T is for Tiger

Another character, but this time from commerce, the Esso tiger 'in your tank', was almost indistinguishable from the Kellogg's 'Tony' of the same era (early-1960's to the late-1970's) and with both having various toys/premiums issued and then pirated by HK for gum-ball machines, it's fortunate this one is carrying an Esso board so we know who he is!

Key-chain, hand-painted, hard-plastic, probably Hong Kong, given away with petrol; that's it!

W is for Wimbledon Waste Operatives

Bit of a box-ticker, but also a personal favourite, for reasons of pure nostalgia...my brother and I had these in a Christmas stocking the best part of a lifetime ago!

Sort of Pencil-tops -which is how they are sold on EvilBay - but too heavy, and sort of Cake decorations, but a bit big, they were on our 'ornament' shelf in the bedroom for what seemed like years, but was only that short period between infant-hood and late childhood! I think (although clearly marked Hong Kong) these may have been another Combex item in counter-display boxes? But I'm not sure enough to put that in the tag list!

I've picked up two lots of these in the last few years, and these are the better quality five. There are seven characters in a 'complete' set and I'm hoping that with the ones in storage I may have them all now...but they do turn-up regularly! They suffer from paint loss through handling/rubbing, particularly on the end of the nose, and occasionaly missing nose-tips..ouch!

I actually met Liza Beresford (The Wombles author) a few times, we used to rent a field off her, which we filled with chickens (maybe onions the first year?), and she would occasionally chat over the wall and take the proffered eggs!

Ear-worm..."Underground, overground, wombleing freeeee...The Wombles of...Wimbledon...Common are we!..."

G is for Great Patriotic Wartoys!

Really just the dregs of some recent purchases, with scan of an old photograph I took back in the 1990's to illustrate a couple more poses. Like the Chapayevtsi cavalry we looked at back in October last year, these could be from the same Russian factory or several different manufacturer's across the Soviet bloc?

On the left is a group of artillery, all from one source, with a field gun/howitzer at the bottom, an anti-tank gun in the middle and a large (regimental level?) mortar at the top, various crew are busy helping 1 Gloster's keep their heads down, with - the inset (lower right) scan from years ago - showing the flag that the waving guy is supposed to have, but which is so often missing.

The scan also shows some more infantry-looking types and a mounted officer/recce-type with binoculars, above them is an armed cavalryman in two colours, and two slightly different sizes, which might be due to different batches, different factories or different cavities in the same mould.

Similar to the above (and usually coming with them) are the T34's and Katyusha's. These are very different if you study them with the darker Stalin's organ being a much cruder version with a smaller gap between cab and firing platform and a simpler front-bumper (fender).

Likewise all three tanks are slightly different with the nearest having a straight-backed turret which is more KV-looking, the middle one having a sloped-rear but the same barrel, and the far one having a steeper slope and new mantlet with less elevation. As with the cavalry, bases vary with all three, although it's not so obvious

This chap is definitely from another set/source, he's smaller (25mm to the others 35/40mil) and more infantile, he's also less common than the above set/s which is/are quite easy to find, his base is also very different with it's flat-sided oblong and sharp corners! Look's like someone gave an PPSh to that execrable robot from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century...Weeble? Wikitunt? Dweedle? You know! I could Google it - but then I'd have to kill myself!

These naval guys seem to accompany the army troops above (perhaps in bigger sets?) and come in various fetching shades of turquoise (or 'aqua' as bathroom salesmen would put it!) against the jade-greens of the others.

D is for Deetail Details!

Sorting stuf out in Picasa and din't know which of the previous posts to add this image to, so though it might as well go here!

Just a comparison between the earlier silver and later Black Storm mounted Deetail Knights from Britains. The later one having the marginally more realistic appearance...apart from the chrome shield!

Also found this unused graphic I CAD'ed-up during the original series of articles, on the Britains dongle when putting the images away...just for fun...or something!

F is for Follow-up - Novelties and Christmas Cracker Contents

Hummmm....should have made that 'C is for...'! Just a quick follow-up before too much more of the year has gone by, with this published: there will be 71 articles left in 'Draft', most loaded in the last three weeks, but a couple going back years...they should start getting published from next Wednesday!

