W is for World War Warriors

So, we come to the last of the PW show plunder posts, twenty posts I've got out of it, this year, and some fine loot was scurried back to Small Scale World's command centre here in North Hampshire, to be shared with the rest of you, and we're finishing with the khaki-clad chaps and their contemporaries.

 

OK, so Google hasn't just changed the graphic on the upload page, they've tripled the time it takes to do everything, great! Paratroops/parachute toys, all three were from the donation bags I think, everyone knows I like a good parachute toy!

 

On the right, another of the Mogul (Meccano) Germans originally sent to the Blog by Chris Smith, almost certainly designed by Stadden, and now with his rather fine MG34 'Spandau', it's a specific moulding with a truncated stock, and a small block which locates in his hand.

 

While another of the finds of the show is a composition figure similar to those of Zang, the 'similar to Zang' unknown and the V - Empire Forces guys, if only by dint of them all standing to attention at around 54mm, in Battle Dress . . . but a new pose/moulding, also unknown, so a lovely comparison heading this way, when I get them all together! I think the pink goop in the moulding recesses, is the result of someone trying to take a mould of him in silicon or Plasticine?

 

New to me/collection/Blog, although I was vaguely aware of them from previous research into Wizards of the Coast's larger figures, these are for the recent trend in out-of-the-box 1:144th scale war gaming, and the upper shot has the Germans in the middle with soviets to the left, pouring out of Silesia, and the Yanks to the right, advancing to the Elbe from Aachen! The lower shot has two Japs on the left, two Brits on the right, with a Chinese, French and Rumanian (I think) behind.

 

They are not impressive sculpts, and the paint makes things worse, trying to sort them by eye, I only guessed about six of them right, the moulding is poorly defined and blobby, weapons and - particularly - helmets, are inaccurate, and painting seems pretty arbitrary? I believe these are from the first tranche of Axis and Allies, and subsequent editions scaled up to 15mm (1:100th), nominally, from the 10/12mm (1:144th) of the original series?

 

Marx, grist to the mill, but quite a nostalgia hit, we all seemed to have a few of these in with our Airfix, Timpo and painted-odds, back in the day!

 

Cherilea, these are the interim ones between the first and third versions, with elements of both, and while missing their weapons, will make useful additions to the tub, where I'm slowly accruing decent samples of all three types.

 

Atlantic air force ground-crew figure, on the left. I don't prioritise Atlantic large-scale as I have them all in small scale, and, whatever scale, they tend to be priced/valued far too highly for what they are - recent'ish, mass-produced figures, which were piled-high in Beatties, Tangley and that place in Woking, from 1980 to the middle of the decade.

 

In the centre is a 40mm from Spain or Argentina, I can't remember off-hand, but I think we've seen a larger sample (trio?) here, with mounted figure, they are certainly in the collection, and will appear here eventually!

 

And another HO'ish Zang pilot, for years I used to treasure my lone example, but I think I have about 15 now, and most shows seem to throw-up another one, which doesn't mean I'm complaining, or showing off, but rather I look forward to getting them all together and shooting them as a group, with any obvious variations..

 

Smart Toys on the right, I think he may be a new pose, and three of the Pioneer for Realtoy (et al), the Smart being a copy of a larger Pioneer figure, and the two on the left being of the six poses I still needed, complete, I had the blue-chap, mucked about with!

 

This show's lemon! Someone came over to me and asked if I could ID this for their mate. to which I replied ". . . looks like Marty/M-Toy, but I've never seen it with Australian heads . . .", the owner then came over, and we had a chat, he was looking for a fiver, which I'd happily give for the GI version, so I went off with it.

 

And I was quite pleased with it, showed it to one or two people with some enthusiasm, but started to wonder if the heads were right? Now I've mentioned before, the lighting at the venue can be a bit confusing, not as confusing as it used to be at Dave McKenna's show in the Mason's lodge in Birmingham - the number of colour variations I took home from there over the years, which were normal colour when unpacked at the other end! But nevertheless, confusing enough!

 

And, as you can see, as clearly as me, when I got it home and into normal daylight, they are Aussie heads from Timpo! But, I may leave it for a while, as is, it's quite a clever, if simple conversion, and I have the US one, I just need to sort the belts out!

 

Monogram clones to the left, other bits to the right, the baseless chap is interesting, but I think we may have seen him a decade or so ago, during the heyday of Poundland/99P Store stuff, which has almost dried-up now?

