M is for M8 American Armoured Car

I is for Italians

As I seem to have mentioned the post-war Humber utility vehicle once or twice in the last few posts, I thought we'd better look at this one;

Sam Toys of Italy, probably aiming to be around 1:48th scale, making the figures a bit small, this is clearly a straight lift from the Dinky original. It's the only Sam Toy I have and I know little else, but it leads us to other Italian Producers...

Dulcop produced in two sizes, the above row being around 1:48th for the A/Car and close to 1:72 for the two trucks. The armoured car was probably also taken from Dinky, and would go on to be copied both in Hong Kong and in Spain, where Montaplex produced a clip-together version.

The lower row are small at around 1:100 and will have been taken from the Roscopf range, the paint on the end two is not original, but being gloss would not come off well with oven cleaner, yet because the plastic is styrene I can't use caustic paint stripper either so until I find better examples - it stays!

Politoys were a better class of maker than the preceding two, and these are really nice toys for their day. Again shades of Dinky and French Dinky, but nicely executed. The truck has the Lone*Star inspired rocket launcher, another HK favorite while the M20 has a ridiculous-sized MG. Gotta' love the camouflaged boxes though.

K is for Kleeware

So we're back to the UK to look at some of the non-space stuff from Kleeware, in the smaller scales. They made/marketed both Pyro and Ideal originals, and downscaled their own work (see last image).

First as promised the 25mm'ish trucks, these are of Pyro parentage, and their origins as more brightly coloured civil vehicles can be seen from the load/body types. The one back right clearly started life as a Soda-crate delivery truck!

These are - I think - Kleeware originals, and are based on the Humber mentioned below, this time with the cab-rings and covers. About 1:160 (N-Gauge), this truck is one of the items most copied by the Hong Kong guys, and is still turning up in Christmas crackers, I'll cover them in the next few days.

The range of body-types would suggest that Kleeware were copying the Lone*Star range, but with a simplified mounting on the Plug-ins and a couple of covered superstructures. Manurba in Germany had a go with their truck design and sold them within the UK under the Tallon brand.

Close-ups of the little trucks, with the canon from the famous Kleeware Castle. Construction of the cannon is the same simple one-piece of the early space stuff Like the X-100 shown below somewhere, while the little trucks require quite complicated pre-sale assembly, having a chassis, cab bed and body/plug-in.

The small scale version of the 'Crusaders Castle', the figure is 54mm. I think this is complete apart from two more corner strengtheners and a flag pole, however the original has a square tower at either end, so there may be a large chunk still to find?

It's the only one I've ever seen so can't have been as popular as the 54mm one and Kleeware can't have had high hopes for it as they didn't scale-down the cannon which - therefore - barely fits in the courtyard!

M is for Mysteries; Slight Mysteries?

I've covered these before, but a couple of things I noticed while preparing the photographs for the Banner and Pyro posts below are worth a mention...

The first thing I noticed is that there are two mouldings of the saloon car, the green one is noticeably longer and has a few detail differences, smaller hole in the towing-hitch, chunkier bumpers (fenders) and some variations in window size.

The second query is really anal; The two saloon-car number plates BV4672, top left and right, with the coupe bottom left - DP 7189. Now Kent Sprecher over at toysoldierhq has the saloon being DV not BV, is this a typo or are there two different number plates for this car?

Could BV be 'Banner Vehicle' with the DV being a Pyro copy? And could the larger, slightly cruder civilian version be a Kleeware or Tudor Rose re-tool?

The mould-number (?) in the roof of the cars, it doesn't look it, but the 4 is a very crude hand-scratched thing, it seems to have been straitened by my attempts in Picasa to make it visible! The 6 is about half the size and is a standard engineers mould-punch, done correctly - back to front - so that it reads the right way on the product, something the Hong Kong producers often forgot to do, using instead product-punches, leaving the HONG KONG upside down and back to front, they were helped by the fact that only the 'N's and 'G's were noticeable, and then only to a close observer.

Interesting also how the thermo-printed star shows through the roof as a faint...er...star!

P is for Pyro (and Others)

So from Banner lets move across to Pyro (They share the same container so I could take all the photo's at once! Another of the dime store plastics producers from the 1940/50's, indulged in a fair amount of mould-sharing, and a bit of 'l'Homage'! The executives of Model Shipways called them 'Pirate Plastics'!

Very much compatible with the Banner trucks at around 1:48th scale is this - really quite sturdy - model of a generic 1950's tank. Sort of Centurion without toolboxes crossed with a T44!

This is also about 1:48, with hard styrene figures glued in. It's this arrangement which I'm sure Ive seen with the Banner trucks below, but with plug-in soft ethylene figures? There were several body types for this truck, which is similar to the Dinky or Lone Star takes on the post war British Humber 15kwt class utility truck (which - itself - became the basis for the 'Pig' which served-on in Northern Ireland with various engine up-grades/up-armours until the late 1980's) but without the cab-roof rings for convoy sentries.

