F is for Follow-up - Combat Plunder Post

Basically looking at the 'who are they' figures, I'm afraid it doesn't add much, but is a useful reminder of where we're at with these. I had a couple of other supporting images in Piacsa, so I've put a few up, at the end of the post.

 

This is a shot of the versions I was originally told were Galoob, and which are copies of the Galoob Micromachine smallies, or were pantographed-down for them, but there is no evidence to date that the 40mm versions were actually, ever sold by Galoob, however they are quite common as Realtoy, Daron or Sky Mark. I'm now pretty certain these came from whichever Chinese factory was supplying Galoob.

 

While this set is the softer copies, which I have pencilled in, with the minimal of circumstantial evidence as being from Pioneer, or whoever supplied Pioneer, given they were primarily a die-caster. Here in Imperial/Buddy L branding, we have also seen them as Stonegalleon and Woolbro/Toy Leader, while the smaller, unpainted copies, are more likely Pioneer. This is a poor shot, which I think must be the seller's picture of a set I bought, as . . .
 

. . . I have managed to scan the lining-card! You can see several of the firefighter figures which have come in with mixed lots, and some construction workers, I hadn't even made the connection on! The prone figure is not a Galoob sculpt.

 

Shipped into the UK by Titan, which puts Supreme in the frame too, but only loosely, they had their own sculpts, the larger Ackerman et all., set. I'll try to remember to do a follow-up or 'roundup' on them too, once the Chris donation posts are done.

 

The best way to understand it (or not!) is to click the Realtoy Tag, but it's all getting a bit confused, and I'll need to bring everything together in a larger post, with all the sets, and the many loose figures (no duplicates so far, due to three sizes, two materials, and a dozen or so plastic colours and/or paint-ways), set side-by-side.

 

And then, are the bigger (50/54mm) ones we saw from Greece (Zita Toys) also Pioneer or another supplier, the evidence is they are Pioneer, and they have some of the firefighter poses too. The fact that the rough, oblong based versions are now being found alongside the smoother, ovoid 'Galoob' bases, suggests one source for all bar the Realtoy, and what evidence we do have, is that Pioneer (or their supplier) may be that supplier?

 

Some more of the poorer copies of Marx's 45mm GI's, in two shades of green, I have a few of these too, somewhere! We looked at them quite early-on in the Blog's history, here

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2012/07/l-is-for-late-thanks-to-blogger.html

 

The hard-plastic, painted-polystyrene versions turn-out to have been a troop supplied with this battery-operated ("Bateries not included"!) Power Mite truck. A similar yellow truck with (I think?) cement-mixer OR aggregate-tipper bodies had the six (?), very finely sculpted, 35/40mm construction workers, like Blue Box's copies of Dinky, but much nicer, and very brittle. They may also have had a later, window-box issue? I think a comment on that old post may have been confusing these with the smaller Miniature Masterpiece sets?

 

A reminder of the smallest packaging variant of the Supreme/SP Toys issues.

B is for Big Box of Bounty - WWII & Modern Combat

The next instalment of Chris Smith's latest donation to the Blog is the 'meat & two veg' of Toy Soldier Collecting, unless you specialise in ancient & medieval, the Wellingtonian era, space, Wild West, Britians ceremonials, farm or zoo, but you know what I mean, and that's the introductory paragraph taken care of, phew!

 

Three paratroopers this time, all yellow, but from three sources and a nice pair of Airfix Red Beret LMG-gunners, to compare in future addition to the parachutists page, while the holding-reserve pose is unusual in yellow, even at this smaller size, where the odd blue or red one has turned-up over the years, they are usually green!

 

One of the Galoob-like, or supplied by Galoob, sailors, from the Realtoy-Dacron et al. sets, and three of the tentatively ID'd as Pioneer or supplied by/to Pioneer, copies of the same set, the copies being manufactured in a softer silicon-rubber, to the denser PVC-replacement of the Realtoy figures.

 

Unknown seated's, four of the common'ish US moulding ones, in two colours (and there are a lot of colours to find!), and three others; the big chap may be from a battery-operated Jeep or similar toy, the middle one anything, the chap on the right of both shots is one of the crewmen from any one of a number of Hong Kong, fictional/Sci-Fi'ish, novelty rocket launchers, also/sometimes known as Crickets, in this shade, possibly the Codeg 'Rocket Firing Armoured Car'?

