A is for All-sorts of Argentine and Ante American Armed-forces

Both loyal readers and more casual visitors will be aware of the successes I've had tracking down various bits of South American toy soldiery and model figurey over the years, especially in the last few, with 20 of the 35 uses of the Argentina tag being in the last six years, and here's a few more Argentine or believed to be Argentinian pieces, and some other South American makers.

 

This chap was sold as an Argentine model of Santa Anna (Mexico - Alamo insurgency), but I wondered if he mightn't be one of the Argentinian revolutionary heroes, so googled them, they were all in blue jackets! So I returned to Santa Anna, only to find he's always in blue too! Simone de Bolivar? . . . Blue, or blue-black! So your guess is as good as mine, unless you're an Argentine collector and know who he was sold as?

Although he fits much better on the horse in the previous shots (an old Elastolin composition horse copy?), he was sold with this horse (vaguely Britains), marked Gulliver (which the figure isn't) of Brazil, which he really isn't comfortable on, so as well as not being sure who he is, I'm not sure if I've found his horse yet!

 

I guess all those South American revolutionary wars were modelled to some extent on the French Revolution, or the American War of Independence, to wit; throwing off the yoke of the old European masters, or a more-local tyrant, and, as such, the leaders would have looked to Washington or Napoleon for their sartorial guide, beyond the prevalent fashion of the day?

 

And, as we saw the other week, Napoleon liked he blue AND his green! So I'll go with Santa Anna, as the slight;y more popular figure, historically, across the whole continent, possibly for being the last South American to give Uncle Sam a bloody nose? I've seen other Gulliver figures on this horse, and they fit it properly.

Along with him and the second horse, there was another Gulliver piece, the African warrior at the front, a horse far to small for the General; a copy of the Britains Trojan horse, marked Industria Argentina and an unmarked copy of Charbens or Britains draft-horse, which is unmarked and could be Hong Kong output, but is I suspect from the same lot.

 

I think we've seen the more modern triangular lozenge mark in a previous Gulliver post somewhere, but here's the earlier one in a sort of 1970's Lettraset curlycue'esque font, it's not the best image, but . . . black plastic!

Ind. Argentina announces this rather battle-damaged Jeep as another Argentine piece, it's also marked 'Eplax', whom we have to assume to be the maker! A composite model, with a hard PVC or vulcanised rubber body, soft rubber tyres on steel axles, a polyethylene steering wheel and a sheet-alloy (probably pure aluminium) so soft it bends if you look at it wrong!

 

Hopefully a future find, even in a similar state, will give me the missing wheels/axle? Until then, this will sit in the collection as a 'better a damaged one than none' example! It seems very similar to a Birmania one I have in a set which I thought I'd shown here (should have been part of the Plastic Warrior show reports), but have shown elsewhere, only that one is lacking the seat-holes.

This is also similar to a tree in the Birmania set, a polystyrene plastic flat with detail in relief on one side and a blank reverse, painted as if the detail it there anyway, but in a more basic fashion than the obverse!

A bit of an oddity, this one, it's a sort of blow-moulded rubber bath or pet toy, sans squeak (not that there's a hole for one, or ever was one, I'm just trying to describe the feel of the thing, under the paint), and may be home painted, and not Argentinian at all, but it came with some of the other pieces on this page, so can sit here, until its origin is more empirically known! 54mm'ish assault-boat!

Another Oklahoma figure has jointed that growing sample, you may remember I missed-out on some at the Plastic Warrior show, back in May, but picked-up a mounted lancer. This guy is obviously based-upon the Britains Herald American Civil War trumpeter.

 

The closest match I could find on these near-60mm figures, was some Gulliver/Casablanca production from Brazil, but not exactly the same as my pair, and mine aren't marked. This and the next shot were my attempts at arty-farty photo's, with views of the Toy Soldier library in the background, both images 'seen elsewhere' a couple of years ago!

