Y is for You Can't Play Without Them

P is for Parachute and Special Force Insignia

What to send to those idiots in Berkina Faso...

B is for Budgie Toys

Budgie were a maker of die-cast toy cars and the like in the 1950's and 60's, but they also produced a 'Wagon Train' boxed play-set, with three of these wagons and some outriders fixed into a large box.

Top are the three poses of wagon puller, they can have a receiving-hole for the draw-bar drilled into either flank, and come in the three browns shown and white. Bottom left are the outriders, one figure pose, two horses. Bottom right shows a complete wagon with rider. I think there was a female pose as well, sitting for the wagon, but don't have one.

These are beginning to suffer greatly from metal fatigue and usually have cracks in the body or tilt/cover/canopy, broken barrels, wheels etc and no locating-studs on the tilt, which can be found wedged in the wagon body. The figures were clearly designed by the same sculptor who did the Airfix Cowboys, Indians and other early sets (some argument whether it was Stadden or Nibblet, I veer toward Stadden), or someone copying his style closely, also the shades of brown are similar to Airfix and the Blue of the figures is the same blue Airfix was using around the same time for its soft-plastic (dime-store copy) motorcycle dispatch rider/motor mechanic, so maybe they supplied the plastic elements to Budgie...pure conjecture.

Went for a walk....

Well given the glorious spring weather and the beautifully quiet skies today (thank you 'Mount Unpronounceable'), I went for a quick walk at lunchtime, camera in hand.

Loved this twisted log, looks like it's fossilized already!

Another of my favorite Polyanthus, this is a hybrid gold-laced one which had been planted outside a back gate to the woods.

Closer to home, our Magnolia is bursting into life now.

R is for Round The Bend!

One of my long-term plans is to reproduce the old Waddington's board game 'Formula 1' as a wooden inlaid coffee-table top. I think the game was also called Grand-Prix at one time and Ravensburger had a Grand Prix with 6 teams of three cars.

I also want to scale it up, so that there is room for 8 teams of two cars instead of the standard 6 teams of one. Scaling should be easy as Waddington's scaled it down for their pocket set 'Pit Stop' in the House of Games series. All I should have to do is work out the scaleing and reverse scale beyond the original to the point where I have a wider track and 8 pits! Ultimately there would be a faster racing-line with semi-fast lines either side, and rule tweaks to enable more pitting over longer races.

As a result I'm collecting micro-cars to make up the teams, I haven't decided whether to paint-up pairs, or wait until I get 8 similar coloured pairs? This is what I have so far and while Green, Red, Yellow and Blue are all well served, Grey, Black and Orange are looking poor, although - typically - just after I took these, a parcel arrived from Bill over at Moonbase Central with a beautiful Grey Jaguar similar to the old Lone*Star treble-o die-cast, but in plastic, so I just need a Black and Orange still.

Top Photo - L-R; 2 from Kinder; 3 from Grand-Prix (?); A colour variant, small space car (?) in yellow, and two slightly different versions of an early racing car, a blue Cellulose-acetate one and a green die-cast one, probably from early board games; The 4 cars from the Pit Stop set, although Boardgamegeek shows this moulding in 6 colours in some editions of Formula 1.

Bottom Photo has the Formula 1 cars in the first two rows, and then cars from two other board games, the first two possibly from a different issue of Pit Stop (?). The final two might be an early issue of Grand-Prix (?) and are plastic copies of the Monopoly car already on this blog somewhere.

Boardgamegeek fails to deliver when trying to ascribe these cars as it has several duplicate entries, and both F1 and GP are common to to many games, with lots of other car race and touring games over the years!

F is for Flats, unknown Flats

[Was being a tired (lazy) git last night and have edited the text and retaken the photo's!]

I've been meaning to show the first of tonight figures for a while, as they have been appearing on eBay a lot recently, and present a mystery or two. However in getting them out encountered the second lot, which seem to go together - after a fashion - so here they both are...

I'd always thought these were unusual (I've only ever seen the one pose?), similar to some early Marx or Thomas with the flat feet and solid construction, and they do pop up on eBay quite a lot, I've seen a bottle-green one (as I was bidding on the brown one) and there was a red-brown one on last week but in a junk lot at a 4.99 start price, which - not unsurprisingly - went unsold for the third or forth time.

