E is for Erudite Editions and Ephemera

Let's get the boring ones out of the way first, then we can get into the proper polymer plunder! There was a new book, a new facsimile catalogue, a - now - quite old book and some other ephemera in the PW show loot, and that's what we're looking at today!

Barney Brown had these two on his stall, and I dare say you can get them from him at;

 

https://www.heraldtoysandmodels.co.uk/

 

The Timpo facsimile is a new one I think, being a scanned reprint of an old Timpo plastic solids catalogue, from the time between the hollow-cast era and the full-on Swoppets, and while it's mostly black & white, there is an opening colour page, with the cowboys, Indians, FFL and Arabs fully illustrated. It also includes a copy of a letter signed by Ally Gee, head of Model Toys.

 

I haven't managed to read the Swoppet tome yet, it's a sister publication to the one on knights, which I passed-on a while ago, I just didn't believe there was that much to say on less than two-dozen figures! But, this has four sections, covering all the other Swoppet lines (although you could argue the Eyes Right were only the parade/ceremonial Swoppet lines!), with a less fastidious, shall we say, attention to the minutiae of each range, so it will be a better general read.

 

Not than I'm knocking the first volume, if it was for you, I know how obsessive some people are on Swoppet Knights! And hell, I can get bogged down in the small, precise, or trivial details of far more esoteric stuff, than this 'mainstream' interest material, but it wasn't for me.

 

Also, I think it's a similar format to the other works on Britains plastics by Barney and Peter Cole, published in association with Plastic Warrior, so will sit well with them, at the 'landscape' end of your bookshelf!

 

This is a fun one . . . I've been waiting thirteen years to get this, I knew I would; it was just a case of waiting for somebody to die, at the right time for his copy to end up at a show I was attending, when or where that might be, and while I don't know if that's the case, in this case, but anyway, here it is.

 

And the first thing I'll say, is, it's bloody heavy! I reckon it's about the same as eight bags of sugar, 8kg's or about sixteen pounds (I haven't actually weighed it), or a large bag of potatoes, but that's where the parallels with potatoes start and finish, this is a fantastic work, and I won't hear a word against it.

 

It covers in some detail, everything the non-Spanish collector might need to know on Spanish toy soldiers and model figures, and while I think I might have a Sobre brand or two, not in here, and seem to have more Credeco elephants, than are listed, that's just the eclectic nature of my own collecting, and there's a ton here, I knew nothing about, at all, including on both Credeco and Sobres!

 

But why the thirteen-year wait Hugh? Well, therein lies a pretty tale! Which goes back further than the 2013 publishing date of the volume before you. I originally saw it advertised on one of the Spanish or Portuguese Blogs, which pre-dated mine, and were among the first Blogs I linked to in my sidebar features here at Small Scale World, but upon expressing an interest in getting what was the earlier, self-published version, was warned-off, by one of the Spanish collectors (the thread's still there), due to, shall we say irregularities in the book's arrival and/or repayments?

 

So, when a while later, someone waxed lyrical over it, in a UK magazine, I thought it was right and proper to warn others of what was being reported, by the Spaniards, as I was still, technically, at the time, a 'consultant editor' to the publication here. And that was all I did, I repeated the warning, as clearly second-hand, and, from the Spanish.

 

Mr. Hermida managed - understandably (no one likes criticism) - to take a certain chagrin to that, and rather over-personalised his response, in a subsequent addition of the magazine in question, during which he seemed to admit that there had been problems, but that they were all sorted [however I've since been approached by a major German collector, who is still owed several hundred Euro's for his copies, which never arrived], and a slightly catty repost from me ended that particular long-distance, printed conversation.

 

In the months (or years?) following that exchange, it was announced that Andrea Press, the publishing arm of the very well-know Andrea Miniatures, would be taking over the project, for the second, enlarged edition, and that there would be an English language volume, which was good news for everyone!

 

Except there then followed a long series of publishing dates, new publishing dates, rumours of plan changes, and press releases, explaining last minute updates, hiccups, and so on, to the point where some thought it would never actually happen!

 

But, in time for Christmas 2013, if memory serves, it was finally published! I believe there are 300 in English and maybe a 1000 in Spanish? I don't know, but mine is numbered 'of 300', so I assume that's the English-language 'limited edition' total?

 

Obviously, given what had happened, I wasn't contemplating sending off to the author for a copy! But this was back when I wasn't active as a consumer on that there Wibbly Wobbly Way either, so ordering a copy from Andrea wasn't likely to happen, and while I did hint to family members who were online in that fashion, that it might make the best Christmas present ever, for anyone they might know, who collected toy soldiers, the hints fell on shallow ground, and that might have been the year I got three copies of 'Tailgunner's repetitive second/third/forth (?) effort! Well, it was piled-high and sold cheap in The Works!

