Z is for Zulus

And other African warriors. Not actually much covered outside metal war gaming figures. Most of the early British plastics producers had a set of 'African Warriors' and Esci produced a reasonable set I'll probably cover another day, but I thought I'd look at what we have vintage wise.

These are 15, 20 and 25mm figures by (from left to right) Stadden, Hinton Hunt (I think, there's a HH mark on the base and it's his style) and God knows, in fact who cares, stumpy little scaled down 28mm Ork!!

Two 40mm Hong Kong or possibly minor European maker and a HK copy of the Lone Star African warrior in 35mm.

Marx African exploration set, this is a late set in the 'Battleground' style box, with soft polythene parts. The contents of these sets vary as there were more poses than the bean counters would allow in a single set. Most of the accessories are standard, but the pile of boxes in the centre is unusual and may be unique to this set (Unlikely though, Marx would throw anything in anyset!!).

Kinder have also marketed some nice African/Zulu warriors in a swoppet style, produced by Res Plastic (RP) in 54mm. I have them somewhere and will post them one day, when I find them!!

Winter Wildlife

I've seen Earwigs in Autumn apples, but this was buried deep inside a pine-cone from the Cedar of Lebanon which lost a branch in the recent heavy snow. I was crushing the cones in my hand to break them down for the compost heap when low and behold, the twin pincer of an Earwig!

Ratty raiding the bird-table, when I rap on the window, he feigns fright, leaps of the platform, climbs down to this little step waits a few seconds and then - when death fails to become an immediate likelihood - climbs back up again! What with the fox, the poor birds are getting a raw deal from this table...

Not sure if this was happy being woken in the middle of winter, he/she...it? was hiding in the moss I've been clearing from the Tennis Court, I suspect a moth rather than a butterfly, just by the time of year, anybody recognise it?

Z is for Zizzle

Or is it? Carried in the UK by Vivid, marketed on behalf of Disney. The problem with a lot of this usually short-lived movie related stuff these days, is that by the time half-a-dozen marketing companies, have issued licences to several producers, who've passed them on to their subsidiaries in Kowloon it becomes very difficult to work out who makes what for whom. My A-Z is full of cross-references from two groups, European food premiums of the 1950/60's and modern tie-in production!

These figures - very much in the Galoob 'Action-Fleet' mould - came with two issues of model ships tying-in with the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' franchise. The second issue having two ships from the first issue with an additional Chinese Junk. The figures are around 28mm.

A figure on the deck to give some idea of the size relationship between the vessels and the characters.

The four vessels bobbing about on the briny bed-sheet!

Z is for Zang

One of the 'Holy Grails' of not just small scale collectors, but all toy soldier collectors. Before they went into plastic injection moulding, Zang experimented with European style composition, supplying Timpo with 40mm and 54mm figures to accompany their lead aeroplanes and slush-cast civilian vehicles in boxed sets.

The figure in question is a 30mm Highland Infantryman in Khaki dress with a red kilt, I have seen them with green kilts. Mine was broken across the ankles, and in order to glue him as invisibly as possible without using super-glue which leaves a tell-tale pale white 'scar', I bled liquid styrene glue into the open ends of the ankles and rifle, and then used a thinned-down household clear spirit-based glue (Bostic - I think) to hold the pieces together, which seems to have worked as it was several years ago and he's still in one piece!

Y is for Yolanda

I have few examples of this company, for two reasons, firstly they don't come up that often, second they produce mostly in the larger scales 60/100/150mm etc...

However, an interesting company that needs greater research, preferably from one of the Spanish collectors? The real reason for the interest is that their logo - Yolanda in a TV screen shaped frame - is to all intents and purposes the same as the logo's of Comansi and Novalinea. As the company is Spanish (believed to be based in Barcelona), the inference is that it was the TV/Movie merchandising arm of Novalinea, who were themselves the re-birth of Comansi?

Here we have a robot which I believe to be a character from MazingerZ (also known as TranzorZ), a Japanese kids TV cartoon in the Animé/Manga mould. Next to him is a DragonBall Z character, they are both around 30mm.

Three of the four Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Hero-Turtles, these are 25mm and with no name on the figures I haven't the faintest which one is missing!

Yolanda also made figurines for Barrio Sesamo (Sesame Street, large scale), Inspector Gadget (60mm) and The Phantom (150mm?), along with various 10cm Manga Figurines. These latter figures are all factory painted, I believe the smaller ones were 'collectables' in gum capsules or Sobres, or Kinder type chocolates. The Turtles were given away - in the UK - in TMNT Lucky-Bags, with a few generic boiled sweets/lollies and some sort of interactive paper shite such as a puzzle or sticker set and a few collectors cards.

