C is for Crazy Bones

The first images in this post were going to be part of the main 'News, Views . . . ' which has been building for a while, but as often happens they sort of grew a bit and became a post in their own right which -as with the Leprechaun, the Lego stuff and others - helped retain manageability in the News folder!

Originally sent in by Konrad Lesiak as examples of his recent purchases, there are three different sets of figures represented in these shots;

·         a Disney 'Frozen' Prince on the far right of both line-ups - there seem to be at least three different sets of these capsule toys/capsule-type toys around at the moment, one set was covered complete in Plastic Warrior magazine; I think I looked at another here on the Blog and this chap would appear to be from a third.

·         In the middle are what look to be three TV-related figures, Konrad reports they are marked TM & © '05 Fox Made in China, which I assume is Fox TV? Can anyone ID them?

·         The other pair looked both interestingly like 'designer toys' with a kaiju/manga look, and slightly familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on them? So I told Konrad I'd pop them into 'News, Views . . . ' and see if anyone could help.

Konrad has provided the markings on one of his as PPI 30 Worldwide (the other looks to be 33) but in both cases (and it's the left hand 'Fox' one that still needs a full ID) they were hard to shoot being grey-scale which always goes either bright white or dark charcoal under flash or in Picasa!

So, while they (Konrad's) sat in the news folder, I picked these two up in a mixed bag from one of the charity shops in town, and as well as just being two new examples, the familiarity - with a bit of colour - was greater and I thought "I'm sure I've got some of these in the attic somewhere from another mixed lot?", so off to the attic the other day where I found the rest of the post in a tub of similar mini-super deforms (Star Wars in a few days), Zomlings, Fungus Among Us &etc.

The two new ones are marked with a number and Magic Box International

By now I thought they were probably called crazy bones which was at the back of my mind, due to the fact that while the obverse's are all different, the reverse's are all similar and look a bit like vertebrae - or molar teeth-roots!

Now; I don't have a folder on the dongles for 'Crazy Bones' and the PPI folder only has a few PVC-looking LRG's of a Halloween type from evilBay, but I do have a Magic Box International folder - with only one document in it . . . Soupie's post from a few years ago.

Therefore everything I know about these comes from there, or the links already posted there, so the rest of the post will just look at these as examples - follow the links for more info. if you need it.

The above are - obviously - the yellows! From the left, the first is a sort of 'Mecha' with tampo-printed highlights in two colours, then we have what can only be described as a tracked, US-style, fire-hydrant! And; the only one here without a bonelike obverse - having full mirror-symmetry; front-to-back and side-to-side.

The last two are disembodied faces, one similar to 'The Mask' with sort of hand-feet, the other more like Laurel from Laurel & Hardy!

The odd shapes/odd colours, I call the green one 'Arrow-dildo' - ouch! The weight-lifter on the end is similar to a Zomling I picked-up in a mixed lot, but the copying will be the other way, crazy bones are earlier. The blue one is very 'designer' in execution and of a very different quality to say the silver one next to it. On the left is a telephone?

Colour-transparent red ones, we have a sort of ghost, a pumpkin and something I call 'Underpants Face'!

The metallics; another 'sort of' ghost on the left, a surprised pig in the middle (I love the colour) and the new one, a sort of designer Dunny-Bunny thing? A Wilt Dismal Manky Mouse!

Two designer types and a clear one which is so clear it's unclear exactly what it is!

I don't know for certain anything about Konrad's two grey ones but I wonder if PPI are a local Polish licence holder for these globally available lines, there are certainly limited editions, national lines and fast-food tie-ins available as reported on Soupie's post, so I suspect they might be less common ones?

I would love to spend some time following-up the links myself, but I have another 25,000 posts to get out and only the one lifetime (don't laugh - I've done about 6%!), so if anyone else does do a bit of digging; let us know what you find!

