C is for Carded Combat Crew

More minters from Sandwon, or, at least near minters, nothing 60+years old is ever that 'mint', bags fog with a million invisible folds, cards fade or discolour from sunlight or bleaches in the paper itself, but these two have held up pretty well;

 

No brand and a blank back to the card, so no clue to producer/issuer, and 43p (maybe around 50¢ US, at the time?), if only such things were still 43p! It looks like it might be the same quality as the Rosebud one seen here before, but I couldn't manipulate it enough to see whether there was anything in the parachute cavity? But still a nice item to add to the collection

 

I think these might be by Hugonnet/Féral, but it is by no means certain, they come in several different generic header-cards, but always unmarked/unbranded, so they could be another operation?

 

A site crediting them to Hugonnet pointed out that they are Starlux copies with the heads turned, usually through around 90º, and you can see for yourselves, they have been given oblong bases.

T is for Two - Far West Frenchies!

The last Sandown Park show was quite good for Wild West stuff, and in addition to the sets in the opener, and some Dulcop in a future post, I managed to pick this French production up, with established sellers Steve Vickers and John Begg , both stalled-out in the main/first hall, extracting not-many of my shekels, for this pair.

 

Starlux boxed stage coach; the trouble with boxed items like these, is that they are only ever box-tickers, by which I mean they sit there looking pretty, but can't be played with either in a child-like fashion, or something more formal and war-gamey! They can't be handled like loose figures, or compared closely with others, or not without getting them out of their packaging which can often lead to damage to the inserts, mounting cards, trays etc.

 

I believe I read somewhere that the coach itself was bought in from someone else, Manurba (?), or someone like that, and given Starlux horses and outrider, but I, or the person who said it, may be making that up, because the slip-in trays for the horses, are similar to other makers systems, like my own Cofalu set?

 

I also picked up this bag of 'bazaar' figures from France, as close to a generic as you can get, with graphics only for some child-safety outfit, which may or may not be official, and the contents, cowboys only, so assume bags of Indians too somewhere, being copies of Elastolin 70mm stuff from Germany.

 

 Some close-ups.

Hugonnet, Feral, LSP, 'PIH'? . . . Someone else?

 

1980 catalogue page.

 

The guy running with loot bag, shooting behind him, seems to be not only a late addition to the Elastolin line-up, but to bear a remarkable resemblance to the pre-existing Britians swoppet and/or Herald Hong Kong bank-robbers, not that it matters when the French rack-toy guys were copying everyone, including the other French producers, by the mid-80's!

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! AFV's

So, the other half of the 'Army Men' post (which was going to be one post, but I couldn't face all that typing in one hit!), their transport, and it's an eclectic mix with a few interesting bits in it!

 

I know, but it was a Jeep! It was a Hugonnet card! It's otherwise the same rack-toy shite churned-out by Hong Kong, but a worthy addition to the collection, and confirms loose figures I've got somewhere! Starlux piracies!

 

These were from Isaac, who's surname I've never caught, but he'd saved them for me (along with the Wild West swoppet bags and some other stuff), and they were a real revelation, as when I got them home I found they were confirming one of the possible combinations suggested by me in this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2015/09/p-is-for-pick.html

  

With the 'Long Tom' on the odd coastal-artillery type platform, as well as getting the 'Speedwell' tank, with/in the same card/bag, so a very useful addition to the collection Something I would have been even more excited about, back when I was a small-scale only collector, and new things were getting thin on the ground! Now I've seen the all-scale polymer mountain to climb, I'm a little more jaded, but these are much appreciated.

 

The CTS (now BMC) Sherman Tank, apparently a bit smaller than the rarer Airfix one, and in a hard'ish ethylene or propylene, I didn't get this from Matt, who I now know WAS Matt!, But either from Steve Weston or somebody near him? On one level it's a gap-filler/box-ticker, but on another level, also a nice model, and it looks the part, which is important with Shermans, get one major dimension, angle or curve wrong and they can instantly look very odd, or daft!

 

They need a clean, but for reasons you don't need to be bored with, cleaning's out at the moment. Also, we've seen them before, they are pretty common, but belong to a family of rack-toy stuff, including the Jeep-trailer/gun combo's we’ve also seen here,with and without plug-in crew, and with two or even three new colours, they are adding to the story, if we ever tease the full story out!

 

And the comments on Sherman's were specific, because this gets a lot wrong! Can't remember of this was a purchase or a contribution, but it's the sort of thing you see on eBay, and think "Even if I get it for 99p, it's not worth the postage!", but it was a box that needed ticking, and it has its own rack-toy charm!

