N is for Not a Follow-up!

As a sort of [pretty tenuous] follow-up to the last post, and the mention of Crong, I'm posting something which was already in the queue, but isn't coming in the order I'd like it to, and doesn't tell all the story, but hopefully still of some use to some Loyal Readers!

 

Donated by a friend of the blog who prefers not to be named, but occasionally comes up with little treasures, Battle Knights by Feva UK, is one of the more recent iterations of a carpet 'wargame', commonly known as Crossbows and Catapults (Tomy, Base Toys, Action GT, Zatu, et al), but also having iterations as Weapons & Warriors (Pressman), and Battground (Moose), which has been around since the 1980's.

 

The originals have produced several generations of two figures, a small squat fantasy figure (Doomlords of Gulch) in a putty-coloured polymer, and a sort of Hollywood Viking/Barbarian type (the Impalers of the Clannic Shelf), in various shades of brown or ginger, which we have seen, in various mixed/plunder/donation posts over the years, but which I haven't posted-on, formally, yet as my main sample has always been in storage.

 

The Pressman version changed the dynamic slightly, with press-pads instead of loose walls, and other innovations have tried to make it more fun or keep it relevant to new generations of electronically-distracted kids, here it's spring-loading. Pressman also changed the figures, to medieval types (Castle Storm), along with a pirate version (Pirate Clash), both also seen here, in past mixed-lots/shots. 

 

This Feva version adds mounted figures, and they are the unknown figures from the Crong post (the tentative link being used here!), although this set has green bases. The foot figures are scale-downs of the Pressman set, and I now think they are all Games Workshop knock-offs?

 

 Other useful bits!

A couple of banner-flags (or pennants?) missing 

 

Could be useful, but would need work to hide the nature of the balls or discs all these sets fire at each other, the oversized culverin for instance has quite an Elastolin look to it . . . fill in the hole and give it an antiquing, with washes and dry-brushing?

These turn-up in every junk-lot on evilBay, the Supreme medieval knock-off's from several brands have versions of them, and there have been large bow-like ballistas and larger cannon, but they'd all need a lot of effort to get realistic-looking.

 

As a Brucey Bonus, these are the Moose Toys figures from the other more recent iteration, Battleground Crossbows & Catapults, and were also a donation, I think from Graham Apperley, but hidden in a PW plunder-post a few years ago.

 

Smaller at around 25mm (the Feva are 30'ish, the older sets closer to 35 (C&C) or 40mm (W&W)) and a soft PVC, against Crossbows' polyethylene/propylenes and Weapons' polystyrene. It's quite a franchise, with many US and foreign-language/foreign-market sets, and worth a proper study, which will appear here one day!

S is for Shooting Swashbucklers

DO NOT AIM AT FACE . . . "You'll 'av someone's eye out with that!" Further to the set of four Accoutrements pirates in the intro' post, they had been commissioned, earlier, for the long-running series of catapult novelties, from Accoutrements/Archie McFee - we've seen the cats here, and there have been nuns, grannies, dogs, tarts, I think, all sorts, over the years.

 

A good friend of mine has been sorting his late brother's estate, and found this in a damp corner, and as a friend of the brother, I'd rather have this than a minted one off-of that feebleBay. A target on the back of the card gives you something to aim your Prates at!

 

The figures, in a better resolution than the previous image, you get the four, they're a semi-rigid, replacement PVC type polymer, and I think the blue-jacket is a lady, so there's no sexism in the human ammunition!

 

A flinging firearm, the catapult pistol! I think some of the later sets have a more simple device, or am I thinking of the small-box novelty displays in Waterstone's? Anyway, all a bit of Pirate-projectile fun!

S is for Shot at the Show

As I prepare for today's toy fair at Sandown Park, one of those dozen-odd dates which help the collecting year click over, here's a nice game I shot at last May's show, Spear's Games 'Targets in Space', a clockwork automated shooting game, which is almost a miniaturised fairground sideshow booth!

 

It's all about the artwork with these old things, isn't it?!

