Minimodels is also for Almark!

I got a bit shirty a while ago and chucked this first-image up elsewhere, with a 'Sigh', after I had posted one lot (Minimodels) and someone (who clearly couldn't see his nose in front of his face) started lecturing me on how they were the other lot (Almark). Then, even as he'd been corrected, a couple of others' made the same mistake on that and another post, or thread, or whatever you have on Faceplant!

 

Now, don't get me wrong, people already know I'm prickly, or if they haven't learned that, they may have a surprise coming at some point in the future, especially if they cross me, but I don't get this almost teenage attitude among new collectors to open their mouths before they've even read what's in front of them; we're taking grown men in their forties here . . . late forties and fifties mind, not kids. 

 

It's great that there are a lot of new people in the hobby, that's obvious, and it proves the naysayers wrong, with their regular moan of 'Our hobby's dying' . . . Incidentally, everyone keeps saying the Metal hobby is dying, but actually even tatty hollow-cast seems to retain high values on evilBay?

 

And when watching this phenomena I am reminded that it is some miracle my father didn't murder me when I was a teenager - although he almost did the day I broke the 'unbreakable' fork; descending on me from the tractor-cab like a Ring-Wraith! But forks aside, I did ask an inordinate number of stupid questions.

 

I would literally think of something a bit dimwitted, and before I'd given it a moment's thought, ask the obvious! Dad was very good, he'd fix me with his look for such occasions and say "Think about it?", I'd realise I'd asked another dumb question, give it a moment's thought and go "Oh yeah! It is" or whatever!

 

It is similar with some new collectors, they don't bother to learn from the websites or magazine, but rather assume from half-understood bits, or ask about stuff which has been done to death elsewhere as if no one's ever covered it!

 

I'm probably being unfair, but then that's me, and when you post Almark and someone tells you they are Minimodels, or when you post Minimodels and someone else tells you they are Almark I think you're entitled to get a bit excised! Equally, I was polite there, but this is here!

And also frustrating is that it IS already on the blog, we've covered both makes over the years and the difference between them, I seem to recall with help from others on the German sets, but we're going to go over it all again, now, with the Japanese! But all the salient points in this post are already on the blog!

 

Five poses here, all Minimodels, we know they are Minimodels because the first image says so! No . . . because they are painted (a tad garishly) and pre-assembled with helmets in a different colour (and type) of plastic.

 

Minimodels was a toy plant in Havent, hampshire, a satellite of the Portsmouth & Southhampton conurbation, they were part of the Triang-Mettoy [Lines] group, and were set up mainly to produce Scalextric, the slot-racing system, after a move from London.

I shot the kneeling guy again, so there's only six more poses here. The figures were designed by Charles Stadden, or Chas' C Stadden, who did a lot of work for the Havent factory, producing original figures for Waddington's, Dinky (a Corgi-Mettoy rival bought from Meccano upon their demise*) and the most famous generation of Subbuteo footballers, among others. The officer is damaged and bayonets go missing too easily!

 

*An irony there is that Corgi continued to source their die-cast range's accessory figures in Hong Kong!

The Japanese on the Minimodels flyer; they were supposed to get a machine-gun team (like the Germans), but to be honest, I'm not sure it ever happened, I've never seen one, and it wasn't on the flyer, as the other 'support equipments' were - the US got a pack-mule for a Mortar vignette, seen here passim.

Minimodels got twelve poses from ten sculpts, by varying the arms on the bent-leg prone chap (crawling or firing both on the right here) and the spread-leg standing pose (advancing/thrusting or standing firing). The crawling pose is very good, with the hand correctly holding the forward sling-swivel, to keep the muzzle out of the dirt.

At some point, Almark Publishing contracted the figures as unpainted kits, getting Stadden to design some additional figures/accessories in metal, seen here before too. Boxed on the runner, with a packet of bases and simple artwork doubling as a painting guide, you get the contents of four tools.

 

Almark's eventual A-Z entry will make for interesting reading as they were attempting world domination at that point, it seemed, with ranges of books, pamphlets, periodicals, AFV modelling guides, a wide range of waterslide transfers for Aircraft and Armour kits, sticky-vinyl and licky-paper flags and a short tie-in with Bellona vac-forms, if memory serves.*

 

Add these plastic figure sets and the metal kits, and for a short while it looked like they were going places, but it didn't last long, and after 12 or 14 issues of their own modelling magazine (up against Military Modelling, Battle and Airfix Magazine) they faded away.

