S is for Sandown Park - Bits & Bobs

Continuing with the Sandown plunder from September (next one's three weeks away, this Saturday!), and this would normally be the last post in the sequence, but I haven’t got the images ready on the other two, so, here's the odds and sods.

 

Martin Fahie had put these to one side for me, and they are all Hong Kong production, and all enhancing existing samples, some of which we have seen here already, and I have taken follow-up shots with some of the bits from the storage unit, so that'll be forthcoming in the near future.

 

Lido space werhickle! Missing one of it's two plug-ins, but takes my sample over the basic four, and allows for chopping and changing for future shots. What I think is the engine nacelle/venturi for the Dalek lander-'Mechanoid' from Cherilea, which is another useful spare in that sample, which you have watched grow, almost in real time.

 

And a pretty clean and undamaged Hilco Martian, and one of two poses most likely to be found damaged, again a collection which has grown from almost naught, with the Blog, to over a dozen with damaged examples. And I believe his helmet will be following shortly (three weeks!).

 

 

Three of the larger set (scale/size wise) Noddy in Toyland/Toytown figurines, made in Hong Kong, and in the style of some Marx production, but nothing is known of the maker, as far as I know, nor do I know how many are in the set (nor a total for the smaller set), but they are slowly growing as a sample!

 

Probably the best find of the show? We've seen the White Rabbit before, first as a single, phenolic or early styrene, with good detail, then as a mass produced lesser quality ethylene moulding, in the set of educational oddities, now I find these?

 

A stretched Alice, lays in front, awaiting glue, with from the left (best to open the image); White Rabbit,  Queen of Hearts (first book), Cheshire Cat, Hookah-smoking Caterpillar, one of the Kings, Mad Hatter, Playing Card Guard (near-flat, although they are all demi-ronde), Red Queen (second book) and the Mock Turtle. 

 

One might think board game pieces, but if the colours are a clue, it's not a game for three equal players, nor any even number of players, but are all the pieces here? They are old, and with characters like the Dormouse, Tweedle brothers, White Queen, and another King or two 'missing', they may be from a larger set, and while board game is still a best bet, they are quite small, no more than 20mm?

 

We've seen the pixie before, but in a darker red, this one is Ready Brek glowing! A puppy jumper - while it was OK to start collecting the LB copy jumpers, and the bug-eyed aliens were/are fun, it seems jumpers are to join white-button toys (two lots coming soon - Halloween!), as a peripheral sub-collection! And what I suspect is one of the few lose Corgi figurals previously missing from the stash, everybody's favourite villain - Dick Dastardly!

 

A couple of Euro-premiums from one or two different building sets.

 

Civilians; an unknown nurse (Atlantic like, but I don't think she's theirs, Charbens again?), Britains arctic explorer, a huge copy of the Corgi ice-cream seller, I guess Lucky or similar? Then the tramp/hobo from Hilco (? It's from the Johillco hollow-cast moulding), a mother and child, probably from a US model car kit, and a recent farm worker which I think we saw in Padgett Brothers/A-Z packaging, a few years ago? In front, a Britains cyclist.

 

The long arm of the law! Three Lines Tri-Ang Motorway, with a bugler (I think they only ever looked like that in kids' comics!), one Corgi Junior, two Hornby Dublo/Meccano and a pair of Merit/Model Scene, with the WPC snapped of at her shapely ankles - ouch!

 

Other railway/small scale figures included a Blue Box mechanic, several Merit, a metal Wardie/Masternodels railway staffer, the Hornby Hobbies Hong Kong sourced moped rider and two machines (shared with at least two other brands), the boy with horses from the Britains Miniset, and a seated Airfix passenger.

 

Odds! The cactus may be new on me, but it may just be home-paint bamboozling me! Common bit of fence and a couple of weapons from 3/4" action figures I guess. All in all, some nice bits, the Alice Looking Glass/Wonderland set is the definite highlight, anybody know anything else about it?

S is for Sandown Park - Combat Troops

We're clearing some stuff out this week aren't we? Mostly khaki chaps in this post, the actual 'army men' from the September Sandown Park visit, and we've seen some of them before here, but this is how they come in!

 

Three from Replicants, I think I have two already, but the executioner is new to the stash, if memory serves, two of them (sentry and sailor) are PW show exclusives, so it may be that all three were, although, after their show debut's, they usually go on to the Weston's site for wider distribution.

 

Seen before, and to be found on the WWI American page of the Airfix figure Blog, here's the Montaplex 'New Zealanders', with German Obergefreiter's rank badges! Utilising the Airfix Americans and the baby kangaroo from one of the zoo sets, although without the adult from the other set present, is it just a wallaby?

