Z is for Zulus

Something a little different today, and to be honest a rather unloved corner of the collection, as I do have most of the Lone Star and Charbens African Warriors, if not all of them, somewhere, and unpainted versions of the Marx reissues, seen below, but they don't seem to have got a decent outing here at Small Scale World? Trying to redress that omission slightly, I bought a small sample of mostly home-painted figures from Adrian a while ago, ostensively for the Fontanini chaps, and this is they!

 

Both Zulu and 'African Warriors' are used pretty loosely in this post, as the whole subject has been equally unloved by the trade, with most examples being pretty fantastical, rather than based on any historical or cultural accuracy, more Hollywood than high accuracy!

 

Five of six, in PVC, with number two missing, and he'll be a bugger to find on his own, these come-up quite infrequently!  They are the smaller 45/50mm version, but I say that not knowing if they have larger versions, as the Fontanini dancers and pirates do?

 

Paint conversions from a Cherilea (54mm Indian) and Toyway (Egyptian).

 

Marx reissues, these were very Hollywood, coming with a bunch of White Hunters/explorers to serve, but aren't actually that bad, sompared to some out there!

 

I think this is the far more accurate Zulu rendition from A call to Arms, and having said I haven't done them justice in the past, this is a bit of a rush-job/box ticker, too, but I have to go to work!

A is for Atom Bomber

Ah, yes! Alongside the white heat of technological advancement, let's have the white heat of atomic annihilation! Originally a Thomas Toys hit in the late 1940's USA, Poplar Plastics carried it over here, maybe in the early 1950's. 

 

No real/specific scale, but maybe around 1:144th?

 

Sitting somewhere between a B29 (Hiroshima and Nagasaki)/B50 Superfortresses, and the C97 Stratofreighter (the bulge and fold-line down the fuselage), it's not really any of them, and is a typical dime-store approximation! Mine has probably lost a bunch of stickers/water-slide transfers, but it was still an awesome find, at the last Sandown Park toy fair.

 

The Thomas versions are shown as having a central nose wheel in the same yellow plastic as the other small parts, so mine may have a replacement pair from something else, but it seems to have age and fit nicely, so it could be an updated feature of the Poplar version?

 

I'm missing a bomb, and I know I don't have one anywhere in the various spares stashes, so I'll have to look out for one, luckily it's quite distinctive, about 3cm, and ringed/winged like a dart-board dart, without the point. Pressing the plunger on the upper fuselage, opens the brass doors, and the 'all metal' bomb drops out, it's not sophisticated!

 

In the US there seem to have been two retail versions,, the plane and bomb, in a box, the box doubling as a target with various military objects to try and hit, printed on the lid. The other is a much more expensive affair, with an exploding battle ship in alternate blue/yellow deck/hull, with red turrets and superstructure parts to fly off! I don't know what Poplar issued, but after finding that submarine and rocket set, earlier this year, it wouldn’t surprise me if they offered both configurations over here.

U is for Undying Undead!

This must be year eight, maybe year ten? Our roving reporter in North America, Brian B, has managed to visit three of the 'household name' discounters, to see what they had on offer this Autumn, and he's found a darn slight more than I've managed to, over here, and we're starting with the new packaging for an old favourite.

 

They've lost their blister-cards, in favour of card-headed bottle-bags, and there seems to be the one card 'Skeleton Army', despite the fact that some of them have the Mummies, but only the two types were to be found in New England!

 

Now claiming to be made in Vietnam, and imported by the Old East Main Co., Dollar General is carrying them. Thanks to Mr. Berke for shooting them for us, like the cyclamens under the cedar, they just keep popping up every year!

K is for Kit Bashing

Funny, I got back last weekend from the show to find someone had 'found' an internet image previously seen here, and posted it without context, but with the usual 'What do you think readers?', and fair enough, this stuff is out there, but if we're going to change the rules to cover stuff like that, I'd just point out I can now repost about a third of everything he's posted in the last nineteen years, while he will struggle to reproduce about 1% of my Blog?

 

Probably not something he wants to establish, but thought and action need to be coordinated first, and they're clearly not being - what to you think readers?! Anyway, as that image appeared on a kit-post, here's the kit stuff I picked-up last weekend, while Bushy was following me, again!

 

I think these are mostly from the Gowland & Gowland 'Highway Pioneers' line of old fashioned car kits, later taken-over by Revell (UK), before going worldwide, through the parent company. Useful to get them without the large (1:43rd) vehicle kits, and most will be easy to ID, the red stuff might prove problematical though!

