O is for 'Other Brands are Available'!

A quick 'new production' box-ticker with a space theme . . .

I bought this Block Tech set a couple of years ago in Poundland I think, or the now defunct 99p Stores, they're still in Poundland from time to time and in various configurations, with adventurers and road workers and such like.

I held them back meaning to photograph the contents but never got round to it, and it's not as if the pictures I have taken leave any real question-marks over these Hestair Kiddycraft descendents.

Then these turned-up the other day in Wilkinson's/Wilco's (Oopa has swapped shirts with T'klen!), now branded as Blox with a couple of mean orkish-looking characters added to 'smiley-alien' and the NASA types. Wilkinson's have larger sets as well, one has about 35 figures in it for the price of about five Scandinavian equivalents, it should be noted that these - like most clones - have better-modelled feet than the Nordic ones!

If only people would get the idea that all these clones (there are dozens of them now) are just as good as the Danish usurpers, and just as deserving of existence. Canaidia's Mega Blocs are about half the price of Bilund's finest, while the Far-Eastern clones can - like these - be five or ten times cheaper, and kids don't care who populates their creation (unless adults generate brand-prejudice in them), so long as there are lots of them!

Christmas is coming, put cheap aliens under the tree, it's what the little-baby-Jesus would have wanted . . . probably . . .

D is for Walpamur....no, W is for Duradio...Doh! P is for Paint it Yourself!

Adrian Little (of Mercator Trading) let me photograph these from his stall at Plastic Warrior's 31st show, back in May, and they (PW) have covered them to a greater depth with other sets in their Hilco Special - available from the usual source.

Hilco plastics as made for plastic production, i.e. not ex-Johillco lead-casting sculpts but new mouldings, being three poses each of guardsmen and cavalry, with paint tins of what was then 'household' enamel allowing for Life Guards only (no blue!) and the Guardsmen to be painted-up in a gloss finish, like there commercial brethren, matt-painting came later with Herald and co.!

The six poses: Three of which (household cavalry) seem to have been lifted from Marx, with the guards bearing some resemblance to Crescent's 60mm figures, although date wise, I suspect the trail is actually Marx-Hill-Crescent?

We've seen the lower image before (Marx originals and a Crescent bugler), but I shot the upper, commercially painted Hilco figure this year sometime; I don't know if he came into the collection (and is upstairs) or if I shot him on someone's (probably Adrian's) table? I think he was in the mixed-lot with the Crescent Romans and Cherilea saloon table? If he is here, I'll dig him and a Marx one out again and do a close-comparison as they look pretty-much identical bar the base?

The paint . . . it's, errr, painty! You can do painting with it, you know - colour stuff in! It's in a little tin, call it a 'tinlet' if you like, it comes with a lid, and a label!

A much better set from the point of view of painting as you get red, yellow and blue, so can mix any other colour you fancy, but only three poses, even though the lid shows six from the old hollow-cast lead range.

However . . . I thought they were metal when I got them out - carefully - to photograph, the tray seemed much heavier and when my thumb caught one of the swords I thought there was no 'give' in it. Adrian assures me they are plastic though, so it must have been the extra tin of paint adding weight to my imagination!

 

There are another three or four sets shown in the aforementioned PW 'Special'. And . . . why didn't I do these on TLAPD! Doh (Double Doh!)

U is for Unmade!

I have never seen such a desirable collectable is such pristine condition, the term 'Mint' is mightily abused these days, especially on evilBay, but this really is an absolute minty, mint, minter in mint-condition . . .

. . . although that's almost sad, as one feels it should be made-up to patrol a mantelpiece or display-cabinet shelf, someplace, gravelly uttering the iconic 'Exterminate'!

Original price 20p! I know what I'd do with a time machine and it doesn't involve dinosaurs, Alexander the Great, Shakespeare or the pyramids, it involves a quick trip to Webb's News, circa 1965! Although pence is a '70's pricing...hummm, ohgod! It was reduced to clear!!!!

This is another 'guest post' courtesy of Brian Berke for which I am only providing the blurb!