 

Now I hold Mr. Hermida no ill-will over the correspondence through media, all those years ago, and have only raked it all up here, to A) explain why it's taken so long to get one, and to get it on to the blog, and B) as a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of writing/producing a 'grand opus' . . . it's not easy!

 

In fact it's bloody hard, especially if you are planning a large format, or lots of data/tables of information and/or many illustrations, or any combination of them, and even more so, if your target audience is probably no more than a couple of thousand dedicated collectors nation world-wide, in a small hobby, where not everyone can throw four ponies at the wall, in short-order!

 

I know what publishing the two Farming in Miniature books involved, or have a fair idea of some of it, and it was years of dedication by three authors who had regular meetings with each-other, in pairs or threesomes, getting up to monthly or more frequent, as publishing-day loomed, meetings with the publishers, travelling all over the country, thousands of eMails, emergency updates of images, re-writes of paragraphs, whole pages or entire entries! Discussions on fonts, typefaces, pagination (how you number the pages!), layout and cover-designs, it's an endless headache, which I've avoided by just throwing it up here willy-nilly in a voice which changes with my mood!*

 

And, ignoring the problems associated with its gestation, 'Made in Spain' is a superb work, and Mr. Hermida is, along with Andrea Press, to be congratulated for getting it to those of us who have been lucky enough to get a copy. If you haven't, and you're a younger member of the hobby, I'll be dead soon enough, and you can enjoy my copy!

 

I will do a proper book-review of it, once I've read it a couple more times, I've really only leafed through it a few times, since last weekend . . . OK, I've dipped into it every day, alright! But there's so much to take in!

 

* And they still had to put the third volume online, and that, after a publisher change between the first two volumes! You can see it here;

 

https://farminginminiature.co.uk/volume3.html

  

 

I also picked-up these, I wasn't sure on the PW-20, but if it's a duplicate, it will make a useful swap for some of the earlier ones I still need (I think I'm still two or three issues short of a full run), while the PFPC has Marx Miniature Masterpiece stuff in, which I still have a soft spot for. The German (Strenger, Berlin) retail store catalogue is a box-ticker of limited use, but adds to the whole, and likewise the John Sanders/Treforest Mouldings thing, which is heavily annotated by a past owner. I think I actually have the full catalogues, by nation, from the James Chase collection?

 

Interestingly, the Strenger catalogue refers to the tanks as 'tanks' (kletter tank 'clatter' and Feuernder tank 'firing' or sparking), so panzer seems to have come later, with Nazism - there's a small sample of Elastolin SA, so the catalogue would appear to be 1933/34 maybe? 

 

While this site;

 

https://www.etymonline.com/word/panzer

 

Seems to indicate that the use of panzer was a deliberate act, sometime in 1939, what did Guderian call them in his seminal work? Could it be something the Nazi's came up with (from armour or mail), because those pesky Jew-loving Churchillian's over the Channel invented 'tank'? It's the sort of thing Trump does, with his Gulf of Fuckwit, Museum of Grifter, Peace Prize of Bum-Chums and Arse of Mouth.

 

A few other bits of ephemera which made it into this year's plunder-pile, mostly old Britains leaflets, a Timpo tick-list of medieval movie-character models, and a Skybirds packers card, by the looks of it. All grist to the mill of research!!

 

So, now we're into the plunder proper, I must thank, in alphabetical order, by Christian name this year, because I've forgotten, or not got several surnames; Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin.

T is for Tente - Tank Transporter and Tail-ends

So, the last of the Tente stuff in the car-booty found by Peter Evans back in the Summer, and it's 'most of the rest', of what seems to have been a ten-kit set, although I've got bits of naval vessels in the same 'army' green, still not a colour offered, in any quantity, by Lego, so the full range may have gone to 12 or 15 boxes?

 

The tractor unit is vaguely based on the Kynos Aljaba 8×8, but that was an 8x8 (obviously) not a 6x6, so it's a very loose resemblance, some Soviet tractors look similar, but usually with a closed cab, as do/are the Faun SLT's of the Bundeswehr.

 

With the trailer, which is even more generic!

Always hard to photograph tank transporters (or large ship models), simply because of the horizontal dimensions! But these give you some idea. The previously seen Tanque, and the Ambulance, before I had found its loose bits and reattached them!

 

It came with its own (2nd model) tank, the bulk of which was missing from the car boot find, and which is closer to the ex-US Patton or Pershing M46/47 & M48/M60's that were common in the Spanish inventory for the bulk of the post-war/Cold War era. But most of the turret was in the bag, and with the barrel off the other, I could produce that, for a photograph!

