F is for Follow-up - Progress WWII Russians

I managed to find a full set of the Progress Russian Infantry (going very cheap or I would have waited) a while ago, and while I only needed the three Chris helped-out with last time we looked at them, I thought "When will I see them again?" so grabbed them!

We saw the backs of most of them when we looked at them last time, so just a re-hash from one side, they have faint traces of paint on them (a pale flesh on hands and faces, no other apparent colours), so earlier (?) sets seem to have carried paint, but I've seen them on packaging (near mint) without.

And as Chris suggested last time, still only the nine poses, I guess they considered it a set of ten items with the flag, not that any set of toy anything has to have round numbers and many don't, but with toy soldiers you tend to look for six, eight or ten &etc!

Having accepted I would have a bunch of duplicates, they came in a darker, flat green than most of my existing metallic ones, or the pale-jade above, so I will probably hang-on to most of them for a fuller sample in the near future at least, right now they are still in two places so I haven't had time to fully-compare them.

The best of the bunch, he can be holding it in a brisk updraft (right-hand pair) . . .
. . . or on a slightly breezy day!

H is for How They Come In - December 2020 - I Adrian

Because we were all in lockdown for the umpteenth time, this time last year, there was no 'Christmas' Sandown Park toy fair, and therefore Adrian Little (Mercator Trading) kindly sent me the little pile of bits he sometimes puts aside for me and which I would otherwise have picked-up at the show.

I managed to absent-mindedly shoot them with an eBay lot which arrived in the same post (cordoned-off in top right-hand corner!), so we'll look at them in close-up in a minute too. Highlights were the Zang composition aircraft, the De Havilland Mosquito is undamaged, the other three (two Spitfires and a Gloster Whittle) will need restoration at some point.

Merten deer set, two smallish horses (one modern PVC, one vintage HK PE) and Hong Kong copies of Gem's golfer and  Robin Hood also stand out, along with the circus lion, he's cartoony and I think I know where he comes from but it's hidden in the files . . . a Cecil Colman window-box import or Cowen De Groot/Codeg?

The little train is delightful, the rolling stock are PVC or full rubber and have moulded-in wheels (no locomotion), with staples as coupling-hitches. TMR could be Triang Miniature Railway?

I suspect there should be clip-in roofs, possibly tin-plate, and they MAY have had candle-holes? The things which look like release-pin marks may be for the bases of candles, allowing the train to celebrate up to age-nine's! But I don't think it's likely, far more plausable is its being a dolls house train set for 1:12 doll's houses?

While this Beeju canoe (my third) reveals/confirms (?) that while the hull and upper deck are always mono-coloured, the sandwiched interior 'deck' and paddler single-mouldings are always a marbled polymer, so far; always with red as one of the colours.

The other parcel was a mixed lot of Soviet era Russian toy soldiers which I bought for the paratrooper, he's a copy of the Acedo who was then further copied by Trojan, so getting another version was very pleasing! Around the same time I got another Acedo and he's different from my first, so the number of variations of the one pose continues to grow.

The row down the bottom are similar to the Malysh (Kid) Napoleonics in material (PVC rubber) and colours, so I suspect they ARE Malysh and will say so in the tags (assumption huh?!!), while top left is an early Progress figure in hard 'styrene, the same material being used for the unknown pink sailor.

Many thanks to Adrian for the little parcel of goodness!

W is for Wedge-Hand Warriors

I've been after a set of these for ages, I have one or two somewhere without weapons, or with the wrong weapons, but I knew what they were as they seem to have been common about 15/20 years ago - around the time 'The Wall' came down, and there had been several dealers; one in Ireland, one in the US and one in the West County (I think) selling the boxed sets, usually for a reasonable amount, but at the time I wasn't really buying online.

And while more recently I have bid and lost on a couple of boxed sets (or dropped out 'cos they went too-high for my wallet!), I spotted a lose but complete set a while ago and got it for a reasonable price (can't remember if it was bid or BIN?), so while a box is always nice, and makes for a longer Blog Post, it's really all about the figures, so -  with all the accessories - let's have a look at them!

