S is for Shamber's, no shambles!

The old TimMee M48 (among other things) has been re-issued and a blog has been set-up to keep people apace with ongoing developments here; TimMee Army, however; partly to prove that the British sounding aspect of the Beverly post (below this one) could be a red herring, here's another British sounding name which is definitely Spanish in make and marketing (there's a couple of their pieces on FleaBay at the moment), here is a different take on the TimMee tank...

...a push-and-go fly-wheel motor! This is clearly the Tim Mee tank, even down to the two little cut-outs below the radiator grill under the rear deck, except it's marked Shamber's. I guess they got the superstructures from Tim Mee and mated them to their own belly-pan? Or maybe they got to borrow the moulds in one of these 1-on/11-off deals? Shamber's seem to have been a bit like Baravelli in Italy or Exin (also Spanish) in bying-in stuff from elsewhere and/or re-badging, while also carrying a bit of Hong Kong rack-toy stuff.

Anyway, it's an improvement on the Fairylite/Jimson copy of the Airfix/Cohn M40-something and at around 1:48th scale, will sit well next to that one and the Raphael Lipkin Conqueror. Apologies for the dust, but I was clearly too keen to get it blogged! And I love the colour, like some late Beton figures, a rich golden olive-green.

[Added 13-05-2013] I suppose I should have shown the dratted motor having mentioned it! So here it is, along with a shot of the underside of the turret which is very similar to the Airfix/T Cohn/Jimson ones. Compare the riveting of the motor-body with the TAT Bren-gun Carrier (post above), it would appear that the Spanish company bought-in the motors from the Far East?

B is for Beverly - whoever he/she/it or they were or are!

Well, competitions both over and done, and lots of stuff to blog from Twickenham, normal service will resume!

Having picked the right side in the Dinky Stadden/Cameron debate the other day, I'm going to chance my arm and say I think these are sculpted by the same chap who did SEGOM's figures, but I'm probably wrong! These Napoleonic premiums are all much of a muchness, whether, Storm, Starlux or Mokerex, that is; standing in a non-combatant pose, legs together, best parade finery to the fore!

These are not the French figures I keep meaning to blog, and for which I took the photographs over a year ago! They are in fact one of each (hopefully) of a set of premiums I haven't seen before...or at least I don't think they are in the French Premium book and I haven't come across them on the 'Net'.

Adrian (Mercator Trading) had these at the Plastic Warrior show and he might still have a few if you get in touch through his website, but not all the poses as they were selling like hot cakes! All the standard-bearers had gone by 11am!

A lot of people showed an interest in them and we kept trying to read the name on the bases, being a myopic crowd of a certain age-group and being convinced they must be a French premium, we were reading Laverer, Lavaere, Belever etc...! It was only when I got them home and photographed them could it be seen they are a thoroughly British sounding 'Beverly'.

This is not to say they are British, but there is absolutely nothing on them on the Net, I tried all the usuals; Vintage/ British/Giveaway/Soap/Washing Powder/Premiums etc...and if they turn-up near mint in Britain you feel they must have been premiums here? Also they are a soft ethylene polymer and most French issues of this type of thing are cellulose or polystyrene?

They look like they could have also been issued with German margarine, French coffee, Portuguese soap-powder, Spanish Sobres and Belgian sweets, so they may well turn up with other monikers on the base. I'm sure they originate in France though, I'm not saying they are that British.

Can anyone add anything to this? All my books are in the storage unit...did Garrett, Rose or Harris mention them? Have you got some with another mark on the base? Other colours? Who or what were/was/is Beverly?

Update - 3rd June 2013

Following-on from the work of Brian in the comments section of this post, I dug out a couple of my own Ƒlan Imperial figures and as can be seen in the above shot; the Ƒlan Imperial (et al?) are considerably bigger and better detailed/cut mouldings than the Beverly figures, which are therefore - as Brian reported - probably copies, albeit quite good ones.

Update - 24th November 2014

It seems it (Beverly) was a sparkling, non-alcoholic, bitter aperitif, available in Italy between 1969-2000. The company was part of or a wholy owned subsidiary of Coca-cola, and there is still the possibility of tasting it at Coca-cola world and at Disney's Epcot Centre, where various other Coke brands from around the world are available. There were two versions, a clear drink and a redish-orange fruit-flavoured version.


