E is for Ellem, or Not, as the Case May Be!

Having dealt with Merehall, and added suitable notes to the two older posts with them, I thought I should address Ellem, as they've just have one of their Tag's removed, but it will probably need to be restored when I re-read the articles fully and work out what I posted back then - with all the caveats and questions marks they needed!

 

Ellem were a 'mark' which appeared in the late Sharna-owned Cherilea catalogues, and were an attempt to cut costs by importing cheap product from Hong Kong, rather than relying on the expensive stuff made here, in the midst of, or possibly as a result of, all that industrial dispute/labour turmoil of the period.

This is a box of Ellem Crusaders, with three non-Ellem knights on top, off to the right-hand side, and also courtesy of John Begg (see previous post) but photographed a year earlier.

The Crusaders seem to be the same product as carried by Star Toys, so Ellem may well be a phantom-brand construct of Sharna/Cherilea, while the other two (one very mucked-about with) have the deep-hollow bases of the 'French-looking' paratroopers we saw here.

 

On the other hand, the sky-blue one is another type/maker again, having little circular indents round the locating pegs, and much-thicker walls, to an also hollowed-out base.

This is from an old photoshoot from years ago (2013) and proves little, as the angle is wrong to compare bases, but we will be returning to these from time to time, not least when further attributions turn-up! In the meantime they are just four more, probably from two (or three?) sources, with the Crusader being possibly Star and/or Ellem.

My sample of knock-off shields, the trouble with these is that they are peg-together rather than the heat-welded over-moulding of Timpo's, and consequently can be mucked-about with, by the human owners, within or between makers, to produce colour combinations which never left any of the factories, therefore I offer it only as a sample. Note: some of them are so poorly made, the symbol extends beyond the extent of the shield-board.

 

It's funny, someone used this image (seen before here at Small Scale World) without permission the other day and when I suggested he might be so quick as to enter my grave, he just laughed? You catch someone, in public, ripping you off, and they just don't care, they have no conscience in the matter?

 

Understand this; the more I'm plagiarised, the more I'm followed-up on, the more 'eemies' I have, the better the job I'm doing here, and my stats prove that, because they're all here, reading this, every day - the farty, envious, insecure, thieving, copycat, little scrotes!

 

Someone else in Hong Kong (or one of the above known or unknown makers) produced these copies, also of Timpo, but the earlier 'solids', imported (with poor-quality 'swoppet' foot figures) into the states by Ideal in large playsets, they were the same counter-top box singles here I think, or some bottle-bag rack-toy types? And someone reminded us it was Ideal the other day, but the post seems to have been taken down, so I can't find his name to credit him!

 

Back to Ellem, and some rather Blue Box-looking, Britains-copy, animal solids, in the zoo set, but I suspect 2nd or 3rd generation piracies, and shown here purely to help you sort them out of larger samples of similar animals, I know I have a dozen or so Ostriches now, all 'unknown'!

M-Toy is for Marty, May, Moon and . . . err . . . Sun!

This should have been combined with last night's post, but I was tired and running out of puff, so I just split it and went with the circus stuff first, although, as I then spent an hour or so, finding and adding the last three images in that post, I might have been better integrating this lot and leaving the others for another day, but there you go, some pretty fluid evolution here at Small Scale World!

The press page as presented in Bill B's catalogue, I've enlarged the relevant or interesting bits below, and we'll look at it all in more detail, bearing in mind that extracting decent imagery from a .pdf folder is never easy!

The company is called May Moon, but I don't think I've ever seen a toy branded to May Moon, or 'Maymoon', however we have seen here, an early (1960's) set of those I-Ton Humber mini-trucks in Maysun branding, while some of the Circus are marked Maysun, under the base, of which some come in M-Toy packaging, so we can extrapolate that it's all the same Maysun-M-Toy-May Moon, which leaves Marty, who again have some bi-branded cards (Marty and M-Toy)

The best place to go for the Marty story - which seems to be unique to the fantasy-Sci Fi set of aliens & barbarians (ray guns and axes!) is Shaun's site here, where one of the sets is in that same Gordy packaging as the Pikit sets we saw back at the start of this year's Rack Toy Month, so there may be a Pikit version out there, Brits?