 

Reproduced on the inside with the far-distant sky, cut out for the target-wheel.

 

A large clock mainspring, behind the metal plate, is wound via the butterfly-nut.

 

 

Eight targets with variable scoring, not exactly random as you would learn the sequence!

But you could change the cards around occasionally.

 

Not the best image, but an old auction shot shows the rather futuristic, and robust sidearm, with pretty lethal-looking metal-shafted darts, used to achieve the task of blowing alien critter transports off the ring, or at least, folding them behind it, on their spring-clips! 

 

I love the spaceman, he's that classic Ajax/Archer type with the rubber ducting for stretchy knees and elbows! Cheers to Adrian Little for letting me shoot the other shots.

P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Animals

The penultimate post on the wonderful Christmas package from Chris Smith finds us looking at the animals, large, small, and daft, vintage and current, prehistoric and more recognisably 'out there now'!

 

A nice, but play worn blow-moulded Tiger, I thought it might have been flocked, but there's enough evidence of painted stripes to suggest not, rather the sort of thing we've seen in Argentinian Tarzan sets, or similar jungle fayre? Behind it is a bendy . . . . Panther? It's a bendy, and it's brilliant, whatever it is; lioness maybe?

 

Slightly damaged (possibly removed from a larger vignette), the grey-pyjama'd chap in a fez, is an old bisque piece, possibly an Edwardian cake decoration, but I suspect from something larger? The chap to the right is a budget toy, aiming at Schliech or Papo I guess, maybe ELC or Wilko, both gone now!

 

While the other dude (assuming they are all male, for the sake of conversational blurbage!), is in brown plastic, which is unusual, and my immediate thought was Dulcop Tarzan sets, but he's not as 'wavy' as the Dulcop one, so I'm guessing Dom/Heinerle or someone like that?

 

Interesting handful, the Dimetrodon looks a bit earlier than the others, and has a very good head, while the big chap is a classic 'gape-mouth' Chinasaur! The other three may go together, but the blue (metallic blue!) sauropod is a little more catoony than the other two, smaller Dino's?

 

A mix of vintage and modern, some were marked I think, but I didn't take notes at the time, the two/four at the back may all be from one modern toob/tub, and at least two of the piggies are new to me. The larger bath duck is a nice piece, with some age, while the red one was usually found in sets of incrementally sized 'duckies'

 

After the jumping feet and FFL scale-down, this obviously 1960's (or even late 1950's) octopus is the third favourite, and a lovely survivor, he originally had green eyes, but all the paint is a tad play worn. The red stretchy lizard is an old capsule toy, similar to a very oily, leaching one we saw here at Small Scale World years ago.

 

The green lizard may be a companion piece from a larger 'pink/purple' action figure or fantasy play set, while the Sperm Wale and rather unusual shark, are probably from the same tube-type set?

 

Mixed bits, the green teddy almost certainly was flocked once, the lion is rather fine and the dark horse/pony is a Corgi job, I think. The small grey elephant is new to me, while the faux-ivory one with a charm-loop (probably Christmas cracker prize) still has both tusks!

 

Loving the shooting-game, target ducks! A home fairground sideshow! I think the big blob is an 'Angry Bird'? The last one on the right is a Yowie, and there are several posts in the long queue on them, which will be done, sometime! It's an interesting range, which has come and gone in fits and starts in different territories and with different issues, and there are some very unusual animals in there.

 

The next day! Does he think I'm an idiot? He's got a lesson coming, anybody can raid eBay/Worthpoint/Scalemates, for anything, even TV21!

 

Two cats from a relatively recent, budget set we may or may not have covered, there are quite a few! The middle dog is the Corgi farm dog, the pale one may be from the Blue Box hunter/cowboy/Tarzan sets' one, which is often separated from the base, being only attached by a portion of one rear paw! And another poodle, there are so many poodles out there, they may get their own page one day!

