W is for Wroxham Miniature Worlds

This was going to be part of a twin posting/comparison with the 'museum' at Mountfitchet, but things took a darker turn at that establishment, and for now I'll stuff it inconveniently under the carpet, and instead you can enjoy this as a stand-alone!

 

The shots Chris Smith took on a visit to the Wroxham Miniature Worlds attraction up in Norfolk, just NE of Norwich . . . 

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"From the outside the building looks like an industrial unit with entrance via a propped open fire door escape, I knew entry price was £13.95, did think about not going in... But took the plunge.

Very well laid out displays, some massive model railway scenic setups. Not my thing but couldn't help but be impressed by the standard of work involved in creating them, 100's of plastic buildings and 1000's of small figures included. All the trains controlled by a central PC program.

A number of working flight and driving simulator PC games from the 80/90's set up to try. I was useless at these back then so passed on trying."

"Good Scalextric track and display. Pelham Puppets, another massive collection on display. Huge vintage Star Wars action figure collection, figures, vehicles and boxes"

 

"Only other plastic figures I spotted were four Britains RNLI boats and crew in with some other, larger model ships."

"The Lesney/Matchbox bus was amazing, the sheer amount of vehicles was staggering. They do need to improve the lighting in this and the head height is an issue if you're over 5' 9" having to stoop on both levels."

 

 

 

"A small display of more general toys of interest were Magic Roundabout Figures, Sooty & Friends cereal premiums and a strange space bike with no rider, approx 1/32 scale that I'm sure would know the maker." [MPC Fireball XL5]

 

"Massive Lego display, from vintage Lego city to more recent lines of  Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter etc."

 

"Knitting! Not my thing, but impressed with the level of detail and work involved."

 

[Excellent use of a mirror-back display cabinet, to visually double the size of the diorama]

 

"Airfix models, poor display, obviously not loved. Poor quality build and a bit battered now. Were a few Airfix painted 1/32 figures and 1/72, but at ground level and hard to see.

 

One of my favourites was a collection of penny arcade machines all in working order, old pennies available via a change machine a £1 for ten, which I enjoyed spending. 

 

Overall, I'd recommend it to anyone if you're in the area on holiday or in Norfolk visiting/working. Personably disappointed by the lack of plastic figures."

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To which I'll add my tuppenny's worth, firstly thanks to Chris for sending all this to the Blog, and secondly, it appears to be a much better curated and displayed than others I have seen, the Airfix 54mm case, not withstanding!

K is for Khaki Kattle-truck!

There is a tendency, particularly among cheaper toy makers, for military versions of civilian vehicles to be produced, by the simple expedient of manufacturing the civilian toy in military-coloured plastic, this third Jimson post covers one of those! And I should point out, yesterday's Land Rover was based on the Daktari one, not a clown/circus one!

 

These came with the Land Rover and futuristic Transporter/Tank combo', and while I don't think the figures have anything to do with the vehicles, I shot them with this one, just in case! They are high-grade piracies of the Matchbox American Infantry from 1974/75'ish.

 

Compared with the transporter's tractor-unit, the body is longer, and the stake-sided superstructure is held in place with the same clip used on the transporters. It would seem these late-cab toys are harder to find, so must have been made right at the end of Jimson's reign?

 

The mounting hole equates to the other position on the tractor-cab, which is the further-back one, not found on the first version, so clearly there was an attempt to mount some other bodies on the tractor, before the newer stretched-chassis was designed, as seen on the cattle-truck? The newer chassis, like the transporter cab-units, has no mark/number.

 

Badly damaged, but I was buying the lot for the Tank Transporter and Land Rover really, and, as I say, I don't think the figures belong with the set, but they might?!

B is for Bibliography - 2 of 2

A continuation of the previous post;

 

I think I picked this up at the Plastic Warrior show, back in the Spring, but 2024! Several Blogs I follow have mentioned it, I think some have play-tested the rules, I may never even read it, but feel I should buy war gaming books in the same way I buy card-game books, so they are there, in the library, 'just in case'. So long as there's a contents page and/or an index, you can always find something if you need to!

 

Both the 'Discovering' series, and Shire Albums are a useful source of information, and blissfully succinct! Obviously they become rather irrelevant once fuller or more worthy tomes are published, but as primers, they are just the ticket.

 

Book collecting is a mild periphery interest of mine, plastics have always had a place, and earlier works benefit from details lost to modern research/websites, particularly some of the early trade-names of plastics, and I addressed to better points of board-game books in the previous post. 

 

This was free on World Book day, although 'free' is a moot point when there's a minimum purchase involved, and I don't think I met the threshold, so paid a nominal amount for it! A box-ticker, it adds nothing to the oeuvre, but joins the other dozen or so works on Lego.

 

Again, box-ticking really, how many times can you teach people the techniques published in things like The Eagle, which we looked at here, and which was issued more than half a century ago? Also, it was not cheap, but I saw it, I felt it needed to go in the library, which has a modelling section, as it has sections on Wargaming, Flags & Heraldry, Chess &etc.