 

And the smaller chap here is probably the Codeg driver, while Chris had managed to ID the big fella', he's from the Mecanno Mogul range of Tonka-rival heavy steel-plate toys, namely the eponymous Army Mogulwagen. and I have a feeling Chris sent the driver many parcels ago . . . not sure you can have 'Namely' and 'Eponymous' in the same sentence?

 

And there seem to have been two versions, or a pre-production/press (with integrated MG) one, and this version, which is probably another Stadden sculpt, from the Havent factory, they are about four-inches?

 

These are interesting, I think I have a small sample somewhere, but new poses here, and obviously Marx 45mm copies, which is why I had some - borderline small-scale! But they are a tinny polymer, maybe 'propylene, and quite poorly finished or 'flashy' possibly from that late 1980's/arly 1990's plethora of re-issues from Hong Kong, Brazil or Mexico? Does anyone know for certain, from whence they hail?

 

A handful of "Aitchkay" rack-toy fodder, but all interesting, with two of the 40mm Monogram copies, a small Aussie knock-off, a Japanese Deetail clone, but not the more common chrome-coated, Kwong Wah one, which have the ovoid base, but a full oblong-based copy, along with a pair of the recent, but relatively unique sculpts, copies of New Ray, I think it was decided, in the end?

 

A similar line-up of the smaller scales, with - from the left - Supreme 40mm, Galoob 20mm Micromachines, 30mm Airfix Para' clone, a new colour of Galoob 30mm (Battle Squad?), and another 20mm, along with the roughly 28mm Universal-Matchbox MG-gunner who is 'after' Galoob!

 

Saving the best to last and sandwiched between two of the GI Flats, are two figures who are both familiar, and totally new to me. The chap to the centre-right, is obviously the Timpo GI radio-operator, but not the usual early-British 'Khaki Infantry'', rather a soft PVC polymer, possibly Polish, or East German? He's painted as UN, but that could be home-paint/repaint?

 

While I'm sure I've seen the other guy, but I'll be damned if I can remember where or when? He's a marbled polyethylene ('polythene'), with an interesting pose-sculpt of changing his magazine, the base is closest to the bigger PRB swivel-heads, with a pronounced bevel, while the sculpting and pose are vaguely Marx-PMC 54mm GI-like, in execution? He also comes across as being a bit cereal-premium'y? Is he French, Greek?

 

Can anybody add anything on either of the middles figures, now Chris has kindly sent them to the Blog?

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.

G is for Generics Identified!

We've seen these chaps twice now, as upscaled soft PVC-alikes and as these small 'generics' from Amazon, here, but I was in TKMaxx the other day, so I grabbed the best one by price/contents and shot the other two!

 

The other two sets, one having two figures, the other having none. The main difference over previous viewing is that we now have a branding, quite an oddly-spelled one; Kimsc Ardi, which a quick Google result reveals to be a common branding on .ue (Ukraine) and .ru sites, with further digging pointing to a parent company in China called Xinyu Toys - the same as the previous XY set, so more confirmation than actual Identification!

 

The set I bought, because . . . more satellites! These are the smaller version figures (40mm) in hard styrene, and in the googling I've found quite plain versions and those with more painted highlights. Equipment seems to be a mixture of US-NASA stuff and China's own modern moon-shot stuff.

These shots were in the 'latest toy shots' folder following an off-to-storage photo-shoot a few months ago, and show a probably Pioneer (definitely Realtoy/Dacron) trio on the right, a similar 'unknown' on the left and another pair in the centre, I can't recall, all modern PVC-substitutes, with three knock-off's of the Kimsc Ardi-Xinyu-XY figures. There's a lot of this stuff about!

H is for How They Come In - Peter - July II

Right at the end of July another parcel came from Peter Evans with all sorts of goodies in it, and it's all right here, right now!

I think the upside-down blister card is a set of sea-life, which I meant to blog a few days/weeks later, in what was, then, about to be Rack Toy Month, but I ran out of time or something, 'cos there's plenty of sea-life for another round-up . . . soon maybe?

 

Hing Fat's current US infantry on the left, with late Ri Toys (Rado Industries) or early Hing Fat clones of Ri Toys on the right. The US are interesting because while the publicity shot shows everyone having oblong bases, rounded ones keep turning up as we shall see in the next post, for now though, both the kneeling firer and flamethrower operator here, have oblong bases in Hing Fat's own catalogue image! Matchbox DNA in nearly every pore!

A very pastoral scene, of various sheep and sheepdogs, some new to the Blog and/or collection, while you can never have too many of the Britains farm-family clones, because there are so many to find!

 

Mixed poultry, another growing corner of the collection, and ducks particularly have their own collector-base, so there's always new ones to find!

