F is for Follow-up - Combat Plunder Post

Basically looking at the 'who are they' figures, I'm afraid it doesn't add much, but is a useful reminder of where we're at with these. I had a couple of other supporting images in Piacsa, so I've put a few up, at the end of the post.

 

This is a shot of the versions I was originally told were Galoob, and which are copies of the Galoob Micromachine smallies, or were pantographed-down for them, but there is no evidence to date that the 40mm versions were actually, ever sold by Galoob, however they are quite common as Realtoy, Daron or Sky Mark. I'm now pretty certain these came from whichever Chinese factory was supplying Galoob.

 

While this set is the softer copies, which I have pencilled in, with the minimal of circumstantial evidence as being from Pioneer, or whoever supplied Pioneer, given they were primarily a die-caster. Here in Imperial/Buddy L branding, we have also seen them as Stonegalleon and Woolbro/Toy Leader, while the smaller, unpainted copies, are more likely Pioneer. This is a poor shot, which I think must be the seller's picture of a set I bought, as . . .
 

. . . I have managed to scan the lining-card! You can see several of the firefighter figures which have come in with mixed lots, and some construction workers, I hadn't even made the connection on! The prone figure is not a Galoob sculpt.

 

Shipped into the UK by Titan, which puts Supreme in the frame too, but only loosely, they had their own sculpts, the larger Ackerman et all., set. I'll try to remember to do a follow-up or 'roundup' on them too, once the Chris donation posts are done.

 

The best way to understand it (or not!) is to click the Realtoy Tag, but it's all getting a bit confused, and I'll need to bring everything together in a larger post, with all the sets, and the many loose figures (no duplicates so far, due to three sizes, two materials, and a dozen or so plastic colours and/or paint-ways), set side-by-side.

 

And then, are the bigger (50/54mm) ones we saw from Greece (Zita Toys) also Pioneer or another supplier, the evidence is they are Pioneer, and they have some of the firefighter poses too. The fact that the rough, oblong based versions are now being found alongside the smoother, ovoid 'Galoob' bases, suggests one source for all bar the Realtoy, and what evidence we do have, is that Pioneer (or their supplier) may be that supplier?

 

Some more of the poorer copies of Marx's 45mm GI's, in two shades of green, I have a few of these too, somewhere! We looked at them quite early-on in the Blog's history, here

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2012/07/l-is-for-late-thanks-to-blogger.html

 

The hard-plastic, painted-polystyrene versions turn-out to have been a troop supplied with this battery-operated ("Bateries not included"!) Power Mite truck. A similar yellow truck with (I think?) cement-mixer OR aggregate-tipper bodies had the six (?), very finely sculpted, 35/40mm construction workers, like Blue Box's copies of Dinky, but much nicer, and very brittle. They may also have had a later, window-box issue? I think a comment on that old post may have been confusing these with the smaller Miniature Masterpiece sets?

 

A reminder of the smallest packaging variant of the Supreme/SP Toys issues.

B is for Big Box of Bounty - Wild West . . . and Pirates!

You can't know everything, and I learnt something pretty fundamental last week, while I was sorting-out Chris Smith's latest parcel to the Blog, to share with you lot, but let's look at the Wild West component first!

 

A card hoodlum, rearing on a tamed mustang! The hoof needs glueing, one of two miniscule victories by Royal Fail's vandalisation Elves this time, he's lost his Stetson too, but one supposes, some time ago! The Man in Black, a pound-shop Lee Van Cleef, looks a lot like some Supreme output, but is not from their well-known series, nor, as far as I am aware, did Papo ever do more than one modern cowboy on horse, which is a clue . . . ?

 

A Hong Kong, 45mm copy, of a Gulliver copy, of the Atlantic Sioux Camp seated brave, and another of the probably Euro', possibly premium, Indians (no cowboys have turned-up yet) set, of which I have quite a few now, but that Chris has probably found more of, than me!

 

The 40mm, AHM, Culpitt, Injectaplastic, Jouets Super Plastic (et al.?) set, and it's extraordinary that despite collecting these for years (as a small-scale collector), both poses and colour variations continue to turn up, I'm still looking for an Indian archer (and most of the accessories), I knew I needed the dancing guy in orange trousers, and the standing firing cowboy is a new (4th) colour variation! They will both get bases from other figures in the larger sample.

