S is for Ships at Sea, and Sky Surfers

The other half of the vehicular element of this year's Plastic Warrior plunder; only a few, it is - after all - a figure show, but I took loads of photographs of one of them, because it was such a cool find!

 

 

 

 

TN Thomas Toys boxed jem: Submarine Base with Rocket Battery! I was very pleased to find this, I think it was my first purchase of the day, along with the smaller bag of Hong Kong smallies, and while I soon worked out it's missing a launcher, a missile and all the torpedoes, they are things which I will be able to replace, possibly from 'the pile'?

 

I've found examples online, and I think I recognise the torpedoes from the ammo-stash, of interest is that the launchers and rockets are of finer, and sharper finish, than all the others we've looked at, notably here

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/05/s-is-for-spring-powered.html 

 

But we have looked at one or two others which came in, and I think one might be from this set, or just from Thomas? But it would suggest that the Thomas one is the granddaddy of all those from Jean, Kellogg's, Unimel and - obviously - the Hong Kong ones.

 

The missile will be the hardest thing to source, because it looks like they were paired white, charcoal and mid-grey (all marbled), so I'll not be happy if I don't find a dark one, but the tool ran, so they must be out there somewhere!

 

This came in one of the mixed bags, and I thought it might be from one of the Hong Kong bath-toy sets, but I suspect it's just a badly painted model-kit, possibly from one of the early Japanese makers, someone did two destroyers in a box around 1:1200 if I recall a corner of the hobby I didn't pay much attention to!

 

These are interesting, a lot of kit-figures came in at the show, for the 'combat' post, and they were mostly sub-scale, but none seem to match with these plastic-colour wise, so they remain a mystery, although they could be from a river-craft kit? If anyone can ID them, than would be cool, they are around 1:48th.

 

A few small-to-micro 'planes, the little metal one keeps turning up, and is probably a cracker prize, but might have been from a board-game, but possibly one with multiple aircraft? I think the small red one is from one of those aircraft-carrier toys with a flick-catapult, I think?

 

The transparent, but damaged plane is early, probably taken from those Lido/Pyro sets, but even it this state, is a 'place holder', while the delta-type (Dart II?), is the earlier, better version of one you can still find occasionally, I think I got one in that short-lived cake-decoration store in Fleet about ten years ago, and they are in the cheaper crackers, which are slowly disappearing now.

 

Which leaves the red, spacey lump, which is totally unknown to me, and bares no clues as to its origin, accessory from a larger play-set? Blind-bag thing? I haven't a clue! But there's plenty of that kind of thing in the collection!

 

Finally, we have two Hong Kong copies, a Gloster Javlin and Sea Vixen I think, and I suspect they were taken from early British plastic toys (the ones in the red, white and blue boxes, were they Mettoy?), a slight dink on the Javlin's tail-plane will be mendable with that two-part epoxy 'metal' you can get from Halfords (auto-parts place for our foreign readers), or even a scrap from the spares box, plenty of wing, tail and fin parts in there!

 

thanks to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans or Trevor Rudkin, for everything here, except the Thomas set! 

D is for Donation - Peter - Books, TV, Movie and Licensed

OK, so we're on to recognisable characters, although these days, they are coming so thick and fast, from so many streamers, with all the old favourites getting darker (Batman) or lighter (the dreadful Disney Pooh) makeovers, alternate universe versions, good and bad clones (Spider-Man, or should it be Spider-Men now?), indeed, the whole Marvel/DC thing is disappearing up its own arse, as Andy Warhol once predicted, albeit with choicer language!

 

Another Smiley (we've seen one or two recently), but this one has some age, and unlike the modern ones with their overprinted faces, his facial detail is sculpted-in. A Batman keyring, a bit of a caricature, this one, and a Gamorrean Guard from Hasbro's Star Wars Command.

 

This is an interesting one, on one level it's a teeny novelty rack-toy from China in a generic bag, but it's in the style and material of, and the same size as, the Phidal interactive book figure Duke Caboom (Captain Canuck knock-off from Toy Story), and the suspicion is it might be from the same source/factory, maybe a cancelled order, on clearance, and is compatible with the better-known figure? We can compare in a later post of this series!

