P is for Plastolin Plasticine!

These may be the only examples in existence, or rare survivors of a small production run, we just don't know, but they are listed on the new Composition Page, so I need to get them up here, in order that a wider audience is made aware of their existence!

 

The label reads;

 

PLASTOLINE

Model Manuf: Co:

Set X1. Gestapo H.Q.

With Officer at Desk

NO.03.

Plastoline - Hand Made, enamelled,

Hard and glossy, copyright, patent.

 

And one has to assume the '03' is the number in a series of similar vignettes? There is nothing on the 'web to suggest any of it was ever patented, and copyright's a long shot, given some, most (?) modellers could copy it to a much higher standard!

 

This is the item described above, he has broken-off at ankles and stool, the shaft if which has been lost. The whole made from Plasticine, probably hardened with Banana Oil, otherwise known as 'Dope', or isoamyl acetate (also known as isopentyl acetate), painted and vanished in a deep gloss to give a lacquered appearance in the 'Old Toy Soldier' style.

 

Also in the box is this WWI'ish (?) machine-gunner, listed as (3) in the list below, as WWII, and which differs from the previous example in also using embedded wire for the machine-gun, not that it's prevented the gun from curling slightly over time.

 

Which, by a process of elimination, and considering the fact that no other suitable figure was in the unknown 'Question Time' post, also dealing with this make's figures, here, must be the number two item - Mexican irregular from the wars of the turn of the last century?

On the underside of the inner box, we have further clues as to the originators of these figures (the Mexican is really quite good, albeit a tad 'footless'), with this label, origianlly in Biro, but added to at a latter date in pencil;

 

(1)GERMANY-GESTAPO   -   C 1940

(2)MEXICO - IRREGULAR   -   C 1900

(3) GERMANY - M. G -    C 1940

(1) By  .  D. BROWN .

(2) By     M, LEECH .

(3) By  .  D  BROWN .

IN PLASTOLINE  .

 

So the clues, would suggest that a D Brown, and M Leech, attempted to manufacture, in Plasticine, a small range of figures with a commercial bent, when and for how long were they in production is anyone's guess, except those who might actually know?

 

And the three figures from Chang-Kai-Chek's Imperial Chinese forces, and the odd chap in a respirator, seen previously, were also stuffed in the same box. Anybody know anything else about them?  I believe, although I haven't found them yet, that there were adverts in the back of the periodicals of the time - Military Modelling, Battle, and/or . . . the other one . . . Campaign?

Q is for Question Time - Composition Queries

Chris sent me an interesting shot last week, and as I had a few in Picasa, I thought it might be an idea to put them out here - all new-to-Internet, if not new-to-hobby?

This was Chris's question-mark. Flanked by two known or believed to be Zang or Zang for Timpo (Timpolin) figures - a pilot on the left and Tommy Atkins on the right - is an unknown guardsman in a similar material and style, but with a strange stalactite of flash running down his front, which Chris reports (it's not clear in the image) is painted a different colour. I wondered if that might indicate the removal of a drum or standard, but neither would match the arm/hand positioning?

I also think he may have been re-painted as he looks very clean and the flesh is pale for Zang? Now I know some Zang ceremonial guards have recently turned up but I was lead to believe they were matched to the 30/35mm highlander, not this 50/54mm size, so a big question mark here?

If not Zang, a name-in-the-frame could be Plastoline (Msrs. D. Brown and M. Leech) of whose 'output' or 'production' I know of the first three items (more on the 'known' another day).

They worked in Plasticine, hardened with what the old school (old-old-old-school) euphemistically referred to as 'banana oil' in old figure-modelling tomes, which could be any one of several things; cellulose 'dope' (flying-aeroplane modelling), cellulose lacquer or nitro-toluene thinners (automotive trade) or acetone (nail-varnish remover), or even wood-hardener - destroyer of good brushes?

These four figures, however, are unknown but in the style of Plastoline's known figures (anatomy wasn't their strong point) and anything anyone knows about them would be very helpful.

I suspect the first three are Chang-Kai-Chek's Imperial Chinese forces from the 2nd World War (70-years ago today - there's always method in SSW's madness . . . well, nearly always!); an officer (marked 10) and two soldiers (one marked 14) while the last figure is probably an early (WWI'ish) NBC-warfare (ABC/CBN) operative (marked 4), spraying gas by hand, whilst dressed in protective equipment, but which nation, or is it Sci-Fi, or an early Air Force firefighter, or a DDT fumigator?

He appears to have two tanks on his back, presumably; one to breath, one to spray shit with . . . stopping other people breathing forever?

It's very unlikely to get much odder, more unusual, or any rarer, on Small Scale World than these chaps, so if anyone can add anything; it'll be appreciated by the other 800-odd daily visitors.

Many thanks to Adrian Little and Chris Smith for the images.