B is for Battle of the (Corporate) Bears, Bunnies and Boardroom-Bastards!

At this time of year I tend to put something figural yet edible up on the blog, and with my Lidl's Advent Calendar only a week from being opened, this seems a good time to start! However this is not so much about figures edible or otherwise, but rather about the corporate stupidity of the people who would (actually do) rule over us and mould our lives, as such it is a bit of a PPE-rant!

The story starts in the deep mists of time (see comments at end), and really hots up about 15/20 years ago when Lindt, the chocolate people, start defending their products against all-comers, specifically their Bunny. I don't have the various bunnies to shoot, but a mini one is above right...as if you didn't know!

That case;

Lindt V Riegelein

ended as a 5-0 defeat against Lindt at the fifth hearing - the other four (lower court) hearings also finding in favour of Confiserie Riegelei, this being in the German (and now European higher...) courts. Now you might think that loosing five hearings over 12 years or so would have taught Lindt they were on a hiding to nothing...but no, you can't keep an idiot down, and in 2011, sometime around the forth hearing in the other case, Lindt (a Swiss company) decided to go to another court in Austria, in order to sue Aldi, or the makers of Aldi's chocolate bunnies - Franz Hauswirth;

Lindt V Hauswirth

Lindt wins against Hauswirth in 2011....

Hauswirth  V Lindt

....then loses on appeal!

However, before loosing the appeal, Lindt were already involved in another dispute, this time with Haribo, who it should be noted- supply Aldi!! Round one didn't go Lindt's way;

Haribo V Lindt

Haribo win the opening salvo hands-down. However both parties have decided to keep fighting to the European Supreme Court;

Battle of the Bears continues

How long before they are all suing each other over the designs of their beetles, lambs, chicks, worms, tools, mice and other assorted 'TRADITIONAL' confectionary shapes?

Now....you're thinking, so far so good, why the threat to have a rant...after all, the Lindt bears are very much in evidence still, this Christmas, as are everyone else's?

Well, you see this is all costing you and me, these cases cost tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Pounds (or in this case - Euros), millions even (?), which has to be clawed back from the general public, the customers, you and me.

Evidence, if any was needed; Lindt, who keep losing these cases are known for more expensive chocolate, Aldi (who's chocolate is as smooth and creamy as Lindt's - it says so on Mum's Net so it must be true!) were selling their bunny cheaper than ever this Easter...one hopes to rub Lindt's nose in it!

Not only that but the courts should be throwing these cases out at the filing stage, we all know that a bear on its back with stumpy legs up, or a semi-flat rabbit/hare in profile have been made in foodstuffs for...what?...more than a century.

How many jelly moulds going back to the 18-something's are there? I remember chocolate rabbits in Italy (which has so far stayed out of these confectionery wars) in the 1970's looking just like all these rivals products, with or without wrappings in gold, silver and patterned paper. I remember them in the shop-windows of local shops (for Locals!) in Bavaria at the same time.

Equally the Lindt bear came late to the party and everyone's bears, bunnies, hares and deer have a gold wrap and or a red ribbon or both, suggesting that the Judges should have thrown that one out as 'Obvious'.

We should probably be thankful that Intersnack's Pom-Bear with his red collar as so far stayed out of the fight!!!!

The point I'm probably not making well is that this stuff needs to stop, this week in a totally unrelated case it was announced that CAT, the - global - engineering firm are being investigated for possible dumping of perfectly good (railway locomotive?) engine parts at sea, to hide a potential fraud involving replacing components that didn't need replacing.

I don't know how true all that is going to prove, but let's assume that Blags & Crimes Bros. have been doing exactly that...

First they will have been ripping-off the railway operator and through him  the travellers who will pay increased ticket prices. Because most major rail companies get some sort of local or regional government or state or federal, or EU grant, the taxpayers will also suffer. Meanwhile the planet has suffered two-fold, first by giving up more resources than it needed to, and second through the double pollution of an unnecessary ship-movement and the dumping of oily crap at sea. The ship-movement also adding to the cost of  B& G's operation and cutting dividends to shareholders.

That's capitalism folks...and everyone's the loser..every day, including you.

Should you want to read more;

Haribo V Lindt

German Court

Telegraph

Gummi Bear

T is for ACME, IM, PP et al...

