L is for Land of the Rising Sun

There will be a slightly thematic style to a lot of the posting in the foreseeable future as I have to grab whatever is to hand when I visit the storage unit, find somewhere quiet to photograph it and throw it up here. Case in point is this post, I thought I had some Britains Detail Japanese for some posts to appear above in the next day or two, but I don't, however with my fledgling large scale collection being still small it is stored thematically (with exceptions - Speedwell for instance) rather than the alphabetical by make of the small scale, it was not until I'd dug the Jap box out and brought it here that I realised I didn't have any Britains.

Anyway; as the 54/70mm stuff seem to be closest to the storage unit doors, there'll be more like this to come, and as a starter here's the Japanese - I have picked-up in three years of sporadic purchases - as enemy for the post above, when it appears!

Better start with the British production, as stated; the Detail are yet to be collected (despite a false memory that I'd found some!!) and the exception that proves the rule is my one Speedwell Jap, who is not it the Japanese WWII box but rather the Kentoys/Speedwell/Trojan box!

At top - in this shot is an incomplete set of Minimodels works-painted Japs, the missing bayonets are mostly painted over the 'join' suggesting miss-molding in the factory, but one or two have broken-off. The set was later sold unpainted by Almark on the sprue in the same green plastic.

Bottom is one each of the Airfix 1:32 set, which needs to go on the Airfix blog/page, but I'll re-take photo's for that job when I get round to doing that set there. Above are four Hong Kong/China copies of which the right hand two are piracies of the standing firing Airfix pose.

The one on the left I'm really pleased to have found, a friend picked one up a few years ago and I liked it then although I wasn't collecting the large scales then, so was happy to later find him myself - he reminds me of the Atlantic 'Sendai' sniper! The one in the middle is a 'CHINA' marked copy of the Chinese Hing Fat's take on Japanese troops, they are also not here being in with the Blue-box/Rado/Ri-Toys 45/50mm ones which I will have to make a mental note to try and cover another day.

These all seem to be the Spanish firm of Jecsan, I thought some (the UN helmeted troops) might be Comansi and had titled the image to that effect but a frantic search of the Spanish blogs in the early hours reveals that they are all Jecsan.

The two with chunky bases are early production Japanese Infantry, the officer is from the River Kwai set I think (plastic colour?) The others are late production repainted as UN forces to take advantage of the interest in the conflict in the Congo in the late 1960's-early 1970's, and I think the waving guy may actually have been a US soldier originally.

The Americans, having such a great role in the defeat of Japan, made quite a few, and some of the best, top in this collage of vintage makes are Marx, a mix of old figures and re-issues in various colours, with the very similar MPC set below them. The MPC figures are slightly gangly, but still quite animated.

Below them are three Lido figure with what is best described as 'Toy Soldier Charm', I like these and the similar German set because of their crudeness rather than in spite of it!

The US has been responsible for more Japs in recent years and here are samples of two of them; BMC above and CTS below, sadly not very compatible with each other (one lot being closer to 60 mil and quite chunky, the other 54mm and of more oriental slightness), but in a rug-war joining with all the above; they just add to the display as they should...they're toys!

While writing this I've reminded myself that Atlantic are also absent, I might have one or two in a mixed large-size Atlantic tub somewhere, but already having the small ones, Atlantic are a low collecting priority for me in the larger sizes.

H is for HOW Cool Are These?

I like to think I've found a few pretty esoteric things to put on this blog over the years, but 40mm rubberised Dalek 'Flats' are gonna' take some beating...(I beat them - Bicycles)

Edible rubberised Daleks in two colour/flavour packs with a cut-out and slip together card flat of a Fatlek, made by BonBon Buddies they are currently available in Walmart-call-me-Asda and other outlets fa'sure, and they taste nice! Click on Dalek in the tag-list to find the more sensible variations of these now-flying constant invaders of Earth.

