C is for Clip Together

No more than an overview with these today, it was a bit of serendipity and a reader contribution which led to this post and I have many more in storage so we will look at them properly by company/type another day (or: other days!), for now, let's just get an idea of the wide range of mini (or micro) model-kits which were available as - mostly breakfast cereal - premiums, many - but not all - supplied by R&L (Rosenhain & Lipmann) of Australia, primarily (in the UK) to Kellogg's Foods.

Kellogg's liner which we've seen here on the Blog before and racing cars which were also issued by Sanitarium in the antipodes, as well as someone on the continent (Portuguese food company?), so they often turn-up, but with all the little pieces (especially the wheel hubs); are rarely whole. I do have another bunch in storage including orange, red and white examples so we will look at them again one day. The driver moulding is the same for every car, so you can build him half-and-half - two colours, he looks good in black and orange!

Various ages and generations of bits for the Montaplex Bi-plane, I picked these up as a single lot in a larger bag of mixed bits; someone was obviously building himself a 'circus'! Between the bits I can still get one airborne!

These are all soft ethylene plastic with the WWII fighters (and sub-scale Heinkel? Mostly bits) having been given-away in the UK with boys comics (Fury, Valiant and Warlord), as part of the hype surrounding the release of the movie Battle of Britain - I believe? Sellotaped to the cover as an unmade kit on the chunky frame...for years I wondered (not being a 'plane guy') if they were Atlantic, the frames are chunky enough!

The Concord (I think?) is one of three (or four) in a set with The Tupolev and Boing efforts, possibly from Quaker Foods or Weetabix?. I say "I think" as there were several sets with Concord in and I'm not sure which is which!

I bought the bagged ones at a car boot sale quite a few years ago, the chap had loads of them in a fruit basket, so I assumed they were a new issue or a re-issue of older moulds which he'd picked-up as a job lot or as clearance, so bought one of each, but I think they may be the 1970's originals, now, which is annoying as I would have grabbed them all, he only wanted pennies... The broken-up bits have come in with mixed lots over the years and I think between the two shots are aircraft from two different sets?

While the ME109 is probably a modern 1:144 kit, but he's in with the medium-smallies in the unknown bag!

Jet Petrol (gasoline) stations issued this lovely set of 10 (?) cars for quite a while, so they are not too uncommon, and while I'm missing one or two, I'm hoping I might have them in storage, but if not they will turn up one day!

One made-up and broken into its constituent parts, a pair with a colour variation and two soft-plastic (polyethylene) cars from Europe - Spain or Portugal I think...Tito? I do have some Ford and Vauxhall rally cars in this style marked Tito, but these two are unmarked.

The  next four images (below) are all courtesy of Andrew Boyce who sent them to me ages ago (before Christmas?) and I said I'd be publishing "soon", "in a day or two hopefully", "probably tomorrow" then in the February splurge...only for time, Nathaniel and Voda'fail to intervene in their timeless fashion! Can time be timeless? There's an existential debate for a cold winter's evening!



A lovely shot with samples of various sets Kellogg's issued, along with both Gerry Anderson sets complete. I also remember a set of clip-together Tony the Tigers', with another set of train kits coming out of Italy.

Of interest to me in this shot is the set of blue wheels on the red estate car (station-wagon) as the ones I have all came with black wheels and the helicopter which I was unaware of.

This shows the kid's comic ad. for the Captain Scarlet vehicles shown in Andrew's image above, I think I have the Patrol Car somewhere, and shot the SPV before Christmas here on the blog, it's a lovely little model, almost 1:300th scale, with all the little wheels (10 of them in two sizes!) separate.

I suspect these were from a different source than the others, they are much chunkier with only a few (or no - TB4) parts, and lack the finesse of the R&L stuff. It was including some of these in the novelty posts before Christmas which triggered Andrew's contribution, which in turn led me to gather up a few bits and bobs to photograph for this post.

Sugar Stars and Coco Crispies gave-up this set of six vehicles which we will return to one day as I have a tub of whole and partial ones somewhere! Like a lot of these cereal premiums, they were issued elsewhere by other brands or products, sometimes in different combinations, so some seem commoner over here than others, the train and 'Rocket' seem easier to obtain than the car, while I think I've seen the bus (still on the frame) in a small box as an Italian pocket-money toy. 

