L is for Lots of London Loot - Eight is for Late

December's London Toy Soldier Show, was a quiet one for me, not much purchased, and of that, we've seen one or two bits already in other posts, and one of the larger sets has gone to the archive, because I'm not Blogging them at the moment, but here are a few things which may interest some loyal readers!

 

A couple more of the Charlie Chalk figurines/pencil-tops, of which we saw one a while ago. Then, I hadn't heard of the show, now I've genned-up on it, but still haven't seen it, and it doesn't seem to be as iconic as some of his (Ivor Wood's) other stuff.

 

The Trader Joe seems to have had his hat crushed by the factory machinery, which, to me, makes it more interesting, the figures (I think there are seven) are always the same colour, so finding a normal one is inevitable, but a factory-damaged one is a different take on the subject.

 

Paul from the South Coast had a basket of these, and I saw them at the start of the show, and said "Oh, I'll have a few of them mate", forgot all about them as the show got busy and by the time I found them at the end of the day, only one Officer was left and colleagues on the Friends of PW site have posted better samples!

 

I have a few others, including Reamsa originals of these, which are probably Gormasa/Soldis reissues, and it's one of those corners of the collection which is building slowly but surely, as a decent sample of post-war Spanish troops.

 

Board game pieces, not sure which game, but I think the answer is in the archive, so they'll end-up on the correct A-Z page one day!

 

Two Phidal Buzz from Toy Story figures, a third would come in Peter's January lot (which we've just seen here), but Peter may have brought a bag to the show, that's one of the reasons why all these posts are getting the same title, they all got a bit mixed-up over the winter!

 

The other reason I forgot about the Reamsa reissues, was I bought these Eyes Right figures, from Britains, off Paul, at the same time, they're hideously brittle, but absolutely mint, they were worth the gamble to get the shots before they become micro-polymer dust, forever! The Band Major didn't survive the lift home!

 

The Royal Marines standing band, they don't seem to be as brittle as the red ones, but it's not like I'm going to test that theory, with any robust stress experiments! The Eye's Right (and some of the Swoppets) really are the high-point of toy soldier production, the finer detail leaving both hollow-cast and composition figures, in their dust, but soon-enough replaced with lower quality shite out of Hong Kong, after losing out to Timpo's, cheaper, technicolour 'sweeties'!

 

A couple of the 'Middlesex' regiment, the sword failed and will need a gentle glue-spot to get the better shot. This was the standard band's uniform of 'County' line regiments, like my own Glosters, now mostly light-infantry (the horror, the horror! Some awful grey and black arrangement with busbies, now!), but a paint-conversion will be easy!

 

We've seen these before, and it's not like I 'need' them, but as I have them unassembled in Almark packaging, and assembled (and factory painted) as Minimodels, it makes sense to have the other iteration, for the ultimate comparison/look at them all one day!

Bit of fun! About . . . 2007 (?) these started appearing all over the place (Marx websites and evilBay); novelty skiers, both civil like, this and Disney types, of interest in that they are manufactured in the same dense, flesh-coloured, stable PVC as the Injectaplastic-JSP-Culpitt-AHM stuff, AND some late Corgi die-cast vehicle accessory figures. The hint [from me!] being that they all come from the same factory, possibly Tai Sang's Blue Box Vinyl Manufactory in Macau?

 

A hollow-cast boot, for very small peep's to live in! I had a chat with James Opie about this purchase, he has one, and Joplin put one in one of his books, but as yet, there's no known maker for it, there is another, which is known (Segal), an upside down one, in red leather, but this - possibly a cake decoration, or miniature 'Japanese' garden ornament  - remains elusive.

 

Rounding off with a PZG or similar polish Napoleonic type, there must be a handful of hollow-cast missing from these show-purchases (I've got in the habit of always raiding Adrian's 50p/£1 trays at the end of a show), and some space-stuff, I think, but it did all get a bit muddled-up, and the point of these mixed posts is eye candy and the odd question-mark rather than an accurate diary of how it all comes in!

