Well, as always it seems, I'm well behind with the PW review, and the next one is probably due! What's worse is I saw Paul about three weeks ago and mentioned that I meant to do it and would post something in a day or two!
Still, by doing it now it will raise brand-awareness as we race toward the next PW show!
For you delight and information this issue;
* Britains 'Eyes Right' sets - US Band, Marine Corps Band and Colour Party and the Bahamians by John Begg.
* A glance at Colin Penn's collection.
* Editorial interview with new manufacturer Austin Miniatures.
* Arthur Belshaw produces Zouaves at Converter's Corner.
* Alwyn Brice continues with the Elastolin he hoovered-up while interviewing people in their own homes for Collector's Whatzit
* A boxed set filled with VP Khaki Infantry is inspected.
* P L Cunha looks at various depictions of Napoleon in plastic.
* Book Review this issue looks at the work on Spot-On by a team of authors, critiqued by Colin Penn.
* What the !&*$? has question marks on Elephants, Cowboys, Circus and Civilians including skiers.
* Media Models looks at the work of artist Joe Black.
* Updates on...
- Publius and Engineer Bassevitch (Mathias Berthoux) and Own (Paul Stadinger, both; letters)
* In addition to the Russians and Chinese mentioned above - new products covered this month include figures from...
- A Call to Arms
- Armies in Plastic
- Pegasus
- Expeditionary Force
- and more on Publius
* Plus all the usual small-ads, news and views, including Vestry House Museum, Modelzone, British Model Soldier Society and the Pacific Northwest Toy Soldier Association.
* Readers letters this issue cover Johnnie Walker, Eyes Right standards, news on the Birmingham show (more to come on that!), Marx website, Bonux premiums and Horrible Histories.
* While cover images this quarter are a shot of the VP set on the front and a Timpo Zoo Animals tradesman's sample on the back.
All in glorious technicolourfulness!
Which leaves me to remind you the PW show will be on the 24th, three weeks from this Saturday!
About Me
- Hugh Walter
- No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
- I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
L is for 'Like Britains'
An interesting little thing this, Spear's Games take on the old BBC TV program; One Man and his Dog, imaginatively retitled One Shepherd and....!
The contents look - at first glance - to be Britains, but are in fact not, probably Hong Kong in origin, they are not marked as such, so there is the possibility that they were sourced from a UK maker with easy morals?
The fences are marked, J&L R, which is - of course - Merit...who were not above a bit of piracy! That's it, box ticked, pictures filed...
The fences are marked, J&L R, which is - of course - Merit...who were not above a bit of piracy! That's it, box ticked, pictures filed...
S is for Spidy, Spiderman, Super Heros and Slow-mo (Mr. Banner getting angry!)
A real box-ticking exercise this one (and an ongoing clear-out of Picasa!), contemporary (2011) chocolate-egg toys by someone who's not Ferrero/Kinder! Actually; 'Mon Desir'.
Made of polystyrene they are probably what are known as 'deforms' but not 'super-deforms'. Also; they appear to have been designed to hold things as 'ring-hands' but the swallow-ability factor seems to have prevented that idea being carried forward.
Probably a set of 12, I know there are at least two more to track-down still; The Thing and a lady spider-person! I think the most useful figure is the white one (ghost-man?) as he can be painted to any super-hero that takes you fancy!
Probably a set of 12, I know there are at least two more to track-down still; The Thing and a lady spider-person! I think the most useful figure is the white one (ghost-man?) as he can be painted to any super-hero that takes you fancy!
V is for Vitacup
Those animals I was asking for help with the other week...Vitacup! Someone else asked the same question on an animal forum the other day, and they already knew something about them and had a name for them, so after a quick Google enough of the bare-bones fell into place to stick them up here and drop them in a 'finished' file!
Vitacup was the second attempt by Rowntree's of York (later Rowntree-Macintosh to grab a slice of the fortified cocoa-drinks (beverage) market between the wars. The previous attempt - called Fortak - had failed against Bornville's Bornvita and Fry's Malted Milk around 1933 and was withdrawn. Rowntree came back with Vita-Cup (quickly losing the hyphen) to fight a new battle with Ovaltine and Horlicks in the mid-to-late 30's.
