M is for Magnificent Men in Their Micro Machines!

So, to other teeny tiny 'planes in the same vague size range as the above MPC (previous) post. A lot of them tend to be one-off's or small ranges of - often - MPC derivatives, used for lucky bags/sobres, Christmas cracker toys, cake decorations and such like, but others are from similar 'sets' to the MPC ones...

The first - definitely pre-dating MPC - seem to have been from the States; Irwin making a set in a phenolic resin or plastic sometime around the 1930/40's or very early 1950's, shown to the top-left in a dark salmon red.

Another set which I'm identifying as Airfix (subject to change!) may have only included four aircraft types (Lancaster, Mosquito, Spitfire, and US Lightning), but they turn-up quite often, so seem to have been numerous at some point, possibly included with a larger toy (as load or cargo), perhaps as a beach-toy?

As early as the Irwin 'planes, but of much higher quality is the blue Beeju 'EVB' Mosquito (top right) we've already looked at here, I don't know how many were in this set/range.

While a small set from China is currently doing the rounds as cake decorations. The DC-3 in blue (bottom-left) is smaller than the MPC version, but of high production values and may be one of a larger set, possibly an American maker, any ideas? [17-11-2014 - It's from the 1957 Air Fleet set from Nabisco's Shredded Wheat Cubs, smaller ranges with 5 or 6 of the same model aircraft were also issued by Empire/Caldwell in the States/Canada in hard styrene and Lido in both styrene and softer ethylene, so possibly supplied to Nabisco by Thomas Toys]

The Irwin types so far encountered by this author, marked 'IRWIN' on one wing and 'MADE IN U.S.A.' on the other, the push-prop (top-left) is an interesting addition (possibly meant to be a Bell YFM-1 Airacuda?) helping to date the set?

Bottom-left is the current cake decoration group, also used for Christmas crackers of the budget variety, there are three aircraft types so far found, in three colours, with the - provisional - Airfix group to the right, these can be seen in full over on the Airfix Blog.

Other examples in the 'Mini Aircraft - Odds and Sods' box! The entire top row are MPC derivatives with the red (and damaged blue) polypropylene and silver polystyrene ones all marked made in Hong Kong (MPC+6), the white and yellow delta-wings having different marks (+7 and +8!).

The large green one to the right is a Hong Kong ancestor of the China cake decorations, The yellow Concord may go with the DC-3 above, same level of detail/production values. The two little yellow ones (top centre-right) are from a Kinder toy.

The red one bottom-left; may be a rocket/missile from a Manzinger type robot or Transformer type toy? The four silver ones along the bottom are Blue Box and others. The dung-yellow one is a Montaplex - I think - and the red and yellow pair bottom right are phenolic and probably quite early, one being a simplified twin-engined fighter/bomber type, the other - possibly a helicopter's body?

The hard plastic gold and orange rocket-planes are similar but not the same as the yellow one to their left, also hard-plastic. The white jet-fighter is a plug-in probably from an aircraft-carrier toy, while the Spitfire in green seems to be a scaled-down copy of the one included in an Airfix board-game and in the same (ABS) material and colour, but with a mounting-hole in it.

The rest are unknown mongrels from Christmas crackers, sobres, lucky-bags or premiums, can anyone give us details on any of them? [17-11-2014 - except the large blue Navion  bottom-left; It's from the 1957 Air Fleet set from Nabisco's Shredded Wheat Cubs, smaller ranges with the same 'plane were also issued by Empire/Caldwell in the States/Canada in hard styrene and Lido in both styrene and softer ethylene, both can be found on Toy Soldier HQ, the unmarked blue MIG/Lightning next to it (far lower-left) is a copy from the Nabisco set]

S is for Supreme / SP Toys...and Titan...Ackerman et al.

We looked at the vehicles for these sets (or at least the military sets, some of which had militarised versions of the civilian or police vehicles) a while ago Here [I've linked the 'Supreme' tag, so this post will be at the top of the page after you click it], so it's about time we looked at the figures!

As this is a Toy soldier blog, we'll start with the military figures;

The very large '800' series sets that contained all the really quite nice vehicles found in the above link came with a number of figures, the contents of three of which are illustrated above, with a shot showing some of the colour variations. Camouflage blobs were a dark olive or dark chocolate brown going onto a yellow or tan field, weapons were black and flesh varies from a pale tone to a bright candy-pink.

