News, Views Etc...Plastic Warrior No.169

The issue has been out for a week or so, and if you don't subscribe you may just have time to get a copy before the holiday season, but get your skates on - the PW links are below the main body of the review.

This quarter's delights include . . .

Articles

* Andreas Dittman kicking-off the issue with a look at boxed sets of Dom Plastik landsknechts, which is very useful - helped me ID a halberd, now I just need the figure to hold it!

* Part 2 of Cherilea's plastic animals by Barney Brown finds us studying the larger animals and people

* PL Cuna covers the recent issue of Portuguese and Spanish General Staff from Chintoys

* Echoing recent posts here, Peter Watson inspects an HTI (Halsall) rack-toy set of knights and compares them to their diminutive donors

* A lovely Gulliver set of Brazilian Revolutionary figures, recently offered through an auction-house, is shown in an editorial

* Gerald Edwards returns to Kellogg's and Crescent with an update on medieval cereal premiums

* For Airfix aficionados there is a fascinating piece of previously unknown information on pp21 . . . no . . . subscribe!

* The second part of Adrian Norman's Scalextric articles deals with the 'long box' figure sets in the original painted ethylene series'.

* Alwyn Brice's Elastolin at 40 (part 7 9) is similar to parts one to six eight, only . . . a bit different - Huns now.

* Another editorial piece builds on contributions to illuminate the relationship between Lido and Selcol through the knights (one of whom - in my collection - is currently in possession of my Dom halberd!)

* Peter Evans closes the issue by comparing horse-flesh sandbags and Christopher Columbus; if that sounds more than a little cryptic, you still need to subscribe!

Regulars

* This issue's 'Converters Corner' has Brain Carrick creating a 'forlorn hope' from Marksmen British Grenadiers (ex-Marx) for enlisting in the Seven Year's War, while Claude Hart supplies a nice vignette/diorama of Replicant's smuggler's being apprehended by revenue troopers!

* 'What's New' covers recent releases from:

·         Engineer Basevitch - 70 years of the Soviet Army (actually all late WWII/early Cold War poses, but presumably part of a series)

·         Mars - Ex Lintek Napoleonic figures, ARVN (South Vietnam) forces

·         TSSD - Roman testudo vignette

·         Chintoys - ACW Staff for Union and Confederates

·         Expeditionary Force - French Napoleonic Fusiliers and Grenadiers

·         all available from Steve Weston (Weston Toy Soldiers) now

* There is no room left for 'What The !&*$?' this quarter!

Editorial Bits

* 'NEWS and VIEWS and other stuff ' has news of . . .

·         Games Workshop facing a lawsuit, and not for small potatoes

·         The ongoing Toy 'R Us bankruptcy

·         The availability of the last of the late Geoffrey Ambridge's Lone Star Books

·         Toy logo key-rings

·         And a brief obituary for John Clarke*^†

* 'Readers Letters' is particularly busy this issue with . . .

·         A report on ACOTS 30th annual shindig down-under from James O'Connell

·         Musings on the figures in the Dulux adverts on TV from Norman Nevard

·         More on left-handed figures from Les White

·         Erik Keggings reports on Retro-branded figures which look like a new source of the Poundland/99p Stores 30mm stuff)

·         David Buchanan asks about Britains Trojan moulds

·         Acedo moulding and other re-issues are provided by yours-truly as a follow-up to PW's passim.

·         A Robinson Crusoe from Kinder is provided by way of another follow-up, Daniel Lepers the contributor; also asks about Cherilea horses.

·         Peter Evans recounts an interesting memory of Timpo, concerning the (apparently: ever less rare!) prone type-3 cavalrymen

·         Bob Baker requests Barzo articles

·         Paul Stadinger reports on Barzo news

* Feedback on previous issues 'What The !&*$?', includes contributions from Peter Cole, Daniel Lepers, Jean-Marc de Vion, Erwin Sell, Paul Stadinger and O. Adamsberry; between them identifying Speedwell, JSF, PZG and Heimo's Travels of Gulliver set.

Plus all the usual small-ads

Front Cover (and recipe) will need pun'ishment directed at one P. Evans

Back Cover - An interesting Timpo catalogue scan with Lindberg tie-in

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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*^† Saddened greatly by the news of John's passing he was a lovely man, he carried the enthusiasm of three, incredibly intelligent and friendly despite treading a rocky road, and his loss is proof of the old adage that 'the best go first'.

We once had a minor disagreement about the contents of certain Monopoly sets (some of us are living right on the edge!), a couple of weeks later he sent me a letter through our mutual friend John Begg (because he didn't have my address and John had been party to the chat), apologising for being slightly wrong, and this wasn't a three-line whip, this was a full, handwritten, page of prose, explaining how he had gone about proving the facts, a REAL letter in the age of the email missives -  like wot peepel rote in the oldun daes!

