B is for Britains...and friends

Well, this is the rest of the contents of my less than comprehensive Household Cavalry box, and consists in the main of Britains and their clones, one of the downsides of being THE household name for toy soldiers was that everyone else wanted a piece of their pie, a situation not helped by Britains then moving their production to Hong Kong, a place where if you give a man a Lee Enfield at breakfast, he'll give you an identical working copy by teatime!

Britains Herald, Top shot, left to right; UK black-based x2 (made by Zang but marked Herald?); a green-based one from after Britians had bought-in Zang/Herald; six HK for Britains with earlier and later (deeper) bases, and two with integral bases which predate the six separate-based ones.

Below them are some of the mounted from the range, they are a mess and I don't know which figure belongs on which horse, whether the brown horse is correct, whether any of the saddles are matched-up with the right rider....all I can say is that the horse far left is a UK made piece with the Herald mark, the rest are 'HONG KONG FOR BRITAINS'

Top are the Eyes Right Household cavalry, again I don't know if the saddles are correctly matched. Third from the left is the band-master from the Lifeguards mounted band and slightly rarer as he only came in the larger boxed or trayed 'full band' sets. However Cavendish Miniatures had sell-through on the remaining stock of a lot of this stuff and may have had tons of bandmasters for all I know!...?

Below we go from the sublime to the ridiculous, an early Zang for Herald mounted Horseguard (incidentally my favorites over the Royals) with next to him two of the New Metal figures that were just coming into production when my brother and I were turning to other things, Camel, Guinness, and girls if I recall correctly - I don't know what the horse looks like but from the vicious arse-spike on the rider I'm guessing the horse was metal too?

The inset shows how the little plastic sword has blown away a scab of hip, on a figure getting so brittle I was afraid to photograph him at all! The horse is a two-part hollow moulding with glued on saddle, probably all made of cellulose acetate, but the lack of shrinkage suggests some form of early styrene polymer.

Near clones and true clones; Top left is the Timpo lifeguard from the touristy range of little boxed sets they did, his jacket is always a bit too orange in the scarlet. Next to him we have the common HK copies in blue and red, I've never seen the trumpeter in this range, but he may be out there. They also copied the Herald khaki infantryman standing at attention, and the old hollow cast RAF regiment/marching with rifle, along with all the highlanders.

The figure on the end - very play worn - is a bit of a mystery, he has some of the hallmarks of the Speedwell Japanese officer (which could make him Kentoys or Trojan...VP, Paramount or...) and I'm hoping some expert like the 65th follower of this blog might be able to help identify him! Thanks for 'following' Brian - any ideas?

The bottom row are equally lost on me although I feel I should know, they aren't Gem, I have them somewhere else, likewise they're not Charbens or Cavendish for the same reason. They seem to be early British although very shiny-glossy, and have no HK marks, yet the obvious missing make (Hilco) usually mark at least some of a sample? Again any of the five in the previous paragraph could be in the frame.

M is for Marketing

Continuing with the whole Triang/Lines thing down at Minimodels Havent, with Mr. Stadden in tow, we come to these chaps, four poses in approximately 25mm from the master sculptor, made to go a long, long way by the fellows in the marketing department.

All the variants in my collection, with the bog-standard shop-stock boxes. The Orange-brown ones were Culpitts, as we had them as kids, and I remember getting them for a birthday cake in little packs of two - foot or mounted.

On another occasion we hunted for them in a garden as 'Party Favours', although I don't think they were called that then...just prizes or presents? That lot would have been Minimodels from Webb's newsagent in the - then - tiny village of Hartley Wintney (home of Denzil Skinner, Hart Models and another guy who's name escapes me!)

They are such fine castings that getting them - the Indians particularly - intact is a bit of a miracle, and with plastic colour and paint versions it'll be a while before I stop hunting them down!

As well as shop-stock and a supply to Culpitts, they were issues in at least three board games, two by Triang (Warpath and Wild West Checkers) and one by Omnia (Geronimo) and these are various bits from some of them.