There were only four poses though! And the figures are not award-winning sculpts, being generic 1970's infantrymen, who can presumably be marketed anywhere, including at home in China! As can be seen there was some variety between contents, but with each figure in a shaped coffin-section of the larger tray, the contents of each numbered set was always the same.

These sets were all either green vehicles or 50/50 green and 'desert'. As I stated in the original posts, I have seen desert versions of some of the vehicles I only have in green hinting at what the contents of some of the missing numbered sets were, the rest may have been civil versions - in the large size - of the smaller sets...

...which can be broken down into Police, Fire, Trucking ('Road') and Mechanics 'Speedway' as well as the military themed sets. All the above being '900' series; there are medical/ambulance sets as well, while the '600' series included space sets - in storage!

The truck set and the garage are both over-stuck with an Ackerman sticker, they are Still Going and are an import agent for cheap toys, household and other 'bargain' goods. As I recall the three large sets were all 'Ackerman' despite being bought in Wilkinson's two years running, where they were only made available at Christmas (mid/late-2000's), these smaller sets can still be found on the odd 'dollar tree' rack about the place - and not just under the Ackerman, Titan (see below) or standard Supreme labels.

Note the close-up, about 25% of the figures carry numbers; the numbered/not-numbered figures sharing space in the same sets.

On the left are the numbered figures, all poses can be either A or B, and each pose is then numbered 1-4, so the guy with binoculars is either un-numbered, or he has A1 or B1 on his base. All the civilians I have found so far are smooth-based, but numbered ones may be out there?

The smaller accessories from the larger sets are real gap-fillers in the insert tray (compare with the other vehicles we looked at way back when), but I guess the top three have some use, the semi-flat, detail-on-one-side-only motorcycle is however a complete disappointment!

So - the above were all 30mm, but there are also given 'HO'  (23mm) and '1:72' (25mm) figures from the same source (Supreme / SP Toys), while Titan also carried unpainted 35mm figures in other sets (yellow figures above). As can be seen in the top left image, Titan were/are another importer, but they prefer to have their sets printed-up as Titan, rather than accepting generic Supreme sets. Although, as we can see bottom left, so did/do Ackerman - sometimes!

Titan Toys International (one of at least four Titan's in toys!) seem to have ceased trading, while FunFings has been usurped by a craft jeweller's on Etsy!

Some of the small figures have a similarity with other Chinese makes like New Ray or Soma, but there are differences and in the larger scales Supreme have issued some interesting 'toobs' we can look at another day!

The various scales, with the exception of the yellow figures - probably not sourced from Supreme - and the numbered soldiers, all figures have smooth bases, no more than four colours and usually a glossy appearance, and there are a few more civilian poses in the 30mm range, and probably many more in the 23/25mm ranges.

The figures in the Cargo Express set from Titan have squared-off bases more in line with the 23 and 25mm ranges, not the ovoid ones of the other 30mm civilians illustrated loose above with the soldiers. Note how the 'Germanic' fireman, is a copy of the better detail - also Chinese production - figures with flesh-coloured bases issued in various sizes, in imported play-sets sold by Tesco's and others from the late 1990's through to today (Carama? Yat Ming?).

C is for Carabinieri

Or...how all good things come to an end!

I first became aware of Micro Machines in 1993, when I found them in Betties in New Oxford Street, I thought they were silly, however the Star Wars figure sets caught my eye and I started collecting them. But the 'normal' sets left me cold, little squashed out-of-scale-with-each-other cars and trucks and stuff, just silly! And a half-mile long Star Destroyer having less mass than a twin-pod Bespin taxi? Silly.

Clearly though; the guy who came up with the idea understood the 90's kid, as they took off and became very popular and not just the Star Wars and military sets, the really silly stuff did as well! Poor old Galoob can't have had the funds to keep up with demand, so deals were done with the sharks, Kenner started to muscle-in and eventually the little guy got eaten by his partner, who then got swallowed by Hasbro.

Hasbro didn't seem to understand the concept or the customer base (or maybe the customers had changed?), and some pretty risible tie-ins resulted with Action Man being a notably forgettable one. Increasingly desperate to make the line work again led Hasbro to produce these...

Exclusive to Italy (well, who else would buy them?) where Hasbro was also getting into chocolate premiums by putting figures from their UK Subbuteo purchase into Kinder-style eggs. They must have made vast quantities of them though, as a warehouse full was issued in the UK last year as clearance through independent discount stores.