Truly a charming man; we're the poorer for his passing.

There is a cryptic hint at John's diorama's having been shot by the PW editor so hopefully they will be forthcoming in future issues of Plastic Warrior?

F is for Follow-up - Paint Your Own Toys

Just a quick one; following up on the Paint Your Own posts, Brian Berke sent me these last week, they are a bit cartoony, but then they are also piggy-banks, or Swineosaurus Geldii, as I believe paleontologists are wont to call them, and need to be fat to take all those pennies!

In Walgreen's as of last Tuesday; should you be fortunate enough to live where Walgreen operates! An excellent gift idea for younger relatives, and as they get older they can always repaint!

Brian also sent these a while ago as part of a mixed lot he was trying to ID, and while I couldn't help, I did suggest Paint Your Own sets, as I had just seen the sets I would later purchase for those posts the other week.

I took them (the pictures) home and had a better look (I struggle with images in Hotmail these days, partly down to limited time on the internet, partly down to the fact they make it as hard as possible to get them to show big enough!), spotted the 'CHINA' (on the rear of the left hand figure) and changed my mind, suggesting they were from a medieval play-set.

But now doing a bit of digging into these Paint Your Own sets (there's a fair few out there), I've changed my mind back to the possibility they are actually from a Paint Your Own set, possibly targeted at castles, museums and historical sites.

The Crescent 'Berserker' clearly booked his annual leave for the pre-Christmas period so there's an approximately 54mm ACW Union flag-bearer as a scaler.

Clearly medieval or early 'age of exploration', could they be from a Pilgrim Father's set, or touristy thingy of/from a US source, do you have them? How many poses were there in a set or what was the set called? Were there Local Indians in the set for the pioneers to trade with?

I found this (Kandy Toys) looking for something else the other day, and while they are more dinosaurs, it's further evidence that Paint Your Own sets are looking to be a rich vein for toy and model figures, animals and such like, have you found any useful ones? I've also seen Paint Your Own plaster figurines.

News, Views Etc...In Brief

So, I sort of lost my mojo over the weekend, I was going to post something for Sunday afternoon and this morning but my can-be-arsed tanks ran-dry on Friday and it didn't happen, and although I have tons of stuff in the queue I don't really know what I'm playing at for the next week or two.

New Additions 2017

In my defence we will hit 450-posts before the end of the year whatever happens so I'm not too bothered, clearly why the 'can't-be-arsed' reserve has kicked in! A few shelfies in awhile and the latest PW review later today, nothing for tomorrow yet, I may post something Spanish later, for tomorrow, but I'm doing Christmas trees and cutting wood and looking for holly with berries and important stuff like that right now!

That Pirate set the other day was imported by ITP, and branded to Toy Bank and Pirate Monkey . . . Toy Bank was one of the brands on those big rubber insects, so we can deduce that Pirate Monkey and Green Geko [sic] are madeupnames of Toy Bank. I'll add all relevant tags to the Pirate Ship's post before you read this.

Also Francesco Ferretti sent me the most fantastic shots of his Kinder collection last Thursday and they will make lovely eye-candy for the 12-days of Christmas, both for closing 2017 and setting us on the right path for 2018.

Maintenant - ici est un blog Français bel pour les jouets en plastique

http://www.lesjouetsdenicolas.fr/

D is for Disaster!

It's the annual Crimbo-chocolate post! Bit of a rant this year!

Lidl's have stopped shipping-in their lovely Favorina chocolate advent calendars of which there was always a choice of three, one girly kids one, one blokey kids one and one traditional one with a sort of 'cheap Christmas card' scene with Christmassy and/or religious overtones, which was the one I always got, each window (are they windows, or doors?) had a different chocolate shape, there were the correct 24 windows and the chocolate was lovely!

Last one from 2016

Last year they started sourcing them from within the UK (Kinnerton) and while the chocolate was OK, it was UK-okay if you know what I mean, not proper chocolate at all, and worse - all the boxes were younger kids TV or book/comic character tie-ins, so this year I paid an extra quid for a Thornton's one, hoping it would at least taste better.

No proper figurals this year

It's got 25 doors (are they doors, or windows?) which is sacrilege ('Bread & Circus' - "Give the proles an extra doorwindow!"), only six designs and the chocolate tastes like Cadbury's Dairy Milk which I've never liked, vegetable-fatty, sugar-gritty, shite.

I know it's frivolous, but there's a point - like housing, like prisons, like wages, like benefits, like the roads, military procurement, education (funding and policing) local governance, banking, tribunals, the toy trade, manufacturing, fishing, mental-health, pensions, policing - pretty-much any aspect of public life you care to mention; the crappifying of chocolate advent calendars is a symptom of something greater; that we are going backwards.

