L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown February - Vehicles

Two of the best pieces, which covered both vehicles and figures went straight to 1970 in Picasa and won't be seen until September, if I remember, but, if you've worked it out, they'll be well worth the wait! In the meantime, after a couple of quirt Sandown's in the second half of last year, I actually picked-up quite a bit the other week, and there were a fair few vehicles, several from Adrian, so many thanks to him as I got them cheap as chips!

 

This was the first thing I bought, from Alkwyn I think (?), during the 'car-boot' phase out on the terraces while everyone waits for the doors to open! What I loved about it, it's otherwise a pretty standard road-roller from Triang 'Minic', is the fact that it's a crossover piece with tin-plate body and plastic wheels, that the smaller details are turned-brass is just the icing on the cake!

 

A small sample of Hong Kong cars, unusual for being brittle polystyrene, less common for having metal axles, and, the more observant among you may have noticed, the same as four Chris Smith donated a while back; same colours but some different mouldings - an MG-type roadster and a drop-gate estate/station-wagon.

 

If I already have a few in the main collection, the three lots (or two - if I don't) make a better sample, and that's why I love this stuff - there's so much out there, finding it all takes an eon, and we don't get an eon, we only get an age - four-score-and-ten if we're lucky!

 

More conventional US-originating dime-store stuff, with one of 'those' cars (Banner version I think), at the back, and a similarly coloured one in the foreground which may be from another source/set (blocked-in windows), all have the simple moulded-on wheels.

 

I've had a knackered example of this in the stash for a while now, no trailer (which I didn't know about), missing the gun and steering wheel, possibly windscreenless too, so, it's nice to get a decent one, even if the box is a bit shot! Generic, or, if the HK in the shooting star is a brand-mark, related to all that ABC/CMV/HK piracy of Britains stuff we've looked at a few times here, over the years?

 

The trailer is pretty fictional, I don't know if it is based on any post-war camping/outdoors press-release, but google suggests they never actually got made/sold (too many ex-military trailers if you needed one, and fully-covered camper-trailer designs, for those who wanted to stay dry and relatively bear-free!), but one of the dimestore makers did one, and various rivals copied it, until Hong Kong picked up the design too!

 

Two Kellogg's Frosties Land-Speed record attempt cars, it was all the rage when I was a kid, I'm not sure Rochard Nobel/Andy Green's attempts have garnered the same place in public discourse, but it's a different age now, then it was all boys-own-annuals and cigarette cards, now it's the whole known universe on a hand-held device?

 

More here - they are all 'Campbell' cars!

The yellow one is more of a generic pocket-money job, probably German or French, or a Hong Kong copy of the same?

 

This is a step-up, in the world of dimestore vehicular modelling, he says in that faux-poshness he employs occasionally! Not marked, so, again, I hope it's in Hanlon's book, or somebody recognises it, the driver (not brilliantly shot) is a bit Pyro-like, but they didn't tend to this level of detail with the opening doors and boot? You feel Dick Tracy chased this down a canyon while someone shot at him, out of the back window!

 

Treats and treasures! The broken plane is a copy of the German premium/promotional we've seen before, so just for 'sample', while the red racer also seems to be a copy, of the yellow Rosedale we saw a few years ago, but this one is unmarked.

 

Behind them, two real veteran survivors, a carded Kleeware locomotive whisle, and what I've been told is a Poplar Plastic's novelty performing clown, but I'm not sure on the mark, and it may be a long-forgotten smaller maker? All four are polystyrene.

 

While this is definitely Poplar, it says so! Needs a good clean, what is it with ships, those MPC Minis from the James Chase collection had the same black smuts? Some sort of marine-subject only, polymer-loving mould! Bathrooms?

 

The red White's Scout Car seems to be an unmarked variant of the Gilmark, so possibly Bell? We saw a silver one in the Bell/Banner/Merit-related boxed set, along with a similarly red armoured car. So a mould-swap rather than a copy I feel, and it's on another Pyro-like piece, a fire appliance, missing its ladders?

