M is for Minor 'Euro-Makes'!

Actually I'm going to tack a major on at the end, whom we've already revisited once in this occasional series, entering it's third month with at least 12 posts still to come, plus a combined comparison/round-up post at the end. And today, some of the European makers we haven't yet looked at.

From a 1970's Vollmer catalogue, are these wagons, which I think missed the wagon posts a few years ago, they look to be Preiser, but the horses are the smoother, simpler ones more commonly associated with the Roscopf wagons or some Hong Kong copies. Indeed, I think I've mentioned before, that I'm not sure what the relationship is between the three or four (Noch seem to have carried other people's product before they embarked on their own, now Preiser-equalling, range), so I can't add much beyond that the similarities are obvious?

 

While this is the 2000 Walther's (Terminal Hobby Shop) catalogue, and we see what are clearly Preiser, in a 'simple paint', we actually saw this earlier in the post series, but I scanned it again!

 

Not sure if these are from Merten or Preiser, (they have the arm'y/leg'y look of Merten?) but again a rolling-stock and trackway manufacturer, getting 'simple-paint' samples from another maker, to enhance their catalogue with a basic set, it's all part of the 'brand-loyalty' work, isn't it? Add a couple of Pola buildings, a level-crossing, some track plans, Heki trees . . . and 'Fleischmann' people!

 

This - the Jouef figures - is a personal embarrassment, as I think it's their third mention on the Blog, over the sixteen years, with the Mettoy Playcraft scans appearing at one point, and yet, despite seeing them go to storage, I still haven't photographed them, but they did appear in One Inch Warrior magazine, I think, in black & white, which doesn't do justice to the loud and leery paint job, of the Playcraft - ironically a Tri-Ang rival from the same Line's empire!

 

I have since found slightly better painted ones (in shade, not the two-colour stab-and-hope scheme), which may be Jouef origianls, from whose catalogue these scans are added to the previous shots! And playcraft sold them from the Jouef bags, so they were only ever nominally Playcraft! Also, didn't Hornby experiment with passengers pre-glued to platform sections at one point? Instant Stations!

From the same Walther's catalogue, this was, I think, the beginning of what has in recent years become a line to rival Preiser, and we have seen one or two here, a Bierfest stand springs to mind, and I will one day do the rude sets, of which I have several and they should have been in the 'Adult' naughty-post before Christmas, but they are in storage.

 

Noch were originally another prefabricated building/scenic's firm, like Pola, Vollmer or Wiad, and like them had a couple of simple figures kicking around the pages of their catalogues, in boats or something, from time to time, but in the last quarter-century have developed a range to rival Preiser, even as Priser swallowed-up Elastolin and Merten to stay ahead!

I don't know much about these, except that they are probably lead or whitemetal, possibly composition, and as listed in this old catalogue? Klinebahn (literally 'small way'), and in sets of six matching the lead of early Märklin, or the sets of Preiser, Merten and those above.

 

And, having just mentioned them, our third visit to Märklin in this railway-figure 'season', and no, we are not going to start investigating O, G, S, 1, BIG or any other gauge, that can be for another day, or for the A-Z pages! But I wanted to post this set of composition figures and - specifically - the interactive or 'working' guard, as it's just so cool! All in O-gauge.

 

The catalogue mentions the 1937 Grand Prix of Paris, on the cover, but seems to be actually the 1949 issue, as they started to recover from the national madness of national socialism.

Minimodels is also for Almark!

I got a bit shirty a while ago and chucked this first-image up elsewhere, with a 'Sigh', after I had posted one lot (Minimodels) and someone (who clearly couldn't see his nose in front of his face) started lecturing me on how they were the other lot (Almark). Then, even as he'd been corrected, a couple of others' made the same mistake on that and another post, or thread, or whatever you have on Faceplant!

 

Now, don't get me wrong, people already know I'm prickly, or if they haven't learned that, they may have a surprise coming at some point in the future, especially if they cross me, but I don't get this almost teenage attitude among new collectors to open their mouths before they've even read what's in front of them; we're taking grown men in their forties here . . . late forties and fifties mind, not kids. 

 

It's great that there are a lot of new people in the hobby, that's obvious, and it proves the naysayers wrong, with their regular moan of 'Our hobby's dying' . . . Incidentally, everyone keeps saying the Metal hobby is dying, but actually even tatty hollow-cast seems to retain high values on evilBay?

