U is for Universal Powermaster Corporation (UPC)

Strangely absent from recent printed works on the subject, these are not too rare, you just need to get to the shows and ferret about a bit!

The important one - from a Toy Soldier collectors point of view - is set 3022-29; 'Combat Group Soldiers', it is - like the rest of the range - a straight copy of the Roco Minitanks set 'U.S. Soldiers Combat Group'. The 29 being the US price in cents, a suffix shared by the whole range.

The box states "Litho in the U.S.A.", I suspect however that the contents came from Japan, where a dozen or so companies were producing this 1:87/1:100 stuff, most of it copied either from Roco or Roskopf.

Shots of the figures, with comparison close-ups of the Roco originals. Pantographing has reduced them from the already quite small Roco's to even smaller, however they still look OK and painted-up the size differential would be even less noticeable.

Study of the Roco sWS (schwerer Wehrmachtsschlepper), in front of the UPC copy, the copy is quite good size-wise having lost less than a millimeter, however it looses heavily on the detail, note the 'washed' effect on the bonnet (hood) side plate. Piracy extends to the small hole-filler used by Roco for the GS/Cargo variant, where it fills the mounting hole used to locate the hardware of the other versions, UPC copied them also!!

One fundamental fault I forgot to mention, they have managed to get the mounting slots on the running gear reversed from the Roco original, so the drive wheels are at the wrong end!

T is for Trees

Clive over at the Hinton Hunter (link to right) covered the Merit trees the other day, so I thought I'd cover the originators and clones. Which is which is as often with early plastics, a moot point!

We start with the most likely candidate for original tree of this stacking clip-together design, the Faller fir tree. Faller started making papier-mache trees - I think - before the war, or very soon after, I don't know exactly when they first produced this plastic version (self seal bag on right) and it differs from the Marx/Merit design in having a separate base and trunk. I have a complete bag somewhere but like too many things it's lost in the heap and will have to be shown next time I do Trees or Faller!

The Marx set came in hard or soft plastic and was probably a copy of the Merit rather than vise-versa, manufactured in one of the Blue Box plants that seem to have produced most of the Miniature Masterpiece range. You would get a bag making six models in most of the larger play-sets.

Playcraft had most of their stuff made for them by Jouef, these trees however follow the Faller pattern and came in various colours, the Minitank trees again have the Faller Trunk arrangement but are soft plastic.

Some other firs, all but those in the second bag from the right on the bottom row follow the same design as the above. Best to click on the image to see the few notes attached to those I have a vague clue on.

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.