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?

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?

W is for Whacky Wheeled Wanderers

Picked this up the other day, relatively recent (2014) and not expensive, but possibly the best 'readymade' so far, so we will have a look at it, although while it's not a kit in the sense of Airfix or Revell's trim-and-glue offerings', it does come in pieces and includes two screws!

New Ray's window-boxed Space Adventure, includes the Command Module and Eagle Lander (in an indeterminate scale) and a Luna Rover 'Buggy' with supporting figures in approximately 1:50 (35mm).

The bits I'm less interested in! The Command Module comes as a single piece, the Landing Module is two assemblies, both of four pieces with the screws, and after assembly, they further clip together with the two holes just visible on the box-base and two spigots on the Rescue Module - which are different sizes so everything ends-up the right way round with the two halves of the exit ladder lining-up.

This is much cooler, a die-cast model with two clip-, or slip-in plastic instruments that can be glued, but I'll leave them loose to minimise future breakages . . . albeit increasing the risk of loss! the driver however is polymer.

The final item requires me taking a new 'line-up' photograph, so soon after I last updated the Airfix page! Indeed I've added some more to that page today, but not this chap yet. The base I'm using is - I think - a wall clock backing, and possibly a home-craft kit one at that, but I don't know, that's just a guess!

The Instruction sheet has no surprises, and no whacky language or syntax, indeed it has no words of command or guidance whatsoever " . . . and they did it all with a computer-brain smaller than a Nokia's!" But does have some easy-to-follow pictures . . . bargain!

So, here we have the nearest rival (bottom right) from Realtoy (so probably/almost certainly Pioneer, or Pioneer components - the driver for sure), it too is a die-cast mazac-alloy model, with a different layout of different instruments, given the effort that's gone into making these models, would I be correct in thinking they represent different mission vehicles, or different tasked journeys within a single Apollo mission?

Above it is the Tang drinks premium from the USA, it's had a bit of damage to a chair back, but I'm not in a position to be trundling such things into surgery at the moment so mending can wait. It is almost as simple as the Airfix one, and the positioning of the boxes on the front 'plate' have you wondering if they didn't use Airfix's as a starting-point for their bigger design?

The model is all polypropylene including the identical riders, and is about 1:35th scale, it has a motor-mechanism, running through the hollow rear-axle, which consists of a loop of thread-elastic (like you get round your spring-onions or gammon-joint sometimes) which hooks over two studs on the left wheel-hub, it is then wound by holding that wheel still and winding the handle on the other side, which the elastic is also looped through, which twists it up in the tube. Let go of the wheel and off it goes, dragging the handle with it? The handle may make a motor-noise, but I can't test it until I replace the now floppy, perished thread.

Finally the small one is from Safari's tube of Nasa's stuff; 'Space Toob', and is just as simple as the K&M one we looked at here (rather small images, but they do enlarge if you click on the main picture), and is in a similar material - substitute PVC.

The other three from the side, that's it; the other three from the side, there's no more blurb in the blurb jar!

I had a couple more shots which were too good to chuck! And . . . a bit more blurb; the instruments on the Realtoy model are integral die-cast with the main-body, so more robust than New Ray's, until they're snapped-off after-which they would prove a bugger to fix!

The Hing Fat one can be seen in a bag here, while the Montaplex one (or actually a rather dreary, grey plastic BuM reissue one) will get here eventually. I still have to track-down Redbox's recent version (a small black & white finished one), and a nice foam-puzzle one I saw from Buil-d-ream at some point.

And I thought I'd put the Galoob one/s up here, but I can't find the post, so I may not have (just thought about it with vivid mental imagery!), so i'll rectify that when I next have them to hand . . . they aren't in the drawers we saw briefly the other day, they are kept with the near in-scale Micro-Machines figures elsewhere!

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!

Metro is for Play Set

Only two images, but having mentioned Pioneer in the previous posts . . . and an important post here as it fleshes-out several musings on Small Scale World over the last few years, and it does so through the medium of what the dim-witted branch of the hobby derisorily call 'plastic smalls' . . . in public, on the record!

A classic rack-toy; which, when bought (late 1990's) was probably still in the sub-pound price-bracket. An under-scale house, raised flower-bed, picket fence in three parts and store-front, all in polystyrene (or polypropylene - I've never opened it), a blow-moulded soda-dispensing coin-op' machine, a die-cast pick-up truck in the Matchbox 1-75 or Hot Wheels style and a small PVC figurine. It's notable for being aimed more specifically at little girls, rather than boys with blokey army-men or both siblings with a unisex plaything.