However, I'm pretty sure A) I've a similar-sized sample in storage and B) these have become/will remain common in mixed lots for the next few years/decade or so; so we will return to them, despite the fact their presence here almost certainly upsets the 'Toy Soldier' purists, but I don't call myself an iconoclast for nothing; there's no sacred cows 'ere! And it's four new tags!

Thanks to Konrad for kicking-off this little journey and if anyone can help with the Fox figures or his Gogo's Crazy Bones pair I know he'll be grateful.

News, Views Etc . . . Toys in Advertising

Just a quick one; as I subjected you to nature this morning! Looking at a few cases of toys or toy-imagery used in commercial advertising to give the potential consumer (read; victim) either a warm comfy feeling or a twinge of nostalgia! My Brother who's a sort of accidental philosopher (and won't thank me for mentioning him here) stated with the logic of his age when he was about six "If you need to advertise it; it can't be that good?", to which I would add - with the cynicism of my age; if you need to use the warm glow of toys to sell it, it must be shite, which is probably why two of these involve finance!

NatWest have emptied the toy-box in their latest campaign!

This one is using a dinosaur given away on the front of a kid's comic/magazine about a year ago . . . I guess the add-agency just sent a runner to the corner-shop for their 'prop'!

Helping illustrate an article on savings in the Metro on 20th September is this family of piggy-wiggies!

Not a toy per se, but we do see the odd superhero here on the Blog and they do pertain to childhood/youth-culture, so worth a punt. Although I'm not sure Shopper Hero will save Andover from the number of empty-units in its precinct; matched only by the number of empty units in Newbury, Basingrad, Farnborough, Fleet, Camberley, Bracknell, Aldershot . . . and anywhere else I've shopped in the last few years!

Bracknell have just renamed their 'mall', Camberley has announced the third, forth? - I've lost count - facelift in recent years of its main shopping-centre, Aldershot has announced a rescue package, Basingrad is busy giving it’s a major facelift and Fleet managed to repaint the kick-boards at the bottom of the four columns, matt black, the other day!

None of which activity, mostly involving at least some local authority funds (taxpayer's money) will save any of these various high streets from the fact that the world's changed - and changed forever.

N is for Nature and Gnome's Stools!

Mixing the 'small scales' here with little animals, small plants and small plastic plants, it's a sort of 'News, Views - Bits & Bobs' with a ragged thread running through it!

I shot these over a few days at the cusp of the months just gone and just arrived, I'm sure they are Ink Caps (Coprinus), but which one (there are a dozen or more) is not so clear, my bible for such things (Philips - of course!) doesn't have a perfect match, these (in the pictures) being a bit small for the 'standard' Shaggy Ink Cap (Lawyer's Wig), but a bit big for the Coprinus Lagopus they otherwise more closely resembled.

The detritus left in the third shots is what you can make the ink out of and which gives them their common-name, except you should harvest it before it gets to the state shown here!

Apropos the Wade / Not-Quite-But-Probably-Irish-Factory-Wade Leprechauns we saw the other day, Peter Evans sent me this a couple of days later and I was saving it for the actual 'News Views' but thought this was an ideal way to mix toys and naturalism!

Those of you with a good eye will have realised - immediately upon seeing the above - that what I wrote the other day was a load of cobblers, he wasn't carving a boat OR a crib . . . he's a shoemaker!

He's plastic and not sitting on an Ink Cap, but rather a Fly Agaric, or at least a hand-painter's idea of a Fly Agaric! And there are shade's of Fontanini in the Carrara'esque sample of Connemara marble beneath the Fly Agaric!

A distant relative (by time rather than blood) used to breed Connemara Greys for the London taxi trade and is known in the family for his pronouncement in the 1900's that petrol engines were noisy and smelly and would never take-off! He (and the taxi trade) lost his horses to the hell of Flanders and as the Western Allies grabbed large chunks of the former Ottoman Empire with its cheap oil (throwing electric vehicles on the scrap-heap for three generations), he chose to retire

Sadly although not distant by blood; he's far enough away for me to be unable to apply for Irish Citizenship - so I'm pinning my hopes on the Tories wreaking Bwreakxit!

