M is for More Lead!

Twice in two days! Just a box-ticker, I found these shots of one of the Panits Lazlo sets from Hungary, which I think we looked at, not that long ago, so just to add them to the archive as it were, here they are!

 

As last time, they are a mix of factory painted piracies of Airfix and Esci sculpts, probably from home-cast rubber-moulds, and presented in a small carded blister, I think the text on the card-front literally translates as 'metal figures carton', so a kind of pocket-money kiosk cheapie, like the Polish plastics we've also seen here.

P is for Panits Laszlo, or is it Laszlo Panits?

There are four things I can say about these, and with little else to say, I might as well get stuck in without a long opener!

 

The first thing is that I could have sworn we had these on the Blog about 15-years ago, but I'm damned if I can find them now, they are not in the Tag List, yet the above image was taken before I ever had a Blog, and had gone to the dongles as 'done', so they must have been posted somewhere, maybe they were on my long-defunct Imageshack account, which I had for about 18-months, about 16-years ago! In which case they may have been posted to a long-gone HäT Forum article or something?
 

I think the upper ones are copies of Preiser, the lower set a mix of Esci-Ertl and Airfix sculpts.

 

The second thing is that I genuinely don't know if the firm/shop/chap is called Panits Laszlo, or Laszlo Panits? In trying to research the company (Google has got shit in the last ten years), I discovered quite a few of both, but without the comma we'd use in English - Hugh Walter or Walter, Hugh - it's imposible to work out which is commonly the surname or the forename, how they are typically presented, or if, indeed, in Hungarian, there's no difference, but the fact that there are quite a few, suggests it's the equivalent of a John Smith, or Andy Brown.

 

And neither point is meant to upset any Hungarians reading, I'd love input from them, to explain the points? But it's Panits Laszlo on the back of the card, so that's what we are going with.

The third point is the obvious stuff, they are factory-painted, HO/OO sized (1:76th scale), whitemetal piracies of Airfix, mostly RAF Personnel, or Esci NATO Ground Crew, here, I suspect, painted up as Warsaw Pact Hungarians, with the other sets painted-up as WWII USAAF-USAF, and with at least one figure taken from Airfix's set of that American title.

 

Set contents also vary from card to card, so you could - presumably - choose a card that would most closely allow you to set up your diorama, with whichever kit you were making? And I think the message stamped on the front just says "Model Figure Card" (blister/pack).

 

And I've forgotten what the fourth point was going to be, but it's worth mentioning that Panits Laszlo were probably responsible for the other Esci copies seen here in the past - which I also can't find, Doh!!

 

So, we'll have it 'again'? Also copies of Esci, also factory painted whitemetal, not seen on these cards, and here not divisible by six, there may be some damaged ones in the bag taking the sample to 24? But they otherwise seem to be the same idea/concept as the air force figures above?

And that's it, that's them, box ticked, I don't know a lot, I suspect it/he (Panits Laszlo) was also a model shop in Budapest, and if anyone can add anything, their input will be welcome.

M is for Merry Mass of Malleable Model Mayhem! 9 - Wild West

So, we reach the end of another fantastic donation from Chris, and in the end I got it down to nine posts, not that I try to minimise it, but I tried to go for an 8/9 images per post, to keep it interesting, and today, it's the Wild West.

 

Two of the lollipop figures, and I think one French, one Polish? The other yellow one seems to have some contention in that I showed one pack, and someone else recently posted them as something else, while the painted cowboy is from the Bucking Bronco magnetic novelty of the 1950's.

 

And we have another Blue Box character figure, I think he has a damaged bow, but a 'styrene figure, sold singly to scud-about in the bottom of a biscuit-tin or cigar-box with everything else is bound to get damaged, so if you have a whole one, I suggest you're a lucky chap/chapess? And it's from the 12 known poses, not the mythical 31, still up there as a falsehood!

This was in the 'Bulgarian' bag, and if it isn't another iteration of the old Britains Hollow-cast Colonial/Yeomanry-era cavalry horse! The Indian may not go with the rest, but I think he does, same plastic, and he fits, he's just got shorter legs?

 

Small scale to be sorted another day, but items of interest are to the right, with foot figures, Blue Box bits, a home -painted tee-pee/tipi and the hard plastic roof guard from a die-cast metal stage-coach I always forget the maker of, but hard to find with the rifle intact, and in the less common brown plastic - they're usually black.