 

There is a variation between them, with the green chap bottom-right, having the post parts, at a six-count, while the dark green racers (?) are single mouldings, and you have everything in-between, with two, three, four and five-part figures.

 

Some (the really early [1951] ones?) having a cartoonish caricature look about them, while others are more realistic or anatomically correct. And there seem to be colour variations of one or two.

 

Funnily enough, given the premise of the post, I have a ton of these Aurora 'Snap-a-roos' in the archive (some used by Bushy, most not seen over there yet!), but they can wait a few more years, becasue I picked this up on Saturday, and it's arguably the best of the bunch, being space themed, while some of the others are more assorted 'transport' collections, taken from R&L.

 

And while I'm sure these have been credited to R&L elsewhere, there's no evidence of the Rosenhain & Lipmann mark on the frames, and, as we we've seen with both Rubenstein and De Gruyter, it's never that simple, plus, there were several Italian makers of these micro-kits, too. So I'm wont to 'call' on these, although the fact they called them Snap-a-roos, gives them an otherwise inexplicable Australian link!

 

Modern, and most of the contents are cheap cardboard tat, but a re-boxing of an old 1:24th Jeep kit, and it was half the going rate I've seen on evilBay! Commemorating a date in 2019, the instructions dated 2021, it apparently didn't hit the shops until 2022, so current really! Presumably, the production schedule got hit by Covid19?

 

The chrome-coated runner is for the civilian 'Surrey' version, although it you drive an open vehicle toward a monster Kaiju or two, you deserve everything coming to you! The card stuff will go with all the other paper/card stuff, when I get round to making-up the Jeep.

 

Right let's see how many feeBay space images I've 'saved', that I can post in the next 28 days . . . oh, hold-on, I've got so much original copy and imagery, I don't need to copy him, or hoover-up his Internet scrapings!

P is for Premier's Plastic Pulp-fiction!

I mentioned the other day that these were on their way from the land across The Pond, and they arrived a few days later, it took me a week or two to photograph them, then I managed to delete one lot of images while they were still in the camera, then reshoot them without noticing the alert that there was no SD card in the dratted thing, anyway, they're here now!

 

Group shot, I'll use Ed's ID list as a guide to these again;

 

https://toyconnect.blogspot.com/2013/08/premier-plastics-knock-off-flash-gordon_4270.html

 

So this is the five inch 'Dart', version 1, as made by Premier Plastics, presumably as dime-store bin toys, but they were also branded to Flash Gordon on multiple-element, tied-in cards.

 

Two of the smaller three inch darts, the red one I think equates to his version 1, while the silver one with an inverted '2' is probably the same as his version 1 also? I suspect, if enough are amassed, or compared, more numbers will surface, normal and inverted, and will be grouped in one version 2, as opposed to the unnumbered version 1?

 

Three inch 'Wide Bodies', these are all pretty identical, and with no numbers, are equivalent to Ed's version version 2 (five windows), but without the inverted '4', so again, will get a separate version under Ed's numbering system, one day?

 

Comparison between the three silver bods shows that the 3" Dart is that subtle pinkish-silver you sometimes find their (Premier's) figures in, like some shimmering-mauve 1960's eye-shadow!

 

That's it, a quick post on 1950's pulp eye-candy, joining the fleet, which now has the two dodgy-painted ones, a soft plastic blue one and whatever has been hiding in storage-garage-storage all these years!

B is for Battle Figures

We've seen them before, but it was eight or so years ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/01/s-is-for-shelfies-2-imperial-walmart.html 

 

And they are both carded, and several pages down the Tag results, so we'll look at these from Peter Evans, as an overview, Imperial's twin-set Battle Figures - proper rack toys!

 

Zombie Responders Vs Zombies, the zombies being unique sculpts only seen in the Imperial sets, while the responders are clones of those old favourites, Tim Mee's later 54mm Vietnam era GI sculpts. In their separate bags, the GI's look bigger, but it's because they are copied from more animated and gangly figures, and as you can see they are all the same height.

 

Ninjas Vs Pirates! I guess they could have met, on the high seas at some point? Again we have unique sculpts in the Ninjas (possibly a pose missing?), while the pirates are taken from the Hing Fat set, but reduced slightly in size. When we saw these as shelfies from Brian Berke in New York, way back when, I tagged them 54mm, but they are closer to 50mm.

