P is for Perfect Polymer Propine - Wild West

So we arrive at the Wild West section of Theo van de Weerden's lovely donation to the Blog, and there are some real treats here too, starting with the best thing in the box . . .

 

. . . the Koho Wigwam (Teepee / Tipi), unusually, for the era, a blow-moulded piece, looking like a Hong Kong-produced beach toy. And when I saw it, I was ever so pleased and eMailed Theo to the effect I'd chatted to someone about it a while ago, only for him to remind me that he was the co-respondent in that original exchange, and it was his photograph of this item, which I was remembering, from a follow-up post! I can't retain it all in my small head!

 

So, we have seen it before, but worth a second look, as it's actually quite fragile, in it's shopping bag thin material, and complicated moulding, and therefore probably quite a rare beast these days?

 

The Timpo Teepee, I used to think it was the 'late' version, but, in fact it was the counter top version, being to big/bulky for the boxed sets, and actually ran alongside the slot-together for many years, with the similar over-moulded design elements on the alternate sections.

 

Starlux Tipi in a hard polystyrene, I think this may be a later version, as I have seen heavier mouldings of the same tent, and it would seem the walls were thinned, with a wider male insert to the mould tool?

 

Theo also sent us his Koho figure sample which greatly enhances mine, and with one or two having come-in in odd lots, or from Chris Smith, since we last looked at them, when we return to them next (in a few years?!) it'll be a far more comprehensive post!

 

Britains spares.

 

These are useful, I think, in time, they, like those knights the other day, will turn-out to be ABC (or 'HK' or CMV), but it's a question of finding them marked, while they do turn-up in other packagings, either unmarked as generics, or with what are probably phantom brands?

 

And, like the 'Khaki Infantry' of those three otherwise unknown Hong Kong manufacturers, there are - across the set - Britains, Crescent and Lone Star copies found, in several versions, from full size with larger squared bases, through to very small ones with bulgy alien-eyes.

 

Three larger figures, middle is Cherilea, right is Hilco, and the guy on the left, crawling with rifle, has me stumped, one of the less common Jean's? Another Koho? Something European though, I'm pretty sure!

 

Two Crescent who may benefit from a repaint!

 

This is lovely and not that common, a Texas mounted Indian, while the foot figures are often found at UK shows, or on evilBay, the mounted figures are harder to find, and he's sitting on the donor horse for the small-scale Hong Kong one I call 'Mexican', which, while commonly associated with Giant, was also a wagon-puller for several brands (such as WHC/Success and MPC) for years after the demise of Giant.

 

A couple of Swoppet parts, neither of which is immediately obvious to me, but there is a large box full of minor makes, unknown and Hong Kong samples, and I'm sure these will prove useful in helping complete stuff in that box. Is it late Elastolin legs, and . . . a French-made hat?

 

Many thanks again, to Theo, for all these, as I'm always keen to say in these contribution posts, it's all useful, helpful, and grist to the mill of the 'bigger picture' and all gratefully received.

C is for Christmas Cracker Cosmonauts

These were first identified in Plastic Warrior magazine a while ago now, with the presentation of the original ad' in a trade publication, I think, there is another one kicking around, but that's for the Thomas (or more likely Poplar ethylene's) spacemen, issued in Tom Smith crackers, if I recall correctly these were in a more generic advertisement, but I've forgotten the issue number!

 

Equally, I can't remember which of these images were taken on Adrian's stall, which came from evilBay and which are mine, and some of Adrian's eventually came home with me, so may have been shot twice!

 

The thing is, they used to share space with the Lido (previous post), although marked-up 'Rex Depose' which I now know they aren't (but I'll put Rex in the Tags, to correct past musings), so they've also been sharing the same folder here since at least 2012, when I started collecting the images for both posts!

 

You can see from the Ajax/Archer type helmet that they are smallish, compared to some of the 'pulp' stuff, but still come-in at a reasonable 54mm each, and sculpted to slide into Christmas crackers, and fly out again without doing themselves, Granny's eyes or the Christmas spread too much damage!

Basically they come in three colours, metallic silver, petrol-blue and jade green'ish, the pink ones here are purely a trick of the light and I can assure you they are as silver as the other two, because two of them ARE the other two, and I just got them out to measure them!

Four poses, two command-types with their legs apart delivering sterling speeches of an ordering-about, sacrifice, for-the-flag/glory/humanity's future variety, and two trooper types, at attention, preparing to eat-dirt - again, on someone else's shitty home-world - again! And like the previous post's Lido Space Rangers, each has a groovy logo on his suit, which is unique to that figure.

