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.

T is for Two - Webbs Rack Toys

Previously these pirates (1st set below) have been attributed to Dollar General in the US, I now seem to have a UK brand-mark, while the knights are 2nd or 3rd generation copies of the original 1970's Britains Deetail copies out of Hong Kong, now marked 'China' (like the pirates) and being hawked by the same rack-toy name - Webbs.

Packaging is about as generic as it comes on the front, but there is a consumer info panel and what looks like a phantom branding (but is actually S Webb and Son of Menai Bridge, Gwynedd) printed on the otherwise plain back, and the WST048 set's blister is 'space-filled' with spurious shite!

The spurious shite includes an injection-moulded copy of the old Noah's ark props and a rock wall, but the boat and cannon are useful and make up for the village-pond-with-coral-reef play mat!

There is another pose (swordsman, seen in black plastic in the rack-toy round-up, last ITLAPD), but of interest to the blog is a new pose here, the lady. She looks like she might be being made to walk the plank as a victim of wicked pirates, but is in fact holding a pistol in the small of her back with the clear intention of giving someone a third eye or a hole in the heart - generous girl! And don't worry - plenty in the bag for ITLAPD this year!

The seller is offering these in threes should you be tempted; and with the knights each assortment differs, but each blister (set WST051) gets two identical riders, so you need multiples to complete the set.

No filler and lots of separate weapons make these very useful purchases, although the play mat is "...far out there man" . . . with Frisian cows, stud-fencing, nicely-trimmed hedges and dry-stone walls sharing space with a pterodactyl, veggie'saur, giraffe and lion, while a Napoleonic grenade appears to be stuck half-way up the cliff . . . or is the pterodactyl bombing the mud-river with rocks??!!!!

That's them - they're still out & about there somewhere!

D is for Deetail Details!

Sorting stuf out in Picasa and din't know which of the previous posts to add this image to, so though it might as well go here!

Just a comparison between the earlier silver and later Black Storm mounted Deetail Knights from Britains. The later one having the marginally more realistic appearance...apart from the chrome shield!

Also found this unused graphic I CAD'ed-up during the original series of articles, on the Britains dongle when putting the images away...just for fun...or something!

M is for More Loose-ends

Specifically for Ed. Berg, but also anyone looking to collect/having trouble with the various generations of Britains Deetail 'standard' knights, or - the silver 'original' and black 'Storm' knights; I put this together to try and explain the time-line vis-a-vis the foot figures...

 It takes no account of colour variations, shield designs and such-like, the silhouettes have been drawn without weapons (694 being the only truly weapon specific chap) although they did leave the factory with the same 'chosen' weapon I believe?

[Couple of hours later - re-edited the thing for the umpteenth time, seems to be a little clearer!]

I've also not got bogged down with the thin versions as it's a new development which will require more work which someone else may do as I'm not volunteering at present! I've only identified the two knights and a couple of Turks so far and I think some of the mounted poses got slim-Jim versions?

All dates are very 'approximate', you can't trust the catalogues, and with other variables they may have languished in shops for some time or not been available when they should have been!

This is an earlier draft which may be of more use for printing out and using as a check-list, or to pin-up near the PC for when you are surfing evilBay? Left-click to enlarge.

If anyone would like the original Word .doc, that's doable, but with 12 jpg's embedded, it may not be eMail-able, so some cost for disc and postage would need to be worked out...I'd probably do all the jpg's (30-odd) and the AutoCAD file - if you can use it - as well?

L is for Loose-ends

Beginning at the end...or ending at the beginning (unless you're coming to this via 'next post' in a few months or years time, in which case it's in vague order in the dozen or so posts below this one!) we'll look at the early figures and some of the minor variations, and then the final - to date - incarnation.

When I took the initial pictures for the book project, I didn't bother with the commoner figures, and being late to large scale collecting and still not too bothered by common stuff like Deetail, I can only cobble together what's come in, in mixed and junk lots.

The originl 'silver' knights, consisted of six poses on foot and six poses mounted, the standard for a set of Deetail, and most Britains plastic production. First appearing in the 1973 catalogue, they would - along with the WWII Germans - get a second set of 6 foot figures in 1978 ('77 for the Germans), the two ran alongside each other for some years, with 6 poses (3 from each set) being dropped in the early 1990's. Two of the poses would re-appear in the five-pose reissues of the 2000's.

From the mid-1980's the production decision-making process seems to have been moved by degrees to the Hong Kong facility, leading to the realistic paper shields being dropped and replaced with laminate plastic/foil designs with a chromium finish, the advent of the black 'Storm' knights and the oddity of second 'slim-jim' mouldings, and we see two above, in the image top left and the archer on the far right of the lower line-up.

I don't know the reason for this other than demand? The figures are smaller and all external detail (crests, bow, sheaths, feathery-frippery) is thinner or truncated. Also I don't know how many poses were affected, although a couple of the Turks have thin versions as well.

I've never seen information on this, so input would be invaluable for other collectors if you do know something, or have half an idea? The thinnish ones weren't used in the 2000's reissues.

Above - a box of mounted figures as they came into the retailer, there are 3-each of the six poses, each three decorated the same, so when you encounter colour variants they were from other boxes from other out-painters or other production batches.

Below - comparison between all bar the swivel-waist and Robin Hood figures, you can see how big the Gold 'Great Shield' knights are, next to the others and also how the black 'Storm Knights' are compared to the blueish-charcoal of the original Turks.

Toward the end, gimmicks came in and they are rather fun! Running alongside the Robin Hood sets in blister-packed carded pocket-money ranges were various tilting or 'Tournament Knights' with pull-back motored jousting horses and a dragon.

The other image shows a mounted version of the gold knights we look at a few posts below, with the black helmet and grey mail highlights.

Slight colour variations exist of at least three of the horses (the blue one wasn't present - on the day - in a large enough sample to present a variation, but I'm sure there will be some), and the horses visible areas (tails and a bit of neck) could be black, grey or a pinkish-brown.

The most resent issue, nearly a decade ago now (2006/7?) were the realistic-paint version, with only 3 mounted figures each for knights and Turks, all 6 foot Turks but only 5 knights, two of which were among the poses dropped from the consolidation - from 12 back down to 6 poses - years earlier. Also, the old large sculpt/moulding of archer was present in the five, suggesting that the skinnys were second moulds - not replacement moulds.

When I was working for my dealer mate, we retailed these straight from the UK arm of Britains, and I think they ran for just  two or three years around the dates above? Have there been other issues?