B is for Big Box of Bounty - Ancient, Medieval, Historical & Ceremonial

Another interesting assortment of figures from Chris Smith's latest parcel, and it's all the other 'Toy Soldier' periods. I keep meaning to do a post on the classification of these things, as it's never an exact science, do you put Huns with ancient, or medieval periods, what about Aztecs, or Ninja/Samurai, when are ceremonials also soldiers (1850's say), or further afield; the whole sorting of civilians, is a nightmare!

 

So, I'll put the Asians first! The Budda votive statuette is a nice piece of scenery for HO/OO type figures, it can even be an objective for your ANZAC's on the war games table! The large figure is actually marked Marx, with the full Hong Kong disc-mark, and is from a set of tea premiums.

 

The guy carrying the straw bundles is from a Hong Kong rack toy called 'Villagers', which we have looked at here, and another of the Kinder Samurai archers, this one complete, will get the base off one of the damaged/painted ones, in my determination to have one of each, in all three (?) colours!

 

Three Ninja's, two from Hasbro, one painted, one in a clear, blue polymer, and the other, smaller one in the middle, from the Panosh set of Lucky Bag giveaways, and other sources? I have tried finding the Hasbro's, but with little success, and suspect they aren't actually Ninja or Samurai, but from something else entirely, Star Wars semi-deforms? Anyone know?

 

Two Crong medieval horses, sans riders, and there's a post in the queue on developments there, courtesy of a Loyal Reader, a Kinder musketeer, Hong Kong copy of Britain's Robin Hood, probably sold as a cake decoration, colours tie-in with things like the Britains arctic explorer piracies, and a contender for 'best in box'. A Hong Kong clone of the MPC small scale medieval knights, and one of the little Blue Box 'Hidden Adventures' castle figures.

 

The little blob in front, is the jester-puppet, from the tip of a jester's wand, as there are very few such figures in the entire canon of toy figures, I guess it must be Starlux, Mokarex or Café Storm? As they often break-off, it may prove to be a very useful spare, one day?

 

Two lead chaps who've lost their armies, on the right looks like he's probably Minifigs, the one on the left looks to be 'a cut above', and might be someone like Stadden or Suren? But I may just be being over-enamoured of his helmet! Equally, he has an interesting detail in the tin-can sword-fist thing, is he a known character from history?

 

Giant-like but no Giant, the reason I didn't attach two of the towers to the wall ends, is because the wall is from a different issuer and the locating studs don't match up with the holes in the towers! We looked at the different types here (https://butisitgiant.blogspot.com/2021/08/golden-trojans-non-giant-gold-plastic.html), but I didn't think to measure the holes/studs; next Time!

 

Three Euro-chaps, the one on the left, I think, is by the maker located in Monaco, and is a Crescent knock-off, the other two probably premiums, and possibly in JC Peiffret's book on the subject - Les Figurines Publicitaires.

 

The Imperial Guardsman has a furry plume, caused by the fraying of a layer of plastic, which cooled quicker than the core (cold tool?), and has lifted and frayed! I could probably restore it with a pass though a lighter flame, but think I'll leave it as it is, as a fortuity?

 

In a similar vein, these plug-ins are part of a series of similar French and Italian types, from the better known Texas, through to several premium issues, each with different bases, but many figures in common, one day I'll cover them properly, but I haven't the time to try and tie-down these, or the previous ones, right now!

 

A lovely Napoleon, possibly made of casein, and a real treat, as I know Chris has a sub-collection of such things, so this must be a duplicate he's kindly sent us, it did feature here in a question-time, and I think Chris is still looking for a formal ID on the figure.

 

The larger figure I think we've seen before and is a . . . no, it's gone, I'm sure he's been ID'd here, or had his ID told to me, by someone, at some point, but it's escaped me now! I thought he might be Tringa, but he's not in my flyer?

 

The big one is almost certainly missing a sand-timer, off the right-hand spigot, and utilises a Deetail figure, unusual as it's more often seen with Hong Kong Herald figures, but he's meant to be in there, he has a large hole in his posterior for the plastic spigot seen in the second image, which is pushed through from the back of the chalkware sentry-box.

 

To the left, one of the sucker blokes, he's in a bit of a state, but rather a sample, than no sample! The little chap looks like he was made yesterday, and is polystyrene, so he may be, as he's absolutely mint, possibly an accessory for a tourist die-cast vehicle set which has avoided me, or is he a doll's house toy, as in from the playroom of a doll's house? A lovely little chap in any event, but ID needed!

