O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Ancient & Medieval

So, the 'Ancient and Medieval' vein was both rich and numerous, although I've got them down to ten images and a close up. Probably my favourite section, after space, and maybe ceremonial, although you find a lot of interesting Wild West stuff, and new civilians are always turning-up to amaze, farm, zoo, jungle . . . Pirates, pirates are my favourite, or they bloody-well should be? Anyway, we've got the opening paragraph; Let's play show repooooort!

 

Small-scale; Another bag of our Auther and his mounted Roman Gladiator Knights! To be compared with the other bags, as I think there was a hint at one point, the content's supplier changed, or the horses got diluted with a second type or something, none of it's actually Giant, but the story still needs to be accurate!

 

A few of the other Hong Kong knock-offs, Quaker and Elastolin Romans, and a Britians Trojan War figure, along with a broken Airfix and the ex-Montaplex runner of BuM Slot's Vikings. The mast and furled sails on their cross-spar have to be made from the central tree-runner!

 

Someone came and asked me about it, and I told him what I knew, then I either bought it off him later, when I found I still had cash in my pocket, or he just gave it to me, toward the end of the show? But he's not in the credit list? One of the Liverpool or Birmingham 'gangs'?

 

Hot on the heels of the three we saw the other day, both blog wise and literally, as the show was a couple of weeks after I acquired the others, came a fourth Marx 6" Egyptian pose, on the right here, and a broken duplicate, on the left. The good one needs a bit of a clean to match the others, while I intend to give the broken one a Kopesh curved sickle-axe-sword, and I'll use quite thick Plasticard, to match the chunkiness of the originals.

 

Between them, a Gashapon Samurai (not well shot!) and one of the Lik Be/LB cavemen. 

 

Hong Kong Timpo piracy on the left, also carried by Ideal in a fort set I think? Cherilea in the middle, and another Hong Kong (Britains 'War of the Roses' swoppet-copy) on the right. All good stuff!

 

These are very interesting, copies of the Lone Star/Hubley/Kresge 'Metalions' (it's increasingly unclear just what the history of those die-casts is/was), I think someone did give me some info' on them at the show, but so much goes-on, on the day, I'll be damned before I can remember what they said! In the style of some French reissue/Bazaar stuff and may be by Norev?

 

Did I say fourteen Richard I's the other day? Make that fifteen! And Bonux here, have simplified the folds of the cloak to such an extent it's getting back, closer to the Lone Star original, and further from the Jem/Norev it was copied from, for these washing-powder premiums!

 

Dom Landsknecht, Lone Star medieval and three Cherilea's, two of the early 'swoppets' and a solid in a nice greeny-yellow plastic. There is a forthcoming post on the swoppets, as you may remember I got four at the previous year's show, and have since obtained more besides.

 

More modern stuff, the old Marx/Tudor Rose knights, and the Romano-Greek motorcycle-raider 'knights' currently still findable on Amazon and similar platforms, all grist to the mill; colour variations etc . . . 

 

A bunch of Starlux, I think I picked a few of each a few years ago, from the same seller, but they went on clearance near the end of the show, so I just bought them all, doing him a favour, really, you understand, I didn't need them, they don't even look good en masse!

 

Bloody-lovely, that's what they is! And the unpainted one is a Starlux moulding, but perhaps issued as a premium, by a third party? We saw the white, polyethylene ones from Spain years ago.

 

Me box-ticking, or bag-ticking (playing catch-up) on Replicants!

 

Biblical figures are a difficult one, they can go with the civilians, or get their own section (which they often do at Christmas!), but as they are ancient, they might as well go here, two Marx nativity animals, home-painted (?), a French Santon, looking a bit like Mary, mother of the bloke standing next to her! He is also Marx, and was called Jey'sus'ah!

 

Again, many thanks to - Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, including the BuM Vikings (?), and which I have forgotten to add.

A is for Araber aus Deutschland

These used to be simple; "Manurba" would say the German collectors, then they became Dom-Manurba (or Manurba-Dom), now you usually find them listed as Dom-Manurba-Heinerle! I'm not even going to try to pin that down, but suffice to say they are slightly sub-scale at around 50mm and rather charming!

My sample, bringing something nice from the East, to the West! Carpets? Spice? The heads of their vanquished enemies? they are all unarmed so can be used with Nativity scenes as background population, and it's a small sample.