 

The small scale includes a piece of fence which could be from the Airfix Zoo, or a copy, quality is poor, but memory (and the stash) reveal that the fence sections got flashy very early in the run, so it probably is Airfix? The three animals to the right however, are further piracies of Airfix Zoo animals! A Corgi (Husky/Juniors) calf  and a small duck bring us to the end of the animals, thanks as always to Chris for sending them to us.

LB is for Lanky Bods

Back to spacemen and a whole bunch of Lik Be's lanky chaps have come it recently, along with a few other items of interest, indeed, all these posts were going to be one follow-up until I started editing them and realised it was going to be 30 or more images, even with maximum collaging!

 

Having inherited a lot of Woolbro stuff in the purchase from Jame Opie many years ago now (and many thanks to him), these were a must as soon as I saw them, and so that's what happened! They are the slightly smaller copies in bright colours, unpainted with flat/smooth bases,.

 

Price suggests 1976-78, as a box of Airfix HO=OO figures was going through 18, 19, 20, and I remember; 21p, around the same time? And dare I say seem to be aimed directly at competing with the Nasta Industries sets we saw the other day, both in the artwork and with the contents count/style?

Two of them are seen here in blue and yellow, between the older copy to the left and what I believe are my first two of the iteration carried by Solpa in Greece, they are smoother-etched than the other clones we've seen here (except the really small blobs), but I've only seen them online, so I'm not 100% on that.

More of the Woolbro type here, gunmetal, orange and green join the blue, an online image I didn't bid on as I didn't really need anything in the lot, although the robots were interesting, they look modern and will turn-up on their own for a lower price!

And another evilBay image here.

They look unloved.

While this set has the hollow-based copies, which from the painted forms (far left in the five figure line-up above) go right back to LB's own origins (late 1960's), but here seem to date from the late 1990's, with unpainted figures in a colour I haven't encountered these clones in before, and a CHINA mark?

Obviously more of a summer beach/lawn toy, with the figures not the central theme, but mere targets for the gun, which fires space-rockets . . . Fluorescent, Barbie-pink, space-rockets; what a bargain!

I've also picked up some originals over the last 9-months, and while the white ones will be checked against the master collection with the rejects offered as a complete set for swaps, the chrome ones will contribute to two sets, the very shiny-silver (most of the far rank) and the darker 'antiqued' (near command group), with any duplicates paint-stripped to add to the neutral granual sample we've looked at some before.

The idea being to end-up with four sub-lots; all eight marked as bright & antiqued, an unmarked set of eight cake decorations from the 1990's, and a larger lot of the plain, stripped plastic ones.

Again, no reason to bid on this lot, although I have gaps in the unpainted samples, there was too much other junk in the lot, and one or two of the green and red ones (which I still need some of (painted and unpainted)) looked a bit tatty?

Better known as a Naval artist for the USN, Fred Freeman was also a prolific magazine illustrator through the middle of the 20th Century, and his sci-fi stuff often used the X Craft-Mercury-Gemini suits worn by our LB breadrin'. Here he has them in something akin to a B29 cockpit, with 'vidscreens', in orbit over the moon! It won't surprise you he's well-known for his submarine art, either!

Then this big, bad, burgundy, blow-moulded, beautiful, blooming, bastard turned-up! Obviously a parachute toy (I may have one or two and not previously noticed the connection?), he's been shot separately for that page, about 120mm, but it seems there’s still no end in sight to additions to the LB for Lik Be output and clones!

Just replace LP with Lik Be, it's only three more letters and a gap, you don't NEED to use LB at all, if you really don't want to, fuckwits!

J is for Jungle Shooting Match

Berwick Games attic find! Very redolent of its time, hunting big-game is just not something you'd make a game off now! This was absolutely filthy and nearly went in the recycling; the roofing-felt in the attic is a fluffy variety about 130-years old, and for some time has been collapsing under its own weight having dried to the consistency of cold-war Eastern-Bloc fag-packet cardboard, covering everything in the attic in a black snow.

