P is for Plastolin Plasticine!

These may be the only examples in existence, or rare survivors of a small production run, we just don't know, but they are listed on the new Composition Page, so I need to get them up here, in order that a wider audience is made aware of their existence!

 

The label reads;

 

PLASTOLINE

Model Manuf: Co:

Set X1. Gestapo H.Q.

With Officer at Desk

NO.03.

Plastoline - Hand Made, enamelled,

Hard and glossy, copyright, patent.

 

And one has to assume the '03' is the number in a series of similar vignettes? There is nothing on the 'web to suggest any of it was ever patented, and copyright's a long shot, given some, most (?) modellers could copy it to a much higher standard!

 

This is the item described above, he has broken-off at ankles and stool, the shaft if which has been lost. The whole made from Plasticine, probably hardened with Banana Oil, otherwise known as 'Dope', or isoamyl acetate (also known as isopentyl acetate), painted and vanished in a deep gloss to give a lacquered appearance in the 'Old Toy Soldier' style.

 

Also in the box is this WWI'ish (?) machine-gunner, listed as (3) in the list below, as WWII, and which differs from the previous example in also using embedded wire for the machine-gun, not that it's prevented the gun from curling slightly over time.

 

Which, by a process of elimination, and considering the fact that no other suitable figure was in the unknown 'Question Time' post, also dealing with this make's figures, here, must be the number two item - Mexican irregular from the wars of the turn of the last century?

On the underside of the inner box, we have further clues as to the originators of these figures (the Mexican is really quite good, albeit a tad 'footless'), with this label, origianlly in Biro, but added to at a latter date in pencil;

 

(1)GERMANY-GESTAPO   -   C 1940

(2)MEXICO - IRREGULAR   -   C 1900

(3) GERMANY - M. G -    C 1940

(1) By  .  D. BROWN .

(2) By     M, LEECH .

(3) By  .  D  BROWN .

IN PLASTOLINE  .

 

So the clues, would suggest that a D Brown, and M Leech, attempted to manufacture, in Plasticine, a small range of figures with a commercial bent, when and for how long were they in production is anyone's guess, except those who might actually know?

 

And the three figures from Chang-Kai-Chek's Imperial Chinese forces, and the odd chap in a respirator, seen previously, were also stuffed in the same box. Anybody know anything else about them?  I believe, although I haven't found them yet, that there were adverts in the back of the periodicals of the time - Military Modelling, Battle, and/or . . . the other one . . . Campaign?

S is for Seen Elsewhere and Sharna Ware (Cherilea)

Posted these elsewhere a while back, the figure pages from a larger Sharna Ware catalogue, dated 1974, Sharna being the buyer of Cherilea. I nearly wrote 'buyer and last iteration', but the solids all reappeared in recent years (Marlborough-Dorset-Imperial, Monty and Rommel are now in metal, shock horror!) while some of the swoppets (not in this catalogue) went to Italy (Tibidabo) and others were pirated in Hong Kong!

 

Typically, they've loaded in reverse order and I can't be arsed to sort them out, these (top two) were bought-in from Timpo, while I have a similar triangular flag in white, very crude. I'm not sure if the fort even got issued, it looks to be an original design (if plastic) or routed-wood, probably a particle-board, but I'm not sure if I've seen one with walls that high, however I do stand to be corrected, I can't know everything?

The medieval fort was sometimes sold in a Sharna box, and the knight we saw here as one of my early 'star purchases' after I began collecting the larger scales (when the blog made it inevitable, we discovered with One Inch Warrior magazine, that once you've covered a few rarities and some smaller makes, you rapidly run out of sufficient copy to keep a small-scale thing going!), had the same dragon as the flags on the fort, hanging from his lance, and despite not being in the shot above, probably came with the fort as it's 'Lord and Master'?

 

Below it, is all Timpo product, presumably as they got into difficulties they looked to expand the range without the expence of production-costs, and Timpo would have been happy to shift more stock, even/especially to a rival! Note the gun team kept both their Timpo horses and riders.

I think I'm right in saying the Covered Wagon/Buckboard was an earlier all-Cherilea design, albeit quite similar to Timpo's, while the Stage Coach was later bought-in from Timpo, but given Cherilea's bigger horse team and driver?

I have a few of the ACW, and one or two Crusaders, but I've not sought-out the Mexicans, I always thought they looked a little silly, and will wait 'till they are part of a mixed-lot or bulk-purchase, one day, if ever? I might have some dodgy Hong Kong copies though, somewhere, all semitransparent cloaks/ponchos in purple and pink?