This must have had some success as it seems to have hung around until fairly recently as the Australian arm; Robinson's (of the Barley Water), applied for a new trademark in 1985 (application no. 423440 R & C Products - Ricket & Coleman?) although it was never taken-up and has now lapsed.
In the UK it was marketed under the Coleman's (mustard)/Wincarnis label as Rowntree were advised they should retain their affiliation to gums and jellies, and not hot beverages by their advertising/marketing advisor; J. Walter Thompson. There is one more name involved...Bryden & Evelyn were the agents, who organised the day to day adverts in newspapers and magazines and handled distribution.
Thomson are now JWT, one of the biggest branding firms in the business, Bryden & Evelyn have disappeared (along with the Wincarnis works) and Unilever seem to own everything else!
They seem to have been issued in two sets, woodland and domestic animals, in blue and white matchbox type boxes titled 'Vitacup Ivorene Animals' - presumably found in the jar or tin of Vitacup - of which the above are all samples.
They are not Ivorene, they are a polystyrene in an ivory shade of white which can look pink, cream or grey depending on the light as can be seen above. Ivorene was actually trademarked to someone else and was a thermo-set plastic along the lines of Bakelite, although like Hoover, it became a generic noun which is still in use by the costume jewellery trade to this day for various polymers.
A second series was issued; the new 'Wildlife' series, again examples are above, the pelican below was from this series as well as an Impala with vicious looking horns which I have yet to track down.
Several of these animals bear a striking resemblance to Siku animal premiums, but others are completely different, I used to think they were Siku supplied but know I'm wondering if they weren't a UK produced product?
The rest of my sample, there is a 3rd much larger horse still to find, a prone sheep and another lamb. Whether the dogs were part of a third series I don't know, and I think I've seen a hen/chicken type. And while I've photographed all the birds together the Pelican was from the Wildlife series and I suspect the stork is too.
Google also seemed to suggest that a second issue of both series came at some point with airbrushed brown as a sort of 'antiqued' effect/staining. The bulldog always seems to have a collar painted in that pale cream yellow, being the only one to get paint otherwise.
When you Google vitacup animals as an image search , something funny happens; as you scroll down the page you keep seeing...
...the three wise monkeys, now I couldn't find out any more than I've covered above, which was - admittedly - less than an hours work! But I wonder if the myriad algorithms of Google know something I don't. namely; that the monkeys were some sort of brand logo at some point, and maybe after these 'Ivorene' sets, they issued more 3-monkey items as premiums? The three moneys above were definitely part of the blue and white boxed series, yet don't really fir in with the domestic and woodland animals that made-up that series, so...? It may - of course - just be that Google's algorithms are confusing threewise for vitacup?
Finally a scaler, some of them must have rattled around in the box a bit! There are two distinct sculpting styles; a realistic look, which is most of them, and a stylised 'carved' effect, most noticeable on the two fawns/deer, the two elephants and the missing lamb, also - to a lesser extent - on the lioness, cat and rhino. It's also showing on the flanks of the bison which was described as a wisent or European bison.
Then there is the flat in legs as oposed to fully-round legs, it would seem that at least two or possibly three sculptors were employed on this small range (33 known items, one too big for the boxes; missing horse). Does anyone know who they were?
We also need to know when Vitacup was available, or at least when these promotions ran? What other animals were there in these series'? What other premiums were there? Were they available in Europe? Did they ever get to Australia? Are they Siku's? How have we lost so much in the 'information' age?!...Doh!
Vitacup was the second attempt by Rowntree's of York (later Rowntree-Macintosh to grab a slice of the fortified cocoa-drinks (beverage) market between the wars. The previous attempt - called Fortak - had failed against Bornville's Bornvita and Fry's Malted Milk around 1933 and was withdrawn. Rowntree came back with Vita-Cup (quickly losing the hyphen) to fight a new battle with Ovaltine and Horlicks in the mid-to-late 30's.
This must have had some success as it seems to have hung around until fairly recently as the Australian arm; Robinson's (of the Barley Water), applied for a new trademark in 1985 (application no. 423440 R & C Products - Ricket & Coleman?) although it was never taken-up and has now lapsed.