Actually . . . I think the 'store front' might be the raised deck of the house!

But, I hope the more observant of you will be thinking "He's shown us this before" - I haven't, or "I recognise that figure" - you should! It's the Galoob 'everyday' clothes Pink Power Ranger figurine, copied in a larger size and they've hardly changed the paint-job!

Fully marked to Pioneer, this is on one level only circumstantial evidence, but strong enough to become empirical over time if the absence of something stronger continues. I have suggested those Realtoy-Daron copies of Galoob soldiers might be connected to Pioneer and that some of the other 'might be Pioneer' figures . . . err . . . might be Pioneer! Also there's the question marks over the Zita and yesterday's Stonegalleon (and the contributed Firefighters - which I haven't forgotten about; Theo and Brian!).

Well, I suspect quite a bit of it is Pioneer, probably most of it and that those larger copies of the Galoob figures used by Dacron, Realtoy and Sky Marks ARE Pioneer as is this figure, along with the carrier deck-crews and possibly both baseings and sizes of the firefighter/mechanics and the painted/unpainted GI's seen in previous posts, even the Zita/Stonegalleon may well be Pioneer, as all the combat types/sizes/paint treatments share some poses. It even explains the one softer Realtoy firer in flat-green paint.

Contemporary with the other known makers I keep mentioning in these posts - New Ray, Smart, Soma, Supreme - as they were, if not working together, at least watching each-other very closely as they exploited the same pocket-money and window-box niches in the late 1980's and 1990's. With the lesser Wing Mau and K&M (before they adopted the Wild Republic moniker) also producing bits of this stuff. While in their larger 1:32^nd scale Street Muscle series, Pioneer produce very detailed and well made/painted driver-figures

And it's ironic that 2019's frantic Google'ing, astronaut post and firefighter/mechanic follow-ups have been confirmed by something so inconsequential which was in the collection all along! I imagine today's card was one of four-to-six with the other everyday-clothes Power Rangers similarly scaled-up.

And if this is all confusing, the Pioneer or Realtoy tags will get all the musings up on one or two pages, in reverse order of the evidence coming together - with help! I would have brought them all together and re-shot them, but they are away already! I have had some more of the smaller unpainted green ones come-in and they confirm the links tighter with pose duplications.

Oh! And it's sub-branded to the UK importer HKT with a  sticker!

E is for Enforce . . . Peace!

Ah yes, bringing freedom and democracy to the barbarian hordes, one invasion at a time!

Continuing a theme, and these are contemporaneous with the Woolbro set we saw earlier; real, proper rack toys I was picking-up in odd newsagents and general stores as I drove around Britain in the late 1990's and early 2000's in a variety of driving jobs or jobs with a lot of driving involved - one store opposite a car park, off a one-way system in either Uckfield or Hailsham (?) on the A22 gave-up a lot of interesting stuff, some of which wended it's way to PW Towers!

Casually branded to a 'Stonegalleon' with randomly positioned stickers, these are in every other respect generics, but a brand is a brand for labeling purposes, and I thought we'd seen my single loose example here as Stonegalleon before, but I only mentioned him in passing, so this is the confirmation!

Simple polyethylene 'readymade' and die-cast AFV's, polystyrene traffic signs and a PVC figure each, they were probably around .99p each or £1.50 at a stretch?

Similar to the named stuff from Realtoy, Smart and Supreme, and the bits I suspect to have originated from Pioneer, the figures are around 45/50mm and quite soft, and the SAM-launcher chap is referencing the Galoob-Realtoy pose. I don't think these are Pioneer production, but copying it; the camouflage is simpler that my green (believed to be Pioneer) one or the Zita imports, and they are a tad smaller, but not as small as the other Pioneer line.

The LAV-alike (bottom corner of left-hand set) is poor, while the 'technicals' are cheapo die-casts, but this Marder MICV is all-plastic and probably a poor copy of the - now quite venerable - Roco-Minitanks model? That's it . . . more peacekeepers . . . enforcing!

B is for Booty-Box of Beautiful-Bounty for the Blog - Chris's Parcel I

Chris Smith has sent another fantastic bundle of goodies to the Blog but when I say 'another' it belies the quality of the contents which are arguably the best yet, the box was packed with stuff and none of it was unwelcomed, truly; a Christmas present . . . which I'd better quickly share with the rest of you!