Anyway, when I saw the metal one back in Jan. I thought, 'Oh Wow, they're taken from an old Hollow-cast mould', but with nothing in Joplin, bid 'blind' and waited with baited breath (that's a bit over-dramatic for a 99p lot in the post!) and was interested when it arrived to find in was a solid (probably why it's not in Joplin!).

Still believing it was the original, I was even more surprised to find it's quite a bit smaller, and must - in fact - be a home-cast (or commercial) copy of the plastic one! So...who, where, when? For either the metal or plastics! The plastic is a real UNA/VP/Kentoys colour?

The figure on the right is a mismould, taken out while still too hot, he has contracted forwards, but has still made a reasonably usable figure/pose variant. Metal figure is 70mm, the plastic 72mm.

[Peter Evans has identified these as being by Li-lo, which means the metal one is almost certainly a home-cast copy, if they keep turning up on eBay, I'll flag them as a dodgy set-up!]

Looking for the British 'Tommy' led me to the box 'Unknown Flats - Military', where the next biggest are these 65mm hollow-backed German 'Fritz' characters, I'm guessing they were from lucky-bags, or a shooting game? It's only a guess, anybody have any idea on these chaps from the wilder fringe of Toy Soldiers?

[20th Nov. 2015 - They were branded KM, came with a spring-loaded pull-back action pistol and six orange ball projectiles, blistered on a card, they are targets in a shooter game! The 'Combat Force Military Action Gun Set']

[2018 - now known to be Kwong Ming Plastics Pty.]

A is for Addict, Toy Soldier Addict.

What follows is a sorry tale first published on the HaT Forum under a thread titled " Toy Soldier Collectors Anonymous " started by Patrick Deck on the 6th July 2008, it is sobering reading and apart from a bit of a spell check and the odd tweak remains unchanged...

My name is Hugh and I'm an addict, I started light, the same way most do, you know....the odd Airfix "because I had them as a kid", but I mixed Esci to match, then Revell teased me from the back of Concord Models, it was late on a Friday night, I was tired, vulnerable, I had an overtime payment in my pocket, it was too easy. I'd barely tasted the full flavour of the new mouldings when there was A-Toys packaging all over the place, I didn't care they were the same as Esci, I 'needed' them all, looking back it's easy to see; I was hooked already. But even if I wasn't, it was too late. I entered that years BMSS show in Aldershot (a Fujimi SdKfz 222 and Scratch-built 221), some guy in the bar got talking to me - he saw me coming - "Pop up to my place in Hartfordshire, I've got some Atlantic you can have", I was a fool, less than two weeks later I had a car-boot full of it. It gets worse, it always gets worse...I discovered premiums, I was getting them as chasers for the other stuff, started safe'ish, with a little bit of Kellogg's and some Nabisco but it wasn't long before I was hitting-on to Ola, Tito and those strong French one's, then came the German Flats (Andreas Dittman pushed those to me!), I wanted more, there were more, 300 companies. Andy Harfield and Peter Bergner kept supplying me with cheap gear, then I found quality stuff from Giant; 'Blues' & 'Greys', followed them with well-cut pirate junk from their brothers in Hong Kong, it was spiraling out of control, some weekends I'd take so much I couldn't fit it all in, I had to start an 'Unsorted recent purchase' stash in the back room, then another, then another. The names, Almark, Subbuteo, Blue Box (she had several sisters and was related to Marx, he had connections to Dunby Combex and through them Triang, Minix, Frog eventually - via Hornby - back to Airfix but I didn't care, I'd take 'em twice), then the new ones, HaT, Imex and Pegasus from the States, Emhar, Accurate and ACTA from nearer home, then the 'Eastern Promise' of Odemars, Orion, Strelets*R and LW via the mystery of Kervella/HYTTY, but I was beyond help, I'm on the hard stuff now....Chas Stadden, Comet/Authenticast, Wille/Suren, Ral Partha, McEwan, Hinchliffe, et al....and real gut-rot; Games Workshop, Marauder, Mini-figs........The Horror!..........the horror!............

It is unknown what happened to the chap, but I fear deliverance eludes him to this day...

A Bit Of Colour In The Garden Now !

Primulas and Polyanthus, among my favorites since I was a small boy.

Daffodils and Narcissus, Spring is really sprung, when these are lighting up the lanes and gardens, I have to admit, a couple of these are from last year and won't come out for a week or so!