Only 16 parts including 3 wire-axles it could be completed in five minutes I recon! Ten with trimming/fettling of flash . . . although I can't see any!

It's faintly amusing that the artwork gets the head so right and the body so wrong, while the kit gets the body correct and then fails on the head-shape? Brexit and Remain, Trump and Clinton, educated liberal or grumpy fish-wife, we all want a better World, a better Britain or a better life, but oh boy; are we absolutely going to build a dog's breakfast!

Basically it's the commercial battery-operated model (also by Marx) offered as a kit, I don't know if it came first, or if there are the battery lever slots in the back of the body - there don't appear to be any locating slots, shelves or attachment-points for the battery housing, wires or mechanism on the interior walls of the moulding, so I'm guessing the kit came first, and then Marx produced the 'readymade'?

The Crescent 'scale'ing' berserker (seconded to UNIT of course!) gets his ore in early, while the Dalek is still asleep! It's a big toy when assembled and we looked at some dodgy photographs by yours truly a while ago here.

F is for 'First Line'

Continuing our look at the output of Ukraine Collectable Paper Soldiers, we arrive at the 'First Line' officers of the Ukrainian Border Guard (UBG). You may wonder why all the forces looked at so far in these posts have been UBG rather than 'regular' army?

I think the answer is twofold; firstly Ukraine Collectable has specialised in the border guards as a specific range, and secondly; the regular army wasn't a big part of the Ukrainian forces prior to the current emergency.

When the Soviet Union broke-up, it was a worry to governments in the '"West"' that unknown, untried, untested 'regimes' such as Ukraine were ending-up in possession of nuclear weapons, especially easy to use, tracked and wheeled delivery systems (battlefield/tactical devises) like FROG's, SCUD's and their descendents - SS20 &etc.

So an agreement was arrived at, whereby if the country agreed to give-up their nuclear force, they would be guaranteed defence against attack by a superior force. Among the list of signatories to that 'deal' were - us (the UK), The Americans and . . . err . . .  Russia!

The deal never had a clause as to what to do if one of the signatories WAS the superior force and it was a promise - clearly - no one kept!

"The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,

Welcoming the accession of Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as non-nuclear-weapon State,

Taking into account the commitment of Ukraine to eliminate all nuclear weapons from its territory within a specified period of time,

Noting the changes in the world-wide security situation, including the end of the Cold War, which have brought about conditions for deep reductions in nuclear forces.

Confirm the following:

1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine." . . . &etc, ad nauseum for five-more 'meaningful' paragraphs!

 

It's no good The Trumpton threatening not to defend NATO allies (who haven't spent 'enough' (?) on their defence), when America has shown itself incapable of defending a cast-iron guarantee - we already know they can't be counted-on anymore!

It's also one of the reasons why the Brexiteers are such stupid, parochial, idiots, believing that we still hold any 'place' in the eyes of the world, such that we will be at the front of any queues for trade deals - our name is currently mud, in the rest of EU-Europe, in Eastern Europe, in the Middle East and further afield.

That's why watching Boris and May-means-someday-possibly being busy this week posturing to become the 51st State of England & Wales makes me puke - while the other two (Scotland and now, even, Ulster) creep ever closer to independence - the independence the Ukrainians hold so dear.

This particular set also has sand-bag sangers and checkpoint signage along with a pretty standard-equipped, law-enforcement, 4x4 type vehicle.

Clearly with such a 'set in stone' guarantee of future security (!) and a corrupt pro-Moscow president who would rather spend the money on a 'Versailles' palace (complete with zoo and pirate-ship - I kid you not!) than on a standing military, the border guards assumed a greater role as the army suffered chronic underfunding and leadership 'on the make' and have now become the identifiable face of Ukrainian national defence.

Thanks again to Mark Sergeyev for the above  images.

However because Putin is fundamentally a bully, he hesitated after he got the Crimean peninsula, and using the breathing-space, Ukraine has been busy developing new AFV's (as we have seen and will see again in the next part of these posts), and beefing-up the military, if he moves now, he [Putin] will get a very bloody nose.

