And as Chris suggested last time, still only the nine poses, I guess they considered it a set of ten items with the flag, not that any set of toy anything has to have round numbers and many don't, but with toy soldiers you tend to look for six, eight or ten &etc!
Did I say we'd be looking at something from Kazakhstan in the future? Well, it's a year in the future now, so by Jove; let's look at it! First though, do you remember when I got a little excited about a Merit infant-toy stackable fort/palace thing?
Jovians queue-up to board their space rocket courtesy of a brand I don't recognise, but it looks like ЈПЕ as a pyramid/in a triangle, indeed it's might be ЗЦГ with the point of the triangle at the bottom? I should have photographed it but . . . red plastic, winter light, flash!
The colours of the rocket, or at least; the red and
turquoise could be seen as the colours of the flag of the Soviet Socialist Republic of
Kazakhstan, so while the factory may have been considered 'Soviet
Russian', I suspect it was local to the now independent Kazakhstan?
While the Merit castle had fixed spigots top and bottom of hollow tubes, this rocket has a central core of a wooden rod or dowel - I don't know how long a dowel has to be to become a rod!
A quick point - in hours, this was less than six days, Kazakhstan to UK . . . over Christmas! I have to wait at least two weeks to get something from New York, New Jersey or New Hampshire, at the best of times and they are direct to Heathrow, several times a day, while it's up to three weeks from Italy or Greece? Mexico? Over two months! Heathrow-sorting to Fleet sorting . . . 40-minute van-drive, Fleet sorting to my door, 3/4-minute walk. yet this, from a late-night purchase to a 9am delivery was a few hours over the five days? I think the words we're looking for are 'quality service', from the Kazak postal services! Something ours - in the West - have lost, abandoned.
Kazakhstan is building closer economic ties with the EU (without showing a similar interest in Joining NATO) and will be watching the Ukrainian border with some alarm, Russia has no right to enslave all these neighbours, just because she had once done so, and I hope common-sense prevails . . . or Putin meets a sticky-end.
New 'best toy ever'?
We used to get some kid's stuff, from Czechoslovakia or East Germany I think, often quite scary puppet stuff (I wasn't too keen on) but also cartoons or stop-motion animations similar to The Magic Roundabout, but I don't recognise these figures.
The spanner-man (top left) even has features in common with one of Mattel's MUSCLE men, while the next is clearly an onion, followed by a figure bearing a passing resemblance to the Tin Man of Oz, and a Micky take-off completes the top row.
The bottom row has someone in a large sun-hat or halo, or is it the actual sun? The next is a wooden doll maybe (she (he?) reminds me a bit of Zeberdee), a normal'ish/human-looking fat lady with a huge nose and the most human of all, who looks a bit like Vicky the Viking.
And I use the comparisons not to suggest plagiarism, but because they are my closest cultural references - I'm sure these were all unique designs with full back-stories, fitting their Russian heritage? I believe this eight sculpts is a full set, although I may have seen some of the characters as larger blow-moulded toys, PVC figurines or soft toys, while searching for other stuff on feebleBay?
Like I say - they're fun, around 45/50mm and a softish soapy polyethylene, similar to the mono-block AFV's we've seen here at Small Scale World. Do you know more about them . . . character names, production name, era, even the toy-maker? Odessa's Kultbyttovarov used the same colours on their small scale ships, 'planes and AFV's?
* ** *** **** ***** ****** ***** **** *** ** *
Later the same day - not in pink 'cos there's too much! Chris Smith got on the case before work this morning and nailed it!
". . . had sneaky look at your blog and finished down a google worm hole! This must be the onion headed one, not sure if the others are characters from the film or other popular children’s stories?"
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2474800/
". . . looked further. More interesting than work! Your hunch on Cheburashka was right after all. Your description in red."
Петрушка (Parsley) Vicky the Viking (a clown puppet a bit like a Russian Punch)
Буратино (Pinocchio/Buratino) Tinman
Незнайка (Neznaika/Dunno) Sun Hat/Halo
Чебурашка (Cheburashka) Ditto*
Дюймовочка (Thumbelina) Wooden Doll
Самоделкин (Samodelkin) Spanner-Man
Карандаш (Pencil) Fat Lady Big Nose (If you look her nose is hexagonal and pointed)**
Чиполлино (Cipollino) Onion Boy
* This character is currently in talks with Disney, but now - in poplar culture - looks more like a monkey than the above toy, which is probably why I saw a similarity with the ears, but not the body!
** I was closing-in!
Cheers Chris! Magic!
*****************
Later still - It is originally an Italian story; Chris sent me another link I hadn't seen . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipollino
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipollino_(film)
*****************
Even later!