Shades of Tintin!

This is meant to be a Fly Agaric too, it's a Hong Kong (branded to a 'KT') plastic cake-decoration version of a Japanese cast-lead miniature garden ornament, the lead versions themselves replacing the even earlier ceramic/pumice ones. It's posed in an apple I rescued from three Hornets . . .

26th September 2017

. . . these three Hornets! Note the nervous beating a retreat . . . twice! I'd chopped a few of the rotten apples up with the mower and they were emanating a cider-smell from the top of the compost-bin!

24th September 2013

They get so drunk on apples at this time of year they can't fly! This chap (probably a barren chap'ess!) fell of the woodpile several times before I started filming and went on to make several more attempts, getting caught in the spider's web again too!

Like human drunks struggling to make their legs walk in a straight-line, it just couldn't get its wings to work properly, buzzing furiously, it was going nowhere, flight-wise!

L is for Leader[s] of India

No branding on this as there often wasn't with these terracotta imports, but having only recently watched Gandhi for the umpteenth time it's amazing how easy it is to recognise some of the characters from these crude castings, although castings isn't really the right word, they are hand-sculpts, if placed side-by-side with a duplicate set you'd find each is slightly different, slightly unique.

Box is in the Britains or 'British' toy soldier style, red-paper, laminate/covering but with only small labels on the ends rather than the expansive full-lid labels of Britains and Britain's own!

The funny thing is the printers decorative blocks, which on the Sanskrit label are all neat with all the trefoils facing out; three at each end, but on the English language label, there are four at one end, pushing the long-line down the label and leaving a right buggers-muddle at the other end - an apprentice typesetters' Friday effort?!

The leaders, I suspect at least one is missing but I don't know which one; it's just that a nine-count is an odd number (obviously Hugh!)  and more so with the space still available in the box - you know what I mean.  The set is a mix of pre-Independence leaders 'of the people' (Indian National Congress, Muslim League and minority representatives) and post-Independence Prime Ministers.

The following list is not necessarily correct, nor accurate in name-spelling (or thumbnail-biog's!) and stands to be corrected, but it's the best I can come up with at short-notice, with help both from my mother - who was there (grandfather had a role to play) - and the few illustrations in Alex Von Tunzelmann's Indian Summer and Leonard Mosley's The Last Days of the British Raj.

1 - Indira Gandhi - 3rd Prime Minister of India, Nehru's daughter

2 - Liaquat Ali Khan - Muslim League

3 - Vallabhbhai Patel - Parsee Leader/Representative

4 - Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru (née Gandhi) - 1st Prime Minister [Rashtrapati] of India

5 - Mohandas Karamchand 'Mahatma' Gandhi

6 - Surup 'Nan' Nehru [née Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit], wife of Pandit Nehru, carrying a young Indira Gandhi

7 - Lala Lajpat Rai - Punjabi Author

8 - Abdur Rab Nishtar - Dallit Spokesman (Bengali?)

9 - [Mohammed] Ali 'Jin' Jinnah - Muslim League and First Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam or 'great leader'

Missing but possibly/likely candidates for one of the figurines [missing or] above are;

* - Lal Bahadur Shastri - 2nd Prime Minister of India

* - Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, Mountbatten's replacement as Governor General (Britain's representative) and a possible/likely for 3

* - Madeleine Slade (the Mahatma's English follower) could be a possibility for 6, but it seems her role was enhanced in the movie, over her importance to the historical narrative, especially in the context of an Indian made set of 'leader' figures, produced decades after the events depicted in the movie

* - K R Kripalani was involved in the talks with British Government at which most of the above were also present?

