M is for Maruzem Beretta 92SB

Yeah! Don't tell the Rozzers, they shoot you for owning shit like this! Fortunately, it's buried in a storage container, and is only a lighter! But it's made to resemble the real thing, and is unusual for being a lighter, these Japanese-licensed toy guns are usually air-soft BB pellet firers, not lighters.

It's actually scaled-down a bit too, maybe 30%'ish? But you wouldn't carry this around now, it really could get you shot! All the rage at a leisure-pit, keys in the fruit-bowl, bright, patterned skirts, long hair and flares, freak-off, in the early 1970's, how times change!

 

When we were kids, we loved stuff like this, we'd spend our pocket-money on it, on a day-trip to France with the school, but you don't even see it for sale over there now . . . my brother bought a flick-knife, a proper one!

 

It's a gas-burner, filled via a nozzle hidden in a small recess in the pistol grip, and a small flame-adjuster is hidden in a recessed slot near the trigger. 

 

There is a more obviously novelty one, petrol/lighter-fluid fired, but it needs work, the Bakelite handle has come loose with warping, and the mechanism is jammed solid, so, I thought, maybe, if I ever get the time, and manage to settle down, I'd do it as a project for YouTube, I've seen people work wonders with solid lumps of rust, this just needs a bit of TLC; disassemble, clean, straiten, lubricate and reassemble!

D is for Dustbin Lids

That's 'lid' as in helmet, not top, I know, it doesn't really work, but there you are, or, here we are! I want to leave this up for a day or two, so procrastinated and posted nothing for nearly two days while I thought about it, heay-ho! I'll still leave it up for a while, which will give me time to photograph a fantastic parcel from Chris Smith, which has all sorts of goodies (and bad guys) in it!

 

We're looking - in depth - at the First Version, Cherilea, 'Swoppet' Knights, here, because I have been lucky enough to go from a handful of bits to a master-collection, in less than two years. With a small but significant purchase at the Plastic Warrior show back in 2024 (possibly from Adrian at the now defunct Mercator), a smaller bag at PW this year, and the box above them which was a private purchase, to which I added a helmet (which had almost certainly fallen out of one of the three samples, and a plume, from a bits-lot.

 

There may be a few more in storage somewhere, but unlikely to make much difference to the whole, above. And the point of this post is to try and pin-down all the variables, a task which I may fail at, and which Matt Thier may have done a better job of back in the late 2010's in PW's magazine, when he went through all the Cherilea swoppets in some detail.

 

Poses first, and I am confident there are only six figures, five knights and this kneeling archer, who's a bit large, and a bit gawkish in posture, but would slip in-between the Britains and Lone Star chaps, but dwarf them slightly!

 

He is the only pose who doesn't wear a helmet, so his head is always painted, and a good one has three or even a formal four-count, of small arrows stuffed in his tube-quiver. 

 

But he comes in two versions, some with a 'ring hand' and the bow stuffed through the hole, some with a 'stud-hand' and the bow attached with a small plug-hole and stud, at the hand-grip. I have no idea which came first or why they may have replaced one with the other, as they both seem to work well, But maybe it's easier to lose the bow (even in the shop-stock boxes, at the store), from the plug-together version, and so that was the earlier, replaced one?

 

Three sword fighters, and this one seems to be the only one to officially get the cloak? Striking down, overarm, he's about to make a mess of someone who lost their footing, or who has tired, from existing wounds?

 

Striking around at waist height, he's in a fight to the death with an equal!

 

Ready, or parrying with his shield.

 

The standing waiting chap, never that useful in a fight, and I don't know if either lance is correct, the one with the dragon is associated with the mounted 2nd type, from the Sharna-Ware years and the rather compact castle play set, while the nicely, vicious-looking one is lovely, but the colour's not quite matching anything else?

 

The sixth sculpt is also a swordsman, but easier to separate out as he's striking overhead with both hands.

 

I've only noticed two different heads, one looking more like Charles I, the other looking more like a page-boy, or a Conquistador, but I must confess I didn't look that carefully, so there may be more. And while the archers' always have painted hair, it seems they gave-up painting the head inside the helmets quite quickly, with unpainted being more common than painted, overall.

 

Helmets, there are six dustbins, and two more traditional closed Burganets, but as I only have single examples of one or two, there may, by extrapolation, be more? And that's the rule for all the following!