 

The Silver Morris-nosed van is unmarked, as is the sports car, but while the van is hollow, the car has a matching maroon baseplate with engine/drive-train/axle details etched into it, I think it could be British, but I don't know?

 

Noreda; I think I have both vehicles already, but this was a new (to me) packaging, so in the stash it goes, in order that the A-Z will be that bit more complete when I get round to it! I need some thin (ship-in-a-bottle or crochet?) tools to hook the bucket back on to the lower arm!

 

The second carded item was this Raphael Lippkin train in the Pippin line, a bit of fun, and early'ish plastic, I think it's wheels would fit the plastic Playcraft infant train sets based on Brio, and later copied in Hong Kong.

 

The card will need to be straightened, at some point, and I think the gentlest way to do so, will be with a wood-frame and clamps, overnight, or for a few days?

F is for Follow-up - Noreda and Injectaplastic

I mentioned in a comment the other day that I try to avoid 'khaki' subjects in December, and that's true, especially the more war'y stuff, but the odd bit gets through, and these ready-made AFV's are a perennial favourite of mine, with two purchases in recent months, both European brands.

 

I think this is the Injectaplastic Jeep, with a gun that's new to the collection, the owner has added waterslide transfers which some of you may recognise from plastic kits (Airfix and Esci - I think?), and which completes the line-up with their Munga and Kubelwagen, both seen here passim. It's darker green than my existing sample of these, though.

This was in the same purchase and is the Noreda one, which I seem to already have, but the trouble with show-purchases is that you are pressed for time, and have to make split-decisions on whether or not to buy something, based on what you can remember having, what you think you may have, and/or what you've seen and/or posted from elsewhere!

A comparison shot with the Triang Minic tin-plate in clean state, but missing it's key, hopefully I'll have one in the spare key zone! All a similar kid's handful size, and two of them needing a comparison shot on the Airfix Jeep page!

 

Also with the two jeeps and gun, came this truck with yet another take on that 1950/60's staple, the twin AA 'pom-pom' gun, now euphemistically referred to as a 'technical'! Again this seems to be Injectaplastic, from the wheels, and is new to the existing sample, but needs paint-removal, before I take better shots.

 

Then I picked these up last Saturday, from Tony Herrington, long time 'plastic warrior' who was stalled-out at the London Toy Solder Show, these are the Noreda truck we've seen before with canvas tilt and GS trailer, but now, also, as a tanker version, with tanker trailer and an additional 'goulash cannon' field kitchen.

 

The kitchen, while simplified for production in one shot as a pocket-money toy, follows the basic design very well, we had similar trailers on field exercises in the 1980's, four hot-plate/bain-maries over an oven and grill with the chimney long-enough to take the gas fumes (wood smoke or burnt oil in earlier times) away from the faces of the troops operating the equipment, or queuing-up for 'range-stew' - baked-beans, tinned potatoes and tinned mixed-vegetables cubed, with cheap sausages, diced in a thick gravy!

T is for Two - Mighty Antar's & Conquerors

We looked at both these back near the start of the blog and have revisited features of them once or twice I think, but the opportunity to do 'full line-ups' wasn't to be ignored, indeed; sorting and packing was held-up for a day while I struggled to find the Matchbox one, the others all lined up on the green-baize, with a gap ready!

From the rear/right; Raphael Lipkin/Pipin Toys (1:30^th'ish), Dinky (1:43^rd), Airfix (1:76^th), Budgie (damaged), Matchbox (painted, badly!), unknown - might be Scotia? The last being two at approximately 1:125^th 'box scale' and one 1:300^th 'micro-armour' scale.

