J is for Jeep

Having passed-off two of these as a 'whole post' earlier in Rack Toy Month, I feel a bit of a fraud having them again so soon, but A) I did follow them up the same day with something else due to the frugality of that post and B) one of the features of this year's RTM has been the leading of things into each other, and this is a case in point.

I hadn't put the other two away when I blogged them and in doing so realised there were others among the bagged ones, which led to this comparison shot, however by the time I'd taken yesterday's shots for the Saracen Saladin hybrid follow-up it all grew a bit, so we'll have a bit of an inconclusive ramble here, now.

So, these are all very similar although there are differences, given the fact that those differences are found with the same cards, while similar Jeeps are found with different cards, it would appear that those differences are probably no more that either generations of the same moulds, different mould-tool cavities or shippers/packers using several suppliers and going through different generations of header-card . . . whatever the truth, let's have a closer look . . .

... or as close as can be with 50-odd years old polyethylene bags in the way!

The red one we looked at the other day is the better of the two; marginally, having a smoother pinch in the bodywork, forward of the seats, as found on the real-life originals while the orange one has the pinch sharper and further back.

Likewise where the body meets the radiator grill is simplified on the orange version and going back to the previous shot; you will also notice that the trailer is smaller with both the examples in the Army Vehicle carded bags.

Here is the other of the Army Vehicle carded pair with my loose green one; another telling difference is that the two loose ones have matching length axles, while the two bagged examples have too-long yet inconsistent axle lengths, something that you may recall differentiated types of the 1-ton Humber mini-trucks.

At some point in the future it may/should be possible to tie the one in with the other using these markers, the three letter code on the loose Jeep being another parallel with mini-trucks, swoppet Wild West copies, beach-toys and etcetera! Plastic colour in another signature, card art or the fonts or stamps employed to mark the toys are more ways of sorting, but you need the stuff preserved for such study to have any effect. And - of course - the other things in a set or bag, such as any accompanying figures; are also good markers.

However; . . . with over 600 makers, in plastics, in Hong Kong,  in the late 60's (he says from memory?) feeding maybe a couple of hundred shippers/agents and a few dozens of major importers/wholesalers/jobbers, the most we will ever be able to do with any certainty on a lot of this stuff is link them to the same factory gate, but we may never know the name of that factory!

Here we see the two in the Army Jeep header-carded bags to the left in the second image above; the gun-tractor is identical to my loose two, but the other is a third design with all plastic running-gear and a simplified body-work boundary.

Was it later (the card is glossier), or a deliberate copy by a third-party? We may . . . hell; 'will' . . . probably never know, it could have been an emergency purchase, to fulfil an order after another tool got damaged? I would imagine simply a later version/replacement moulding, designed [re-designed!] to reduce costs and make assembly simpler, but whether it came from the same source is a different matter?

Finally; to the two smaller bags on the right-hand end of the comparison-shot's row. The one in the newer-looking, glossy-carded bag is the same as the better quality loose pair, but with all-plastic wheel/axle arrangements, while the one in the much older-looking card is the simplified version, so as far as clues to research go - no bloody help at all!

However, both contain figures and there is a difference, the set on the left above; Larami's 'US Combat Tank and Jeep', contains the same little Airfix '1st version' and Britains 'being shot' copies we saw with the SF sets two days ago (I shook them out of the way for the shot - they're on the Airfix Blog somewhere!), while the set to the right 'Army Jeep'; has the same copies of Blue Box Germans carried by Nadel & Sons in little bags, so actually the clues to future research are sitting there after-all!

Moving away from the bagged/earlier Jeeps, we find these two which are interesting as the better of the two (the herb-green one with bigger wheels) is almost certainly the copy, while the rough-looking moulding is almost certainly the original!

I say 'almost' in both cases as there is a lack of packaged examples, but the olive-green one with little wheels is a late-1970's/80's one, which came-in with a bunch of contemporaneous stuff, while the later one (actually the four inset, with red backgrounds) came in Peter Evan's 'Big Bag' of recent/current rack toys.

They may come from the same place, may even come from the same tool, but the newer one has been cleaned up, release-pins have been moved and it's got better wheels, but from the currently common chalky-feel polymer.

The big boy on the left is the Imperial/Rex one from the post a week or two ago and lined up in front of him in the top-right shot are my loose green one form Adrian and three others; the earlier one from the previous image and two littlies, one a common 80/90's moulding and the other an unmarked copy of the Giant Jeep.

Below them . . . the state of play today - pretty poor really! The grey one (apparently missing a plug-in) is hideous, all tall and squished; it looks like something you might find on a coin-operated roundabout in a shopping-precinct or whizzing around a regional mail-logistics depot . . . when not plugged into a charger!