More of the Crescent/Lido family, we had a good look at them once or twice recently, and there are three different sources represented here, marked, unmarked and a soft 'ethylene one, so they will get sorted into the main and revisited in the future.

 

Three probably French bazaar types from two sets on the left, with three of what I used to call Culpitt's on the right, but we now know they are also, or can be Jouets Super Plastic set from France, as almost certainly supplied by Injectaplastic, while with the animals Azur, Prior and Rena also become involved, and a further chapter involving farm and circus, with another branding, is growing in a folder in the long queue.

 

Hong Kong copies of Gulliver (Brazil) copies of Atlantic (Italy) figures, scaled between the sizes of the Italian originals!

 

Mixed lot, all interesting with a Hong Kong sub-scale rider, I think I have a spare stubby-horse for him somewhere! A larger copy of the Airfix/Tudor Rose et al rider for the old Britains horse seen above from Hungary, Airfix and Britains piracies of enough merit to have their own zones, and a hard-plastic horse we will be returning to soon.

 

A hard polystyrene canoe with is clearly marked Tim Mee so I'm assuming its Timmee Toys but I stand to be corrected by one of those more knowledgeable, yet normally less vocal than myself!

I can't recall if this was in the Hungarian bag, or is just another Hong Kong piece, but rather unique with the rod-stand, and obviously a copy of a Britains Herald piece, it's a lovely addition to the stash?

 

As is this! How fantastic is this? Obviously a Christmas Cracker/'Gumball' novelty, with a lenticular picture of a chap struggling with a bucking horse, just a lovely thing to be sent, free, in the post. And an amazing survivor of the . . . 1970's?

And this is Chris Smith's third parcel this year? With two lovely ones from Brian in the 'States, while Jon Attwood sent four huge ones which were really five, because two were taped together! Peter Evans has sent half a dozen bags of bits and brought more loveliness to shows for me. John Begg, Adrain little, Gareth Morgan and others have saved bits for me, or put interesting things aside to give me 'first dibs' and it's difficult to get across how grateful I am to all of them, but believe me, I know and appreciate how lucky I am to have that much support, when I have so many apparent 'eemies'!

 

Cheers Chris, another parcel full of beautiful things, interesting things, quirky things, funny things, rare things . . . I'm very grateful.

M is for Merry Mass of Malleable Model Mayhem! 3 - Ceremonial & Historicals

Part-the-third, of the plastic plunder posts from Chris Smith's most recent parcel, brings us to the ceremonial and historical section, Royal Fail or Parcelfarce did their worst with these, as you can see from the first image in the sequence!

To be fair to Postie, I suspect there wasn't much in the bag when it left East Anglia, and was being sent as a sample of . . . Malleable Mouldings? But, yeah, it arrived as so much dust and two legs!

 

Funnily enough, the first Malleable horse I got (still somewhere in the pile) was found in the car-park at SAS, off the old A4, or at least, embedded in the gravel/puddle at the bottom of the steel fire-escape! It was/is missing both back legs and a base, and while I've handled several of Adrian's over the years, and posibly shot them for the blog, I have yet to find a decent mounted figure by Malleable! It'll happen!

Initially thought to be Italian, these are 30mm polystyrene Hungarian Imperial, or 'Royal' Guards, and - obviously - the same colour scheme as those 30mm plug-together 'swoppets' both Chris and Peter Evans have donated to the blog in the past. Lovely little things!

 

While the British 'Royal Guards' of the Household Division include two nice Hong Kong copies of Crescent (seen here yesterday), but in a Hilco style! next to them, the chap with the herb-green base is a real treat, he's the Reamsa copy of herald, and I think he might have been Reamsa No.1?

 

I personally love the eraser guardsman in purple, he's that silicon rubber which really just smudges pencil, but they were 'novelties' first and erasers second, always, I feel? The key-ring guardsman seems to go with some of the Highland pipers, one of the Welsh ladies and probably the fisherman we saw the other day, while the KT is damaged and the Rocco guardsmen need glue!

 

Cake decorations and premiums, we've seen the AWI before, and the French Dragoon (?) is from that set of premiums which used to have one name but now have several in two sizes, with base differences and Kinder joining the mix!

 

A Crescent lead, and Blue Box sailors (Merten copies) signal a Hong Kong copy of Airfix trumpeter to deal with some French interloper (HaT Industries) while a rather legless Lord Flashheart courtesy of Skybirds, recovers from a night on the juice, in the Mess!

