W is for World War Warriors

So, we come to the last of the PW show plunder posts, twenty posts I've got out of it, this year, and some fine loot was scurried back to Small Scale World's command centre here in North Hampshire, to be shared with the rest of you, and we're finishing with the khaki-clad chaps and their contemporaries.

 

OK, so Google hasn't just changed the graphic on the upload page, they've tripled the time it takes to do everything, great! Paratroops/parachute toys, all three were from the donation bags I think, everyone knows I like a good parachute toy!

 

On the right, another of the Mogul (Meccano) Germans originally sent to the Blog by Chris Smith, almost certainly designed by Stadden, and now with his rather fine MG34 'Spandau', it's a specific moulding with a truncated stock, and a small block which locates in his hand.

 

While another of the finds of the show is a composition figure similar to those of Zang, the 'similar to Zang' unknown and the V - Empire Forces guys, if only by dint of them all standing to attention at around 54mm, in Battle Dress . . . but a new pose/moulding, also unknown, so a lovely comparison heading this way, when I get them all together! I think the pink goop in the moulding recesses, is the result of someone trying to take a mould of him in silicon or Plasticine?

 

New to me/collection/Blog, although I was vaguely aware of them from previous research into Wizards of the Coast's larger figures, these are for the recent trend in out-of-the-box 1:144th scale war gaming, and the upper shot has the Germans in the middle with soviets to the left, pouring out of Silesia, and the Yanks to the right, advancing to the Elbe from Aachen! The lower shot has two Japs on the left, two Brits on the right, with a Chinese, French and Rumanian (I think) behind.

 

They are not impressive sculpts, and the paint makes things worse, trying to sort them by eye, I only guessed about six of them right, the moulding is poorly defined and blobby, weapons and - particularly - helmets, are inaccurate, and painting seems pretty arbitrary? I believe these are from the first tranche of Axis and Allies, and subsequent editions scaled up to 15mm (1:100th), nominally, from the 10/12mm (1:144th) of the original series?

 

Marx, grist to the mill, but quite a nostalgia hit, we all seemed to have a few of these in with our Airfix, Timpo and painted-odds, back in the day!

 

Cherilea, these are the interim ones between the first and third versions, with elements of both, and while missing their weapons, will make useful additions to the tub, where I'm slowly accruing decent samples of all three types.

 

Atlantic air force ground-crew figure, on the left. I don't prioritise Atlantic large-scale as I have them all in small scale, and, whatever scale, they tend to be priced/valued far too highly for what they are - recent'ish, mass-produced figures, which were piled-high in Beatties, Tangley and that place in Woking, from 1980 to the middle of the decade.

 

In the centre is a 40mm from Spain or Argentina, I can't remember off-hand, but I think we've seen a larger sample (trio?) here, with mounted figure, they are certainly in the collection, and will appear here eventually!

 

And another HO'ish Zang pilot, for years I used to treasure my lone example, but I think I have about 15 now, and most shows seem to throw-up another one, which doesn't mean I'm complaining, or showing off, but rather I look forward to getting them all together and shooting them as a group, with any obvious variations..

 

Smart Toys on the right, I think he may be a new pose, and three of the Pioneer for Realtoy (et al), the Smart being a copy of a larger Pioneer figure, and the two on the left being of the six poses I still needed, complete, I had the blue-chap, mucked about with!

 

This show's lemon! Someone came over to me and asked if I could ID this for their mate. to which I replied ". . . looks like Marty/M-Toy, but I've never seen it with Australian heads . . .", the owner then came over, and we had a chat, he was looking for a fiver, which I'd happily give for the GI version, so I went off with it.

 

And I was quite pleased with it, showed it to one or two people with some enthusiasm, but started to wonder if the heads were right? Now I've mentioned before, the lighting at the venue can be a bit confusing, not as confusing as it used to be at Dave McKenna's show in the Mason's lodge in Birmingham - the number of colour variations I took home from there over the years, which were normal colour when unpacked at the other end! But nevertheless, confusing enough!

 

And, as you can see, as clearly as me, when I got it home and into normal daylight, they are Aussie heads from Timpo! But, I may leave it for a while, as is, it's quite a clever, if simple conversion, and I have the US one, I just need to sort the belts out!

 

Monogram clones to the left, other bits to the right, the baseless chap is interesting, but I think we may have seen him a decade or so ago, during the heyday of Poundland/99P Store stuff, which has almost dried-up now?