Up against more established brands such as Campari it was only ever an 'also-ran' and for now i must assume these figures were part of a promotion to try and raise the profile of a drink which those now indulging in deliberate over-indulgence videos on Youtube would have us believe is pretty vile!

G is for Grunt

There are various stories surrounding the etymology of the term. Date-wise - some commentators (most?) state that it originated with the US Marine Corps, possibly as early as the 1900's, others wanting to date it no earlier than the Vietnam war. I've seen it reported as being created 'between the wars' - that's the two world wars for those young enough to have lived through several more recent 'wars', but yet not old enough to know that two are given a bit more prominence in history than the Bush-B.Liar adventures! While others put it down to coming into use during the Second World War.

Some say it's due to the noise a soldier makes when he lifts his pack, other sources state it's down to a WWII acronym used to designate untrained depot-sent replacements; GR - General Replacement, UNT - Untrained = GRUNT (yet they already have an abbreviation...BCR - Battle[field] Casualty Replacement), while my own preferred definition is that it's the short-form for Ground Troops. Still more will wax lyrical about pigs, mud and the trenches of Flanders?

Anyway, it's a hook to hang this post on and something the Grunts are secretly proud of, whatever the original meaning! I don't often cover new production small scale these days, Dave Keen does such a sublime job on PSR and the Forums do them to death, but these...I know how it felt to look like these....

Peter Burgner (PB Toys) was at the Plastic Warrior show last weekend and chatting in the car-park beforehand I asked if he had anything nice (he always has something 'nice'!) and he said "Yes, A Call to Arms have released a new set in 1:72 scale", as it's about ten years since anything came out of that stable, I was quite amazed and when Peter said they were Modern Infantry I was well up for a set (after I'd established they weren't a re-issue of the Britains Lilliput figures!).

In the end, as I clutched them in my mitt along with a nice German vintage spaceman with detachable (and easily lost) helmet, he let me have them...I promptly got them out to have a look and was a bit confused; I recognised them immediately, but with a head full of figures (and a room-full all around me) couldn't place them.

My brain went "Matchbox NATO paras - no, too slim, too big, no parkas...Matchbox Battlekings - no, no radio operator, no Germans...bloody-hell, it's the Britains Super-Deetail poses!"

Looked at Peter and said, 'It's the failed Britains, scaled-down?", "Yar" he said "They're good, yes?"

And as can be seen from the images above, they are good and not only the failed ones have been produced, but the final series-production ones as well, they really are rather exquisite, and - the reason for the 'hook' above - will cover the 1980's just as well as the stated 1970's. I know because I was that man!

And this is where I can have a go at the uniforms as presented...very rarely do/did British soldiers wear berets in combat, except for some urban patrolling in Northern Ireland, where helmets were considered unnecessarily aggressive or a 'red rag to a bull' and counter-effective. I believe there was some beret-wearing bravado in the Falkland Island's campaign, but there were also some nasty head-injuries.

Yet the second problem with these figures (Britians 'bad' not ACTA's) is that the webbing being worn is not the stripped-down front-pouches and water-bottle you'd expect on Internal Security troops, indeed, it's not really any kind of webbing, being neither full CEMO (Combat Equipment - Movement Order), nor the every-day CEFO (Combat Equipment - Fighting Order), with the respirator case missing on all and two figures having a water bottle where the other kidney pouch should be, something that is impossible as the two pouches were joined together with a gusset and only had belt clips on opposite ends, without one, you'd not have a belt-order of any kind!! While we all had extra pouches and customised webbing in the field anyway, so this is a sort of [inaccurate] depot 'basic-training' set-up.

Still - given that I like both the Airfix Rebs with their 'all Confederates have Boar's hats' rule and the Cherilea late type swoppet knights - who am I to pick holes!! Although...why is there a Stirling SMG on the cover? And if these are 1970's the SLR's should have wooden stock and fore-grip, not black plastic...and that's no 84mm Karl Gustave, it was twice the size and firing it like that would land you on your arse!

These are lovely figures and if you're doing the Cold War you need these, lots of them - to go with all those Airfix ex-BW Lannies and Saladins! And the webbing/helmets can be sorted with a few blobs of Green-stuff?

Thanks to PB for the figures, he has them in stock right now; PB Toys

D is for Doctor Doubts Definite Defeat of Dastardly Daleks - Drat, Drat and Double Drat!