Not for the first time this year, I'll say there's a war coming, and it came much closer on Tuesday last. There are too many of us, lots of us are very stupid; leaders as well as 'worker-bees', and we are doing too much damage to the planet.

Mother-nature has two weapons in her armoury for culling us, one is pestilence, which - as we have seen recently with Ebola, SARs and Zika - she has found to be less than efficacious these days, the other is to use our penchant for violence against our fellow man, for the utter destruction of the stranger, 'the other', to her advantage and she is stalking the lands of man, sowing the seeds of disharmony as I type.

R is for Remembrance

I is for It's War!

Well, "Dumber is as dumber does" as Forest Trump, no, sorry; Donald Gump said! Communism failed in '89, Capitalism failed in '98, and now democracy is failing! If you fail to educate millions of people (repeat - in a quieter tone) "millions of people, folks" while running a compulsory education system - for over a century; you can't be surprised if the dumb people you've allowed to accumulate bite you on the arse, even as they shit on their own doorstep!

We voted to leave the most exclusive club in the world and the pound fell through the floor, but nobody's learnt the lesson! "Start buying a little extra tinned-food every week . . ." someone should have told the people of Aleppo, six or seven years ago ". . . you never know if you may need it one day".

Thankfully, we can rely on our toys to deliver exactly what it says on the tin, every time . . .

This 'tin' was so old it was hard to see through but it still, clearly said: "Little green truck and a few Airfix copies". And that's exactly what it contained, a copy of the Dinky or Britains Austin Champ and a handful of ex-Airfix US Marines (1st type) and Russian Infantry; similar to, but not the same as, Baravelli's early figures.

Well, I say clearly; I commissioned a few polls prior to buying, and they all said that while it looked like a green jeep, it was likely, going to be, almost certainly, definitely, by about a 2% margin; an orange armoured car! Imagine the surprise of everyone (even one James Naughtie on the BBC's World Service) when a green truck fell out.

I normally wouldn't de-bag a first example, but with the bag failing and the remains of the rubber-band welding the sample card to the header; it wasn't worth trying to keep in one piece.

Keen and Gay, if it wasn't printed on the sample label, you'd think I'd made it up to annoy the parochial fuckwits who get annoyed about such things! "Drop'em Danno, I'm commin'in!"

Nothing about the company in Monks, nothing in Garratt, nothing on-line, Garratt mentions a Gay making 'solids' presumably in metal in the Disunited States back in the 1960's, but otherwise nothing, just another jobbing jobber with an office (well; a Post Office box number!) in the colony?

Although the finish is poorer than Blue Box's Champ, it's not that bad as a model, with moulding of the tools racked to the sides and a much better rendition of the wading snorkel.

The Austin Champ was a solid, reliable, Rolls Royce-engined answer to the jeep, but as I think I've mentioned before was a bugger to work on when it failed to be reliable - as all military vehicles do from time to time - as it had a 'sealed engine' (whatever that means - something to do with the wading capability?), and in the end while a whole bunch were produced, it lost out in trials with the Land Rover and Austin Gypsy, to the former, which the British Army still use in large numbers.

Those production vehicles were palletised and racked at the big bulk store in Donnington, for use in a future war, where the story used to be that the majority were destroyed in the big fire in the 1980's, but none of the Champ websites seem to mention it, so we'll put that one down to rumour-control!

News, Views etc . . . Bits and Pieces.

Inflatable

A few bits not worth whole posts . . . starting with a few balloon related items from the recent press, as the previous post was also balloon-related!

I saw this in the other day and got to thinking how cool? Fully inflated it's the ultimate diorama base for space figures, robots, aliens and rocketry stuff! Indeed, one's gone on my lottery-win 'wants list', yes; I know my lottery-win wants list is quite long, but I'm planning on a triple-Euromillions rollover win, so I think there's still room on the shopping-list for a giant planetary satellite - and a stronger tether!

You could put it in a little house, like an observatory with a domed-roof and a spiral gantry-walkway )similar to Foster's Reichstag renovation), so you could lean over and glue things to the surface of the moon, you could have Hing Fat astronauts poking-about in the dust doing a little exploration, then, just over their horizon a vast alien battle could be raging between Games Workshop changelings painted different colours, further on maybe Buck Rogers and Dan Dare - taking turns to photograph dinosaurs from the relative safety of a Marx space base! Clangers, Trolls, Daleks, gun-toting apes, they could all have a sector?