 

Ackerman (et al) to the left, New Ray clone, Marx mini and a larger 60mm 'pod-foot' GI.

 

Soma, biggies, similar to the weird set of HO sci-fi/pilots, so probably the same sculptor, but more irregular types, and I'm guessing here, but almost certainly to be from a set of ten, possibly in two colourways?

 

Picked-up four more Trojan, in two plastic colours, an olive drab, wounded, and three in a richer olive-green. Until I've got them all together, and sorted, I can never remember which ones I have, and which ones I need, so tend to grab them when I see them, although I'm pretty sure it's the sand-plastic ones I'm short-of now!

 

Incomplete set of Marx medical group, probably re-issues in this silver? The nurse thinks there's a chance, with her blood/plasma bag, but the priest's given-up and is administering the Last Rites, morbid phuquer! The doctor's gone off to have a brandy by himself, and I suspect the poles are replacements?

 

More bloody metal! What sort of a plastics show is it?! SAE WWI 'Doughboy' from South Africa on the left, an interesting figure (with lead rot) next to him, in the style of the composition figures described above, a nice semi-flat who appears to be similar to the 25mm metals, ascribed to Fantasyland (from Hong Kong), so possibly from the same stable?

 

And two Skybirds, one an obvious copy/home-cast (on the right), the other more original, but not right, so either stripped and re-painted, or one of the Douglas Miniatures re-issues, home-painted?

 

And finally . . . on the left a bag of small scale, mostly grist to the mill, but there were some interesting figures in there to sort into the collection, the WHW machine-gun team, seen before here, and a huge bag of kit figures, which need a serious sorting, being not the usual 50-70mm early or box-scale stuff from Pyro, Adams, UPC, Revell, Monogram, SNAP etcetera, but rather 25-50mm smaller stuff, although some of the same names may be responsible - all for another day!

 

So, many thanks again to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for everything they did or contributed on the day, additional thanks to those also mentioned in the text of the various posts, including Andreas Dittmann, Brian Berke, Chris Smith, Micheal Mordant-Smith, and Tony H, John Begg, Gareth, Steve V. Peter Cole at Replicants, Graham, Mike, Theo and Glen, the Poles and Russians, and everyone else, for everything, over the years. In fact, it's time I did an acknowledgements page!

 

But also, special thanks to Paul Morehead, Brian Carrick and Peter Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine, for organising another brilliant day, where we could all get together, buy plastic shite to our hearts or needs content, and catch-up. I hope you had a good show, if you were there, and it's gotta' be only 11-mothns to the next one!

 

I'm actually off to London today, to pick up eighty-quidsworth of stuff I haven't even seen yet, so we'll get Rack Toy Month out of the way, and then there'll be more like this in September, with any luck, some Dime Store spaceships are coming from the US, and it's back to Sandown in a month's time!

Q is for Quickie! Seen Elswhere

And actually seen here! I was going to do a longish post on Ambulances, but I was up at 4:40 to drive to Luton and have successfully battled the salary mongs on the M25, back again. Now fatigue is catching-up, and I'm going to have a snooze before work, so here very much as a reminder, are a few bits from last year's Plastic Warrior show, which - as far as this year's - is only four Saturday's away, three and half weeks peeps! We did see them in last years show report posts, but these went on a Faceplant group at the time.

 

A pair of 1st version British Paratroopers from Airfix.

 

A trio of Trojan 14th Army figures, joining a growing sample.

 

Four of the Hilco ANZACs cloned from Timpo, which had been on my shopping-list last year, I'm not sure what's on the list this year, in fact, I don't know, because I've given it little thought, beyond the one or two 60mm Crescent Mohicans I still need! But I've three weeks to give it some thought, and save some dosh, and, so do you!

 

Contact details, I expect Brian Carrick (who was to feature in the Ambulance post!) will do a detailed travel guide in the next week or so, and there'll be more on Faceplant for those still there.

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O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Army Men and Combat Infantry

The meat and two veg' of Toy Soldier collecting . . . toy soldiers! I had quite a good run at the show this year on the khaki-front, in fact, I've just split the folder into two; troops and AFV's, as it was 27 images! So, this post is that plunder, less all the vehicles! And we seem to be starting with pretty-much the last thing I bought at the show, probably because it was on top of a bag, and got shot first!