Initial sorting into piles that seem to make sense as it's happening, numbered for this blurb, I'll start at one and work through; All vehicles, buildings, scenics or parts thereof are in 1, 2 is ancient medieval and prehistoric, although they joined the dino's at 7 after the photograph was taken!

3 is ceremonials, ethnic and national dress and touristy things, 4 are the parachute-toy paratroopers and 5 is the Wild West. Back over to the left and 6 is animals (wild and domestic), 7 is the aforementioned dinosaurs (two nice rubber ones and another we'll be looking at again shortly), 8 are also to be Blogged, 9 were the novelty/cartoony stuff, 10 - cracker toys - are getting a second mention in these posts and a post to themselves and 11 are divers.

12 was footballers, but some ice-hockey players and cyclists were added to the pile later, making it 'sportsmen', 13 are fridge-magnets we'll look at closer 14 is all the space, sci-fi, fantasy and TV/movie-related character pieces while 15 is the last hundred years military (proper 'army men') although as I write I've spotted a cyclist in that pile - who did get sorted-on! Finally 16 is all the other civilian stuff

So working through some of the piles in numerical order for a few highlights (a hard choice as it was all so good)  we're back to pile 1, where we have an interesting Hong Kong army van, which one might expect to be from the old Matchbox range, but I don't recognise it, there was a municipal rubbish lorry with a similar cab but it had a arcing bin-store body with sliding doors, this looks more French . . . an early Majorette copy maybe?

To the right are two HK copies of - originally - US-made mini vehicles, which will join a larger sample sent to the blog by Brain Berke several years ago, and since joined by some storage ones, all of which have been photographed - with other stuff - for a series of articles which are still in the queue; novelties tend to get pushed back by everything else (all those Shopkins, Moshlings, Zomlings and 'Bones are a couple of years overdue now!), but it will all happen, eventually!

Another HK car might be Blue Box, but early with the windows blocked-in (?), or any one of a number of similar pirates, while the Jaguar in front is very interesting . . . I have one somewhere, either the same green or a pinky-colour, but mine is so crushed (I always hang-on to damaged stuff of it's the first/only sample) I never knew for certain if it was a Jaguar or a Citroen! I now know it's a Jag', but also it seems to be a very good copy of the Lone Star Treble-o Trains vehicle. but with a much thinner skin that the die-cast donor and in a polystyrene. Did Lone Star replace their metal ones with plastic at the end? Anyone know anything about this? Deck ornamentation for a ferry model-vessel kit?

The rocket is fun, the trees have been nailed in a forthcoming post and a Merit gas-lamp has been posed with three really useful Victorian street lights which would be ideal for 1:76/72 war-gaming or diorama-building. I suspect they are either accessories from something like those Silvercorn/LP suitcase sets, or a Mighty Max/Polly Pocket type thing?

Another bunch of parachute novelty paratroopers including a proper, marked, Imperial 'Poopatrooper' in snow-white, a 'space paratrooper' and the camouflaged one from carded sets we've seen here at Small Scale World before.

I needed a loose one to re-do the size comparisons of the three types of these Small Soldiers-like sculpts I've found now, some with help from Brian and Peter, so he's really useful despite being the newest in the line-up!

But with the previous - similar sized - bunch of these also from Chris, and another lot from Peter Evans (I think), I will have to re-do all (or most) of the images in the nascent paratrooper article/page? Not a hardship!

The Wild West lot are all interesting, or useful, or both! Royal fail and/or Parcel Farce managed to brake the black, two-part epoxy totem-pole, but as you can see it mended OK, and joins two similar tourist type poles in the collection, while the other (Jean copy) totem might be a variation of the one we looked at a while ago, necessitating a follow-up to the - at the time - follow-up!

Two more of the Lone Star shooting-game Indians, one a colour variant, I still have to locate the sixth figure a bison-head, but I know he is due to appear in PW at some point (with the sixth base points-value), so 'least said' and all that!

Among the HK efforts is a really nice Union cavalrymen copied from the Britains Swoppets who are getting so brittle now, they will soon be but a memory, their horses out-living them for a few more decades! But there's obviously some HK copies to replace them with! The two eagle-dancers are from separate sources (Royal Fail/Parcel Farce worked their magic on the red one . . . actually I think it was Hermes?), some Marx and Airfix piracies (one Italian) or re-issues are joined by two of the six-gunner's we've looked at in depth before and I'm not sure if the two painted ones (middle-right) are home-painted or comercial, but they are rather nice versions in a sub-scale.