 

Ackerman (et al) to the left, New Ray clone, Marx mini and a larger 60mm 'pod-foot' GI.

 

Soma, biggies, similar to the weird set of HO sci-fi/pilots, so probably the same sculptor, but more irregular types, and I'm guessing here, but almost certainly to be from a set of ten, possibly in two colourways?

 

Picked-up four more Trojan, in two plastic colours, an olive drab, wounded, and three in a richer olive-green. Until I've got them all together, and sorted, I can never remember which ones I have, and which ones I need, so tend to grab them when I see them, although I'm pretty sure it's the sand-plastic ones I'm short-of now!

 

Incomplete set of Marx medical group, probably re-issues in this silver? The nurse thinks there's a chance, with her blood/plasma bag, but the priest's given-up and is administering the Last Rites, morbid phuquer! The doctor's gone off to have a brandy by himself, and I suspect the poles are replacements?

 

More bloody metal! What sort of a plastics show is it?! SAE WWI 'Doughboy' from South Africa on the left, an interesting figure (with lead rot) next to him, in the style of the composition figures described above, a nice semi-flat who appears to be similar to the 25mm metals, ascribed to Fantasyland (from Hong Kong), so possibly from the same stable?

 

And two Skybirds, one an obvious copy/home-cast (on the right), the other more original, but not right, so either stripped and re-painted, or one of the Douglas Miniatures re-issues, home-painted?

 

And finally . . . on the left a bag of small scale, mostly grist to the mill, but there were some interesting figures in there to sort into the collection, the WHW machine-gun team, seen before here, and a huge bag of kit figures, which need a serious sorting, being not the usual 50-70mm early or box-scale stuff from Pyro, Adams, UPC, Revell, Monogram, SNAP etcetera, but rather 25-50mm smaller stuff, although some of the same names may be responsible - all for another day!

 

So, many thanks again to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for everything they did or contributed on the day, additional thanks to those also mentioned in the text of the various posts, including Andreas Dittmann, Brian Berke, Chris Smith, Micheal Mordant-Smith, and Tony H, John Begg, Gareth, Steve V. Peter Cole at Replicants, Graham, Mike, Theo and Glen, the Poles and Russians, and everyone else, for everything, over the years. In fact, it's time I did an acknowledgements page!

 

But also, special thanks to Paul Morehead, Brian Carrick and Peter Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine, for organising another brilliant day, where we could all get together, buy plastic shite to our hearts or needs content, and catch-up. I hope you had a good show, if you were there, and it's gotta' be only 11-mothns to the next one!

 

I'm actually off to London today, to pick up eighty-quidsworth of stuff I haven't even seen yet, so we'll get Rack Toy Month out of the way, and then there'll be more like this in September, with any luck, some Dime Store spaceships are coming from the US, and it's back to Sandown in a month's time!

BMSS is for More Plunder, 2 of 2

The other half of the BMSS plunder, I literally split the folder this morning so there's no theme to either post, but this is by coincidence both mostly small scale, and mostly stuff Adrian gave me in a little tub, as a mixed lot.

 

Seen better days, with Plasticine bases and glued arms, but small scale'ish (o gauge), chalkware composition, in the style of Drevopodnik, and new to pile. They might be from the Soviet Bloc (post-war) or earlier, and German, I'm hoping they will be findable in my Schiffmann Sammlekatalog, next time I have it out?

 

Two Spot-On's to add to the stash, and two of the Kinder 'Mocherette', based on the Lone Star Metallions which might not be Lone Star (given that Hubley, Kresege, 'Hong Kong' and others, also issued them), one copper 'chromed' over the base metal, the other bronzed to an almost black-olive.

 

Reduced-size copy of the Brtiains Llama, a Hong Kong pack mule and one of the Torres wine-bottle giveaways, make an interesting trio of animals in polyethylene.

 

When I first started finding these, years ago, well, about 40 years ago, I was intrigued, I would get one or two at each show, and it took maybe a decade to get the last colour, they then became one of those things I'd seen the origin of, so 'knew', but could never remember, so didn't know! Eventually they were remembered long enough to blog (charity shop purchase I seem to recall), as Waddington's Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs figures.

 

And I now have so many of them I don't know what to do with them! They would paint up nicely as ranked war gaming pieces, but they have officers pistols, not rifles, so don't lend themselves's to ranks, or files! And how many role players (28mm) need slightly small (25mm) explorers, and what would they pay for them, when you can find up to 16 in a charity shop! The law of unintended consequences!

