T is for TAG

Which may or may not have stood for something longer like 'Toby and Garry' or 'Turner and Griswold' but nobody seems to know? The general acceptance being that it just refers to the tags they came with, but I feel it may be a chicken-and-egg conundrum, especially with the capitalisation of the TAG, on the tags!?

 

RAF Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps, Infantry (with a camouflaged beret!), and the Parachute Regiment, done in what is almost a Belgian (Durso) style, the same sculpt being used with different paint on the berets to represent several of the main protagonists of the British Army in the then, just finished, World War.

 

The reverse of the tags have a small thumbnail sketch or written vignette of the unit/figure represented. Their post-war issue being revealed in the text - 'served', and 'earned', in the past tense.

 

 

 

The officer corps were also represented, and here we see a standard Army officer, and RAF 'wallah' and their corresponding tags, the arms of the flyboy are uncomfortably wrong, in that the left arm should be slightly forwards, in time with the right foot.

Our Allies were also modelled, and here we see two GI's, and it's nice to see them in both 'white' and African American skin-tone paint-jobs, because we appreciated everyone who helped. Although without the tags, the black soldier may have been representing Brazil, who sent troops to the Italian campaign?

 

This seems to be a better rendition of an Infantry beret, but again, might be representing Canada or something like that, I don't know how large the series was, or how many nations were represented?
 

A comparison between the two shows a marked size discrepancy between the different mouldings, and is that a fledgling (at the time) UN flash on the GI's shoulder, maybe he's the Brazilian?

Ceremonial uniforms of both our own and allied armies, with a 'Highlander' (no specific regiment given) and a Cossack. I have one in another colourway somewhere (seen on the blog years ago) and have seen others, there may be as may as four different treatments of the decoration on this sculpt, even six - black, red, and white coats, with reverse versions?

 

A difficult subject, the Cossacks, as they fought in large numbers on both sides, mounted troops being very useful in winter snow, and for covering distance over the steppes in summer. Those fighting with us, were of Russian descent, those fighting agin' us, were fighting for Ukrainian Independence rather than in support of Nazism, while atrocities were committed by both sides.

 

The Women's Royal Army Corps weren't forgotten . . .

 

. . . and both the Monkeys and Snowdrops got a look-in!

Quality of finish varies, my Cossack is so tough or dense, and so smooth I thought he was resin, for years! While the figure on the left is a much rougher moulding, almost as lumpy as the worst examples of wood/linseed composition figures.

 

The first four again, showing the berets a bit better, the Para's is far too dark, as well as the odd Infantryman's two-tone headdress! Also showing the identical obverse of the tags through this sample, I don't know how many series' there were, or even if they ever got round to a Series 2?

 

     

T is for Tente - Tank Transporter and Tail-ends

So, the last of the Tente stuff in the car-booty found by Peter Evans back in the Summer, and it's 'most of the rest', of what seems to have been a ten-kit set, although I've got bits of naval vessels in the same 'army' green, still not a colour offered, in any quantity, by Lego, so the full range may have gone to 12 or 15 boxes?

 

The tractor unit is vaguely based on the Kynos Aljaba 8×8, but that was an 8x8 (obviously) not a 6x6, so it's a very loose resemblance, some Soviet tractors look similar, but usually with a closed cab, as do/are the Faun SLT's of the Bundeswehr.

 

With the trailer, which is even more generic!

Always hard to photograph tank transporters (or large ship models), simply because of the horizontal dimensions! But these give you some idea. The previously seen Tanque, and the Ambulance, before I had found its loose bits and reattached them!

 

It came with its own (2nd model) tank, the bulk of which was missing from the car boot find, and which is closer to the ex-US Patton or Pershing M46/47 & M48/M60's that were common in the Spanish inventory for the bulk of the post-war/Cold War era. But most of the turret was in the bag, and with the barrel off the other, I could produce that, for a photograph!

 

Alternate suggestions mostly involve slight tweaks to the configuration, but the half-tracked transporter is spacey! While the tank becomes a chunky-monkey personnel carrier or wheeled tank.

 

The ephemera awaiting scanning, includes a half-track which was also missing, however, I think bits of it might have been in the less-than-colour-matched ambulance truck, we saw at the start of this sequence.

 

 Reverse of its instructions include a vague weapons-platform, and a cargo-truck.

 

Missing numbers are the Missile Helicopter, a quadruple SPAAG, based, clearly, on the Soviet-era ZSU-32-4, while, not illustrated anywhere here, was a large 8x8, wheeled APC, coded #0751, which was probably the weakest model in the range - body too big for the wheels, giving it a very open and top-heavy look.

