R is for Russian Cap and Lapel Stars

S is for Scalecraft - Saladin Armoured Car

As I begin to collect the larger scales seriously, and as I experiment with eBay and try to build up the dreaded (and increasingly meaningless) 'Feedback', I have been picking up a fair few bargains which I'll be showing highlights of over the next few days. This was one of them.

Reasonably accurately described by the seller, as 'Scalecraft Saladin Tank Near Complete' or something similar, it had no bids and I picked it up for 99p with a hour to go? When you see what two people will bid each other up to for a pile of schisser sometimes, you begin to realise eBay is a madhouse!

It is in fact totally complete, even down to the stickers and has only two bits of minor damage, a loose command pennant and a broken lifting ring/towing eye, which was broken by the good old Post Office and is sitting in a clic-seal bag waiting a superglue session, as this is made of an ethylene and will be hard to glue.

It's true that it has no motor, but they were sold with or without, built or in kit-form to fit every budget so that's no problem!

Scalecraft made a few of these kits, including an imaginary amphibious truck, an MTB in near 1:76 scale and the best Thunderbird Two! I think they made T1 and T3 as well? All clip together and pre-coloured.

I guess the lack of interest lies in the fact that it's not German, American or from the Second World War? But it's real life cousin has seen more action than a lot of post war designs, famously in the streets of Kuwait City and along the beach front when the Iraqis invaded in the early 1990's, but also Oman/Radfan, Indonesia, Central/South America, Sri Lanka and various African conflicts.

When the Saladin was withdrawn from service 'down under' the Australians put the turrets on their US supplied M113's, but proving top heavy they replaced them with Scorpion turrets as soon as they became available (rather like our 432B/432-30 with the Fox scout car's 30mm Rarden turret), however it meant half-a-saladin saw service in that iconic cold-war conflict - Vietnam.

L is for Late War 25 Pounder, Limber (and Tractor)

O is for Oriental Ceramic Bowl

A is for American Half-tracked Carriers WWII

M is for More Space Stuff!

This image was sent in by a reader/follower from Finland, who wishes to remain anonymous, however many thanks to him for doing so as there are two bits of real interest here...

First is the reversed colourway for the Space Hawk/Spaceship from Pyro/Poplar, which rather confirms my suspicion that the 'Tudor Rose' one below is actually another Poplar moulding. I was told it was Tudor Rose and the 'Made in England' rather throws you...but the Welsh (in the 50's) weren't as bothered by their status as some are now, and 'England' would get exports more recognition than 'Wales'?

Of more interest in the photograph are the four X-100 Space Scouts at the back, these are in a semi-transparent/marbled plastic, and in conversation with the guy who supplied the photo, the thought is they are local production. If not Finnish, then Scandinavian at least...Now, the Ajax/Beton/Everybody else mounted figures from the very early days of plastic, were carried/produced in Europe by an unknown French company, Airfix, Remsa and, in Denmark, by Riesler...could Riesler have produced these four?

The other two are a silver X-200 Space Ranger like the red one below [this is a pyro original] and an Atomic Space Ship (with a damaged nose), [marked] Tudor Rose.

P is for Poplar Plastics (and Pyro?)

Normal service will be resumed in a day or two, in the meantime here's a couple more additions to the 1950's space fleet. I will re-do the last few posts in a more informative and ordered fashion soon.

On the left is a Poplar Plastics (UK 'Spaceship'), copy of a Gilmark (US 'Space Hawk') model, on the right is [probably not] a Tudor Rose (UK 'Rocketship') copy of a Pyro (? US) model, but being reversed colours to the Poplar, it could be another one of theirs? [I think it probably is - see above post] The Poplar is unmarked while the single engined one has the typical 'MADE IN ENGLAND' of Tudor Rose, and Poplar were based in Wales. It could also be a Kleeware design, or even Marx, they used bronzey colours on some of their readymade/dimestore stuff? Either way it's missing its dorsal fin!

V is for Very Small Elephants

M is for Monopoly - Playing Pieces Through The Years

Originally posted on the 'Other Collectables' site - which I've now closed down - without text, I guess I should add a bit of text to explain the image...
They are basically arranged oldest to the rear, newest to the front, with a plastic set (which I believe was a limited edition) as the full front rank, with a new car design and a sausage-dog/Dachshund.

