G is for Gashapon - Tarlin - Samurai Suits of Armour

While I love the Onepi No Mi figures, and am really pleased with the Samurai and the not-shot Ultraman monsters, I think these are my favourites of this sample; suits of Samurai armour, as displayed in museums, or, knowing the order of a Japanese household, probably how they were displayed between wearings, back in the - ancient/medieval - day.

 

Colour-coded capsules don't actually help when the randomness occurs behind the trap-door, and in the depths of the cabinet, which you can't even see through the glass, for the pile of balls, wickedly showing you the one you want, high up on the right!

 

Components of one laid out, the construction of these Tarlin miniatures, though simpler, is similar to those 4D Puzzle tanks, dinosaurs, spaceships, and the kangaroo we've seen here, I think!

 

Three of four, however, as my Japanese is as poor now, as it was three days ago, and there are no English titles on these sheets, as there were on the Bandai Samurai set, I can't give you any names, but assume the owners of the armour are all relatively famous, or at least well known in Japan.

 

The missing set, from the below sheets.

Paperwork!

 

Next day - Courtesy of EY, from the 1:72nd Multiverse;

 

Armor #1 belongs to Sanada Nobushige aka Sanada Yukimura.
Armor #2 belongs to Uesugi Kenshin
Armor #3 belongs to Mori Motonari
Armor #4 belongs to Ishida Mitsunari 

 

Bringing this mini-season to an end, many thanks to Adrian for finding them and stuffing his luggage with them! We've seen the odd figure in Show-plunder posts over the years, and looked at an earlier Tomy set many moons ago, here, from when Gashapon machine's contents were less sophisticated than they have become in the last 20-years, while there was a Tarco-Tomy mash-up with some UK issued capsules in a previous round-up of such things, and these days, Tomy machines can be found in the UK, The Entertainer often has a bank near the doors, but they tend to sell the smaller (older?) stuff.

G is for Gashapon - Bandai Namco - Samurai Warriors

Some 'proper' toy soldiers types, here with medieval warriors, followers of the Bushido code, and one time powerhouse in Japan . . . God! I over-egged that pudding, didn't I? I like them, a nice 54mm, albeit with thick, plinth bases.

 

Paperwork! Note they are manufactured in the Philippines, China is slowly losing that crown, I've seen several toys made in Taiwan, Vietnam or Korea (South, of course) recently, as people try to divest themselves of exploitable links to the next Superpower, while still  looking to follow labour-costs below their own!

 

The simplest figure had a two-compartment bag, with the whole figure and a base (ABS), along with the long, thin paper.

 

While this chap gets five compartments!

 

As with the golds in the Shogun Palace line, these had polychrome or all-black versions, and I got one of the latter, but left it in the packaging for now, having the full colour one to show and look at.

 

The three of them, the guy in the middle will benefit from the old hot-water treatment at some point to get the separate rear of his pole-arm/weapon (a Kara/Jumonji Yari) to line up with the front, and a touch of WD40, or a pin drill may help the front locate in the hand a little better.

 

Left; Kanbee Kuroda      Middle; Yukimura Sanada      Right; Hideyoshi Toyotomi

 

Kanbee (also Kanbei, Kambē or Yoshitaka, December 22, 1546 - March 20, 1604), was a mighty Samurai of the late Sengoku and the early Edo period. Yukimura (also known as Nobushig Sanada, 1567 - June 3, 1615) was famous from the siege of Osaka, while Hideyoshi (27 March 1537 - 18 September 1598) was a famous Samurai from the same period, who came up from the peasant class to become one of the major Daimyo's and an Imperial regent, as the 'aristocracy' lost its tight-grip on things.

 

Western sites reverse the names, I've copied the paper for the middle line, as the Japanese fashion is to place the 'surname' or family name first - Walter Hugh, obviously I wasn't a Samurai, but once I was a warrior, and Donald J. Trump; you can go fuck yourself, you bone-spured, shirking, gobshite, wanker.