Other colour in gardens this weekend, the Tulips and Viola's are in Berkshire, the rest are North Hampshire.

More Spring Wildlife

This one's definitely got a hookah somewhere!

First Bumble-Bee of the new year. I also saw an Orange-tip butterfly 3 times, but he wouldn't settle for the camera, neither would a Brimstone male in shocking green!

E is for Elven Folk by Games Workshop and Mithril - Part 2, Tweaking

Thought I'd do a bit of detailing before I started the paint, tried adding the shields (in the previous post on this) to those figures without them but the cloaks got in the way, I was going to have them strapped to their backs in some way, but might have them lying on the bases or something?

I've strung the bows, the girl's - being fired - needn't be taught, but shouldn't really be so loose either, so I will try to tighten it a bit with a coat of dope. The LOTR guy is not too bad and were it not for the angle of my drill-hole he would be holding the string centrally, but both the GW figures suffer from the fact that they are 'pulling' through their heads, even with a bit of heat bending of bows and arms, the 40K guy is going to A) cut his own ear off, and B) shoot himself in the foot if he's not careful (hold the string high and the arrow drops - I used to do archery), while the LOTR dude would keep getting his helmet crest caught up in the string as he drew back.

Lack of thought from the sculptors!

S is for Soldiers Of The World (SOTW)

Not 'Warriors of the World' - a Marx moniker, although Kellogg's did call them Warriors Through The Ages & Famous Warriors. A while ago in Plastic Warrior (PW; Here, subscribe, now, that's an order! ) issue no. 134 there was a very interesting article on these figures, which dispelled a few myths while creating a few questions and kicking-off a major response which PW published as a readers feedback section in issue no. 136 back in February.

Definitive base-marks solve debate.
ORIGINS - Nationality/Sculptor

One question which has always been debated is; from where did they originate? And with people suggesting both the US and Australia as the probable country of origin, it was a question to which I knew answer, if only because I had several marked MADE IN ENGLAND. A Highlander, Egyptian and Viking. At least 5 or 6 Highlanders have now turned up out of 10 or so marked figures, all told.

I photographed them and got them off to the editor in the Autumn, only for Kent Sprecher of ToysoldierHQ (link to right of page) to publish a 'spoiler' to the 'exclusive' a week or two before the issue hit the doormat - hey, them's the breaks! These are rare (if anything plastic is ever 'really' rare) and seem to occur in a ratio of about 1 in 300 figures. Now, as mine are from both 'sets' of eight (more later), it may just be that all sixteen will turn up marked, in the fullness of time? [Apologies to Kent, his link wasn't to the right, it is now, nestled with the other main dealers, and here; Toy Soldier HQ ]

So that question can be put bed, or can it?! There are also the questions; who designed them? & who manufactured them?

Well, the next myth to dispel is that Charles Stadden had anything to do with them, this myth (pretty much quashed in the PW 134 article [subscribe - you know you want to]) seems to go back to 1981 and the publication of J.G. Garrett's The World Encyclopedia of Model Soldiers, where he writes, and I quote; "(dare we to think they were designed by Stadden?)", in other words, he [Garrett] didn't really believe it himself, but thought he'd mention it!

If there is a single set or group of soldiers - toy, model or connoisseur - anywhere in the world that resembles the SOTW, you will find them in the manifest of MPC, USA. Their larger set of knights in red, white and black, the US Cavalry or the G.I.'s. Likewise some late production Marx 54mm sets seem to have the same similarities. I would imagine the SOTW were designed by a jobbing sculptor who also designed for MPC and Marx, whether we will ever know his name is the only mystery there.

Comparisons between SOTW, MPC & Marx.
ORIGINS - Maker/Manufacturer

Not just the sculpting of the figures, the bases scream MPC/Marx, apart from the absence of the little hole and mould-number indentation that sets MPC apart from most production while confusing them with the above mentioned late 54mm Marx! The SOTW Highlander is a classic MPC/late Marx production pose. I'm thinking Jap's, Russians, G.I.'s & jungle natives here, plus the Marx 54mm Saxon/Norman charging pose, Marine officers, G.I.'s, WWII Brit's, Russians & French, also; all these late sets are 16 cavity moulds, and we have 16 SOTW??!!....