 

Alternate suggestions mostly involve slight tweaks to the configuration, but the half-tracked transporter is spacey! While the tank becomes a chunky-monkey personnel carrier or wheeled tank.

 

The ephemera awaiting scanning, includes a half-track which was also missing, however, I think bits of it might have been in the less-than-colour-matched ambulance truck, we saw at the start of this sequence.

 

 Reverse of its instructions include a vague weapons-platform, and a cargo-truck.

 

Missing numbers are the Missile Helicopter, a quadruple SPAAG, based, clearly, on the Soviet-era ZSU-32-4, while, not illustrated anywhere here, was a large 8x8, wheeled APC, coded #0751, which was probably the weakest model in the range - body too big for the wheels, giving it a very open and top-heavy look.

 

All the important bits of the helicopter (cockpit, rotor, tail, skids) were also in the bag, with a handful of bricks which may have been helicopter, but may have been half-track, if you were to follow the instructions! Another bag of bits and a pair of the shorter tracks, and I will be able to complete both!

So, many thanks to Peter for spotting these, and saving them for the Blog, something a bit different!

T is for Teixido Return!

Yes, a rather too-cheerful title given my views of bullfighting, but they have to be posted, and while I hate the 'sport' and the idea of it still being a thing in the 21st Century, I take heart in the fact that another Matador was gored to death the other day (at least he got to feel how the bulls felt), and two others have quit, publically, in the ring! One breaking down and sobbing, at the enormity of what he'd been doing, all his adult life, to innocent, proud, confused animals.

 

We'll start at the end . . . of the bull. It's all about the killing of bulls, and, the longer the fight, the weaker the bull gets, so the final flourish, and the applause of the bloodthirsty crowd is utterly pointless, as the bull's so weak by that point it's almost a mercy killing, for what the fighters have been doing for the previous . . . twenty minutes; hour; two hours? I don't care how long the fights take, they are barbarous.

 

These are the Teixido figures (I think? They may go with the Jecsan below?) we last saw on someone else's table with me pointing out I didn't have any, I now have a decent sample, and we're going to look at them now, along with a few others, that have come-in over the last couple of years!

 

Two more mounted figures which I think go with the Teixido set, but I'm not sure, some of them are more rubbery, others are 'ethylene, and while some have separate arms, others don't! And all the horses were polyethylene, but not all the riders went on all the horses!

 

Theses are all Teixido, and there was some judicial swapping of arms, between shots, to get everyone looking correct, and a few bodies didn't get photographed as their arms clearly weren't here! The last one is correct, I think, but the camera-angle makes him look like his plug-in arm is growing out of his back!

 

The guy on the right in the first shot, can be posed to be dragging his red-rag behind him, as we saw last time we looked at these. 

 

I think these are all Jecsan, although one has a more Reamsa style base, so I stand to be better informed on all these, but the whole 'bullfighting zone' sample is quite big now, and when it's all brought together we'll have a proper look at all of them, and compare with the various catalogue images in the archive, to get them all grouped correctly! In fact, I think the standing bull is the Teixido.

 

Jecsan horse, I think, not sure on the rider, who seems to be some kind of referee or officiator? He has a separate cloak, so may also be Teixido.

 

Comparison between a Comansi (?), unknown, unpainted one (which keeps turning up and may be a touristy thing?) and the Teixido horse, his padded-armour/blanketing is of finer etching/sculpting.

 

Jecsan with a Reamsa'ish base, a tourist keepsake, we saw another one (white, plug-on base), years ago, and one of the Teixido's. The tourist one is a polystyrene, hard-plastic solid, with metal pin inserted.

 

Further comparison, with the Torres wine premium on the left and one of the unknown small-scales from 2024's Plastic Warrior show plunder on the right, for some reason I swapped out the Teixido but not the Jecasn?

 

Hong Kong
Seen before, but cropped-tight and lacking the now-dead link to the auction!

 

I had the Jecsan stuff here, but the Comansi and Reamsa stuff is in storage, or on a dongle I can't be bothered to look for, right now! The reamsa'ish base one is it the ring, facing the other way, so he is Jecsan, but no sign of the towing vignette, the Referee, or a dead bull, so that probably is all Teixido after all!

 

While the two we saw yesterday aren't in these scans, so probably are Reamsa, as the Comansi's have bigger bases - it's not made any easier by them all four using the same gloss orange on the bases! I guess, after a thousand years, all that bull's blood has darkened the sand?

 

Please donate.

Imagine if these colourful, dynamic, civilian figures could still be collected, but as 'historical' subjects, rather than examples of man's ongoing cruelty, and inhumanity to everything around him?

