O is for Ougen (by Elastolin!)

'O' is another difficult one to come-up with! And I've already got this out on STS the Animal collecting forum, but it's an interesting shot I took two and a half years ago and which has been sat in Picasa like a proverbial turd ever since!

A quick Google reveals that what little there is about Ougen is all Elastolin related, so not premiums (as I had thought - getting mixed-up with Onken I think!), rather the French marketing arm of Elastolin (Germany - the old enemy!). I'm sure Plastic Warrior has told us all about them in the past, but mine are in storage and Garrett says nothing!

Really just a packaging comparison shot, for what will have been late-1970's-mid '80's? With an Elastolin original on the left (contents aren't original though! Or; very 'played with'!), the Ougen item in the middle and then an 'HEIA' header-carded bag to the right, not sure if it was a brand as in Heia, or just an abbreviation for the information in the yellow disc...Hausser Elastolin International...Animals?

N is for New (Production)

Who'd have thought 'N' would be as difficult as 'X' or 'Q' (Z's easy!), nothing in Picasa I could easily hang the N hook on, checked the dongle for archive stuff; nothing there...not many N's in the total master-list either! So, bit of a cop-out with 'New'! But they are new, new but not nice maybe...

I photographed these 65/70mm figures on the store's rack, as although I have a side collection of paratroopers, they had plenty, so I'll grab one next time I'm passing! they are what they are, multi-generation sub-piracies vis-a-vis poses, but 'new' sculpts, that is - a bit thin and lacking the detail of the parents, but 're-cut' if you know what I mean!

These two 'toobs' were among the last and with these discount stores there tends to be a 'when it's gone it's gone' system of stock control, so I thought I'd better get them before they disappeared altogether. Indeed the military one had been raided through the bottom of the tube and may well be incomplete?

Marked-up to 'Top Toys', as are the paratroops, one suspects this is the store's (99p Stores) own branding for a generic toy and the true maker will - like most Far Eastern production - remain unknown.

These poses are quite common, and can be found in various sizes and materials from soft PVC's through to this hard polymer, probably propylene, or a dense ethylene? Bachmann carried several of these poses in a set about 15 years ago in HO, and the figures have turned-up in Italy, unpainted 'on-the-sprue' (Majorette?), while these are about 50mm and I've seen them at 60mil. Note the release-pin holes which mar most figures in both sets.

My ruling with these modern equivalents of the old rack-card toys, is to keep one of each figure pose in each colour, marked up with all the brands or importer 'marques' they are found in, with the photographs of the packaging cross-referenced (in the case of more than one source) in the archives.

Thought for the day; Course (with an s) and Source (with a c)...what's that all about? Bloody English!

M is for Mounted Medievals

Halfway through the alphabet! I'll leave the rest for Wednesday or Thursday, but to finish for now, a rather nice set of mounted knights from Crescent. Crescent always did their mounted figures in threes and the trick for a collector is to get one of each of the three horse poses, in each of the three colours...

...I fail, with two dark brown and no white, but that'll be easier to correct in the future than the figures themselves so not too shabby! Note how the lance plugs-in to prevent loss, the pose though is a bit awkward for that figure.

L is for a Little Lone*Star

One of which may not be...a sort of bitty post, but like the rest of this weeks A-Z push, designed to empty the Laptop of all the stuff I've been squirreling away!

Starting with the probably-not-lone-star figure; This is a Lone*Star pose, from the 'Harvey Series', but is believed to be a Harvey original. Like Britains taking Herald in-house, so LS (a mazac die-caster) took Harvey in-house for the production of their plastics (although they got the Bakelite type wheels and nylon linkage for the Treble-O Trains made elsewhere), or - at least - that's how I understand it, this figure is therefore thought to be one of the very early Harvey originals.

Lone*Star also made a very small range of 'swoppet' farm animals, the trick being to collect them with the original tag intact, seen here on the rear left leg. Both the above were photographed in that show-and-tell a while ago, and don't belong to me!

We looked at these a few months ago, I shot them on Adrain's stall at the Plastic Warrior show in May (new PW to revue, will do soon!), but he had them out again the other day, and although some have since been snapped-up, I had more time to sort them out and take new images of the various colour variations. Both of paint and plastic - it seems each figure has a reverse-colour plastics version, while paint variations are confined to the evil elves or pixies...or whatever they were; see older post!

K is for Knights Knot Known

I think we may have had that heading before too! Also; I DO know something about these, I know they are Portuguese and I know they were premiums, but beyond that I don't know who made them, or what product they were presented with?

