F is for Follow-up - More Russkie Raspberry Reds

Although actually, these are a tad more mauvey-purple than the two lots I was thinking of. I know; a day of action figures wasn't on you menu when you got up this morning, so here are some proper toy soldiers courtesy of Chris Smith!

I felt there should be more poses, but by co-incidence both the sets I found the other day were the same four that I already had, so began to think that was it. Chris thinks these 10 may be a complete set of poses.

I really like the pose with the 'potato-masher'; stick-grenades come as drums, separate from their sticks, and are unioned immediately prior to action, or the patrol or whatever. At some point, mid-war, both the Germans and the Russians started strapping a daisy-wheel of extra canisters to the central one to produce more bang-for-the-buck! It was also used by brave fools to tray and disable tracked AFV's, which meant getting too close to many-tons of un-cooperative metal!

Several of the poses have been used twice on both upright and kneeling figures, and I'll have to track the rest down at some point, but for now - thanks to Chris for rushing these over to Small Scale World's command center (read; cluttered desktop!).

M is for More; Russian Rack Toys

Except I suspect most of them aren't actually Russian, and they may nearly all be actually from satellite countries, but they are from the Soviet 'collective' era, so; you know what I mean!

Chris Smith sent me a few shots as a follow-up to something posted here about a year and a half ago (the Russian/Soviet mini-season?), and I never got round top posting them at the time, in part because I'd had a thought on them. Some of the shots he sent are still waiting for another day, and a full follow-up on something-esle, but these were the others.

Now, it happens that maybe none of them are actually Russian, the four red ones have the look of Progress's flats about them which could make them Bulgarian or East German, who both had a Progress factory, but who either copied the Russian originals (Bulgarian factory's October Revolution cavalry flats, seen here passim) or made original designs (E. German factory's AFV's)?

While the two MG-gunners, have the same bases as Wild West and ancient Roman flats attributed to an - as yet - unknown Hungarian manufacturer, those distinctive 'Zulu shield' bases having been linked to Hungary by several commentators in the hobby, and most commonly found in the stock of Hungarian ebayer's? Although a Latvian seller on feeBay often has the same pointy-based figures? I think - size wise - these tie-in with the blue sailor set we've seen here from Rasnoexport at around 65mm, which would make them Russian.

So, the above could all be non-Russian production, in the meantime the thought I'd had on them was that "I've got some of those red ones somewhere?" . . .

. . . . except that when I'd dug them out a few weeks later, they (my sample, here) were clearly different, and while they can be called WWII Russian Infantry, have some of the signatures of Polish production; heavy bases and a more demi-ronde than flat sculpting, so may not be Russian at all!

At the time of writing (August 2020) there are two sets of these on feebleBay, both in a lovely shade best described as 'pastel heliotrope' or 'raspberry yogurt' , and both lot's consisting of the same four poses, so this may be a complete set? They are also both rather pricey, so clearly this would appear to be a 'rated' set back in the former USSR? 

Which leaves the silver guy we've seen before who happened to be left in Picasa for some reason . . . his flag reads 3rd October Revolution (I think?), and some have attributed his whole set to Poland, but they do fit the same 8-figure carriers as the Russian Napoleonics, which we know are Russian because the have the prices in kopeks and rubles marked on them in Cyrillic script! So he may be the only Russian in the post!

A size comparison with my may-be-Polish and a close-up of Chris's probably-Hungarian machine-gunner finish this brief look at a regular here - 'Soviet era' flats and semi-flats! To be fair, I really suspect the two MG's of being Hungarien, the rest probably are Russian in Origin!

A few days later - many thanks to Theo van der Weerden's wife for translating the flag, it actually reads -

"за власть советовъ" = 'For the power of the Soviets'. 

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?

R is for Rasnoexport's Russian Renegades!

I believe I actually bought my loose set of these from Blog contributor Chris Smith about 12, maybe 14 years ago? Something like that! The bagged set came from JB, as I had started collecting larger-scale flats long before I went over to large-scale everything, and hoovered-up his ex-soviet stuff  in the 2000's.

The graphics printed on the bag are of those blow-moulded cartoon animals any of you who have searched for ex-Soviet figures on feebleBay will have encountered in the search results. Note also how the bag is simply sealed with a vicious little tin-plate stamping which grabs the folded bag!

While the packing slip translates as;

All-[Soviet]-union

Export-Import-

Corporation (or; 'Unit'?)

"Rasnoexport"

           Moscow

                 B-140, 15 Krasnosels'kaya Street

__________________________________________

Pirates

Article no: 3207 (or; 'Item)

Control

               OTK

                51 (stamp)

Date 1-80 (handwritten) [January 1980?]