 

I should point out that while they are mostly looking forwards in the upper shot, and backwards in the lower shot, it's not that simple, with the ones on either end of the row possibly facing forward in the lower shot and vise-versa, while the second from the right isn't clear at all! I also noticed the white plume is a fourth design! 

 

Single-headed Imperial chickens and two designs of cross, on the classic 'shield' shaped shield, of 13/14th century design, with a raised edge. A plug on the hand pushes through the shield and into the decorative element.

 

Earlier 11/12th century lozenge, or 'kite' shields with a more ornate chicken (looking the other way) and a fleur-de-lys (or, 'lis, a stylized lily or iris symbol, associated with French royalty, and symbolizing purity and the Virgin Mary). These shields seem to have been both moulded poorly, and then fettled poorly, and can be lumpy, misshapen or both!

 

I also have a double-headed chicken, but it's missing a wing, and all these are on the more decorative 15th century shields, which also have the raised rims.

There are two versions of three-point plume, and both seem to have sub-variants, which may be generations, or multiple cavities? This is the 'tumescent' one with two pointy-uppies and a drooper.

 

While the other variant has two droppers and one sticky-uppy, and is therefore the 'limp' one! Again, signs of different versions or cavities?
 

The only other crest design I have is a Wyvern (four limbed dragon), and again, as with helmets, shields, and shield achievements, I have only one of some of these, so there may well be more. So if you have items not shown here, or obvious variations, let us know!

 

All references to chicken/s should read eagle/s, I blame Artificial Intelligence!

F is for Follow-ups - Various, Old & New

A few follow-ups which have been accruing over the last few years, and an eclectic mix of bits enhancing older posts and a couple of more recent ones.

 

 

A couple more KUM pencil sharpeners, these being a small pistol, and a revolver with a drum magazine! We looked at KUM, with more relevance to the Blog's interests here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/search/label/KUM

 

While this is an advert for pre-printed bookplates, with an emphasis on Sci-Fi / Fantasy, there's also a more traditional, even 'monkish' design. Found on the Internet and credited to David O. Knuttunen, it's the back cover ad from IF (not Galaxy), October 1966, and enhances this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/04/b-is-for-bookplates-1-overview.html

 

BEM - Bug Eyed Monster, an acronym which has faded from favour!  

 

Meanwhile as a backup to the recent posts on Holly, Lik Be (LB) and the 'Gygax' monsters, on the left here is the copy of the Monster Manual, which I was using along with the later lever-arch file.

 

The other two, which came in at roughly the same time, are a fascinating book on the Tommy Gun rival to Action Man, made by Pedigree Toys, and it's surprising how much Tommy Gun stuff my brother and I had, thinking it was Palitoy-Hasbro, because most of our stuff tended to come from the Church fêtes and Jumble Sales of Heckfield and the surrounding environs, or the local tip (dump)!

 

While the other book is a useful history of Marx, an updated volume, I still don't have Vol.I in any version . . . it will turn-up, everything does! 

 

The Mechanoid bits in the smaller inset, came in a while back, and the two ladders are the real treasure, as none of mine had them, now two will be completed, and the radar disc will finish the green one, while a near complete one came-in recently, with nice turquoise legs - also needing a ladder!

 

Looking at them, I think I may have a couple more spares in the 'unknown ladder' drawer of my old multi-drawer cabinet! So when it all comes together I should have three complete, another one with two-each different coloured legs and the gold-accessories one still needing a ladder, along with a few bits - that's a fleet!

 

 

A couple of rather poor images of a set of the Marx copies, and a generic set of the same copies of Cherilea astronauts/spacemen, I actually managed to buy the foot-pump set, twice from the same seller, because I'd forgotten I'd bought the first one (generics from Italy), so we will look at them properly another day, but all three above adding to this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/03/e-is-for-expelling-few-myths.html

 

While this will add a bit to this post from two years ago

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/05/e-is-for-eggcellent-effigies.html

 

He's a Humpty I shot at Sandown Park this weekend just gone, is a lead-solid from Sacul, and has had the base repaired/replaced.

S is for Silver Knight

Except, they are blue, red and black knights, with a higher or equal likelihood of gold paint than silver paint! But Silver Knight they were dubbed and Silver Knight they remain! The largest of the many Supreme / SP-Toys medieval sets/lines, and my least favourite, for mostly unfair reasons, but we all have our prejudices!

