T is for Thin Composition Line!

Mentioned in passing once or twice recently, these are the latest 'probably' Zang discovery, made by Adrian at Mercator Trading, who spotted them while cataloging a recent SAS auction.  I say probably as there's no sure and certain guarantee they are Zang, but that applies equally to about half the stuff attributed to them anyway! For now; they are considered Zang.

Ceremonial Guardsmen (with pop-guns!) in a vague 40mm, composition, and - in a sample of 21 - all the same pose. Possibly used to accompany a coronation coach in lead as street-lining figures?

Did Timpo issue such a thing? We know of all the others with metal or plastic figures from both the 1937 (? '36?) and '53 coronations, and the '77 Jubilee, but I don't know about Timpo?

Here compared (above) with two other believed to be Zang's, the 35mm Colonial/WWI era Highlander and the 50mm'ish New York cop, while below are a few bases. The colour of the base material is the same on all - a brownish-khaki where weathered, a pale grey where newly damaged.

As always, these types look better 'en-mass'!

Have I ever bored you with my street-lining tale? 1985, President of Mexico, somewhere down Victoria Street I think I ended-up, anyway; it takes ages to march-up to where you're needed, then the chief drill-instructor of the Guards Division (sort of RSM of the whole known universe) comes down the line with his swagger-stick, pacing-out everyone to within an inch, telling the odd chap to get lost in the crowd (to rejoin in his spot after the motorcade passes - or the end-drill wouldn't work), and moving everyone else.

Then you stand there for hours waiting for something to happen, occasionally being told to change arms, or stand at ease, until eventually you start to hear shouted orders coming toward you from what you assume is the general direction of Heathrow, eventually you're brought to Royal Salute - Present Arms yourself, the motorcade passes (in about fifteen seconds!) and you have to do all the complicated drill (quarter-guards in threes, splitting to two's and counting themselves off from the rear - like the dying patrol in Jungleburger - "Goddamn motherfucking mosquitoes, goddamn motherfucking flies") in reverse and march back to Horseguards for a late lunch!

It's a good illustration of how we've got it so wrong - as a species - a street-lining for a foreign dignitary probably costs more than keeping several Primary Schools open for a year?

Thought for the day - gap for the unit, no gap for the place? Who'd learn English!

A is for Another - Sculptures UK; Highland Piper

Like an 'R is for Return...' but new and differenter (which should be a word!), we looked at one of these Sculptures UK figures (from Peter's plunder bags) back in the summer, and it turns out that not only was there one in the storage-pile, it may be one of the first larger scale figures to join the collection, being - from memory - a charity-shop purchase in Newbury or Hungerford in late 2008 or early 2009

Looks to be a different sculptor, or maybe he was better at layers of flowing garb (the face is similar to the previous figure's), but I think a different hand/technique is involved here? The pipes and - I suspect - the hands are a single metal casting set into the resin, which is sensible as otherwise the thing wouldn't survive removal from it packaging, while this has survived losing its packaging years ago, a trip to and from charity and seven years in storage!

As with the previous post I haven't the faintest idea who's tartan this is, or indeed; whether it's a made-up one? Following Gisby's lead last time I found several Highlanders including Royal Stewart and Black Watch piper paint-ups of this sculpt - this is neither. But it's cleverly done with four colours over the base, which is finely etched with both lines and a cloth-pattern, giving the appearance - by eye - of a very fine print, all done through 'technique'!

As you may have gathered by now, the Highland box turned-up the other day, so I will be giving them the same treatment as the Guards, but I need to combine with the attic stash first and look up Regimental-tartan, hopefully over the weekend?

T is for The Thin Grey Line

Having looked at our own ceremonials this morning, let's look at someone else's this afternoon, with some undated, unaccredited stuff from the archive, I believe it will date around 1950-54, from the other stuff that came with it, although the article would appear to say 1952 precisely! And it may be a syndicated piece from a Floridian paper of the time.

Coming from a lifetime in Florida's Keyes has resulted in humidity/damp damage to the pages- as a pink staining

Text reads . . .

The Colorful Kaydets

Realistic figurines, here pictured for the first

time, form pageant of West Point uniforms

IN HONOR of West Point’s sesqui-

centennial,  which  is  being  cele-

brated  this  year,  a  series  of  21

small   military   figures  has  just

been completed, to show changes in

the  U.  S.  Military Academy’s uni-

forms since the first was adopted 150

years ago.  Standing  approximately

10^[*^] inches in height, the little cadets

took more than a year to make. They

were originally sculptured by T. H.

