O is for Odd & Ends

Well, we've had a T is for . . .  already today! When I said we wouldn't look at Hing Fat in the last post, I sort of lied as we're looking at them right now, but these were latecomers to the queue, and just happened to fit as I'd used the figures to scale the Pen Plax fish-tank ornament earlier in the year!

So the Pen Plax fish tank ornament; just a bit of fun and it's supposed to be derelict, but with both wheels intact all you actually need to do is rebuild the chip in the barrel with some two-part epoxy-putty (or similar modelling compound) and give it a better paint, it could be used to defend the coconut grove on X-marks-the-spot Island!

Which leaves the Hing Fat; actually Billy V for Imex, and when I said the 'recently defunct' the other day I used a question mark to cover my arse as I wasn't sure they actually have gone broke, I'd just been told they had.

I think they are still going, but they seem to be running out of steam, the weekly deal is 'not found', they have lovely pictures of the Bismarck where there should be a Chinook heavy-lift helicopter, the Faceplant page was last added to in July and the website has no news, nor any Covid-19 info., so there's a air of tiredness to it all?

However, there's still stock of Billy-V's repacked Hing Fat to be found in Hobby Stores and Brain Berke added this to his stash the other day and sent a couple of images by way of a follow-up - cheers Brain!

B is for Butter Nut....and Brown...

...and red and yellow and orange and green and blu'hoo! No, not blue, blue and grey are another rule of ACW, but today we're looking at the other colours - well; the few in my collection!

Starting with everyone's favourites; the Britains Swoppets and Herald ACW confederates, although the rule is Blue for Federal Union and grey for Confederate, they being the typical colours of a mass body of either side's armies - despite both sides having units in the other colour scheme - it is also accepted that 'butter nut' is a confederate colour, as they tended to have the greater logistical and financial problems when equipping their forces, and the fall back neutral colour was commonplace, particularly among poorer units or later in the war.

As the civil war is a lot older than the First World War, and people are already arguing over badges and patches from that war it's no surprise that there's a lack of consensus over what butter nut was, but suffice to say the three main sources seem to have been (and in no particular order); sun-bleached/sun-burned grey following summer service or other weathering, late Confederate Government issue 'suits' in a nut-dyed grey that rapidly turned a brownish shade and home-spun neutral fabrics.

Above we see the butter nut versions of the Swoppet figures on the left and what I'm assuming is a home-painted Herald figure on the right.

The blue/grey 'rule' (with its butter nut addendum) is allied to the red for Zouaves, Mounties and Garibaldi's red-shirts rule, with minor - obvious - rules like the red shirts for post-ACW cavalry, yellow for Confederate artillery and cavalry, green for the Irish Brigade &etc...being the norm of the gaming table.

However the above are wacky colours because I think they are Kiosk toys and Kiosk toys were always wacky colours. They seem to be copies of Reamsa 7th Cavalry (another rule is that post-ACW cavalry can be used for the earlier conflict!) rather than original Reamsa figures.

The lower figure is a Cherilea 'Custer' from a small range of single moulding solids they did (others were a knight, American Indian, Life Guard etc...), his Confederate colour may be original (sans paint), but I suspect he's one of the unpainted, 1990's re-issues? His horse has lost it's tail!

Top left is a Hong Kong copy ('copy' is paying it too much credit!) of a Timpo solid in a fetching brown with yellow saddle - so gotta-be Confederate! Next to him is another HK pirate, except this pirate is a Deetail ACW figure.

The Italian 'Kit Carson' could be a Kinder figure, but equally could be a little boxed pocket-money toy by Giodi, we looked at his true Confederate pal at the bottom of this post here.

The last group are re-issues from the Marx moulds of the late 1980s (?), and for unpainted war gaming give us four Confederate figures in three shades of butter nut, an Union Irish Brigade figure, a Union Artillery out-rider and err...a ghost!
 

The more modern/current companies have a four-colour, blue, grey, red and butter nut rule, producing all or some of each range in any of the colours. Above some of the lovely sculpts done by Peter Cole of Replicants for Marksmen which we looked at in small scale last December.

Below them are one (middle) from Accurate, and two from Imex - but they may be commission pieces run in these shades for the likes of CTS or Weston's?

R is for Rare....or not! Imex and Accurate

One hears the refrain 'Really Rare' an awful lot within the collecting fraternity, mostly - it has to be said - from either dealers, or the inhabitants of the Internet 'Bubble'. There are - of course - some things which are genuinely rare, but most of the stuff we collect was produced in vast quantities to feed a global customer base, or justify the expense of the moulding tools.

Here are a couple of things which have worn the epithet 'Rare' in the last fifteen years, on the left a figure of Custer from Imex, on the right a dead (or very poorly!) Confederate soldier from Accurate.

The Imex figure being an addition to the Union (Federal) Cavalry sprue, for the Battle of the Little Big Horn play set, was simply a marketing gimmick to get people who had already bought the figure sets seperately to shell out for more of the same.

The Accurate figure was dropped from the mould and replaced by a figure standing with his arms out.

Of course Imex had permanently altered the mould (or forgot to change the insert back?) and started issuing Custer in the separate cavalry boxes of subsequent issues, so now the overly expensive play-set is shifted at cost-price at shows and swap-meets, by dealers happy to get rid of their back stock and the figure is no longer 'rare' at all. Worse; It's become a lottery which set/figure you get, Big Bad Custer, or a chap waving at his mother!!!

The Accurate figure on the other hand remains 'rare', but as a non-issued figure is only a curious part of the production process, and of limited interest/use. By which I mean, if you take it off the sprue and paint it up for inclusion in a war-game army, you are - of course - destroying an historical artifact, but leave it on the sprue, and it's just a dead lifeless thing, (twice dead in this case!). So; Rare figure or unusual artifact? Would you give the same significance to the floor sweepings of the production line or the sculptors studio chaff? No.

And if the new owners of the Accurate moulds were to find the insert? Mass production would probably follow.