*Memory may not be serving here; the Bellona thing is a Micro-mould/Armtech tie-in I think, but I'm not in a position to go and check right now!

The instruction sheet, while mentioning that they are made in England, and designed by a 'master sculptor' doesn't actually claim them as Almark, or credit Lines/Minimodels. At the same time there were hyping the 1:76 set to the nines in the modelling press (with the inference they were 'Almark's'), but most of them had previously appeared in the Tri-Ang 'Battle Game', although a set of support weapons was added to the oeuvre - in plastic. Again, all previously on the Blog.

What you get in the pack; the seated figure will go with the MG, so I must have just not encountered one? And while there is a limited scope for 'multipose' beyonmd the two pairs Minimodels had already arrived at, they go very well with the eponymous Airfix set, and I dare say you could throw some Tamiya or Esci-Italeri parts in for good measure!

 

The big difference, beyond the lack of paint, is that the headdresses, are here run in the same colour polystyrene 'kit plastic' as the figures' runners, rather than the softer polyethylene in a contrasting colour of the Minimodels issues - which were by way of counter-top pick-boxes.

Matching-up between the two, this is a new sample I was quite pleased to acquire, until I remembered (well, discovered on the Blog, looking for something else) I'd Blogged them quite early (2011) having found them in the 'big purchase'. That sample wasn't complete either, but between the two, I have now got everything except the machine-gun . . . help me out here, have you seen one?

To get them out of Picasa! The same recent (last summer?) purchase also contained a couple of Americans (of which I am very short, except for the accessories; where I have both vignettes) and a handful of Germans (of which I think I may have a few somewhere, along with the machine-gun on its little wire legs), all Minimodels, not Almark!

It's a minor oddity - worth mentioning - that the 54mm range never got British troops, while the 1:76th scale/20mm set never got the US or Japanese, but did get some metal Germans, again sculpted by Stadden. Again, all on the Blog already.

" An' 'Eres ouwer Graham with a quickh remindah!"

DLR is for Dockla . . . No; that would be the silliest attempt at a humorous title ever!

Let's say: Deluxe Reading is for Topper Toys!

These were in my collection for years as Thomas, but that was back when I took the advise spoon-fed by the elders! They are actually Deluxe Reading (latter: Topper) and we know from recent work by the PW-guys(issue 159) that they had a facility over here, control of which was handed to Lines in a licensing agreement.

We've looked at the larger G.I. figures acouple of times now, but these are the figures you're probably more familiar with; quite unloved, they turn-up in mixed lots, junk lots and 50p/rummage trays all the time . . .

. . . which is good point to thank all those who save junk-stuff for me as they will all have contributed to this post over the last 25 years - Jim, John Begg, Peter Evans, Gareth Morgan, Chris Smith and Trevor Rudkin for certain and probably also Graham Apperley, Mr Carrick, Paul Morehead and Jan Yarzembowski.

Above we have three types of plastic, the bottom row being probably the earlier (and possibly 'US only' imports - FeebleBay has a lot to answer-for!) production in a chalky/cream-white plastic, the main sample in a greyish-white polymer and the two down the bottm-right of the shot who are a semi-translucent 'wishy-washy' white.

All are softish 'beach-toy' polyethylene and I am missing one human pose - another bloke with a radio-telephone; and a little sitting dog, who may be with the other dogs; both of which give me reason to run these again one day!

And a monkey, there's a little space-monkey missing, cheers TJF!

I also have examples in various shades of orange, one or two almost marbled, and I think the palette of colours has more to do with unstable pigment than actual production batches!

Politoys in Italy issued some Deluxe Reading stuff, they may have been responsible for the orange ones?

In addition I have a painted one, but he's so tatty it's hard to tell if it was factory or home-paint, and I suspect the latter as the black strap just doesn't quite have the practiced badness of a factory/out-painter, but rather the studied, tongue stuck-out badness of a home painter with little practice?

It gives us a line-up of - 50mm possibly painted; orange and white; the three whites; the three whites again in 30mm (the wishy-washy one is not quite so wishy-washy!) and a base variation of the 30mm with a slot for locating on studs attached to the toy-models they came with.

Note also the double crescent-shaped 'dents' or cut-outs in the edge of the bases and the twin, mould-release pin-marks - removed from the slotted-base guy, who's slot - incidentally - is the same (shape and size) as that found on the previously seen G.I. figures.