The other two are sort of OK for what they are and while both would benefit from a re-paint, the Willy's looks like a Mahindra copy and the Wrangler looks like it was requisitioned from Barbie!

That common 1980-90's one in two sets, both shipped and sold by LB Ltd (Levy Brothers), later than the Mini Army sets we've previously looked at, these contain very poor, crumbly figures, a third or fourth-generation copy of Blue Box's Patton tank (itself a copy of a larger battery toy by someone like Marx) and the worst copy of Kamley's little truck - look closely and you can see how it was cut straight into the tool-steel with a router and a drill; CAD-CAM at its most basic, if they were even involved - it may have been done by hand!

I have a shed-load of later Jeeps and/or smaller Jeeps along with a few larger vintage types and lots of Land Rovers, in storage; so inevitably we will return to them here!

The other day I mentioned the missing crew . . . well these (red and yellow sample) are the figures I was referring to and they are in two sizes, I think we've seen a carded set here with them (I can't find it so that may be a post to come?), but it may be on the Airfix Blog? Not only have none of the Jeeps in today's post got their figures; they are nearly all equipped for figures with ether male spigots or female receivers evident on most.

The provision of spare tyres and Jerry-cans with the vehicles is also a bit hit and miss with some having both and some having neither! And I was guessing the kit responsible (UPC - but who made the original? Renwal, Hawk, Adams?) for the figures also provided the material for the various HK Jeep trailers, even the Blue Box one, but it might be taken from MPC's Korean War CJ-5 kit?

To the right are the originals at around 40mm. The guy looking straight-forward has two levers between his legs and another in his right-hand and may be operating plant or a weapons system? He may be the rear-unit steerer/driver for the old atomic cannon model-kit?

Below the whoever (UPC et al.) poses are a few of the others you will find in cheap, mixed lots, all orphans until you see them in the correct vehicle in a carded, boxed or bagged set, after which you can pair them up or at least label them!

L is for Lazy Post

It's been a while since we had a genuine one of these but I was busy doing something-else yesterday and never got round to texting-up today's article, or what was going to be today's article, however I remembered I had these kicking around from a 2012 photo-session, so I'm just going to chuck them up here without ceremony as a follow-up/additional part of/to yesterday's post.

An earlier (?) [better finished; less holes drilled in it for plug-ins] version of the three-way hybrid A/C with sub-scale Land-Rover and jeep trailer in generic packaging along with a larger Jeep in ST (or more likely MST) branding.

Close-up; it's a much cleaner sculpt and the Land-Rover will be a copy of the Matchbox 1-75 series smallie.

The Willy's Jeep from the similar card, we'll be looking at them in a day or three!

Is it ST (something toys!) or MST - Mountain [something] Toys? Macau? . . . Probably a made-up brand so it doesn't matter, unless you are an obsessive, middle-aged, collector of toys . . . and lists!

- Probably - earlier packaging of the smaller models from the above range, and the A/C is now in 'enemy' brown!

Close-ups of the Land-Rover and trailer, while the Land-Rover is ex-Matchbox I'm not so sure about the trailer, it was issued in the small scale by Tai Sang/Blue Box (in hard plastic - theses, like yesterday's are all soft polyethylene), but someone must have produced a donor (they always did!), could it have been from an early kit? Monogram, Pyro; one of them?

Close-up of the brown-job, euschk! - No Plug-ins, no vehicle-commander.

A Reminder of yesterday's novelty/fair-ground prize or whatever with all attachments.

That's your lot - lazy post!

M is for Mini Armoured-Cars

Well, this year's Rack Toy Month seems to have degenerated into a perusal of all the odd vehicles I have kicking around, but it might as well be that as anything else, they're only rack toys; whichever way you cut'em. Today it's a quick look at some mini armoured cars.

This one appears to be a header card-less Christmas cracker insert or it's possibly from a crane-machine or similar - those hoop throwing stalls at fairs sometimes had stuff like this on the easy blocks lower down the pyramid, nearer the throwers, After dark with multicoloured fairy-lights and a crinkly-bag you didn't always know what you were trying to win . . . unless it was a Gonk!

For younger viewers: a Gonk was what a Furby was called before some marketing-fuck got hold of it, registered it as 'new' and changed its name to 'Furby'! Ending the Traveller community's faux-fur-wrapping-round-loo-rolls industry at a stroke.