 

And when watching this phenomena I am reminded that it is some miracle my father didn't murder me when I was a teenager - although he almost did the day I broke the 'unbreakable' fork; descending on me from the tractor-cab like a Ring-Wraith! But forks aside, I did ask an inordinate number of stupid questions.

 

I would literally think of something a bit dimwitted, and before I'd given it a moment's thought, ask the obvious! Dad was very good, he'd fix me with his look for such occasions and say "Think about it?", I'd realise I'd asked another dumb question, give it a moment's thought and go "Oh yeah! It is" or whatever!

 

It is similar with some new collectors, they don't bother to learn from the websites or magazine, but rather assume from half-understood bits, or ask about stuff which has been done to death elsewhere as if no one's ever covered it!

 

I'm probably being unfair, but then that's me, and when you post Almark and someone tells you they are Minimodels, or when you post Minimodels and someone else tells you they are Almark I think you're entitled to get a bit excised! Equally, I was polite there, but this is here!

And also frustrating is that it IS already on the blog, we've covered both makes over the years and the difference between them, I seem to recall with help from others on the German sets, but we're going to go over it all again, now, with the Japanese! But all the salient points in this post are already on the blog!

 

Five poses here, all Minimodels, we know they are Minimodels because the first image says so! No . . . because they are painted (a tad garishly) and pre-assembled with helmets in a different colour (and type) of plastic.

 

Minimodels was a toy plant in Havent, hampshire, a satellite of the Portsmouth & Southhampton conurbation, they were part of the Triang-Mettoy [Lines] group, and were set up mainly to produce Scalextric, the slot-racing system, after a move from London.

I shot the kneeling guy again, so there's only six more poses here. The figures were designed by Charles Stadden, or Chas' C Stadden, who did a lot of work for the Havent factory, producing original figures for Waddington's, Dinky (a Corgi-Mettoy rival bought from Meccano upon their demise*) and the most famous generation of Subbuteo footballers, among others. The officer is damaged and bayonets go missing too easily!

 

*An irony there is that Corgi continued to source their die-cast range's accessory figures in Hong Kong!

The Japanese on the Minimodels flyer; they were supposed to get a machine-gun team (like the Germans), but to be honest, I'm not sure it ever happened, I've never seen one, and it wasn't on the flyer, as the other 'support equipments' were - the US got a pack-mule for a Mortar vignette, seen here passim.

Minimodels got twelve poses from ten sculpts, by varying the arms on the bent-leg prone chap (crawling or firing both on the right here) and the spread-leg standing pose (advancing/thrusting or standing firing). The crawling pose is very good, with the hand correctly holding the forward sling-swivel, to keep the muzzle out of the dirt.

At some point, Almark Publishing contracted the figures as unpainted kits, getting Stadden to design some additional figures/accessories in metal, seen here before too. Boxed on the runner, with a packet of bases and simple artwork doubling as a painting guide, you get the contents of four tools.

 

Almark's eventual A-Z entry will make for interesting reading as they were attempting world domination at that point, it seemed, with ranges of books, pamphlets, periodicals, AFV modelling guides, a wide range of waterslide transfers for Aircraft and Armour kits, sticky-vinyl and licky-paper flags and a short tie-in with Bellona vac-forms, if memory serves.*

 

Add these plastic figure sets and the metal kits, and for a short while it looked like they were going places, but it didn't last long, and after 12 or 14 issues of their own modelling magazine (up against Military Modelling, Battle and Airfix Magazine) they faded away.

*Memory may not be serving here; the Bellona thing is a Micro-mould/Armtech tie-in I think, but I'm not in a position to go and check right now!

The instruction sheet, while mentioning that they are made in England, and designed by a 'master sculptor' doesn't actually claim them as Almark, or credit Lines/Minimodels. At the same time there were hyping the 1:76 set to the nines in the modelling press (with the inference they were 'Almark's'), but most of them had previously appeared in the Tri-Ang 'Battle Game', although a set of support weapons was added to the oeuvre - in plastic. Again, all previously on the Blog.

What you get in the pack; the seated figure will go with the MG, so I must have just not encountered one? And while there is a limited scope for 'multipose' beyonmd the two pairs Minimodels had already arrived at, they go very well with the eponymous Airfix set, and I dare say you could throw some Tamiya or Esci-Italeri parts in for good measure!