The full set includes mounted figures (some of whom are armed), horses, several different loads for the camels and other colours, and while usually from a brown/fawn/cream/white palette, I have seen them in red, orange and yellow I think.

That's it, that's them; my little handful of Manfred Urban . . . or Domplast . . . or Heinerle Wundertüten Arabs!

P is for Palm-flat Palm Flats

Another one which missed tree week, although the planting in the UK (it was 'our' tree week I think?) of palm trees outside of the South Cost, Scilly- or Channel Islands can be a bit of a fool's errand, but as the climate inexorably changes I dare say the line of success is moving firmly northwards!

On the left is Britains set of coconut palms which was based on their old Hollow-cast palms, if not actually from the same mold-tool? Much copied in Hong Kong we have two better ones from Blue Box (For Cheyenne among other sets!) and a more recent generic both of which designs have bracing across the trunks, probably to try and prevent warping upon removal from the mould?

The three together; you can see how much smaller both the copies are and the loss of detailed etching on the 2nd generation copy, which is also manufactured in an insipid, wishy-washy polymer which would benefit from a paint-job.

Charbens cheeky chimp climbing for coconuts! Actually he's easy to remove resulting in a far more useful tree in any scale which - going on the size of the monkey - is otherwise, a very small tree in quite a large scale!

Above; we have variations in the bases of the Charbens trees which 'had some work' at some point, I'd like to think one was from a hollow-cast mold or something, but the hollow-cast tree was quite different and had no stupid monkey!

Below; are two designs from that Manurba (Manfred Urban) / Heinerle süßwaren Wundertüten (confectionery surprise bags) / Dom (Domplast-Domplastik) group. They did produce a larger double coconut palm and a banana palm, but I either don't have them or have put them in the Manurba box, which is still buried in the garage! A rather nice tree-fern (Australasia) and a fruitless 'generic' palm.

I think this is Starlux, but the mark (in a little recessed cartouche) was obliterated by glue or early-removable from the tool, so it could be Befoid or Clairet? Any way it's supposed to be a coconut palm, by the look of it?

A Modern hollow-backed pair of bass-relief coconuts from some 'armyman' set; it may be a make-weight in some pocket-money rack-toy thing, but it adds to the collection of palm-flat flat palms!

PRB is for Plastic Rastignano Bologna

John Roquas (all images this post: courtesy of!) sent me a quick eMail the other day, with an image, asking me if I knew who had made the figures, I thought they looked familiar, but couldn't place them and being short on Internet-time that day got on with what I had to do, while the figures were at the back of my mind.

Just before I signed-off for the day I fired-off a quick reply to the effect that they might have been Cofalux; late replacements for their swivel-head 60-mil's, but that I wasn't sure and would check that night and get back to him the next day.

An Army of swivel-heads!

Well, I got home and quickly divested myself of the Cofalux 'idea', only problem was - when I tried the other obvious candidates they drew a blank as well! So I started to run through the dongles one at a time searching swivel and swoppet until on the second to last dongle I got a folder marked PRB in the results, "Ooh?" thinks I; "what's this one?" . . . Bingo! Plastic Rastignano Bologna; an importer/jobber from Italy.

13 ex-Domplastic poses

Sent off an eMail to John the next day; 'Not Cofalu; PRB, blah, blah, blah . . . ', and the next day found all these images in my inbox, so many thanks to John for helping give these a wider audience!

The figures are scaled-up copies of the smaller (54mm'ish) German Domplastic solids, which PRB imported into Italy, whether they had permission to turn them into 70mm swivel-heads or not is anyone's guess! They are generic post-war/NATO types, but PRB's addition of swivel heads allowed for WWII Germans and other types to be 'imagined' by the young owner.

There are 13 poses, one prone without a base, 12 upright on integral-bases; which are trying to be or look a bit like late-version Cherilea swoppet bases!

- Advancing with Assault Rifle, Optical-sight Fitted

- Crawling/Waving Forward Following Troops (no base)

- Firing Bazzoka

- Firing SMG

- Kneeling Firing M1 Carbine

- Kneeling Flamethrower Operator

- Kneeling Radio Operator

- Marching Infantry, Assault Rifle

- Marching Paratrooper (both chutes, assault rifle, arms resting on reserve-chute)

- Marching Paratrooper (parachute harness, unarmed, large-pack, arms swinging)

- Officer Holding Binoculars (and testing the wind with a damp finger!)

