F is for French Figures II - Soft Polyethylene Plastics

Strangely - as a plastics collector - I seem to know less about most of these than the most of the figures in the other three posts! But they (the moulds) seem to have had several owners, mostly in that period when 'army men' were falling out of favour, cleared as rack-toys in pocket-money price brackets.

Mostly derivative of; or copies of; or soft-plastic, unpainted mouldings of; other, better known makes, or metal originals, or previously better decorated hard-plastic figures, they rather defy ID'ing from across La Manche!

This was also the post Blogger lost - adding a year to it's edit-shelf life!

 

Some of these are straight lifts from Starlux, others seem 'based on', and while they have the feel of Cofalux, I don't think they are. As we saw with the medieval figures, this late '60's-1970's French rack-toy ethylene production has both the moulds and the mouldings being handled by several companies/brands - whoever actually held them. I'm told that the sailors are Hugonnet (?), the marching poses being much copied by Hong Kong in the '70's.

Bottom right shot shows the differences between the 'same' pose from the two sets, based on a Starlux French Foreign Legionary, the one to the left is the closer copy, the one on the right has had a head-turn.

Again...Hugonnet have been put in the frame for some of these (top left - but the bases are large enough to point at Aludo?), others are similar to Cofalux, but not so well finished (two main lots) while the little group to the top-right are so poor they could be Hong Kong apart from markings and the fact that again...they are the same poses that keep cropping-up in this late mono-colour production and again...mostly Starlux poses, or Starlux-like, including the pose which gets itself into the Timpo GI's and through them to half-a-dozen minor (and not so minor; Hilco) 'khaki Infantry' makers!

Speaking of Timpo - in all the time this lot have been in Picasa and 'Edit' Sam sent me a bunch which included more of the small lot above and there are several Timpo 1st version 'WWII' poses included with the Aludo-looking pose on the top row. The same shot has an odd figure (top right) from the Hugonnet (?) set below, while the third row are from another origin and includes a scale-down of one of the US Auburn Rubber (Double Fabric Tire Corp.) company's figures - the white one, with a couple of Cofalux copies and a Starlux-a-like. Indeed I think they are additions to the same 'set' as the middle group in the previous collage.

The multicoloured row in the image below that has the same pose but larger along with several others from the Auburn 70mm's (but here around 60mm) in polyethylene, also very poor quality, no better than the worse of Hong Kong's efforts.

The upper shot here are now known (by me) to be Vilco issues of older figures by other people (in this case Cofalu aluminium figures I believe?), these being home-painted, the originals were issued on the runner in header-carded bags and as well as then olive green issues; also came in a variety of metallic colours including silver, gold, blue, mauve, pink &etc.

 

Below them are five modern production WWI troops by Armies in Plastic (AIP) really nice animated sculpts, I think the blue came first and the dung-brown after, but they ended-up side-by-side in the shop's stock so it's a mute point.

 

The recent (2009) re-issues of the Mokarex coffee-premium figures by Effigies, are in quite a dense un-glueable ethylene, but useful when you consider the frangibility of the originals and the fact that the packs are often missing, they can always be heat-welded on - of course.

 

Top left is the odds and ends, a couple of painted ethylene, which seem relatively uncommon and again I don't know who made them but the same names as the medievals are in the frame, just from the base paint! Then the little Airfix copy scaled-up to 45mm from Ri-Toys (Rado) which was also looked at here and a slightly rubbery 50mm from the Spanish Teixido?

 

The next two shots are of figures I've been told are Hugonnet (?), very much in the dress of the Indochinese or North African campaign's and like many of these figures seeming to reference Starlux sculpts, either because they were all deliberately pirating each other (like the Brits were at the same time with their 'Khaki Infantry' types), or because they were all using the same sculptor?

 

The final shot is all Marx, from the States, with the marching figure in brown a 1990's re-issue (carried in the Uk by Marksmen) from the 'Soldiers of the World' with the set of 6 WWII figures from the 54mm range, two in the original powder-blue, with re-issues in light and dark grey and a deep bottle-green.

