P is for Perfect Polymer Perambulation

So, to the Ambulance and crew, I rather took too-many shots of these over two sessions, but I've hacked through them, deleted a load, and collaged the rest, so it's boiled down to its over-shot essence! Brian Carrick caught me, at Sandown Park, while I was indisposed to go and find the items myself, and a version of the following conversation took place,

 

B - I've just seen something round the corner which I think you'd be interested in?

 

Me - Oh really, what is it?

 

B - An early-British plastic Ambulance, and stretcher team I haven't seen before, he doesn't want a lot for it?

 

Me - Could you grab it for me, and if it's nice I'll have it?

 

B - Yes, I'll pop-back now, he's only round the corner!

 

Which he kindly did! 

 

Two minutes later, he was back with what we're looking at here, and I quickly said "yes" and sorted him out with the dosh. Conversations ensued, between Brian and myself, and subsequently, with a few other people as they passed through the day, and the general consensus was that it was probably Triang-Minic or Mettoy-Playcraft, with me favouring the former (for the similarity of the wheels), but arguing equally for the latter because of both the big Hospital play set, and the Ward 10 stuff they did?

 

You can see both are covered in those orange-brown smuts you associate with smoker's homes and damp, whether tobacco, coal-fired boilers, or open-fires, and how they look like they go together! I also pointed out to Brain, that the figures were the ones "Blue Box Copied..." in small scale - as seen here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/08/e-is-for-emergency-empire-or-emson.html

 

The Ambulance, after cleaning, is a Daimler, and there were several toy versions around at the time, it seems to have been one of the commoner chassis used by Ambulance coachworks, before the invention of the long-wheelbase Ford Transit van, in my childhood!

 

There is the slight warping you get with the older Minic's, I think they must have been using a 'styrene-like polymer, which was not as stable as actual polystyrene? The contemporary model trains were polystyrene, and don't warp!

 

Clear marking of Made in England, I'm sure the 'red' crosses are from an old Airfix (or Revell?) version of the Junkers 52 'Aunty Ju', in Swiss airline markings, as used in the filum The Battle of Britain, and seen in both Swiss and German versions, parked-up at Blackbush Airfield, by yours truly, when I was a small boy! So they'll need to be removed! But the 'Ambulance' board, over the windscreen, is original.

 

The wheels were reminiscent of the Tri-Ang stuff we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/06/afv-is-for-among-my-favorite-vehicles.html

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/t-is-for-triang-minic-part-1-military.html

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/t-is-for-triang-minic-part-2-civilian.html

 

And it's now been confirmed to be Tri-Ang Minic, we actually looked at the Mettoy one a while back, which I'd totally forgotten, until preparing this article!

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2016/09/t-is-for-two-toy-ambulances.html

 

Front and back shots!

 

But . . . these aren't the figures copied by Blue Box, I think they ARE Blue Box! When I got them home, and first, put my glasses on, then got out the jeweller's loupe, it became obvious, very quickly, that the stretcher is marked on the underside;

 

Made In Hong Kong, in a nice, neat, rounded, DIN typeface, as found on all sorts of Blue Box (and Redbox) animals and other toys/accessories. Albeit hard to photograph, in white plastic!

 

And, while I haven't found a Blue Box Ambulance in large-scale, yet, nor a medic set with the military figures, the fact that the small-scale versions are Blue Box, means I'd put money on these being so, too. You can see the similarities with the 50mm GI's sculpting as well!

 

And it's almost neater to discover that what we thought Brian had found wasn't quite what it seemed to be, as instead we've box-ticked a Triang niceness (I've since obtained a bag of the military trucks, in addition to those shot on Adrian's stall, or my previous few, as seen in the above links), and added a probable missing brick in the Blue Box wall!

 

All cleaned-up!

 

I managed to find the guy who'd sold it, had a chat, and bought something else from him, but I can't remember what, it might have been the animal transporter, which may get a post of its own, or it may be one of the racing-cars, which will also get a separate post, I think?