 Finally; an old scan intended for an article on wagons in Plastic Warrior magazine's little brother 1"W which never happened! A rather damaged London taxi from the 100 Years of Transport above (1834 Hansom Cab) it came with a horse and I think a better version in blue was shown on the Cabinet of Curious Things posts, but I haven't got the images here (editing away from the internet) and the tag list may not help!

I don't often deal with the filthy subject of money, but seeing some of the buy-it-now (BIN) prices of things like this, it's worth considering this: even though you are always competing with other collecting field's aficionados; train buffs, space fans, 'plane-spotters, more general premium collectors, kit guys, TV & Movie fans...so prices are often high even for common examples, you should always remember they made millions of them and you should set a limit and stick to it, I aim at no more than a pound a piece.

Let's do some hypothetical maths; Say two [popular] cereal brands (from the same manufacturer) run a joint-promotion with comic and early-evening TV adds, of a random-packed set of 4 models for 4 months in 1975, selling (even as early as the 1950/60's) maybe 100,000 packs a week to a population of approximately 12,000,000 baby-boom households (now closer to 16 million, but with less school-age kids per household).

100,000 packs x 16 weeks x 2 brands / 4 models = potentially 800,000 individual units of your searched-for 'rarity' were once out there! It's 'ball park' but it's not fancifully way-out there.

'Family Sized' packs may have two models (or five against three, three against two) which might push our fictional total to a million-odd, better known or more popular brands like Cornflakes might issue 500,000 packs a week? Three months (or two years) later the models are run again, or in another brand, or with another foodstuff, or in another country, or the model you're after is put in another set... Tom Smith get the mouldings (Quaker Gladiators) for 25,000 boxes of budget Christmas crackers, in four designs - six years running, or in more 'promotional' boxes (Thunderbirds figures)... a HK company or two copies them (jig toys)...finally some warehouse lets the remnants go by the bagful (Coca-Cola animals) as clearance or pocket-money toys to another country.

There's so much more to these, and as a specific collection, they can take-up surprisingly little room, but take a lifetime to track down as colour variations, mint in pack examples etc...but please - keep it in perspective, a 5-quid or $10 BIN is not worth the pain, when mixed lots might be had for 99p plus postage.

And many thanks to Andrew for the additional images.

Next day...Brian Berke sent this image of a "rubbery" plastic copy from Hong Kong of one of the R&L toys [2023 - probably Rubenstein rack-toys], still on the frame, he remembers the Rocket loco and has a Hansom Cab in the same neutral colour of soft polymer...remembering also they came from a 99-cent store in NY; approximately 1986. And that's a New York pound for scale!

News Views etc...31st Plastic Warrior Show, Cavendish, 99p Stores, Dunkerque, Shakespeare, New Blog

Plastic Warrior Magazine's Annual Toy Soldier Show
Two weeks this coming Saturday!

 

In its 31st Year, I know it's not exactly a 90th Marm, but it hasn't had the Royal physicians behind it at every turn! Same maps as last year; same blurb, same venue!

You can't miss it, it's the big inter-war style architecture pub on the bend just before (northbound) or after (southbound) the NEC DHL Harlequins ground.

There is FREE parking and a Premier Inn on the same site for anyone who wants to stay the night with bar, coffee, meals & snacks all day.

Details of the venue can be found here;

Winning Post

This is [still] not so accurate, I'll try [to remember] to sort it out with a better one, basically the venue is accessible from the A3-A316 main road into/out-of London heading West-south-west, through the Front car park there is also vehicle and pedestrian access from Percy Road.

For people coming by public transport; Whitton Station is 3 minutes walk and gets 8 trains an hour from Waterloo.

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99p Stores

This retailer, which I only 'discovered' as a source of cheepie figures about three years ago, has now been taken-over by Poundland, and the last store conversions (around here) were completed in early April, with both Basingstoke and Farnborough having two Poundlands (in the latter case: within sight of each other!), presumably with the demise of more household or high-street 'names' it's Poundland or nothing!