Progress again, they seem to have been one of the more prolific of the Russian figure producers, surviving for some time after the end of the Soviet Bloc and with factories/licensees in some of the satellite countries, these Alexander Nevsky Knights are notable for having slot/wedge hands like the 1st version Cherilea combat infantry. I've also seen them described as Progress Medieval Retinue, but don't know if that was an/the official title or a Western translation?

Also like their British counterparts, these are not rubbery or 'grippy' hands, but quite rigid polyethylene hands you have to force the accessory into only for it to pop-out in play! The archer gets two plug-ins which are a bit more successful, while the chap in the middle of the upper row has a more conventional ring-hand for his sword.

The accessories they come with (and the ease with which they are parted from the figures is/was the driver for trying to find a boxed set!), some can be swapped between figures, but they aren't terribly good swaps - visually - and with differing thicknesses of shaft or handle; are really figure-pose specific?

These all ended-up with rather busy backgrounds, so I will revisit them at some point with a plainer setting, but for now you get the idea, the Soviet equivalent of rack toys gets shoehorned into RTM again!

I suspect they are the same sculptor as the set of WWII Infantry with the plug-in red-flag we've seen here (with Chris's help), and are reported to have first appeared in 1976, but with only the five poses in this set, possibly because of the extra effort and second mould-cost required by the accessories?

I ended-up with a couple of images which cropped so similar again, they make for a nice .gif, which gives the impression of 3D without faffing-about on making a short video which is often more effort than it's worth.

Progress Russian Alexander Nevsky/Medieval Retinue knights' set - box ticked! I'm now searching for a complete set of the MIR copies; cruder sculpts, also silver PE, but with plug-in heliotrope pink/red bases, making them even more 'swoppet'-like!

F is for Follow-Up - Potemkin's 'Pirates'

Chris Smith kindly sent this pair to the blog to highlight the point I mentioned in passing earlier today, and the other day in the Rasnoexport post - copies!

There's no mystery to it, as I pointed out; all countries have their copies and copyists, not excluding the Hong Kong thing, but specifically within countries, things are 'borrowed' or lent, influence or get influenced by; the difference with the Soviet Union back when it was a collective-economy was that the bulk of the copying was sanctioned, where in the west it was usually more problematical.

The one which is the same as mine is on the right, the one on the left has sharper detail, but it's a slightly smaller figure, so was probably pantograph-copied and then re-etched. It actually makes a better figure, except in the shoe department, where the wide flares of the Rasnoexport figure have been re-cut into shorter trousers and a pair of Olive Oyl's dancing pumps are worn!

While our makers copied each other purely for commercial gain - with or without each-others permission, I think that under the 'Soviet system' manufacturers were told or expected to share tools or designs; in order that toys (the same toys?) be available to kids everywhere . . . far rather that someone in Kiev made copies of something from Moscow, than 'another' truck burn fuel taking them there every few weeks or months? It's all conjecture but it will contain a kernel of truth!

No brand for the copy . . . yet!

Nor for three of these! More copies, seen before; the green one is Bulgarian Progress and one of the red ones will be Russian Progress, but the other two are other works, and which is the Russian Progress is still to be confirmed - I suspect the first on the left of each shot, but without much confidence?

F is for Follow-ups - Recent Posts

Rather than have another 'flurry' I think I'll add one of these to the original post and make a post out of the other two, so it doesn't get to complicated or bitty. Despite my being mostly off-line or out-of-touch, the last three weeks didn't stop a stream of eMails coming-in, among which were various additions to posts, while I myself mooted this first point . . .

. . . in that I mentioned I was sure I had a painted version of one of the figures in Chris's 'Christmas' parcel, so I went digging over the New Year and found the above nugget!

However as you can see, he's not quite the same, being a larger donor of the smaller, undecorated copy-figure Chris sent, which is not to denigrate the contribution, only to worry that there are now probably twice as many to be found as might have seemed, a month ago!

