Public Service Announcement - On Lockdown

News, Views Etc . . . A Little Housekeeping

Airfix Blog

I've added yesterday's rubber key-ring knight to the Sheriff of Nottinham page on the Airfix figures Blog (http://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/2010/06/1964-sheriff-of-nottingham-s21-hooo.html), probably not something you need to rush off and look at again, but it's done!

 

Sad News

Don Pielin, giant in the hollow-cast branch of our hobby has gone off to play with his toys for all eternity; an obituary page has been set-up here.

Another fellow-collector; Steven C Rowe, has passed-away, and Covid-19 has been fingered as the culprit. More here onWYDaily where they may also make you watch a video on why you should be wearing your mask!

 

Forthcoming Auction

Norman Joplin's Old Toy Soldier Newsletter are holding their 'OTSA 58' auction as an online event on Sunday 8th November (just over a week) more details here;

https://www.facebook.com/events/261020408579198

 

Toy Shows

With the above in mind, I will not be publicising toy soldier shows or toy fairs until we have got a grip on novel corona viruses full stop. It's quite easy once you understand the science; either you are

• ·         Protecting yourself by protecting other people
• ·         or
• ·         Protecting other people by protecting yourself
• ·         or
• ·         A selfish, self-centered wanker.
  

You should be wearing a mask whenever and wherever you can! Not just when you absolutely have to, but at every opportunity; it's a virulent killer and it's airborne! It's only modern medicine which is preventing higher death-tolls, and a quick mutation over the winter could still see death-tolls rise sharply, in the meantime people continue to die, every day.

There have been two toy soldiers shows recently and two toy fairs, they were all in the US and all poorly attended and rightly-so.

Recent coverage of a toy soldier show has one chap with his mask off his nose, I hope he gets a worse dose than his President (if you believe his President ever had it!), another is shown with his mask pulled under his chin . . . fuckwit, if he dies I won't be posting his obit'!

People promoting, dealing or buying at shows - right now - lack basic common sense, or have consciously surrendered common-sense in preference for serving their greed.

News, Views Etc . . . Meah!

I seem to have spent this fortnight's Internet funds on groceries . . . and some Marx Warriors of the World off of that evilBay! So I thought I was disappearing yesterday, but actually I've still got an hour's credit . . . hay-ho, back next Wednesday, probably; it might work out OK, as RTM was looking a bit of a wash-out this year anyway, but the weather's due to break and I should spend the absence getting a few articles in the bag.

In the meantime, if you're anywhere near Denver, Colorado;

• Two years after losing their home due to raising rent prices, the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys is finally re-opening at their new location in Lakewood on Thursday, Aug. 13. The museum, which was founded in 1981, has a collection of over 20,000 objects that they utilize to stage four major exhibits each year. The exhibits range from vintage Star Wars toys to artisan dollhouses and from antique dolls to well-loved toy soldiers. Objects collected from generations of Coloradans serve as a stepping stone into both art and history. Due to COVID-19, online advance purchase of tickets is required, and the number of people in the gallery at any one time will be restricted. Face masks are also required.

Or looking for more modern toys;

• Shaun Hite has flagged-up  an On-Line toy auction on the 15th (Saturday) being held here; https://www.facebook.com/groups - Priest's Monsters, Aliens & Superheroes, which is likely to be an Action Figure and 1980/90's toy-heavy sale, but might be worth stopping-by for?

Outtahere!

News, Views Etc . . . Toy Soldier Show

There's a toy soldier show in South Carolina tomorrow, now, you should know/have worked-out my views on the subject by now -  I think they are being at best over-optimistic and at worst not a little irresponsible; we are no way clear of Covid-19 yet, by any means, and from what I've seen and read about mask-wearing in the US, any gathering is a risk, but I wish the event well and the details can be extracted from this link;

https://www.thecolumbiastar.com/articles/s-c-military-miniature-society-show-to-be-held-saturday/

Please - if you manage to attend, wear a mask, give space, take your own bags and a small bottle of hand-sanitizer, it's not rocket science, it's basic hygiene in a killer-pandemic!

News, Views Etc . . . Links & Stuff!

Been a while since we last had a few of these, I meant to post something yesterday but got sidetracked by something-else as you do! This lot might entertain and/or sidetrack you . . .

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Links

More Toy figures than you can shake a Lilo at!

