T is for TAG

Which may or may not have stood for something longer like 'Toby and Garry' or 'Turner and Griswold' but nobody seems to know? The general acceptance being that it just refers to the tags they came with, but I feel it may be a chicken-and-egg conundrum, especially with the capitalisation of the TAG, on the tags!?

 

RAF Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps, Infantry (with a camouflaged beret!), and the Parachute Regiment, done in what is almost a Belgian (Durso) style, the same sculpt being used with different paint on the berets to represent several of the main protagonists of the British Army in the then, just finished, World War.

 

The reverse of the tags have a small thumbnail sketch or written vignette of the unit/figure represented. Their post-war issue being revealed in the text - 'served', and 'earned', in the past tense.

 

 

 

The officer corps were also represented, and here we see a standard Army officer, and RAF 'wallah' and their corresponding tags, the arms of the flyboy are uncomfortably wrong, in that the left arm should be slightly forwards, in time with the right foot.

Our Allies were also modelled, and here we see two GI's, and it's nice to see them in both 'white' and African American skin-tone paint-jobs, because we appreciated everyone who helped. Although without the tags, the black soldier may have been representing Brazil, who sent troops to the Italian campaign?

 

This seems to be a better rendition of an Infantry beret, but again, might be representing Canada or something like that, I don't know how large the series was, or how many nations were represented?
 

A comparison between the two shows a marked size discrepancy between the different mouldings, and is that a fledgling (at the time) UN flash on the GI's shoulder, maybe he's the Brazilian?

Ceremonial uniforms of both our own and allied armies, with a 'Highlander' (no specific regiment given) and a Cossack. I have one in another colourway somewhere (seen on the blog years ago) and have seen others, there may be as may as four different treatments of the decoration on this sculpt, even six - black, red, and white coats, with reverse versions?

 

A difficult subject, the Cossacks, as they fought in large numbers on both sides, mounted troops being very useful in winter snow, and for covering distance over the steppes in summer. Those fighting with us, were of Russian descent, those fighting agin' us, were fighting for Ukrainian Independence rather than in support of Nazism, while atrocities were committed by both sides.

 

The Women's Royal Army Corps weren't forgotten . . .

 

. . . and both the Monkeys and Snowdrops got a look-in!

Quality of finish varies, my Cossack is so tough or dense, and so smooth I thought he was resin, for years! While the figure on the left is a much rougher moulding, almost as lumpy as the worst examples of wood/linseed composition figures.

 

The first four again, showing the berets a bit better, the Para's is far too dark, as well as the odd Infantryman's two-tone headdress! Also showing the identical obverse of the tags through this sample, I don't know how many series' there were, or even if they ever got round to a Series 2?

 

     

E is for Eye Candy - Blue Box French Resistance

As far as I know, Blue Box never gave these a title or name, so we don't know if they were resistance, revolutionaries, militia or for that matter, even French! But they are pretty unique, and having never been produced in the 50mm, a bit of a grail for some small-scale collectors, despite being a tad big at 28/30mm.

 

I'm really only using this as an excuse for a News, Views . . . as I have finally started updating the Parachute page, with shooting-sets added a few months ago, Imperial Poopa-Troopa's and similar cartoonish ones, a few weeks later, the Trojan Red Devil and others tonight, and a subsection of the Airfix clones. I've also added a lot of images throughout, and tweaked a few things, but there are still about nine-sections to do! And I think I need to spell-check it properly!

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_14.html

C is for Carded Combat Crew

More minters from Sandwon, or, at least near minters, nothing 60+years old is ever that 'mint', bags fog with a million invisible folds, cards fade or discolour from sunlight or bleaches in the paper itself, but these two have held up pretty well;

 

No brand and a blank back to the card, so no clue to producer/issuer, and 43p (maybe around 50¢ US, at the time?), if only such things were still 43p! It looks like it might be the same quality as the Rosebud one seen here before, but I couldn't manipulate it enough to see whether there was anything in the parachute cavity? But still a nice item to add to the collection

 

I think these might be by Hugonnet/Féral, but it is by no means certain, they come in several different generic header-cards, but always unmarked/unbranded, so they could be another operation?

 

A site crediting them to Hugonnet pointed out that they are Starlux copies with the heads turned, usually through around 90º, and you can see for yourselves, they have been given oblong bases.

M is for May's Visit - Combat Troops

Sand, green and field-grey, the proper 'toy' soldiers, and there were a fair few in the bag, along with several paratroopers, who are always welcome here!

