S is for Show Report - London, July 2022

Can you believe it's nearly the end of September? I took these at the end of June; seems like yesterday, and the next one is already on the horizon!  I picked-up an eclectic mix of bits at the show, although I notice we've already looked at one!

Starting at the top, since all the good works of Plastic Warrior magazine in bringing the background of BR Moulds to a wider audience, it's fair to say we're all looking around for the various items on the list, and here's one; a Mountie!

He could do with a re-paint, but as one can never know if he was factory painted, small-scale commercial painted or home moulded/painted (his intended fate), it's better to leave him 'as found', I think!

Various purchases during the course of the day, on the left, two celluloid guards from Japan, a probably French ostrich in an unusual pose, one of the standers-by from the Gemodels humpty Dumpty nursery-rhyme vignette and six of the figures which I think come from Monaco, common in France, but I seem to recall they were poly-something, or something-poly from Monaco? Copies of Crescent and MPC with another iteration of 'that' kneeling cowboy pose!

On the right a handful of bits from Adrian Little of Mercator Trading, the lucky-bag Indian (top) is a fantastic range of marbled colours, three bubble-gum premiums and a lead pilot below him and some oddments on the bottom row.

We saw the Supreme contents of the big-bag a while ago here, while we're not talking about the card at the bottom, right-now; inhuman bunch'o bass'turds, we'll return to them when they return to the family of civilised countries, while the Spanish card holds a few Comansi space figures.

I watched someone else almost buy it several times over the course of the afternoon before putting it out of its "will'ee-won't'ee" misery and taking it home myself! Branded to the Battle of the Planets license, it contains the standard, painted-era OVNI ('UFO') space figures.

Speaking of Comansi, someone had a heap of them and I kept going back and getting a few more and a few more until I had a shed-load! Can't remember if it was Gareth or Steve, but they were reasonable on the day! Here we have most of the Italian Infantry from at least four batches, mid-life (thin, ridged-edge bases, factory paint), A German (top right, earlier with a flat base) and a Brit'.

There were a bunch of US troops too, but they will get their own post shortly. These are 'real' toy soldiers in that they are largish, daft poses, quite crude sculpting and wacky weapons in wacky colours, but that makes them more fun, not less!

Nice mix here, again, from around both halls I think, can't remember if the astronauts came from Adrian or somewhere else? But both have still got their nice green faces and their helmets so a very useful addition to that sample, I only need a good robot now, I think?

In the same image; a nice Merten Indian tied to a tree, a French Indian and similar C20th infantryman, prone, a HK copy of a Timpo bear, a French (?) circus horse and the Black Chine pirate from the Isle of Wight.

The Dragon is a tiny bendy about 4cm, all-in, probably from a gum-ball machine's prize capsule, while above him are four really nice figures; a Spanish Dancer and a Spanish bullfighter, who is not from the 'usual suspects' but a slightly smaller, hard 'styrene tourist trinket I've not seen before?

Next to him is a slush-cast Napoleon, also touristy, who has - as his honour-guard - the Babes In Toyland pose from Marx I was missing when we looked at them recently, so a nice box-ticker - dubbed Valiant or Hooligan! I'll call him Bob! I don't know if I have two now? Rather lost track of them!

These were definitely from Adrian, and I think he obtained them the same day I got my original set, about 15/20 years ago, so I know how cheap he let me have them for and thank him. It's a full set of the Raja ice-cream premiums from Regimento ("The Regiment"), but a cleaner sample of the red/blue than mine, which I specifically chose for the other colour figures.

With a couple more 'other' coloured ones which came in from Chris Smith a while back and another from a show, it means I now have a really nice sample of these. Below them is one of those dress-up/play hunting-horn Indian 'riders'.

On the left we have more premiums, Flintstones and some Gem 'popsters' . . . I can't stop buying them, as there's so many colours and I've had enough luck with drum sets, so aim to make up several whole bands!

To the right more French production, Brian explained about Harry's box the other day, and I managed to get my mitts in it before everything had been hoovered-up, among which were these - some of the other French stuff, mentioned above, came from the same source.

The named Indians are what they are, while the knight is a copy of someone else's figure I think, but the two Zouave types are early SEGOM and a really nice find, we looked at the small scale back at the beginning of the blog, and I knew of both larger versions and the metal production, but I had no idea these existed in plastic, obviously the one on the right is missing a standard or flag and pole.

WH is for Art Craft Products

This is one of those posts which by hook or by crook pretty-much write themselves.

I don't know much about flats, a rudimentary history and the technical stuff about pouring lead into slate moulds, or that sculptors and publishers (or 'Editors') are not necessarily the same people, is about the limit of my knowledge. I know I like them and I have a few, they come-in in mixed lots, or if I see some going cheap I grab them, while for everything else Garratt usually proves more reliable on flats than he does on plastics, if one wants to know more!