 

Army Men Vs Cavemen, again did they only get five poses, or is one missing? Their foe were more Tim Mee knock-offs, but they were in Khaki, and almost certainly seen in one or two posts here at Small Scale World, back in the twenty-teens. Worth noting that while the new sculpts are all marked Imperial China, the GI's only have the China mark.

 

Not from these sets, and not Imperial, but in the same lot from Peter, so I'll chuck them up here as a possible complete pose count! I think we saw them recently, from Chris Smith, also as a 9-count, so that would seem confirmatory, and as I said then, I think they may be ID'd elsewhere on the Blog?

 

That's it, rack toys in Rack Toy Month! Thanks to Peter for these, and Brian and Chris for previous help with the same subjects.

T is for Tyo Typical Types

Well? A sort of theme was the space-sets I managed to pick-up over the weekend, and the matching loose figures, from two genres we've covered here recently, so a quick post on them, and the bonus was getting two-more brands associated with them both.

 

Haglon taking the Lik Be clones, and Trafalgar the MPC copies, Trafalgar Toys (better known for their tie-ins with LJN, Mego and the Hong Kong subsidiary Lion Rock) would have been a rival to WHC, Grossman and the like, and, indeed, this card may be in the archive as LJN?

 

But Haglon (Hagemayer) were more of a shipping operation, as far as I understand it, like with container ships, port space and warehouses in Holland, shipping all over Europe, and apparently adding their moniker to some of the stuff they shipped-in, that would have extended far beyond toys, which were probably a minor concern among all the household and garden goods, haberdashery, pet supplies and the like? And I'm sure I've seen this card as a generic. We also saw them as Woolbro a while back;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/07/lb-is-for-lanky-bods.html 

 

As supplied by Haglon! The 50mm knock-offs of LB's finaest, apparently limited to four poses (did they pantograph one of the Clifford sets?!) are not hard to find, although it took me a while to garner a decent sample, I'm now going for one of each colour! These came from four sources over the weekend.

 

MPC originals, in two slightly different shades of red, we looked at their oeuvre here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/04/mpc-is-for-many-plastic-cosmonauts.html

 

and these are grist to the mill, but again, there comes a point when you are just looking for individual 'better' figures, or a specific pose-colour combination, and these are clean!

 

Seen in the link in an unreadable, but probably generic set (next to the Payton bag), the Trafalgar ones are the better versions, very close to the MPC, solidly formed and with thicker bases than the other three or so variants.

 

While these are the Henbrandt/Hing Fat third-generation (like Payton's, but worse) sub-piracies, and again, of limited use, but they'll all be sorted into the master collection, before any are passed on, probably to charity, but that's all a few years away, still.

 

Tim-Mee, so keen to cash-in on Star Wars (AND Battlestar Galactica, everyone forgets that was a year later), grabbed one of the MPC sculpts, with the barest of modification, and there was one in the plunder, last weekend, which was lucky for the completeness of this post!

 

Which gives us, from the left:

• Haglon-Hagemayer/Woolbro (and others?)
• Tim-Mee
• MPC
• Trafalgar Toys (et al)
• Hing Fat/Henbrandt (et al)

Making more and more sense, every time we visit them, and thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for their input on the day or over the weekend.

F is for Follow-up, to the Follow-up - Row Cropthz? Oh boiy, oh boiy, oh boiy! Wa-hoo-wee! Lethz's get thiz thing movin', whaddaya thzay?! Wackqwackqwackqwackkqwackqwack!!"

More Daffy than Donald I fear, but I gave it a try! 

 

Well, I barely hide my disdain for the schmaltzy, 'classic' Disney characters, but when Brain Berke, roving reporter in New York sent me these, I have to say, I was quite chuffed, as it's an exquisite treatment of the dime-store style, row-crop tractor genre, and it is a genre, with die-cast and tin-plate, there's a whole field of them to collect!

 

Donald Duck, off to . . . do something . . . to a meadow! Brian reports it has no makers name, although the tyres (tires) seem to resemble the Banner ones, so might it have been by them, as a contract for the gift shops I assume the first two Disneylands (California and Florida) had, before the modern era of licensed and franchised everything?

 

Cheers Brain, a real doozy!

