P is for Postscript on Plasticom and Their Polish Pals!

Return or follow-up wouldn't compute once I'd decided on an alliterative heading and 'Pandect' would have flummoxed most I fear! Anyway, Plasticom were first seen here a long time ago now, and we have re-visited them several times AND looked at Polish versions, so this is another view, with more Polish figures (courtesy of Chris Smith) and, and . . .

I took a lot of pictures, and Chris sent a fair few, so we're starting with line-ups of his new Polish takes on the Plasticom 'Soldabar' sugar-candy/lolly-handle WWII figures above and below from two different angles, and  - the middle - the current rainbow of polymer colours from my Plasticom sample.

Note also slight variations; offset holes, smaller base and deeper reinforcing round some of the holes, also the orange-red 'short-shot/miss-mould' at the back left.

Chris's Polish knock-off's compared with the Plasticom, these would appear - from below - to be from two makers, but I think they are all of the same origin and although we've looked at similar figures here from Konrad Lesiak, and Wojciech Gudaczewski recently covered them on a Faceplant group, the maker/s remain anonymous! Wojciech did say they were mostly produced around Warsaw though, and would be what have been described here before as Kioskowce - cheap 'tobacco kiosk' novelties.

The standing firer is quite an original pose, with a serious attempt to replicate the Plasticom base; a shallower rim to the lolly-socket giving him away, while the 8th Army officer is a straight lift from Airfix's set. We've seen the two Plasticom's before, they are a Crescent (firer) and Britains (officer) clone respectively.

These are Chris's Matchbox clones, to whom belongs the firing figure from the previous image, we have 8th Army and Afrika Korps. Polish troops fought with the Eighth Army, but in Italy when they had gone into long trousers I think (and there weren't many Highland Bren-gunners in the Polish formations!), but still the affinity is there, and it gets round making hated Russians?

While Airfix are plundered for more 8th Army poses and - unusually - Ghurkhas, with both these and the previous, the colours are very hard to photograph under any conditions, and more worryingly - in the case of the center four - made to look almost as edible as the candy-lolly they were holding!

I wasn't thinking when I did this collage, so we have Wild West above (US Cavalry) and WWII below! The bazooka-man is taken from the late Britains Hong Kong output while the advancing pair in the middle are Crescent again with another Britains (damaged) on the left. The cavalry which I didn't recognise last time were ID'd by someone a while back (Vichy?) as Jecsan I think, but it's a fleeting similarity, with the Plasticom's far more naturally stance'd.

Image on the left here is from Theo van der Weerden, with two of the Cofalu clones (one each beret and helmet) of French infantry, more Britains and another US cavalryman, while I have the same pair (lower right) of Frechies, with another, stabbing pose, in various colours - above.

My four together, we've seen this shot on the Khaki Infantry page, but for the sake of completeness it might as well be here too!

Chris kindly sent me three duplicates from his collection, and I will eventually use them in comparisons on the Airfix Blog, but for now, one of each; Ghurkha, 8th Army and DAK above, order reversed below.

And to the wild Wild West! Top left (they too, came from Theo) and bottom are the Platicom from Belgium. The other two shots are all Polish figures from Chris (oops, I've only just realised one of them is WWII British!). Note the higher collar on the two top-right, which may be another maker's work?

There seems to be a bit of mix-and-match with these, but I'm not so au fait with Wild West figures . . . Theo's red figure is taken from Britains Herald Hong Kong, the green chap from the same maker's Swoppet range, the high tube pair might be based on ex-Jean or Manurba poses, the two six-gun chaps (bottom left) Herald (similar) again? The standing riflemen are quite nice poses/sculpts, albeit a bit flat; like most the Polish figures.

All Plasticom and a mix of Britains and continental sculpts being lifted here, I think we've seen them all before, I recognise the four interesting poses but can't place them (French?), while the standing firing and kneeling archer are both Herald HK. The standing bowman looks a bit like Rambo!

Two Polish Indians, again courtesy of Mr. Smith, and clearly a new manufacture for the blue figure, who might be mistaken for 'just' a Kioskowce but that base is hollow and too large to not be for a lollypop to sit in! I don't recognise either pose and the green one is missing a hand.