 

In discussion, we think maybe Brazilian for this horse, although he could equally be Argentine? Missing a rider who may send it to the Wild West section, I posted it here, as this post only had six images!

And Postie again! But they were all missing their tails already, so just samples, and while I don't know what colours of this Rocco guardsman I have, if I need a white sample, I'll have one, once I've glued a couple of heads back on!

 

Many thanks to Chris as always for all these, and even the broken stuff has its place, as place-fillers!

------------------------------------------

Added a few minutes later - I'd dropped some of the images in the Khaki soldier section!

 

It was looking at the damaged KT above and realising "Where are the other two?" that had me off looking in the other folders! Superb thing to get in the post without warning - two more boxed KT pencil sharpeners, and different boxing, both generic and serving the tourist trade, but aren't they lovely - I've already sorted the guardsman (forthcoming post) with a fully rifled replacement, so he's now a minter!

 

We saw him the other day, but he belonged here all along - the Blue Box Napoleon, which, with another figure in this parcel, get us closer to a complete pose-count, but we're still only half-way on the painted/chromed sets! Thanks again to Chris.

T is for Two - Euro Bags

Except, of course, when issued, one of these wasn't a 'Euro' anything, but rather a 'Warpac' bag! However, that was all so long ago now, it's almost ancient history, nearly 3/4's of the time it lasted, away from us now!

 

This one's obviously French, although there's no clue as to branding, beyond the repeats of 'Jouets' (toys), and as a 'bazaar' issue, probably meant to be pretty anonymous! The contents, however - hard to shoot through the billion-folds of age clouding the bag - seem to be original and shipped-in from the States?

As I think it's a complement of original Lido Japanese and German infantry, shoving the date back to the 1950's, and an odd combination, especially back when it was easier to see through the bag! Maybe another set was a mix of US Infantry and FFL! Many thanks to Peter Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine for this set, which was in one of his bags, and a donation one, not a pay-for one!

 

I found this looking lost, unloved and - most importantly - cheap, on feeBay, and it nicely confirms everything previously said here about these Hungarian semi-flats, despite my eemies best efforts to 'suggest' Poland or Russia in the past!

 

 

The Cavalry arrives! I love the motorcyclist - Indy' and his dad might escape the Germans in a stolen machine, but this Hungarian looks pretty determined to stop whoever is doing whatever from continuing to so do! As does the blue guy, firing his 'Schmeisser' MP38/40 from the back of a horse! Brilliant stuff!

Only the seven items in the bag, and I'll be hoping to find a few  more, for now, we can add the Hungarian collective Vörsas Game Department to the tag list and enjoy the simple pleasures of more innocent times!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Transport Etc . . .

So many figures ended-up in this post I couldn't actually call it 'Vehicles' as I had intended, but another bunch of interesting or novel items of that ilk were included in Chris's recent parcel.

Starting with bath toys, for the most part. The Hong Kong copies of Manurba's mini-sub, one has been trimmed down somewhat to a self-propelled torpedo, with a smaller boat, which comes from a rack-toy set of about six or eight mouldings - I have them somewhere in the archive, and a few more loose, building for an 'overview' post.

I love the big blow-moulded diver, proper bath toy! Except they tended to fill with water from the little hole in the gate-mark, and you could then use them to squirt your brother at the other end of the bath, until the heat-seam split, and 'Froggie' the frogman went to landfill!

I was in a quandry as to what to do with these, as they obviously belong in the canoe posts, but needed to be H is for . . .'d first, but rather came together as I'd put the canoe season off for various reasons, of some merit, umpteen times, but ultimately, they will be tagged 'Canoes', between two similarly-tagged posts, so it's a minor worry!

I have no idea on the lower one, but match/toothpick/trinket holder is a strong possibility, while the upper one is wooden, so may have some age, or home-made'ness? But equally could be French, they seem to have stuck with wooden boats right through solid and hollow-cast lead figures, the aluminium period, the celluloids and phenolics, right-up unto plastic figures!

A Blue Box ambulance came with one of the larger figures, the ambulance still has the box-mounting intact, which is not exactly collectable, especially if you only want the vehicle for wargaming, which a lot of them were used for, back in the day. But I have two or three now, and it's getting fun to see if I'll ever have one each of them all, still attached like this?

 

The vehicle was meant to be broken/lifted off the clear plastic piece, but the glue meant they would tare away from the paper laminate of the box/tray and then people would usually break off the two tabs leaving the central piece glued to the underside of the vehicle/accessory!

