F is for Football - 2 - W is for Wilton and not Wilton!

When I was editing this post I was sure I had posted the Wilton set, however I couldn't find any photographs in the Wilton folder, so I guess I never got round to it, and as they sat there in the collection I just convinced myself I had? If they are on the Blog there will be a link here now! [No - I didn't]

But that meant I would need to post the Wilton's here to compare with the Anniversary House version - which the post was always about . . . anyway; it gave us a slightly weird title and here are both sets, with the - probably latter - Anniversary House to the fore and a quick comparison with the Wilton set at the end!

This is the set currently findable in the UK from Anniversary House, you get one team in red or blue (I didn't get a blue set, but will go back for one now I know they are the same as the Wilton's - side collection!) and a goalie who can be with or against the other six?

Close-ups, the first thing one notices is that one of the players is wearing goal keeper's gloves and appears to be preparing to hand the ball . . . fowl! It was at this point I started to think "Are these the same poses as those Wilton's in the attic, I got a while back?"

The other players, and again, the standing player looked both a tad odd and a tad familiar, so it was off to the attic, wasn't it!

Sure enough they are the same! These are Wilton's figures, and we can see they are configured for three-a-side with two goalies in reverse-coloured strip and a referee!

The main differences are the bright green bases, the slightly more elaborate painting and the fact that the Anniversary House 10-shirt, is not only painted as a referee with Wilton, but has an obvious whistle.

Blue's goalie is calling for a fowl, as one of the reds has brought-down a blue in the box, the ref's just blown for a free-kick and the red goal-keeper knows it!

At 70mm-odd they are on the big side (Airfix referee for comparison), and you can see how the whistle has been blanked-off to create the 'new' player, otherwise there is no real difference between them and flesh/face-painting is the same on both sets.

I bought the Wilton lot in the same craft superstore in Basingrad where I photographed the 4M pirate fort set, back at Christmas 2011? So the Wilton may still be available, although a craft superstore has recently opened in Farnborough, and; upon inspection in the cake decoration department - no banana!

I'm hoping I can track down a Wilton one with the players opposite-painted so I can have four teams of six-a-side, with two ref's, once I've grabbed a dark blue Anniversary House set - which we will look at [briefly] another day before I put them in the attic!

Thought for the Day 30

Ah, yes, that God of yours . . .

. . . the one that's SO much more real and factual than all the others . . .

Religion is regarded 

by the common people as true, 

by the wise as false, 

and by the rulers as useful. 

-  Seneca

F is for Football - 1 - C is for The Champions of Soccer

Back to board-games as an opener to the mini-season on footballers . . . a mini-season that's just started here at Small Scale World!

The box, that's it, it's the box . . . I went a bit mad on the imagery with this one, only because it's been in edit for some time and I kept getting them out again and adding images because I rather like them, the fact that they are the Airfix poses might have something to do with the OTT'edness of this post.

Back of the box - ditto! Published by Mike Orchard Enterprises in 1984.

The contents laid-out and ready to be looked at in detail, which we are about to do to the N^th degree! As you can see it's for 'up to' six players, with 2 as a minimum requirement.

The Figures! Basically six of the seven player poses from the Airfix footballer set, not including the [2'ish] goal-keeper pose/s, but including the substitute?

Stuff for the recycling bin! Actually I think I used them as fire-lighters back in the autumn, however; I kept the balls, although; for what reason, I have no idea!

Team-building trays; I'm not sure if the team shown is at all realistic of actual play, I just filled the tray with random pieces, correctly numbered 1-11, for the sake of a photograph!

The board, it's a complicated system which combines a round-the-board processionary mechanism (like Monopoly) for which you have the figures as counters, and matches; played on the centre of the board as quick Ludo-like races, while team-building (on the green trays) affects the other two elements of play, this - third element - being a collection/points mechanism.

Humm . . . "United", that'll be Mad'chester then! Sorted! Got any Vera's? Going through the rainbow in the correct order . . .

. . . the lupine origins of this orange made-up-team will not be last on the Midland's reader!

North-of-the-boarder's not been left out, yellow Rangers can't be mistaken for many teams!

Albion? At this point my lack of knowledge of the football leagues (read no interest whatsoever!) fails me . . . there are one or two Albion's I think, but which popular one might be represented by green is beyond my limited capacities (read complete lack of interest!).

Safer ground here, we're back to Manchester and looking at derby-game possibilities!

Rovers; and I'm lost again! Roy's were orange? Don't all correct me at once! The made-up team labels as well as seeming to represent real teams come as a sticker-sheet for the purchaser to apply to the green vac-form trays.