 

Uncivil war, with a marked ABC figure fighting slavery, and a small lead figure (Hinchliffe?) fighting the Norman landed-class for a smidgen of democracy - they went a bit over the top on protestant dourness though, they sort of banned Christmas for several years!

Crescent conversion OBE, and a figure which could be home-made, or one of those 'Oojah-Cum-Pivvy' figures imported by Shamus Wade from India, between them is what I believe is an ocean-washed, sand-ground, or smoothed, Deetail Arab horse rider!

 

Many thanks again to Chris, some interesting stuff here, and still at least three posts to come. 

M is for May's Visit - Historical Bits

We reach the penultimate post in this series, but there's still July and September's lots to go through, so there will be plenty more of these mixed posts, which do seem to get the traffic, even if it fell off a cliff on the 1st October, and probably ain't coming back, something called the 'The &num=100 Parameter Change', which, as I've never chased traffic, doesn't concern me, I post stuff even AI isn't interested in!

 

Two 70mm's from Papo, both women who lived and died [young] in a man's world run by men who didn't like 'uppity' (that's 'successful') women! Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), and Cleopatra, and I can imagine her, wandering about her palaces, with a cat in her arms, a mini-God for a God-Queen!

 

Nice pose sample of Spencer Smith Miniatures 30mm Wellingtonians, with a colour/mould-purge gun-carriage. It's funny, but when you encounter a sample like this, you know he saved-up his pocket-money, and bought a few of each, just to see what they were like! We all did it!

 

Lido on the left, Hong Kong on the right. The Hong Kong goes with those copies of European wagons and coaches, while the Lido are usually found bi-coloured, but with a clean and dirty yellow, I suspect these halves were unioned years after they left the factory!

 

At last! Loyal Readers who've been with the Blog for a while may remember several posts on these a few years ago, as both Chris Smith and me, kept finding another, then another, then another pose, and it ended-up with Chris having one more pose, the tied explorer above!

 

Which raises the question of the nature of the - as yet - unfound set, one of the Great White Hunter's is free to wander about with a gun, the other is tied up? Shades of H. Rider Haggard or Burroughs about the whole thing! And he looks like a 'Bad Guy'!

 

Papo 40mm pirate and the painted version of the lady we saw, bagged, as a generic, in Rack Toy Month, and whom we had seen before, unpainted in the Webbs' sets, it took me a while to work out she hadn't got her hands tied behind her back too, but is hiding a pistol, to either defend her honour from a pirate, or slot a Revenue Man, if she is a pirate!

 

Three 15mm war games figures, may be one for Gisby? They look to be a command group, with officer, standard barer and bugler, all mounted, for the English Civil War? Thanks again to Peter Evans for all these.

News, Views Etc . . . PW Feedback

So, 4am here, and I've run out of puff, sorting the plunder pile! Yeah, I had a snooze earlier! There were three new Plastic Warrior Special Publications launched at the show this year, and the embargo has been lifted on them being announced, so they are:

A brief look at VP, not much added since the last issue, but all now in full colour for the first time, which with the sister volume . . .

. . . on UNA, means all five (Kentoys, Speedwell, Trojan) of the problematic Britains/Timpo-copy Khaki Infantry issuers have now been updated and colourised, I think? 

While this overview of Poplar Plastics, and it's relationship with Thomas, is also an update of a past title, with much more added, and again, in colour for the first time. They areare available separately for varying prices, or all three are in a bundle for £15:00, but I don't know how long that offer will last, before they revert to individual list items, or one of them runs out, so get your order in now!

 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PlasticWarrior?fref=ts

 

Blog. - http://plasticwarrioreditor.blogspot.com/

 
eMail - pw.editor3@gmail.com (pw.editor@ntlworld.com)

Tel. - 01483 830 743

 

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Peter Cole and his label Replicants had a 40th Anniversary (of Plastic Warrior magazine) figure, and four pairs of English civil War cavalry on his tables.

 

In a departure for Replicants, there is a new horse with separate base a' la Britains/Timpo, and the 40th Anniversary figure is of a spy, saboteur or 5th columnist, with headphones, using a morse-sender/receiver, in a suitcase. Whether this is a metaphor for PW's revelations on the secrets of plastic toy soldier production over the years, I didn't ask, but it seems apt! He may, of course, just be getting the football results?

