News, Views Etc...Plastic Warrior No.170

The first true day of Spring! I saw several Brimstones, but there's a chilly evening breeze getting up now; it's almost like living on an islan . . . oh! Well - big one!

Technically a month behind this time; another bumper issue brings us . . .

Articles

* An editorial delivers the potted history of Atlantic's UK-arm and a number of the adverts from the press of the day

* A double-helping of Cherilea begins with Barney Brown's third visit to the early farm animals as he studies the Feeding Horse

* Which is followed promptly by a boxed Cherilea Farm Set from Chris Goodard

* The third part of Adrian Norman's - Scalextric series finds him looking at the TV crew, camera tower and race-starter

* George Nixon digs out old Cereal Offer Ad's from equally-old Eagle comics for Britians Lifeguards (Lifeguard cosmetics?) and Airfix's diminutive 'Combat Group' (Sugar Puffs)

* A Lone Star boxed set of divers is shown from C&T Auction's last auction catalogue

* An old Black and white article on Spanish Conquistador types from Paul Stadinger is resurrected in colour with additional information from Juan Hermida

'What The !&*$?' this quarter is an extended question-fest as;

•  Joe Bellis asks after a Cowboy and Indians (Segal?) and shows a Riding set he thinks may be Malleable Moulding    
• There's a Diver and Indians from Daniel Lepers
• David Pye seeks more info on the Pepsi athletes
• Brain Petrin asks about his mini caricature bandsmen
• Brian Carrick has a Quaker Oat's Quaker, a deer and a Grenadier
• A gondolier in search of a brand is presented by Barney Brown
• Gian Piero Larizza asks after a paratrooper
• And Andre Schell is seeking more on his unmarked, fully-boxed fort

* Peter Evans muses on Cherilea/Hugonnet Elizabethans and Francis Drake's additional pose

* There's a feature on the late John Clarke's Diorama's

* This quarter's three-pager is an insightful piece from Colin Penn on Lone Star's production; specifically in white plastic

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Regular Features

* 'NEWS and VIEWS and other stuff ' covers

• The forthcoming Plastic Warrior show
• GeModels' museum being up for sale
• More on the Toys R Us saga of woe
• Plea-for/details on contributions
• Belgian readers willing to cover Solido
• Cover beg for info.?

* 'We Know Wot' has Daniel Lepers ID'ing Nardi as being responsible for the previous issue's knight's horse

* 'Book Review' is actually Book Reviews with two tomes covered

• A precis of Jürgen R. Schüler's Militärisches Spielzeug aus der DDR by Andreas Dittmann make the book look very interesting
• Alain Thomas's latest work Soldats Plastique, Tome 3 Acedo & JSF is reviewed by the editorial team

* 'Readers Letters' include

• Bob Legget on Daz/Crescent packaging
• A. Pedant waxing lyrical on Elastolin's equine maths
• Owen Hoye with a request for 1:35th Russians to man some kits
• James Peter Young follows up on the Sally Army band sets . . . with a sorry tale of hungry ants
• David Pye gives an Antipodean angle on the same Salvation Army sets
• Andreas Dittman and Daniel Lepers both write in on Koho Knights
• Another letter seemed both political and at odds with the facts!

* 'What's New' covers recent releases from Expeditionary Force

• Napoleonic French Lancers
• Napoleonic French Dragoons
• Napoleonic French Chasseurs
• War of 1812 American Militia (in civil dress)
• War of 1812 Royal Marines
• War of 1812 Highlanders

Plus all the usual readers small-ads and a commercial supplement

Front Cover - shows a couple of unknown - probably French - conquistador figures

Back Cover - Another Atlantic scan

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And - of course - it's just over a month to the best Plastic Toy Soldier Show in the world!

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eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com

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News, Views etc . . . Running Late and Toy Fair

I've been running around like a blue-arsed fly today (Wednesday - in the rain!) so haven't posted much for tomorrow, but should get something up here in the afternoon at some point, in the meantime, news of a toy-club meet . . .

 . . . the Windsor International Toy Fair - next show is the 5th of May, exactly a month from today, and a week before the Plastic Warrior show, which is still more than a month away - whatever you've read elsewhere!

Car and model vehicle oriented, but there's always lots of plastic to be rummaged for!

A is for Alice in Wonderland III - "Curious'er and Curious'er" said Alice

We'll finish-off today with a more conventional figurine, which being of a human is more of a lifelike representation and less of the cartoon caricatures of the earlier figurines we've seen here today.