The Toy Department looks like my attic!

The Nottingham Mafia get the Economist treatment

Ridin with Bidin'! Ready for office . ..

Ancient Egyptian boat pictures which are very useful for modellers

The first one (top of the page) has a necklace of Poundstore polymer!

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More from My Modern Met

• ·         Paper Birds

• ·         Miniature Interiors

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Books

London Review of books - the opening paragraph has a nice sideways dig at the poured metal brigade, both users and dealers! And the rest is an interesting read

Do you remember when we looked at this photo-art 'experience', well the shots by the photographer Simon Brann, have been collated in a book which is available from Amazon, here.

Whilst this one is aimed at younger readers and has Toy Soldiers coming to life and having adventures in Central Park - March Of The Toy Soldiers by Carson Morten.

And this one replays the battle of Gettysburg in toy and model soldiers, with (apparetly - I havem't read it) figures and dioramas from around the world - Gettysburg in Miniature - Scott L. Mingus et al

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Charities

All charities everywhere are struggling in or due-to Covid-19 (which we're also calling Sars-CoV-2 for some reason?); their shops may be shut, their fundraising events can't go ahead, they are unable to do the the flag-day/chugger stuff in the High Street, they are in a bad way, so if you normally give to a charity, any charity with any cause, and you've not throught about them for four months, maybe get a PayPal off to them while you're reminded?

Over here we have Jane Garfield's The Toy Project for toy-specific giving and The Toy Box

And while TJF loves to cover the same UK charity as me (did you see him today - T. Cohn because I mentioned them two days ago! He's lost without me, LOST!)*, he seems to have remained very quite on the subject of domestic charities, so for those loyal readers over the pond who would like to donate there's both a US Military and US Toy Industry charities to pick from, for starters.

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Obituaries

Two toy soldier collectors have joined the too-long list of loses this year, and we're only half-way through it.

Thomas S. Scebelo

Jeffrey Willis

May they find the toys they were still looking-for wherever they are now.

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Thought for the Day

George Orwell once stated that he had seen many children who wanted to play with toy soldiers, but never one who wished to play with a toy ­pacifist, fun sentiment if you want to justify militarism, but I had many friends who stuck with farm and/or zoo toys, civilian vehicles or football/Subbuteo, so in this instance I think Mr. Orwell was being either simplistic, taking an unscientifically small sample of his like-minded peers to generate a theorem, or more cynical than me!

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Meatheaded-faceplant Moment of the Day

The good news is, on either side of the pond both their age/health demographics and their desire to gather in Nazi-saluting groups without facemasks (extreme-left Antifa plot; don't you know!!!! Haahaahhaaahaha!), mean they will be dying from Covid in proportionally larger numbers than sensible, sane 'lefties'; taking votes from Boris and the Orange Loon which won't come back!

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* No, no it's no coincidence, it would be coincidence if it happened once in a blue-moon, but it's happened about eight-times since April! I can't move for him mentioning the same firm or the same person or even the same figures a few days or a week or two later! When I mentioned in passing that I'd refreshed the US retailers list (all 23 of them) he posted a whole two, a few days later! Probably the only two he still talks-to, or two who haven't found him or his monkey-lizard slagging them off on a locked French forum yet! It’s funny, but it's tiresome.

The funniest so far was after I did the Jean Wild West day (three or four posts? I can't remember) and he followed-up with three figures in two pictures, the accompanying blurb for which was too cowardly to call for or against the theory I had proposed - re. moulds - so he tried to suggest I might be wrong, but then hinted it might be the case! No gumption, the man's got no gumption! Then there was the two-day Hing Fat thing but I'll deal with that separately; it's quite illuminating!

News, Views Etc . . . Press Releases!

This is the latest press release from Barney at Herald Toys & Models, get them before they're gone, as experiance dictates they don't hang-around there for long!

"...this week we have a large collection of farm models by Barrett & Sons and F. G. Taylor, including a number of more interesting colour variants. We will shortly be listing our new collection of other farm models by British makers, including Charbens, Hilco and Speedwell. Stay safe everyone..."

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Also, I've received this top secret public information film from a government department dealing with Covid-19 fallout and it would seem the nation's cats are taking against certain model-figurines and treating them with all the respect they deserve!

News Views Etc . . . All Sorts of Stuff Piling Up!