 

Odd smallies here with a Sistema Cadillac from Italy, in an odd scale of 1:77th. A few of the Slaters/Merit (Collis Plastics), home painted, and the weirdest of the three mico-AFV's which various rack-toy issuers used as filler in their sets in the 60's and 70's, joining the obvious Daimler armoured car and 25lbr type gun is this odd little amphibious landing craft/jeep/pop-up target/carrier hybrid, which has never been explained!

 

A bit of Thomas Wild West, an LB caveman, Matchbox Space 2000 'future warrior', and a kit figure in 1:48th scale of a WWII German tank crewman, alongside a later Briains head, farm, I think?

 

Atlantic, Davy Crockett figures, he survived an enraged bear, Indians and two demented donkeys, only to fall to the dastardly Mexican forces of General Antonio López de Santa Anna!

 

Three of the gold, post-Giant Greco-Romans we looked at on the other Blog, from two of the sourses, a Meccano for Hornby policeman and a larger firefighter, taken from Dinky, I think, or Corgi, but here probably from a larger plastic beach/garden toy?

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Military

Military and ceremonial now, with a few interesting items, one of which is annoying me, but maybe you know what it is, or where they are from, but let's look at the pièce de résistance first!

 

A pretty clean Kentoy stretcher team, I may already have one, but this has good paint, and being new to market is properly 'clean' if you know what I mean, and I think it's a darker brown blanket than my existing sample.

 

I think these may both be duplicates, but I love a bit of [affordable] composition, and we have an 'olin' gunner from Germany, possibly a minor make, or from the budget ranges of one of the big-two, the other, more likely the duplication; it looks familiar, in pumice or plaster, and maybe British or French?

 

This pair are the ones that are bugging me, I'm sure I've seen chapter & verse on them, possibly in one of the glossy mags', but I can't recall, and/or didn't take notes, but equally, it might be on the dongles as an internet download? Poured resin, with wire armatures in the trumpets, I have a feeling they are scenic background for a poured-metal or 'new metal' solid set, from someone like King & Country, Figarti or Frountline?

 

Again, I can't resist a bit of litho-printed tin, when it's affordable, and these were on Steve Vicker's table, I actually picked the six better ones, but he sent the two casualties over, a few minutes later, via a mutual friend who was passing, and, to be honest, the red-coat could replace one of the Germans, if only for a future photograph.

 

From the left we have - I assume - a khaki Brit, two Germans, with possibly an Italian between them, and a couple of Russo-Japanese war types? On the ground are both Brit's I think, and all late 19th/early 20th century, in depiction, beween the two wars, in execution? 

 

Odds - A Timpo horse, which may have started life pulling a wagon or gun, but which has been married to a mounted figure's base, and a Britains Herald Highland officer. All play-worn, but useful spares or 'grist -to-the-mill'!

 

Crescent, with two of the darker-red plastic, behind, and a sand-textured one in front.

 

Not the best (signs of repainting), but a useful comparison shot between two similar poses from Lone Star (black bases) and Britains Herald (green bases), At Ease (left), and Royal Salute (Present Arms), on the right.

 

Cherilea - Highland pipers.

 

I don't think these are repaints, I think this is how Lone Star issued them, with simple, all green kilts, I also think they were on the wants list? So, a useful addition to the massed ranks of the Highland samples.

 

Paints quite good, on these Harald Lifeguards, but sticky fingers have reduced them to 'dirty', so someone had full play-value out of them! Having recently seen Argentinian (?) ceremonials in similar uniforms, they may get a strip and repaint with paler (than the Horse Guards) blue jackets, or something equally exotic from one of the Blandford books?

 

Odds & sods! There's a Skybirds rangefinder (for which the operator has been waiting several decades! https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/s-is-for-skybirds.html), and pilot torso in the left foreground, and various useful 50 and 60-mil fellows from Cherilea, Crescent, Hilco and Britains.

N is for New World, in the Old Country!

I must confess, I've not been as active as a purchaser, this year, so while there are Sandown Park and BMSS purchases to come, and lots of new production for Rack Toy Month, most of the stuff in the 'this year' section of the short queue, is donations, and this is no exception!

 

The Blog's roving reporter from across The Pond; Brain Berke, was back here in the motherland, for a few days, the other week, and took the opportunity to send us something nice from the breakaway colony, without the reciprocal postal charges that is 'The World of Trump'! Although, he may have been equally shocked by our domestic charges! Luckily, I managed to get Charles to pop-over, last week, and pour oil on the troubled waters of an illegal, tariff-free transfer of rare matériel!