It's a hybrid (the AFV; not the Gonk) between a Saracen (wheels), Ferret (hull/engine doors) and M46/47 (turret; or is it a T34?), to which has been added a space-war, sonic-disintegrator cannon and two sparrow-missiles on a pintle-mount! It doesn't get any better in the world of Rack Toy tat than this . . . or any worse! There's an empty hole for something else (radar? Greek flag? Britains rake!) and a copy of the old Airfix HO/OO US Marine throwing a grenade, clearly modelled from wet mud . . . I love it.

Both called Fighting Set, one is generic and dated 1968, the other branded to an SF which could be a made-up-brand, or a clue to the producer. One of the hulls is a reasonable copy of the old Matchbox 1-75 series Saracen and with the correct turret looks the part, however the other hull is as bad as the previous one (but different) and with a choice of plug-ins it's only odds of about 35/65 that you get the full Saracen in any pack!

The 25lbr is a reasonable model, possibly a scale-down from the Dinky version which was the better of the ones I remember as a kid; Lone Star's were a bit odd, Crescent and Britains went with more chunky models. Coming with the commonest type of Airfix '1st Version' Germans and/or 8th Army randomly packed in twos (and gun) or fours (with no gun), sometimes the armoured car is replaced . . .

 . . . with an 'action figure' sized copy of the Marx 'dress your own swoppet' GI's machine-gun (See Peter Evan's article in Plastic Warrior magazine No. 140, pp2/3), I don't know if Marx issued it in a larger size, or if it was just the piracy-elves in Hong Kong were responsible? We have looked at the Indian here, I think; or the cowboy, but not the GI [moveable combat soldier with accessories], although I do have him somewhere . . . maybe in September?

A scan of the undated card to the left (it will be no more than a year or two either side of the other card's recorded 1968) and because I had a poor shot, I played with it in Picasa 'till it looked like an illustration from an old 1970's war-gaming book!

Mercifully looking like a Saracen - we've seen this set before (studying paratroopers!), so included here for completion only, artwork is the same as the undated SF-branded cards, itself dated 1969 but unbranded and with the accompanying figures including a Britains Lilliput figure pose - being shot.

Later the same day - all mentions of Saracen in this and tomorrow's post should of course read 'Saladin'! Cheers Andy!

H is for Whirlybirds!

Well; I intended to try and do a small follow-up to the Kamley post, specifically on the twin-rotor jobs as I knew I had the second shot below, but as these things do sometimes, the post grew rather and while it's not all of them (I found another two putting some of these away!), it's a reasonable overview of placky-tacky rack-toy Helichopp'ters!

It's funny, because the Kamley post grew 'organically' in the same way, as bits were added, fell into place or got re-shot and yet - because I had the old shots from the 2012 helicopter photo-shoot we've been getting the odd post out of for some time - I never went to check the tub, which, if I had, would have revealed that I had all three versions of the Kamley all along!

It must have come from Brian Carrick, Garreth Morgan or Peter Evans, so thanks to the three of them for all the rack-toy stuff they've fed me in recent years. Therefore, in the suspected order, from front to back of the upper shot, the three main variations of Kamley-Kositoy-KS twin rotor which begins life looking more like a stripped-down Chinook and ends life looking more like a Sea Knight.

And the wheel-failure thing continues in the helicopter department with the absentee from the other day also only having one set!

Below them are the original reason for the thought behind this post, the modern clones, although time marches-on and the sandy one is probably no (or not much) newer than late Kamley's, a machine it's definitely based-on. I can't now remember where it came from but I've had it since the late 1990's and it came with a 'Gulf War' (the legitimate one) themed rack-toy 'Army Man' header-carded bag o'shite.

The other three are far more Chinookey-likey, with the red and blue ones originating in play-sets (bagged, carded, toob'ed or bucket) with the fire-fighters and police we looked at back at the beginning of this year's RTM.

I think they accompany the Top Toy/pound-shop types we've looked at before, but can't be arsed to check and if you look carefully the military one is slightly different (possibly the donor for the red/blue clones) so there will be other sources such as MTC, Jaru, Hing Fat, Toy-wotsit or Hunson for one design or t'other (see Erwin; anyone can produce a wordy-list of current "so called joggers"!).

Again I could check but can't be arsed - I remember posting the army one though; as I commented at the time about the non-matching rotor blades (I left one off this time!), so Poundland (Funtastic) or 99p Stores (Top Toys?).

This is a variation of the shot we saw the other day and just gets it out of Picasa!

I think we had this as a mini-post either last RTM or one of the Christmas novelty posts? The wheel-failure problem continues unabated in my cheapie-helicopter park! Still - at least they are both there in the bag; it's the rotors that have gone AWOL and it seems to be a reasonable copy of the Kamley 'II', but with nipples where the missing rotors should be anchored!

