Q is for Question Time - Sacul Drummer . . . Not!

This rather interesting figure came in from Chris Smith the other day and if anyone has any idea's he'd love to hear them!

At first glance he looks to be slightly better sculpted or finished, but a closer look suggests he was probably poorly pantographed and then over-etched to re-establish surface detail? The drum's carrying-strap is vastly improved over the donor's and the left stick is extended while the hand's position is changed slightly. A heavy base lifts a much smaller figure and he looks to be relatively chalkless, so could be quite late . . . 1970's even?

Minor British make? Premium of some kind? Another of these BR Moulds Plastic Warrior has been tantalising us with . . . they mostly have thinner bases, but the ex-Airfix paratrooper has a blobbier one? Even a Hong Kong copy with a fort set of some kind? Thinking of the Tom Smith re-use of Kellogg's Thunderbird figures (Crescent), could he be a cracker prize?

It's plastic, so it was mass-produced, there must be more out there! Other poses?

S is for Sally's Silver Band

A box-ticker, but one I'm happy to have as it's a lovely set, and happy to keep brief, as it was fully covered in Plastic Warrior magazine not that long ago and I don't know enough about silver bands, musical instruments (as we've seen before!) or even the Salvation Army!

The 'Salvation Army Trade Department Hong Kong' apart from being a mouthful of words also sounds frightfully grand for an organisation I can't remember having ever seen associated with another product? But there you go; possibly a phantom brand for reasons of tax or charity status, or maybe a/some Christian Chinese produced them at cost or paid for the contract or something?

Figures - vinyl/PVC - are a tad on the large size, coming in at around 65mm, although you can see they are not the same height, with the lone side-drummer quite noticeably smaller than his band-mates at 62mm all-in. That's them, ♫♪♪♫ Onward Christian Soldiers ♫♫♪ and all that; Christmas is coming!

B is for British Bobby

It's a funny one, but occasionally something so stupid comes out of Paul Stadinger's tiny mind it's worth a laugh, and this is one of those occasions.

I try quite hard not to park my tanks on other people's lawns, and if I have to, or think I'm going to I will usually post a link of homage to the earlier event, or tip a nod to the site I feel I may otherwise offend, the obvious example would be Halloween.

And - for the same reasons - if someone posts something I also have in the queue, I will usually hold-off on my post for a while until the dust settles, and probably re-write the blurb to give it a different 'take', theme or angle to the other, earlier post.

Sometimes - in the case of stadsshite - I have ignored that 'rule' and  with purpose as I did with the Asian flats (and something else recently I've already forgotten) as I'm keen to see this mythical collection of TJF's and having seen precious little evidence of it so far; try to encourage him, which seems to work - witness this post and all his plinth'ed Marx recently!

But a while ago, I was preparing an article which meandered rather from nurses, through medics to stretcher bearers and ended up with policemen. A week or two before I posted, the shitestuff blog happened to show - as a 'don't know' (he doesn't know much it seems from the last 12 months activities there, or even the last few weeks!) - one of the policemen I, too, was about to show! Mr Carrick of this parish (but firmly affiliated to the PSTSM) identified it as Cavendish.

"Well (I thought) I'm not pulling a post for the sake of a couple of common-enough figures, on that twits site" and ran with it regardless, it was more about the Mettoy hospital stuff anyway, but I ID'd mine as Kentoy or Cavendish as I wasn't sure which one I had or how to tell between the two. Then two days later . . .

. . . this happened! Let's play 'I've got one of those too!' shall we? Yes - lets!

Pathetic on several levels, firstly; that a 'legend' (his word not mine) feels the need to prove himself against an amateur like me, second; I'd shown three versions, so he's only actually saying 'I haven't got as many as him' anyway, third; waxing lyrical about something he'd know nothing about, a few weeks earlier and needed prompting on, and  . . .

. . . finally he's not going to believe the other one is from Hong Kong until somebody - he trusts - holds his hand and tells him it's going to be alright! It's too funny. In attempting to question my knowledge, he ends up looking both childish and stupid; I only look childish in these posts!

As I'm sure he receives all the PW Specials he seems to have missed all the 'knowledge base' contained within both the Kentoy and Cavendish publications on the subject, remaining in the dark and needing help?

