D is for Dancing Loons

Definitely a title we've had before, probably for this lot . . . or their UN stable-mates! The other, kinder, expression would be 'over ambitious animation'! Yet they are quite nice figures, just a bit OTT and equipped with the ever-anachronistic EM2 weapon, or at least three of them are!

The grenade thrower hasn't got a weapon at all, but then when you learn to throw grenades while ice-skating; I would imagine a weapon would play merry-hell with your balance!

The running guy on the other-hand is a reasonable pose, running forward with a gate that if looked at closely suggests he's gone too far forward to get the other leg back in time and is seconds-way from a muddy head-plant!

Stabby-guy is clearly tackling the knee of a cyclops, or King Kong!

The forth pose is in a blind panic and running from something that would certainly give you nightmares where I to divulge its finer details to you; so I won't, but think Cloverfield . . . with bigger claws!

I used to assume (as a small-scale collector) that there must be 6 or 8 (or more) of these given the usual set counts of Cherilea, then I spent a good few years thinking there were five for some reason, or no good reason. However I believe that when Dorset (or whoever) put the mould back in production a few years ago, there were only the four?

Of which the first three (above) are mine, these other six were shot at a show somewhere, sometime, and the left-hand two of these pairs were duplicates then, showing the variety of plastic 'base-colour' and the fact that they are all flecked.

I wonder if these weren't the same thing to Cherilea as the Super Deetail were to Britains - a bit of an experiment? Which is not to say Cherilea hadn't used flecking before, but . . . they're an odd lot?

I picked these two up at Witton in May, I might have already added to the other three (in storage) but don't think so, which means I'm still looking for terrified running bloke!

I don't know what's happening with pinky-mauve chap, the other is in a sensible brown scheme, and all of them (including the green-painted one at the top) follow the painting of the 50mm set with the various piracies, maybe these replaced them, or were pencilled-in for the task?

News, Views Etc . . . Stop Press!

These are currently 80p per set (that's 10p per figure, with a free tower!) in the fire sale that is Poundworld (and Poundworld-Plus's) final days or trading, get them before they're gone if they are a 'bit of you'; they're not really a bit of me, but 32 figures for two-pound-forty is not to be ignored!

I also got a small cheapish motorcycle for a forthcoming post! Because if the corporate structure behind Poundworld, it may only be a matter of time before Poundland goes the same way?

B is for Brucey Bonus - INGAP Aviogetti

Can't remember if we've had these or not, but looking for something to throw up here quickly, they'll do!

French at the top, British and American in the middle, a Soviet at the bottom, there is at least one other set with another four, and a larger card with five or seven (?) airliners. That's it - Italian, carded rack-toy, 1950's or early 1960's, polystyrene, war-planes with paper sticker, national roundels.

It struck me that the French put large targets on their 'planes so any old baddie can have a pop at 'putting a cap in their ass', we put small ones on ours, so only worthily accurate enemies need apply!

B is for Blame Chris Smith!

And thank him . . . he adds quickly! Because I tend to load these a day or two ahead, there should be some posts pre-loaded here, but there aren't, because I got a great big pile of plunder parcel from Chris Smith yesterday (Monday) and spent the evening sorting it after I got home, sooo . . . no editing anything else!

Therefore the final part of the Khaki Infantry series is on hold until Wednesday (to publish Thursday), it's weird but things are piling-up at the moment and stuff scheduled for the next day is getting bumped-back, and things which should have published ages ago are still in the ever lengthening queue - I still have three Toy Fair reports; I think!

Not only that but I have several eMails to answer so I can't even do a couple of rush jobs now! However . . .

. . . as I mentioned the other day, Chris had already eMailed some stuff for the Khaki Infantry page, I added some comparisons as I went along, over the last few days, and there was a nice, damaged white plastic FG Taylor figure in the box of treasures, so I'll throw them up (yesterday) on the Khaki Infantry Page, and your mission for today - should you chose to accept it - is to bomb-up, suit-up, fly to Schwienf... . . . no, sorry, different reality, is to reacquaint yourselves with that page, very much a team effort now with contributions from six at least eight or nine, maybe ten people.

Hopefully, there will be Cherilea's 54mm dancing loons and 60-mil bean-poles here tomorrow, probably with the show dates for the next week, and I may post something here later today, if I have time. I was hoping to make this the first 90-post month, that won't happen now, Friday may be a bit sparse as well - I'm not around Thursday - but 80's just doable? Won't beat January!!

T is for Taffy's Troops

This is a real box-ticker, I've posted them before, Mr. Carrick sent the Blog a slightly different group which appeared here and on the Khaki Infantry page and so it's really just get them in the tag-list as I photographed them while the others were out of the box.

Not a complete set and slightly mysterious in that they may well be a mere brand-mark for one of the other 'likely suspects' in early British toy production, possibly from the Islyn Thomas stable (Thomas, Kleeware, Poplar, Tudor Rose and Pyro [for the accompanying AFV's] are all either connected or 'in the frame')* and clicking Taffy in the tags will bring-up more, not much more; but a bit more!