Also three pages are nearing finishing; the Galoob one I've posted, but the text is still to come, the Composition one is being edited again, still depresses me though, and I'll have to find all the missing links, and a third is nearly finished. I have also made some progres with the HK Cowboys, Indians and horses page, but it's still ages away at the moment.

Also I notice - while using the library computers - that some of the Blog's features are a bit kak, there's not a lot I can do about that, it's down to limitations and settings of individual machines, but the new blue of the hyperlinks is showing too-dark on some machines...

This just-past Christmas' crop of tat. Nail-clippers are not - of cource - tat, but very useful and 'posher' cracker always seem to have a set! More skittles, more spinning tops! The metal puzzle proves my previous comment about mechanisms totally wrong, having a very clever solution involving negative space (and the bending of dark matter I susspect)...just when you think it's never going to go, it undoes itself!

And...am I the only one who used to play 'Thunderbird Two' with the tag at the top of the penut-net way-back-when?

I thought this empty After-eight box looked a bit like the Pyro car ferry, and though you should see it too!

News, Views Etc...Metro the other week

Just a quick re-post from one of the free-sheets for those in other parts of the world where trains aren't necessarily drowning in dead newspaper by the time they reach their terminals in the morning!

H is for High Flying Catapult!

I received a very interesting set of photographs as a submission from someone who wants to remain anonymous! He further posed the question as to who might have copied who? Or: whether Trojan might have bought-in their 'Red Devil' paratrooper from Hong Kong, given that this looks to be the same beast, but it is clearly 'Empire Made' that old euphemism for Hong Kong.

Pretty standard box with end-flaps, but a bit upmarket for HK, compared to the normal bagged or carded stuff, and with people (like the importer's WH Cornelius or Cecil Coleman) re-packing loose product after importation in the mid-late 1950's or early 1960's; it's likely this box will have been made in Britain, a theory to which weight is added by the clear instructions…not that the citizens of HK couldn't turn their hand to decent English with a little more efficiency than most Japanese model-kit producers of the time!

A stick of 6 or 7 have jumped out of that engineless 'plane!

The person who sent these can't remember what the back looked like, but from the front photographs it's clear that this is the Trojan pose…but better. It is a heavier but neater sculpt, the webbing straps for instance are squared-off and the three waist-belts are closer together. The obvious differences are a quick-release button on the chest 'box' - missing on Trojan's - and the winding mechanism. So…first answer to the contributor; Trojan were pirates!

We know that - of course - because their khaki infantry and Wild West range were all knock-offs, it makes you all the more grateful for the Japanese and Australians/14th Army! But the Trojan Red Devil could have been an HK copy, imported, from another company; by 1960 there were more than 500 registered toy factories (and many un-registered!) in the colony, so there was plenty of scope for piracy between pirates…although this appears to be a better quality 'original' design.

I'd like to think the Trojan one was UK-manufactured though, if only because the company (as the Shipton group) was also dabbling in polyethylene solids, cards, metal components for their 'planes &etc… and one feels that in those pioneering times, purchasing a little one or two-ounce blow-moulding machine alongside their similar injection caster, and playing with them both is the sort of thing a small but diverse company like Shipton might have done?

The instructions; there would appear to be a button or bracket or split-stud 'finger-pinch' of some kind down on err…'the small of the back'…or a bit lower.. his bum! Alright…it's on his arse! This is then used to attach the elastic band, rather than on the winding arm as in the photographs of the figure. The instructions also explain the strange elf's hat copied to the Trojan version, on this one it's a mechanism for holding the elastic while you fire the figure from the rod included.

When I first saw the photographs I thought the winding arm was removable (from holes in a polyethylene blow mold - increasing the parallels with the Trojan version) and it may be, but as it's for 'soaking-up' the shroud lines, one might assume some form of retaining lips or rings hidden in what would need to be a more substantial piece and is therefore a two-part polystyrene model, glued together (carefully - to leave the mechanism free) after the strings have been attached to the winding arm and the whole revolving-assembly set in place?

The drawings would also suggest that there is a large disc-like area on the back giving him his distinctive shape and shoulders, the Trojan version copies the body-shape but gives him a back-pack. While it looks nice and shiny and polyethylene-like, the paint has not flaked, another pointer to styrene? Has anyone else seen one of these, or handled one?