 

The Crescent hollow-cast/Lido Wild West chaps, and an oddity! On the left, grist to the mill, he's a bit bashed, but will still join the sample, to increase the size of the sample, against future looks/comparisons; we've seen several variations of the set over time.

 

In the middle, an absolute mint, 'Germany' marked, novelty pencil sharpener, an incredible find, and so generous of Chris to sent it here? And remember, as well as some of the better KT sharpeners, it was Chris who found the Ichthyosaur/Dolphin hybrid sharpener!

 

While the third chap could be Wild West, a clown or a farmer, and may be Hong Kong, or . . . French? Anyone recognise him? He looks like he should have a wheelbarrow, and may be a French farmer? He could be a Marty clown; paint and plastic are right, but also looks like some of those old hollow-cast cowboys with their furry sheepskin chaps and soft felt hats, so got sorted into this lot for now!

 

These were on the top of the box, so I spotted them straight-away, but baseless it's hard to know if they are French or Italian cheapies, or some Hong Kong knock-offs? But New to me and Blog for sure! Obviously taken from the Britains Herald 'Swoppets', solidified, does anyone know what bases they should have?

Small scale, Chris is very good at keeping samples of these separate, it's the only way to use them for research, the larger bag is a clean-looking sample of 'Wavymane', and while there's "always" a clean looking sample of Wavymane, I never turn away from such things, as it would be churlish, and you never know when a completely new horse type or figure pose might have been buried among them by a previous owner!

 

The smaller bag is more mixed, while the real odds are spread out in front, and include useful wagon parts for the Giant/post-Giant pile and the National and others' pile!

 

While up a band (25-30mm), we have, from the left; two Torgano Indian boys (or, from the rest of the set; boys dressed as Indians), both missing their bows (very delicate), and a Comansi horse, although, with the flash, and saddle-spike, possibly a Sobre or similar knock-off? And a small handful of the Blue Box smallies, to the right.

Finishing off with three interesting pirates, or 'a potential pirate', in the case of the right-hand figure, another one new to me, also with elements of Supreme/SP Toys output, but is he a cowboy, a pirate or a civilian of some kind? Possibly, a rather ephemeral figure from one of the many 'big box' pirate ship play-sets, over the years? Or, does he belong with the glossier, obvious cowboy (or detective?!) figure at the start of this post - I don't think so, but you have to look at every angle? Simply marked 'CHINA'.

 

On the left is a new-to-me, off-white, colour variant of the Thomas/Poplar pirates, we only looked at the other day, on the last Interrr'nationaaal Taark Like a Poirut Daye event, while in the middle is another of the revelations of Chris's box . . . 

 

. . . a marked Papo pirate, from the 1990's, who has nothing in common with the current range, which has been in the catalogue for years now, but that clearly provided the donor-sculpt for the smaller, Supreme pirate with similar blunderbuss?

 

Now, Papo themselves only claim to be 'nearly' 30 years old, so this (1999 CHINA) must be one of the earlier products in their range, and - I've just spent some time trying to Google them and only found the current set - so, I guess, A) they were a short-lived line, making this uncommon, or uncommon outside France (?) and B) the rest of the Papo set must be the other donors for the Supreme set?

 

And while I'm sure some people knew all or part of the above, nobody seems to have Blogged it, there's nothing on the Forums (or Papo's website), and nobody has pointed it out/corrected me, on all the occasions I've Blogged the Supreme set, which is now neither as old, nor as cool as I thought it was! Now I know, it's gotta'be about finding the others, and did Papo originally do the six SP Toys skeleton 'enemy' too?

 

And, all this is not to say I shouldn't have known, I have the early Papo catalogues somewhere, mostly donated by Peter Evans or another friend of the Blog (have they been in a show-report in PW magazine?), and, I guess, the set must be in some of them? But many thanks to Chris for sending it, and everything else above.

ITLAPD - is for Oi Take Long 'Ard Peep at Dease!