However, don't think I'm suggesting they came from MPC or even Marx factories...humm...see below. The moulds must have spent some time in the UK, or they wouldn't have the mark they do. So myth 3; Rubenstine/Bowman (Ratcliffe) or Rubenstein (Stadinger)? That they came in the latter's bags is not in question, Paul 'Stad's' Stadinger (link also to the right and here; Stadstuff .) is a long-time documenter/researcher of this stuff, and would have held them in his hands before ascribing them. I believe Ratcliffe takes his "Bowman" reference from Garratt, who refers to 'Bowaters' as having been recipient of some of Stadden's work. Bowaters are now a global conglomerate in paper pulping and paper re-cycling, but back in 1970 seem to have been more closely involved in the production of finished product, such as...cereal boxes and board games.

In the follow-ups in PW 136, Philip Hamilton of the Hamilton Toy Collection (details here) mentions the nearby location of the Tri-ang works in Merton as being a possible source of what appeared to be sell-through of factory overstock of SOTW figures in the late 70's. This is significant, as Tri-ang were part of the Lines group, they would end up as Dunbee/Combex/Marx and Marx were just mentioned by me above?

Not only that, but Bowaters, was one of C.J. Parker's companies, and he became Lord Parker of Waddington...Yes, THAT Waddington[s], another company connected to Lines Brothers, as I mentioned in the Marx/Blue Box articles that I wrote for PW's little brother; One Inch Warrior. Minimodels in Havant (Lines Group) and Subbuteo, East Grinstead, along with Waddington's were three companies that Stadden DID work for, but I think that coincidence is as far as Stadden goes in all this.

Ignoring the above leaves one going down the Rubenstein/Bowman route another way, and while there is a Charles Bowman making Popcorn (which may have had a need for small military premiums/giveaways) in the US, his partner was Reden../Reddenbacker/..bacher not Rubenstein/..stien/..stine!

So most likely set up - at the moment - is; Member of the Lines group or Bowaters commissions (for Peak Frean's initially?) a well known (to the industry) sculptor, probably American, to produce a set of premiums (1969/70'ish), which are then hawked (as finished product or moulds) to the international food premium/giveaway and rack-toy market around the world, with possible stays - for the moulds - in Australia (mid 1970's) and with Rubenstein (late 1970's) in the US.

UK production might (big MIGHT - don't want to start a new myth!) have been in the Marx, Swansea unit or equally - if not more - likely; Tri-ang's Merton plant and were probably lost or destroyed in the massive round of toy industry amalgamations, takeovers and bankruptcies in the late 1970's/early 1980's. Or; They could still be in the States somewhere? [Or Canada, Bowaters had big plants there then and bigger plants there now, the fact that they concentrate on pulping doesn't mean they know the total contents of every shed or store room...Ohh, is that a new myth started?!]

[I notice that several of these images and some of the subsequent images below have been stolen by Ghislain Oubreyrie and poorly 'Photoshoped' for his mostly plagiarised website, there's nothing I can do about it at the moment, the man's a thief, but one day I'll sue his arse, and the more he puts (of mine) on his site the more I'll sue him for, at his current rate of thievery, I'll be getting the price of a small house off him one day...any French Intellectual Property lawyer fancy an easy case? It's just comparing images (with originals) and site-editing dates! meantime; the high quality originals will always be found here]

Variations in shade and colour.
RARITY- Colour & Pose

Rarity of colour variations; top shows the 4 'main' colours as a line of Highland Reavers coming to 'mayhem' a farmstead near you! Bottom left shows the comparison between the commoner gold, and less common bronze and between the silver and milky silver/brushed aluminum, with - on the right - the two reds, these tend to wash together under flash photography, but are clear to the naked eye. There appears to be only the one shade of blue which is a mid-blue somewhere between powder-blue and ultramarine, not the navy-blue ascribed somewhere. Neither - to my knowledge - has a cream coloured one ever surfaced.

The real rarity seems to depend on how long you've been collecting, how diligently you have sought these out and which country you live in. In the UK - for instance - Silver was considered common, with the other colours being 'rare', in recent years plenty of red and blue have surfaced and the gold are getting easier to find.

As to rarity of pose; the same applies. In the UK, Cluck Cereal Surprises (Ratcliffe) lists the British Grenadier, FFL, Roman and British Tommy as being "...harder to obtain", my own collection suggests that the Zulu and Swiss Bowman are the 'rare' ones, some believe that all those on the 'second' Nabisco list (Tommy, FFL, Musketeer, Cossack, Egyptian, Crusader, Spaniard & Zulu) are rarer, while the photo of painted figures from my mates collection below would leave the casual observer to believe the Tommy, Cossack and US Cavalryman were the uncommon poses.