While studying the photographs, writing this up and pondering the thoughts of the person who sent it in, it also struck me that if Trojan had produced a copy of this toy as their Red Devil, they probably produced a similar figure for the 'Air Commando Tommy Gunner' seen in the same catalogue/list in Plastic Warrior's Trojan 'Special' publication?

And it further struck me that the [missing] figure may be one of the bigger blow-molds holding a rifle across his chest we looked at here?  But - perhaps enhanced with a bit of that Victorian drawing-room wall, pea-green paint Trojan used on many of their figures?

News, Views etc...Local Toy Exhibition

Currently on display in the Public Library (there are benefits to having no Internet!) in Fleet, Hampshire, a small display of toys, put on by the Local Historical Society...enjoy...

News, views etc...update

Very swift visit to the blog, couple of comments, an additional image of the Merit ray-gun Jig-Toy on that page, and some images to the HK Romans page, text to follow. Also up-loaded some more article images 40-odd waiting now! And there's much being added to the Airfix blog, but no text! Too many irons! Still no spell-check...

F is for Follow-up - Charms

So....I'm opperating out of the libray for a week or two, so no spellchecker (or caps checker!), and while I'm loading lots of articles I'm waiting until I can edit them properly befor I publish, so 30-odd to come, but likely to be the second half of February!

When I popped-in to see Paul (of Plastic Warrior) before Christmas he thrust a bag of bits at me, and a few of them came just a day or two late for the charms post i did in the fluffy, plastic, tat run-up th Christmas! So here is an up-date/addtion to that post.

From the same source as each other but different subjects/scales, these figures seem to be based quite recent and turn-up on evilBay quite a bit, there were some yellow dancers on these last week!. The bandsmen seem to be based on old composition figures?

Added 21-08-2016 Cake Decoration versions now here

The same sculpts as last time but different colours, it would seem they were issued probably as a set of six, with six unrelated items in a set of 12 crackers?



 

I'm building quite a fleet of these now! A couple of them were in Pauls bag, and I dug mine out for the mass 'Dunkirque' effect! And to make myself realise that the one with a blue clothes-tag looking thing has - in fact - got a clothes-tag looking thing, not some weird simplified boatman!

 

Cheers Paul!



News, Views etc...Plastic Warrior 161

So, a week later than I intended...getting better!

Plastic Warrior's last issue is a bit of a Christmas cracker! Issue 161;

Covers are Cherilea front and Replicants back, with help from Ruth Martin, Dan Morgan and Eric Keggans

* The issue kicks-off with a fascinating article from Peter Evans on wannabe sets which definitely aren't Timpo, Britains or Charbens.
* Andreas Dittmann and Paul Stadinger examine a figure which turns out to be a Tiawanese plastic version of a metal figure based on a US composition figure of....subscribe!
* Expeditionary Force's Greeks come under the skilled knife of Tom Stark.
* Igor explains the history behind (his) Engineer Basevich, giving a potted history of Russian 'boys toys' in the Soviet era at the same time.
* What the !&*$? is choc-full of stuff in this issue, one quickly ID'ed by the Ed; Giampiero Larizza's Dulcop GI, Barney Brown has an interesting variant of...subscribe! Joe Bellis gets me jealous with some lovely 54mm 'khaki infantry' grenade-thrower variations, a Bren-gunner from Hilco and a Highlander.
* 'From the Archives' brings us up to speed on the sub-scale mounted figures of Lone Star.
* Alwyn Brice's back to Elastolin in 40mm.
* 'Monty' gets restored by Eric Keggans who then paints-up the rest of the set - Cherilea 8th Army.
* While Les White converts Star Wars Command figures.
* And 'Herald Notes and Queries' reaches the end of its run (?) with a round up of various items of interest/late entries, as Daniel Morgan shows us some treasures in part 9...Odds and Ends and eBay Finds.

* 'What's New' inspects recent product releases from:

• - Armies in Plastic (AIP) - Camel Corps
• - Publius (who've now adopted the 'u's I've used all along, oh come-on; it was hideously pretentious! "Puvooblivoos") - Crusaders and Saracens
• - Engineer Basevich - Yogolavian Partisans of WWII
• - Paragon Scenics - Charging ACW with bayonets (available in Union blue and Confederate grey)
• - LOD Enterprises - Trojans and Greeks

*  Readers letters this month include

• - James Opie's news of a move to C&T Auctions
• - Memories of carded versions of what sound like Kellogg's divers from Richard Blezard
• - eBay's Confederate-flag idiocy from Peter Rushton (the idiocy being eBay's not Peter's I hasten to add!)
  