I will be doing a few posts on my last acquisitions from 99p - they reduced all their toys to 64p from Christmas until store-closure. Whether Poundland will re-brand the remaining stock or clear it elsewhere remains to be seen.

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Cavendish

John Breckon  emailed my earlier this month with some very interesting details on the origins of the Cavendish Nazi bands, his message in full;

"I have been reading your blog with interest regarding the above models and in it you write that you did not know where they originated.  I believe I may be able to help.  During the 1980's somebody commissioned QT (Quality Treasure) Models of Bridlington East Yorkshire to manufacture the SS figures.  I was able to see the casting in process and was instantly smitten by these figures, leading me to purchase unpainted figures for £5 approximately by post from the business CJB Models of Hull this appears to have been a home business as they operated from Kirkella and Willerby.

Later when I came into contact again with these figures Cavendish Miniatures had control of them.

It may be of some interest to you having googled CJB Models an article about C J Burkill appeared saying how this engineer made superb model vehicles having seen the figures that accompany these models I am in no doubt that this man sculpted the masters for the Third Reich Figures.

QT Models still exists in the form of Museum Miniatures of Driffield.

Questions

Do you know if it is possible to still obtain any of these Third Reich figures?
Do you know who has the masters and the moulds now?
Do you have access to any pictures of any of the models especially the bands?

I hope this information is helpful in some way and if you do know the answers to the questions I would be grateful of a reply"

My reply was somewhat sparse I'm afraid;

" Very useful...I can't help with your three questions, I will try the blog but with such a paucity of replies to such requests in the past (700 visitors a day but few of them admitting it...it's the Asperger's!) it may be easier to post something in the metal section of Treefrog Treasures forum?"

If anyone CAN help John with either the whereabouts of available figures, or pictures of the same, you can contact me and I'll put you in touch. Or check Treefrog's pages to see if a shout goes out there?

I know there is an image on one of the late Cavendish flyers, but mine is in storage so if anyone can scan that it would be a help. It is a two-sided full colour A5 sheet with the German figures on one side and the Dickensian vinyl-resin on the other, if memory serves?

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Dunkirk Spirit

I've also had contact with an ex-pat in New York; Brian Berke, who has sent some lovely pictures of an operation Dynamo diorama he made which will appear as a guest post, when I've got the images right, at the moment the Library computers are only allowing me to save them as pixellated .png's despite them clearly being sent as .jpg's so this is just a taste of things to come.

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New Blog?

I've been trying to sort the Hong Kong horses out for the page I planned (and have announced) and realised it's too big a job for one page, also the Khaki page hasn't advanced at the speed I had hoped, and will also end-up unreasonably long for slower devices to load so will be starting a blog just for the small-scale HK and Giant/Giant-like stuff, which will probably get the Khaki and Roman pages (above) broken down into posts. The circus sets, guards and things can go there as well and the tag list will allow for full cross referencing with Airfix, Britains &etc. for finding specific poses or copies.

It'll be a while though.

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Wavelance

PW's show and 'er Madge aren't the only things of age around here, some bloke who may or may not have been the playwrite some people think he was (and others: don't!) has been celebrated - in his absence - over the weekend...

...here at the library there was a Paper Toys free hand-out which would make an excellent 10 or 15 millimetre war-games accessory...it was downloaded from here, now also in the paper links list.

 

U is for Unknown HK/China Army Men

Another question-mark today. These came in as two lots, and I'm guessing they are quite recent, but I haven't seen them in the shops so it may be a 'forgetting how old I am quite recent' putting them back to the 1980's or even early 90's (although it's only the '80's I wasn't really paying attention in).

 

1. Shows the original pose count of my first sample, the standing firing US soldier seemed to be a copy of one of the new makes, but I can't find him on PSR so he may be a copy of a larger scale figure or just a new pose who happens to look familiar?

 

2. Is a freebie that I found in a bunch of bagged/cardedstuff I bought on evilBay a while ago, Ahshan (the seller) was pleased I had won the lot as he was a fan of the Blog and chucked these in the box without telling me! Thanks again Ash!

 

3. What appears to be the final pose count, five each American and German WWII types, several of them look familiar, and while HK is getting better at original sculpts, I do wonder?