These are lovely, WWII-era US composition, and, while I'm guessing Playwood Plastics (ultimately bought by Transogram) or Moulded Products, I don't know for sure, and they could even be Empire Forces or Historical Miniatures. In the style of, and maybe after actual poses of Barclay or Manoil slush-cast, pod-feet toys? Obviously - further input appreciated on these!

 

These are also really nice, clearly marked with the Bergan-Beton BT (Bergan Toys) cypher/cartouche, they are the hard 'styrene set of interim figures, coming between the glued-on base, first version (whose tool seems to have gone to Reliable, in the independent sovereign nation of Canada) of which I have a few, and Canadian ones, we saw here recently, and the soft plastic versions, of which we've also seen both US and Canadian examples.

 

They are a fine sight, and, of which I had none. In fact, handling them, they have the same charm and historical heft, as those game-playing pieces from a recalcitrant Germany, we saw here, the other day.

 

 

With the Beton's toward the 60mm, you can see the composition chonka is closer to 80mm, hence the possibilities of them being from any of the four above-named, known for such stuff. There was also a single polystyrene figure from Archer, later issued in soft plastic by Plastic Craft, and while he's missing the tip of his weapon, he's a first for the stash, I think, so gratefully received - thank you very much Brian!

F is for Follow-up . . . Vickers . . . Plus

And an example of my utter incompetence! Off the back of my Timpo Vickers MG post the other day, Brian Berke sent me a bunch of images from the Big Apple (a rather frozen Big Apple, I might add!), I thanked him, and mentioned I'd just seen two images of machine-guns somewhere in Picasa (literally a day or two before his eMails), and would dig them out for a fuller (more full?)  post.

 

I downloaded his images, and thought no more about it for a few days. Announced a machine-gun follow-up, as the next post (intended for that (Saturday) evening), and then spent about eight hours over the next two days, trying to find the images.

 

I went from the top of Picasa, to the bottom (some 1200 folders), and from the bottom to the top, even all the old college stuff, and non-toy folders, I tried everything on the desktop, I looked in other esoteric locations, I tried tricking myself by going back to one I knew I'd just looked at, in case they had magically appeared while my head was turned, I opened the folders in case they weren't showing in Picasa, I was going stir-crazy mad!

 

Starting to convince myself I'd imagined it, despite being able to picture both images, I thought I'd check the folder where things are waiting to go on the dongles, and bloody found them! Only to realise that when I'd found them the few days earlier, I'd thought "What are these doing here?", and moved them to the 'done' folder! We actually saw them here in 2022!

 

But, we only saw them briefly in posts which were making some vague point to someone, somewhere, so we'll look at them again, in this unstructured look at machine-guns! Indeed, the only structure, is the stuff from Brian, which is all Vickers, except some of them are probably Brownings, and technically, they are all Maxims!

 

Left to right in the upper shots, clockwise from the top-left, in the lower collage, we have a lovely bit of plastic, owned by so many of us back in the day, and among my favourites of the era, the Timpo 'solid', later Action Pack, 8th Army gunner, here the earlier painted version, Action Pack's were unpainted, but give us several colour-variations to look out for, we saw some of them here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/09/m-is-for-monty-and-is-mob.html

 

Then we have two versions of the Britains hollow-cast gunner, one, the pre-WWI sculpt, which would become the early-war accurate representation, the other the inter-war head-sculpt, who is both late WWI and early (BEF/Home Guard) WWII accurate. A change Brian wondered if Britains were happy with having to do, but I guess, you have to move with the times, especially when you last as long as Briatins did . . . I've highlighted in the past how Zang, Herald, Swoppets and then Herald Hong Kong & Deetail, changed, over time, often while running along-side each other, even unto replacing Lee Enfield's with SLR's, and - these days -even our cheapo china-troop 'Army Men' mostly have Kevlar Fritz-helmets and bullpup automatics!

 

Lastly a US Dime Store, or home-casting figure, hunched over what would have been a Browning version of Hiram Maxim's steel-sleeved, water-cooled, single-barrelled, automatic-action, gas-blowback, rifle-ammunition firing 'Machine Gun'!

 

Brian then found a couple more, with the Bergan Toy & Novelty Company (Beton), on the left of each pair in a hard-wearing polystyrene, or earlier phenolic type polymer; dense, hard plastic, but relatively infrangible.