Of course not - he's having a dig and why not; he has to save-face somehow! It's just that he keeps choosing the wrong way to go about it, or the wrong targets . . . or both! That reminds me - I have to return to Tatra (deal with his pre-Crimbo nonsense), but in the meantime; if it's 'I've got one of those' we're playing . . .

. . . I've got four! Because another one came in at some point after the last post! I'm pretty sure - for reasons that will become clear - mine (far left figure) is in fact a Kentoy issued/painted moulding, but that doesn't mean it wasn't issued by Cavendish as I believe they obtained all the Kentoy stock, which would have included finished, ready-to-retail figures.

The second figure looks as if it's been removed from one of the Guard's sentry boxes, but I suspect it's been torn from a snow-globe?

WRONG! I've got six, some more have come in - that's what happens when you're a collector, rather than a dealer; you accrue stuff - sometimes at an alarming rate!

No, not really, I'm lying (for the cause of dramatic effect!); the 'storage' stuff has been added to the 'here' stuff along with the figures erroneously left in the mixed constabulary tub, while a boxed-set I was waiting-on from Christmas came-in at Sandown Park the other day!

From the left, Kentoy, Cavendish, Hong Kong 60mm copy and three paint-treatments of the HK 54mm piracy. The reason I believe the left hand one is Kentoy's is down to the matt-green base; Cavendish - although using matt paint for Guards bandsmen and Henry VIII bases, seem to have preferred gloss for most of their lines?

The base marking of the 60mm's is similar to Blue Box road-menders, but also some Lucky stuff (or sub-Lucky?), so it proves nothing, the three above being numbered 2 (policeman), 3 (Guardsman) and 4 (Houshold Cavalry - in this case Horse Guards, or 'Blues'). The Number 5 mark goes to the Beefeater (seen here [nine] years ago), which leaves a hunt for number 1?

Strangely - it was the Lifeguard ('The Royals'), who although resembling the Horse Guard in every other respect needed to be run in a different colour polymer, which would leave a single mould suffering twice as much wear as the other 'three'? A duplicate tool for a five count left them all ageing/wearing at the same rate!

Now, they were probably five cavities in a single tool (I've assumed five . . . or two (red and blue) tools for the sake of argument in the previous paragraph!) which might mean that a lot of red policemen and blue Guards and Beefeaters went straight-back for re-grind, but I suspect the cavities could be blanked-off between colour-runs.

I seem to have shot this in 2013, probably when it came in (PW show?) and if I don't use it now, it will never be used and just sit there on the dongle like the proverbial 'spare penis' at a wedding!

Returning to the jabbering fuckwit, back in October of last year he accused me of telling him not to copy me;

"One final thing don’t tell me not to copy you. First I will not copy your information Hugh. Second if  I cover the same item it will be on a different aspect of the figure.  Final he does not bother me at all.  Just very sad person who needs to channel his hate somewhere else."

That'll be two final things then! Too funny . . . or 'two' funny! But I what actually said was;

"If you're going to sit in my dust copying my recent output, at least try to get it right!"

Accepting both that he would continue to take his lead from my blog (which he is consistently so doing) and accepting that he keeps getting it wrong, which he consistently continues to!

He added nothing - by way of a 'new aspect' to the police reprise, except to name-drop and act knowledgeable about a subject which had been strange to him a few weeks earlier (without crediting the person who put him right), and in recent weeks he has failed to identify Chromoplasto (some of the most distinctive Spanish rubber out there) despite correcting me - a year ago - on 70-year old odd Spanish rubber figures I was 100% sure I didn't know, he's substituted one company's name for another and he got his Cherilea and Charbens mixed-up . . . again!

That knowledge-base of his [not] working overtime! I don't know why he bothers with Cherilea or Charbens, he always gets them wrong* - despite presumably having the PW Specials? What a legend . . . Ladies and Gentlemen; call me a 'pesky kid' if you must, but I'm telling you - the 'Emperor' has no clothes! The mighty 'legend' is a straw-dog.

In conclusion; the message seems to be - don't trust what I say, ring somebody else in the UK you can trust and ask them, don't ask TJF; he doesn’t know!