Can any of our Spanish collecting brethren shine more light on them or their relationship with Comansi/Novalinea?

W is for Woolbro

Woolbro were one of the few Hong Kong names holding their own against Giant, others being Hagemeyer/Haglon, Gordy, Imperial and Empress, though none were as big as Blue Box. I used to think they were - like Winfield - an 'in house' brand of Woolworths, but it's clear they sold to anyone who'd buy their products, and that they sourced product from all over the colony, including the Blue Box/Rado/Ri-Toys empire.

This contains the commonly found mini-trucks based on the old Lone*Star/Dinky post war Humber trucks, along with copies of Britains 54mm khaki Infantry.

This set has similar contents (but with the later less detailed figures on ovoid bases - click on both images to compare), divided into two compartments, so you could divide them up with you brother and have a fight (no, not a war-game, a fight over who's figures were who's!).

An under-scale Saladin armoured-car is the 'highlight' of this set, along with copies of Airfix first version 8th Army and German WWII Infantry. Deliberately made to look just like a Blue Box play-set, it's nice to know they were cutting each other up, as well as ripping-off the European manufacturers. Even more interesting when we look at the next photograph;

Both these contain figures/products from Blue Box or Ri-toys, I have bags identical to the one on the left but with the Ri-Toys tree symbol where the Woolbro logo is on this header, while an unmarked vac-formed tray like the one on the right, contains more of the Blue Box cowboys with a little fort. The figures on the left are multi-coloured versions of the - usually green - French Resistance Fighters originally by Blue-box in factory-painted pale-blue hard polystyrene. The 'planes came in all sorts of HK sets. [20 NP = Twenty 'New Pence' dating this set to 1969/70]

W is for World Dolls/World Dancers Part 1

Right, sorry for the delay, but personal stuff has kept me away for the last few days. Having learned to do the second part first in order that they run in sequence I should have done this the same night as the Commonwealth/Van Brode post, but hey, better late than never. Tonight's post concerns the World Dancers/World dolls known to those in the States from the adverts in comics which ran from the 50's through to the late 70's/early 80's? To Europeans from the margarine give-aways, and to the citizens of the UK from, er...I don't know what!!

The first to make an appearance were the 'Tanzerinnen' or; Female Dancers. A set of ten different figures given away as premiums with K's, Schipka and Voss (not Fri-Homa as stated on the US Comics Website [link to right], nor is there any evidence that they were among the sets manufactured by Siku), these figures (above) are not from those sets which tend to have different bases and greater detail, but have been separated from the US comic set to give an idea of the European sets. A further word on origin; While Siku did produce a lot of the premium flats in Germany in the 1950/60's, there were many other companies in Germany, France and the Low Countries producing these, selling the product, selling/leasing the moulds and the designs and copying each other's work. Moulds (both originals and copies) ended up in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil, Singapore and Macao/Macau. Not forgetting that the early plastic flat history includes the WHW winter/war relief sets, and running plastic through 'Nuremberg Flat' moulds!

They next turn up with the US comic 100 World Dolls set, with the addition of 20 new poses, missing from the above photograph are a clown and Santa Clause on a sleigh. The US issue additions are a less quality sculpt, being much chunkier. Over the years they were sold by a number of (apparently) different companies, which are all on the US comics website.

During their lifetime the figures have turned up elsewhere, and here we see a few, on the left are two factory-painted examples, the Chinaman had an umbrella glued into his hands, both figures have the remains of card/paper and glue on their bases, and probably came in little tourist gift-shop type vignettes (these two were found separately, several years apart). Then the two on the top row - centre and right are different colours, hard plastic and may have been premiums or Christmas Cracker novelties. Centre of the bottom row shows a figure who's release pin has become stuck mid-way through the moulding process, leaving a rod of plastic sticking out of his back. Finally a soft plastic Cracker gift. [And I covered some other copies of this set under 'B is for more Betterwear' in November '08]

  This is the real mystery, containing 7 of the ten dancers, and 13 of the twenty US dolls. You might think "Well the others are just lost in the mists of time?" but the group 'as found' contains exactly two of each of the figures present, making a total of 40, those two neat numbers add-up to more than a slight coincidence, so I think it's a complete 'sample'. The question is what? There are undocumented rumours that these may have been issued in UK breakfast cereal or biscuits, while the possibility remains that they could be the unsold (complete) contents of a shop-stock box as supplied to a bakers or cake-decorators? They are in a pinkish plastic. Indeed, the pink flesh colouring of this set and the subject matter of all the sets are the main links with the sets discussed in part 2 - Below.