 

The blow-mould has suffered from a bit of a facial collision, but might be a new colour, the other three have probably all been seen before, but it's all grist to the mill, and there's always new colours, or new-sized copies-of-copies to be found.

 

China copies of Tim Mee's Cold War warriors, possibly a new colour in the washed-out sand, but they'll need to be compared with the existing samples before I know for certain.

 

Modern mix of Matchbox and newer sculpts.

 

Modern, and dodgy hollow-backed rack-toy rascals, but with several sizes, a few poses and severl colour-ways, it will be a while before I've got all of them, or even most!

 

Japanese infantry from Rado or Hing Fat, covered before.

 

Odds and sods, the interesting one here is the chap in the middle who would appear to be one of the Pioneer die-cast accessory figures in soft rubber, and a new pose, to his left, our right, a less common Manurba-Tallon in grey.

 

Seen on the respective Airfix Blog pages, the yellow figures are new to the collection, and that's the beauty of these lots, there's always something new! Many thanks to Peter for most of these, one of the paratroopers was a purchase, I think.

B is for Box-ticking Boy's Toys in Bottle Bags!

At the PW show, John Begg had a whole bunch of ex-shop, or out-painters stock (there were loose figures) from Charbens, and Colesmith Plastics (the moulds have a convoluted history which can be read in Plastic Warrior's Charbens Specialist Publication), to which I availed myself of what you might call a cross-sample, certainly not everything they produced, either figure or packaging wise, but a nice example for box-ticking their latter production, which I remember being in the shelves, when I was a kid.

 

Charbens own-branded packaging.

Unpainted Wild West.

 

A generic branding as 'Pic-a-Pack'.

Guards Band and Beefeaters. 

 

American civil war, an odd mix of plastic colours with the Union outnumbering the Confederates more than two-to-one, in both sets, with an apparently measured content count of one sky-blue figure, four dark blue, and two grey

 

More mixed ceremonials, here branded to Colesmith.

A Highland piper, and Lifeguards join the mix.

 

Mixed paratroopers (green bases) and Tommies (sand).

 

Comparison of the cards, I don't know why Colesmith got to brand some-up to themselves, maybe to pay off a debt, or just for a cheaper quote to Charbens? or did they inherit/hang-on to the moulds? I haven't got the Charbens Special to hand!

 

Note, also; the Artist's palette painting sign, used - rightly - on the unpainted Wild West set, but rather spurious on the pre-painted sets? I'm sure I remember the Colesmith sets in WHSmith around 1978/79?

 

"Jenny? What colour are Native Americans, really?"

 

"Dunno' love, try one of each!"

 

The 'Blues & Royals'.

 

Mixed, painted and unpainted.

Highlanders, Nelson, Lifeguard trumpeter and mounted cowboy.

 

Guards band in various treatments.

M is for Merry Mass of Malleable Model Mayhem! 1 - Introduction

Oh . . . it'll do! It's a question of coming up with something fresh that isn't Chris's this or H is for that, and the two I initially came up with were a C and an S and we have plenty of them, but not so many M's, and there will be a few posts because Chris Smith's Christmas Cracker (yeah, you can see where one of them was going!), was stuffed like a trussed-turkey . . . shall I see how many seasonal puns I can squeeze into these posts! I'll try not to, it'd annoy me as much as you!

 

I've sorted the plunder into about ten folders, but some may get combined as I go, in the meantime these were the 'everything else' which I left in the original folder, and I don't know what to do with half of them, so I'll heave them up here in a lump, and blurb them as I work down the page!

 

Obviously the above is first impression, move the bags out of the way, and there's a very interesting diver, just sitting there, all "Look at me first", and possibly the best thing in the box, but you'll know as well as anyone now, Chris's boxes always have a few 'best things', so keep an eye out, these will be interspersed with Christmas posts, model railway posts, and anything else I can find, over the next week or two?

Had a bit of a dig, I think - taken a few choice pieces out, including the diver! More room for more rummaging! I've said before, the big bag/s of Hong Kong stuff get put to one side and will all be properly sorted/Blogged on the Giant site at some point.

 

If I recall rightly, it was a few weeks ago now, I had to shoot off and do something else that afternoon, so I emailed/messaged Chris my joy and gratitude (he hadn't told me it was in the post) and later I did the sort, while messaging him in Faceplant as I found everything else! I haven't labelled them, but you should get a flavour of each pile's theme, if you open the image.

