T is for Teixido Return!

Yes, a rather too-cheerful title given my views of bullfighting, but they have to be posted, and while I hate the 'sport' and the idea of it still being a thing in the 21st Century, I take heart in the fact that another Matador was gored to death the other day (at least he got to feel how the bulls felt), and two others have quit, publically, in the ring! One breaking down and sobbing, at the enormity of what he'd been doing, all his adult life, to innocent, proud, confused animals.

 

We'll start at the end . . . of the bull. It's all about the killing of bulls, and, the longer the fight, the weaker the bull gets, so the final flourish, and the applause of the bloodthirsty crowd is utterly pointless, as the bull's so weak by that point it's almost a mercy killing, for what the fighters have been doing for the previous . . . twenty minutes; hour; two hours? I don't care how long the fights take, they are barbarous.

 

These are the Teixido figures (I think? They may go with the Jecsan below?) we last saw on someone else's table with me pointing out I didn't have any, I now have a decent sample, and we're going to look at them now, along with a few others, that have come-in over the last couple of years!

 

Two more mounted figures which I think go with the Teixido set, but I'm not sure, some of them are more rubbery, others are 'ethylene, and while some have separate arms, others don't! And all the horses were polyethylene, but not all the riders went on all the horses!

 

Theses are all Teixido, and there was some judicial swapping of arms, between shots, to get everyone looking correct, and a few bodies didn't get photographed as their arms clearly weren't here! The last one is correct, I think, but the camera-angle makes him look like his plug-in arm is growing out of his back!

 

The guy on the right in the first shot, can be posed to be dragging his red-rag behind him, as we saw last time we looked at these. 

 

I think these are all Jecsan, although one has a more Reamsa style base, so I stand to be better informed on all these, but the whole 'bullfighting zone' sample is quite big now, and when it's all brought together we'll have a proper look at all of them, and compare with the various catalogue images in the archive, to get them all grouped correctly! In fact, I think the standing bull is the Teixido.

 

Jecsan horse, I think, not sure on the rider, who seems to be some kind of referee or officiator? He has a separate cloak, so may also be Teixido.

 

Comparison between a Comansi (?), unknown, unpainted one (which keeps turning up and may be a touristy thing?) and the Teixido horse, his padded-armour/blanketing is of finer etching/sculpting.

 

Jecsan with a Reamsa'ish base, a tourist keepsake, we saw another one (white, plug-on base), years ago, and one of the Teixido's. The tourist one is a polystyrene, hard-plastic solid, with metal pin inserted.

 

Further comparison, with the Torres wine premium on the left and one of the unknown small-scales from 2024's Plastic Warrior show plunder on the right, for some reason I swapped out the Teixido but not the Jecasn?

 

Hong Kong
Seen before, but cropped-tight and lacking the now-dead link to the auction!

 

I had the Jecsan stuff here, but the Comansi and Reamsa stuff is in storage, or on a dongle I can't be bothered to look for, right now! The reamsa'ish base one is it the ring, facing the other way, so he is Jecsan, but no sign of the towing vignette, the Referee, or a dead bull, so that probably is all Teixido after all!

 

While the two we saw yesterday aren't in these scans, so probably are Reamsa, as the Comansi's have bigger bases - it's not made any easier by them all four using the same gloss orange on the bases! I guess, after a thousand years, all that bull's blood has darkened the sand?

 

Please donate.

Imagine if these colourful, dynamic, civilian figures could still be collected, but as 'historical' subjects, rather than examples of man's ongoing cruelty, and inhumanity to everything around him?

S is for Seeing Through, Seeing Double!

Found this on eBay a few minutes ago, postage is a bit rich for UK buyers, but North American/Canadian readers may fancy a punt!

 

Bull & Bull Fighter

I've nicked the image because I've produced a link-back, it's the right thing to do when the item is still live! I think it's a loose copy of one of the Jecsan poses?

 

They've obviously run out of stuff to say about space, so they want to park their tanks on my lawn, but learning 90% of what I've posted here will take them longer than they have left, so five-editors or not, they're on a hiding to nothing? More Gerry Anderson when I get in form work, tonight, I think? What do you think, readers!

H is for How They Come In - Recent Purchases

Just a Picasa clearer; a few things I've managed to snaffle in the last few months, which were shot and sitting in Picasa waiting for a job, and this is it!