These are about 40mm, and go very well with the Starlux knights and medievals by Merten and Elastolin, in fact they look like they might have been sculpted by the same hand that produced the Starlux figures? Anybody know who made them or what they were issued with? Ajax washing powder?

Added 17-06-2015: More  on them in Portuguese here.

J is for 'Hexan'

In the UK 'Swoppets' tends to mean either the quality of Britains (who invented the term that - through generification - has become THE word for all multi-part figures) or the colours of Timpo for the cheaper, commoner figure we all had a few of. But - in fact - most companies had a go at swoppets, changables, plug-ins or whatever they chose to call them and these are a rather nice carded example from the Spanish company of Jecsan;

You get a cowboy and an Indian in the same blister, so a story can be acted-out as soon as you open it, but far nicer is that the smaller blister contains a whole bunch of accessories, far more than each figure needs at any one point; spear/lance, shield, knife, two revolvers, rifle/carbine, shield, bow, tomahawk and Stetson. so lots of play-value, even if up to the point of being given this, you'd had no figures at all.

The figures are also nicely animated...far better than most Timpo, that's for sure! But a bit bigger than the UK standard 54mm, at around 60mil.

I is for Imposters

I think these are Fontanini, or at least I think the pair on the left are Fontanini, the two on the right are the titular 'Imposters'! Fontanini are an Italian company aiming at the Tourist keepsake market with figures in various sizes, taken from various subjects.

What's unusual about these copies is that while the originals are solids (in polyethylene) with a separate base, the doppelgängers are blow-mouldings with an integral 'rock' for a base! These figures are between 5 and 6 inches in height, a bit academic when the bases are so different, the swordsman smaller and the copies are also pantographed a little smaller, but I'm calling them 5 inch!

I only think they're Fontanini as they are missing the 'Italy' mark and spider logo commonly seen on this makers figures/bases. They are also likely (the originals) to turn-up with more ornate 'rococo' bases and I've seen other Fontanini figures with chinoiserie bases, always in that plain-chocolate brown plastic.

H is for Heritage Toys and Games

Or; is it Russimco? Can't remember if this has appeared here or over on Moonbase, but it's stuck in Piacsa waiting to be processed, so process it I will! Heritage Shops were (or still are? The town centre units seem to have disappeared during the recession but the airport outlets may still be going?) a chain of very expensive shops selling touristy tat, sometimes of some quality, but always for ridiculous money, hung on various 'hooks' of historical period, art movement or famous events/places.

This being a case in point; an all paper/card version of Battleships, with artwork that can't decide if it's 'pulp' or Jules Verne in style and which cost around £15.99 or something - a fair few years ago. Just wait until it turns up in a charity shop for 99p, I did! To be fair, it's the artwork I bought it for, mixed or not, the ships are Pulp!

There is a similar chain of shops who's name escapes me, who where selling a remake/re-issue of the old Answer Robot game last Christmas, again it was £12.99 or nearabouts and for a single modern copy of the old Johillco plastic robot, it's not worth the investment when it'll turn-up at a car-boot sale soon...

G is for Golden - Stamp Books

Some shots from the archive. Who had one of these...who remembers these? We had a Wild West one I think, and possibly a dinosaur one? But as a Toy Soldier collector; this is the one to get! Of course; they're not stamps in any meaningful use of the word, having no monetary value, being only pre-glued, perforated labels on sheets you have to separate yourself.

These have been pasted-in with some care and lined-up nicely etc..some you see have been glued by an unsupervised 5-year old and can be in a right state, although the real trick is to find one with the [licky-sticky] sticker sheets still in the front of the book, undamaged.

F is for Fairylite

I picked this up at Sandown Park a few weeks ago, it's a lot bigger than the Bell/Merit jig-toys supplied to Kellogg's, and the seller stated it was Fairylite, but there's nothing to indicate whether it is or not actually, so the attribution is to be considered provisional until I see a boxed or carded one somewhere?

'Battle Damage' Battleship!

It also differs from the other British-made ones by being polystyrene, while the earlier ones started life in Cellulose acetate and then moved to a softer ethylene with US puzzles and HK copies of all in styrene.

Fairylite were importers from HK (and Japan) but also combined, sourced toys closer to home and seem to have made some themselves, so 'you pays your money' with them sometimes in trying to attribute origin!