This, captured in the wild from feebleBay, is an abomination, and almost certainly started its public life at Vectis Auctions in the North East, where a lot of similar 'carded' stuff has appeared over the last fifteen or twenty-odd years or so, often pretending to be Zang/Herald for Britains half-moon cards. Which isn't necessarily Vectis's fault, they sell what the clients bring them, and they do tend to caveat the listing, to alert, but they must know who keeps turning-up with these Dr. Moreau creations!

 

What we have here, are, top-left and bottom right; Cracker spacemen, in the middle; a Texas/Isas alien, and top-right/bottom-left; the rockets from Triang's Battle Space launcher, which are probably worth more, being sold separately, than on this cobbled-together stale-confection!

So we have two polyethylene & rubber model-train accessories, two polystyrene cracker novelties and an Italian plug-based, 'ethylene toy soldier, the figures material-colour matched, and further given a splash of casually painted (as out-painters would have) silver highlights to further 'unite' them, all on a card which is one of the relatively common cards (see Tags) from Italy, which has had the legend cut-off!

It's a fake, a phony, a curates-egg, designed to deceive, and many of us know who's behind them, but Western law is designed to protect landowners, Politicians, capitalists and yes, liars and fraudsters, from the truth, and if I named him, I'd leave myself open to a charge of defamation! If you bought it, sorry, but you were sold a parvo' pup!

In its natural habitat!

H is for How They Come In - Week 18 - 3 Prehistory, Wild West and Civilians

Let's get straight into it . . . lots to cover!

Chinasaurs! The two oxide-brown ones and the yellow one are variants of my favourite silicon-rubber set from my own childhood, so well pleased to get them in the post! I think the pink one goes with them but I don't remember having him when we were kids. Meat-eater gets the ice-picks!

Sliding forward a few millennia's worth of millennia and we see the rise of the hairy-pink monkeys, who, I'm sorry to report have rather taken the role of T-Rex with added fire . . . power!

The three little ones (Tim Mee clones - possibly (from the quality) licensed/permissed) are or were Toy Major and came in the same sets as the TM versions of the Hornby Battle Set's figures (which Toy Major (or their contract manufacturer) would have supplied), indeed, I think these may even be from The Hornby take-off of Jurrasic Park?

That all got too convoluted! The three in front are ex-Tim Mee sculpts reduced-down in size, possibly with permission and were issued in various carded sets by Toy Major (TM)™ and/or their associates and a Hornby model railway playset . . . period!

Behind them are - either side - figures we've looked at before and will return to at some point, while in the middle is the Safari cave-man engaging some mega-fauna in a bit of extinction!

The Horse we saw earlier; it has some of the lines of Texas sculpting but isn't a known Texas thing; however Italy or Spain is a likely origin? The 'big guy' is Phidal-like or Disney-store, and presumably from a Pocahontas play-set of some kind?

The brown-pair are lovely - for sub-scale/sub-standard clones! I think probably Christmas crackers, but that would mean 'capsule' elsewhere? I may have some more somewhere (it's the sort of thing I have spirited away over the years), if I find them we'll have a closer look.

The Totem pole is very interesting as it's a Comansi sculpt, but unmarked and hard 'styrene. It also has a small cavity at the base-rear, which would seem to facilitate the insertion of a card-holding peg, such as used by S for Star/Star Toys and others, so a larger set of theirs?

The running cavalryman is nice, modern I think and slightly damaged, I dare-say they are out there somewhere in a tub of 100 - Hing Fat, Americana? Someone like that, but I don't know offhand?

Three late rack-toy clones, but different for being Timpo 'swoppet' copies rather than the usual Airfix (or Jean!) clones, another of the premium-looking 'unknown' ones, a Texas backwoodsman/cavalry scout rider, Siku smoker (larger size) and Toumoulage archer.

In front is a quite unusual figure who has a plug-on base in the style of Timpo or that Brazilian (?) lot who copied Britains, but he's a relatively original sculpt, probably European anyone recognise him? All polyethylene and seems to be factory paint and (because I've learnt to turn my figures upside down, and read!) he's not marked 'Nardi', 'Italy' or even 'W.Germany', having a smooth underside to the base.

There was lots of Wild West in Chris's parcel, I've just shot a few of the interesting pieces for now, you may have spotted in the first post, several Lone Star shooting-game figures; I'm going to save them until I have a full set in both colours, as I've blogged them here several times now and PW has published the full set.

Civilians; a lovely soft-plastic Hong Kong copy of the Gem golfer, usually HK copies of Gem are hard polystyrene? Then an unpainted Dinky road worker, probably ex-outpainters leftovers, as they are usually painted?