The bulk of the range were simply repaints of old/existing moulds - I bet half these vehicles have never been seen in Carabinieri livery, nor indeed been seen in Europe in any guise...not-yellow school-bus anyone?!! However, someone obviously realised something would have to make Italian kids want to buy them, so a few motorcycles were painted-up (always a good seller) and at least one new casting was knocked-up.

A mounted Carabinieri with cloak. The two officers on foot are also old sculpts, but again figures definitely add to the play value of a set like these. there were in fact about 7 sets, but I've already opened the ones with figures in!

A perfect size for HO railways as seen by the comparison with a Preiser ACW Union officer, it's a pity they didn't make the vehicles to match?

I have lots of the motorcycles from the 'silly' range, and we looked at the military one way back at the start of the range, we will look at them all one day (they're currently in storage) but my collection tells me these are also re-paints. And would the Carabinieri use a Harley-D Elecra-Glide in the country that makes Ducati? I don't think so!

That was pretty much it for the Micro Machines, there was - at about the same time - a re-issue of some Action Fleet Star Wars stuff - the AT-AT in a stupid snow-splashed paint job was one - but somehow Hasbro had killed a golden goose!

News, Views etc...Museums...

Two in a row? Well, there's a certain symmetry to these...

In less than a week, the ACW Soldiers National Museum in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania will close its doors for good, due to falling interest, a victim of both tighter belts and more museums...

...while a Mr. Phil Collins, a crooner with a beat combo of some repute - I believe, has given a boost to another; The Alamo, which should secure its future for another generation. See...symmetry!

News, Views etc...Around the Web

Lots of stuff coming into the Op's Room recently, so a dissemination post is well over-due!

Starting with a brilliant Blog which has escaped my radar for it's first 100-odd posts, a fantastic resource for that intermediate period between the vintage and the modern (although he does cover the modern), and a subject that doesn't get the coverage it aught to. I'm definitely going to be identifying a lot of my unknown fantasy and sci-fi figures over there, and can't believe he's only got two followers, so buckle-up people and support...

Fantasy Toy Soldiers by Shaun Christensen

Sticking with Blogs for a second; I loved this Battle Report, it's very old school! While for the politically-minded, there's a quite cerebral, yet very funny Blog at Scarfolk Council



 Meanwhile; back in the real world you can't make it up....Council Meeting or Ork hoards?

I mentioned these the other day, I'd bookmarked them some time ago, and then a couple of weeks ago they pop-up on Facebook! They've since gone viral, more than doubled the sought funding and will go into production;

Yoga Joes!



Exhibitions

An alternative look at Toy Soldiers and the world they represent over The Pond here; Bay Area, last day today for the exhibition (sorry!), if you're in the neighbourhood over there, you've got a few hours to drop-in, but some nice images with the article...it's a slow-loading jerky page due to to much advertising shite!

And missed This One by half a year...doh!



Consumables

Wall Stickers - we may have looked at these before, but this is a UK outlet, I think it was dollars last time?
Swarovski Crystal Ear-Rings - Lovely, they couldn't be anything else despite being a stack of 'random' beads!
Mugs - Every war-games club should have a couple of sets of these!
Cards for every occasion.



That'll do for now!

M is for Minotaur

This has been in the not finished zone for so long, I can barely remember when I started it! I wanted (want!) to do a little vignette of the mythical creature belonging to King Minos of Crete, being despatched by Theseus.

The base is a Hong Kong copy of a Gulliver 40mm piracy of an Atlantic American Indian, to which I have added a real Stag Beetle's head...no I didn't, it had been hit by a car! The head is a loose fit, but a bit of filler will help get it looking right and blend it into the body.

Placed next to a 1:72 scale figure (Zvezda?) for scale, he is intended to be Theseus goading the beast. For accuracy I suppose I should be looking at a bulls head, but I like the slight fantasy element of using something else, which still has 'horns'!

D...eluxe is for Reading...

Continuing to box-tick all this American made American GI stuff, we come to a 'minor make'; Deluxe Reading. The vehicles are in a bit of a state; the main gun is missing, the rocket-launcher is in bits and its half-track is missing etc...but all the figures are on show, or at least they are now the kneeling firer has turned up!

