, another box ticked. I like the no fires sign, with a large FIRE underneath, glad they had time to get that up, to warn people entering the smoke-filled area, past the fire engines and sooty-faced, sweaty guys, in heavy overalls!

 

Two very useful Airfix motorcyclists, I have many more bikes than riders, so these were a must when I saw them, along with a soft PVC sidecar rider, of the racing variety, who may be from a small die-cast, maybe by one of the smaller makers? It's not the Britains one, and I don't think it's Budgie either, but might be a copy?

 

Circus, a clown bendy, and another part- (or most-) clown from Kinder, along with a second example of the strange, flatish, but solid, stylised, possibly die-cast, or harder base/whitemetal like spelter or pewter, ringmaster.

 

The fact that two have turned-up now, years apart, without any other recognisable elements of a circus set, suggests some kind of token, freebie, mascot or corporate thing? Anyone know?

 

Three additions to the Japanese celluloid/styrene trinket side-collection, which, as it consists mostly of teeny wagons and carts, equally diminutive 'brown water navy' vessels, or the larger blow-moulds, makes these a nice addition, being a selection of rural occupations, a fisherman and two woodmen.

 

The one that was missing! We have looked at these several times now, Brian Berke and Chris Smith have both helped with images or sample, on those visits, and possibly even shown us a Tresco original, and while I may now find there is one among mine, loose, this boxed one will start the full overview, one day, as there's about a dozen in the stash now, while we've seen more than twelve, so we can do full comparisons?

 

Farm stuff, the larger ones are modern/current, owe a lot to Elastolin and are a growing sample. I thought the blue chap was from a set of semi-flat animals we have looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/11/q-is-for-question-time-animal-flats.html

 

But he's not, he's a much heavier sculpt, with a thicker base, and might be an early board-game piece, from the metal to plastic switch-over, but aping the flats of earlier gaming pieces?

 

While the other two are metal, and might be Charbens, a tractor diver, who's quite common, and a slightly different figure with half-crossed legs, who might be operating a reaper-binder, a job I have done, for my sins, and bloody hard it is too, with several leavers to mind, adjusting height and angle of cutting bed, while keeping another eye on the knotter, and a third on the contra-rotating packing belts! And you have to keep checking the sheaves you're leaving behind!!

 

But he might just be a chauffeur!

 

We've had loads of these from Adrian Little and Chris in recent years, and I already had a large sample (some 60-plus bags), but they all differ, and will need a huge sort-out one day, trying to tie them into known sets, either from the collection, or from catalogues (Holly, Blue Box), or from the hundreds of images I've downloaded over the years, of sets online.

 

Likewise! But Small-scale.

Two Crescent lead to the right, and a metal dog, complete, but refuseing to stand-up!

 

Road/construction workers and race crew/garage attendants are another subsection with literally hundreds of unknowns, from 60-plus-years of vehicle toys with figural accessories, and there tends to be a wider verity, than in the much-copied multi-generation farm stuff, which has few pose variants (it's all in the size, base type or plastic colour), so I'm looking forward to sorting these and ID'ing as much as possible.

 

Can I get away with a second 'likewise'? Emergency personal (Police, Fire and Ambulance), are another genre with many, many variants, and while I have promised to get a firefighters page done, it's rather languishing at the moment, but police and ambulance crew/stretcher cases will need similar treatment!

 

Rail staff and passengers are another area, where stuff keeps appearing, which isn't from the obvious perpetrators, and here it's possibly Hong Kong copies of the Tri-Ang/Hornby dinning-car and driver sets, two flats in lead and a reasonably common Hornby 'Binns Road' era solid.

 

Everything else! The scout, while similar to the two flats above, will be from a board-game, with that coloured base. The small girl/doll seems to be a cake decoration, while the seated lady and gentleman with cigar with be from US model kits of cars, or 'automobiles'! Funny, when I showed the unknown Chauffeur the other year someone else quickly found him and added him to their HQ, they'll have to find these two now!

 

Many thanks to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, without their contributions, and those of Chris, Brian, Tony H, John Begg, Gareth, Steve V and others, at other times, these posts wouldn't happen. 

H is for Hetman, Hussars and Historiques!

It's the subsection I call Historical; from the post-Medieval through to pre-kharki, sometimes including ceremonial, but there were enough in the plunder to split them into two posts, so we're covering about 4/500-years here, except with the Figurines Historiques, where over a millennium is covered!