Made in USSR

Where OTK = QA/QC (quality assurance/control) and thanks to Mimi for the translation. They may be from another factory though, this mob seems to be a 'Party' mechanism for soft power with a shipper/jobber office in central Moscow, rather than one of the actual manufacturers, and with some dodgy history and several lost law-suits in Western commercial courts!

I have no idea why they are called pirates when they are clearly Russian naval personnel, but suspect it has something to do with the politics surrounding the 1917 Revolution; maybe the Navy went-over to the Bolsheviks or People's Parliament first and earned the ire of the eventually all-conquering communists? Or is it a proud nickname for the Potemkin's crew? Mutineer and pirate probably translate the same.

Only four figures, semi-flat-to-flatish and quite big at around 65mm, and the same four poses in both my samples, a marine infantry or naval landing party, not sure they had automatic SMG's in 1917, so better for WWII, but that only re-raises the 'Pirates' question-mark. I like the stripy-shirt on the rifleman, and there's a hint of Tom in those tight-waist, bell-bottomed trousers!

Ghosts in the machine!

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.

F is for Flats

Probably had that title before, but I'm in a faffing frame of mind, so we'll have it again and move on! Adrian brought a bag of bits to Sandown Park the other week for me, and I also managed to find a few handfuls of plunder around the show, some of which I've already shoved on the Blog

Among both sources were some of the comic flat Romans in hard plastic, which I've put to one side to compare with the soft plastic ones at a later date when I get the soft ones out of storage, a nice metal flat of a motorcyclist, probably from a board-game then . . .

. . . there were these five in soft polyethylene plastic. I may have a few more of the cowboy's set somewhere and he is actually semi-flat or demi-rond, in fact the chicken family is, too, really, and while the see-saw or Jack & Jill may be copied from a European 'margarine' premium, they are - as a group - nothing to write home about (which is why I've packed-out the post with additional material!), and will be sorted into the master collection when that comes out of storage.

As they are soft plasic, they will be gum-ball or Christmas cracker stuff, I'd imagine, and I don't know what's happening with the squirrel, standing up on 'man legs'! The ship on the other hand, has previous 'form', as we can see . . .

. . . in this shot, with a second blue one above the 'new' red one (I have lots in store) in the centre. To the top left is the Maison du Café (house of coffee) premium from which they are ultimately copied, while the two larger pairs of red and green ones are from the 1990's incarnations of Lucky Bag, and seem to be from the MduC tool, with the pin-release mark in the same place.

To the far right [we're all going! Boom-boom!] are two other Maison's, while the one bottom left is also a demi-rond, and while 'unknown' has similarities (in the base) with some stuff I have marked-up to Eei Fein, but I won't be putting it in the tag-list.

The copies match the smaller copies of the Pecos Bill figures from a Marx sculpt we've looked at before here, and like those figures, there are several; generations of polyethylene ship copy, each a bit smaller and crappier than the last.

But the above would have been a crap post, so I grabbed these two from the big waiting-zone folder in Picasa, where they've been sitting since 2015! Without Googling them I think there's a BRDM (top?) and a Fug or Skot (Skot's may be Czechoslovak and 8-wheeled - I'm winging it here, don't tell TJF!)? The whole set has four BRDM/Fug-Skot [whatever] variants with a PT76 and various out-of-scale 54/60mm infantry.

They are Polish-made and some sources state PZG, however, they tended to fully-round sculpts and - usually - are painted, even their flat scenic pieces, so these may be another maker; likely Centrum. It may have a field gun too and I have more in storage so we'll have another look one day!.

These in turn reminded me I had another 'flat' item in the 'News, Views...' folder waiting for a follow-up . . . or something . . .

. . . which is on the left here. It's the tray I mentioned last time we looked at the Russian/Bulgarian cavalry flats and which I kept meaning to show, for those who aren't familiar with it, but kept forgetting to! Doh!

I then went back to the dongles to find the image I knew I had somewhere of the tray in use (on the right) with a mixed group of Russian cavalry chasing the fat dictator's troops out of the motherland! Conversely, these DO look a bit like PZG (from the bases) but are definitely Russian as they have the price in Cyrillic on the edge.

It [the tray] is a superb piece of product-design with larger studs to prevent the cavalry sliding into each other's ranks and smaller studs to stop them escaping the tray horizontally, holes and ridges give strength to an otherwise flimsy moulding and discs balanced - on the ridges - above a row of holes hold the figures to the tray vertically, all in a pretty rough, single-shot product.

The tray also contains the full pricing scheme moulded into the underside:

u11k x8

uEHA kOMMnEkTIA IP

u11k - 11 Kopeks (price of single figure)
x8 - [= 88] (price of a whole tray of 8 figures)
uEHA kOMMnEkTIA - Complete set [price-]
IP - 1 Ruble

(In other words; the tray = 12 kopeks [8 x 11 = 88 + 12 = 100 = 1 ruble]) It's no wonder Russian spies can knock people-off in British shopping precincts, willy-nilly; they were learning complicated maths - as infants!

