F is for Follow-up - Sports Plunder

Matters arising from the first of Chris's donation posts; and I had a few images in Picasa which shed a little more light on some of my verbiage in that previous post!

 

On the left is one of the most common ones I'd always had a few of, usually in a bit of a state, there's a soft-plastic copy as well, while the chap to the right, I know nothing about (and will report-back when I do!), but the 'Bastard in the Black' is both a new pose, and a new source with a deeper, more-sculpted base, this trio came-in about two-and-a-half years ago, and were shot at the old flat!

 

An evilBay shot from '22, which shows a full set of six different sculpts in a three-a-side cake decorating vignette, could be Culpitt or Wilton or someone else (as could all these footballer decorations. and are a bit smaller I think, although the green chap at the back seems to be inventing Rugby!

 

They are Waddington's Totopoly, and here are two samples of slightly different plastic ones, I shot back in 2018. While an austerity set with printed-card racers, in slotted wooden blocks dates from the war era, mirroring their stable mate (geddit!) Monopoly.

H is for How They Come In - London, March, Military

Hmmmm . . . I've just discovered, for some reason Google have changed the image-upload system (again) overnight, for no discernable purpose (again) and it's loading them in reverse order . . . not for the first time! But as I gave up pre-editing and SOE'ing with this new, glitchy picece-of-shit (but not as piece-of-shit as an HP) computer back in January, it's just another 'thing' in the fragmenting 'Internet' of a declining civilisation - enjoy it while you can; 'cos we've had the best of it! Anyway, military stuff this post;

 

Possibly Mars-Hindenburg, but unmarked these two are about 45/50mm and almost semi-flat, they're depicting the German army of the WWI era, and composition, so I had to have them as soon as I saw them!

A small bag of Sky Birds (and others), possibly from Adrian, nothing terribly exciting, and I think I have them all, but getting the various marching poses with the rifles intact is always a bonus!

Couple of Coma/Co-Ma matelots, I couldn't remember if I'd got some of these (or the air force) at a PW Show a year or two ago, so grabbed them while I saw them, and will sort them later, the one on the right needs some rust removed!

Interesting figure on the left, being a copy, scaled-up of the Giant and other Spacemen, kneeling with ray-gun. Look's like a pretty bog-standard rack-toy, of some age, but I've never seen one in this size before?

 

To his right is a 'from hollow-cast' cowboy in a bit of a state, hardly any paint left, and I think he’s had his base trimmed-off, so 'damaged', but my first example (as far as I know) and maybe one of the BR Moulds stable?

Couple of Frenchies, I haven't looked them up so I won't attribute them, or try, my 'eemies' have such fun at my attempts in that sphere! Colonial Infantry on the right, khaki on the left, slightly small at around 50mm and polystyrene.

The Hong Kong 'swoppet' paratroopers i always think-of as French-looking, we've seen them before, but these are a different (more yellowish-olive) colour plastic and with colour-matched bases, they also have black and brown plastic weapons against the silver of my larger sample.

A bunch of Hollow-cast from Adrian's cheapie tray, I can't remember if they were 50p's or £1's this time, but as it had been quite a frugal show as far as purchases went, i rather filled my boots!

Now the text is all over the place, I just started adding this at the start and when I tried to delete it found I was deleting the line below? In fact the cursor is jumping all over the place (especially when I hit 'enter') and the radio is reporting problems with British Airways leading to 90-flight cancellations . . . and they think we're going to get to the stars? We can't make a garden shed waterproof for ten years!

Three more Siku premiums, you may have noticed these coming in, in ones and twos for almost the whole history of the blog, they are rather all-over the place and I'm still miles away from a full set of cowboys or Indians, in either size, painted or unpainted, but it'll still be nice to get them all together soon and have a decent look at them!

Finishing off with a few more of the HK copies of the Waddington's/Rojas e Malaret US cavalry from the Battle of the Little Bighorn boardgame, These must have been a gift from someone, or very cheap as they're not something I'd normally buy.

 

I keep hoping I'll see their - probably bagged - set on evilBay, as they're not exactly rare and must show-up with some empirical clues at some point! And because I do have a tub-full, I hope to paint up one of each one day soon'ish!

H is for How They Come In - London, March, Boxed & Bits

Playing catch-up again with the show reports! Back to the end of March and the London Toy Soldier show first, where I wasn't expecting to pick-up much but ended-up with some useful stuff anyway.