 

Scenic stuff, there is - you may not be surprised to read - a whole tub of traffic cones somewhere, and I guess one day I will do a page of them and try to ID as many as possible, they are actually quite easy to ID, once you start digging through catalogues, as they are mostly big-box/play-set stuff!

 

Civilians - Matchbox and Britains on the end, probably Pioneer in the middle, an old Hong Kong farm-girl, now out of China and two of the little Supreme GI's. The spinning novelty looks Christmas Cracker sized, and will go in the tub with all the other spinning-tops and suchlike!

 

While we have two more 'maybe Pioneer' here; fireman (Zita) and soldier (Realtoy/Dacron), with an unknown mechanic and the firefighter carrying a baby whom we saw in HTI packaging (early 'Teamsters' sets) a few years ago I think? I thought I'd keep this pack sealed as a sample of The Toy Project's packaging 'for posterity'! 

 

Thanks again to Peter for a useful collection of bits and bobs which will all find their use going forwards!

OB (?) is for Toy Leader, Pioneer, Woolbro and probably Zita et al?

Those loyal readers who have followed the Blog for some time will know there's usually one or two posts in RTM which get bogged-down in the minutia of branding, phantom-brands and brand-marks without proving much beyond the fact the Chinese/Hong Kong/Jobber branding can be a nightmare!

This is sort of one of those, but it also adds a bit to the Pioneer story (mostly uncovered here) and gives us a couple of what I suspect are quite late (i.e. quite recent) Woolbro items.

A couple of different sets, credited to a Toy Leader and imported into the UK by Woolbro, we'll do the brand stuff at the end. Contents are similar to the Realtoy military sets, or the Peace Enforce set we saw last year? If you then click 'older post' you'll get the contemporaneous Woolbro set we also saw then.

One in temperate combat scheme, the other desert, are they post '90/91 Gulf War, or earlier, there's no clue on the packaging? The contents however are really quite interesting, with references to various other Asian toy-lines/Marques.

The figures, are they the same ones Stonegalleon carry, softer versions from the Realtoy tool, or straight Pioneer production . . . well, they are the larger size, so it would seem they are from the tooling used for the Realtoy (and other) sets, and it may be that the sharper, squarer based figures (last year's and the Zita set) are from the same tooling, but weren't commissioned by Realtoy (or whoever was behind Realtoy - Dacron, Smart, Supreme?), so don't turn-up in the harder vinyl with consecutive numbering.

The trolley I have loose in my collection, it's a darker green, and better engineered (I think, I'll have to compare them when all this shite is properly sorted) and I assumed it was someone like either Corgi (all those 1:48th 'planes in recent years) or New Ray, and the recoilless-rifle here looks ex-New Ray too, so it would seem we have a pattern emerging?

I think the trolley is some kind of air-force ground-equipment, a charger, tester, starter or something, while the AT weapon is looking a bit TOW-like so second-generation ATGM? I would add that the stadium/marshalling-yard lamp-stands were seen in that other 'group' of sets branded Supreme/Ackerman/Titan etc?

Neither picture is perfect I'm afraid, but two new poses (in these softer ranges), both known from the harder Realtoy sets; kneeling pointing in jungle-hat (boonie-hat)a nd the prone gunner.

Again, I think some of these have been seen in New Ray's superior (for rack toys) 54mm sets of ten-or-more years ago, namely; a four-crate, WWII German werfer of nebels and a US/NATO M252 Mortar, while the sandbag emplacement looks prety-much the same as the Realtoy ones.

The temperate set has a GS-bodied truck, while the dessert set has a lookie-MLRS-likey rocket launcher get up, which seems to fire the same 150mm Werfgranate as the crated infantry-support Nebelwerfer, from two side mounts with hinged covers.

The slogans on the trucks is interesting, they both have Aoutca Dnphentkul written on the cab-doors, which Google-translate identified as Hmong, an ethnicity from Laos, Vietnam and South Western China, allied to the US in the second Indochinese war, many now live in Thailand or the USA. There is no direct translation.

While the Myo Niutop Buti on the rear of the rocket launcher was tentatively ID'd as Pilipino, with a translation of something-something-'good'? Both also have a hawk or falcon with the English message 'Fighting Action'! The two odd messages point to a Hmong-staffed factory in the Southern Chinese Yunnan province, making stuff-up 'on the hoof'?

But the Vcuneld on the back of the GS truck gets no suggested language, so it could just be a random-word generation robot/algorithm, but these are probably 1990's and such things weren't common back then, especially in an Asian toy factory!