 

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Graham Apperley reminded me he has a Blog now, which I had read on Brian Carrick's pages, but forgot to action, so this is the URL:

 

https://talesfromthetoyroom.blogspot.com/

 

Away from the show, Tom also has a new blog:

 

https://tomertonvillage.blogspot.com/

 

and sent me a link to an interesting 3D print source for civil/railway figures:

 

https://www.smartmodels.org/

 

And I'm hoping to get commenter John's Blog-link shortly. 

 

10-06-25 Done - https://toysoldiersblog.wordpress.com/

 

It's nice to see a resurgence in Blogging, especially in our field.

 

It was a fantastic show as always, and credit is due to Paul, Peter and Brian for putting it on, I don't know when I'll get the plunder posts out as there's a ton of stuff in the queue before it, even if I get stuck back-in, which I'm not sure I'm ready to, but it'll all be here in the end!

T is for Two - Irish Figures . . . From Ireland

It's funny, you should be looking at something else here today; but I put it on the back burner after faffing-around for three hours, writing two-and-a-half lines, renumbering the images twice and adding a screen-cap . . . it needs more work! Likewise some lovely Swoppets were sent to the blog this week, but I'll sort them over the weekend, they would have been rushed if I'd posted them tomorrow (Friday); so I grabbed these two from Picasa.

Except that it's three but we'll look at the one first! Hailing from Comet/Authenticast's subsidiary Gaeltacht Industries' works in the Republic of Eire, and frankly not up to the quality one would expect from Holgar Eriksson, so possibly one of the other sculptors?

It's also funny that last weekend I shot tons of stuff at Sandown Park, yet still haven't blogged most of the stuff I shot at Sandown three months ago! This was one of them (from three months ago), nice ECW musketeer, spoilt by the daft firing-arm with its elbow pointing at the ceiling . . . or sky!

These came from a charity shop (British Heart Foundation - I think?) about a week ago, clearly the gods (or 'your' god, if you've only got the one!) wanted a T for Two Irish! When I first saw them I though "Ooh, Wade", picked up the unmarked one first and thought "No?", and then found the mark on the other. I think they are related, the blue glaze is the same, but for 'T is for Two' purposes, the one on the right counts.

They are similar to Wade's figurines (Seagoe Ceramics?) but they don't have the lines on the bases. Equally they are similar to the bisque cake decorations of yesteryear, but gloss-fired enamel, where the cake toppers used to get a matt-paint over the fired clay. They also show signs of having been glued to something with brown/animal glue; so maybe touristy something's?

Anyone got any ideas? I mean - clearly they are Leprechauns and I have to be very polite to them, but - any other ideas?!! The one on the left (Pádraig) seems to be carving a crib (Christmassy) while the one on the right (Pádraic) seems to be panning for gold to put in a pot at the end of a rainbow . . . of course!

ECW is for English Civil War

Following on from the purchase of Tuesday, let's have a closer look at the range, or at least those I have ferreted away in 'the pile' over the last few years.

 I think we've had these comparison type shots before, but I took them again, and everyone likes new images! The ABC copy has been given a cut-n-shut pike-man's head, while the generic is a straight piracy, and while the cavalier is of poor quality with a pitted surface to the plastic in places, the ABC is a more reasonable finish, yet with that typical Hong Kong glossiness!

New addition on the left with paint-loss to the elbow, older chap on the right has scruffy legs! It may be that they can be touched-up with matt Humbrol, but I tend to leave them in the manner to which they have become accustomed.

This is what I've got in total, there may be a couple more HK copies in storage, so I still need a good 'Rupert' (mine is 'directing from the rear' sat on a saddle!), but as I often say to the chagrin of my detractors, this stuff was mass produced; for kids (6-12 was the customer-base), in plastic, and it does turn-up - apart from a few in the Autumn 2010 purchase, these have all come-in for pennies, in job-lots, and as the big-buy was a car-load for a few hundred quid, they too probably work out at pennies per figure.

F is for Finder's Keepers, Looser's . . .

. . . make a bit of money for chahrridee!

Popped into Blue Cross yesterday to donate a few books, assistant was near the door, so I handed the books over and left the shop, then thought "I'm here; I might as well have a look", returned to the store and wandered over to the toy section. Saw a bag . . .

. . . it looked interesting. It's a poor shot, but it's been sorted now so I couldn't re-take it! Rocco (?) knight's horse was obvious, as was the Timpo Arab, better stuff the other side, but what's that red-yellow and blue lump (left-hand arrow)?

It was only a Britians ECW musketeer, complete, with two others and a slightly damaged 'Prince Rupert'! Although the sword of the mounted Lobster-pot was a bit chewed.