Two little girls I know nothing about, the same lifeboat crew as I think Chris sent before, but complete and I have since confirmed that they are from the Frog kit, the tool for which seems to have ended-up in Russia. Nice copy of the Corgi safari guide, seen here before but only as a chewed/broken example!

Equally nice rubber fireman, who is very similar [in material] to Auburn but smaller? I guess some US maker and I'll try to find him before I do that page - which is still happening! In front is another PVC figure, a petrol-attendant, but kneeling, so probably included in a racing-car set?

Finishing-up with some footballers, the small one is from the least-common type of Gem copy (this one is 'styrene) with the oblong base, the other two (not necessarily on the right bases) are from a recent part-work (I think, I did find them the other day or Chris sent me a link?), anyway they are rather nice and - obviously - personality-specific sculpts.

Thanks again to Chris for sharing these with the rest of us and there's more to come - sci-fi, fantasy and TV/Movie next!

F is for Follow-up - APS-Politoys 'Texas'

Putting away the folder with the other day's article in, I found some old evilBay images from 2012, which are worth a look, and while continuing to sort Wild West (a long overdue task) I found a couple of other items of interest, so, a quick follow-up to this post is the order of the day.

Having seen my two grow to three in the article preparation and five by the time I'd finished, all foot; it now seems I have one of the mounted figures, and with the two feathers not the lasso pose I think I've seen as a cowboy? Maybe they issued it as both by removing the feathers from some as cowboys? Anyway it means they're not outnumbered by the cowboys. Neither he nor the horse are marked as far as I can see.

Below him is what appears to be a factory painted, Hong Kong copy of the Crescent firebrand figure, but via Texas and following the pattern of theirs with a single foot-plug - removed from the right-hand example, sadly neither example came with a base, but it may be he plugs into a wagon or something?

Hoovered-off feebleBay back in 2012, this is marked APS rather than Texas, and is very different to the Britains/Timpo type arctic sled at the other end of the link in the last post, this being more Santa's sleigh (. . . or a dog-taxi!), which is ironic as Theo sent me the original shot by way of a Santa follow-up!

APS is the parent or umbrella for Politoys, who also used Policars and Texas as brands and became Polistil (when switching to die-cast; steel=stil?), as all abbreviations stand for something APS must stand for something but as far as I know, no one as deciphered it yet, the S may be for S.p.a.. (like our Ltd, or the German GmbH or USA's LLC etc...), the P probably Poli- or Poly-something which leaves the A, possibly united, or amalgamated or something like that? Does anyone know?

Anyway, the 'general' toy range often gets marked with APS in a round-angled triangle, with you can see here (just not in detail) along with the same MADE ITALY as the Texas figures the other day.

Also - Angelo is not one to sit on his laurels, and has already sent me another very interesting set of images, as I also have some 'Italy' marked stuff, of the same or similar subject matter, there will be a bit of correspondence before it publishes, but next week sometime, maybe!

I is for International Brigade!

You know that Paris - France / Paris - Texas thing right? Well today's post is a bit Texas - Italy or even Texas - International . . . it's Texas anyway and another treat to host, almost all from other people, mostly Angelo, who sent the bulk of these a week or two ago, since when I've added the first image, gone back and muddled a couple more and then Theo managed to tack-on the last image by accident!

My Texas sample was looking a bit poor with only two natives and seven cowboys, but I could remember showing the bronze one in a show repot or something a few years ago, so I dug that picture out, only to find him in the attic a couple of nights ago along with the eagle dancer (Crescent pose below), but he (the dancer) was a bit tatty , thus; I didn't re-shoot the pair!

So, let's look at Angelo's instead, 'cos he's got most of them and shot them beautifully. I've collaged them down to a few larger images (which has led to them appearing to be harshly cropped, that tends to happen with larger collages, or collages of collages - which the next five images are) as I can't produce blurb for 52 shots, or even 26 collages! If you're using Mozilla though, they should blow-up nicely. AND - I've kept the bare images, so they can always appear again in a different format, or in rows on the A-Z?

As you will have noticed they are all copies or derivative of other makes figures, with Crescent and Britains predominating, but Elastolin, Koho and others (French?) are there too, all made in a softish polyethylene, and plugging-in to an offset hole with a locating stud or prong on one foot . . . or a knee - in the case of the stalking Indian.

Also; the paler-base above appears to be a clear variation with much smoother walls?