 

Also, new materials and tools come along all the time, and a book like this, although promoting one company's products, often has a useful appendix or two, or maybe a glossary, so in the pile it went!

 

Two more Discovering pamphlets, I tend to get a few every time I visit the second-hand bookshop over in Alton, in part to support one of the few decent second-hand bookshops left in this part of the world, and also because there were so many issued, there's always another to find!

 

I love maps, have done ever since I was a kid making them with friends, in the woods near Bramshill, while the wagon one will join the three I already have on farm & military hoarse-drawn equipment and horse-furniture.

 

I usually only buy doll or doll's house books when I see them cheap, it's not my field, so I'm only getting them for completeness, for anything they may have on another side of toy manufacturers (more the doll books, than the house books), and again; glossaries, indexes and appendices.

 

The book which influenced and indirectly led to the first in this post, and something which - by it's absence - had been an obvious gap in the library, so, box ticked! The Wikipedia page is interesting, and without being able to check, I think this is the '77 reprint.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wars

 

Bear books are a bit like doll books, but this ex-library copy was cheap as chips in a charity shop, so an easy decision, and it's actually quite an interesting read on the histories/stories of several specific bears, I was also surprised to see some of the prices AbeBooks (with none on Amazon) ask for it, but it has a following;

 

https://holeousia.com/time-passes-listen/folk-worth-talking-about/aloysius/ 

 

This was given to me by John Begg, and it is a very odd thing, it's a kids' history/primer on Matchbox cars and 'modern' die-casting, by a famous children's author/illustrator of travel books in the 1950's and '60's. A sort of early advertorial, but quite entertaining nevertheless, and with several other works on Matchbox in the library, will fill a gap I didn't know was there!

 

Adrian had a small pile of these at the last Sandown, so the latest addition to the pile, and a nice, light read, well illustrated and a part of that sudden shower of books and websites about 20-years ago on all things medieval and toy, both soldiers and castles, I have one or two of the books I think, with one to find (the big book on castles), and remember the websites, which have disappeared now, with the passing of the authors. Sadly, nothing lives forever.

T is for Tobar Army!

I think we saw these years ago, in the now gone Debenham's graphics as a Christmas generic, but here they are in Tobar branding, and I think they are also, or have also been seen in House of Marbles packaging?

 

Matchbox WWII American Infantry clones, and err . . . that's it!

1 is for 1st Rack Toy of the New Year!

Just a quickie, picked this up on my rounds the other day, it's BJ Toys again, and a new one on me, sadly the four main figures are a disappointment, but I have been noticing more and more Paint Your Own sets, a trend spotted here a few years ago, with the cheapo'sets in The Works one Christmas, and which have since featured several times a year!

 

And, of course, the real interest here is not the handful of 45mm Matchbox GI copies, but the four 90mm Chinese Army figures, original sculpts, although, sadly hollowed-out behind, so after painting - for display only!

 

But they are dressed as they would have been through the war with Japan (second Sino-Japanese War) and the Civil Wars, in total from 1927-49, and which ultimately brought the Communists to power. A bit different, and hopefully, a sign of interesting things to come, from the Toymen of the Far East?

B is for Benefaction Bag and Benevolence Boys!

I haven't been doing much Charity Shop stuff for a while, but did have a couple of good plunder purchases, and this was all garnered back at the start of July, a small bag of plastics and a couple of larger figures from the white-elephant shelf.

A ceramic 'fairing' of a clown, probably copied from a better known or more commercially named maker, I thought it had shades of Fontanini's sculpting about it, and it was cheap, so home with me, it came, although home was - at the time - a motel!

 

A resin tourist jobbie, I don't know if it's a local British thing, of something brought back from maybe Canada or even Australia? There is a cap-badge of sorts, on the helmet, which vaguely resembles a Roman numeral III, if that rings any bells?

 

While the princely sum of £1.99 secured this for the stash, although if a Prince only had 1.99 he'd be considered pretty poor, as Prices go! I could see the level of damage, but thought , at that price, it was still worth a punt.

 

All that damage! It would have been nice if one or two more had survived, but I guess little fingers had handled the pack without due care and attention!

 

Relatively common Matchbox, mostly Germans, with Audie Murphy to keep their heads down! Interesting that they still have quite a few of the little 'sprulettes' (my term) on their bases, these are designed to allow the flowing polymer resin to continue-on beyond the limits of the product, ensuring the actual product section of the mould is fully filled, and you don't get short-shotting.

 

A few useful bits survived, although the Hong Kong copy of a Lone Star sailor is missing his foresight/muzzle. The US Cavalry food premium is worth the whole two-quid though, as his pennant is often short-shot, especially in the metallic variants, so he was a good find. I'm not sure if the two horses are Spanish, or copies from Greece, France or Hong Kong?

 

Survivors of the handling, but one has to remember they will be as brittle as the other Lone Star figures, and treat them accordingly? How they come in!

M is for Motormax, from Redbox

Sort of running out of time tonight, despite finishing early, I've been deep in the contents of a parcel from Peter Evans (next post, brilliant bendy band babes!), so I'm throwing this up before midnight!