W is for World Dolls/World Dancers Part 2

Actually the first subjects are called 'Dolls of Our World' but like the 'Dancers/Dancers of the World/World Dancers' they are known as World Dolls. Clearly meant to be touristy keepsakes, sold individually from tourist attractions and gift shop/kiosks, they would - most likely - have been marketed by salesmen and through wholesalers catalogues.

The original figures as sold by the Commonwealth Plastics Corp., Leominster, Massachusetts, USA, in a phenolic resinous flesh-coloured factory painted plastic (top row) from - I would guess (from the nature of the rest of the contents of the collection they came with) - 1930's-1950's. Later production was unpainted (bottom row, far left 1950's?) and finally the figures were made available in multi-coloured polystyrene (rest of bottom row 1960/70's?) with thinner bases.

Commonwealth seem to have been owned/operated by/as part of the Aero Plastics group by the Catalucci family, who's decendents have recently opened another plastics factory in Leominster called Phoenix Inc.! Research however leads to an apparently unrelated high-tech plastics company with a near-dead website called Phoenix Co.Inc. (rather than plain 'Inc.'!!) in Texas!!?!

These are copies of the Commonwealth Plastics, almost certainly from Hong Kong and came either in the ivorene plastic of European giveaways (top row) or in various shades of off white (bottom row), pantographed from the originals they are slightly smaller.

Here we have some World Dancer figures, as well-moulded as the Commonwealth ones, but by a company called Van Brode, operating out of Clinton, also in Massachusetts (so - given the size of the States - some clear connection there!). The strange lozenges are missing from the base underside which is now smooth, and they are clearly marked, most on the rear edge, but the West Indies guy has a larger marking on the underside, so at least two issues?

The connection hinted at above is not quite as clear as say - they bought the Commonwealth moulds. First; the Van Brode figurines are in pairs (like the Britains 54mm/1:32 Ethnic Dancers) with one being the musician the other the dancer. Second; the Van Brode figures are reversed (where similar to) Commonwealth poses. Footnote; Van Brode manufactured C-Rations during WWII and these figures were almost certainly a premium given away in the breakfast cereals from their mill in the (late?) 1950's. [Kent Sprecher (toysoldierHQ - link above) now has them actually putting the figures in ration packs for the Korean War - Given the number of Asian looking figures in a full set and speaking as an ex-soldier; I can think of nothing worse, while freezing in your fire-base on the Imjim River, than finding a Koren looking figurine in your Chili ConcarneMRE!!]

Here are more modern copies of both manufacturers products in 30 and 20mm. Top row; Four hard polystyrene Commonwealth poses, two with a chrome/silver over-spray, an unpainted and a basic factory paint-job. Bottom row; a soft polythene Commonwealth, probably from a Christmas Cracker, a vinyl factory painted doll I'm told is a Portuguese food premium and a baseless copy of the Van Brode Hawaiian reversed version.


Size Comparison shot of some of the above, top left to bottom right they are; Commonwealth; Early, late and 20mm copy, Commonwealth; Early, mid, late, 20mm copy and lastly; a copy of Van Brode's reversed Hawaiian dancer.

Last Night's Visitors

So who was in the garden last night? Easy;

Next door's cat.

A fox, who took the fat-ball off the bird-table.

A pigeon who took a look at the raided bird-table!

A cock-pheasant who let everyone know he was around in the early hours, they're almost as bad as peacocks at this time of year!

W is for Whiteout

Sorry, just couldn't resist a quick photograph session outside this morning. Shot over the back hedge with the local fields in the background.

Esci 'Smoke Units'

Esci Sd.Kfz.250

Unknown resin BA10 (I think?) and Fujimi KV

Sepia'ed in Picasa!

B is for Bits and Bobs

The recent snow and stuff has slowed work in the garden, pruning has come to a complete standstill and we have to be careful were we walk so as not to tread on the snowdrops and other bulbs as they come up through it. So a few miscellaneous shots taken over the last few days.

This was the by-product of my 5-week bonfire, the orangey-pinkish stuff is the soil that went through the fire with huge forkfuls of wet leaves and the stuff I raked out from under the shrubs and boarders. It makes the ash 'heavy' so that it doesn't blow away and can be spread more easily on the land. So far, twenty barrow-loads have come out of this heap and have gone on all the roses, the veg garden and the tomato trench in the greenhouse. The raspberries have also had a bucket load or two, as have the currants.

