PRB is for Plastic Rastignano Bologna

John Roquas (all images this post: courtesy of!) sent me a quick eMail the other day, with an image, asking me if I knew who had made the figures, I thought they looked familiar, but couldn't place them and being short on Internet-time that day got on with what I had to do, while the figures were at the back of my mind.

Just before I signed-off for the day I fired-off a quick reply to the effect that they might have been Cofalux; late replacements for their swivel-head 60-mil's, but that I wasn't sure and would check that night and get back to him the next day.

An Army of swivel-heads!

Well, I got home and quickly divested myself of the Cofalux 'idea', only problem was - when I tried the other obvious candidates they drew a blank as well! So I started to run through the dongles one at a time searching swivel and swoppet until on the second to last dongle I got a folder marked PRB in the results, "Ooh?" thinks I; "what's this one?" . . . Bingo! Plastic Rastignano Bologna; an importer/jobber from Italy.

13 ex-Domplastic poses

Sent off an eMail to John the next day; 'Not Cofalu; PRB, blah, blah, blah . . . ', and the next day found all these images in my inbox, so many thanks to John for helping give these a wider audience!

The figures are scaled-up copies of the smaller (54mm'ish) German Domplastic solids, which PRB imported into Italy, whether they had permission to turn them into 70mm swivel-heads or not is anyone's guess! They are generic post-war/NATO types, but PRB's addition of swivel heads allowed for WWII Germans and other types to be 'imagined' by the young owner.

There are 13 poses, one prone without a base, 12 upright on integral-bases; which are trying to be or look a bit like late-version Cherilea swoppet bases!

- Advancing with Assault Rifle, Optical-sight Fitted

- Crawling/Waving Forward Following Troops (no base)

- Firing Bazzoka

- Firing SMG

- Kneeling Firing M1 Carbine

- Kneeling Flamethrower Operator

- Kneeling Radio Operator

- Marching Infantry, Assault Rifle

- Marching Paratrooper (both chutes, assault rifle, arms resting on reserve-chute)

- Marching Paratrooper (parachute harness, unarmed, large-pack, arms swinging)

- Officer Holding Binoculars (and testing the wind with a damp finger!)

- Throwing Grenade, Holding SMG

- Waving, Holding SMG

Seven headdress types

All the headdresses are available in all the main-body colours, with the berets having additional colours allowing for (depending on where you are in the world) Armoured/Infantry (black), Marines/Paratroopers (red and green), the UN/Russian Paratroopers (sky-blue), or other Special Forces &etc.

- Beret (very floppy or broad; Italian-looking or French Resistance!)

- Cap (like Afrika Korps, Alpinejeger or UK 'Crow-cap/Crap-hat'*)

- Cap (like 1950's RCP's or REP's in Indochina or Algeria)

- German WWII Stalhelm/Fire Service Helmet

- Officer's Peaked Cap (very 'totalitarian regime' in style, not UK/US flatter shape)

- US M1 Type Helmet (good for half the world post-way!)

- UK Mk1/2 'Piss-pot/Soup-bowl' or US 'Brodie' Helmet

There may be a kepi, but I suspect it's just the way light plays on the very pale grey versions of the DAK-like cap on auction sites?

* "I'mmmmm a Jockey, I'mmmmm a Jockey!" (an in-joke for anyone who did basic training in the 1980's!)

Coats of many colours!

I told John I wouldn't collage the images he sent as they were so good, but these two are taken with and without flash and illustrate the colour differences much better if placed side-by-side.

There are both darker and paler sand's than seen here, then the mid-sand on the upper row; dark, mid, light, pale and very-pale grey - middle row; with various greens, khakis, olives and olive drabs.

That very-pale grey is verging-on and looks white, especially if used with darker colours, thus; putting a very-pale grey beret on a dark olive figure will make it look white.

