M is for Medieval Metal Men

So to the other half of 'antiquity', the newer half, although where you place the line is anybody's guess, hidden as it is, in the murk of the Dark Ages . . . is it Arthur and the end of Empire, the rise of the Carolingians, or the fall of the Carolingians, or likewise the Byzantines, or the fall of state fortresses, and rise of private castles?

 

War gamers place it later, with the coming of gunpowder, as a series of major rule changes!. . . If I asked you, you'd all have a different answer! But in toy-soldier land, it tends to mean fully tinned-men, or men in tights!

 

Oh, look out! We've got a new upload screen! It's got a colour graphic and a dotted boarder, that was worth the geeks' wages, wasn't it! How many changes since 2008? The original was fine, all the images went in a temporary folder as thumbnails you could return to, and import in ones or multiples. Every change since as either been pointless tinkering, or actually a negative experience/detrimental . . . Sigh.. And while they used to be hosted on Googles servers, they're now all 'in the cloud' to be lost in an instant, if the Internet breaks!

 

Anyway, onwards and upwards, these Cherilea 60mm's were, I think, given to me by someone, possibly Isaac, as 'unsellable', and while they don't have a huge fan-base, all box-tickers should be after a set, and while even I didn't have many of the Crusaders, I've always liked the standard ones, of which the chap on the right is one, and he has the shield with the late Sharna Ware shield motif which matches my lancer! 

 

Marx 'Men in Tights' (was it called 'Men in Pantyhose' across The Pond?), a bit scruffy, but a good clean will spruce-up the priest, while Robin (or, would it have been Robyn?) needs a dab of glue. Not sure if they are Marx originals or tatty Rado rissues?

 

A couple of nice Markus Hinton marked 25mm knights, painted to a nineteen-seventies standard, and a pair of nice box-tickers.

 

As are these two, indeed, almost every recent show lot or Chris parcel, has produced a variation of this shot, with both a Hong Kong copy (left, new colour?) and an MPC original on the right, of the 40mm medievals.

 

Another pair, and more Titan/Strawberry Group handled Supreme knights, I should have all the poses by now, but they are in various different places, and I don't know how many I have in silver, how many in black? And I've always rather liked the all plastic, yet Deetail vibe of them. While there was a gold issue, but possibly not in the UK?

 

On the right, a useful addition to the stash of Cherilea 1st version we saw here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/10/d-is-for-dustbin-lids.html

 

And a lump of chewed polymer from Shotts in Scotland, which will head straight to recycling, but I photographed everything for completion!

 

I've said before you can never have everything, but you can have a damn-good try, and this Dulcop man-at-arms, seems to be one I didn't have (or don't recognise), although, of course, now I definitely do! And two of my favourite 'toy' knights, the Lido pod-feet chaps, also in need of a good clean!

 

The 'orphan' photo! One belongs in the sci-fi/fantasy post, and two belong in the previous post, but for two ten-counts the executive decision was that it go here!

 

A nice Cherilea smallie, in the less common green, a small Italeri, the game piece mentioned a couple of times, here at Small Scale World, recently, and the two figures from the Revell/Miniature Masterpiece decorative chariot kit - I seem to remember the Gowland & Gowland  instructions suggesting it be used with a table-lamp stand, or bookends! In this insipid white 'styrene, however, probably the Glencoe reissue?

 

I'm never too sure about these, but I think it's three (slightly darker) PVC-rubber ones from Marx, behind, and two polyethylene ones from Tudor Rose, in front, but they could all be Marx, and have been reissued several times, including the multicoloured rack toy knock-offs a few years ago - and yes, I know we're into RTM, but one thing at a time, it's too damn hot . . . and now, humid!

 

Closing shot is all small scale, and unlike yesterday’s ancient clones, these are all Giant Originals, mostly the late versions, but one, in green, of the trio of strange dancing loons I question-marked in my original One Inch Warrior article.
 

And, again, thanks to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for their input at the show.

A is for Ancient Archaic Antagonists of Antiquity!

