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. 

W is for What Might Have Been!

The future's bright, the futures white with orange highlights!

 

Original artwork for what was proposed as the next generation of Britains Starguards/Aliens, Star-Force/-Raiders/-System and their other 'Space' lines, within the Deetail range. I don't recognise the artist's signature, if anyone knows who he or she was, I'll add it to the post.

 

The Hexagonal 'turret' was to be a modular, plug-together construction system, like the hub-UFO's in the Swizzles Matlow candy-holder set, which would build up to ships, stations, or - as here - accessories on a set of vehicles of which this was to be the vanguard! There were both constructional/connecting tubes and plug-in weapons/equipments, proposed.

G is for Gygax Monsters - Part I - Introduction

The 'Monsters', with dinosaurs and the odd prehistoric mammal, actually came before Garry Gygax nicked them, or their designs for his fledgling monster list, published as a guide to his Fantasy Role Playing system; Dungeons & Dragons, which predates the Nottingham Mafia's Wotzit-40,000, by years (indeed, GW were involved with D&D at the very start), and specifically, the 'Advanced' (AD&D) version.

 

Originally a hardbacked volume on soft low-density paper, like comic/TV annuals of the time, the frontispiece carried an illustration of my favourite, a mutated kerthunkersaur, which, due to Gygax's adoption of it, has become known as the Bulette, which presumably must be said in an outrageously put-on comedy French accent, or Belgian, like the Policeman from 'Allo 'Allo! ?

 

Other people have done most of the legwork on this one, so have a gander at these links for a better story and background than I could rehash here; 

 

Wikipedia page on Gary Gygax 

 

Wikipedia page on the 'monster manual'

Gygax story on Tony Di Terlizzi's page

 

More on DM David's page

Gygax didn't use all the monsters, nor the accompanying dinosaurs, but alongside the Bulette, he would christen two others, the Rust Monster, a mutant crustacean, and the Owlbear, which defies description, but was clearly meant to be a Prehistoric Mammal, in the vein of Timpo's Megatherium.

 

Later versions of the book were actually a loose-leaf folder/binder, and I'm not sure how complete mine is, as I don't seem to have shot the Rust Monster from either tome, but these were all taken some time ago and have been sat in Picasa since March '23!

 

I don't have an Owlbear yet, so we won't see many through this series of posts (which I'd forgotten were nearly ready, and are very 'rack toy'), and no, I’m not going to pay $500+dollars for something Hong Kong and ephemeral, which will eventually turn-up in a mixed charity lot for 50p or a couple of quid, max'!

 

These both share features of some of the other models found with the three Gygax Monsters, and the Glabrezu is very close to several, but has, here, been given two extra arms!

 

It wasn't just Gygax who used the toys though, and this Gold Key comic-book cover for Dagar The Invincible (shades of Trigan Empire or Burroughs' John Carter?) from 1972, uses one of the non-Gygax 'Gygax Monsters', if that makes sense, and we'll be seeing it in the subsequent posts of this series.

 

Really? Because I used one Gold Key image, in context, for another subject altogether; small plastic monsters, you published, the next day, a whole pageful, garnered from all over the internet, in an exercise in quality plagiarism! You might as well climb to the top of Mount Everest, with the largest bullhorn known to man, and the largest loudspeaker, and shout "I'm really insecure!" at the whole world, 'cos that's what you just told us!

 

Some Bulettes, probably three Holly Plastics on the left, a later (?), smaller copy in 'aqua' and an even smaller sub-piracy to the right, but all five have the same treatment vis-à-vis paint application, and eyes, as well as similar gate-marks and such like, which is important, as while there will be six or maybe seven posts (hopefully by the end of the week!), the narrative isn't clear and many answers will remain.

 

I suspect that rather like Tai Sang, with their many farm and zoo animals, as early generics or later under Blue Box, Redbox and Sunshine Series etc . . . Holly may well have had more than one production line, or factory, or farmed some of the work out, to mates, or other enterprises, with duplicate tools, or permissioned copying, to fulfil orders?

 

This is my sample as at 2021, with the Lik Be (LB) minis in the top left corner, and most of the rest conforming to the general look of Holly Plastics, however markings are different and that's how they are sorted for now. You can see (it's not the best shot, and Picasa is currently refusing to open it?!) that most of the output is more conventional dinosaurs, and ones we have seen here before.

 

The big bag, bottom centre, for instance, is basically the same contents as the set Bran Berke found for a previous Rack Toy Month, years ago, in a seaside shop in Blackpool (I think, I did ask him, but it would take too long to find the eMail!), and were, therefore still around until quite recently, while others have had an over-marking, or re-marking with 'China', since the heady days of the 1970's.

 

Here's a mixed lot, also looking like Holly with no Gygax's, but it does carry the full size versions of the two mammals, also copied by LB as mini's, in the prehistoric set we saw here, while the arrow-headed amphibian (Diplocaulus) to the far right is another one (like the Owlbear) which seems harder to find than most of the others, suggesting a tool was lost or damaged, or lost a couple of cavities, early in the full set's run?