I hope Angelo won't be offended by the next comment; but it seems that some Italian makers liked to use prone (and mounted) figures as foot figures, when making up these derivative sets; back at the start of the blog we saw Baravelli's 1:76 Airfix copies, with just such 'conversions' both of the mounted Indians and crawling cowboy. I guess the one above is shooting that sneaky-guy who's always behind the clock-tower with a bead on the hero!

Red Indians! On coloured bases, we have three Crescent poses here and two others which look familiar but I can't place them this instant. The Pow-Wow guy has lost his spear and believe me; my eagle-dance guy doesn't look anything like Angelo's . . . I think a mouse may have got to my guy's extremities - outch!

Red and Yellow with darker bases; the distinctive Koho pose (bottom left) has had his more Peruvian look westernised with a new wardrobe, but you can't mistake that headdress. In the two images, there's one foot Indian missing (there are twelve of each); a running brave with tomahawk.

The mounted figures; I think there are at least three of each to find, certainly I've seen a mounted Indian bowman and a chap with full war-bonnet, and a cowboy with lasso, but I haven't seen a third mounted cowboy yet?

There is a mounted wagon-team outrider, with whip, but he has a separate hat - in fact the Texas wagons (link in a mo') are the basis for those Hong Kong oneswe've looked at here a couple of times now.

The horse is the donor for the small scale, hollow-bodied horse coming out of Hong Kong and which I've always referred to as 'Mexican &/or Mexican Small' not knowing any better! I'll have to go through my unsorted wild-west and see if I have any full sized/Texas originals lying about unloved and un-attributed?

Marked clearly on the upper surface of the base with a Texas, they are sometimes less clearly marked 'Made Italy' on the underside, but it's usually still readable. The Wild West bases are shared with the GI's (unlike the two GI's I have with Hong Kong shite on their feet!), other lines had their own base designs.

However my bronze Indian (which I've never seen ascribed or attributed to Texas per se) has had both marks deliberately obscured on the tool with puddles of weald (or soft-solder?) leaving slightly raised blisters where the mark should be. As far as I can tell both figure and base are in every other respect the Texas mouldings, so I guess a premium or contract of some kind supplied by APS or Politoys - the respective parents?

To the right are a horse team from Dario which may be Texas, but look to be more like the French premiums mentioned before (Brian's two wagons), and with foot figures being copied by several other marques, Paul Plastix is one, another out of Monaco I think, both the horse team and the bronze figure must remain question-marks.

While the above was going on, Theo van der Weerden had sent me this and asked if I knew who made it - in part triggered by the Bonux sleigh post. I didn't know it, but remembering Kent Sprecher had both the Marx arctic set and another on his site, and thinking it looked a bit Thomas-like, suggested Theo ask Kent. Kent tried but couldn't find it either, so it came back here for a Q is for Question Time post, but looking at it again and thinking it was both a bit Poplar/Tudor Rose toy-like and a bit backwoodsman'y, I wondered if it might be one of the (French premium-) Texas copyists, so gave it a damn good Googling on Wednesday and found this . . .

https://soldatini-ado.blogspot.com/2012/12/quelli-del-tide.htm

What a brilliant blog! I don't know how I've missed it, but I suspect the language thing - there were a couple of good French blogs I added last year that had both been going for some time. Also no one else seems to be linked to him, I now will be. I wonder what other good blogs are missing from other-people's and/or my links-lists?

Suffice to say Theo's chap is Texas too! He seems to have had the plug for a bobble hat/beanie-hat trimmed-off and needs a sledge, but he's Texas alright, so that's him cleared-up to finish! And another Indian turned-up on Sunday, so I have five now!

Thanks to Angelo (Italy) for the photo's of his collection, Dario (Italy) for the donation, Theo (Holland) for the puzzle and Kent (USA) for the effort, this is the UK signing-off!

P is for Picasa Clearance

I think we've had that title before and we will definitely have it again! I keep muttering about clearing stuff from Picasa but I keep adding to it, not just article folders but the 'other images' folder which had just under 500 shots a few weeks ago and now stands at 700+. A lot of it is shite, but here's some I can clear as a random post, alphabetically;

Britains

Simple shot of Hong Kong produced Britains cowboys, showing some of the colour/base variations in the Herald range - note that the orange one (they all seem to be wearing mechanic's overalls!) has only detailing  three paint colours (black, silver, flesh) while the other two poses manage four each with the neckerchife blobbed-in, in yellow.

Charbens

Thanks to Paul Morehead at Plastic Warrior for ID'ing these for me the other day, I'd scoured the PW 'specials' I have here and checked various websites, but of course my Charbens special (for that is who they are by) is the old B&W one in storage - Paul came to the rescue the other day. From my attempts to find him I'd say he's not too common?