Alan Copsey in PW 136 gives Roman, Crusader, Conquistador and Highlander as his list, but goes on to give a reason why they might be rare in his sample but not really rare at all. PW editorial say the Roman appears the rare one while P. Manninen in the same issue states that the second list of 8 is negligibly/marginally harder to locate...and so on.

I personally suspect the bronze and darker red are slightly less common being a shorter run, while the marked versions are quite hard to get, but I now know of at least 9/10 in three locations, so compared to the Lone*Star musketeer, they're not RARE, just relatively uncommon - for now! While, with regard to pose, none are more or less common than others.

I don't usually deal with value, but as I'm trying to cover everything here, I don't think they are worth more than a quid ($1.50) unmarked and have been selling all colours for 99p recently. Marked, they should fetch about a fiver ($7/8) .

The full 16 poses.
FIGURES

I have shown them in a vaguely chronological order above, but will list them as per. the Nabisco adverts, which illustrates them as two sets of 8. Text is from 'CLUCK', taken from Tiger & Jag comic - Neither set being the same as the Kellogg's 8? Reference to the photographs will be row, from the top, then figure from the left giving the Legionnaire (bottom, right) as 4/4.

Also, as a couple of them have 'common' names given them by collectors over the years, it struck me that in fact most of them could be given a character/moniker, and have done so in {parentheses}. I wonder if that was ever the original intention, and why they were given the more every-day names they ended up with?

FIRST 'SET'

US Cavalry - 4/2 {Custer}
Lieutenant Dixon of the 7th US Cavalry helped open up the West. He protected settlers and fought the Indian and Mexican armies. [One thing I forgot to mention, this figure is very uncommon with a full flag as pictured, usually it is a truncated blob.]

Mexican - 4/1 {Pancho Villa}
Pancho the Mexican bandit fought many battles against the United States, including the battle for the Alamo. Base mark believed to have been changed to 'Mexican' from 'Mexican Bandit' when the molds were moved to Mexico? [Fontes]

Turk - 3/2
Hasseim the Turk believed that to die in battle was the most glorious of all deaths. he fought for Saladin against the Crusaders. **[In Ottoman dress!]

Swiss Bowman - 2/2 (sometimes referred to as {William Tell})
Fritz was a Swiss mountaineer who fought the Hapsburg Austrian armies. with [sic.] William Tell.

Roman 1/2 (sometimes referred to as {Caesar})
Marcus the Roman belonged to an army that conquered and ruled the world for well over 500 years. He fought in Caesar's victorious legions.

British Grenadier 3/4
John Cartman was a man with great strength. He fired the heavy cannons for the early British army. [Not in that Miter-cap he didn't!]

Scots 3/4 {Wallace}
McGregor was a Scottish Highlander who joined Bonnie Prince Charlie's army and was defeated trying to win back the English throne for him.**[Kellogg's call him 'Highlander']

Viking 1/3 {Erik Bloodaxe}
Eric the Viking sailed the seas on a huge long-boat. He was a merciless, ferocious warrior and a great explorer. He landed in America...(the rest is missing in CLUCK and unreadable in PW, anyone got the last line?).**

SECOND 'SET'

The British Tommy 4/3 {Tommy Atkins}
The British Tommy fought alongside the Australians in the First and Second World Wars.

Foreign Legion 4/4 {Beau Geste}
Henri Gaston of the French Foreign Legion fought in the hot deserts of North Africa against fierce Arab tribes.

French Musketeer 2/3 {d'Artagnan - which they use}
D'Artagnan was a gay cavalier, an expert swordsman, a skilled rider and a keen shot with his musket.**[Kellogg's call him plain 'Musketeer']

Cossack 3/3 {Bohdan}
Ivan the Cossack was a fierce fighter and joined Russia's Imperial Army to help defeat Napoleon.