This is - I believe - from a larger set of figures (I think I saw a couple of similar ones on evilBay recently), not sure on a maker (possibly after a ceramic model by Goebel or from the Spanish company Palés) and there are no markings on the polystyrene model, which is decorated by airbrush through stencils, maybe originating in Japan?

I photographed all of today's figurines/novelties on Adrian's table ages ago, and wasn't really thinking about size at the time, I think this was a little bigger than the others at about 3½ or 4-inches to the 3-inches of the others, but you may be able to add an inch to all those measurements?

Again, definitely showing the lack of markings on this figure, I'm not suggesting anyone as maker beyond the above vague possibilities, the quality of the face is quite European doll-like in execution, the painting reminiscent of French composition/chalkware, although the gluing of the body to the legs/stand (too substantial to call it a mere base - I feel!) is quite like some of Hong Kong's production, so your guess is as good as mine, or your knowledge - superior!

Added 05-04-18 - It's a watch-stand, seemingly issued under both the US Time and Ingersoll labels - thanks to Matt for the heads-up and there's a link with his comment, Matt has the Alice in Wonderland Blog.

A is for Alice in Wonderland - II - Novelties

The other figure of 'Mr. Chamberlin' was a bit of a giveaway with his arse-written Hong Kong, but heay; it was a bit of a last minutes thing - which reminds me; apologies from any typo's over the Easter break, but I short of panic-loaded 11 posts over two days last week, while the cat's head was exploding - long story I won't bore you with, but suffice to say I learnt kitchen-paper doesn't soak-up much puss [euwww!] and he's fine now, but thinks the collar is an evil alien; out to get him!

Hong Kong 'Nodding-head' novelty, the difference between this and this morning's Marx figure is no greater than the difference between this morning's Marx figure and the Marx figure below.

Having never seen the movie I can't say for sure which of the three is closest to the movie imagining, or why the other two are so far off, I contemplated one of them being a different character, but they all have the price ticket in the top-hat, so are definitely trying to be the same chap!

A gratuitous shot of his feet, I shot this primarily to show it's unmarked (other that the rump-branding), so not necessarily made for Marx even though it looks like the sort of thing they were commissioning in the British colony, as the next piece [probably] ably demonstrates.

Marked clearly on the Dormouse's rump as being from one of the Hong Kong factories/suppliers; this ramp-walker - with the third distinct 'Hatter today - is in a polystyrene plastic and painted in the style of Marx's other HK stuff. Now the mad one has white hair (would have made a better Chamberlin - just not stuck to a dormouse!), but the nose is closer to the swivel-limbed one we looked at earlier.

Yet; he has a very different countenance overall? I'll look-up some movie stills before publishing (if I remember to read this in 'preview'!) and try and work out which is the more accurate, but I suspect the swivel-limbed figure from this, morning is the best likeness, being controlled by Marx in a US (or the Swansea?) factory, the ramp-walker is next closest having some Marx oversight of the contractor and the nodder -  an inaccurate, rushed HK novelty, not that they aren't all novelties - they are!

I rememebered - Marx swivel IS the closest (but the hair's wrong), the Hong Kong one is next, the Marx walker looks nothing like either of the movie characters, but has the closest hair!

A is for Alice in Wonderland - I - Twizzle Town'alikes

Not exactly Spaghetti Trees, I left the 'Hong Kong' on one of their arses for starters and problems with the paint thingy meant I couldn't get the moustache right or turn all the hair grey, but hay-ho, first attempt at an April Fool's, maybe I'll do better next year!

He was - of course - a novelty Mad Hatter from Lois Marx promoting the Disney movie Alice in Wonderland! The resemblance to the Twizzle Town figures from Britians is down to the fact that this type of 'animated flat' goes way back to the days of wood and paper toys, carried to both Marx and Britains through Japanese and German tin-plate.

The one on the right has the body the wrong way round, but shooting them in a hurry at a show I didn't have time to fix it. Also; while I wove a tale around out-workers for the gag, I think it's just a late version, sans paint.

The Mad March Hare, also undecorated and with that chocolate-brown head, looking both perfect for Easter, and more like the Nesquik bunny! You can see the Marx 'disc' on the red body in the right hand image, while the license message acknowledging Disney's property rights is occupying the same spot in the left hand shot.

More views through the looking-glass later.

P is for Papo - 7 - Loose Ends

In my attempts to shoot the comparison shots between the three sizes of knights and pirates I first tried shooting them on one of the glass display-cabinets, but obviously that was not terribly successful due to the transparent nature of the medium - irrespective of the lighting-versus-flash problems mentioned in the first tranche of these reports.

However the shots reveal some of the other stuff on display, of which some weren't to be seen on the video, or in the other posts, so the next three images are a Picasa-clearance which may interest you?

