F is for Five Festive Felines

Actually there are, as you will see; six, but one of them is real so doesn't get counted in the title . . . which needed to be alliterative or there was no point in it!

Spot the bar of posh, imported, scented, craft soap . . .

. . . and the cat! This is definitely a polymer, but I haven't the faintest idea what type or how it's done. The base looks like a sanded resin figure, except there is no sign of the marbling whatsoever, and the feel of the plastic is more like polyethylene. There is a small ZEN mark near the base

Also, if you look at the marbling it has the same fault-lines running through it as the old oil-on-water marbling of ancient tome's end-papers or page-edges. This shouldn't be possible if the marbling is formed by two colours being injected as a mix, as they would string and swirl in the fashion we know from old toys? Or the spurious bar of Thai soap above!

Therefore, however hard it is to believe - and I can only guess at the techniques involved - it would appear that a single colour moulding has been rolled or dipped in a polymer 'float' which has been kept molten, or soft-enough, for long enough to add the fault-lines, probably with wires - as you would with the oil-on-water method of yore?

It's large; about 60mm, and clearly some kind of art or craft piece pretending to be an actual marble mantle-ornament type thing, and will go with the miscellaneous cats, I'll Google it when I upload the article and if I find anything the link will appear . . . here! Nothing! The choice of Zen as a mark not helping; pages of cat Buddha's!

Tom (of the music Blog) sent me these back in the summer, I'm pretty sure it's the same Midori that we know/remember as KSN-Midori (Sakai / Riko) from their clip-together AFV's and space toys back in the 1970's, which had kinetic flywheel push-and-go motors you could cut your fingers open-on; folding-back the mounting tabs!

Tom posed them with an Airfix Multipose 'Tommy' who looks less than pleased to be sharing his patrol duty with four well-fed felines! As Tom put it; "perhaps he’s allergic to cat fur"!

I'm not sure where the magnets are; they look to be fully-round sculpting, so not yer'average fridge magnets? Maybe they push and pull themselves around like the old novelty magnetic cars, Scottie-dogs or kissing couples of yesteryear's joke shops?

I've tried finding them on t'Internet with no luck, so you'll have to pop-over to Japan or Australia if you want some!

Meanwhile I've been waiting ages to have an excuse to use these which Brian Berke sent to the blog back in February, a New York store-cat who knows exactly which Very Important Place to guard!

Talk & Train two-way wireless??? . . . "Calling all cats, calling all cats..."

What's interesting is that 'over-here' on the other side of the pond we call the Temptations shown above 'Dreamies', our Temptations are twice the size of Dreamies and come in Felix-logo cat head shaped, pink tubs!

Would I lie to you - it's like crack for cats! I was hoping to shoot the cat-head Felix tub, but we're out!

N is for New Finds, Pt.5 - Kit Lot

At Sandown Park the other week I encountered a chap who had a stack of kit boxes, mostly AFV's but a few aircraft and a ship or two. Checking a couple of boxes it was clear they were not what one might call mint! The seller leaned over and said "They've been given a good seeing-to, make me an offer!"

Well, I started sorting them into stacks of 'apparently mint' and 'buggered about with' and asked him what he wanted for the buggered-about stuff, which included a couple of bags of bits and all the either empty boxes, or boxes with signs of tampering, plus an envelope of header cards and transfers. A deal was done...

Top image is how they came home, the lower image is sorting in progress. It turned out to be a reasonable spares purchase, not least than because there was a complete Airfix Matilda and Bren/6lbr in their bags, five Midori squeezed into one box with the wheels, tyres and gear-cogs in the other box...no casings for the pull-back motors though, just loose cogs!

The header cards will have to be checked against the collection as there are two distinct printings of the 2nd type 'full-artwork' cards. The early 1:50 Tamiya Crusader was pretty much absent, but the box is good and all three instruction sheets, the parts for wiring-up the motor and the plastic motor-housing were present along with the transfer sheet, so I may get something back on evilBay one day for that?

Further investigation revealed that the little tin of bits for a Cole's Crane suspension (and front mudguard) was from another kit, and this one is complete on the runner, so I feel a couple of conversions coming-on there, one day! The bags of bits contained the missing turrets for the Midori tanks and most of the 'medium sized' parts for most of the kits in the Airfix inventory (no JS.III or modern armour), along with a complete Bloodhound, launcher and transport trailer.

But...no AFV hulls or running gear (clearly in another bag, 'bagged' earlier in the day) and few wheels. The wheels aren't a big problem I have a lot in the spares dept., but turrets without hulls are a bit of a pain! There were also several floor-plates for the 5.5in Gun Paul posted on Mystery Model Monday, but a week when I wasn't on-line, typical!!

There's something very reassuring about a well stocked spares dept. no?

S is for more Shermans

Mostly not actually Shermans, but AFV's on a Sherman Chassis, starting with three more Shermans though;

Front of the row is the Manurba Sherman I've posted before, this is a little on the big side at around 1:65 scale. Next is a pocket money toy, probably by Kleeware, it's marked 'Made in England' and is a UK produced Gilmark U.S. dime-store 'bin toy', proportions are all over the place! Final mark in the line-up is the Midori push-and-go clip-together model, also produced for/in Riko (Richard Kohnstam) packaging.

Comparison shot of the underside of two Midori Shermans, I don't know if there is any significance to the different wheels, i.e. Midori/Riko batches, or just a change of wheel/motor-unit supplier at one point, but some people like this type of variation when collecting old toys, and it means you get to keep both...because 'you MUST have them'!!!

Here we have a slush-cast Lee/Grant (you wanna decide which it's meant to be!!?) and a Rocco Tank Destroyer, the M3 has an antiqued finish like the pencil-sharpener in the previous post but is probably 30 years older - if it's a day!

Two Priest SPG's, the one behind is a contemporary Hong Kong one, the nearer one of the two is a Gilmark original, missing the gun-piece. Compare this to the UK issued Sherman at the top; track units are painted and the US produced vehicle has thermal printed markings.