Into the final furlong as far as the 2026 Plastic Warrior Toy Soldier Show plunder and loot is concerned, and I've split this lot into ancient and medieval posts, with the older soldiers first!

 

So, we'll go back 3000-odd years, to the siege of Troy, a probably real event, heavily fictionalised, the facts lost to national and region mythology, and the demented whitterings of priests, or bards, or priest's bards, no doubt, and thanks to Matt at Hobby Bunker, who brought these over.

 

I'd actually bought three other sets from him, either at last years show, or at the London Show in December (?), either way, I forgot to shoot them, and knowing these two were still to be found, never got around to it, but in all there are five sets of 'Troy' era figures, these two, and the sets:

• LOD 015 - The Amazons
• Figure Set #1 - The War at Troy - Commemorative Set, Ten Years of LOD
• Figure Set #19 - Amazons, Aeneas and Ajax

And the aim now is to open them all, and have a decent photo-shoot of all the pre-classical Greek sets from LOD, my first by them, and probably my last, just because I'm not doing the post 1990 stuff in the larger scales, there is tons of it, other people are collecting it, other sources are annotating it, and I haven't got the room, or budget for it, with so much vintage still to be found, but I do like ancient Greeks!

 

Similar point of discussion with these Supreme sets, I buy them as box-tickers when I see them cheap, we've done the Knights - of all types - to death, here at Small Scale World, and looked at the Romans, Crusaders, and was it the Vikings? I think we've seen three of these now, and while I haven't tracked down the Arabs/Saracens, one of their camels is in the Egyptian set above, and these both have one each of the two common horse poses.

 

Interestingly, the Greek looking commander figure and archer sculpts, usually smaller, from some of the medieval sets, aren't actually included in the pose-count for the Alexander set! But with their segmented-armour, knee-pads they'd look a bit silly, or even sillier than normal!

 

Unknown, probably still on Amazon if I look hard enough, and marked 'CHINA', I'm not sure if they are supposed to be cavemen, predating Troy by about 500,000-years (give or take a few 100,000), or 19th-20th century Zulu warriors, but they are fun, and were in one of the donations I think, so basically free, to share with you and tick the box! AND . . . they're not that bad, as sculpts, but the axe is a bit OTT, and the lady isn't going to be doing much damage with that hand-trident!

 

Two lovely sculpts, both purchases, the Athena is probably not that rare, being a tourist souvenir, but he joins a foot one we saw years ago, while the Nardi is quite a bit less common, and you can tell I really like them - multiple shots; gotta' do them justice!

 

Despite being late to the larger scales, as far as collecting goes, there aren't many massive holes or gaps in the UK collection, but this is one, and while I have the Cleopatra somewhere I think, on her chaise-longue/daybed thing, and, you may remember, I picked-up the Sphinx a year or so ago, I don't have many of this double set, half tan-plastic Egyptians, half brown Nubian slaves/captives.

 

And, yes, I know the Nubians were in charge under the Kushite kings, but Cherilea decided to sculpt them in chains, holding fans or cowering! Also, I've really got to get the cheetah and handler. But in the meantime these are a useful addition to a couple of play-worns, and maybe some reissues? I'd forgotten how colourful the series is, too!

 

Roman Gladiators as issued by Quaker Sugar Puffs and Tom Smith Christmas crackers.

 

Lucky Clover and other non-Giant Romano-Greek stuff.

 

Non-Giant Vikings.

 

The small scale stuff, as sorted mostly from Trevor's bag, and the similar early-purchase bag of hollow Hong Kong horse stuff, The Quaker have been done here, the Vikings, gold 'Trojans' and black forts have been covered on the But is it Giant Blog, the rest are pending, but some are covered on the HK Romans page above.!

 

Thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin again, there's a fair bit of their stuff above. 