The 30mm figures only have five poses (there's a pointing chap missing from this lie-up) and represent US Naval personnel (or US Coastguard), rather than the Air-force/Rocketry/Space troops of the 50mm set. It's ironic, but the 30mm rifleman is more likely to be found with his muzzle intact than is the 50mm chap!

Partial Set Listing

50mm Airforce

- Rocket Base USA ("The Most Amazing Toy Ever Made")

- Operation X500 (the 2nd most amazing toy ever made?)

30mm Sailors

- B-400 Battlewagon (battleship, 1963)

3026 - Task Force 109 (destroyer and PT-boat)

Some of the above figures may have been issued in Italy by Politoys with different titles.

A is for Archive - Minimodels 'Scale figures'

It's funny, they thought to correct me on two 80-odd years old Spanish rubber figures last Christmas, yet seem to know nothing about anything, especially space figures! That was priceless the other day, they couldn't have got it more wrong between them if they'd tried, but then - by making it up as they go along - they are trying to get it wrong, comedy cretins and too funny, just too funny, he's got a little black box with his brain in it!!!

LP are not especially 'rare' and have been much covered here and elsewhere.

You don't know Co-Ma's Selenites yet?

They are not Thomas or Poplar; Thomas spacemen with bases are piracies.

Poplar were a Thomas offshoot.

Solpa are Greek not French - But then Schilling are American not German!

Amusing, yet pathetic - I mean it's painful to watch as you hear the gears clunking. If you're going to sit in my dust copying my recent output, at least try to get it right! Then the next day the idiot lectures the knowledgeable Frenchie and we get 'everybodyelsesstuff' Because Stadsstuff hasn't got the rightstuff and it takes ten of them and FacePlant.TwitSpacestuff to get it right!

Anyway, thought I'd put this up here as the Cock-whacking Monkey Lizard got a bit confused about these in his attempts to 'elucidate the Vichy' a year or so ago, despite it mostly being here at Small Scale World for some years!

If they are painted -

They are from Minimodels, of Havent in Hampshire (posh name for-/posh end of- Greater Portsmouth!), another of the many subsidiary works of Lines Bro's Tri-Ang/Metoy/Playcraft. Paint is minimal with gloss weapons and matt flesh and uniform/equipment-highlights. We have looked at some of the better pieces before here and they were sold from counter-display pick-boxes

 If they are unpainted -

They are Almark who offered them as boxed sets, on the runners as multi-pose type construction kits for home assembly, a few years after the Minimodels issues, in part to tie-in with their WWII publications. Almark didn't offer all the 'extras', but went on to commission some further sculpts from the original artist Charles C Stadden, which were issued as metal kits, we have looked at some of them too!

Minimodels were founded in 1947 by Bertram Francis (a former toolmaker) in London.

Minimodels moved to a purpose built factory in Havent between 1954 and 1956.

Minimodels were sold (by choice) to Lines in 1958.

Minimodels were the manufacturer of Scale Figures.

Minimodels were the marketer of Scale Figures.

Minimodels were a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lines and/or a administered as a branch of Triang-Mettoy-Playcraft.

Scale Figures was a sub-brand/brand-mark of Minimodels and sister-brand to Scalextric.

Minimodels were the contract-manufacturer for Almark.

Almark were the 'Jobber'.

Almark Model Products was a sub-brand/brand-mark of Almark and sister-brand to Almarks Transfers.

There is no, and never has been an Alamark Minimodels.

They are all dead! . . . Except Pedigree - strangely; they seem to be abeyance, possibly by/for the Hornby Group, the Pedigree name being held by a shell-office in Margate?

News Views etc . . . SAS - Tri-Ang Signature Collection

Just a quick one to spread the word about a forthcoming auction at SAS (Special Auction Services), off down in Newbury, Berkshire.

A two day sale on Tuesday 20th and Wednesday 21st of March is mostly dedicated to the sale of what can only be called a 'signature' or 'reference' collection. I've seen the catalogue and it's quite amazing, although not much for toy figure collectors per se; there are some items of interest.

The collection is of 'vintage' Tri-Ang, so not much of your 1970's plastic trains and things, this is stuff going way back and includes many examples of early 'playroom' and garden toys, ride-on, pull or push toys and the like.

There is also the most extensive range of dolls houses I've ever seen in one auction and they are all Tri-Ang.

The most interesting thing about them is that - dinky-little thatched-cottages apart - the tin-plate and wood suburban town-houses they were well known for seem to reflect the changes in architectural fashion from the first inter-war Deco styling, through the faux Arts-&-Craft, to the post war expansions and the simpler designs of the 1960's, houses which some of my mates' sisters had.