Disney . . . for girls! And we have two from Frozen, Kristoff and Elsa, both capsule toys, one Kinder the other a lesser make I think, possibly both seen before? Bo Peep from Toy Story, a larger figurine from a source unknown to me, and a less definite 'fairy' like figure, almost certainly a Kinder something?

Some Japanese Anime/Manga thing, don't know anything about him, but nice figure.

Alternate Hulk in red? Actual Hulk from Phidal, we saw another recently, but they are very different shades of green, a Hotwheels figure from Mattel, shades of General Grivous in him, a damaged LB knock-off in 50mm (in the wrong post!) and a stamper;

 

I searched 'yellow suit' and 'horns' for both Marvel and DC, and couldn't find anything looking like him, although I knew several of the new characters have a similar look, then I remembered the flyer from the Fortnite post, and there he was, top left in the 'legendary' section, so a Fortnite character.

 

Current, or very recent Kinder, in two separate lots from Peter here, and interesting as they seem to be copies (fully licensed, the Playmobil logo is all over the packaging) of the children from that toy line, but with clip-together waists, to get them into the eggs. DC Superheroes, they have all the better ones! And, I guess, you add them to your Playmobil tub, as children dressing-up as DC characters? No accessories, but the hands are full-size for standard Playmobil stuff, and - with these - there's already a lot of value packed into the standard-priced eggs.

 

No idea on the Superman, the diver is also in the wrong group-shot, but hey, there he is, definitely to be further sorted (he's probably still in a bag with the other three!) a modern stretchy-smiley, with the over-printed face and a Homer Simpson of the size of, but not from the Monopoly set, so maybe a lesser capsule toy egg issuer like Zàini - LZ or Maraja, like the Kristoff from Frozen above?

 

I suspect these are from a kid's comic or magazine/periodical, they are that two-halves-of-substantial-polystyrene, glued together, which you see with a lot of the cover-presents, we've seen Clangers, Peter Rabbit and Octonauts here so far, this is the Fat Controler from Thomas the Tank Engine I think, and clearly two different issues, one realistically finished, one all in silver?

Super-deforms, I recognise a couple of the recent Marvel Spider-People, don't know the other two. They might be from a blind-bag set Brian Berke sent images off, but I can't find them on the Blog, and I can't find them in the ever-growing Picasa queue, so possibly badly tagged, however, the search did reveal how much of this blind-bag stuff is out there, and how much we've seen, one way or another!

 

Two more, not much idea on the issuers, I think Chewy may be Kinder, the sucker Captain America is the first licensed figure of the type I've seen, but there is a growing bag of the generic cartoonish sucker 'monsters', in the style of Shopkins, Moshlings, Smashers, Ooshies or Superzings, from which he's taken!
 

On the left another superhero I think, but I don't recognise him or his line/make, then a Barbie, which looks Kinder, but is a whole figure and wouldn't fit in an egg, so some other cheap bagged, capsule or rack-toy line? Disney dwarf, and another Fortnite stamper, easier to ID, as most of the female characters seem to have those armoured knee-pads!

 

Thanks again to Peter for saving all this for the blog, quite an eclectic mix!

I is for It's That Horse Again!

The best thing in the recent pick-up from Peter Evans is this Hong Kong Roman chariot, it's the third iteration, I think, on the Thomas/Poplar theme, but it has very different horses!

 

And they are puke-green! Arranged in the Western Wagon configuration, the figure is the only real connection with the others, seen here previously, although the other HK copy uses the same horses, but the artwork and shape of this chariot is very different.

 

Is it based on one of the earlier lead ones, both the British and the French have some nice slush-cast chariots in the archive? One of the draw-bar connectors is broken, but I think I may have a set of these horses in the unknown horses tub!
 

N is for Not Really A Follow-up!

Notes on previous stuff seen here though, and images pulled from three folders and added to a set I got off Steve V yesterday, at the London Toy Soldier Show in Camden, and which opened-up a narrative for the other shots.

