H is for How They Come In - Francophone Lot

I was round a mate's a while ago, John Begg, who many of you will know as PTS52 on feebleBay, and he talked me into a junk lot, well, he sort of shoved it at me and I accepted it with an unbecoming over-eagerness . . . I'm addicted to this stuff, but you've probably worked that out for yourselves by now!

Four 'SINGAPORE' marked animals; without the box, or a bit of research I can't say whether they are Blue Box or Redbox, but Tai Sang owned all three (? see the Blog passim) factories, so it's all a bit academic! Along with a Jean Höfler one-humped Arabian camel; with that factory paint - I think an earlier version.

A charming polystyrene cockerel which I suspect might be French, or Danish? Pretty little thing either way and new to me, new to the collection  . . . and now - new to the Blog! Can you tell I had no blurb for this? It's factory-painted!

Interesting but damaged solid copy of a Britains Swoppet Indian, again, possibly French (hard plastic) rather than a Hong Kong knock-off, a nice Wagoneer, who is Hong Kong, but a cut above the usual pirated swoppet crud, with a separate vinyl jerkin and PVC whip. He's not rare, but it's nice to get him with the whip.

While the loose 'styrene flats, are downscaled copies of the Gibb's ones, and finding a few more loose justifies my not de-bagging the set we saw here, and nice to find a couple of the teepee/tipi's, but still waiting for the cavalry to turn up? They are also Hong Kong.

I have quite a few of these, they have a distinctive 'drum' of plastic, usually around the feet or on the base, which might be a mould-release pin-mark, or something more technical, and I assume French 'bazaar' or Spanish late-production?

This sample increased my pose-count and revealed that they come in two sizes, or were themselves copied - the bright, fluorescent-yellow chief could be younger as well as smaller! Remember the Hugonett beretted combat figures had a saluting chap in a smaller size too? Lifted poses are a mix of Britains and French figures I think?

These are mostly Cofalu and include my first mounted Indian from them. I'm not sure about the hard-plastic chap, he's similar to my 60mm swivel waist Cofalu French infantry, but he is glued and doesn't have the swivel head, if neither Cofalu nor another French producer; might he be an Italian make?

Medievals; again, I think mostly French and a fair-bit of home-paint, but the important one (bottom left - Cyrnos) is still in his factory finish. The figure next to him could be Hong Kong or French bazaar and is clearly a copy of Timpo's early swoppet line, the two top right are Cofalu again I think, while the Elastolin siege-engine crew copies are more (home-painted) bazaar output.

Combat infantry; a Reisler wire-cutter from Denmark leys alongside two 'multipose' kit figures, and while the DAK MG38 operator may be Airfix Multipose, I suspect the Italian is Italeri (or Italaerei as the name probably was when the kit was first issued!), or even Heller?

Behind them two Starlux 35mm's which from the state of the paint (cursory flesh on one, none on t'other) I suspect are 'for' Solido (Belgian) die-cast model vehicle accessories.

While towering over everyone is other Belgian, a WWII/Post War infantryman, in his British inspired beret and battle-dress (poor Belgians!), who's base is thinner than the Durso one's I thought were here somewhere, but I think they must be on the languishing composition page, so he maybe by someone else?

These are interesting, in that I've not seen them before (but did see a lot again the other day!), and they are based on the larger Silver Knights by Supreme, but without the moving arms, and some of the poses of the smaller Supreme figures we've seen here before, and my suspicion is that they probably are Supreme, but possibly a specific contract for someone else, maybe even a generic?

Soft PVC in black and chocolate brown, the reborn Starlux 'brand' had a similar set in silver/black a while ago (Le Chateau Noir), which was a partial re-badgeing of a Simba set (also Supreme contents) and given the French/European nature of most of the contents of this tray, it may be a rival product from that market? I think the painting has had 'help' at someone's home!

Everything else! Three flat lead, horse-race, game-playing pieces, two Giant horses and a cowboy, Matchbox Adventure 2000 (boy, were they a few decades out!) spaceman, early British intermediate-scale horse (Rocco Household cavalry), Minie Mouse (Combex or Heimo?) and a Supreme pirate who is a color variation of those previously seen here, I think?

