P is for Pratas, Portugal, but not Plastic!

I picked these up at the races! Totally new to me, and while Brain Carrick did know them, he couldn't remember the name, as he had sent them to someone else and eased the data out of the mental pending tray, if you know what I mean, anyway, I digged a dugging and now think they are Pratas a family firm (the Pratas family), who have apparently given their name, as the generic 'pratas', to all composition figures in Portugal!

 

Bases are in the Lineol style, but unmarked and smooth, I rather like the touch of the stands of wool for the plumes, redolent of the old British hollow-cast knights, with their airgun dart plumes!

I believe these are cadets, but whether officer-cadets, or something less elevated, I don't know, and could only find one image that sort of matched? Uniform seems to be loosely based on old Napoleonic-era garb, but in a paler grey-green, than the darker greys of the earlier period?

 

Not wishing to make the same mistake I made with the French swoppets a decade and a half ago, I am pretty certain that the green beret is a Paratrooper, and the red are commandos, Portugal does or did have a maroon, darker than ours, technically a brown, which was worn by the Light Infantry, now disbanded or replaced, with the beret possibly phased-out in 2019? But the green and red berets serve on.

 

The DPM uniform here is compatible with the Army's operations in Mozambique and elsewhere in the 'Colonial War' which ended in 1974, but worn through to the late Cold War. It has now - like many nations - been replaced with a smaller-fragment, more generic patterned one.

 

Scale is between 54 and 60mm, depending upon your ruling regarding deep bases, and they did do some smaller (50+mm) figures. The flags are making little sense, clearly meant to be the Portuguese national flag, I suspect a non-stable green-dye has completely faded? I have some fabric markers somewhere!

F is for Follow-up - Noreda and Injectaplastic

I mentioned in a comment the other day that I try to avoid 'khaki' subjects in December, and that's true, especially the more war'y stuff, but the odd bit gets through, and these ready-made AFV's are a perennial favourite of mine, with two purchases in recent months, both European brands.

 

I think this is the Injectaplastic Jeep, with a gun that's new to the collection, the owner has added waterslide transfers which some of you may recognise from plastic kits (Airfix and Esci - I think?), and which completes the line-up with their Munga and Kubelwagen, both seen here passim. It's darker green than my existing sample of these, though.

This was in the same purchase and is the Noreda one, which I seem to already have, but the trouble with show-purchases is that you are pressed for time, and have to make split-decisions on whether or not to buy something, based on what you can remember having, what you think you may have, and/or what you've seen and/or posted from elsewhere!

A comparison shot with the Triang Minic tin-plate in clean state, but missing it's key, hopefully I'll have one in the spare key zone! All a similar kid's handful size, and two of them needing a comparison shot on the Airfix Jeep page!

 

Also with the two jeeps and gun, came this truck with yet another take on that 1950/60's staple, the twin AA 'pom-pom' gun, now euphemistically referred to as a 'technical'! Again this seems to be Injectaplastic, from the wheels, and is new to the existing sample, but needs paint-removal, before I take better shots.

 

Then I picked these up last Saturday, from Tony Herrington, long time 'plastic warrior' who was stalled-out at the London Toy Solder Show, these are the Noreda truck we've seen before with canvas tilt and GS trailer, but now, also, as a tanker version, with tanker trailer and an additional 'goulash cannon' field kitchen.

 

The kitchen, while simplified for production in one shot as a pocket-money toy, follows the basic design very well, we had similar trailers on field exercises in the 1980's, four hot-plate/bain-maries over an oven and grill with the chimney long-enough to take the gas fumes (wood smoke or burnt oil in earlier times) away from the faces of the troops operating the equipment, or queuing-up for 'range-stew' - baked-beans, tinned potatoes and tinned mixed-vegetables cubed, with cheap sausages, diced in a thick gravy!

F is for Follow-Up - MPC GI's

I was putting away all the nice things from Brian Berke, and I found the bag of MPC bits which have come in over the last year or two, and picked one of each, old & new, 54-and-60mm and took a line-up for the family album!