Some of you may by now have got the impression I have a soft spot for Daleks...I DO! They're brilliant, totally impractical battle-armour for jellied humanoids who have become the antithesis of humanism, purified evil...I have been sent this classified document, stolen - at some risk to the agent - from the floor-manager Dalek's office in a survival suit factory on Skaros - he threw an old blanket over the manager's head! They're building Daleks again...

Joking apart, this is my attempt to produce a 3D 'Solids' Dalek, and it's doing my head in! I have now spent two days on the shoulders (the base and skirt were quite easy), and it's still not right, the head should go together quite well, it's just a series of stacked dishes with a mesh screen (that's real-world mesh not 3D 'Mesh'!) and a bowl!, but the shoulder is a series of non-circular roundy-shapes with a single mirror-symmetry front-to-back, and all the centre-points are off the 'centre-line' (such as there is one?).

The dark brown ones were my final attempt to get the indent that runs round the cone, and by the time I'd failed to get a workable shape from either of the subtracts I tried I realised I'd have to start again with the green one at the back, which means doing the weapon-boxes again, and they took me a long morning to get right last time!

And to any experienced CAD-monkeys out there...is there any trick to prevent the WCS turning into an unknown UCS, without you noticing because you've brushed a surface in passing? That is; other than throwing a brick at the screen!

News, Views etc...Plastic Warrior Show - next available morning!

Don't forget - tomorrow is PW's 28th Plastic Toy Soldier Show in South West London. I've spoken to several people in the last three weeks who are really looking forward to it, one of whom is familiar with the venue and thinks it's very good, so lets make it the best ever...be there or be...err...somewhere else!

And...freebies for little people...

My 'Tuskers' t-shirt is getting a little long-in-the-tooth these days, so I will be in mufti (scrufti!) with a Segway/BAESystems baseball cap if you want to come over and give me a hard time about something!!


More information here;

This Blog

here;

Brian's Blog

and here;

Plastic Warrior's Blog

or here;

PW's old Website

New Product Review - Horrible Histories - Competition!

Where to start? I seriously think this is one of the most exiting things to happen to toy and model figures in twenty-to-thirty years, as well as being a major development in general toys and boardgames (despite the lack of a board!). Some of the press is already suggesting that this will be the biggest boys playground craze of the near future, but the thing is - both the books and the TV series are just as popular with girls...Produced by Worlds Apart toys in association with Scholastic, this is...

Horrible Histories

The game system comes in various formats from the recent phenomena of 'Blind Bags' at a couple of pounds, through to large sets with all the bits and pieces needed for every level of game-play. Although even the biggest sets are reasonably priced at around fifteen pounds.

Even as I was unpacking them, it was obvious that one could play on several levels, from the simple act of catapulting pigs at each others armies, to more complicated point-scoring, and /or head collecting (yes; heads - history is horrible!), the capitalist act of amassing money, card-based intervention....and that is exactly what the system is set-up for. A quick read of the clear and easy to follow rule leaflet allows for most of the above to be the/a main winning aim, with or without any of the other elements.

Therefore, while I'm reviewing these as figures for adult figure collectables, I'm also recommending them for your kids, nephews & nieces or grandchildren, and if you can get them interested in figures in the 54/60mm range now, they may become the next generation of collectors.

These are the lovely, shiny, larger sets currently available, with the Egyptian sets to the left and Romans to the right. The Starter Sets (top right and bottom left) give you everything you need to get going; pigs and their catapults, groats in three values, head-collecting racks and some play-cards.

The smaller Battle Packs give you a top-up of 'cannon-fodder', cards, groats and a special figure. Not illustrated are two further sets of army booster Special Sets, again with special figures. An arena of battle has been announced and more figures are on the way.

Horrible Histories website

Contents of the sets illustrated above with the Starter Sets above and the Battle Packs below, it will be seen that some of the pigs don't look quite as dead as you might imagine they were in days of old, but it can't be over emphasised...history really was rather horrible!

Cards are used in three ways, a bit like the Chance and Community Chest cards in Monopoly; you can play some of them immediately to gain an advantage, leave some festering around the 'board' (traps) or the rest are used in the points totting-up at the end of the game...luck/chance and strategy!