B is for Better Beneficence Bag!

The same week as the bits in the previous-but-one post, had me finding two more charity-shop bags, which was pretty synergetic as you don't often find one, or you find several bags of animals, but two bags of figures, a couple of days apart, was quite unusual!

 

I seem to remember this was a fiver, so a bit more than twice the other one, and sadly the same problem with brittle early British figures, but they made-up a smaller portion of the lot, while the combination of Timpo and dodgy Hong Kong Swoppet copies was obvious.

A quick sort on the hotel table gave this breakdown, nothing exciting, but when you're in a bit of a collecting dessert, any bag of bits to sort gets the archival instinct flowing! And it's all useful stuff with Britains Swoppet spares, a few usable Eyes Right bits and other interesting items.
 

There was also a bag of the modern version of Gogo 'Crazy Bones', but with the weird bases, I really only bought it for the packaging samples, both the green bag things and the blue/purple boxes, I won't subject you to them in detail now, but one day they will need their box-tick moment!

 

The highlights, three Timpo Romans, ACW from both sides and different sculpt-generations, Crescent Mexican clones and a rubber Swoppet knock-off, not too shabby for five-quid!

G is for the Glorious Gay Gloomy Glosters - Wellington's Fire Brigade!

Neither King’s nor Queen’s, nor Royal Marines,
but 28th. Old Braggs:
brass before and brass behind.
never feared a foe of any kind:
shoulder Arms!

Also known as the 'Slashers' for helping themselves to half the Canadian magistrate Mr. Walker's ear, and historically; the 'Sliver Tailed Dandies', and the 'Flowers of Toulouse'.

 

As well as being known as Wellington's Fire Brigade (Alexandria and Quatre Bras), the Glosters, or Gloucestershire Regime (originally the 28th and 61st regiments of foot, of the line; North and South Glosters) are of course famous for being almost annihilated at the battle of the Imjim River, where they held the line for three days while the entire UN force in their sector withdrew under fire to consolidate the line and prepare to receive the Chinese, a task they carried-out to almost the last round, and the last man.

 

Best regiment in the British Army

But then I would say that, wouldn't I!

 

Britains Eyes Right figure, rushed-out following that action, utilising the US marine head (I think?), someone at Britains obviously said "What does the US Presidential Citation look like?" and someone else said "Blue ribbons on the upper sleeves", meaning medal ribbons, but they ended-up getting some kind of exercise-identifier tape, around both biceps! As if they'd just swum the Atlantic faster than SS France! We saw them here - an even more, ever more, distant youth!

Very brittle now, and this is the only one I have, a recent present; thank you, John Begg! There were riflemen as well, and he's one of the few figures I will display, in a dark cupboard to protect as much as possible from UV light, but it's safer than storing him and risking damage.

M is for Mounted Mounties Moseying Majestically in . . . Somewhere Beginning with M

Montreal! Mounted Mounties Moseying Majestically in Montreal!

Following on from yesterday's (where this was originally scheduled to be third post!) ceremonial cavalry types; these were also sat in Picasa, they've been there since 2011 (and this is their third PC/Laptop-home I think!), and are from my attempts at 'realistic' photographs back at the time.

Britains 'Eyes Right' Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman (RCMP) on the left and Timpo's solid 'Mountie' on the right - I have a feeling I may have used one of these shots in the past and asked then; which saddle is the more accurate?

I played with the next image using the basic tools in Picasa, and reading from the top middle image you can see the original colour shot, a sepia-toned version, a black-and-white picture, an enhanced variation of the B&W one and finally the antiqued one, also below; . . .

. . . with the addition of a boarder! They had to be cropped-off at the horse's knees to hide the Britains horse's base, I learnt the 'touch-up' tool later! Up on the hill, looking for miscreants; they should try Pennsylvania!

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.