Top right sees the Wild West Checkers [Draughts] figures with the same type of spigot mounting as the Battle Game variants of the Almark British Infantry, allowing you to remove one to make 'king'.

Below that is the famous wagon 'square' used by trekking pioneers heading West, to protect themselves from herds of wandering wildeersloth, all that rubbish about wagon 'circles' being white-mans propaganda. Taken from the Warpath game which seems to bear some similarities (in game play) with Waddington's 'Battle of the Little Big Horn'.

Bottom left are figures from Omnia's Geronimo game, along with an unpainted sample of a Culpitts figure. Above them are some factory samples either colour tests for the Checkers game, or a set for another - 4th - game entirely?

They also seem to have appeared in two boxed sets, the contents of the other being unknown. James Opie is to thank for saving this one; 'Ambush at Yellow Rock', for posterity.

The first image above was given the full Scarfolk Council treatment, and while without permission, that has all been sorted and it's very funny!

The Omnia game pieces complete, scanned from old 35mm images I took for Plastic Warrior. This is a game with an unusual mechanism as you have to build a 'ladder' of collected cards, to get to the top of the box tray and secure Geronimo's treasure before the other three players.

News Views Etc...Magazine Articles

W is for 'Well, Fancy That'...as Private Eye would say!!

Actually I'm sure it's a complete coincidence or a bit of synergy, rather than the close relationship between my posting and an appearance elsewhere, that the article below has appeared so soon after I covered them, not that I haven't influenced some other's output; Subbuteo cricketers and Midgetoy space cars springing to mind - as fast as they follow my posting them here!

As a further act of synergy a reader in NZ brought the article to my attention the same day the issue was issued over here, so it's nice to know that a magazine gets launched at the same time everywhere!!

If you enjoyed my 7 or so posts on the mini-trucks based on the Dinky 1-Ton Humber, you really must get a copy of this months Model Collector magazine, where Nigel Robertshaw gives them equally full coverage, but very much from a civilian point of view, and including the metal I omitted. Some of the body types are new to me, including lovely construction vehicles and tanker-trucks, while it was interesting to see my childhood Christmas cracker fire engine ladder-truck carded with a pumper, cherry-picker and others.

He also has a decent shot of a restored radio-shack bodied Humber with expanding side-canopy. Lovely shots of both boxed and carded HK examples and civilian versions in the larger sizes from both NFIC and Sam Toys made this a fascinating read for me and I'd already bored myself to death with the things!!!

The real gem in the article is a Military 'Services M.T. Garage' which he suggests is HK, but I suspect is Kleeware, it's a dead-ringer for their civilian 'Service Station' with the three little ex-Pyro cars. Do try to check it out, these magazines so rarely cover plastics; anything we can do to encourage them...



Also; and at the risk of being accused of blowing my own trumpet, some of you may have noticed that I'm 'Letter of the Month' in the January issue of Toy Soldier and Model Figure (TSMF), only by dint of happenstance, however; the first I knew of it was the arrival in the post without warning of an American Minuteman - British colonial insurgency, not stray ICMB! - from W. Britain.

As someone with the level of cynicism that never quite believes media announced prizes ever get given (why are they aways won by an elderly couple from oop'north?), it was nice to see they actually do! Although he's already been lost in the move, it's a temporary 'lost' to a TBS-box [To Be Sorted], and when he turns up again I'll blog him with some Britains and Marx, as I have so few 'New Metal' figures in the collection - in any size!! So - many thanks to the Editor; Stuart A. Hessney for the award.

My insurgency 'dig' aside; there's also an irony in that the rump of Britains, a British company who made - among other things - the lovely Eyes Right AWI are now wholly American owned - the very people who broke away from their governance at Westminster - now making Revolutionary War figures...history huh? Makes you glad not to be French...

Right; that's everyone plugged or insulted! Back to toy soldier blogging!....

News Views Etc...

Well, I said I'd be getting thematic and the two posts below (Household Cavalry and Almark) are from the HC box and the Triang/Minimodels/Omnia box, so more of the two subjects in the coming days as I've dragged them both back from the storage unit, I've also got the Zang box for Paul Morehead over at Plastic Warrior to look at so I'll be putting some quality composition on here in a day or five.

