As I track down images from three different hard-drives and a dozen memory-sticks, I'm coming across all sorts of stuff which I meant to blog and didn't get round to at the time, one set is this lot of the 'Plunder-pile' after Dave McKenna's Birmingham show last October.
And while there will inevitably be an element of 'showing off' in a post of this type, it's also instructive as to how a collection develops, especially when you've only recently decided to start collecting the larger scales you've always previously ignored!
So when I get home after a show, the first thing I do is put things into piles of like-objects and replace the various bags and tubs with those I use for the collection, and in so doing half-sort everything. Enlarging this image will show all manor of stuff, among which is the star buy - three blow-moulded
Godzilla monsters from the Japanese film, including
Godzilla himself and two I have yet to name...any idea's from the odd angle?
[I think - after a quick Googling - the silver one may be Zigra and the other either Gargantua or Gabara?]Top left sees the tray of oddments, including a couple of new-production
Zvezda sets from the gaming system they seem to be concentrating on at the moment, various premium type things including to gold flats from France (I think), a nice
Starlux boxed set of mediaevals and two trees from the inter-war period, similar to the early
Faller ones but unmarked. Several one-piece wagons and a lovely tin-plate armoured car are sitting next to a
TAT friction car (I can't remember what was in the box, but it's not the Bren-carrier
Plastic Warrior covered a while back, something civilian I think but it's in storage now!) and behind that; 3
'Charley Kit's (HK copies of
Kinder/Dulcop) and two complete room/ward vignettes from the
Mettoy/Playcraft '
Emergency Ward-10' play set.
Toward the front of the tray are a bag of HK copies of Italian Nativity figures, various civil figures, a bunch of cake decorations,
Marx Yogi and
Boo-boo, several of the
Cavendish wives of
Henry VIII and he - himself! Lastly there is a handful of 30/45mm
Lido (and other) spacemen.
The tray to the right has a large blow-moulded
Hussar in a
Gloster mug! [I've lost the guy's details. but he has a really nice range of mugs for most regiments, arms and services and I will blog them next time I run into him - he had a good day that day]. A kit we'll look at later in this post, a handfull of early
Airfix mounted figures (or are they?) and an early paratrooper by the same firm, a Hong Kong circus set, bag of
Lido knights and and odd horse! The two open trays have - in one - a mix of
Rose and
Higgins Wellingtonians and Indonesian tourist flats - in the other. Next to that tray is a near-mint Mighty-Antar (a few weeks after I blogged my painted one - such is life!).
Forward of the rear trays are various bags of new-production, small-scale HK stuff and things we'll look at below with the third tray itself containing various odds-&-sods; plaster cake-decorations and a
Thomas/Poplar sleigh, some of the less-common
Kinder metals, a nice group of
Blue Box knights, a
Nosco (or HK copy?) cocktail-glass giraffe, a bear drinking from a bottle [I've photographed him somewhere as there was a trade-mark on the bottle and I'm hoping someone can identify him, but the shots are missing! I googled him and found a village in the Czech republic!!], some metal flats from different sources, a Polish Wellingtonian and several
Solido combat infantry in 60mm.
Various Wild West accessories, a bag of ray-guns and a
Marx pyramid from the
Noah '
Miniature Masterpiece' play set round-up that tray...oh - and the Hong Kong copy of the
Cavendish guardsman with sentry-box along with a little tray of
Soma figures and a rabbit family still connected by their sprulettes.
In the bags not covered below are a hand full each of
Texas Cowboys and
Britains French Infantry from the Wellingtonian period, a bag of
Marty Toys with their little space-car (seems to be a copy of an
Atlantic item), some East German Cowboys (apparently supplied with
Jean horses??), 3 bi-planes which could be
Kleeware/Tudor*Rose, Thomas/Poplar or even
Airfix (?) and an
Armtech carded set.