Additions that have come in over the three years or so since I started these posts! Some more Vilco copies of other people's good moulds at the top, a late Cofalux flamethrower operator who looks so thin and weedy he may be a copy by someone else (?) and a later rack toy in electric-apple-puke-neon-dayglo green...Hugonnet again?

While I've been cogitating on these posts for so long, I've got round to stripping the Nazi paint off the supposedly Hugonnet figures, so a later additional picture. I don't know what's happening with the smaller bloke saluting...different make? Deliberate down-scale to make-up cavity numbers in the mould tool? And I'm assuming the glossier colours came after the matt'er olive and olive-drab issues?

F is for French Figures I - Styrene & Cellulose Acetate

Add over another year to the dates below! I'd almost got these ready for publishing when Blogger decided to empty one of the folders and replace it with the contents of the one I was editing a few minutes earlier...I lost hart and sat looking at them for over another year! Anyway; here they all are....finally!

===============================================================

I took the first of the images for these about five years ago, three years ago I had a bigger photo-session and announced they would be forthcoming, two years ago I got round to 'collaging them up' in Picasa - by which time a few more had come in - and announced that they were on the waiting list, uploaded them at the library in Newbury about 14 months ago and apart from adding another collage of latecomers, they've sat in Edit ever since!

I don't now what the problem was...like writer's block or something! Anyway, this and the three posts going-in below (on the blog 'Homepage') are the long-seeped results. It's no more than an overview of what little I know about French soldiers and French manufactured figures of 'combat' or 'khaki Infantry' from the WWII-Modern period.

This post looks at the earlier figures, the second looks at later soft plastic production, the third has some Czech rubber and polypropylene re-issues and the forth is a few Starlux. There are throughout the four as many question-marks than as facts, and input will be appreciated.

Three from Clariet and one from Jim, the more interesting is the separate helmet on the shirt-sleeved pointing chap, mirrored in the production of Minimodels over here. I particularly like the sailor, he goes well with the output of Starlux, but is doing something useful (slotting the enemy) not standing around with a swab or ceremonial axe!

These nearly all need ID'ing, I recognise some old Aluminium poses (and a couple of these are also in soft plastic as Vilco on the next post down), the silver one here is in a styrene polymer. I'd say the dark-blue sailor is from a die-cast or plastic toy vehicle or vessel of some kind.

The forth one along from the left seems to be Cyrnos, but the chap to his left isn't, so they are probably re-paints and the Tirailleur (mid-blue, far left) is definitely a Cyrnos figure

I think the riders are all Starlux (though I'm not 100% sure) but I'm not so happy that the horses are, there's only the two horses and ones missing its tail, so a poor sample, but the riders are lovely.

The pale blue chap is Beffoid, while the officer in the middle of the lower bunch is marked Quiralux, so going on both base-paint and plastic colours, I assume most of the rest are? The last two on the lower row are probably home re-paints; there were a lot in the collection they came from?

These are half-and-half a mystery to me; top middle and right looks like an ex-aluminium figure, so Quiralux or Cofalux?

The centre shot are all Cyrnos sailors, 3 repainted as Nazis by the same guy who ruined the soft plastic chaps in the other post. Stripping paint from hard plastics (especially if they are earlier cellulose-based compounds) is so problematical it's best to leave them.

I think these are all Cyrnos as well (not sure about the baseless MG gunner? He's painted to match the 'possibly' Quiralux above) and a bit chunkier. These are mostly damaged, but still evocative figures with that 1950's charm that can't be faked. I have Sam of Sam's Minis World to thank for some of these too.

F is for French Figures III - Rubber and Polypropylene

These are the ones that aren't Starlux and don't fit on the other two pages! Mostly recent re-issues by a company unknown to me, some quite early...and Czechoslovakian!