There's a lovely little Pocahontas (bottom right), who was glued to a larger base or plinth-display of some kind (McDonald's premium?) at some point, but is now perfect for all those camp-fire scenes.

While over to the left is a trio of figures we've looked at recently here (Waddington's, Britains Miniset and the lucky-bag flats), so they will go away for a while until a time when a return to the subject or an A-Z entry gets them out again! Finally the painted Indian next to them is Safari, but bigger that the 'small-scale' (actually mixed-scale) figures I remember from the 'Toob' covered by Plastic Warrior magazine a few years ago.

The Space-Sci-fi-TV-Movie pile is a right-old heap of pure eclecticism with a wotsit-cat, several doobries, a thingamabob and one or two of those what-a-names! There's even a Star Wars action-figure baddie, but 'es 'armless!

Highlights include three board-game Magic Roundabout Dougal-dogs, I have pictures of the game (off evilBay) somewhere as a 'wants list' item, so they were a real treat to find, I think it's a six-player game, so still three to find, but that's the fun of collecting.

Does anyone recognise the elfin chap in red shift and boots - middle-right?

I guess the large purple lady and the gent on steroids are from the same source, but I don't recognise either character? I also like the babe in blue . . . a sort of power-ranger, but helmetless? Another highlight is the 'evil santa' (top right) with what looks like a Russian Orthodox priest's hat, could he be a Technolog (or similar) Russian novelty?

The military section had lots of stuff, a lot of gap-filers, or one-offs and various things we've seen one way or another, so I haven't shot them all today, but there were enough PVC figures to produce this size comparison of most of the figures mentioned in that series of posts a month or so ago, which may be of use to some of you - so I shot them as they were. The Remco chap has an M16 so large he looks like a kid in a muscle suit - Don'pushmeeeee! 

If you pop-back up the page and study pile 15, you'll see all sorts of other interesting stuff in this lot, among which were the (capsule?) figures sometimes found with a separate belt and for whom I'm still looking for the weapons, Chris's lot contained three or four of them with new colours and a new pose I think. There was also stuff for the khaki infantry page and the next round-up/follow-up to the Tim Mee GI's, including new (to collection) Toy Story variants.

From the civilian lot is a similar sizer, including new firefighters from Remco and Soma, but there are more below, and Brian Berke let me know over Christmas he's getting his firefighters shot for the forthcoming page, so that will be a priority target for the spring I think, and there are more . . .

. . . in the main body of the civilian stuff.

Highlights include . . . well . . . pretty-much all of them! There's so much of this stuff, most of it rather anonymous accessories for die-cast or plastic vehicles or sets of one kind or another, from probably half of all toy makers, over seventy-plus years, that the fact that people like Chris, Peter Evans, Glenn, Jim, Adrian, Michal Melnyk, Trevor Rudkin and Co., save it for me and/or send it to the Blog is really humbling to me, and good news for you, loyal reader, as it's slowly getting to 'all going to be in one place' . . . one day!

A particularly interesting item is the green, child-like farmer (top right-hand corner) with spade, who from style (semi-flat), paint (basic) and material (dense ethylene or propylene polymer) is probably from the same source as those rather atrocious Chinese Warriors I picked-up at PW last May?

Also of note are the two kit figures, who look like they came form an early 1950's model kit of a US car, but are in a marbled plastic of maroon and blue, which might point to them having been either factory-painted at some point, or chromium-plated? The white girl above them to the right is a more standard kit figure in a single, neutral, white colour; all three are polystyrene. She looks like she's standing on the end of the caber-tosser's pole . . . ooh, missus! He's a metal 'mocherette'.

The motorcycle in HO is probably from the Merit Driving School game, he's better detailed that the normal cracker/capsule fare, while the chap falling to the ground (top-middle) is - I think - from the old Accoutrements/Archie McFee set of movie victims from about 20 years ago? I also like the two tampo-printed red-plastic F1 racing-crew figures that are new to me and the two sub-scale vinyl farmers with yolk and scythe.

The three bottom-center are all the same make, solid, polystyrene, but unmarked and the Russian dancer is a flat, soft polyethylene and possibly an addition one of the many sets referencing the old US comic-flat '100 Doll' set.

Thanks very-much to Chris - next we'll look at some of the novelties and juvenilia within the above.