As this catalogue is dated 1986 and makes no mention of Marty, we can safely assume from all the available evidence that Marty was a short-lived (one line) brand-mark and May Moon traded first as Maysun, then as M-Toy.

 

Any connection with Marty McFly (which would point to hellish-cynical marketing) is dashed by the fact that the toy set came out several years before the first movie!
 

Among all the usual rack-toy guff, I thought these two were worth enlarging as they are a copy of the Raphael Lipkin set we saw here, although they may have been changed to lay flat, but it might just have been arranged like that for the catalogue images?

The tractor/trailer seem to be a pure Timpo farm knock-off's?

While the above pair were enlarged for obvious reasons! The number of times I've seen these confused with Star Toys recently is a mystery, I mean, how do you confuse rubber copies of Britains with polyethylene copies of Airfix & Timpo? And years after other people have sorted it out? Well; because, the trouble with Faceplant is that some of these guys are whittering-away [as fact] from a position of pure ignorance!

I think we've seen the helicopter before, but nice to put a name . . . or three . . . to it! While I had the lower shot, of colour variation in the German infantry bodies, kicking around for a while, taken with a load of other stuff, so that's that out of Picasa, and Maysun, Moon and Star sorted out . . . d'yer see what I did there! I will do it all properly, one day!

C is for Canoes - 4 - Star Toys

Possibly the most amusing of the Hong Kong copy canoes, is the Star Toys effort . . . 

. . . as they copied the Timpo design with the 'stitching', but the material and style of the Herald with marbled polystyrene, in similar colour palates. Brian's is the light/dark-grey one and mine the sand/dun one, I seem to have taken a few shots trying to get some without too much reflection!

 

And while the boat is all Timpo in design, the crew are all Herald! So it's a fifty-fifty split on donors with no cut-n-shutting! The crew on the instruction diagrams bear no relationship to the actual figures. Like a lot of Star's production, they are both soft, PVC copies of the Britains men.

 

The bits in the background are too mixed to attribute, there are what look to be three Star bases, but there were dozens of issuers of these Timpo, Britains Swoppet and/or Lone Star copies and with the fourth base not Star, we have to assume they have/might have - all been mucked about with!

 

Mint sets are the only way to attribute all these properly, and that's a big job for another day, although we looked at a small import/jobber's set by Benkson, not that long ago - Britains and Lone Star poses if I recall correctly?

However, the boat and paddlers are the Star Toys one, in the same colourway as my carded example, but courtesy of Brian Berke, I think (it may be a feeBay image?). That's Star, a bit of a brief box-ticker, but most of these canoe-posts will be!

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Ephemera

As I posted some of this back in lockdown and as the lockdowns are all a couple of years ago, they might as well go here too! A rather eclectic collection, but the 'Seen Elsewhere' folder is one I have managed to migrate, find and get to grips with.

 

From the Hong Kong firm Star Toys' catalogue, their range of Timpo/Britains (and other makes?) wagon/coach clones. Amusing to see both Stage Coaches ripped-off, and Britains horses on Timpo bases.

This is from the retailer Josef Kober of Vienna's catalogue, from the mid 1970's. We see Timpo Indians attacking a Timpo cavalry/union-manned fort, while Elastolin cowboys get up to all sorts down in the town, including laying in wait for a Timpo stage! Wooden buildings exclusive to Kober.

I believe the shop only closed in the last few years, and when I posted it previously Gubányi István of Hungary recalled the shop was popular with Eastern European visitors during the Cold War, presumably due to Austria's NATO/Warpac neutrality.

This went on Brain Heiler's facebook group, where they like a bit of early evening, older kids, TV serial-related stuff, preferably Canadian, but this is British and another retailer (or actually; wholeseller)'s catalogue, Dekkertoys. I might even have a couple of those fake medal/badge 'Bling' items somewhere! Childhood Fun!