Love the 'Commandos', and have decent examples of all three generations now, while the space sample is growing, and I've a couple of the Union, on foot. The spacemen have been much copied over the years, but the others are stand-alone!

Love the knights and I almost can't stop buying them, but I do stop myself if they are plain silver, the other colours however . . . I'm a sucker for them! While the Wild West I'm not so enamoured of, they aren't the best anatomically, and while not as silly as the Mexicans, I'm in no hurry to fill a quota!

From Companies House;

Solarprior Leisure Limited 30 Dec1957 - 10 Jan 1992

 

T/A

 

Sharna Ware (Mfg.) Limited 30 Dec 1957 - 09 Jun 1983
Sharna Tri-Ang Limited 09 Jun 1983 - 20 Dec 1988
Tri-Ang Leisure Limited 20 Dec 1988 - 09 Oct 1990
Dissolved 17 Mar 1994

 

Liability/debt litigation carried on until at least 2020!

BMC is for the Wing Wah Plastic Factory!

This was - as far as I was concerned, I'm sure some of you know more than I did, certainly Ed Berg helped - a mystery, then it wasn't a mystery, then it sort of was a mystery again, maybe, now I don't think it is, but it does point to the firm who might have been supplying early or pre-BMC mouldings.

 

Firstly, let's get clear that these are not rare figures, they are in fact, all over the place, in various configurations and colours, of which this azure blue is perhaps marginally less common than the current darker blue, but the dark chocolate may be more common than the paler shades, a situation made harder by different sculpts. And then there's a paler sky-blue and a mid-brown!

This larger 'rack toy' set, badged to Wing Wah (formerly, and for some 30-odd years, of Kennedy Town, Hong Kong Island, before moving to the New Territories, where they seem to have folded in 2021, or thereabouts), who's over-imposed WW-mark is quite common in rack-toy circles.

 

And it was bought from Greece, where the air-miles of an HK import would be considerably less than from the States, especially if they were so imported, before BMC ever put their moniker to them?

A limited pose-count (which may not be original, the blister was loose), has a nice firing line of the shako'ed Mexicans and a handful of armed Texan terrorist-insurgents.

The guy on the left had escaped the packaging, but I didn't find him until after I'd taken the card-shot, I have more of these in storage, from years ago, and hope I have a couple more of the poses, but I only previously had the Texans I think, if I have the Mexicans, they will be the newer ones with rimmed bases, and the poses with the wide-brimmed 'Poblano' sombrero, rather than these shako wearers, although I think I have the CTS ones somewhere!

 

Anyway, I wasn't sure of their heritage, as the ones on the Internet seemed to have BMC on the base underside, and sometimes the extra rim, so I asked Ed, when he was Blogging his 'Frankenset' a while back, if they were BMC and said he thought so.

 

But me being a Doubting Thomas, without empirical evidence, still didn't post them for a year or two more, until I was clear they were all the same Wing Wah / early BMC stock, which I'm now convinced they are! The three to the left are BMC, rimless, but the newer colour, I bought last year, at PW's show, specially for this post, which has been in edit-hell since 2020!

I seem to be missing a pile of boxes, to which the two small ones were positioned either-side, in the blister, and I keep seeing various gun ramps, but I think they're all CTS, Marx re-issues or TSSD!

 

I'm not one to comment on the exactness of the authenticity, but they don't look that accurate to me, especially the Texans, and they are definitely not Action Figures in the normal use of the term among both collectors and the wider toy trade, but when did the Hong Kong toy-men pay more that lip-service to accuracy?

 

1965-1990-something (?) on the left, terminal logo (1998-2021?) on the right.

Wing Wah - formed in 1965 and - apparently - the original supplier/manufacturer of BMC's Alamo figures/accessories, joining the Wing's Luen, Lung and Mau in the Tag-list. There is a current Wing Wah (Wing Wah Precision Mould & Plastics), in Dongguan City, Guangdong, mainland China which probably has no connection.

 

And, of course, this is a red-letter day for your diary's, as it's the date after which Deadleaf Hairband, Master Baiter Sell and Pericles over at the HK toy soldier site, will all start using the Wing Wah attribution, like they knew all along!

Above we see an early BMC set with the same rimless figures as the Wing Wah set, with the current Amazon image of the side-rimmed versions. I have also seen the Texans in the paler blue of my Mexicans.