 

Also, a generic, over-branded to Woolbro, and it has a telescopic barrel, to keep the box as small as possible, while the turret on the box art is even whackier than the turret in the box!
 

Thanks especially to Issack, but also Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, who I have forgotten to add.

F is for French Relatives!

I discovered yesterday, while looking for something else, that Faceplant now hide or delete anything more than 3-years old on Facebook Groups? Scrolling back through my own submissions to a site, I came to a halt at May 5, 2020, I don't think it applies to personal timelines (for now) and - don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining.

 

There's so much duplicate shite posted by the simple-minded (and me!) all over the Internet, that it would come to a grinding halt if someone didn't do something occasionally to get rid of some of it. But what it does mean, is that I can get the 'Seen Elsewhere' folder emptied here, as it will all disappear there!

 

To that end, I posted these as separate posts over the bank-holiday, but I've pulled them together and added a couple of new shots and a couple of older ones!

Originally posted a couple of three months ago, these were a question mark to me, having something of the Starlux about them, but obviously not, and Brian Carrick kindly ID'd them as Guilbert copies of Clairet, both also French.

 

I have a larger selection of poses, but the others are a bit 'chewed', so these are the good ones, Guilbert above and Clairet below, I wonder if the Clairet are in fact the copies, they seem to be ever-so-slightly smaller, and there is a faint lack of detail on buttons and pockets etc . . . ? Also, I think Guilbert disappeared first, while we learnt, looking at the Knights years ago, that Clairet morphed into other brands and are almost/sort of still with us!

 

A few comparison shots, we looked at the Hugonnet and other copies here, all looks a bit muddled now, but we will re-do the French stuff in a year or two, as I have everything in folders (even Guilbert! Thanks, Vichy!) and can ascribe most of the stuff in the four posts of that sequence, more accurately now.

 

The 'new' sample of Bazaar figures, actually there are a few in that link above, so more future sorting to look forward to! They aren't by Hugonnet (as far as I know), they aren't Cofalu, and they aren't Vilco, but beyond who they aren't, I have no clues, I wondered MF, who did mono-coloured rack-toy bags of farm and others, but they were mostly Hong Kong-product jobbers I think?

 

A few colour variations, I suspect the chap on the right with the black equipment/weapon is slightly later, and another reason for suspecting the Guilbert came first ia that they are more realistically painted to what was being worn in Indo-China and North Africa (olive-greens, not camouflage), than the rather more toy-like gloss green helmets of the Clairet?

F is for Follow-up - Hong Kong Copies of European Premium, Rack Toy, Bazaar and Other Wagons

Just a quickie - not long after I published the VT follow-up to an earlier JCT post, I remembered I had some more VT and/or other bits in the attic, shot them when I was putting the others away, then picked a few more up at the PW show, so here they all are!

The previously Blogged VT coach with it's not-correct driver at the back, in front are a bunch of bits (from Micheal Melnyk I think?), sadly one of the pulling ropes is damaged, so apart from coach-body, chassis or wheel colour swaps, I'm no nearer a whole one!

In front of that is an Italian cheapie version's horse team from Dario, these are closer to the French horses than the HK ones.

But at PW I got both a whole replacement draw-bar and ropes (unbroken) and locating plug, and a lesser-quality/later-generation open-wagon (sort of Giant scale-up), the wheels are sized between the front and back wheels of the stage coach and the figure, though the correct driver for all these wagons, is of too poor a quality to use with my coach, but there are spare drivers in storage (and hopefully - a few hats), if it has the same horses as the JTC one . . . they are a bit 'twee'!

So - when the two stashes are brought together I should end-up with a boxed coach, a loose coach (complete), a loose wagon and a few bits. All I need now are some poorer horses (I may have somewhere) and a draw-bar & tilt for the open wagon, which - I fear - should be a covered wagon like the one in the original 2009 post?

It's Hong Kong shite, but it keeps me sane . . . sort of!

VT is for Varmint Trampling . . . Stage Coach

We looked at one of these way back at the beginning of the Blog, it was a cheaper, marked JTC one, then we had one sent to the blog a year or so ago (below) probably from France, now we return to - the then - crown colony of aichkay for another look at a better-quality copy of what is quite a complex model.

And this is the 50th use of the 'Wagon' tag, Small Scale World's now showing well over a hundred wagons!