 

We had a decent shot of them in the sorting post, but I wanted to do better by them with a few more shots. A winged hussar from Poland, historically and actually, and a standard-bearer who might be contemporary (historically - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), or even from the same set, but both beautiful figures. 

 

I have to assume PZG is in here somewhere, but the standard-bearer has an unconventional base which is more touristy, than the usual thick-but-flat bases associated with PZG, while the winged hussar has a base more like the semi-flats associated with another Polish firm?

 

I got several things from Peter at Replicants, the wagon was new a couple of years ago, but I've ended-up with another one, so I can get one out of the bag at some point, and a pack-mule with generic handler, both the humans cover several centuries with their peasant's smocks and trousers.

 

While these could have gone in the civilian post, or the combat post, but again with minor tweaks or paint, they, or various among them, cover any insurgency from Garibaldi or some of the Southern America's Wars of Independence, onwards, although, obviously, the chap with a sten-gun is less flexible time/theatre wise, and the detonator guy doesn't cover the range of the others.

 

Including last year's radio-operator, and the - previously seen as broaches - climbers, now given rifles, we have a set of resistance-fighters, or revolutionaries, partizans or Maquis, turncoats, left-behinds, rebels or 5th Columnists; irregulars, in a word! Already well blogged here;

 

Paul via Peter E - https://www.stadsstuff.com/?p=26381

Brain Carrick - https://toysoldiercollecting.blogspot.com/2026/07/new-replicants-french-resistance.html

 

Longer-served loyal readers may remember six years ago, a Hetman from PZG in one of Chris Smith's donations, for which, Grzegorz Maciak kindly supplied a horse? Well, I've since picked-up two more of them, each on a different horse, slightly frustrating, as there are other poses in the set, but they will make a lovely group charging across a shelf at some point!

  

There were 42 of these, or 47, I can't recall, but useful, as I have gaps in the collection of loose figures, and or need unpainted examples of those posibly painted by William J. Carman, so a quick sort at some point, and I should end up with most of the range in unpainted white. The orange one is a sunburnt example, not a plastic colour variation.

 

A bit bashed, but some garden war-gamer might do something with them, they just need pin-swords! Cherilea English Civil War figures.

 

French Cuirassiers

 

British Lifeguards

 

French Hussars

 

French Carabiniere

 

I mentioned in conversation with Paul, that I hadn't found the one thing I'd had on my 'sort of' wants list, this year, the Mounted Napoleonics from Britains Deetail, and he spent the next 20-odd minutes calling me over or directing me to various stashes he found, and I managed to pick-up 7, which leaves five to find - British hussars and dragoons and the other French carabiniere! A couple will benefit from a bit of a clean!

With thanks again this year to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin.

V is for Various Venerable Vehicles

Not as many vehicles as some shows, but then Sandown has always been the show for vehicular stuff, while PW really is about figures, although there were enough in the end to split them into two posts, land stuff this time!!

 

I'd like to think this might be Tri-Ang Minic, but I can't find it described as such anywhere, among all the other Minic-branded tanks in at least three size groups, so it may well be a knock-off, or rival, trying to look like Minic?

 

The 'Centurion' turret in particular has a lot in common with several Minic efforts, but the whole machine is a soft polyethylene, against the early phenolic, or less stable 'styrene, which gives us the mostly - these days - warped, Minic originals?

 

Around 1:48th and almost impossible to decide which end is the front, I went with the end having more rivets as possibly being the back, with inspection hatches, and the motor under it! And the wheels reveal it got some serious play, probably over some time and was somebody's much-loved toy.

 

Seen before here at Small Scale World, many years ago, as I have a loose one, and put it on a transporter for a photo-shoot, this one is pristine, and generic-boxed, although the box has seen better days and will get a damp ironing at some point to restore its shape a tad!

 

Based reasonably accurately on a French Panhard EBR of the early Cold War, probably taken-off the Dinky die-cast, the barrel is a plug-in to allow for a smaller box, a common trope with these Hong Kong tanks, as we saw with the Blue Box one, the other day.

 

Hong Kong smallies and the remnants of a die-cast artillery piece, all grist to the mill, with the Humber truck being the version I called Type 1B, the Hong Kong marked second-generation copies of the Kleeware originals, with the solid windows and steel axles.

 

Navy or Air Force? There were civilian sets of these, and with signs of reinforcing of the tool, on the bed-underside, I'm suspecting, without checking, second generation copy of the Kamley (

Simon & Rivollet) 

thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for everything they did at the show.

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.