The little die-cast (from my mum, who - at 80 - panders to my strange obsession with kiddies toys!) is the sort of thing you often find in the kinds of sets we looked at last Sunday and is a copy of a late Matchbox or Corgi toy from the 1980/90's, while the wheel-failure yellow one is confirmed/supported by an opposite colour-way, in a carded set clearly harking to the (then current) campaign in Vietnam or - at a stretch - Malaya/Borneo/Brunei (then recent).

Closest to a Model 61 Bell HSL, it remains a made-up model from the fevered imagination of a Hong Kong Chinese designer!

"Which one shall I take-out today?"

It was at this point the post was going to end, but having included the green background shot I thought I may as well clear them all from Picasa, so this was taken in 2012 and was (still is) the contents of the Odds & Sods tub. Easier to number them and wiz-round the arrangement from the top left clockwise:

Number-1 is a relatively modern take on the old 1960's precursor to Chinooks (Belvedere or Shawnee?); 2 were German bubble-gum capsules, I think they are missing a floor which clipped onto the wheels, it may have been card (?), I've certainly never seen one and sources differ on whether they are Manurba or Siku in origin, the clear-orange styrene one being probably earlier than the ethylene yellow one and; like the bubble-gum tank, probably made by several suppliers?

3 is Kinder, missing it's skids and I have a green one complete in storage with other Kinder's so a return to them is inevitable. I suspect 4 is from some carded set of divers, or spies or some TV related stuff (sentient simians?), from/via someone like Larami or Imperial? It's rotors have snapped like chalk with age.

5 is a common-enough HK take on the Soviet-era Kamov utility/spotter (I think! Tals all wrong - married to bits of a Wasp?), 6 was also a capsule toy, but I don't think it was Kinder, one of the lesser makers like Ziani maybe? 7 is the other aircraft (British - Wessex) from that carded set above and several like it, it also survived for years as an individually-bagged 'party favour' alongside the Kamov and a third similar design.

Which leaves 8, ID'd over on the Moonbase Central as a Captain Scarlet design from Gerry Anderson (I stated to write Adams there!) if I recall correctly. It belongs in the same 'Army Man' sets as number 1.

Seen here before, but by this point I was grabbing anything Hong Kong and helicopter-related I found to chuck in the post! A boxed generic from Tai Sang mirroring their brand Blue Box's own sets and containing a diminutive Wessex type along with late soft-plastic Blue Box GI's.

The lower shot was taken ages ago, since when the US airframe has gone to Blue Cross (with various other donations), the animal charity, I regularly take stuff in with a "Try it at 20p per item for a week and send the unsold to recycling after!", but I always keep at least one of each for the master collection, which is in the upper shot.

The 'British Cobra'* is the better of these dirt-cheap 1970/80's HK rack-tat-mobiles, with realistic skids and little flash, either side are lesser sub-copies while the two in front have a daft, plug-in tail-rotor. There is - however - a worse one; the Rado/Ri-Toys version didn't have skids so  much as a couple of scaffold-poles welded to its legs - they all go to charity, I may have set them low, but even I have standards! No; I lie; I have space-limitations!

*we wished - surrounded by 3rd Guards Shock-army and half the Volkarmee with a couple of liaison/orientation-tour Gazelles to our name! And it was no better down at Clay Allee, the Americans only had a few tired, old UH1's to call-on, one of which I rappelled out of, Yes! A day well-spent! But then BB - UK, French, Grenzschutz/Polizei or Yank - was . . . errm, considered . . . 'expendable'!

Tank Hunter-killers with a micro-machine of unknown origin; the smaller die-cast, like the fire service Sea Knight above is another common member of those sets we looked at on Sunday, it looks like the South African entry (Roorikat or something?) in the attack helicopter trials of the 1990's/2000's usually losing-out to the Apache.

The larger one is quite nice and I have a feeling I know where it came from, but it's lost (the note that is) in storage if I do, I think it's a copy of a larger model from someone like New Ray and is well finished in a solid polypropylene at a size which makes it useful for 25mm war gaming. [29th March 2024 - now known to be Redbox, from their 'Commando' playset]

The little one is a mystery, again looking like one of the losing entries in the 'new medium-lift/troop-carrying helicopter' trials around the turn of the century as Pumas and Jolly Green Giants were being scrapped (yet the Chinook flies on - solid fella!), it is in a soft PVC and could be from a board game, or a little set like those Silvercorn suitcases, some micro-toy like Takara's robot Votoms, or dare I suggest modern/current'ish gum-balls?

