P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Combat

Getting near the end of Chris's latest donation to the Blog, and we come to the proper toy soldiers, the guys in green, the khaki-whiskered gentlemen the feldgrau and desert sand of actual military chaps!

 

But, first we have a ceremonial who snuck into the wrong post, by dint of being in his sentry-box, I did finally track one down, but it didn't have a hanger-cord, so this one WILL go on the tree, I'd remind you Chris's Mother used to work at Tobar, so there's a familial connection there. I think I ID'd the yellow one as being Marty/M-Toys (Maysun - May Moon), while the anti-Terminator post probably came with 3 or 4" action figures in some generic big-box, but as you can see, it helps make for a useful comparison shot, and there will be more in the future!

 

A tradition now in these posts; the parachute toys! Seen elsewhere already, and nothing new, possibly new mouldings of the small ones, but always new colour variations, and while I know that page rather ran out of steam, it's partly because I need to bring everything together and re-shoot it all to reflect all the stuff from Chris, Peter, Gareth and my own finds!

 

And here's a carded one by an importer/jobber I'd not heard of before (Anabas Products of Romford), he's the smaller one, often found in Christmas crackers, especially as the brighter-coloured varients, but here, probably a sixpenny pocket-money job, or a later 10/25p type?

 

The upper three were in Poundland (or 99p Stores?) a few years ago, and we did see them here (along with firefighters I think), but I can't remember what colour they were, and I know Brian B found different-coloured ones in the 'States. While below them is a comparison with one of the old Arco Rambo figures, converted to a generic GI, with a helmet cover, and a nice five-inch figure, probably Hong Kong.

 

There were quite a few if these, off the back of the Marx, MPC, Blue Box and Lincoln 'biggies', and while they are slowly gathering in a larger tub, I still know very little about them, their packaging doesn't seem to survive like smaller figures/animals' does, probably because they would have been in open, counter-display boxes, sold individually?

 

Toy Story figures, I've rather lost track of these since we looked at some when doing an overview of the Tim Mee GI's, a few years ago, but there are several different generations/licences of them, mostly Mattel, but also Burger King and a mobile-phone stand thing, so we will gather them in one place and look at them again one day!

Mixed Hong Kong; the stand-out is the large figure, who's a modern PVC-substitute, and seems to be a scale-up of previously seen small-scale copies of the Revell 1:72 paratroopers, but until I can do a direct comparison I'm not 100% sure of that attribution, suffice to say he's new to me, Blog and possibly hobby?

 

Kamley/KS (Kwong Shing) in blue are useful, the kneeling 8th Army is that lesser copy with the oblong base, and the Monogram clones are in an unusual sandy-khaki, while I know I'm short of those chromed 45mm piracies, so a very useful handful

 

Starlux 30mm, but when found in pairs like this, technically, probably Solido!

 

Small scale, going clockwise from the top left;, three of the Euro-premiums, found in various branding of bubble-gum, and typically referred to as 'Dunkin', an Airfix sentry-box (which should have been in the first shot really?), HK copy, three Marx soft-ethylene polymer Brit's, an Indian (Imex? Italeri? I used to instinctively know this shit - it's all on PSR!), and a minor-make/new production Prussian (Strelets*R or Orion?).
 

Which leaves the chap in the centre? Only the best thing in the whole bloody parcel! If you weren't more enamoured of the dice-shaker, that is! It appears to be a reasonably good quality (if slightly play worn), small-scale copy of the Lido French Foreign Legion standing firing pose! How cool is that? And . . . it begs the question; whothewhatthewhenthewherethehowmanyposes???!!!!

 

Definately new to me, Blog and hobby, but, somebody, somewhere, probably has a biscuit-tin full of 'em? Can anybody shed more light on the figure? Still a real find, and many thinks to Chris for it, and everything above! Marche ou crève!

L is for Late Show Report - Combat Types

I don't tend to look for khaki/combat/20th Century types at a show much these days, simply because there's other more uncommon things to look for, so most of these were from the 'blind' bags and tubs which various mates and contributors passed my way during the show, but nevertheless there are some treats among them, and lots to see . . .