Ah-Haarrr! It be that toim of the yearrr again, when those of a surrt'un disposition make some effort to talk loik a demented West-countryman, in the purrr'soot of sound'in loik a poirrate!  Thankfully, yer land-lub'in deck-swarrbs, this nun-sense only gets a paragraaf orrr two, and this be one uv-em!

 

One of the seen-elsewhere shots announcing International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a right old mix, and all seen here piecemeal, in the past, on past pirate days! So a bit of a 'what can you spot' job, and it makes for a decent intro' shot!

 

Brian Berke sent a bunch of stuff to the Blog the other day, and among them was this framed pair of Ron Embleton artworks, watched-over by Captain Pugwash, who seem to inveigle his way into every ITLAPD these days! From the page size, I'm guessing the right-hand image is either from Look & Learn, or Tell Me Why? World of Wonder was a smaller 'standard' or modern format, the other two were quite big. With the left-hand image cropped out of that issues cover?

 

Three sets of the Supreme / SP-Toys pirates, seemingly as a generic (there may have been something on the back of the cards?), similar to other we've seen, but interesting for the re-use of Supreme's Wild West sets' accessories!

 

A set of Pirates from Accoutrements, more on these in a later post, but for now a set of four forty-millimetre filibusters, in a carded blister.

 

There was more in the 'mixed intro' post, but thing's got moved, so that's it, but we're off on another regular round-up of all things pirate, which have come in over the last 12-months or so, we might even get some of the stuff which has been sitting here for several years now, out!

L is for the London Scene

Peter Evans also sent me some rack-toy stuff in time for the end of a slow month! We've seen some of it before, but images is images and these blogs are all about the images;

There's a lot of this kind of thing around at the moment, funny little pull-back-and-go cars, carts and these trikes, ridden, driven or mostly consisting of baby animals, teddy bears or dinosaurs, and I've seen boxed-sets of multiples!

 

I think we've seen both of these here, but new images, and out there now (try garden centres, if out of town), Peterkin above and Halsall below, the Peterkin's are similar to the old Ackerman (et al.) sculpts, while the HTI set is from a current generation of China-troops in the style of modern US GI's.

 

These are the larger version or 'next size up' from the sets we saw out of Poundstretcher the other day, Supreme copies, but here four figures (instead of two) and two main accessories instead of one, so presumably four assortments, two with cowboys and two with Indians. 

 

 

And I think we saw a green one of these a few years ago, also Poundstretcher, or similar? Soft vinyl or silicon rubber key-ring dinosaurs.

 

Many thanks to Peter for these, all submissions gratefully received! 

F is for Fugging-bluddery!

It's Rack Toy Month! It's fugging rack toy month and I totally forgot! To be honest I'm still not really in the mood, but at some point you have to get back on the bloody horse, don't you? Also, I'm not sure what I've even got in the bag for RTM, and I've promised to post a donation first, so, we'll see?

 

But I found these a few months ago in an almost deserted discount store in Borden, so they'll do, for a start . . . Rack Toy Month everybody!

 

Not a cowboy to be seen, I guess their sets had sold first! The slightly thinner copies of the Supreme/SP Toys Wild West, here under the banner of PMS International again, with two Indians and a plastic shrub per-bag, plus one of the previously seen scenic pieces, from the top: Totem Pole, 2 Tee-pee/tipi's, air-burial platform/lookout, and camp fire with tripod and pot.

 

And I think they were about one-fifty each, so proper rack-toy price!

S is for Studio Cards & Gifts

I think they are still going, but as more of an online model, with bespoke 'personalised' stuff, but it could be another company, 20-years have gone by! But Studio Cards & Gifts used to be a mail-order firm of the type which fished for customers with ad's for Home Farms, Noah sets, and the like (we've seen one of their Nativities here), in women's magazines in the 1980's. Reeling you in with payment terms like the book clubs on the back of Sunday Supplements.

 

This catalogue from 2004's Christmas season includes possibly the earliest example of the Supreme sets I have in the archive, although the stuff itself is older? And the Western town is still kicking around, although I think you can only find the smaller Pirate sets these days?

Not sure if I've noticed the snakes before (and I have posted images of the town), but they do turn-up quite often, so it's nice to know they are Supreme Wild West and not from some zoo/jungle animal set!