This article has been a long time in the making, and wouldn't be as full as it is without the help of two other collectors, both of whom I bow to as possessing superior knowledge to me in these matters. This is in every sense of a word off-abused; Iconic, both as an example of early plastic and as an instantly recognisable toy. The real purpose of this article is to cover the various makes, as while it may be instantly recognisable, if it's loose you may not know who made it - and that won't be much easier at the end of the post!

The reason I consider it to be such an iconic early plastic toy is that it was produced, licensed and copied by so many companies or as 'brands' and it showed how a simple mechanism in a plastic toy, if robust enough, could produce the same level of 'playability' as a much more complicated (and expensive to produce) metal clockwork or friction-motors in the previous staple - tin-plate toys.

The thanks go to Bill Hanlon and Adrian Little, who have both helped with images and information.

Bill's Website is here;        American Dimestore

Adrian's is here;                       Mercator Trading

So the first incarnation seems to be the last photographs to join this article - taken the other week. Designed by Islyn Thomas, originally for The Acme Plastics Manufacturing Company of New York in 1945, it looks very modern, lacking a rear rotor would cramp it's style in the air somewhat, but 'junior' wouldn't have known that!

It is so modern in fact, it seems to represent a shape that wouldn't be built for some years, being given a 'nose' that was lacking in the Sikorsky R4 Hoverfly, the only volume production airframe at the time, but then it was sold as a Bell Helicopter - none of the early models from that company looking anything like the toy, however, there would have been some drawing-board designs that could have led to this shape being adopted, and - due to the war - there were some close connections between toy makers and defence companies.

The box is square using the longest dimension, and the simple mechanism meant you could pull it along by its little string and the rotors would revolve. Faster you pulled - the more action you generated...bargain!

The fogging on the wheels would suggest a material other that styrene, possibly a cellulose-based polymer. Although Cellulose-acetate was used on early ACME and Thomas toys, I've never seen one of these helicopters in that material, they all being in polystyrene.

By 1947, it would seem that the ACME contract with Thomas Manufacturing Corp. was coming to an end (or at least the order for helicopters had been filled?) and on Bill's website we see a generic letter offering the helicopter to all-comers. Above - courtesy of Bill; is a collage of various boxes, by various manufacturers including a French company who obviously took Islyn up on his offer. The box is now based on the maximum breadth dimension.

Because Thomas had a UK arm near Swansea in Wales, the UK versions were probably sourced from there rather than the 'States, however the mould-sharing regimen of the time, US import/export [protectionism] tax implications and order-filling may have led to all sorts of relationships between companies, boxes and contents!

However as this letter (also supplied by Bill) shows, Injection Moulders (IM) were talking to the US parent. In 1953 there is another letter from IM (on Bill's site) talking about a new Sikorsky helicopter, and that they have "...re-hashed it again...", this may well be the following one....

...and this is where my own efforts toward this article finally kick-in, as about 18 months ago I had the luck to secure the following by IM at the bun-fest on the steps of the stand at Sandown Park before the doors open;

The box and contents are given a space-age feel but very much in the style of Buck Rogers, Dan Dare or Flash Gordon, what they thought in the 1950's the world would look like in the 2000's!

The Inter Cities 'Rota Ship' in a fetching gold with a folding flap that turns its box into a garage. Unlike the Acme model, this (and most others) carries the Thomas patent number.

Although I had started to collate this article when I did the text-less space-ship articles some time ago, as soon as I got this I lent it out for a book project, so everything was put on hold for a while longer.

 

We've seen the green one before, with a question mark over it's being Tudor*Rose or Kleeware, I now suspect it is another IM version/issue but could equally be either Thomas or Poplar Plastics, and - again on Bill's site - there is a nice shot of several of these with the generic box . The broken rotor'ed one we looked at last time has the original RAF roundel, while the complete one I got about a year ago has lost it.

Fairylite, who we looked at the other day were an importer/re-packager of other peoples product and their model could have come from anywhere, even Hong Kong where this helicopter was copied, but I feel it will be one of the UK factories (Thomas, Poplar or IM) who supplied it, as the HK ones tend to be glossier and of less quality.

While most of the models in this article are mono-coloured (ignoring the rotor/wheel mechanism). bi-coloured ones are common and came in a verity of combinations.

This is the original set of two drawing that accompanied the patent application for the rotor/wheel mechanism, it's freely available from the Google patents site. All the assemblies were firmly glued in the factory which has probably helped so many to survive, although rotor-blade do go missing!