 

I also checked with the original post on the subject, and except for a couple of the above pale-green 54mm's, they are all new colours or poses, or colour of an existing pose, and as I thought, the four darker-olive ones here (from Brian) are all additions!

 

The other day I mentioned the similarity between some of the European gum-premium figures (Americana, Boomer, Dunkin, Mundi, Ola and/or whoever including Montaplex piracies!) bore a close resemblance to the MPC figures, and as you can see - the proof of the pudding is in the eating, or just seeing! Even down to the AT-rocket in the dust/mud by the bazooka-man's knee.

Pirates is for Crazy Comic Piraten Serie Piratas Bucaneros Filibusteros Corsarios Berberiscos . . . and Then Some!

I didn't know how to tackle this lot, and ended-up with far too many images, some of which I know are other peoples, and which have been left out, although one or two have been kept in. Also, in the end I decided to go with the vague order they seem to have been issued in, but it's not necessarily a true timeline, so bear that in mind.

'THE' Pirate Premiums

 

Appearing around Europe in the early 1970's, there were different configurations of them, with the UK getting a paltry six poses which we have seen before, and other people getting the full twenty.

They first seem to have appeared in Spain (and Portugual?) as Arial soap-powder/detergent premiums, where they are subdivided into five groups of four figures, and next time we visit them - when I bring all mine together - I will shoot them in this order;

 

http://chicledunkin.blogspot.com/search/label/Piratas

 

Full translation of that page;

 

Aunque estas figuras son mas grandes que las Dunkin, para mi es una serie totémica, la recuerdo perfectamente de mi infancia......

 

Although these figures are larger than the Dunkin ones, for me it is a totemic series, I remember it perfectly from my childhood...... 

En realidad son figuras de unos 5 cm, 20 piratas que venían en el detergente Ariel en 1971-1972 mas o menos. 4 colores mates preciosos (para mi los mejores del mundo, los europeos son mas brillantes y en america el plastico demasiado duro...) en plastico blando (lo que hace mas dificil encontrarlas sin defecntos) amarillo, verde, rojo y azul.

In reality they are figures of about 5 cm, 20 pirates that came in the Ariel detergent in 1971-1972 or so. 4 beautiful matte colors (for me the best in the world, the European ones are brighter and in America the plastic is too hard...) in soft plastic (which makes it more difficult to find them without defects) yellow, green, red and blue.

En el paquete recuerdo que venia un dibujo de los piratas agrupados en 5 series de 4, Piratas, Bucaneros, Filibusteros, Corsarios y Berberiscos. Si reunias una serie te daban un premio en metálico y si conseguias los 20 supongo que te darian otro mejor.....

In the package I remember that there was a drawing of the pirates grouped into 5 series of 4, Pirates, Buccaneers, Filibusters, Corsairs and Berbers. If you collected a series they gave you a cash prize and if you got the 20 I guess they would give you a better one.....

Debajo os pongo un scan del trozo de carton donde venian los piratas Dibujados, Aunque no pone el nombre de cada grupo yo si recuerdo cuales eran, El jefe de cada grupo es el primero por la izquierda del dibujo. Como veis, el orden en que los puse segun los recordaba no era el mismo del cartón, pero iba bien encaminado ¿no?

Below I put a scan of the piece of cardboard where the Drawn pirates came. Although it doesn't say the name of each group, I do remember what they were. The leader of each group is the first one on the left of the drawing. As you can see, the order in which I put them as I remembered them was not the same as on the cardboard, but I was on the right track, right?

 

Just a note on the first paragraph, he's not saying Dunkin did these in a smaller size, but that they are bigger than the other Dunkin he collects which are usually around 25/30mm and also tend to come in 20's.

We need some pictures here . . . 

In the UK, Kellogg's issued only six (top left image), with Coco-Crispies and Puffa-Puffa Rice (a Quaker Sugar Puffs knock-off!), and the same colours as the Ariel premiums, there are all four versions of Cascanueces in the bottom-left image. The duplicated olive-green figure and the two white ones are oddments who have come in recently.