Also visible are a bag of
Cherilea 60mm Knights including the mounted one I've already blogged (2nd-equal 'Star Buy' of the show!), a really nice
Starlux catalogue in full colour, a couple of 60mm Romans a bag of
Giant-type fort bits (you can never have too many bits to make-up whole ones), some Cacti and a good facsimile of the original
Britains Swoppet Knights 'flyer'.
So - among the bagged goodies was this lot of Fantasy and Sci-fi gaming pieces, the baseless ones are
Dragon Ballz. the two brown-based ones are form one of the plethora of 'minis' games (as the newbies call them), most of the rest are
Games Workshop and/or
Citadel/MB Games stuff...all grist to the mill!
Another bag contained a mass of kit figures (military) with ammunition from
Airfix, Nitto and
Eidai (at least), most of the
Esci figure kits,
Fujimi 8th Army, a mixture of
Aurora and
UPC copies of the
Roco-minitanks copies of the
Monogram/Revell GI's and various other bits including a pink cymbalist from a Christmas-cracker.
An
Airfix gun-team, some soft-plastic bits including an
Atlantic medics set, a monkey,
Airfix naval crewmen, an
Eidai range-finder and a naked lady - bargain!
A similar bag was filled with the civilian equivalent to the previous shot, with about 4 complete sets of the
Merten 19thC passengers, the
Preiser artists (their model was by coincidence - different sellers - the naked lady in the other lot!), a pink duck ('cos you can never have too-many pink ducks!) and various
Lledo/Vollmer etc...
The biggest surprise in this bag (and the reason I bought it) was a number of
Atlantic wagon drivers in brown. Another Christmas-cracker guardsman settled it for me!
This was a bit of a find, seems to be missing two small pieces of body-work I'll have to find one day, but otherwise complete, with all horse-furniture and the instructions for a second kit!
This was an odd little buy, I suspect someone like
Scale-link? But I'm not sure and if anyone knows - please inform the rest of us! They are all in Victorian garb with obviously a porter, other rail-staff and passengers, bathers, boaters, a lovely photographer with a tiny little tripod to super-glue (!), picnickers and 'walkers-in-the-park'
I would imagine this is the contents of several sets rather than one?
The usual bag of HK 'bits' (which contained the fort bits- above - as well), unusually this was the only decent sample at the show this year - often I'll get three or four bags of this type of stuff at a show - there was a big bag of the common 'Wavymane' Cowboys and Indians but the chap wanted over 20-quid for it and it's not worth that.
Anyway - it was a reasonable bag with what looks like a near complete set of
Mongols V's Knights from
Giant, some non-
Giant Roman cavalry, two wagon/chariot teams (also non-
Giant), a couple of non-
Giant foot figures (in need of some paint stripper!) and a
Marx soft-plastic Viking. A
Britains ACW swoppet arm (Union, trooper, for the use of) and a
Quaker Foods Gladiator and horse made-up the rest of the bag.
Finally I bought these from a 10p rummage-box along with a
Timpo-copy totem-pole, I think they are modern,
Hing Fat or
Toy House or someone like that, but they'll make a nice backdrop in a cabinet one day!
On Saturday the 12th(?) of November I put the whole of my collection in a van and drove it to the storage unit, by the following Tuesday I was able to take this photograph back at the flat! The Minuteman from Britians was my 'best letter' gift from Toy Soldier and Model Figure magazine, the Siku set was a TK Maxx reduction/clearance item (who decided on 1:55th scale for gods sake, when they've already got 1:42, 1:48, 1:50 and 1:60 as standards in the die-cast vehicle universe?!!) as was the Bakugan carded set. the rest came from a bakers that still had old Festival stock along with newer pieces.
Close-up of the Festival Cupid/Eros figure with its factory-paint intact, clearly marked Festival, I know the train candle-holders are Festival as well.
Poundstreacher had the YB vehicles (CAT knock-offs) for a few quid before Christmas and may well have some left, it's been a while since I was there. While the awful pink castle came from the new 99p Shop in Newbury. The castle went strait in the bin but the figures were kept, they're between 54 and 60 mil and have hollow backs...so sort of semi-round?!
