O is for Ostdeutsche Ordnance

Another prime piece of plunder from the September Sandown show, and another one where Google's AI failed to provide, as did Google in general, and doubly annoying as I've only just obtained the Lehmann book, however, it went straight to storage, so I can't read it, but I bet this bit of the history is dealt-with there? Hay-ho, another day!

 

Artwork is remarkably accurate, compared to many other contemporary or not so contemporary companies packaging, although the figures and cargo are fanciful additions, absent from the contents of the box! Gnom Sortimen (gnome assortment), is the only text, and Gnom was a sub-brand of the East German continuation of Lehmann, after the end of World War Two.

 

Contents, not played with, totally mint and with no paint-chips of note, but possibly taken-out a few times, as I suspect the truck should be in the separate, card 'corral', rather than the trailer? But similar compartments may be missing for the other items?

 

A small field gun, a field-kitchen or 'Goulash Canon', which can be limbered with either of the other two towed items, but all three can't be 'trained together', as the larger trailer, and gun, don't have rear facing hooks.

 

A lovely thing, although Lehmann purists will tell you these aren't that brilliant, or that Gnom isn't terribly collectable, but I can't fault it for charm, build quality or playability, and as an East German kid, I think I would have loved to get this under the tree at Christmas, but I guess it represents the oppression, of one of the more insidious regimes of the Eastern-Bloc, given the web of Stasi infiltration into every-day life, the other side of the wire?

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.

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!

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.

P is for Polish Roundup - 3 - WWII / Cold War

The third lot of PZG that's come-in recently was this little lot (plus the two figures from 'Four Tanker's & a Dog' we saw a few days ago here in other mixed post) and consists mostly of British production knock-off's, but there are some original Polish sculpts too.

Two ex-Airfix WWII Soviet Infantry, one compared with his donor (grey), all seven Airfix poses were copied, and the clones are a little smaller than the figures they're aping.

Also a pair of US Infantry, again; ex-Airfix doppelgangers, again all seven poses were lifted, and they are painted to match the Soviets, whether this means they were sold as a set of 14 from the same side or two sets of seven I don't know, but the PZG website separates them.

A Polish copy of a Trojan / BR Moulds rendition of an older Crescent hollow-cast figure, painting is quite (six-colour-) colourful on this chap, almost as if the painter liked the figure as much as I do!

Timpo also got the pirated treatment, with the 10 of their larger GI set joining two other (ex-French - Mokarex - production?) figures for a 12-count, these yellow bases can be shared with the previous Airfix clones, as can the paler green paint job on the other crawling chap. From the fact that some of the poses weren't copied by the British plagiarists, suggests PZG took these straight from the hollow-cast originals.

Original sculpts of Soviet-era stuff here, and while the No.2 on the bazooka is missing, they still make a nice vignette of an anti-tank crew or 'brick'. Technically post war/cold war Polish infantry, they can pass for WWII Soviet infantry.

Compatible with the previous set and including the same bazooka, these are painted as Paratroopers, but you can find them with black, blue (UN), green or khaki (above) berets. Both sets are quite large so I have a ways to go, but I've made a start!

T is "To Boldly Go . . . "

. . . forth! 2022? It too will pass!

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?

Well, this is even better, and, looking at the images in that old post, I recon the parts will be interchangeable, if I ever get the urge to fire masonry towers or tiled-turrets into deep space!

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?

The component parts, a mid-density (soft) polyethylene plastic with the wooden 'wand'! The base-plate (bottom right, red) and the top cap/cone (white, top left) are slightly tighter fits than the other parts, so that once you have finished building it, it all stays together so it can be flown about by hand!

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!

I done did a little .gif

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.

While it clearly has an order of construction (left) to make a pretty standard space rocket of the pulp book-cover variety, the components can - of course - be assembled in numerous ways, which may or may not look good, fashionable or just plain silly!

New 'best toy ever'? 

N is for Nostalgia - Christmas Bits

The last of the seasonal stuff I think, and an eclectic trio, one's been in the collection for decades, one arrived yesterday and the other pair are 'found objects' from this year's forensic crap.

This - shot earlier in the year as I was sorting stuff - is the box and contents (less the carefully removed charms) of a set we looked at here, a few years back, and as I said then, the set's vaguely titled 'Old World Series' but there's no apparent or hard-and-fast branding, it's the sort of thing Tom Smith might have been behind as contract-manufacturers/wholesalers for someone else, and is most interesting for the cross-over from bass-metal to plastics (see link).

This came yesterday, in a parcel from Kazakhstan! The contents of the parcel will make a separate post, but I thought this was charming, it's an old Soviet-era Christmas card, and apart from the Cyrillic-language of the 'Merry Xmas' (or whatever) message, is no different to similar cards available in the west, then or now.