 

This is actually Mexican, from Ara (or ARA? Family Arakelian) and depicts a Mexican lifeguard trumpeter, in the uniform of the Mexican-American war, I can't find any modern images of them as ceremonial troops, so I don't think they survive as such, but I could be very wrong on that one?

 

This is a set of figures from Trovador, also of Argentina, the warriors were copied by someone else in an unpainted form I think, and I dare say a couple of shields are missing here. The figures seem pretty unique, but the elephant is lifted from the Britains' baby elephant.

 

Another seen elsewhere image, these may be Oklahoma too, as they seem to have targeted Herald for their mentor! However, another Argentinian company - Grafil - are known to have targeted Lone Star, while the Marx figure could be another South American company, but seems to crude for the Mexican Plastimarx who used original moulds, not forgetting there's a Timpo sculpt in there too!

S is for Seen Elswhere - Juguetes ALB

I wasn't sure if these were the Argentinian ALB figures or not, as the only other sample I know of, didn't have any sailors! However, I posted them elsewhere - or at least the dirty line-up, I've since cleaned them - and they were confirmed by another Walter; Walter Rodriguez!

Best described as baby-faced, they are clearly little caricatures, rather in the same vein as the terracotta figures from Spain, which we have seen here several times, and may make excellent adult supervisors for the bubble-gum babies, which we haven't seen here yet, but there’s a tub of them somewhere!

Those other samples;

https://soldaditossudamericanos.blogspot.com/search/label/%28C%29%20Juguetes%20ALB

And I think we're looking at, from left to right, merchant marine, two Argentine Navy, Summer Dress and a civilian pleasure-boat skipper? He's 55mm, the other three closer to 60-mil, and they are a rather sticky PVC.

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Wild West

A few bits I've posted elsewhere on the internet in the last eighteen-months or so, all on a Wild West theme, nothing to get too excited about, but getting them up here, so I can get them off the new Laptop, which I still hate!

 

 

These chaps, which were donated to the blog by Theo Van de Werden elicited no response here or elsewhere, but I found them looking for something else! They're Baravelli, who seem to have contracted quite a bit of unique stuff from the former British Crown Colony, so while they may have had other branded issues elsewhere in the world, Baravelli is good enough for me, and being 100% 'toy soldier' polyethylene I will hang on to them for the time being, thanks again to Theo!

This was funny - not my pun, which was predictable, but the aftermath; I posted this back in January, as a joke, which read "Jean Hoefler trading as 'Big', got . . . err . . . very big!", only for Deadleaf to post all six figures a few weeks later, then some other futwit sent them to a magazine (whose readers would mostly have seen Hairband's already!), now . . . I know my 'eemies' are desperate for any crumb that they can award points too, but really?

 

This stuff is German, both subsequent 'contributors' are Germans, it's not rare, and I would expect two middle-aged German collectors to have their local production to hand? Indeed, why hadn't they shown us their 'treasures' years ago? Why wait 'till I've posted one, for a laugh, a cheap-laugh at that, before stampeding to the public sphere with their take on it?

 

Aber ich habe auch einen, tatsächlich habe ich sechs! It was a joke . . . but it's deadly serious to these pathetic point-scorers, when they're not trying to hide their purchase-guilt from their 'fat, psychopathic wives' (thanks Pink), by doing the housework! There; I just clawed some of the points back! Pathetic, isn't it?

We've seen another Argentine copy of this Timpo Hopalong Cassidy copy, on the Blog (dirty-white on a brown horse?) already, but I managed to find another pair, second Hopalong and a copy of the Herald Indian with full war-bonnet, on the same Timpo horse piracy.

We saw these in full here, so it's just clearing the picture, Hong Kong/China solid copies of older HK copies of Timpo and HK 'swoppets'.

A is for Aaaaahahahaaa, aahh, haa, haaar!