From both sides, I left the driver in for one shot although I'm not convinced he is connected to the coach in any other way than just happening to almost fit! In point of fact he's leaning forward slightly as his feet are too big for the space they need to fit in, luckily I have a bag of these 'Mexican-hatted' wagon crew somewhere, so I'll get one to match hopefully.

The real crew used to turn-up all the time in mixed bags of junk as they aren't terribly well attached, and although they have a 'cowboy hat' (I couldn't tell you if it's a Stetson, ten-gallon or twenty-two-and-a-half liters!), it's usually so over-scale when you first encounter them lose, you think they're trying to be Mexicans - ironic when you think that nowadays Mexicans are all trying to be Americans!

You can see how the UK driver (Tudor Rose or Kleeware? There's one currently on feebleBay as Morestone but I've shown on on a T*R wagon in the past) is jammed-in and pushed forwards by his feet pressing against the raised detail containing the locating stud and hole of the coach's body-halves.

Marking is a VT or TV but as the 'V' is larger I suspect it takes precedence, it'll likely be something akin to Victoria-, Victory- or Viscount Toys . . . probably; who knows? [I think I've covered my arse from TJF & TCWML there?] Yellow- it's a bugger to photograph!

Note how the two halves of the coach body are also held together/in place by the base-plate of the suspension moulding.

The axles are also different from the usual type you'd expect on a toy like this, being flatter in one plane and therefore non-revolving, firmly held in place by longitudinal slots with a true round section only on the wheel-hub itself.

The draw-bar is equally 'over-engineered' with a through cotter-pin holding everything together and providing a pivot-point. One of the side ropes is missing and the other damaged so I'll be looking out for a replacement, and the hole at the front of the draw-bar/main-pole suggests a second or subsequent horse team/s - something else to look out for.

Again the roof, which on other similar toys would be either a straight plug-on, or integral to the rest of the body moulding/s, is instead held on with long pins stretching down from the luggage-rack and washers with a partial flange or catch; which hooks over the window frame. It's frankly a miracle it's remained as intact as it has?

The guy's head has been dyed a realistic flesh-tone by pigment-bleed from the unstable additives in the over-sized hat - now THAT is serendipity! The cheaper versions have integral heads  but the same plug-on hat.

Another look at Brian's contribution reveals all the same construction quirks, but copies of the French horses, rather than the more typical HK ones of the VT effort. These coaches (and the wagons they sat next to in the toy-store) were common and there are many variations of both French and HK types (and the Spainsh Mezquita seen here), and the quirky features are the same for all of them.

It also shows what the driver of the VT stage coach should look like!

Here's one issued with a simple wish-bone draw-bar ( ⊃− ) and only one horse, which looks a little better in brown, I think both figures are there, but you can only just see one in the top right-hand corner.

I'm using the image (ex-evilBay; for research purposes) because A) it's about 15 years old, B) it's fuzzy but proves a point and C) is one of the commonest versions, like the steam road-roller I blogged a few years ago, or the HK copy of the Thomas Roman chariot, these small-bag, header-carded, generic rack toy 'novelties', priced for pocket-money were common back in the day, and do turn-up quite often. Note, however; that the artwork (similar to the other two mentioned) shows the full wagon with two horses.

F is for French Rack Toys

Just a quickie as I know this morning's was a bit lame!

Féral's copies of Hugonnet's Indians, although as Hugonnet appears - jointly - on a fair whack of Féral packaging; it's not as clear as it looks. I'm told they represent Iroquois Indians and I rather like them, the Indian with feathered lance looks to be missing a spear-tip but all the examples I've seen are the same, so? Thanks toSamwise for most of these, a couple may have come from somewhere else and I have a painted Hugonnet somewhere but couldn't find him to post.

R is for Rollin' Rollin' Rollin' . . . Keep Them Wagons Rollin' - Raw'HIDE!

Another wonderful submission/guest post from Brian Berke, he says they are probably French and I'm wondering if they might be Jou Plast, whom I know made smaller two-axle carts and wagons for/as Bonux premiums - albeit with smaller horses. The firm of Féral (who carried Hugonnet) did similar horses, but with thinner, flimsy draw-bars/centre-poles . . . I'll stick them all in the tag-list until someone corrects me!

A quite deep-boxed 'prairie schooner' or covered-wagon, which has long slots for the cover to attach to the body instead of the plugs most other makes use, along with the nice touch of the first tilt-hoop being left bare.