 

Close-ups; the decoration is exquisite, presumably some kind of tampo- or pad-printing, the detail is like ink-jet quality, or three-dot magazine colour of the 1970's. And I assume they are all based on surviving or replica sets of armour from Japanese museums - like the Artesania figures from Spain's Royal Armouries?

B is for Big Box of Bounty - Ancient, Medieval, Historical & Ceremonial

Another interesting assortment of figures from Chris Smith's latest parcel, and it's all the other 'Toy Soldier' periods. I keep meaning to do a post on the classification of these things, as it's never an exact science, do you put Huns with ancient, or medieval periods, what about Aztecs, or Ninja/Samurai, when are ceremonials also soldiers (1850's say), or further afield; the whole sorting of civilians, is a nightmare!

 

So, I'll put the Asians first! The Budda votive statuette is a nice piece of scenery for HO/OO type figures, it can even be an objective for your ANZAC's on the war games table! The large figure is actually marked Marx, with the full Hong Kong disc-mark, and is from a set of tea premiums.

 

The guy carrying the straw bundles is from a Hong Kong rack toy called 'Villagers', which we have looked at here, and another of the Kinder Samurai archers, this one complete, will get the base off one of the damaged/painted ones, in my determination to have one of each, in all three (?) colours!

 

Three Ninja's, two from Hasbro, one painted, one in a clear, blue polymer, and the other, smaller one in the middle, from the Panosh set of Lucky Bag giveaways, and other sources? I have tried finding the Hasbro's, but with little success, and suspect they aren't actually Ninja or Samurai, but from something else entirely, Star Wars semi-deforms? Anyone know?

 

Two Crong medieval horses, sans riders, and there's a post in the queue on developments there, courtesy of a Loyal Reader, a Kinder musketeer, Hong Kong copy of Britain's Robin Hood, probably sold as a cake decoration, colours tie-in with things like the Britains arctic explorer piracies, and a contender for 'best in box'. A Hong Kong clone of the MPC small scale medieval knights, and one of the little Blue Box 'Hidden Adventures' castle figures.

 

The little blob in front, is the jester-puppet, from the tip of a jester's wand, as there are very few such figures in the entire canon of toy figures, I guess it must be Starlux, Mokarex or Café Storm? As they often break-off, it may prove to be a very useful spare, one day?

 

Two lead chaps who've lost their armies, on the right looks like he's probably Minifigs, the one on the left looks to be 'a cut above', and might be someone like Stadden or Suren? But I may just be being over-enamoured of his helmet! Equally, he has an interesting detail in the tin-can sword-fist thing, is he a known character from history?

 

Giant-like but no Giant, the reason I didn't attach two of the towers to the wall ends, is because the wall is from a different issuer and the locating studs don't match up with the holes in the towers! We looked at the different types here (https://butisitgiant.blogspot.com/2021/08/golden-trojans-non-giant-gold-plastic.html), but I didn't think to measure the holes/studs; next Time!

 

Three Euro-chaps, the one on the left, I think, is by the maker located in Monaco, and is a Crescent knock-off, the other two probably premiums, and possibly in JC Peiffret's book on the subject - Les Figurines Publicitaires.

 

The Imperial Guardsman has a furry plume, caused by the fraying of a layer of plastic, which cooled quicker than the core (cold tool?), and has lifted and frayed! I could probably restore it with a pass though a lighter flame, but think I'll leave it as it is, as a fortuity?

 

In a similar vein, these plug-ins are part of a series of similar French and Italian types, from the better known Texas, through to several premium issues, each with different bases, but many figures in common, one day I'll cover them properly, but I haven't the time to try and tie-down these, or the previous ones, right now!

 

A lovely Napoleon, possibly made of casein, and a real treat, as I know Chris has a sub-collection of such things, so this must be a duplicate he's kindly sent us, it did feature here in a question-time, and I think Chris is still looking for a formal ID on the figure.

 

The larger figure I think we've seen before and is a . . . no, it's gone, I'm sure he's been ID'd here, or had his ID told to me, by someone, at some point, but it's escaped me now! I thought he might be Tringa, but he's not in my flyer?