R is for Raco

Wanting to spread the range of subject matter (and hopefully - the appeal of the blog), here's a bit of hollow-cast lead farm in 54mm! It's a cow by Raco in near mint condition...although a calf seems to have been a bit over exuberant in the nipple department! Picture courtesy of Adrien over at Mercator Trading - link to right hand side of page.

That's it...it's by; Raco...a cow...54mm...hollow cast...lead...from the farm animal range...nothing else to see, move along now...tell your friends...

M is for Megland

I love a bit of a mystery and here's a good one - This fascinating item turned up at the Sandown Park swap meet a couple of weekends ago, an almost perfect 25mm/1:72 scale The Thatched Cottage made by a B L Megland and apparently part of a set or series of similar sets.

Fully assembled from a multi-media of parts including a composition/plaster cottage, flock, lichen and rubberised-horsehair matting, wood and cast soft-metal components like the green ladder. The whole arranged on a medium-card base and packed in a sturdy box.

Close-ups to give an idea of the amount of work that must have gone into the little vignette which is about 10 inches on a side. It has - as you can see - also been painted with all the techniques known to modern modellers such as dry-brushing, weathering, dark undercoats etc...and to a high standard.

Shots of the packaging reveal the range to be 'England's Fairy Toys', with B L Megland being based in Torrington; Devon. Was Megland an individual or a small company with employees? How many other items were in the set? What date would you put on this; it could be 1900 or 1950 from all the clues!!? Does anyone have any other information on the range or Megland?

S is for Sponge Bricks

Or; Brick Sponges? Ever had a mate throw a piece of sponge at you which you thought was a piece of concrete or a brick? Well, the sponge which looks like concrete doesn't seem to be around any more, it was used in play-pen mattresses when I was young, but I have found several bricks over the years!

The bright pink one had the Sun newspaper's logo down the side and was given away by them for some reason years ago, it started this rather small collection of - usually - Christmas novelties!

J is for Jackson; Steve Jackson

Now that I'm semi-homeless and meandering between various points Southeast as the spirit takes me/the tolerance levels of friends and family allow - normal service may well be surpassed!! - I won't be fighting two legal cases while...yeah; that's all for the other blog! Anyway, within days of placing my entire collection in storage, I was already adding to the 'Master Reference Collection'!!

Checking out some old haunts (Esdevium Games - new owners, new name and the shop seems smaller?) after a few years in the wilds of West Berkshire; I found these little horrors.

Now I thought I'd covered the card figures of Steve Jackson right back at the start of this blog, but he's not on the tag list so maybe I didn't, although the format did evolve quite a lot in the first few months, and I didn't tag as well as I try to now!

Anyway; he/they're now making little PVC figurines around 28mm for a specific game of theirs, but still paintable and usable with other games/systems, then they give them away free, in sixes, with a relatively inexpensive Steve Jackson plastic bag!

There is a Munchkin 'Babe' of hideous allure, and a bog-standard munchkin with an Orc-b-gone chainsaw and a hammer borrowed from Thor himself...probably...hummm....get them before they're gone!

Meanwhile I'll try to have an evening re-tagging some of the early posts...

Westonbirt - The National Arboretum

I Took my Mother to Westonbirt Arboretum on Thursday, and the display was stunning, I'll put a load of images up here in a day or five, but need to sort them out properly, in the mean time, here's a taster...

Above shots taken looking through the Japanese Maple/Acer glade, the colours are quite breathtaking and will still be well worth a view tomorrow if you have a few hours to kill, the display this year is better than normal and a once in a blue-moon thing, so go if you can. I'd imagine the show will 'go-over' mid-week, a few had already lost their leaves, but most were still in full show.

J17 off the M4, or map-read from the Midlands!! I saw a sign for Chipping-torybury so it can't be too far from J's 9-12 of the M40?

Autumn

Well, just left the court for what was hopefully the last time and - due to the other party hopelessly compromising the out of court settlement - all will be revealed, but not on here first, I'll let the New Agency dealing with the case disseminate it all and make some sense of it!

