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 Follow-up - Bits & Bobs . . .

. . . or a bloody eclectic trio right now! A few things which pertain to or reference previous posts here at Small Scale world and we have figures, animals and scenics!

I took a family 'group-shot' with the two Peter Evans sent me, before I sent him the other one which Chris Smith had sent me! I think they are more Leprechaun than 'true' gnome (or dwarf!) and while they are Hong Kong, seem to be 'after' the output of Fontanini, although whether it's homage or like-for-like pricey I'm not sure?

Both sides and different view-points.

So; we're up to four of six, which means we're up to eight of twelve! I picked up another of the Poundland PVC animal sets the other day, sadly I'm hardly going to Poundland now (over a month since the last visit) as they've stopped doing my vape juice, but I discovered it in ASDA, so I go there instead, the [Covidiot] risk is the same, so one venue is enough! But it means the last two may remain elusive?

Chris Smith sent these in as a follow-up to the sentry-box posts, and they are fascinating, marked as you see, I suspect they are from a wooden or tin-plate fort or box-accessories from a die-cast vehicle set rather than 'toy soldiers' per se, and give us another tag! See below!

I recognised them when I saw them, but had no notes on them, I suspect I saw them in JB's collection years ago, I'm pretty sure they were the same green (with a red painted roof, not clear in the above shots), and they were definitely in the same warped or twisted condition, which will be due to instability in what appears to be an early polystyrene, but could be thick celluloid?

Also - having suggested a lack of connection to Lone Star's later plastic toy soldiers, I have a half a thought Slikka may have been mentioned in Plastic Warrior magazine (years ago), but that might be a false memory conflating with the die-cast Togga novelties?

Added later after checking, but before publishing - pp.121 of Norman Joplin's 'Big Book of British Hollow Cast' shows a DCMT set with two lead/hollow-cast guards in these sentry boxes (not, or barely distorted) along with a mounted horse-life-guard hybrid! Presumably all from Harvey, so these were probably DCMT's first foray into plastics as they had previously carried a metal box in the style of Crescent's tin one but in lead.

Makes you wonder if Togga's Woggles weren’t also DCMT?

E is for Eye Candy - ANZAC Patrol

Mucking about with Lone Star Australians and a lovely bunch of coconuts! I colourised it to try and give it some atmosphere . . .

 

Papua New Guinea, 1944

F is for Follow-up - Composition Guards

Further to recent comments on the original thread and - in a roundabout way - this morning's post, here's a little more on Chris's possibly-probably Zang Guardsman in the 54mm bracket.

Adrian wondered at the Harvey styling of the figure - particularly the bearskin, while I had mused on the possibility the figure may have lost a drum. As you can see both are slightly red herrings . . . or scarlet! Not least that - as Chris pointed out - the giardsmen are marching, but also there is some texture to the bearskin, if anything it's now looking more Herald Hong Kong (but I suspect further comparisons would reveal them to be smaller all round), his posing is more 'At Ease' than drumming and he therefore remains a mystery?

Compared with various figures of the earlier period, he's not a direct copy of any of them, although the coat-tails and bayonet-frog (hidden by paint on all three figures) is close to the Long Star chaps to his left . . . as are the shoulder-blades and back sculpt in general?

Anyone got any ideas yet? Not ringing a bell . . . ah! Bell, they're believed to have issued composition!??

I is for I believe There's Some Interest in These!

I'm vindictive, but there yer go, 'e wanted it, 'e started it, but 'e doesn't like it up 'im Captain Mainwaring! Jim? Oh yeah, I posted one about a week ago . . . as a comparison! It really is pretty low-brow, puerile stuff isn't it? The emperor's got no clothes but he can rustle-up two Jim!

We see here some Lone Star, vintage, soft-polyethylene plastic, 54mm WWII German Infantry and/or Afrika Korps' toy soldiers. The theatre in which they are supposed to be serving being dependent on the colour of plastic with which they were manufactured. Some sources call the dark grey ones 'stormtroopers', but I don't know if that was how Lone Star advertised then at the time?