 

I don't know if BMC licensed the 'generic' Wing Wah set for Greece, or other territories it wasn't then interested in, or if it was before BMC's involvement, most likely, while a third option is that WW were just being naughty behind BMC's back, or didn't have an exclusive with BMC for the sculpts/production.

T is for Two - Pistoleros!

Another quick box ticker, sees us down Meh'hi'co way, with a quick fly-by the Timpo and Britains Deetail Mexicans, some of whom are Banditos as well as Pistoleros! Although, it's technically T is for Three, as we're looking at two sets and a part set.

I don't have the sixth pose, except I have, but not in a photographable state! We actually looked at the various combinations a while ago but as a headless colour-issue/batch exercise. Two of mine seem to be on cowboy legs (black and pale blue) while I don't have the darker blue Mexican trousers yet, or a pale blue jacket, but they make a decent enough bunch!

I did spot the sixth pose in the spares bag, could have done a quick switch with one of the others, and don't know why I haven't in the past - probably just chucked him in the bag while sorting, without realising I needed him in the sample? It'll have to be next-time now as they're already back in storage, and note that only 'Mexican' bits go in the spares bag, all the 'cross-disciple' Timpo stuff (pistols, whips, knives) go elsewhere.

Britains Deetail Mexicans consist of a set of six foot (and six mounted; I don't have!) figures, but there is a seventh pose, who ran through most iterations of the ever-changing (or seemingly ever-changing) cowboy line-up, and he's the figure in the upper shot, I have no idea how many variation of these there are, because he ran for ages, but note he's the only one painted-up with a Hispanic/equatorial skin-tone.

The lower pairs are from the Mexican set 'proper' and betray their 1970's heritage with a liberal use of purple and orange! Every generation's movies, comics and toys bare the style of the age they are produced in! The comic guys used to talk of Gold, Silver and Bronze ages . . . what do they make of the current 'dark', MU and crossover stuff? The brass, aluminium and tin ages!

Did I say purple and orange, you can add natty yellow jump-suits to that list, these guys are so psychedelic, you think they might be a touring trick-shot troupe on the fringe at Woodstock! "Manolito and his Magnificent Musical Mexican Mustachioed Mariachi Muchachos!"

The earlier version share the wash-style paint of the earlier cowboys and Indians, and the two on the left here are actually quite sensibly decorated! I just looked the DSG ones up on Google and they are more subdued too - a bit too much white maybe, but altogether more believable than Britains original offerings!

Anyway, that's some o'me'Mexicans! Box ticked.

F is for Five Go Hanging About!

These were all in the lot from Peter Evans the other day, and (having still not collected my glasses prescription!) I thought they were all from the same source, as in 'maker', but the photograph shows different clip-rings, and coupled with the different styles of the figures I don't think that is the case.

However, the fact that they all had the same level of dirt accumulated and similar rust on chains and rings, so I suspect a single collection, found at different times but stored together? Typical of the 1970's; I remember having key rings like these, hooked on a jeans belt loop and lost when doing something - probably dangerous - in the woods or up on the heath and breaking the little PVC eye without noticing!

They are however all similar material, a softish PVC and would mostly have been tourist stuff, even the pirate was probably sold at seaside attractions of historic ship's gift shops?

Cleaned-up they are a nice group, one a memento of Mexico (or somewhere in that part of the world), the comedy pirate and three ceremonials. The beefeater proving for the third time this year why you can never do the 'definitive' post on anything!

The highlander is basically the same as one of the trio we saw earlier in the year (link), but from a different batch with heavier eyes dotted-in and an alternate colour of flesh as the base PVC which has been more carefully painted round the hands, the whole being quite different, visually, from the previously-seen twin.

The guardsman is I think new on me, although we may look at some others, despite working through the guards, I don't think we've been to the back of the box where the novelty Guards are, buried under the small scale cracker/gum-ball ones we looked at a while ago.

W is for Well! We've Seen These Before Recently!

But they were hidden in a non-VT header-carded, bagged, coach, and sans riders as they were being employed as draft-horses. But that these are they - I am quite sure (I have a few in storage somewhere) and having visited the wheeled transport twice in the last few months, let's look at some of the riders - courtesy of Adrian Little!

As they came in, but after a good wash, so . . . not 'as' they came in at all - fake news!

The two golden- or dried-cream coloured ones were almost certainly another, browner or yellower colour once, but have faded through the action of sunlight or just the leeching of an unstable/unfixed additive?