 

As with all these posts, they are in the order I shot them, which tends to put the better bits toward the top of the post, depending on how they were lying about as I grouped them, and so this clean sample was first, and with the next shot, were, I think, both from Barney Brown, who gave them to me.

 

We've seen one or two of these before, and while obviously marked Marx, I now think they were issued with a 'big box' tank or truck, rather than one of the playsets. Although they are from unpainted PVC originals, these 45/50mm figures are in factory-painted hard plastic, possibly after the US moulds had been transferred to one of the Hong Kong domiciled entities?

While this perfect sample of Bonux premiums was rather dismissed by me when Barney first showed it to me, purely because I have a full sample and many duplicates now, marked and unmarked, Johnson &etc., so wasn't in a hurry for more, but later, Barney gave them to me anyway, and they are a very clean sample.

 

To the eye they are all pretty-much a muchness, but under flash-light they have gone to various rich shades of something which looks like it came out of the wrong end of a caterpillar, colourwise, but are also, somehow, beautifully rich?  Waxing lyrical on shades of dung-green, never a dull minute at Small Scale World!

The casualties of war! These will probably all go to recycling one day, but - as I have too much of it - I may just sell them by weight with a 99p start on feebleBay or similar at some point in the future, as some modellers can do a lot with stuff like this? Strangely, there's a lot of Napoleonics in this condition, both brittle Timpo and chewed Airfix!

Mostly Hong Kong production but there's a Marx reissue, back right, and to his left a slightly chewed Australian semi-flat, I have a few of these in various corners, but mostly the smaller ones, and as they don't turn-up here often, it was worth a grab from a cheapie-tray!

More mostly HK, the squatting German - I believe - has factory paint, the copy of a Lone Star German surrendering is unusual, the Jap is a 2nd generation variation of the Star/Marty types, missing his belt and there's a useful Spanish (Pech/Reamsa or an Oliver re-issue?) UN soldier in blue helmet.

US GI/Marine types, the two painted ones probably go with the German above, but the large chap was, I thought, interesting, as he's clearly based on the Blue Box medic, but has been sufficiently redesigned to be a slightly different pose, so maybe not BB, but by one of Blue Box's smaller rivals?

Three Russian 'kit figures' from Aurora, a Galloob irregular from the 'Army Gear' line, a Marx USAF/Rocket forces ground-crew figure and I think the gold one is early Italian, Torgano possibly (?), later copied in soft plastic by Montaplex across the Med'.

I missed out on a bunch of the one painted, centre, but managed to grab this one at the end of the show, he'll be joining various other 'Argentine' copies, and at some point I must add them to the Khaki Infantry page, while behind him, a nice marbled Hilco, a Britains clone, with three tatty 'minor British makes'.

A trio of Toy Story 'army men', referencing Tim Mee's finest GI's, I may have them already, but there were a flurry of these back when the movie/s were headlining, and until I can check them against the master, they can stay! Probably Mattel?

Difficult to come up with meaningful blurb on these, they are what they are, and the 8th Army will be checked against a master collection which has many variants of these Airfix clones already.

The small scale, mostly grist to the mill, but the slightly marbled oxide-brown ones are from one of the lesser sources of the Lilliput piracies, all stuff to come out on the 'But is it Giant' blog one day.

A large bag of the current 30mm figures we've seen here several times, but usually in shelfies, rather than purchases, although Mark, the 'Man of Tin' gets good paint-conversion (and more) results from these figures, almost exploiting their nondescript design! And their sample grows as they have been issued in many packagings, colours and brands/brand-marks since the early 2000's.
 

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

H is for How they Come In - Peter III

Difficult one this as I wanted to get Peter's stuff out once I'd done Theo's and Chris's donations, but I still have a Sandown and a London show in the queue, which should go in that order, but these bits were given to me at the last, recent London Toy Soldier Show, so slightly out of sequence . . . like anyone but me cares about the order of posting!