I don't have perfect samples of either colour, and while we have seen these in small scale, here I think (if not they are definitely on the Airfix German Infantry HO pages, both types - and DAK?), there are more poses in the larger scale, although as most of them are surrendering, they aren't that much use!

The six nearer-/either side of- the centre-line are duplicated in 1:76th (dark grey only), the four to the outsides were only available in 54mm. Colour-wise; the pale grey (and greenish-grey) being the 'Afrika Korps' iteration, and the darker greys; the standard Wehrmacht.

I had to repair two for these shots, the pale flamethrower was in three parts when I dug him out, and one of the surrender-flags had . . . err . . . been dropped! There seems to be a DAK = black boots & base, Wehrmacht = brown boots & base rule thing going-on here, almost the complete opposite of what actually happened in real-life?

The dark grey flamethrower looks a lot dirtier under the camera flash than he did in daylight, however to remove the dirt would take more paint-off so he will stay as he is, and it really doesn't look that bad in normal light - I guess a lot of silicate or quartz in the dirt have reflected the flash!

These have also been washed-out by the flash, the two nearest the centre-divider are actually the greenish grey, see surrendering guy above! Of course - with their 'Lone Star' caps, they make excellent Spectrum troops to back-up the Timpo captain's Scarlet & Green and Colonel White!

Comparison with the Charbens officer and a couple of similar poses from the ANZAC set.

Ah! Friedrich Paulus's 6th Army! The guy at the back is going to take his chances in the snow . . . he became the signal-box operator at Brookwood junction, you know; he wrote-up his memoirs as 'Through Hell for Hitler'!

Sort of 'stop the press' image, but more 'additional' as I hadn't done the blurb for this post when I shot these, it still goes at the end though, as I had done the other shots. A re-issue Charbens and second Lone Star DAK officers from that charity-shop lot the other week (month?), along with a less-dirty flamethrower who's come-in at some point; last PW-show, I think?

B is for Brucey Bonus - Lone Star

I lied earlier, this was sitting in the queue, the Lone Star HO sized Wild West figures, both storage-lot and here-lot combined and laid-out as fully as my sample will allow.

 

There are two versions, the earlier, factory-painted chalky-ethylene ones are getting very brittle now, and consequently hard to find and even-harder to find intact, one mounted figure each and five foot poses, painting is restricted to two colours (if that) except the black horse, but that may be a home-enhanced paint-job?

 

A second set was issued with bases added to the mounted figures, this lot is in a shinier polyethylene, the same as the game-piece Indians we looked at the other day, whether this points to them being included in a game too, is a moot point, and I've never seen them in other colours?

I like that with the mounted figures the front foot/hoof is off the base, in both cases, suggesting forward-momentum!

 

What I would say is that while the earlier ones tend to appear together (having been issued originally in a large vac-formed play-set), the unpainted ones tend to appear either as a set/near-set of cowboys or as a set/near-set of Indians, so may have been issued separately on small cards or something?

 

It's not terribly clear from the image but the left-hand mounted red one is in a slight colour variation; a darker but slightly translucent red.

 

More on these at PSR including other paint-colours and the missing poses in brown!

F is For Follow-up - Lone Star

Material connected to the recent posts on khaki infantry have winged (should that be wung? . . . Yes; I think it should!)* Material connected to the recent posts on khaki infantry have wung their way to Small Scale World Towers from both Chris Smith and Brian B, some of which is on hold for inclusion on the Khaki Infantry page in a day or two, but these - from BB (Terranova) are pertinent to both the weekend's posts and the recent post on the Wellsotoy tin-plate truck crew, so; here they are!

Brain recently obtained these as part of his 'nostalgia collecting' (the best kind as it limits you to things you remember - rather than the mountain of shite I'm accruing!), although he didn't remember the multi-barreled mortar/rocket launchers.

Points to note ON the lot - Mint! Apart from some mildew on the tyres (common with these when they've been in storage), they are about as good as it gets, with perfect paint on all three crewmen and the wagon/trailers.