These were two or three lots/sources I think and we may have see some of them already in show reports, but here they've all been cleaned, some of them were very dirty. I just love 'em and will always grab them when I see them going cheap (£€$12 or £€$24 per figure on eBay gets ignored - they're not rare!), as there are a lot to find.

Here we have three of the late phenolic/early - less than stable - 'styrene ones in bright colours, with, upper left, three similar-aged silver ones, so probably all original Lido or Winco Condar, while the rave-dancer, top right, is a more modern lightweight polystyrene one with a better finish.

The blue one had black spots on, which might have been a past-owner's paint, or a slow-growing mould eating something in the polymer, I couldn't tell, but it hasn't fully removed despite some serious chemicals, so the now pale-purple staining seems permanent?

Going un-bid-on on evilBay, this was Jecsan or Reamsa, I can't remember, the former I think, to go with those over-sized nativity figures I bought in a charity shop a few Christmases ago? And it's big, about 8 or ten inches, gone to storage now, so I can't give you a definitive size, but more Palm-tree comparisons (we did some of the flats a while ago) are in this Blogs future!

I got a eMail from Chris Smith with a link to this lot and one bid secured it! I have some of most or most of some, but as grist-to-the-mill it was worth a speculative bid, and the highlights were the two musicians and the four Wild West, which I think are 1970's French bazaar copies of Dom-Heinerle, Siku or similar, earlier, German premiums?

The pile of pastel Cowboys and Indians are also interesting as they are late, sub-piracies of Giant's own Britains copies, while there are a few plug-in US Marines from rack-toy rubber-boats, a lovely little dog, two Thomas paddling Indians which may be the Giant-copy size, but later production than them (so French copies of Manurba's version?), a Chinese Villager and . . . the rest - cheers to Chris for the heads-up!

E is for the Elephants in the Room!

This is a fun post, mostly new to hobby, Blog and Internet - except eBay, where they all came from! Credeco, a new name to me a year-and-a-half ago when I bought the first of these (a couple were on another blog years ago), and while these have mostly been posted elsewhere in dribs and drabs over the last year, the article folder has been on the desktop for most of it, slowly being added to!

Where we 're up to now were up-to when this post had 12 images! Although there are more to find, a strange mix of wholly original sculpts of some ingenuity or imagination, and crude cut-n-shut copies of Britains Trojan warriors, from this lesser Spanish make, in the bazaar/rack-toy style.

This was the first one in the bag, he came with two other non-Credeco lots, and the seller (Miguel Angel) included a freebie (some Italian swoppet Wild West figures)! How could I not buy a War Elephant I'd never seen before!

Following up the seller's other lots while leaving feedback for the first three purchases lead to two more! One has a hole in it and I wondered if someone had cut the rider out, but I've seen another one others, which are the same (and now have a second, see below), with a rider in a different colour, so they may seem to have had single-moulding and two-part lines?

Equally, I'm not sure if this was factory paint or home paint, but I wasn't convinced as to the latter, so deciding on the former, shot the hell out of it (in case) before sending it to the bleach vats for an overnight snooze. Either way it's not good painting.

Overnight snooze in the bleach vat!

Gives me a unit of 35mm Carthaginians! They're not terribly realistic, obviously, but no worse that certain Cherilea output I could mention - and often have! They are, after all, proper 'toy' soldiers first, and I imagine if not actual sobres, as least kiosko! The red soldier may be missing a spear-tip, standard or sun-shade of some kind? Also they fit quite well with the Rojas e Malaret board-game war elephant.

By now I was on a roll, or a quest, found the mounted ones I'd remembered elsewhere, and managed to grab these two with the blue one in the final image, obviously taken from Britains Trojans, one is just near copy ('Ulysses', right) with a head swap, but the other ('Ajax') has had his broadsword replaced with a rather crude spear.

The Ulysses knock-off has a hole in his shield which seems deliberate, but has no apparent function and may be something like a broken mould release-pin that somehow got stuck or fired into the figure?

'Paris', Troy! The archer gets the biggest makeover, losing his bow, arrow and quiver in favour of a sword and dagger, which rather leaves him looking like an over acting character hamming-it-up in a pantomime!

The final purchase (for now then) was these three, it was the Roman on a camel I'd remembered (or found in the archive folder for Creadeco, which is the same thing; that's the whole point of the archive!), 'Hector' loses his javelin in favour of an axe, and a wood-axe at that! He also gets a head swap, while 'Achillies' now has Hector's head and a move of his sword-arm, both have been given new hoplon shields.