Anyway, should be less of a bear with a sore head going forwards, but still a few weeks stress moving house and sorting files!

In the meantime here are some pretty pictures of one of the best Autumns I can remember, the late trees seem early, the early trees seem late and they've all caught the Oaks, so the colours out there are stunning...

Victoria Park, Newbury, Berkshire about two weeks ago, the limes just on the turn and in direct sunlight seconds before the heavens opened! The grey storm-clouds providing the studio drapery.

Fleet, Hampshire, on the Ancelles Farm commercial park, is it my imagination or do the young trees turn a week or two early? Less capacity to store water?...

A corporate HQ in Basingstoke the same day, a truly yellow one; apart from the odd red yellow or pink 'turn', when you go up to them and study autumn trees, you find most of them are some shade of brown, but it's the way they go over, or interact with the others around them of in the background that makes the display. The Hazels - as an example - currently have mostly green leaves, with a Florida-tan brown edge to them and a yellow zone between the brown and the green.

A hillside on the edge of Salisbury Plain on Monday, a few miles short of Luggershall on the Hampshire/Wiltshire boarder. I was on the way to an interview for a retards course, now I'm officially a retard (don't worry, it'll all come out in the next few weeks...), and had to pull over for this burning hillside. The Andover road up toward Wayhill had some stunning vistas but I couldn't stop to shoot them.

This is the hill down into Newbury from the big retail-park up at Wash Common, yesterday, just loved the dull maroon in among paling greens.

Pheasants congregating in the first wisps of the first mists about a week ago, the mist was changing as fast as the pheasants woke to my presence and despite taking a dozen or so shots this was the only usable one, and it's hardly a pro-shot...Doh!

News, View etc...Counter

I've got the counter sorted out, prize will be at 0120,000, or about 5 weeks time, I'll look for prize-worthy stuff in Birmingham!

Will add a link or two in the next few days as well...

21:00 (pm) 21st Oct....Oh no you haven't!

08:45 (am) 22nd Oct....Oh yes I Have!

25th Oct (am)...Oh no You havn't!

I give up! I've reloaded it twice, eMailed them three times and the bloody thing's reset itself again! Watch this space...if you can be arsed!!!!

News, views etc...Birmingham's come round again!

Dave McKenna's 21st Central Toy & Model Soldier Show is in Birmingham is this Sunday

Sunday 23nd October 2011 Doh!

The Clarendon Suite, 2 Stirling Road Edgbaston, (just off the Hagley Road)., Within 5 minutes walk of the city center. There is a half-marathon the same day so try to get parked early if you're coming by car.

Free Parking and an on-site cafe.

For other details and late availability of tables contact; Mr McKenna on telephone number: 0121 628 1397

Email: patanddave76@yahoo.co.uk

I'll be in my ever-holey 'Tuskers' T-shirt if you want to come over and have a chat, say Hi or winge about my approach to the military history of France! or Belgium...

Entry Times;
Doors open 1030 - 4pm

Prices;
£4 adults
£3 Concessions (children and Senior Citzens)

[Herne next!]

W is for White Tower Miniatures

From time to time a 'Plastics Man' turns to the dark side and starts to experiment with poured metal, cold-setting rubber and 'Master Figures', normally, all you can do is try to avoid them, wear garlic and cross yourself three times in their presence, however, when it's a friend of yours and the resulting alchemy is rather good, you are best humoring him in the hope the phase will pass and he will return to the polymer fold.

One such is Matt of White Tower Miniatures, who started with a range of character figures of Robin the hooded and other denizens of the fortified towns and woods of Nottinghamshire, he then switched to a range of Wild West characters, and is now building fine ranges of Dark Age Normans, Saxons and Far-Eastern armies.

There is a link to his website to the right of the page and I'd urge you to have a visit, and browse, last I knew he was still painting all the figures himself, and as you can see above unpainted castings are also available.

Huns on the run, or running someone out-of-shot down! These were taken as the old camera died last year so they are not the best shots I've published...and er...they're actually Mongols!