The cowboys (Mexicans!) are the same as the wagon/coach drivers and while I think these are the sub-piracies, I'm guessing VT have slightly better ones (possibly the ones in storage), and they may be limited to the one pose?

The Indians are far more interesting - firstly they don't have the plug-on hats, secondly I love the colour palate and thirdly; at least six poses . . . including the one on the far right who has a hunting horn like the kazoo/blow-horn we looked at here last year some-time . . . year before?

Now, there are some clues to origin here, as I have been given similar but much better figures by Italian collectors with the proviso that they were Italian pocket-money things. This suggests that the French versions may be copies of Italian production, with the HK copied from either.

My reasoning being, that while the French stuff is much better than the HK stuff, it's horses are thin parodies and - as far as I know - they don't have mounted figures like these, but the Italians do, along with the wagons?

There are three poses of horse -and as far as I know, these are a HK-only thing, the Italian (and French) originals having either their own designs or animals following the Bergan-Beton pattern. Although I expect a western design of this horse to turn-up one day, it's such a common design with HK stuff, one feels it must have been copied from somewhere?

You can see from studying the photograph, that the two left-hand and the three middle horses (the other two poses) have some very odd-looking leg positions and/or sculpting and have clearly been created by traumatic surgery on examples of the common pose! The white one, bottom-right, it a premature mould-release shrinkage example and otherwise a guide to nothing!

Also the right-hand pose is the one I call 'Mexican' with regard to the small scale production of the former colony, where it comes in two slightly different sizes from Giant (and many others) as well as an intermediate 30mm version - probably a Christmas Cracker/Gum-ball capsule thing as I only have one or two.

Markings are confined to rather crude Hong Kong's on horses legs, one leg per horse, but not every horse, so a multiple-cavity tool looks likely.

The 'scenic posed shot'! For what these are; 2nd or third rate copies of copies I rather like them! They are quirky and there's nothing wrong with that, conformity never did anything for anyone!

With a tray of mixed stuff there's always a question mark or two, and while I quickly rejected the Totem Pole (seen in the 'How they come in' post the other day) as having nothing to do with them, I'm not so sure about the pink Tee-Pee.

The red one (also un-ascribed to a set or maker) is for comparison, and more common (I have two or three now), but the pink one is the same pink as the cowboy in the sample, so while I've bagged it separately for now (with a post-it-note note), there's a chance they do belong together, a second 'as clean' sample will confirm . . . one day . . . maybe, or a bagged set on fleaBay.

Also a comparison shot between the 25mm figures (this is a non-Giant one on a poor quality horse I happen to have to hand) and the 45mm, the 30mm (which I couldn't find with a cursory look) comes dead-between them both! Actually - I think mine (30mm sample) has an over-scale Roman on it? - I was looking in the wrong box!

S is for Something Borrowed

I found a bunch of old photographs from about 10 years ago hiding in one of the Timpo folders on the dongle, so we'll be looking at them in the weeks to come, starting with these; the Timpo Mexican bandits from the wild west range.

The Mexicans came in three skin versions, brown (left hand figure above; late production?), a sort of pallid, sickly, zombie-flesh colour (right hand figure; early production?) and the standard Timpo pink (Friday production!?, I have no idea if there is any other significance (beyond being a vague dating aid) to this, but obviously the hands need to be matched to a same-colour head if you're building them up from bits, out of odd lots on evilBay!

The below shots were all taken at the same time while I was working for a Toy Dealer and were shot from a crate with several hundred figures in it, which had come-in from a hundred sources over the previous 15-odd years. It was obvious that while you will find various combinations of torso and legs, there were six 'standard' mixes, obviously from the main production batches, so I photographed a sample of them.

My favourite when we were kids, he's just gonna' do a bit o' killin' un robbin' on the way to the disco! Check-out those threads man - too cool for dance-school!

 Another sharp-dressed man!

 Note - standard pink hands on two of them.

This lot is the 'exception to the rule' having both brown or black holsters (at a 50/50'ish ratio), and a 'new' set of legs with a single holster, which I think are taken from the cowboy range?

They were all shot without heads as A) it would have taken all day to colour-match them all with the hands and B) there was no 'rule' as to the hats colour - the hats come in more that six colours, shades vary over time and sometimes they got the bandit head to boot - so they were going to be photographed separately (these were for another book project which never happened), something I don't seem to have got round to!