T is for Terrible Tommies

Really just a box-ticker, I've put them on the relevant post on the Airfix blog, but I had a bunch of photographs left so they can go here as well!

Dangerous mission, pack, frame/runner (sprue')..."I've lost an eye taking out that German Renault-Sherman hybrid but I've got ammo left godamit!"

Jeep with twin pom-pom and A4? A5? A-Somthing...

S is for Sobres - Montaplex Wild West Sets

As I was looking at pocket-money Wild West stuff the other night I thought it'd be a good time to cover these; Spanish Sobres, sold - like Hong Kong carded stuff - from corner shops, tobacconists and the little street kiosks you still get in the wider boulevards of some European city's.

The main producer and certainly the first to get wider coverage outside Spain, with the fledgling internet (HaT in particular covered these in the early days of their website) and Plastic Warrior (have you subscribed yet?) was Montaplex. Among the many sets they produced were a bunch of Wild West Forts, one being this Fort Apache, clearly it's loosely based on the eponymous Airfix Fort, with the raised quarters in the top left-hand corner as you view the gates, the lookout tower has been omitted,but...see below!

One figure is missing from the figure sprue having been mis-moulded, well, not moulded at all, but his scalp is just about present on the end of the branch!

Two slightly different designs of Fort Cheyen (Spanish for Cheyenne), and Lo!..the tower from the Airfix Fort Apache!, otherwise these are basically copies of the Hong Kong Fort Cheyenne's, the raging battle on the packet artwork leads to great disappointment when you open it to find two small and rather wooden wagons, unless you have a soft spot for small wagons, like me!

In the upper shot, we are looking at - from left to right - a Hobby-plast wagon, the two Montaplex wagons from the above set, and a wagon from a 1990's release by BuM ('Boom' in English apparently, although the fact their racing car system is called BuM-Slot, leads one to suspect an British hand at the tiller somewhere?), it's obvious that all three in the front row are identical, so the suspicion's are that Hobby-plast and Montaplex were either the same company, or buying-in stock from an independent source, and that further; BuM started life clearing the old stock from these two, before getting into less ethical stuff...frowns! I see Pirates!

In the lower picture a Montaplex fire engine - loosely based on the old Matchbox design but with astronauts as crew (One crew member is missing). [The proper place for the astronaut; Moonbase ]

H is for Hobby-plast - Wild West

More Sobres, this time from Hobby-plast, they have a lot of items in common with Montaplex, but also seem to have some unique items. The addresses on the backs of the packets (which are generally - with these two companies - thin, A5, printed envelopes, sealed until bought) would suggest the same company parentage. However there may have been different sorces, or marketing stratagies for the two arms?

This set contains the common stage coach in HO'ish scale, but accompanies that with 54mm pirates of Airfix cowboys, these are reasonable as copies go, certainly as good as Hong Kong ever gets!

Three more sets from Hobby-plast, the right hand set in the upper picture comes with twice the contents as laid out, while the left hand set gets one of the same sprues and a wagon. These figures are copies of the Airfix Ho/00 High Chaparral/Cowboys and Indians

The bottom set has to be one of the most disappointing ever, once you open it! No bucking bronco's, no clowns in barrels, no bulls...just the worst copies of 54mm Cowboys and Indians I've ever seen, they make 99% of all Hong Kong production look 'well detailed', although the horses are quite good in comparison with most HK hollow horses.

W is for still more Wagons

Some more horse-drawn stuff from the archive;

These two are the same, but one (yellow) came from a Hobbyplast 'sobres' envelope, the other came from a Montaplex envelope, an identical green one has fallen from a BuM carton, proving that before they got into their current low-grade, poor quality production and knock-offs, they were clearing the old Montaplex factory stock. Various presentations of Preiser wagons, the 900 series were sold as kits, the 400 series were sold assembled and painted. The cattle-drawn wagon may well be Noch or Pola, or even Vollmer, as they have all used Preiser products to enhance their buildings or scenics, or just to improve their catalogues/ranges. This shows Hong Kong copies of Preiser wagons and another view of the Preiser/Noch (?) cattle-draw hay wagon. The hay wagon - less load, and the small wagon in the middle along with the one in the foreground are all issued by Prieser, most recently in the big sprued set 'rural workers', the HK piracy's are of equal quality, but marked 'Made in Hong Kong'. Finally - revenge of the headless coachman! One of the early separate/press-on horse wagons, from 'W.Germany' (probably Manurba). I will cover the rest of the Manurba/Manurba-type wagons later.