This chap came in the other day and I thought I'd better add him here for the full overview! He's similar to the Herald Hong Kong one, but the legs are slightly different, I think.

Plasticom's scenics, with a Britains original to the far right, you can see the Plasticom tree is greatly simplified. I think we have Chris to thank for one or two of these as well, but some time-ago now!

The Plasticom 'Czech hedgehog' tank-trap, compared with the Britains Herald Hong Kong accessory, and it's an early marbled one on the left (matching the previously seen tree), with a later plain-brown one to the right.

You may have noticed that the ex-Matchbox advancing pose has what looks like a sign on his base, and I asked Chris about it, as a 'supplemental'! He studied it in depth and took tons of shots to try and get a few good ones (which was all 'a call above' for the blog) and sent me the best results. Stopping the shadow setting down 200% (that's the same figure in both shots) made it clear the 'HQ', 'Tobruk >>' or 'Achtung Minen' I had hoped for is not there!

Moreover, it's not that clearly a sign at all, and Chris wondered if it might actually be doing the job of what I call 'sprulettes', allowing material to pass beyond the products original cavity design, so the figure itself gets fully formed. Chris noted most of the other figures are more balanced with a leg either-side of the lollypop hole, while this was a one-sided sculpt, and it seems to me he might be spot-on? Although the bayonet has still short-shotted!

The last time I mentioned Plasticom online someone stated they were available in Germany from Trawigo, Bloomberg list Trawigo GmbH & Co KG (founded 1953) as an importer and wholesaler of confectionery & related products, not a manufacturer, so they didn't make them, they imported Plasticom's Soldabars, and repackaged them.

As I've mentioned them (Trawigo) now, I'll tag them and anyone searching in the future can come here and read > click here or on the Plasticom tag below this post or the tag down the right-hand side of the page for the - currently- seven other posts on these and the previous looks at Polish production/similar figures < !

And it gets them in the tag-list! Indeed, as we now know they got as far as Poland, and seem to turn-up most in mixed lots from France, Belgium, Holland and even the UK (occasionally), they must have had/carried several brand-marks, do you know your local one?

Many thanks to Chris Smith for help, images and figures, thanks to Theo for images, to Konrad for past images and help and acknowledging Wojciech's input, that's them, again, for now!

T is for Two . . . Totem Poles

Just a quick one for fun; Chris Smith sent the blue one in his last parcel, and a I dug the Orange one out of the stuff we've looked at in the past so they could both go with all the other totem poles, as increasingly; thematic storage is easier for things like this, they stack quite well, albeit like awkward logs!

Soldabar by Plasticom, it'll probably be a copy of someone else's, but I haven't found the donor yet, soft polyethylene lollypop premiums and . . . err . . . that's it!

Original post here

M is for Military Stuff

So we turn to the more warlike contents of Chris's donation, and it had a lot of interesting stuff; not in this post were a number of Hong Kong copies of Airfix Japanese I recognised from smaller scale versions (flat sheet bases, primary colours) and I will put them on the Airfix blog in time.

A large bag of Tylers/Mundi Toys bubble-gum premium figures were also included; we looked at them briefly early in the Blog's life, but I will return to them when I have all of them, at the moment I'm a GI and several Jap's short! In the meantime, I posted a link to a very good post on them on Akela's kiosk Blog a while ago, here it is again.

Among the pile of plenty from Chris were a large number of parachute toys from 30mm Christmas cracker novelties to 90mm blow-moulds which will all prove useful on the forthcoming 'Poopatroopa' page! The guy adjacent to the two arrows is the same guy - for scale/continuity.

One was a different pose/type altogether, a bootleg Toy Story figure I suspect, so he got shot separately, while the yellow one (who isn't glow-in-the-dark) is made of a very odd plastic which is semi-transparent and seems to diffuse light, the photographs don't do justice to how he glows with the pen-torch in his cavity!

The Poopatroopa page is in preparation, but now I'll have to re-sort and re-shoot a bunch of the images (I'm not complaining!), but seeing how I seem to have ended-up with a rainbow theme of backgrounds through the running-order, I'll re-shoot with other backgrounds to mix-it-up a bit!