• - James Peter Young poses a bit of a What the !&*$? re. some ACW figures spotted in a movie
• - Peter Evans muses some points on Hilco-Starlux figures/poses
• - and there's room for a mini-article from Dan Morgan on Britains conversions

* Plus all the usual small-ads.
* 'News and Views and other stuff' asks about some Ukrainian/Russian looking new production in the issues third What the !&*$? (actually 'first' but you know what I mean), the Obabma portrait by Joe Black 'painted' in toy soldiers we looked at here a few years ago sells for...Subscribe! Eurofigurines latest issue gets a hat tipped, and the news from James Opie is fleshed-out.

It's been out for five weeks now, which means a new one (162) in about seven weeks time!

Plastic warrior is now on-line here;
Website
Facebook
Blogger
eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com

And they are on Paypal.

Spellcheck didn't like Bren-gunner but is happy to accept any of the above!

M is for Margarine Menagerie

As the common cream coloured 'ivorene' margarine premiums these have been identified as being issued by Cleverstolz, Lowenbrink, Markt-Apotheque, Raulino, Sanella and Voss (among others), but the four sets represented by the small sample below remain more mysterious...to me!

The smaller ones are just the original premiums in new colours, with a second variant being in soft ethylene palstic (the right-hand column of blue ones in the main image), while larger versions exist in both hard polystyrene (lighter grey rhino) and soft polyethylene (dark grey horse), in which guise they have been linked with Jean and Manurba in the past, neither seem the right answer to me.

Thanks to Paul Morehead and Brian Carrick for most of these, I have the cream ones and a better sample of the larger ones in storage (with whites and browns), so hopefully we will return to them, by which time I may have a better idea on these - probably later - issues.

I is for It had to Happen!

3D-printed Action-figure and Mini's heads...your heads...

and, PR here...

My Modern Met (careful, I got pop-ups from the Etsy link!)

News View Etc..Stuff!

I've been a bit lazy for the last few days, I've got a bunch of stuff ready to go, but I know my Internet credit is running low, and I can't sort it out 'till next week so I'm rather husbanding it!

I did add a couple of images and text to the Mountain Troops post on the Airfix blog earlier tonight and will try to get some more texted-up over the next few days...it's a bit poor really, I think I've got more without text that with at the moment! I haven't done the links on that entry either but may return to it later tonight.

This is what's come in over the holiday period, arguably the three quietest weeks of the year for this sort of stuff! It's just never-ending...some of it from Paul, some from Mariya, some bought new, some from charity shops, some blogged already, some to be blogged soon, some to disappear for years before it gets its five minutes of fame here...and some bits have already been put away; the Funtastic Romans and some more capsule stuff!

It's a month today since the paratrooper post and you will see - front centre - a Tobar parachuting Penguin! 1-pound-somthing in Hawkins Bazaar, not worth a follow-up post yet, he'll go in the box until I get the others out of storage. The half-size Britains tiger copy will probably end-up on the STS Animal Forum where tigers have just been voted show-and-tell of the month, while the two additional Deadstone Valley figures are waiting for the possibility of more additions next week.

So...more serious posting in a week or so, in the meantime I'll try and get the PW 161 review up in a day or two and I have a single collage 'flats' article ready which I will risk on Friday if I'm still on-line!

L is for Lederfett

Which Bablefish assures me is leather-grease...I'm guessing some kind of neutral feed/water-proofer for leather like dubbin? Found (re-found!) whilst preparing an article on the cereal premium kits...

...this red four-engined 'plane - a windowed airliner -  probably dates from the 1950's and was given away as a premium with Solitär lederfett. The company is still going, but the name has been Anglicised to Solitaire (for a wider market?). The white wheels point to early Manurba, but it could just as easily be a Siku moulding or any one of a half-dozen others and I don't know which, yet.

The red Solitär model is all hard polystyrene with a casually applied sticker, the yellow one is all soft polyethylene and probably appeared as a more generic 'freebie' in 'lucky' bags of sweets and novelties in the 1970's.