M is for Mini, mini, MINI !

I picked this up at the Sandown Park toy fair this weekend just gone, it's probably from one of the many sets of Matchbox 1-75 Series copies in little boxes from brands like Blue Bow (not 'Box') or the York ones we sawhere, except that this is not actually the Matchbox sculpt!

I vaguely recognise the reverse-K shape presented by the windscreen/cab arrangement (and the single rear axle) but can't place it at the moment; it's not Pyro (I just looked!). However - I bought it not to dig into its origins, but because it's such a tiny little thing! Marked 'No. 363' and 'Hong Kong'; that's my littlest finger; basically it's 'box-scale', maybe N-gauge compatible - too cool for amphibious assault school!

M is for Matchbox Battle Kings

Actually there are a few 1-75 Series in this post, but they are here because they need to be, or it makes sense (to me) to put them here!

The vague 25lbr/Air-portable howitzer called Field Gun. This was the first time the figures that would become Battle Kings appeared, on bases they would lose in the larger range, designed to fold-up and fit in the standard box, they can be removed and trimmed-down to two individual figures.

The Weasel - a fictional vehicle given that it is neither the US M29 Weasel or the Bundeswehr 'Weisel'. Named to fit in with the Badger (gold thing top right), someone I'm acquainted with has named everything looking like it in his 'definative' book 'weasel', when in fact most of them are Ferrets! Which this is - minus the turret - replacing the older model (bottom right), not that Ferret's didn't have turrets, they did, just not like this and not called Weasel.

The Badger also had a commander figure who can be considered part of the Battle King range, being roughly the same size and the same polypropylene material.

The figure range on my 'check-list' sheets. Not sure how it will reproduce on the PC until I publish, but it's the best I could do with the old camera and Picasa! Two sets of numbering and an odd combination of 5 GI's, 3 Germans and 5 beret'ed post-war/Modern NATO types, but then the AFV's were an equally incongruous assortment of WWII, Modern and fictional vehicles...and they were toys!

Also the camera flash has changed the look of the figure columns, with some of the darker ones going light and some of the lighter ones going dark, but hopefully you get the idea - there are visually lighter and darker issues in each of three colours; mid-green, azure blue-grey and sand. Then there is the less common orangey ones I have placed above, along with a very dark green damaged 1C-6C who may be a HK pirate of another toy range all together?

Some but not all were also paired-up with a connecting strip and all 'mint' ones whether single or paired should have the little 'spruelet' drums. In one of the early catalogues they show a set in sky blue, I have asked about them, nobody seems to have any and the only person who claimed to have some failed to produce them?

Two re-painted and venerable survivors of childhood here in the 'Israeli' SPG and Patton from one of my old armies! The others picked-up in adulthood as having figures of the same style as the individual ones (and the Badger above).

These AFV's came in two ranges, the first being hideous metallics (there's a metallic apple-green tank under that Patton's Humbrol 56 or whatever number; 53?) including a silver King Tiger!, the second issue were more realistic and they're the ones I've tried to pick-up, but as you can see it's still a bit bright! Also the running-gear left a lot to be desired but...they were toys!

A few loose ends, plug-in tank commander and MG along with the troops from the half-track. The three German poses above and compared to their subsequent 1:76 scale compatriots - below left.

The Battle Kings figures were made from either a high-density ethylene or a polypropylene (I favour the latter) which allowed for high-detail and fine parts (a property of PP), but which leaves them with slightly brittle extremities. The Germans suffering particularly from this flaw, with the barrels of the SMG and Officer's pistol and the stick grenade more often missing than not these days!

M is for Matchbox Military Bits and Pieces

Military bits and pieces here, not everything, just a round-up of a few things not covered above, and/or photographed in the big session last year.

Mostly 1-75 Series small 'box-scale' stuff, I don't know when the Stingray fish-thing was made (there's probably a date on it but it's back in storage) but it must be before Carlton had the franchise in the late 1980's? Metal to plastic wheels, metal to plastic hooks, the ambulance lorry is a repaint, the Stalwart is missing its cover, a late trailer and dump-truck...all a bit of a mess but this stuff is sub-scale and not on my main radar. Indeed about half the above are left-overs from my childhood that somehow refused to die through adolescence and house-moves! Oh, and a Jurassic Park dinosaur tow-truck!

These are Matchbox Collectables from 1995, not sure if the mouldings have appeared elsewhere (Altaya, 21st Century, Del Prado?), this would have been some Universal or Mattel marketing thing with Dinky copyrighted on the same boxes!

They are rather nice models, compare the Battle Kings Sherman with the MC one. Die-cast and plastic parts, good level of detail and the finish is realistic, something always absent from the Battle Kings! Like the same-generation Corgi stuff there's a ratio of 5 parts packaging to 1 part model!