Another story (actually a dry thing about investment company divests) with a balloon involved this library shot from Getty Images of a street-parade Sonic the Hedgehog; had me to thinking what would your favourite inflatable be if you had the choice, I'd probably go with the LP robotic cycle-cop?

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Picture - Dennis Mathies

Unusual

I mentioned the other day that someone, possibly the Royal Engineers or RCT had locally-purchased Mercedes 'Wagon & Drag' combinations in Berlin Brigade, the above is the set I was trying to explain, although I think ours had timbered drop-sides like the trailer and no cantilevered plate overhanging the cab, but it was a long time ago in a life now far away.

Obviously they would have been that particular sun-faded British Army green with broad swathes of black over-painted or over-sprayed and have been wearing the Berlin Brigade bumper sticker.

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Inimitable

Sticking with military vehicles; preparing the figures and photographs for the articles forthcoming on the Hong Kong Blog page and posts, I found these; well, I didn't find them - I knew exactly where they were - but I encountered them again, and noticed that their product code was one of the question marks in the Blue Box A-Z entry listing, so I'll sort that out!

Various military versions, presumably, as the number (7438) appears in the civil vehicle list there are more colourful versions out there? Or did they just stick with the green and grey to save money?

There are two versions of the bike (a Dinky Toy piracy) and both wear the number, one which stands up and another which doesn't! A block was cut into the mould tool to allow for an unsupported, upright stance on later production models.

Instructional

Speaking of Blue Box and further to my recent treatise on accuracy and fraudulent frauds, research reveals that Tai Sang Toys are still going (as Tai Sang Industrial Co. Ltd.), still own the company (BBI) that owns Blue Box Holdings, also own the company (RBI) that owns Redbox and own several other trademark/brand names such as Cheerful Toy, Hitech Electronic Manufacturing and Talentoy Ltd. remaining, in fact, the administrative vehicle and legal parent of the 'group of groups' which includes the Blue Box group and the Redbox group, and that therefore - yes - Blue Box (in a roundabout way) presumably now have access to the Zee Toys/Zylmex moulds.

Therefore Tai Sang weren't renamed Blue Box (the impression given by the owner of both companies in his interviews with Sarah Monks), but rather that Blue Box were created as a separate entity following the conversation with/visit to Cecil Coleman, with Redbox following a few years later - they first appear in the mid-1970's; allowing for the brief entry in Garratt, published 1980/1.

Tai Sang still occupy some offices in the old Blue Box HQ building in Aberdeen, the rest of the plant now given over to other tenants some of whom are toy companies, so Tai Sang are also landlords! Redbox now has four mainland factories, apparently (interestingly) in a different region to Blue Box's. Rivals? Mr. Sell couldn't have been more wrong about Redbox if he'd said they never existed or were called Green Box!

So the Blue Box entry in the A-Z already needs a 2nd edit, with fuller entries on Tai Sang and Redbox in the pipeline, indeed the history section of all will probably be transferred to the Tai Sang entry with links to the various other-brand's listings; a similar exercise of which is ongoing, with Giant/Arco/Sarco, the Rosenberg's and the Gardener's at the moment.

Also makes you wonder if Blue Box's die-casting works in Macau ever had a hand in Zyll's prolific production? Over the weekend Peter sent some interesting Blue Box 6" figures to Paul, because there's always more to find; have to add them to the listing too!

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Blogging

Overdue

I've spent the last few weeks sorting out the small scale Britains/Crescent khaki infantry copies to get the job finished on them, the page at the top of this blog may well go, or I might rush-finish it at some point with links to the Hong Kong blog, but on the Hong Kong Blog there will be a new page with a brief run-through linked by figure type and set to the individual posts which will appear at the same time.