In the UK it was marketed under the Coleman's (mustard)/Wincarnis label as Rowntree were advised they should retain their affiliation to gums and jellies, and not hot beverages by their advertising/marketing advisor; J. Walter Thompson. There is one more name involved...Bryden & Evelyn were the agents, who organised the day to day adverts in newspapers and magazines and handled distribution.
Thomson are now JWT, one of the biggest branding firms in the business, Bryden & Evelyn have disappeared (along with the Wincarnis works) and Unilever seem to own everything else!
They are not Ivorene, they are a polystyrene in an ivory shade of white which can look pink, cream or grey depending on the light as can be seen above. Ivorene was actually trademarked to someone else and was a thermo-set plastic along the lines of Bakelite, although like Hoover, it became a generic noun which is still in use by the costume jewellery trade to this day for various polymers.
Several of these animals bear a striking resemblance to Siku animal premiums, but others are completely different, I used to think they were Siku supplied but know I'm wondering if they weren't a UK produced product?
Google also seemed to suggest that a second issue of both series came at some point with airbrushed brown as a sort of 'antiqued' effect/staining. The bulldog always seems to have a collar painted in that pale cream yellow, being the only one to get paint otherwise.
When you Google vitacup animals as an image search , something funny happens; as you scroll down the page you keep seeing...
Then there is the flat in legs as oposed to fully-round legs, it would seem that at least two or possibly three sculptors were employed on this small range (33 known items, one too big for the boxes; missing horse). Does anyone know who they were?
We also need to know when Vitacup was available, or at least when these promotions ran? What other animals were there in these series'? What other premiums were there? Were they available in Europe? Did they ever get to Australia? Are they Siku's? How have we lost so much in the 'information' age?!...Doh!
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
N is for No Mystery!
The Marx Mystery Space Ship was so well illustrated on the box it was no mystery at all really! But...best toy ever!
Now, this will be the third time I've announced 'Best Toy Ever' on this blog, but if one casts one's mind back to childhood; that's par for the course...the best toy was always the one you were playing with, and I had to play with this yesterday, to get the photo's of it in 'full flight'!
I am actually missing the curved cradle that should go on top of the pink shaft, but these ships are not rare, there are several on FeeBay at the moment, and there are most weeks, when a damaged or box-less one turns up for a reasonable amount I'll grab it, but it's not a priority. I would point out that some of the buy-it-now's on these are ridiculous.
However, missing piece aside, this is a fantastic toy, and once you get it fired-up you have a package of contained kinetic energy that - if you lose control of it - can do a lot of damage to furniture, china ornaments, gerbil cages and anything else of a frangible nature you might find in a 1950's/1960's living-room or bedroom, or anywhere else for that matter!
Along with the main ship you got two spring-loaded rockets and two strange semi-flats that seem to have been included just to 'square-off' the the mould-tool or 'fill the sprue'? The pilots had a plug in their bums and they need it, as once the thing's fired-up they would rattle-about without a decent anchorage!
There are three boxing, the early one with 'groovy' '50's graphics and US and UK versions of the illustrated and more common later type.
When you Google-search them you will read all sorts of nonsense about them (most of which could have been sorted with a quick 'Google'!), one of which is that the US ones where one colour set, the UK ones; another colour set - the inference being that never the twain would meet. In point of fact there are several colours of ship (yellow, primrose and 'aqua') and all the accessories come in three colours which can be interchangeable.
This is due to the fact that the ships came from a third party (Sperry Gyroscope Company of Brentford, Middlesex; the UK branch of, and probably supplied by; Sperry Rand, Great Neck, New York; a subsidiary of the Rand Corp. in the US) and weren't Marx products at all.
The figure and accessory 'sprues' were Marx, and again you see these being sold as "...'mint' with seven moon-men and two seated astronauts" or (as one 'definitive list' puts it) "9 unique aliens" and 9 astronauts. Other listings will try to fob you off with one colour only, others give one colour of aliens and the other colour of spacemen...
The fact is you get two un-seperated sprues (correctly; runners), one of each colour, they have 6 different aliens and 6 standing astronauts. There are also 2 seated astronauts in each colour, giving four all together, 6 'unique' aliens (12 in total) and 7 unique astronauts (16 in total).