Confirmatory shot, from an old Vectis auction, of a shop-stock box of Tri-Ang ambulances, note how the red-cross fitted between the windows, not over them, and the LCC on the doors could be London County Council? Did councils run Ambulances before the NHS Ambulance Service took them over?

E is for Eye Candy - Marx Babes in Toyland Soldiers

Picked-up this little doozer of a lot at Sandown Park the other day, and at the pre-sale, car-boot scrum on the terraces, before the doors opened, too! We've seen me slowly collecting them loose, here on the Blog, and the Wilton knock-offs loose and bagged, but these are the icing on the cake!

Different lighting and angles, I'm studiously failing to get a grip of this new camara! The Marx toy soldiers, from the Disney movie Babes in Toyland. There is a 'Warriors of the World' style issue with them named on plainer boxes, two of each for an eight count I think, among various packagings, but I prefer these unnamed ones in their generic sentry-box cartons are nicer, and you only need four to complete!

BMSS is for More Plunder, 2 of 2

The other half of the BMSS plunder, I literally split the folder this morning so there's no theme to either post, but this is by coincidence both mostly small scale, and mostly stuff Adrian gave me in a little tub, as a mixed lot.

 

Seen better days, with Plasticine bases and glued arms, but small scale'ish (o gauge), chalkware composition, in the style of Drevopodnik, and new to pile. They might be from the Soviet Bloc (post-war) or earlier, and German, I'm hoping they will be findable in my Schiffmann Sammlekatalog, next time I have it out?

 

Two Spot-On's to add to the stash, and two of the Kinder 'Mocherette', based on the Lone Star Metallions which might not be Lone Star (given that Hubley, Kresege, 'Hong Kong' and others, also issued them), one copper 'chromed' over the base metal, the other bronzed to an almost black-olive.

 

Reduced-size copy of the Brtiains Llama, a Hong Kong pack mule and one of the Torres wine-bottle giveaways, make an interesting trio of animals in polyethylene.

 

When I first started finding these, years ago, well, about 40 years ago, I was intrigued, I would get one or two at each show, and it took maybe a decade to get the last colour, they then became one of those things I'd seen the origin of, so 'knew', but could never remember, so didn't know! Eventually they were remembered long enough to blog (charity shop purchase I seem to recall), as Waddington's Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs figures.

 

And I now have so many of them I don't know what to do with them! They would paint up nicely as ranked war gaming pieces, but they have officers pistols, not rifles, so don't lend themselves's to ranks, or files! And how many role players (28mm) need slightly small (25mm) explorers, and what would they pay for them, when you can find up to 16 in a charity shop! The law of unintended consequences!

 

Odd smallies here with a Sistema Cadillac from Italy, in an odd scale of 1:77th. A few of the Slaters/Merit (Collis Plastics), home painted, and the weirdest of the three mico-AFV's which various rack-toy issuers used as filler in their sets in the 60's and 70's, joining the obvious Daimler armoured car and 25lbr type gun is this odd little amphibious landing craft/jeep/pop-up target/carrier hybrid, which has never been explained!

 

A bit of Thomas Wild West, an LB caveman, Matchbox Space 2000 'future warrior', and a kit figure in 1:48th scale of a WWII German tank crewman, alongside a later Briains head, farm, I think?

 

Atlantic, Davy Crockett figures, he survived an enraged bear, Indians and two demented donkeys, only to fall to the dastardly Mexican forces of General Antonio López de Santa Anna!

 

Three of the gold, post-Giant Greco-Romans we looked at on the other Blog, from two of the sourses, a Meccano for Hornby policeman and a larger firefighter, taken from Dinky, I think, or Corgi, but here probably from a larger plastic beach/garden toy?

BMSS is for More Plunder, 1 of 2

And so to Reading, what was only about five weeks ago, but already seems like ages ago, where I managed to fill my boots with bits and bobs, despite there only really being three vinatge sellers present, Adrian, Paul and Steve, and it's to Mr Vickers' overburdened table we go to, first . . .

 

. . . as he gave me this! It's a bit of Hong Kong tat (Tim-Mee copies?), probably from no earlier than the 1980's, and to Steve, rather bringing down the quality of his whole table, more used - as it is - to a better class of commodity all together, but to me; another brick in the knowledge wall! Cheers Steve!