 

Three composition TAG's, including a new identification (Free French ally, 2nd figure from the left), and yet another Cossack painting (seven found, seven paint ways . . . and three poses?), and an African soldier, who I think might be . . .

 

. . . Solido Belge? I know they made some composition in that period just after the war, and while the mark is not actually readable, I think with a little wishful thinking, it could be Solido Belge!

 

Charbens 'Great White Hunter' reissues, not an urgency, and not really toy soldiers at all! But in a dense polymer and new colour (presumably from the Marlborough/Dorset era), so worth grabbing for both completion and a wider-ranging sample.

 

All seen before - 

Speedwell German, Cherilea UN 'dancing loon' and some Britains Swoppet parts!

 

From the subjects, I assume French production, at first glance I thought they were chalkwear, but they are a pretty standard 'olin' composition of wood flour and linseed oil with wire weapons, two have bases, but from the styling I think they are all the same maker, I just don't know who . . . or whom?!

 

I think these might be Acedo (Domage et Cie), but I'm not sure and need to check, the MG gunner needs a bit of a mend, but I'd do it obviously, nothing worse than faking it, and there's so much fake stuff around now.

S is for Sandown Park - Wild West

Picked up a few Wild West bits at the last Sandown Park shenanigans, nothing rare or valuable, but always things of interest, grist to the mill, gap fillers and collection enhancers/improvers - so let's have a look at the plunder!

 

While the Reamsa stuff in Sobres seems to be copies, I think these are original Comansi supplied product, the 60mm backwoodsman/pioneer/trapper being the same softish silicon-rubber as the late Thunderbirds/OVNI stuff, while the 50mm Lucky Luke is one of their sculpts too? Their relevance to the Battle of Manila being a moot point, but typical of these cheap, pocket-money, Montaplex novelty envelopes!

 

Rather damaged, but new colours for these 'styrene large-scale versions of the SIKU manufactured Euro-premiums - carried here, in the UK, by Betterwear, as a smaller range, in soft ''ethylene . The yellow being the same shade as the British issues, and both will join the dun, fawn and bronze, painted and unpainted sample, slowly gathering in a bag somewhere!

 

 

So clean I suspect another of the East German production, like the military chap we looked at a while ago, but I'm not clued-up enough on Elastolin composition to be sure, a nice clean figure though, along with a huge (100mm+) Hong Kong copy of something Spanish, I feel? [Lafredo - see comments]

A pair of HK copies of Britains (one Herald, one Swoppet), a speedwell/Trojan type and what I suspect is a Hilco 'from hollowcast', it's similar to a couple of the Johillco metal sculpts, and turns up quite often?

 

Mixed cowboy lot, I don't remember where these all came from (with previous and next two image contents), there must have been a mixed bag of them, possibly from Isaak, or Martin? Two Lone Star, a Crescent, a Supreme and three to be ID'd, along with a wagon driver Charbens saloon figure (holding cards).

 

Mid-quality swoppet knock-offs!

 

One of the Crescent  (horse) Timpo 'solid' (rider) ACW copies from Hong Kong, carried by Ideal in the US, more generic over here, this one has been repainted by the owner, from the look of it!

W is for World War Warriors

So, we come to the last of the PW show plunder posts, twenty posts I've got out of it, this year, and some fine loot was scurried back to Small Scale World's command centre here in North Hampshire, to be shared with the rest of you, and we're finishing with the khaki-clad chaps and their contemporaries.

 

OK, so Google hasn't just changed the graphic on the upload page, they've tripled the time it takes to do everything, great! Paratroops/parachute toys, all three were from the donation bags I think, everyone knows I like a good parachute toy!

 

On the right, another of the Mogul (Meccano) Germans originally sent to the Blog by Chris Smith, almost certainly designed by Stadden, and now with his rather fine MG34 'Spandau', it's a specific moulding with a truncated stock, and a small block which locates in his hand.

 

While another of the finds of the show is a composition figure similar to those of Zang, the 'similar to Zang' unknown and the V - Empire Forces guys, if only by dint of them all standing to attention at around 54mm, in Battle Dress . . . but a new pose/moulding, also unknown, so a lovely comparison heading this way, when I get them all together! I think the pink goop in the moulding recesses, is the result of someone trying to take a mould of him in silicon or Plasticine?

 

New to me/collection/Blog, although I was vaguely aware of them from previous research into Wizards of the Coast's larger figures, these are for the recent trend in out-of-the-box 1:144th scale war gaming, and the upper shot has the Germans in the middle with soviets to the left, pouring out of Silesia, and the Yanks to the right, advancing to the Elbe from Aachen! The lower shot has two Japs on the left, two Brits on the right, with a Chinese, French and Rumanian (I think) behind.