Fantastic! A new Hong Kong tat'm'cycle . . . with rider! AND stabilisers! Look at it, it's too cool for TT school and it's the stuff like this which sets the Blog apart from others! What you can't tell from the image is that one of the wheels keeps coming out, but hot water will sort that, and what would you expect from something which back in the day probably cost an old sixpence!

The shot below is various figures of merit or interest, from the back left we have a 1:16th/18th German tank commander, two New Ray copies (or late production, their current catalogue has figures equally poor and unpainted compared to their early production), an Airfix Commando piracy, head-swapped to the ANZACs, I vaguely recognise him and may have some others somewhere, but they may just be similar based (kidney/figure-eight) Airfix 8th Army copies?

Next is one of two (the other crawling in front) original sculpt, modern made in China 'Army Men', he's a bit comical (like those zombies we were looking at a year ago - same sculptor?) but his mate is a very nice figure in an unusual pose. I wondered if the grey one goes with them but I don't think so.

Finally a nice Airfix Russian/GI hybrid knock-off, there were a couple but I selected this one for the line-up as it's the most obvious.

We've dealt with two of the front row, the other is very odd, and just the sort of thing I like to add to the collection - he looks like he's been taken out of the mould too early and received a burst-tumor of his own hot polymer at the waist-line, but closer inspection reveals helmet-netting and while I can't imagine quite how it happened, it would seem something went wrong either during moulding or at the point of mould-release leading to a second runner, or the other end of this figures runner got welded to this chap and by the time the operator had sorted it, he was in the for-retail product-stillage with his mate's head still firmly part of him, and his own legs now making him a contender for Pontin's knobbly-knees competition!! Underneath the mess is the common'ish copy of Lido's first version GI's, we looked at them here.

The Wild West threw-up some treats too, with two Plasticom premium/lolly-sticks, a CMV totem-pole, an ABC Indian (front right) and interesting HK copy in 40mm (red), a brown Wing Lung Indian - Airfix copy, two premiums and a huge Mohican Indian (back right) who's like nothing I've seen since the Peco's Unbreakable Toy Figures and is hard to date, it's a two-part swivel-waist toy, with separate arms, head and rifle, all glued in-place (bar the waist which pops-off) and may be modern'ish? He has no marking beyond a double-imprinted 2 on his foot, probably a mould-cavity marker.

The two premiums are from Collonil (red cowboy) and the other is marked Plume Brisee (marbled-pink Indian) but I'm not sure if that is a brand or - more likely - his name (Broken Feather)? According to Ludo's premium site he was made by Alkastap in France and (/or also) issued by Café Legal, Codec, Bonux, and others. I particularly like the Indian, I think he's pointing at a red-necked white Texan, possibly in El Paso and saying "You; illegal, go back where you came from!" Both are polyethylene.

The overall winner was the Britains-copy sucker-Guardsman on the right, I think I have one (standing firing) which has been on the blog, but if memory serves he's grubby and a darker red, this one is a bright-scarlet minter!

The two weights are a bit of a quandary? Are they joke weights for a comedy/clown weight-lifter in a circus set, or are they test-weight or counter-weight wagon-loads from a model railway or heavy-haulage lorry? Maybe from a crane model? If anyone knows, put us right! They are a dense PVC, which is stable and the integral lifting-loops are quite firm and unbroken which could point to good quality or recent production?

The other two figures are from the same franchise (Walden?), presumably a movie, but I can't think what? The dwarf looks like Gimli, but the armour is wrong I think, while the centaur wasn't in Lord of the Rings, nor was Disney involved, so I thought maybe the Lion/Witch/Wardrobe series but I don't think they started filming until much later; 2012'ish?

Anyway, one (the centaur) seems to be a Nēstlē premium in hard polystyrene plastic, the other from a set of Hasbro PVC-like toy or action figures? They are marked as follows and I will do a little research when I post, to see if I can ID the film, which I will add below.

Nēstlē

CЄ

© Disney/Walden

China TAG

18M+

(Centaur - Hard styrene, single piece)

© Disney / Walden

© Hasbro

2005 China

(Dwarf - PVC three points of articulation, ring-hands, separate axe)

Both about 50mm

It IS The Chronical's of Narnia - the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - I must say I thought they were later films, show's how quickly I'm getting how old?!