Game Review - U-ME-AND-THE-KIDS

The special figures include the grand commanders, who are allowed to keep their heads! Only because it's game-over if a flying-pig catches them a glancing blow! And limited edition versions of the blind-bag figures in a gold finish, their groats however score the same as their full-colour doppelgänger, although they both get larger 'ceremonial' weapons!

Clockwise from top left;

• Ramesses II - The Great - The Great Ancestor, Son of Ra
• Julius Caesar - The Roman Geezer
• Gengis Khan - The Great Khan - Temujin
• William of Normandy - The First - The Conqueror

The cannon fodder! One of the few criticisms I have of this range is that the soldiery have very cartoonish faces, most of the figures have quite caricatured faces, but it works with the 'heros', Boudica looks like she's been very wronged by Rome, Alexander is looking a bit foppish etc...but the 'other ranks' just look a bit goggle-eyed. However that's a 'Toy Soldier' collector's sensibilities talking, and as one of the main strategies of the game is to protect the heroes with cannon fodder, you can pass the troops on to the youngsters as you collect the character figures!

A nice touch with these is that there are more than one weapon type with a choice of spears from the Egyptians and a choice of Pilums (pila?) for the Romans. Armour though is thin on the ground, that's part of the game-play/groat systematics, and a collector will only want one or two of these figures.

A comparison between the blind-bag and special gold versions, you can see the gold ones have larger weapons, which seem to be more like ceremonial tools, especially the huge sword/axe being wielded by the gilded Genghis.

Below is an illustration on what the head-scoring element might look like toward the end of a game...it's Horrible History!

The blind-bag figures, these include three that are less common, asterisked below;

Top Row - William I, Hangman, Genghis Khan and Boudica; Bottom row - Viking Berserker, Alexander the Great*, Blackbeard* and a Highwayman*.

In addition to removable heads and separate weapons/accessories, the figures all have at least one movable-arm, some have both arms articulated.

There is a video of a blind-bag opening here;

Toy Review TV

For the collectors among you, here are a few comparison shots with various commonish figures, another criticism of these is the large groat provided for a base, and again it's purely from the point of view of a collector, but it makes them a tad tall for standard 54mm figure collectors, however they are of varying height and sit well with some '54mm's' and most 60mm figures, if re-based most would look right at home.

There is a nice attention to detail with this range, and we see here that the pigs can double-up as pencil-toppers, and spare parts are supplied for both the catapult elastics and the very small pistol that comes with the Highwayman - anticipating loss.

Also a couple of extra shots showing arm-movement and another comparison shot with a 54mm figure (Timpo Apache) on the Worlds Apart base.

Musical heads! An unintended consequence? If your heads are removable - they will be swappable! Giving a real motley crew for Blackbeard to recruit in the upper shot here, and some more humorous combinations in the lower picture. It's Timpo-lite

This toy really needs to succeed, and if it does (the Horrible Histories franchise has been around for a while now and covers most periods), we could be looking forward to WWI and WWII figures, Napoleonic or English [un]Civil War sets, who knows?

So please support the range, get the sets for the young people in your life/family and collect the hero figures...if this range takes off and runs for a few years you'll kick yourself if you weren't 'in' at the start!

Even the packaging is interactive, with cartoons on the back illustrated with the figures, rats looking out and a 'Where's Wally' take-off, while the weld-fold/flap on the blind bags reveals a sorry-looking chap hanging around if you fold it back!

This flap also hides a clue to the contents, if you know your Roman numerals;

CCCXXIII BC - Alexander

LXI - Boudica

CMLXV - Viking Berserker

MLXXXVII - William I

MCXXVII - Genghis Khan 

MDL - Hangman

MDCCXVIII - Blackbeard

MDCCXXXIX - Highwayman

So that's the new Horrible Histories game sets and figures from Worlds Apart, a pleasure to review, a joy to play with, highly collectable, infectious game-play, great value and easy to recommend to all.

And that's not all...

COMPETITION

The PR company helping to launch this range has kindly put-up some serious prizes as follows;

One First Prize;

1x Roman Starter Set, 1x Egyptian Starter set, 1x Roman Battle Pack, 1x Egyptian Battle Pack and 4 blind-bags

5 runner up prizes;

Each prize to consist of 1x Roman and 1x Egyptian Special Set and 4 blind-bags

These prizes will be sent out by the promoter, to stand a chance of winning, you need to answer the following question in the comments section, I will employ comment moderation for a period of 7 days, during which time all comments will be hidden, after that time all correct answers will go forward to the draw, winners addresses (or a valid eMail if you don't want me having your home details) will need to be forwarded to the promoters. To help youngsters to enter I have switched the word-verifier off.