Anomalies include the Lipkin load being an FV 214 Conqueror rather than the Centurion (from Mk.5/1 - FV 4011) everyone else went with, the Budgie having the later cab design of the Mk.III [not 'mighty'] Antar with narrower bonnet and Matchbox having a simple rendition of the Sankey 50-Ton Tank Transporter trailer along with the error of the name 'Thornycroft' as "Thorneycroft" moulded on the base of the tractor-unit.

The micro-armour one is a curates egg, seemingly based on a ballast-body variant (draw-bar trailers, for the use of) it nevertheless has an articulated, fifth-wheel, DAF style trailer like the others, and may be based on the RAF's lone C6T variant, but with added 'saddle' fuel-tanks? The fuel tanks being used as tool-bins on the Lipkin biggie!

The recent purchase of another Conqueror from [The] Lucky Toys meant that while the Lipkin was out . . . anti-clockwise from the top left; the red version I got at Richmond-call-me-Whitton (the . . . no . . . THE Plastic Warrior show!) a couple of three-years ago!

Then the standard green Lipkin one that came with the transporter (you may remember we looked at the individually boxed version a while ago and both colours were on the box-art), while bottom left is the new Lucky one - I believe a home paint in gray over the chromium-finish still visible on the tracks and running gear, and about the same as the Dinky Centurion at around 1:43^rd scale.

Then the two version of Tri-Ang Conqueror (approximately 1:72nd [00-guage compatible]), one from the Minic Motorway sets (I believe) as a tank, the other from the latterly Hornby-Triang 'Battle-Space' line of the wider railway range, as a well-wagon/flat-car load with twin rocket-launcher turret and finally two box-scale (1:76^th'ish or smaller?) Tri-Ang Minic's configured as imagi-nation armoured cars but with scaled-down Conqueror turrets!

Instead of an anomaly, we have a coincidence with these; they are all equipped with push-and-go motors! Actually - maybe the train one isn't; just free-rolling? I've sent them to the storage unit now!

For those who don't know the Conqueror; it was a post-war super-heavy tank in the same family as the Soviet Russian Joseph Stalin - JSIII and American M103. The Lipkin is probably the closest to the real thing, turret-wise, but none of them really do the actual vehicle full-justice.

The Lucky Toy's model (new to me when I saw it on evilBay for no money! What else is out there?) is clearly a copy of the Tri-Ang rendition, scaled-up and with an integrally-moulded, non-revolving turret and equally integral radio-aerial.

Base-mark; aft of the forward axle's push-and-go motor housing, which is very similar to the one fitted to TAT (see tags)'s Universal/Bren-carrier, and their dime-store lorry-copy. I don't know if there is any significance to the 'v' suffix of the model-number, or if it just means 'v-ehicle' range?

AFV is for Among my Favorite Vehicles!

We've seen these here before at Small Scale World, not least than because I quite like them, and while I did pick a few up back in the early days, they tend to carry a bit of a premium these days and can't be found for 'pennies'! I shot these after the toy soldier show at Witton back in May, and thank Adrian of Mercator Trading for letting me do so.

The low-loader, not really a tank-transporter, but given the diminutive size of the tank in the series (Tri-ang Minic's plastic 'Push-and-Go' range) manages the job and is seen here mounting the - conversely - rather large armoured car.

The clear-plastic radar dish has warped slightly, something the similar dish-shaped piece from Wells-Brimtoy also suffers from, I don't know if this was a specific problem with early styrene in 'clear' or if they were still using a celluloid base for the material, but it mars an otherwise unusual subject.

Like the crawler-tractor, this is as common in civilianised colours (bright orange and red seem commonest) as it is in military guises, and like everything on this page (except the 'Jaguar'?) was also available in an RAF blue-grey.

My absolute favorite (and not in my collection), I thought I'd posted this before; a lovely civilianised (or Dr Death's SMERSH-affiliated secret army) one in black and red but I think it may be one I downloaded from the Internet*! Everyone else was doing twin-mounts, this has 'something of the dark' (or Dalek's) about it!

