P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! Modern Combat Types

Toy and Model soldiers; where it all started! Onwards and upwards as they say, with the next batch of donated figures from Chris Smith's last parcel, and we're into khaki military, but as I've added some sailors it's really 20th/21st Century!

 

Two Toy Story chaps flank the last Blue Box WWII figure I needed to complete an at-least-one-of-each sample of them, and it wasn't the usual 'I don't need this so you can have it' donation from his purchase sorting, it was a 'I have one you can have' from Chris's collection, so double thanks for this chap. I have quite a few, painted and unpainted, but they are all missing their mine-detector, which is too easy to pull-off, or be short-shot in the moulding-tool.

 

Not sure if I have the other two, but there were several sets over the years, and until I get them all together, I won't know!

I think these are Pilsen from Turkey, but the Solpa figures from Greece (next door) can also have the contouring on the base some of these have, and as Solpa also sourced capsule-toy robots and Hong Kong small-scale stuff, it may prove to be that Solpa were using Pilsen?

A mixture here, with a Galloob Micro-man, some HK chaps, a bubble-gum premium and what appears to be a homemade/home cast clone of a French plastic? The two HTI's (right) both have the base marks we looked at briefly a few years ago, but they are different marks, so when I get round to an HTI A-Z page, there will be a few of them to study!

These are second generation copies of New Ray, I think, I got quite excited about a couple of the poses a few years ago, following one of Chris's earlier parcels, but more have come in, overtime, and they are less exciting now, maybe, but there seem to be two tranches/sources, so there will be a full article one day!

Arguably common, but there are many, many variations of these mid-80's rack-toy clones of Airfix British paratroopers, with or without beret/helmet conversions (at the factory) and in dozens of sizes and many plastic colours, so always welcomed for the final sort-out!

Kit figures, two Aurora Russians on the left, and two early (1950's) 'box-scale' on the right, but the chap in the middle is new to me, a scale-up of the Nitto 1:76th German (which was a copy of the earliest Tamiya German set I think?), and in a 'German' blue-grey plastic? All five are glueable, brittle polystyrene.

Probably Kwong Shing  (Kamley-Kositoys-KS) figures, but these coloured ones are less common, and well worth adding to the stash for the final A-Z line-ups! Here, oxide red and grey, rather than the silver we've seen before, I think?

Still need set titles or a maker's marque for these Hong Kong sailors, originally thought to be Navy or Police, for a while, and in discussion with other collectors, the turning-up of the semaphore chap rather confirms the former at the expense of the latter, and probably from a 1980's big-box naval vessel or aircraft-carrier playset? they are around 18/20mm.

News, Views Etc . . . Kwong Shing et al.

I've added the Kwong Shing entry (Kamley-Kositoys-KS) to the Khaki Infantry page, to which we can now add Larami (LIC) as another importer of their output. The above comparison image is from Brian Berke in New York and shows two sub-piracies, or probable sub-piracies, one lot may well be KS's own? I've included all the similar copies under the same heading until more is known about any of them.

F is for Follow-up - Toy Truck-Mounted Rocket Launchers

So, managed to find both the rocket launchers mentioned in the previous article (making this a follow-up to a follow-up!), so without further ado - 'cos we don't want much of an ado about nothing! - let's have a closer look . . .

Both the vehicles I'd previously said I had 'somewhere', I knew where the paint-stripped one was, but Brian's shots were of two painted versions, so there was no point digging it out, the plastic one I knew I'd got, and recently, so it should have been findable, but a cursory look - the first time - failed to locate it, it (the Hong Kong copy - lower image) then appeared - as if by magic, a few days later! Hence digging-out the Crescent one (upper image) for a full follow-up!

The Hong Kong one is a copy, with simplifications like the 'torsion-bar' wheel attachments instead of the through-axles clipped in, as on the Crescent original, but there may have been some pantographing to get the basic moulding as one or two quirky details have been retained, albeit at about a 10% reduction in overall scale/size - I've cropped them to reflect their relative sizes.

More comparisons, the Hong Kong rocket is basically a Thunderbird (Army) or Bloodhound (RAF) missile, probably copied from Corgi, sans booster rockets, with colour-bleed from an unstable red polymer-colourant in the nose gravitating toward the 'rear' through the white plastic of the body it's plugged into.