Unthinkable

Having taken over 7 years to get the first million hits up (last June was it?), it seems we are racing to the 2-million! With a lot of help from Russian clik-bots it has to be said, but with 700+ as a daily average (I took this screen cap as I liked the round 1000 of the previous day!), I find I'm starting to consider biting the bullet and re-jigging the blog to a more conventional scheme; I've always been happy with it in black, all my favourite Big O and Dragons Dream books have black pages, and I did jig it to a dark purple-brown with grey text for those who were having problems with it.

However, not having Internet on my laptop for the last nine months has shown me how much the layout appearance varies from PC to PC, and even I find myself squinting at the hot-link lists on some machines, so when I have a day to play on a mate's Internet I think a planer layout will ensue . . . anyone got any strong ideas or real bugbears? Speak now or forever hold you piece.

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Advertorial

Other Media appearances for toys in the last few months have included . . .

. . . this little chap; called Wilbur . . . the Penguin (no shit Sherlock!) is the new face of British Gas's 'Planet Home' series of TV and print adverts, expect toys any day soon, remember Buzzby, the British Telecom brat? Still turns up on feebleBay like a bad penny from time to time! AND . . . Royal Fail's The Stamp Bug . . . Hahahahahah!

While this story on a market slowdown was accompanied by an arena of Kiddybrix decedents; people, aliens (that look like aliens), aliens from long ago and far away (Tunisia and Shepperton mostly!), a bloke made from sewn-together body parts and various other miscreants and ner'do'well's, including a few pirates, Harry Potter and Genghis Khan! Who's the monkey-man in the grey cloak?

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Seasonal

I don't know where this year's gone, but it went there so fast I barely noticed its passing! Been an odd year, and it could get odder in the next 48 hours huh?!!

I've 'so' tried to stay out of that one, but it begs a question - if he is . . . you know . . . if he does . . . what will it say to the Kennedy conspiracists? I mean, if Kennedy can be assassinated by any one of those groups , organisations or individuals placed in the frame over the years - other than the nutter in the book store - why is the wigless one still here, hinting that "She" should 'get it' from an NRA member or two?

Anyway, closer to home; this is my seasons stash of Sweet Chestnuts, so the war can come and the world can go to hell, I'm alright for roast dinners until at least the 4th Jan! Just call me . . . dadaa-dadaa dadaa-dadaa, dadaa-dadaa dadaa-dadaa . . . Squirrelman!

You may be thinking 'But they're only chestnuts?', you don't know that three years ago we had a poor harvest and while I was picking through the damp, wormy remains on the forest floor, several squirrels up in the trees started throwing the spiky husks at me, while chattering "Fuck-off human" in Squirrelish at me!

This year was perfect; wet spring, warm summer, dry autumn and they fell before the rain; the squirrels were busy elsewhere and before you could say "Holy Rodent Roulade Squirrelman!" I'd bagged a stash.

Equally Seasonal is the annual appearance of Christmas cake decorations, an advent which gives slimmer picking every year in my experience, but these are being sold in The Works as crafting accessories, six for a pound - that was about US-75¢ a few months ago, but thanks to the basket-case Brexiteers it'll be about 7¢ by the time you read this! Anyway, if you need winter coverage for your Panzerlarger, now's the time to invest!

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Follow-ups

Mentioning the possibility of NRA members shooting a President to retain the right to bear arms (beyond irony!), I see that Nigella Fáràgê (rhymes with c**t) was wishing urban violence, revolution and Mad Max on us this weekend; fantasist twat, but, after the fascist headlines of last week I think we all know where we're going here, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria, the UK (or at least England) and yes, even the 'States . . .

. . . although as I muttered warnings of burning cities on Dear Prime Minister a while back; none of this is surprising me, it's all just rather depressing, that we seem to be blindly marching off to war, to re-learn the lessons of the last two! The main lessons being 1) War is not nice and nobody's the winner; 2) It costs more than getting to the stars and 3) Liberal Democrats are eminently preferable to self-interested, brain-dead, flag-waving Nationalists.