The question is;

What were the original titles of the first two books in the Horrible Histories series and when were they originally published?

The draw will close at around midnight (British Summer Time) next Wednesday/Thursday turnover (8th/9th May). Please encourage your younger family members to enter!

There's still more...

Speaking of younger family members, if you were thinking of attending the PW show this Saturday (4th May - details on PW website and blog), you may find the organisers have a number of blind-bags for the afternoon give-away to encourage the next generation of collectors, but they're limited so you need to be there when they call it.

Finally - Thanks to Cairyanne and Fosbury PR for supplying both the review samples and the figures for the Plastic Warrior show.



Competition...Posting and Eligibility...Originally published on 07/05/2013 02:04

Someone at work was having problems with commenting this afternoon and I've had an email from someone asking if they can enter from outside the UK?

The answer to the later is yes, this is open to anybody, the reason the skateboarders were limited to the UK was that it would have cost more than they are worth to post them, and while the makers suffer the same problem, they are hoping for a good review (which they get because they are lovely figures not because they are free!), whereas with the current competition, a major toy company has offered the prizes without caveat, as they will not see them as 6 invoices from Royal Mail, but rather as 6 new collectors who will hopefully add to their prizes with purchases of other/forthcoming/future sets and figures.

As to the former problem, perticularly if you are not familier with Blogger...

...instructions; scroll to the end of the Horrible Histories review post (article beneath this one on this 'page') and find where it [currently] says "4 COMMENTS" (fig.1), left-click on that wording and you will get a pop-up panel (fig.2), scroll down that past the [currantly four] published comments to find the embedded dialogue box (fig.3) and write your answer (clue - wikipedia!), then tick (left-click) the relevant 'radio-button' (fig.4, you can see I've ticked anonymous which has automatically unpicked the default 'Maverick Collecting' which was live in fig.3), if you don't have an Internet presence that is indicated by the other buttons, left-click on "Anonymous" and then left-click on the orange box-button "Publish Your Comment".

Remember we need the two titles and the year of publication, and something to identify you - especially if you publish as 'anonymous', winners can send their contact details after the draw so you don't need to publish any address, telephone number or eMail, just a name or blogger ID etc...Don't comment on this post as it will be deleted in a day or two!

Good Luck!



Horrible Histories Competition...Results Originally published on 09/05/2013 00:51

Competition is now closed, comment moderation has been lifted, but capcha is also back on...you wouldn't believe the amount of Spam I've had in the last 7 days!

All entries seem to be correct and the draw will take place tomorrow, with results posted on the original post probably at tea-time. Thanks to all who entered, there is only a slim chance you won't win something!



Competition Prize List - Originally published on 09/05/2013 18:59

I used the same randomiser that Sean used on his blog the other day, as I felt that names-in-a-hat didn't quite cut it for 6 prizes out of eleven entries.

So Smellymudhut, you have won the first prize, all those below him (her - Doh!) to and including Christopher Webster [Sean, Brian, the Brooks' and Ferryman] have a runner-up prize to come.

Please can those listed get their names to me by next Wednesday, after that time I will offer the prize to the next name on the list until I have 6 addresses to sent to the promoters.

Thanks again to all who entered, commiserations to those who failed the randomiser, and maybe we will have a similar one when the next tranche is released?

Hugh

(PS - to prove it really is 'random' it's invented a 12th invisible entrant? How random is that!)

D is for Dinky's Deutsche and Doughboy Dilema

A blog reader - Mathias Berthoux - got in touch the other day to ask me if he thought some figures might have been sculpted by Ron Cameron, a not unreasonable supposition, as he was sculpting for Airfix, Britains and Matchbox at around the same time (mid-1970's), however I've always thought they are more likely Charles Stadden's work.

My reasoning being that they bear more than a slight passing for those figures coming from the Lines/Tri-ang/Mettoy 'Minimodels' plant in Havent, Hampshire...to wit; hard plastic, minimum paint, round-ended bases.

And although one of them (the German gun-layer?) has a lot in common with a couple of the Matchbox poses and - indeed - a second type Airfix German or two (the poses not taken from the 54mm range), I think the clothing is more in the vein of Stadden's hand?