The 'trap-door' of the Crescent cap-bomb 'missile', you can see how many caps could be stacked in the 're-entry capsule', and the substantial free-moving hammer would detonate them all against an equally substantial anvil-nose.

The trouble was you then got (in a Norwegian accent) a helllll-of-a-bang, which tended (in a cockney accent) to blow the bloody door off . . . which then got lost in the garden!

My rubber-band has perished in storage, but has retained its shape. It will need replacing with a dental-brace band - coincidently - the same item required by the little N-gauge vehicles in the Lone Star 'Treble-O Trains' rage!

Completely stripped of paint, there is a slight remnant of gloss red inside the elevation-lock wheel, suggesting this was the 'civilian version, and I'm quite sure someone was planning on repainting it as one of the two military versions, weather for home use or a fraudulent sale is anyone's guess! If I ever find the time I'll repaint it in an urban camouflage of blue-mauve-grey-purple, so there's no doubt as to its origins!

It actually looks quite sleek in its bare, weathered (or oxidised) Mazac/Zamak-alloy finish and is here posed at maximum elevation for lobbing onto enemy trenches a few yards away, or getting the best 're-entry angle' for a big-bang!

As with the other photographs above, where possible I've cropped to reflect the size difference as shooting them together proved awkward due to their length; taking the camera back to get the nearer machine in, tended to blur-out the one behind.

Not for completisms' sake, as there are plenty-more rocket launchers, but because it happened to present itself during the search, this is the smaller example from Kwong Shing-KS-Kamley-Kositoys, with the later design of truck and no card insert with printed 'flat' crew. It's the standard cab-unit with a twin-axle trailer utilising the body-mounting plug to create an articulated 'train'.

K is for Kwong Shing

When I published a plethora of articles on the same day during Rack Toy Month a couple of years ago, on the subject of Kamley/Kositoy/KS and how they all seemed to be one; I'm pleased to say I wasn't wrong! But, there was a piece of the jigsaw missing, and thanks to Bill B, I now have it, and it explains the KS . . .

. . . as the parent company was Kwong Shing. We looked at Kwong Wah yesterday and there are other Kwong-somethings out there! Obviously we have both Kositoy and Kwong Shing together on the one advert graphic here, while . . .

. . . here we tie Kamley and Kositoy into each other with an identical, but over-stickered, set and the KS is brought into the fold through early/mid 1960's sets; where it appears as a sort of brand-marking; and later sets from Kositoy and Kamley (or containing the same product), where it's used as the prefix to stock-codes.

Recognisable stuff from the previous posts along with other items, some generic, some marked up, and some stealing artwork from other1960/70's sets I have in the master-collection (and which probably have nothing to do with the now-four K's). In addition some of the artwork has been nicked from Tamiya!

I'm also pleased to see the 'arctic warfare' helicopter header-card (which was one area where I could have been tripped-up over the previous posts!) is here with alternate and 'known' Kamley/Kositoy stuff in it (Combat Troops - top right) where mine has small-scale Airfix 8th Army (2nd type) piracies.

By this (1986) publicity photo' the Britains khaki infantry clones have clearly been phased out, although a few of the ostensibly '70's sets were probably hanging around to be found in the odd corner shop, we still had lots of independents back then.

The Nazi Spitfire's fun, they did have a few I believe and some (one?) airworthy Flying Fortresses?

A fine spread of civilian rack-toy tat was also on display, with - interestingly - some mini-truck body types never issued with the military trucks, well, two; the crane and the bin-lorry! The micro-cars have helped me ID a couple of mine and I think the tiny jeeps may have been seen in the recent Airfix post on the subject, but the resolution isn't clear enough.

And what looks to be the originator (or an earlier iteration) of the stretcher team we saw in the large set from Peter Evans a couple of months ago, this one is - even at poor resolution - a much cleaner sculpt. With Star's version, the Maymoon/M-Toy (Marty) take-off of the Britains Swoppet one and the brown one with clip-in bearers we've seen here in the past, there is a sub-collection there for someone with little space or a limited budget.

H is for Whirlybirds!

Well; I intended to try and do a small follow-up to the Kamley post, specifically on the twin-rotor jobs as I knew I had the second shot below, but as these things do sometimes, the post grew rather and while it's not all of them (I found another two putting some of these away!), it's a reasonable overview of placky-tacky rack-toy Helichopp'ters!