- Throwing Grenade, Holding SMG

- Waving, Holding SMG

Seven headdress types

All the headdresses are available in all the main-body colours, with the berets having additional colours allowing for (depending on where you are in the world) Armoured/Infantry (black), Marines/Paratroopers (red and green), the UN/Russian Paratroopers (sky-blue), or other Special Forces &etc.

- Beret (very floppy or broad; Italian-looking or French Resistance!)

- Cap (like Afrika Korps, Alpinejeger or UK 'Crow-cap/Crap-hat'*)

- Cap (like 1950's RCP's or REP's in Indochina or Algeria)

- German WWII Stalhelm/Fire Service Helmet

- Officer's Peaked Cap (very 'totalitarian regime' in style, not UK/US flatter shape)

- US M1 Type Helmet (good for half the world post-way!)

- UK Mk1/2 'Piss-pot/Soup-bowl' or US 'Brodie' Helmet

There may be a kepi, but I suspect it's just the way light plays on the very pale grey versions of the DAK-like cap on auction sites?

* "I'mmmmm a Jockey, I'mmmmm a Jockey!" (an in-joke for anyone who did basic training in the 1980's!)

Coats of many colours!

I told John I wouldn't collage the images he sent as they were so good, but these two are taken with and without flash and illustrate the colour differences much better if placed side-by-side.

There are both darker and paler sand's than seen here, then the mid-sand on the upper row; dark, mid, light, pale and very-pale grey - middle row; with various greens, khakis, olives and olive drabs.

That very-pale grey is verging-on and looks white, especially if used with darker colours, thus; putting a very-pale grey beret on a dark olive figure will make it look white.

Inclusive 'World' Troops

Heads also come in various colours (not knowing what John had, I told him there were 'two'), and the sample John sent back has from the right - tanned/Asian/mixed-race, Afro-Caribbean, new-born Caucasian and a 'not very well'/sick-parade colour on the far left! Although it's fair to say (from the samples I've seen, including John's) the pink 'Caucasian' seems to be numerically superior to the other ethnicities.

When I replied to John I did some back-of-a-cigarette-packet maths and going-on the 13 poses x 6 hats/helmets x 7 colours x 2 flesh-tones in my notes, and assuming headdress would match figure colour (no other beret colours taken into account), arrived at a possible 1,092 variations, if anyone with greater maths skills would like to have a go, using John's samples and including the beret colours, I'd be interested in the result, I recon it's over 4,000?

Which is an amusing exercise, but the point is, you can - with enough figures - create distinctive armies by limiting headdress-type, figure colour or even grouping poses; they're really nice figures, with tons of play-value!

T is for Ten Tin-clad Toy Troops

A pyramid of medieval mayhem!

 

And an exercise in clearing stuff from Picasa!

F is for Follow-up to French Fellows

Thanks go to Mathias Berthox for several of the images tonight and the identification info, both herein and in the comments section of the previous post. Also thanks due to Steve Vickers who kindly allowed me to photograph a set he had at the Plastic Warrior show in May, which turned-out to be just what we needed to complete the story.

This is to confirm or deny several points raised by This Post concerning the various versions of these French made knights. Mathias will correct me if anything is incorrect!

So, in the upper picture sent by Mathias we have Rene Fisher (RF) figures, these are a hard plastic, probably (like Starlux and others) originally in a phenolic plastic or cellulose acetate, then - later - a polystyrene. Well painted, most figures having at least 5 or 6 colours, with the silver being one, also with quite chunky bases, which are always painted green.

The lower shot - also from Mathias - shows the Jem versions, these are soft ethylene plastic, but still have a decent paint-job with cream bases. Jem also supplied their figures to Norev (then a maker of plastic vehicles in 1:43rd scale) who placed them in diorama boxes called 'History and Traditions', where we learn that Robin Hood had to deal with cactus as well as the Sheriff's men, and that he lived in a Tipi/Tepee!