Also notable is the numbers of colours they used over the years, I was left (by the houses of my youth and most of those I've seen since) thinking they were usually cream with green woodwork, but blue, dark brown and black abound for detailing, while brickworks are also white, grey or yellow - among the soberer shades. If you know someone who collects dolls' houses, this is one of those 'once a decade' sales they really should try and attend.

Where some followers of this Blog may be more interested is in the tin-plate and vehicle section of the sale, some having animals as cargo, several toys have the wheeled animals we looked at here a while ago and indeed; there is at least one of the Noah's Arks in the same with a full complement of animals.

There are also wide ranges of the later, smaller Minic's, and even some lovely sets of the late plastic military ones, a few of which I covered here back at the beginning of the Blog eight or nine years ago, in fact - we looked at the log-wagon and crawler-tractor not that long ago.

It's not a sale for figure collectors, but it's a sale any other old toy collectors should be more than interested in, and everyone should be trying to get hold of a  catalogue.

Some of the other dates for forthcoming sales at SAS in the first half of 2018 include a figure-heavy sale the following week, two train auctions and a single-owner die-cast collection along with another vintage sale in June.

S is for Surgical Solids . . . Euwe!

or...W is for Ward 10

When we looked at the tin-plate ambulance the other day I mentioned that it would fit well with the Hospital, forgetting that I had this languishing in 'edit' from the bulk upload in January (there's still 23 posts back there/then!), and following a spike in traffic the other day realised that the other two are vaguely get-at'able (see last image) so let's have a shuftie . . .

This was described as the 'surgical set', and came from PW's show in 2012, I've seen the hospital (Emergency Ward 10) a few times on feebleBay, in various states, and I suppose the instructions divide the contents into 'groups' as the accessories are different colours, but it may just be how the seller sold them to me?

As befitting a surgery, everything is sanitised in white; with a surgeon and several nursing staff, a patient and various pieces of equipment. I don't think it's complete, as there should- presumably - be stands or trolleys of some kind for the gas/air tanks, and I've previously seen a drip-line and bottle hanging-off the stand, that is present.

The operating table/autopsy slab is fully adjustable in three planes; tipping back-to-front, revolving and capable of raising and lowering, here shown at full extent.

A close-up with the winding mechanism closed-down.

The figures: the surgeon is baseless and I think he's meant to lean over the patient but I can't seem to get him to stand up; he look's as if he's falling backwards out of the window!

None of these are named, but there was a small boxed set (also by Mettoy) of painted figures from Emergency Ward 10 with names on each plinth-like base for four characters, a stethoscope and a bed with patient; covered in Plastic Warrior a while ago now, it also turns-up on feeBay occasionally

The accessories: the light-fitting has a sucker to be attached to the tin-plate roof of the surgery, the bucket has a moving handle. Note the trolley-table is marked Hong Kong as are some other pieces, which helps explain the difference in sculpting between this set and the not shown characters who are visibly 'early British' in the platicity!

 

I'd bought two other 'sets' at the previous autumn's Birmingham show (2011) from the same seller, but they went straight into storage, so we'll have to look at them properly another time, but you can see the ward set comes with red accessories, the maternity set having pale blue pieces, but both also have white things and the wheelchair is pink, hence my suspicion that they aren't necessarily specific (or complete) sets.

Other accessories were in green and there were red nylon scraps for blankets, while more pink items exist - sinks/wash basins.

W is for Wehrmacht Series...&etc.

This is a follow-up article to some developments on the original listing post, and I thank Alex Keery for his input. I had originally listed the Century series with an impertinent note about someone's claim to them having metal parts (or being all plastic...or something...I edited it out a few weeks ago), Alex than stated he had them, and I said I was happy to be proved wrong, which he did with images (seen below here!).

I then dug deeper (on Google), but Alex was digging deeper into his stash of the old Modelworld magazines and it turned out that everyone was right, There were three series of Almark 54mm/1:32 scale figures, each series has three 'entries', one is all metal, one is all plastic and one is a mix of the two (the above link having been edited twice in the last few weeks is now correct), so we'll look at them all...

...starting with probably the first sets, the three Minimodels national troops from the Lines plant in Havent, issued as 'Almark Kits' but still on the runners, unpainted. the Japanese figures were set 2 and the US troops made set 3...

...which were enhanced with the 'Century Series' which are part plastic (figures) and part metal (weapons and personal equipment - including helmets)...