The Tomato trench has also been half-filled with home made compost, after which it was topped-up with new soil, taken from a path-straitening project elsewhere on the grounds. Here you see last years compost on the left and this years ready to be covered on the right. I have put a lot of peaty leaf-mould on top to speed up the process and prevent a dry layer of half-composted stuff needing removing from the top when we uncover it next autumn. There is no Laylandii, Yew or similar fir/evergreen cuttings as they take forever to rot and tend to puddle an oily slime like Amoco-crude! Not many shrub cuttings get in either, but lots of grass mowing's, moss and weeds, shrub-bed raking and the scrapings from the kitchens. No meat or fish, no bread (only because it all goes on the bird-tables) and no fat (same reason), finally a couple of layers of old carpet are thrown on, fur side down, and the whole left to sweat through the year.

A couple of trees I photographed up on the Ridgeway path above Wantage the other day, it was bitterly cold, and we found a monument to the 'Barron Wantage' who seem to have got a VC in the Crimean war, but having been without a computer for a week I haven't managed to look him up on Google yet!

The first bunch of Snowdrops to poke up, taken a couple of weeks ago, we now have loads of them but they are all under snow at the moment.

And the Lord sayeth unto you; "Yey, thou art a gullible fool"

This is the little 'affirmation' sayings booklet that helps a 'born-again' Christian get through not a day but two whole months! Ahh...bless. Of course - to obtain it - money had to change hands on the steps of the temple...

It contains little sayings from the elders of the religion, bible quotes, modern language edits of the parables, dates in the ecumenical calender, that sort of thing, and it really helped some of them get through January and February of 2009...Great!

But what's this? It's been "...previously published 1996"? So the sayings from the little-baby-jesus that helped them through '96 are good for '09? This is no better than the Horoscopes in the tabloid rags.

These people simply aren't Homo Sapiens, they are Homo Almostsapiens, able to conform to the model of a human being while having less intelligence than a hungry squirrel (or even just a greedy squirrel!), after all they still believe in a Pan-dimensional Mega-being! And the people who preach to them, who sell them these booklets at the coffee mornings - charlatans!

One hopes that Selwyn Hughes and Mick Brook come to a sticky end...

W is for Weston

I have a suspicion these date from the late 1950's or early 1960's. They are factory painted metal and would have been competing with the Comet/Authenticast stuff. I think they are still in Walther's, but as unpainted castings, however, my Walther's box is still under a pile of Architecture and AFV boxes, so I can't check yet!!

If it wasn't for the very different code numbers on the back, this group look as if they go together, and as it is, certainly tell a little story; The guy on the left is off to play a few hands of late-night poker in the drawing-room car (he has those sleeve covers on, whatever they're for?) while his missus has been caught by the waiting staff with her PJ's on the floor and not a lot else to cover her modesty!!

The code on the rear of the pack. I do have some similar figures by Comet and another early US manufacturer, but - you guessed it - they're missing! When I find them I'll post them and cross reference with this entry.

W is for Wiking

Produced at about the same time as the Lego figures and the first appearance of Jouef's rather crude effort, these were at the budget end of the model railway figure market.

Coming in little strips of 4/6 items (depending on the size), you were to brake-off the figures when you got them home. Notice the man carrying a sack in the packet on the far right, he was pirated by EKO along with a few others.

A few of the vehicles by Wiking (pronounced "Viking") also include figures, and here we see the VW Beetle with two passengers and a Fork-lift operator. When collecting, certain items are always going to collect a premium, as more than one group collects it, both 'Bugs' and construction equipment have a second set of collectors and - with Wiking - you are fighting specific Wiking collectors as well!


Close-up of a complete strip, this is the 'standard' strip of 5 items, in this case a family group.

Footnote; some early publicity material and catalogues meant for the US market actually spell it 'Viking' as the Americans couldn't get used to the W/v differential! These were shipped to the US quite early and in some quantity, where they went head-to-head with the heavy-metal products of Comet/Authenticast - amoung others - for the 'Railroad' market.

W is for Willie

Not a lot needs saying here, there are better metal blogs around than I could create (check some of the links at right), if not there, it's all in Garrat, Jones and co.

30mm Colonials from the fair hand of Edward Suren.

First up; Boar Commando - I think?

British army line-infantry from the Sepoy rebellion period?

Zulu Warrior

If anybody could furnish me with the correct code numbers for these I would be most grateful.