The model is quite adequate for 20/25mm war-games and I have tagged it as HO - OO, which in the best traditions of Airfix covers a multitude of sins.

Thanks again to Adrian and Bill for their input, images and samples to photograph.

New Product Review - Modelleisenbahn-Figuren

An odd one this, I received these figures as promotional samples at no cost to myself, and thought they were nice enough to wax lyrical about, I still do, but the review will contain a few caveats, and my feeling is 'You pays your money and you takes your choice'...caveat emptor and all that.

The first thing is that while they seem to be called Modelleisenbahn-Figuren, (Model Railway Figures) they are also called Modellbahnfiguren (model road figures?)...Modellbaufiguren (Scale Model Figures) and one or two other's to boot! Seemingly differing on each page of the website, presumably for Google search result optimisation (more on this below).

The second thing is that while I seem to have dealt with Germans from Germany (by eMail), the company claims the US of A as it's corporate HQ (Modelleisenbahn-Figuren Limited Liability Company (LLC), 16192 Coastal Highway, Lewes - Delaware, 19958, County of Sussex, USA), yet are clearly a Chinese/HK concern. The website looks like it came out of an early 90's of-the-peg website catalogue, and communication with the 'Germans' was how shall we say...'problematic.

Top and middle; 1:25th scale figures 'Old Design'

Bottom; 1:30th scale 'Indoor'

The company came to my attention through a junk-mail shot, I get a lot of junk mail from toy companies, plastics factories and general casting factories mostly based in China, due to the tags I use and the fact that my eMail in on the page...marketing robots trawl the bloggosphear and catch my eMail with die-cast or poly-something or toy-something and I get junk.

My standard reply to the toy and plastics mails is "Send me some samples and I'll review them on the blog", after a week or so I mark the mail as spam and never hear from them again, but this time some samples were duly dispatched and an eMail conversation ensued in which I tried to get a competition organised as is my wont, to get some freebies for you dear readers!

However this was all over a year ago and the closer we got to a prize deal, the less keen they were to return my eMails. Also; what you see is pretty-much what they sent, very small samples of a few figures for across the range. Read-on this is going somewhere....

Above; 1:87th scale 'Seated' figures

Bottom right; 1:50th scale mix

Bottom left; comparison between 1:50th and 1:25th scale figures - in the same pose

So, while I am happy to show these figures, and do like them and will recommend them for what they are, well sculpted civilians in modern dress, painted to a fair standard for 'toy figures'; I must also warn you that if you purchase some, you are likely to generate spam and or become part of a marketing exercise.

During the email conversation with the chaps, I said "...they seem better-painted than those bulk lots on eBay", in point of fact: They are those bulk lots on eVilbay! Not only that, the website will only allow you to purchase them in frankly huge amounts, not much use for war-gaming or diorama building, but useful if you're equipping a large railway layout, trouble is only the very wealthiest train collectors are likely to be doing so to such a degree?

 

Clockwise from top left; five popular gauges equating to 10, 15, and 20mm/1:87, 25mm/1;72 and 28/30mm RPG gaming sizes.

Recent Hornby US/NATO troops challenge some unauthorised civilians in a goods-rail siding

Merten Arabs compared to the new figures

Comparison with old Hornby styrene and new Hornby Hobbies PVC figures

However - every cloud has its silver-lining, and these are they...modern Muslims in typical North African/Gulf-Arab dress. Easily converted and/or coloured for other Africans, Asians or Afghans to pose a few ideas. A further confusion lies in the fact that while I have labelled them in gauges and compared them to gaming sizes, they are actually sold in architects ratios, so the Arabs in the top left shot above are 1:200, 150, 100, 87, 75 and 50.

So - well worth a look if you need civilians, or Arabs...but; The company is difficult to deal with, you need to buy them in quantity and you may have to put up with junk-mail as a result. They are reasonably priced though. I'm not knocking them, I'm just saying a few alarm-bells have gone off since they came to my attention.

J is for Jobber

The American for importer or wholesaler (all will become clear when I add a few pages), anyway; this British 'Brand' was like Giant in the 'States, Woolbro or Success (WHC [-ornelius]) over here; an importer and wholesaler of toys mostly from the Far-east (but also from home manufacturers), but much older, being a trademark of Graham Brothers of London since the 1880's.

I will be looking at some later plastic by Fairylite soon, but I thought it would be nice to look at a but of the earlier tin-plate, particularly as it comes with figures...how I ended up with so many vehicles in a figure collection in the first place!