 

They are not impressive sculpts, and the paint makes things worse, trying to sort them by eye, I only guessed about six of them right, the moulding is poorly defined and blobby, weapons and - particularly - helmets, are inaccurate, and painting seems pretty arbitrary? I believe these are from the first tranche of Axis and Allies, and subsequent editions scaled up to 15mm (1:100th), nominally, from the 10/12mm (1:144th) of the original series?

 

Marx, grist to the mill, but quite a nostalgia hit, we all seemed to have a few of these in with our Airfix, Timpo and painted-odds, back in the day!

 

Cherilea, these are the interim ones between the first and third versions, with elements of both, and while missing their weapons, will make useful additions to the tub, where I'm slowly accruing decent samples of all three types.

 

Atlantic air force ground-crew figure, on the left. I don't prioritise Atlantic large-scale as I have them all in small scale, and, whatever scale, they tend to be priced/valued far too highly for what they are - recent'ish, mass-produced figures, which were piled-high in Beatties, Tangley and that place in Woking, from 1980 to the middle of the decade.

 

In the centre is a 40mm from Spain or Argentina, I can't remember off-hand, but I think we've seen a larger sample (trio?) here, with mounted figure, they are certainly in the collection, and will appear here eventually!

 

And another HO'ish Zang pilot, for years I used to treasure my lone example, but I think I have about 15 now, and most shows seem to throw-up another one, which doesn't mean I'm complaining, or showing off, but rather I look forward to getting them all together and shooting them as a group, with any obvious variations..

 

Smart Toys on the right, I think he may be a new pose, and three of the Pioneer for Realtoy (et al), the Smart being a copy of a larger Pioneer figure, and the two on the left being of the six poses I still needed, complete, I had the blue-chap, mucked about with!

 

This show's lemon! Someone came over to me and asked if I could ID this for their mate. to which I replied ". . . looks like Marty/M-Toy, but I've never seen it with Australian heads . . .", the owner then came over, and we had a chat, he was looking for a fiver, which I'd happily give for the GI version, so I went off with it.

 

And I was quite pleased with it, showed it to one or two people with some enthusiasm, but started to wonder if the heads were right? Now I've mentioned before, the lighting at the venue can be a bit confusing, not as confusing as it used to be at Dave McKenna's show in the Mason's lodge in Birmingham - the number of colour variations I took home from there over the years, which were normal colour when unpacked at the other end! But nevertheless, confusing enough!

 

And, as you can see, as clearly as me, when I got it home and into normal daylight, they are Aussie [cowboy] heads from Timpo! But, I may leave it for a while, as is, it's quite a clever, if simple conversion, and I have the US one, I just need to sort the belts out!

 

Monogram clones to the left, other bits to the right, the baseless chap is interesting, but I think we may have seen him a decade or so ago, during the heyday of Poundland/99P Store stuff, which has almost dried-up now?

 

Ackerman (et al) to the left, New Ray clone, Marx mini and a larger 60mm 'pod-foot' GI.

 

Soma, biggies, similar to the weird set of HO sci-fi/pilots, so probably the same sculptor, but more irregular types, and I'm guessing here, but almost certainly to be from a set of ten, possibly in two colourways?

 

Picked-up four more Trojan, in two plastic colours, an olive drab, wounded, and three in a richer olive-green. Until I've got them all together, and sorted, I can never remember which ones I have, and which ones I need, so tend to grab them when I see them, although I'm pretty sure it's the sand-plastic ones I'm short-of now!

 

Incomplete set of Marx medical group, probably re-issues in this silver? The nurse thinks there's a chance, with her blood/plasma bag, but the priest's given-up and is administering the Last Rites, morbid phuquer! The doctor's gone off to have a brandy by himself, and I suspect the poles are replacements?

 

More bloody metal! What sort of a plastics show is it?! SAE WWI 'Doughboy' from South Africa on the left, an interesting figure (with lead rot) next to him, in the style of the composition figures described above, a nice semi-flat who appears to be similar to the 25mm metals, ascribed to Fantasyland (from Hong Kong), so possibly from the same stable?

 

And two Skybirds, one an obvious copy/home-cast (on the right), the other more original, but not right, so either stripped and re-painted, or one of the Douglas Miniatures re-issues, home-painted?

 

And finally . . . on the left a bag of small scale, mostly grist to the mill, but there were some interesting figures in there to sort into the collection, the WHW machine-gun team, seen before here, and a huge bag of kit figures, which need a serious sorting, being not the usual 50-70mm early or box-scale stuff from Pyro, Adams, UPC, Revell, Monogram, SNAP etcetera, but rather 25-50mm smaller stuff, although some of the same names may be responsible - all for another day!