 

Aircraft came in the form of two novelty-whistles - Brilliant! A small rack-toy helicopter, a - probably - knock-off Transformer type and a rather interesting X-15 X-Plane, which might be a load from a larger kit, weren't they launched 'in flight'? It could also be from a desk-top display thing, as the metallic blue paint-job looks like a professional coating . . . but it could just be a rack-toy! It's polystyrene.

 

And no, you can't really photograph lime-green against lime-green!

 

The smaller of the two whistles came in a lot Chris found in Hungary, so was accompanied by another 40mm flat (never get enough of those) and a really nice knock-off of a Western 'dime store' spaceman.

 

Another lovey bunch of oddities from Chris, so many thanks to him, and next-up will be the Wild West or civilians, depending on how tired I am tomorrow evening, but I must do canoes now for the morning, then try to catch some sleep before the early start for . . .

 

The Plastic Warrior Show . . . it's TOMORROW!

E is for Eastern Promise - How They Come In

For reasons which should be obvious (but sadly don't seem to be for the uneducated), we're not looking at one eastern country's stuff at the moment, and I hope there's none here, but as part of Chris's recent donation to the Blog was a number of smaller scale or outside 'area of interest' to his own collection stuff which we are looking at in a single post here. Everything below is soft polyethylene plastic.

These are lovely! They are almost exactly the same size as the bubble-gum capsule tanks we looked at again recently, now the lot of Chris's from which these came, was a Hungarian lot and various clues suggest the bulk of it was Hungarian, so for now that's the 'call' on these!

As you can see; four parts with two little wheel/axle sets and loosely based on a late pattern T34/85, but when I say loosely I mean loosely! They look like Dalek copies of a K9 unit!

Now, Peter Evans gave me several of these, years ago with the message that they were Bulgarian, and with figures only, there was no reason to question that attribution (which would have come with the figures from the seller/hander-on), however, seeing the horses here, and knowing what Hungarian flats/semi-flats tend to look like against their neighbour's output/s, these may well be Hungarian, not just because of the origin of the lots, but those chunky eye-shaped bases.

And this is not to call anyone 'wrong', just to adjust the theory to fit the available evidence, and, indeed; I think I may have some more horses somewhere, which is useful as Chris sent a few sets of mounted legs, so when I've put them (Peter's, Chris's, spare horses) all together we'll have another look, and if it's a few years from now, we may have more empirical stuff by then - packaging maybe?

The odd's, now another reason for not accepting 'Hungary' willy-nilly as the origin for all of them are the facts that A) there was a few bits of Western stuff, including some Kinder, in the bag, and B) we've already learnt Progress had factories in Rus, and Bulgaria for certain, and I've been told, Poland and East Germany too, so some of this stuff, or the tools, were passed around the WarPact Bloc.

The three mounted figures are nice; a knight and two native American Indians, and match the ancient Romans I've been told were Hungarian, and which usually appear on Hungarian seller's feeds, note the same heavy eye-shaped bases again. While the racing [game?] figure looks eastern too.

But the white plastic French Foreign Legion figure could be either from the Soviet Bloc or French bazaar production? Likewise the yellow driver could be from anywhere, but both might well be Hungarian?

I think the large blue knigh knight may be from further to the East (Booo! Slava Ukraine!), he's a Lido copy/homage, with a touch of paint, but chunkier than the Hong Kong copies we've previously seen here at Small Scale World.

I'm pretty sure these are Hungarian, and further that we visited them briefly when we looked at the Atlantic Fort Riley/Abilene Town a while back (follow the link in that post), and have a possible/probably mark; Kassa György (house of George/George's house/firm? Or; Gregory?) courtesy of Kadmon, the commenter/contributor then.

These are copies of Atlantic's 7th cavalry from the General Custer sets, they are larger than the original 1:72nd scale set, so probably reduced from the 1:32nd scale figures, although as Kassa György copied the fort, they may have worked exclusively with the smaller range?

Note that there are two poses of horse is present; these have two distinctly different base types, with three stars on the rim of the heavier, formal cartouche sculpts, or thinner unmarked 'cloud' bases.

A nice set which probably isn't Hungarian, being the sort of output more closely associated with Poland, but I've recently learnt from Maciej Jasinski (who's writing a book on the subject) that some of the stuff credited with Poland, was actually imported from East Germany (common borders between the three), so until the book comes out, I'll just sprinkle a light dusting of question marks over these!

