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.

M is for Malleable Mouldings 54mm Marching Marines

Title says it all, which leave me with a problem vis-à-vis blurb!

You were going to get Phidal Peter Rabbit in this slot, he'll appear this afternoon if things go according to a non-existent plan known as the 'see-what-happens' schedule!

I shot these on Adrian's stand back in September and they're actually cropped-out of larger images of a zoo I hope to Blog over Christmas, so I'm pleased they are as decent, image-wise, as they are!

I don't know if these are Eriksson's-hand; ex-Comet/Authenticast (Gaeltacht Industries), or latter production, if anything they are superior sculpts, while he's rated, he is formulaic; these have a more realistic countenance, I feel? Although the join-line is quite 'hollow-cast' or poured-metal in execution so I'm really just generating blurb!!

They appear to be in four parts; hat, two arms and body with a additional base that Malleable Mouldings seem to have cut from sheet material, pretty rough sheet material at that; puddled or rolled-out cellulose-acetate!

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!

G is for Guards - Shouldered Arms

As David Scrivener pointed out the other day the old Lee Enfield and it's predecessors were 'shouldered' on the left shoulder - Slope Arms. The SLR on the other hand was locked into the gap between arm and body on the right hand side - Shouldered Arms.

There was - with both weapons - a 'Change Arms' drill, for particularly long formal marches, which was quite complicated until you'd got the hang of it. The purpose being to give the weight-taking arm a rest and get it's circulation going again by waving it around for a while! You would always have a reverse 'Change Arms' before you got to the destination position, so that the gat was in the right place to carry out subsequent drill movements, while on really long marches you could get several, the problem being knowing when they were coming or hearing the order, over the noise of crowds, traffic, 'planes and a rival band with the unit marching behind you - in my case the poxy Rock-apes of Crab-air, marching to their own speed!

I had to learn it several times; Street Lining for the President of Mexico's visit to London in 1985, and - in Berlin - Allied Force's Day parade and Queen's Birthday parade.

At attention, shouldered-arms; unknown (I keep calling Charbens?), three from Britains Herald and Herald Hong Kong, newest to the left, and the second type Timpo swoppet with SLR.

Marching with arms shouldered; Lone*Star, Charbens early version, three more Britains Herald, oldest on the left.

Left to right again; Timpo, Cherilea, Unknown (Charbens?), Crescent, Timpo swoppet - first type, Unknown (Speedwell?) and the ex-Sacul hollow-cast figure David also identified.

Finally; the maybe-Charbens at attention, the 2nd Type Timpo marching and a Britains Detail, both with the SLR.

G is for Gomarsa

Not much to be said about these, they are Spanish and are quite common. I like them as they are all marching poses and will make nice displays. Originally made in polyethylene by Reamsa they would go on to be sold under the Soldis (soldier) label by Gomarsa in a PVC type compound, which could be a vulcanised rubber like the Texido figure Brian identified the other day.

[Major re-write after comments, some of the less well painted ones may be Reamsa]

These are all presumably Naval figures and are the later Soldis mouldings in the rubber-like material, nearly all the figures march-off on the right-foot so can follow each other across the mantle-piece in step with each other!

Naval figures in Summer uniforms to the right and a couple of Air Force (?) figures to the left. These all seem to be late ones.

My favourites, the Spanish Legion and a lone Frenchman, they all seem to have a Spanish CETME assault rifle, which is a tad anachronistic for a Foreign Legionnaire!

Two military types and two of the Spanish Gendarme (Reamsa originals?) with their distinctive hats. The policemen are - needless to say - marching-off on the other foot...something that anyone who's ever done a large parade involving police units will know is par for the course!