It's alright! It's still twelfth-night, so we're OK for a bit of crimbo stuff; just! I thought these (upper shot) were a set of three we looked at a year or two ago from Poundland (I think), but they're not, they were all white with touches of black for eyes, these have a full three colour paint-job, with black, red and either flesh or orange, but also a trio and also poured resin, I don't have the brand/maker?

Below are two tree decorations who happen to be the two 'King's men' from a Humpty Dumpty set we will look at again soon. Not clear in this shot are the wire twists set into their backs with which they were attached to the Christmas tree branches.

That blue horse I mentioned a few days ago, he goes with one of the Kinder Frozen sets, next to him is a rather nice novelty skeleton, who actually comes in four parts for a bit of jiggle-action! Along with an Alien 'baby'!

Below them a Timpo FFL-clone and an assault jet-ski! Not sure if we've seen the jet-ski before, but if we have I don't think it had the steering-handle attached?

We've seen a mate of the policeman in a past post I think, I've certainly united them in the last few days, but his 'oppo' might be in one of many charity shop purchases who's photo's are all still in the long queue! Two wrestlers, a Tomte Laerdal jeep with air force types (well they have to be in that colour!) and a handful of useful bits.

Those bits including another of those ubiquitous 'toy town' guardsmen, ubiquitous in the 1990's novelty production industry that is! A Crescent circus horse-clone probably from Maysun, a baby and a clone of the Dinky (or Corgi?) construction vehicle driver.

I've realised, over the Christmas break, that as well as hospital sets, dolls houses and rack toys (baby bath-time type sets etc.), some of these 'odd' babies are actually from Nativity sets, where they get dumped naked in the manger or basket-passing-for-a-manger!

First two on the bottom row here (baby Daisy & Goofy) are Heimo/Bully/Dunby-Combex-Marx types, but the first upper pair are less clear; Donald has a large cavity in his back, and is probably from a die-cast Disney related vehicle of some kind - I have a book on them all somewhere, I'll see if it's in that. The Mickey soldier is a relief flat, possibly from a fridge-magnet, or a hair-clip?

While the two to the right of each row are more of a mystery, I think the upper might be the wolf from the Three Little Pigs story, but doesn't tie-in with Disney's; the hat's wrong? And below him is . . . Figaro? Not sure about the hat again, and the dungarees? So I wonder if they are from another cartoon altogether . . . anyone know who they are; maybe French or Italian kids TV characters?

Thanks as always to Peter for these, they all add to the whole!

A is for Aggressive Afghans Again!

This is the contents of the last of the tubs I shot quickly the other day, and consists of more legionnaires and some very colourful Arabian types, with the look of Afghans (which they were sold as - despite little interactivity with the FFL, until the 21^st Century!) or Northern Indo-Asians (now Pakistan) with the loose, soft trousers under the shawl blankets worn in that region. But wearing rather hybrid turbans which are more Tuareg with a hint of Sikh!

But first the colonial overlords! Bayonets are a bit short, and some poses are shared with Lone Star's ACW, indeed we saw one of these when I looked at them, and he happensn to be the eighth pose (missing here) standing firing, so I have them all . . . somewhere!

And I believe some say these were sold as confederates, but I'm not so sure, there are red-trousered versions which I don't have, but equally you occasionally see a white trousered version, and given the variation in painting of the knights, Wild West and the Arabs - we are about to look at - I just think Lone Star changed the painting to 'freshen' them on the retailers' shelves?

Not really among Lone Star's better output, they're a bit flat (some of them almost semi-flat!), and bit grey (very grey actually!), well, you know what I mean, 'uninspiring' is probably the word I'm looking for? But they have the charm of early toy soldiers and both the marching guy and the officer are worth a second look.

I have got all eight of these, not only from the 'big purchase' but because they can tend to brittleness (especially those still in shop stock box ones you see from time to time), and I tend to buy them whenever I see them in good (or reasonable) condition.

You find them in various plastic colours, mostly grey or grey-greens, but white and occasionally red (see below), previously believed to be test-shots, they do seem to have got out to retailers in red.