Egyptian 1/1 {Ramses}
Sihue the Egyptian wore a water bag on his arm for long desert marches. He fought in Cleopatra's army against the Roman Legions.** [Except he's not in Ptolemaic garb, but wearing stuff from 1500 or so years earlier]

Crusader 2/1 {Richard I}
Sir Robert de Courtney [maker of fine medievals?] journeyed to Palestine to capture the Holy city of Jerusalem. His leader was Richard I, King of England.**

Spaniard 3/1 {Co'rdoba, Alvarado or the given Cortez}
Miguel the Spanish Conquistador sailed with Cortez to Mexico and conquered the land of the Aztecs.**[Kellogg's call him 'Spanish Infantryman', in Canada; 'Infantry']

Zulu 1/4 {Shaka}
Ibuktu the Zulu warrior was a tribesman of South Africa. He fought many fierce battles with British and Boer Troops.**

** denotes Kellogg's UK 'set' of eight figures

The other thing to note about the full 16 is that with a bit of stretching, you could pretty well pair them up, biggest stretch being the Imperial Roman with the Biblical Egyptian.

Six of a possible seven.
EXTRAS

Peak Frean's offered a fort for 17/9d (p) + a token from the pack as a mail-away with cannons and flags "..etc."? this was probably stiff card or hardboard and it goes on to say "...you'd have to pay much, much, more" [in the shops], and most forts of that ilk/era were pressed, stamped, screen-printed (on one side) hardboard.

Nabisco had a 'posing panel' on the back of the box, different for each figure.

Kellogg's Finnish issue had a three part cut-out fort on the back of the box, with each part requiring one of three different boxes.

Typical packet/dry-food delivery container.
ISSUES - Known or Suggested

Australia - (?)
Kellogg's Factory (?), silver, 16 poses.

Australia - 1976
Nabisco, Shredded Wheat & Crispies breakfast cereals, Soldiers of the World, silver, 16 poses

Canada - 1960's (?) [I would imagine 1969 at the earliest. Actually- boxes dated 1968!]
Kellogg's Apple Jacks, Cocoa Krispies, Froot Loops, Honey Smacks, Puffa Puffa Rice, Raisin Bran, Rice Krispies and Sugar Pops breakfast cereal,  Soldiers of the Ages/Soldats de Tous les Temps, Silver, 16 poses, Boxes have cut-out scenery (8 boxes make a whole fort) and collectors cards (1 per box). [Mr. M. Purchase via Stad's and Dan Humar, Plastic Warrior Magazine No. 151]

Finland - 1972
Kellogg's Raksuja (Frosties) breakfast cereal, Sarja Historian Sotureita (Warriors from History/Historical Warriors Series), Silver, 16 poses.

Ireland (?) [mentioned by Hamilton as being noted by Garrett, I can find no mention of Garrett writing this but I've only got two of his four books?].

Portugal? [Miguel Fontes, Plastic Warrior 137 letters page]
Kellogg's? Translucent Brownish plastic, 16 poses

Portugal - 1970's [Bourbonese Braga - Parai'so Artificial Blog]
Ajax, Washing powder, Soldados Historicos (Historical Soldiers), silver and gold, 16 poses

UK - 1970
Kellogg's, Puffa Puffa Rice breakfast cereal, Famous Warriors/Warriors Through the Ages, silver, 8 poses only - Conquistador, Zulu, Egyptian, Viking, Highlander, Crusader, Musketeer & Turk.

UK - 1969 (Garratt ?), 1959 (Hamilton ?)
Peak Frean's, Pom Poms biscuits, Soldiers Through the Ages, Gold, Silver, Red & Blue (Opie thinks Gold only?), 16 poses, mail-away fort 'with cannons'? [I'd have to go with Garratt, they don't say 1950's to me. Actually 1968 - James Opie via Plastic Warrior Magazine No.152]

UK - ?
Petrol/Gasoline premium [mentioned by Ratcliffe as being the source for the non-silver figures, I think that this was probably the Peak Frean's Pom Poms?].

US - late 1970's/Early 1980's
Rubenstein, [about 4 conflicting titles - anyone know the correct name on the cards?], header-carded, bagged rack-toy, Silver & Blue (?), 16 poses (?)

I have seen these at the German show in Herne, and would assume they were issued somewhere in France, Germany or the Low Countries, by someone?

Various attempts at painting the figures.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / CREDITS

Looking at the above, taken from one dealers stock, I'd better start by thanking all those unknown Toy Soldier Collectors, Modelers and War-gamers who painted (or part painted) the above!.