So the older figures are both by BATA from Czechoslovakia and are made from a hard-wearing vulcanised rubber, hard wearing because the parent was a shoe manufacturer! They are therefore not French, but the blue ones may have been made for the French market?

The others are a dense plastic I used to automatically label nylon/rayon, but they're probably polypropylene? Looking a bit Qurialux, a bit Starlux they're probably neither!

These are all made from the same material, the two  middle images are all Quiralux poses, but they've lost the swoppet-heads of the originals (who were in a similar plastic...a clue perhaps?) the upper shots are of older poses originally in hard plastic by other makes, so a mould inheritance thing going on?

These were all (along with the upper 3 in red and yellow/green) 1980's/1990's reissues - I think?

F is for French Figures IV - Starlux 54mm

So to the fourth in this overdue set, we've looked at Starlux before on the blog, including some of these figures in comparison with the small-scale ones, and these are the WWII/Modern ones so not much to be said about them! Early figures are a cellulose acetate, by the end they were polystyrene.

The earlier ones with the smaller, ovoid bases tend to be worth a little more than the later chamfered-edge, oblong and lozenge-based ones. In the case of the helmeted troops they are a little smaller than later sets at around the 50-54mm mark, with the younger/newer versions in the 54-60mm bracket.

French Foreign Legion in Kepis and a sailor with two paratroopers. Colour variations in the plastic used are obvious with the para's and a little subtler with the mine-detector.

Base markings can be set in a lozenge, oblong or a cartouche-like thing, they can be randomly repeated over the under-surface in relief like mad wallpaper, double-stamped, multiple-stamped, on top of the base or found on the edge of the base...sometimes there's no marking at all.

Late additions (a while ago now!) from Sam at Sam's Minis, two are broken, but interesting poses which I will one day fix-up with Milliput and re-paint.

Already on the blog (mostly small scale);

Starlux

M is for Mystery Metal Men...and Mechanic!

Here's another one in 'Edit' with no need of much blurb...a bunch of smallish scale metal figures for which any additional information whould be appreciated...

Both appear to be die-cast (or cast-iron) both appear to be civilian or model railway/railroad figures with the one on the left around 40mm and ther other about 45mil. I wonder if either of them are Grey Iron? Did they factory paint? I seem to recall a note somewhere (O'Brien?) that they did?

Copies of copies in the years of the hollow-cast, but not from Britains originals...Hillco or Crescent providing the donars for the rip-off merchant?

Something Japanese about both these, but I suspect at least one might be Chinese Cival war, Boxer Rebellion or Gurka...or even somthing Balkan (the one on the right)?  Maker not known on either, eye'ther! Any clues? Big knife!

Thanks to Adrain at Mercator for letting me shoot these ages ago!

A is for Apaches....Geronimo!

Another one which shouldn't need much blurb, so shouldn't need the use of the abscent spell-check!

Timpo, Apache Indians, although I think one of the horses in technically a US Cavalry horse? You could get the litter as a US Cavalry piece.

Sample of mounted figures, the canoe and the smoke-signal vignette (needed spell-check after all!) which was sold as a boxed mini-scene or also as a packeted item from a shop-display box with a reduced-base fire.

The various componants of the foot figures, I don't think there are any 'rare' colours or colour-combinations here, but then I don't really rate a lot of what happens at that end of the market, they were mass produced in batches, so they will all be out there somewhere!

Anyway...gets them in the tag list and gives me a chance to point out that Plastic Warrior magazine has jsut announced the Michael Maughan has just announced a third addition of his Timpo guide, which is only available from Amazon and will tell you all you need to know about these and their stable-mates.

P is for Police; Preiser Police

A quick and easy one which won't need a speelchecker! Preiser's plastic police patrolmen! Recent so should still be available out there somewhere...

 

Forgotten how bad the photograph is, it's better opened in a new tab! Boxes...

 

....figures - nice...small.

 

American..New York or LA (mounted?) and SWAT.

News Views etc...German Toy Soldier Show - Herne

Don't forget...it's this coming Sunday...