It's funny, because the Kamley post grew 'organically' in the same way, as bits were added, fell into place or got re-shot and yet - because I had the old shots from the 2012 helicopter photo-shoot we've been getting the odd post out of for some time - I never went to check the tub, which, if I had, would have revealed that I had all three versions of the Kamley all along!

It must have come from Brian Carrick, Garreth Morgan or Peter Evans, so thanks to the three of them for all the rack-toy stuff they've fed me in recent years. Therefore, in the suspected order, from front to back of the upper shot, the three main variations of Kamley-Kositoy-KS twin rotor which begins life looking more like a stripped-down Chinook and ends life looking more like a Sea Knight.

And the wheel-failure thing continues in the helicopter department with the absentee from the other day also only having one set!

Below them are the original reason for the thought behind this post, the modern clones, although time marches-on and the sandy one is probably no (or not much) newer than late Kamley's, a machine it's definitely based-on. I can't now remember where it came from but I've had it since the late 1990's and it came with a 'Gulf War' (the legitimate one) themed rack-toy 'Army Man' header-carded bag o'shite.

The other three are far more Chinookey-likey, with the red and blue ones originating in play-sets (bagged, carded, toob'ed or bucket) with the fire-fighters and police we looked at back at the beginning of this year's RTM.

I think they accompany the Top Toy/pound-shop types we've looked at before, but can't be arsed to check and if you look carefully the military one is slightly different (possibly the donor for the red/blue clones) so there will be other sources such as MTC, Jaru, Hing Fat, Toy-wotsit or Hunson for one design or t'other (see Erwin; anyone can produce a wordy-list of current "so called joggers"!).

Again I could check but can't be arsed - I remember posting the army one though; as I commented at the time about the non-matching rotor blades (I left one off this time!), so Poundland (Funtastic) or 99p Stores (Top Toys?).

This is a variation of the shot we saw the other day and just gets it out of Picasa!

I think we had this as a mini-post either last RTM or one of the Christmas novelty posts? The wheel-failure problem continues unabated in my cheapie-helicopter park! Still - at least they are both there in the bag; it's the rotors that have gone AWOL and it seems to be a reasonable copy of the Kamley 'II', but with nipples where the missing rotors should be anchored!

The little die-cast (from my mum, who - at 80 - panders to my strange obsession with kiddies toys!) is the sort of thing you often find in the kinds of sets we looked at last Sunday and is a copy of a late Matchbox or Corgi toy from the 1980/90's, while the wheel-failure yellow one is confirmed/supported by an opposite colour-way, in a carded set clearly harking to the (then current) campaign in Vietnam or - at a stretch - Malaya/Borneo/Brunei (then recent).

Closest to a Model 61 Bell HSL, it remains a made-up model from the fevered imagination of a Hong Kong Chinese designer!

"Which one shall I take-out today?"

It was at this point the post was going to end, but having included the green background shot I thought I may as well clear them all from Picasa, so this was taken in 2012 and was (still is) the contents of the Odds & Sods tub. Easier to number them and wiz-round the arrangement from the top left clockwise:

Number-1 is a relatively modern take on the old 1960's precursor to Chinooks (Belvedere or Shawnee?); 2 were German bubble-gum capsules, I think they are missing a floor which clipped onto the wheels, it may have been card (?), I've certainly never seen one and sources differ on whether they are Manurba or Siku in origin, the clear-orange styrene one being probably earlier than the ethylene yellow one and; like the bubble-gum tank, probably made by several suppliers?

3 is Kinder, missing it's skids and I have a green one complete in storage with other Kinder's so a return to them is inevitable. I suspect 4 is from some carded set of divers, or spies or some TV related stuff (sentient simians?), from/via someone like Larami or Imperial? It's rotors have snapped like chalk with age.

5 is a common-enough HK take on the Soviet-era Kamov utility/spotter (I think! Tals all wrong - married to bits of a Wasp?), 6 was also a capsule toy, but I don't think it was Kinder, one of the lesser makers like Ziani maybe? 7 is the other aircraft (British - Wessex) from that carded set above and several like it, it also survived for years as an individually-bagged 'party favour' alongside the Kamov and a third similar design.