Jones of the Heraldic Branch of the

Quartermaster General’s office in

Washington, D. C. Later, they were

cast in plaster, and then meticulously

hand-painted by two of the Branch’s

artists, Jack Ocenasek and Jackson

Buchanan.  Often,  because  of the

plaster’s porosity, the painters had to

apply several coats to make details

stand out realistically. Following its

unveiling at the West Point Museum,

the collection is slated to be sent on

a tour of other museums. Ultimately

it  will  be  returned  to  the  Point,

where it will be a permanent exhibit.

NEWS COLORFOTOS BY ROBERT CRANSTON. DANIEL JACINO AND FRANK LIVIA

. . . * Ten inches is approximately 260mm

Text reads . . .

Here's [the] uniform [that] U.S.M.A.s

first grad [uate], Joseph Gardner

Swift of Massachusetts, wore

in 1802. It was patterned

after those of engineer offi-

cers in [the] Revolutionary War.

PAGE 4

Text reads . . .

Between West Point's original 1802 dress uniform (below, left [now above]) and the

current 1952 one (below right [now just 'below']), these uniforms were worn, at one time

or another, by Academy cadets. Their dates are respectively (l to r.)

1814, 1825, 1840, 1840, 1857, 1875, 1886, 1890, 1899, 1220 and 1930

. . . the 1899 looks surprisingly 'Confederate'!

Text reads . . .

Today, cadets have special uniforms for various occasions. Left to right:

Summer full-dress "50/50"; Summer chapel attire ([model/model's painting?] to be revised because

of inaccuracies); hop manager; all-white; lst sgt. in dress gray; sgt. in

"50/50"; officer of the day in "f. d. gray"; yearling in overcoat with cape.

I presume (like 'assuming' but using the circumstantial evidence in the text!) that they are still to be seen in a cabinet at West Point's museum/visitor centre somewhere; has anybody seen them? I also bet the current wardrobe at West Point differs greatly from that of 1952!

While I am on the subject; I can't recommend The Long Grey Line by Rick Atkinson highly enough, along with Chickenhawk (Robet Mason) and the one by a tracked-carrier officer I can't remember; it is one of the seminal memoirs of that era, helping to explain not only the Vietnam conflict (as the other pair do) but also the mess of the mid-to-late 1970's that may well have contributed to the truck-bomb catastrophe in Lebanon a few years (1983) later.

F is for Follow-up - Guards Musicians, 35mm

We looked at six of these after the May '17Plastic Warrior show and I got a message from Mr. Morehead at PW Towers at the time suggesting there might be ten poses, however I suspect - with the storage-set previously mentioned; now out of storage - that there are only the eight?

Two from the percussion section with a rather large 'side-drum' placed [centrally] off the waist-belt, and a cymbalist. The Brass section has four practitioners, with - from the left (and Mr Morehead will correct me if I'm wrong . . . at least there's no sousaphone!); trombone [Tuba], saxophone, bugle (? [Cornet!]) and French horn (?) while woodwind have two; oboe [Clarinet] and flute/fife [I was corrected!].

Some of them have two arms (for three parts), others have the whole as a single-moulding (for two parts), Britains got round the problem with plug-hands, here we just have quite complicated sculpting (for Hong Kong) and the obvious effort gone-to in manufacturing them is repeated in the fine painting. The drummer is the exception with four-parts - and a sticker.

The percussionists in close up to show how the arms move and to give an idea of size.

Re. the point about cavities earlier today, you will notice that these are not all exactly the same height, the moulding here used for the cymbals is smaller than the others with a slightly squidged headdress, this will be a cavity thing (multiple cavities), but the arms fit all the figures, except the saxophonist who's arms don't like parting at the elbow-line and he insists on poking himself in the eye with his instrument!

A quick reminder of Peter's donation/additions and how they have been cleverly placed in old HK Swoppet bases (two S-for-Star/Star Toys and another buckshee one) with the remains of the icing/cake spike sheered-off, flush, with a blade.

14's enough for a bandstand 'soirée', all I need now is an O-gauge railway with lavish Victorian park gardens!

G is for Ge-Models Gemodels and Gem, but never Gem Models!

The full story for which is covered in the Plastic Warrior 'Gemodels Special' but suffice to say they seem to have been briefly Gem Models at the start and everyone refers to them as 'Gem'! I say "they" - it was a he; George Musgrave, and he was quite prolific, but it's all in the aforementioned publication, and we have looked at their output before here, as well as these Lifeguards, however following-up on May's post Jim sent an interesting item in his recent parcel...

... a carded set of Ge-Models Lifeguards; a full set of four poses, beautifully minty with 98% of their paint (gem are terrible flakers!), although as we look at the item in more depth you may begin to suspect repainting - for obvious reasons!

I have the standard bearer loose in storage along with all the Horse Guards (my preferred choice of the Household Cavalry, don't ask why? I don't know!), but it seems Lifeguards have been coming in quite regularly this last few years!