*I've got them wrong too; with the [Cherilea] foal, but there's a follow-up on that, forming in the long-queue!

F is for Follow-up - " ♪♪♫ . . . aaaaand there were Clockwork-men and Clockwork Cop's & Bot's" ♪♫♫

Mentioned in passing the other day (when looking at the other robots), the Spanish guy gets his fifteen minutes in the limelight today, and another robot turned-up in the Storage lot, so we'll look at it too.

Here he is! Civil Guard - Spanish National Police? I think they are the equivalent of Federal police or Gendarmerie? I stand to be corrected; but he's a Spanish policeman and that's good enough for me!

He had to borrow my Guardsman's bayonet, as he came without one, but the other figures I've seen on that there Intermerweb thingy (Federal and Confederate ACW) both had one. I'm guessing these are aimed at the tourist trade in each territory, and there may be others to find.

The Spaniard compared with my Guardsman, which we have seen before here, briefly. You can see the only physical difference is in the headdress - along with plastic-colouring, and the tampo-printed uniform and face decoration, obviously!

I did try making a video, but the light was all wrong and you have to hold the wound-up figure/s 'till you press record, then get your hand out of the way, at which point they fall over, or go away from the camera or march into out-of-focus, or - when I tried both together - collide with each other, so I gave that up as a 'bad job' requiring five arms, three of which I've yet to grow!

From the sides.

As I say, I have seen Union and Confederate soldiers from the same series, in the US, often quite cheap, but the postage-cost has dampened my enthusiasm, a quick Google or feebleBay search will reveal them.

Base code/markings (or technically 'foot codes') are the same for both, but the Spanish chap has had a branding added to the other foot - he's not Hans, he's mine! The arms swing and the head turns from one side to the other by a few degrees each way, as they march-along. I think this was a charity-shop job, but it may have been in Jim's big box, so shout-out to Jim!

The robot in the left is the addition; we've seen my old yellow and red Christmas stocking one before. The ones we looked at last time (thanks Adrian) and mine are - for the most part - single action toys, just 'marchers', but the new one has similar cam-wheels with pins (to the arm-swinging Guardsman & Gendarme above) between different plastic 'plates' to make the arms punch in-and-out, or the antenna to move up and down as it walks.

H is for How Many?

I thought my sample of Charbens Highlanders was a bit poor until I checked them against the Plastic Warrior special and found I seem to have an unlisted drummer and a 60mm flocked piper, but I still need to track down a Drum Major - you can't have everything!

The marching soldier; there's three poses here with rifle variations on the middle pair, a 60mm to the right and the original from a hollow-cast mould on the left. In the PW Special they seem to have two versions of that early one.

Pipes . . .

Again three types, the early hollow-cast to the left in three greens, the second 54mm type to the far right and the 60mm with flocked Busby second from the right. He's better painted too and would seem to be a stab at competing with Britains Herald on a more even footing? Or he may even have been used as a tourist piece?

. . . & Drums!

My drummer, I'm assuming he's Charbens as he's painted like most of the other Highlander's - Charbens don't seem to have gone in for stripes on their tartans much! Also the drum is similar to the Guardsman's drum; sort of a semi-flat sculpt? And - because it matches the lead version in Joplin's big book!

Close-up of flock-headed 'Peter' Piper! [That's a strangled-English, German joke for those who like their childhood-rhymes on the dunkle seite!] The flocking is quite thick and has a little white plume-remnant poking out of the top, so the flocking must have been done after painting - to prevent the red plastic showing-through?

The figure is a pantographic copy of the 54mm late version, although the base has then been pared-down to match, probably to fit existing bolsters or something technical like that! Chances are there are still some Charbens to find, both the drummer and Drum Major could have a possible two other versions, now we know the marching and piper have three each?

Although, looking at mine and PW's, I'd say there seem to be five marching variants; two 1st, two 2nd and a 60mm? Note also that all the first type (from hollow-cast tools) is marching off the right foot, left forward, the other versions are off the opposite step.

P is for Pipes & Drums

Am I right in thinking Lowland Regiments have 'Bands' and Highland Regiments have 'Pipes & Drums'? Something like that, anyway; Hilco didn't bother with marching soldier types, but gave us some nice Pipes & Drums, seen here, although there are some colonial 'combat' types; I don't have any.