These are much smaller and can be used with 20/25mm figures without looking out of place, especially if your doing 50's pulp or steam-punk roll-play. One trailer-bed gives three very different looking wagons and I've covered the jeep in depth before.

Top; I have the four non-articulated versions as Kleeware, so will cover them next, however to show that these are identical bar the stamp in the roof - the one behind is the Pyro...I think!

Below; The Wannatoys cab-unit and two trailers, these were separate designs, rather than the Pyro variant-glued-to-standard-flatbed. While the Wannatoys tractors were styrene, the trailers were cellulose-acetate and suffer from shrinkage and warping which pulls the tow-hitch off eventually!

C is for Cold Cast Bronze Animals

Wasp in the greenhouse

Woke this queen up the other day pulling out last years Tomato canes, she wasn't too amused!

B is for Banner, Bergan, Beton (in alphabetical order!)

The order is practically reversed alphabetically in that Beton, the trade mark of Bergan was bought by Banner! Having won a few late - ethylene - production Beton (Bergan Toy & Novelty company) 60mm figures I thought it would make sense to photograph them with their trucks. From top of helmet to underside of base they're actually 70mm.

Having only the older edition of O'Brians book, I'm not sure if another version of this - approximately 1:48th scale - truck exists, as he only has the same two body-types (page 252 - 1988 ed.), yet I have a vague memory of one other, similar to the Pyro/Kleeware ones, i.e. with smaller scale hard-plastic (styrene) sitting figures, the cab being completely different on the other makes.

Certainly the truck bed has little square holes cut for 6 'somethings' on the benches (three each side) and another 2 on the tailgate/step. However this moulding was used for civilian toys in brighter colours, and the holes might have been for milk churns, a wrecker-truck superstructure or something similar?

The Banner Staff Car, marked clearly (inset) on the bonnet (Hood) in the manner of US military vehicles of WWII through to the 60's or later. The scale of this is greater than the trucks at around 1:35, while its wheels are ridiculously small.

I don't know the make represented (any more than I do the trucks or final photo!), but it's what the Americans called a Woodie, and we named a Shooting Break, the Americans a Station Wagon and we an Estate Car. What they actually were is best described as an non-aerodynamic brick!

We had Morris Travellers when I was a kid, and they hit the air ahead of them like a turd hits a pond, while on the motorway the rear turbulence caused the fuel-gauge needle to drop in front of your eyes!

The figures, the best explanations of the history of these figures are probably O'Brians books, however Kent Sprecher's toysoldierhq has a good guide as well. Suffice to say they started life in Cellulose Acetate in approximately 1938, and went through various incarnations with/without separate bases, and have been copied/licenced/supplied to/by a dozen or so other concerns.

These are the commonest form, softish polyethylene, with the clearly visible BT mark (inset) of 'Bergan Toys' in a disc'ed indentation on the underside of the base, note the one on the far left has suffered from the release of an oily-powdered residue in the same manor as a lot of Matchbox Production, particularly the brown ones (British Inf., DAK, and 8th Army). There are more poses than shown here, and I'm after the kneeling MG gunner for starters!

Interestingly, the Paratrooper betrays his later addition to the range by having a nicely moulded M1 helmet, rather than the generic bone-dome/dime-store design of the older moulds. The marching figures - to be fair - also have a better helmet design (rifle, telephone, bazooka and flag), while early acetate mouldings have the British Mark 1 'piss-pot', called a 'Brodie' or M1917 in the States.

Finally and closer to HO scale is this Grader/scraper/leveller, I believe it can be found in the 'Army' green, but I only have a silver one! Notable here are the rubber wheels; Banner also made a gun similar to the one issued by Merit over here and Auburn (among others) in the USA, but they both used hard wheels, while the Banner one used the same wheels as this road builder.

O'Brian reports that Banner were sold to Rel around 1958, but Rel (Plasco - Plastic Art Corporation) only made Wild West stuff, so presumably either ONLY bought the intellectual property rights, OR sold/scraped the moulds. Selling the molds would explain why some Beton copies are both as good as the originals, and of 'younger' plastic?

V is for Vintage - Marbles on Oak Solitaire Board

S is for Stagecoach by Cofalu

Well, as I suspected the carded set I bought the other day WAS another example of Cofalu, or at least I'm as sure as I can be given that they normally have 'Cofalu' on their packageing and this is not given a makers name. This could be because it was part of an order for a chain of stores who wanted 'generic' packageing?

As it arrived; the bases are unmistakably Cofalu, and while the general 'look' of the packaging and colours of the figures have the appearance of Hong Kong production, they are not marked and HK companies were usually quite keen to mark themselves. Also you could say the same about late production by numerous European and other companies; Comansi/Novalinia ended up using florescent plastics, Remsa and Jean both went for bright colours as indeed did MPC in the US., while Heller/Humbrol chose some wacky colours for Airfix re-issues in the 1980's.

It was what they thought might be the answer to attracting kids who were gravitating to other things, and the main reason most of them went bust/disappeared/bought each other out between the release of Star Wars in 1977, and the final desperate wave of closures in 1980/81.