Various shots of the vehicle, almost certainly made in Japan, and probably a pre-war (1935) toy - going on the patent code. And notice how it states 'Brit.Patt.Pend' ie the actual patent is held elsewhere, but we're hoping you'll think it's a British toy.

Litho-printed sheets of quite high quality tin are pressed and folded into each-other and held with a tab and slot arrangement. Figures are about 35/40mm again (earlier post this evening), making the toy approximately 1:48th scale. Although the crew is missing 3 of 4 so won't be much help at a big 'shout'!

 Two quarter-views of the whole thing. It would have been a fantastic sight under the tree at Christmas time, but only for the wealthy one surmises...A 'penny toy' it 'aint!

C is for Crusadeing for Cherilea

I know I've said before I like the gangly 60mm Cherilea Swoppets, and thought I'd have a look at the whole lot, which taken from my collection is er...not a lot! However, if you like the look of these and don't yet subscribe to Plastic Warrior, you could cross the editor's palm with a small donation and start collecting the back-issues with Matt Thier's Cherilea swoppets articles.

So - my favourites; I have quite a few of these as I tend to keep buying them (in fact there's a whole bag of bits off-camera),  when I see them and Mike Melnyk is to be thanked for a few others. I love the colours, the toy-like quality, the wild thrusting poses, the big 'wooden' shields. the whole package.

We looked at a rather nice mounted figure Here a while ago.

Crusaders where also made in 60 and 54mm and I have a whole one...of each! I think the shield may be from a 60mm figure, but the only one I have won't take it as his hands are welded together above his head!

 

I can never remember if these are Essem or Ellem (or something else?), I'm pretty sure it's Ellem, so have tagged the photo 'Essem'! . They were made in Hong Kong for Cherilea toward the end, and can be differentiated from the more common copies of Timpo knights and crusaders by the larger oblong-bases and painted leg-mail. Also they have 'Cherilea' faces, while other HK piracies have the full-face helmets of the standard Timpo (mid-production years) knights/medievals, in various plug-on, primary colours.

B is for BTS Mouldings...I think!

In one or two of his books James Opie has posed the question "How many Toy Soldiers have been made". He doesn't go into paint variations, colour issues or piracies, and further supposed it may be over a million. I have tried to calculate but sort of give-up at around 'several' million, yet every time you go to a show or pop-round a mates to look at his latest stuff, more new figures pop-up and you realise that it's a bit like an iceberg, there's more hidden than showing. This is particularly true of both the European lead-flats and after-market or 'Garage' white-metal and resin;

"Rear of 19/21 Mount Road" sounds like a shed to me! I don't know if the card is typical of how these were sold, or a collectors addition to keep makers name and figures together, either way it's fortuitous as I'd never encountered this make or these figures before. Likewise; I don't know if they made many more, or other ranges, other scales, or even if they are still in production...does anyone out there?

35/40mm, and cast so fine they pass for European margarine premiums until you notice the impossible undercuts round the snake and one or two very faint mould-lines; no air bubbles, no blemishes...really nice little figures.

The other reason they instantly pass as premiums is because the clown with guitar is either a copy of a Café-de-Paris premium, or based on the Starlux clowns from the circus set.

The rest of the figures seem to be based on other existing figures, of which the balloon clown is the most obvious, being a straight lift of the clown show-announcer from Corgi as illustrated here. The mic ('mike' - I hate that word it doesn't even look right!) and cable being removed and the balloons added as a separate part.

The one on the centre is also a Corgi lift, from the panda bear in a suit that came with a stripy Mini, er...called Stripy The Mini! I think the panda was simply called Mr Panda too! He's just been given a human head.

The figure on the far left seems to be based on the asbestos-suited fireman from the old Airfix Emergency Set, but scaled up and given a  coat?

 

Which leaves the female snake-charmer...I suspect she is based on the Corgi water-skier (poor HK copy inset) I don't have, however she also has the stance/bust of the woman from the dolphinarium* truck also by Corgi and the head/hair has similarities with all three Corgi women.

So a right old mix, by someone I've never heard of (they/he (?) might be in Garrett's encyclopaedia but I don't have it to hand...anyone want to check?), can any reader / visitor help fill-in some blanks on this one?

*I think that's spelt right, spell checker is offering Delphinium...and I've taken an 'i' out?

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.