Many-many thanks to Chris Smith for all these, and everything else in the parcel, which will prove very useful on the blog going forwards, and has already added to the sheepdog story and enhanced the recent sentry-box post - cheers Chris, much appreciated!

News, Views Etc . . . Khaki Infantry Page Update

Plasticom (Soldabar) has gone on the Khaki Infantry page with much help from Chris Smith, I don't know how many figures were in the set in total, but with a hybrid and a damaged one, we've found five poses between us. They also copied the angle-iron tank-obstacle from the Hong Kong Herald sets which can be found on the Plasticom or Soldabar tags here.

I've also moved the Reisler entry down to the foreign section, so the page now runs from the top:  British-Foreign-Hong Kong-Unknown/Detritus; alphabetical where possible, with Timpo out of sequence to keep it at the start of the - growing - page.

Updates on Cherilea, CMV, Timpo and Speedwell are in the pipeline for that page too.

R is for Return . . . to Romans

We've seen these before here; on the Roman page (where I think they are waiting for blurb!) with their anachronistic card-art, and possibly in a rack-toy month, but having found another header-card set and got the loose figures out of storage, it's time to look at them again, and a few others of similar ilk - Hong Kong/Macau clone'ery!

Not the largest sample but it meets the purpose; there seem to have been three generations of these, the gold/silver ones which were mostly (all?) rack-toys in the 1960/70's, a set of muted colours (Christmas cracker/capsule-toy contents) through the 1970/80's and an issue in 'neon' or electric colours which were quite common as handfuls in the early days of evilBay and must date from the late 1980's/1990's, probably from similar cracker/capsule origins, or - from the bulk findings; those Maltese festival 'window-throws'.

The emerald green figure (in the little bag) was the first of these I found back in the early 1990's (it's the running pose), and I have glued him back together once or twice, but he has the consistency of candle-wax, so I hang on to the pieces for loyalties sake, or until a similar coloured sample turns-up with a bit more backbone! If I chucked him I'd be unable to show he came in that colour - it's how the collection works!

There are minor differences in the bases, with the early metallic figures having their mould-release pin-marks as punched-through holes, the mid-era figures have a slighter 'dink', while the late, bright-coloured ones have barely a sign of the pin, or no visible showing at all. It would seem that the release-pins were a separate process, possibly triggered by hand, or by hand in the early days of the tools life, with some operators forcing them through the still soft plastic, later batches showing more finesse in the phase application!

Compared with other HK clones, they (pink one) are the smallest, and were probably copied from the Elastolin 40mm figures as would the lollipop figures (orange brown one)* have been, after the original figures (far right and middle of bottom row) are the not Hong Kong, but 'Made in Macau' figures in gold and silver polyethylene.

These were probably copied from the 70mm figures, pantographed down to 50mm, but could have been grown from the 40mm Hausser originals. I'm not sure if the painted fighter is home- or factory- paint, but overall they have the makings of cake decorations, although I think they were carded rack-toys in France?

*This is one I think is probably not the Platicom/Soldabar series, but rather, another similar lolly-stick sweet-with-prize issuer as we saw here a while back with the contributions from Konrad Lesiak in Poland; it has the hole, but without the collar and with a smaller, more-oblong base. My sample is also a bit heat shrunk from early removal from the tool. - On the subject of which; there is a section on the Plasticom figures coming to the Khaki Infantry page with new poses courtesy of Chris Smith as soon as I get the blurb sorted!

These (upper figure) were also sold in France (by Jouets Super Plastics?) imported from/via Portugal (by Injectaplastic) as carded sets and are also believed to be from Macau in origin, this one was given to me by Peter Evans many years ago, and is missing what looks to be a polystyrene weapon - probably made soft at the hand-hold by the actions of the free-radicals in the dense PVC, the same thing you see with early tracks on Airfix AFV kits. Below is an Elastolin 40mm original for comparison.

P is for Polish People like Plasticom?

We looked at a couple of these a while ago I think, but I thought I'd bring them all together, although there is a problem getting the images from Konrad Lesiak in Poland to Hotmail via the Wibbly Wobbly Way, so I have had to blow them up on-screen and then screencapcha them to work on, but they get across what they need to.