News, Views Etc . . . Blogging

You wait ages for one and then two come along together! As well as a bit of a post-fest here, I've been posting elsewhere two;

 

♫♫♪♫ Cap-Tin Scar-Lurt! Hees In-Di-Struc-Tabul♪♫♪♪

I've added quite a bit to the following posts on the Airfix Blog

 

ACW Artillery

http://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/2010/06/1962-american-civil-war-artillery-s14.html

 

Cowboys

http://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/search/label/Cowboys

 

Guards Band

http://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/search/label/Guards%20Band

 

Guards Colour Party

http://airfixfigs.blogspot.com/search/label/Guards%20Colour%20Party

 

 

 

I've also added three posts to the But is it Giant Blog, which, with the first being published on the 15th, was, I think, before the recent flurry of Giant-related posts elsewhere, always better to be found leading than following!

 

But is it Giant

 

And there's more to go on both Blogs in - hopefully - the near future!

MPC is for Many Plastic Cosmonauts

As a continuation of the previous post (if you watched the Plaid Stallions video), and as a follow-on, off the back of the recent Blog donation from Brian Berke, we are going to have a first overview of the MPC astronauts and their clones, it's not the best, as I have more samples of the Hong Kong knock-off's in storage, but with the ones Brian sent, I have enough for now, and we can return to them another day for a look at the other examples.

MPC originals, the reason I was so happy to get these the other day, is that while I have a few, currently in storage, they are from the XL5 set, and are gold, silver, yellow, orange, and a dark red I think, and I didn't even photograph them properly when I did the set, concentrating on the accessories and character figures! While these are the iconic ones from the missile, rocket and space base sets, and the ones most copied, if this post is anything to go by.

 

Some of the earliest copies are among the poorer, being slightly smaller, less well detailed/moulded and marked with a simple Hong Kong, various versions exist, and it's they we will look at again, as it's the weakest part of today's post. These probably date from the mid 1960's and ran through to the early 1970's, although there seem to have been so many of them, some corner shops probably had a few into the early 1980's?

 

Better sized (in comparison with the originals) but very flashy ones here on the left, sold by Payton in the 'States, but probably other people, or as generics elsewhere, they have some nice colours though? While on the right, is an early example of the later, better copies, which might be late Ri Toys, early Hing Fat, or someone else?

Some of the older moulding hung-around until the 1990's at least (they're probably still out there somewhere, waiting for a client/buyer!), and here we see a generic with a gate-fold head, still folded for shipping, in a 'more' realistic colourway of white/silver.

Head up and over-printed to Henbrandt (HB, not D, not P), for some reason both my cameramen are a pale mint-blue, I say 'my', but this is the feableBay image, I think, although I did purchase the lot, it went off to storage a while ago!

 

A renaissance in the 1980's/90's led to new copies which were closer to the originals, with more substantial bases, so they stood-up on carpets a bit better than the previous ones, with their thin bases, and we got them unmarked (as in the image three-above) or marked Hong Kong, from the Hing Fat stable, and seen here with or without a code (No.433) and wearing three different logographies, the white eagle sets being the ones un-coded.

 

And I suspect the eagle came before the GI logo (which was still in shops in the 1990's, before the current, two kids logo, took over), which puts the silver/white combo' competing with the earlier copies, and the red/white/blue as later? Although this low-res (historical?) image from Hing Fat's catalogue shows both colour-ways, running together, with the late card, along with elements of the later 'fat NASA-nauts' sets.

While an Italian reseller/importer ('jobber'), A. Ronca SAS, carried sets with a smaller figure count, but an added flag, and stand, bargain! The company may still be going, now as a reseller of kitchen appliances, but they are in a different town, so I suspect an unconnected company with a similar name.

 

And while the colours of the blues obviously vary in the above shots, in this one we see a very different shade again, a sort of sea-blue?!

 

At about the same time as the generic/Henbrandt and generic/Hing Fat sets were popular, Nasta Industries were carrying similar figures, with slightly lighter bases, alongside their LB (for Lik Be, obviously!)-supplied figures, also in a red, white & blue colourway.
 