More shots of the players, this is a figure-Blog after all! There are six versions of the game to track-down if you want the whole lot, as all six poses were moulded in each colour, therefore there are six different game piece combinations to find.

The advertising hoardings round the 'pitches' make for a nostalgic journey back to the 1980's. with various consumer goods (some long gone) in their prime, or previous, long-replaced logographics! Unipart - "Supercover: keeps the gremlins grovlin'" The gremlins being actually dinosaurs!

The long-sides get three per hording - Vosene . . . looked like treacle and stank like a tanker's hold!

A comparison between the unmarked Champions of Soccer and the occasionally-found common'ish Hong Kong Airfix clones, the HK one is a far poorer sculpt and considerably smaller.

While the games figures themselves are slightly smaller than the Airfix originals they too are cloned-from.

They weren't easy to shoot against a dark background, so here are three images which between them show at least one good version of each figure! That's The Champions of Soccer board game from Mike Orchard Enterprises . . . more footballers to come.

Right - there's a problem with the coding which I can't fix until tomorrow (Virgin fail again, Library again, slow broadband AGAIN! so I'll have to close all the gaps later! Done

T is for Toy Fair (British International Toy Fair 2018 Olympia, London)

As it's a week since I shot this. I really ought to get it up here! There will be lots more to come on the Toy Fair 2018, but I've got a mini-season 'in the bag' of which the first post was pencilled-in for this slot. As this is another example of my pretty poor videographer skills, and probably of not much appeal to most of you, the 12.30 post today will be the main one!

As it's nearly 10 years since I last attended the Toy Fair, the only thing I'll add here is that it seemed pretty busy, and I prefer it back at Olympia than down at Excel, where it was always a bind having everything split between two halls.

Olympia though was a bugger to get to on a weekday - 7th richest nation on earth (or has India pushed us to 8th?) and we don't run the Olympia-spur tube-trains on show days; if they don't fall on a weekend - that's 39-years of Tory bean-counting for you!

There's not only a shed-load of 'News, Views . . . ' stuff from November and December, it's now the November-December-January stuff making it more than a shed load, to which I can add a shed-load (or at least a jute-bag load!) of Toy Fair stuff as well, so a lot of toy news and company reviews to come.

I also have lots of stuff in the queue already, there's plenty in Brian's folder, in fact there's a new 2018 folder rapidly filling-up, while Peter's contributions haven't all been published. However - I have other things to do (real life crap), so after this week things may quieten-down a bit here, a daily post only maybe - with the odd gap, we'll see how we go!

Thought for the Day 29

For the Trump's and Putin's of this world, for the Erdogan's & Bwreaksitieer's, for Ahn Sang Suu Kyi, AFD, UKIP, Marine la Pen . . .

Propaganda is a soft weapon; 

hold it in your hands too long 

and it will move about like a snake 

and strike the other way

- Jean Anouill

WTF is for What's That Flying . . .

. . . thing? Is it a bird, is it a 'plane, no it's . . . what the FUCK !??!

I dunno! You tell me! Clearly it's some kind of windmill novelty? It's big, about five/six inches and nothing seems to happen when you manipulate the toggle/button thing which is exiting the feet?

The wings are dense craft-foam, held on with shaped-paper over-stickers, and the arms are hanging loose, so another pointer to its being broken, or having a jammed mechanism or missing launcher? It was 50p, so I'm not losing-sleep over it!

There's no clue to brand or maker on the model, just "TM & © DC Comics (s13)"

Now - someone out there must know more, but for now - WTF?

L is for Living Room . . . Boot Camp!

Can't do much in the way of pictures as this is contemporary and therefore one has to be careful of the balance between 'review' and copyright infringement, but as usual, cover, spread and a close-up will suffice!

Published by Top That, (a Nathan Murphy shares a 'designed by' byline, but is not on the cover?) who were behind the Paint Your Own sets we looked at before Christmas; this manual from the Department of Secret Forces is a fun item which introduces toy soldiers to people who might not otherwise have encountered them among all their Lego and licensed Manga characters, so it's to be applauded for that if nothing else!

Spot the deliberate mistake on the cover . . . the Bren-gunner is reversed, something the Papo catalogue also suffers from, what is it with modern picture-editors that they don't check the original object? Or - apparently - liaise with the authors!

It's basically a fun series of simple, interactive things you can subject the enclosed 'Army Men' to; in and around the home; some you will be familiar with, some are predictable, some are more ingenious or inventive, and all are meant to be and would be FUN!