Not intending to park my tanks on Moonbase's lawn, it just happens there's a few white-button/wind-up, giant insects down the bottom of this collection of plastic kits from Bandai's 1975 catalogue, all of which have the clockwork 'walking action', I previously posted this on the STS Animal Forum over a year ago.

At the same time as I posted this image of the Marx prehistoric playset by Burbank Toys, presumably - by then - a Dunby-Combex sales vehicle (also marketing some Mattel), although originally formed in 1957. They also sold the last version of the Guns of Navarone playset, both in contents-photo' box-art, along with a third which I think was a Wild West set, with fort? It'll go on the A-Z listing in the end, with lots of other stuff!

S is for Star

I've always called these S-for-Star because I have about six Star's in the archive and I didn't know which one was responsible for the figures we're about to look at, and neither of the companies I thought might be in the frame (a Taiwanese Star which left Hong Kong around 1954 when the civil-war ended and Chiang-Kai-Shek's supporters retreated to Formosa, and a modern Star with three factories in mainland China) have subsequently proved to be this one!

'This one' being the Star Plastic Toys Manufactures Limited. As this is the third of these posts in a row you will be getting two things about Hong Kong toy makers; they either have several titles/brands/brand marks (Tai Sang / Blue-Box / Red Box et al) or a really long title, or both! As well as premises in Hong Kong, they had a showroom/office in The Toy Building in New York (200 Fifth Av.) back in the day and they also used Staristic, SPToy and Startoy.

We collectors know them for their crude knock-off copies of Britains Swoppet 'Modern' khaki infantry, which they sold with the logo (and no other markings - hence my S-for-Star - top), or branded to/for various customers (here the German-European Dickie group - middle, another's called Alme - 'Arizona' ACW sets) or as unmarked generics, which could be the little trays or loose in header-carded bottle-bags (bottom).

On the left is my generic with its atmospheric artwork . . . A US GI, advertising Germans with SLR's and '58 pattern webbing! On the right an old feebleBay image of two Wild West sets, also generics - note the Lone Star copy swoppet bases, they did (later?) use the rounded ones, but so do several further-generation copyists, generally Star provide a better pose range and a slightly higher quality figure sculpting/finish.

Back to the 'Germans' and we're going tan on the fifty-eight (is that a Q-Anon code woooohhhh!). They basically copied all the Britains Swoppet body sections AND the upper torso of the Herald khaki infantry officer, and then stuck the bodies on any-old legs.

There are only the two helmets, possibly copied from Minimodels (German helmet) and - obviously - Britains (the piss pot), and quite a few colour combinations exist between body and webbing/PLCE colours.

Upper torsos and webbing are a soft, stretchy PVC, the rest of the components are in a bog-standard 'Airfix' or soapy polyethylene.

Although all the figures in my first set (Star marked) have the Britains SLR (FN Fal.) copy, one of the new sets has a copy of the Timpo Guardsman 'At Ease' pose's weapon, with a base-locating spigot, on a couple of the figures; this may be a Timpo original as it's very good, but the set was mint, with no sign of the figures having been removed from the card (not easy without damaging or dimpling the card), but perhaps Dickie also handled Timpo imports and filled empty hands with Timpo spares? I think it's just a good copy - I'll see if others turn-up!

Artwork; Blue Box's Patton Tanks attack a Churchill, pity we didn't get a decent rack-toy of that machine! While a Pz.Kfw V, Panther is about to get it in the side from a T36½! Not an SLR is sight!

A couple of other figurals from Star, the driver of the fork-lift truck is quite common in various forms, the original was M.A.C (Mobile Action Command) figures from Lesney/Matchbox, but marketed by Star as Action Jack (? I think?) and copied - poorly - by Montaplex in Spain as Montaman in Kiosk Sopresas (surprise bags).

And I don't remember a plain black sheepdog in the recent posts on the subject here, so that's another one to find!

