F is for First Show of the Year - II

Continuing with the look at what came back from Sandown Park last Saturday evening, although it's always nice to meet-up with people you haven't seen since the Autumn or Christmas, the plunder's what it's all about!

These came from Gareth for a fiver, the cowboy didn't make it home in one piece, but that serves him right for stealing somebody else's country! Lone Star HO-compatible figures, a bit brittle, but they add to a small and very slowly-growing sample!

 

While this was my purchase from the terrace-stand 'car-booty' which occurs while we're waiting for the doors to open, card is a bit knackered, so I may take him off and sort it out one day, but for now my first carded Lincoln 'biggie', I have a bunch of bits in a tub somewhere, and a smaller bag - from Chris - I think, so when they all come together we'll have a proper look at them.

 

Brain Berke sent us images of this Hong Kong one, for the canoe season, and he also sent a sample to the Blog, which was shot while still in the pack as I knew I had the seperate images 'in the bag', so I will compare this with the other when they come together, and open one for another look, in a wee-while!

 

Another eclectic mix of 'singles', the early (non-geometric base) Starlux has been mucked-about with, a complete cover of green paint has all but flaked-off (I cleaned the arm after this photo-shoot with a toothpick, but the paint seems to have adhered permanently to the gaiters), while a sailor's scarf has been painted in, but looks original, which doesn't tie-in with the Para' beret, so I don't know, but it was cheap as chips!

The policeman is another die-cast or plastic vehicle accessory to join the hundreds waiting to be formally ID'd, a Blue Box cowboy (Britains Swoppet copy) and cake decoration footballer (late, polystyrene) complete the upper line-up.

The lower image seems to include a 'fire chief' for those 1-ton Humber truck fire-engines, the wheels are the same, anyway, and a soft-polyethylene copy of the Blue Box copy of a Matchbox sports car - it needs wheels, but cannibalising a tatty one will take care of that! With a penny-toy motorcyclist, from the inter-war period (think TE Lawrence), in a flat gold spray finish.

 

I think the Timpo Richard III (sold as 'King Arthur') was also a fiver, but what an addition to the Lone Star and French copies, otherwise plastic, line-up of those figures, he's a lead hollow-cast, as are the two khaki types, both from Mercator's rummage trays, Crescent on the left, not sure on the right.

 

While the rail-man is an Irish-American Comet-Gaeltacht O-gauge railway worker from Holgar Eriksson's hand, and the mechanic is the die-cast replacement for the erlier Zang-for-Timpo composition figure, probably also bought-in?

 

Finally, a few more penny-toy types, with two naval subjects above, landing party (or is he a Russo-Japanese war type?) and a rather nice Scot's piper, who I think Adrian said was either a minor-make or actually French, but I've forgotten what he said now, and it's not obvious in Joplin's big book?

What is obvious from the photographs is that he is a well-detailed and quite finely cast sculpt, particularly the drones and their connecting cord, which - level of detail/care - would tie-in with a couple of other French hollow-cast in the pile?

UFO is for UAP - Introduction

For reasons known only to them, the US Government have stopped calling UFO's 'UFO's' (for Unidentified Flying Objects), and started calling them UAP's (for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena), given the number of fuckwits who will struggle to spell the last two words of the definition (including me!), it's hardly a beneficial change, and people are already starting to use Aerial or Airborne for the middle letter, yet, due to the hegemony of US culture on the English-speaking press, it is a fact that everyone else is stepping into line behind the Pentagon, and UFO's are sliding into the history of 1950's hysteria, where some might argue they belong?!!

I picked this up a while ago, going cheap in Esdevium Games I think, as an end-of-line/discontinued item? It looks distorted, but that’s just the Reaper Miniatures packaging refracting the viewable image of the contents! It's quite a simple kit of six parts, I think there are three legs and a clear-yellow canopy, and is presumably a one-man UFO in 28mm, but could be a bigger machine in a smaller scale.

 

eBay I think? It's been in the folder for a while, seems to be a take-off, or partial take-off (styling) of the Marx Mystery Spaceship, we saw here, but this is a push-and-go friction toy with sparking action! Seems to be copied from the Zee Toys version: Space Saucer, or a re-boxing? And like Lincoln's clockwork, sparking Jeeps, both could be taken from a Japanese toy, or even produced under licence from someone like Yonezawa?

 

Seen before here, but there's not a lot you can do with a carded generic except photograph it against a different background from time to time! Fixed-key clockwork, I keep hoping to find a loose one going cheap, but may de-card this one day?

 

This was a recent modelling show piece, although when I say recent, I think maybe three or four years ago, and I can't remember if the picture was online, or eMailed, but I think it was a forthcoming show-dates thing, so the model may be older still? I thought it was fun though, lifting a cow for weird experiments and/or visceral mutilation!