Walmart-call-me-Asda gave me the paratrooper, free in exchange for about £2.99, I can't remember where the animals came from (possibly Ryman's?) but they are all over the place at the moment and I know Sainsbury's have a similar assortment - bagged - in their party-favor range and I've seen Dinosaurs as well.
These two were Rymans's and I'm going to take the key-ring off the Dalek, the TY Bear was a 'sample' purchase, I will not be getting any more, but he will help to identify the stuff when it starts coming-in in mixed lots 20 years from now.
These were both Poundshop, one (truck) before Christmas the other (Woodie) last week, both - obviously - a quid! I'll be removing the key-ring again. the truck is a little bigger than 1:76/72 stuff like Airfix or Academy.
These both came from the craft superstore in Basingrad I can never remember the name of, but 'Super Craft Store' will do for now [The Arts and Crafts Superstore - Winchester Road], the Pirate set has 8 lovely 54mm figures but at that price only an idiot would by it, so I asked if I could take a photograph for the blog and they said yes - that's why the image is ruined by about 11 strip-light reflections!
Studies of the golfer cake-decoration from Wilson, the figure is identical to the figure that used to come with large-scale HK vehicles of the Camper-van type back in the 1960's and '70's but the base has been altered to read 'Wilson' and 'China'. The accessories went in the same bin as the pink castle.
A bagged set as it arrived home with the weeks shopping - if you were lucky. The poses are the same as Giant, but the quality is much poorer and the colour palette is again nothing like a similar sample of Giant originals...and Giant would never give you this many figures in one 'retail unit'!
Close up of the figures and horse, this is the horse I call 'Rim-Saddle', die to the fact that in re-cutting the mould to clean-up after a poor pantographing/copying from the same size, a raised edge as been introduced to the outer edge of the saddle, saddle-cloth and other detailing.
The 'palette' of colours - much glossier/shinier than Giant and predominately a dark pastel pink, heliotrope pink and army green with a smattering of primary's and a deep purple...
Various shots some of which have been seen before, but they give a good idea of the colour range these came in. After they had been issued by Quaker they appeared in Tom Smith's budget range Christmas-crackers for a year or two, and when you find them now, you tend to either find a large lot in primary colours or a small lot with some of the wackier colours, I suspect that the former are Quaker-sourced and the latter; Tom Smith.
Close-up of the three mounted poses, the first one is clearly only good for a Spartacus war-game, being very much a 'Gladiator' on a horse, while the third one is as stupid as the Marx/Giant pose with a full 'Empire' legionary shield, but the one in the middle is very useful for early Republican, late Empire/Arthurian or other Mediterranean/Balkan/Levantine armies over a wide spread of time?
Similar shot of the five foot poses, four of these are very useful but the fifth (middle figure) is difficult to place outside of a gladiatorial setting, being bare-chested, with a leather strap arrangement and a trident. The trident is nearly always miss-moulded, I think I have two good ones in a dozen or so figure-sample?
The original advert as it appeared in kids comics at the time, see; no Kellogg's!, this is lifted from Cluck, but there is a cleaner version linked-to from the PSR article on someone's Flickr album.
Dr Who Adventures magazine are offering eight-each Silurians and Silence this week (starting yesterday), and offered Judoon and Ood last week, so a bit late for them but there is a back-issue system on the net somewhere...I'll look up the link later and post it here - but my diners ready!
So what was worth all that...This lovely little set here, all nestled in bright-green wood-shavings.
The foot figures are easy to identify as they have a a 'HONG KONG' mark in very small letters that are graphically arranged to make two little oblongs to the naked eye. Also see how while similar, the colour 'palette' is very different from a Giant Sample.
A close-up of the Jogging horse, again - easy to identify as he doesn't have the all stretched-out legs of most other HK horses. Mounted figures again are Giant poses, but much glossier and in different colours, my two samples being one - pastels, and the other - primaries; red and blue.