The mounted figure is the best (and I love the elephants), and why not, the Roman empire had a vast desert boarder in North Africa/the Middle East, camels are recorded as coming west with Darius and/or Xerxes, so whether Roman or Greek (Carthaginian or Trojan) why not have him on a camel, especially as his protagonist is an Arab! He's half Britains 'Agamemnon', and half the Marx cut-and-shut with came out of Hong Kong courtesy of Giant and others!

Yeah, I seem to have taken and awful lot of shots of them for some reason! Checking the old Trojan post here I wonder if these aren't actually copies of the 'believed to be' French bazzaar rack-toys, some of which are in that post?

The above has been ready for publication for some weeks (some months for the early drafts), but I took delivery of what will be it for a while, the other day so we plow-on, although no 'family photo' as the rest seem to have gone to storage!

This is another of the elephants with the hole, and you can see how a little diminutive figure is just stuffed in the hole like a cheap Hong Kong turret crewman! I think the silver on this is factory-paint, and having stripped the other, will probably leave this one as it is?

A couple of close-up's really taken to help me see if he was 'meant' and yes, that's all tool-machined marks round the feet, not a figure taken from a base. The trouble is, with my eyesight these days he could be mistaken for a damaged figure, and while it wouldn't stop me keeping him as a sample/example if I found him, I bet a lot of loose ones have been chucked-out as being [or; appearing to be] both damaged and odd-scale.

The horse is a ringer, taken off of a wagon team, so I still need another camel, but the figure is lovely! Tumanbay eat your heart out, my General Qulan rides again!

A few recent sellers on Todocollection, I think the archer may be an Atlantic roman stuffed in the hole? Evidence, so far, seems to point to four slightly different elephants, being two pairs of similar variations of the same sculpts, the one providing two with separate crew (head-spike and no head-spike), the other two with integral crew (sword & shield and sword & spear/parasol/standard?), and all possibly being variations of an original master, with leg and trunk changes?

Finally, not Creadeco - this guy was bought with the two red ones, as I figured he might go with them, but he's a lot taller and was obviously a copy of something else - he looked familiar? He was neither the Elastolin or Reamsa pointing chaps (which I thought of first) the former's holding a scroll in the left hand, the latter is pointing the other way!

In the end he turned-out to be a copy of the Jecsan Centurion! He also looks slightly effete, like he can hardly be bothered to point anywhere with any seriousness! "You! Soldiers! Err . . . go over there and do . . . something useful, but don't trouble me again"

Creadeco Punic Wars - box nicely ticked I think!

G is for Gala, Garcia, Generalisimo, Gormasa and Guardia

Bit of a departure from recent output and a return to Spain, so strap-in for a bumpy ride as at least one of them is a great big question mark which should exercise the idiots of the Penn-State Toy Soldier Mafia and have them flecking dribble on their big book of Spain! So here goes nothing . . .

. . . and we start with this trio who were in storage and I think all came for the collection of the legendary Barry Blood back in 2010 (where one or two could be seen in the plunder-post at the time), from the left; we have a - probably(?) - Argentine life-guard type, the horse looking to be copied from Jean, but Jean had based their plastic horse on earlier composition mounts, so that's probably where this one is taken from.

The most interesting thing about him is that his right arm is attached after moulding / trimming, but before painting, and it's done with the old hot-knife/screwdriver technique! Next to him is a trooper from the Soldados de Alfonso XIII (Alfonso XIII Regiment - officers have red trousers), from Reamsa.

The final figure is also Reamsa; from the Guardia Municipal de Gala, or Ceremonial Municipal Guard. Looking these Spanish figures up over the last week or two has revealed the problem that they all seem to have two names - the monarchist-periods title and the moniker of the fascist interregnum - to that end I think these have reverted to Guardia Real, or Royal Guard?

They are compared to a Life Guard bandsman from Britains, who may be on the wrong horse, as he's using foot-stirrups with a one-handed instrument? I also wasn't happy with the last Spanish chap's horse, and went off to the orphan-horse box . . .

. . . where I found similar horses which have clearly been broken off a Wild West wagon's draw-bar, they aren't the same, but the paint is, and the rider's leg is hiding a big hole, also his horse has a shorter tail, so I think he still needs a correct horse.