There were three German artillerymen issued with the Dinky 88mm Flak18, and another 3 US gunners issued with the 105mm Howitzer, around a prefect 1:32 scale, they are well animated and realistically sculpted poses. These Photographs supplied Mathias who runs the French Toy Soldier forum here;

Plastic Soldiers

Anyway, there is no guarantee that I'm right, and there are good reasons for it being either sculptor, so with Mathias' blessing I'm opening it up to the blog, in the hope that either someone knows for definite, or that a debate might ensue, leaving one a clear 'winner'? So what do you think, Cameron or Stadden?

Update - 3rd June 2013

Can I thank Andrew Stadden for looking-up the post, turning to his father's archive and confirming that these figures are indeed sculpted by Charles...

"These figures were the work of my father, and the pattern figures appear in his Invoices dated 28/04/1975 for a Company called Largrove Engineering. I don't know anything about Largrove, and they don't come up in any Google search, but I would guess they were doing the mouldmaking and production of the figures for Meccano."

I meant to add a picture of the full US crew but forgot to look for the figures, so maybe another time!

A is for All Fine!

Following a comment from Ed 'Ice' Berg with reference to likely Indian production, on the plaster figures post the other day; here is the only piece of plastic from my collection which I can say is definitely from India. The guy I got it from had had it for as long as I knew him, so this isn't a modern piece, and I would tentatively date it to the 1950's or early '60's at the latest and it could be much older.

As can be seen this is trying hard to pretend to be an ivory carving on an ebony plinth, and does so from a distance while close-up looking like a piece of cheap plastic...which it is! The base (which is non-removable) is from fragments of recycled plastic. and the lack of 'use' as something else such as a pill holder or snuff-box suggests it is intended as a plaything or a tourist keepsake aimed at youngsters?

The camels, which are in a brittle styrene polymer (as is the plinth and the base plate) would work with 28/30mm figures - without the plinth! If anyone has other early Indian toy (or plastic) production, let the rest of us know.

News, Views etc...New Blog - Morgan Miniatures

Morgan Miniatures

A few years ago I helped my mate Gareth build a Homestead 'hosted' website for his then new range of 54mm Aztec Warriors and running into him the other day was asking after the site, he told me it had got difficult to manage due to changes and with him being busy doing other things (not least expanding the range exponentially!) it - the web-page - had rather been allowed to die!

"Well", says I..."why don't you put the range on blogger?"...cut a long story short; I popped round today to help him through the vagaries of a Blogger blog, which went well and after getting a blog stated, we had a fine roast dinner courtesy of Judy (thanks) , his long-suffering, who shares the house with every kind of figure you can think of!

I left him a couple of hours ago muttering "This is brilliant...left-click - another page!", so for those who have been missing the old website, here is the new one;

Morgan Miniatures

The range now contains all sorts of beautifully sculpted figures, most of which are from  - normally - less covered periods. The blog is obviously still a bit 'wet paint' or 'Beta', but will fill with wonderful things, so do keep an eye on it. I will replace the old link with the new one, and also put it in the blog-list.


Links

I hadn't noticed the old link to Morgan Miniatures was dead, but no one told me either, so again can I reiterate, let me know any dead links you encounter, I can't check all of them all the time.


Freebie

Don't forget you've got until midnight tonight to register for the set of Toy Boarders. There will be a much bigger competition in a week or so.


Airfix Blog

I've been updating the Airfix blog this last few days and seem to have found a way of getting them all back in order (scheduling?) so the newer posts may well migrate back down the page in a day or two. A Greek follower - Kostas - kindly sent me scans of all the figure pages from the 1975 catalogue and I've been processing them through Picasa and adding them to the published posts and using them to 'launch' posts that were still in 'draft', but were they were originally not as new posts, consequently the tag-list has changed somewhat, and stuff can be found there.

Following Gareth's gleeful use of 'pages' I will be looking to adding some to both the Airfix and this blog when I get a chance.

New Product Review - Toy Boarders - Free Draw

I loved these first time round and I love them again, and this time there's a girl! And she's cool, laid-back and just a little bit sassy! So not so much a review as a sycophantic slobber!! No - that's not strictly true, but there's nothing bad to say about these.