You see, it's important to realise - as Putin masses troops on Ukraine's boarders - that away from the shit of capitalist industrialists, religious conservatives or those who would rule us, we are all the same, with the same hopes or dreams, sensibilities or sentimentalities, and while you can go-off those who get taken-in by the populists, they aren't 'our' wars, and there is enough money, right-now, on this planet, to feed, house and clothe every man, woman and child - approximately $250,000 per head.

The fact that a few dozen fuckwits are using most of it to have public ego-tripping, penis-size competitions, whether of the Putin/Bolsanaro/Trump type, or the Musk/Bezos/Branson type is immaterial - they will kill us all, while we buy their shit or vote for them!

Found these in Mum's papers! The exclamation mark is because we did get novelty combs in our Christmas stockings, several times I think, and one year we got elephants, which were styled like these (I still have mine somewhere I think?), and were the same red and blue.

Now, knowing how fair-minded Mum was, I suspect she intended to give us these the next year with colours reversed, but lost them in her chaotic filing system, as with the second pair of markers? I'll never know for sure now, sadly, but that that is what they were for - Christmas stockings - I have no doubt! I shall, at some point, pass them on to other little people, for the intended purpose.

H is for How They Come In - April I - Chris - Combat Armymen!

So to actual toy soldiers and military model figures, for those loyal readers with stricter criteria to their collecting! And this lot had some real treats in it . . .

I've seen the two on the left somewhere in a catalogue I think, they are copies of Airfix (obviously) but quality is a cut-above the usual rack-toy 'armymen', the material too, which is probably polypropylene rather than 'ethylene and paint has been added at the production stage - anyone recognise them?

The mine-clearer also is interesting as while he pulls from both Tim Mee and MPC sculpting, he seems to be a unique pose, while in the background three Kamley/Kosi/KS types, in blue, for the Khaki Infantry page which is overdue for a major update (stuff from Chris, Brian and others), but which won't now happen for a while yet.

These were a real treat, and that's the official paint-job! Polands PZG copied the Airfix Paratroops and issued them in several colour-schemes, of which this was the leeriest by a country mile! Seven poses are known - click on 'Żołnierze' and then 'Spadochroniarze brytyjscy'.

It took me a minute to remember why I'd shot this guy in close-up, but Chris reminded me it was marked Macau (yes, I should have shot the mark and collaged them, but they are off in storage now!), I think I may have had another come-in, but can't remember if it was the same pose or the running guy, nor indeed, if it isn't the same figure confusing me as everything was being sorted and moved back in the summer, but unusual to have rack-toys marked Macau.

Aurora Sherman, a spring-loaded pistol, they also came as key-rings and are plastic copies of die-cast novelties, also from Hong Kong and also available carded or as key-rings. Another revolver; a cheap action-figure pistol (or Christmas cracker prize?) and a helicopter who probably belongs on the deck of a largish-scale aircraft-carrier, 'big-box' toy? The tank-trap (Czech hedgehog) is Matchbox I think, but fully compatible with the similar Aurora ones.

The de rigueur seated figures - the more the merrier as there seem to be lots of originators beyond the Payton history, and many colours! The larger one may be Hong Kong, while the yellow chap is jeep crew , definitely from HK, and again several variants. A Marx soft-plastic Brit' from the later window-boxes and a 1:48th scale German tanker completes the line-up.

The kit figure could be Bandai or Nichimo, who both had ranges in that size back in the 1960's, as I know more of the Bandai kits; I suspect he might actually be Nichimo? But other 1:48th makes were around, and in recent years it (the scale)'s seen a resurgence, so I'm only musing out loud!

Already seen elsewhere, a nice line-up of parachute troopers, they will - in time - all be sorted onto that page, which is on sabbatical for a while, due to real-life circumstances, but of interest here are the two on the right-hand-side with their weapons in their hands, the smaller ones tended to get a few issues - gum-ball machines, Christmas crackers and make-weights in larger carded rack-toys.

The small one on the end is almost certainly a cracker prize, and as always - I couldn't share it with all of you if Chris hadn't sent it in the first place, so many thanks to him.

C is for Cold War Clones

As well as those sets we've been looking at, a sub-set were produced taken from and using the artwork of the 'Export Series' from Atlantic, the whole box design was retained, but with the red background pinkified (yes, I seem to have made that one up! Spellcheck offered 'zincified' so I think it's vaguely legit'!).

The Atlantic construction schematics were copied as well and copying is to a level where you'd be hard-pressed to tell between them however I suspect side by side there will be a slight size difference, but that check will be another day.

Contents are also the same as the export series; four of everything. I'm pretty sure this is the same set Eko copied in Spain?

All previous comments are true for this set too, with four of each of the smaller version of Atlantic's two similar sets, same artwork, pinkened (spellcheck say "No" to that as well!), same instruction graphic, similar colour plastic to some of those used by Atlantic . . . &etc!

Even the Titles are similar translating as 'Italian Contemporary Wards (modern units) - ...Machine Guns & Mortars or ...Anti-Tank Artillery, so they aren't trying to pass themselves off as Soviet, Polish or other 'Bloc' forces.