E is for Eye Candy - Naval & Marines

This was shot back in November 2020, so five years ago, give or take the odd day and a leap-year! There's about the same again to be added to this, in the still being sorted pile, at the lip of the storage container, and we've added a couple of rack-toy assault-craft over that time, all seen here in various posts, I think, try 'Vessels' or 'Naval - Marines' in the tag list. But what can you spot?

 

Top left is all the larger 60mm'ish stuff from Marx, MPC, Auburn (polymer, not rubber) or Ideal (?) and so on, originals and re-issues, to their right is the Lone Star sample, with some PVC, Timpo-branded, Toyway reissues, while the more historically-uniformed Charbens are in the little bag.

 

In the box, top right, are the more modern (WWI/II'ish) Charbens with four of the ever more brittle Lone Star marines - fighting in No.1 Dress uniforms! I have added one or two I think, but they may be duplicates. Below them is a mixed tub of the smaller Marx and a few others; Reisler, hollow-cast &etc, which we saw in an early post on the subject. There's been a few hollow-cast additions too.

 

Sandwiched between those two tubs is a wooden, hand-carved, tourist chap, who we also saw here over a decade a go, but there are four, similar, and very interesting plastic versions about to hit the blog! To the left of the mixed tub is a newer one, since enlarged, but still not ready for the definitive post, with the Britains Naval gun, now 'guns', but not all versions yet, although we did have a look at them, in part, a while ago.

 

In the corner are the three Greek assault-boats, copied from Britains, which got a post, and then in the top-left quarter of the box, all the iconic novelty floating toys from Britains and Timpo. You can see the Greek crewmen under the US Assault craft . . . I've actually done an 'Assault River-Crossing', in a remarkably similar boat, but ours didn't have engines, so we had to fucking paddle, in the rain!

 

The final tub, outside the box, has all the European types, obvious are Cofalu/Cofalux swivel-heads and the Coma assault marines, but there's some other stuff, a couple of Atlantic, a Hong Kong or two, and, strangely, mu original Frog trio, who are RAF rocket-troops! They've since been moved, as the sample is up to about ten now!

 

You can add a largish sample of the Gem cadets, those Argentine rubber ones which came in a while ago, and more Atlantic, Lone Star and Reisler, along with some Starlux (not sure where they are?), but, there's actually quite a few to sort into this tub at some point, and more take-away tubs will be needed! Then there's all the ABC and other Hong Kong copies, from hollow-cast, taken from Britains, which we have looked at here, on more than one occasion, now.

F is for Follow-up to the Follow-up and Interim Non Follow-up! Kain Etc . . .

It's funny, when I posted the Greek carded rack toy set recently (no link, I've re-tagged them all and will put is at the end) I managed to find the original trio, but not the identifier, likewise when I posted the single red one with the Kain mark, I also linked it to the unmarked trio, but forgot it when I posted the carded set.

 

So, this additional group really is as described in the title! So, if you scroll to the bottom of this article and click on the link, you'll get what was a single Kain tag and is now four articles including this one, the other three below this.

This new sample actually came from Cyprus, but the free part which only underlines the Greek connection to these, and among some duplicates are both new poses and new colours against that which has gone before. Here we see the shooters, with a Marx pose, several Crescent poses and what I think might be a French chap, standing firing.

 

Abe' Lincoln and his long-lost identical twin, horsewippin' a bank-robber, all courtesy of Crescent, the green one has the Kain mark, semi-removed; see note below. Numbering has also changed relative to my earlier guesswork, but I've adjusted the original list, another reason to read all four in sequence!

 

Two foot Indians, where the numbering guesswork fell-down as they have high numbers, both are marked, one clearly, the other with the sign of attempted removal. Of course, they are the second and third found, as I had found one previously! One ex-Crescent, the other also French-looking in origin?

 

And the numbers reveal that actually the foot cowboys occupy the low spot where I'd pencilled-in the foot Indians (with a question mark, I always try to cover my arse), while some of the new numbers go way-up, hinting at 30+ figures, but mostly cowboys, so far?