* - Baldev Singh - spokesman for the Sikh community, pencilled-in as an alternative for 7, he would have had a beard though

* - Sheikh Abdulla - Chief negotiator for the Kashmir and other possible for 7

Also I'm not happy about 2, the glasses are right, but I can't find a picture of him in that kind of costume?

2-7 in close-up, construction is similar to my charity-shop musicians (seen here a couple of years back) with a basic wire-armature holding the low-temperature fired, hand-made, clay model together, painting is mostly matt, either poster-paint or emulsion of some kind and the green bases are given a 'posh' glazed-plinth look with a dip in ink - which has also provided for the footwear!

I assume - due to the hand-made/hand-finished nature of these figures, that there would be a team working on them with each worker producing many like-examples of the figure they have practised-on or perfected? And . . . while they are crude and - it's fair to say - very stylised, they are nonetheless recognisable and that's a clever trick, that's actually art.

From left to right; 1, 8 and 9 similarly closed-up on, with a study of the base underside; there are no obvious markings on any base. Jinnah's height and mean-look has been captured very well, as has Indira's appearance and the angry flick of white through the black hair over her brow which I remember from childhood news footage.

T is for Two - Plastic and Metal Flats

A couple of bits that came to Small Scale World recently, one as photographs the other as a tangible 'sample' for the collection! Yes; I know Stadinger had flats the other day, but A) these have been in the queue for three weeks and B) I don't think I can be accused of competitively following him in quite the same way as he is following me these days, with his recent Leprechauns, 'what's this' British 50mm mounted (fancy not knowing?) and Jaru tank?

Especially as we always have a few flats here from time to time - return to 'Zoo' coming soon!

All shown days after I've posted the same/similar, he's threatening to show us a whole Imperial bag next, which will be nice, the follow-up comments will make for interesting reading too, after the Jaru tank (rack toy tat) you'd think he'd found the crown jewels or a new pose of Swoppet knight with pink caparison!

I can't work out if he's playing "Look - I've got some of those too" which would be tragic in a slightly pathetic sort of way or "I've got some Hugh didn't show" which would be pathetic in a slightly tragic sort of way.

But either - equally childish - way; he's taking the position of sitting in my dust and if that's what he meant by watching my very closely, I've nothing to worry about, as apparently I'm now setting the agenda for what appears over there; responsibility for two blogs . . . I'm not sure I can take the pressure! And the other 700-and-odd of you are the winners - again . . . and every time!

So this came into the fold the other day and what's interesting about it is that it's a strip, and a damaged strip at that, not only has the gazelle lost both a horn and an ear (that's the trouble with poachers using battlefield weaponry!) but an unknown number of other sculpts - well; at least one - seem/s to be missing from one end?

These shots make it easier to see that the runner is broken-off beyond the ape, my question is, were they designed to be broken off, by a retailer, say, and issued one at a time as a premium/prize or token-gift for a purchase of something else; cigarettes, cakes, sweets, or beer even, or was it issued in strip form (as a mini-set or part set) in coffee or similar and has since become damaged?

I think I have a few singles with similar bases in storage, so we may well return to these but if anyone knows more about them, or can put a brand/maker to them; please tell the rest of us!

I know what these are 'cos it says so on the box! Heinrichsen Russian [something - strike?] Infantry Storming or at least I think that's what it says! And they are obviously grenadiers as they are nearly all throwing grenades.

It's funny, as a kid I used to pop-up the Library and devour all the  - now 'old school' - books on toy soldiers and war-gaming and I don't remember detailed rules on Napoleonic grenade throwing? I've since learnt some early ones were glass balls and almost as lethal to the operators as they were to the intended victims . . . fuse technology lacking the finesse and fine-tolerances of the modern era!

Only four poses, and only one each for two of them; devoted to an officer/SNCO and drummer, with 8 each of the two line grenadier poses.

The two line grenadier poses again, showing the distinctive Heinrichsen bases, they weren't the finest of flat makers, but they were prolific. Shot's not up to my usual standards, maybe I borrowed the picture from you know who, straight-swap for one of my ideas on what to post!