These all came from Adrian at Mercator Trading (who has more should you fancy some - link to right of page [all gone - sorry]), I have a side collection in all ammunition, whether inert 'real world' rounds, Drill or Practice or toy and model rounds, shells, suckers etc...and these three are a welcome addition to that collection.
First purchase of the day was the bag of micro-vehicles during the car-park trading before the doors opened, simply marked 'MADE IN WESTERN GERMANY' twice and 'ASST 18' (presumably meaning; Assortment 18 - of how many?). I adore the polythene truck marked err...'POLYTHENE TRUCK' a title that covers both the subject matter and material very succinctly!
Finally; wandering around the halls during lulls, or on the way to get coffee I picked up a decent Britains Beefeater, I'm trying to get one of every version made - not hard; but it gives you a little goal within the world of "never collect it all". The flame-thrower in 50mm looks Spanish, but is made of PVC and I would love to know more about him [see; 'comments' on this one].
So when I get home after a show, the first thing I do is put things into piles of like-objects and replace the various bags and tubs with those I use for the collection, and in so doing half-sort everything. Enlarging this image will show all manor of stuff, among which is the star buy - three blow-moulded Godzilla monsters from the Japanese film, including Godzilla himself and two I have yet to name...any idea's from the odd angle? [I think - after a quick Googling - the silver one may be Zigra and the other either Gargantua or Gabara?]
So - among the bagged goodies was this lot of Fantasy and Sci-fi gaming pieces, the baseless ones are Dragon Ballz. the two brown-based ones are form one of the plethora of 'minis' games (as the newbies call them), most of the rest are Games Workshop and/or Citadel/MB Games stuff...all grist to the mill!
Another bag contained a mass of kit figures (military) with ammunition from Airfix, Nitto and Eidai (at least), most of the Esci figure kits, Fujimi 8th Army, a mixture of Aurora and UPC copies of the Roco-minitanks copies of the Monogram/Revell GI's and various other bits including a pink cymbalist from a Christmas-cracker.
A similar bag was filled with the civilian equivalent to the previous shot, with about 4 complete sets of the Merten 19thC passengers, the Preiser artists (their model was by coincidence - different sellers - the naked lady in the other lot!), a pink duck ('cos you can never have too-many pink ducks!) and various Lledo/Vollmer etc...
This was a bit of a find, seems to be missing two small pieces of body-work I'll have to find one day, but otherwise complete, with all horse-furniture and the instructions for a second kit!
This was an odd little buy, I suspect someone like Scale-link? But I'm not sure and if anyone knows - please inform the rest of us! They are all in Victorian garb with obviously a porter, other rail-staff and passengers, bathers, boaters, a lovely photographer with a tiny little tripod to super-glue (!), picnickers and 'walkers-in-the-park'
The usual bag of HK 'bits' (which contained the fort bits- above - as well), unusually this was the only decent sample at the show this year - often I'll get three or four bags of this type of stuff at a show - there was a big bag of the common 'Wavymane' Cowboys and Indians but the chap wanted over 20-quid for it and it's not worth that.
These are the 6 Giant foot poses in the wild west range, apart from the canoeist (below) they are the only known poses used by Giant, all other foot figures (and there are many) were imported by other firms.
The 6 mounted poses, there are as you can see three Cowboys and three Indians, in my articles for One Inch Warrior magazine I think I identified 40 or 50 mounted poses of hollow-horsed Cowboy or Indian, and only 6 are Giant. Again these poses are used by non-Giant brands and carriers, usually of a poorer quality.
From the left; Mexican large; Mexican Small and; Smoothie. Occasionally a smaller version of Smoothie appears in a Giant lot, usually towing wagons or artillery, he's called 'Pony'. The Smoothie seems to be based - loosely - on the Marx running horses, lacking the wave in the mane of the more common horse based on Crescent's running pose, but with the stirrups removed and a fatter tail, while the Mexicans seem to have something in common with both the Ajax 60mm horse and the Rel horse.