I also updated the Almark and Silverlit text-only imports I loaded on here the other night, and added a text only on Armtec as it ties in vaguely with Almark - immediately below.

I've updated all links to other blogs in and out, as Blogger seems to have lost half my links to other people back in the summer when they were 'improving' things. I've also dropped the AdSense, complete waste of time with traffic at the levels you get on a collectors site, and makes the page slow to load for anyone without Broadband, anyone on dial-up, anyone with a mobile-Internet dongle etc...The Internet - like 'Western' Civilization - seems to be coming to a slow halt!!!

As stated the other night, the Manufacturers A-Z blog (which never really got started) is no more and all the relevant entries are now here with their tags in the index, and a more general cross-reference list is starting to take shape at the bottom of the page, this will not just be cross references here, but all the cross references you might come across in the hobby, helping with research, google searches etc...it will take a while to get to a useful size though, so be patient please - I'll 'News, Views' when it gets major additions/updates.

If anyone can think of anything else I can do to improve the blog let me know, I'm 41% into my Image allowance, so you've got about 4 more years of my pontificating to look forwards too!!!

Cheers - H

A is for Armtec

Armtec, 5 Belinda Lane, Enfield, Connecticut 06082, USA
Polystyrene kit accessories/detailing parts lead to marketing deals with Crest and Canuck, resulting in a nice range of subjects available by the time their illustrated catalogue was published in 1976, two updates would also be issued and the three when combined with the early advertisements have lead to a bit of confusion re; set numbering! Carried by Almark and laterly Micro-mould in the UK.
Product listing
Accessories 1:76
Set № 1 - German Machine Guns
Set № 2 - 10 Jerry Cans
Set № 3 - American AFV Tools
Set № 4 - German Pioneer Tools
Set № 5 - German Spare track Section (swaps numbers with 7 in the 1976 catalogue)
Set № 6 - German Vehicle Breakdown Equipment (also; OVM – Outer Vehicle Material!)
Set № 7 - 70 Scale Feet Length - Tow Chain (swaps numbers with 5 in the 1976 catalogue)
Set 8 - Hetzer Road Wheels
Set 9 - 15 Sandbags
Set 10 - British Tools and 7 gas-tins ( ‘Flimsies’?)
Accessories 1:35
Set № 8 - 35 Scale Feet - Tow Chain (renumbered 1976; Set 1)
Set № 9 - German Machine Guns MG34 (renumbered 1976; Set 2)
Set № 10 - German Machine Guns MG42 (renumbered 1976; Set 3)
Set 4 - Tow Cables (72 scale feet)
Set 5 - German 81mm Mortar
Set 6 - British Weapons (Bren gun and Boys A/T-rifle)
Accessories 1:48
Set 1 - Tow Chain
Set 2 - German Gas Cans
Accessories 1:72
Set 1 - US .50cal. Aircraft Type and Accessories (also; AA1, became; Set AC-1)
Set AC-2 - F101-B Conversion Kit (canopy, nose extension, tailpipe extension and rockets)
Vac-formed conversion kits
Conv.1 - Cast Hull and Sand-shields for Airfix Lee/Grant
Conv.2 - Cast Hull and Sand-shields for Airfix Sherman
Crest Reproductions - Artillery (“manufactured exclusively for Armtec”, metal)
Set#1 - German 105mm Howitzer
Set#2 - German 150mm Nebelwefer
Set#3 - German Pak.40 Anti-tank Gun
Set#4 - German 8.8cm Pak.43/41 Anti-tank Gun
Set#5 - British 17lbr. Anti-tank Gun
Set#6 - German 7.5cm Pak.36 Anti-tank Gun
Set#7 - German 3.7cm Pak.36 Anti-tank Gun
Crest Reproductions - Artillery (“manufactured exclusively for Armtec”, metal)
Set M-1 - German 20mm Solothurn
Set M-2 - US .30cal. Air-cooled Machine Gun
Set M-3 - US .30cal. Water-cooled Machine Gun
Set M-4 - US 75mm Recoilless Rifle
Set M-5 - German 2.8cm sPzB.41 Gerlich
Crest Reproductions - Vehicle kits (“manufactured exclusively for Armtec”, metal)
#A1 – Jagdpanzer 38t Hetzer 1:76
CT1 - Cast Hull Sherman Conversion (1:76)
CT2 - Cast Hull Lee Conversion (1:76)
CT3 - M4A1 Sand Shields (available for Sherman and Lee – probably the same as; Conv.1 & 2 above)
CT4
CT5
CT6
CT7
CT8 - L-33 Tankette
CT9 - L-35 Tankette
CT10
Figures
#FC1 - Boar War Highlander (using Airfix 1:32nd Napoleonic Highlander)
#FC2 - WWI Highlander (using Airfix 1:32nd Napoleonic Highlander)
#IT1 - Tank Crew Member (1:35th Italian tank crew)
#IT2 - Tank Crew Member (1:35th Italian tank crew)
Decals (transfers, by Canuck Decals)
D-1 - RCAF Sheet