 

...all those tables will be loaded to overflowing - with fantastic stuff!

 

Details here.

News, Views Etc...Links

Just time for three new entries on the A-Z (did the Dolls earlier!)

Two were covered in the autumn - Fairchild and Highlander, the other (Mulberry) achived some approbrium via its comments sections from anonymous...it's always anonymous!

Highlander Toy and Miniature Military
Mulbery Miniatures
Fairchild / Selcol-Fairchild

Hope that's all spelt correctly...apparently my problem with Vodafone is down to their shop software not being able to cope with [four year] old technology!

News, Views Etc...New Page

I have posted a new page:

Dancing Dolls

It has taken 18 months to research and collate (on and off) and four or five weeks to unload, finish and edit, so I hope you enjoy it...understanding - of course - that most toy soldier fans couldn't give a feckin' heel for small plastic 'dolls'!

I will add the four companies histories to the A-Z pages tomorrow and add the links here and to the DD page when I've done so.



Two day later....Needless to say I didn't get that done yesterday and Vodafone (the Prince of Internet Darkness) have decided I'm library bound again! I have got a Van Brode draft up though, and a Clinton Mfg. cross-ref., so it's slowly hapening!

Commonwealth on the A-Z
Sanitarium on the A-Z
Van Brode on the A-Z

All done!

N is for New Blog

Dear Prime Minister...understand; I am partisan!

C is for Craftline Canal Cruisers

As Hornby struggle to re-finance, threatening three other old brands for the umpteenth time; Airfix, Scalextric and Corgi, it's nice to know that some companies just keep plugging away at what they do best, not going for world domination, not experimenting with new lines, new materials or new production chains, just...plugging away...

...and one such is Craftline Models, makers of fine craft-models (you have to do the bulk of the work) in balsa-wood, primarily for the model railway hobby, their vessel kits and buildings (well, lock-gates and bridges!) are also very useful for 'Operation Sealion' scenarios.

The lower shot is a scan of an old 1IW Toy Fair article, and represents the models carried by Hobbie's Annual in the 2000's, the full range is a little bigger now, and I'll get a listing in the A-Z before the end of the day and post the link here.

They have updated their header-card over the 40-odd years I've been aware of them! Possibly three times? But the enclosed sheet and balsa components have ensured the packaging dimensions have remained the same.

Their core customer base is not even model-railway aficionados, these are for sale at every 'corner' shop, gift shop and general store along the paths of Britains waterways, craft and industrial museums, tourist hot-spots like Iron Bridge and those sorts of places...and it was where I got one, doing the Grand Union Canal back in 1977/8...

...my modelling skills, especially with balsa were not show-stopping back then, and I have since made a much better one which I'd been hoping to show here as well, but the photographs haven't been forthcoming from the recipient! I could 'do' this 'up', but it's a bit of my past, and I intend to build one of the three in the stash at some point...we'll come back to them then!

AMX is for Blobs of Plastic

Another quick Montaplex box-tick...or envelope-lick! They actually produced three of these AMX-13 a'like AFV's, which is strange as Spain was never (as far as I know or can find) a user of the type...maybe one of the colonies? The third model is a micro-blob in - I think - two parts and not shown here, the others are workable with a hot glue-gun, sharp knife and application of advanced painting skills!

The earlier version is the white one on the left, it's very crude and has a tendency to fall-apart as soon as you've [nearly] finished putting it together! The later one (shown on the envelope as a Pz.II 'Luchs' - Lynx) was a more realistic sculpt, but still fails to model the canvas cover of the oscillating-turret, or indeed the turret; terribly well at all.

Comparison between the two construction systems, ironically the track-units on the fall-apart version have a better profile than those on the re-design. They both have a poor excuse for the flash-eliminator!

B is for Battle-Squads

Galoob really blossomed in the 1980's and 1990's and were responsible for a group of really nice toy lines before or alongside their Micro-Machines, among which were the Z-Bots and and Army Gear which we will look at briefly (I only have small samples of each) here soon, and these - Battle Squads.