Which may be the sighing-yell from The Good The Bad and The Ugly, I'm not sure if I got all those 'a's in the right place?!! Just a quick follow-up on the Argentine Tarzan post of the other day (two posts down the page), and to welcome the Blog's newest fan, Mr. Incognito? Those who know; know, hee-hee-hee!

 

Friend of the Blog Gisby pointed out a marked similarity between the Marx Indian with knife and the various Argentine iterations of Tarzan we looked at the other day, and I thought I had one here for a comparison shot, but I only had the MPC copy (far left here), so the one on the right is from Worthpoint, and while it may not be obvious, there is, in other shots, from other angles, a clear resemblance between them, the Argentinians having raised the arms, while MPC move a leg slightly.

 

I'd also forgotten how big the pink Argie is, next to the painted one which goes on the elephant, I would say the lead one is 54mm, the painted one was about 60/70mm (same as the WoW-style painted Marx one here from Worthpoint) while the pink one is nearer 90/100mm (so that Jaguar probably does go with him?), and the MPC clone is closer to 50mm - all by eye, mind, I didn't measure any of them!

This chap's come in recently, the Blue Box kneeling, we saw them (there's a standing one too) here at Small Scale World, years ago, but the paint on this one is marginally better than my best example, so will become the new No.1, when they are all reunited in the new house . . . which is closer now this one's on the market! He needs a careful clean with a cotton-bud!

Mr & Mrs Gorilla visit Tarzan for tea! Also a recent purchase, I have all the Dulcop figures in storage with some of the animals, so the Tarzan is a duplicate, but I needed both gorillas - Lord of the Jungle, King of the Apes!

D es para Dos - T es para Tarzans Argentinos!

Bit of a fun post this evening, and quite a few years in the gestation, as the first image (last shot below) was taken back in 2016, with the elephant migrating to the stash a year later, only for me to find the leery one on feebleBay a while back and for it to take so long to get here, there were barely any records of its ordering left in my account profile by the time it turned-up!

 

Here he is, a Tarzan from Argentina, riding Bagheera, whom he doesn't fit-on too well, but as we'll see, he's meant to go on an elephant, and I'm not sure this Bagheera even goes with this set, he's a slughtly better quality in both plastic (can't really go wrong with black!) and painting?

 

Close up's of the eponymous panther, it also shows how Tarzan's knife is joined to his waist for the moulding process. You can also get an idea of the difference in finish quality between the two, if you didn't in the first collage, but I'm looking for filler blurb here!

 

I suspect he actually belongs with the blow-moulded elephant here and/or the Tarzan that came riding it, the left-hand figure in the lower shot, who when I first saw him WAS still on the elephant! Sadly, they got separated, and when I was having a 'look-out for elephants'*, it came home with me, only for the Tarzan to go elsewhere!

However, I had managed to shoot the Ape Man? . . . the Man of the Apes, in a thematic shot with a couple of the Wundertüte figures normally ascribed to Jean, Manurba, Dom or Heinerle, but which I suspect, going on both their material and the paint, are from a still to be identified supplier - as far as I know, no empirical evidence of them being any of the former has ever been shown?

 

But, it (the image) lead to the fortuitous coincidence that I had a shot of the missing Tarzan who goes on the blow-moulded elephant, still in the archive, and he is not the same as the leery one in the upper pictures, indeed I think the heliotrope pink one is a sub-piracy, but the Panther may well belong to the set including this lower Tarzan & elephant, he's just as likely to be from a Disney knock-off set though!?

There's no sign of the missing weapon/equipment (another knife?) being attached to the [probably] earlier figure in the same way / same position, nor are the hands the same, but sculpting of the main folds on the loin-cloth are the same, so copying was involved one way or the other!

OTSN auction shot from the Pielin Brothers' collection, showing the - also Argentinian-made - lead figure, upon which both the above are clearly modelled, along with a snake who's probably a solid, in fact I suspect both might be, rather than hollow-casts?

 

* I often have a mental list of things to look out for at a show, as a default against not finding anything in particular, in the past it has been Romans, anything/everything Fontanini or it might be straw-bales, it's been water-wells, or, as in this case elephants!