Which leaves the chap all tied-up. Now I was sure I should know who he was, and searched quite hard, but I'm stumped, he's similar to the Domplast/Heinerle/Manurba one, but his chaps are far more flared, Jean's is moulded integral to the tree, while I have a similar one somewhere, tied to the tree with little button-thread ropes, but I think he's smaller (storage!) and possibly Timpo, so, I'm out of ideas - he could be French bazaar (given the rest of the lot), and I wondered if he may be from a helicopter toy's casualty basket (with flared jeans - very 1970's!), but I would like to know for sure!

Anyway, all useful grist to the mill and many thanks to John for saving them.

F is for Farm-hands and Feeder-fellows

This has been in 'Edit' since last January and a copy has been on my laptop's desktop for about 6 months waiting for me to get round to finishing the blurb!

We actually looked at Blue Box farm ages ago, so this is more of a ramble round some of the other aspects of the figures - all Britains piracies - than anything else, and rather unfortunate that they were in the queue while certain other thing were/are going on, but I can't shift a shadow, so I'll have to work through it!

And at least we've some new stuff to look at; I'm not showing you the same stuff with some bits taken out because I was making it up as I went along the first time!

So to the bit we DID look at last time, yer'bog-standard Blue Box farm-hand  copied from Britains with [some of] the same tools. So far I haven't found the hoe in Blue Box (or other) guise, nor the besom-broom but the rake, pitch-fork and stiff-broom are all to be found along with one of the meat sticks (see below).

Now; I used to think green bases = 'farm' and grey bases = 'zoo' sets, and that's not a bad rule of thumb from what you find, however during one of the tedious searches required to correct and correct again the wilder utterances of Erwin Sell I found a guy somewhere (no; I don't think it was evilBay, some other site? May still be findable) who referred to the right-hand figure as Redbox, as it was a stand-alone figure on a sales site, I have to assume he had seen it previously in that guise - to come to that conclusion.

As we've also discovered from the short war (they seem to have given-up on almost as soon as they started it?) and he and Paul Stadinger's misappropriation of the Vectis catalogue; both Redbox and Blue Box shared the output of both the main Singapore plant at Toa Payoh and the Hong Kong facility at Aberdeen, so it's fair to further assume that the figures are what they were in that - also deliberately miss-presented by the pair of them - catalogue: 'Blue Box-Redbox'.

The new question mark is over the chap with the yellow shirt, he only has a smaller 'HONG KONG' rather than the larger, fuller 'MADE IN HONG KONG' of the Blue Box-Redbox figures.

Also there are differences in the sculpture of the base, suggesting copy, or re-cutting? However, as the Singapore end were also responsible for the same chap with a moulded-on tool (the missing hoe!), all bets are off until a set turns-up with him in it!

The colours are reminiscent of Lucky Toys stuff, particularly the road-racing and garage sets, but they weren't known for soft plastic figures, although more of that in the near future and the more you look the more you find with HK!

And here's the evidence! Circles within circles and these are only what I have here, in storage I have one of the long thin boxes - we looked at ages ago - with 4x5½ click-shut bags, with probably 50+ variations of this or the other Britains figures, and many more 'unknown farm and zoo figures' including HK copies of Starlux - themselves copied by their near neighbours - everybody was up to it!

The smaller 50mm'ish figure with the red trousers is actually a very nice, finely-etched, sculpt, while the factory painted 35mm chap is from a more commercial issue of the pink one we've seen in sets before, but who also came in Christmas crackers, gum-ball capsules and the like.

One of the sets referred to above - because this has been in 'Edit' for so long, the set was re-shot for the mini-farm post back in the Autumn; hey-ho! This is the one trying to look like it may be Blue Box - it 'aint!

Below is a clean sample of some Blue Box livestock which came in a while ago, we'll look at the animals when I get my stuff out of storage, in the meantime there's always chance another Blogger may cover them, especially now he's trebled his output and raised the quality [of some] of his copy?