Inclusive 'World' Troops

Heads also come in various colours (not knowing what John had, I told him there were 'two'), and the sample John sent back has from the right - tanned/Asian/mixed-race, Afro-Caribbean, new-born Caucasian and a 'not very well'/sick-parade colour on the far left! Although it's fair to say (from the samples I've seen, including John's) the pink 'Caucasian' seems to be numerically superior to the other ethnicities.

When I replied to John I did some back-of-a-cigarette-packet maths and going-on the 13 poses x 6 hats/helmets x 7 colours x 2 flesh-tones in my notes, and assuming headdress would match figure colour (no other beret colours taken into account), arrived at a possible 1,092 variations, if anyone with greater maths skills would like to have a go, using John's samples and including the beret colours, I'd be interested in the result, I recon it's over 4,000?

Which is an amusing exercise, but the point is, you can - with enough figures - create distinctive armies by limiting headdress-type, figure colour or even grouping poses; they're really nice figures, with tons of play-value!

C is for Catch Up

[Or the original intended title;] K is for Canuck Key-rings

Except they're probably not Canadian, it probably should have been a 'C' and isn't really working as a title at all, but I'm getting the introductory paragraph out of it; so it works on one level! Better have a look at an image to bring clarity to the preceding nonsense, huh?

[But then yesterday didn't happen - these were going to be a PM addition, but other stuff happened - as it does! And today's running late! Anyway, I've now caught-up with all emails and comments, and downloaded three contributions - Thanks Brain, Brian and Tom, and tomorrow's post will be a lovely contribution from John Roquas.]

See - the bear sort of looks like a Mountie, but has a US style sheriff's badge? Do different National Parks have specific uniforms, or is he totally imaginary?

I'm guessing they are touristy things, and as well as looking like a Mountie, there's a parallel with Yogi Bear and didn't we/one of the Blog's followers find a 'mind the camp-fire' safety-bear a while ago - but he wears jeans? Have I already blogged this shite?

There's nothing else to add, they are unmarked, PVC vinyl, about 70/80mm, cartoony stuff; there isn't even a proper box to tick! Fun for kids!

N is for Nix, Nada, Nothing Prepared!

I had nothing ready for today, I'll try and post something later the afternoon, in the meantime here's a picture confirming an assumption in a previous post about some figures probably being out-worker's unpainted stock meant for something like a key-ring!

They were meant to be key-rings!

T is for Two - Charity Shop Plunder

The other plus drôle  from yesterday's post is that A) I already had this post in the queue when I bought the Leprechauns last week, and then B) this week I had several scores, in various charity shops, in two towns! Among the new finds were a lovely board-game for a quid and several bags of oddities including two examples of figures already waiting in the pipeline from Poland.

Indeed - there's now so much in the pipeline I don't know when half of it will get Blogged! And the Blog will trip the 2-million hits mark, in the first or second week of October . . . it's all rather go-go-go at Small Scale World, but if you keep coming; I'll keep posting! Although; you will have to accept the odd dud, and for some of you - both these will be duds . . . I love'em!

Picked this up about three weeks ago, Blue Cross (animal charity - we have dominion over them and we treat them like shit), it's marked Chap Mai, is basically a Land Rover Defender and probably came with the figures we looked at a while ago hidden in a C130 Hercules or aircraft-carrier play-set.

The front (radiator area) however seems to contain some H2 / Hummer DNA! While there are two locating-slot type-things sticking down underneath that make it impossible to push over soft furnishing like carpets . . . Doh!

Saw these in Paperchase about two years ago, baulked at 4-quid'odd, happy with 75p! It's robots, five ov'em, with gears for eyes and radio aerials designed by a blind man who only had a broom-handle and some tennis-balls to hand! They look like mobile, clockwork, Norwegian stoves!

'Revenge of the Demented Toasters!' - Coming-soon to a theatre near you; be amazed by the lack of electrical flex; be horrified by the slightly orangey-red elements; be slightly miffed by the trail of crumbs; you'll never bath with the door unlocked again!

