T is for Tyo Typical Types

Well? A sort of theme was the space-sets I managed to pick-up over the weekend, and the matching loose figures, from two genres we've covered here recently, so a quick post on them, and the bonus was getting two-more brands associated with them both.

 

Haglon taking the Lik Be clones, and Trafalgar the MPC copies, Trafalgar Toys (better known for their tie-ins with LJN, Mego and the Hong Kong subsidiary Lion Rock) would have been a rival to WHC, Grossman and the like, and, indeed, this card may be in the archive as LJN?

 

But Haglon (Hagemayer) were more of a shipping operation, as far as I understand it, like with container ships, port space and warehouses in Holland, shipping all over Europe, and apparently adding their moniker to some of the stuff they shipped-in, that would have extended far beyond toys, which were probably a minor concern among all the household and garden goods, haberdashery, pet supplies and the like? And I'm sure I've seen this card as a generic. We also saw them as Woolbro a while back;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/07/lb-is-for-lanky-bods.html 

 

As supplied by Haglon! The 50mm knock-offs of LB's finaest, apparently limited to four poses (did they pantograph one of the Clifford sets?!) are not hard to find, although it took me a while to garner a decent sample, I'm now going for one of each colour! These came from four sources over the weekend.

 

MPC originals, in two slightly different shades of red, we looked at their oeuvre here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/04/mpc-is-for-many-plastic-cosmonauts.html

 

and these are grist to the mill, but again, there comes a point when you are just looking for individual 'better' figures, or a specific pose-colour combination, and these are clean!

 

Seen in the link in an unreadable, but probably generic set (next to the Payton bag), the Trafalgar ones are the better versions, very close to the MPC, solidly formed and with thicker bases than the other three or so variants.

 

While these are the Henbrandt/Hing Fat third-generation (like Payton's, but worse) sub-piracies, and again, of limited use, but they'll all be sorted into the master collection, before any are passed on, probably to charity, but that's all a few years away, still.

 

Tim-Mee, so keen to cash-in on Star Wars (AND Battlestar Galactica, everyone forgets that was a year later), grabbed one of the MPC sculpts, with the barest of modification, and there was one in the plunder, last weekend, which was lucky for the completeness of this post!

 

Which gives us, from the left:

• Haglon-Hagemayer/Woolbro (and others?)
• Tim-Mee
• MPC
• Trafalgar Toys (et al)
• Hing Fat/Henbrandt (et al)

Making more and more sense, every time we visit them, and thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for their input on the day or over the weekend.

M is for May's Visit - Combat Troops

Sand, green and field-grey, the proper 'toy' soldiers, and there were a fair few in the bag, along with several paratroopers, who are always welcome here!

 

The blow-mould has suffered from a bit of a facial collision, but might be a new colour, the other three have probably all been seen before, but it's all grist to the mill, and there's always new colours, or new-sized copies-of-copies to be found.

 

China copies of Tim Mee's Cold War warriors, possibly a new colour in the washed-out sand, but they'll need to be compared with the existing samples before I know for certain.

 

Modern mix of Matchbox and newer sculpts.

 

Modern, and dodgy hollow-backed rack-toy rascals, but with several sizes, a few poses and severl colour-ways, it will be a while before I've got all of them, or even most!

 

Japanese infantry from Rado or Hing Fat, covered before.

 

Odds and sods, the interesting one here is the chap in the middle who would appear to be one of the Pioneer die-cast accessory figures in soft rubber, and a new pose, to his left, our right, a less common Manurba-Tallon in grey.

 

Seen on the respective Airfix Blog pages, the yellow figures are new to the collection, and that's the beauty of these lots, there's always something new! Many thanks to Peter for most of these, one of the paratroopers was a purchase, I think.

A is for At Bloody Last!

In all meanings of the word, because I've only got an hour to post this, I'm knackered, and may well hit 'publish' sometime before midnight, with half the text missing! Because this is the post which has been held over for at least the last two years, and because this is it for ITLAPD 2025!

 

And, before we start, many thanks to Adrian Little, Brian Berke, John Begg and Paul Stads for help, contributions or stuff for this year's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

 

So, I got me the Tim Mee Pirate Fortress! More of a Wild West frontier/cavalry stockade fort, but as a bolt-hole in Hispaniola, up some coastal creek, sheltered from the open sea, both weather-wise and line-of-sight wise, it'll do, and timber's easier to replace as the jungle damp rots things!

 

Big Bags!

 

Lots of 'stuff'! 

 

Assembly - shades of Marx's earlier sets are hard to ignore!

 

Believe it or not, the Tee-Pee 'sticks' are actually supposed to be a stack of muskets! And the moulding on the water-pump leaves nowhere for the water to flow up the stand!

 

The pile of logs, and the well, have more Marx DNA than Tim-Mee's!

Dark-brown accessory pack has a secret island, treasure chest and little jolly boat!

 

 

 The secret island stash!

 

Once it's all been 'de-sprued' (removed from the runners) it fits into half the box!
 

In the full figure count, I seemed lucky to get the yellow captain, or maybe you only get one per set, which would mean either a lot of captains going back as re-grind, or a much higher captain-count in the figure bags?

 

Only seven poses?

Yeah? I took 'em, . . . but I can't remember what point I was trying to illustrate? Maybe that you can fit a figure on the lid of the island! And I don't know why I collaged two shots of the same figure's back?