...and gave the infantry in the boxed sets their support weapons; the third card was holding an LMG (light machine-gun) team...

...to which further additions came in the form of the Wehrmacht Series of three stand-alone figures in all-metal. Like the 20mm range, these new figures are Charles Stadden designs, he having designed the originals for Lines/Minimodels.

Only the Germans benefited from these additional ranges, something that has bugged fans of other nations since the dawn of modelling, and from most manufacturers...it's all about the Germans!

Although...in the original Minimodels range, I've not [yet] found a German flag! The Japanese and Americans being the ones who liked to claim each other's bare-arsed volcanic atolls with flags! These were not - as far as I know - issued by Almark either, but you never know?

The original source was correct to suggest they were plastic with metal parts, I was correct in remembering all-metal ones and we'd all forgotten they also re-issued the plastic Minimodels figures. Hopefully that's put the subject to bed for a while, and thanks again to Alex Keery for his efforts and the four upper images, the flags were shot by me years ago, but I don't seem to have put them up here before!

F is for Follow-up Fellows from Spot On

As with the Vitacup the other day, figures come in in dribs and drabs, occasionally allowing for a new article so further to the Original Post these are mostly new poses or new colours of Spot-On figures for die-cast toy vehicles...

The two green ones and the school teacher are straight duplicates, and the guitarist and two top right have appeared before in alternative colours, the rest are additions. These were looked at in some detail in a recent issue (155 spring/summer number) issue of Plastic Warrior, and I'll come back to them in detail when I've tracked down the last few!

Q is for Quiz

Speaking of Merit, as I hope I just have below (I'm back to pre-loading these articles at home and whacking them in under the dongle-credit wire!), Bernard Taylor who you may remember provided some very useful images of the late Merit figure sets the other month has sent me a rather intriguing composite of various figures, which I offer to you as a bit of a quiz...

I won't tell you what they are for now (there are some clues in the tag-list!), but will post the answers as a comment for those who give up! The interesting thing about them is that despite being from several sources, they are almost all from the fair hand of Charles Stadden, the master sculptor who's work weaved its way through our childhood with toy and model soldiers and civil figures in metal and plastic, and our adolescence in the various figures he made for the sports trophy manufacturers and foundries.

Me? I got one wrong!...not telling!

H is for Havent

The Minimodels plant in Havent, near Portsmouth is responsible for lots of the figures that turn up in mixed lots of small scale and the hand of Stadden with his angular folds is everywhere in the sculpting. These are mostly more game playing pieces, but there is a Spot-On 'Tommy-spot' figure or two as well.

Some of these and some of the Wild West and - forthcoming - Spanish Gold figures were saved from the factory by either Brian Knight (artist on the Lettraset/Patterson Blick rub-down booklets) or David Pomeroy, all came into my possession before I met Brian, so I don't know who saved what, but thanks to both of them for having the foresight.

Triang's game Helmsman provides the little yacht with a plug-on base at the back, the divers are from the 'Underwater Battle from Thunderball' James Bond tie-in board game, with all air-tanks missing, the painted one is from an actual game, the other two are factory samples.

The 40mm Guardsman is from the Rolls Royce by Spot-On, one of six on the grey plinth-like bases the Tommy-spot figures had. The two cartoon characters obviously come from a board game aimed at younger players, I don't recognise the characters, not do I know from where in Lines/Mettoy/Corgi or Triang/Spot-on/Pedigreee empire the game will be found.

The other figure with the similar base I did find in a Corgi (or Spot-on?) catalogue and I had his name and everything, but it's lost in the depths of a shipping container!! Although he looks like a Diddy-man, he was in fact a mascot for whichever catalogue or product it was? His sloppy shoe-painting points to an outpainters guide/master rather than an issued piece [See comments for all three names].

The Sweeny was a popular TV series with a spin-off movie or two here in the UK, and these are from the Omnia game of the same name. Taken from the Tommy-spot range, but given sensible bases there are two each of the photographed figures in a full set.

Unpainted Subbuteo, possibly just undecorated samples, but might be from a board game, the player on a conventional base pointing to the latter, but there was a 'sub' warming up in one of the accessory sets I think?

It's almost certainly through Waddington's and their connection to Subbuteo and the factory at Tunbridge Wells that Stadden came to do all this sculpting for the Havent works. He was already known for his sports trophy figures as much as his military work.