Also this article is the result of many years research by me, and all those listed below, oldest source first;

John G. Garratt, The World Encyclopedia of Model Soldiers, 1981, Muller Publishing

Wayne Ratcliffe, CLUCK (Complete Listing Un-completed [of] Cereal Kollectable), Issue I, 2001, Private Publication

Plastic Warrior Magazine No's 134 (2009), 136 (2010), 151 & 152 (both 2013), Subscription Publication (so subscribe!)

John Begg, Bourbonese Braga, Alan Copsey, Miguel Fontes, Philip Hamilton, Dan Humar, Pekka Allan Manninen, Paul Morhead, James Opie, Michael Purchase, David Pye, Kent Sprecher, Paul 'Stads' Stadinger, Kevin Strood, Terry Westlake, Jan Yarzembowski (hope I spelt that right! - I have now!) and others whom I've chatted to, bought from or - recently - sold to.

The amount of time people spend talking about these figures at shows, the interest shown in even common silver figures on eBay and the uncommonly large feedback to PW would suggest that you can forget the Airfix Tarzan, you can forget Britains mounted War of the Roses 'Swoppet' knights, these guys have a piece of the heart of every collector of a 'certain' age! So if you can add anything to what is still only conjecture and an incomplete list, email or comment...

112/10/2012 - Sadly; the mystery seems to have been solved - see last comment (funny this is the 4th most popular post of all time, yet comments diametrically thin on the ground?), they were made by Tatra and an update will be forthcomming any day now. 

Now full update is Here

F is for Finishing-touches - S.A.E. tray, part 2

Right, so, we left it drying...after about 20 mins./half-an-hour it's time for the more radical element of this restoration, as we are now going to add 'stuff' which will forever change it. Up until now it's just been cleaning/shaping. if you want to preserve the item 'as is', this next step is not for you.

Taking gummed paper parcel/book binders tape, cut lengths to cover all tares, piercing holes creases and other structural blemishes (sometimes I will reinforce the whole length of fold-lines), in this instance I've just run a strip down the feeder-holes for the figures, and there were a couple of small tares - not photographed. Soak the paper on the gummed side (really wet it with a slow tap, licking it won't work, it'll dry-out and come off in a month or two), and place carefully where you want it, then dab it down with kitchen paper, getting the excess water off at the same time. Dab only, if you stroke across it while it is still very wet, it will slide and fold and you'll have to start again while the restored card gets wetter and wetter!

Because - up to this point - both this and the earlier post represent about 45 minutes in real time this afternoon, the iron is still warm, so dry everything off with it. Again; both-siding it.

Note: to prevent the paper leading to curling, days or weeks in the future (or when you iron and it dries-out quickly) you NEED to do two layers, crossing the tape, which you will see has a natural tendency to curl one way, wet or dry. If doing tiny mends, you will need to mark them with tiny pencil marks which can be rubbed/erased after it's all dry.

Once everything is dry - properly cheek-test dry - cut out any pieces that overlap the product, that cover a 'meant' hole - as here - or that are blocking a cut line (when you reinforce the torn end flaps, of a box for instance, its best to cover the flap, side and main panel with large pieces of paper tape overlapping onto the work surface, and then trim everything back afterward (in the past I've stuck the whole lot to a piece of paper underneath to hold it all together, and then when you trim the tape the paper falls away).

The reason for the end-grain being useful now comes into play, trimming without damaging the original, especially on something as complicated as these feeder-holes, is best done on a very smooth polished surface (stone cutting board if you have one) or an end-grain board, or the sort of thick card you get under a note-pad. If you use a long-grain work table, it can grip the tip of the blade (always use a very fine blade for this job - I use a Swan Morton No. 3 handle with size 11 blade) and carry it into the product in a millisecond, if you're not very careful - and I'm not!

Last would be to replace any clear panels (Airfix or Matchbox boxes for instance) by cutting a piece of the correct material bigger than needed, gluing with a contact adhesive, waiting until both surfaces were dry, then lining up the clear sheet, carefully dropping one corner in and then working across on the diagonal to the far corner, keeping everything smooth. Best thing is to use a plastic scraper or ruler to 'draw' the sheet across/down onto the product.

Finally you can re-fold/re-build the box/card/container, at this stage old card will crack down the fold-lines, or existing flaps of the surface material (most cardboard's are ply-laminates) which were on the outside and haven't benefited from the work on the interior/reverse will pop up. These are best fixed by a little bleeding in of a thin superglue and then smoothing down with a whetted finger, careful not to stick yourself to your beautiful new/old box! There's a knack to this, if you daren't try, use an accelerator pen instead, holding the piece to be clued with the fine point of your knife or a pin or toothpick.