It was a short-lived venture going to clearance with a year or two and I missed out on a couple of others by not acting quickly when Andy from Harfield's got a few in the late 1990's!

Colour variations of the standard 1:76 scale boxed figure sets, with 'European Theatre' grey-blue Afrika Korps (top left) and grey NATO Para's (top right), I think they ARE grey now but these were a few years old a few years ago!

And - below them - the mad bright blue German Infantry I bought while visiting friends in Berlin in 1994 which must have been an early run under the Revell ownership? By which I mean there was/is a very small Revell graphic on the box but it was a year or two before you could get re-issues of Matchbox figures in the UK under the Revell banner.

The dreadful PVC offerings of the 1990's, least said - soonest mended, but...those images aren't distorted, the figures are that shape!

M is for Matchbox Farm and Other Animals

Animals, another element to play to be included in an otherwise boring road vehicle, another small piece of plastic to burn-out the motor on you granny's old goblin horizontal vacuum!

Cattle trucks and horse-boxes (livestock transporters) were/are a constant source of horses and cows for the 'unknown' box.

Matchbox went with white for many years (top row) and we see all variations, the larger horses being from the Super King set, the smaller ones from the 1-75 Series.

The cow/bull ran for years with horns in white, then black ones appeared in the late 1970's-early 1980's, by the mid-1980's the 'health and safety' people had frowned at them and their horns disappeared, finally - toward the end; other colours started to appear.

The next row are a bit of a mystery, the three brown ones seem to be the M'Box mouldings, but they are marbled white/chocolate and the quality is poor, they could be copies, they could be pre-production test-shots, they could be a sub-contract for someone else? The black one seems to  be a straight 'lift' with reversed leg positions and a different tail.

The last row are late colour variations of  the smaller 'pony'.

The dogs. I love the dogs, better than the 'HO' dogs of either Preiser or the - much rarer - Marx set, they are well detailed, itsy-bitsy little beauties. The pointer appeared first with the Hunter and a station wagon, I've seen it stated as fact that he came with two dogs, but I've several of these sprues and there's only the one dog.

The gun-dog sculpt was reused for the Kennel Truck, with a new base and three pals; a Boxer, a Collie and a Beagle.

Farm play-sets and larger Super King models came with these - the smaller being around 50mm, the white 54mm figure having another dog sculpt, a Setter, which can often be found loose. The tractor-drawn tools are from a play-set or two.

The Jurassic Park franchise threw-up the die-cast figures and dinosaurs top right, while lions have been a feature from the 1970's.

M is for Matchbox Emergency Personnel

All the main die-cast toy vehicle manufacturers have emergency vehicles in their ranges, as kids like uncommon things, or noisy things or things their parent make a babyish-fuss about when they drive past...Military vehicles and construction vehicles being the other obvious candidates for this vicarious transfer of enthusiasm.

The beauty of Emergency vehicles is that play-value can be added by the expedient of a few cheap bits of plastic added to the boxed ensemble...

This is actually one of the last mouldings Matchbox gave us, being from their Super King range and around the 54mm size. He appears as both a stretcher-bearer and a construction worker. Starting life with painted hair, hands and face, after a while only the fizzog got a touch of brush, in the end even that proved a cost too far for the failing company.

As a construction worker he was allowed a wheel-barrow, a wheeled stilage (stillage?) or tipping-barrow and a rather odd-looking sack-barrow. The black and green one is a soft rubberised material, more likely to be silicon than PVC and might be an HK piracy, or late Universal or Mattel stock?

A similar pose here, early ones were white, later ones in the goldie-yellow. The clip-on blanket is innovative (although Britains had done it decades earlier!) and even on the older issue paint was minimal.

Other stretcher cases from various ambulances, one; 1-75 Series (top left, around 25mm), the rest; Super Kings, (around 40mm) note how the strapped-patient design is copied on two different issues.

The Fire Brigade were also well represented in Matchbox's ranges and here are a few variations on the firemen poses. Paint again starts with hands and faces in flesh and white helmets, with first hands then helmets being dropped as the mouldings lasted through the years.

I'm not happy that the sitting black plastic one is M'Box, he seems to be by a different sculptor, I've never found the other poses in black and so he may be a late addition to the range, or from another makers model, or a HK cheapo?

Colours for all these vary but tend toward the navy-blue section of the spectrum.

The police, mechanics and someone who looks like a logger, but as he also comes in 'Bundesgrenzschutz' green he may be a policeman as well? Finding the kneeling mechanic with both spanners intact is a bit of a trial, and with the US 'Cops', there is the pale azure-blue variant.

Most of the above a polypropylene, the small stretcher and the clip-blanket stretcher are however a styrene polymer.