Points to note ABOUT the lot - Blue Box took the whole deck (including the control console) for their small-scale Bedford RL's and MK's. The Bren Gun Carrier passenger is used as gunner/operator and I wouldn't like to call 'who copied who' vis-à-vis the Wells Brimtoy version. Pyro-Kleeware gave us the bodies/loads of the other HK stuff, but Lone Star gave us the Blue Box mountings.

There were about six bodies I think . . . 9-barrel and Radar seen here, searchlight, twin-Bofors, spring-firing pom-pom cannon/rocket launcher with elevation 'table' (much copied in the world of space toys), that's five? I'm sure there's one or two missing? There was also a different 'well wagon' bodied trailer which housed a larger rocket launcher, and a plain flatbed trailer sold with a civilian Land Rover in the die-cast range.

They (the military vehicles) also come in an orangey-sand as desert/8th Army or as Afrika Korps with Balkan-cross stickers, and I seem to recall some green ones get German marking to go with the dark grey Germans? Later issues in bright blue with 'go-faster' chrome-plate enhanced, balloon-wheels were also sold as more general toys.

*Fling/flung, sing/sung, swing/swung . . . I'm just following the rules of English!

L is for Lone Star - Harvey Series 65mm King Size (Swivel-heads)

The other set not found on the Khaki Infantry page from Lone Star are these, which we have seen before and I only have the three so not so much 'box-ticking' as hanging the arse out of it!

I think there are ten poses in total, each in two colours and with a choice of plug-in head. Sold as RAF Regiment with the painted blue berets and a blue-grey polymer, or Para's/combat troops in olive-drab polyethylene with painted red berets or brown US style M1 helmets, all heads being pink. You could give the red berets to the RAF chaps for airborne 'rock-apes' though! Do No.II have red berets? They should have!

The FN/SLR's are very well done, but at this size (65mm) they should be!

L is for Lone Star - Harvey Series 54mm Paratroopers (Helmets)

Continuing with the box-ticking exercise, and continuing with Lone Star and continuing with paratroopers, although helmeted not bereted and carrying different stock codes, these also differ slightly in uniform having a lose, un-tucked coat-jacket or jump smock, but are clearly by the same sculptor to a common design-style.

My two main sample-groups are a bunch of camouflaged home/re-paints and a bunch of rather tatty originals, mostly grey helmets, but one green (AFV crewman) and one very tatty UN 'blue helmet'. Some of these probably haven't been seen here before?

To go with them I have a quite nice quality stretcher team with white helmeted medics and a grey casualty. This is one of the better stretcher parties out there in that they do look as if they are carrying heavy weight, under fire - think instead; Britains or Timpo swoppets strolling along like they've got all the time in the world. Marx's was equally good.

Mortar-line; on the left the re-paints, with an original of the smaller 2" mortar-man on the right, his weapon's sculpting is so rudimentory or nondescript, he can be used as a gunner with the die-cast 25-lb'r

There is a fourth mortar, a smaller piece on a separate base without legs. Although posed to be operating a parachute printed on the backing/header card of some sets; the guy waving his hands makes a useful mortar-man, and may have been designed with the missing one in mind - it has a little flame (like the set's flamethrower), as if caught in the act of firing!

Colour variation in the plastic are the same as for the bereted eight, with paler herb green, a mid olive-drab and a more khaki colour, probably the earliest? There's also evidence of multiple cavities (or re-tooling); compare the bayonet/muzzle-end on the two standing firers.

Definitely seen before, and we looked at the [now known to be] Wellsotoy's sand-coloured one again the other day. Bren Gun Carrier crew are the smaller ones left and larger image (gunner) and right (driver) the third figure (middle) is used as a passenger in the rear of the Bren Gun Carrier and also driver for the DUKW and Jeep, and operator of the die-cast lorry or trailer-mounted weapons.

Comparisons between the larger and smaller scale versions, the smaller ones are usually found in UN helmets, with the Germans in red caps (as Communist Chinese forces in Korea), in the larger scales, the UN helmets are not as common as the green, which are also less common that the grey which are dirt-common!