The rubber band is due to the fact that while I was fixing the tiny flap in the photo, the opposite corner ripped (not cheek-test dry enough!) and I had to glue it, or start again! Nightmare! But these things happen when you're restoring 40 year + paper products!

Larger cracks will probably/should have had gummed paper applied to the inside, so will be less problematical and can have white/wood-glue bled into them, which will soak in and dry with less marking...too much super glue, or resorting to the accelerator pen will result in a permanent matt white bloom, given the thing was all but wrecked earlier, it's a small price in my book, but you may think differently. The white glue option at this point will require an overnight drying.

The finished tray. The figures needed to be placed-in as I was reconstructing, in fact set 20-s should be Morocco Infantry 1954 Standing, but someone else got that lot at the auction, so if you have the troops, but a Highlander box (17-s, Scottish Infantry 1914 standing) I'll swap Yah! You would have bought them from the 'Short Equator'.

If these two posts have been useful - albeit long winded - let me know and I'll try and do others in the same vein. The whole process including photographing took an hour or so. it's taken half the night to process the photo's and write it up!!

G is for Glue, Wood-glue, lots of it! - Trees, part 2

Continuing with the 'tree' project, it was necessary to prepare for what might have been a very messy process, by covering the cutting board with cling film.

I also pierced a piece of card ready to take the trees, once they had been formed into something recogniseable! Couldn't find my big bottle of wood-glue, so had to use a small tube left over from some flat-packed book cases!

Well, this was always going to be an experiment from a vague idea, so filling the sink to wash my hands, and anything else (I was still thinking this would be a very messy business), I got stuck in with a long stream of white glue! In fact once it had been rolled in my hands for a few seconds it started to get so dry so quickly I had to add more glue and a bit of water.

The balls then got nicely soggy and I placed them on the twigs, I suspect I'll need to get some clear glue into the branch tips once it's all dried tomorrow. Other than my hands, it was quite a mess-free exercise.

The finished trees, well, I say 'finished', I think they look alright for the outcome of a mad idea, however I'm going to try highlighting one with a contrasting wash, covering another in flock of some kind and spotting the third with 'blossom' and see what they look like. I also ran out of glue and carpet strands! So will have to get more of both before I continue.

I abandoned the hedge, it wouldn't really work how I'd envisioned it, however I will try winding a single lose strand round the pad to give texture and then flock it...some time, maybe!

E is for Elven-folk, by Games Workshop, Mithril & Mantic - Part 1, building the unit

Elves, I got the bug to paint some elves, and it's snowballed into a comparison, vignette (possibly?) diorama, don't-quite-know-yet, morphing-as-it-goes type project!

Top - this is how the Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) figures from DeAgostini/Games Workshop come/came, with issue two of a part-work, with below - the packaging for the new Mantic elves - sculpted by Bob Naismith. They seem to be using an old video box to market their figures, with double boxes for the larger items or 'army packs'.

We looked at the packaging for the Mithril figures the other day, while the two GW 'Warhammer' elves came attached to a copy of White Dwarf magazine a (fair?) few years ago.

Inset is a comparison of the various figures in approximately chronological order of first issue. The GW Warhammer's are vast in comparison with the other three ranges while the Mantic seems to reference the armour of the LOTR figures but with a waspish waist which stops them being my favorites. Their detail is better than the other two (DeAgostini and Mithril) but the anatomy makes them a little too alien...humans and elves are supposed to be able to mate, everybody knows that!

Well, I started looking at doing four archers, but didn't have a Mantic archer, so decided to have a spear-man, then I photographed the packaging for the two big-sprued sets and remembered that my GW figs. had come with White Dwarf, so thought - I'll do both figures and add another each of the Mantics and LOTR's. So we have a mixed war-band of 7 likely souls.

Paint-job was going to be the daffodil yellow and azure blue of the Mithril girl, but I think she'll get a repaint and the group will get a bottle-green and deep red scheme which is an old favorite of mine. But...elves are supposed to be all light and airy? Or is that only post-Peter Jackson, some sources have them altogether darker and more sinister, while the Victorians put them in the same vein as faeries? Oh G..osh, you'd think colour would be the least of my problems!

Well, got to put them together first...