 

 Worth mentioning, that while there was some pessimism around the new combined (soldiers and modellers/wargamers) one day show, it seems to have gone well, and most I chatted with were pleased or pleasantly surprised; next one's only about six-weeks away now!

I don't actually know (or remember my reasoning) why most of these weren't subsequently photographed, but with the exception of the Kinder barbarian (bottom left) they haven't been? I know the EMCE (top) are featuring in a forthcoming post, but why the rest were spirited off to their TBS boxes without a photo', is now a mystery.

 

Points to note include two Fontanini Nappies, a Cane Turk, a nice bag of khaki infantry types, two UNA in sand, a small bag of post-Giant Romans, and . . . the Guardsman pen with flocked bearskin????? I took him off to shoot the rest of the Novelty ceremonials (we looked at on the 4th May), and forgot to come back and shoot the rest didn't I? That's what happened!

As soon as we arrived I asked one seller if he had anything nice, and he basically said I need to shift these, they're yours for [insert ridiculously low price here] if you'll take them, so I was off to a good start with mostly Atlantic small scale!

 

Also boxed were these two Minikins sets which will be part of a bigger post but not for some time, while the farm animals are Tamiya, and I bought them from one of the kit-dealers in the other - additional - room! Just for fun, really!

 

Other boxed items from the 'other team's' stallholders include the JB Models (now Airfix) 105's, I intend to do one in Wainwright two-tone, towed and the other firing in Falklands black & green. The ACE Models half-track 'Diana' SPG, is a nice variant, while I think I already have the space set (from Dark Dream Studio), but I'll de-runner these and make-up the assemblies.

 

I bought this from the Legendary James Opie's table, although I believe his colleague is behind them, there were several, but I thought this had potential for a lot of different figures/eras? Obviously you trim-back to the base of the fort and stand it at the back of a display shelf, there were a whole bunch of them. The fat chap in a bicorne wasn't a purchase on the day, but happened to be to hand for an example of how they look!

 

I have several of these now, they tend to come in with mixed lots and are mostly - I suspect - from cheap, rack-toy 'knock-off' action figures, god knows if I'll ever get them all ID'd, but there are sites which look at all the also-ran's, so one day . . . maybe!

 

This is fun, I saw a heated discussion out of the corner of my eye, toward the end of the show, and when it had petered-out, I wandered over and asked what was the interest, and the seller explained the buyer had wanted one building, but that as it was a complete run, he wanted to sell them all together, and for only twenty-quid, so I handed over the money before anyone else realised what was happening!

 

In the event I found two duplicates and one missing, but they seem to appear on feebleBay regularly, so I'll find the missing one soon for the complete set. In the meantime they are an interesting thing, Waddington's HO-gauge scaled building that slot together without glue and which can be collapsed and put away again when Mum needs the table back! Eight of the smaller/medium-sized ones were also issued as Weetabix premiums.

B is for Brief Board-game Bonanza!

Another box which got shifted from the garage back to storage was this one, but it was jammed at the bottom, and while I like to carry-on like I'm still 25, the simple fact is - I'm not! So I had to break the tape and temporarily empty-out the horizontal games laying on the top, to make it light enough to jiggle about while lifting, 'cos it's a big box; it had a boiler in originally!

A mixed bunch, the Star Trek only has large 54/60mm card flats, and I think I picked-up a lose set a while ago, so this will probably go at some point, but there's a few treasures in here too, we saw the Formula 1 game ages ago, and the Belagerung with Marx figures (I can't remember if it was here or One Inch Warrior magazine though?) and we've seen the 3M Feudal figures, loose.

Tri-Tactics (Gibsons) is also card flats; beautiful old litho'd ones, we've seen the Show Jumping plastic flats once or twice I think and the Keys to the Kingdom figures? While there's so much on Axis and Allies now on-line I may never bother with a full post, but they're there for comparison shots and the A-Z!

I photographed the contents of the other box back in the summer of 2020, and a couple of those posts are still in the queue (although I don't think Shogun has turned up yet?), but I'm going to quickly look at three of these, which have already been sealed back-up again and gone-on to the store.

Waddington's Camelot, we have seen the pieces here already, they have been in one or two mixed lots, but we may return to them here, to compare with some black & white ones I think I have somewhere.