 

And so to the Kain/non-Kain thing. Obviously the 'finger mark' I mentioned on the previous find was actually a strike-through, seen here on the blue one, while the tan/fawn one has a full mark; unfortunately hard to make out, as it was a short shot already, before the last owner clipped two ears off the base!

 

So unpainted Kain premiums, and [then?] a generic rack-toy issue/s, sometimes painted. The Kain mark not always removed properly, but what Kain was or is, I don't know; there is apparently a chain of Kain cafés (in the Athens area?); might they have issued premiums in the past, maybe as kids treats/shut-me-ups?

 

While the numbering may break-down with further finds, as it may be that a few foot Indians and maybe one or two mounted figures were on each tool, with up to four or five tools? Plus the wagon set. In which case, I'll re-do the list with 'known' individuals in numerical order!

In reverse-order of publishing: https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/search/label/Kain

N is for Not Jean, But Injectaplastic!

If you recall this post, I saved the two armoured cars for toward the end of the post and pointed out that they didn't 'follow the rules' as evidenced by the rest of the set, namely different wheels and no white wheels seen by me?

Now I'd been told by members of the 'old guard' in Germany (now supporting the PSTSM) that they were all Jean Höfleur production, so I make no apologies for miss-identifying them, while remaining pleased I highlighted a nagging query about them!

You will still find them described as Jean (or Manurba) on fleaBay, but equally if you search under Injectaplastic, you will find French and Portuguese sellers who knew - all along - what they were!

Here's the M20 (cheers Andy B!), as its component parts (with a deformed wheel/axle assembly caused by a stuck pin in the tool allowing product up the cavity/shaft) and assembled, note how the MG folds over using the ammo-belt as a hinge. I cut the protuding axle back after takinng the pictures.

While here it's pulling a rather large canon/howitzer which mirrors the larger piece in the Jean inventory! Non-firing, it's held together by a muzzle-ring and the mounting brackets. The gun-position was made by me as a kid from carpenter's dowels and a 'log' from a Majorette logging-truck!

Seen before, now known to be Injectaplastic, although Portuguese, there are strong connections with the French market through JSP (Jouets Super Plastic), Cle and Del, more on that in the next post. And . . . is it Portuguese? More and more stuff the 'old guard' stated as 'fact', has to be corrected these days, as catalogues or packaging turn-up, so Injectatplastic are Portuguese - as far as I know!

All new Kubelwagen, and it's the WWII one, not the 1970's hippy one! The gun is pretty fictional (and closest - as a donor - to some Hong Kong rack-toy ones), here sitting behind a piece of Bellona scenery, and the spare-wheel on the bonnet (hood) is more hinted-at than present!

Still quite ubiquitous with several NATO users when we were visiting Dad in Bavaria in the late 1970's, the Auto-Union DKW 'Munga', was a Jeep-like light-utility vehicle and here has the Jeep trailer of WWII vintage fitted, although the trailer went-on to be towed by M38A1's and the later M151 'MUTT's, so it's reasonable to assume it might have ended-up behind a Munga at some point! And all the towed items can be swapped around to give the trailer to the M20! Note also; the fold-up spare wheel/tyre and 'Jerry-can'.

The last time we had a 'Not Jean' post, it was the trucks (Noreda) we were sorting out, but so far I haven't found a truck, or a US jeep for that matter, in this range, but neither have I found a carded example yet, so they may turn up!

Scale between these is further-off than either the Jean or Noreda sets, from an HO armoured-car to a ear 1:32 Kubel', but build-quality is between the two, and if you threatened to torture me I'd say Noreda came first, these followed and the Jean came after, but as they are all following the hard-platics of Banner/Lido/Pyro/Tudor Rose's 'dime-store' stuff of a decade or two earlier, it's all a bit academic!

An old eBay lot tying them in to another brand; 'Plaggon Plast', but it's a tenuous link, the wheels on the six Armoured Car's are plug-on and sculpting is crude, so clearly piracies, although ironically, the wheels of the big 'beach-toy' truck are white, which brings us full circle!

There is another set of these post-war, ready-made, AFV's, can't remember now if they are a Belgian or Dutch maker, but I've seen them on evilBay a few times for silly money - dark, Buckingham green, and mostly British outline (as the railway collectors' put it!) on the AFV's, when I see some cheap ones, we'll get them up here to tick that box, for now; Injectaplastic - ticked!