 

Anyway; any ideas on a maker or brands? I'm guessing toobs or rack-toys, and any idea on pose origins? They are quite large; around 28/30mil and a reasonable soft ethylene of the old Airfix/Timpo toy soldier type but without a base mark.

U is for Unknown...Unknowns!

These are all pretty well totally unknown, but currently reside in the 'might be Blue Box' section of the unknown Hong Kong box. Not that they necessarily are Blue Box (although one of them is!), just that they are all marked Hong Kong, all hard plastic (except one!) and all stab-and-hope painted in the 1970's HK style....except one.

Airfix Roman for scale.

 

Top row; These intrigue, around 30mm, I used to think they were designed to run down a commando-wire type arrangement, then I wondered if they were Hippies dancing round a musical box or something, now I suspect they are meant to be picked up by the hook of a crane, fire-appliance or rescue helicopter? The large bases are clearly designed for stability, but the sculpting - such as it - of the garb suggests rural or biblical types, or at a push: theatrical types...anyone got any ideas?

 

Bottom row - left to right; Well decorated but made out of that cheap 'blank granule' type plastic, this may be Brer Fox, Frere Fox, Fantastic Mr. Fox or some other fox, he might even be a smartly dressed version of Marx's Foulfellow character, and is the painting exception, being airbrushed/sprayed. I suspect he's a Wedding Cake decoration?

 

The little deer, one hard styrene, the other smaller and soft plastic, both similar to the Marx deer from the Jungle Miniature Masterpiece sets, but as if crossed with the same companies Bambi, the fact that there are two versions is also a Marx trick so it may well be.

 

The Policeman is from Blue Box, he came with some of the larger civil airport and town play sets.

Finally the rocking horse is the sort of thing you would later get in Polly Pocket sets, but in an earlier brittle styrene plastic and probably a Dolls House accessory, but who's dolls house? Annoyingly, I have seen it somewhere but failed to take a note...or lost the note! Marx did a similar - but more angular - one.

A is for Army Gear

The Battle Squadfigures we looked at the other day were (along with their Star Wars 'Action Fleet' brethren and the Starship Troopers/Expanders lines) seem to owe their ancestry to these chaps, who were The first of the little chaps from Galoob as far as I know.

The original figures are in a hard polystyrene (or polypropylene?) with a stab-and-hope paint-job consisting of blobs of flesh and camouflage along with weapons being painted in. The upper image shows the body poses of the bad-guys (in grey) and the good guys in green, there being two duplicates, although this is only my sample and there may be other grey poses/duplicates?

The lower image shows the leg poses of both, I know there are grey versions of the kneeling guy in grey, so again this is only a guide and not definitive, although it's obvious from online images that the greens do - consistently - get better pose variety (per set) than the grey.

So far I have found them in the hard, painted plastic (left), unpainted in the same plastic (middle, with a green version of the bad guy) and in a softer vinyl/PVC, also unpainted (right). The unpainted ones seem to be from a second line Secret Army Supplies ('SAS' geddit!), but there's an end-of-line 'can't be bothered to paint them' look to the figures so they may well also be from foreign-market/other end-user sets - Ideal, Gig or someone like that?

 

The problem with these is getting the little plug-on PVC rubber bases to make them stand-up. This was sorted on the later decendents with most getting better bases, although the tiny bases for the Action Fleet and Battle Squad being not much better than no base, but the Starship Troopers and Expanders both getting proper bases.

More here with checklist

T is for Terrific Trio

A quick look at three vaguely HO-gauge compatible die-cast AFV's today, each from a different company and none of them actually that close to HO...but all useful none-the-less, especially for old-school war gaming where the counters are everything and the need for historical accuracy is minimal!

I'm thinking Kenya, Suez or that 'Heart of Darkness'; the Belgian Congo...

Britains Lilliput Austin Champ utility vehicle with Blue Box German for size, closer to 25mm than HO's nominal 18mm, but still sitting pretty against/with the other two vehicles in this post.