Dean's second - bi-lingual - version of the Peter Rabbit Race Game, original sets had hollow-cast lead figures, fully painted and supplied by Timpo, the tool for which these polyethylene plastic ones were moulded from, a third 'heritage' version was issued a few years ago with 'antiqued' chrome-finished mazak-alloy pieces. I think the lead ones have been seen here? Squirrel Nutkin is the odd one out, with a full/all-over coat of paint, on cream-white plastic.

This came from Matt Thier of White Tower Miniatures, who saw it and saved it for me nearly 20 years ago, and he let me have it at his cost, which was car-booty pennies I seem to recall, so many thanks to Matt, for that!

An Italian-language (Noris toys or games) one or two-player game, you are Ivanhoe (or Roger Moore; even if he looks like Tony Curtis!), fighting the baddies of King Prince John!

Figures are semi-flat, in the European premium style, about 25mm and hard polystyrene. The TV series was actually an early ITV joint UK/US co-production and Roger Moore hated doing it apparently!

V is for Variation on a Theme

I've pointed out before that two board games in particular (Monopoly and Cludo) have become marketing vehicles for the parting of money from fools, but others (Risk, Axis & Allies) get the multiple-version treatment, today it's back to Cludo / Clue.

With pop-culture dominating the non-work sphere of western or developed-world existence we will return to both as often as I find them in charity-shops - not being a fool, I wouldn't be seen dead paying-full for any of them, even if they did a Terminator Risk in 20mm with artwork by Moebius and figures sculpted by H. Geiger!

Un-boxing is easier as a .gif; there's a lot in here and it's been expanded to eight players, with three supports and 12 rooms, an expensive way of making a slower and more complicated version of an old favourite.

Endless (or 32?) alternate set-ups, but I think the positioning of the entrance hall/lobby may limit that choise-total, each is a separate card and there are some plastic crosses (x marks lots of spots) and magnifying glasses (which like the cracker-toy novelties do actually work!) that can be liberally sprinkled about the place like a fantasy games-master setting rat-traps!

The figures; only reason I care about the existence of any of these re-hashes, the three supernumeraries are the ones with square bases, the eight player-pieces get round bases, all nicely sculpted with parquet flooring - which matches . . . err . . . none of the rooms!

They are reasonable for 25/28mm gaming, and with the Victorian air, would suit Steampunk or the HG Wells/Jules Verne/H. R-Haggard anchored stuff, or even Edwardian 'Hardboiled' stuff.

Ably assisted - as always - by my late assistant, little did she know that 31 days later she would be joining the 99.9^r% of everything that ever lived, a message hidden there for the meat-faced loons who don't think we've entered the most serious existential-threat phase of our evolution? She is sorely missed.

P is for Posh Tiddlywinks!

We've seen the figures once or twice in comparisons or H is for . . . 's, but here is the whole game, with .gif! Wadington's Table Soccer, a football game in a board-game box, but not really a 'board' game.

The box, as we've seen the figures before the artwork's depiction of the player might come as a bit of a surprise as it shows a reasonable rendition of a chap in 'footie bags' waiting for the whistle, yet we know the actual playing pieces are more . . .

. . . blob-like! However, casting back to the previous shot - this is because it turns out they are, or need to be; robust 'sticks' for firing tiddlywinks! Although this was in storage I'd forgotten that basic element of the game, it's a fancy version of tiddlywinks!

The likelyhood of them breaking (and you often find them either broken or glued near the ankles (occasionally missing a head!), lead to a spare on each side, and the chap I introduced as a referee previously is - in fact - the goal-keeper, or 'pair' of goal keepers! I put an extra figure for each team in years ago, just 'cos I had them.

4-4-2 v 5-2-3!

A .gif which shows first all the components of the tray and then a set-up for a match with the 'casualty substitutes' placed with 2 spare 'balls' on the far touchline - well; you might lose one under the skirting-board!

Note also that the playing 'board' is not the usual hardback book-binders heavy card, but something more akin to washing-powder box card, which folds in three, and the goals clip to each end with a pair of little studs.

What she thinks of Deadbeat Hairstrand's meme!

You see me here, you see me there, you see me pretty-much everywhere! I was . . . err . . . looking for . . . stuff! Yeah! That's it, I was looking for stuff; he keeps complaining about all the stuff so I thought I'd check-see if there was any stuff to remove!

The lawn is looking more like an Arizonan 'yard' after the weird weather we've had this year!