I also have a couple of the older German books along with the beautiful all-colour one which came out in the 1990's/early 2000's (glossy, dark green cover?), but they are all in a rather appalling stack in the corner of the garage and I haven't started sorting 'the library' out yet!

I have however - as you will have noticed - started scanning the cuttings from the box- and lever-arch files and trying to get the more interesting bits up here, to which end I scanned this in, meaning to simply post it 'as is', to wit; a curiosity, in the hope someone may have been able to help with the ID'ing of the figures.

Art Craft Products - a jobber in the early 1950's; working out of a warehouse (mail order) or a speciality-store advertising seasonal novelties in the press, something like that and the pictures look like you'd want a set - on the mantle for Christmas, arranged under the crimbo-tree or set-out on a wide window sill, or even on the cake?

Although it's not clear they aren't solids of some kind! And younger readers should be aware that the mid-eighties and gay-nineties to which the ad' refers are the 1880's and 1890's, closer (or 'as close') to the 1950's as/than we are!

I then realised a picture I'd only recently hoovered-off evilBay matched the sets, with a typical flat, block-in, factory-paint of the era, but still no ID as they were being sold unknown.

Then about two weeks ago another picture appeared on the same site, describing a Hafer as the name, I downloaded the image thinking it might be a typo for Hafner or a similar, more familiar name, but checked Garratt and the dongles to find two of them, both connected to the same German or 'Nuremberg Flats' outfit!

I intended to crop the image and do the same thing as with the previous, but it was a nicer, high-res image, so thought to ask the seller if I could use it as a stand-alone image - I went back to see if it was still for sale, only to find he had several useful things in his shop, so I ended-up buying three of them!

Like the old painted ones (which will probably be from Art Craft or a similar seller and contemporary or near-contemporary with the advert) this sculpting is clearly visible in both sets, but is - here - a modern or recent casting for someone with greater painting skills than me to work their magic on.

Lots more shots as we may never visit it again! Going on Garratt, but from his Model Soldier Collecting, not the Encyclopaedia, we can see that the WH is for Wolfgang Hafer the editor. LM  and HL are probably for the engravers Madlener and Lecke - maybe one specialised in horses, the other the sleigh/people, or one blocked-in the other, the finer work?

While the RH may have been added in the last few decades (1979 by the looks of it?), being Ruediger Hafer; Wolfgang's son, they both operating near Kassel, a place I have often cruised-past on the way to somewhere else - a beautiful part of the world though! The Wv, is for Winter Scenes (item 19) . . . in German . . . Winterver-something!

How they come in! I also added to the library (greatly increasing the flats section) with the Berlinner Zinnfiguren catalogue and all but completed the SEGOM archive with their flats catalogue, having already got the solids/plastic catalogue and the small scale plastic catalogue to which the late page (with the additional British poses) was added by a contributor back at the beginning of the Blog; ten-odd years ago!

See, by happenstance; the post as good as wrote itself, and I get to add Art Craft and Hafer to the tag list . . . bargain! And . . . from the base shape/markings, I think I'll be able to ID some of my unknown flats, so we may well return to Hafer (or SEGOM) next year.

S is for S.E.G.O.M.

Societie d' Edition General d' Objets Moules. One of the more sought-after or mythical names in war-gaming circles, SEGOM were primarily a range of 54mm metal figures from France, at some point they experimented with plastics (these are an acetone based injection-moulded resin) possibly as an attempt to counter the products of MDM (who were having a lot of success getting their - factory painted - 40mm figures into hotel and airport departure lounge display cases), in the course of which they produced a very small range of 25mm Napoleonic subjects, for a limited period.

This is the gun, with it's bits, it is of course a French piece, and was moulded in a green plastic.

Here is the same piece after a damn fine paint-job, the guy who painted them has sadly passed away, and I'm afraid I don't know his name, but am glad his work will be seen by a wider audience.

The horse was moulded in two parts with a separate base, there were three poses and three colours, with the bases moulded in the same cream as the figures. Also seen are two of the saddle bag/packs which came separately on the sprue of some mounted figures.

[I have no white 101's but would swap for a dark chocolate one, if you happen to have a spare; eMail me]

By the same artist as the artillery group, showing well what could be achieved with this small range, the figures were (with the exception of a couple of firing foot figures) in non-combat poses and were meant to be for display. He has actually used halves from two different catalogued horses - as was intended - there being a possible 9 different combinations.

Some of the cavalry as issued, note the Lancer on the left and Hussar on the right have their pack/saddle roll moulded onto their bum, but the Cuirassier/Dragoon types have the separate piece attached to the sprue.