So, to my thoughts on the branding . . . obviously imported by Woolbro, and marked-up to 'Toy Leader' the logo can't possibly be made to represent TL, looking distinctly like an OB? It's how they roll out there, and why Lik Be are LB, not LP or IDL!

And on the other card, the logo has been covered (before the blister was applied) with what looks like part of an Easter-egg artwork (or something equally bright and cartoony?) sticker, suggesting even they (the factory or shipper/jobber in the Far East) realised the logo-type was daft!

There is a prominent consumer message in Greek on the back of the cards (along with various other nationalities) so, given previous posts here at Small Scale World, it may be that these could be found in Greece with Zita stickers, and I'll add them to the tags for completion, even if they weren't, the connections are all there!

I suspect this is Pioneer production, a generic, given a phantom-brand wash which hasn't helped, copying from New Ray's more original stuff, and rehashing some of the stuff they supplied to Realtoy, but in new colours and with the softer rubber-figures?

H is for How They Come In - December 2020 - II Chris - Military

Obviously, a lot of you are Toy Soldier collectors, only deigning to touch other genres if they happen to fit your collection's parameters, vis-à-vis scale, maker, period or whatever! So this portion of Chris's donation is probably the best one for you!

We'll start with 'the rest' as I tried to alternate the green and pale backgrounds, needed to separate the medievals and wanted to finish with the Trojan, and for no other reason!

Top left we have five kit-figures, some ex-Monogram and a chap who looks a lot like some of the larger R/C tank crew in the master collection, he also has a locating spigot between his knee and foot, and may-well have been attached to such an item?

The grey figure below him looks a bit like some Portuguese premium Jap's I recently got, but he's not as deeply sculpted and while they are unique sculpts, he's ex-Monogram and a bit Hong Kong'y in execution, but a first in the collection (very heavy base?), as is the damaged turquoise figure, one-place to his left?

Center of the bottom row are two more Special Forces types, these are becoming common, I guess because of their prevalence on both current affairs/news programs and their position in popular culture/gaming?

The white Timpo (et al) copy is interesting; I forgot to check his base, so while he may be HK/China, if unmarked he might be a French bazaar figure? below him, next to the SF figures is a figure which ought to be a Speedwell copy of a Timpo swoppet, but looks glossy enough to be a HK copy of Speedwell! And not a Star Toys pose?

The big boy (bottom right) is a Mattel 'Hero in Action' and I seem to be building a bag-of-bits of these, so one day I might try to get a couple of whole ones and cover them here, they are technically action-figures, but articulation is limited and if you like the Vietnamese summer 'Rambo' esthetic of them (flak-jacket, trousers, boots, helmet and not much else), then they are a fun thing, although they came out when I was a kid, so long before John Rambo started shooting-up his neighbourhood!

Three perennials in four sizes; Pioneer (for Realtoy et al), Smart Toys (new poses), and Soma (with ATV), the two Pioneer/Realtoy are hard to find undamaged, The Smart sample is getting a little lopsided with many more green than sand!

Chris sent me two of his new, probably first, unknown-brand versions of the ABC figures, I have Blogged them now, but here they are again!

Medievals, from the left; these are fun (and a bit funny) they came in various branded and more generic sets (so maybe handled by Toy Major?), and at first glance - or, depending on which ones you find first; closer inspection - appear to be US construction workers, but they are in fact medievals and this one is sneakily hiding his axe behind his back.

Then the All The King's Men board-game piece bowman, if I'd Blogged him earlier he would have come before March's 'reveal'! he's next to a Roman who we had also looked at, but he's definitely a darker shade than the shiny set I found - in liaison with Chris, at the time, I think?

One of the unpainted, mono-coloured Cherilea 50-mils, I wonder if they had a Lucky-Bag or ice cream premium contract for these, as they do turn-up quite often? Penultimate figure in the line-up is a Hong Kong copy of MPC's little 45mm figures and next to him on the end is an MPC original of one of the mounted ones!

I thought I'd put them on the Blog, back at the start but I'll be darned if I can find the images?

Don't know what this is, I'm guessing some kind of wall or gatehouse decoration from a larger-scale action-figure play-set? Pig's head visor, ornate crest and the reverse image is out of focus - sorry!

Chris is as intrigued by this as I am! He thought King, I thought Beefeater, and it clearly plugs into something? It is flat, and has some of the design elements you might find on a lollypop- or cocktail swizzle-stick?