The bits you can see below the toob are all new for this year, while shop-display merchandising is visible in the background. Other loose-ends include . . .

. . . the catalogue scans of all the stuff 'New for 2018' which include 70mm figures of a circus animal trainer, Inuit/Esquimaux and cave-man, additions to the Fairy Tale, Fantasy and Knights lines, new dinosaurs, cetaceans and sharks, horse riders, wild animals and a very useful set of horse-show tools which will have/find many other applications for/with modellers, I'm sure.

Along the bottom row are the new compressed card play-sets/play-forts from Isiploy as supplied exclusively to Papo. You can see - in addition to those highlighted in previous posts - a fairytale house, two jungle sets, a volcano and a stable building for the horse riding stuff.

Some of the Fantasy and Fairytale figures new for 2018, I will trying to get my hands on the Puss in Boots, I think it's a lovely sculpt and every good home should have one!

These are some of the other Mini+ sets in the catalogue; in addition to the full-on Fantasy range, there is a pinky-purpler range which I have been referring to as the fairytale range, this is a non-Disney (refreshing!) look at various recognisable Grimm brothers or H.C. Andersen type characters and here we see the Mini+ offering in that range, titled Enchanted World.

Also illustrated are the full range of Mini+ Dinosaurs, the contents of the farm toob and the two sets of wild/zoo animals, one exclusively African, the other quite 'International'.

M is for Mini-Whinnies

I know; it's baby-talk, but they are 'infant toys' so it's perfectly understandable! Mentioned a couple of times here at Small Scale World in passing recently, when looking at other things, I saw these for a quid in a charity shop, and grabbed them as a perfect little Blog-post! And - they are paint-your-own which has become another recurring theme here!

The Breyer Mini-Whinnies paint kits;-

Packaging is a transparent zip-up 'purse' (I think blokes call them 'carry-cases'!!!!) with carry handle and inner vac-formed trays holding everything on display, there is an over-stuck errata-slip on the little tag, but the only change is to the imperial measurements; from 3oz. to 3 fl.oz. I wondered if they might have reduced the number of paint pots or something a tad more dramatic!

As the Britains horse was still out from the follow-up comparison shot with the HCF cart-horse the other day, I took advantage of it to provide a second comparison! You get four paints (two browns, grey and white) and a brush, which is of some quality and would make a useful addition to a figure-painter's tool-arsenal due to its short shaft?

The four hoses from both sides; nice sculpts in a dense polymer which has more in common tith polyethylene than PVC, but is probably, truly- neither. Being 'naked' horses, you can see they have conversion potential in several scales, and would be useful additions to any modeller's 'spares' box.

The larger one on the left in the lower image is - I think - the one copied (and scaled-up) in the fantasy paint-your-own set we looked at before the Christmas just gone.

Painting guide suggests other poses which means other sets (as dos the '2' after Paint Kit!), there were some on display at the Toy Fair (in this packaging if I recall correctly? Or possibly now squared-off?) in January, but I didn't shoot them for some reason? Although as a guide, it's got an awful lot of black detailing required - for a set with no black paint pot! This set is dated 2007, so they've been around a while!

That's the Breyer Mini-Whinnies Paint Kit 2

P is for Papo - 6 - Mini's and Mini+

So, the sets that really interest me (and hopefully some of you) are the Papo Mini at approximately 40mm and the Mini+ or previously/occasionally; Mini Plus) which weigh-in at approximately 56mm, sadly they are both limited ranges, but given that Schleich have nothing in either size range, it's better than nothing although China's Safari and the other French maker Plastoy do make similar toob-sets in one size or the other or both.

As seen at the show; tall, thin toobs are Mini (the biscuit tin/lunch boxes have gone by the wayside!); tall, fat toobs Mini+, and the shorter, fatter ones are the Mini+ dinosaurs.

Here I've compared the various sizes under slightly better light conditions, with a toob of mini knights, the header-carded monochrome ones Brian brought to my attention at Christmas and the Mini+ toob, while in the right-hand image we have a full-sized one who got a bit cropped-off!

Catalogue with codes and a better idea of what the figures actually look like than any of my show-shots. Skeleton for any  undead armies you may be planning or building, a nice Cerberus for re-shooting Ray Harryhausen with the animation app on your smartphone!

It's an odd selection, with some horror, some classic myth and an Ork for good measure!

The same scan for the medievals, these are the same ones I found in the charity shop biscuit-tin/lunch-box, but without the missing ones I couldn't show in the left-hand lot!