Marx's 45mm Air Force figures, with a rouge Space Patrol chap, in the same metallic blue plastic, waving his gypsy earrings about, at the back there! You get seven ground crew and four pilots, which, it being then, the 1950's, means the guy in a leather jacket is probably a milk runner from Transport Command (or whatever the USAF called it), next to him is the SR71 Blackbird or X-Plane pilot in high-altitude 'space' pressure-suit, along with two more conventional, fast-jet pilots.

 

With the exception of the sci-fi interloper who has the older flat base, these are all the later version with the raised under-rim base, and it's interesting to notice that the last pilot on the right has been sculpted to hold something? The hands are the wrong angle for a cockpit rim, and the arms are the wrong-angle for an access ladder, so I wonder if the sculptor's efforts fell on stony ground!

 

I think these are the ones sent by Brian Berke a few years ago, I thought they were gray, and I thought I'd published them, but they may be somewhere on the Blog already, without the needed Tags? Anyway, these are the recent reissues, and came in grey or this flat, sky-blue.

These are the contemporary figures from Deluxe Reading, and this image is courtesy of Chris Smith, as part of an eMail conversation we were having, following one of his donations, and the revelation that the orange ones were issued, over here, by Thomas in a header-bagged, oversized Jeep of theirs, which we saw here.

While I suspect these (MPC, Pyro or Revell?) come from a model car kit, as racetrack personnel, but they could be from a 1:48th scale aircraft kit, and go very well with the figures above, and the other set we saw in the Kennedy Space Centre a while ago, here. The paint on them will be OBE's, and there were at least two shot-runs, one in grey, one in silver, both a polystyrene 'kit' plastic.

 

So, thanks to Steve, Chris and Brian, a quick overview of USAF (and NASA) air and ground-crew, from over half a century ago! And the reason I hadn't got round to them before this, is because mine, mostly rimmed cream, chalky polyethylene (Marx Swansea?), with a few flat metallic-blues, are still in storage.

F is for Follow-up - Civilian Plunder Post

A few things related to some of the stuff in the previous post, and as I'm going through the files and folders looking for this supporting material, I realise there are similar bits for the odd recent purchase at the recent Sandown, so I think we'll see more of these, as I try to tell the story AND clear the stuff out of Picasa! Lucky police, construction workers and Thomas / Poplar today!

 

A couple of generic 'VEB's from the former East Germany, behind, in this old Vectis (I think?) image, but of note is the Poplar Plastics towed boat in the foreground, the woman driving the jeep seems to be the same blue rubber as the gentlemen we saw . . . Yesterday, now! Hence, my "possibly Thomas" for the similar bloke in that post, although as Thomas you'd expect them both to be in that flesh-pink vinyl-polymer.

 

A Blue Box blister-card, and note the lack of a wheelbarrow, apparently replaced with a rock, which might be the two-sided copy of the Marx Miniature Masterpiece rock? So, even damaged, they are hard to find, and with other damaged bits in the stash, hopefully, I'll cobble a good one together?

 

This generic set is interesting, as it has second generation copies of the Dinky / Blue Box guys (upper two), along with a pair of Marx copies from the recently mentioned Power Mite series of battery-operated trucks, Hong Kong had no favourites when it came to piracy, and they left few stones unturned!

 

While this later set from Jaru, has the polyethylene third-or-more generation knock-offs in bright colours, here pink and red, supporting similar multiply-copied versions of early-number Matchbox 1-75 series vehicles, although, when they were originally produced in the UK, as die-casts, I think the range might still - unofficially - have been '1-50' ?

 

An old shot of some of mine from 2012, being one of each pose, as far as I know they never got a wheelbarrow, despite getting the 'labourer' pose associated with it, I guess it was too complicated a moulding, for the 'bottom-feeder' pirates. He's looking pretty determined though, I think he's going to the stripey-tent to brew-up . . . "Cuppa'tea Lads?". 

 

I think I have yellow plastic ones, and possibly a pale purple, but it may be the same grey as the one from Chris, but the more, the merrier, to maybe get one of each, one day! And it's worth remembering, as we view these blobs, they were originally Charles C Stadden sculpts! 