The only rarity with this set is a small run of oxide-red figures which seem to have been sold usually partnered with the orange set.
The aliens are all different [species], with the last one apparently being related to Frankenstein! The figures are scaled down from other Marx figures from the various space-based play-sets and none of the astronauts are armed - only one alien has a hand-gun.
As to best toy ever...once you've got the hang of the winding, and can crank it up to full speed, you can with little practice or effort get the machine to carry-out all sorts of tricks, it will dance on a sixpence, defy gravity, whirl up and down a piece of string and can do "up to 50 tricks", and...despite the potential for damage, is so robust, there are lots of survivors, and you really should try to track one done, especially if you have young kids...they'll love it!
Now, this will be the third time I've announced 'Best Toy Ever' on this blog, but if one casts one's mind back to childhood; that's par for the course...the best toy was always the one you were playing with, and I had to play with this yesterday, to get the photo's of it in 'full flight'!
However, missing piece aside, this is a fantastic toy, and once you get it fired-up you have a package of contained kinetic energy that - if you lose control of it - can do a lot of damage to furniture, china ornaments, gerbil cages and anything else of a frangible nature you might find in a 1950's/1960's living-room or bedroom, or anywhere else for that matter!
There are three boxing, the early one with 'groovy' '50's graphics and US and UK versions of the illustrated and more common later type.
When you Google-search them you will read all sorts of nonsense about them (most of which could have been sorted with a quick 'Google'!), one of which is that the US ones where one colour set, the UK ones; another colour set - the inference being that never the twain would meet. In point of fact there are several colours of ship (yellow, primrose and 'aqua') and all the accessories come in three colours which can be interchangeable.
This is due to the fact that the ships came from a third party (Sperry Gyroscope Company of Brentford, Middlesex; the UK branch of, and probably supplied by; Sperry Rand, Great Neck, New York; a subsidiary of the Rand Corp. in the US) and weren't Marx products at all.
The figure and accessory 'sprues' were Marx, and again you see these being sold as "...'mint' with seven moon-men and two seated astronauts" or (as one 'definitive list' puts it) "9 unique aliens" and 9 astronauts. Other listings will try to fob you off with one colour only, others give one colour of aliens and the other colour of spacemen...
The fact is you get two un-seperated sprues (correctly; runners), one of each colour, they have 6 different aliens and 6 standing astronauts. There are also 2 seated astronauts in each colour, giving four all together, 6 'unique' aliens (12 in total) and 7 unique astronauts (16 in total).
The only rarity with this set is a small run of oxide-red figures which seem to have been sold usually partnered with the orange set.
The aliens are all different [species], with the last one apparently being related to Frankenstein! The figures are scaled down from other Marx figures from the various space-based play-sets and none of the astronauts are armed - only one alien has a hand-gun.
As to best toy ever...once you've got the hang of the winding, and can crank it up to full speed, you can with little practice or effort get the machine to carry-out all sorts of tricks, it will dance on a sixpence, defy gravity, whirl up and down a piece of string and can do "up to 50 tricks", and...despite the potential for damage, is so robust, there are lots of survivors, and you really should try to track one done, especially if you have young kids...they'll love it!
Monday, April 28, 2014
G is for Great Helms
Sounds like something out of Spaceballs! "Bow-down before the Great Helms or they will pulverise your planet into little-bits, littler little-bits than last time, too!"
These are heavily rated among collectors, but I don't think they are that rare, just desirable and sought-after, so there is a demand for them...but they are always on evilBay. Although I guess it's easier to say that once you've got them!
Also they do tend toward damage, the crests and plumes that make them 'Great Helms' in the first place can be broken-off relatively easily, and the visors can get lost after they crack at the back of the little spigot-hole.
I got these almost by accident, in that they were in with some other stuff I bought in a big lot a few years ago which was mostly early British combat although, with Wild West and European mixed-in, so were one of the nice surprises when they turned-up in the sort-out.
I can't think of anything else to say about them so that's it really; a bit of a box-ticking exercise and some Timpo eye-candy!
