H is for How Many Officers?

When we looked at the figures from Sky Birds Here I commented that I didn't know which of the officers with swagger-stick were factory paint and which weren't...the answer seems to be most of them where!

In fact one boxed-set had six of them all with differences, some very subtle. Otherwise just a quick post to show a couple of boxed sets I photographed a while ago and keep meaning to blog but a lot of real-world shite has rather kept me from blogger this year...Hey-Ho! Obviously one of the figures is damaged and may not be the one supposed to occupy that slot, but I think it's right?

The other set, pilots and ground-crew with a very late-WWI / inter-war years look to them. The lose figures are not rare, but sets in this condition are like piles of rocking-horse shit on the summit of Everest!

Nice!...as they say in all the best Jazz clubs...apparently!

W is for Wax-wing, White and War 'plane!

One of the more unusual things to appear on this blog (along with jelly Daleks and woollen football mascots!) This came to me via Adrian at Mercator Trading and when he was handing it over we both thought it was just a very brittle old plastic model (I also thought the markings were French...it's a very bright red, alright?)

Anyway, when I got it home I noticed among all the bumps, scrapes and lumps of 'extra plastic' a couple of slightly less white lumps in the underside, picking them off and putting them in my mouth - as you do (what do you mean 'you don't'!! Hey, I've got Asperger's, I'll put anything in my mouth, it's the childlike reflex of monkey-investigation...we are - after all - only monkeys!), and realised they were a couple of semi-transparent wax granules that had clearly been picked-up by the still warm moulding all those years ago.

I say "all those years ago" with such authority because (while I had at first assumed it to be a 1939'ish French bomber), after realising that it was carrying British markings (red in the centre), I was at a loss as to the 'plane's type. It seems to be a Turret-less Flying Fortress, of which we did have a few early in the war, these proved a tad vulnerable in the bomber roles, so where handed to the anti-submarine chaps for long-range maritime patrol work (or the survivors were!). The only real clue being the ventral bulge running down the spine on the aircraft and the fact that while having four engines....it doesn't look like a Lancaster or Stirling...or Sunderland! It is otherwise a very crude moulding, due wholly to the material.

Maker is likely to remain unknown (it's about 3-inches long), but the following who were all still making wax-dolls or dolls heads in the 1930's could be in the frame; Morell, Lucy Peck (both demised sometime in the 1930's) and Pierotti (still going in 1942?). Anyway your ideas on date, maker and aircraft-type appreciated in the comments section!

 Above image added - 16th December 2015 - found here

News, Views Etc...Show Dates

Totally missed Birmingham for several reasons, some of which have kept me from the Blog as well, no going to promise a flurry of posts, as I've done that twice recently to little effect!!

Show dates have come in from two promoters though and are confirmed as follows;

Herne, Germany

36th Deutsche Kunststoffigurenbörse / 36th German Collectors Figure Show

Sunday 1st December 2013

11.00 - 16.00hours

At;
Kulturzentrum
Willi-Pohlmann-Platz 1
44623 Herne
Germany

Dealers Tables: 50 Euros per. Meter

More details from Peter Bergner at www.pbtoys.de

Richmond-Twickenham, London

The 29th Plastic Warrior (PW) Show

Saturday 24th May 2014.

This will be held at the NEW venue:

The Winning Post
Chertsey Road
Whitton
Twickenham
TW2 6LS
UK

F is for Follow-up to French Fellows

Thanks go to Mathias Berthox for several of the images tonight and the identification info, both herein and in the comments section of the previous post. Also thanks due to Steve Vickers who kindly allowed me to photograph a set he had at the Plastic Warrior show in May, which turned-out to be just what we needed to complete the story.

This is to confirm or deny several points raised by This Post concerning the various versions of these French made knights. Mathias will correct me if anything is incorrect!

So, in the upper picture sent by Mathias we have Rene Fisher (RF) figures, these are a hard plastic, probably (like Starlux and others) originally in a phenolic plastic or cellulose acetate, then - later - a polystyrene. Well painted, most figures having at least 5 or 6 colours, with the silver being one, also with quite chunky bases, which are always painted green.