 

Cereal Offers do them better justice here

At around the same time Americana bubble-gum were issuing them in Germany (and South Eastern France/Italy?), as Piraten Serie, with these two images from old evilBay auctions showing that in addition to the 'standard' four colours, they also got creamy-white ones

The above three iterations were all manufactured by Tito, a premium maker in Portugal, and most carry the Tito mark somewhere, along with the given name. At some point in the late 1970's the mould-tools migrated to Peru, where the colour range got much better!

 

This is my Peruvian sample as they arrived, they are of mixed parentage however, or might be, so these are the notes I made when they arrived, I've listed them alphabetically for now;

• Arrigon (the only figure marked on the feet)
• Al Epacha (Tito mark on trouser cuff, name down cloak)*
• Barbarrója 'Red Beard'
• Cara Cortada 'Scar Face' (letter 'A' is visible, might be bootleg)
• Cascanueces 'Nutcracker'
• Corsario Azul 'Blue Corsair'
• El Arana 'Spider'
• El Bisco 'Biscuit' (no Tito mark, reversed letter 'F' is visible, might be bootleg)
• El Jorobado 'The Hunchbacked' (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
• El Manco 'The Lame' [hand not foot]
• El Pecas 'Freckles'
• El Pupas 'The Baby'
• El Tuerto 'One-eye'
• Ivan
• Jack el Negro 'The Black'**
• Morgan (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
• Mustafa
• Papatalo ('The Unbeaten, Unconquered'?)
• Sebastian
• Taric (no Tito mark, letter 'E' is visible, might be bootleg)

* might be Ali Epacha or Al Iepacha . . . 'The Pasha'?
* *Not apparently a racist epithet, the features being clear and of European or 'everyman' appearance, with long straight hair, so; black-hearted, or up to no good!

 

Check Juan's comment below for more on the origin/meaning of these.

 

A similar grouping but I moved them around and swapped a few colours out to make it a better image, a few months later, then kept both for the post anyway! The quality of these is as good as the Euro-issues, but you can see from the notes, that things are starting to go pear-shaped on the tool, specifically with the text and logo-markings, I now suspect these are all the ex-Tito moulds and not bootlegs, as we are about to look at some bootlegs!

At around the same time, some company in the USA, Rubenstein International Inc. (1977) started shipping these fellows in from Mexico, bags have multiple pose duplicates and what appears to be a limited number of poses, but that remains to be confirmed by multiple samples, and I suspect all 20 poses might eventually turn-up.
 

A limited palette of colours includes red, blue, yellow and white, similar to the Euro-issues, but look at the flash and the overall quality, if there are bootlegs out there, these are they, or someone thrashed the tool to within an inch of its life, between Peru and Mexico!

http://vmminiartemonocromaticos.blogspot.com/2010/07/p.html

This guy seems to have only used eBay images without captions or context, so it's not possible to conclude what any of this means, but interesting colours, and suggestions of other issues somewhere, I particularly like the jade-green set of 20 figures. But you can also see the olive and white ones I've started picking-up, so someone around here had issues of both . . . Bonux, Christmas crackers, Maltese festival treats?

It has to be pointed out that the size and levels of caricature of these pirates, means they would mix quite well with the Antipodean Crazy Pirates we saw here

 

But we finish with darker stuff . . . 

 

I was hoping Giselle over at Mokarex would have something useful for this post, as she still owes me about 40 images under the 10-for-1 rule, but her pirate page is shit, she's nicked the Cereal Offers artwork, but all chopped-up and low-res, while she's photoshopped some eBay Peruvian figures which are not the Kellogg's colours, the page purports to represent! Only two of them are right . . . Thieves are thick, you see, somewhere to the left of the bell-curve!

 

But we end with this piece of hilarity from Kent Specher in the 'States, image used for research purposes, with full acknowledgement, wouldn't want to blame anyone else for this dog's dinner of a complete joke.