WD is for War Department...

...the precursor to the modern Ministry of Defence (MoD), and the title of the range of WWII figures Almark produced in part from ex-Minimodels plastics moulds and by returning to the original sculptor to expand the range with Germans (small scale) or fill gaps (54mm range) in metal.

Two sets of British Infantry were issued and two packaging types appeared, always sold on the sprue there was an 'infantry' sprue and a 'support weapons' sprue. Much anticipated and covered after release by Military Modelling, they appeared [1970/71?] several years after the Triang Battle Game [1968'ish] that had first featured them.

It must however be assumed that the idea was always for someone to market them, as the Set WD-2 sprue was never utilised for/in the earlier Battle Game? Maybe the Battle Game was dreamt-up for Christmas while they ironed out teething problems with the mould for the second set?

Poses and contents - Set WD-1 to the top left; WD-2 - top right. Below them are the Triang playing-pieces with their locating studs/spigots, and right at the bottom; a couple without helmet paint which probably came from an outworker somewhere in the Havent area, being bought at a car-boot sale on the A3 out of Portsmouth.

The helmet paint code was dealt with on the Battle Game post, but I'll repeat it here, green is troops, brown is engineer, red were the NCO's and white the Officer.

The latter [1972/3?] German 'foe' were available as 5 poses each of regular infantry (early war uniforms) or paratroops, sculpted by the same Charles C Stadden who had designed the plastic figures. Initially sold on the same (now sticky) vacuum-sealed cards as the plastic figures, they soon moved to the more common type of shop stock-box that Minifigs, Hinchliffe and others were using.

It has to be said; these knocked the socks off Airfix 1st version Germans and Combat Group, and probaly led directly to the Airfix 2nd versions being released a year or three later [1974-77'ish].

H is for Houshold Cavalry (Blues and Royals)

It is I'm sure no coincidence that all three of the 60mm'ish sets of ceremonial foot figures of the British Army's Household Cavalry seem to be rather similar to each other. Produced by (alphabetically); Cherilea, Crescent and Marx - Swansea.

The fact that they mostly come in several variations of paint, plastic colour or plastic type means that with little effort and a bit of judicious feeBaying you could get quite a display of these together in a short time should you wish?

Top we have 'Marching with Sword' and from left to right they are;

• Marx, white hard polystyrene plastic, possibly a repaint.
• Marx, cream, polyethylene, factory painted
• Cherilea, white with green base
• Cherilea, red with black base
• Crescent

Note the mould variation in the two Cherilea figures shown in the swords and the breast-plate straps. The middle photo (again from the left) is showing 'Standing with Sword';

• Marx, cream, polyethylene, factory painted
• Cherilea, red with black base
• Cherilea, red with green base
• Marx Nylon/Polypropylene (?) re-issue (Marksmen?)

Note - again - how the two Cherilea's are different heights/moulds. Finally we have trumpeters, three from Marx, all cream ethylene and a Crescent.
This guy is quite problematical; he appears at first glance to be a factory painted Marx figure, but closer inspection reveals that A) he's made of the same nylon'ish plastic as the re-issue above and B) the painting is 'clean' yet of poor quality, so he would seem to be a more recent tourist item sourced from China, or a re-issue painted by someone who (to be kind...) had little experience of such painting?!!