F is for Fanciful Fellows!

Bit of a box-ticker, literally as it's the contents of the Charbens & odds ancients tub! I don't have many, but have managed to find most types (I've just realised I think there's a blue Hong Kong copy missing?) and all the poses.

My two originals, paint's a bit thin on the ground these days, but then the ground is shiny polymer which never held paint well, and although some early Charbens were chalky for the reason of pain adhesion, this set was a late addition to the range and didn't get a chalky iteration.

Unpainted/home painted, they may be from one of those home-paint sets, I don't know, but it would make sense? Flesh plastic and another two poses, you may have noticed they are all fighting over the wild strawberries . . . in their scale; the size of watermelons!

He's just helping himself with an axe swing! They were sold as Romans, but everything about them screams Greek, and a rather fanciful, pre-Classical era, Trojan War/mythical Greece at that!

This one is unpainted hard polystyrene, and may be a Prindus (Prison Industries) figure who avoided the painting phase in his hurry to find giant strawberries?

Duplicates from the recent/current form of re-issue, a dense, rigid polymer in a neutral grey. You may have also noticed the kilts are a bit short? The greaves look a lot like pantomime booties as well, so there's a quite theatrical look to them, but they have plenty of charm, and might work as Etruscans against true Romans?

Because there's a bit of room in their tub, they get the odd's which are - from the left; an Athena Greek . . . Greek tourist figure, not that rare, but finding the spears intact (polystyrene) is always a bonus.

Then a chess-set pawn, who's a bit more Roman. I think you can still find these in various finishes on Amazon, as whole (and not cheap) chess-sets, in metal or plastic, but these older ones are often to be found in rummage trays at shows, and while not a copy, his shield seems to have been influenced by one of the Marx 60mm set. Finally a modern Greek from Conte Collectibles, I think.

This guy's also in the same tub, a bit bigger than the others around 60-65mm (I didn't check at the time!) and from the liberal quantities of gold and silver paint; probably Argentinian! The fish-plate or scalloped armour has me thinking of Poseidon, was he from a set of gods? Also quite Ray Harryhausen'esque!

S is for Still 'Q is for Question Time' but C is for Closer to an Answer!

Sometimes these things come fast, sometimes they drip-drip-drip toward the truth, I'm not sure which this will prove to be, but we can add a bit to the three figures originally tacked-on to another post here, in the hope it may trigger someone's memories?

I actually found this in Greece, but with an English title 'Plastic Toys' that's no guarantee of anything, I also sourced an Alamo set in generic packaging from Greece, which was actually BMC! Four cowboys on foot protect a wagon from two mounted Native American Indians. Stapled (rather than heat-sealed) blister hints at age, but it's not empirical.

Colours aren't as interesting as the metallic's we looked at last time, but new poses include a couple more Marx 54mm clones and a mounted Indian, he has both a familiar look and the look of French 1950's hard plastic, which could be another clue?

The wagon is a common design, Crescent, Blue Box, various US makers and Giant et al in the smaller scales, this is the version with a box-seat forward of the tilt and differs from others with an additional towing hitch at the rear. And . . . yet another iteration of 'THAT' horse, which - while Bergan/Beton to us - is actually the old Britains hollow-cast standard!

Foot figures are marked as last time, the mounted figures have a more evenly scalloped edge to the base side/rim, and what looks to be a removed brand-mark, all are numbered, seemingly in sequence with the previously seen ones (by which I mean the duplicates are marked the same!), starting somewhere above ten or fifteen, suggesting earlier numbers may be for another line - WWII or US Cavalry, knights . . . or something else?

How it looks now; the reason I only shot the one mounted Indian from the set as 'new' is that factory-painted versions had since turned-up - in the pile! So we have Marx clones and [possibly] French clones, in a least three issues (one painted, two colour-way runs) which may be French and/or have had a Greek branding/importer.

The card also has a spurious '2' hinting at other card-arts, or suggesting the artwork may have been nicked from something else? And the numbers now found hint at a set of at least 15, in fives, plus the wagon (or any other accessories?), thus:

[11-15 - Foot Indians? (yet to be found by this author)]

0 - 15 - Unknown

16-20 - Foot cowboys
21-25 - Mounted cowboys
26-30 - Mounted Indians

31-35/40 - Foot Indians?