The pipes come in three versions which seem to all be from hollow-cast moulds. Now, there is a rule of thumb with these paint-simplified Tartans which - as plastics collectors - I guess we take from Britains catalogues, but it goes back to the hollow-cast era, which seems to consist of two main parties - The Black Watch and the Gordon Highlanders.

Above we have Black Watch 1st, 2nd and 5th figure, with something equating to the Britains Gordon's at the 4th stand. The 3rd figure is probably supposed to be a Gordon also, but the pale yellow, being almost a whitish hue, could pass for another tartan.

The Black Watch pipers actually wear Royal Stewart tartan for both kilt and plaid (the over-shoulder cloth), the soldiery wear the darker 'Regimental' tartan, which Britains did as a plain, darker (than the Gordon's) matt-green. If you get a bit of blue in the mix it's probably the Cameron Highlanders (the Sculptures UK figure we saw the other day?).

Two Black Watch on the left and three Gordons on the right. The Drum Major has an extra-long gold-painted dress-makers pin with the pin-head set into the little slot in his hand, for a staff/mace, I meant to put one in and photograph it before I posted these but forgot, I'll try and do it for the end of the (this!) 'Highlander season' . . . or next time we look at them - thematically by pose - but you can see how it should look, I'm sure.

I've seen these in an all-gold finish too, presumably as touristy items?

Q is for Question Time - Highlanders

These are odd, I had five in storage and picked-up a couple more this year somewhere; PW's show or Sandown Park? I have a feeling someone once told me who made them or where they come from, and they are similar to the Toyway vinyl run of Timpo solid late version combat highlanders (a dense, glossy-painted PVC), but obviously these are parade/musician types with smaller bases.

Upper shot, let top right - the four poses so far discovered by me (that's not a 'discovery', they do turn up and I'd seen them before with dealers and so on before I started collecting larger scales a few years ago); Drum Major (Pipe Major?), drummer, bass-drummer and piper.

Lower shot - there are several tartans on display, leading one to wonder if they represent real or generic cloths and might be touristy things. I seem to recall Britains collectors saying the all-green one (second in) is Black Watch, but I'd need to gen-up properly before attempting the others!

I love the little 'big' cat's head over the shoulders of the bass-drummer! The bass drummer needed a hot-water treatment before he would stand-up properly, and follows the pattern of most similar figures in having the drum affixed by a long, integral spigot spearing the drummers chest!

These two drummers are actually different mould-cavities, note the thicker base on the right-hand example in both pictures (yet he's still also slightly shorter) and the yellow-weave stencil of their tartan is slightly different too, suggesting they may have been sprayed together while still on the runners?

I'm not sure if the left-hand drummer is a repaint or not (again the thinner-based, taller moulding), looking at the little area of waist-band between the halves of the jacket, there's no sign of a previous scheme so I guess the kilt is genuine, but I suspect the white may have been touched-up by hand . . . including the eyes!?

The most recent piper (right-hand of pair) has a deposit/film on the base which seems to have been some reaction in the factory, as it's under the green paint, and doesn't scrape off with a finger-nail. Perhaps someone sprayed a mist on the tool to cool it and it puddled on the flat area of the base? Too much mould-release lubricant . . . something like that?

Anyway, that's them as I have them so far, are they Toyway, or the same HK lot that did the Salvation Army bands, someone else . . . anyone know? And thanks to Chris Smith for the latest additions.

G is for Gloriously Garish Guardsmen!

These are my absolute favorites among many 'absolute favorites'! By which I mean, of the 12 or so smaller-scale Hong Kong guardsmen these are the main men, and it's all down to their almost edible colours!

It doesn't come any leerier than this lot; does it? They look like they were moulded from tooti-fruity flavoured, bubble-gum chews, five minutes ago, but in fact were Christmas cracker novelty 'gifts' a few years ago, although when I say a few years ago, I'm forgetting the passage of time, and I mean the 1980's!

It has taken the full thirty-odd years to amass this lot, they have come in one or two at a time, three if I'm lucky, but some years there will be none added, and it wouldn't have been possible to mount this parade without the help of people like Trevor Rudkin, Michal Melynic, Peter Evans, John Begg, Chris Smith, Adrian Little and Gareth Morgan, who've all added the odd figures to the bag over the last 20-years.