 

One of the American dealers was over for the day, was it Matt from Hobby Bunker? And he had these, in most colours, I went for the pink! BMC's GI Janes! I've not got them out of the pack, as Brian Berke sent us a nice khaki sample when they first came out, so they can wait for another day, but it was a definite box ticked!

 

Two blow-moulds which I think we've seen before, but here they are again, and they'll be back soon, as Peter Evans gave me a pair not a week ago! He remembers them being part of a shooting game with [I think he said;] four each of these two and one officer?

 

A Marx six-inch British infantryman, and Blue Box (or BB-clone) five-inch GI, complete the larger figures found in June.

 

Not my finest moment, but we all make mistakes at shows, hurrying, poor lighting, trying to hold-down two conversations, but whatever, I bought a lemon - the lewis gunner team are mucked about with, I thought they were a pair, but actually the No.2 is a conversion . . . heay-ho! Some Chinese made Matchbox clones (Shin Hing maybe?) and an earlier Rado or similar Russian.

 

French, very early Starlux (ovoid bases), or Quiralu, I think, possibly from aluminium moulds? I should know, and if I spent longer going through the folders I would know, but nice anyway!

 

Bagged small-scale and a couple of loose figures.

 

The right-hand bag had some interesting mould-purge figures in green/blue.

 

I actually went to the show with only one thing on the absolute wants-list; Hilco Anzacs, and managed to get all three with a colour variation, from one stall, and a seller on the opposite side of the aisle had the Trojan 14th Army types, so I grabbed them at the same time! The Hilco's are cut-n-shut 'conversions' (in the loosest, just-escaping-a-plagiarism-charge, meaning of the word) of the Timpo 'solid' 8th Army poses.

 

Also picked-up two of the Airfix 1st version Para's neither of which seem brittle, a problem with them now, a Thomas/Poplar 'ubiquityman' (driver, gunner and stretcher bearer), Blue Box GI in 50mm and three Lido-clones.

 

More small-scale, with Corgi 'chocolate bars' from the gift-set, Blue Box Germans in 'styrene, a similar Hornby-Triang 'Battle Space' radio-operator and a few other bits.

 

To be sorted, mostly Hong Kong, mostly Britains clones, and mostly to appear on the Khaki Infantry page at some point, I haven't done as much on there as I'd have wanted to, due to circumstance, this last few years, but I did add a few bits there, the other day, and there is more in the queue.

 

More Hong Kong, copies of Airfix 8th Army and Monogram GI's, all very much grist to the mill, but all having a place in the oeuvre, and will all need to be sorted into the correct tubs and samples, to build the bigger picture.

 

For instance the two colours of 8th Army clones, are from two sources, one marked Hong Kong the other just HK, and a difference in quality between the two. The aim being to eventually get them all tied into the correct sets/packaging, and hopefully get the odd brand-ID on them, I happen to know the HK's are probably Ri-Toys (Rado)!

 

More thanks to - Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, who I have forgotten to add.

J is for Just Right For Your Pocket!

Have you ever got so tired, yet wired you couldn't even snooze, yeah, well that's me right now, I was doing online training all day, with tests, and my eyelids are hurtin' heavy, but I'm sort of powering through! So, in the hope this will tip me over, sleep wise, here's a quickie before midnight!

This was once full, but pretty-much everyone who wanted one has had one, and there were four left, while the box had sort of had my name on it for a decade prior, so it finally came home with me, back-end of 2021!

 

The Trojan 'common' set of Tiny Trojans, and because I'd shot it a couple of years earlier, I think was the reason for never quite Blogging the whole show-report! Anyways, here's a close-up, to get them in the Tags again.

Three ex-Crescent sculpts and a man appaently firing wiff-waff balls from a double-barelled . . . thingy! That twin-barrelled PIAT-M/G really does look like that!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 2. Airfix and Related

I had some luck with early Airfix at the show, and there were some related bits, so I shoved them all in one post, except the two early motorcycles which ended-up in a mixed shot in the Civilian Vehicles post!

Two of the Airfix mounted figures after Bergan/Beton, both mounted on soft polyethylene horses (with the correct bent tail and cavity mark), although being a hard polystyrene themselves. The lefthand shot is missing the hunter, who turned up later, hence the rethink on how to do the posts!