The second set of Toy Boarders, supplied by AJ for my perusal, and having perused I am as impressed as I was last time...OK, so they aren't soldiers, but they are very well sculpted figures, of an unusual subject that really should have been done decades ago, and they are FUN!

The new set overlaying the older ones, I really hope these do well - snowboarders and surf-boarders are still on the drawing board and also I notice from the website that BMX'ers are in the pipeline...there's an extreme sports pun in there!

I took them out in the garden on the first true day of Spring (we only had to wait until the middle of April!), and had a play...look; if you didn't have a bit of a play - you'd collect something else...oriental ceramics perhaps? Red Kangxi finger-bowl for $9million anybody?

They play well and are quite infectious, it's nice to have stuff that isn't 'packing heat' or dealing death and destruction! See what I mean about the girl - she's tak'in no nonsense from the lads and one dude's so impressed he's got his camera out!

A group shot above with the 8 poses below, you get 3 each of the eight for your money and they aren't dear. They are - from top left to bottom right;

Filmer, Bomber, Tail-grab and Switch
Front Lipslide, Girl Cruising, Backside Boardslide and 50-50

Links
Website - Orders
Facebook Page


Competition...

Al sent me a second set of the first issue, and as I have a set from last year, they are up for grabs...this is only open to UK/EU/Turkey as they aren't worth posting back to the US (the planet, think of the planet!), so US residents will have to contact the website!

It's a names-out-of-the-hat type job, so leave a comment here or eMail, all names received by Sunday night (21st April 2013) at 21.30hrs will go in the draw, winner takes all. 'anonymous' commentors will have to eMail me contact details if they win though.

Draw was held in CAD this afternoon, and the lucky winner is Lurking Angrily for his prize, but he won't get it until he sends me his address...Mr. Fran Lee, first in first out, that's how it works, your details if you please. Radman was second, you get nothing I'm afraid...Woodsey was third, you get, er...less than nothing, so I'll expect something nice in the post!!!!

Thanks for entering - all, and keep an eye out for a special competition any day now.

R is for 'Sanchez'?

I've seen these described as being made by 'Sanchez', but this one is marked Ruiz, so that's what I'm going with until someone puts me right!

I'd been after one of these since I saw them in - I think - Akela's Kiosk about six years ago, and a chap had a load at Sandown a couple of years ago (and I mean a 'load'), but - as always - I had no dosh; he said he's bring them next time and I haven't seen him again! Then the last NEC I did another chap had 4 in pretty mint condition so I grabbed a sample colourise; he had no tow-truck bodies.

Although marked as a Santana, the licence-built Spanish Land-Rover, these have the same wheel-arches as the UK vehicles and will pass for a basic Series III, and around 28mm are really useful for the larger figure sizes - if wargaming/role-playing...Zombie skittles, anyone? To be honest, I've just Googled them and most Spanish made bodies seem to have rounded wheel-arches, so it must have been the early ones from my childhood that had angular ones.

There were several body types for these toys, apart from the aforementioned Wrecker/Tow-truck and hopefully - now I've started to pick them up - we'll return to them when I encounter others.

The little animals that went in the back of the cage version, there are others, of course, but I like that while well out of scale the Giraffe sticks out of the roof! You can also see the 'spare' hole for the lifting-arm/boom of the tow-truch and other body types.

News, Views Etc...Airfix, Forthcoming Attractions, and Admin!

Airfix Blog

In the last couple of weeks I've added posts for the HO/OO Astronauts, Civilians, Cowboys and High Chaparral sets, with a further update to the Astronauts tonight. I will be adding new posts for the Wagon Train and Confederate Infantry over the coming days and will be posting more images on the existing ACW Artillery post, with Union Infantry and American Indians as soon as I've had another photo-shesh (a couple of weeks or more). I'll also be getting some 54mm/1:32 scale bits up, but they will be minimal 'page-holders'. So if you are an Airfix nut; pop over there for a shufftie.

Also - if anyone has something they'd like to submit to that blog, I'm happy to take 'donations' credited or not as you prefer, it's aim is to be a series of 'scrapbooks' set by set, so any conversions or painted armies/vignettes that can go under one of the old set headings will always be welcome.

Forthcoming Attractions

Tatra

News on the maker of the iconic Soldiers of the World/Warriors Through the Ages in the next day or two.

Product Reviews

There will be three product reviews in the next week or so, two of which will include free figures, that's FREE figures, names in the hat for one, a more competition-oriented approach to the second, but the manufacturer is putting up several nice prizes, so keep an eye out for those.