 

The big one is almost certainly missing a sand-timer, off the right-hand spigot, and utilises a Deetail figure, unusual as it's more often seen with Hong Kong Herald figures, but he's meant to be in there, he has a large hole in his posterior for the plastic spigot seen in the second image, which is pushed through from the back of the chalkware sentry-box.

 

To the left, one of the sucker blokes, he's in a bit of a state, but rather a sample, than no sample! The little chap looks like he was made yesterday, and is polystyrene, so he may be, as he's absolutely mint, possibly an accessory for a tourist die-cast vehicle set which has avoided me, or is he a doll's house toy, as in from the playroom of a doll's house? A lovely little chap in any event, but ID needed!

 

Uncivil war, with a marked ABC figure fighting slavery, and a small lead figure (Hinchliffe?) fighting the Norman landed-class for a smidgen of democracy - they went a bit over the top on protestant dourness though, they sort of banned Christmas for several years!

Crescent conversion OBE, and a figure which could be home-made, or one of those 'Oojah-Cum-Pivvy' figures imported by Shamus Wade from India, between them is what I believe is an ocean-washed, sand-ground, or smoothed, Deetail Arab horse rider!

 

Many thanks again to Chris, some interesting stuff here, and still at least three posts to come. 

M is for More on Minikins

Adding to the small scale railway stuff we looked at earlier in the month, here's a couple of dodgy pages from a Corr's catalogue, of the larger scale stuff, most of which is listed in O'Brian, but not all of them illustrated, although he has more, and better pictures, but ti all adds to the whole.

The war elephant is - I think - the important visual-addition to the hobby?

 

While I don't think this adds anything to the hobby's knowledge-base, but I might as well get it up here while I'm going through all this stuff! Dates and times for this is all, probably, 1950's? An eclectic collection of stuff, in a variety of scales, and a lot of it seemingly aimed at the gift market or museum shops?

K is for Kinder's Klassic Kapsule Kombatants

When it comes to Kinder figures, these are among the most sought-after by the 54mm purists which gives them a bit of a premium they probably don't deserve, which makes them harder to collect purely on cost, but I have had some success except with the Egyptians, where I've only managed to find one - and I forgot to shoot him!

These aren't even that old; 1990's, yet there's one on evilBay at the moment for which the seller is asking £117! They. Are. Not. Rare. I've only been picking them up since about 2010 and I've managed to find between six or eight (?), some here and some in storage, now they're all in storage, and it's actually the ones which were in the garage we're looking at today.

Each was available in all four colours and bases seem to have been random with black or a few shades of green and they are hardly animated, a quick dry-brush of silver and they're best suited for the corridors or lobbies of large dolls houses! But lovely sculpts and - without being an expert on such things - from the high-point of armour design; sort of Tudor'beathan?

This is a 'phew' moment, the rather pathetic contents of my Samurai bag, now, we've seen the archer a few times here I think, in mixed lots, of which one was painted, the others damaged, so it's nice to be reminded I had a good one, also 1990's and a little smaller as around 50mm.

The torso however, kept as a spare part 'in case' is just what I need for one we saw recently in a lot from Chris Smith (last image), who's sword was broken, but was otherwise OK, and with only the two poses in the set I believe, I've now got them both in good condition, an irony as I used to give them away to friend's kids when I was a small-scale collector!

Also much sought-after, and also NOT RARE, because also only the 1990's, the Wellingtonians probably benefit from a firm gluing at the waist and a decent paint job, like the knights they came in four colours, and can all be found in each colour I think, so you can swap legs for variety, but they are really clip-together (or 'pop-together') rather than swoppets, although (and unlike the knights) can have their heads swapped, which might produce other units/ranks, if you know you Nappy uniforms?

Flyer for them, again I remember getting these and giving them away in the early 1990's, made for Kinder by Res Plastics (RP) of Milan, I don't think they ever got a separate issue, but they may have done, and certainly some dealers in the past seem to have cleared unused stock, while I've mentioned the current daft-price knight, there are some reasonable Italian (and German) eBayers selling ex-Capsule toys, often in sets for sensible sums.