 

So, many thanks again to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for everything they did or contributed on the day, additional thanks to those also mentioned in the text of the various posts, including Andreas Dittmann, Brian Berke, Chris Smith, Micheal Mordant-Smith, and Tony H, John Begg, Gareth, Steve V. Peter Cole at Replicants, Graham, Mike, Theo and Glen, the Poles and Russians, and everyone else, for everything, over the years. In fact, it's time I did an acknowledgements page!

 

But also, special thanks to Paul Morehead, Brian Carrick and Peter Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine, for organising another brilliant day, where we could all get together, buy plastic shite to our hearts or needs content, and catch-up. I hope you had a good show, if you were there, and it's gotta' be only 11-mothns to the next one!

 

I'm actually off to London today, to pick up eighty-quidsworth of stuff I haven't even seen yet, so we'll get Rack Toy Month out of the way, and then there'll be more like this in September, with any luck, some Dime Store spaceships are coming from the US, and it's back to Sandown in a month's time!

R is for Royce's Rocco Rascles

So, before the last post of June 4th's show-plunder, we ought to look at this rarity, although I will shoot it again for the Khaki Infantry page, as Dave Skrivener's image has been doing sterling work there, for over a decade, while I never dug my own sample out!

 

How I spotted them, except on a table with other toy soldiery stuff! This is a shop-stock box, possibly the only surviving shop-stock box, although I may have seen another, a fair few years ago, and while he may not want to be spotlighted, I think it's worth mentioning that Brian Carrick, the seller had next to nothing on this, as we used to say in the motor trade, he washed his face on it.

 

Meaning he let it go, for what it owed him, without much attention to inflation in the meantime, or what someone might think it's worth. And while that may be a moot point, beyond box-ticking collections of early British plastic, there may not be much demand for it, and once you have it, you are the custodian, there's not much else you can do with it?

 

However, I still think it was silly-cheap, and while I think I made him take a bit more for it (something I often do, I'm not one for exploitation), and then gave four of the figures to a friend who has done a lot for the blog, I can only hope I am as strong-minded and generous when the time comes to pass my collection on.

 

As far as I know, this is the full line-up, Dave's image is missing the 3rd figure from the left, influenced by the Hilco clone of the French Clairet (Acedo?) SMG gunner, which, strangely was the one I'd had for years, before finding some or all of the others, who are, of course Britains' copies, not the Lone Star I'd thought, although the conversion to Para' berets is partly responsible for that attribution! Berets - it has to be said - which are more Military Police (MP's), in colour, than any paratroops from the UK!

 

The stock-box has been rummaged through over the years, and some extra figures have clearly been added to replace some of the missing ones, so it's hard to state facts about the contents, But it seems, after digging down through the layers, that each layer (of four) has a 4/5 mix of two poses, with an officer, for a ten count, or forty, in the box.

 

This leaves this box heavy in grenade throwers, and SMG guys, with four officers and only a few charging figures, one has to assume the next box off the line would have had more charging figures, and a shortage of one of the other two soldier poses, and so on, but that is pure speculation. 

 

Colour variations exist, both with the usually marbled plastic colour, from oxide reds through to olive drab, and some paint differences. Although I say that grandly, as if there are mountains for them, there aren't, there were a few production 'tranches' and one of them is quite brown, one quite olive, and Dave's are more of a dung-khaki, and not marbled, while paint seems to vary between a bright apple green, and more pastel herb-green for webbing and puttees, which don't (the puttees) always get painted!

 

I have a feeling, some or all of mine might have smooth bases*, but that might be a complete falsehood, so for now, assume they are all marked as above on the base underside. Markings which are not found on the small range of seperate horses and mounted figures, or the single-moulding, galloping guardsman. The only variation is that the grenade thrower has his marks stretched over two lines, the other three figures get the mark spread over three lines.

 

*Equally, they might have a mark on the upper side of the base, a simple 'Made In Great Britain', without the Rocco? But, again, that might be a false memory, and until I dig them out, shouldn't be taken as more than this footnote. 

 

I shot them again, because the angle on the second image above was a bit severe, and these need to be done justice, and to that end, as I said, I will re-shoot them in a similar vein, for the Khaki Infantry page in the next few days.

 

The set, I believe, came from Royce's daughter, whom Brian was in touch with, in the past, and - with the obvious changes -  it is literally, ex-Factory stock. It must also be pointed out, that these are incredibly brittle now, with Dave's played-with charging figure the only one I know which still has the bayonet, and following the break-up and auctioning, in parts, of his collection, that figure is rather lost to the hobby.