I wonder if it's a long gone and pretty forgotten company logo, perhaps a steak-chain or a smaller chain of restaurants like (but not) London's Old Kentucky where we had several treat-trips as kids in the one opposite the Duke of York's barracks in Chelsea - which google informs me was at 54 King's Road from 1968, there was another in Tottenham Court Road. Beefeater Restaurants themselves did (do?) have a Beefeater mascot, but a bearded one in the current ceremonial uniform, this is an older style.

It's one of those things where if you know you know, so does anyone recognise him, or is he just one of a line of ice cream sticks or something? AND . . . he could be an Elizabethan jester?

At some point last autumn Chris and I either discussed an evilBay lot, or ended up bidding on the same lot, anyway at some point I dropped out before the under bidder, or never bid (I can't remember now) and Chris won it, kindly sending me the one figure I'd really been after as he already had a better one, which puts my Trojan Jap's up to five in four poses I think . . . slowly, slowly, catchee' raree!

I was chatting to someone today round at another toy soldier mate's house, and we were looking at his Wants List . . . now, I currently have five from friends on the laptop's desk-top and have only managed to fulfill one item so far - a bunch of Brent composition to one of the Russian supporters of the Blog, because - as I said in the conversation earlier today, all the wants lists have pretty much the same figures/makers on them, because the harder to find things are the same for everyone! But keep looking and you'll find them in the end - because they were all mass-produced!

The real rarities are all the more ephemeral things like flat Beefeater hangers, that went to landfill years ago, and it's thanks to supporters like Chris that I can get to share them with you. Thank you Chris, we'll be looking at the equally interesting April lot soon!

A is for Astronauts . . . in a Tin!

Back to space! It's been quite an eclectic mix this Rack Toy Month; not as many foreign (European/ex-Soviet) or domestic sets as some years, but Hong Kong and/or China are synonymous with rack-toys, so it's no bad thing to have concentrated on them, especially when the whole month has been a bit 'on the hoof' and 'off the cuff' this year.

Also this is hardly a rack-toy, having all the markers for an overpriced museum gift-shop novelty, however rack-toy versions exist and it ties in nicely with an earlier post on small-scale space sets and continues the running mentions, this month, of Pioneer being behind or involved in a lot of this more recent (1990-2010's) stuff.

Astronauts in a tin, it does exactly what it says on the tin! Distributed by PMT Holdings (a quick Google reveals pooping llama key rings on Amazon!) and sold by American Holiday & Surf Shop, the exclusivity is unknown, but may well be so in this perticular packaging/contents configuration, although Google says single outlet (St Michaels, Maryland), so maybe not?

More of a rack-toy configuration (contents differ somewhat; see below), and now branded to XY (Xinyu), and the last time we saw Xinyu here it was in the context of AFV play-sets containing Pioneer die-cast vehicles, so the persistent link is there! Astronauts have a plain finish in this set.

The contents of my set, as manned stations the satellites are all subscale although the landing module could fit two Airfix or Giant spacemen (in the imagination - not phyically, there's no door!), but not the 40mm figures in the set, however as unmanned science or communications satellites they can pass for HO-OO-compatible gear? Shuttle and rocket though are clearly sub-scale generic die-cast/plastic fare.

A third configuration, unknown, some image I saved ages ago from Amazon or Alibaba, branded to some phantom nonsense (there are 'branded' suppliers on Amazon whose names have clearly been generated by AI shoving lumps of syntax (or random letters) together - Watinc, Ainolway (think about it!), Oocome, Cvcbser, Trswyop?) and again, new items but only one figure.

The current offering from Amazon is a top-end set with just about everything seen in the other sets (differen rocket) and then some (claims 44 Pieces), branded to deAO, I have had Toy Major stuff from the same brand-mark, and they clearly came direct from an Amazon warehouse, so an in-house phantom-brand, I suspect!

The 'meat and two veg' here at Small Scale World is always the figures, and here they are, referencing the coloured patches on early (and much sought-after) Kinder spacemen, and about the same size as Kinder's smaller offering, I suspect only coincidence, and around 40mm, polystyrene.

Now if these were Pioneer, that would make a third set, in a new plastic type, so, again it points to the caveat I gave earlier in the month that as a die-caster, Pioneer (if it is them again) may have been buying in the figures themselves.

It would make it much harder for someone like Galoob to sue for the combat infantry knock-offs, for instance, if Realtoy sent them to Pioneer and Pioneer fingered a minor third, fourth, or fifth-party who had already moved on!

That some of the other - die-cast - contents have come from Pioneer I have little doubt.