Meanwhile this was in the To Be Sorted pile from May's show, and is the officer from the same set, but on the correct horse (in both cases the horse is too small for the figures, who are huge) he's lost his gold epaulets and white trouser-paint but is otherwise a nice figure, if not rare.

Gormasa re-issued these under the Soldis label (yes, I've called it Soldat in the past - more than once I think - but, a mental-typo isn't making it up as you go along!) in quite large 'touristy' sets so they do turn-up pretty regularly.

This chap was hiding in the WWI box as a [possibly] German Ulhan! He is in fact depicting the King's Lancers (Lanceros del Rey), in the ceremonial uniform of the 1970's, at which point they were called the Escolta del Generalísimo (or Fascist Bastard's Escort, if I've got my Spanish correctly?!!), they may also be a type of Cazadore (whatever that is? Is it French, it may be French!), I think these can also be mistaken for Santiago Dragoons (Dragons de Santiago)? But they all have red trousers?

Still; I'm not sure who made him, I assume (helmets on!) he's Jecsan, but there are elements of Pech Y Hermanos (Pech & Brothers) to the horse, which is otherwise like Jecsan horses, apart from the little blobs on two feet. Also - while the cloak fits nicely, and the saddle seems right, he may not be on the right horse?

Marte (Julio Garcia Castresana - 'Castresana Y Marte') also issued a set, but theirs look more formal / relaxed, this chap is in a hurry and his lance is different to the hammered-head, metal Marte ones I've seen, here a plastic blade/pennant moulding, plugging-on to the plastic shaft, but both sets have movable arms and clip-round-the-neck cloaks, so he may have just been wedged on a Jecsan/Pech horse? Means I get to put Marte in the tag-list!

Maybe they're Teixido! I'll put it in the tag-list!

You can see the lancer penciled-in as Jecsan or Teixido makes a better match - size-wise - for the British figure, and I've posted Her Mage in die-cast alloy from Britains' 'New Metal' range of the late 1970's/early 1980's, riding side-saddle, sans horse, in front of the parade.

While the pennant on the Royal Guard trooper may actually be from the Reamsa Medieval/El Sid figures? Also I'm pretty sure both of mine are Reamsa originals as the Gormasa-Soldis ones tend to a glossier finish.

There you go anyway, five ceremonial oddments from the stash, four Spaniards and a probable Argentine, and he's probably the rarer, as the others will have gone all over the world as Tourist keepsakes, but then maybe he did too, although Argentina isn't the Tourist trap Spain has been?

F is for Follow-up - Tents and Totem Poles

Couple of things I got round to doing which I should have done (tents) or meant to do (totem poles) at the time of the referred posts, but didn't as I'd forgotten the former and terminal laziness prevented the latter!

So, while I was getting the tents down and shooting them the other day, I forgot that (pretty-much the same week) a parcel arrived from Peter Evans, which had among all the polymer loveliness; a tent!

A tent which has the same four mould release-pin marks with the sharply-angled terminals, as the two we looked at the other day , and which are also for forcing a deep moulding off the male half of a moulding or machine-tool.

The find (realisation!) allows for a sizer/comparison shot between both the Jecsan question-mark (Speedwell/Trojan?) and the 'smallie' included in that post, for which a second colour variation as also appeared - as if from nowhere! Along with the 'Q is for...' one now ID'd by Edwin Fear (cheers Edwin) as a 4" action-figure accessory from Mattel's A-Team lines.

Also comparing the Jean totem-pole, with that copy we looked at the other week [a while back] when I renovated the generic carded set. You can see the copy is quite a bit smaller.

It's actually a Korona premium, not shown in Peter Konrad's Weichplastic-Werbefiguren, but mine's an early 2nd edition (1994), and showing all the signs of factory paint, one or two of the figures shown in Konrad's book have paint, although it's unusual for premiums, it's not impossible - it's like those Crescent [Kellogg's] guards; I'm sure there's a painted issue of them, perhaps production overspill/end of promotion clearance?

The blue one is an unpainted Jean original, and most 'large-scale' totem-poles are nicely scaled for 'small-scale' figures, not only that, but these from Airfix - having quite a bit of clothing - make reasonable northern 'woodland' Indians!