 

And the sort of thing I used to give to charity shops regularly when I was a small-scale only collector, and they'd come-in with mixed a lot. Indeed, more modern stuff like this, 20-odd years ago might have gone straight in the brand-new, shiny, Rushmoor Borough Council recycling bin! The horror, the horror!

 

30 and 40mm policemen from Starlux with a tin-plate sentry-box, of generic nature, only because I don't know the maker, I imagine, either a German or Austrian producer, and probably an accessory in a set of painted flats, or maybe lead solids around 30-50mm? But - equally - it could have been an accessory with a wooden fort set?

 

Speaking of sentries, these are Greek, Athena, and real box-tickers, I may already have a few, but there do seem to be a number of variations in uniform, and red or blue versions of most, so I grabbed one-each while they were going cheap. The cymbalist is to replace a damaged one, which I shot to hide the damage, last time we looked at them.

Likewise, the mounted, I need a better horse for the trumpeter, or a base at least, to balance him on, but he's lost a couple of the studs, so it would only, ever, be balancing! And all these, rather like their UK equivalent (the Hong Kong Herald guards), will benefit from the hot water treatment at some point!

 

A trio of Pilots, the chap on the right seems to be a modern, probably home-painted figure, in the middle is a bisque chap, who may be a World War sweetheart keepsake thing, or maybe a cake decoration, it's certainly in the style of bisque cake-decorations, and there would have been many marriages, as men went off to war, the bride would have been in the inventory already?

 

The big guy on the left is more of a mystery, as he's pretty huge, and not really 'toy soldier' compatible, so, maybe a character piece, Charles Lindburgh wears similar kit in some of his photographs? Jumper isn't lumpy enough for Amelia Earhart, and Cody was earlier, but there must have been other popular aviators back in the day?

 

A couple of home-made sci-fi figures in around 35mm, they seem to have been modelled in Plasticine, with brass and brass-wire detailing, on brass-wire armatures, do you know who made them and why? Was this your work? They seem to be exploratory rather than belligerent?

 

A bit of fantasy, I've mentioned the Crossbows & Catapults stuff a couple of times recently, and their main post is well overdue, but probably still a few years away, there's plenty on t'ut Internet for those who need it, and a few of the 1980's big-box fantasy figures, which are still waiting for their big sort-out!

 

A nice Crescent cowboy I couldn't remember if I have or not, and a couple clowns from Charbens, which are probably both duplicates now, like Pirates, I've been concentrating on a subsection of circus stuff, so there's quite a bit of it somewhere!

 

Some gash (repainted) metal from Adrian's rummage trays, I think he said one of them (chap on the far left?) is an arm swap and wasn't actually issued by Britains in that 'at the trail' configuration? And very much box-ticking, my knowledge of this stuff is minimal. I split 18 images into two posts, to help with Tagging, so more later!

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Everything Else

Last of the purchase posts from Sandown Park, it's funny I've mentioned the stash/pile and Battle of the Planets in the last 24/48 hours, and Bushy managed to name-check them both in the last few hours (the irony being, he doesn't have a pile), almost like he can't bare me to post original stuff, but that's all I do; original images, original copy and original opinions - isn't that right readers? While someone else has commented, forgetting what he said about me a few years ago, but stupid people have the brains of goldfish!

 

A nice bunch of Charbens circus. Circus, like Pirates, have become a bit of a side interest for me, but then so have dime-store vehicles, parachute toys, LB, stationary novelties, Cracker & capsule toys, and, and, and! I think the Tiger is quite unusual here, and the different colours of the dogs costumes, and horses furniture, make the sample more interesting.

 

Speaking of dime-store vehicles, here's a couple more of the small, US pattern, row-crop wheeled tractors, Western plastic crap, predating the Hong Kong plastic crap by a decade or two! As you can see, these are basically the same model, but different sizes, and I have near-on a dozen now, nearly all different, so when they're all together, we'll have a proper look/comparison.