I don't know how many poses there are in the full set (left), as you can see I've managed to track-down 10 different sculpts, and assuming you might want two full trays to fight each-other; there may be as many as 16. However - there's no evidence any of these are French units, so your guess is as good as mine?

Other sets were available for the trays, on the right we see six (of a possible eight?) revolutionary cavalry from 1917 or thereabouts; depiction that is, not plastic manufacture; the figures date from the 1970's?

 

May 2021; The figures used to illustrate the above are now recognized as the output of Malysh, one of the Moscow toy collective factories!

V is for Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev

Also Chapaev or 'Chapi', and his soldiers: Chapayevtsi - Followers of Chapi, were a popular subject for infant toys in the Soviet Union (and it's post WWII satellites), among which were the ubiquitous flats. They are the subject of tonight's post.

Chapayev the Man

Four sets following or copied from the same original mould-tool. Three are probably Russian in origin, the forth (second row down) being Bulgarian. The fifth set (bottom row) are a separate set, with all new poses (one being similar or derivative?) and a thicker semi-flat look, but they seem to be another set of Chapayevtsi.

These seem to be the originating set, their detail is the best, the sculpting/moulding the smoothest, and while they are not really semi-flat, they are the fullest figures of the four sets of flats. Given the branding of the next set down this post: I think it's a fair bet to assume these are from the Progress factory, some other figures from which we looked at a while ago.

I think this is near the full set (of eight sculpts), but it may be that the machine gun coach (tachanka - Russian: Tача́нка), was to be purchased separately. I've seen several of these toys, each a little different (i.e., enough for each of the sets presented here), yet they never seem to accompany the sets - this blue one, while matching the sculpting style, base design and plastic type of the red cavalry (Hahah! Reds!) was a separate purchase, years after the mounted figures.

Tachanka's were designed to keep-up with cavalry, and while shown here with one horse, usually employed the famous Russian Troika or three-abreast arrangement for the draft animals, with some having four horses abreast like a Roman chariot!

Chapayevtsi - it reads! The reason for the 'Progress' assumption above is that these are 'also' from Progress, but spelt Проƨрес rather than the original Пpоrресc, the difference being down to the fact that while Bulgarian and Russian both using the Cyrillic alphabet, they are as different as English versus Danish to the users!

These are from a plant in Sophia which we can further assume was a subsidiary or branch of the parent country's company, in the puppet country? These are not exact copies, there is a loss of overall quality, with re-sculpting evident, particularly on the grass rising from the bases to help the horses with their dynamic posing. So licensed or simply a 'second set' of moulds?

Probably back to Russia (but could be another satellite country?) for these obvious copies, loss of quality of the sculpting has been matched by a loss in quality of material which is a tinier plastic.

These are the poorest of the sets, being both poor quality, and made of a dodgy plastic, which may be recycled from off-cuts of something bigger, but poses are still mirrored, and one has to assume that all 6/8 will turn-up eventually.

This set is very different, as hinted at above. The figures are semi-flat or demi-rond, and the poses are all new, although one of the figures can be matched as I have in the first image (middle of the row there, top right in this shot), it's more a coincidental similarity that any continuation of the 'series' that contains the other four sets.

Comparison photo's showing the different types of base, a comparison between flat and semi-flat and four figures in the same pose; the fact that the third set down the page has replaced the rifle with a sabre, suggests it might be the last set made, so take the order 'down the page' with a pinch of salt.

Finally: a marbled effect, probably caused by dirty plastic or an 'in production' mould-purge of a previous colour, rather than a deliberate attempt at such a finish. It could even be burning; if you let the injector-head get too hot you will get dark streaks in the plastic.

This set is also likely to be representing Chapayevtsi, but is in a different style altogether, there are lots of these silver figures with the heavier bases (in a more Polish or East German toy-soldier style) which slotted into little trays you could buy separately - to move them in blocks/units and we will look at the Napoleonics another day, but I thought I'd slip these in here for completion's sake! All new poses and a slogan on the flag I;ve not had translated yet.

The weirdest thing here is that they are flat, yet plastic...it goes back to the point I made the other day while looking at the die-cast 'slush-cast'...people using the new technology to produce toys that resemble the old technology. And it's not something we can regard with self-satisfied superiority as being a sign of a backward failing totalitarian state's industry, as we (in the Coca-Cola 'Free West') were doing the same thing with margarine figurines, Cracker-Jacks, World Dolls and 100-soldier sets! Just a daftness, but I like plastic flats and we'll come back to them!