T és per 'Tienda de Campaña de Jecsan'

The search term I used to find the images I needed to cobble this slightly controversial post together at short-notice, but a bit of controversy at Easter seems like a good idea, people shouldn't get too comfortable, sat at home stuffing themselves with chocolate as they celebrate the apparent wrongful conviction and state-sponsored murder of the claimed Messiah!

But is it British?

Following the posting of the tent in the 'What The !&*$?' section of Plastic Warrior magazine's issue 173, I wrote the following to the Editor;

I was slightly surprised to see the request for information on the tent in PW173, as I'd assumed (never assume!) everyone thought it was Trojan, so I thought it was Trojan too - still learning this big-scale malarkey!

I now offer the possibility it may originate next door in Speedwell's stable? The colours on mine match the more mixed, marbled Speedwell Germans that came with it?

I also thought Trojan as they list both a red cross and camouflaged version in their catalogue, and I'm sure I've have seen plain-white ones (cat. 1134), assuming mine is 'camouflaged' (cat. 1133)?

Might the tent be one of the either-maker items which plague study of both . . . and others! Perhaps supplied by Speedwell to Trojan?

Only to be slapped-down with the news that it was in the big book of Spain and that seemed to be the end of the matter!

Hoovered-up study material!

Now, there is no doubt that Jecsan (who were revealed in the latest PW; Issue 174, to be the originator) have a number of these tents, indeed a couple of Google searches have revealed that as a Spanish toy, it's not even slightly rare, there were lots on Todocolecction last week, both colours, with and without the 'bedding insert' and all variants.

However in answer to the original question in PW173; "Does anyone know who made the military tent, below?" I am going to say, yes; probably Speedwell and/or Trojan. For the simple reason that it is camouflaged, or at least it is marbled/flecked with at least three colours in an attempt at camouflage.

But, let's look at the Spanish oeuvre first to get our bearings and . . .

Grrrreeeeeen, pure grrrreeeeen!

. . . spot the deliberate mistake - if you haven't already from the previous image; it would appear the Spanish forgot to sell themselves any 'camouflaged' ones and shipped them all to Britain, where I have now seen at least four?

It is a fact that while there may be marbled ones in Spain, I have yet to find one, but, all the non-white ones I've seen in the UK (and been told are 'Trojan') are marbled. At which point I should add that I've seen white ones over here too, but they are - by design - going to prove harder to ascribe, although I have a feeling one of them had painted red-crosses?

But the Spanish green ones are flat green, several shades, from a yellowish-olive green through a darker olive-drab to a pale-olive, some of which difference may be due to lighting, but that there are different greens is for sure, however; they are all flat, monotypes.

Whites

Now the white ones - definitely Spanish - raise several other points, which as I am only proposing a theory here, are worth looking at, although it's not all that clear and it will take/needs a Spanish collector to study and annotate them properly.

Most (but not all) the Spanish white tents, have a thinner window-bar on the open 'vent' window, it also has a more delicate rolled-up vent-cover relief-sculpting than the 'cheese slab' on the mouldings with a thicker window-bar (the tent outlined with hatchings - centre-left). However there is evidence for thin bars on some green ones too, so there were clearly at least two machine-tools.

I'm not so convinced about the differences I marked on, for the over-hang wavy-bits, I think it had more to do with angles of shots and a short-shot moulding (the 'scalloped' one).

Fully Glazed!

Another major difference between the tool shots is that some tents have a second window on the back wall of the 'canvas', a rather fetching dormer-type with six framed panes in two panels meeting in the centre, and presumably opening and closing - if the carpenter remembered to put the hinges in!!

One of the things that needs more work (and if a Spaniard doesn't do it soon, Todocolecction will provide me with enough evidence to confirm or disprove myself) is the possibility (likelihood?) than those tents with rear etched-windows are the tents which also have . . .

In a flap

. . . a straight-edged flap to the left of the door, as opposed to the more common curved edge, and again, while I think I saw a green one with rear-window, I couldn't find it on a second search, so for now it has to be assumed to be a white tent 'thing'.

Comparison

While the other Internet images here today have been screencaps or crop-outs, I am using this one (on the left) whole for the legitimate 'research purpose' of comparing with mine. You can see that they are the same tool, but the Spanish one is a flat green, and poorer-finished, being both more flashy, and less fettled.

The [UK] one has been cleaned-up, but had less flash to clean up, to begin with, especially on the four long internal mould release-pin channels, necessary to push the deep moulding off the male half of the mould. The strange off-set window cavity (with the thicker bar) is also the same.