Very different 'little jolly boat' to the bright reddy-orange or turquoise ones you can still find in the tourist-attraction type carded rack-toy sets, one of which we have seen here, not that long ago. Interesting that the two crews are identified by red or blue clothing, even if only a bandana, so next time I get the figures out I should be able to photograph them as early (painted bases with skeleton 'enemy'), mid-production (red and blue 'crews'), and - as 'late' - any, shiny variations or simpler paint-jobs?

N is for Nursery Rymes!

Whatsisname Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on a Tuesday,
Married on a Wednesday,
Took ill on a Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,

Still believing Stevens International (US importer/jobber) and Sunjade (wholesaler/shipper) were the names behind the output of Supreme - SP Toys, poor chap! How does such ignorance persevere in a hobby where the facts are known? Is it that a certain type feels they can only shout at the world for its unfairness, by being idiots within their own 'community'?

Buried on Sunday,
That was the end,
of Whatsisname Grundy

B is for Big-Box Play Set

I've mentioned before that we never really did big play sets here in the UK, houses were too small, I think? The closest we got to such things really were the 'HO-OO' assault sets from Airfix, and a few similar things in the late 1970's from them in 1:32nd scale and/or Matchbox, who's were a tad poorer I thought, but this set from Supreme / SP Toys is of similar thought.

Scanned from an old Wilkinsons catalogue from the 2000's, these were piled high each Christmas for several years, and Index (the UK catalogue shop) may have carried one or two. Strangely, for what is supposed to be a publicity shot, this in the set with the poorest contents, most of th sets having fewer 'planes and more, better vehicles, but if you're a fan of 'planes, I guess this would have been the one for you?

 

We looked at the contents back at the start of the blog;

 

AFV's - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/03/s-is-for-supremesp-toys-part-1-armour.html

Soft Skins - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/03/s-is-for-supremesp-toys-part-2-soft.html

Big Rigs - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/03/s-is-for-supremesp-toys-part-3.html 

Combat Engineering - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-for-applause-part-4-armoured.html

and a few years later;

Figures - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2014/11/s-is-for-supreme-sp-toysand.html

 

And I suppose there were about six or eight different ones, as far as contents went, of which I maybe saw about five in person, plus this one, and one with more desert versions of the vehicles I only have in green, which I know existed, as a shop in Farnborough used them in a window display one year!

M is for Matters Arising!

Well, I've pulled the last big post, which happens to be one of the posts pulled last year! The other was the Premium Pirates, so very convenient that Kent moved first! I'm not pulling it because I've run out of time or got flue, but because I couldn't be arsed to finish it off this afternoon, went and did other things and am now looking forward to a late chicken stew which will take 'till midnight (needs deboning), if I get this out quick!

And what this is, are a few shots I took as a sort of follow-up a couple of hours ago while I was round at the flat getting the tins of chicken soup and mushrooms for the base of the stew!

 

The yellow one here is the Webb's Supertoy pirate one, but I've had several of the pink ones from Peter Evans, and while I suspect something more 'princessy', the figure makes a good period C18th lady-pirate, or pirate's moll, and an ID would be nice, the embarrassment may be that she's on the blog in one of those pinky-mauve sets from 99p Stores or Poundland around ten-years ago! Anyone recognise these pink ladies?

Having waited years, over a decade to get a full set of these (finally managed a year or so ago), five came along at once - the Supreme / SP undead pirates!

 

I mentioned the likely compatibility, and you can see here the eight Crazy Pirates from New Zealand and Aussie-landia (there was a Peruvian issue too), do fit in well with the other set of twenty, so even more fun, pity nobody knew that in 1970! Many thanks to Glen again for those.

 

Comparison between the PVC-alike production of Papo (50mm), Plastoy (45mm) and the Pirateology game-piece figure (40mm), all a bit 'ish, but all out there now, and relatively affordable!

 

This (Supreme for Halsall - now HTI) should have been covered in the ITLAPD into' post last year or the year before, but a loose boat came in, and I had the spare figure here, so posed them both together!

 

And that's it for this year, much gratitude to everyone who's helped and/or contributed; Brian Berke, Peter Evans, Glen Sibbald, Chris Smith, John Begg, Jon Attwood, and you, if I've failed to mention you . . . no, not YOU, you ate all the biscuits and wandered off, I'm not even inviting you next year.