I have one of these which we have looked at before (as an unknown - reproduced below), but here are a couple of far more useful ones than my cornucopia blower (or whatever he's called!); both copies of Elastolin poses.

They have different bases from the Plasticom Soldabar figures originating in Belgium, with their squared-off corners and a flat-edge.

Konrad has painted a couple-up in a 'toy soldier' style and they look all the better for it, his blower (cornier?) has the same hunched appearance as mine, which I put down to mould shrinkage last time, I'm glad to see it's how it should be - one less figure on the 'wants' list!

A similar base is seen on the pink GI, possibly a piracy of a Spanish figure (these lollypop figures are all copies of something!), but the Airfix Japanese clone has the squarer-cornered base of the Romans, with the collar of the Plasticoms, but on a longer base? It looks like progression of design or evolution, as much as different makes?

These look much more like the usual Plasticom figures, two new poses, one ex-Britains the other Starlux I think? But the bases are a little smaller than my main sample (and below), rounder than the ovals on mine.

Then we find two lightly different ones; with a radius-edge to the poodle's base, the other having a sealed-cone rather than the usual collar. He's also a copy of an Eastern European flat, as you might expect to find in Poland!

These are the Belgian figures issued by Plasticom, as Soldabar lollies, and we have looked at the two Frenchies recently, but I thought I'd get all the additions together in one shot. You can see from the sticky remains in the lower shots that the figure appears to have been presented as the handle, with a boiled-sweet type sugar-candy lump of some kind hanging below, probably anchored in the hole/collar. And note that they have longer bases than the polish figures.

There's an addition to the additions! And my 'Cornelius' chap - unpainted, again. Answering my own question from the Buried Treasure post the other day; I guess all these figural confectionary 'handles' were phased-out for the choking risk?

And thanks to Konrad Lesiak for the polish figures.

T is for Two...from the Tiber

Continuing to clear these old photographs, or the scans of them, here are a couple of interesting and less common Hong Kong copies, both of ancients, and both around the 35/40mm mark.

Strategically placed on my home-made plasterboard hills (long since consigned to land-fill), these two are more 35mm and are copies of Marx figures originally from the 'Warriors of the World' hand-painted 60mm series, the chap on the right would also be copied by Giant in 25mil, while the same company put the torso of the left-hand guy on a horse. I think I have a couple more now, but possibly only one other pose (standing with spear) and always in this flesh-coloured plastic. I assume Christmas crackers or cake decorations?

This horn-bower is closer to 40mm and seems to be another of those European lollipop or ice-cream stick ornaments/premiums, but the hole is different from the Soldabar/Plasticom ones, and he probably originated in HK, he's a copy of the Elastolin Roman and might be a copy across from the 40mm or pantographed-down from the 70mm. He's also very distorted by early removal from the mould. Again I think I've picked-up another since these were taken so one day we'll probably have another look at them., with the commoner Elastolin copies with the oviod disc-shaped bases.

M is for Minor Makes

A quick look at some odds and ends, as I'm getting as sick of my unfinished stuff as some of you may be!

Copies of Airfix Washington's Army in 35mm, made in Hong Kong and sold primarily as cake decorations, notably here in the UK by Cullpits from stands in bakers and catering supply retailers. Showing front and back of each figure with two from each end of the Union Jack spectrum.

Hit men and drive-by shooter from Parker's board game Vendetta, also called 'Vengeance à Chicago' or Cosa Nosta. There was a third pose, the boss men, but they're cruder and bigger.

Close up of the hired gun, the game seems to be a glorified game of Ludo, with the added excitement of semi-random murder and 4 Mafia speakeasy's! There are two cars, this one being removed from one end of the 'spinner'.

I've been collecting these for years, starting with the smaller ones and now just buying them whenever I see them. I can see Britains Herald (UK & HK), Cofalux and Starlux among them. They have been identified as both ice cream premiums and chocolate lolly premiums, however, both were tentative, so more information is needed on these. [02/03/2012 - In Belgium they were issued as boiled-sweet type lollipops in orange or lemon flavour as 'Soldabar' by the Plasticom company.]