Couple of scans of old film-camera shots I took years ago giving a different angle to the Triang/Almark figures I posted the other night.

Next I'll look at the Spaniards...

M is for Marketing

Continuing with the whole Triang/Lines thing down at Minimodels Havent, with Mr. Stadden in tow, we come to these chaps, four poses in approximately 25mm from the master sculptor, made to go a long, long way by the fellows in the marketing department.

All the variants in my collection, with the bog-standard shop-stock boxes. The Orange-brown ones were Culpitts, as we had them as kids, and I remember getting them for a birthday cake in little packs of two - foot or mounted.

On another occasion we hunted for them in a garden as 'Party Favours', although I don't think they were called that then...just prizes or presents? That lot would have been Minimodels from Webb's newsagent in the - then - tiny village of Hartley Wintney (home of Denzil Skinner, Hart Models and another guy who's name escapes me!)

They are such fine castings that getting them - the Indians particularly - intact is a bit of a miracle, and with plastic colour and paint versions it'll be a while before I stop hunting them down!

As well as shop-stock and a supply to Culpitts, they were issues in at least three board games, two by Triang (Warpath and Wild West Checkers) and one by Omnia (Geronimo) and these are various bits from some of them.

Top right sees the Wild West Checkers [Draughts] figures with the same type of spigot mounting as the Battle Game variants of the Almark British Infantry, allowing you to remove one to make 'king'.

Below that is the famous wagon 'square' used by trekking pioneers heading West, to protect themselves from herds of wandering wildeersloth, all that rubbish about wagon 'circles' being white-mans propaganda. Taken from the Warpath game which seems to bear some similarities (in game play) with Waddington's 'Battle of the Little Big Horn'.

Bottom left are figures from Omnia's Geronimo game, along with an unpainted sample of a Culpitts figure. Above them are some factory samples either colour tests for the Checkers game, or a set for another - 4th - game entirely?

They also seem to have appeared in two boxed sets, the contents of the other being unknown. James Opie is to thank for saving this one; 'Ambush at Yellow Rock', for posterity.

The first image above was given the full Scarfolk Council treatment, and while without permission, that has all been sorted and it's very funny!

The Omnia game pieces complete, scanned from old 35mm images I took for Plastic Warrior. This is a game with an unusual mechanism as you have to build a 'ladder' of collected cards, to get to the top of the box tray and secure Geronimo's treasure before the other three players.

News Views Etc...

Well, I said I'd be getting thematic and the two posts below (Household Cavalry and Almark) are from the HC box and the Triang/Minimodels/Omnia box, so more of the two subjects in the coming days as I've dragged them both back from the storage unit, I've also got the Zang box for Paul Morehead over at Plastic Warrior to look at so I'll be putting some quality composition on here in a day or five.

I also updated the Almark and Silverlit text-only imports I loaded on here the other night, and added a text only on Armtec as it ties in vaguely with Almark - immediately below.

I've updated all links to other blogs in and out, as Blogger seems to have lost half my links to other people back in the summer when they were 'improving' things. I've also dropped the AdSense, complete waste of time with traffic at the levels you get on a collectors site, and makes the page slow to load for anyone without Broadband, anyone on dial-up, anyone with a mobile-Internet dongle etc...The Internet - like 'Western' Civilization - seems to be coming to a slow halt!!!

As stated the other night, the Manufacturers A-Z blog (which never really got started) is no more and all the relevant entries are now here with their tags in the index, and a more general cross-reference list is starting to take shape at the bottom of the page, this will not just be cross references here, but all the cross references you might come across in the hobby, helping with research, google searches etc...it will take a while to get to a useful size though, so be patient please - I'll 'News, Views' when it gets major additions/updates.

If anyone can think of anything else I can do to improve the blog let me know, I'm 41% into my Image allowance, so you've got about 4 more years of my pontificating to look forwards too!!!

Cheers - H

WD is for War Department...

...the precursor to the modern Ministry of Defence (MoD), and the title of the range of WWII figures Almark produced in part from ex-Minimodels plastics moulds and by returning to the original sculptor to expand the range with Germans (small scale) or fill gaps (54mm range) in metal.

Two sets of British Infantry were issued and two packaging types appeared, always sold on the sprue there was an 'infantry' sprue and a 'support weapons' sprue. Much anticipated and covered after release by Military Modelling, they appeared [1970/71?] several years after the Triang Battle Game [1968'ish] that had first featured them.