The lower shot - also from Mathias - shows the Jem versions, these are soft ethylene plastic, but still have a decent paint-job with cream bases. Jem also supplied their figures to Norev (then a maker of plastic vehicles in 1:43rd scale) who placed them in diorama boxes called 'History and Traditions', where we learn that Robin Hood had to deal with cactus as well as the Sheriff's men, and that he lived in a Tipi/Tepee!

Later Norev (who were making metal 30/35mm civilians a few years ago) issued figures which have a simplified paint scheme of 3 or 4 colours only; white gloves and details, gold joints to the armour and weapons, flesh (if needed) and one other 'highlight' colour. The upper photograph from Mathias again, the lower example from my own collection.

These seem to have been made in Hong Kong/China, and were either from the same moulds or  reasonable quality copies, plastic forts were also made for the figures to garrison and fight over! The plastic is a denser material probably a Polypropylene.

Two companies then pirated them, Hugonnet and Vilco. It is these lesser quality figures we looked at last time, and with a shot of all mine, now including a couple of the extra poses Sam (of Sams Minis World) sent me, along with a comparison of the copy standard-bearer next to the Norev original. The two lower pictures showing the twin mould release-pin marks that enabled me to separate them out of a load of 'silver knights'!

To the left is the set Steve Vickers let me shoot at Richmond, of note is the fact that this sprue seems to be mostly Lone Star piracies (like the 'King Richard' that seems to have started this little odyssey when I covered Robin Hood two years ago!), but also includes the RF/Jem archers seen above, so we seem to be looking at about 20 (cirtainly 17+) poses from Hugonnet/Vilco, from both the RF and Lone Star stables.

The guy on the right, seemingly a decent attempt at William the First of England, Duke of Normandy, seems too good to be from the above ranges, so I suspect a modern/current brand, but I don;t know who, so any help with this chap would be appreciated. He is in unpainted silver polyethylene and is the last chap from the 'silver knights' load, still to be identified, apart from....

...the chunky chap at the bottom of this picture, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I separated these guys out in the last post, it was suggested they were part of the above late sets we now know were Hugonnet/Vilco, and someone correctly pointed-out that they were Dom poses. Well, like an idiot (and working in poor light) I hadn't seen that they are in fact marked on the upper-surface of the bases 'MADE IN WEST GERMANY' and are actually Dom Plastik, and probably nothing to do with the French sets/makes at all!

These have apparently had three main phases, silver originals like the above, some (earlier?) basic paint versions and later recasts in a greyish plastic.

However, also in the 'silver knights' lot was this other chap, early-looking painted ethylene, but bigger that the Dom, although clearly the model for one of the Dom poses. He has the look of some East German plastics to me, he is a quite soft, silver plastic, a bit like Charbens knights, heading toward 60mm, very chunky base and has no discernible mark. Any ideas?

P is for Pictures Added to Puckator' Pirates Post

Pictures now added to the Talk Like a Pirate Day post on Discover Pirates by Puckator (post immediately below this), there were only 5 in the end, but there are several boxes still to be dug-in that might contain the errant chap, so we'll have to see?

P is for Puckator Pirates in Plaster, Phoohaarrr!

Text to follow; needs to be up before midnight on International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Due to the vagaries of Vodafone, that nearly didn't happen!

Oh Yes!...23.59 hrs. Text after I've made a coffee... 

You will not believe what a performance that was. I remembered it was coming-up to TLAP day (I'm not writing that out a dozen times!) a few weeks ago, in fact I thought I might have missed it as I did last year, then I noticed people were visiting the previous Pirate posts in unusual numbers a few days ago, obviously Googling TLAPD, and getting a return from here.

Made a mental note to get into the attic and see if there was something Pirate-like I could shoot a few pictures of and post today...so far so good. Then totally forgot about it this morning, until I saw M-7's Post this afternoon (nice vinyls), and thought "Oh Bugger!", went over to Facebook (I know - my soul's lost to the legions of the damned!) and reminded everyone there, then spent the rest of the day not going in the attic, thinking "I'll do it this evening", well this evening came round and I couldn't be arsed!

More than not being arsed, I'd realised that I had some stuff on Picasa, I just A) wasn't sure if I'd already posted it, and B) couldn't find it? Searched for pirates [on my own blog!] didn't seem to have posted it (doesn't mean you haven't already thought; "Hold on, two of those look familiar?", though!), then had one of those demi-deja-vous moments when it seemed I'd already thought I'd posted it and looked for it once before....about last autumn - TLAPD.