These are heavily rated among collectors, but I don't think they are that rare, just desirable and sought-after, so there is a demand for them...but they are always on evilBay. Although I guess it's easier to say that once you've got them!
I got these almost by accident, in that they were in with some other stuff I bought in a big lot a few years ago which was mostly early British combat although, with Wild West and European mixed-in, so were one of the nice surprises when they turned-up in the sort-out.
M is for Memories
Sorting-out in the loft and I found a box of old childhood Meccano under the eves, in among which were a few things I recognised as being both non-Meccano and from a long time ago!
A little clockwork robot I well remember getting in a Christmas stocking back around 1975, his mechanism has ceased to work, not because the springs broken but because someone (?) forced the winder until it broke its seal to the housing and now just spins uselessly! However he can still help carry a phial of Airfix paint to the recycling!
Tyrannosaurus Rex from Addar, his head needs re-glueing, I made him up and painted him (bloodied him up a bit!) during a wet holiday in Alderney many moons ago, his Raptor mate is actually in the collection somewhere and I wondered where Rex had slopped-off to!
The Morse-code signal kit from Palitoy; Action Man would settle under the Rhus tree by the extension and fire-off missives about the Cherilea-Sharna Afrika Korps half-track bivouacked by the cherry tree!
Taken downstairs and duly washed, they make an intriguing pile I think?
King Kong from Hong Kong, I'm not telling him he's got a sharpie up his arse!
The Morse-code signal kit from Palitoy; Action Man would settle under the Rhus tree by the extension and fire-off missives about the Cherilea-Sharna Afrika Korps half-track bivouacked by the cherry tree!
News, Views...etc...Space Candles
Tom Clague has sent me this picture, which he took in a store 'down-under' somewhere...
As Tom pointed out they are Matchbox sculpts...as candles! I did Google Noup Design and couldn't find them but I did find ten-stud Lego bars as candles and cartoon bombs with fuses!
Tom makes music of a trancy ethereal nature, and gives it away! Details of the new album - which features Airfix astronauts on the cover and mentions Gerry Anderson - are here;
Mood Processor
and the free download is here;
Dropbox
In other news, I updated the Foreign Terms and Figures pages yesterday and should add some more to the Khaki Infantry page today.
Tom makes music of a trancy ethereal nature, and gives it away! Details of the new album - which features Airfix astronauts on the cover and mentions Gerry Anderson - are here;
Mood Processor
and the free download is here;
Dropbox
In other news, I updated the Foreign Terms and Figures pages yesterday and should add some more to the Khaki Infantry page today.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
D is for Ducks! Flying Ducks
There was a funny little facsista from the North of Italy (where else!) who used to knock-about on the small scale forums, who once - while losing yet another point/argument with the more sensible members of the forum - suggested I was A) less than heterosexual and B) blogged toy ducks for a hobby! Well at the time he was wrong on both counts, and while I do re-post the odd bit of pro-gay stuff on 'the' Facebook (tolerance - it's just common sense isn't it?) he is still wrong about the first point.
On the second point however he's been right for a while, I seem to remember a duck sneaking in to a post some time ago...well, you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb...
Three of 'em! These are painted metal 'Flying Ducks' from Barratt and Sons (or; the Barretts of Sonderburg Road N7, to be accurate), designed for dolls houses in about 1:12 scale, or the 6-inch figure size, that's it really ducks, flying...or 'Ducks in Flight' to be accurate!
But to people from a certain age (or area?) they will always be Flying Ducks, my grandparents up on the North Notts/Yorks boarder had a set scooting across the living-room wall, along with the matching marshland wallpaper (with mallards) in the bathroom and a clothes brush disguised as an Indian Runner. Note the similarity to the Britains 'B'.
They've gone; the ducks and the grandparents, but this little set reminded me of them, unfortunately it also reminded me of 'folgor', but that's life...sweet and sour!
On the second point however he's been right for a while, I seem to remember a duck sneaking in to a post some time ago...well, you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb...
They've gone; the ducks and the grandparents, but this little set reminded me of them, unfortunately it also reminded me of 'folgor', but that's life...sweet and sour!