What I like about these is whenever you find them they seem to be new, new paint scheme, or new plastic colour, I know they were done in batches and a Google image search reveals that, but the number of variations makes them fun to collect

As you might have noticed already, the flesh colour also varies greatly from sunburnt ginger northerner holidaying in Torremolinos without sunscreen, to sub-Saharan African dark-brown, or the unpained, sun-bleached zombie seen here; bottom-left! And that sword!

An old, near-dead Picclic image of an evilBay shot, sharpened and enlarged to show both the rare red one and a size comparison with Charbens (et al) on the left and Cherilea on the right, they're big boys for 54mm, heading toward 60mm.

F is for Fertile Crescent!

Well, sometimes a title just presents itself! Although geographically we're staying in the northern point really! And heading-off into the barren western reaches. Crescent's FFL and Arab Warriors, standard Crescent fare, with six-poses each of foot figures and three mounted.

The 'locals'; four firearms and two swords, the red plastic is a bit jarring, they would all benefit from paler washes, although some Arabians go with black or dark-[Malian]-blue (the Tuareg), so it's a moot point, but red's a bit too leery. Ideal figures for destroying (Timpo?) railways a'la the Lawrence movie!

Shield designs include a crescent-moon (of course!) and a hawk, the ruling classes of Arabia and the fertile crescent, and beyond to the 'Stans are known for their hawking abilities, so a nice choice, except Arabian shields tend to geometric shapes and/or ornate/fine calligraphy in worked metal!

The mounted chap with a shield, has exactly the type of thing! While Crescent aren't known for brittleness, I just didn't trust these chaps . . . and wasn't 100% confident of my abilities to get them back on their horses in one piece, so shot them separately for safety's sake!

La Légion Étrangère; As with the mounted Arab, the officers sword is rather truncated, I don't know if this was an early example of toy-safety, or a technical issue with cavity sizes or something, but both seem to be naturally stumpy? Paint is not the best, but Crescent's output never held paint well; the lack of chalk/talc in the plastic (reducing the brittleness) resulting in a smooth, shiny surface which sheds paint!

They were both painted once! Paint's good on the bugler, but I'm not sure what kind of note you'd get from his bugle with it's trumpet missing! Another one for the shopping list!, but at least the officers sword is a better length! The red plastic suggests they shared a tool with the Arab cavalry, but we never find them in blue! That's Crescent's mob of Beau Geste'esque sandmen - box ticked!

O is for Out in the Sand!

A box-ticking quickie looking at Cherilea's unquestionably small set of Arab warriors and Foreign Legion figures in 54mm plastic, with two of each 'side', the conclusion must be that they were either testing the water, or designed them for a specific reason/client, maybe 'Beau Geste' cake decorations?

I had totally forgotten I had these, I think the painted originals were in the 'big purchase' from Portsmouth, but the re-issues must have been one of those last Birmingham shows (2010/11) or a PW show of around the same time? This is reaching-with-dagger bloke; the reissue is a bit flashy, while the paint's survived well on the original.

Running-forward chap has had an accident! Again the reissue is flashy and the original's paint means I will try to save him, but I know from past experience - trying to fix these old chalky figures is often more trouble than it's worth.

I actually photographed him first, then did both sides of all the others, so returned to him, them couldn't decide which was the better shot, so used both! Mr. casually-watching-the-manic-hysteria-of-the-other-three guy!

He's a really nice figure and only highlights the lack of a half-dozen other poses! Maybe they had two tools and one was damaged beyond repair before production commenced?

Because I'd forgotten I had these, I was today-years-old (actually yesterday!) when I learnt, or re-learnt that when they were re-issued, they produced a third legionnaire, an officer, from the chap obviously fighting-off the first Arab!

And looking at the bases, they copied the clubbing guy, and gave the copy a heavier base, then re-cut the original tool cavity to produce the officer - who is on the old base?

N is for New-Old Find!

I was moving stuff up to the storage unit yesterday and was looking for a couple of small boxes in the garage to make up a load when I spotted a rather crushed bankers box under something else and though "What the hell's in that?", dug it out and found it was a bunch of missing tubs, split between 'colonial era' and wild west . . . most of which I'd totally forgotten, and a lot of which has now been duplicated over the last few years!