Which leaves 8, ID'd over on the Moonbase Central as a Captain Scarlet design from Gerry Anderson (I stated to write Adams there!) if I recall correctly. It belongs in the same 'Army Man' sets as number 1.

Seen here before, but by this point I was grabbing anything Hong Kong and helicopter-related I found to chuck in the post! A boxed generic from Tai Sang mirroring their brand Blue Box's own sets and containing a diminutive Wessex type along with late soft-plastic Blue Box GI's.

The lower shot was taken ages ago, since when the US airframe has gone to Blue Cross (with various other donations), the animal charity, I regularly take stuff in with a "Try it at 20p per item for a week and send the unsold to recycling after!", but I always keep at least one of each for the master collection, which is in the upper shot.

The 'British Cobra'* is the better of these dirt-cheap 1970/80's HK rack-tat-mobiles, with realistic skids and little flash, either side are lesser sub-copies while the two in front have a daft, plug-in tail-rotor. There is - however - a worse one; the Rado/Ri-Toys version didn't have skids so  much as a couple of scaffold-poles welded to its legs - they all go to charity, I may have set them low, but even I have standards! No; I lie; I have space-limitations!

*we wished - surrounded by 3rd Guards Shock-army and half the Volkarmee with a couple of liaison/orientation-tour Gazelles to our name! And it was no better down at Clay Allee, the Americans only had a few tired, old UH1's to call-on, one of which I rappelled out of, Yes! A day well-spent! But then BB - UK, French, Grenzschutz/Polizei or Yank - was . . . errm, considered . . . 'expendable'!

Tank Hunter-killers with a micro-machine of unknown origin; the smaller die-cast, like the fire service Sea Knight above is another common member of those sets we looked at on Sunday, it looks like the South African entry (Roorikat or something?) in the attack helicopter trials of the 1990's/2000's usually losing-out to the Apache.

The larger one is quite nice and I have a feeling I know where it came from, but it's lost (the note that is) in storage if I do, I think it's a copy of a larger model from someone like New Ray and is well finished in a solid polypropylene at a size which makes it useful for 25mm war gaming. [29th March 2024 - now known to be Redbox, from their 'Commando' playset]

The little one is a mystery, again looking like one of the losing entries in the 'new medium-lift/troop-carrying helicopter' trials around the turn of the century as Pumas and Jolly Green Giants were being scrapped (yet the Chinook flies on - solid fella!), it is in a soft PVC and could be from a board game, or a little set like those Silvercorn suitcases, some micro-toy like Takara's robot Votoms, or dare I suggest modern/current'ish gum-balls?

The closest thing I have to it in general feel and appearance is the painted Dalek donated to the blog by The Toad, years ago, which came from a Dr Who advent calendar, might someone have produced an 'Army Man' calendar, GI Joe, something like that?

This was going to be picture 3 or 4 as a sort of 'forthcoming attractions' finisher, but we seem to have looked at most of them now! Missing totally are the UH1A/B Huey Slicks which may be because they are in storage, or we've already had them and I've hidden the tub somewhere! Try the Helicopter tag?

The two right-hand tubs have new stuff for future posts - giving weight to my Ri-Toys lie; the top right tub is stuffed with smaller choppers, several of which are Rado (some from Moonbase!) while the attack-helicopter tub below it has several additions since the previous shot was taken.

The little scouts, Jet Rangers and OH's haven't been covered at all and I have them in plastic and die-cast, while a bag of painted machines awaiting stripping are the single-bagged ones mentioned earlier (above). The green one lying on top is one of several larger Jet Ranger types that have come-in in the last few years with current toob/tub toys and they can wait a while.

 

Kositoys & Kamley are now known to be brand/brand-mark/s of Kwong Shing - added to tags.

S is for Sahara . . . no . . . Stephanie . . . no . . . Serendipity!

I knew it was a girl's name! Turned out I had the Kositoy version all along! In fact I had another four trucks but all the same cab we looked at the other day . . .hey-ho!

Also turns out I had positioned it near-right in the mock-up, but it was smaller and higher with a new KH code underneath! These both have the early wheels as you would expect, but the card is a copy of the earlier (?) non- Kositoy, KS artwork, with heavier lines and a yellow background.

Kositoys/KS now known to be brand/brand-mark/s of Kwong Shing - added to tags.