Saturday, April 26, 2014
News, Views etc...Update to Khaki Infantry page
Added the Hilco section and edited the Cherilea section to conform. Also added a picture to the Timpo section which was contributed by Dave Scrivener and is most interesting, not least to a Zang enthusiast like me!
I'm sure you're getting annoyed with these 'update' updates on the homepage so I'll find something nice to put up here in a day or two.
UK Khaki Infantry
I'm sure you're getting annoyed with these 'update' updates on the homepage so I'll find something nice to put up here in a day or two.
UK Khaki Infantry
Saturday, April 12, 2014
News, Views, etc...Khaki Infantry Page - Charbens, Cherilea and FG Taylor
I've now added Charbens, Cherilea and FG Taylor entries to the new page; UK Khaki Infantry
The Charbens section is no more than a bookmark at the moment and the Taylor entry is a bit frugal, but it's a work in progress and we already have some contributions to come for Reisler and Zang's entries when I get to them.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
News, Views, etc...Khaki Infantry Page - Britains
I've now added Britains to the new page; UK Khaki Infantry
News, Views, etc...Khaki Infantry Page, Benbros and Britains
I've added Benbros to the new page; UK Khaki Infantry, Britains will be next. Eventually it will have entries for Charbens, Cherilea, FG Taylor, Hilco, Kentoy, Reisler, Speedwell, Trojan, VP, various 'unknowns' and piracies from Brazil, Hong Kong and Poland.
While the Britains Swoppets have gone in on the homepage, below this entry.
While the Britains Swoppets have gone in on the homepage, below this entry.
S is for Swoppet
So the other main range of 'Khaki Infantry' not deserving of a place on the page I'm publishing the rest on is the Britains 'Swoppet' British Infantry. They did lead to piracies and derivatives, but they too are, or tent to be, stand alone, rather than mixed-up with all the derivations of the Herald and Timpo GI ranges.
There are basically four body types in this range, and while some arms are plug-in, others are fixed and the plug-in ones don't have much room for variations, so although there are technically six poses, this was quite a limited set.
The play value really came from the constructional aspect and all the little bits and pieces. Packs in PVC that could be removed from the belt, picks and shovels, separate SLR semi-automatic rifles, pop-on helmets and swivel-heads and waists. The medical sets and the mortar were also stunning with the 'extra mile' that other makers never attempted.
The Swoppets posed with their nearest rival in the Herald range. The similarity is another failing of this set, why didn't they (Britains) give them new poses? Though the fact that they all had SLR's rather than the experimental EM2 was a bonus!
Back in the summer I bought a Junk lot off a chap who collects Swoppet Knights and always contacts me with the pictures of what's left.The pictures included the one top-left here, a nice shovel and the standing stretcher with storage box were the high-points of a typical car-boot lot.
However, once the deal had been done and the stuff had arrived there were some bits not shown in the photographs, namely the plasma-bottle and another shovel. This 'missing' bottle allowed me to add the whole vignette to the collection, although the blanket is brittle and on the shopping list!
Another shot of the kneeling firers and a close-up of the exquisite mortar tube round-off the collage.
Typically - Hong Kong couldn't leave this set alone though, so there are various versions of both the 'swoppets' in the lower shot and the solids above them to be sought-out by the completist collector. The solids are also given an additional pistol, while the mortar bomb seems to have become a walkie-talkie!
The 'Regiment' by S (Star?), the upper torsos are soft synthetic vinyl rubber as are the packs (by both S and Britains), and there is a hint of Herald Khaki Infantry in the pointing officer and one of the poses is struggling to hide a Timpo bugler's heritage!
Ethylene piracies of the swoppets done as single-mould solids as seen in the upper-shot three pictures above.
The play value really came from the constructional aspect and all the little bits and pieces. Packs in PVC that could be removed from the belt, picks and shovels, separate SLR semi-automatic rifles, pop-on helmets and swivel-heads and waists. The medical sets and the mortar were also stunning with the 'extra mile' that other makers never attempted.
However, once the deal had been done and the stuff had arrived there were some bits not shown in the photographs, namely the plasma-bottle and another shovel. This 'missing' bottle allowed me to add the whole vignette to the collection, although the blanket is brittle and on the shopping list!