The interesting thing about this is unlike the others mentioned, which usually have a guessable system of construction with a central 'key' that actually does all the work, this has a serious element of puzzle to it, which seems to be based on the common mechanism of the wooden cubes, balls, barrels and pyramids of my childhood. Indeed you can still get them and they make excellent presents for kids at that difficult age, where kid is not yet teenager!

E is for Elephants

Probably had that heading before? Never mind, that's another thing that'll start to be duplicated occasionally! Four completely different elephants, but all rather charming....

Top left is a two-halves, celluloid baby elephant made in Japan in the 1950's, from the lack of decoration and the two holes I suspect it's from one of those strung 'fascination' you get across a pram to keep an infant amused? Trumpeting to his right is a Starlux elephant in styrene, moving clockwise; below him is a blow-moulded ethylene elephant who may have been flocked once? Finally an olin-composition baby elephant from Hausser/Elastolin.

The upper two are 30mm'ish the bottom two 50 and 60mil, except that being elephants age-vs-size means they will fit with most scales at some point - if you know what I mean!

D is for Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future...Past

Shot this a few years ago now; no toy soldier or model figure connection whatsoever...but that hasn't stopped me posting other esoteric things in the past and who can resist Dan Dare?

Various shots of the box, which ends-up giving a better idea of the puzzle as well, due to the vendor covering the actual puzzle in...

...clingfilm! Which just will not be photographed from any angle with flash, but which - due to the light conditions in the hall couldn't be photographed without flash either!

Added; 26th October 2014

Andy B has come to our rescue with a superb scan of the box-top, which gives full credit to the artwork, first as he sent it, and then collaged to show each quarter the 'right way up'!

Thanks Andy, that's improved the post by about 100%!

C is for Cherilea

At the other end of the spectrum (from the proceeding two posts of modern shite) comes this rare and collectable shite!

I've literally just found these two images in the Cherilea file, where they shouldn't be...if they haven't yet been used on the blog..so they may both have so starred already...apologies if that's the case, but now we're over the 1k of posts this will happen occasionally!

These were photographed in a show-and-tell round a mates house a year or so ago, and I know the rest are still in Picasa on the laptop, so; ? Anyway, previously-shown or not...they're the first version [semi-]swoppet knights. Rare as rocking horse do-do and rather crudely executed, but oozing 'toy-charm'. Note - little dagger on the middle figure and what looks like Joan D'Arc's breast-plate (geddit!) on the left-hand figure.

These are always broken (I think I've written that before, so he probably IS on the blog somewhere?), 50mm and there's a similar Arab to make the pair, getting one complete is becoming harder and harder.

B is for Boley

Boley are (or were, I think they recently folded?) another Jobber, this time the right side of the pond to carry the moniker. Importing various China-sourced bits of plastic tat, these are at the bottom end, their HO railway related range of big-rigs and AFV's being quite good...for knock-offs!

Aaahh! The ubiquitous Airfix British Paratroops (with M1 helmets!) make another appearance...aided by the equally commonly pirated Matchbox bazooka-man, German MG-gunner and a couple of Tim-Mee/MPC types to give us a sniper and mortar! Freindlies in green, orange-force in grey...that's how it works in Toyland!

Airfix-wannabe Indians and a mix of Britains and Crescent + Cowboys...the Indians get some nice colours, while the cowboys are a very pallid snot-grey! I think I got these a couple of years ago, they're a bit small at 50mm and probably getting harder to find, but then,; if you weren't feeding a blog...would you want them! B for Boley!

A is for Ackerman

Already in the tag list so must have covered something else by them, Ackerman are a UK importer (what the Americans call a 'Jobber') who get the products (from the Far East) marked-up with their own logo or identity...although sometimes only as a sticker.

I picked these up in a local discount store the other day for one of your English pounds, so about 2 of anything else! I would imaging they are easy to find in party stores, either on the high street or on-line.

Despite being made in China and so cheap, they are well moulded, and while I initially thought they might be the old click-together moulds from 1970's Italy, they are in fact slightly simpler models, but I have a soft spot for motorcycles, so had to have a set!

Close-ups of the not-so-girly vehicles, the three cards the vendor had were all the same, although colours of parts varied, but the mix re. duplications remained the same, yet the blisters are designed to take any of the models, so there may be different combinations out there.

I'm going to try and do the alphabet in a month; that's A out of the way, I'm off to click Ackerman in the tag list and see what else I've covered, as I know the bulk of their stuff hasn't been blogged yet!