35/40 - 55+ Foot Cowboys ?

 

Unmarked - Covered-wagon and team with driver.

But that is all pure conjecture, the Marx foot figures were a larger set and more/all poses may have been copied, taking the numbering back to 1, 5 or 10 . . . with no foot Indians being produced?

Anyone feel they can add anything, or ID the mounted figure's donors?

Now known to have been Kain premiums at some point, and one of the Indians on foot was here, elsewhere, and a higher number, as are two more, all under both Kain and Make; Greek tags now so you can find them, and more have come in. product issued by Kain is still unknown and cowboys on foot may be numbered from 10 or 11?

B is for Britains' Mini-Clones!

For such a  relatively short-lived and unsuccessful range as the Britains Mini-Sets, it is rather amazing that there are not one generation of copies but two!

These came in with a mixed lot of figures from Greece just in time for rack-toy month; very crude copies of the Britains Mini-Set US GI's with new, integral bases - I think the standing-firer's base is a truncated 'short shot' moulding, not the intended extent of the design. And - sorry; I still haven't learnt about red backgrounds, especially with tangerine figures!

There's an Indian too! I wonder how much of the range was copied and why . . . die-cast toy vehicle accessories . . . not an Indian surely? Sweet or candy premiums, 'Lucky-Bags'? Ice cream . . . something like that, and likely to be Greek production rather than Hong Kong? The clones are polyethylene against the PVC of the originals and slightly below the donor's 40mm.

I live to collect this stuff!

AB is for Vidalis Brother's 'Joy Toy'

Back to Greece, pure coincidence but there it is, another Greek plastic toy here on Small Scale World, but sadly no figures again; no figures today actually, so figure-purists come back tomorrow, and more 'plastic smalls' so the PSTSM can have the day-off too!

The set, which has - since these shots were taken - gone in the bin! Reason being, it was a very poor carton when I got it, with a sun-burnt blister-window, and a lot of hidden mending; I did the whole dismantle - dampen - iron - patch-the-inside (with Butterfly paper-tape) job on it years ago; so it was already a bit ersatz over its originality, and these are not so rare on feeBay, or at the bigger shows like Sandown, so - in the end - there was little point keeping it limping along.

The 'meat and two three veg' in this set is the Bedford car-transporter with three VW Golf/Polo type 'hot hatches', all have tinted windows and the Bedford is particularly well done with only the gryphon missing from the little shield 'nose'.

Partly that is down to a larger size, these are toward the larger end of 1:72nd, rather than the similar Blue Box's smaller end of 1:76th, and the cab is the same model as that military MK from Blue Box (and others), but as a triple-axle tractor unit this would have been a larger engined vehicle or have a different gearbox and therefore a different code-designation, I suspect?

The same cab on a longer chassis provides heavy-lift and there is a good measure in interior detail in the cab. As far as I know this type of Bedford nevr saw service with the British Army, who used Foden's in the heavier classes, but some other NATO members may have had such equipment, while for old school war-gaming all they need is a coat of matt-green and they can serve in any army you want them to!

The logo is an AB from the Latin alphabet, odd for the country which still uses the Greek alphabet, but as it stands for 'Adelphoi Bitali' which is the Greek for 'The Vidalis Brothers', I suspect it's all cleverer than me! This is - obviously - the Mercedes bus.

While there is a lack of figures, there is still a lot of play-value added with the inclusion of a whole bunch of accessories, including both working traffic lights and working pedestrian crossing lights (for the non-existent pedestrians!), for those who need to know about these things, there are two variants of road sign with longer and shorted plinths at the bottom of the Lego-like pole.

The light units are quite clever with a slider placing a white plastic disc behind clear, coloured plastic lenses as you push and pull it up and down behind the cover, finally' two slightly sub-scale petrol-pumps are included. there's also a bag of traffic-cones

The typical range sample circa-1970, when this set was issued (note the larger 1:43rd (?) sports cars), there are a few earlier, simpler models from the 1960's, and it may be that more will be revealed by Greek collectors going forward, I don't know a good source for Greek toy info, beyond a couple of toy soldier pages, but 87th Scale Info havea page on them here, despite their mostly being quite oversized for HO-gauge - the smaller turcks here are Toyota's in a very HO-looking size.