G is for the Game of Kings

And cack-handed, Aspergic, fuckwits! I've never really been any good at Chess, you'd think with a high IQ in the visio-spatial that I'd ace it, but I always end up with a brilliant plan in my head going forward about three moves, trouble being A) My opponent never makes the moves I was counting on them making for my master-plan to come-off, B) my master-plan usually involves my having incorrectly identified at least one of my players as belonging to my opponent or vise-versa, C) while I am trying to jig my master-plan to account for either my opponent's failure to follow it properly or the realisation that my lynch-pin castle is actually my opponent's queen, he/she nicks MY queen - which is really unfair as it means playing for a stalemate is off, and all I have to look forward to is a 'bit of a walk outside the tent chaps'!

However, I do love chess sets, especially when they are more figural in execution . . .

. . . like this one.

This is my Christmas present - which is why I've obscured the price! I grabbed it when I was told about it and someone else is wrapping it, but only after I'd shot the pictures necessary to show it to you!

This shot was taken where it sat on display in the little antiquity/craft place while I asked them to hold it for a couple of days while I rounded up some funding, and at first glance I thought I was probably buying an Indian chess set, aimed at modern tourists in the same terracotta we've seen here before, with 'Black' being Thai/Siamese or Burmese troops, White: Indian or Tibetan/Nepalese types?

The pack-animal Knights looked a bit odd, but who knows what they've got in the Himalayas or jungles of Burma which David Attenborough hasn't got round to showing us yet, huh? And you never look at something the first time you see it in the same way you do when you settle down at your desk for a second (proper) look; many a twinge of 'buyers-remorse' is down to a glance and incorrect conclusion.

The 'Thai/Burmese' side, or are they the Indians fighting a Chinese white-force? Well, it turns-out they are none of the above, they are in fact Amerindians! And speaking of Chess conventions - as I will in a minute down the page - this is the correct way to photograph a chess set - King to the left, Pawn to the right and if it's a more standard set like a Staunton, you'd add a Pawn or King from the other side at one end of the row.

As we'll see in a minute, once I'd got the set home and looked at it properly in was obvious that White are actually Conquistadores and these chaps . . . well? Probably Peruvian . . . or Columbian maybe? I think the pack animals rule out Mexico, while to the south of the Amazon-basin dress is different, with warmer, layered-clothing and felt or woolly-hats.

The thing is, I don't mind they're not from India (or that part of the world) as I have the figures we've previously looked at (a lovely set coming here soon!), but I have had no South American composition; now I have, so a bit of a bargain!

The clincher was the White set, which while looking Asian at first glance, especially against the other set, are actually, clearly Europeans of the Columbian invasion era. I'd mistaken Spanish helmets for Sikh turbans or Nepalese side-hats!

Both sets are presumable thumb-pressed into loose half-moulds, married-together and then turned-out to dry, possibly with a low-temperature firing to speed things along. [There is a page in preparation which explains why this type of clay is 'composition' rather than 'ceramic', but it's proved problematical, been re-written twice and was passed around the experts for proof-reading nearly a year ago to little effect!]

The figures have then been hand-painted, and glazed with a dip in what appears to be pigmented yacht-varnish . . . 'army-painter' before Armypainter!

There is a strong and obvious overtone of Christendom to White, reinforcing the history behind the two sides in this set, not the Bishops but both King and Queen being adorned with large crosses (I also missed in my initial perusal), with the Black side equally obviously being representative of pre-Colombian Amerindians.

White's Knights are henceforth to be known as 'My Little Surprised Pony', while Black's will be 'My Little Andean Not-a-pony', whether it's a lama, alpaca or other, similarly-configured woolly ruminant from that continent (there's several) is anyone's guess. You can also see how the two halves are squished-together and roughly flattened-off before being tipped-out of the moulds.