F is for Follow-up - Sheds for Sentries

A bonus post this afternoon as I had to deal with a couple of things and make a .gif which proved problematical!

I sort of knew I'd jumped the gun with last-week's post, but I get a bee in my bonnet and then I'm off on one! Went to look for any other's and didn't find them, but them found the little lead ones looking for something else, thought I might as well shoot the Hong Kong for Cavendish one in passing and then realised the origin of the yellow HK one was under my nose all the time, so; enough for a follow-up, methinks!

So these are the little 1:76th scale lead soldiers, presumably [at least] half-aimed at HO/OO model railways? Not sure on the nationality, either of the figures - as depicted - or the maker . . . are they French Cadet Academy; something Italian?

Of course this only reminds me I have a proper 'Nuremburg' flat (these are demi-ronde, verging on full solids) sentry-box somewhere, which will have to be for another day!

As you can see they are perfectly scaled to go with the old Airfix Guards, who with head swaps could provide a band for the lead figures, but one suspects there will be (or was) a band available?

As I mentioned last time, these were originally posted on ETS in a thread about the Scottish penguin who's Colonel in Chief of some Danish regiment or something; it's one of those stories you can't make up and only crazy pink-monkeys can end-up with!

In the course of that discussion someone did ID them I seem to recall, if only tentatively, but I can't remember what the possibility was and if I noted it at the time I don't know where the note is now?

Meanwhile the answer to the yellow Hong Kong marked hidey-hut was under my nose (courtesy of Bill B) all the time; it's a Marty Toys (M-Toys) piece, and was chucked in various sets with no recourse to realism!

Note the Happy Farm set; a copy of a Blue Box copy of Britains/Corgi!

And note also - following the latest idiocy on TJF's Shitestuff, courtesy of Erwin Sell (they make it up as they go along) - they are NOT Star. Star copied the Britains Swoppet figures with PVC-rubber packs/webbing, M-Toys are all ethylene and Airfix/Timpo/Marx piracies, albeit with the Britains stretcher-team/casualty, sans rubber-webbing.

So someone need to have a word with Marc Postelman and explain to him his set (or is it Vectis's set!) isn’t Star or Wello, but a generic from Marty Toys pretending to be Blue Box, meanwhile someone else needs to beef-up the output of Shitestuff or in may get a reputation for being inaccurate shite?

I also think my thoughts of having another in creamy/dirty-white plastic - given I haven't found them, after a look - may have been a false memory triggered by the other one I mentioned on Friday . . .

. . . .also from Hong Kong [and sometimes] for Cavendish. Marked in three little letter 'blocks'; MADEIN, HONG and KONG with a cavity number, here a 2 on one and a 4 on the other.

F is for Follow-up - Guards Musicians, 35mm

We looked at six of these after the May '17Plastic Warrior show and I got a message from Mr. Morehead at PW Towers at the time suggesting there might be ten poses, however I suspect - with the storage-set previously mentioned; now out of storage - that there are only the eight?

Two from the percussion section with a rather large 'side-drum' placed [centrally] off the waist-belt, and a cymbalist. The Brass section has four practitioners, with - from the left (and Mr Morehead will correct me if I'm wrong . . . at least there's no sousaphone!); trombone [Tuba], saxophone, bugle (? [Cornet!]) and French horn (?) while woodwind have two; oboe [Clarinet] and flute/fife [I was corrected!].

Some of them have two arms (for three parts), others have the whole as a single-moulding (for two parts), Britains got round the problem with plug-hands, here we just have quite complicated sculpting (for Hong Kong) and the obvious effort gone-to in manufacturing them is repeated in the fine painting. The drummer is the exception with four-parts - and a sticker.

The percussionists in close up to show how the arms move and to give an idea of size.

Re. the point about cavities earlier today, you will notice that these are not all exactly the same height, the moulding here used for the cymbals is smaller than the others with a slightly squidged headdress, this will be a cavity thing (multiple cavities), but the arms fit all the figures, except the saxophonist who's arms don't like parting at the elbow-line and he insists on poking himself in the eye with his instrument!