During the war there was a set with card flats in little slotted wooden holders/bases, which I have yet to track down, and there have been a few changes over the years with the battleship being replaced during my childhood with a Norfolk Broads type river-cruiser thing, the thimble changed for a scottie-dog, and the slipper becoming a boot. The racing car was also 'modernised' (and one assumes there must have been somthong before the mid-cenury design?

Maybe the gun, as I have seen antiqued lead versions of it, but this one with the other three items are from a recent limited edition. The rat might have no connection with the game whatsoever, and the two plastic cars at the back were from another - racing car - game altogether and were also issued by Tom Smith in Christmas mini-crackers.

I is for Invasion Fleet; Kleeware & Tudor Rose

R is for Ranger, X-200 Space Ranger by Pyro

C is for Clipper, Space Clipper by Tudor Rose

X is for X-400 Space Explorer

A family tragedy means no urge to write for a few days, this will have to do...

S is for Sorting-out

Having mentioned 50p bags somewhere in the comments section, I dug out this old article I prepared for posting just before my old Lap-top crashed last April. This is the contents of a small bag someone brought to the big toy fair at Birmingham's NEC. Needless to say they aren't 50p any more and I think this was about a fiver's worth. And thanks are due to either Trevor R. or Jack S. - I can't remember but they've both saved me useful stuff for years now.

This is the contents of the bag spread out in a vague order, like a spider-diagram, you start in the middle and work out adding in themes! Airfix ending up top right, Kinder top left etc...

Some of the better pieces, the two pink flats came soon after I covered some others in one of the 'unknown' posts I did about a year ago (I'll do some more soon), Quaker at the bottom, a Marx soft plastic African warrior and a couple of tiny racing cars for the Waddingtons Formula One board game I'm working on...I want to increase the number of lanes and run 6 teams of three cars each with a few rule tweaks! The problem has been finding 3 grey and 3 orange cars so I'll probably resort to painting some spares, but most teams have 3 original cars now, I'll post them sometime...

Three modern HK figures from some die-cast play set, unknown unless you know better (Majorette, Johnny Lightning, Tesco?!) [Arlin Tawser kindly confirms/identifies these as being from the Matchbox Safari Pack - Action System 5 (7 piece set, stock number 50711-5, copyrighted/issued 1996, made in China) and pointed out that there are a couple on eBay at the moment!], an HK copy of an Airfix Guardsman , Disney Dalmatian food premium and a common horse which keeps turning up so again probably came with a Matchbox 1-75 sized safari thing?

The Kinder in the bag, the Ancients are always damaged! Note: you can just see the RP of Res Plastics if you click on the image - behind/below the saddle of the brown horse.

Other purchases at that show included a nice Woolbro bagged Giant copy, the WWI tree moulding I've already covered, an old bubble-gum tank (HK copy of Manurba), Diver and mini-sub (HK copy of Manurba again!), two die-cast flat race horses from a board game and a superb space tank with mile-high carpet wheels! Kleeware ship and HK Olypian wrap it up.

M is for Mop-Tops - Culpitt 'Battle of the Bands'!

More Culpitt's - These are 45mm 'Beatles' era musicians, if you want a collection they turn up all the time on eBay, however, don't pay silly Buy-it-now prices, you can pick them up for pennies if you're patient!

The pale blue variant I mentioned in 'lazy post' last night, this is a 'full band' there was no left-handed guitarist, so they never tried to be the Beatles, although there are at least three lots of figures in 54/60 & 70mm that do represent that very band.

The various parts of the drum-kit with the brown boys, note; there is a slight colour variation with some a pinkish-brown, this doesn't show well in the photo, but there is a clear difference. The skins on the drums are paper stickers and were applied to one side only.

Two of the three green band with Culpitt's footballers, the footballers were never made in the brown, but there may well be yellow band around somewhere, but I've yet to come across any, nor indeed red ones? Yet the drum-kit only seems to come in red!

The figures are unmarked, and late production would have come from Hong Kong, however early production will be UK-sourced. The lack of a mark makes it hard to say for certain weather they were by Gemodels or Festival. Most think Gem, however the base designs, size/scales and sculpting are so similar between the two companies, I'm beginning to suspect that Festival was a trade-mark of Gem, but they may just have been sharing sculptor!