It's been raining! Sadly only a pathetic drizzle so I'll have to water tomorrow, the grass - both the verges and the lawn - are looking like they did last July, or do in an average August, but we're only  a few days beyond May, and while it's fun to joke about this year being one of "Floods, Fires and Pestilence already, what's next; Aliens?", the fact is the weather in the last few years has become increasingly erratic and severe, and that the 33% who still think Trump's doing a good job, that the 46% who voted for the Tories (who've spent 41 years dismantling the post war 'deal'), those lumpen, meat-faced reactionaries who don't want to listen to experts, have failed to understand what's actually happening!

Anyway, it meant I could get some toy stuff done, and there's a post scheduled for tomorrow, things have sort of piled-up and I'll have to clear the decks a bit, PW178 needs a review as 179 is here already, while Peter has sent me two lots since I last Blogged H is For...'s; so one's next, then I have  a nice lot from Chris Smith with some very interesting bits and bobs, some shelfie stuff, loads of Toy Fair posts (but obviously I'm dragging them out for as long as I can!! Maybe forever?) and various other things including most of the stuff I mentioned last time as I haven't got round to that either!

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In the meantime here's a few links to interesting stuff

Pollution

Old hat but worth a reminder from time-to-time, every action has a reaction and all that!

Found Objects

Ongoing development of Poznań’s Rynek Lazarski district unearths Toy Soldiers

Power Rangers

Fun factor of 100% here!

Videos

• I'm not sure if this one has been on Moonbase, but I found it looking for something else!

• While this is the little girl who wants army-girls! (Yahoo)

Sci-Fi on Tor!

Lovely article on modelling and gaming with science-fiction miniatures here

Mattel Made M16's!

Nooooooooooooooot! But it's an good tale with a link to the Duke!

The Times Magazine on Toy Soldiers?

You have to subscribe to actually read it, so I can't say how good it may or may not be, it might be the last word on the subject, it might be a faux-humorous puff-piece! If you subscribe to The Times, let us know!

My Modern Met

Now I'm back on Faceplant (blame Covid-19!), these keep popping-up in my feed as I subscribed years ago!

• Japanese Miniatures
• French Minatures ( I posted this on FB's 'Freinds of PW' the other day)
  
• Fantastical Behemoths (may have had this one before, we've had the artist, but I think it was his 'Church Tanks' last time?)
• Yoga Joes (now in rainbow-colour sets, still cost too much; the .gif's fun!)

And they all tend to have further, related links at the bottom of the page.

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Toys in the Media

Both culled from Faceplant, both financial advert stuff, both probably Preiser, both seem to be the same figure, both following a long-shadow trope; so either the same PR-firm or the same image library? The latter brings to mind the frailty of all;

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Obituaries

Plastic Warrior Magazine 178 carried the sad news that Stewart Asquith had passed away (many tributes here), he was of greater importance to the wargaming and modelling-publishing arms of our extended hobby universe, but I know he always kept in touch with the PW team and contributed to both PW and 1"W, he will be missed by many, while Issue 179 had the equally sad news that we've lost Roy Dilly, big in Toy Soldiers and author of several books in my library, there's a memorial thread here, and the equally sad news that Les White has left us, he of all those conversion articles in PW itself, while a collector unknown to me has an obit' here Kenneth Jones, Cederhurst, Columbia, USA - all a bit grim I think you'll agree.

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Other Toy News

• Toy sales have surged during lockdown, but the bulk has been online which might prove bad news for retailers going foward?
• Toy Soldiers the platform game has announced a new version is coming . . . Toy Soldiers II!
• Basket of Toy Soldiers here
• The Cartamundi-owned Hasbro board-game factory in Boston, Massachusetts has converted to making facemasks for the Covid-19 fight.

New Petition on 38degrees

I've started a petition on 38degrees to have Dominic Cummings sacked, please sign and share if you've had enough of his arrogance and heartless disregard for you and yours. [case closed!]

Sack Dominic Cummings

Why is this important?

If This cretinous buffoon with his obvious contempt for the people, the electorate, the Civil Service and the media, his total disregard for democracy, Parliament or the rule of law and his terrible wardrobe isn't dismissed forthwith, the contract between people and state will be irrevocably broken, and the Covid-19 legislation rendered no more than equivalent to the lavatory-paper which was in such short supply as the government dithered a few short weeks ago.