 

First;  They didn't make tea, they made chicory-coffee! Ersatzkaffee! Then we find there are too many poses, Linde only carried 14 of the designs! Why is there a Tito/Ola ice-cream premium Roman from the Asterix sets in the middle of the already too-big group, at 'K'? And the colours are all wrong!

Unbelievable, staggering incompetence, make it up as you go along to make up for a lack of research; *sloppy* is - I believe - the term used in Pennsylvania! The truth, had he bothered to look for it, is here;

https://www.lindefiguren.at/fotogalerie-linde/piraten/

 

And I've posted links to that site several times I think; most recently when we looked at the spacemen! Again, I've translated the page for English readers;

14 Piraten gibt es von Linde. Von links nach rechts heißen sie: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon und Cara Cortada. Der Name ist am Rücken oder an den Beinen zu lesen, daneben sind die Linde-Piraten natürlich immer geprägt. Die zarte Kennung kann leicht übersehen werden. Am häufigsten ist die Farbe blau.

There are 14 pirates from Linde. From left to right they are: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon and Cara Cortada. The name can be read on the back or on the legs, and of course the Linde Pirates are always embossed next to them. The delicate identifier can be easily overlooked. The most common color is blue.

Wesentlich seltener sind sie in den Farben gelb, grün und rot.

They are much rarer in color yellow, green and red.

20 Piraten wurden von der spanischen Firma TITO produziert. Nur 14 davon gibt es mit Linde-Kennung. Ob es Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas und Barbar Roja (siehe Abbildung) auch von Linde und auch in weiß gibt, bezweifle ich. Die Tito-Piraten wurden in Tüten verkauft. Tito produzierte auch die bekannten Dargaud-Figuren. Die Linde-Piraten waren natürlich im Kaffee.

20 pirates were produced by the Spanish company TITO. Only 14 of them are available with Linde identification. I doubt whether Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas and Barbar Roja (see picture) are also available from Linde and in white. The Tito Pirates were sold in bags. Tito also produced the well-known Dargaud figures. The Linde Pirates were of course in the coffee.

And the Linde are logo-marked and likely to be slightly different-sized copies (I don't have any, so I don't know for sure), most of their stuff was copied, as Kent would know if he'd read the series of recent articles in a certain magazine I won't mention, by an author I won't mention either, as neither would want to be associated with this in any way, but Kent knows!

 

What Kent has here, what's in the above image, is either Peruvian  product, from the old Tito/Ola/Dunkin (et al.) group of tools (likely, with the Roman present) or Mexican bootlegs, and which, from the state of it, the colours. and the Roman (!!!!!!), is a test-shot or factory sample of some kind, probably off of evilBay, to which, with no knowledge of the subject whatsoever, he added a shit-ton of text with no research or checking of even basic facts with all the available resources!

 

19 pirates! Not Linde's 14, not Ariel's 20, but 19 . . . and a Roman, in a different size! "Look Ma, I gave them all letters!" But he thinks he can come over here and tell me I've got 'Lots wrong'? Staggering arrogance.

And if you're wondering why some of my Rubenstein images are the same as his, it's becasue we took them from the same seller about a year ago!

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Space Shots

Quick round-up of spacey stuff I've posted elsewhere in the recent past, although that included stuff from 2021, and I'm sure we've had seen elsewhere-posts since then, but maybe not the space stuff?

All Spanish, I think? We saw the Credeco Romano-Greek bronze-age chap here, while the fireman is unknown to me and possibly from one of the major figure guys (Jecsan, Pech or Reamsa?) for a vehicle maker like Paya or Guisval?

 

While the focus here is the spaceman/space-alien, unpainted these are 'Sobres' by Montaplex and slightly cruder (flashier) mouldings, I don't know who put paint on them, but a minor make I guess, and they are slightly redolent of a couple of the Captain Video aliens with the long respirator / face-mask.

Saw a similar shot on the But is it Giant Blog, but here's another shot of a bunch of Giant's finest, reporting back to the hive-mind godhead-mother on their victorious exploits in Junior's carpet-wars!