Obviously copies of the old Airfix Celtic war-band Ancient Britons, the archer had escaped from the pack during the sorting phase and so isn't in all the shots! The card shows ancient Greek/Trojan types and maker/brand is the Polish kiosk supplier Lew Prokofijev, the Polish spelling of Prokofiev.

So many thanks to Chris for this little lot, fills a few gaps and builds a better picture of the Hungarian end of things even if it's not all Hungarian, and thanks to Kadmon  and Maciej again for their help in the past/elsewhere.

H is for Hungarian Herdsman Hurls Hose

I only have the sellers word for this being Hungarian, but there's no reason to not believe that he is until otherwise informed by better or more empirical data, given as how he arrived from Hungary yesterday, with Hungarian postage, tax-form an'all!

When I saw him I thought he might be a copy of a Pecos figure as scale was hard to judge and I didn't bother looking it up, it was going for a song so I just grabbed it! He's actually a copy of the generic MPC pose; cavity 118, which was issued as a cowboy among others.

While the rifle (oversized) fits one hand and the belt is definitely ex-MPC, the pistol has too-big a grip to fit in the ring-hand so may be of an other origin and the 'iron bar' or hose he's about to crack someone over the head with seems to be a polyethylene scrap taken from the lip or lid of some container and probably has nothing to do with the original figure! Although it might be the chewed end of another rifle?

The base lacks the usual MPC markings so it would seem to be the knock-off and when the MPC turn up (garage!) I'll compare him with the hand-up guy - if I have him? Accessories on the right, and it's Hungary in the tag-list!

Nice to see - later the same day - that 'Dan Morgan' was paying attention!

M is for More; Russian Rack Toys

Except I suspect most of them aren't actually Russian, and they may nearly all be actually from satellite countries, but they are from the Soviet 'collective' era, so; you know what I mean!

Chris Smith sent me a few shots as a follow-up to something posted here about a year and a half ago (the Russian/Soviet mini-season?), and I never got round top posting them at the time, in part because I'd had a thought on them. Some of the shots he sent are still waiting for another day, and a full follow-up on something-esle, but these were the others.

Now, it happens that maybe none of them are actually Russian, the four red ones have the look of Progress's flats about them which could make them Bulgarian or East German, who both had a Progress factory, but who either copied the Russian originals (Bulgarian factory's October Revolution cavalry flats, seen here passim) or made original designs (E. German factory's AFV's)?

While the two MG-gunners, have the same bases as Wild West and ancient Roman flats attributed to an - as yet - unknown Hungarian manufacturer, those distinctive 'Zulu shield' bases having been linked to Hungary by several commentators in the hobby, and most commonly found in the stock of Hungarian ebayer's? Although a Latvian seller on feeBay often has the same pointy-based figures? I think - size wise - these tie-in with the blue sailor set we've seen here from Rasnoexport at around 65mm, which would make them Russian.

So, the above could all be non-Russian production, in the meantime the thought I'd had on them was that "I've got some of those red ones somewhere?" . . .

. . . . except that when I'd dug them out a few weeks later, they (my sample, here) were clearly different, and while they can be called WWII Russian Infantry, have some of the signatures of Polish production; heavy bases and a more demi-ronde than flat sculpting, so may not be Russian at all!

At the time of writing (August 2020) there are two sets of these on feebleBay, both in a lovely shade best described as 'pastel heliotrope' or 'raspberry yogurt' , and both lot's consisting of the same four poses, so this may be a complete set? They are also both rather pricey, so clearly this would appear to be a 'rated' set back in the former USSR? 

Which leaves the silver guy we've seen before who happened to be left in Picasa for some reason . . . his flag reads 3rd October Revolution (I think?), and some have attributed his whole set to Poland, but they do fit the same 8-figure carriers as the Russian Napoleonics, which we know are Russian because the have the prices in kopeks and rubles marked on them in Cyrillic script! So he may be the only Russian in the post!

A size comparison with my may-be-Polish and a close-up of Chris's probably-Hungarian machine-gunner finish this brief look at a regular here - 'Soviet era' flats and semi-flats! To be fair, I really suspect the two MG's of being Hungarien, the rest probably are Russian in Origin!

A few days later - many thanks to Theo van der Weerden's wife for translating the flag, it actually reads -

"за власть советовъ" = 'For the power of the Soviets'.