*It may have been sent-in by somebody, but I have no recollection of it so I can't run with it as I've no provenance, if you sent it, let me know and I'll do it as a follow-up.

Army fire-engine! The important thing here is the ladder, so often missing or damaged; it's nice to see it complete and in a sensible colour - a lot of toy fire engines end up with bright yellow or silver ladders! I have one [now below] - sans ladder!

This seems to be a Jaguar and was new to me, whether it came in the larger military boxed-sets or was just moulded in the same plastic and sold as a civilian car I don't know, but given the numbers of all the other models in the range I've seen over the years, I'd go so far as to say this is a less common piece.

These were all in the previous posts showing my examples, although I think my breakdown-truck (wrecker) is not so well-equipped with original hook! My crawler is green - I think - and we saw the orange logging one a while back. I always think that if you swapped the turrets on the two AFV's they'd both be dramatically improved!

I found a few images of mine 'from the archive', preparing this post, the shots were saved when I shut-down my ImageShack account - a fair few years ago - and they have lost some resolution. The dark green is a late colour without the red-yellow, painted formation-sign, fore 'n' aft, which all the early ones have.

A couple more saved from the same place, compared with a 'Chinatruck' on the left and an older NFIC, itself a Pyro-Kleeware copy of the 1-ton Humber truck on the right. Without the radar (which I didn't know it was missing first time it was posted!) it still makes a useful office-body for HQ units (old school war-gaming!) and at least I know what ladder I'm looking out for now! Cheers Adrian.

W is for Wheelimals!

A real Box-ticker today, you may well have seen these on evilBay and wondered at their parentage, unless you already know what they are in which case there may be something more interesting here tomorrow!

Tri-ang. That's the box-ticking element done! Seriously; it's just to get them in the tag-list, I think they were also associated with Minic and Mettoy and possibly later under the Playcraft label, so they're all going on the bottom. I call them 'wheelimals' for want of a better title as they follow a tradition going right back to early hand-crafted wooden toys; of being attached to 'carpet' wheels.

Images:
Left; Vectis I think (link)
Right; old low-res feeBay image

The toys they accompany are 'big box' type 'Christmas & Birthday' toys, the ark being nearly three feet long and solidly built of ply-wood with metal door hinges, the roof opens to get the animals out for play and to store them in the meantime or inbetweentimes!

The lorry being more of a garden toy, in tin-plate with large solid-rubber tyres, and a hinged rear-door/ramp.

I believe there was a Farm Lorry version of the truck toy, coming with a five or six-inch figure of a farmer which looks exactly like a Marx cowboy; a sort of reversed Seth Adams pose, striding with a double-barrelled shotgun instead of the rifle, and a distinctly US style 'cowboy' hat! But he may have come with the smaller (two-axle?) horse-box toy that included the two giant Britains horses?

Elephants and Rhinos, one of which has been got-at by poachers! Although; the sad truth is that both animals are at risk of extinction, not just in our lifetimes, but within a decade or so at the current rate of predation.

Sheep.

Lions and Tigers, two lions in Noah's Ark may have raised a few small 'c' conservative eyebrows in the past, but hey, if they loved each other and considered themselves a couple, why not!

Camel

Considering their core purpose is for use as hard-wearing playthings for younger children or older infants; they are surprisingly well sculpted toys, they lose a bit in the leg department, but even then the outsides of the feet, hooves or toes are well executed.

Sets - known or suspected;

Tri-ang Circus Van (Tin Plate)
Tri-ang Noah's Ark (Ply-wood)

Horse Box?
Farm Truck?

Wheelimals - known or suspected;
Donkey
Dromedary
Camel
Elephant
Giraffe
Hippopotamus
Lion
Panda
Bear
Rhinoceros
Sheep Tiger

Cow?
Pig?

T is for Two - Early Plastic Vehicles

These are both militarised versions of civil toy vehicles, in the case of the lanny: more obvious than the sports car which may have been intended to be a stab at 'British Racing Green'?

