E is for Ephemeral Extras

A couple of Supreme related scans, just now, one I'd forgotten I'd had, the other I thought I'd lost, and we'll start with the second first!

 

This is from the Christmas flyer from the recently defunct Wilkinson's Stores / Wilco, and was around 2001-4, they ran them several years in a row and I managed to get three, but I know I missed one, as I saw some of the vehicles in missing colourways, as part of a Santa' window display in the travel agents next door to the Wilkinson's in Farnborough (or Aldershot) in the third or fourth year!

Anyway, we've looked at two non-Command Central sets over the years (Mini Wheels) and most of the stuff loose, so I've given everything-related a 'Command Central' tag, if you click on it, you'll get everything in reverse order of posting!

The Strawberry Group's 2002-3 catalogue has these, and I've mentioned them before and fingered the Knights as Supreme, and the Wild West are supposed to be them too, and while I've only got the word of some 'Old Guard' on that, it sort of makes sense.

 

I was buying these for other people a few years earlier as I drove around the UK, and while Tiger Hobbies would take over the running of the Knights a year or two later, I don't know if they took over the Wild West, or when exactly the current pale-brown, floppy, flat-based ones replaced these Deetail-alikes? I think I now have all four cowboys, but not sure if I have any Indians, the prone-firing maybe?

On the same page, and as an importer like Strawberry might put all one supplier's products together, while we have yet to find any animals credited to Supreme, it's reasonable to assume these might be from the same stable! But that's pure conjecture/a guess, not gospel! Funnily enough, some of these horses may have come-in with the recent donations from Jon Attwood, so we may see them again soon!

V is for Villainous Venturer's New Version!

Remember the trio of small pirates we looked at in ITLAPD a few years ago, which I then found a Halsall-branded packaging (now HTI) shot of, on my old 'phone, for last year? Well, I found the even-older donors in storage!

These are they, the top three are the poses we've seen before here, the lower trio are 'new to Blog', colourful, around 35mm and a soft vinyl-like polymer.

They too (mentioned in the last post) have things in common with the Tiger/Strawberry Group stuff from the 1990's, credited to Supreme, but that doesn't mean I'm saying they are SP Toys, just that they are of that era/oeuvre, not least that Halsall carried the smaller copies and also carry copies of Supreme knights!

On the right of the clone-pairs are the Halsall copies and you can see they are a bit smaller and thinner all-round, (classic bad-pantographing), but follow the paint-scheme closely, apart from the base-wash. In cases like this they are as likely to be contracted by the originator of the donors as they are to be illegal copies, but again; I'm not saying that's the case, there's no evidence, either way.

They are scaled to go quite well with the Toy Bank vessel Peter Evans sent to the Blog last Christmas, after I had shelfied it; too tight to buy one!

Incidentally, there is a similar vessel appearing on feebleBay and Amazon at the moment, with two 54/60mm pirates, there are several deals, all 'buy it now', at least one direct from China, the others apparently UK clearance/wholesale type eBayers/sellers and all between 5.99 and 10-quid odd, well worth a look, I was tempted and they may be here for next year's ITLAPD!