 

All the important bits of the helicopter (cockpit, rotor, tail, skids) were also in the bag, with a handful of bricks which may have been helicopter, but may have been half-track, if you were to follow the instructions! Another bag of bits and a pair of the shorter tracks, and I will be able to complete both!

So, many thanks to Peter for spotting these, and saving them for the Blog, something a bit different!

T is for Teixido Return!

Yes, a rather too-cheerful title given my views of bullfighting, but they have to be posted, and while I hate the 'sport' and the idea of it still being a thing in the 21st Century, I take heart in the fact that another Matador was gored to death the other day (at least he got to feel how the bulls felt), and two others have quit, publically, in the ring! One breaking down and sobbing, at the enormity of what he'd been doing, all his adult life, to innocent, proud, confused animals.

 

We'll start at the end . . . of the bull. It's all about the killing of bulls, and, the longer the fight, the weaker the bull gets, so the final flourish, and the applause of the bloodthirsty crowd is utterly pointless, as the bull's so weak by that point it's almost a mercy killing, for what the fighters have been doing for the previous . . . twenty minutes; hour; two hours? I don't care how long the fights take, they are barbarous.

 

These are the Teixido figures (I think? They may go with the Jecsan below?) we last saw on someone else's table with me pointing out I didn't have any, I now have a decent sample, and we're going to look at them now, along with a few others, that have come-in over the last couple of years!

 

Two more mounted figures which I think go with the Teixido set, but I'm not sure, some of them are more rubbery, others are 'ethylene, and while some have separate arms, others don't! And all the horses were polyethylene, but not all the riders went on all the horses!

 

Theses are all Teixido, and there was some judicial swapping of arms, between shots, to get everyone looking correct, and a few bodies didn't get photographed as their arms clearly weren't here! The last one is correct, I think, but the camera-angle makes him look like his plug-in arm is growing out of his back!

 

The guy on the right in the first shot, can be posed to be dragging his red-rag behind him, as we saw last time we looked at these. 

 

I think these are all Jecsan, although one has a more Reamsa style base, so I stand to be better informed on all these, but the whole 'bullfighting zone' sample is quite big now, and when it's all brought together we'll have a proper look at all of them, and compare with the various catalogue images in the archive, to get them all grouped correctly! In fact, I think the standing bull is the Teixido.

 

Jecsan horse, I think, not sure on the rider, who seems to be some kind of referee or officiator? He has a separate cloak, so may also be Teixido.

 

Comparison between a Comansi (?), unknown, unpainted one (which keeps turning up and may be a touristy thing?) and the Teixido horse, his padded-armour/blanketing is of finer etching/sculpting.

 

Jecsan with a Reamsa'ish base, a tourist keepsake, we saw another one (white, plug-on base), years ago, and one of the Teixido's. The tourist one is a polystyrene, hard-plastic solid, with metal pin inserted.

 

Further comparison, with the Torres wine premium on the left and one of the unknown small-scales from 2024's Plastic Warrior show plunder on the right, for some reason I swapped out the Teixido but not the Jecasn?

 

Hong Kong
Seen before, but cropped-tight and lacking the now-dead link to the auction!

 

I had the Jecsan stuff here, but the Comansi and Reamsa stuff is in storage, or on a dongle I can't be bothered to look for, right now! The reamsa'ish base one is it the ring, facing the other way, so he is Jecsan, but no sign of the towing vignette, the Referee, or a dead bull, so that probably is all Teixido after all!

 

While the two we saw yesterday aren't in these scans, so probably are Reamsa, as the Comansi's have bigger bases - it's not made any easier by them all four using the same gloss orange on the bases! I guess, after a thousand years, all that bull's blood has darkened the sand?

 

Please donate.

Imagine if these colourful, dynamic, civilian figures could still be collected, but as 'historical' subjects, rather than examples of man's ongoing cruelty, and inhumanity to everything around him?

T is for Two - Christmas Plastics

A couple of plastic sets turned-up in The Works back at the start of September, which was a bit too early for crimbo' posts, but it's not often you see new, plastic cake decorations these days, so here they are now!

 

Two different sets, each providing for a typical vignette for the cake, only a vignette from a 1970's cake! I don't think people do cakes like that any more, or if they do, they use the 'family' decorations, to do the same traditional cake each year?

 

Looks to be a mix of polystyrene mouldings (the two figures), poured resin (tree) and air-dried-clay - the candy-cane, so ancient and modern in the one teeny bag!

 

Penguin delivering Christmas prezzies!