 

Awesome Kids recent'ish set of Britains Deetail knight knock-offs, with four of the 'winged wisker' monster (Glabrezu), upon which the artwork for the above Dagar #2 comic may have been based (there are three very similar sculpts, none of which Gygax used), so some of the tool's cavities are still around, even if the whole set, or most of its parts, are lost, or, just lost on a shelf somewhere?!

Again, no Gygax types, and while you might think this to be a generic for Woolworths or Littlewoods, the old catalogue people, they had 3-spot ladybirds, for the famous clothing range, until recently, while the equally famous, or even iconic Ladybird Books had a 7-spot, so I guess this was just bandwagoning, and I think they might have been in WHSmith around '78/79? But I'm not sure why I think that?

 

Anyway, there's lots more to come, and hopefully it will all start to fall into place, or at least, make a little more sense by the end of the week. So: not really 'Gygax' monsters at all, but always going to be Gygax Monsters now!

F is for Follow-up - 'Guerreos Medievales'

As I mentioned when showing the donated image back in Rack Toy Month, Peter Evans had put one of these aside for the blog, and this is it, although I'm keeping it intact for now, so it's a case of a few suitably angled shots and some close-ups to tell a better story than last time!

A reminder of the set, imported into Spain as Guerreos Medievales (Medieval Warriors), by Arty & Mell S.L., however ,clues to older branding are found upon the contents, which are: copies of Britains Deetail knights and Crossbows & Catapults accessories, it's a lovely example of  'rack toy' fayre!

 

The 'H' mark previously seen on Hong Kong issued Deetail Saracen figures in packaging which looked 1970's but wasn't necessarily so (remember the anonymised Accoutrements/McFee reissues of earlier YF sets), but these are from whatever set of tools they were . . . Qwong Wah also producing Deetail copies with chromium spray coatings!

 

Unscrupulous dealers/sellers WILL use these to enhance lots of genuine Britains online, or even at shows, few have a jeweller's loupe to hand while rushing round a dimly-lit village hall! Just enough weapons for the figures, and in the case of this set, the distribution of the weapons is pretty-much determined by the available poses?

 

Close-up of the four H-marked foot figures

Mounted figure.

And a Britains Deetail horse clone, in all cases the die-cast bases of the originals are here rendered in the same polyethylene as the figures/weapons.

Here a China mark dates this to the 1990's or later, and you can see where the Hong Kong has been removed from the tool. The full history of these is still not clear, nor whether there was any connection between Kwong Wah and H, nor which (if different|) tool these later ones come from, but they seem to have been available for may years in various forms from Chromium-finished 1970's Kwong Wah, 1980's-'90's H, and these Arty & Mell-carried China troops from the 1990's!

The accessories seem to be polystyrene or 'propylene, and are copied from the game-playing pieces from Crossbows and Catapults, something mentioned in passing here several times over the years, but missing a proper post to date, primarily because it's a tedious chore I've been putting off indefinitely!

And many thanks to Peter for both the original image, and for donating this set to the Blog.

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?

S is for Starguards & Aliens

Another post from the 'Seen Elsewhere' folder, this one actually combining two posts from elsewhere, the loose figures from Britains Starguard (or Star Guard, 1981-1987'ish) and friends, and the rare boxed set (there's one on evilBay at the moment for a hundred-quid, which might be cheap?), which can go here as they're not going to generate a too-long tag-list, and it gets KP Foods on the tags!

I'm guessing these were a mail away offer, there aren't enough in here for a counter-top or behind the counter multiple-purchase offer type thing, so they must have been a save so many packet tops or coupons or something, but you get six of the standard yellow Starguards, and six of the black Aliens with the 'divers' helmets.

 

 

My set is definitely missing a decent sample of the kneeling-squat guy! But they aren't that uncommon, in any variation, so I'll pick up the rest one day, probably just get everything missing in a single feeBay session in a year or two. And, as we'll see in the next few minutes; my sample is currently quite small, overall!

 

The trouble with this set - as I see it, and it's only my opinion - was that they were dated the day they hit the stores, and not only dated, but incompatible with anything that had come before; Captain Video, Hill/Cherilea hollow-cast, similar lead-solids of Buck Rogers from the 'States, or latterly, the vaguely NASA stuff from Europe, Marx/MPC or Cherilea's 60mm giants in plastic, so there was little to do with them . . . if you know what I mean.

However, the plethora of space toys which have been issued since the Star Wars (and Battlestar Galactica) phenomena of the late 1970's means that actually they have grown on me a bit, and you can, if so minded (I'm really just a collector) now paint them up and add them to, or add-in all sorts! While they will enhance any space-toy display shelf!

The original Aliens, these are just the Starguard bodies in black with a red 'deep sea diver' helmet, another problem with the range; repetition throughout the range! Technically they should all have silver weapons, but over time other colours would be issued, and the slight 'swoppet' nature of the range, means anything goes to get the shot!