We are going downhill, we've ceased to improve, progress isn't and we've started to visibly, tangibly, actually degrade - as a nation, we are on the slide. 38-years of Thatcherite-Reganomic policy has left us divided, devoid of ideas and without a pot to piss in and pushing ahead with Trumpundbrexit won't do anything more than accelerate the regression. So endeth the message of hope for 2018!

Finishing on a lighter note, the one on the left is a penguin in a scarf - if you're wondering.

While the one on the right ended this way-up after I'd wrestled it from the tray and I momentarily thought - why have I got a whale-plane from the Wacky Races in my advent calendar?

P is for Provencal Peasants and Performing Provincials

I had to read-up on Santon's for the pesky Composition Page which seems fated to never happen, or destined to become a book! Primarily, this was because there was confusion in my simple-mind between 'Santons' and 'Senton', who we'd already seen here on the blog. Turns out Senton make Santons and Santons are the French take on Italian Presepi, except they (the French) apparently got the idea from the Spanish Belenes!

Typicall though, while most Santons, including those from Senton are painted and between 50 and 80mm, these are 120-odd and undecorated! However I'm sure enough they are Santons as the French changed the rules on who could attend the Nativity and decided that occasional guests could include celebrities and presidents - past and present - while one of the 50 regular guests is the hunter, complete with anachronistic firearm!

These are fired terracotta with a couple of chips on the hat brims, revealing that they were finished with a dark varnish wash or dip.

These aren't Santons, being more decorative or ornamental but of the same sort of subject; country bumpkins, so they can go here. They were photographed on Adrian's stall back in the summer, and seem to be blow-moulded polystyrene, done in the style of the Casein figures that turn-up occasionally and/or Japanese celluloid blow-moulds.

However they actually have what appears to be a British 'Registered Patent' application number round the base; hers not clear, his quite readable; R.P. No. 8863-something obscured by what looks like an Araldite repair. They have wooden bases to match the similar casein models.

Yet I wonder if the RP could be Republique Provence? They remain a mystery - unless you know better (?) - are figural and are interesting . . . and; to be honest - look more Spanish or Portuguese than anything!

Links

Wikipedia

French Official

Provencal Site

On the blog

Santons by Senton

A [casein] Gentleman in Khaki

F is for Five Festive Felines

Actually there are, as you will see; six, but one of them is real so doesn't get counted in the title . . . which needed to be alliterative or there was no point in it!

Spot the bar of posh, imported, scented, craft soap . . .

. . . and the cat! This is definitely a polymer, but I haven't the faintest idea what type or how it's done. The base looks like a sanded resin figure, except there is no sign of the marbling whatsoever, and the feel of the plastic is more like polyethylene. There is a small ZEN mark near the base

Also, if you look at the marbling it has the same fault-lines running through it as the old oil-on-water marbling of ancient tome's end-papers or page-edges. This shouldn't be possible if the marbling is formed by two colours being injected as a mix, as they would string and swirl in the fashion we know from old toys? Or the spurious bar of Thai soap above!

Therefore, however hard it is to believe - and I can only guess at the techniques involved - it would appear that a single colour moulding has been rolled or dipped in a polymer 'float' which has been kept molten, or soft-enough, for long enough to add the fault-lines, probably with wires - as you would with the oil-on-water method of yore?

It's large; about 60mm, and clearly some kind of art or craft piece pretending to be an actual marble mantle-ornament type thing, and will go with the miscellaneous cats, I'll Google it when I upload the article and if I find anything the link will appear . . . here! Nothing! The choice of Zen as a mark not helping; pages of cat Buddha's!

Tom (of the music Blog) sent me these back in the summer, I'm pretty sure it's the same Midori that we know/remember as KSN-Midori (Sakai / Riko) from their clip-together AFV's and space toys back in the 1970's, which had kinetic flywheel push-and-go motors you could cut your fingers open-on; folding-back the mounting tabs!

Tom posed them with an Airfix Multipose 'Tommy' who looks less than pleased to be sharing his patrol duty with four well-fed felines! As Tom put it; "perhaps he’s allergic to cat fur"!

I'm not sure where the magnets are; they look to be fully-round sculpting, so not yer'average fridge magnets? Maybe they push and pull themselves around like the old novelty magnetic cars, Scottie-dogs or kissing couples of yesteryear's joke shops?

I've tried finding them on t'Internet with no luck, so you'll have to pop-over to Japan or Australia if you want some!

Meanwhile I've been waiting ages to have an excuse to use these which Brian Berke sent to the blog back in February, a New York store-cat who knows exactly which Very Important Place to guard!

Talk & Train two-way wireless??? . . . "Calling all cats, calling all cats..."

What's interesting is that 'over-here' on the other side of the pond we call the Temptations shown above 'Dreamies', our Temptations are twice the size of Dreamies and come in Felix-logo cat head shaped, pink tubs!