Later Norev (who were making metal 30/35mm civilians a few years ago) issued figures which have a simplified paint scheme of 3 or 4 colours only; white gloves and details, gold joints to the armour and weapons, flesh (if needed) and one other 'highlight' colour. The upper photograph from Mathias again, the lower example from my own collection.

These seem to have been made in Hong Kong/China, and were either from the same moulds or  reasonable quality copies, plastic forts were also made for the figures to garrison and fight over! The plastic is a denser material probably a Polypropylene.

Two companies then pirated them, Hugonnet and Vilco. It is these lesser quality figures we looked at last time, and with a shot of all mine, now including a couple of the extra poses Sam (of Sams Minis World) sent me, along with a comparison of the copy standard-bearer next to the Norev original. The two lower pictures showing the twin mould release-pin marks that enabled me to separate them out of a load of 'silver knights'!

To the left is the set Steve Vickers let me shoot at Richmond, of note is the fact that this sprue seems to be mostly Lone Star piracies (like the 'King Richard' that seems to have started this little odyssey when I covered Robin Hood two years ago!), but also includes the RF/Jem archers seen above, so we seem to be looking at about 20 (cirtainly 17+) poses from Hugonnet/Vilco, from both the RF and Lone Star stables.

The guy on the right, seemingly a decent attempt at William the First of England, Duke of Normandy, seems too good to be from the above ranges, so I suspect a modern/current brand, but I don;t know who, so any help with this chap would be appreciated. He is in unpainted silver polyethylene and is the last chap from the 'silver knights' load, still to be identified, apart from....

...the chunky chap at the bottom of this picture, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I separated these guys out in the last post, it was suggested they were part of the above late sets we now know were Hugonnet/Vilco, and someone correctly pointed-out that they were Dom poses. Well, like an idiot (and working in poor light) I hadn't seen that they are in fact marked on the upper-surface of the bases 'MADE IN WEST GERMANY' and are actually Dom Plastik, and probably nothing to do with the French sets/makes at all!

These have apparently had three main phases, silver originals like the above, some (earlier?) basic paint versions and later recasts in a greyish plastic.

However, also in the 'silver knights' lot was this other chap, early-looking painted ethylene, but bigger that the Dom, although clearly the model for one of the Dom poses. He has the look of some East German plastics to me, he is a quite soft, silver plastic, a bit like Charbens knights, heading toward 60mm, very chunky base and has no discernible mark. Any ideas?

K is for Knights, Knot Known!

In the same vein as the group of mixed figures (premiums?) we looked at the other night, firstly because I suspect these are French, and can even suggest a name; Jem (thanks to Paul Morehead and Brian Carrick from Plastic Warrior), and secondly because the lot Sam sent me contained a few, with two new poses...but they could be from anyone and they could be from anywhere,

So, from my unknown large scale mediaevals box, the above are separated into two batches as those in the upper shot have a uniform feature lacking in the lower bunch; two pin-release marks on the rear of each base. Also the bases are a bit thicker and slightly more symmetrical than the others.

Indeed - until the arrival of the lot from Sam, I had separated them as being two makers (with the upper lot pencilled-in as Jem?), which is why these are two images, I took them a few months ago when I was shooting all the medieval figures for future posts. Although the similarities in material, colour and sculpting meant they shared a tub, just different ends!

Added 25-09-2013 : The lower lot are Dom Plastik!

Then Sam sent me his lot and among them were the above 6, four of them being duplicates, the other two being new poses, one (bottom right) being very much part of the first grouping above, the other (top left) with the standard - being far more like the second gang but with the base of the first, so I now think they are all from one set/maker?

The question is who? Or rather the questions being who/where/when?! So any help greatly appreciated on these and the Post the other day. That's 15 figures, were there more? Of course, if they are Jem and were from a fort play-set, the number of poses is not unusual. Does the difference in - particularly - base style point to two tranches? Or just various sources of copying by Jem (or whoever?) and if so - who were the other influencing makes/originators of the various poses?

It also means that we have a fifth figure in the series we originally looked at Here. It also - increasingly - looks as if the King 'Richard' may well have originated with Norev (linked post and forth figure from the left above), being copied both by Lone Star (or 'influenced'!), then Jem; the smaller figure from this unknown set?

Finally - if they are all or in-part - Jem, does anyone have a picture of the fort the figures came with, they could share with everyone here?