 

Those early ones from the smaller rack-toy, pester-power cards, they are pretty poor quality, but probably date way back to when Hong Kong was first getting-going, and they may have been rushed out.

Comparison with MPC, the outer pair, obviously!

 

My current black & white sample is probably close to or actually the same ones as seen in the generic/Henbrandt sets above, mid-1980's, I think, and slightly better than the earlier knock-off's on those pocket-money toys. Also donated by Brian Berke, in a previous parcel!

Comparison with an MPC, on the left.

 

Now, I only have five of these here, six with the yellowish-one, and they are unmarked, so probably not actually Hing Fat, but rather from the fuzzy-pictured generic set, next to the Payton image above. Clearly a redesign, they ran into the 1990's and can be found in various packagings/sets. The yellowish chap could be either, but being baseless we don't know if he's from a marked or unmarked set, and if marked, whether it said 'China' or 'Hong Kong'!

Comparison with MPC, they are the pair in the middle.

Three odd's I have here (more in storage) and all interesting, the one on the left in yellow, has had a base added to the most annoying of the figures, both the baseless figures, by all makes/pirates keep falling over, so putting a base on it was long-overdue, except I don't know when this was made, or for what set!

 

In the middle is a solid'ish, subscale copy, which I was pleased to find, but I can't now remember if I found it in a Chris or Peter donation, or at a show, myself, but if it was either of the afore named, it should be in a plunder post, attributed to them with thanks. I also can't remember if there was more to it, such as Hungarian, Argentine, a Spanish sobre, or French premium, but I seem to recall it was something like that - a bit of a story?

And the third is another of the painted ones which turn up from time to time, we looked at a different pose when showing the Giant 'Space Paratrooper' here, and I think I have a third now, painting matches that para' apart from the gold helmets of the non-parachute toy ones, it could point to a carded set from Giant, or it could be a red herring, ultimately neither black nor flesh are surprising colours to find on boots or faces, while the gold could be screaming "Not related!".

These are both a bit rubbish, and could be from those early carded ones, or something else, base-mark is similar to others, but the melted-effect of the letters suggests the marks were pantographed with everything else, from someone else's product! The faded orange guy looks like he could be one of the Wilton ones?

 

Nasta Industries are looking like the real cheepies, but with better overall quality and a smaller, fainter, Hong Kong base mark. And again with the red, white and blue, ♫♪♫ "It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one" ♪♫♪

 

While the Nasta industries header-card artwork is taken from a movie still of the epic, operatic 2001 A Space Odessey by Stanly Kubrick, and - needless to say - they're nothing like the figures in the pack!

I had one or two here, to add to Brian's sample, and it's given me three shades of blue, two whites and a silver chap! Apart from the one guy with a space rifle and the other with a sidearm, they are really quite a peaceful/exploratory bunch, in suits similar to Lik Be (LB)'s Mercury/Gemini era suits, which is probably when MPC issued them, any Hong Kong clones (the strangely poor ones) coming a few months later? There were also re-issues in grey.

 

But, the story doesn't end back at the start with the MPC figures . . .

 

. . . as the 'goldfish-bowl' figures, sometimes issued as space paratroopers, are also the MPC sculpts but greatly scaled up to 80-odd millimetres (about 3½ banana stalks). I have plain coloured (red white and blue again?) in storage along with silver I think, but these three have come-in more recently, and they were available in various forms through the 1970's and possibly into the early 1980's?

 

While Theo van der Weerden sent this shot to the Blog. He got them, a bit bashed-up, in a mixed lot at a Dutch flea-market, and I don't know what marks they have, if any? So they might be Hong Kong, or something more local - Belgian, Dutch or French bazaar types. But they appear to be crude (hand-copied) versions, possibly taken from the bigger goldfish bowl figures, and maybe 70mm, or thereabouts?

Two similar versions were included in the later Galaxy Lazer Team, also by MPC.

 

So many thanks to Theo and Brian, and as I say, we'll return to these another day, as there's plenty more to say/look at, but for now, a decent-enough overview of the MPC astronauts and their many clones.