T is for Two - Irish Figures . . . From Ireland

It's funny, you should be looking at something else here today; but I put it on the back burner after faffing-around for three hours, writing two-and-a-half lines, renumbering the images twice and adding a screen-cap . . . it needs more work! Likewise some lovely Swoppets were sent to the blog this week, but I'll sort them over the weekend, they would have been rushed if I'd posted them tomorrow (Friday); so I grabbed these two from Picasa.

Except that it's three but we'll look at the one first! Hailing from Comet/Authenticast's subsidiary Gaeltacht Industries' works in the Republic of Eire, and frankly not up to the quality one would expect from Holgar Eriksson, so possibly one of the other sculptors?

It's also funny that last weekend I shot tons of stuff at Sandown Park, yet still haven't blogged most of the stuff I shot at Sandown three months ago! This was one of them (from three months ago), nice ECW musketeer, spoilt by the daft firing-arm with its elbow pointing at the ceiling . . . or sky!

These came from a charity shop (British Heart Foundation - I think?) about a week ago, clearly the gods (or 'your' god, if you've only got the one!) wanted a T for Two Irish! When I first saw them I though "Ooh, Wade", picked up the unmarked one first and thought "No?", and then found the mark on the other. I think they are related, the blue glaze is the same, but for 'T is for Two' purposes, the one on the right counts.

They are similar to Wade's figurines (Seagoe Ceramics?) but they don't have the lines on the bases. Equally they are similar to the bisque cake decorations of yesteryear, but gloss-fired enamel, where the cake toppers used to get a matt-paint over the fired clay. They also show signs of having been glued to something with brown/animal glue; so maybe touristy something's?

Anyone got any ideas? I mean - clearly they are Leprechauns and I have to be very polite to them, but - any other ideas?!! The one on the left (Pádraig) seems to be carving a crib (Christmassy) while the one on the right (Pádraic) seems to be panning for gold to put in a pot at the end of a rainbow . . . of course!

OBE is for Other Bugger's Efforts!

As opposed to MBE : My Bloody Efforts

Even briefer than yesterday's post, but worth a punt I hope you'll agree, I took this shot years ago, I mean about ten years ago and they were in the stock of Plastic Toy Soldiers (PTS52 on evilBay).

The original is on the right, to the left are three home paints, probably from three artists and while clearly one is a straight Khaki transposition and the other wearing a tropical jacket (?), the third - on the far left - is beyond my limited 'Uniforminfo' skills! Is he a Gurkha? Were they shoved into kilts at some point?

Anyway, they make a nice group and hopefully will give people who paint-up rare'ish figures some ideas, there's just the finding of the figures to be done first!

Throwing this up here as a WTHIT*. I used (as a small scale collector) to think this was a scale down of the Britains Floral Garden Folk's teenage boy, but it's not, It's more like a reverse of the Hornby Hobbies diminutive PVC purple-shirted hippy sitting on the grass.

It's about 35/40mm and might be from a set of O-gauge figures (but I haven't encountered the rest of the 'set' if it's out there), so could he be a die-cast vehicle accessory, or from a kit (he's polystyrene), does anyone recognise him?

* What the hell is it?!!

V is for Velodromatics

I bought this at the weekend from Adrian at Mercator Trading and it's brilliant!

I guess it's probably French, most cycling toys are, and while it looks like the Britains one, it also looks like several other ones! I think the rider's posed most like the Britains one, although the hats wrong however and pose is where the similarities end as . . .

. . . this chap is articulated, and attached to a offset-cam wheel mechanism which forces the raider to pedal furiously as you push the bike across a smooth by slightly gripping surface - shiny kitchen worktops don't cut it!

Also of interest is the juxtaposition of materials, metal handlebars, clipped to a - possibly - polypropylene frame with a hard styrene rider - everything then held together by the glue on his hands. 

Close-ups of the mechanisms by which the rider pedals, and you don't want to know how he's fixed to the frame, but we Brits killed a king with a similar novelty - ouch!

Briefer than I'd like today as my Britains cyclists are in storage (and not a great sample!) so I can't expand with comparison-shots and such like, so I've also added a pistol to the jig-toy page and another figurine to the Goebel 'Mainzelmännchen' post.

