E is for Elephant Ties

W is for Wild West by Merten

One of the favorites in my collection are these H0/00 scale figures from Merten in Germany, great rival to Hausser Elastolin in 40mm, they also produced a prolific range of primarily model railway figures. Indeed until Preiser arrived in the late 60's Merten had pretty much cornered the market from the composition/wood/plaster makers of the inter-war period.

As what the Americans call 'Old Timer' trains became popular, this little range was produced to play along with them.

The 'Cowboys' could become Mexican 'Banditos' simply by changing the sprue, while the Indians were quite superb for figures so small.

Sets to augment the Wild West figures include the 'Early 19th Century' sets and the Blacksmiths, several other rural sets could be used to populate your western village. Here we see three sets of 2162 showing colour variants and a set of 2156.

The studs under the crinoline dresses designed to hold the figures in the pack would need to be removed before employing on a layout, these are more diorama models than 'toys'.

Finally a set of 20th Century children (2197) playing give us a couple of apprentices!

C is for Cofalu

Well, the great all-scale collection begins, with strangely a French company, only because I already had the 30 and 45mm figures, and won a couple of French eBay lots in recent weeks.

Garratt with his usual love of plastics describes them as "Poor quality and obviously derivative.", and it's true that they follow a style common to a bunch of French minor makes, and if the carded Wild West set I bought the other day is Cofalu when I get a better look at it, they are mostly Lone*Star or Jean copies. But the military figures in this post resemble Starlux if anything?

The full range of their output is ably demonstrated in this first picture, a 30mm figure rubs shoulders with two closer to 65mm. He is ethylene, they have ethylene uppers (cowboy), nylon type legs (both) and over moulded heads, he is solid, the others are a form of simple (few parts) swoppit, a style also favoured in Italy.

The six combat poses, the grenade thrower on the right is a hard styrene plastic and I suspect an early moulding. The 54mm range is a bit small, closer to 50mm. The ethylene 30mm's were apparently given away as a food premium.

The basic range of poses was used throughout the Cofalu ranges, and here we see Foreign Legion (50mm'ish) and Marines (closer to 60mm) sharing pose with each other and the previous 'combat' set.

A single cowboy completes this photo, suggesting there are many more to find, and Indians too!

I think these represent Gendarme/CRS from the 1950's/early 60's, with the metallic blue ones being the earlier with factory paint, the green ones being a later attempt by Cofalu to turn them into soldiers (the CRS being very unpopular in France in the 1970's [Like the SPG in London around the same time]).

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