A couple of shots of the monochrome ones in all-over silver and gold, the poses are the same as the painted set, so these are either preferable for those who don't like painted figures, or a variation for those who will be looking for the painted-ones first.

Getting repetitive but I don't want the images clogging-up Picasa for the next god-knows-how-long! Painted Mini's on the left, monochrome on the right.

Catalogue images of the 56mm Mini+, pose selection of the Fantasy set is similar to the 40mm's, but there are differences, both in pose/sculpt detail and pose variation, with two Cerberus types - for instance.

M is for Mummies in Memphis, not Tennessee!

Or . . . in Tommy Vance's voice; O is for "Open Bank Holiday Mumday!!"

Continuing what may (or may not) become an occasionally-regular (proper oxymoron!) series, looking - not at all their sets, but rather - my favorite sets from Atlantic, and today it's the Pharaoh's Court set . . . err . . . set in my sights.

The covers of the small-scale sets (this is 1801; the smallest packing option) had photo-artwork of the 1:32nd scale figures painted-up by an - as yet -unknown artist; as far as I know?

59p! That was DM2 at the time (late 1970's) and this was so different from the stuff Airfix had been chucking out for the previous 20 years, you looked at it in the wire-racks of you local model shop with genuine wonderment!

What I consider to be the most useful figures for 'army-building', the guy on the left making a good unit commander, overseer or senior NCO, the next guy can go straight into the ranks, either by painting the fan-end of his staff to represent a bronze blade, or by cutting the end off and leaving him with either a single or a double pickaxe-headed pole-arm.

Then we have a senior or field-officer and two general/staff officer types, both (all three?) of whom; with all their finery can be used with other ancient/Biblical armies, and finally the guy with the fan can be cut to have a simple spear/javelin and be used for 'receiving' enemy cavalry!

The Royal family waiting for the 'telly' to be invented! As there is a standing and seated Pharaoh I have posed a standing lady next to the queen, but I think she's actually just a serving girl! Given the fine surface detail of both Atlantic's Egyptian and Greek figure-lines (the Romans were apparently sculpted by a blind man with a steak-knife); the thrones were disappointing lumps.

Apropos the two seated figures; one of the rarest items in my [written] archives is a pair of solid gold seated Egyptian royalty who used to be in the first glass cabinet as you came up the stairs from the entrance lobby at the British Museum (I don't know if they are still on display, these things get rotated and I last saw them 24 years ago!), at an almost perfect HO-gauge compatible size they are absolutely exquisite and seated on far nicer thrones, they were also probably made for actual Pharaohs, not pocket-money, pester-power!

The servant's or scribes; the lowly people paid shite to keep the whole society ticking over, the 'you and me' of ancient Egypt! The guy on the left can be militarised with the addition of a weapon and shield, the other two are really only good for the baggage train.

Atlantic spent almost as much of the set's budget on the afterlife as the ancient Egyptians did of theirs! Lovely toys, but no use at all in war-gaming, even war-gaming at the rolling marbles level, there was a Curse of the Revenge of the Mummy Returns II element - if you were familiar with that Hollywood trope; at the age you might have been owning these first-time-round I supose, but really, dead-weight (geddit!) in the box!

Pharaoh contemplates his future through his predecessors immediate present; top right, and - as you can see for the first image in this post - the whole painted-up well in the larger 1:32nd scale.

Guarding the casket!

Colour-your-own artwork on the back of the box, or; it could be if you want it to be! And - that's them done, tagged, away!

P is for Papo - 5 - Forts

Well I said we'd return to Papo to look at the Medieval Knight and similar Fantasy sections and that's what that is, this is! We're starting with the forts.

There were three rather nice forts on display at the Toy Fair, in wood and/or card as per the Pirate ships we looked at last time, along with a new one in the catalogue which is a bit differnet and something for smaller scale collectors.

The three together, it's pretty obvious but I'll suspect, assume and presume (to wind the usual suspects up) that they are in separate price brackets, but the differences between the two left-hand ones re- both playability and number of components/size probably mean they are similarly priced at the higher end, the smaller, predominantly grey one to the right having simpler components will be the true 'budget' one.

So let's look at it first; Mon Premier Château - My First Castle (code: 60006), ignore the two little bags, we'll be coming back to them in a day or two. All three forts were displayed with a mixture of both the knights and fantasy figures from the full-height ranges so you could get an idea of size versus scale and as you can see; even the larger monsters have plenty of room to occupy the nooks and crannies of the castle and to move around the battlements.

This keep'less 'mile-fort' has a simple slot-together construction, which leaves those little protrusions at the junctions of walls and tower sections. You will also notice that both the height of the battlements and the depth of the crenellations leave the fort equally ideal for play with- or display of- smaller 60 or 54mm figures. And is that a sticker sheet I see through the portcullis? I think it is!