This picture (from the tables in the background - sat in Picasa since 2011!) really needed to be in the Preiser/Elastolin band post the other day, but I forgot it! Home painted by one of those weird types who do such things "Ooh-yeah, ooooo, ooooh-yeah, Nazis, lots of lovely Nazis, just . . . just paint one more, yeah . . . oh yeah! Ooooh, ooooh, huh . . . fuck'yeaaaaaaaarrrrrrhh!"

Seriously; they are nice-enough figures as they come, and can be re-painted to any arm of the military, even Waffen-SS, but as black-clad 'bodyguard' thugs? Really? He's even painted-over a composition original - not just a sick Nazi but a bloody vandal! Still - guarenteed seller!

Safer ground with this one! A while back (January?), I did a post on the various cereal-premium kits, and there were a few mostly incomplete soft-plastic 'planes given away with UK comics at some point, this came via Gareth in the Spring and is an almost complete Messerschmitt Me.109, I posed the missing fuselage-half to show the 'whole' runner.

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Shouts-out

Repeating the call I made the other day, in case this post gets more/different traffic over time . . .

Someone stated that he wouldn't produce a complete list of Preiser as it would run to 100's of pages; actually it currently runs to less than 60 - with all or most of the blanks in place; and I am in the process of completing it for the A-Z entry.

However I have two gaps, one is the very early days (with any additions to the small 3xx series we looked at the other day), the other being the four-number codes from the 1970's/1980's.

Also while I have various lists of Aristo-craft, Bachmann, Faller, E-R, VIP, Vollmer and Walther's/Terminal Hobby Shop products as supplied by Preiser, I'm sure they are not all complete. If anyone can help supply scans of old catalogues (mine is PK 12 I think, but in storage now) or listings of early stuff or the mid-four number era, that would help, and all help will be acknowledged when I publish, also you will get my current draft by return.

The other call for help is: can anyone tell me anything about the two 'space-cars' in the picture? I am guessing they are from an early track-race game, as they have wings with rods that seem designed to follow a channel or stay within track-walls or something?

About OO-gauge compatible for size and with plastic bodies, heavy lead-wheels and clock-work mechanisms, this is the second pair of these I've picked-up, worse condition than the pair in storage, I have an idea there was a problem with one of them too, so I'm hoping that between the four I will cannibalise a decent pair, with all their bits intact.

The other pair is the same colour way, so I think that's it; 'a pair'; twice? I was thinking Chad Valley, Marx, early Lines/Mettoy or Rovex, but haven't the faintest idea, anyone know? Might they even be a Hornby or Hornby-Triang thing

The other items in the shot are an inter-war slush-cast Renault in need of tracks and a Japanese celluloid cart with blow-moulded figures and load.

Finally reader/follower Jacob Ndolu from Indonesia (Small Scale World dot com goes global!) asked me if I had any spare Wing Lung copies of Matchbox/Airfix, I don't; can anyone help him find some? I can pass details, just email me, or post links in the comments.

R is for Remember, Remember, the 5th of November....

How cool are these? Too cool for space school, that's how!

Brian Berke sent me these, and it's not so much that they're balloons that's the cool thing (although rocket balloons are pretty cool), it's that the backing-card is rocket shaped, you don't often see novelty-shaped packaging - perhaps you should!

And they are brought to us from Ja-Ru, which means . . .

. . . These (image also from Brian) almost certainly are as well, as the artwork is clearly from the same studio!

With this set you get more balloons and a pump, instead of the little inflation-tubes of the carded set. Don't think Ja-Ru actually made these; they just wheel and deal them about the place on behalf of an anonymous Chinese manufacturer.

It's been years since I saw balloons like this, when I was a kid they would be sold by vendors in the street, filled with helium, so they hung 'up', there were wobbly ones and the standard tear-drop as well, and giant, black ones with swirly-patterns on them like the page-end blocks of old books, but they had weak spots and would inevitably burst on the train on the way home.

It's a bit late for this year, but given the fear fireworks engender in some family pets, maybe seek-out some for next year and have your fireworks in the warmth and comfort of your living room!

WTF is for Wheeled, Towed and Fire-fighting!