The 54mm figure, far left, is actually a blue-helmeted UN figure, he looks to be the same as the grey ones, but he's just very dirty! If you take a line-up from the point of the collar, you can jsut see a bit of the blue showing; paler than the HO figures, but - if clean - distinct from the common grey ones.

Although they are almost the same, there are subtle differences all over from the hose rings to the trouser folds, so while one led to the other, it was either comprehensively re-worked, or a new copy. I think the helmeted one is the later version, his fuel-tanks are smaller and a bit lopsided or squidged.

There don't appear to be the unpainted Woolworth's versions of the larger ones as there are of the bereted eight, but I may just not have encountered any yet, remember I've only been collection this larger stuff for a few years! Also; while the eight with berets are numbered 1-8 consistently (if numbered), with these helmeted troops the marking and numbering is all over the place, suggesting cavity numbers only.

L is for Lone Star - Harvey Series 54mm Paratroopers (Berets)

These going to be a mini- or semi-season of Khaki Infantry 'box-tickers' over the next few days, we've seen them all before, and I don't think my samples have grown since we did, but I shoved them all into a couple of posts last time, this time we'll look at them one by one. I got them out to have a 'session' with the new camera as some of the menu-items are a bit different and I wanted to familiarise myself with the new 'machine'.

Title says it all; Lone Star, 54mm, paratroopers, they fit in with the helmeted para's quite well having been sculpted by the same chap in a similar uniform although without the long jackets of the helmeted ones, and sans the full-pack 'movement-order' webbing, indeed the flamethrower is almost no more than a head-swap!

Looking at them I can see that several of them DO belong on the Khaki Infantry page, even though I chose to keep them off; as the set (as a whole) is not pirated from either the Timpo or Britains sets which that page is based on, but equally the kneeling firing and officer are highly derivative while the advancing is 'after' and the waving pose owes a bit to Britains casualty? So I might have a 'similarities section, before or after the HK/Unknown sections down the bottom of the page?

Plastic colours; The early ones tend to shades of camel-dung or true khaki (elephant dung, where do you think 'kak' comes from!) or a dark olive-drab, while later ones also come in the fetching herb-green of the left-hand shooter. Note also that both the shooters have that offset, double base you sometimes see with the medieval knights.

Painted as paratroopers or Royal Marines/Royal Marine Commandos, most of mine (which came from a single source) are either  unpainted ones (Woolworth's) or had the paint stripped from them for some reason? The beret is the floppy WWII one (despite the anachronistic EM2 - dealt with in posts passim) which seems to be part Tam o'Shanter and part individual shelter (!), as a result the headgear could be painted khaki as regular infantry, or other corps.

Base marking can include a numeral - same for each figure - which may be cavity marks or figure/pose numbers but certainly do for the latter anyway; versions also exist with no number and the odd blank one turns-up.

Send three-and-four'pence; we're going to a dance! A rather simple heat-conversion on the unpainted officer's elbow has produced a nice, effective variation which I intend to paint-up one day.

L is for a Little Lone*Star

One of which may not be...a sort of bitty post, but like the rest of this weeks A-Z push, designed to empty the Laptop of all the stuff I've been squirreling away!

Starting with the probably-not-lone-star figure; This is a Lone*Star pose, from the 'Harvey Series', but is believed to be a Harvey original. Like Britains taking Herald in-house, so LS (a mazac die-caster) took Harvey in-house for the production of their plastics (although they got the Bakelite type wheels and nylon linkage for the Treble-O Trains made elsewhere), or - at least - that's how I understand it, this figure is therefore thought to be one of the very early Harvey originals.

Lone*Star also made a very small range of 'swoppet' farm animals, the trick being to collect them with the original tag intact, seen here on the rear left leg. Both the above were photographed in that show-and-tell a while ago, and don't belong to me!

We looked at these a few months ago, I shot them on Adrain's stall at the Plastic Warrior show in May (new PW to revue, will do soon!), but he had them out again the other day, and although some have since been snapped-up, I had more time to sort them out and take new images of the various colour variations. Both of paint and plastic - it seems each figure has a reverse-colour plastics version, while paint variations are confined to the evil elves or pixies...or whatever they were; see older post!