This has the wheels of the little Tri-Ang Minic trucks we looked at a long time ago, but is scaled larger than them; here in a nice 'army' green, it's a basic short-wheelbase, Mark-One Land-Rover with pick-up body as used by farmers from day one, before the army adopted them and clamped a spare-wheel to the bonnet. Equipped with a standard Minic push-and-go motor, it's not terribly accurate, but the headlights and grill say: Mk.I!

I suspect this is more accurate to the real thing, but not being a fan of two-seat sports-coupes, I can only guess at Morgan? Jaguar? Riley? It's made in the USA who weren't known for this type of car (were they?), so I'm guessing it's a European 'type' anyway, although the squidged 'm', fort or hat shape logo (Maserati? No . . . trident!) on the bonnet doesn't seem to be a clue?

Also interesting - given its likely age - is that it's a soft polyethylene, the Irwin mini-planes being made of a more phenolic or styrene type plastic?

A scaleing-shot with Spencer Smith's figures, the Tri-Ang lanny is not too bad, a tad big for the 30'mils, but - as you can see - the Irwin 'staff car' is better suited to 50mm and could pass for a 54mm officer's steed...if any government would issue such cars! And you should never use the bonnet as a look-out!

M is for More Minic

Quite a way back on the blog I covered my small selection of Tri-ang Minic plastic vehicles with the push-and-go motors, here;

Military

Civilian

Counting Rivets

And then this came in the other day, so I thought I'd put it up here. Looking for the above links I was surprised to note that there are a lot of posts with the Tri-ang label (30 with this post), but then they were part of one of the biggest toy 'groups' for a long while, and managed to get their fingers into most pies, even Hong Kong imports!

This range of vehicles was quite large - I keep seeing new ones at shows - and were usually produced as a civilian vehicle in a range of colours, as a military (army) vehicle in green as we saw in the above posts, and often in a grey-blue R.A.F. version.

This bulldozer also comes sans-blade as a tractor. I think the wood is a piece of hazelnut stave, but wouldn't swear to it! Joking apart - there's an idea for a very eclectic yet narrow field to collect, which would probably still take half a lifetime to complete...toys with a real stick pretending to be a tree.

You'd have this, various railway wagons (but not the Tri-ang/Tyco interactive log-carriers/dropper-offs, they had plastic logs!!), long and short bodied lorries from Majorette, tons of farm wagons by the old lead/hollow-cast guys like Britains and Hill etc... It could be a nice cabinet of curiosities...would you allow the plastic logged-toys thought?

M is for Model-Land and Minic Motorways

The same 'definitive' source that miss-identified the Husky figures as Triang Model-land had clearly never met these, these are the real deal as old orange-skin 'Lovejoy' would say! Still - if you're busy rushing around the internet nicking other peoples images, you're not going to have time to correct any errors are you, not even typo's on the images your lifting from!

Quite hard to find outside of the model railway collecting fraternity, they came in two packaging types, these Model-Land blister-cards and in blue and white header-carded bags with the Minic Motorways labelling.

As far as mint examples go; I only have the two carded sets, and one of them is in a bit of a state! The children set is as good as anything Prieser or Merten produced and - indeed - are easily mistaken for Merten with the little round bases, but the distinctive Stadden sculpting should be the give-away.

A few loose ones, some have been covered in a protective varnish-dip, popular with railway modellers in the 1970's as it made it easier to dust them with a paint brush. Also a seventh child-sculpt has been surgically removed from the woman in blue.