Box Art

Well, I then found a couple of images I'd taken of the second tranche of these (more below) a couple of months ago, but couldn't find the rest - which I thought I'd taken last autumn, when I must have gone through the rigmarole I'd just been through again?

Eventually I found the older pictures, buried at the bottom of the Picasa file list in all the old, weird and 'hidden' files and other folders Picasa seems to create when your back's turned - I'm such a Luddite! Only to be reminded that I had gone through the whole thing a year ago, and had realised that I'd actually taken the pictures in Brightwalton, about the last thing I photographed there and that only two figures were shot and I intended to shoot the rest when I got the second tranche, which had been mentioned when I saw the purveyor. So I didn't just forget TLAPD last year, it was a fail! Although, also, I WAS elsewhere, doing other things.

So, then cobbled together a third photo from the two new images, decided they were a bit dark, went back and brightened them both, did another collage, and started to upload them with an hour to go, when my dongle started to play-up, much faffing around and five failed up-loads later it was ten-to-midnight on TLAPD with a still-blank sheet of cyber-paper! The rest is centred above!

I now have the coffee, and we'll look at Discover Pirates from Puckator...

  First - Dig-out your Pirate...and bits!

A brilliant idea, poorly executed...we've all seen these dig-for-shite toy/hobby things in stores and/or museum gift-shops I'm sure, and it works very well for resin copies of fossilized sea-shells, post-modern designer-style lumpen chess-pieces, or soft vinyl dinosaurs or aliens, or even polyethylene bits of Egyptological artifact or painted glass marbles with Disney characters on them...but it doesn't work for delicate thin strands of PU resin Pirate!

As a result what you get is several pieces of Pirate! And nowhere in the instructions (a lot of small print on the box) do you get anything, in any language equating to The sword is separate and looks like a twig when it's covered in plaster. So unless you are very careful indeed, you end up with several pieces of unarmed (and un-arm'ed) pirate!

 More bits!

So to get the second one I actually ran the block of plaster under a tap and washed it away slowly, using a soft toothbrush, I still nearly lost the sword and broke an arm...it may even have broken as the plaster set, because I was very careful.

Just to show how easy it is to discard the sword even if you do spot it in the pile of plaster, there are also actual pieces of stick in the plaster!

 Still in pieces...

The reason I only originally did the two was that I wanted to keep some 'mint' and didn't want to wreak them all getting them out, fearing I was a bit of a butter-fingers, I'm not, I just couldn't believe something this incapable of success could be aimed at children!

Then I ran into the purveyor (Peter Evans, thank you Peter) at the Plastic Warrior show two years ago and he said he had some more and would I like them, I said yes, which is why I passed  on posting them last year after going round the houses - "did I post them already, where's the photo's, oh, on the BW dongle", transfer them to the lap-top, loose them in Picasa etc...etc...

 Shed Storage

So I then picked them up at PW this year, sorted what I thought was a complete set of the four I still needed loose examples of. They had in the interim (Peter won't mind me saying...I hope?) got a little the worse for wear, woodlice and slugs had 'had-at' the boxes, so not all of them had their little red ID stickers. I took them back to college with all the tools I thought I'd need to forensically extricate them with the minimum of damage...and set to work...carefully.

I ended-up with a pile of bits, a pile of bits that equated to 2-and-a-half of the figures I needed and an imploded duplicate. So home the following weekend, got all the unmarked or mixed-up box/contents ones and took them all back to college for another session. I think the last one I tried was the missing figure! I say I think, it wasn't that long ago, but it's been such a performance I'm blanking the whole thing from my mind like some nasty childhood experience...probably another reason why I such trouble locating everything this afternoon!

Because I hadn't photographed them after the first attempt and forgot to photograph them after the second, we are still in need of the photograph I would have taken earlier, had I been arsed! Anyway, the upshot is - I think...I THINK I have a set of six, all glued together and looking relatively complete in the attic and I will dig them out and add a decent photograph of them here in the next few days, as my subconscious knew I had too.

 Only Five!

If you see them - Puckator are still doing this Discover stuff on Amazon including a pirate treasure-chest, but not these - they are worth getting, as with some care and effort, they make nice figures, and despite the above I'm grateful for Peter saving them for me and like them a lot, they are very 'Pirates of the Caribbean' in execution, but boy, who thought this was a good idea for kids?