A quick reminder of Peter's donation/additions and how they have been cleverly placed in old HK Swoppet bases (two S-for-Star/Star Toys and another buckshee one) with the remains of the icing/cake spike sheered-off, flush, with a blade.

14's enough for a bandstand 'soirée', all I need now is an O-gauge railway with lavish Victorian park gardens!

M is for Men of Many Origins!

I lied - I managed to get this together late Thursday night, but there's nothing for Sunday and Monday will still be a late post!

When we looked at the Innovative Promotions Inc., / Shell premium 'Men of '76' AWI figures and sets last year (and the year before), slowly building the picture with much help from contributors, I think I mentioned once or twice that I had a few in storage, well; these are they!

They are not quite as I had remembered them, being both disappointing and surprising, some things I thought I had, I don't (must have seen them when they passed through the stock of the dealer I worked for a decade ago), but I'd forgotten a useful, small-sample of the Hong Kong copies, so very much 'swings and roundabouts'.

Small sample of the Shell premiums, looks like the contents of two bags (Shell 7 and 8) and a spare or so?

The carded Men of '76 versions, I'm not sure about the Frenchies with facings in Red and Purple, there may have been some mucking-about and checking with the catalogue and from last year's posts - set seven seems like a likely candidate . . . with a body-swap!

Plus a bunch of 'bits and pieces'; interesting to note that the kneeling Hessian can have high boots or shorter ankle- or George-boots*, all done with paint; over the same moulding.

* Presumably George III . . . like 'Wellington-boots' a few years later? Where Jack fits-in I don't know!

S for Star / Star Toys; shite, utter shite with all-polyethylene mouldings, no arm articulation, unpainted white boots, Japanese Katana-sword (even worse than Innovative's), real 'rack-toy' crap! Their hats fall off, the hair follows, their epaulettes are taking flying-lessons and they are more Timpo than Britains!

Needs work! Even between the Shell and MO76 the hats don't fit or are loose, the foot-spigots are different diameters, so these all have to be sorted very carefully when I have a bit of life to kill!

You may have noticed in one of the 'stash' posts recently tubs of the Timpo and Britains 'donor' versions from the big purchase and I think what I will do is have an AWI page, once these bits and the bits already here are sorted and the two lots of figures brought together.

I'll have a final look at all of them on a new page with the Britains and Timpo at the top, these three in the middle and MPC, & Marx Solids, a few French and Polish-made figures, cake decorations, Accurate &etc - at the bottom?

Plans! You know me and my plans - it'll be unfinished forever!

The sort of detail that page will look at, the Innovative-for-Shell on the left; fine detail, properly marked Innovative Promotions Inc., and nicely finished; In the middle the [also Innovative] Men of '76, the underside has been 'hammered', the holes are larger, the 'soil' pattern on the upper-side is cruder and it's clear that something happened to the tools between the two issues - I think I've raised the point before? It's as if they started again from scratch, copying their own earlier offering!

On the right we see Star's poor imitation of Timpo's base, with a third hole for the card's holding-peg and the odd 'chin-straps' at either end.

F is for Follow Up - Men of '76 and Their Relatives

Thanks to feedback from the Brians - Berke and Carrick (alphabetical, no favourites here!) and Tim Peterson we can reduce the question marks in the post on Colonial Insurgents I posted the other day while introducing another maker of these chaps.

Almost as soon as the post went live Brian (B) pointed out another maker's figures were similar, Brian (C) confirmed the base question and I had an email with the contents of set 9. I will update the original post, but here is the all-important shot -

Set 9
Muster List (not necessarily in correct order)
1 Standing Minutemen
1 Indian Scout
1 Kneeling Hessian
1 Standing Frenchman
4 Bases

This leaves us with the fact that there wasn't a standing Hessian? This will explain the Minuteman's legs on my example!

Brian (C) said he purchased the figures at the time and they were unmarked and dark green, so for some reason the full marking was only on the Petrol Premiums with the pale green bases?