There seem to only be the five poses, but never-say-never; I've only found four fifers . . . fifers four! [Brit's will get it - it's a Scottish football reference] Which is a small enough sample to suggest at least one may still remain 'un-found'.

Similar to - but distinct from - the Shackman 'Mocherettes' that came in little matchbox pencil-sharpeners I guess they must be based on the Eyes Right guards band from Britains (their anatomy is too good to be from the Herald Hong Kong efforts!), but they may be more original than that?

A scale guide; we will have a proper look at the other small-scale guards now they are all out of storage and put together with the ones we looked at a while ago, but on the relevant Airfix posts, rather than here, while the 35mm chap we looked at recently, will be looked at again later today.

The Drum-Major has provided the means for several copies, but as stand-alone figures with no additional musician poses.

The first four came from Mr. Lucky Bag's in the mid-1990's and I managed to get a handful (well a soggy pocket-full) when I helped clear a snack-food wholesale warehouse in Mychett after a fire! Note that the four are on two base types - thick and thin; while the blue and green ones are shorter, this is true for all colors and points - beautifully - to a multiple-cavity mould-tool.

The next two seem to be sub-piracies of the Mr. Lucky Bag moulding, and the last two who have just started appearing in mixed lots are very poor quality shite, probably from £1 store/shop/land type Christmas crackers, using a copy of the tool of the previous pair (the release-pin marks running through the feet?) but with no QA/QC leading to consistent shot-shots and no mace, while poor pantographing has rendered them semi-flat and flashy round the join-line.

W is for Wind-Up

Christmas present to me, myself and I, well you would wouldn't you? Especially when you noticed the separate bayonet taped to his pack!

 

Markings on the foot-underside changed to 'CHINA', but otherwise the mechanism is unchanged in at least 40-years, the same as the old robot we looked at ages ago which came in my Xmas stocking about 1976, they just change the case from time to time!

If you think this is 'thin gruel' for Christmas day, I have shed'Yule'd (see what I did there! Crimbooooow!) several-more posts to publish through the day as a thank-you for your support through the year and so whenever you can escape kitchen disasters, need to hide from screaming kids, dolls singing 'Frozen' in Spanish all day (will it be Moana?) or whatever you're hoping to run from; pop back here and there should be something new for you!

L is for Le Drapeau Tricolore de Starlux

From Starlux, a tri-coloured Flag!

French Paratrooper standard bearer, older moulding on the left in each shot, newer on the right, points to note, older version has rounded base, blanco gaiters painted on, painted belt and gold highlights on beret and flag. It also has the 'Starlux' recessed in the base, the later one has the mark standing proud and has been repaired.

Thanks to Samwise Gamgee for one if not both of these?

G is for Guards - Tubas

I don't know which of these is a Tuba and/or a euphonium or even a 'Keiserbass', whether they are sevens or what! To me they are all tubas...

My only Britains Eyes Right, along with both the Cavendish musicians (Stadden designs - the pair!).

I handle these as little as I possibly can as a mate of mine had three in a little box we found while sorting his things out once, and as I picked one up, it literally exploded, except that most of the pieces fell into my lap, only the head disappearing across the room, so it was more of a violent implosion. Anyway, the plastic had become highly unstable and seemed to be in compressive tension! Inspection of the other two had the same result, there was no squeezing, they just couldn't be handled, and the fear is these two will go the same way...

From the left Cherilea 60mm, Reisler Danish Guard, Cavendish again and five treatments of the Crescent/Crescent for Kellogg's figure.

Charbens 'don't know (?)', Charbens early type, Charbens late type and Charbens early type mould shrink. The last one my be a mould-shrink of the first figure, that being a different cavity of first type?

Another Reisler Danish Guardsman with a different kind of large brass instrument and the Britains Eyes Right chap with another! Both the Reisler's in this post are recent styrene polymer reissues, the earlier - painted - ones can be in a cellulose acetate.

Now known to be Sousaphones, invented in America and part of the Britains 'Eyes Right' US Marine Band sets.