Various treatments of camouflage/paint on-, and plastic colours of- the 20mm copies of Matchbox US Infantry, as inherited by Redbox from Zylmex/Zee Toys a decade or so ago, and sold with the larger boxes of military Motormax sets.

H is for Hing Fat, Not 'DGN'

The forth corrective post today, except the calendar says it's tomorrow now, but I'm on an odd timeline at the moment, I'll schedule it for 9.30 in the morning!

 

You may have encountered the phrase 'DGN' in your Toy Soldier scrolling, over the run-up to Christmas, I don't know if it was aimed at me - He has shown a past preference for warming hostilities at Christmas, but hadn't for a year or two - or just a 'brain freeze', he's good at those, and he went on to link it to a sales page clearly crediting SCS Direct (sometimes Wicked Duals), not 'DGN'!

 

Now, I dealt with 'DGN' here, I wouldn't suggest you read all of it, it was tedious the first time round, but The Denouement will give you an idea of the conclusion, without reading the tedium of how I got there! But I thought I'd correct the new nonsense while I'm in a corrective mood!

 

 

If the comment was aimed at me, it might be these lots, all recently Blogged here at Small Scale World, which could have triggered the resurrection of the phrase 'DGN' after more than six-years? All the above are Hing Fat products, advertised on their poorly attended Faceplant page and offered for trade-sale on their difficult to navigate website, which has menus which only show themselves after you've clicked on one of the headings on the left.

 

Faceplant Page - https://www.facebook.com/hingfattoys

Older sculpts - https://www.facebook.com/hingfattoys/photos/pb.100063683895745.-2207520000/1725209017735366/?type=3

Newer sculpts - https://www.facebook.com/hingfattoys/photos/pb.100063683895745.-2207520000/1717159245207010/?type=3

 

Website - http://www.hingfat.com.hk/ 

Older sculpts - http://www.hingfat.com.hk/index.php?c=237

Newer sculpts - http://www.hingfat.com.hk/index.php?c=239

 

Basic research!

They are all based on the old Matchbox American Infantry set, with the smaller set in the lower image being those handled by such luminaries as D&D Distribution in the 'States.

While the other two samples are the newer set, from a larger line, distributed in Canada back in 2014 by Ricochet, as TJF told us himself in a post where the dreaded E. Sell said "These are the same DGN-not HING FAT figures run in different color", even though they are the same colour, and other people attending the post were happy to acknowledge the Hing Fat attribution and to them dating-back prior to 2014!

Peter Evans, roving reporter for Plastic Warrior magazine has been distributing them for several years now, and he gets them from Hing Fat direct, that's the Hing Fat who HAVE a website, who HAVE a Faceplant page, no matter how problematical they might be! And it seems SCS Direct are the latest to take some?

 

And yet, other Faceplant groups are full of 'DGN', several evilBay bottom-feeders (mostly Russians strangely?) are (or 'were', they're all banned until Putler looses the rest of his navy!) using 'DGN' in their listings.

 

But no one in the six years since my rebuttal, in the seven or eight years since Erwin's nonsense on the Vichy site, in the ten years since both types have been on the market alongside each-other, has provided a scintilla of evidence for a 'DGN' - no links to no factory, no website, no trade-ordering page or no Faceplant?

 

No address even, someone has suggested TJF said it meant 'Dounghan-Guandong Niunght', but that's nonsence, Dongguan (different spelling) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong (different spelling) province, while 'Niunght' is a made-up word!

I have in recent months highlighted the fact that with the second version, where sculpting has been taken away from the Matchbox originals, there is some variation in base, probably nothing more significant than different cavities in a multiple-cavity mould (by giving them different bases, you might ID the problem cavity if a problem is noticed further down the 'bench'?), which are the two to the left, but that theory is rather blown-away by the fact that they are approximately 1-in-3, rounded to oblong bases?

The older figure is on the right, or 'older sculpt', Hing Fat are still offering both, to anyone who wants them! Base-marking is the same font or letter type, but slightly smaller on the older design, and all are made of the same plastic, a dense polyethylene or polypropylene type with that slipperiness to the finger-nail of nylon components?

Shade varies slightly between batches, and with the newer design, the two officers in the bottom shot have different sized oblong bases! If you read my original post on the Japanese from years ago (the post which seems to have started the war, even though it took them four years to strike!), it doesn't read quite right by what we now know, but that's - in part - because we're all learning, and we've learnt since then.

 

They were (the Japanese) in part - pose wise - inherited by Hing Fat from Rado Indistries/Ri Toys, and seem to be on their third iteration as Hing Fat with various changes in pose line-up and base-design? And with mine in storage, I haven't paid them the same attention, the three above came in with the Americans, and probably go with them. While an 'over the top' set accompanies the new oblong-based line.

 

All my versions of the newer set so far found, and they are all Hing Fat, not 'DGN'! And while I am only too-aware of the old adage 'the lady doth protest too much' in this case A) I haven't said anything for over six years and B) you have to nip this crap in the bud, or they will try to get away with more! Tiresome, and 'DGN' is 'Design', abbreviated.