Meanwhile the make known as Star or 'S for Star' (who made some of the better Hong Kong swoppet copies) had a stab -

Having suggested the Men of '76 are Britains piracies rather than Timpo piracies, I think it's fair to say these are closer to the Timpo figures, although they have the separate arm of the Britains/MO76 chaps, they don't have the hole in the arm to receive the ball on the end of the musket's butt which is actually not present either, and both are a Britains features rather than the single integrated-weapon moulding of Timpo.

However - there is an obvious Timpo copy horse (without blanket/saddle?) and the coat-tails look heavier and more Timpo-like? The gun only serves to further explain the mass of them out there, but I'd like to compare it side-by-side with a MO76 one, there are probably slight differences which would be worth noting.

Star was also responsible for the 'Regiment' sets of Britains Swoppet 'Khaki Infantry' copies in various colours, similar Mexicans, other Wild West/ACW types and the Action Jack articulated action-figure (copied from an Italian toy?) which was ultimately re-produced as the risibly bad Montaman by Montaplex.

Brian Berke also sent me this, with the following in his own words;

"The attached photo in the centre shows two mounted Americans painted by me.

The plain lead (probably pewter) castings were sold in a Farm Museum at Cooperstown, New York a town better known in the US for The Baseball Hall of Fame, and for being on Otsego Lake the setting for James Fennimore Coopers stories, Last of the Mohicans etc.

This is the sort of area where the plastic AWI figures would be sold if they were available."

The Tourist figures look like old home-casts and painted-up well? I'm more interested in what's happening on the far right; I think she needs a Perspex oblong laid on her so she can serve as a pop-art coffee-table a'la' Clockwork Orange! There's a lot happing in the picture actually - loving the Mekon lurking in his deep box frame, and the little group of French 'pilou' are interesting . . . Lucotte? Minot? At least three makes!

S is for Swoppet

So the other main range of 'Khaki Infantry' not deserving of a place on the page I'm publishing the rest on is the Britains 'Swoppet' British Infantry. They did lead to piracies and derivatives, but they too are, or tent to be, stand alone, rather than mixed-up with all the derivations of the Herald and Timpo GI ranges.

There are basically four body types in this range, and while some arms are plug-in, others are fixed and the plug-in ones don't have much room for variations, so although there are technically six poses, this was quite a limited set.

The play value really came from the constructional aspect and all the little bits and pieces. Packs in PVC that could be removed from the belt, picks and shovels, separate SLR semi-automatic rifles, pop-on helmets and swivel-heads and waists. The medical sets and the mortar were also stunning with the 'extra mile' that other makers never attempted.

The Swoppets posed with their nearest rival in the Herald range. The similarity is another failing of this set, why didn't they (Britains) give them new poses? Though the fact that they all had SLR's rather than the experimental EM2 was a bonus!

Back in the summer I bought a Junk lot off a chap who collects Swoppet Knights and always contacts me with the pictures of what's left.The pictures included the one top-left here, a nice shovel and the standing stretcher with storage box were the high-points of a typical car-boot lot.

However, once the deal had been done and the stuff had arrived there were some bits not shown in the photographs, namely the plasma-bottle and another shovel. This 'missing' bottle allowed me to add the whole vignette to the collection, although the blanket is brittle and on the shopping list!

Another shot of the kneeling firers and a close-up of the exquisite mortar tube round-off the collage.

Typically - Hong Kong couldn't leave this set alone though, so there are various versions of both the 'swoppets' in the lower shot and the solids above them to be sought-out by the completist collector. The solids are also given an additional pistol, while the mortar bomb seems to have become a walkie-talkie!

The 'Regiment' by S (Star?), the upper torsos are soft synthetic vinyl rubber as are the packs (by both S and Britains), and there is a hint of Herald Khaki Infantry in the pointing officer and one of the poses is struggling to hide a Timpo bugler's heritage!

Ethylene piracies of the swoppets done as single-mould solids as seen in the upper-shot three pictures above.