Base marks are often not terribly clear, but there's usually a smidgeon of a mark if you hold them to the light and angle them properly. Marks can vary from a simple 'Gem' to a full 'Gemodels Made in England [with code number or registered trade mark number]'.

Very like the Festival figures, and a quick note here; I have in the past suggested a link between the two, even to discussing it with Barney over at Black Dragon once, I've since noticed that there are plenty of Festival items in the Musgrave museum displays, so the link is firm, but the relationships remain to be sorted - particularly with Culpitt's, for instance; why are there so many Hong Kong versions of Festival figures compared to Gem copies?

The officer has a bigger base, I don't know why, as it's the standard bearer who needs it most!

But back to the card; first mystery . . . it's clearly a copy, it's a high resolution scan and print, but it's the same side twice, with the old staple-marks not Photoshop'd-out, and from the size of the staples used for the copy, along with the smallness of some of the text on the card, the suspicion is that the original card was bigger?

Not that Mr Musgrave wasn't above a bit of plagiarism himself, if you thought the card's artwork was looking a tad familiar, it's because it is! While lots of people used scroll logos in the past, these are a little too similar!

And it doesn't stop with the logo! It's not exact, and certainly different enough to keep it out of court, but I'd argue the one has influence over the other? Even to both showing a red plume, despite the fact that Gem always painted theirs white?

I think the unreadable-bit probably read 'High Impact Material'

A quick comparison with what I have here, left to right;

Top Row

Gemodels, Britains Herald (ethylene), Britains Herald (vinyl), Britains Hong Kong, Britains Herald (ethylene), Britains Hong Kong x2 and Gemodels.

Bottom Row

Gemodels, recent from-hollow-cast (Charbens?), Hong Kong copies of Britains x2, unknown (Cavendish or Hill?), Timpo (looking a bit 19thC despite being the same as the others!), unknown from-hollow-cast and Gemodels.

All (other?) versions of Charbens still missing, still in storage.

And many thanks to Jim for putting this curiosity to one side for me to share with you, now we need to find an original and compare card-size; also - you can see why I suspect the four in the pack may be re-paints, it doesn't matter; as if they have been, it's been done to the same style (standard/quality) as the originals, but if you've gone to the trouble of reproducing the card, it's a small matter to strip and clean a tatty set and re-paint them? I think they are original paint though . . . just exploring possibilities!

The second mystery is - why haven't more of these cards shown-up? Who was behind them and when did they appear? The one sent to me has seems to have some age of its own, over and above the reproduced stains of the scanned original.

C is for Charmingly Cheerfull Chaps Choon'ing

Although I had to pass-up the French terracotta figures I showed the other day, I will always obtain the more esoteric figures when I see them at an affordable price, and these are a case in point coming-in at 50p (less than a single Euro or Dollar) each from a charity shop the other day.

Despite Googling every possible combination of India-Indian-Pakistani-Pakistan-military-Army-Navy-Air Force-uniform-turban-headdress-ceremonial-red and blue-band-Bandsman and music-musician I can find no hint to the regiment or unit here represented, any ideas?

There is among the higher echelons of the collecting fraternity a chap who - a decade or so ago - imported lots of lovely little sets of Indian Army bands, each of about 8 musician figures in a soft pink terracotta/clay materiel and while he's been pointed out to me at the odd show, I'm ashamed to say I can't remember his name*. Anyway, I was always taken by the sets - which often still turn up either as the original trayed, boxed sets, or as a handful of rather dusty 'casualties' - but they were smaller (around 45/50mm) than these, which stand 70-75-odd millimetres with their heavy bases.

*Shamus Wade 'Ooja-cun-pivvy'!

There is a requirement for a new hand, and there will have to be some careful straightening of the brass-wire instruments at some point, but given the nature of the material and the fact that they've become divorced from their original packaging, they are in remarkably good-nick.

Close-ups of the instruments, quite crude, but they do the job, and have that 'craft' charm you don't get with say the Airfix Afrika Korps, which are lovely but commercially finished 'Models', while these are very much 'Collectable Figurines' (away from India), yet 'Toy Soldiers in the slums and villages where they are probably sold for about the same as I paid for them!

Lovely little doll-like faces only add to the charm, a couple of them seems to be reading the music of the chap next to them! And how they are seeming to be enjoying the playing!!

As the Indian Army do have some very fancy ceremonial or 'dress' uniforms, I am assuming this is the No.2 or 'undress' uniform with it's majority Khaki? Again anyone who can identify the unit please drop us a comment. I don't think it's a UN turban, they tend to be all blue. The small figures I mentioned come in very smart dress uniforms, but I'm not sure they were all military, or even representing actual units, yet these seem to be trying to represent a real unit...cavalry perhaps?