S is for Santorini

Where - I think it's fair to say - a majority of ancient historians (that's historians specialising in the ancient period, not a bunch of decrepit historians . . . although some of them are bound to have some age) now believe an advanced, pre-historical, bronze-age, naval society, akin or related to the Minoans or Troy, were based on their island paradise . . . which just happened to be a sleeping volcano - and you thought 2020 was a bit shit!

Another Waddington's game today, with 'plastic smalls' . . . . [thump!] there, that's the PSTSM leaving the room, phew! I picked this up soon after it came out, for about half what it cost, with figures still on the runners, which is usually a sign the family didn't get through a first read of the rules!

The figures are suitably ancient in the fashion stakes, and while wildly different sizes (if she stood-up straight she'd be 7-foot-6 to his 5-11), they would both paint-up well for inclusion with Atlantic's Christians in the big arena! He'd also make a good chariot soldier, while she could hide from 'Kong'!

I wasn't prepared to do a .gif of this one as there are far too many pieces (120+) and I didn't bother reading the rules at all! But a central citadel leads-on to six town pieces, 12 countryside pieces and 24 rock-sections, after which, escape (the main aim of the game) lies in crossing the ocean . . .

. . . a task facilitated by catching a ride on a passing bireme - only three at a time thought (Covid-19 social distancing!), Ding! Ding! "Move down the boat please! And don't forget to report anything unusual - No! Not the molten lava-balls falling from the sky Madam, management is already aware of that - and take all you belongings with you if you leave".

'If', because there are giant octopi and sea-dragons to help stop you ever getting to the mainland and being sold into slavery to pay for your passage! Note; the box art has reverse colours from those in my set.

There are sharks too! Now you start to understand why each player has 12 counters, it is probably likely some players don't save more than one, if any at all? The dolphins probably help . . . bloody liberals, always wanting to aid people worse off than the majority . . . it's fucking socialism you know, sodding pinko-commie cetaceans!!

I posed them with the boat as I had it out for that post the other day!

There you go, someone else went to the effort of setting-up a sample game so I didn't have to!

I'm not saying she's mad, but look at the eyes, I think she's going to kill her 'mother' as soon as the photographer says "Wrap"!

 

19-06-2022 - I've since learnt that there are various versions of this game, some with simpler or more cartoony sea monsters, another with simple cone-counters for the people, one with all card pieces, another (Germany?) with wooden playing pieces and everything else in card, but I think the above is the best version of the lot.

F is for Follow-up - Monopoly

Although, when it says 'follow-up', it was referring to something six or more years ago! AND, I thought I'd posted this all those years ago! Hay-ho! Just a quickie . . .

Following the card stand-ups with wooden feet (UK) and composition (US) 'erzatz' playing pieces of the Second World War period, when Waddington's re-vamped the Monopoly set after the war and for a while, they had these die-cast mazak/zamak-alloy flats.

I think we've looked at both the motorcycle and the tank in separate posts (the tank seeming to be derived from or influencing the larger US comic-book cheapness in plastic), but then I found a set (there's a bunch more in the garage somewhere!) of all of them, except of course, there's seven?

I think the 'Blimp' is from another board game . . . Airship, or Zeppelin or something? Where it - possibly - comes in four colours. Aug. 2022 - Waddington's Astron, six colours!

I also shot a selection pf the houses and hotels who have come over the years from various contract-manufactures, some smooth, some textures, some with hard edges, some soft and the plain wooden ones from the pre-through-imediate-post-war era, although I think if you find a few early sets you'll find variations among the wooden ones too!

That's it, it was only going to be a gap-filler when it was first uploaded!

I is for Intermediate Scales - 40mm Wild West; Introduction

The following image is the comparison shot for the three posts which should have appeared immediately below it.

Both images consist of a Merten 40mm Wild West figure on the far left of the line-up, followed by - from left to right - an early Culpitt's cake decoration with separate base, also issued as carded rack-toys in France by Jouets Super Plastic (JSP) shipped into Portugal by Injectaplastic, a late Culpitt's version with integral base, a - probably Hong Kong - copy of Atlantic in that tinny plastic of the 1990's and a similar Waddington's clone - except it may not be a clone, but more on that in the relevant post below this, so scroll down if you want more on all four types.

I couldn't find the Elastolin box, so I couldn't add one each on the right of the line-up, as I had intended, but they are much-of-a-muchness with the Merten's, only Elastolin's sculpts tent to be slightly sharper in the sculpting/finish.