Admin.

eMail

Some of my eMails have been going straight to 'junk' - this is not a 'switch-to-outlook' problem, it's been going-on since at least December and has affected 'safe' senders, eBay seller updates, and commercial catalogs, so if you have emailed me recently and think I'm ignoring you - try again. I am now checking the junk folder, but with 300-odd mails going in there every day I may still miss your message, so give me - say - three days and try again or let me know through a comment here, I'll delete the comment after I'm aware of the situation.

Begging

I need two followers to make the magic 'Hundred' (which will be a bit of a 'Triple'; more on that later), so while I've never asked for followers before...if you like the blog...or regularly visit it?

W is for Wittrock, H Wittrock

Another contribution from our reader/follower in the snowy North, and before I get on to the W of H Wittrock A/S, the company who produced the X-300 below, the first image is of a new and interesting version of the X-100 Scout.

Having two forward wheels and no tail wheels, it also has no window voids, due to the most surprising feature, a second skin or liner in a flecked grayish plastic which runs the whole length of the fuselage, fitting snugly in the nose and tail. I can only assume this was to reinforce the whole model and keep breakages to a minimum, lowering the amount of negative feedback at the time?

Three views of the box for a Finnish produced X-300, the Finnish title is Avarus Raketti, while the Rymdraket is the Swedish version of the translation for 'Space Cruiser, I suspect actually they both translate back as 'Space Rocket'? The same ship also sold in Denmark as Rumskib.

Another box in a brighter yellow graphic, Telex was the brand, but the contributor states that Wittrock were the actual maker. The shorter, blunter profile of the lower tail fin is a deliberate feature of these and given the damage the Pyro/Tudor*Rose ones get suggests this was a good move!

Another major difference between the Pyro one and this Scandinavian beast is the long probe coming off the front canopy...well; if you've taken the breakage-susceptible bits of the back - why not add one to the front!!

News, Views etc...Plastic Warrior 150th Issue

A bit late with the announcement this quarter but busy doing other stuff! The 150th issue of PW plunked through the postbox the other week, if you are still not subscribing...now's the time to do so!

Features this month include;

* Supper Detail Paratroopers by Britains - Dispelling a few myths!
* An overview/musings on Replicants by the owner/sculptor  Peter Cole
* Yuri Zazlavsky introduces his new company Pvblivs (Publius)
* The second of the set of articles about Linde Wild West figures by Andreas Dittmann
* A look at Marx WWI soldiers by Debbie Stevens
* Report covering US Cavarly sets by Atlantic courtesy of Karl James
* Daniel Morgan's Herald 'Notes and Queries' reaches the Household Cavalry and solves a few questions thrown-up here; Household Cav.; not least that one of my trumpeters is on the wrong horse!
* There's a brief look at the output of little known company HR Production
* Fred Barratt's 'Converters Corner' features Airfix Aussies from Dave Morris and more conversions (US Cavalry Rough Riders/Boxer Rebellion and desert raiders/Arabs) from Mike Blake
* The 100 Toy Pirates of comic book fame are covered by Brad DeSantis
* What the !&*$? has a wooden fort this month
* Updates on
- Marx (Swansea)
- Cherilea
* New products covered this month include figures from
- Armies in Plastic (AIP)
- Tiger Hobbies
- Toy Soldiers of San Diego (TSSD)
- Ivanhoe
- Classic Toy Soldiers (CTS)
* Plus all the usual small-ads, news, views and letters on figures from around the world (Heritage Toy Figures [HTF] and Trojan/BMS (?) Arabs ), with  a Lone Star Mexican on the back cover and a nice boxed set of Spanish Civil Guard on the front.

Get it before its gone!

P is for Pink Buds of Spring

Well, we nearly had a nice day yesterday, which would have made three [days] in five weeks! But it just couldn't find it in itself to be that little bit warmer.

The blossom is struggling, the wild cherries have been flowering for a few weeks now and some have almost finished, but with few bees or other pollinators flying, there won't be much fruit again this year, the Mirabelle next door lost all it's blossom after a couple of the colder nights...

Frodo has decided that Spring is still 'months' away and has returned to the fireside, where he is clearly in seventh-heaven, only opening an eye occasionally to say, more logs - NOW please!