 

Clearly other people think it's fun becuse there's quite a few around now, this one is credited to a Matt Smiriglio and issued by Running Press Mini Editions, usually to be found around the 10- or 12-quid mark, with free postage (or £20+ if you click on one of the US listings by accident!), and as well as lights, sounds and a magnetic cow-abductor, there is a booklet on the cow-abduction phenomena! It's Christmas soon, hint-hint!

 

While these band-wagon products are cow abduction table-lamps! The one on the left being £150-odd, and a generic? The right hand 'Area 51' piece can be found from between £50 and £180, and is claimed to be from a Wan Tai, in some ad's.

 

While the real reason for this post, is some forthcoming posts, on the three sets of UFO minis in the style of Polly Pocket or Mighty Max, which graced our cheapie stores and corner shops a few years ago, Three sets; Aliens, Robots and miscellaneous Sci-Fi 'stuff', each line had three toys, and most had more than one final branding/packaging type.

Here we see two carded cheap sets, two robot sets and one Alien set (green), and the three set-specific posts will be interspersed with the Jon Attwood donation-posts over the next few days.

NZNAM is for New Zealand National Army Museum Figures - Reds on the Bed!

So, more 'New to Hobby' figures, although - I'm sure - known already to other Antipodean collectors, hinted at earlier this week, here, and not my discovery; but sent to all of you reading Small Scale World by Glenn Sibbald, who then had to draw my attention to certain aspects of them - long after I'd taken the first set of shots for this post.

I'd clocked that they were a bit special, by dint of them not being mentioned in the original 1978 supporting paperwork, but I hadn't noticed the obvious differences, even when editing the images, apart from the runner being complete.

A quick look at the figures first; reds are a bugger to get right, photographically speaking, but a green background seems to help, as do neutral beiges! I angled them slightly to get the semi-flat nature of the sculpts across. And shot to match the order of the earlier issue - which is chronological.

Not only were they absent from the original competition paperwork and the collector's magazine review, turning up later on the secondary market, but they have had a cavity-shuffle with regards to the order in the injection-tool, and must have been sold in a different format as they don't carry a flyer and haven't had their runner's end trimmed-off to fit the original bag-sealer's setting.

As well as changing the order of the figures, the short channel-runners leading from the main frame-runner to the figures have been spaced more equidistant to each other and directed into the undersides of the bases, rather than the offset 'kissing the rims' (Ooh! Matron!) of the older tool's configuration.

Yet, the flattened terminal 'blob' where the 'real' sprue came in, is the same on both samples, so the outer components of the tool and the main frame-runner are unchanged.

One suspects they were actual National Army Museum stock and it seems the obvious conclusion, but why they chose red for the re-issues is anyone's guess as it's a bloody-odd choice? I suppose it's colourful - helping to attract kids in the age of action-figures and movie promotional toys (1980's or even 1990's? They've only turned-up on the secondary market this century), sparking a bit of pester-power at the gift-shop's checkout tills perhaps?

Now we come to my bit of 'spanner in the works'. Although they are clearly by different sculptors, it seems to me that the less skillful sculptor on the NZNAM figures had at the back of his mind (at least) the slightly more consummate sculpts of original 'early-Airfix' figures, the similarity of pillar-like statuesque, casual, upright poses, the small 'penny' bases - I don't think it's accidental, and it's definitely food for thought? Of course photographing all the reds together -rather [falsely?] reinforces the idea!

Further - I think I'm right in recalling Lincoln (who made the NZNAM figures) used to issue Airfix kits in that part of the world - there can't be that many tools of a Sunderland Flying Boat? If Lincoln had a relationship with Airfix, they might have produced the set we saw this/last Monday, borrowing the mould before or after Pierwood? More mind-food!

And if you don't like the idea of Lincoln being behind the earlier figures, we learnt from Les Collier's article in Plastic Warrior (Issue 162, pp.22/23), that the head/founder of Lincoln was a chap called Les Tolmer . . . of Toltoys . . . further sustenance for the grey-matter?

I shall leave these three paragraphs hanging here until more is dug-up and it all becomes clearer!

Finishing with another close-up, this is the dismounted Mounted Rifleman from the South African campaign.

Many, many thanks to Glenn Sibbald for all these figures (he sent the only pack with an original price label!), I can't thank him enough, and I hope you've all enjoyed these three posts, along with the early Airfix/Pierwood/whoever posts on Monday, the finalising of the board game pop-stars and  . . . .there's still an couple of Antipodean posts to come, with an NZ-angle!

And if you want some - he's still got a few on the runner, along with loose; sets and figures, contact me and I'll pass your eMail on (maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com).