 

 Playing with the other accessories!

Rack-toy figure bags were available without accessories.

 

My original shot, posted elsewhere as a "Who are these?", Paul Stads put me right, although I had them on downloads of Sprecher's site, but I had been looking in the wrong place, namely Shaun's Fantasy Toy Soldier Blog, hoping they were there, as they look very Toy Major/Hing Fat/Red Box!

 

In fact, that's the earlier Hing Fat, there, to the right in green, and the Tim Mee's are more compatible with the later smaller set of limited pose numbers, so around 50mm, but I'll Tag 54mm too!

 

Sticker sheet

 

Instruction sheet

 

Well me'arties! That be it furr anotherr year! Oi managed ter get the lot out on time, but nut'un in the booty-bag furr next toim - avaarrst me blue blistering barnicles, oi'm away to hunt for morr Poirate Plunder!  

I is for Irreverence!

Time for another collection of Internet memes I've sidled away for such a rainy day, and it was a very rainy day today! I nearly published than last night, but gave up and went and did something else, somewhere else (photographed toys), however I found the last one, just now on Faceplant, and it spurred me to action!

 

Can't shoot, won't shoot!

 

The revenge of Tim Mee was brutal!

 

There are several R2D2 one's like this kicking about, but Bungle is priceless!

 

Noooooooooo!

 

I love his grin!

 

One of my oldest friends is taking parcel after parcel of HO-OO stuff in, for his brother, so the brother's wife (no names, no pack-drill!) doesn't cotton-on to how bad it's got, they are both in their 60's, so it's no great crime, but I immediately thought of them when I saw this!

 

Ooops!

 

Hot off today's internet, I thought the following comment, from a Gary Karst deserved to be wider-shared;

 

"It's commemorating the courageous efforts of the U.S. Army Corp of Landscapers in this underwhelming battle. Semper Ficus."

R is for Rake of Rack Toys!

I mentioned, after the mad rush to collect and post the horror sets in time for Halloween, that David DeSoto had sent other figures too, and while I shot them at the time, I've only just got round to posting them, here, now! A bit more 'khaki' sneaking into the festive season!

An Imperial set, which, interestingly has those copies of New Ray, which I got quite excited about a few years ago, dating the set, as David writes; "The Imperial set with the New Ray knock-offs came out right before or shortly after Imperial Toys filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 here in the U.S.  [2020, ed.] As you may know, Ja-Ru, Inc. bought Imperial's assets and entered into a separate arrangement to purchase their operations in Mexico", David adds; "The two places where Imperial soldiers were once abundant, Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree, have not had soldiers on their pegs with any regularity since the transition."

Another, slightly older (?) Imperial set with a mix of the old, much pirated Tim Mee GI's, which I've always liked as they are 100% depicting the Vietnam era, along with some mof the more modern-looking GI types, straight outta' China! Colours are donor-specific, so it's Vietnam v's Gulf!

This is one of the more current generics, which we've seen a few of, in recent years here, however these are interesting for being the ones I've only shown as an online image, courtesy of Amazon or Ali Baba, and are the figures where each comes with his own larger-based scenic vignette of street-furniture or defence work! I will get them out and look at them properly once I'm settled.

Another generic, but this time a 1970/80's original, useful for being the copies of Britains/Lone Star swoppet Wild West, another long term project is to try and ascribe as many of these as possible, and while they are dead-common in lose lots, they are always mixed-up by the juvenile original owners, and sets like this help you work out which is which, as far as base-type, ethylene or PVC body parts or accessories, or even poses are concerned. Credited to a Triple D importer/Jobber.

 

These look to be the current (ish) copies/homages of Supremes hearald'esque Wild West, now credited to DL / Du Liang Toys (previousl;y Maxxi Toys, Stobok, Funtastic, Aliki, Liberty Imports and PMS-McColls), and consist of just the foot figures with a play-mat in that strangely metallic, slightly crinkley plastic.

 

I've also left this in the bag for now, as I've never seen one over here, and I don't think Steve Weston has them either, so I'm guessing these are a US 'show exclusive' whereby AIP (Armies in Plastic) get to shift end of line, over production or test-shots in mixed bags at an affordable price?

There's Colonial/Boxer rebellion, some ACW, WWI and a few Marlburian/AWI types I think, and a nice introductory sample to AIP's stuff, of which I don't have a lot, and what I do have is mostly WWI, I think.

There were also these lose AIP figures, which I know I didn't have, sold variously as Gulf War Infantry, Marines and US Peacekeepers, depending on the plastic colour, each in a set A and set B, of six poses each. I think these are the former two, and between them seem to be all the poses*, which some other-colour duplicates, so again a nice sample, and they are - undeniably - very nice sculpts, well animated.

 

It's not that I ignore this new stuff out of some misguided principle, but simply that A) there's so much else to find of either a vintage or more ephemeral (rack toy) nature, B) it's priced to sell-to, and does sell to adult collectors, so will probably always be around, in quantity, and C) as new production, it does get covered-well, elsewhere, not least Plastic Warrior magazine, but all samples are gratefully received nevertheless.

 

And many thanks to David for all the above, and the previously-seen Halloween bits, that's two additions to the Tag list . . . and archive too; DL and Triple D!