Still to be dug-out

I hope that rope's not cast in resin!

Should you find some; the trick is to slowly rub the ends of the chest away under running water (fast running, you don't want to block the u-bend with cement!) until you find the base...if you find spiky stuff, go to the other end. Once you've found the base, you can A) hold it, and B) work slowly up the figure freeing things a bit at a time, keeping a lookout for the swords (there are three I think, we'll see when I get the other shot up here), and loose sections were there's a break (one chap has a knife or dagger that's easily broken).

T is for Timpolin

Following on from the mosquito post the other day, I have - since we last visited them - managed to get most (possibly all?) the missing figures from the Zang/Zang for Timpo/Timpo slush-cast and lead toy accessory ranges, so thought I'd photograph them while I had the Mosquito out.

The lying mechanic and chauffeur came with the other two mechanics in a large boxed set, more on which below, the standing soldier with helmet is quite badly damaged, well not so much 'badly damaged' as badly repaired! It looks like very old two-part epoxy 'Araldite' which is not worth trying to remove, so I'm still looking for a better version of this chap, and I have seen them in both green (bright like this bloke's red) and khaki helmets, so hopefully one will turn-up soon.

Then this turned-up on Saturday at Sandown Park toy fair, this is from the boxed set, it's not clear whether it's meant to be a tyre-pressure air-pump, chocolate machine or set of scales (and may well have appeared in a railway set as either of the latter?). Made of the same pumice concoction as the figures, you wonder why they went to the bother when you see that it came with 3 different lead petrol pumps?

The set (I saw one on Saturday but couldn't photograph it) has the three cast pumps, this composition cabinet, all three composition mechanics, two chauffeurs (I wonder if one of them might have been replaced with the NY cop - from the previous post linked to above - in some sets?) and four vehicles, all slush-cast with steel-axles and rubber tyres. In the set I saw at the weekend, the chauffeurs were the same dark-green as the cabinet, I'm sure there is a grey one as well.

News, Views Etc...

So - my announcement a month ago that I'd be posting more came to naught! Hey-ho, such is life. Here's a few bits and bobs to get things going again.

Facebook
I'm now on Facebook, look for the chap with a drainpipe on his head! Although there are only 3 HW's - I believe!

Horrible Histories (UK only)
I will be getting a review of the latest tranche of releases out soon (days - promise), in the meantime I meant to mention that this months magazine has some nice pencil-toppers on the cover, and the first - of two - coupons inside for a limited edition all-gold figure of the Pirate - Blackbeard, his loose pistol being replaced with a gnarled-looking sword.

Unfortunately the issue is only on sale for another 24/48 hours, although they do still have some in my local supermarket, so if you get out in the next day or two you should be able to find one. Apologies for not bring it to everyone's attention sooner, but no one else has, so better later than never!

Useful Links
A couple of useful toy soldier related links;

Poignant Modelling

Potted History of Prince August

Another Toy Soldier Picture

M is for Miniature Mosquitoes

No, not more insects! I've loads more, but I can bore people on Facebook with them now!

I got a really nice little Mosquito from Mercator Trading the other day, turned out to be Beeju (EVB), so I thought I'd do a little round-up of the sub-scale 'Mozzies' in my collection...

So here they are, from the left we have a composition one from Zang for Timpo, made of compressed pumice in a combination known as 'Timpolene'. Then the Beeju newcomer, a Hong Kong copy of the old MPC 'Minis' 'plane and finally a small polystyrene version which I have tentatively suggested might be early Airfix.

Detail, both accurate and inaccurate make all four very different, yet they all manage to carry-off the distinctive lines of the original, just not when formed-up next to each-other! Scale is I guess from about 1:120 through to about 1:150.

I believe Timpo bought the rights (or remains) of Brent, and not wanting to confuse themselves with a factory full of hollow-casting machinery and equipment, turned over or contracted to Zang, the timpolene production. We've looked at the figures before Here but several aircraft were also made, I've seen an early jet (Whittle?) and a Hurricane as well as this mozzie.