The card was so far gone, after I'd got a few Photographs saved to disc, I took the contents out and started the fire with what was left of the packaging. Sacrilegious - I know - but sometimes it 'ain't worth the effort!

The Stagecoach, even in a mint set it's missing the lantern not visible to the purchaser, and one piece of luggage (the largest) both signs of a company that is desperate to save money by any means? The horses are crude copies of the Jean horses and I say 'crude' as they are worse than the Blue Box Piracy's!

The guy waving his pistol, who we looked at the other day in red plastic, is - I think - a variation of Cofalu's own Circus animal trainer, made as a food premium, but don't quote me, I'm not that sure...I'll try and check that one! The red plastic Indian here looks vaguely like a Domplastic moulding?

Since writing the first article on Cofalu the other day and doing a bit of research, I realised that one of the figures to have come in in a recent mixed lot was an early factory painted Cofalu cyclist, they did quite a bit of 'Tour de France' type stuff.

S is for Seeds and Fir Cones

These may look like normal cones, but they are both the size of a house-brick!

N is for New Acquisitions

As I mentioned the other day, here are a few bits I've been picking up in recent months, most - it has to be said - for peanuts!

These four are all eBay wins around the 99p mark. Clockwise from top left;

These two were poorly described by a 'non-toy soldier' seller and I was expecting 'curiosities' around 4/5/6 inches tall, sort of - mantelpiece ornaments/tourist items (I had just won the 5 inch copy of the Britains Robin Hood, sans base in a hard vinyl), but what turned up was a couple of rather nice 54mm figures with small indentations in the base marked 'HONG KONG' in the manner of Marx or Blue Box HK production. I have a feeling I have seen a Henry VIII or Raleigh in this style, and am going to tentatively suggest they are British/Swansea Marx, made in HK as an answer to the US Marx 'plinth' series of Presidents, Disciples, Nativity etc...? Designed to depict personalities from British History. Thoughts? [I should point out that these are marked on the front face of the base; Julius Caesar & Lord Nelson. Further - I've just picked up a damaged 'Duke of Marlborough' in a mixed lot, so rather confirming the likelihood they are a set of major characters in British History?]

10/12/2012 - I've been told they are Blue Box.

Speaking of Marx, this is the 60mm 'swoppit' Indian/Native American, I've encountered these in ethylene going very brittle, but this one is vinyl as are his accessories and all are still in rude health.

Two Speedwell Robin/Sheriff of Nott's. figures. These came from a dealer called blackdragoncollectables, and I got them for the magic number (99p!), he had lots and started putting them up in three's and fours, so as people gravitated to what became a bit of a feeding frenzy, the hammer price rose a bit, but they were still very reasonable. Worth checking him out has he did have 300+ lots on at one point. [I don't represent him in any way]

Finally I ought to know these as I've seen them before, and got one in desert scheme, however I've lost (or failed to take) the notes pertaining to them, they are by someone like 21st Century or New Ray and came/still come (?) with Die-cast vehicles.

A 'first toy' or infant toy I couldn't resist, this is a unique take on the stacking cups of a 1960/70's childhood, in that; large chunks of ethylene can be built in a number of ways into an ever changing castle. The maker?...Merit, the reason I had to have it!

The colours are the same as the colours of the Circus & Noah sets I covered back at the beginning of this blog, so this must have been part of the same range. Best displayed with a few Christmas Cracker HK guardsmen standing round the base! I'd love to track down some spare orange and/or yellow components if anybody has some hanging about in their odds box?

As well as loose items I've had a punt at the odd carded/boxed lots, and these are a few of them, as before;

The Dimestore Dreams re-mould of the old Pyro X-200, sold in the UK by Great Gizmo's a few years ago. I have one of these, but thought it would be nice to have a second for a future painting session, and as the box is also tattier than mine, I'll slice it open and stick it in the paper archive.

Air Raiders Battle Squad by Hasbro, I have over the years picked up a few of the Purple Force soldiers, and listed them under Hassenfeld, but had no idea what set/series they belonged to, now I know! And only have a purple officer to track down to make the 'set', I will de-card these, they were meant to be played with, and the Action Figure collectors (another branch of the hobby altogether) will - I'm sure - have plenty of these saved for posterity in immaculate condition!

The HK Wild West set are pile-of-junk copies of Britains/Timpo 'swoppits', apart from the figure top left, who has parted from his base but seems to be quite an interesting hybrid copy of Nadi & Cherilea! Also; the trade mark/name (Benkson) gives another entry in the eventual book!

The Precision set came from the US, and I bought it purely as an 'Example'. The back is type-written 'MADE IN WEST GERMANY', so they will originally have been Noch or Kibri or someone like that.

Finally - doing the rounds of pound-shops, discount stores and market stalls are these die-cast and plastic AFV's, the generic 'Patton' tank in around 1:68th (?) is a bit big, while the Hover-craft (judging by the windows) is a bit small (1:100?) but both are OK for any small scale wars where you're not too fussy.

M is for Minerals - Rocks and Fossils

Thanks to 'Liz' for this nice group of Rocks, polished fossils and the like...

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!