A command group, these will all be out again - I hope - on Sunday at Dave McKenna's show in Birmingham, there is a half-marathon on the same day so if you're driving, be early.

Saxon shield-wall, they would have held the bloody country if they hadn't all run down the hill in an over-exuberant (and probably mead-fuelled!) dash to de-horse the Norman Knights!

I know a Knight I'd like to de-horse....

C is for Cautionary Tales

I bought this about a year ago, I had finished a job and felt like a present for myself, so managed to tick-off a couple of the items on my 'wants' list with a bit of judicious eBaying. The purchase produced an immediate response on one of the Forums and I quote;

"An empty box for the Airfix Attack Force Set just sold for a staggering £67.87 on eBay. I shudder to think what that means for the value of a complete set

The seller made no secret of the fact that it was just an empty box, so the four bidders must have known what they were bidding on. The description that this is "easily the rarest of all the playsets" I do not share: the same size Beach-head Invasion Set is far rarer than this one, which - that much is true - is quite difficult to find."

Now, it must be understood that A) The same weekend a common (and fifteen or so years younger) Pontoon Bridge Assault Set went for £170-something, while I also 'ticked-off' one of the Britains Lilliput carded sets for £40-something. B) In the last few weeks; equally common play sets have been reaching anything between one and three-hundred plus. C) The author of the above comment already had one so we can't even blame 'sour grapes' in the traditional sense for the mealy-mouthed comment. D) He almost certainly knew who won it as these guys obsess over eBay, and was making a wider 'point' re. internal forum politics!

The fact is; It's a reasonably rare set, it was in pretty good nick (see below!) and at 70-odd quid a bargain. However - eBay is a bit of a snake pit, you pays your money, makes your choice and have to live with the consequences. The seller has almost no influence these days, the buyer - should he choose - can literally get away with criminality and most national police, postal and consumer affairs organisations will have nothing to do with any problems generated by eBay sales/purchases.

I have been suggesting for sometime that eBay is on it's uppers, and turning into a market place for new goods, and eBay would seem - with every change they make - to agree with me!!

But; that's not the cautionary tale, the cautionary tale is, if you want to share your knowledge with other people, get a blog and they'll come. It's true they'll go back to their own blog and 'discover' the cricketers you've just posted without crediting you, but that's human nature and one should rise above it...if one can...?

Don't go to a locked-down forum with 300 members, 200 of whom want to sell you Italian sandals, Viagra, rubber love-rockets or wholesale toasters, with another 50 having not posted in over a year leaving you with 40 or so genuine members and a few sand-castle builders giving it the big 'I am'.

Rant over; lets look at the beast...and sort it out!

This is the original sales picture, it is clear from the photograph that both the front corners are split top-to-bottom, OK; 'Caveat Emptor', I can see the damage, but it's not in the description, so...polite note to seller along the lines of; "It looks like/Are the corners split, is there any other damage?"

Nice chatty email back; "Seen your blog...really rare set...only selling 'cause I need the money/space/changing scale of my collection...", whatever...but - no mention of the corners or other damage. Well, I'm an easy going chap - until someone riles me (then I'll hold a grudge a thousand years!), so similar eMail is sent off and of course while you hope he's got the idea that you don't mind the damage but just want it packed carefully (resulting in a second reply to the effect that it will be well packed) you end up assuming by now he is just misunderstanding your need for a reply to non-rhetorical questions!

You bid, you win the item, it arrives beautifully packed in a larger box than itself, in all dimentions, with newspaper-twists (the best - and cheapest - form of packing for lightweight items) holding it firmly in place...

But!...to 'help'; he's taped both corners together with what looks like half a mile of crystal-tape (very sticky) AND lined the insides with brown-paper tape!!! Several layers!

Do you laugh? Do you cry? do you swear out-loud and rip it to pieces! Or do you send it back? I laughed a little and swore a little, but knew deep down that I'd half expected something of the sort.