 

The big difference, beyond the lack of paint, is that the headdresses, are here run in the same colour polystyrene 'kit plastic' as the figures' runners, rather than the softer polyethylene in a contrasting colour of the Minimodels issues - which were by way of counter-top pick-boxes.

Matching-up between the two, this is a new sample I was quite pleased to acquire, until I remembered (well, discovered on the Blog, looking for something else) I'd Blogged them quite early (2011) having found them in the 'big purchase'. That sample wasn't complete either, but between the two, I have now got everything except the machine-gun . . . help me out here, have you seen one?

To get them out of Picasa! The same recent (last summer?) purchase also contained a couple of Americans (of which I am very short, except for the accessories; where I have both vignettes) and a handful of Germans (of which I think I may have a few somewhere, along with the machine-gun on its little wire legs), all Minimodels, not Almark!

It's a minor oddity - worth mentioning - that the 54mm range never got British troops, while the 1:76th scale/20mm set never got the US or Japanese, but did get some metal Germans, again sculpted by Stadden. Again, all on the Blog already.

" An' 'Eres ouwer Graham with a quickh remindah!"

N is for New Novelties - Chris's Parcel II

It's really only by collecting everything that you can get the 'bigger (or best) picture' and to that end I have all sorts of junk, crud and novelty crap in the pile, and some not so crap novelties, thus I am always happy when other people send the Blog junk, crud or novelties, and whether of crap or quality! Here's some of the more esoteric stuff in Chris's most recent parcel.

I can't for the life of me remember who these are attributed to, but I know I've posted their A-Z entry, so I'll look them up when I'm up the Library to post this and put the brand in these brackets; here (Ace Acme - same poses but colour variations and a new green)!

They were capsule toys and tend to turn-up in ones or two's, although I think one of the US dealers was selling them by the handful back in the 1990's, and I hope I have both new colour variants and a new pose in this trio.

These were also a welcome addition to the vaults, I have a few already, and I know they are Christmas Cracker inserts, but there are three new poses here (there's a whole post coming) and a matching, larger-scaled Chinasaur who is new to me, and extends the 'story' of these otherwise unremarkable, unattributed mini'mals.

This is fun despite not being a figure at all really, rather a graphic representation of a . . . err . . . penguin? But he comes after this post (yes- the title was diabolical!) the other day and is probably the 1970's grandparent of the newer, all polyethylene ones, having a steel-bar axle for ethylene wheels with a styrene body.

I vaguely remember posting a link to these a few years ago, some memories of a mail-order catalogue's scans . . . or screen-caps from a .pdf? Anyway, here they are in all their flat, floppy glory . . . fridge magnets!

AND - continuing the running trope in Plastic Warrior magazine recently - the 'orange force' are all left-handed, left-hooking, left paws! Due to their all having being mirror-flipped vertically at the printers! Brilliant!

Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub!

How cool are these? Cool enough for firefighting school; that's how! Pencil tops of Trumpton firemen (they were definitely firemen, not firefighters in those days!) and I'm not sure they are among the six named in the ditty, being the station commander and his boss? I'll check with Youtube, there's bound to be a clip there? Later . . . Captain Flack on the left and Barney McGrew on the right!

I recognised the way the trees were attached to their bases as being the same as the trackside accessories from the old Mettoy Playcraft plastic-railways of our childhood, and knowing there were Hong Kong copies of it (our childhood track (all village-fête buys) was more HK silver than Playcraft red!) I looked them up in Bill B's catalogue, and sure enough, here they are; from Rays Ltd., (Wah Hing Industrial Mansion) of Kowloon - another one nailed!

The scale is more G-gauge ('Big') than anything else, which is, the Rays' stuff; the Playcraft rolling-stock was all smaller, aping Brio. And looking at the inner set's track (black), this would appear to be more compatible with Big Train or Timpo's Wild West trains than the Playcraft stuff? But the outer track (blue) does seem to have the Playcraft wheel-channel system/design. I think Tomy had a similar system?

Cheers to Chris, all found a happy home here now! Coming next - some other highlights.

F is for Follow-up - Speedwell Medics and Ambulance Crew

As a follow-up to the recent Mettoy (et al) medic's post, Chris Smith sent me these shots of his Speedwell, suggesting that mine were correct in their paint, as his are as near mint as you can get with 50-year-old-plus gloss paint on shiny polyethylene!