The Cyborgs! Again Starguard bodies, but with more complicated add-ons and a universal head/computing-unit! These have always suffered (from nearly new) with a stickiness caused by a reaction between the gloss, metallic green (possibly the Humbrol 50 enamel, which makes renovation easy), and furry lumps of these were a common site at car-boot sales or in rummage trays a few years ago, all covered in pet-hair, carpet fibres and dust!

My only 'Raider', he should have a gold weapon, and in catalogues is shown with a black or blue base. These are just the Aliens in an orange/blue scheme, and went up against white-bodied Starforce (or Star Force), of which I have none! Well, I say that, there may be one or two in storgae, in the TBS piles?

 

The Mutants, who would become Mutant Raiders are also lacking at Chez Smallscaleworld, they were similar to the Cyborgs, but had whackier heads/plug-ins and sometime come ina  metalic grass green.

Eventually, in 1985, a set of green, polyethylene aliens called Terror Raiders (which I do have somewhere, we'll see them here another day) were issued (after about the time it takes to realise your figures are going sticky in people's play-boxes!), which had actually been shown in the earlier 1984 catalogue, as different sculpts in a chrome-finish. By 1987 they were the only aliens in the catalogue alongside the orange Raiders and white Starforce, then the curtain closed on the whole Starguard 'experiment'!

 

Ten minutes later - I'd forgotten we looked at all the weapons here; lower shot.

 

And later the same day - Many thanks to John Begg for letting me photograph the KP Outer Spacers set in his private collection.

H is for Heraldry

Not the products of Messrs W. Britains, but something which was in the queue, and of which I was reminded by the anon' commenter on one of the recent bookplate posts, namely: the reproduction of coats of arms on medieval toy soldier's shields.

Some of you may have come across the above sheets on fleaBay, sold separately and for little outlay, the sheet on top is replacement paper shields for the earlier designs of Britains Deetail knights, with six each of the first designs (I remember them hitting the shops) and three each for the slightly later additional designs.

 

The sheet below consists of one each of twenty-five new designs, some of which are probably real, only by dint of the number of arms issued over the centuries? By which I mean that the maker (0arron0 on feebay) is inventing them, but by following the rules of heraldry, some may well have been extant in real life; or, 'IRL' as the brain-dead generation puts it!

I thought to contact the seller (Arron Wood) after my purchase with the possibility of getting the family arms done; a conceit, but harmless, and he was amenable to the idea, therein began an eMail exchange, and a few draft versions, before the lower sheet here appeared on evilBay, with a quick note from Arron. He did 12 of the one I use from the bookplate (it’s a dodgy right to do so mind, inheriting through the female line; I think they should have a diagonal line over them?), and a few others which we found on Google!

He has also done another sheet of 'imaginobles' for those looking for some variety with their Deetail knights, or any others fitted with similar sized/shaped smooth shields - some of the vintage French hard-plastics, Herald Hong Kong, Accurate/Revell or possibly the Gemodels set?

 

The reasoning behind the alternative designs are twofold, firstly; the surplus (after my purchase) sheets needed to sell to people who probably wouldn't want 30 identical shields and secondly; when a landowner gets the call to turn-out for his king or liege-lord, he turns up with various other members of the extended family, sons, brothers, cousins &etc, and they - under the rules of Heraldry - have different shield designs, but following the family theme. I think the three black-on-white is almost the default or generic one for Sussex Halls?

 

Google produced various Halls and a few which upon closer inspection proved to be Hallstons or Hallburgs or something, one was just Bauman! Anyway, there were several with the three Talbots in black, and while they are more commonly black in heraldry, some Halls do use the white ones, hence Arron's sheet choice, and while we ignored the 'swans', actually Cranes (Irish Halls from Donegal) on the sheet, we do have Irish relations, and we're Catholic, on Mum's side (I think?), so there may be a closer connection. I rather like the Canadian-looking dragon.

This isn't going to become a history lesson or a lecture on heraldry, both of which are convoluted affairs, but it seems the Scottish Halls are the oldest (similar to the Irish arms but brown field), ex-Norman knights, settled in Scotland in the 1360/70's, and a branch of them gives the chevron with Talbots, while our 'Sussex Halls' are probably a sub-branch of the Essex branch (1700's)?

The one I used for my Favicon years ago is on the left, and the one I sent Arron to work with is on the right, neither are brilliant, but at the sizes they show, they look fine, and Arron cleaned them up and gave them the correct little red tongues.

 

Arron is open to commissions, but only if you're serious, so I have his eMail if anyone has a bright idea for a sheet of new/personalised shield designs for Britains Deetial, eMail me for his details, don't approach him on eBay (as I did) as evilBay may get pissed off if they think there's off-platform stuff going-on, not that there will be; Arron will get a dozen or so printed off (or more if you arrange it with him?) and tell you when they are ready to buy, so what you don't purchase will be available to others, therefore you don't need a fortune.

And many thanks to Arron Wood for putting-up with my backseat designing, and for producing a brilliant sheet. When I get round to it, I'm going to have a squad of Halls Templer all in black and white, to fight my Saracens!