T is for Two - Civilian Horse-drawn Transports . . . 1hp!

Looking at a couple of very different single-horse power toys today, one the equivalent of a natty-little Triumph Spitfire, the other a Morris Traveller with a misfiring plug! Both are soft polyethylene plastic with a metal axle.

We looked at EG Toys once, a long time ago, and I doubted, at the time, we'd ever return to them here, but this is they, here they are, and isn't it a peach! No mere copy of Britians or Timpo, Morestone or Barrat, but a from-the-floor-up, local-design I think, although the horse has been nicked from Marx!

 

The driver sat easier after I'd moved him to the right-hand side, thereby proving by real sciencey stuff, beyond all reasonable doubt (shut-up at the back there!), that Napoleon was wrong, and the British do, in fact, drive on the right (as in proper / correct), right (as in orientation) side of the road! It's only what the Romans gave us, and it's what ships do!

That Marx horse in full!

 

While I suspect that this unmarked little sports model is a French bazaar type rack-toy? It's a harness-racer, 'Trotter' (also sulky, spider, or chariot), or trotting cart (to make it a pacer you'd need to replace the horse - different leg poses required), and while it looks like Hong Kong tat, it's unmarked, so the French connection is more likely, anyone got a brand for it, Hugonnet-Féral? It could be a premium too, soap-powder boxes would have room! It's a little smaller than the EG, at about 45/50mm.

And apologies for the fact that everything's getting the same background at the moment, but it's a bare table in the new flat, with chair, and window behind, so until I cover it in crap, it's just too convenient!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 5. Historical & Ceremonial

Some of the best pieces from the show ended-up in this category, allowing for the fact that one Rocco lifeguard (Part 4) has escaped this post, along with the Trojan same and Airfix figures which were all in Part 2.

Arguably the nicest thing I got at the show, probably Japanese, but it could be French, and a celluloid-acetate, blow-mould construction, it needs a good clean, and it needs some renovation; the spear is in two parts and the long Arab jezzail musket is broken across the handgrip, while both are also bent in places - my father had two of these guns, a lovely tooled silver/steel one and a mahogany one with ivory detailing, they have, sadly, both disappeared!

 

But an absolutely exquisite piece, with much thought gone into is execution, and a nice paint-job under the dirt, and a beautiful animal; albeit with hollow legs! Cotton thread is used for the reins and camel-furniture and the musket's sling and, well, I bloody love it!

 

At some point I will carefully take it apart - where possible; musket and rider - clean it, straighten and mend the two weapons and put it all back together again . . . like one of the King's men!*

* Except I didn't swear allegiance at the TV, like some mawkishly sentimental, cap-doffing dullard of a sycophantic, fuckwitted serf, so I guess, legally, I don't have a King?

 

Pirate game playing-pieces as a sort of add-on module, I may lose the packaging at some point in the future, but not until I've scanned it on the table-top jobbie. They look like the figures from the game I found a few years ago in The Works, and while that was Musketeers, they'd all go well together, and may share a sculptor . . . on the continent?

 

As you can see, the same flowing, fine detail, overblown drapery almost, with this set having two ladies, although I'm pretty sure 'lady-pirate' is an oxymoron! The third one is not clear, due to his vast beard and mitre-hat, but I think he's a skeleton to boot, so some kind of Pirates of the Caribbean knock-off?
 

Another highlight of the show has to be these Timpo Cossacks, I had intended to try and find these on the day, and got them in the first hour or so, the seller also had the mounted in similar condition, but by then I'd already got the Britain's teepee under my belt, and felt that I'd had enough greed for one day!

 

But these are very clean, they're all basically mint bar the barrel's missing fuse, and two are in a cream white rather that snow white, which by be 'smokers home' or just a different paint, it's not clear?