News, Views Etc...Plastic Warrior No.168

A week adrift catches me almost totally 'on the ball'! Issue 168 is themed around civilian items this month but is still filled with all the usual goodies, and following the normal order;

Articles This Month

* Barny Brown begins a series on Cherilea farm animals with the 'from hollow-cast' mouldings (confirming my 'unknown' hen!)

* 'Comances' sees an investigation into the more realistic Indians produced to represent Southern States natives by Tom Stark

* The best article this month is Michael T. Hyde's 'Parade of Popes' which does exactly what it says!

* Converters Corner the one conversion this month; a rather nice paint-up of a Starlux figure by Eric Critchley to represent . . . still not subscribing huh? Try back-issues! Cleaver badge-technique too.

* Adrian Norman is also beginning a series, Scalextric Figures, with backgrounds and historical overview this issue and sets to come, a much-needed subject gets the PW treatment!

* The story of Total's golden footballer premiums ("Big League Football Stars of the 1970's") and the moulds is told by John Begg - the best article in this issue - since the last one!

* The reason for a shout-out by Colin Penn for information on F&G Products here on the Blog recently is revealed with the news the Crazy Clown Circus was boxed by them, as no one visiting here knew, let's hope the PW readership is more successful.

* Ashley Needham's piece on a Hong Kong set of Salvation Army bandsmen would get the 'best article of the issue' award, if we hadn't had two already!

* Ferrero's recent Kinder set of Barbie-doll figurines is itemised by Les White and I'm regretting ignoring the pink eggs as 'girly' now!

'What The !&*$?' has three question marks this quarter;

•       Some idiot wanting to know about a PVC sailor/'heavy' figure clearly forgot to tell the Editor it's got a Heimo 'Marx' mark on the base along with the Hanna-Barbera 1979 ©! I'm sure it's in the PVC book, but mine's in storage!
•      Brian Carrick shows a lovely little cavalryman he thinks may be Spanish
•      He's also looking for an ID on two quite lovely Ancient Greeks

* 'Stone Age News' from Andreas Dittman brings news of immigrants from the Neander Valley, via Tomy-Takara

* Yours truly delivers a Spear's Game - A Shepherd and His Dog [Adrian mentioned at the weekend just gone that the cover may have shown Britains originals, but the original shots aren't clear enough to tell, the sheep were grey though and the shepherd had a green base - both visible in the PW reproductions]

* Colin Penn closes the latest Plastic Warrior with two fine shots of the Britains zoo set Chimps Tea Party in reverse-colours

Regular Features

* 'NEWS and VIEWS and other stuff ' carries

•      News on a televisual presentation called Bargain Hunt, which seems to have been a bargain for the final buyer!
•      A correction of capiera to Capiepa from issue 167
•      More hysteria around the Timpo white-gloves (although as the previous hysteria was confined to the Internet; it's only fair!)
•      C&T Auctions have an important collection coming-up for sale on the 10th October [www.candtauctions.co.uk]
•      News on artist Volker Küne from Stephan Dance
•      A call for readers to grab the last few copies of Andreas Dittman's illustrated guides on German toy figure, novelty and premium manufacturers; Domplastic and Manurba, for UK readers only though. Although I notice Kent Sprecher's still listing both along with Andreas's Lefredo guide on his site Toy Soldier HQ

* 'Readers Letters' is a post-show follow-up with penned contributions from Ashley Needham, John Cross, Stephen Wood and Eric Keggans and images from Les White and Eric Kemp

* 'What's New' takes a sabbatical to help make room for everything else!

Plus all the usual small-ads

Front Cover is a recreation of the crowd watching James Hunt finishing the British Grand Prix . . . I think! . . . I counted over 150?

Back Cover - Comanche!

Remember also; for subscription details or to 're-up', for contributions, letters or queries, Plastic Warrior is now on-line through various platforms:

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eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com

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Another vintage issue!