Ah'haaarrrrr mee arrty felloows! Until next yearrr, may the wind get behind yerrr sails and yerrr mast stay up! Ooo-urrh missus!

S is for Seen Eleswhere - Piratey Pirates!

These were last year's ITLAPD images at another place, we've seen them all before here, so just a box-ticking exercise in colourful imagery that serves also as a Picasa clearer

 

Marx 'Warriors of the World' (WotW or simply WoW) and variants.

 

 

Safari 'toob' set.

 

Supreme / SP Toys later iteration.

 

Charbens and a re-issue or two.

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 Viking, Vinyl Vikings

Quick box-ticker here at Small Scale World, nearly included in the mini-season on Supreme medievals back in January or whenever it was, and a go-to in Rack Toy Month most years; Supreme / SP Toys, and this year is no exception! There's actually some Arabs somewhere (show report) which may make the month, if I keep-up the posting rate!

 

Here masquerading as 'by Atosa', on a sticker, presumably an importer or retailer's phantom-brand, it's a standard Supreme packaging from about ten or fifteen years ago. Six foot, there may have been one or two pairs of mounted in similar packs? You can see two of them on the card and there were others on the back, but it wasn't in a fit state to photograph, or scan!

I was going to leave them in the blister so took this close-up, price label suggests the continent, but it could have come via the Republic of Ireland, however, I fancy it may have entered the UK on a second weekend in May, via PB Toys!

Here's some I prepared later! The packaging was pretty shot and only hanging together from the front, so in the end I binned it . . . makes room too! They're nice figures, one (guy on the end) needs his shield heat-bent the other way. That's it, box ticked, tagged - "Next!"

C is for Canoes - 2 - Britains Herald and Copies

So, who didn't have one of these when they were a kid? You didn't? You may have a case at the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, or wherever - 'parental cruelty'! I think we probably got ours in our Christmas stockings around 1969/70? But they may have been a summer treat to play-with in the inflatable paddling pool?

 

This was a different packaging than I remember, although it changed several times, in fact the following of the canoe-cards, the Elephant-boxes and especially the catalogues in the 1960's & 70's is a journey in itself from B&W, to psychedelia, through flower-power and glam-rock to something more conservative and boring in the 1980's!

Brian has two, both manufactured in the earlier marbled plastic which was to try and recreate the natural wood and hide products used in real life, but, it has to be said, the design itself was 'Theme Park', I remember hiring canoes like this from Wellington Country Park, and they were aluminium shells with fibre-glass-reinforced plastic seats and fittings!

 

The crew of his fawn one have the later, more colourful, paint-jobs, the grey boat's crew have the earlier 'buckskins', and the boats had stickers of the US interwar pattern, international military-aircraft recognition roundel!

I believe that when the type 2 appeared, it first appeared in this guise, as a trapper's boat with a Native American Indian . . . mate, partner, guide . . . servant? Both vessel types had the bent wire-rod counter-weight, which serves as a keel and keeps the otherwise very buoyant toys level and realistically low in the water.

 

Mine; I too have a marbled 1st type, with the trapper-era type 2 in the middle and a final iteration on the right of the trio, new mouldings of crew are given a Deetail compatible 'wash' finish in a leery orange!

 

Although the crew of the third canoe are genuine Britains, the boat itself is from the Red Box (Redbox) 'Buffalo Fort' play set I think, which has mostly Airfix figure copies - Indians in red and the cowboys in blue - for US cavalry!

 

Comparisons, the pictures pretty-much say all that needs saying, the new ones were a tad bigger, but then with Deetail, everything was bigger than Herald, with heavier sculpting too.

 

Brian has a nice copy, no brand attribution at this time, but similar to and probably 'after' the Supreme one, but it's superior for having a crew!

 

The Supreme one is a bit more colourful, but didn't get a crew, so I've used a couple of 'unknown' crew, which I've also shot in close-up, as we won't see them again in these posts. 

 

One of the Supreme sets which the copy came in, we saw a copy of the copy in the introductory post, smaller, but copying the same colour-scheme as the Supreme/SP Toys example. Note also; the raft and oar.