The doctor and patient with bed that I still have to track down! Interestingly, while the figures are among the most original of that group of British 'minor makes' we've looked at on the khaki Infantry page, the bed and the method of fixing the ends-on is very similar to the bed in the earlier, little boxed Mettoy Ward Ten set, which I also still have to track down.

I still think the lips of my nurse have been re-painted and possibly also the base, but the blue highlights now seem original, although the mouth here is not that different, so maybe they got orange on Monday morning and red the rest of the week, although why this nurse lent her lipstick to the doctor is - I suspect - a story for another day; the patient won't tell, he's clearly 'out of it'!

Another view with a better angle on the bed, along with Chris's Speedwell stretcher team, he sent more on the stretcher/s which will go to the Khaki Infantry page when I get round to it, but I've been busy with pirates, sorting a huge box form Jim, show purchases and the storage stuff!

I love how happy the doctor and nurse look with their clearly quite poorly patient! Cheers Chris; they're lovely!

M is for Mettoy Medics . . .

. . . and various other related figures!

This started life as a quick 'Follow-up' post on the other two vignettes I've mentioned as being in storage, but sort of grew as things came out of that storage pile and were brought together with more recent acquisitions.

Mau's beside manner was dimmed somewhat by his instance on reading from a tedious little red book of aphorisms! Meanwhile nurse Crotchet decided to take the bed apart?

This is the 'Ward' vignette; we looked at the Surgical Theatre last time. There's a wash-basin, bed, table and chair with a bedside locker, bowl and lunch/puzzle-doing tray!

The other scene is of the Convalescent Ward or Day Room and is populated with the walking wounded and Nurse Ratchet poking someone in his wounded shoulder because he dared to ask for more at tea!

Now, following my pronouncements on arks, origins of infant toys, Trojan paratroopers and the forthcoming posts on Charbens cake decorations, I feel I'm on a roll and would like to suggest the sculptor (in Hong Kong?) of the mono-colour passengers in Multi-Toy's wacky Love Boat was also responsible for these figures, the fluid, smoothed-off sculpting is remarkably similar for both sets . . . as it is on a slightly 'stag' golf-tee, I also have in the collection!

The chap with the crutch has been very cleverly manufactured to hold his crutch's pad in a pinch-point, yet from the rear it seems that at one time he was being designed to have two crutches, or the ability to wear the one under either arm? That second hollow has been filled in from the front, but remains at the back.

A comparison with the Britains wheelchair began the expansion of the post into something - hopefully - worthy of the sum of its parts, the undersides of the furniture (most marked 'Hong Kong') being originally the last shot!

A further comparison of some of the other nurses (or matrons!) shows Toyway's to be well over the odds at 60mm+ while the two painted Mettoy's are from another (earlier?) set from the Ward 10 licensed franchise, but seem to have been home-painted, a near-mint box appeared on feeBay a while ago, and they were all (+ two doctors and a patient) in predominantly white plastic, with a few painted highlights.

Despite the fact that O'Keefe's syringe kit was probably original paint, I used the occasion of having them all out to get the pair of them steeped in oven-cleaner for a couple of hours, then scrubbed them with a tooth-brush and I think you'll agree that the exercise was worth the effort!

I have no idea what the faintly disturbing lump down the front of her gown is, but it seems to be some kind of production problem thing as it's absent on others I've seen, yet it's not a shrinkage mark; she's otherwise perfectly formed?

It may be due to overly high pressure at the injection-heat forcing extra plastic into the mould, extending the solidification time to the point where it expanded upon mould release, or it may have been an attempt to suggest a towel held in her waist-belt, which was removed from a second version of the sculpt - because it was faintly disturbing-looking!?

And the sculpting on these suggests they were all-UK in origin.

I already had a third figure from the set; a doctor, 'un-doctored' by semi-gloss PVA , but recently picked-up the other little-one, it had had a frightening price on it (which I won't share with you has it may have come my way as a favour) and was described as Mettoy, however, I couldn't believe that they had a third line so out of scale with the other two? And - Yes, that is the colour of her lipstick!

But as the outer-box, which had the two medical tubs in, was the 'Civilian' box, I had also found the Police tub . . .