Empirical evidence! Taken from the Silver Knight Deluxe Play Set we are going to be looking at in the bulk of this post, we have seen the odd figure in the past, indeed, in past Supreme posts, but they were overdue for their own post!

Smaller sets were available, under the parent branding, here from Amazon or Alibarba? The Greco-Roman archer being a obvious incongruity, and a common trope with Supreme's medieval lines. Possibly discontinued now, you can still find brand-new examples on both platforms and in the odd, smaller, independent toy shop . . . if you still have one!

As I recently did with this set, going for a song (£9.99 I think, 12-something maybe?), the Silver Knight Deluxe Play Set, a small fort with outlying tower, siege equipment and two handfuls of stuff; figures in the one hand and smaller accessories in the other.

I would imagine these came separately in different sized sets, or were so available from Supreme or Toy Major's catalogues for the likes of Boley, Halsall (HTI) or Simba, if they wanted something in a smaller price-bracket/packaging?

The fort is a standard toy fort with two gates and a footprint about the same 8/10-inches as the old Airfix, Atlantic or Giant forts, the other a rather neat 'folly' with crenellated-tower, steep stairs (easily defended) and lower walkway.

Full contents on the left, pre-bagging of different elements also helps the factory packers add them to other, different sized sets, whether branded-up Supreme, Toy Major or someone else.

To the right we have the weapon-rack and a rather odd cannon above, and some of the other accessories below which includes the shields (one of the reasons I don't like this set - ridiculously over-sized and clumsy shields, breaking several of the rules of heraldry to add to their crimes!), reasonable weapons, a ladder and a pair of flick-a-pults (my word) for the battlements.

The siege tower, a pretty good model for its type and not directly copying anyone else's, it has more luck with the battlements than the towers though, but one of the points of towers was to remain out of reach! Like all toy seige towers a scale compromise (also seen in most toy forts/castles) means it's perfect for HO/OO-guage 1:76/:72 or 20/25mm figures.

'Flick-a-pult' in situ, and the ladder positioned as both defenders and attackers might use it. As there is only one, the assumption is it for the defenders to man their own battlements, the attacks having their siege-tower!

Other accessories include a guillotine and archery butts, the cannon/flick-a-pult ammo is in a bright, international emergency-orange, but I guess it helps find them and prevents them disappearing up vacuum cleaners!

The weapons can all (not at once, but after the figures have been armed) be kept in the rack, a rather fanciful item, but plenty of play-value for kids, while the lances have safety-points, which leaves them better suited to jousting than war-fighting! The cannon works as weird as it looks!

The figures. They aren't as awful as I think of them, the mounted figures and one foot figure have moving arms which makes them action-figures, or semi-action figures (one or two points of articulation is no more than Galoob gave their Action Fleet 30-mils!), and they are biggish, solid lumps of PVC or its modern equivalent. And - as you can see - 'silver' is not the stand-out feature!

Got arty with the arches! If you place the small tower in front of the castle, as a gatehouse, you create a tunnel for the attackers to negotiate, with fire and sword! On the left open and closed gates, just because!

An unbranded generic on feebleBay a while ago, same knights, different fort (simple one-piece relief sculpt) and a new siege weapon, a catapult of the scorpion type, other sets have an arm-over ballista or double A-frame battering-ram. Missing a few bits including a horse, it only came with four figures and would have been quite cheap and probably well within rack-toy parameters; £5.99 or thereabouts? Although probably popping-up to 12-quid odd near Christmas!

P is for Pattern - 1907 Lee Enfield Sword Bayonet

To paraphrase Blue Peter, and further to the second-previous post - "here's one I shot earlier", the longer bayonet of the infantry, this has a non-standard, green canvas 1950's-dated take on the WWII frog which should take the short spike bayonet used in the European theater and which carried-on in service with the Lee-Enfield's until it's replacement with the FN-licensed SLR, and I think the metal of the scabbard has been polished up from gun-blacked, possibly for ceremonial duties?

To Paraphrase Sunday's Post - This IS the long 17-inch 'sword' bayonet of WWI infantry charges across no-man's-land AND that of the 'Desert Rats' of the 8th army in those iconic press-shots (and Airfix artwork) of World War II!

N is for Naval Landing Parties

Another piece of ephemera, nostalgia, family history . . . I think I've mentioned my Grandfather was drafted across from the Merchant Navy to the RN in 1915, in time for the Gallipoli Landings in the Dardanelles, serving aboard HMS London. I've found his copy of the land-fighting manual used by Naval Landing Parties.