 

As a result that image also has two probable Argentine figures a ceremonial type (top right, integral moulding) and a Native American (bottom left, separate rider) along with two other 'styrene riders, one of whom seems to belong with the marked-Ajax horse, the other is from the Magnetic 'Bucking Bronco' novelty act - the third I've picked-up in a few months, typical; isn't it, like buses; you wait ages for one, then three turn-up together!

A mixed bunch of the early 'eight figure set', being, from the left; Airfix Paratrooper, possible pair of BR Moulds Japanese and three of Peter Evans' home-casts. The first having the clear mould-release pin-mark which seems to differentiate the Airfix originals, the two Jap's missing an obvious mark, hence the possibility they are BR and the trio being a sharper, rigid resin to the softer pink one we looked at last year?

 

In the last lot from Chris Smith, I held over a bunch of these from the plunder posts, and I picked up a few more the other day, so a major re-hash/addition to that page will be forthcoming, as are similar changes to the mounted 'Bergan Beton' page where an awful lot have come in recently, in addition to the two above.

This is a fun shot, or at least the upper one is, the lower one is a closer look at the five Gulliver Japanese infantry, one of which is based squarely on an Atlantic 'Sendai' sculpt (Gulliver's go-to for piracies when they weren't copying Reamsa, Comansi or Jecsan!), the other figures being four old Airfix Sculpts.

The upper shot has, in addition, two rather wreaked Airfix originals for a not-very-useful comparison (they've both had their feet mucked-about with), suffice to say the Gulliver are a little smaller, but well sculpted. And in the foreground, a gloss-painted 'Toy Soldier' style home-cast piracy in lead/whitemetal with a wire bipod.

Not Airfix but of the same era, the same rarity value as the 'eight' and the same esoteric range, are two on the left from BR Moulds, a Lifeguard which is almost certainly from the Trojan set (post coming) and an Indian who doesn't seem to conform to any of the known BR mould-tool catalogue descriptions, and has something of the Sacul guards in his plastic colour, but seems to be from hollow-cast, so got included here!

 

These were mixed in with everything else! They go in a big bag which gets sorted into the master-collection/future stock every few years! I actually found a Prussian advancing from the Waterloo sets the other day, trod into someone's lawn, so Airfix 'HO-OO' have become a standard feature of the Anthropocene geological layer, along with crisp packets, chocolate wrappers, drinks bottles & cans, cigarette filters and vehicle parts/metal or rubber fixings!

 

Thanks to all for everything last month; Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith and Peter Evans,

Thanks to all for everything last month; Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan and Micheal Mordant-Smith.

H is for How They Come In - London Show December 2022 - General Purchases

And so to London, as the saying goes, with the final toy soldier show in the calendar at the Haverstock School, Chalk Farm, where I had quite a good show, given it's mostly metal these days, but various 'Plastics' guys are there and between them gaps were filled and rarities found!

This came from a mate, and he actually had two different, but I only grabbed one and it'll feed my need for regular injections of horse-drawn stuff, but it is both a delicate and space-consuming heft of packaging, so one is fine, my first Brumm, known from the catalogues which aren't rare and of which I have a few and very well-made when you actually get to see/handle it.

Modern combat forces got a good boost, with a bunch of Frenchmen from Cofalux, Starlux and one or two others . . . I picked up a few more a week or two later, then got some more in the machine-gunner lots, so I've done well on Frech plastic this past autumn/early-winter!

To their right are a bunch of Japanese from Britains Deetail range, I knew I only had one or two, and realised (quite late in the afternoon) I had seen all of them on two different stalls, so having some cash still warm in my pocket rushed round as people were starting to pack-up and purchased both lots.

Thus giving me five of six poses, alternate painting of the advancing chap, and two different treatments of the LMG, along with the US recoilless rifle re-purposed to the Land of the Rising Sun, to keep Britains' costs down! I'll have to hope the missing pose is among my existing few!

Below is two shots of a very clean Trojan jungle fighter, I seem to be building my Trojan Japanese, Australian/Anzac and 14th Army samples one figure at a time which isn't the cheap way, but it'll be fun when I find the last one - about another ten years at the current rate!

Now, I didn't shoot or record the maker (on the back of the cards) before they went up to the unit, but I may have some of these already in the collection (I've certainly seen them before), so when everything is sorted out, we may well de-card a duplicate, set them up and have a return post with all the details . . . modernish (1970's?) and aimed at the tourist trade I suspect.