 

The blue one is marked Banner, and is the same as one of my military ones, the yellow, is not the smallest, so may be the same as the Merit/Bell ones, but marked Tudor Rose?and possibly the same as the unmarked pair we saw last September? That's a check I can make one evening this summer, when sorting over at the storage unit, where I think there's four or five of these?

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/09/l-is-for-last-mays-lots-of-lovely-loot.html 

 

Action Man command post field telephone set, which was in the biscuit tin from Isaac. This would be connected to landlines (the origin of the phrase, predating the mobile telephone!) connecting the forward trenches/positions, with a platoon net, company net and 'chat net', set at the evening O-group (Orders). Sometimes, on Salisbury Plain, in the middle of the night, you'd pick up Russian spy trawlers in the Channel, due to the power of their sending sets, and the aerial properties of all the D10 landline network!

 

Tomte Laerdal Renault Floride Cabrio sports car, note how much better the wheels are moulded on these than on the Galanite ones we saw the other day;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2026/04/l-is-for-local-loot-2-of-2.html

 

A couple of interesting Animals, Adrian found the horse, I think, which is similar to, but not the same as the Britains Shetlands, longer, thinner legs for a start! The composition squirrel is damaged, but was always a small delicate moulding, and squirrels are another thing I have a soft spot for, along with elephants, and hedgehogs!

 

Better Hong Kong copy of Lone Star, than some (but may be Spanish, South American or even an actual Lone Star, hard to tell, until I compare), and a kit accessory, possibly from a Jacques Cousteau ship model of Calypso?

 

Upper lot are Holly or Holly-like, we saw some of them in the recent Gary Gygax posts;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/search/label/Gary%20Gygax

 

While the lower shot shows their 'rubber jiggler' clones, as part of my favourite childhood set, indeed, the Dimetrodon to the right, is pretty-much how I remember mine to be, prior to my tearing all the spines free of each other, and ruining it!

 

Random, newish Dino', which turned-up during the course of the day!

Thanks to Adrain, Gareth, Isaac and Steve for bits at the show.

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

There's still a couple of Sandown related things in the queue, but they may join the many folders down the bottom (of Picasa!) which date back to up to fifteen years ago, it will get posted one day . . . it will! In the meantime, here's the sci-fi and fantasy element of my busy scurrying and ferreting, back in February!

 

Gareth found these and brought them to my attention, he managed to get another, 14th pose, but I've already got a reasonable sample of these, and we have seen them here before, painted, and as unpainted late production, including whacky plastic colours (fluorescent pink, green and oranges), as well as visits to bagged and loose Thunderbird additions to the range, in soft rubber and polystyrene, so I've probably got the missing pose?

 

Ovni (UFO) from Comansi, I don't know if these are factory painted, or home-paints, the seller and Gareth thought the latter, and when painted, they tend to have brown bases, so these are probably not 'official'. But, they were sold under various guises, as well as the UFO moniker, and the late Thunderbirds sets, they came as Battle of the Planets and as The Invaders TV series tie-ins, so they may have ended up looking like this at one point - the seller had quite a few, all in the same condition.

 

The fact that some faces are painted, others not, is also odd, a home-painter would do them all the same, a team of out-painter's wouldn't be so fussy? The real interest, to me, is in the plastic colours underneath, mid-green and metallic blue, which I think are earlier than my previous samples, making the whole sample, a better representation of Comansi's output.

 

A few minutes after publishing - In fact I think there's more than twenty poses in total, with the six Thunderbirds characters, maybe closer to thirty, we've seen a girl, a chap holding a space rifle parallel to the ground, a zombie/Frankenstein's Monster type, I think there's another kneeling one I don't have, a guy waving a space rifle, a guy holding an equipment box (which gives us 20/26), so when I've got my four or more samples together, we'll have a proper looks at them despite having had several 'proper' looks at them already! Doh!

 

Game playing pieces I suspect, and in the style of all that MB Games' stuff licensed from the Nottingham Mafia (Battle Masters, Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Space Hulk et al), but I'm in the dark as to which game these are from, and it's only the bases of the blue figures which are leading me in the GW direction? 