Cofalux

I don't know what these Cofalux are doing in Picasa as we looked at them before everything went into storage, I think they must be latecommers from Samwise/Pascal? I like these French 'bazar' figures (because they are sold in bazaars), they have something of a cross between US production (seen in the UK through Marx or Thomas) and Hong Kong rack toys.

Hornby-Meccano

A Hornby rail-staff figure repainted to represent some fat, rear-echelon, staff-donkey; ready to send a hundred-thousand lions into a hailstorm of Ruhr-moulded lead, at walking pace!

JB Models - now Airfix

Ah, yes; "Would you like a model kit with that fresh-air, Sir?" - The other kind of 'box scale', not an odd-scaled ship or aircraft designed to fit the box size, but a box design resolutely happy to be filled with 5/6ths atmosphere! I don't think they were 'US' either; it's an Australian expediency-design born pout of marrying the turrets of retired Saladin armoured cars with M113 APC's to provide a bit of oomph in Vietnam, which it did quite well I think, albeit while being a bit top-heavy.

Lucky-Giant-Helen of Toy (and others!)

Scans of old photographs that never got used in One Inch Warrior magazine, one of each pose, both colours, err . . .  That's it! Comic offers in the US, they replaced earlier flats.

Norev

Plastic fire engine (dusty) with figures, there should be four outriders, two are missing and one was wedged in the delicate plastic ladder and I wasn't going to force him. Also you have to ask why they are riding outside when they have a lovely crew-cab with two bench seats!

Italian Texas Indian on the left

German bubble-gum premium on the right

All covered before, two random Euro-figures closing a random figure post - call it 'magazine Sunday'! Tomorrow we start a short season.

G is for Guards - Unknown; Food Premium?

The title sums this one up...

I suspect he might be by Texas (we looked at them briefly Here) and they do a gold, plug-foot so he could well be by them, otherwise I have no idea. At Ease, standing a bit easy actually!

He came painted which I was pretty sure was 'home' paint but in case it wasn't I photographed him before the oven-cleaner came out!

U is for Unidentified Infantry

It's been a year or two since I did a post of all unknowns so thought is was about time for another batch, especially as I seem to have proportionately more unknowns in the fledgling large-scale collection than I do in the small-scale stuff.

I think these are of French manufacture, and the paint is probably 'home-paint' to be removed - once that suspicion has been confirmed. I also wonder if they may have been either premiums or Sobre/Lucky-bag type product as metallics are unusual for everyday toy soldiers?

They are not that rare and I should know who they are by, I further think they are 1970's soft plastic (they are soft plastic!) copies of earlier 1950's hard plastic figures, possibly from two sources, the larger running and firing poses seem familiar (and are larger), from a book possibly? Can anyone help?

[The next day - I Should have mentioned that some of the smaller ones are similar to Tim Mee poses, Paul Morehead (PW's 'Ed.') thinks the larger ones might have originally been Clairet hard plastic poses, I wondered JIM?]

[12th December 2015 - These are actually by Vilco, two sets have been on FeeBay for the last few months with reasonable prices, but no takers..tightwads, all of us! And - it is home-paint which I can now strip-off]

 

[20th April 2023 - The non-Tim Mee poses are from Quiralu aluminium figures (thanks to Judicaël Btx le Gaulois on Facebook)]

This guy is about 70mm or he would be if he stood up, maybe 80mm even, he's made of a dense Polypropylene or Nylon type polymer. The lower picture shows him next to a Deluxe Reading figure for a comparison of the base marks. The materials are different and the base marks aren't close but DR were quite a large 'general' toy company in the 1960/70's over in the states, and they would have been sourcing/buying-in from all over, so it's a possibility? Can a US reader help here or am I wide of the mark?!

[Months Later - It's Remco, probably Star Trek, and thanks to err...me! For finding that one...looking for Tim Mee on Wikipedia!...Link]

My preferred suspicion for these two 54mm figures is Italian production; cheap bagged rack/dollar-tree toys? The bases would go on to be much pirated by Hong Kong usually with PVC copies of Britians or Timpo Wild West figures. But the figures themselves are similar to the Texas Cowboys & Indians also from Italy but they have deeper bases...can a European reader help us with these?

[The Next day - Paul also thinks probably Texas, but not happy with the bases - unlikely to be original. They are like HK copies of the Lone*Star swoppets, but unmarked and of better quality? Should add they have only one foot-spigot/locating stud each.]