To the right another, more obviously Dime Store, or is he a die-cast, he looks pretty chunky, and relatively uniquely to America, there was a trend for cast-iron toys, from the 18-something's, to the mid C20th. Also, it's nice to see a Crescent sizer, they've rather taken a back-seat this last few years, as mine are in storage, I should try to dig one out, and keep it around!

 

Then he spotted another one hiding on a shelf! It's another Dime Store-looking chap, and if any American readers can ID any of the three US metal ones, that would be appreciated. Many-thanks to Brian for all the above, but, as discussed, I was on a mission by now!

 

Seen before, better light this time, one of the two errant images, and mostly 'Maxims'! My favourite here is the Japanese novelty blow-mould (back-right), it always amazes me that such delicate models ever survive, but thus is the creditable job of collectors, especially those collectors who aren't hooked-up on the 'big names'!

 

Down the left we have a bunch of minor-make composition, I can't tell you who any of them are made by, and they look to have been repainted anyway, so, as far as hard-core composition experts go, no more than curiosities, even if there are Lineol or Elastolin among them?

 

Bottom left is a less common Polish chap, probably PZG, but could be a lesser make, or even an East German? A modern-production Jap, in the top left corner (BMC or AiP), with a trio of Frenchies front centre, and a couple more foreign troops filling the corner, up by the blow-mould.

 

While the front-right corner is mostly early British plastic; Charbens, Cherilea (note the similarity of the Cherilea Russian and Sikh soldiers with Bren Guns), Crescent (WWI), Timpo, and a Zang composition, along with a late Toyway version of the Action Pack, in shiny grey.

 

Terrible photo (me being an idiot!), but the more interesting shot. The grey machine-gun is probably a Marx reissue, but anyone following Ed Burg, this last few weeks will have seen several versions from Marx and Payton, and I know T Cohn/Superior/Brumberger had several goes, among others!

In the middle we see the late polyethylene Beton, with a lead Timpo GI and two of the metallic-bronze tanned Charbens crew, serving an Atlantic mortar!

 

The Atlantic Maxim is being fired by a Spanish figure, but Russian equipment means a Republican defending democracy from the Fascists (how the Republican movement has changed, eh, Donald?), crescent barbed-wire defending his flank, and a spare Timpo Vickers is up the back-left!

 

Another modern figure in front, an unknown semi-flat, from right, just behind the Atlantic Navy (or Air Force?) gunner, with a bird's eye view of another Spanish figure front centre. The WWI gunner with service-cap, may be Crescent, with a Speedwell/Trojan/VP type in front? And the lead gun next to the Timpo Vickers, could be a 'new metal' jobbie?

 

Which should leave four; three flats and the other wheeled Russian Maxim . . .

 

The more interesting is the metal semi-flat, upper left in the previous shot, as he is a short-lived attempt by Timpo to produce die-cast alloy figures. The common one found is the standing pose, I have picked-up several, over the years, and various sellers told me various tales as to who made him (Sacul was a favourite, as were Clarke Brothers), but, as you can see, Timpo was the culprit. I now have to find the prone rifleman loose!

 

However, it's clear, reading Garratt, Joplin or Opie, that nobody knows what Timpo were really doing at the start, and with moulds bought, borrowed or copied, and the still partly mysterious Zang/Timpolin thing, we probably will never know everything, so these could have been bought-in, or commissioned from a third party, maybe even Zang!

 

The other two RPD-equipped flats are Polish (lower shot), and I used to think (having been told so) that they were Centrum, but I think one of the Poles elsewhere, questioned that attribution, in one of his locally published articles? While the Maxim Gun above, is for PZG gunners, I think?

 

Which brings us to this, and while I've been strict about not doing Russian stuff since the illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I'm slipping this in here, as Chris Smith sent it to the Blog ages ago as a follow-up to the Leningrad Forging Factory post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2014/02/l-is-for-leningrad-forging-factory.html

 

In which I mentioned plain, grey plastic versions, and Chris sent examples (for another day) along with this 40mm (scale, not calibre!) machine-gun which I hadn't encountered, and which wasn't included in the chrome-finish set, in that earlier post.

 

While this 35mm Starlux piece (looks more like an anti-tank rifle!) has been seen before, without crew (and the crew have been seen before, with a different weapon), and the shot has been hanging around in Picasa for ages, waiting for a machine-gun post, I guess! And this, over 53-hours late, is that post! Cheers to Chris and Brian for their help.