The meat and six-veg! The usual copies of Airfix Paratroopers with a lone German Infantryman for imbalance! They are unmarked and while they are poor-quality sculpts (detail wise), are nevertheless of high production value - if that's not an oxymoron!

Out there . . . Now! Get training!

Thought for the Day 28

For God-botherer's, Bible-basher's and tub-thumper's everywhere . . .

Christian, noun:  One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely-inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbour

- A. Bierce

'Devils Dictionary'

M is for Miniature Menagerie

Which may be a title we've had before, but I'm stuffed if I can remember, so I shall press-on regardless! Continuing with the recent purchase of Novelty toys from the party shop up at Clapham Junction, we find more Henbrandt single packet 'party favour' stuff.

Now, with the definite exception of the caterpillar (more on whom latter!) and one or two others; these are scale-downs of the larger ones we saw a while ago, found by Brian in the US in two packagings, both branded to Greenbriar/DTSC. The truth being that the Greenbrair/DTSC 'Backyard Travels' are actually scale-ups of these, lacking the finer detail, even at the larger size.

They also seem to be part of a larger wholesale set, some of which have been carried elswhere/else-when by Innovative Kids and/or Toy Major, but there are enough differences in line-ups and details to raise the possibility of several sets all copying elements off each-other!

The spider was not copied by Greenbriar's scale-ups but the others were, and while the caterpillar is in the greater 'whole' elsewhere, here it actually has a different code, with the other seven being coded T02 970, while the butterfly's larvae is T02 683.

The 'Bad Guys', we know they are bad guys because they are marked PSTSM . . . only joking . . . because they are red and black and yellow and spikey!

The 'Good Guys' are all green and 'eco'-looking! Even if one of them is an insecticidal, murderously killing, ambush-machine!

As I was putting them them away I found the correct 'Number 8' as far as coding seems to go - on the floor! A rather vile-looking fly, also copied-up by Greenbrier/DTSC.

So; it would appear that Henbrandt have taken the Innovative kids/Toy Major set (or very similar clones of the same) and split it, with bees, beetles and things still to find, probably with the 683 code, and a possible eight-count for the 970 code.

While I shot the dragonfly upside down to show the bog-standard 'CHINA' mark and the white PVC-like polymer they are all made of - like yesterday's dogs.

T is for There are Two Things That . . .

. . . fall out of the sky; rain and bird shit! I did say - the last time we looked at them - that I was running out of titles for the growing plethora of paratrooper posts! AND, as they keep coming-in to Small Scale World; so I have to keep posting them. I'm sure you can understand that as an ex-infantryman, it was only a matter of time before I dug-out the old rivalry! Fancy - jumping out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft, gripping a bed-sheet . . . idiots!

Speaking of the last time we looked at them, opening the post is this image from Brian B which I've previously mentioned I'd forgotten to use, being a variation of the other Jaru cards we've looked at; dated to 2014 it's two years newer than the previous examples, despite being quite scuffed on the rack! And follows the same design we've looked at once or twice now, going back to the 1960's - at least.

And speaking of Henbrant - as we were in yesterday's 'dog-post' - these two are being carried by Henbrant as single-figure novelty/party favours. Again; common designs around at the moment (Airfix clones of the paratrooper with SMLE and the Afrika Korps officer) and looked at here at Small Scale World under a couple of brand-marks already.

The last time we saw them they were in Playwrite and Unique branding (the Playwrite being this size, the Unique slightly bigger), which is another piece of synergy (we had some yesterday!), as these . . .

. . . are by Playwrite! But the synergy doesn't end there, as Peter Evans (roving reporter for Plastic Warrior magazine) reminded me on Tuesday-last that Playwrite is the new moniker for WH Cornelius / Success (WHC) who I had just mentioned to him weren't at the Toy Fair, but they were - as Playwrite! Although I didn't see these on their stand, I did find them a few hours later in the party superstore!

Another much-used paratrooper design; with every likelihood of the rest of the para's coming out of storage before July, we will recap all the old ones with the storage ones and see them all together. And a figure-design also being used . . .

. . . by Aeromax / New World Toys in this carded example also sent to the Blog (and closing the post - like bookends!) by Mr. Berke.

This version of the sculpt has been bling'ed-up with the addition of a flashing LED and a translucent body material. He'd be more fun if he wasn't equipped with one of the new style 'net' canopies which I think are a bit naff!

Thought for the Day 27

For those who think someone else will 'sort it all out' . . .

We know what happens to those

who stay in the middle of the road -

 they get run over.