My use of Black and White has no racial undertones whatsoever, despite the ethnicity of the pieces, it is simply Chess convention to call the paler side 'White' and the darker side 'Black' in cases of polychrome sets - where you [occasionally] get those beautiful stained-ivory sets (ironically; from India!) in green and red, I believe the convention is always Red = black and Green = white, but - obviously - with African soapstone and carved-wood sets, black is black and the red/oxblood is white!

Note also, that while Black's Bishops and Pawns are different designs, the grotty-old euro-pirates get a scale-down OF the Bishop AS a Pawn! And everyone looks as surprised as White's Knights, except the Andean Not-a-pony's who look very sly and not less than a little evil!

Lined-up and ready to go, playing with polychrome sets is even more of a nightmare for me as it's too easy to misplace ones pieces, especially with this set where I'd be losing some Pawns mentally, out of the corner of my eye, as fast as I lost others physically to my opponent!

However another miss-assumption was the age of the set, I thought when I first saw them that they were modern; like yesterday, but studying the - minor - damage/ageing to the board I suspect it's more of a 1960/70's thing?

I shot the hell out of it because it'll be three months before I see it again! If there's one criticism of the set, it's that Black's castles are a cop-out - European outline,  medieval turret-towers; they could have been steeply-stepped pyramids, or something more colloquial, or at least recognisably Amerindian.

PS - A quick Google while uploading this post reveals they are quite common, definitely from Peru and while the designs differ, the theme remains the same - Inca vs. Spanish. There's one with a lovely red/orange board offset by 45º's as a diamond/lozenge and others have round boards or more ornate ones with feet - look for the photograph of a stall loaded with them!

C is for Character Historics

Which one feels ought to be F is for Figures Historiques or H is for Historical Figures or something, they've had several names and no names, a complicated history and according toPSR one of them is a bit of a mystery. In five minutes it will hopefully be less of a mystery, but more complicated!

A bit of background would be helpful . . . these two sets were among the first of the 'new' sets to appear, heralding the current renaissance we are still enjoying, indeed, it's more of a 'new normal' these days; watching the steady stream of new issues on Dave Kean's site, some makers taking a breather, others churning out sets, smaller companies disappearing as others tentatively issue their first set, but that is now, and these which were then . . .

. . . which was about 1997/98 . . . the Internet was something only 'some people' had, or that lucky people got to play with at work, eBay was garnering headlines but no one had heard of Google, Nokia - the most popular mobile 'phones - still had monochrome screens and a character limit of 140 on text messages . . . when first rumours and then fuzzy black-&-white (I seem to recall) images, finally; examples of unknown small-scale figures started to emanate from the newly (well, newish; ten years earlier) liberated East.

If one ignores the minor-makes, the history of plastic small scale had been pretty simple, Airfix dominated for 30 years, then Esci stepped-in to cover the 1980's with Revell (working with a couple of smaller, newer names) introducing their range at the tail-end of the '80's, while Atlantic had burned brightly in the middle of Airfix's dominance.

Looking at the picture today with dozens of makers large and small, all working on esoteric sets we never thought we'd see in plastic, it's hard to picture how hobby shops had only one or two brands on the shelves - for many years.

But as HäT, Italeri and then Zvezda began to expand the market, these little chaps started appearing, their first moments of newsworthiness used to be found on the HäT site, but I looked for them in Everything Toy Soldiers (ETS) the other day and couldn't find them, so they must have been notifications on long-gone forum threads?

But, it was about 1997/98 or thereabouts. I first obtained them from Peter Bergner's PB Toys at that time, from the Plastic Warrior show at Richmond, where he was carrying them in his own packaging with his own codes, but Peter only located/packed the first three sets to appear (the Samurai and first two ancient sets), which weren't the ones I'm covering here!