Another leg turned-up for the standing knights horse after the photo-sesh, but three just doesn't cover the role; "Need I say with over much emphasis that it is in the leg division that it is deficient, the role requiring a quadridexter!", while the other one has all his legs and no tail, hey-ho! At least the knight is complete.

The plethora of Kellogg's guardsmen premiums served (with small scale shrapnel) to camouflage the quality of the lot and only two items were in the recycling by midnight, this chocolate brown Tudor Rose horse (by which time it was in three pieces - brittle as a biscuit!) and the Herald Indian in the previous shot.

A nice group of Timpo Arabs surfaced, one straight in the spares box, but the other four and the mounted figure having all parts and good paint. Nothing else exciting here, mostly swaps, but the bear-fighter from Lone Star is a nice find.

The smallies; basically a clean sample of Airfix Russian, Japanese and Combat Group, all-three a few short of a full set . . . and a propeller - Fairy-something? Dart?

The bear fighting cowboy thrusts and Little Cub dances away, both this and the mounted swoppet Indian had/have all feathers and thin or pointy-bits, sheath-knives are present and paint is OK on both, the Lone Star are more played-with.

Arabs and ECW in close up; a bit of a tug and a trim made the Lobbster's sword more presentable and he will need a replacement scabbard, but I know a man who has a few spares, they are  tin-plate stampings so it shouldn't prove a problem.

Two questions remain - no 'khaki infantry', excepting the Airfix, is some kid somewhere in Fleet playing with a bag of rareish/early British toy soldiers? And why are some pieces played-with to gash-point, while others are quite pristine? Odd - but a bargain! And you could ask why no animals or civilians?

G is for Guns, Proper Guns!

The first is from Basing House and - I'm pleased to report - is pointing directly at the centre of Basingrad! Sadly it's probably out of range for the era, but one lives in hope! The police station, magistrate's courts, council offices and job centre are pretty much in a straight line away in the distance . . . with 'Macky-D's' between!

This one (below) is in a park in Maidenhead and probably has a history but I don't recall it now?

 

 

Seems to have been lost in the ground or water for some time; the outer surface is much pitted. Still - a nice little thing!

R is for Royalist Redoubt!

The 'citadel' gatehouse, one of the three or four main keeps in the Basing House complex and a lovely model, around 1:72nd scale, but again - only an interpretation due to the destruction at the time and lack of contemporary images. Also a 'Lobster's' cuirass in the background!

That's it, three pictures; fighting flash and reflection! Model made by Boyd Hill in 2009.

O is for Old Basing

The village/hamlet to which the ruins of Basing House are now abutted.

This plaster model is closer to 15mm (for the gamers among you) and has given very different treatments to the layouts of both complexes, also you can see clearly how the landscape contours would have affected fighting in a way you can't really replicate on a gaming table

 

You can also see how fortified they were in this simplified architectural model, I count six keeps, a few other blockhouses and a more than a dozen other towers and turrets, both are walled and both [dry] moated along with other walls, banks and ditches. Note also the four bridges and central courtyard between both complexes and the main gatehouse/keep.

It was a formidable objective, raised above the surrounding landscape and with stores for a siege - its eventual taking must have had a negative effect on the Royalist moral and wider war-effort.

 

The two blurb panels are interesting reading from the period.

G is also for Garden

The least accurate model and the last of the Lego-like'ies, but first a look at the actual walled garden, one of the few restored bits with two dove coops of substantial size which must have kept the garrison in eggs and meat for a portion of the siege, had they also started using pigeons for messages by then, I think they must have?

The model for some reason just shortens the wall to exclude the area now used for picnics on nice days. Despite being a ruin, this is a decent day out and the village of Old Basing has some fine hostelries - while the car park for visiting the old house is also the pub car park for a Wadworth's Inn while coffee, ice cream and snacks are available from the Little Barn vistor's centre

I collaged the above three to make it easier to compare the real with the model. The big tower (a granary?) in the model is long-gone while the space occupied by the square tower at the near-end of the wall is now squatted by a glorified potting-shed which doubles as a small museum of artifacts from the site and some other models, including the Lego garden. A few of those artifacts (mostly tiles - another interest of mine) are shown below, but again; better visited, than vicariously peered at on the Blog!

The signs of burning are from the sacking of the two fortified houses after they fell, the remains of the whole complex are a grassy hill, apart from the garden - off to one side and relatively out of harms way, i dare say it was a bit of a state for a century or two before restoration!