I is for Intermediate Scales - 40mm Wild West; Ex-Waddington's 'Battle of the Little Big Horn'

Very similar to the next set (above; or click 'newer post' below) and equally unmarked and equally Hong Kong production-looking are these Battle of Little Big Horn clones of the old Rojas e Malaret sculps, except I suspect they aren't clones so much as a late running of the final tool of the two or three we saw here.

Whether the mould was in Hong Kong or was moved to Hong Kong is - currently - anybody's guess, just because some people have attributed HK without recourse to evidence or caviat is not really the point, the figures exist and while those late painted ones 'look' Hong Kong'y, there is nothing to say either way!

Indeed; these may be from a late version of the board game, paint is not necessary for 'playing counters' and while I've never seen a set with these, equally I've never seen a carded or bagged rack toy with them either?

They could just as easily have been run as cake decorations, the same as those very frangible Triang-Minimodels ones - who also have unpainted versions. Note: the second shade of brown.

There is a clear difference is in the horses where there are various horse colours (and I must thank Gareth from Morgan Miniatures for putting a few of these - foot & mounted - aside for the Blog recently), but I don't think there is any import by it, beyond a bit of variation.

The real American [not a] Hero who gets to be massacred again and again and again and again and again and again and again . . . although when I say 'massacred' I mean taught a lesson by the locals "Never go south of the River if you're not properly tooled-up and ready for trouble" . . . . everybody knows that, ask a taxi-driver!

Y is for Yet 'Ee is or Yet 'Ee isn't . . . a Yeti?

I had this chap marked up as a knock-off Chewie from the War of Stars, but, he doesn't have a cross belt liberally adorned with quick-release para-buckles!

Also, he has 'cartoon' hands with three chubby fingers, so I wonder if he may be from a set of something related to kids-TV like Scoobie-Doo or Tin Tin? Is he a Yeti, a Wookie or Mr. James the school-teacher, hoping not to be unmasked by some pesky kids in a hippyfied camper-van?

Posed with a few other hairy lycan types, namely Tim Mee late production Galaxy Laser Team's oh-no-no-no-absolutely-not-no-never-a-wookie . . . err 'Wookie' and MPC's bat-eared wool-uff-man!

Posed with Applause's Luke (hair's wrong for Luke, is it the other one? Dirk Buzzlight? Dick Lightly?), he is still not tall enough (the furry one) so he remains a mystery, but someone must have him pegged?!

Now known to be from the board game 'Bigfoot' from Waddinton's and Milton Bradley/MB Games, and the later 1980's version, not the 1977 version which also has a Bigfoot model still to be added to the collection! He's had two bars removed which would enable him to slot into the game apparatus and kick rocks at the cartoonish running player-figures which i also have somewhere

G is for Golfwinks

Like tiddlywinks but spoiled! No! This is actually quite a fun variation of the old tiddlywinks game, because instead of just aiming for a cup, you have to navigate a course which has many configurations, changed after each round, to, presumably 18?

From Waddington's (was there a Parker version on the other side of the pond?), this was a charity shop purchase about six-months ago, most of it has long gone to recyling, but the stuff in the bag was retained along with the two long flocked 'greens' which you will recognise as having since become common photo-props here at Small Scale World!

The fences are marked Britains and were obviously bought-in (they also supplied their cyclist to several board games including a number in France/Italy), The players are the most basic version of screen-printed flat 'token', but are figural so will go in the collection (well; 'have gone in....'), the tiddlywinks also have a tub and there is a tub of miscellaneous flags somewhere!

I'll also keep the 'rough', it's fun and stores flat in an envelope! It consists of several die-cut cards which can be slotted together with each other in various ways to make a tiddlywinks-capturing coppice.

This all went the way of all flesh, the underside of the 'hole' has some patent information for anyone who visits the National Archive in Kew (why can't they put them online like the Americans - easy to look up US patents, you just Google them!)*, the fawn item is a 'bunker' the blue - obviously - a water feature.

* Call me a political cynic, but the answer is; 40 years of Tory monetising of society and the State! Things we paid for the collation-of, through general taxation or registration fees, have to be paid for again if we want to 'remind' ourselves what we bought with the first lot of cash!

Vote Lib Dem or SNP in the forthcoming election to shake some of the rotten fruit out of the tree, or vote Tory/Brwreakshit for a semi-fascist, very austere future as the 53rd State, vote Labour if you're undecided or confused, so are they!