This is the problem set as far as PSR is concerned, but to me they are Kervella, and are stored as such. Yves Kervella was clearly the lynch-pin with the Eastern makers, and from the marking on the hub of the runner; "FRANCE 98", we can deduce that as well as importing the early output of the - still not really fully-understood - Eastern operators (some became the more professional operators; Strelets*R, Orion/Dark Dream and the later Mars) he was also commissioning figures or at least supplying master-sculpts/instrumental in the 'ideas' process.

As proof of how easy it is to lose even recent history if you don't keep good records, I obtained these on two occasions, once as the whole runner, but previously as four figures (the four lose on the right of the left shot), but I can't remember if I only had four because there were only four, or if I split them with someone like Paul at PW, which did happen with the later pirate set, I listed them as a four, and coming before the eight, so that must be how they came-in, I just can't remember why/if it had any significance!

I can't argue with PSR's designations vis-à-vis the identities of the separate sculpts, but equally would agree with them that several are open to interpretation and - as far as war gamers are concerned - paint and context will help make them pretty much anyone you need at the front! The saluting Nazi (PSR's 'Himmler') could be any German General of medium-build and stature - for instance, while Hitler isn't that clear and could be Himmler!

As given in the above link, but from the standard bearer - clockwise;

- SA Standard-Bearer

- Churchill

- Ernst Röhm

- Himmler

- Mussolini

- Auxiliary

- Hitler

- Rommel

But . . . Kervella - France!

Although, there's no denying that PSR's set is not one I've encountered yet, physically, and HYTTY  listed them both as single figures (mixed with the figures below), and a pair briefly; 001 - Hitler and Mussolini.

The 'Mussolini' is a suitably arrogant-looking, 'who ate all the pies' fat-bass'tud!

Another of the sets that crept-out of the cyber-space/ether of the early Internet was this one, which would go on to have several incarnations, with three makers/brands including rather pointless - risible even - 'limited editions'. Its line-up also changed from time to time, but as far as I can tell, the tool/runner was never altered and the full shot is still to be found occasionally.

Again while it came from the East, the hand of Yves Kervella is all over it, not least in the fact that while the bulk of the figures conform vaguely to Airfix's HO-OO moniker, the recognisably-French characters have had so much cow-muck put in their boots as kids they have pushed themselves to the top of the 25mm spectrum!

Top left to bottom right

- Charles de Gaulle¹

- Julius Caesar

- Attila the Hun

- Grant

- Lee

- Franco (PSR have him as a 'German Officer') *

- Cleopatra²
- Mystery Figure *
- Joan of Arc
- Napoleon

* - The latter asterisked figure is believed by some to be the victim of the former. With one or both being left out of several packagings of this set, it's never clear what was happening with the two sculpts or who they are.

I favour Franco for the former - he is an obvious mid-20th century character missing from these two sets which feature fascists quite heavily, while the kneeling figure was also included in latter, larger sets of the Samurais, so it may well be that was always what was intended, but that there was no room for him on the Samurai runner, which like the earlier set above, was arranged as a 'pin-wheel' layout.

¹ - Looks like he might have been based on a Cofalu 30mm policeman!

² - Based on an Atlantic Egyptian courtier?

Odemars issued the set as 102 S - Character Historics, and while the 'Franco' was supposed to be left out, you can clearly see I got one! This also illustrates the problem of spending all that time and effort on developing a mould for historical characters, how many identical Napoleons or De Gaulle's do you want, or need!

Pre-production samples were sent out (by Yves Kervella I think?) in a leery, fluorescent green polymer which is a bugger to photograph, I've shot with and without flash to try and get across the set as best I can!

HYTTY (wacky name - wacky company!) also gave us two of each, but managed to filter out the Franco sculpts a little more diligently than Odemars. Note there is nothing on the packaging to indicate a limited edition status and it's marked-up as set 1003♥ - Figures Historics.

Also, I would suggest the Cleopatra sculpt has - from the neck-up - far more in common with the famous bust of Nefertiti, not a Ptolemaic Pharaoh (as Cleopatra was) , but an Ancient Egyptian one, however as a whole-sculpt; would make a better Akhenaton, the excised, male, Sun King (celebrated by Philip Glass), husband of Nefertiti, and another ancient?