The main difference between the other two is that the one in the centre of the line up (60002- Le Château du Maître des Armes - The Castle of the Men at Arms) had two of the larger towers at the front corners and a third as a keep, the other (60004 - Le Château des Chevailiers - The Knight's Castle) has only one as a keep, with four more crusader-looking corner-towers.

However, you will have noticed the positioning of the firing slits matches the slots for the connections between the walls and tower/gate-house sections? I knew you had! The whole line is a modular system and additional pieces can be purchased to build a complex as large as your house or budget will allow;

60020 - Large Tower

60021 - Small Tower

60022 - Gate House/Portcullis with Drawbridge

60023 - Pair of Long Walls with Tower Connectors

60024 - Pair of Medium-length Walls with Tower Connectors

60025 - Pair of Short Walls with Tower Connectors

The men-at-arms' castle is also available in a more playful dark gray paint-scheme with red highlights as 60052 - Le Château des Mutants - The Mutants' Castle, within the fantasy range.

Penultimately (as far as this post goes) there is this, described as PVC, I suspect that's shorthand/jargon; companies like Papo have long-since phased out true PVC for safer alternatives, but as I too use PVC for tagging modern non-PVC's I get where they are coming from. It's scaled to fit with the Mini range and looks to be a neat little thing? There's also a rather nice French farmhouse and double barn/outbuilding in the same series (33100)

There is one other fort in the catalogue, new for 2018 and part of the tie-in with Isiploy, called Le Château du Prince Philippe (60007) it is manufactured - like the pirate ships and arctic play-set we looked at in February- in a heavy-duty card/craft-board. And it's about time he got one of his own, that Lizzie-bet, she's got several!

While 60027 is a folding, ridged 'tray' (wooden play-mat), over printed with a cobbled court-yard effect, this is 73x45cm and large enough for any of the forts, with some expansions.

I should finally add - the My First Castle is not part of the modular system; having lower walls, its slots don't line-up with the 'system forts', likewise; Phillip's Palace is not compatible with any of the others . . . and - from a health and safety of knights and men-at-arms point of view - seems to have a few inherent trip-hazards in it's walkway-construction!

PIOT is for Peace In Our Time

Happy Easter everyone, I thought we'd look at one of the least known corners of our hobby today as I happened to pick these up for less than a tenner in a charity shop the other day (I know, but those old dears have all the reference works out the back you know , and it was less than a tenner, so I did OK), and they are very hard to track down.

Neville Chamberlin's ill-fated trip to Germany in 1938 was rather brushed-over at the time, and all but forgotten in the heady chaos of 1940, and the shoe-in of Churchill to lead us in our 'finest hour' which became the prase-de-jour however, once Hitler had been dealt with and the threat from the East become more obvious, Chamberlain's ringing endorsement of dealing with strongmen was remembered for the first-class naivety it was.

By the early 1950's parents were regularly chiding their unruly children to bed with the threat of "Peace In Our Time with Mr. Hitler's ghost if you don't behave and settle-down quickly", Squaddie's going off to fight Communism in Korea scrawled PIOT on their helmet covers when the QM wasn't looking and then blamed each-other to get off RP's, while on Humberside striking Dockers even had rubber-stamps made-up in the tool-sheds to leave oxide-red PIOT's on mounted policemen's' horse's rumps during the less than peaceful ruckuses' that accompanied their Industrial Action!

So it's unsurprising to find that the nascent plastics industry soon adopted this cultural meme for the production of novelty figures of Mr Chamberlain with the offending letter he had waved all those years ago tucked into his headband.

The above figure (counting out the 'peace'es') has been credited to both Rafael Lipkin and Chad Valley, although - with its resemblance to Britains 'Twizzle Town' circus - I wonder if it was an early, undocumented experiment in polymer from the - then still - hollow-cast experts? The unpainted one (with body on backwards) could be a later issue but is more likely to be an out-painters cast-off, as unpainted he has no distinctive moustache?

Chamberlin was always depicted as a slightly lunatic character with his hair all over the place and the look of a childish simpleton in these novelties and by the time I was born (1964) the phrase was one every school-boy knew, but the cultural overtones had all but disappeared - along with the novelties - and it was just more 'boring' history!

This 'booble head' figure of Chamberlain (looking fruitlessly in the dirt for the lost peace) is in a phenolic or early styrene resin and could be Kleeware, early Airfix or whoever did the crazy-clown circus?

Nice to finally track them down and at less than a tenner - Bargain! Have you ever seen any readers?