I'm sure I've mentioned a draw-bar and horses here before (when I was asking for the translation on the SGDG mark) and it seems to be the same as these, with the skinny copies of Beton horse.

A fine stagecoach; this particular model was heavily copied (in Hong Kong and elsewhere) in the same size (sub-50mm), with further piracies getting down to 30-odd mm. We looked at a JTC (probably HK not Japan) copy here and it also seems to have provided the model for Blue Box's team on their little red and brown wagons (ex-Crescent) in the small scale.

Brian's Berserker shows us how much smaller these are to start with! Interesting to note that the coach figures have plug-on hats (which always look a bit Mexican, especially on the copies) while the wagon figures seem a little better in the sculpting department?

F is for French Figures II - Soft Polyethylene Plastics

Strangely - as a plastics collector - I seem to know less about most of these than the most of the figures in the other three posts! But they (the moulds) seem to have had several owners, mostly in that period when 'army men' were falling out of favour, cleared as rack-toys in pocket-money price brackets.

Mostly derivative of; or copies of; or soft-plastic, unpainted mouldings of; other, better known makes, or metal originals, or previously better decorated hard-plastic figures, they rather defy ID'ing from across La Manche!

This was also the post Blogger lost - adding a year to it's edit-shelf life!

 

Some of these are straight lifts from Starlux, others seem 'based on', and while they have the feel of Cofalux, I don't think they are. As we saw with the medieval figures, this late '60's-1970's French rack-toy ethylene production has both the moulds and the mouldings being handled by several companies/brands - whoever actually held them. I'm told that the sailors are Hugonnet (?), the marching poses being much copied by Hong Kong in the '70's.

Bottom right shot shows the differences between the 'same' pose from the two sets, based on a Starlux French Foreign Legionary, the one to the left is the closer copy, the one on the right has had a head-turn.

Again...Hugonnet have been put in the frame for some of these (top left - but the bases are large enough to point at Aludo?), others are similar to Cofalux, but not so well finished (two main lots) while the little group to the top-right are so poor they could be Hong Kong apart from markings and the fact that again...they are the same poses that keep cropping-up in this late mono-colour production and again...mostly Starlux poses, or Starlux-like, including the pose which gets itself into the Timpo GI's and through them to half-a-dozen minor (and not so minor; Hilco) 'khaki Infantry' makers!

Speaking of Timpo - in all the time this lot have been in Picasa and 'Edit' Sam sent me a bunch which included more of the small lot above and there are several Timpo 1st version 'WWII' poses included with the Aludo-looking pose on the top row. The same shot has an odd figure (top right) from the Hugonnet (?) set below, while the third row are from another origin and includes a scale-down of one of the US Auburn Rubber (Double Fabric Tire Corp.) company's figures - the white one, with a couple of Cofalux copies and a Starlux-a-like. Indeed I think they are additions to the same 'set' as the middle group in the previous collage.

The multicoloured row in the image below that has the same pose but larger along with several others from the Auburn 70mm's (but here around 60mm) in polyethylene, also very poor quality, no better than the worse of Hong Kong's efforts.

The upper shot here are now known (by me) to be Vilco issues of older figures by other people (in this case Cofalu aluminium figures I believe?), these being home-painted, the originals were issued on the runner in header-carded bags and as well as then olive green issues; also came in a variety of metallic colours including silver, gold, blue, mauve, pink &etc.

 

Below them are five modern production WWI troops by Armies in Plastic (AIP) really nice animated sculpts, I think the blue came first and the dung-brown after, but they ended-up side-by-side in the shop's stock so it's a mute point.

 

The recent (2009) re-issues of the Mokarex coffee-premium figures by Effigies, are in quite a dense un-glueable ethylene, but useful when you consider the frangibility of the originals and the fact that the packs are often missing, they can always be heat-welded on - of course.

 

Top left is the odds and ends, a couple of painted ethylene, which seem relatively uncommon and again I don't know who made them but the same names as the medievals are in the frame, just from the base paint! Then the little Airfix copy scaled-up to 45mm from Ri-Toys (Rado) which was also looked at here and a slightly rubbery 50mm from the Spanish Teixido?

 

The next two shots are of figures I've been told are Hugonnet (?), very much in the dress of the Indochinese or North African campaign's and like many of these figures seeming to reference Starlux sculpts, either because they were all deliberately pirating each other (like the Brits were at the same time with their 'Khaki Infantry' types), or because they were all using the same sculptor?