And - as with the Comet-Authenticraft stuff (which they never actioned) if someone from that site contacts me I can give them the new model numbers and some new photo's?

R is for Rubber Raider Rack Toys

Except they aren't rubber, they're polyethylene! Actually the Britains one is dense PVC which has some of the properties and is given some of the tasks of Rubber, but it's not what we're concentrating on here, except in so far as for comparison; it's the Greek rack-toys!

These were on feebleBay for ages and for very little money, I think I had them bookmarked for over a year and no one pipped me to the post, so when I finally had a spare tenner a few weeks ago I grabbed them for RTM@SCW!

They came from Greece, and while they could be Solpa they are more likely to be Stam Toys (who did use silver-coatings) or Petalo (lots of rack toy - until quite recently or still going) or even an early import by someone like Zita Toys, although they are lacking any Hong Kong or China marks, which can be a sign of domestic production, but can also just mean that local laws don't insist on origin-marking? Nevertheless they are definitely 'in the style of' Hong Kong rack-toy tat!

Obviously copied from the Britains assault craft; 'Gemini' or 'rigid raider', the three figures are quite different, with one being in a bright-blue polymer, another manufactured in gold-flecked resin and the third has an overall coating of sprayed-silver paint with a dark-red plastic figure underneath.

All three Greek vessels have retained their 'Allied Star' stickers, but my Britains boat has lost it's little MOD crossed-swords thing. I have a feeling I know someone who has a sheet of them (probably left-over from an out-worker's stock) , so if he's still got a few I'll get that sorted!

All three figures have a hole in their base to fit the forward spigot copied-across from the British model; in point of fact, both spigots are reproduced (larger than the originals, but in roughly the same place) but the base sizes (of all three figures) preclude them from lining-up with the rear one.

The other obvious difference is the addition of a cord-loop at the front, to help pull it along, but I don't know if they were fitted with one, if they were part of a hook-wall display-hanging, or something you had to add at home?

Although copied from Britains, they lack the buoyancy of the donor, but do still float so all is not lost . . . when looking to shoot them in the pond (left) or water-butt (right)! I suspect it has more to do with the properties of the Britains' PVC (more air trapped in a less dense material) rather than anything else; the design - otherwise - is carried-over pretty-much intact.

F is for Five Do Follow-ups

Tying-up a few loose-ends from posts recent or not so recent, with the help of various contributors, bit of an eclectic line-up, but that's very much the nature of the Blog! I'll do them in the order they've come it, most recent first.

Theo van der Weerden sent this last week as a follow-up to the previous week's post on ceremonials, four more of Athena's models of Greece's finest in their finery! The two on the right are the same as two we looked at the other day, but the two on the left are both colourways of another uniform type, and also show two of the other plug-in arms these figures come with, being the standard bearer and 'sword downwards' arms.

The sword might be meant to be held against the waist/thigh, but their definitely had their hands through the hilt, so it may be more significant? While - having handled many more of these than I have got - I know the flag-staff is very thin polystyrene, and you don't often find it in this condition . . . it's also the spear issued to Athena's ancient Greek warriors.

Ha-ha! A few weeks after I'd Blogged the weird composition hedgehog in Chris Smith's donation parcel, look what I found on a shelf in the legendary Peter Evans' abode, and which he kindly let me photograph - a whole family of them!

Peter did tell me what they were, but I immediately forgot and had to Google them . . . trying 'Belgium' and 'Holland TV Hedgehog' with little luck I broadened my reach and found this;

https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=951

https://housefulofhedgehogs.typepad.com/houseful_of_hedgehogs/2009/07/mecki-micki-macki-mucki.html

So that's them then! Mecki (and Macki, Micky amd Mucki) the hedgehog[s] . . . Brilliant!