Second lesson...If a seller doesn't answer questions 'right' the deal is suspect, it doesn't matter what or why, a genuine seller should answer all questions fully within 48 hours of you're asking and supply any extra images you ask for. Indeed it's a good test to ask for extra photographs, as the item should be at hand, having already been recently photographed to put on whatever auction site you're dealing with, and ready for posting? You can't seriously run an eBay seller account without an eMail address, a PC and a digital camera.

So accepting that greed and a pocketful of cash had got me in my own - typically 'eBay' - predicament, renovation was the only choice. I decided that I'd use it as an example for the blog, but my camera was dying this time last year and I still hadn't got the loan of Giles', however it worked a bit better indoors than out, so while they aren't the best shots I've posted they aren't the worst either!

The first thing to do was get the tape off without damaging the paintwork or underlying cardboard. A hot-air paint stripper is the answer, but turned down to the point where you can almost use it as a hair dryer - suggesting that a hair dryer turned up will probably do an equally good job?

The shot on the left shows the tape starting to curl-back on itself, while the little scraps on the right were my entry in this years Royal Academy exhibition!! You can see that there is a slight loss of printers ink as the tape comes away.

Shots showing the dog-ears you'd, expect even if the deal had otherwise gone right, along with the multiple layers of brown paper tape. He's done a good job, and a few years ago I'd have done the same, but having done the inside like this I would never tape the outside? I guess he taped the outside first to get the shape, but you can do that with string or rubber bands...

So - next step; dampen the paper tape and peel carefully, a layer at a time, I use warm water as it seems to penetrate quicker, and a fine mister. Stop peeling every time a tear/peel extends into dry paper or you need to pull harder, go back to the mister, this phase is all about patience. If you over-mist, soak up the residue with kitchen paper.

Once the paper tape is off; undo the box and lay some hardboard on the floor, then carefully, gently using a clean butchers rag (not a duster - it'll dye the whole thing yellow...don't ask, but renovation is a learning curve!) or cotton-wool, and some distilled water (from an auto-parts place) proceed to wipe the whole thing, changing wool/cloths frequently until either of the following happen;

- The cotton-wool/cloth is only slightly discolouring (pale greyish residue)
- The cotton-wool/cloth starts to go pink (or whatever colour the piece you're working with)

Then place a towel over the hardboard, dampen the whole box and then using an iron on a medium setting (not a steam setting - the misting you've given the card will produce all the steam you want), and proceed to iron through a plain sheet of white paper until the whole thing is 'dryish', turn it over and do the same to the other side (to prevent curling).

Once both sides are dryish (the seams and folds will still be dark with moisture), take a new (dry) towel and place an old white t-shirt or sock over the iron, and continue to iron, turning the flattened box regularly until it is absolutely dry...you'll know when that is as it will regain it's full rigidity.

Finally; fold it back up together, and where - a few years ago - I would have advocated the brown-paper treatment, you now only need to bleed a bit of super-glue into the join and hold until it's set.

You can speed-up the setting by huffing on it, like you'd mist a train-window as a kid, the moisture in your breath will activate the super-glue, that's why fingers glue so easily when you're working with the stuff. The hint also works with aerials, photo-etched fret-work and other things on small kits. Indeed - I sometimes set super-glue with a wet paint brush.

The two insets and the circled items in the photograph show a slight discolouration of the super-glue, but you're never going to get it perfect without a three-year museum study course! The arrow highlights the fading caused by eh tape removal, I can live with it, some couldn't.

Was it worth £70 quid?...Of course it bloody was! And nothing some farty little middle-class, middle-aged, overpaid, jumped-up twerp from a country who's military history t'ain't worth writing a book about (yet still managed to do more damage to Africa than us, the French, the Italians and the Germans put together!) says about it, will change the fact.

The vac-formed insert will turn up in a mixed lot of vac-forms at a show eventually - guarantee it, while the vehicles and figures are already in the box! I also disagree with his claim that it's not as rare as the one below it in the above picture, I've seen/handled three of the orange ones (which was later and contained a cross-over mix of early and late type ready-mades), this is my first red one (which being earlier - only contains Attack Force), but those grapes must look so much nicer in his cupboard!