I think I posted this as well, when I got it, and mentioned the apparent remains of paint on the new one's face, so a real box-ticker, still: new images and do you think he's being prepared as the charge for a very large cannon-ball? He's also about 8-foot-six! I've never seen bearers for this item.

* Re. the rambling bracketed note above, the AFV's (M55 SPG and a Patton type, along with the jeep and trailer) were also late polyethylene Kleeware items, from US moulds, probably as mould-share, some then copied in the UK (the 5.5-inch Gun post), however the figures (and the gun?) are UK additions to the line, the figures having the anachronistic EM2 bullpup assault rifle common to the era's other toy soldiers (see posts passim), the gun also being British equipment.

C is for Crescent - 54mm British Infantry

BERSERKER!

We arrive at the Crescent 54mm Khaki Infantry, and the 'Berserker' (a faintly daft pose bobbing for apples with a biro stuck up the barrel of a pop-gun!) has come down from the attic and been removed from the box, should have done it ages ago, but I'd sort of convinced myself they were in storage!

As you can see my sample is a bit 'bitty', although my Blue 'enemy' versions (issued in a boxed set with the rocket-launcher) have increased from two to four since we last looked at them. The rest are a mix of tatty to home paint.

Copied in small-scale, probably initially by Blue Box, supplied to Tri-Ang for their Battle Space line of OO-gauge railways, they soon spread to many other pocket-money/rack-toy pirates and there are many, many diminutive clones of these fellah's, usually mixed-in with Britains poses - the Flamethrower escaped the exercise.

I'm not sure about either flamethrower's paint, I suspect they’ve both been mucked about with, and one day I'll probably strip most of mine back (kneeling gunner is OK) to bare plastic just to improve the overall appearance of them as a group . . . or just look out for some better ones, they're not particularly uncommon.

The story used to be the blue ones were issued with a gun, but I believe they came with the die-cast rocket launcher, which we may have seen here? I'll add an old low-res feebleBay image below.

The flamethrowers again - not must to shoot with such a small, tatty sample! I'm sure it should be bare plastic, the trouble is the painting of most Crescent is pretty rigid, but the Wild West range is all over the place, and the white tanks look like some of the Mexican's paint, so maybe an over enthusiastic out-painters 'Friday flourish'? No, it's a kid with idiot-fingers and a tin of Humbrol gloss, I know'sit!

I like this guy, nice pose, well executed and believable, you can picture him in the bockage waiting for the order to go through another hedge-line and see what's lurking on the other side.

As mentioned above, one of the boxed versions of which got the blue figures. This also appears in primary colours (red cab, BR-green body) as a more toy like thing. But in desert sand with [panzer] black mudguards, it needed blue figures . . . Germans! Lacking from the Crescent range for probably obvious reasons, they were snuck in later (by marketing?), to escort a 'V2' across the battlefield! In army green it was issued with 60mm helmeted 'commandos' as set 1202

First job for the newly liberated Berserker! A found object; another of the Zuru capsule toys (although now in blind bags), I found this guy in the street the other day (obviously a rich kid's duplicate, poor kids don't throw away their brand-new toys!). I think he's some sort of bad Spidey? You know my view of Marvel (my view of DC isn't much better but I prefer them to Marvel!), as a bad Spidey he needs bayoneting by a berserker!

He'll join Mr. Burke's berserker in the photographic department here at SSW Towers, not all the time, but from time to time as a 'sizer' in comparison shots - when I remember to use him!

C is for Crescent - 60mm British Commandos

On to the helmeted infantry in 60mm from Crescent, often catalogued as Commandos I've shot them separately and can't be arsed to invent much blurb for each one, so I'll touch on the 'bits & bobs' first and then load the individual figures below!

As with the other two Crescent sets we're looking at in this batch of posts, there are two main versions of base; flat-bottomed or with a slightly raised rim, marking is consistent and numbering - figure-specific. The 'K' is probably for Khaki, and some bases are painted on the underside (or all over) others aren’t painted at all.

Figures on the other hand are always painted, I don't think these were used for premiums anywhere, so unpainted ones don't seem to occur (unlike the Para's), and the same generations seem to exist as we saw with the paratroopers, namely a - probably earlier - surface-etched or gritty sandy look, with finer-detail to weapons, and smoother figures with chunky weapons.

The three upper figures are an old eBay lot from ten years ago (I listed them all at 99p, can't rememebr what the went for), while the far left firer in the lower shots seems to be an interim design (as we saw with the three weapon variants in the Para's) with a medium thickness barrel!

On the right camera-flash has highlighted a slight colour variation, also seen with this morning's 'SAS' chap. Several of these figures (mainly the first three) have been/were copied (quite crudely, but with 'Toy Soldier' charm) in various plastic colours (and equally leery paint-jobs) by both Turkish and Greek brands of the 1960/70's.

Poses are - in no particular order;

K30 - Officer - running to the Lone * Star advance-dance, by the looks of things; I hope he's got three-and-four'pence!

K28 - Throwing grenade with SLR (although it looks more like a Bundeswehr G3!).

K31 - Firing US M3 'Grease-gun' SMG from waist.