These came in a while back, the Coke-Cola/Fanta premiums (sadly still no springbok) but with the remains of paint, heavily worn, they were clearly much-played with and I initially assumed they were home-painted, but given the un-Coke-marked ones have started to turn-up in other colours and more modern plastics, it's obvious the tools have had a good life, and I offer them here as a maybe factory-painted issue, maybe home-painted curiosity?

Around the same time and while I wasn't Blogging; Chris Smith had also found the hunter that goes with the Hong Kong African's he (Chris) had already helped with, back in the Spring.

Because I had already got the show-reports done (with my similar find), these got put to one side, but I shot the bases to show the smoothness and the translucence of the brown figures, where not enough pigment has been added to the neutral granules (cost cutting), rendering them 'smoky' in the thinner sections.

Finally Brian B sent the figure on the left ages ago and I didn't add it to the recent post on them, as that was plunder . . .  while the old feebleBay image on the right shows what might be the same set but which is I suspect a 5th generation copy (compare the dickey-bow) of Brian's 4th, against the 2nd/3rd generations we saw last time (larger hats), of Fontanini's originals. Although with both Peltro and Kinder (among others) also copying them, whose generation of copy is which generation, is a moot point!

Many-thanks to Brian, Chris, Peter and Theo for the input.

T is for Two - German Infantry - ΕΠΑ and Marx

These two are very short on completeness, but give a flavour of the full sets, although in the case of the latter we'll see them all in small scale sometime (if we haven't already) here at Small Scale World, while the former figures are part of a larger set of about . . . err; let's look at them first;

ΕΠΑ, or EPA (Epsilon, Pi, Alpha), which might be Epia . . . which might translate to Epic? I'm winging it there - I know - so don't quote me! . . . Google says PSC!

Rather crude figures out of Greece, which look more like some Turkish production; to be honest. They copied several (most?) of the Crescent 60mm Khaki Infantry set (far right figure), and several other figures (two of whom can be seen here) and which look to be ex-composition sculpts, so - set pose-total is at least six, but may be eight or even ten?

Here painted as Germans, I've seen them in other colours and - to my knowledge - they also come in green, UN helmets, white (snow troops?) and brown, possibly for Turks? They were sold in long window-boxes with sentry posts, possibly aiming for tourist traffic against PAL/Athena's better-quality figures?

Having had some success with the British Warriors of the World's, I have failed totally on the Marx German front, with only four and two of them the same pose! 60mm and hard polystyrene plastic, factory painted.

The helmet strap seems to be a batch-thing with some having them painted-in and some not? And possibly only on earlier figures, note the poor delineation of the flesh-painting on the right-hand figure; such slackness is usually a sign of later production.

R is for Rainbow Re-issues of Rug-Rats & Ranch Kids

A bit of Marx for a change, and something that really makes you go "Whaaa....?". Kent Sprecher's site explains that originally a few of each mould-shot would be added to a larger Wild West ranch playset, and that sort of makes sense, as does the fact that people like Thomas had sets of kids or 'dressing-up' kids in their ranges, but it looks like a lot of effort to go to for something I wouldn't have thought sold well, but they did things differently in the past!

Boys and girls; that's a dolls-arm in her hand by the way . . . not anything else it may appear to be!

The green chap seems designed to hold something in his raised right hand, which is not a full 'ring-hand' but clearly curved to hold stuff, but there was no stuff with them?

While these two are also foxing me, they both appear to be interacting with absent articles, which from the poses would seem to have been quite large, horses, barrels, tree trunks . . . something like that? The dog goes with the set, the barrel is Britains, late PVC stuff (starting to go sticky) as is the pile of luggage in the previous shot.

The rest of my pose-sample, I'm missing a prone/fallen, baseless Indian boy and the adult who's tasked with looking after them! He may be in the box of unsorted Wild West large-scale we saw in a forthcoming as I was initially sorting stuff out?

While we're looking at Marx, I have these three soft ethylene copies, sequentially numbered on the base-underside, from 17, and managing to look a bit premium/givaway, a bit Italian (especially the bases), a bit shooting-game and a bit US dime-store hard styrene Space-toy . . . all at the same time! They have no other marks and remain a mystery, can you help; do you know them?

 

Now known to be of Greek issue, both as Kain premiums (product still unknown) and as carded generics, with the Kain removed on some and struck-through on others.