I don't think most of the above characters are from the movie (the apparent absence of king/mayor 'Tomato' was bugging me), I think they are from the Russian kid's books 'Expanded Universe? And it looks like Pencil is a boy!
https://flomaster.club/18407-karandash-i-samodelkin-illjustracii-ivana-semenova.html
I actually shot them over several days with no real order, so some of it confused me! And a Polar bear got shot before everything else, and again half-way through!
Then in the evening, I sort them again into
thematic piles - civilian, combat, ceremonial and/or historical, space/sci-fi,
fantasy, cartoon/TV/movie-related, animals (sometimes sub-piled; sea life,
dinosaurs, farm and/or zoo etc....), Kinder/capsule, vehicles, 'planes, accessories/building parts &etc. That is where this
shot finds me - little thematic piles of polymer playthings!
Also I have to work out exactly what to shoot for these posts, for-instance I haven't shot the mini-plastic buildings (upper-left-centre) because we've looked at them here, but due to the three building types (two Whilhelmian barrack/flat-block types and a church), and various colours, they are always welcome in the collection, as there are many variations to find!
Slightly to the right and just below them is a bag stuffed with all the small-scale (15-25mm),which are next, but what else can you spot?
Also of interest are the three soft plastic
firefighters, also Blue Box, the pair of (Corgi (?) driver/co-driver) firefighters and the red horse
racer, possibly from a board game, but I
suspect Christmas crackers or some of those 'early learning' types we looked at a couple of three years ago - where does it go!
This image - in sequence with the previous, but the next day, threw-me for a moment as it didn't make sense, but study suggests in the foreground I'm still sorting Chri's lot, in the middle distance I've got the TBS Matchbox and Corgi out, probably to sort some of Chris's stuff into, at the far right I seem to have lined-up my growing stash of Russian Malysh rubber Wellingtonians, adding the pastel shades to those I'd blogged the previous October?
While the red blob top left is a piece of Betterware from Chris, which was probably waiting to go up to the loft where the Betterware box was . . . actually they don't have their own box, the have a few of the index-carded 4 / 5½" bags in the A-B Minor Makes box!
On the end of the upper row is a nice - probably Italian 'precepi' or nativity figure, might be a king/wise-man, or just a villager, below which are four Russian knock-offs of the Marx 60mm Vikings, but closer to 54mm as copies.
They actually highlight the situation this
year; I have these figures in the short queue, they are actually on the
lap-top's desk-top waiting for final editing, but I don't think these four are in
the article? As the article was shot a few months ago, and these came in nearly
a year ago . . . they should have been united by now . . . so, while a lot of
stuff has been sorted together on the way to storage (and a lot photographed),
some things which did have two homes, now seem to have three - I fear these
chaps are in that category, and it will be at least another year before it's
all been fully put straight!
The green horse is one I call 'Large Draft' and I've just (last few days) done a ready reckoner on all of them here, it's not how I'd planned the horse page, but it will help people sort theirs for now and as I post them in detail the riders, foot figures (if any) and accessories will be sorted too. Finally one of the hard-vinyl figures from Portugal who had several issues and - seemingly - several iterations of 'full set', which we will try to get on top-of, one day.
Many thanks to Chris Smith, there are five more posts to come, looking at some of the highlights from the thematic sorting phase, but all of it is greatly appreciated, it enhances the Blog and the readers experience and those figures/items which don't get to shine in these 'H is for . . . ' posts will enhance the Blog and A-Z entries for years to come.
I've also been posting a few links of similar ilk/subject matter about the place, here are two on the ancient/medieval theme;
Faceplant -
And while more recently I have bid and lost on a couple of boxed sets (or dropped out 'cos they went too-high for my wallet!), I spotted a lose but complete set a while ago and got it for a reasonable price (can't remember if it was bid or BIN?), so while a box is always nice, and makes for a longer Blog Post, it's really all about the figures, so - with all the accessories - let's have a look at them!
Also like their British counterparts, these are not rubbery or 'grippy' hands, but quite rigid polyethylene hands you have to force the accessory into only for it to pop-out in play! The archer gets two plug-ins which are a bit more successful, while the chap in the middle of the upper row has a more conventional ring-hand for his sword.
I suspect they are the same sculptor as the set of WWII Infantry with the plug-in red-flag we've seen here (with Chris's help), and are reported to have first appeared in 1976, but with only the five poses in this set, possibly because of the extra effort and second mould-cost required by the accessories?
These are clearly trying to represent the old air-mobile Russian BMP (or at a stretch the regular-force's BMD) and the ASU mini assault gun, but by using running-gear more reminiscent of an MT-LB's or the BTR50 (fully-tracked cargo trucks)'s and using identical superstructure, what we've ended up with is a 'new' family of space tanks . . . bargain!
Crewed by gum-ball copies of Giant Aliens (shades of 2000AD's Invasion and Bill Savage fighting the Sov's to liberate Scotland!), the BMP-alike is in the foreground, the ASU-alike behind, you can see that both have too many road-wheels for either real life vehicle, while the identical superstructure is clear.