The one I had spirited away in an 'unknown' box ('Spacemen & Astronauts - Human/Humanoid') is marked CHINA, F21 and © M. I. 1987, I suspect the MI is probably Mattel International? But if the F21 is Figure 21 . . . of however many, and if the pirates (capsule toys?) have copied them all, even if it only goes up to 22, that's 41 I'm still/now looking for! I think the Chris-sent ones are capsule toys, I don't know where the MI ones came from?

Following on from my thought that the rocket/trailer combo' the other day probably had an attached tractor unit, Chris sent these shots of his fleet Squadron (I'm sure rockets should be in squadrons!) with three designs from possibly two makers?

Both towed-rockets and artillery; with the rocket in a larger fatter design and the slim-Jim similar to the one we saw the other day.

I like the dressed-stone walling in the background, I thought it may be GeModels, but it's not 'in the book' although it looks vaguely familier?

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Additionally I have added the 'completion' image Chris sent - for the Progresspost the other day - to that post.

Both Chris and Brian Berke also sent me stuff on CMV last week, less that 48hrs apart, and without each knowing the other had, so I will edit those images and add them to the Khaki Infantry page soon, along with another brand I'd forgotten (also courtesy of Chris), and while that was the second sign of the Gods' synergy smiling on the Blog in its eleventh year, the day after the second lot of CMV came in, the God's smiled again, when some kiwi's flew-in, now - flying kiwis - that was a miracle!

Aaaaaaannnnnnd . . . the three-millionth hit went-over on Saturday, I missed it! I said it would likely be the second week of Jan.!

B is for Box-ticking - Soviet Era Troops - Russia

The Russian equivalent of Airfix! Unpainted, polyethylene figures from Progress, but choosing the 65/70mm of European composition rather than the smaller 54mm of UK makers makes them less than compatible with native figures though!

These are able to cover the revolution, WWII or early Cold War, by dint of having no automatic weapons to date them, or much personal equipment to speak of, although there may be automatic weapons in the full set, I have no idea how many poses there are. I think the standing guy is missing a plug-in flag; red - of course - which I'm 'fingers-crossed' hoping I may have somewhere . . . but rather know I haven't!

Colour variations have come in with mint green and olive-drab examples and I like the guy continuing to fight whilst propped against a rock or pile of blankets - rather reminds one of the crawling Turk/Space Commando pose from Reamsa/Eagle-Kentoy!

Added 15th Jan. 2019

Chris Smith has furnished a shot of the missing flag and an eighth and ninth poses, standing firing and throwing greande and further reports that - to his knowlage - that is the contents of a complete set - nine poses and flag.

P is for Progress (Пpоrресс)

This set came into the fold a couple of weeks ago, made by the Soviet Russian 'development company 'Пpоґресс, which I'm assured translates to Progress, it is a lovely set of 'Rus' warriors through the ages. The direct translation of the cover is 'Glory to Russian Weapons', I suspect the meaning is; Glory of Defence of Russia, or; 'defenders of Russia'?...Russian defence...something like that.

Painted to a basic standard on red polystyrene flats and tied in with plastic coated wires - a practice the Chinese were also adopting at this time (1991) albeit with clear or black plastic casing, rather than the coloured sleeves used here). They have not been placed in any particular order, but from the left (ignoring the biro'd numbers) are believed to be;

Dragoon - War of 1812
Hussar - War of 1812
Partisan - War of 1812
Ulan - War of 1812
Warrior of the XVI (16th) Century
Warrior of the XIII (13th) Century
Infantry - War of 1812
Militia (Volunteer?) - War of 1812

The two early ones are open to question and could be the other way round, the difference seeming to be length of coat and number of buttons! I love this set and was going to blog it with those little dancer/ethnic dress plastic flats from the Far east, but forgot the were in storage, but they are very similar and when I do blog them I'll link back to these for a direct comparison.