Listing;

RML.8 Accessories (Horse Trough, War Memorial, Country Stile, Inn Sign and Village Stocks)

RML.70 Pedestrian Figures Set (Man running, 3 male and 1 female standing Passengers and woman with child on single base)
RML.71 Workmen Figures Set (3 road-workers, bin-man, sweep and deliveryman)
RML.72 Child Figures Set (6 children - rope, kite, hoop, 2 playing leapfrog and one in school uniform)
RML.73 Urban Figures Set (2 policemen, burglar, school-crossing 'Lollipop' man, window cleaner and security guard - or pilot?)
RML.74 Industrial Workers Set (Postman, milkman, gardener, 2 decorators and a cleaner)
RML.75 Road Workmen Set (5 workers and a driver)

The set RML.8 is included over and above the other building and scenic accessory sets as it was to reappear as an issue from Dapol...which means it might have had a run under the Airfix banner? I'll have to check.

Set 73 is the one that causes the problems for definitive-listers, as it contains a policeman and school-crossing operator similar to the Husky sets, however the former are exquisitely sculpted by Charles Stadden, almost certainty from the Minimodels plant in Havent, while the later are lumpen blobs of poly-vinyl from Hong Kong.

(PS - do you get confused between Ian McShane's fictional Lovejoy and David Dickinson's er...David Dickinson? Fact versus fiction - wow! And the false one came first, what's that all about...give him a Volvo and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference!)

Bernard Taylor has emailed me with corrections to the listing and some more shots (you may recall he included some Triang figures in the 'quiz' shot and another contribution the other day), there is enough for a whole post rather than adding it here, so I'll sort that out in the next few days - exams allowing.

07/10/2012 - Full update and extra images now posted HERE

S is for Ships (and other vessels); Part 7 - Games and things...

Finishing this seven-part overview of small toy vessels finds us looking at the very small ones, mostly board game playing pieces, but also the Hong Kong copies of Minic ships and some cereal premiums.

So, most of you should recognise at least one of the above lots as three of them are from one or another version of Battleships, and anybody who hasn't had a set of Battleships in his past has had a deprived childhood - in my opinion!

The red plastic ones top left and inset - right, are actually from a game called Up Periscope by Denis Fisher, and the inset shows the depth-charge and torpeado pieces, while the main image has one (right-hand cargo-ship) with the stud removed to make it 'waterline'.

The vinyl ships are from a travelling set of Battleships, the little silver one is from the Merit pocket-set and the grey ones in the other inset come from an unknown source probably MB Games - see below. For size; the vinyl carrier is 30mm and the little silver MTB is 15mm long. The grey set are between 26mm (MTB) and 65mm (the carrier).

This set (red and yellow), is from MB Games - Germany, and belongs to a game called Submarine Hunt, you can see they are similar too but not the same as the grey set from the previous lot, however the shot-pegs are identical - hence my suspicions that that set too is MB - vessels vary between 28-45mm.

The other (clear and smoked plastic) set is from Salvo! by Palitoy for Parker Games and vary from 30 to 40mm. The styling - all 'groovy' Habitat perspex dates this to the early 1970's?

The set illustrated in the two left-hand images are Quaker cereal premiums, and I think this is a complete or near complete set, the inset shows a variation of the Empress of Britain without tonnage and a redesign of the whole face of the male half of the mould.

Queen Elizabeth 83,673 Tons - 9omm
United States 53,329 Tons - 86mm
Queen Mary 81,238 Tons - 85mm
 Liberte 51,840 Tons - 83mm
Tina Onassis 27,853 Tons - 77mm
Mauretania 35,677 Tons - 64mm
Nieuw Amsterdam 36,640 Tons - 62mm
Arcadia 29,734 Tons - 61mm
Edinburgh Castle 28,705 Tons - 61mm
Empress of Britain 25,516 Tons - 53.5mm

The grey vessels top-right are from an unknown sourse and are both well detailed and quite modern in design, they may be from one of the Japanese kit manufactures, sold as war-gaming pieces? The carrier is 75mm the smaller submarine a mere 45mm.  

03-09-2016 Now ID'd with the help of Uncle Brian - Silvercorn.

The last picture shows the 4 sculpts from the MB Games Axis & Allies (Sub; 35mm, Cargo vessel; 38mm, battleship; 50mm and the carrier 55mm) and 3 of the old Lido ships from the 1950's dime-store cards (55-60mm long).