Another shot of the kneeling firers and a close-up of the exquisite mortar tube round-off the collage.
Monday, April 7, 2014
F is for; From Hollow-cast Mouldings
Further to the new page on UK produced plastic 'Khaki Infantry' I've started (see UK Khaki Infantry at top of the blog-page), some sets were stand-alone. We looked at some of the modern troops a few years ago, and Trojan's Germans and small scale have been covered, along with some of the 'swoppits'. Another set that suffered little plagiarism or derivative production, but was itself derivative of it's own hollow-cast forbears was the WWII British Infantry from Timpo.
Nine poses in plastic, from ten in metal, I don't know what the tenth one was, I suspect a motor-cycle dispatch rider, a casualty of some kind or a sentry/ceremonial marcher? These were all themes in the US set of the same era. Prone firing - see comments, thanks Dave.
There are two generations with the British in plastic, the first taken from the hollow-casts with little change, although the bases where beefed-up and given the same marks as the early plastic Wild West from hollow-cast range; 'TIMPO ENGLAND' or 'TIMPO MADE IN ENGLAND' in the recess under the base of most - but not all - the figures. They also had a gloss finish. The later versions have a matt finish and the mark is now on the upper surface of the base (like the later 'solids' from Timpo), reading; 'MADE IN ENGLAND' only.
The above shots show older bases/figures top left, and - from the top; left, right and centre of the right-hand pictures, with bottom left being the newer version, along with right, left, right of the smaller images. The left-hand figure in the bottom-right image is the hollow-cast original with the drain-hole showing in the helmet.
A couple of line-ups; Above being the earlier set in a glossy plastic with gloss paint and the deeper bases. it can be seen that a couple of the figures don't have the deeper bases, but rather have the original 'puddle' of their hollow-cast brethren. The kneeling shooter has no base, as per the original and in contrast to the US GI's, where all the kneeling figures taken into the plastic range were given an additional base.
The lower group are the second versions, they are matt-finished, and the plastic has added chalk to help the paint adhere, as a result these suffer far more from brittleness than the earlier set. They've now all got the larger base with the upper-surface marking, even the chap steadying himself on a substantial rock...a really nice pose as well, by the way! I haven't tracked-down a kneeling firer from this second batch, so don't know if he got a base, he may not have been kept, I believe some sources think the second set only went to 8 poses (?), although I would drop the crawling guy if I had to drop one...
From left to right on both images; lead hollow-cast original, intermediate glossy plastic and final incarnation in the matt scheme. Note how time also lowers the quality of the painting from 7-colours, to 5, to only 3, with the gaiters, bayonet frog, chin-strap and eventually waist-belt & yolk falling by the wayside.
It goes some way to explaining why the old hollow-cast collectors always viewed plastics people with a little pity, the figure on the right is but a shadow of the figure on the left. A mass-produced plastic 'scrap' with a stab-and-hope paint job in three colours, as opposed to a figure hand-cast from a scoop of molten-lead - a carefully measured scoop by an experienced eye, hand-finished (fettled) and hand-painted to a high degree!
The above shots show older bases/figures top left, and - from the top; left, right and centre of the right-hand pictures, with bottom left being the newer version, along with right, left, right of the smaller images. The left-hand figure in the bottom-right image is the hollow-cast original with the drain-hole showing in the helmet.
The lower group are the second versions, they are matt-finished, and the plastic has added chalk to help the paint adhere, as a result these suffer far more from brittleness than the earlier set. They've now all got the larger base with the upper-surface marking, even the chap steadying himself on a substantial rock...a really nice pose as well, by the way! I haven't tracked-down a kneeling firer from this second batch, so don't know if he got a base, he may not have been kept, I believe some sources think the second set only went to 8 poses (?), although I would drop the crawling guy if I had to drop one...
It goes some way to explaining why the old hollow-cast collectors always viewed plastics people with a little pity, the figure on the right is but a shadow of the figure on the left. A mass-produced plastic 'scrap' with a stab-and-hope paint job in three colours, as opposed to a figure hand-cast from a scoop of molten-lead - a carefully measured scoop by an experienced eye, hand-finished (fettled) and hand-painted to a high degree!
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