This might help? It's more likely to confuse! The trouble with someone else's tables is - only the author knows what he's doing! However, it's a screen-cap from a 7-page document which runs to 95 entries, listing the sets first as I encountered them in the late 1990's and then by maker which anyone who fancies a copy can have, just eMail me at:

maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com.

Several correspondents call all these early sets 'Russian', but as far as I know they are mostly or all Ukrainian in origin, with a clear French connection - but no Popeye!

Yes, if you're a Trumpundbrixit bully-boy in the Donbas militia with 'I Love Putin' tattooed on both forearms you probably call it Russia, but if you are a friend of freedom, peace, democracy or self-determination (true Russians have never been free; or known freedom) then it's Ukraine, I choose to use the PC cop-out 'the East'!

We then have this appearing on HYTTY boxed sets a few years into their short existence (HYTTY's; not the figures, they are still around), claiming it was first and limited to 500 sets? But a quick perusal of the previous screen-capcha reveals that HYTTY managed to issue L1, 001, 100 and 1001 to three sets, 001 twice, and while L1 was issued to this set, at one point and presumably meant 'Limited - 1'; it was also issued by two other brands, is still available and became the unlimited № 1003! And the later Greek cavalry box was a duel HYTTY-LW branding, LW and Odemars also working closely together.

Answering a question posed earlier in the editing process (and therefore; higher up the post!); there's a similarity between the Kervella-HYTTY-Odemars Cleopatra and the figure to 'her' right in this shot, but only in passing, and only around the front of the skirts/kilt/reed-knit sporran thing/area, otherwise there is no direct copying from any of the Atlantic figures, which otherwise match-up well - as 'Ancient' Egyptians, that is BC/BCE.

T is for Toro Toro Teixidor!

Shot this on Mercator's stand two three weekends ago, the sort of stand-alone item I'll never have the funds (or the room!) for, and while I collect the loose figures, I've yet to get any Teixido examples, so a bit of a treat to see this and photograph it (despite my opinion of bullfighting which I won't bore you with again!).

The set comes like this under a lift-off lid, whether there was any packing - maybe tissue - when new I don't know, there is one piece of string, but that seems structural and to be holding down the sandpaper ring (which you would have thought they'd glue-down?) to the base of the box.

The four corners are boxed-over and the whole is foil-laminated with red/white striped 'wrapping paper'. The semi-translucent stuff is book-binders mending/repair tape I think and the whole thing was sitting in the lid which I forgot to photograph!

The ring - though toy-like and scaled-down - has all the amenities of the real thing printed on the outer wall with various exits for the fighters, butchers and hangers-on, there's also a card inner wall to hide behind - when the thing you're slowly killing tries to kill you first - which is just a strip of card stapled at the ends to make a rigid hoop!

Foot types present in this set, there are more in the Teixido inventory and with the [re]moveable arms a couple of the figures can be made to hold the cloth/cape behind them making them look quite different.

A mounted figure missing his left arm and the bull; it would appear the bull is the donor for the Jecsan bull in my collection, but Teixido's has its head down with exhaustion and - like all originals - is a better sculpt.

Compare with the copies and other brands here, I think I called them all Comansi when I published, but I've got them all straight in my head now and by the time you read this I should have updated the old post to read more correctly! [Actually it wasn't as bad as I thought and comments dealt with what remained!]

Looking at the protection the horses carry raises the question of what damage do the horses suffer or how often are horses damaged or even killed/put-down? Maybe the barbarism isn't confined to the bulls and the odd Bullfighter?

A couple more shots of the 'whole'. Daniel Lepers recently reported in Plastic Warrior magazine 167 (back numbers/subscriptions available) that these are getting brittle now and collectors are having to be very careful handling them, I have to say these looked OK - but I wasn't about to test them!

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