E is for Eye Candy - Marx Babes in Toyland Soldiers

Picked-up this little doozer of a lot at Sandown Park the other day, and at the pre-sale, car-boot scrum on the terraces, before the doors opened, too! We've seen me slowly collecting them loose, here on the Blog, and the Wilton knock-offs loose and bagged, but these are the icing on the cake!

Different lighting and angles, I'm studiously failing to get a grip of this new camara! The Marx toy soldiers, from the Disney movie Babes in Toyland. There is a 'Warriors of the World' style issue with them named on plainer boxes, two of each for an eight count I think, among various packagings, but I prefer these unnamed ones in their generic sentry-box cartons are nicer, and you only need four to complete!

F is for Follow-up - Dime Store Row Crop Tractors

The first of a few (?) follow-ups to things seen recently here at Small Scale World, and it's those pesky row-crop tractors, a design which never took off here in the UK, indeed, while there may have been a few demonstrators, or experimental imports, they were never a 'thing' over here at all, but, nevertheless, British toy companies ran with them, as mould-swaps or straight lifts from US dime-store vehicle manufacturers, and may have instigated some?

 

Partially as a follow-up to this post;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/11/m-is-for-mohawk-and-more-military.html

 

A line-up of the recent additions to the genre, with from the left marked Tudor Rose, x2 unmarked, marbled blue is slightly larger, both likely British, possibly Tudor Rose or Kleeware, the previously seen (in the above-linked posts) marked Made in England in military green, and a marked Banner in dark blue, The last two being bigger again, but not the same. Obvious differences in wheels, also contribute to the question marks.

 

Comparison between the Banner and unknown tractors, frankly the unknown (which I floated as possibly Kleeware last time) is the better moulding, did it come first, or was it re-cut? Maybe it was a mould swap with someone else - Pyro, Wannatoys or Wyandott - with the Banner being a copy of whatever donor's tool, the England mark was using?

 

I then found the military pattern Banner-marked version, so re-took the comparison, light conditions differed, so here's two, the lower image is eye-true colours, and you can see how the engine details are cleaner and more symmetrical on the Made in England - left hand of each pair.

 

The two Banner's, the blue one is marked Banner USA, the military-green one has had the USA removed, otherwise they are the same, and one wonders if it's a case of domestic and export, and if so, which is which?

 

They both have a hole on the right side of the engine-bay, which could be for a missing flywheel (more normally found in the other side in the UK, when present), or a higher-price-point's clockwork conversion, unlikely as the wheel is partially obscuring it?

 

The two known British ones, they are different mouldings, with the yellow Tudor Rose one slightly smaller, and only marked in the upper portion of the hollow engine cavity, while the 'army' one has the Made In England along the length of the engine on the right-hand side.

 

A larger, closer to 1:32nd scale, soft polyethylene Tudor Rose row-crop, in reversed colours from the smaller one, which is an earlier 'styrene, or less stable polymer (phenolic or urea-formaldehyde type?), but with perfectly stable polystyrene wheels.

 

Kleeware marked wreaker-truck (a straight mould-swap of the Pyro dime-store model) behind the 'England' pulling its gun, just for a colour study between the two, and because it was kicking about! The gun is a much copied design, and really, I don't think anyone knows who did it first (Auburn Rubber?), or in what size! And - of course - there was that close connection between Kleeware and Tudor Rose, and between both of them and Pyro on the space-stuff.

 

This artillery combination appears to be the one seen in this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2016/11/d-is-for-dimestore.html

 

Where a mix of a Bell machine-gun, a pair of unmarked Gilmark (possibly Tudor Rose) AFV's in bright colours, and some of the 'Built-Rite/Hardy/Kilty/Loeser/Spencer' semi-flat GI's were all found together with the tractor-gun combo'?

 

We've looked at them before, and looked at three versions of the Merit (J&L Randall) offerings, with solid wood, solid-rubber and hollow-backed plastic wheels like all the above. When I've got them all together, we may be able to work out a timeline of piracy, from US originals, to n'th generation Hong Kong clones!
 

All six. This post doesn't prove anything, but it didn't set out to, beyond the fact that there are many of these, and their heritage/origins aren't clear! When marked, we can say, they are what they claim to be, even if the tool is someone else's, but when unmarked, it's all a bit grey. More images are here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/03/b-is-for-banner-and.html, and I bought them in the end!

 

And knowing at least one was used as an artillery-tractor, I'll have to look at them all again, with the guns present? There were several already in the stash, mostly military green ones, but there are some other 'farm' ones.