The fact that they are bright blue (Soviet 'Airborne' blue?) helps with the off-world theme and here supported by Giant originals (note the better quality of the mouldings).
Construction is a simple clip-together and the hard polystyrene equivalent of Airfix 'readymades', but with less accuracy! I don't have a maker for these yet, they are unmarked, but I haven't looked for them on the two main forums yet, so that will probably come with time.
I love them, clearly recognisable as Soviet
armour, they are also and undeniably 'Space Tanks'; yeay! I've marked them up as 28mm, but their fictionalisation makes them what you want them to be.
Some Wiki-pages so you can make up your own minds;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMD-1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASU-57
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MT-LB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTR-50
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP-1
I'm not going to bore you with a translation of the artwork-panel titles, as apart from about three, they don't bear much relationship to the figures, and while there are eight of the little pen sketches and eight figures in the set, several of the figures clearly aren't in the artwork at all, and more poses have turned up, so I think the artwork is more for the interest of little-people buying or begging for toys, rather than to directly represent the contents!
The two extra/buckshee poses are in front and both look a little more French? However, you can see two in the tray are a darker gunmetal and I think they came later, which is not to suggest there are specific 'set contents'; we know from earlier posts that the slip's translation was giving a pricing that was for individual figures, eights and full sets with tray; but rather to question how many there are overall
Like most State-owned (or in this case 'regime' specific) organs of the Soviet system - as practiced in both Russia and China - they ended up with a few industrial plants, among the output of which were toys and playthings.
This all points to at least three sources of these figures, whether or not they were all Dossaf facilities or some other collective outfit/s is unknown at this time, but as-per those Progress flats we've looked-at before, there would have been duplicate moulds for other sources or other makers . . . and it makes collecting them more fun!
This one took me a while to locate and pin down, but I am now satisfied enough to share it with you, despite the fact that I may be wrong, but given how little we seem to know about some Western manufactures, researching the Eastern ones is no easier!
The following was - I now believe - manufactured by The People's Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia's Medical & Labor Dispensary №.1 Tambov Region, Zelenyi Settlement but I stand to be corrected . . . and may have extended the title somewhat, for comedic effect!
First, however, a rant; a small rant! We have all been lied to, and are continually lied to by those in power, and those who control the media or have other 'vested interests'. There is no difference between 'them' and 'us', which is not to say there aren't differences in funding, or finance, in political will or behavior, in economic model or philosophy, but ultimately the Russians ("the 'Commie' Sov's") and us were far more similar than you might think from what we were told.
Today's toy (below) was basically manufactured by recovering alcoholics, they could just as easily have been disabled people, or ex-servicemen, but that 'meaningful, gainful employment' by way of therapy or as a means to aid convalescence - in the Soviet Union - is (was!) no different to the work being done by the blind at PZG in Poland, by ex-servicemen at Enham Alamein or Linburn (both latterly: Remploy) or (because a lot of the drunks were at Tambov custodially) Prindus (Prison Industries).
Now, there are two points to take away from this, the first is that the Soviets had a rehabilitation system for habitual drunks . . . they didn't send them to Siberia, they didn't 'disappear' them out of helicopters (a trick of US backed/funded/trained regimes in Central and South America), no, like any normal, day-to-day society, they had a rehabilitation program for troubled (or troublesom) citizens; just like ours.
The second point is that the facilities at Tambov (which is how I'll refer to it for the rest of the article, as otherwise their title - any other way you cut-it - is a mouthful!) are now derelict, as PZG seems to have ceased producing toys, as Linburn disappeared, as Enham was swallowed by civilian (state funded) 'charity' bureaucracy and has now lost it's Remploy unit. So the parallels of good programs under social responsibility are mirrored in the later neglect of today's Thatcherite-Raganomic 'free-market' Capitalists . . . everywhere!
All simplistic (and a bit muddle-headed), I'll grant you, but you know what I'm trying to get across and to do the above properly would require a wordy tome on nuanced-parallels of socio-economic conditions in differing political systems, which only academics would read! But, if Tambov, PZG, Linburn and Prindus were still making toys; what a nicer world it would be!
And if Remploy (all units, Britain-wide, closed without warming by the Cameron-Glegg administration) were still going last December, they could have scaled-up and been producing the PPE we needed, before we needed it, negating the need for Boris to give £122m for PPE to a company with no assets formed seven or eight weeks ago . . . by someone he gave a peerage to!
You see, as well as there being no difference between us all at the bottom, there's no real difference between them all at the top!
Foreshortening from the camera-angle has made him look a lot smaller than the Airfix figure, he's not, but he is only HO-compatible to the Airfix 1:76th scale.
* Also now derelict (I like the construction guide-board for a noddy-suit respirator, all laid-out like an O-Level lab-rat!) and like Tambov; known for colourful sets of blow-moulded figures; manufactured on an armaments site!