 

A blow-moulded astron . . . sorry, cosmonaut from the former Soviet Union, and while I'm not posting Russian stuff at the moment, this can be lost in amongst the other stuff. Not believed to be a parachute toy, but more of an infant's garden/beach/bath toy thing, a big chunk for tiny hands.

 

 "Wrestlers sah! Millions of 'em!"

 

Mattel's M.U.S.C.L.E., always nice to add a few more to the tub, especially these - mostly - coloured ones, when I first started finding these, they were usually the flesh-coloured chaps, and early web-pages would suggest the colours were rarer, but I think they were just later, so came to market later, and therefore come onto the secondary market later, too, they seem to turn-up quite often these days, but a nice sample, with a pocket monster to the fore.

 

The sublime and the ridiculous! Cherilea and Matchbox, although I'm being unfair, the Matchbox K-2002 Flight Hunter was a reasonable effort as the long-night of the long-knives in the toy industry of the early 1980's, bit deep. While I got the elusive space-slug, because he was affordable, due to his short-shot foot, I doubt he misses it!

 

Don't forget it's the London Toy Soldier Show tomorrow;

 

http://www.toysoldiershow.co.uk/

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Military

Military and ceremonial now, with a few interesting items, one of which is annoying me, but maybe you know what it is, or where they are from, but let's look at the pièce de résistance first!

 

A pretty clean Kentoy stretcher team, I may already have one, but this has good paint, and being new to market is properly 'clean' if you know what I mean, and I think it's a darker brown blanket than my existing sample.

 

I think these may both be duplicates, but I love a bit of [affordable] composition, and we have an 'olin' gunner from Germany, possibly a minor make, or from the budget ranges of one of the big-two, the other, more likely the duplication; it looks familiar, in pumice or plaster, and maybe British or French?

 

This pair are the ones that are bugging me, I'm sure I've seen chapter & verse on them, possibly in one of the glossy mags', but I can't recall, and/or didn't take notes, but equally, it might be on the dongles as an internet download? Poured resin, with wire armatures in the trumpets, I have a feeling they are scenic background for a poured-metal or 'new metal' solid set, from someone like King & Country, Figarti or Frountline?

 

Again, I can't resist a bit of litho-printed tin, when it's affordable, and these were on Steve Vicker's table, I actually picked the six better ones, but he sent the two casualties over, a few minutes later, via a mutual friend who was passing, and, to be honest, the red-coat could replace one of the Germans, if only for a future photograph.

 

From the left we have - I assume - a khaki Brit, two Germans, with possibly an Italian between them, and a couple of Russo-Japanese war types? On the ground are both Brit's I think, and all late 19th/early 20th century, in depiction, beween the two wars, in execution? 

 

Odds - A Timpo horse, which may have started life pulling a wagon or gun, but which has been married to a mounted figure's base, and a Britains Herald Highland officer. All play-worn, but useful spares or 'grist -to-the-mill'!

 

Crescent, with two of the darker-red plastic, behind, and a sand-textured one in front.

 

Not the best (signs of repainting), but a useful comparison shot between two similar poses from Lone Star (black bases) and Britains Herald (green bases), At Ease (left), and Royal Salute (Present Arms), on the right.

 

Cherilea - Highland pipers.

 

I don't think these are repaints, I think this is how Lone Star issued them, with simple, all green kilts, I also think they were on the wants list? So, a useful addition to the massed ranks of the Highland samples.

 

Paints quite good, on these Harald Lifeguards, but sticky fingers have reduced them to 'dirty', so someone had full play-value out of them! Having recently seen Argentinian (?) ceremonials in similar uniforms, they may get a strip and repaint with paler (than the Horse Guards) blue jackets, or something equally exotic from one of the Blandford books?

 

Odds & sods! There's a Skybirds rangefinder (for which the operator has been waiting several decades! https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/s-is-for-skybirds.html), and pilot torso in the left foreground, and various useful 50 and 60-mil fellows from Cherilea, Crescent, Hilco and Britains.