But, as you can see it cleaned-up OK and was in better nick than I expected, so it's gone to storage for now, and I will chuck it on feeBay at some point in the future. I can well remember this, we had hours of fun on wet winter's days, lying on our bellies and sniping*(1) some of the rarest animals on earth!*(2)

 

The animals were (are!) only vac-formed polystyrene sheet, and it wasn't long before we literally blew one apart, so Mum, who was nothing if not ingenious, made them all backing cards from corrugated-cardboard, and here they are 50-odd years later, almost as good as new . . . Except the gorilla!

 

Not so the cork-firing pistols, one has absented itself entirely (decades ago), and the other is broken across the barrel, but I will try to fix it up at some point, maybe get a post out of that exercise? Quite a James Bond looking thing, I think?

 

Same mechanism as most toy artillery, pull back to the catch, and then fire, the plunger is near flush with the end of the barrel, propelling the cork with enough force to pop the animals out of their little die-cut card catch, and blow the feet off the gorilla! The animal then shoots up with an over-dramatic death throw, due to its elastic thread!

Two pea-shooter tubes were supplied to stand it up on a flat surface, but it's easier to prop it against a wall or piece of furniture. And I think this is a rare survivor, as I haven't seen one on evilBay yet, despite looking quite often, hoping for replacement parts?

 

*

(1) Kids; it's not good to shoot things!

(2) No animals were harmed in the making of this post!

S is for [Mostly] Seen Elsewhere - Combat Types

So, a quick round-up of WWII'ey or Modernish stuff most of which I've posted elsewhere in the last twelve months or so, but a couple of which are here for the first time.

A couple more Polish figures, I've actually scored three lots, which we will look at in other posts, but this pair were my first two of the 'Four Tankers & a Dog', Polish TV/Movie related set from PZG, so they were posted with pride a while ago!

Flying West we find this chap (pink) as a Portuguese cereal premium, now, I thought I'd posted these here, but I can't find them, neither can I find any group shots in Picasa, or from the Faceplant Group where I posted this shot, so I don't know what happened to them, but there are more to come (four I think?), currently in storage . . . un-photographed?

Heading South on the same continent finds us in Italy where these could be Jumbo, but are more likely to be Dulcop given the lack of paint. I have Jumbo (or Jumbotoys) marked Wild West with paint, these - unpainted - are just marked Italy and were, I suspect, used by both brand-marks.

Staying in Italy, and we're back with Co-Ma (Coma, CO'MA), for their smaller Alpini, also available in a 60mm'ish size and various bright colours (white and red in my case), and a vary diminutive '20mm' closer to HO, these are a smallish 50mm and more realistic in polymer shade.

Returning home to the UK and we have the shooting targets from Kleeware/Ideal, courtesy of Chris Smith, we've seen them before, and on that occasion I also showed the Ideal catalogue image, but now I've found the Kleeware one . . .

. . . which has not been seen elsewhere, so is a 'blog exclusive'! I mean; it's just a scan and I seem to recal it's been seen in Plastic Warrior magazine, but it closes the circle on these, since their first appearance here!

Also not seen before, I shot the full Britains Deetail 'Battle Group' while they were on their way to the storage unit, we saw most of them when I cleaned them up a decade ago, but there are a few additions, and they nicely fill a 4-litre Really Useful Box. I've left the painted Afrika Korps officer with them, but he's a bit shy!

These two only came-in the other day; a quick feeBay snaffle, you may remember (it's on the Airfix Blog) that my existing bazooka man was cobbled together from a kit of parts and a lot of 'superglue', these two are nice, clean and still flexible, so complete. And here compared with the HO-OO figure.

These are just for fun, I don't have a brand, brand-mark or set name yet, probably late 1980's, Hong Kong 'army men', I just love the colours! The same outfit seems to have been responsible for the 25mm clones, where you find the Japanese are commonest, in the same whacky colours.

Found! They were in a different folder!

Portuguese cereal premiums! The radio operator is a smoother/cleaner finished sculpt - so two issues? And maybe Japanese . . . or generic post war 'army men'?

 

Apparently they are by/for Farinha Amparo, a flour-miller?