The only other figure I've linked to Giant is this copy of the Thomas 'girl' paddling a canoe. It's hard to give him a scale as the original series was all scales for making box-dioramas from cereal packets, so in the bag with the others he looks like a boy, on his own in a carded canoe set (see 2nd post below) he is a 40mm adult.
An idea of the colours you'll find these figures in, it might look as if you can find them in any old colour under the sun, but when you look at a sample of Giant against another brand or unbranded set there are differences.
Top left shows the 'spruelette' as it leaves the machine, they survive like this as they were issued in a non-Giant branded Canoe set, with the long connecting pieces between the first and last pairs of figures wedged into slots on spigots in the base of the canoe. I should have stripped the home-paint from this one but I have others and was hoping to use them...but they are in the missing 'proper' boxes!
These are the least common, and best detail so by default - the oldest! It is a rule of thumb that the newer the toy soldier the poorer the quality, you only have to look at the Britains Detail Americans and how they slid to see that particular 'rule' in action! Likewise the harder something - originally mass-produced - is to find, the further back in time it was issued. Not hard-and-fast but a useful starting point in these things. A larger GIANT above a smaller HONG KONG, I call these; Type I.
We then arrive at the problematical one, a smaller GIANT on all the Indians and the odd Cowboy with the same HONG KONG, but with most of the Cowboys just having a HONGKONG with no space between the 'Hong' and the 'Kong' [and bloody difficult to capture on film!].
These are the most common, sometimes with the colouring of typical Giant I tried to describe in the above post, sometimes shiny and 'new, sometimes in Giant sets sometimes not, sometimes not even with Giant horsed mounted figures, and they seem to have overlapped the Type II's, and gone on for a long time (a bit like the last version Knights - but that's for another day!).
Direct comparison of the Type I/II 'GIANT' size differential, the bases are also different in outline and as I've said the figures are overall poorer with the Type II, almost as if they are copies of the I's while the Type III is a new or re-engraved mould?
Western wagons, the upper one is likely to be the later one with it's (P) conceit, while the lower one was typical for earlier sets. Note also that the early ones have no seat/footstep and are - apart from the marking - identical to many other non-Giant HK wagons.
The upper set has properly marked Type II figures (you can see straight away the poor quality of them) and reasonably good Smoothies with a Giant-marked wagon, yet is clearly not Giant, nothing about Giant on the packaging (bought in the UK - along way from New York), not typical Giant packaging or layout, this is 19660's salesman's sample-case sell-through and nothing more.
These are all Giant-marked horses, with Giant type riders and the set to the top left has Type III foot figures,all in typical Giant colours, I would say they are contemporary with Giant, but again not Giant product, just production from the same plant/s supplying Giant Toy Corp Co Inc Ltd of New York, New York NY, NY! But it's just not the same thing...
Here we have Giant product in Giant style packaging with Giant style graphics, but no Giant logo. I believe these are Giant, shipped over to Europe by Giant either from NY, or by pre-arrangement with the HK suppliers - direct from the colony? These are probably worth a premium to a dealer, but not the silly money people were giving for Viking sets a few years ago!
On the left we have a genuine Giant set with the logo and address and the whole nine-yards, but instead of the oh-so-collectable little 'one inch warriors' we have a poxy piracy of a Thomas/Tudor*Rose paddler! Notable for the brittle state of the figures - boats are OK but the figures are shot.
They have had the original WWI 'Brodie' copy of the British 'piss-pot' - with which the early phenolic or cellulose figures were equipped - replaced with something resembling...?...err a piss-pot! Except the paratrooper who was a late addition to the set, he actually has a reasonable rendition of the M1 helmet. Also of note is that these late figures often release a coloured waxy deposit as the lower-right hand standing firer has, the other range with a tendency to do so is Matchbox!