- Aneurin Bevan

D is for Dogs

I'm not particularly a 'dog person', I'm a cat person, I find dogs to be a bit simplistic, slavishly sycophantic and/or bad without the character of cats, I was fond of our Red Setter when I was a kid, but that's the thing, the brainless befriending the brainless! Nevertheless, when dogs come-in to small scale world we will show dogs, and two lots of doggie-doo came in last Tuesday, so; let's revisit dogs!

Peter Evans donated these to the Blog last Tuesday morning, and life being what it is; I then found another canine candidate later in the day!

Perfect Moments (who we have looked at recently) have marked their moniker on the package, they look a bit like the Henbrandt dog, but seem to be a different set, although painted like the Henbrandt set of wild animals (in the above-linked post), so possibly the same factory, however there are several sets of these small animals doing the rounds at the moment.

These are also smaller than most of the dogs in previously canine-themed posts, and would - with a bit of a re-paint - go well with 54mm figures; maybe better with 60 or 70mm figures?

But to argue for the other side; you may remember that both Perfect Moments and Henbrandt use the Oker cellulose-bag packaging?

As you can see they are all reasonably recognisable breeds, under the poor, glossy paint-job and even the poodle is bearable (I hate poodles with a vengeance - horrid little cotton-balls of flouncy ponce!).

Then (Tuesday) on the way 'back to the sticks' I popped-off the travel network at Clapham Junction to check the cheapie-discount stores I remembered being there in the 1990's, and while they had all gone (as I suspected) there was a larger 3-unit party-shop roughly where a couple of them used to be sited, and I managed to get a small bag of novelty stuff, which we will be looking at over the coming days.

Among those novelties were these capsules, none of which had any clue as to their contents, and after I'd opened a few I realised they all had the same thing (which I have in storage - green with a blue collar . . .maybe, red collar?), so I grabbed one, not knowing I already had the Perfect Moments dogs in the bag I was carrying!

Marajà are one of several brands connected to the capsule toy company LZ - Zàini from Italy, which is how I came by the first one, about 15/20 years ago! I think he/it was in a hollow-chocolate bear with a Christmas style foil wrapper, but clearly someone (there's no branding on the toy) had a warehouse stillage full of the things, and here they are, many years later, the other end of Europe, being sold at 20p a-pop, no chocolate!

So; thanks to Peter's gift, a bit of synergy and a global glut in polymer novelties, and we have a dog-post . . . and we all know what dogs do to their posts - another reason to distrust them!

P is for Papo - 4 - Pirates

Papo also have a nice range of pirates and while the larger ones will have limited appeal to followers of the blog (excepting that more and more people are coming-round to the scale creep through 58, 65 and eventually to 70mm); they are also doing a 'toob' of the 55% / 56mm'ish Mini⁺ range as well.

Full size (70mm) pirate'tess on a raft with the toob in the background; I can see a lot of applications for the raft with other figures and other scales, not least as a replacement for the hard to find Atlantic Odysseus' raft of the Argonauts!

This is the old packaging so they are called *Papo Mini, but are now listed as Mini⁺ as opposed to the smaller 'Mini' range (only knights and fantasy).

Pirate ship play set with a wooden vessel, I will try to track-down a decent sample of these before Talk Like a Pirate Day, but for now, these give an idea of the sample.

The 'budget' (read cheaper) play-set in slot-together, compressed cardboard depicts a tied-up vessel which has been turned into a sort of pirate club-house, but as the first rule of pirate club-house is that no one talks about pirate club-house; I can't say anything else about the ship/pub/fort you see before you!

Another view of the toob, sadly (and probably due to the size) they didn't have the smaller figures on display at the toy fair, so they couldn't be photographed, but that just leaves us with an excuse to return to them again one day!

The Mini⁺ Pirates in the catalogue, a lot of the images in the catalogue are reversed from real-life, which makes trying to ID them a tad problematical. The shark-man and lobster-man are - along with the skeletal fighter - more than a slight nod to Hollywood's Pirates of the Caribbean, and there are more marine-monster men in the 70mm series, with turtleman, octopussman &etc.

Whoever came up with the fat, topless pirate carrying a cannon like a bazooka (mirrored in the standard-sized range, where he's also heavily tattooed) deserves a long-weekend and a bonus!

There's more to come on the fantasy and knights/medieval ranges, but I think we can look at that in a while, we've had a good dose of Papo and there's other stuff in the queue!

Though for the Day 26

More people go to art galleries and the theatre every week that go to sports fixtures . . .

Art is of import -

Many creatures can do conventional labours; 

few can fashion raw-material into beauty

- Piers Anthony

'Juxtaposition'