Finally we have the other member of the Household Cavalry produced by Cherilea, in the chunky-based mounted range,half his sword is sadly still in a Russian gunner somewhere in the Crimea!

These come in various plastic colours and paint schemes, but I've never seen one painted as a Horse Guard ('Blues'), as indeed I've never seen the Crescent figures as anything other than 'Royals', excepting those re-painted by their owners.

B is for Blitzkrieg

It is one of those perennial questions, often leading to heated debate; Why the interest in German 'Stuff', if you add SS/NAZI party organisations to the mix it gets even more heated, but ever since I have been reading or buying modelling or wargame magazines there have been regular debates on the subject.

And it can't be argued that when it comes to AFV's or Figures (the formula doesn't carry over to warships or 'planes), the manufacturers will tell you the Germans out-sell the rest of the combatants 3 or 4 to one. My brother's Detail was no more an exception than my Airfix kit stash; as could be seen from the box shot the other day, and here they finally are...

Sorting them out lead to 4 piles; Filthy with no stickers, dirty with stickers, needing a wipe and on the right - almost as good as the day they left the factory.

I have read all sorts of complicated suggestions for cleaning vinyl/PVC, and have learnt the hard way not to use paint-stripper (they just blister), there is no great science to it and I've just used a dollop of shower-gel in a bit of warm water, soak for a minute and clean with an old toothbrush.

Before (above) and after (below), they clean up very well, and while the 'wash' finish on the early British Infantry, Wild West and 7th Cavalry did tend to wear-off, the solid colour used here was itself a kind of vinyl, so is pretty much 'welded' in place, and a quick clean brings them right back.

A few years ago Andy Harfield actually sourced some vinyl paints, but there was a poor take-up at the time (I believe) and he only carried them for a year or three. I once did some work for a corporate entertainments company and we used large tins of the stuff to make 'It's a Knockout' (Jeux sans Frontières [JSF]) type structures and I can only tell you that it runs at two to three times the cost of equivalent emulsions or oil-based household glosses.

There are only one or two decent arm-swaps in this set, while my Brother converted (through necessity) a broken MP38/40 guy into a Mauser armed NCO or dismounted AFV crewman? The butt being explained by the fact that a clip-on rifle type stock was available for the Mauser!

I realised while cleaning them that the officer is the only figure from the Afrika Korps set repainted by Bro to fit in with his early-war temperate theatre guys, while one of the missing helmet-stickers turned-up on the rear stock...where I have a vague memory of placing it many years ago!

Notice also how our mother (My MUM!), ever resourceful - has taken the sidecar in for a service and sent it out with an aerodynamic wheel hub...she'd used a domed upholstery pin to mend the broken axle! I can report that it still works perfectly and is neither stiff nor loose, 30-odd years later.

His whole collection putting in an attack supported by an emplaced gun and the Sd.Kfz 215 from Dinky Toys. Between those shots is a pose line-up, missing being only the radio operator from the 2nd pose issue. Broken mortar's teams providing crews for both the AFV and the Britains artillery piece.

The third figures along (in both rows) are often described as having MG34's or 42's (even the wikipedia entry for Detail makes the mistake) when it is in fact - in both cases - a close representation of the Panzerbüchse 39 (PzB 39) anti-tank rifle, why Britains would produce such an obscure weapon (for a toy figure to be equiped with) not just once but twice is a bit of a mystery, although with the early-war uniforms, such weapons would have been common at company if not platoon level.

H is for Heinrichsen

Right, after all that crappy old text-only stuff imported from the now defunct 'manufacturers listings' blog, I better load something to look at before I climb the wooden hill to bed'fordshire! Those waiting for Detail Germans will have to wait a little longer, I haven't sorted the images out yet.