It would seem that there are two tools identifiable from this early, slightly cursory work, one having the thin window bar, extra etched window and straight-edge to the door-flap, mostly white, and one with no second window, a curved flap and a thick window bar, mostly plain green if found in Spain, often camouflaged if found in the UK.

Different treatments of the figures

but both close to the tent's mix.

At this point the theory needs to speculate! I suspect that if the theory (and there's nothing wrong with a theory, it remains only a theory until proven or disproven) that Speedwell and/or Trojan are responsible for the UK found camouflage versions is true; they came after the thin window-bar version had been in production for some time.

The fact that the thin bars are often broken, along with the daft window on the rear wall led to the development of the second version with a more robust window-bar and no rear window, in the production of which the door-flap was also given a little more 'sag'.

However there may be other versions and I will continue to pore-over images as they become available!

Now it may be that any UK version is a straight copy, but I think they may have had first dibs on the new tool, hence the cleaner castings? The Spanish would have had a stock of the old mostly (all?) white ones, and switched to the latter version after it was returned - from the UK?

The reasoning for a relationship is not hard, there was a lot of mould-swapping back in the day, the whole Trojan/Speedwell and UNA/VP thing has Kentoy behind it, one of the Kentoy sculptors worked with the Spanish (Reamsa) . . . draw your own picture; it's only a theory!

Three colours clearly visible

at the neatly-trimmed gate-mark

With the addition of a fourth colour (sand) these Speedwell Germans are manufactured in a very similar colour-way and the other three colours (oxide-red, herb-green and black) are a good match - the herb green goes a bit appley where it mixed with the sand, but on the rifle's four-grip it's the same herby or pale-jade shade.

Trojan carried two tents in their catalogue, priced to match a stretcher team (one shilling and sixpence), which would be approximately right for the amount of plastic in this tent; 

• ·         Cat. 1133 - Camouflaged Tent
• ·         Cat. 1134 - Red Cross Tent 

. . . for which there are no other candidates, the only likely one I knew-of turned out to be Starlux years ago - a small two-man pup-tent, also marbled but in a phenolic or styrol polymer!

Also Trojan - who were (only a few years ago) a barely-understood 'minor make' - have turned out to be a prolific maker of toys, novelties and plaything's including flying models of aircraft and gliders, collectors cards, blow-moulds and solid plastic toy soldiers, with Colin Penn's recent discovery probably also involved and they (Trojan) may well have had the clout (or 'imagination') to hire-in a Spanish mould.

Some older collectors already thought this (the camouflaged) tent was Trojan, but the match being with Speedwell figures, that makes it a bit murkier. The people from whom I bought mine had been to the Trojan works back in the 1950's/60's, and large numbers of both Speedwell and Trojan figures were in that same 'big purchase'.

They also reported a vat of liquid in the stables, from which people were taking 'stuff', this is unlikely to be a polymer (even though the witness though it was - hot plastic, out of its containment vessel doesn't behave like a liquid, but more like a writhing and rapidly solidifying snake - or hot blancmange!) so they may also be responsible for some of the many unknown hollow-cast or solid lead figures in the back of Joplin's 'Big Book'? Or maybe they were casting components for the model aircraft?

The real point is that for the theory to hold until further evidence comes to light, one only has to accept that there don't seem to be Jecsan camouflaged versions in Spain, but there are a few in the UK, Trojan had a varied oeuvre and a camouflaged tent in their catalogue, there's no other obvious candidate for the Trojan tent at the moment and . . . err . . . that's it.

Speedwell and/or, of/for Trojan tent via Jecsan? I'm not saying they ARE, but I am saying they MIGHT be!

Hell - Jecsan may even have got the tent from the Brit's, they (Speedwell / Trojan) were active in the 1950's, the Jecsan set's which carried these are dated (by the Spanish) to the 1960's? But that's a mischievous-thought rather than a serious part of the theory!

 

19th May 2022 - Now (2022) to be found in the Trojan Special publication as Trojan! I still prefer Speedwell, but there was cross-fertilisation!

Boy Scout's on manoeuvres

Four very similar mould release-pin marks are to be seen here on a modern Hong Kong/China tent, again: to help 'pop' the moulding off the deep male half of the tool. Anyone know whose sets it was found in?