G is for Guards - Unknown; Food Premium?

The title sums this one up...

I suspect he might be by Texas (we looked at them briefly Here) and they do a gold, plug-foot so he could well be by them, otherwise I have no idea. At Ease, standing a bit easy actually!

He came painted which I was pretty sure was 'home' paint but in case it wasn't I photographed him before the oven-cleaner came out!

M is for Matchbox Farm and Other Animals

Animals, another element to play to be included in an otherwise boring road vehicle, another small piece of plastic to burn-out the motor on you granny's old goblin horizontal vacuum!

Cattle trucks and horse-boxes (livestock transporters) were/are a constant source of horses and cows for the 'unknown' box.

Matchbox went with white for many years (top row) and we see all variations, the larger horses being from the Super King set, the smaller ones from the 1-75 Series.

The cow/bull ran for years with horns in white, then black ones appeared in the late 1970's-early 1980's, by the mid-1980's the 'health and safety' people had frowned at them and their horns disappeared, finally - toward the end; other colours started to appear.

The next row are a bit of a mystery, the three brown ones seem to be the M'Box mouldings, but they are marbled white/chocolate and the quality is poor, they could be copies, they could be pre-production test-shots, they could be a sub-contract for someone else? The black one seems to  be a straight 'lift' with reversed leg positions and a different tail.

The last row are late colour variations of  the smaller 'pony'.

The dogs. I love the dogs, better than the 'HO' dogs of either Preiser or the - much rarer - Marx set, they are well detailed, itsy-bitsy little beauties. The pointer appeared first with the Hunter and a station wagon, I've seen it stated as fact that he came with two dogs, but I've several of these sprues and there's only the one dog.

The gun-dog sculpt was reused for the Kennel Truck, with a new base and three pals; a Boxer, a Collie and a Beagle.

Farm play-sets and larger Super King models came with these - the smaller being around 50mm, the white 54mm figure having another dog sculpt, a Setter, which can often be found loose. The tractor-drawn tools are from a play-set or two.

The Jurassic Park franchise threw-up the die-cast figures and dinosaurs top right, while lions have been a feature from the 1970's.

G is for Guards - Officers

Officers, mounted and on foot - both at attention and marching...

At Attention;
Unknown (Charbens?), Hong Kong, early Timpo, late Timpo with black collar.

Walking;
Hilco and a damaged Lone*Star (who may be a 'standing at ease soldier - not an officer at all!).

Marching;
Crescent 60mm, Crescent 54mm, early Timpo, Late Timpo with gold collar and Herald...

...Lone*Star with 2 Hong Kong copies, a hollow-cast 'ghost' (Britains!), 2 Charbens with different bases and another Herald

Mounted here are Britains Herald (we had the saddle errors once before - I know!) and Timpo. The Timpo one come son a brown horse and two mouldings of white horse, one with the drooping reins and one without (is there is a difference in the number of plugs on the feet as well, or was that the Apache/7th Cav. one?), I can never remember which of the three is the rare one!

Likewise I don't know if there is any significance to the black/gold collar question? There are mounted guards by Charbens and others but they are somewhere else - so not photographed.

M is for Matchbox Emergency Personnel

All the main die-cast toy vehicle manufacturers have emergency vehicles in their ranges, as kids like uncommon things, or noisy things or things their parent make a babyish-fuss about when they drive past...Military vehicles and construction vehicles being the other obvious candidates for this vicarious transfer of enthusiasm.

The beauty of Emergency vehicles is that play-value can be added by the expedient of a few cheap bits of plastic added to the boxed ensemble...

This is actually one of the last mouldings Matchbox gave us, being from their Super King range and around the 54mm size. He appears as both a stretcher-bearer and a construction worker. Starting life with painted hair, hands and face, after a while only the fizzog got a touch of brush, in the end even that proved a cost too far for the failing company.

As a construction worker he was allowed a wheel-barrow, a wheeled stilage (stillage?) or tipping-barrow and a rather odd-looking sack-barrow. The black and green one is a soft rubberised material, more likely to be silicon than PVC and might be an HK piracy, or late Universal or Mattel stock?

A similar pose here, early ones were white, later ones in the goldie-yellow. The clip-on blanket is innovative (although Britains had done it decades earlier!) and even on the older issue paint was minimal.

Other stretcher cases from various ambulances, one; 1-75 Series (top left, around 25mm), the rest; Super Kings, (around 40mm) note how the strapped-patient design is copied on two different issues.

The Fire Brigade were also well represented in Matchbox's ranges and here are a few variations on the firemen poses. Paint again starts with hands and faces in flesh and white helmets, with first hands then helmets being dropped as the mouldings lasted through the years.

I'm not happy that the sitting black plastic one is M'Box, he seems to be by a different sculptor, I've never found the other poses in black and so he may be a late addition to the range, or from another makers model, or a HK cheapo?

Colours for all these vary but tend toward the navy-blue section of the spectrum.

The police, mechanics and someone who looks like a logger, but as he also comes in 'Bundesgrenzschutz' green he may be a policeman as well? Finding the kneeling mechanic with both spanners intact is a bit of a trial, and with the US 'Cops', there is the pale azure-blue variant.

Most of the above a polypropylene, the small stretcher and the clip-blanket stretcher are however a styrene polymer.

G is for Guards - Royal Salute, Present Arms

Continuing with a theme....Royal Salute, right-heel in the arch of the left foot and at approximately 45-degrees to it...

Left to Right;

Unknown (Charbens?) Timpo early, Timpo late, Charbens, Lone*Star furry headdress, Lone*Star smooth headdress, Herald, Herald Hong Kong late...