T is for Tanque!

No messing-about with autoblinder-carro-panzer'whatsits, if the Brit's are calling them Tanks, we'll call them that too, but with our spelling - Tanque! We arrive at what is probably the penultimate Tente military post; I could squeeze two more out, but one would be pretty weak!

Not really resembling anything in service, but quite a mean looker, with a nice long tank-hunting barrel, although the turret is a bit boxy. The tracks and hull might be a bit Sheridan? This was one of two tanks in the series, the other came with a tank transporter, while this was boxed separately, as #0750.

 

Alternate suggestions on the back of the instruction sheet include a very chunky APC of the tank-hulled 'Kangaroo' type, and a front-engined SPG, which is closer to the British Abbot, than the American M109, but with the gun set back too far, and too high, practically-speaking?

C is for Cañón Autopropulsado

The next piece of semi-fictional military hardware in what the Spanish know as the Scorpion line, but without cultural knowledge of the little icon, the rest of us just tend to call the Tente military 'stuff'! Based loosely on an M109 US Self-propelled gun.

 

Another two suggestions, one a rather chunky-monkey in the vague shape of a Russian/Soviet SU-something-or-other, and the other an asymmetric, side-mounted SPG, looking like a mean space-tank hunter!

It took about 20 shots to get one with as little reflection as on this shot, so once I've got the scanner plugged in again, I'll get all this stuff scanned, although there's plenty online for these models.

A is for Ambulancia de Campaña

Continuing to mosey through the Tente car-boot sale find of Peter's, and we're with the 'Field Ambulance', Ref. 0755. One thing I have noticed with all this sample, is the variation in shade of brick colours, but that's probably down to the same-shaped bricks being swapped between kits, but it does, still point to poor quality control, that different kits/batches would be different colours?

 

The vehicle is in the style of a Steyr-Daimler-Puch Pinzgauer, a light utility/GS vehicle with off-road capacity but no war-fighting or front-line role, and I don't know (and can't find) a similar Spanish make of vehicles, nor is Spain listed as Pinzgauer users, but all the vehicles in the set are pretty fictional really!

 

Rather like the 'war', or undeclared fight between VHS and BetaMax (where Beta' was netter, but VHS 'won'), Tente is the superior system, with more flexibility in construction, brought about by the fact you can either hug the studs (like Kiddycraft's pirate, Lego), or lock on to the central holes in each stud.

 

Another couple of alternate builds on the back of the instructions, each model seems to get two suggestions, with two-step build photo's you have to work through. I seem to recall, at one point, Lego used to put similar illustrations on the outside of the box?

L is for Lanzamisiles

To be specific, the Tente military set - 0753 Camion Lanzamisiles, and I know, I try not to do army/death stuff in December, but the queue says otherwise, this year! And this is exactly the sort of stuff you might have found under the Christmas tree in the late 70's, or 80's, especially if old Aunt Maud didn't understand about the vagaries of Lego-compatibility!

 

When we fire brightly decorated missiles at each other! Such marking goes back to the German V-Programme (Vegeltung - retaliation, retribution, revenge, or reprisal - like Trump, the philosophy that it's always someone's else's fault, if it's not going the way it was supposed to, when you started it!), and painting the test rockets in such a fashion, was to be able to tell (from the video [film] footage) how they performed, where or why they spun, and/or exactly where or how they failed first. Target drones are similarly decorated for visibility.

 

Lanzamisiles is simply 'Launcher of Missiles', or missile-launcher, and the toy, once completed, does not fire the missile which is locked to the launch-bar with a row of the more-complicated-than-Kiddycraft studs! I think the truck may be a loose Pegaso 3000 series?

 

When these came out, Lego were still producing pretty box-like, civilian vehicles with few specialist or 'cool' parts, and even when the space sets first came out, we only got a few new parts, dishes and hand-tools mostly. Indeed, when the ariels were added to the Lego space sets, they were far simpler and more toy-like than the one Tente had been using for some time.

 

Spain remains non-nuclear, so this would have been a tactical, battlefield artillery missile, to deliver a high-explosive, heavy-punch, with - hopefully - more accuracy, or devastation than fire-and-forget artillery rounds or heavy mortars!

 

Some ideas for alternate models which could be made from the contents of the box, the whole point of construction sets for kids, something lost on the Kidults, who can spend $1000 on a Millennium Falcon, which takes ten days to build and never gets touched again, except in house moves, or when the partner attacks it with a broom-handle upon exiting the relationship!

 

"I took the sofa apart, but never found the second air-tank in the smugglers' alcove, it's just not the same now!"