I bought this the other day, it's a late set in a cardboard box, the earlier ones being in thin wooden oval containers. The box is OK, it has an English label over-stuck and some dealers illegible scribbling but is solid and seems to contain the right packing straw. However I'm not so sure of the contents, it's supposed to be a medics set, yet contains only casualties (one of whom is definitely dead!) and er...two cows!

And they are just the pieces that seem to be Heinrichsen (same bases/paint), there are a whole bunch of more problematical figures (below), while there are no medics, doctors, surgeons or nurses?

The other contents of the set; Top left is a Heinrichsen from the base, but not needing or being a medic he must be from another set, likewise the tree seems to be Heinrichsen but is a bit tropical methinks?

Top right and bottom middle both seem to be home-painted castings, possibly home-cast (heavy bases), but they aren't as chunky as most home-casts, so they may be modern - badly painted - castings from old Nuremberg moulds? Whatever they are - they are 7YW/30YW/French-Indian/New-world Colony Insurgency period, not Napoleonics!

The two Jager/Light Infantry are nice figures but clearly don't belong in the box either, so I think it's fair to say what I have is a box of floor-sweepings...but they are all nice examples (except the home painting) and will go on the foam-boards I use to keep these flats pristine. The four guys who have seen action (Austro-Hungarians?) will stay in the box, the cows will get a note and mental question-marks, and I'll look out for some medics!!

4 is for 4-Mil Models

This has been imported from 'Boring Blog' (which I will close down) and may have images or other text added in the future

4-Mil Models
Manufacturer of resin vehicles/AFV’s in 1:76 scale. Not known if they produced any figures.

G is for Giant Insects and Stuff

This has been imported from 'Boring Blog' (which I will close down) and may have images or other text added in the future

MPC/Airfix
Alternate packaging of kits listed under separate companies. The Tarantula seems to have only been issued only in MPC or AMT/Ertl packaging, not getting an Airfix boxing.
Monster sets
- Rampaging Scorpion Diorama
- Prying Mantis Diorama
- Huge Tarantula Diorama (?)

S is for Silverlit

Silverlit Toys Manufactory Ltd./Dongguan Silverlit Toys MFY Ltd.

Silverlit Toys, Huai De Toys Factory, Huai De Dongguan, China

See also; Motron, Multimack.

Hong Kong/China.

Produced various small scale toys in 1980's/early 1990's. They seem to have copied other-peoples modulated/clip-together toys, added new components and produced the ‘Multimac’ range from the result. Items from Tomy’s ‘Zoids’ and Bluebird Toys ‘Manta Force’ (itself part-Tomy) are identifiable, including a chrome-plated seated astronaut. They also used Roco-Minitanks NATO infantry in the press release/box art photographs. Some vehicles also produced by/under Motron trademark/name.

Incomplete list

Galaxy Series (Sci-fi toys with copy of Tomy pilot/vehicle commander, 20mm)
№ ? - Radar Cannon
№ 9074c - Power Shovel
№ ? - Mighty Drill
№ ? - Super Cannon
№ 9077c - Cannon Tractor
№ ? - Planet Explorer
Ocean Discovery Series (underwater vessels with jointed diver/spacemen figures, 30mm)
- Commander Sub
Item No. 92884W - Octopathfinder Set
- Shark Marine Sub Set

M is for Matchbox...no!...; MGM copies of Matchbox!

This has been imported from 'Boring Blog' (which I will close down) and may have images or other text added in the future.

MGM SuperToy International
Blister-packed pirates of Matchbox German Infantry

P is for Padgett

This has been imported from 'Boring Blog' (which I will close down) and may have images or other text added in the future.

Padgett Brothers (A-Z) Limited
Imported late, crude copies of the Marx/Blue Box Noah's Ark play-set, but with larger/out of compatible scale animals and only two (40mm) figures (Mr. and Mrs. Noah?!)
Known listinsgs
Cat No. 5009465 Noah's Ark

R is for RAE

This has been imported from 'Boring Blog' (which I will close down) and may have images or other text added in the future.

RAE
Produced 40mm'ish horse, no saddlery, probably farm play-set item or die-cast horse-box accessory. Marked; (C) RAE 1972 MADE IN HONG KONG.
List
Horse