Update - Still Sack Dominic Cummings!

There would appear to be some rule at 38degrees that you can't call a cretinous person 'cretinous', or at least you can, but not in a petition! No matter, I only started my petition because I couldn't find one on 38degrees, the reason for which is that they won't allow one . . . because he's unelected! However, had I looked harder, I would have found the Change.org petition with the same aim which being a couple of days older has reached 200,000+ 400,000+ signatures and I would urge you to sign that one instead.

http://chng.it/P2H8b8kKPs

I'm currently listening to his self-justifying bollocks press-statement and he doesn't quite seem to understand that millions of other people had equally (or BETTER) reasons for breaking the Covid-19 legislation, but CHOSE NOT TO! And you can hear in his voice how sorry he feels - for himself! Sack him. Peston could barely get his question out he was so stunned by the brazenness of it all!

F is for Follow-up - Cap-Bombs & Rocketry

So, we looked at cap-bombs the other day and I said there were a few still in the attic, but the brown one with a yellow spaceman seems to have been totally lost being in none of the places it might have been? And apart from the missing one there was only one other and a buckshee tail-section, but the whole one is different to the others so worth a shot or two.

It has an internal anvil, and exhaust venturi, which as they face forward would/could be seen as retro-rockets on an interspatial vessel! It needed a good clean and I used cotton-buds to remove the rusty gunk from the interior and an old flossing-brush to clean the venturi!

There's nothing to hold a cap or a section of cap 'tape' in place, so I suspect it was designed and/or issued with the plastic-drum caps in strips to place over the end of the hammer-bar. The anvil-plate seems to be set into the plastic, but it's very rusty so I'm not about to shove it around or pick at it to prove or disprove the suspicion!

And, if you're one of the older loyal readers of this blog it may look familiar to you; because it's a copy of the Merit (J&L Randall) one we saw here.

Before it was cleaned up (crap shot - sorry!), it's somewhere between the two common'ish sizes we looked at last time, and has a screw-cap where they had pop-on ones. In the comparison below we see the odd part in dark-olive, they all go in the tub together, and as bits which fit come-in they get put with each-other.

The two on the left are not cap-firers, but rubber-tipped projectiles. The smaller red one being from the rail-mounted 'Battle Space' launcher from Rovex Tri-Ang/Hornby-Triang, it replaced a short-lived die-cast alloy version (also with a rubber nose, but in oxide red).

The yellow one is annoying me as I'm sure I know (or should know) its origin or have ID'd its brand/maker in the past - possibly on this Blog - but I can't find it on the Blog, can't find it in the archives and can't find it on-line, so if you can tell me - kudos to you! Is it ammunition from a 'One Man Army' type thing?

An old internet image (possibly Vectis?) it's a bit fuzzy but you get the idea and we looked at mine years ago (over a decade ago! And I now know the yellow one in that post!), the real aim here is to use the connection of this and the 'unknown' yellow one to get us to this . . .

. . . sent to the Blog by Mr Berke, it's mintier than a minty-mint 'minter' from the Royal Mint! Crescent's rocket launcher; which carries a cap-bomb of epic dimensions, with a fully die-cast nose/firing mechanism on a polyethylene body. This baby would take six or eight caps and detonate with quite a flash, having a much heavier rod that the other's we've looked at.

Unfortunately, because we abused them with large charges, the tiny elastic-band which kept the 'breech block' in place quickly failed and the little piece of mazac is often missing. We looked at the rarer desert variant here a while back, but a temperate/tropical unit was also available . . .

. . . and Brian sent one of those too! Although obviously a cap-bomb, it was originally sold as the Mobile Space Rocket in the red/green combo', with this version normally having a white plastic body for its Corporal Rocket & Lorry (the real corporal was longer and thinner) and the 'civil' coloured truck carrying the yellow bodied rocket.

I thought we'd seen my paint stripped one on the blog, but I can't find it either, not can I find the HK copy's post, but I did re-show it (if I'd shown it at all? Maybe a show-report?) in this post, it's all plastic with a no-cap missile copied from another (Corgi) toy.

Going back a post (from the earlier link) Mr. B also sent this to compliment the spring-loaded rocket launchers of that post, it's the MPC rocket launcher, which is supposed to be rubber-band operated.