I say 'turned-up' - we saw his base here a couple of years ago and he's the only one I've got, the rest were photographed at a mate's place back in 2007 and are from the 'archive'. That's it really - similar sculpting to the Marx 54mm late production, maybe the same sculptor? Four foot poses and the driver, 54mm 'ish soft polyethylene...1970's...set was called 'Armoured Battalion'...that's it.

News, Views Etc...Dan Dare Puzzle Post

Visitor Andy B has sent a lovely scan of the box-top for the puzzle I blogged at the start of the month, the vastly improved post can be re-seen here;

D is for Dan Dare - Pilot of the Futurepast

H is for MPC!

Harbert...a really Italian sounding word isn't it! These were going to be part of a larger post on the various copies of MPC mini aeroplanes, but closer investigation (to see which of the Hong Kong piracies they were, revealed they were in fact MPC originals, repacked for the Italian market, so; as I haven't done the photographs for the other article, and still need to clear tons of stuff from Picasa, they can sit here under their own name!

There are a number of aircraft types named at the bottom of the card, but A) the blister doesn't contain all the listed 'planes, B) the list isn't a complete list of the MPC range and C) there are other types not printed on the card contained within, so I guess the list is just to attract attention, and that they were random-packed, a few purchases or some playground 'swapsies' being the best way to get a full set. Can any Italian visitors add anything?

P is for Plastic'o is for Osul

I bought this about ten years ago now, maybe longer? I have this thing about not buying everything I see or not being 'greedy', which is a bit bollocks really, as I do have piles of duplicates of things and often will buy stuff I've already got, yet I often leave things on the dealers table, thinking to myself "Leave it for the next chap - you only need a sample!"...well this was on a table with another cow card and a card of kneeling shooters in helmets, and I bought this; not the shooters!

I don't regret not getting the shooters, but do wonder sometimes why I didn't get both and leave the other cow card, I know why I didn't just get the shooters, my reasoning was that the shooters were probably more popular and would 'turn-up again'...they haven't!

Portuguese 20mm plastic flats.

T is for Tobler (or SR?)

This was being sold by the dealer as an SR item, but I suspect it's Tobler, only because it matches the illustrations in the Tobler catalogue doing the rounds a while back - I'll leave you to decide! Is it a Renault?

As with a lot of early metal makers, Tobler's range was given as being 55mm, but the vehicles were sub-scale, presumably to keep them within a price bracket? As a result this is perfect for small-scale/25mm WWI and inter-war stuff, as shown by the Blue Box German officer flagging it down!

Right...and err...wrong! See comments, it is SR and it might be Tobler...wondered what all the points were for! Got Tobler in the Tag-list though...

L is for Lido

Mentioning Lido the other day and not having the Wild West figures to hand, we'll have a quick look at the GI's. As I was late to large scale collecting (figures not info) I only have three originals, but because I'm known for the collecting of small scale Hong Kong stuff, good chaps like Trevor Rudkin, Gareth Morgan and Peter Evans who previously saved the small ones for me have now developed a tendency to pass-on HK tat (thankfully) in the 45/50mm range as well, along with bigger ones in the odd mixed lot, this has led to a shot with most of the poses, just not all Lido originals...

 ...or at least; nine out of ten of the commoner ones - according to Kent Sprecher's experience! I'm missing the crouching ex-Marx officer and if you follow the link you'll find the other five poses - one or two of which I may have in the mixed, base-less, Marx or 'might be Marx' box!

The originals are tagged '1' in the three corners, 2 are the nearest copies, being slightly smaller pantographs, 3 have lost detail and been given new helmet nets, 4 is a crappy thing that won't even stand-up and 5...well he's the business!

He's the only one I've got, so I'm guessing/supposing either Christmas crackers or gum-balls, usually if they came as rack toys they turn up in larger numbers or more frequently, One found in fifty-years suggests they (he? It may have been the only pose so pirated) were thin on the ground from the get-go. We will be looking at the commoner Marx HK small scale shortly.

A bag of type 2's which Gareth sent my way the other day to share with you, there's an opaque sticker over the old price (on both sides of the card), which I think is in cents, so imports of imports, and late 1960's?

A right old mix branded to Petrel here, mid '70's I'd say; I think - from the belt/water bottle detailing - that these are the ones I've tagged type 3, and come with two out-of-scale vehicles and a piracy of the Action Man/GI Joe binoculars!

Does anyone know if the other two poses are 'from' anyone or just cut-and-shuts of the one on the left? I think the card-art will reappear on the blog as I'm pretty sure it was used on more consistently 'small scale' set contents.