I believe these are both gum-ball machine capsule prizes, obviously knock-off's of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, or at least the chap on the left is, but I think they go together, and most Power Ranger baddies were men in rubber suits, so, as a figure, it figures! He has a half man-bat, half lagoon creature look about him (or her!) and Keith Bowman wondered if Ultraman might be an origin?

Ah yes! More shots of my Portuguese copy of the Sel-Mac (not "Set Mac"!) robot (or spaceman; there's a helmet missing), imagine . . . just imagine waiting five months to score a point off me with your 'I can post that too' by waiting for your very good friend to send you the image, only get the name wrong! And the name of your very good friend wrong! They're funny guys, very funny guys. All the info is to be found in the links I posted, back in January.

 

Jim from France are responsible for these two, NASA types engaged in peaceful exploration, one seems to be taking a sample while the other films him in close-up from a youie-stick! I can't work out if they are a styrene or a very dense PVC, so it's probably the same hard phenolic/formaldehyde polymer of other French stuff, but looking-feeling odd in pure white?

 

Finally, these came in not that long-ago, and obviously painted, which I will remove, Thomas spacemen and aliens in PVC rubber, I rather like the painting, which seems to have been done from the limited pallet probably provided by a paint-your-own thing, there's the three primaries, black and white . . . the metallic bits are the figure's own colours left unpainted.

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!

S is for [Mostly] Seen Elsewhere - Combat Types

So, a quick round-up of WWII'ey or Modernish stuff most of which I've posted elsewhere in the last twelve months or so, but a couple of which are here for the first time.

A couple more Polish figures, I've actually scored three lots, which we will look at in other posts, but this pair were my first two of the 'Four Tankers & a Dog', Polish TV/Movie related set from PZG, so they were posted with pride a while ago!

Flying West we find this chap (pink) as a Portuguese cereal premium, now, I thought I'd posted these here, but I can't find them, neither can I find any group shots in Picasa, or from the Faceplant Group where I posted this shot, so I don't know what happened to them, but there are more to come (four I think?), currently in storage . . . un-photographed?

Heading South on the same continent finds us in Italy where these could be Jumbo, but are more likely to be Dulcop given the lack of paint. I have Jumbo (or Jumbotoys) marked Wild West with paint, these - unpainted - are just marked Italy and were, I suspect, used by both brand-marks.

Staying in Italy, and we're back with Co-Ma (Coma, CO'MA), for their smaller Alpini, also available in a 60mm'ish size and various bright colours (white and red in my case), and a vary diminutive '20mm' closer to HO, these are a smallish 50mm and more realistic in polymer shade.

Returning home to the UK and we have the shooting targets from Kleeware/Ideal, courtesy of Chris Smith, we've seen them before, and on that occasion I also showed the Ideal catalogue image, but now I've found the Kleeware one . . .

. . . which has not been seen elsewhere, so is a 'blog exclusive'! I mean; it's just a scan and I seem to recal it's been seen in Plastic Warrior magazine, but it closes the circle on these, since their first appearance here!

Also not seen before, I shot the full Britains Deetail 'Battle Group' while they were on their way to the storage unit, we saw most of them when I cleaned them up a decade ago, but there are a few additions, and they nicely fill a 4-litre Really Useful Box. I've left the painted Afrika Korps officer with them, but he's a bit shy!

These two only came-in the other day; a quick feeBay snaffle, you may remember (it's on the Airfix Blog) that my existing bazooka man was cobbled together from a kit of parts and a lot of 'superglue', these two are nice, clean and still flexible, so complete. And here compared with the HO-OO figure.

These are just for fun, I don't have a brand, brand-mark or set name yet, probably late 1980's, Hong Kong 'army men', I just love the colours! The same outfit seems to have been responsible for the 25mm clones, where you find the Japanese are commonest, in the same whacky colours.

Found! They were in a different folder!

Portuguese cereal premiums! The radio operator is a smoother/cleaner finished sculpt - so two issues? And maybe Japanese . . . or generic post war 'army men'?

 

Apparently they are by/for Farinha Amparo, a flour-miller?