As far as I know, Beeju hadn't been credited with sub-scale aircraft, being know for a range of mostly buses and fire engines, first in a distortable cellulose acetate, then is a more stable polystyrene. This is an early Cellulose-acetate one but mercifully hasn't warped much. It has the most exquisite little propeller plug-in/pop-ons made from the same material. The EVB mark is hidden in the under-wing roundels while MADE IN ENGLAND is present in relief along the bomb-bay.

I don't have the MPC mosquito, although I do have most of them and will cover them here one day, but there are several 'levels' of Hong Kong copies, of which this is from the commonest. Also the latest, being included in various sets when I was young in the late 1960's/70's. It was a smaller range than the original MPC range, or some of the earlier ranges of piracies. This is the lowest grade quality-wise, but carries over the detailing from the MPC version, just in a chunky fashion.

My speculation that this is Airfix, is based on no more than it seems to be the same plastic, in the same colours as the later version Animal Flats, contained in building blocks and baby's rattles. While they could be Tudor*Rose or Kleeware or any one of a dozen other early British makers; the colours (I have a handful of these; Lancaster, Spitfire etc...) particularly the pea-green and pink are identical to both the early cellulose acetate and late styrene Airfix flats, and the marking 'MADE IN ENGLAND' is more Airfix that the other main makes who tended to use circular marks. Still it is only a possibility, not an absolute confirmation.

This is a styrene examplr and it has warped, but due to early removal from the mould, I have a red one with broken wing which is much straighter. I would imaging that they would have been sold as a small handful, possibly in conjunction with a larger beach/bath toy, or as 'party favours' or cake decorations?

The rest are now to be seen here; Airfix Mini Planes

Finally; J. E. Beale - the trading arm of the still extant Beales department store in Bournemouth, UK, commissioned a set which contained both two Timpo/Zang Mosquitoes and some Skybirds figures, being two 'plane guards and an MG-team.

M is for Macro

A bit of a test tonight, these are all taken with the new camera. My old Samsung, which had given sterling service for about two years to date died last week and with me having A) no money and B) a need for a camera last Wednesday, I couldn't get another Samsung, or whinge quickly enough to get a replacement from them. So having written Fuji Finepix off as being shite years ago after two of theirs failed me, I managed to find a cheepie on Wednesday.

These are taken with a Nikon compact - currently £49.99 in Argos. Like the previous three and following Moore's Law it is nearly twice the power of the old one and smaller, so from now on all (new) images will be around 16 Mpx. These also took a while to load but seem much clearer/sharper and the detail - when I get them in focus! - is in a different league.

Various Hover-flys, often mistaken by children for Wasps, they are mostly pretty harmless nectar eaters, with some of them having a rather horrid aquatic larval stage known as the 'long tailed maggot'. Other larvae feed on Aphids and look like shortened Caterpillars! Or; green hairy Leeches!!

More of the same, these are three standard House-fly sized larger ones and another (top left - Sun fly?) which was the biggest Hover-fly I've ever seen, it was the same size as a Hornet and that's what I thought it was as it buzzed my ear on the way into the Buddleia!

Little buff-beauties or whatever they are called, medium sized wild bees of the small colony type (50-odd to a few hundred individuals). The detail on some of these is fantastic and I'm wondering if they are worth anything to the image libraries? I take thousands of these types of shots and it would be nice if I could earn a bit of cash from them?

This is - I know - Bombus (probably 'lucorum' but with a buff tail?), our largest true Bumble-bee, and when it gets to it, it weighs the whole candelabra of flower-heads down, again the detail on these makes the thousands I have on disc from the last four or five years look poor!

This I am very pleased with, I have a vague memory of finding a red-tailed fly all dead, crumbled and dusty in an old web as a kid, but this is the first live one I've seen and I can't find it anywhere on the web ID pages? It's actually a crimson/vermilion colour changing to a more common green at the head end with a metallic sheen, the flash took some of its prettiness away! I don't even know which type of fly it is, I'm guessing on of the House/'Bottle', Flesh, Dung or Coffin flys, but several other groups have similar but less colourful members?

These were the first shots with the new camera and I was still getting used to it, the flash on macro is a bit too 'hot', but it takes better macro pictures without flash in good light so I may change the way I shoot figures...I've yet to try toy soldiers with it.