Two of the tubs on the bottom had been deformed by the weight, which had pushed the end of the box over a hard edge, and there was some damage to the contents, but more due to age and three or four moves rather than what's happened to the box!

Anyway I shot a few for some box-ticking posts, and we'll look at a some in a sec', but you can see one of two tubs of Timpo Arabs (top left, the other - underneath - is the grey/white/pale blue poses), the Supreme (as supplied to various others) Wild West (middle bottom), which will make for an interesting comparison post at some point in the future, as it was only last year - I think - that I Blogged the newer versions and noted at the time there were colour variants out there.

We're about to look at two of the others, but bottom right is the 'early British' FFL and Arabs, something I know has been added-to over the years, and which requires a bit of research to get right, so only a glimpse today! Although we did look at some back at the start of the Blog I think.

Altogether there were 25 tubs, and I put them in a 35-litre Really Useful 'Euro' box last night, where there was room for five more, so for now, they got the Polish lollipop-figures (from Chris Smith) and three other's that were hanging around waiting for a home, but the Wild West and Colonial 'master' collections both have other boxes; already in storage, so this lot will be broken down in the near future and sorted into them.

Marx reissue generals (names and solid bases), and copy (? names removed, hollowed-bases) Wild West Characters, nothing special, they were common a while back, and you still see the odd lots' of them on evilBay, I think Marksmen imported the blue ones, not sure about the brown, but I have the WWII Generals/Admirals somewhere in green, blue and brown, so I guess it was all from Ri Toys?

Quick box-ticker of the Crescent Wild West, they are really quite nice figures, anatomically, somewhere between the quality of all the early Swoppets and the hyper-realistic late Timpo set, six of each pose and mounted versions available on the three standard Crescent horses, they fall down on the limited plastic-colour range.

A small lot of mixed Arabian/North African types with two French bazaar copies of Reamsa French (or Spanish) Foreign Legion, a colonial cavalryman (Pech/Reamsa) and two Marx Arabs, one of whom will require the superglue! The chap on his camel (and the camel) are a vulcanised rubber and may also be French, he looks a bit like Quiralu/Wend-Al FFL, could he be from a aluminium mould, anyone know? Next day - JIM or JIM-copy? See comments - following post.

Anyway, that's a taster, there's a few more quickies to come, and when they are all sorted back together we'll look at the rest one day!

T is for Two - Follow-ups

A couple of things which pertain to recent posts, or maybe not so recent in the case of the second item, but which can go together for an eclectic post!

I was very impressed by Brian's pictures of the Charles W. Morgan (I nearly wrote Henry!) the other day and he sent a couple of uncropped/cheat shots to show how they are done. This one shows how he got the horizon shots, and it was simpler than I'd imagined, he just held them up to the sky!

While here Brian's using natural light to get those atmospheric shadows. I can't get these results outside with my little Nikon's, I have to find shade, use a tripod and then employ flash, yet still get quite smoky or flat shots (as the recent and forthcoming board-game pictures attest), if I tried this kind of shot (without flash) they'd be blurry.

I used to get better outdoor results with the old Fuji Finepix's, but they were also the least robust and shortest-lived of the five cameras I've had now, and six I've used since 2007, so it's a 'swings and roundabouts' thing with these digital cameras and you just have to try and see!

Meanwhile I managed to score these from Mike Harding, who always seems to find interesting things. Three FFL from somewhere, when I got the other one (below) a while back (Plastic Warrior Show 2019) someone suggested Argentina I think, but I'm now wondering if they might not be JSP or their Portuguese suppliers (Injectaplatic) as they are that same stiff 'Macau' PVC?

And there's clearly at least two colourways, I wonder if there mightn't be blue ones turn-up at some point, If they are Injecta'/JSP the three poses would make sense, as that is how they sold the slightly smaller Romans, one mounted and two foot per card?

I have no evidence either way, but will put both names in the tags for now. Taken from Timpo, obviously, but probably from hollow-casts, the binocular guy wasn't produced in plastic by Toy Importers?