The last/rest of the wagons, phew! I do have a few shots still in the Preiser folder, and may do a couple of military round-ups in a week or two, but this is the end of the Preiser 'season', and the last of the wagons donated to the blog by Gary Worsfold, and the last of my words on the subject - for now!

Top right; I could have put this in the pneumatic post, but it's neither agricultural, nor horse-drawn so it goes here as an oddment. The other two were both sent by Gary, one being a petrol engined beast: shouldn't be here at all, but it's such a tiny little thing, and clearly trying to be a wagon; a horseless wagon!

The next few are all from the catalogue as I haven't any of the fire appliances, but they need to be covered to get everything ticked-off. I hate to think what that scene would cost to produce at high-street prices, but when you get the chance (a lottery-win is required!) well worth the effort.

Steam-pump, hand-pump, coal and water, just add fire! These really are lovely little things let-down only by matching horses and drivers, but a little home-conversion would sort that out.

There's a fifth fire appliance, a 'crew-bus'! The wagon top right is perfect for British outline railway layouts, being the same to all intents and purposes as a rag-&-bone cart, or costa-mongers or street-traders wagon, and the sort of thing you'd find down the docks taking things from quay-side to warehouse.

The removal van or pantechnicon is a more European design, similar to the road-workers or construction-site vans or circus wagons, both of which we haven't covered in this season, the site wagons seem to be being phased-out, you don't see them like you used to; in real life or model railway catalogues, but I'm guessing that they are still used for [local?] removals?

Both Roco Minitanks and Preiser used to carry a few of them (we looked at a Preiser for Aristocraft one in an early wagon post here), but other than a couple of office-bodied military ones in Roco's last listing and the Preiser circus ones, they seem to have all but disappeared.

So to the death of horse-drawn transport as a mass feature of everyday life, the Daimler motor-wagen! It's a tiny little thing, fascinating, and explains in part why both horse-flesh-power and electric vehicles were still more numerous before the First World War.

Open-wagon look, central steering wheel, little engine in a box at the back, only two pedals (?) and barely room for three bodies . . . err . . . I mean bags of potatoes! Yet you can see the attraction - imagine Toad of Toad Hall; "Poop poop! Coming-through, no horses, make way for the future, plebs!" I probably should have used WWI figures for the size'ers. Lovely - thank you Gary.

Only for completeness, and very useful for war-gaming, the 17103 is an unpainted kit and provides for a whole street-barricade, not much use against T34/85's but it will slow-down Cuirassiers!

Modern versions of the previous trolleys with electric tugs and hand-barrows.

My final addition to these posts, and the last of Gary's contributions, and arguably the nicest, it's certainly a fine sight. Underneath the logs is the 'standard' Preiser frame and the red cloth is a nice touch, also interesting to find the practice was universal

A few close-ups; when I say it's arguably the nicest, I'm thinking the VIP coach is the better finished, the beer wagon is just 'the best', the post wagon is a dinky little thing, while this has a grandeur by dint of its presence, the obvious weight, the visual length - it needs a team of four I think?

The same log-wagon is currently still available in the catalogue, along with Santa and his sleigh, also two more of the more work-a-day wagons, these both having the older, spoke-wheels, all three would look good busying themselves next to the Matchbox/Revell Flower Class corvette 'down the docks'!

Finally - it's November and Santa has swopped his two horses for four reindeer; he needs four more animals, but only to cover the names Disney invented to accompany Rudolf!

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A few years ago, someone stated that he wouldn't produce a complete list of Preiser as it would run to 100's of pages; actually it currently runs to less than 60 - with all or most of the blanks in place; and I am in the process of completing it for the A-Z entry.

However I have two gaps, one is the very early days (with any additions to the small 3xx series we looked at the other day), the other being the four-number codes from the 1970's/1980's.

Also while I have various lists of Aristo-craft, Bachmann, Faller, E-R, VIP, Vollmer and Walther's/Terminal Hobby Shop products as supplied by Presier, I'm sure they are not all complete. If anyone can help supply scans of old catalogues (mine is PK 12 I think, but in storage now) or listings of early stuff or the mid-four number era, that would help, and all help will be acknowledged when I publish, also you will get my current draft by return.