It must however be assumed that the idea was always for someone to market them, as the Set WD-2 sprue was never utilised for/in the earlier Battle Game? Maybe the Battle Game was dreamt-up for Christmas while they ironed out teething problems with the mould for the second set?

Poses and contents - Set WD-1 to the top left; WD-2 - top right. Below them are the Triang playing-pieces with their locating studs/spigots, and right at the bottom; a couple without helmet paint which probably came from an outworker somewhere in the Havent area, being bought at a car-boot sale on the A3 out of Portsmouth.

The helmet paint code was dealt with on the Battle Game post, but I'll repeat it here, green is troops, brown is engineer, red were the NCO's and white the Officer.

The latter [1972/3?] German 'foe' were available as 5 poses each of regular infantry (early war uniforms) or paratroops, sculpted by the same Charles C Stadden who had designed the plastic figures. Initially sold on the same (now sticky) vacuum-sealed cards as the plastic figures, they soon moved to the more common type of shop stock-box that Minifigs, Hinchliffe and others were using.

It has to be said; these knocked the socks off Airfix 1st version Germans and Combat Group, and probaly led directly to the Airfix 2nd versions being released a year or three later [1974-77'ish].

A is for Almark

Almark Model Products Ltd.

They were also primary importers to the UK of the Armtec range of accessories from the USA. Charles Stadden was the sculptor, and cross-over exists with Triang/Lines, Waddington’s and others through the apparent use of the Minimodels plant in Havant, Hampshire for the production of the ranges, upon their demise; Micro-Mold took over marketing of the Armtec range.

WD Series’ 20mm figures Carded sets 

WD-1 - British Infantry 1939-45 (as Tri-ang battle game figures, without spigots on bases) 

WD-2 - British Infantry Weapons 1939-45 (Some the same as Tri-ang battle game figures, without spigots on bases) 

 

Bagged sets

WD-1 - British Infantry 1939-45 (as Tri-ang battle game figures, without spigots on base 

WD-2 - British Infantry Weapons 1939-45 (Some the same as Tri-ang battle game figures, without spigots on bases) 

 

White-metal Range 20mm (5 figures, carded;later 20-odd figures boxed)
WD-201 - Panzer Grenadiers kneeling firing
WD-202 - Panzer Grenadiers throwing grenades
WD-203 - Panzer Grenadiers MG34 lying firing
WD-204 - Panzer Grenadiers advancing
WD-205 - Panzer Grenadiers standing with machine pistol
WD-201/205 - Panzer Grenadiers (One each of the above)
WD-206 - Panzer Paratroopers NCO with MP38
WD-207 - Panzer Paratroopers MG34 gunner
WD-208 - Panzer Paratroopers kneeling firing
WD-209 - Panzer Paratroopers advancing
WD-210 - Panzer Paratroopers MP38 firing from hip
WD-206/210 - Panzer Paratroopers (One each of the above)

 
Almark Kits (54mm plastic figures, ex-Mini-Models sets, unpainted on runner)
No 1. - German Panzer Grenadiers 1939-1945
No. 2. - japanese Infantry 1939-1945
No. 3. - US Army Infantry 1943-1945

 
Century Series 54mm figures (plastic figures, metal accessories)
Kit № 101 - German Army 1939-45 5cm l.gr.W36 light mortar and crew
Kit № 102 - German Army 1939-45 Pz.B39 7.62mm anti-tank rifle and crew
Kit № 103 - German Army 1939-45 MG34 light machine-gun and crew

 
Wehrmacht Series 54mm figures (metal figure with metal accessories)
No. W1 - Waffen-SS Panzer Grenadier
No. W2 - Army Officer
No. W3 - Waffen-SS Drum-Major

 
Almark tank/AFV transfer sheets (water-slide type)
T.1 - Africa Corps Emblems
T.2 - Africa Corps Emblems
T.1/2. - Africa Corps Emblems
T.3. - German Army Crosses 1939-45
T.4. Alamein sheet
T.5.
T.6.
T.7.
T.8. - US national markings and numbers
T.9. - German Panzer divisions and vehicle classification signs
T.10. - Panzer division markings and warning signs
T.11. - Panzer division emblems
T.13. - Airborne and infantry divisions
T.14. - Russian Tank markings
T.15. - Arms of service signs
T.16. - Arms of service signs
T.S.1 – Wittman’s Tiger, Russian and Normandy front

 
Flags
F.1 - Confederate flags for 20mm figures (Self-adhesive vinyl)
F.2 - American Civil War Union flags for 20mm figures (self-adhesive coated paper)

S is for Spot-On

It's been a while since these starred in 1" Warrior, and then they were in black & white, so I thought I'd chuck some up here in colour. Not much to say, they were issued to accompany the 1:42 scale die-cast cars from Triang under the Spot-On label. Sold typically as three figures (and the odd accessory) to a card, with a larger boxed (?) roadwork's set.