My other Replicants purchase on the day was a bit of catch-up, the Naval Gun was issued a while ago, but I'm still missing a far bit of early stuff, so I'm trying to pick them all up slowly! The two pirates are original MPC, who can have the spare weapons from the reissue runner in blue plastic I got last year . . . the year before?

 

Also loving the pair on either end of this collage. Probably Argentinian, as is the one behind the British guardsman, the bag is full of bits from two renditions of Airfix's 'Connoisseur' range 54mm Hussar, which came in separate donation, they go in the 'bits zone'! I think the Guardsman is Cherilea, but might be Hilco, I can't check right now!?

 

More Guardsmen, including a novelty Erzgebirge-style tree-hanger, but as likely Chinese-made as German these days! The two 50mm's are Hong Kong piracies of Crescent, and I was totally unaware of them until Chris Smith pointed them out, by which time most had gone I think, but I grabbed the last two, and a post will be forthcoming, courtesy of Chris.

Others are a standard Hong Kong copy of Lone Star, Hilco (I think some call them Fusiliers) and a Sacul trumpeter. Two small scale, one from Christmas crackers, one from the 'Maid Marion' rack-toy set and a rubber swoppet with the wrong base!

Atlantic Gendarmerie band, remains of factory paint points to one of the early window-boxes, but they are tatty and I have the HO sets in various boxing's, so it was just a box-ticking exercise to fill a gap in the collection, and to compare with the others one day! One of each pose!

 

Kinder odds and sods! One-and-eight-ninths of Kinder Zulu's, a Kinder pirate in need of a paint-strip, bits of a Kinder samurai, legs off one from the other Samurai line and a spare ancient/medieval horse!

 

Real mixed lot as the rump of this section, I think I may have the Starlux Napoleon already, it's odd, I had the 1:72nd sculpt from the odd eastern 'character' set in various colours for years, and no other narcissistic corporals, but in the last few years lots have come in, and I have somewhere between eight and, maybe fifteen or more? I haven't been counting, and everything from 30mm PVC to 8-inch ceramics, through metal!

Character figure is from Linde I think, but it's unmarked, so may be another issuer! And I know I have all the variants of the little Hong Kong AWI gun, in both sizes, so I may try to remove the plating on this one's barrel and paint-it up. lead wargame figure and a spare head, join two early British (BMS?) FFL officers and a pair of LB cavemen to finish off.

Thanks to all for everything last month; Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little and Andreas Dittmann.

D is for Dani!

But is it Dani, M. R., or M.R. Dani, or 'Dani' by 'MR'? No matter, it's just a bit of fun tonight, and I'll put both in the tag list! A rather different thing tonight as well, being Argentinian cake decorations (not different) of Cinderella (not different), but non-Disney!

The bag has been a bit fogged over time with a million folds in the plastic and plenty of rubbing, so I gave it a plain background to get the few graphics clearly readable! I certainly couldn't tell from the on-line images what the set contained, just that it looked figural . . . and fun!

And it is! Not sure about the mouse, he's supposed to have been turned into coachmen or something, but this may be based on a South American cartoon, so maybe someone knows exactly what he's doing there? Thick flats, sculpted on both sides and painted rather crudely; Cinderella is no oil painting, and if you can't recognise her the next morning, you were probably dancing with somebody else!

So that's it, Dani/MR cake decorations of Cinderella, hard plastic, hand-painted flats with small icing spikes, bagged, from Argentina - box-ticked!

A is for 'Animal Wild'?

Branded to a Wabro of Argentina, I have no idea if the contents of this tub, purloined from a charity shop for no shillings and a few pence, are original; I suspect they are, with a generic label (I didn't shoot clearly!)* and different contents tub-to-tub, but it may be a curates egg, or the contents (complete) of another tub?

* Well, I was trying to get the 'wild' animals and the text in one shot!

The point being it was used and played-with, and shows wild animals  . . . and a goat! Not the dinosaurs it's actually filled with? While three-bar fencing was pretty uncommon 200-million years ago.