 

The final shot is all Marx, from the States, with the marching figure in brown a 1990's re-issue (carried in the Uk by Marksmen) from the 'Soldiers of the World' with the set of 6 WWII figures from the 54mm range, two in the original powder-blue, with re-issues in light and dark grey and a deep bottle-green.

Additions that have come in over the three years or so since I started these posts! Some more Vilco copies of other people's good moulds at the top, a late Cofalux flamethrower operator who looks so thin and weedy he may be a copy by someone else (?) and a later rack toy in electric-apple-puke-neon-dayglo green...Hugonnet again?

While I've been cogitating on these posts for so long, I've got round to stripping the Nazi paint off the supposedly Hugonnet figures, so a later additional picture. I don't know what's happening with the smaller bloke saluting...different make? Deliberate down-scale to make-up cavity numbers in the mould tool? And I'm assuming the glossier colours came after the matt'er olive and olive-drab issues?

F is for Follow-up to French Fellows

Thanks go to Mathias Berthox for several of the images tonight and the identification info, both herein and in the comments section of the previous post. Also thanks due to Steve Vickers who kindly allowed me to photograph a set he had at the Plastic Warrior show in May, which turned-out to be just what we needed to complete the story.

This is to confirm or deny several points raised by This Post concerning the various versions of these French made knights. Mathias will correct me if anything is incorrect!

So, in the upper picture sent by Mathias we have Rene Fisher (RF) figures, these are a hard plastic, probably (like Starlux and others) originally in a phenolic plastic or cellulose acetate, then - later - a polystyrene. Well painted, most figures having at least 5 or 6 colours, with the silver being one, also with quite chunky bases, which are always painted green.

The lower shot - also from Mathias - shows the Jem versions, these are soft ethylene plastic, but still have a decent paint-job with cream bases. Jem also supplied their figures to Norev (then a maker of plastic vehicles in 1:43rd scale) who placed them in diorama boxes called 'History and Traditions', where we learn that Robin Hood had to deal with cactus as well as the Sheriff's men, and that he lived in a Tipi/Tepee!

Later Norev (who were making metal 30/35mm civilians a few years ago) issued figures which have a simplified paint scheme of 3 or 4 colours only; white gloves and details, gold joints to the armour and weapons, flesh (if needed) and one other 'highlight' colour. The upper photograph from Mathias again, the lower example from my own collection.

These seem to have been made in Hong Kong/China, and were either from the same moulds or  reasonable quality copies, plastic forts were also made for the figures to garrison and fight over! The plastic is a denser material probably a Polypropylene.

Two companies then pirated them, Hugonnet and Vilco. It is these lesser quality figures we looked at last time, and with a shot of all mine, now including a couple of the extra poses Sam (of Sams Minis World) sent me, along with a comparison of the copy standard-bearer next to the Norev original. The two lower pictures showing the twin mould release-pin marks that enabled me to separate them out of a load of 'silver knights'!

To the left is the set Steve Vickers let me shoot at Richmond, of note is the fact that this sprue seems to be mostly Lone Star piracies (like the 'King Richard' that seems to have started this little odyssey when I covered Robin Hood two years ago!), but also includes the RF/Jem archers seen above, so we seem to be looking at about 20 (cirtainly 17+) poses from Hugonnet/Vilco, from both the RF and Lone Star stables.

The guy on the right, seemingly a decent attempt at William the First of England, Duke of Normandy, seems too good to be from the above ranges, so I suspect a modern/current brand, but I don;t know who, so any help with this chap would be appreciated. He is in unpainted silver polyethylene and is the last chap from the 'silver knights' load, still to be identified, apart from....

...the chunky chap at the bottom of this picture, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I separated these guys out in the last post, it was suggested they were part of the above late sets we now know were Hugonnet/Vilco, and someone correctly pointed-out that they were Dom poses. Well, like an idiot (and working in poor light) I hadn't seen that they are in fact marked on the upper-surface of the bases 'MADE IN WEST GERMANY' and are actually Dom Plastik, and probably nothing to do with the French sets/makes at all!

These have apparently had three main phases, silver originals like the above, some (earlier?) basic paint versions and later recasts in a greyish plastic.

However, also in the 'silver knights' lot was this other chap, early-looking painted ethylene, but bigger that the Dom, although clearly the model for one of the Dom poses. He has the look of some East German plastics to me, he is a quite soft, silver plastic, a bit like Charbens knights, heading toward 60mm, very chunky base and has no discernible mark. Any ideas?