The closest thing I have to it in general feel and appearance is the painted Dalek donated to the blog by The Toad, years ago, which came from a Dr Who advent calendar, might someone have produced an 'Army Man' calendar, GI Joe, something like that?

This was going to be picture 3 or 4 as a sort of 'forthcoming attractions' finisher, but we seem to have looked at most of them now! Missing totally are the UH1A/B Huey Slicks which may be because they are in storage, or we've already had them and I've hidden the tub somewhere! Try the Helicopter tag?

The two right-hand tubs have new stuff for future posts - giving weight to my Ri-Toys lie; the top right tub is stuffed with smaller choppers, several of which are Rado (some from Moonbase!) while the attack-helicopter tub below it has several additions since the previous shot was taken.

The little scouts, Jet Rangers and OH's haven't been covered at all and I have them in plastic and die-cast, while a bag of painted machines awaiting stripping are the single-bagged ones mentioned earlier (above). The green one lying on top is one of several larger Jet Ranger types that have come-in in the last few years with current toob/tub toys and they can wait a while.

 

Kositoys & Kamley are now known to be brand/brand-mark/s of Kwong Shing - added to tags.

V is for Villagers; Various Little Plastic Toy Villagers!

Destined for the small scale Hong Kong blog but purchased for RTM last year it's a return to those keen and gay traders the Keen & Gay Traders! To be honest it was this set I was after over the Austin Champ I posted nearly a year ago, as I have been picking these up in ones and twos for years (I suspect cheap Christmas crackers; possibly the mini 'tree' versions), and was very pleased to find them in a generic pack.

The fact that it was a sample was also interesting as it may mean that it never got a release, or never got a 'Western' release? However here is one set at least and it says what it is - villagers.

To be specific: South East Asian villagers which could prove useful in choking roads with refugees if war-gaming the WWII Japanese campaigns, Korea or Indochina-Vietnam.

You get - from the left in the lower image - a guy sowing crops (carrying a rolled document in the header-card illustration); an artist or painter/decorator artisan type; a chap walking with a gravel-rake over his shoulder, off to make a nice Zen-garden (although it looks like a hoe in the illustration); a man walking with his hat (or a winnowing-basket) under his arm; a fisherman and an agricultural worker with bundles of rice on a [too short] pole.

You also get two pieces of wall . . . I can almost hear Peter Cook in the background "Four would be useful Mr Wall, but two? I have to say Mr Wall - two is two too few!" Looking at the header-card artwork; it can be assumed (or hoped!) that in some packs you got a arched-door/gateway piece, and that multiple purchases - if possible - could at least result in a pig-pen or local militia 'fortlette'! Age has curved them so they can at least be arranged as a partial backdrop for photo-sessions.

Posed with a Japanese celluloid tourist trinket, which is carrying us away from rack toys a tad, but sometimes you have to follow where the subject leads you. The size of both is perfect for 1:76 / 1:72nd scales and would seriously slow your armour down if they were travelling in the opposite direction.

Peter Evans as good as gave these to me back in May with the Big Bag of 'Army Men' and I am very grateful as I have been collecting these in ones and twos for as long as I have been picking-up the Asian civilians and although I have a dozen or so, they are all in storage, which will give me a chance to return to them in the future, but the three here are a good flavour of the type.

I don't know anything more about these than I can interpret with my own eyes, but they seem to have the look of craft items, made by hand in small quantities rather like Bavarian/Tyrolean or Erzgebirge wooden toys.

Some items are preformed-solids; the passenger, the loads, the wheels; but the animals are vac-formed in two halves and glued-together while the rest of the wagon is made from rod, tube, strip and sheet materials.

Different techniques are employed by different makers (again like Erzgebirge), some having the wheels and axles fixed, some making tube axles for the rod to turn in while others glue the axle but leave the wheels unglued so they fall off - if you're not careful!

Likewise the construction of the wagons, wagon-roof designs and even the attachment of the draft animal differs (one of these is removable, the other two fixed) and in storage I have paired teams and four-wheeled examples along with a man-drawn rickshaw in the same scale 'Ivorene' style.

So I suspect a kit of parts, sent out to lots of little crafters, collected in when finished and marketed from a central point?

As well as the wagons there are other common tropes in the same size and there are larger scaled versions of some, particularly the rickshaws which can be found in 54mm-compatible sizes. Pastoral scenes involving ornamental bridges, mini-dioramas or vignettes built in a real or celluloid scallop shell, and more formal plinth-mounted vignettes can all be found in this style, but it's the wagons I look-out for!