PS - Never, ever, EVER be tempted to use bleach, it eats cellulose and will turn you cardboard to dry papyrus slowly in the cupboard over time, like grapes turn to sultanas if you don't eat them when you see them going cheap!

B is for Box

If you click on 'Noddy' in the tags list at the bottom of the post, you'll get this up with the original post. Sent in by blog visitor Allen Parkes, it is both sides of the original box for the Kellogg's Noddy promotion, thank you Allen.

Front of the box with one side and a little red Noddy, who is also filling most of the cover, was he the Ricicles mascot for some time or just the length of the promotion? I can't remember despite recognising the box!

The reverse of the box with the other side/edge, showing the full set, as far as I know they were never issued in brown, but it was a standard Crescent colour (suppliers of the figures) and the Kellogg's American Indians were issued in brown.

The missing panel is one of the various little scenes you got to cut-out to use as a stage for your figures adventures, sadly Allen lost it years ago.

M is for Midgetoy, Metal and Martians!

Fresh from the Chicago show, I nearly bought these the other day, but Adrien of Mercator Trading (link to the right of the blog page) let me photograph them instead, so another plug for him!

Best thought of as a rival for Tootsietoy, I know little about the firm, but these are around the right size for 25mm figures and so sum-up the designs of the future that were so current in the past! I've seen the blue 'balloon-car' before but the sedan is new on me, and while it is a bit paint-chipped is still in overall good condition for its age.

The odd thing is, although they are die-cast mazac, they follow the production style of slush-castings, this is a very American thing, over here we were putting bases on our die-casts quite early, while across the pond they continued with the hollow underside design for some time.

O'brien points out [Collecting Toys - Krause publishing] that they were blister-packing very early, but then the Hong Kong guy's were blister-packing years before Airfix got their Toy Industry award for 'innovative packaging'!!

M is for Mini-trucks, Part 1 - Cab designs and overview

This set of 7 posts (following) was born out of the catalogue page the the boys over at Moonbase let me use the other week (month?!), and the fact that some time ago (over a year and a half) I said I'd do a thing on the mini-trucks from Hong Kong that were born out of the Kleeware trucks that were themselves apparently copies of the Dinky original of the post-war Humber.

Along the way it ties up a couple of other loose-ends...

Bottom right shows the two larger scale Banner trucks, I've looked at before, they were also produced in the UK by Kleeware (from borrowed moulds), next to them is the small scale Pyro/Kleeware lorry.

At the top are a Pyro cab unit (or 'Semi', or...see 'comments' the other day!!) in army green next to a Wannatoys red one.

Sandwiched between them all are a Cheerio pick-up truck apparently from the UK and the Wannatoys cab again to compare.

These mostly generic 1950's Lorry Cab Designs all have some features in common, such as the divider down the bonnet (hood) or the cab-roof lights, or the military 6x6 truck type wheel-arch headlights.

Alongside them ran metal vehicles of similar design and these are all from a Mettoy Playcraft (later; Corgi) catalogue of unknown age. The lower engines look very 'Denis' in execution, my local Lorry builder, they used to test-drive the chassis round Fleet when we were kids.

One of the loose ends; the upper shot shows the Triang Mettoy Breakdown Lorry, it is as you can tell the same vehicle as the two military ones in the original Littlewoods ad. Below it is the Lone*Star Cab Design.

The Matchbox take on the Humber lacked the sentry-holes and detail of the Dinky version and was not a copy, while the Dinky Lorry begot all the others!! I think?

The Humber was the Post-war (WWII) replacement for the plethora of 15cwt (UK) and 3/4-ton (US) trucks in service by the end of it. It would also provide the chassis for the wheeled APC immortalised in Northern Ireland as the PIG.

Kleeware (top left) to modern Christmas cracker toy (bottom right), these are the little beasts we look at in the 6 posts below this one.