I think I've mentioned before that my mother worked on these when she was in the FANY, they were a bugger to work on apparently; with sealed Rolls Royce units - the theory was fine - taken from tanks - lift out the expired engine and drop a new one in, but it was a lot of faffing about for such a small vehicle, designed to be employed in large numbers, so the concept was flawed and - along with the unit cost - led to its rapid replacement by the lightweight, cheaper and easier to maintain Land Rover, after that vehicle was trialed against the Champ and Austin Gypsy (a Land Rover in looks, but ferrous-metal and prone to rust).

Because they were still bloody good vehicles they were mothballed (for possible use in WW III), in stacked crates at the huge Donnington RAOC depot, where they were mostly destroyed in the big fire back in the mid-1980's, around the time I was in depot training or shortly after I joined battalion I think, so '84/'85? There are one or two in private hands and they are impressive at shows...being closer to a Dodge 'Beep' in classification, than a Jeep or Lannie.

The Benbros Daimler 'Dingo' inaccurately called a Ferret on Planet Diecast, this was the standard lightly armoured Scout-car and recce-vehicle for most of the Second World War and continued in service long after it, particularly in Armoured/RTC formations, where it was replaced by Ferrets over time. I think it was also the favoured steed of Forward Observers and A-echelon (immediately behind the lines) signals guys?

The vehicle is actually slightly larger than HO (although closer to one of the US HO's which can be 1:64th), yet smaller scaled than other Benbros vehicles, but the little blob of a crew figure is barely even HO!

Finally from Kemlows comes this Saracen APC from their 'Sentry Box' range, almost identical to the Lesney/Matchbox one (so smaller than HO), this differs in having a less frangible MG in the turret, and a different construction when viewed from the underside.

Commonly green with a silver-painted convoy-hatch and radiator grill not highlighted on the M'box one, it was also issued all green, and while this one has a blue/yellow formation sign (service corps?), others have a blue/red (artillery) one, and indeed - some were issued with an anachronistic gun and limber...more here: Robert Newson's Sentry Box.

D is for Dragon

Another b'day prezzie...how cool is this? Classic Chinese dragon without wings, but with all the distinctive beard, ear, mane and eyebrow hairs, an additional line of tufts down it's back which are usually just small bumps (on the ceramic versions of these dragons), and a fine tail.

Colours suggest bottles of Quink or Parker's fountain-pen fluid, the same colours were used by the Africans for their soapstone and softwood tourist stuff (along with black and oxblood Kiwi boot-polish), and I'm sure there are - or once were - shelves and shelves of these in some touristy area of Shanghai, Hong Kong or Beijing, but it's the first I've seen.

Difficult to photograph as it's over 18-inches and it really gets its colours from eating Giant Huns or Mongols! Braver men than me...and it's basically made from wetted string! Too cool...Too cool for fucking school; that's how cool!

B is for Birthday Books

Some serious reading over the next few weeks! All five are interesting titles, covering some of the less common gaps between the 'usual' or 'popular' periods.

Paul of the Plastic Warriors blog will tell you I'm no real fan of aircraft, but I've always had a soft-spot for the Liberator (which immediately gives me the mis-lyriced earworm: "I'm a Liberator...a Liberator, I Liberate"), so this treatise on that forgotten corner of the war; the China/Burma/India theatre - is fascinating.

The Italians in WWII always got a poor press when I was a kid, and with the Airfix figures going from dirt-rare to relatively common in the late-1990's (with several different boxings of re-issue), I might be tempted to paint-up a few of mine.

Uniforms of the infamous Protestant-fundimentalist, colonial, terrorist-insurgency (at least they didn't try to blow-up Stonehenge) is a soft-back reprint of one of the old Blandford's and has some lovely illustrations, while the Crimea-1914 tome is B&W but very interesting and covering nations not normally given a word - Serbia, China et al.

While the Tashen has been on my wants list for years. This re-print is missing some of the original 19thC plates and I'd say the captions leave a bit to be desired (and require a looking-glass...but that's the age thing!), but still a rich experience with three wonderful plates on Landsknechts, albeit described as French, they are in the same dress as the German/Italian 'Swiss mercenaries'. Sections on Egypt, Greece and Rome are also lovely, with a lot of medieval stuff and a whole section on the peoples and tribes encountered during the age of discovery (that's 'age of unwarranted expansion' to your modern sensibilities!).

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!

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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.