Arguably (along with the Egyptians), the finest figures of their type in Kinder's oeuvre, the yellow-tan ones seem harder to find, and being more 'swoppet', they can get changed around, so I'm not sure there's four different here, but you will be looking for four of each leg-pair, torso, loin cloth, shield, necklace and headdress to have all of them, and a flyer would help which I'm also short-of, although there will be a reference picture in the O-ei-A guides.

We saw these back at the start of the blog, so just a reminder and all marked RP for Res, I'm pretty sure everything in this post is by them, and the change from the rather crude stuff which was issued in the 1950's is obvious. You can see in the left-hand bag, these because a source of 'vintage' space helmets for unscrupulous dealers, looking to enhance older figures or the German/Spanish bubblegum figures, so are harder to find intact now.

Other swoppet types were made for Kinder, or supplied to them while having separate issues by the likes of CGGC (Cane-Grisoni; mostly vehicles/motorcycles), Giocattolo, Techno Giodi, Giopi (Wild West) and others, and I do have a few for another day, indeed we've seen one or two here in the past (ACW, Tarzan) but most of them are a lot more fiddly (Wild West and Samurai), and some of them (pirates) are also rather daft-looking!

N is also for Nippon and Nunchuck!

So to a few other Ninja types; most sent to the blog by Mr Burke, many thanks to him and the first lot are the interesting set vis-à-vis this morning's post . . .

. . . as they are 'not quite' copies of the small gum-ball capsule ninjas we saw earlier, only in a larger scale and with adjusted or new poses and as they're being imported by Amscan - a similar company to A&A Global - might possibly be from the same source as the diminutive ones.

It's not terribly clear but they are definitely larger and not quite the same, although colours are similar, material looks to be the same (PVC or its modern equivalent) and the childlike, slightly 'deform' sculpting is in the same style as the small ones in the preceding post.

'Terranova' also sent these shots back in February, of resin Kung Fu practitioners, for sale in a gift shop and clearly based on the inimitable Brice Lee and in three sizes - the larger as 'paint-your owns' (like Bendy Toys; another new but recurring trope here on Small Scale World!); the smaller two sizes seeming to be 54- and around 60mm's?

The smallest - titled 'Kung Fu Man' - also appearing to have a wider range of poses and to be the better painted, although the painted version of the large figures (hiding behind the two unpainted ones) is a second pose in that scale, so there should be more?

Mr B also took a couple of close-ups of the nicer figures and you can't complain at three-dollars-fifty can you? These resin figures need to be purchased (or shelfied!) as soon as you see them as they are nearly always limited quantity production runs, due to the rapid degradation of the air-setting rubber, silicon or latex moulds, and with no obvious maker (WCP?) on the price label; they're off for a - probably - long stay on the 'Unknown' dongle!

Brian also sent these - carried by the 'usual suspects'; Greenbrier/DTSC - they would appear to be a continuation of the large Firefighters and GI's I bought a couple of years ago from - the now defunct - 99p Stores under - I think - PMS International's label? Brian's sent shelfies of those giant soldiers too - in new packaging - but they're for another day. These will be 4-inch, polyethylene figures, and one expects all four to turn-up in both colours.

We've seen firefighters, GI's and superhero types of these before too; mostly also from the Blog's New York agent and like those, these are that odd thing; Action Figure types which aren't really action figures due to the limited number of points of articulation, more like the old knock-off Action Men/GI Joes'.

These are also from Terranova, but have been sat in the older folder for a while now (over a year!) waiting for a suitable post; such as this one! But they ARE Ninjas! They will be in a dense polystyrene or polypropylene and come with rather over-decorated Ninja-type weapons/accessories.

Rounding-off the day with a dice-rattling lump of styrene; I've had two more lots of those Gogo Crazy Bones come in recently and so two posts are in the pipeline, but one of them is Ninja-like enough to close today's look at Ninjas! He may be more 'Kamikaze' than true 'Ninja' though?

And that's covered most of the main scales, several figure-types and all the major polymers in one post - Thanks Brain/Terra!