Although when I say rubber-band operated, Brian couldn't get it to work so I turned to Ed Berg (who has just Blogged the whole MPC space range) and asked him for help (or the instruction sheet), but he explained he had just as much trouble trying to get them to work, but told us how it should be done and Brian had another stab at it.

But - basically - it seems the rocket gets a little too comfortable in its mounting slot/groove and sticks fast, clearly the rocket designer and/or the launch-pad designer and the tool's 'pattern maker' weren't talking to each other with the clarity necessary? Or the  rubber-band 'interactivity' was a late addition to the toy's features? But it looks the part!

The gang at Moonbase have been running a Money Box Season through lockdown (among all their other stuff!) and I sent my German BAC Spaarraket's over there, so follow the jump for more on them or this link for loads of money boxes (banks), including at least four other rocket types, a spaceman, several globes &etc.

 

It seems BAC Spaarbank is actually a Belgian entity, part of the [now] Dexia combine, previously; Gemeentekrediet van België / Crédit Communal de Belgique

 

Three months later - and it's nice to see Collectors Gazette were paying attention!

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On another matter altogether, the Police Commissioner for Durham has just accused Grant Chapps (Transport Secretary) of "Making it up as he goes along" with regard to Dominic Cumming's shenanigans over the Covid-19 Lock-down . . . well, fancy that, fancy populist fuckwitts on the right making it up as they go along! History will reflect more kindly on my whitterings that mine 'eemies'! Have you injected your dose of loo-cleaner today?!

L is for Lucky Lorry

I shot this at Sandown Park on Adrian Little tables, but little did I know at the time how apposite it might prove to be only a few weeks later, as the measures to control Corvid-19 bring the haulage industry to its knees and their own 'professional body'; the Road Haulage Association, mutters darkly about  a possible need for nationalisation.

Because - if I'm remembering it correctly - BRS (as they were called when I was little) were the national, tax-payer owned transport organisation? I think they were being privatised while I was still little, as I don't remember any great 'sell-off' under Thatcher, so it was probably sold piecemeal to regional independents and gradually scaled-down to nothing?

Presumably some leftover from WWII, I think their wagons were blue but a little (a lot?) darker than the shade chosen by The Lucky Toys for this model, although I equally remember tarp's of exactly this colour among all the greasy, charcoal, navy and turd-brown ones!

Under the corona virus pandemic we have seen how both private railways and bus operators cannot survive, giving full-light to the lies of 41 years of outsourced, downsized, privatisation and sell-off. Lies which were identified as such at the time, but sadly, the Tories have had the newspaper editors on their side!

Quite apart from the selling-off of all our war-store depots and all our laboratories and the obvious failure of rail and bus networks, all the other obvious failings of our nation in this crisis can be laid at the feet of the Tories, and while 'New Blair' is hardly an innocent party, it is the people in charge - right now - who are responsible for that fact that while we (a developed, '1st World' country) have no face-masks to speak of, Turkey (regarded as a 2nd World developing nation) has a compulsory face-mask policy and enough face-marks to adhere to such a dictate?

A national haulier or the mechanism to create one at short notice is something we should have had, or had ready. That we had no such organisation, no national lab's, no face-masks, is all you need to know about the Thatcherite-Reganomic desire to protect the citizens they want to vote for them and their Trumpundbrwreakshit.

We were offered a part in a pan-European respirator procurement program last  the other week, and turned down the opportunity, now we're taking 200 off the Yanks . . . who need them just as badly? Capitalism has been failing us since before the crash of 2008, now democracy itself is failing.

Enough politics for now, although there will be more . . . it's my Blog!

Look! The treasure-chest from the Dinky Spectrum Maximum Security Car, cleverly copied to make a lorry load! And many thanks to Adrian Little for letting me shoot this.

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Th above obviously written while I was off line, it's all here;

https://www.brs.co.uk/page/103/history

And I wouldn't recognize one of it went past the window as I type! They were ours and if they'd been retained, we'd have had them when we need them! Sweden (who own BRS!) haven't gone into lockdown, because they are a high-tax/high-welfare society with spare capacity in their health services, New Zealand have a low death rate because they moved sharpish and hard (instead of watching and waiting like Boris!), we aren't 'great' anymore, we're just breaking Britain, struggling with the dichotomy between true democracy and big business' interests.