Would I lie to you - it's like crack for cats! I was hoping to shoot the cat-head Felix tub, but we're out!

P is for Poundworld-Plus Plastic Pirate Play-set Preview Post

Or - S is for Shiver me Shelfies, it's a Shifty Ship with Surly Sailors!

Saw this in Poundworld-Plus the other day, a big stack of them for a tenner, Christmas-stock I'll be bound, or my names Buttsttead Forttesque the III! Figures are Schleich/Papo-like, while the ship is better suited to 'HO/OO' compatible sea-borne shenanigans.

I didn't see a brand anywhere [ITP Imports from Toy Bank/Pirate Monkey] but I was holding shopping and a camera so it was all a bit cack-handed in the play-set inspection department, while they were piled-up by the tills, so I was sort of in the queue as I was faffing about!

A tenner? I left it, and I can't think of any collectors I know who are likely to grab one, but if you want an individual item from it and have younger relatives . . . it really would be like taking candy from a baby, "Oh dear, must have got lost in the wrapping-paper - which went on the fire"!

The figures; there's four of 'em.

Of more interest, maybe, for garden/54mm war-gaming (?) is this catapult, it's a bit clumsy-looking, a bit chunky, more like the old MPC one, but a bit of paint would bring it up to some sort of presentable shape! Or the wheels would be a useful addition to the ancient/medieval spares box!

And then there's this wheeled cage? Has it escaped from a 1970's Planet of the Apes play-set? As a lot of pirates WERE also slavers, it sort of makes sense, but none of the figures included will fit in it, so you'll need to source some miserably malnourished 65mm figures first! Ohh . . . Kinder Barbies - they'll fit, and the pirates will thank you!

At first glance I thought the horse was another of the Maxxi Toys ones we have been looking at but it lacks all the holes and the pulling-tackle just seems to just hook-over the saddle.

So there you go, Poundworld-Plus, and probably ordinary Poundland and Poundworld stores if that's what's local to you, they are all now owned by the same SA-based company, currently under investigation for fraud somewhere . . . Austria? It'll all be in the next 'News, Views...'.

U is for an Unexpected Journey . . .

. . . otherwise known as 'The Hobbit'. Picked these up the other day, sans board, sans rules, sans everything else! But - a complete set of game figures, and as it's a week or two since we last had games figures, lets have these . . . now!

Metallics always photograph with difficulty and these have come out two different colours, neither of which is quite what my eyes are seeing, but I have an unfulfilled prescription for glasses kicking around somewhere, so that's saying nothing!

Softish PVC, 25mm 'game size' which leaves Bilbo slightly taller than Gandalf! These six are the player pieces and like some of the other figures we've looked at here recently from board-games, the more complicated poses are made in several parts and glued together.

There are also four other pieces, much larger, both 'in the flesh' and compared to their descriptions in the book, I don't know what they are for (obviously part of the game play but I don't know their function), but on-line images show each f them holding sway over a corner of the board.

This game - incidentally - should still be available on-line; published by Vivid Imaginations according to BoardGame Geek.

I don't remember Poseidon from the books, but he seems to have put in an appearance, along with one of those sad-looking, fat, giants who always come to a sticky-end, shortly after all the sympathetic old ladies in the theatre (or readers) have fallen in love with him, think: King Kong or some darker, more adult versions of Jack and the Beanstalk!

A couple of scalers with a 23mm/1:76th figure and a vaguely 54mm space monster! As the Wargs (giant wolfythings) in the books are ridable by  humanoid characters it would appear that the silver figures are either around 54mm or between the four - 1:no scale, however all useful for the larger sizes!

M is for Mine's Better Than Yours!

Like all travelling Toy Men, the Santa's like to get together at the annual corporate shindig and works 'Do' in Honolulu and compare wheels (or runners), our roving reporter was lucky enough to catch the action in the car-park and report back to Small Scale World.

The Festival Santa is explaining patiently to the bus-boy that the colour this season is red; the bus-boy is not impressed and points out to Mr. Clause that not only is his very similar re. spec's, but coming from Hong Kong - as it does - was considerably cheaper, and everyone in the motor sledge-trade knows blue is easier to clean!

Indeed: one of the Santa's has a red one from Hong Kong himself! Other's; having lived life slightly further 'out there', have purchased their machines from a dodgy-dealer 'Mick the Minty Motor Man' in Macau for the softer ride afforded by the PVC undercarriage.

Festival Santa insisted his has the better build quality and utilising the very best in ICI Alkathene technology - as it does - has the softest, smoothest ride!

Sadly, as everyone was going home a cross-wind squall swept the resort car-park, catching the annual delivery-target, winners-parade, broadside, leaving them all looking like the tin-ducks in a shooting-arcade, so - good or bad - your presents might be delayed this year!