If you're thinking of a camera, or looking ahead to Christmas you can't beat this deal at Argos, 16 mega-pixels for 50-quid? Downsides so far - bright flash in macro, standard double-A batteries that may prove expensive over time and slow response on focusing compared to previous models. In a few years this type of 'compact-digital[ camera will probably have been replaced by smart-phone cameras of the same spec, so this may be one of the last?

I'm never sure of the rule re. names - common or Latin so have capitalised everything! I know it's a mess, it looks a mess, but I have Asperger's and it's only a Blog so I don't think anyone from Oxbridge will be harrumphing me down the phone first-thing tomorrow!

[Added 12-Sep.-2013] Turns out it's a North American Sweat Bee, and a less common one at that, must have stowed-away on a flying machine heading for Gatwick or Heathrow and flown along the M25 to Leatherhead! Or it might be one of these imports the tomato-growers are bringing-in to pollinate poly-tunnels?

News, Views Etc...Plastic Warrior 151

Just as late as last time with the announcement this quarter I'm afraid, but still busy doing other stuff. The 151st issue of PW has been out for so long I think another one may be due!
Featuring this month;

* Over-moulding from companies other than Timpo; being Cherilea, Gemodels and (this author's) Kibri.
* An overview of New Russian figures by Own Production and others from Mathias Bethoux (regular commenter to the blog and French forum captain!)
* More musings on small-batch production and re-introducing toy soldiers to youngsters in the age of the PC-game from Peter Cole, with the emphasis on his own Replicants and a Pop-up Shop (which sounds faintly painful Peter?!) 
* Andreas Dittmann gives a 'show-and-tell' of some unusual knights by Acedo
* Alwyn Brice dips his toe in the Elastolin he hoovered-up while interviewing people in their own homes for Collector's Whatzit
* Daniel Morgan's Herald 'Notes now reaches the four original marked/unmarked Zang figures at attention and the later Herald re-sculpts.
* Book reviews abound with Alain Thomas's excelent Soldats Plastiques - Cyrnos et Jim and George Kearton's recently re-issued guide to plastics (published by John Curry over at the History of Wargameing blog) both covered, along with the one I'm to be having a word with the publishers about as soon as I finish my course...
* Giampiero Larizza's 'Converters Corner' features Britains and Airfix figures converted into WWII Finish troops with the summer uniform.
* What the !&*$? has question marks on some medievals (Cofalux?), WWII era Spanish (Teixido) and Wild West figures.
* Updates on...
- Heritage Toy Figures (HTF)
- Soldiers of the World by Dan Humar; seemingly inspired partly by the work done on this blog! Specifically; the North American viewpoint/Canadian issues.
* In addition to the Russians mentioned above - new products covered this month include figures from...
- HaT
- Expeditionary Force
- Paragon Scenics
- Tiger Hobbies
* Plus all the usual book-ends (!). No - literally, small-ads, news and views.
* Readers letters cover the mystery rocket-launcher from a few issues ago (Kemlows) various corrections of the last issues cover (something I corrected without highlighting in the last review), a reader asking if the Britains Para's could be re-issued (he needs to look at the new 1:72 ACTA!), Marx circus and Daz/Crescent also get futher info from readers.
* While  cover images this quarter are a shot of Elastolin mounted Normans on the front and a Soldiers of the 'Ages' cereal-box scan on the back

Get it before the next one's out!
[Another month or so?]

News, Views Etc...Absence!

Well...real life has intervened in various ways to ensure a sparsity of posts, eMail replies and other stuff in recent weeks; exams, interviews, family illness, broken camera, general malaise leading to a failed mojo...you get the picture! The only thing I've managed to do is to keep entering Paul's Monday Mystery Model quiz over at Plastic Warriors.

However I do have tons of toy soldier articles lined-up (some from so long ago I've announced them twice already - I think?), lots more macro-insect stuff, an overdue review of the new Horrible Histories stuff (well some of it), a coverage of the last Plastic Warrior magazine - also well overdue and which I must get out before the next one's due, especially as the blog gets a mention, lots of News/Views stuff and a new camera purchased yesterday.

So; watch this space, hopfully there will be a bit more happening here in the next week or so, but tonight I'm designing a logo for someone!

H

Historians have always been puzzled as to how the volatile, disorganized Italians could possibly be descended from the disciplined, brilliantly organized Romans. Similarly, the modern French are in no way related to the Normans, who were hopeless cooks but used to get the Germans to surrender to them. Patently, also the Swedes with their neurotic suicidal characteristics can hardly be descended from the easy-going Vikings with their raping, pillaging tendencies etc.