. . . where I remembered seeing another pair of brown-based dwarves! The reason they were in the Police tub is down to their dark uniforms! It's clear that the nurse has been repainted, but I won't be stripping her back to bare . . . ooo-err! . . . plastic as - apart from the mouth - she's bearable as she is.

A quick perusal of the likely suspect's various 'PW Specials' didn't get far because Speedwell comes before Trojan, Una and VP! So I only had to wade through one-and-a-half tomes (Kentoy!) to find them.

PW's appraisal is that they are "probably" Speedwell, but could be someone else, and while they are similar to the German soldiers from Speedwell, they are unmarked. Their box however (get the Speedwell Special!) is VERY Speedwell!

As I now had the Kentoy publication out and the police tub in front of me and because the ambulance men looked a tad familiar I shot this quick line-up of Norman Tooth's work and piracies of it! The reason there's trojan on the screen is 'cos I was working on the Para' Battalion article at the same time!

The Policeman (4th from left) was one of the first figures Mr. Tooth designed for Kentoy, the figure was similar to the one he had already designed for Timpo (1st) and the mould went-on to Cavendish, due to the quality of paint on mine I suspect Cavendish [12-03-19 - now suspect it's actually a Kentoys - matt paint base], but as they probably also took the remaining-stock, as well as the moulds; who's to tell!

The two Hong Kong figures may have been sanctioned - much later - by Tony Kite at Cavendish, and he certainly carried them in his business as a purveyor of finest tourist trinkets!

But with or without his say-so; they are copies in hard styrene against the polyethylene of the other four - British - mouldings, one losing a millimeter or two in the reproduction process, the other enlarged to 70mm. The smaller ones were sold in sets of five with similar copies of the household troops (Guardsman, Lifeguard, Horse Guard and Beefeater), while I believe the larger ones were sold singly as stand-alone figures.

S is for Seasonal Show Shots

Third year running I think, and clearly going to be an annual event, I'm only sorry if I missed the first few! I tried collageing them but I'm not sure if the collages really work, so I'm posting both them and the original shots.

Not much blurb, as the picture do speak for themselves and it's all someone else's efforts; as in previous years - Fleet Historical Society and their Christmas exhibition in the Public Library at the Hartington Centre. Upper-floor; and worth a visit if you're passing.

The first two shelves are showing the items on the recent set of Classic Toy postage stamps, Fuzzy-Felt was fun, and Action Man was boss, but I want a wind-up, clockwork, Spacehopper! That's too cool for the school playground . . . although I suspect it's less contemporary, but neither is the Action Man, that's a modern re-boot one.

The rest of the sets are rather crammed onto one shelf with Spirograph, Cindy, teddy bears, Stickle Bricks (I don't remember stickle-brick horses . . . or people? Are these from another modern re-hash?), Britains (showing zoo not the Trojans on the stamp) and Hornby, although I think that's the Airfix kit of Stevenson's Rocket?

Meccano gets a corner of the third shelf and then there is a farm feature with all sorts going-on, mostly Britains with the separate play base, but there's Dinky and Corgi among others.

I know it's for kids but I spotted the two 'things' - it's Christmas, you have to enter into the spirit of this stuff!

The final shelf is a village scene with all sorts of old favourites busily being busy! As well as the listed/numbered items I can see Merit trees.

The table-cabinet this year has a collection of craft kits and plans for making your own accessories for dolls and soft toys - check out the Wonder Woman; front, far right.

Seeing the multi-coloured wool reminds me of my favourite jumper when I was a kid (5 or 6), a friend of my mother's offered to knit me a jumper (birthday?) and said I could choose the wool, so we went down into Brecon, and there's all these colours, and I'm umming and erring over the predictable dark reds and greens when I spot this multi-coloured wool, it was very similar to the ball in the above shot, but the base colour was black not red (so red was one of the rainbow-section colours) and I said "Can I have it made with that?" . . . "Of-course you can" came the reply, and sure enough a few days later I took delivery of a woolly -jumper which looked like an explosion in a fireworks factory! Black as night but with all these flashes of bright colour; I don't think I stopped wearing it until I couldn't get it over my growing head (still growing huh . . . Vichy?), or it fell apart, I can't remember which came first now!

A lovely collection of nostalgic bits and bobs again this year and here's hoping they go at it again next year!