They are classic early British, sometimes chalky, basic factory paint-jobbed, 30mm softish polyethylene (ICI Alcathene?) figures, mostly of civilian subjects, and dressed to be contemporary - 1958/1969'ish. They were replaced by hard styrene-plastic Tommy Spot figures in the 70's which I'll look at another day when I cover Minimodels and the Havent factory's output.

Top; Soldiers and a Sailor, there was an Officer in Sam Brown to keep the two squadies in order as they perused the shelves of Woolworth's in their lunchtime, but sailor-boy seems to have been a one-off.

Bottom-left; Two paint versions of the 'Postie', as the blue is an less-common colour he may have come with the Sailor and the Traffic Policeman (below), but not necessarily.

Bottom-right; Three variations of 'Old man in jacket with soft hat and walking-stick' he was sometimes issued with two naughty boys to take for a walk/be annoyed by?! Sometimes there were two old men and one boy to the card.

Top; The professionals: University Professor, Priest and Doctor, all - only ever seen in black.

Bottom-left; The three naughty boys, one throwing a stone, one scarpering in a guilty fashion and the middle one is supposed to be sticking his tongue out! It was two of these that Granddad above had to keep amused in the absence of the parents!

Bottom-right; The two smaller children dancing to a street musicians ditty.

In common with all figure collecting, women are a bit thin on the ground, but in Spot-On's defense they had more than most as a percentage of the total, top we see three versions of...farmhand/milkmaid? With the nurse; below left and 'Girlfriend' and 'Woman with dog' to the right.

It should be noted that all these 'Titles' are my own invention, as far as I know they were never given titles or names with the exception of the road-menders (below) who appear as drawings on the back of a Spot-On catalogue with code numbers. Missing from the fairer sex are a lady shopping with handbag and a WPC, that I know of?

Top shows the building trades, left-to-right; 'Chippie', 'Brickie', site foreman's 'Boy' and the Decorator.

Below are three mixed figures; Bus conductor, 'Boyfriend' and Traffic Policeman.

Motor mechanics from two sets, there's a missing pose from the upper set, and these come in various colours but more commonly white.

The figures I collectively call the street traders...

Top; Fruit & Veg. Barrow-boy (actually a middle-aged man!), there should be some sort of leg arrangement or props, that fit into the dent under the apples, but as a small part it was always going to go missing! Anyone got an image or link to a complete one?

Bottom-left; The 'Street Band, and an advertising 'Sandwich-board' wearer, there should be an accordion player and beggar to go with the band, while the hording carrier probably goes with other figures, the paper seller and another?

Bottom-right; The Flower-seller, again missing little bits, which would seem to be 6 bunches of flowers/plant pots to plug into the holes in the display steps.

[I have a spare set of wheels for the barrow, if anyone has a spare prop]

Two sets of three Road Menders, with the codes for the larger 'Road Construction Set', missing is L221/2 a man hefting a moulded-on spade. The inset carded set (which has lost its spade and compressor-drill through the lose cover-film) shows how sometimes the sets are more than one colour, while my two samples were clearly both all-one-colour sets. With 8 poses and various accessories (plank, spade, drill, brazier) the contents of the three figure sets does vary.

The sitting guy is shown as reading a newspaper in the catalogue images; however I've never seen one and the others are different enough from the original artwork to suggest he is the numbered figure from the larger boxed set.

Also note that the packaging is almost the same as the Almark 20mm WWII sets, both plastic British and metal Germans. Indeed the Germans also came as tear-off cards, part of a larger hanger while the WD series just had the sticky vacuumed cover-film. I wouldn't say any of these were Stadden designs, but it's a further link between Almark and Lines

The other busy bodies...

Top-left; Baker's delivery boy, Coalman and Bin-man.

Top-right; Paper-seller from the street traders card.

Bottom-left; Laundry-man and Removals man.

Bottom-right; Short, fat Butcher who's clearly been spending some time divvying-up his produce with Batman & Robin (see Dalek article above!), Milk man with two paint treatments and a deliveryman who I like to think has a large box of chocolates, but as he won't ever take the lid off; I just live in hope!