These are a lovely little thing, they are mostly Hong Kong plastic copies of the smaller models from the Tri-ang Minic mini ships, in various grey-blues, the painted tug seems to be another HK copy, but HK was responsible for a revival of the original moulds and they may have put this in with one of the bigger ships? the pale grey tug, while a HK copy - seems to be from another source, being a little 'heavier' all round.

The lifeboat is a Minic original from the launch-station next to the pier and comes in at about 7mm (I forgot to measure it and it's back in storage!) the tugs are 4cm with the larger warships 9cm.

P is for Plagiarism - the sincerest form of flattery

This is the second half of the article that was born from the Littlewood's catalogue page that the Moonbase boys published the other day. I was not so sure about these as being also Raphael Lipkin, and suspect they are actually Triang 'Minic'. The main reason being the large amount of tin-plate involved. (06-06-2018 [D-Day!] Now known to be Welsotoys (Wells-Brimtoy))

Based on the Bedford RL of the 1950's (some still in service in the late 1980's!), the real surprise is that it blows my Blue Box 'unique designs' claim elsewhere out of the water! And looking at the pictures I do vaguely remember a friend having the Radar truck when we were kids. The figures I thought were Lone*Star are - in fact - a slightly different design, clearly copied from [probably by!] LS, but in the same colour of plastic as some of the Spot-On's I looked at a while ago. It would appear that Minic based their figure on the Lone*Star figure, and Blue Box then used the Minic figure with the Lone*Star mounting position to make their HO'ish figure, giving him a  helmet net/cover to get over the straight-copy issue! The Lone*Star crew came in three poses and two base colours as seen above, the rear pose being closest to this truck pose, but with the feet together on the Lone*Star originals. Comparison between the two figures, Lone*Star is the dark green one in both shots. The main difference is the mounting spigots, which come out of the small of the back of the Lone*Star figure, and the nether regions of the other (Triang?) figure.

Blue Box took the second figure, re-positioned the mounting spigot to the LS position and gave him a helmet net.

T is for Triang Minic Part 1; Military Vehicles

Lines Brothers had as part of their empire the Trade Mark 'Minic' which for years was synonymous with British School-boys as a maker of large sized tin-plate wind-up/Clockwork toys. In the 1950's the range began to include Dinky type die-casts, and plastic followed in the late '60's. Eventually some of these would find their way into the Triang railway (later Triang-Hornby) range. Today we're looking at some of the Minic Plastics from my collection.

Here are both versions of the 'Tank', on the left the Triang/Triang-Hornby Battle-Space rocket-firing tank, with the Minic sparking tank on the right, the hull is identical on both, with different slip-on turrets. The hull is a generic cross between the prototype Conqueror and Centurion tanks of the 1960's, while the turret of the sparker is more Conqueror. Missiles fire about 3.5 meters!

The missile mechanism was also used on two and four-round turreted bunkers as part of the Battle-Space range, the larger turret also being fitted to one of the rolling stock wagons in the same series. The tank version was re-issued in a sandy colour in 1982 as part of a short-lived 'Task Force play-set, part celebration of/part tie-in to the action in the South Atlantic (reaching it's conclusion earlier the same year) which ensured that the will of the Falkland Islander's not to have their home renamed 'Malvinas' was upheld.

Triang Minic AFV's, both vehicles in both colour-schemes. The tank is a vague Centurion, while the A/C is a generic WWII thing with an AEC'ish body and Staghound'ish turret? All fitted with a 'pull-back' motor.

These vehicles also come in blue-grey as RAF equipment, with a Cole's type crane and low-loader along with an aircraft, in a large boxed set. Civilian versions also exist. Earlier versions of these trucks - especially the civilian ones - are subject to warping and were made with some form of phenolic plastic, later ones however; are a more stable styrene compound.