NZNAM is for New Zealand National Army Museum Figures - On Guard . . .

. . . the magazine of the New Zealand Model Soldier Society Inc. Now sadly defunct it seems, I have tried to contact the named individuals through the NZ Military Historical Society, to no avail, however there may be hope, a call's going out to them in a forthcoming newsletter, courtesy of Jeff Atkinson at NZMHS? It's only to clear the use of the image, if anyone knows where they are?

Let's remind ourselves of the figures first, alongside the tan ones we looked at yesterday were sold these, in tropical OG's! The plastic is probably a dense polyethylene, but it's so dense it has the properties of a polypropylene.

Although in the late 1970's 'polyprop' wasn't being used in the toy industry like it is now, it was starting to creep-in through action figure components and Japanese space-toys, or larger infant-toys which needed a rigidity/robustness but without the sharpness or frangibility of polystyrene, so, with New Zealand positioned on the Pacific Rim and trading across it, either polymer could be the one used here.

Anyway I'm using both tags to cover my proverbial!

As you may have gathered in yesterdays post; from one of the prizes, these figures were made by Lincoln Industries Games (commonly; 'Lincoln International'), and having missed-out on (or passed-up the opportunity really) a boxed clip-together/readymade Thunderbird 2 by Lincoln a few years ago, I can say it's the same slippery-smooth plastic as that.

The set was covered in the NZMSS's magazine not long after the main launch of the promotion if yesterday's dates are any judge, and it's a fair appraisal from someone I'm guessing was more toward the BMSS's hollow-cast, flat or solid-lead collecting flock, than our polymer-loving branch of the hobby? 'Kit Review' text reads;

Dave Morris

"OPERATION HERITAGE"

     By now most of us would have seen the soldiers put out

to raise money for the Army Museum. The museum is to be

built at Waiouru; and in fact the foundation stone has al-

ready been laid.

     The retail outlet is the Woolworths chain of stores, &

Lincon Industries manufactured the models.

     They are sold conjointly with a competition, the entry

form being inside the plastic bag pack. The price of $2

a pack (6 soldiers) is not very good value for money. How-

ever nobody is filling his pockets as the proceeds are go-

ing to the museum.

THE MODELS

     There are six Soldiers in each pack, on one sprue ['runner' - ed.], each

depicting an era of military history.

1.     The Militia.

2.     Boer War.

3.     W.W.1

4.     W.W.2 (Desert)

5.     Post W.W. 2 Malaysia

6.     Today— Ceremonial. (SD's with Lemon Squeezer)

The soldiers come in two colours; Drab green and khaki

     As model solders the effort is very disappointing.

There are several errors which should not have happened.

1.     The height of soldiers are only 50mm.

2.     The soldier in Service Dress has breast pock-

        ets somewhere down around his lower ribcage.

3.     The bayonet on the WW2 soldier is depicted as

        a No 1.  Although not completely incorrect

        He should be better displayed with a No 4 bay-

        onet. Right alongside on the WW1 soldier is

        a No 1 bayonet.

 4.    The numbering on the accompanying leaflet of

        soldier identification has two numbers back to

        front; No 5 and 6. [On the artwork - ed.]

     However to look on the bright side, the soldiers have

A "now" vogue look of the original toy soldiers:     Thin,

lean, faceless and flat without dimension.     The packs on

their backs are merely a raised line.

     And flash; Surprisingly there was none.     There was also

no flaws in the manufacturing.

I take slight issue with the Malaysia reference as the SLR didn't enter service until after the Malayan Emergency was coming to an end (1960), and I think it's really Vietnam that's being referenced - if it's a campaign? Although the weapon could be an M16, or the reference could be for Borneo ('66). And - as we saw yesterday - the accompanying-flyer gave that particular figure a much wider spread than Malaysia, geographically, and 30-years to cover in one sculpt!

The fluidity with the weapons' ID (it's more SLR than M16) is mirrored in the bayonets, which are both modelled as mere sticks, but I know what he's getting at, one should be longer - if they WERE hollow-casts . . . it would matter - you can't do it with paint if it's not there! Neither has any connection with the musket at the bottom of the page which is just editorial decoration I think.

As with the Tan ones, Glenn kindly sent us both a loose set and a set still on the runner, you can see it's the same order and layout as the previously seen one, which you might think is obvious, but tomorrow we'll find it isn't!

Let's do the grizzled-old colonial settler with a very Victorian beard to death shall we (actually - it looks like a bee-beard!); on the left a close-up of the militiaman from the Maori wars, front and back and in all three colours; on the right a comparison with the garrison troop from Sanitarium's premium-regiment!

And a reminder Glenn can supply limited numbers of sets still on the runner and most figures in most colours loose - email me (maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com), for the passing of your details.