'Rifle and Field Exercises for His Majesty's Fleet 1913', so, written/published the year before it all kicked off, lacking anything on trenching and entrenchment.

I wondered at them having marker-pens in 1915, until I realised it was pencil which has lost its shine after 106 years!

'JTS Hall Midshipman RNR HMS London', I don't know if this means they made them substantive RN personnel (RNR is the Royal Navy/Naval Reserve) later, or not at all, neither do I know if he was already in the RNR, or was co-opted into it when leaving the MN? I suspect he had to serve in the Reserve as part of the payback for his merchant naval training, crossed as RNR and became substantive later?

This appears to be an 'emily' or what the Army called the MLE (Magazine Lee-Enfield), the first version of the weapon, dating from 1895, reworked in 1899 and obviously considered good enough for the Navy! The Army had by 1915 switched to the SMLE, lacking the protruding barrel obvious above. The SMLE (Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield) was known as the Mk.1, hence the Mk1* above, to differentiate it from an actual Mk.1! The Mk.1* would still be in use with the New Zealand Mounted Rifles in WWII!

This is very similar to the SLR bayonet I trained with/carried in the 1980-90's, even down to the mounting-catch design, but the blade is longer; the SLR was 8-inches, not 12. This is not the long 17-inch 'sword' bayonet of infantry charges across no-man's-land, nor the 'Desert Rats' of the 8th army in those iconic press-shots (and Airfix artwork) of World War II either, but rather the P1888 Bayonet carried over from the Lee-Metford rifle.

The Webley Scott .45" automatic pistol, far more useful than the revolvers a lot of Infantry Officers were still going 'over the top' with at this time, and would still be doing in another war? But that's the Brit's, always slow to rearm, re-equip or modernise, always fighting the previous war . . . presumably, needing fewer numbers, the Navy were allowed to be daring with the 'new-fangled' weapon! Issues with barrel residue had been solved by the time Granddad got his!

What the figure painters were waiting for, even though they're black and white! I would say the standing firing pose is not pushed forward enough, but he's a big looking chap and can probably take the recoil! The prone figure, not shown clearly, is angled so that the recoil is taken in a line down the right leg.

How the instructions for firing sitting can take precedence over kneeling (the best firing pose of all) is anyone's guess, but they obviously did things differently a century ago! He is shown firing downhill (or from a crow's nest?), which makes sense, sitting to fire level is the worst of all poses!

The final images in this section; there's not many other images in what is a very wordy tome of many pages, but there is some interesting stuff on battalion advances in column, line, echelon etc . . . which I'll get up here another time.

T is for Two - Webbs Rack Toys

Previously these pirates (1st set below) have been attributed to Dollar General in the US, I now seem to have a UK brand-mark, while the knights are 2nd or 3rd generation copies of the original 1970's Britains Deetail copies out of Hong Kong, now marked 'China' (like the pirates) and being hawked by the same rack-toy name - Webbs.

Packaging is about as generic as it comes on the front, but there is a consumer info panel and what looks like a phantom branding (but is actually S Webb and Son of Menai Bridge, Gwynedd) printed on the otherwise plain back, and the WST048 set's blister is 'space-filled' with spurious shite!

The spurious shite includes an injection-moulded copy of the old Noah's ark props and a rock wall, but the boat and cannon are useful and make up for the village-pond-with-coral-reef play mat!

There is another pose (swordsman, seen in black plastic in the rack-toy round-up, last ITLAPD), but of interest to the blog is a new pose here, the lady. She looks like she might be being made to walk the plank as a victim of wicked pirates, but is in fact holding a pistol in the small of her back with the clear intention of giving someone a third eye or a hole in the heart - generous girl! And don't worry - plenty in the bag for ITLAPD this year!

The seller is offering these in threes should you be tempted; and with the knights each assortment differs, but each blister (set WST051) gets two identical riders, so you need multiples to complete the set.

No filler and lots of separate weapons make these very useful purchases, although the play mat is "...far out there man" . . . with Frisian cows, stud-fencing, nicely-trimmed hedges and dry-stone walls sharing space with a pterodactyl, veggie'saur, giraffe and lion, while a Napoleonic grenade appears to be stuck half-way up the cliff . . . or is the pterodactyl bombing the mud-river with rocks??!!!!

That's them - they're still out & about there somewhere!