Had a good score on Gem/Gemodels, with four knights (from the 'orange paint batch'!), one of the King's Men from the Humpty Dumpty cake decoration vignette (he appears to be laughing and pointing at the 'scrambled-egg'!) and two others, the snowman with an icing spike and a skater in yellow base polymer, along with a Hong Kong copy of the Crescent Santa Clause, I already have one or two in that section, but I think the paint on this chap is far superior to previous finds?

These were from Matt Their at White Tower Miniatures, and while you know my views on 'new' poured metal (as displayed in the last post!), the smaller guys aren’t so expensive (despite having higher overheads/unit costs), so I try to support them when I can, and while I always admire Matt's stuff I haven't previously bought any, so I thought I'd better rectify that with a  swift purchase!

I bought one glossy 'toy soldier' style finished figure from the Robin Hood series, and one matt painted figure from the Wild West range, and they are both really nice figures, Robin himself summoning the Merry Men for some shenanigans, the Indian is from an older hollow-cast moulding I think Matt said, but now done as a solid. Matt also sells all of them as unpainted castings.

This MTB/PT-Boat was nice, some age (dime store type/era), and pretty clean, but there is a small question mark over the opening beneath the conning-tower, and the two openings just in front of it, I can't work out if something is missing, or if someone has had a dig to fit a couple of figures, now missing, no brand or brand-mark, nor the typical Kleeware/Tudor Rose circular mould-release/blanking disc marks, so maker is totally unknown but could be an early Thomas or Lido/Pyro/Reliable type thing?

A pair of beautifully painted Commonwealth 'World Dolls'; Ms's Hawaii and Holland, and painted by George Hanger, who used to paint stuff for the BMSS museum and their magazine articles, indeed, given who I bought them off (who also gave me their history), I'm guessing those Mokarex/Figurines Historiques Musketeers (bottom of post) were painted by George as well?

Polish [French] cavalry from PZG, going for a song in a little bag, I'm not sure on the horses, so gave the most obviously different one to the Trumpeter, and the other odd one to the 'officer' in white!

Smaller single/rummage-tray pick purchases include (going vaguely clockwise from the top left); Kinder fantasy figure, I've several of these come in recently (so not rare) in both blue and green, a large native American Indian type from . . . Lido? Tudor Rose? Someone like that, he's in the archive somewhere and probably tied-in with a Lone Ranger or similar movie? And finally in that shot -  a US MP with pod-feet, again I should know, I've seen him before and I think I have him in dark blue, so this may be a 1990's reissue?

Poplar tractor (another!), an aluminium totem pole (Wend-Al or Aludo?) and a tin of my favourite brown! I have the old Authenticast semi-gloss leather version and the bog-standard gloss, but this matt dark-brown is hard to find these days, or seems so to me, so I thought I'd grab a 'newie' when I saw it!

A Toumoulage French soldier in metallic mauve polystyrene (why not!) and a rather nice-paint Cherilea Egyptian share the line-up with a less common cake-decoration deer sculpt and one of the Airfix (or Frazier & Glass I think . . . now!) cadets.

Finally another big Indian I should know, and another of those teeny-tiny Topo Gigio (Louie Mouse) figures from Italy, which I keep finding (or being sent), I have four or five now, I think in three colours, but all the same pose? Board game pieces maybe . . . or were they an early Kinder or a gum-ball capsule-dispenser thing?

The Toumoulage Indians we've already looked at above, with a mix below; the big guy is a Marolin, probably post reunification? Next to him is a better-quality Hong Kong copy of a Herald sculpt, with a French-made cowboy on the end of the row. In front a Marx 45mm PVC-rubber cowboy and a French (or more likely Polish) Indian with peace pipe, one of several (with pipes) who've come-in recently.

Big Joe from Big, what Jean Höfler became, a Gulliver late-issue copy of an Atlantic cowboy and a Pech y Hermanos artilleryman, the gun in front is similar to the Pech one he should be found with, but bigger and a Hong Kong (or early British garden/beach toy, it's unmarked?) Aussie jungle 25lbr without splinter-shield.

Quick note; I've finally bitten the bullet and switched from Firefox to Chrome, still getting used to it, but it has changed the gaps between images and paragraphs, nothing I can do about it, the Internet like most everything else these days seems to be slowly fragmenting and getting worse not better!