The answer appears to be that the Romans at some point in history went off to live in Germany with the Normans, and the Vikings emigrated to Glasgow.

Since the only things that the Normans and the Germans liked eating were babies, they left anyone involved in cookery behind. The chefs became the French and the modern Italians are of course babies. The Swedes wrote it all down and made a fortune from hard-core pornography.

From one of the old 'Not The 9 O'clock News' publications

K is for Knights, Knot Known!

In the same vein as the group of mixed figures (premiums?) we looked at the other night, firstly because I suspect these are French, and can even suggest a name; Jem (thanks to Paul Morehead and Brian Carrick from Plastic Warrior), and secondly because the lot Sam sent me contained a few, with two new poses...but they could be from anyone and they could be from anywhere,

So, from my unknown large scale mediaevals box, the above are separated into two batches as those in the upper shot have a uniform feature lacking in the lower bunch; two pin-release marks on the rear of each base. Also the bases are a bit thicker and slightly more symmetrical than the others.

Indeed - until the arrival of the lot from Sam, I had separated them as being two makers (with the upper lot pencilled-in as Jem?), which is why these are two images, I took them a few months ago when I was shooting all the medieval figures for future posts. Although the similarities in material, colour and sculpting meant they shared a tub, just different ends!

Added 25-09-2013 : The lower lot are Dom Plastik!

Then Sam sent me his lot and among them were the above 6, four of them being duplicates, the other two being new poses, one (bottom right) being very much part of the first grouping above, the other (top left) with the standard - being far more like the second gang but with the base of the first, so I now think they are all from one set/maker?

The question is who? Or rather the questions being who/where/when?! So any help greatly appreciated on these and the Post the other day. That's 15 figures, were there more? Of course, if they are Jem and were from a fort play-set, the number of poses is not unusual. Does the difference in - particularly - base style point to two tranches? Or just various sources of copying by Jem (or whoever?) and if so - who were the other influencing makes/originators of the various poses?

It also means that we have a fifth figure in the series we originally looked at Here. It also - increasingly - looks as if the King 'Richard' may well have originated with Norev (linked post and forth figure from the left above), being copied both by Lone Star (or 'influenced'!), then Jem; the smaller figure from this unknown set?

Finally - if they are all or in-part - Jem, does anyone have a picture of the fort the figures came with, they could share with everyone here?

S is for S'tu-hot

Gimme shelter, I'm dying here!

Yeah? You weren't alive in '76 dude! That was too hot, this is mildly over-inclement!

The downside of having built-in champagne-coloured insulation!

M is for Mystery Men from across La Manche

Pascal-call-me-Sam from Sam's Mini's World sent me one of those wonderful mixed lots of toy soldiers he'd acquired from somewhere (I'm busy collecting him Dr. Who stuff by way of exchange!), with an eclectic mix of figures from near-mint recent French and Modern Chinese medieval through some German and Spanish Wild West to early French hard plastics in a bit of a state (but a sample is a sample is a sample and they are hard to find!), most of which I will deal with at a later date, some of which I will add to the posts which are now over a year and a half overdue!

However, I want to put these up here in order to thank Sam publicly,because they need a post to themselves and in the hope that some of you continental collectors can shed some light on them...

These have a lot in common with the Soldabar figures I looked at here; Minor Makes, in that they look like premiums, are copies of various British and other makers and come in various colours (I think I have yellow and blue ones in my archive photo's), they also cover a variety of eras. The 'premium' link is also there in the two Crescent figures, and the heavy bases and soapy-soft polyethylene of the Beverly figures we looked at the other month, these - however - have no discernible mark.

We have all four of the Britains Herald ACW poses, two Britains Herald cowboys (both poses much copied by others), a Crescent Guardsman copy, and pirates of three native American Indians, originating from (left to right); Crescent, MPC and Britains Herald again.

So - thanks Sam, one man's pirate copies are another man's ruby and jade treasures and definitely the cream of the crop...and can anyone shed any light on who produced them or marketed them, or - indeed - maybe gave them away? What other figures are in the range?

[I haven't added 'French' or 'Premium' to the tag list until we can hopefully get some more information on them]