 

Briefly, it's Medieval-Wild West-Historical/ceremonial up top, Civilian-Mad Figure-Vehicles down the bottom, with Ancient-Gwitarwrist-Odds-TV/Cartoon in the middle.

While this is Paratroopers-Animals-Buildings/Defence Works across the top, Military-Ethnic/National Dress/Pirates in the middle and Aeroplanes-Vessels-Sci Fi/Fantasy down the bottom, and that's literally the first layer of sorting, then animals say, become farm, zoo/wild, at the second level then insects, sea-life, arctic etc . . . at the third!

Can't have a Chris intro-post without the Paratrooper shot, not least because it's often a seen elsewhere shot, and this is a good lot, the big blow-mould is in army green, where they are often bright-coloured, and that Lion brand 'shooter' (second from the left) still has his parachute . . . funny how that 'file' has grown from a loose figure, through the catalogue scan, then a set with the trigger-poles missing, then some loose but complete, to this complete with parachute, over several years and several posts! And both Chris and Peter Evans have helped that journey, I think?

Oh lord! What am I supposed to do with this? I'm supposed to pray one of you knows the answer, that what I'm supposed to do! As I explained elsewhere on the day, he's in dense PVC-alike, about 65mm, modern'ish I guess? And I really can't tell if he's meant to be a cowboy, firefighter, circus performer, or Zombie-hunter!

Chris himself wondered if he might be a dinosaur wrangler or a modern day "child catcher"? Any help from the loyal readers with this one greatly appreciated, I suspect the sort of flat, big-box play-set A-Z/Paggett's might have imported? But farm, dinosaur or circus? Wild West or fire-crew?

 

Odds and sods, the soft plastic (silicon rubber soft) 'mine' has turned up a few times recently, and may, like that red-foam ball the other day be part of some larger game or craze? the Musketeers uniform is from a Kinder toy, the TV we will look at again in the Wild West post (it's fun!) and the [football?] cup, is interesting, and probably has some age, like 100-odd years? It's a very stiff foil, rater than plate, and could be for dolls houses, or home-theatres? Even a sample of some kind - very unusual?

 

I like the vehicle load too (the larger one, the small one, hard to see is from the Matchbox safari Land Rover), looks modern'ish, and from its squareness, not railway, so a pick-up of some kind, maybe a Model-T type thing in 1:24th? While the - homemade (?) - flags are just charming, and there's a whole unknown flag-zone they can go to.

Structural elements include the yellow 'roof' which I think might be a Kinder frog's umbrella! The sentry-box could be home-made, but it's so polished I suspect a hollow-caster's commercial piece, from a boxed/gift set?

 

The card portcullis will go in the tub of such oddments somewhere, the HK bridge is missing it's centre section, but there's a bag of bits for them somewhere too, and the benches are exquisitely home-made, carved, sanded, and varnished in an age where you had to do it all yourself, O-guage I think? The brown hexagon is from Atlantic's Abaline City.

This is all Kinder which would - otherwise - have been broken down into the various other pages, and I think one or two were re-shot for those posts, but here they all are together, except the paper Musketeer's outfit . . . and the frog's umbrella . . . and probably something else we'll see in a day or two - Doh!

The blue & orange monster is the last head type, missing from the post we had here at Small Scale World, not that long-ago, often how it works! The cartoon mini-Indian was one of very few victims of the Post Office's art, but I found the feather so it can be glued back on?

And the parts for the green hockey-player and the stickers for the red one are all both there (both-all?), while the pirate may be missing a hat, but has a spare pair of trousers - bargain! And I'm loving the red & blue medieval man-at-arms in the centre, my first.

I love this, I mean it's entirely homemade, crushed (post office again?) and seems to consist of the best half of an exercise-book cover, circa 1971 (I think History had the purply-grey in my school!*), but how charming, and what a survivor, only needs some reinforcing on the inside and it can go again!

While these could be military, historical or footballers? Anyone recognise any of the individuals, or are they generic after-market heads for probably WWII figures? I thought, Roman, Roman, Footballer, Rommel!

Many thanks to Chris for all this, only the intro, and we've all sorts of interesting things added to the pile!

* Maths was always red or pink, chemistry was yellow or buff, green was for geography, orange biology, what was blue? English? Lang or Lit? Latin was dark-grey in my first school, what colour was French, physics? More than 40-years ago was the last time I took mine out of the cupboard! What was your colour code?