 

Not the best shot, but it was downloaded years ago, when things were a bit simpler on the wibbly wobbly way! The Land Rover in the background is the normal Lucky thing, a probably Corgi copy in 1:43rd or so, but the figures have been modelled to match the larger-scale bike, at around 1:20?

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.

B is for Big Jolly Boat

So, the other TN Thomas boat, the seller assured me there was a card once, and it was Thomas, not Poplar, but sadly, long gone now, while the bag was so dirty and so shredded it wasn't worth photographing, so you'll have to take my word of his word, but this is the Thomas big boy!

 

I don't know who was first, but there is a pattern to these, whether Ideal, Marx, MPC, or the two Thomas-Poplar ones (and remember there's that third set of 'believed to be' Thomas/Poplar who may have had their own - third - ship?), Marx have a single, central staircase to the poop-deck, MPC have deeper scupper holes, but the basic layout is the same for all five vessels, whether single or twin masted.

 

I suppose this is a 'ship', as it has a little yellow jolly boat! 

 

Confirmation on the oars we saw, when we looked, in reasonable detail, at these figures back in 2018, the Pirate 'logo' is the same plug-in style as the smaller vessel we looked-at earlier, but this boat has two masts. A two-part treasure chest can be carried by the figures with one arm down, again all similar to the MPC accessories.

 

Interestingly, when we looked at them last time;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/09/tp-is-for-taller-pirates-from-thomas.html

 

the colourways were the same, with green/blue for the larger and red/yellow for the smaller, so it may be they were limited production runs, as far as the colours run, goes? The green here is a much brighter 'highlighter' green, though. If I add the flag from that previous post's sample to this one, I think this one will be complete?

 

A comparison between all three of the small copies so far found, and their big brothers.

The middle red one is a cut-n-shut of two larger poses. 

 

Bird's eye view of the boats, I forgot to mention that the red, larger vessel has no marks.

Note there are ten position-plugs for the five crew. 

The red is missing carpet-wheels, the blue never had them.

L is for Little Jolly Boat!

This year's ITLAPD is, despite the first three posts, actually about pirate ships, more than the pirate figures, although all posts have figures, most of the remaining posts will be featuring boats, and that's the correct term, as they tend to be small, and the old ruling is "Ships can carry boats, boats can't carry ships".

 

I picked this up just after Christmas, and it's the boat for the smaller of the Thomas-Poplar pirates, in this case very definitely Thomas, not Poplar! You get one each of four figures, scaled down from the larger set, and lacking the tools/weapons of that larger scaled bunch of scallywags! There are four advertised, and four receiving holes for their foot-spigots.

 

The 'classic' seaside kiosk 'big bag', now very tatty, but clearly marked-up to TN Thomas, of Bridgend, Glamorgan . . . a very Welsh part of 'Great Britain', it has to be said! Now it happens that this year saw the latest (third or fourth) issue of Plastic Warrior magazine's Poplar Checklist/Special Publication, (and it's very good!), in which the previous relationship between Thomas and Poplar was rather divorced, and I think, as this is the third TNT product from the UK seen on these pages, that the relationship will have to be restored, in the next update, as clearly Thomas issued some of the stuff, as Thomas.

 

Sail and mast, showing how the scull & crossed-bones motif just plugs in!

 

Three poses, we looked at two previously, duplicates of these here, and I pointed out on that occasion they were still a bit of a mystery, so this post is very-much a revelation, confirming previous musing on the subject. It looks like only three of the five larger-scale poses were copied though; the Captain and two of the crew, although one hopes the others may turn-up?

 

The underside of the boat reveals a clear MADE IN ENGLAND (Wales!!) mark at the rear/stearn, and what appears to be the same message in a different font, deliberately obscured, near the middle, but toward the front/bow, which is not so clear in this shot, but I assure you it's there.

 

In comparison with one of the larger figures, we'll be looking at them later today.

They lose the hat/hat-spike as well as weapons/tools. 

 

Likewise, the boat, is a smaller, simplified version of the larger vessel.