Animals; I'd call them medium-small, but judging the myriad throngs of cheapo-Chinasaurs that have come out of the East is not an easy science! Still no bloody Dimetrodon, unless they expect me to fall for the red thing with half a fin?!

Other sides/ends; it's just not a Dimetrodon is it? Some Spinosaur who's regressed to four legs, more like, the other Spinosaurs call him Fourlegs Fatlad! The white Pteradactyl looks quite good from the other side, and the rest are much of a muchness. Funny, if my favorite was a Triceratops, Stegosaur or kerthunkasaurus, I would be much happier, as they are nearly always present!

Accessories; we've seen those two-colour moulded palms before, not that long ago either, which may be a clue to something, but as there's already too big a question-mark over the set/whole lot, any clue is lost. The fencing also doesn't sit right, but could be a space-filler, worse things turn-up in rack-toy tubs!

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Sci-Fi Figures

Another in the occasional PC-clearing series of the stuff I've already shown somewhere else! Some of which will have been seen here too, but the idea is to get all new images up, or do a bit of extra box-ticking!

"For mash get Smash!", the almost immortal (if you're of a certain age) tag-line jingle that ended the humorous TV adverts' for Cadbury's instant mashed-potato powder! Technically 'Martians', they appear to be Robots (the actual Martians never being seen?), they were such a successful campaign several toys resulted, these pencil tops being possibly the most common, but a chunky Bendy exists and a Marx clockwork wind-up.

Argentine copy (pink) of the female space warrior (black) from Britains compared, the lower shot is out of focus (obviously) but the upper one was a poor choice of background, so I've put them together as I can't re-shoot at the moment, they're buried in a shipping container!

We saw these not that long ago, but I'd shot them for the Faceplant group, so here they are again! Mattel GUTS! Laser Fighters space figures, the helmets are all different, as are weapons, while equipment layout and colours also differ from figure to figure, so more a bunch of space pirates or mercenaries than an organised force!

We should have had these here too, in a show report, but I can't remember posting them, so it may still be in the queue somewhere. I did post them as shelfies from someone else's table once though - Vision von Anderen Sternen or 'Vision of Other Stars'.

Elastolin's hysterical lobster-hula-cow lady ('Venus Amazona') and 'Saurus Saturn' the turquoise space-ant eater! These were as rare as rocking-horse shit, but when the factory shut down a huge heap of them turned-up and I think everyone who wanted a set got one! I previously dubbed them Rubber-girl (catalogue No. 8304) and Dino-grinch! 8300.

I was a small-scale collector at the time but can remember loads of them on several tables at the Herne show, only to see people wanting pretty silly money for the few on show up in London! I sort of paid silly money for these, but they don't turn-up now like they did 15-odd years ago - because they are all in collections! And to be fair I didn't pay what I know some are happy to pay for all four!

The Astronaut (8310, who didn't get a name . . . Raumy?) was originally the most expensive (separate helmet?) at DM 1,50 pf. (about 30p in the 1970's?), with 1.25-each for the previous two and only ,90-pfennigs for 8302 the 'Jupiter Gorilla', or Crab-Taz the Lobster-man! And while some sources claim they were game-pieces for a board game (Perry Rodan?), they were issued in a bilingual (German French) clear carton.

Clearly though they were some kid of experiment or one-off, from Elastolin, the non-standard bases, painted different colours, singling them out as not the norm, and reputed to be sculpted by a Max Weißbrodt, they didn't take off, or didn't get the head-office support they needed, and consequently a shed-load turned-up at the end! The catalogue numbering though, suggests the line was to be expanded?

Finishing with a question-mark, anyone know who this is or what toy-line he's from? The hole in the back of his helmet and rather smoothly-finished back-pack seem to point to a missing attachment or fixing of some kind, he's nylon or polypropylene and about 54mm, I suspect he's quite modern or even relatively current? Although, he also looks a bit 1980's 'straight-to-video' post-apocalypse punky!