...HK copies of Lone*Star x2, Herald Hong Kong x2 intermediate, one with separate base, one with moulded base.

M is for Matchbox - Miscellaneous

Following on from the previous posts; tying up a few lose ends from Matchbox ancient and modern.

The road signs follow the old pattern pre-the 1960's reforms. There are two issues of these the first lot were die-cast alloy (front row in larger image and smaller image) the re-issues were polyethylene (7 in rear row) and there is a close up of them both metal to the front (top left).

The early cast petrol-pumps and attendant, replace with a totally new design in the 1970's, I can only hint at it as mine is in storage, but I do have the broken legs! The legs were attached to the pump-stand in white-finished die-cast, the upper body came on a separate sprue with two lamp-stands. The supported brand changing from Esso to Shell.

Various boats, mostly from the 1-75 series of 'matchboxes', I think the Gemini-craft might be from a Super King? the earliest is all die-cast (cream deck - top right), then we get a nice die-cast engine on a polystyrene plastic body, then plastic boats without engines and finally the polypropylene of late production.

Top left - two early die-cast horses from the milk float with a 1980/90's reissue of the whole assembly.

Top right - one of several 'Pub-signs', I have a few (again in storage) but happened upon this one a while ago. Others are Rose & Crown, Volunteer (a kneeling Highlander), George & Dragon, City of London (arms), Mermaid, Pig & Whistle etc..I don't know how many there were in total, but it was eight or more, ten maybe (anyone know?)

The rest are just bits and bobs, a pair of dogs cut-off the parcel-shelf of a Morris-1000 (I think!), a 'Kaiser Wilhelm' caricature, various drivers (one of which may be Lledo?) a window cleaner from a cherry-picker, a fireman in 40mm from the airport fire-tender a statue from the 1:32 scale military play-set and both the Matchbox river-police and a HK copy (darker blue pair), and a small fireman in his cherry-picker.

Mega-Rig figures from about ten years ago, not really my thing, but I pick them up when they turn-up - if you know what I mean? Space, construction and military sets clearly existed and there may have been a tie-in with GI Joe or Action Man at some point?

The row top and bottom are a marketing tie-in with (I think?) TSR around 1980, who were at the time the holders of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise. Again I think there were only about 10 in the range and they are in that odd 45/50mm bracket.

The Toy Story figures are actually Mattel's Hot Wheels, but from the period when both brands are under one roof. And are also in that mid-size range.

F is for Full-set Formed-up

Just a quick one tonight, a complete set of Tiny Trojan Brits of the BEF or Dad's Army type, I know I've looked at these before but I bought these at the Plastic Warrior show in May and I've just found the photo's while sorting out all the other stuff coming your way at long last, and it's a decent bit of early small scale, which hasn't had featured here for a while so...

...here they are. All the same batch - same paint, same paint scheme, same coloured plastic, no brittleness (which is rare'ish for these (Trojan) in any scale, especially-so in the smaller size.

We looked at them in greater depth Here when I didn't have a good set of all 8 the same, the majority of one set being the brown-weapon/black-helmeted versions.

New Product Review - History...still Horrible, but for How Long?

These were supposed to have been published in time for the August launch of the 2nd tranche of sets and figures for this promising series. Sadly, although I got some photographs done as soon as I got them, they had missed the deadline and real life then took me away from Blogger as some of you may have noticed!

Also they didn't send me all of the new sets, did send me some of the old sets and the 2nd series blind bags weren't ready...although they had been announced as prizes in the HH magazine, so I don't know what happened there? They still don't seem to be out now, and with the magazine not sending out the 'free' gold-finished Blackbeard prize either, I feel that although 'promising' the range is already running out of steam? eMails from the fan-site have also dried-up and the last 'newflash' is dated March.

The two new 'battle pack' sets are Mummy for the Egyptians and Gladiator for the Romans. The Horus illustrated above is from the first tranche 'special pack', still missing from these posts is a decent shot of the Centurion, Anubis and Legate. Both of the new figures are also available (in pairs) as painted figures in the Battle Arena - the biggest set so far. In the battle packs the Gladiator is silver and the Mummy glows in the dark.

Some scale comparisons, with top; Crescent and Cherilea Roman soldiers, middle; a Thomas 'Trojan' and an unknown (by me) European (?) figure and bottom; various other sizes of figure.

When you open the large Arena set, you are met by some of the larger pieces and the main figures mounted on a blue box...there are also two card play-mats and a sheet of stickers, but the blue box reveals...

A bag stuffed with other loot, collapsing Romanesque and Egyptian lotus-columns, more pigs to throw about, a market stall, exploding fronts to the two national stands...

The play value here is great for kids, but I know you want the figures and sadly they are well overdue, have slowed to a trickle and there is no news on the websites, there is a carry-case which might be of use when the youngsters have army-built to the n'th degree, but like 'extra-troop' top-ups and 'other stuff' announced; it has yet to materialise.

The Entertainer in Newbury had two sets (one Battle, one Special) a single Arena and the dregs of a blind-bag box last time I was there, and I had the following conversation with a lady in Fleet Toys the other day...

Do you have the Horrible Histories sets?

Err...no

Will you be getting them?

Unlikely

Well, thanks

I never got fully through the door!

I know I could (in a perfect world) have done a little more to promote this range, but I fear the promoters haven't done enough, given it had a New Toy award at Excel last January. My advise is get then if you see them, they may not be around as long as I thought they would?

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?