They are a sort of parallel range to Action Fleet, being an scale-up of the Micro-Machine concept; in the same way that range scaled-up the Star Wars MM's, these scale-up the combat stuff. The figures become 28/30mm mini 'Action Figures' with two (whole!) points of articulation; the hips and shoulders, and have greater play-value in the vehicles.

That enhanced play-value is illustrated here with the LVTP7/1A: Cupolas open, rear door and top hatch operate, the troop compartment takes at least eight figures, the turret traverses and a bloody-great rocket launcher has been welded to the side! Compare with the micro-machine in the main pic. The tracks are fixed, moulded units with hidden carpet-wheels.

There were two 'army builder' packs of 9 figures each, all in a loose/generic late-1980's early 1990's US combat uniform with 'Fritz' helmet, one set in 'army' green/khaki, the other set in 'German' grey!

The small number of sets issued in this line would also contain figures; typically two, or two per vehicle/aircraft. There was a large play set with a Hercules heavy-lift transport and para-drop-able Jeep which recalled Dinky's Mini Moke with a pallet and everything! the above collage is a few of those figures.

The ranges - like most these days - had no real or apparent aim, nor parameters, and consisted of a few planes (approximately 1:70) a few larger and smaller vehicles (1:64th/US slot-racing 'HO'), the later with under-scaled scenic pieces and as a separate range within the line some 4 or 5-inch (?) action figure sets!

As with the 3 ACW figures tacked-on to the end of the Micro-Machine combat series, this lack of a vision for the brand leaves us with a couple of WWII Germans and a few Vietnam era M1-helmeted guys.

The anachronistic figures probably came with the Jeep and Kubelwagen - two of the smaller vehicles - who are seen here alongside a rather tasty Big-wheeled Ferret in RN Mediterranean-grey! Cyprus? A towed-Hawk SAM battery can be towed by the A/Car or either of the two utility vehicles which are ten-times nicer after their cannons have been sent to recycling!

I do like a gunship, when it's not pointing it's nose at me over 'the wire' on a march and shoot! Those Hind-D's...they're big, like large flying houses, and noisy...like a Sea King on steroids! The same missile launcher as the Amtrak has been strapped to the stub-wing on this Hawk/Cobra'esque beast.

Worth seeking if you've not got any yet, the line could have been so much more with a little thought and some time for expansion. Mint boxed sets still turn-up on evilBay all the time. Yes...I should have dusted-it...in my defence I'm carrying around a prescription for glasses I can't afford!

S is for Skeleton Skull Knights

Looking at PVC lumps; these came-in just before Christmas, there are quite a few of them around, and while I have a some in storage (odds and sods) I didn't get sets when they were common first time around, but now they are mostly enjoying re-issues, or what looks like - in this case - copy of copy status!

99p Stores via PMS these are 'Skull Knight Knight's From Hell'...so they're knights then? Apart form a few dodgy round shields there's nothing to place them historically, but as with Zombies, there are no rules, they're make-believe! Shaun looked at them in much greater depth here - I love the psychedelic bag of eight figures!

Eight rather soft poses, leading to some odd posing which requires a bit of hot-water treatment down the clinic! The lower shot compares them with some of the commoner 'other' skeletal warriors, left to right: Dark World (Canada Games), Heroquest (MB Games via Games Workshop) and the Egyptian-looking 100 Piece Army Skeleton Warriors currently available about the place - also including a 'Battling Pirates' set.

Four more of the larger figures, with the painted original which was issued by Playwrite as Tomb Warrior Skeleton Warriors the baseless one is the mounted version. The final figure is one of those odd pencil-tops with a hollow too big for a pencil...I'm guessing they start life as American Halloween cake decorations, and end-up here as bagged rack-toys, or gum-ball prizes?

Various Christmas cracker and gum-ball skeletons, and a Chap Mai 'Skull Fighter' giant next to the 99p Store/PMS one.

Shaun's got more here