M is for Might be Märklin

And they might be even more 'Märklin' than these which we looked at the other day. Not least because they all came together with the metal ones.

Like the funny Welsh lady we looked at a while ago, they look to have been styled for composition, particularly the rail staff in the middle shot. There are no similar figures in composition in the Schiffmann guide, so I guess either further afield than Germany, or new sculpts in the old style, but for the new material?

18-20mm each, they are 7/10 black and pink plastic, so possibly from two batches, the black ones getting the pale flesh paint, the pink ones having the bases painted black.

I know Märklin are supposed to have produced a set of plastics, briefly, after their metal flats and I've never seen them, only an unillustrated listing in - I think - a US market MAERKLIN catalogue from the late 1960's? Does anybody recognise them?

 

Dec. 2023 - I now believe these are early Reisler, but they are not listed on the Tohan site as one of the recognised 'Sortiment's, so Lego could be in the frame, but their Police quartet (the closest Lego figures to these), were different from the four above, who are station-staff anyway?

News, Views Etc...

The P is for Premiums faff-up is now back up with 3 new pictures and 7 collages, all K's changed to Q's and the text revised!

Here

Or about 11 posts down the page!

Z is for err.... ZZ!

An unknown maker, or at least; we know it because it marked all its stuff with a very distinctive logo, but it's unidentified, in that we don't know the whole name of the company, or whether or not it's extant like Blue Box, or gone for good like Lucky Toys?

A year ago I still thought they might be an East German outfit, as they were always turning-up in Germany, and seemed to have a Soviet-bloc 'quality' to them - i.e. better than Hong Kong, but not up to the mark of West European toy finishing.

The distinctive logo being two letter 'Z's superimposed on each other, which I put up here a while ago, the serif is a bit lumpier than I CAD'ed, but the basic idea is there. Sadly there was no feedback that time, maybe these will trip a memory or two...

These are some semi-swopett Indians I photographed on Adrian's stall a while ago, they are around 70mm, and I say 'semi-swopett' as they only have a swivel waist and plug-in bases, or the foot figures do, the mounted figure doesn't even get a base. The figures are copies of the Elastolin swopetts, which were more articulated, with separate weapons etc...

They also copied the cowboys (see the Figuren Magazine link at end), and I suspect knights? I've also read/heard somewhere that VEB Plaho might have been similarly plagiarised by ZZ, but have seen no evidence?

Some close-ups of markings and some more shots of the figures, you wouldn't know the mounted figure was a ZZ if it wasn't found in situ with the foot figures. Equally; if you find foot figures without a mounted figure, there's nothing to indicate that they are from Hong Kong!

In addition they made farm and zoo animals taken from Britains' 1:32 scale range and Elastolin's 1:25 scale range, along with some unique designs (see also the STS link at end). I suspect from the logo's on the cards that they were premiums for the chocolate brand; Riesen [Giant, Colossal], but due to the size of each carded bag, possibly a mail-away, or token-save exercise to be exchanged at the retail outlets counter? If not; they were definitely trying to link themselves to the - rather lovely - chocolate-coated toffees. However, they were also distributed in the USA by R. Dakin and Co., San Francisco...claiming to be a product of West Germany? And Skyline of Milwaukee "Made and hand-painted in W. Germany"

I also have two (or three?) small tin-plate toys with the mark on, basically either copies or modern designs of old penny-toys, one is an airship, the other a WWI type 'plane and there may have been a third, but I might have let it go as being well outside the collections range (interactive toy? clicking frog? something like that), but they are in storage so we'll have to look at them another time, the thing about them though, is that they seemed brand-new about 6 years ago, and it's very hard to fake newness with tin-plate, you can fake age, but that shiny, mint paint is err...shiny and 'mint'! So they may well still be manufacturing, now 'Chinese' not Hong Kong per se, but Google's no help.

Couple of Links

German language Figures Journal page - the 54mm mounted Indian with base and bag of Cowboys near the bottom of the page are probably not ZZ originals, they're more common Hong Kong 'generic' figures.

Riesen Zoo and Riesen Farm on STS Forum

Can anybody add anything to what's been found on the two links? It may well be that they ARE a German company, copying animals from closer at home, while buying-in the Cowboys & Indians, and sourcing the tin-plate from a third company? But then why the ZZ logo on the HK bases? I think they've got to be HK and the Dakin packs were (deliberately?) misleading...help!