K32 - Signaller/Section-runner with an SCR-536 walkie-talkie and another SLR-FN-G3 abomination! A much pirated figure in Hong Kong, particularly in small-scale.

K33 - Flamethrower, both the Crescent flamethrowers get three-fuel tanks, they were determined to out-fry the opposition, who always got two, or one!

This was one of my favorite figures in our heavy Frey-Bentos 'Christmas Selection' cheese-biscuit, biscuit-tin of soldiers when we were kids - he came in a mixed bag of other early British figures from a church fête and he looks like he's stripping paint off a barn-door, but I loved the pile of rocks!

K29 - M1 Carbine/Ruger Mini-14, I've fired them both, so have a liking for this chap, but - like the rest of the set (less the radio operator) - his legs are a bit small, it's like they had one guy sculpt the legs and another do the arms/heads/torsos!

F is For Follow-up - Lone Star

Material connected to the recent posts on khaki infantry have winged (should that be wung? . . . Yes; I think it should!)* Material connected to the recent posts on khaki infantry have wung their way to Small Scale World Towers from both Chris Smith and Brian B, some of which is on hold for inclusion on the Khaki Infantry page in a day or two, but these - from BB (Terranova) are pertinent to both the weekend's posts and the recent post on the Wellsotoy tin-plate truck crew, so; here they are!

Brain recently obtained these as part of his 'nostalgia collecting' (the best kind as it limits you to things you remember - rather than the mountain of shite I'm accruing!), although he didn't remember the multi-barreled mortar/rocket launchers.

Points to note ON the lot - Mint! Apart from some mildew on the tyres (common with these when they've been in storage), they are about as good as it gets, with perfect paint on all three crewmen and the wagon/trailers.

Points to note ABOUT the lot - Blue Box took the whole deck (including the control console) for their small-scale Bedford RL's and MK's. The Bren Gun Carrier passenger is used as gunner/operator and I wouldn't like to call 'who copied who' vis-à-vis the Wells Brimtoy version. Pyro-Kleeware gave us the bodies/loads of the other HK stuff, but Lone Star gave us the Blue Box mountings.

There were about six bodies I think . . . 9-barrel and Radar seen here, searchlight, twin-Bofors, spring-firing pom-pom cannon/rocket launcher with elevation 'table' (much copied in the world of space toys), that's five? I'm sure there's one or two missing? There was also a different 'well wagon' bodied trailer which housed a larger rocket launcher, and a plain flatbed trailer sold with a civilian Land Rover in the die-cast range.

They (the military vehicles) also come in an orangey-sand as desert/8th Army or as Afrika Korps with Balkan-cross stickers, and I seem to recall some green ones get German marking to go with the dark grey Germans? Later issues in bright blue with 'go-faster' chrome-plate enhanced, balloon-wheels were also sold as more general toys.

*Fling/flung, sing/sung, swing/swung . . . I'm just following the rules of English!

C is for Crescent - 60mm British Paratroopers

Continuing with the box-ticking of previously seen - briefly - here at Small Scale World 'standard' figure sets of those khaki troops not found on the Khaki Infantry page we arrive at the 60mm paratroopers from Crescent.

Again, my sample has only been built over the last nine-years, with no great thought of priority; the 'big purchase' and the odd figure in a mixed bag or Charity-shop lot. So I've got three unpainted and three with some paint, but by no means 'minty', and a couple of interesting ones (below). Sculpting is odd with these; they appear to be engaging in combat operations whilst wearing No.2 Dress uniforms with beret . . . and a water-bottle!

It does however mean you could do a nice paint conversion of the Stirling SMG-armed chap to an MP at a smart function!!

Colour variant, he's also been painted to represent an SAS trooper, but I suspect (from the trace of factory red on his shoulder) that he's a home-paint job, rather than a Crescent 'meant' figure.

There's also a base variation, previously seen with the ceremonial bandsmen and guards (who are fighting in No.1 Dress, Ceremonial, Guards, for the use of!), and as well as a sculpting difference, it's been painted green, which we also saw with some of the guards.

Base shape'/marking-variation also exists, along with the smooth versus 'sand-blasted' sculpts, whether this was a cavity thing (several per set/mould-tool) or a generation thing (moulds being re-worked/renewed) is anyone's guess at the moment, I suspect the later.

Three very different treatments of the weapon on the figure above from poor SLR at the top, to equally poor Tommy-gun at the bottom with a vaguely M1 carbine in the middle! And I think (that's 'think' TJF; like assumption - and equally flagged up!) they are in age order from top to bottom, with the bayonet first converted to a muzzle (and the moulding smoothed-off), and then the whole weapon re-cut in a blocky fashion.

L is for Lone Star - Harvey Series 65mm King Size (Swivel-heads)

The other set not found on the Khaki Infantry page from Lone Star are these, which we have seen before and I only have the three so not so much 'box-ticking' as hanging the arse out of it!

I think there are ten poses in total, each in two colours and with a choice of plug-in head. Sold as RAF Regiment with the painted blue berets and a blue-grey polymer, or Para's/combat troops in olive-drab polyethylene with painted red berets or brown US style M1 helmets, all heads being pink. You could give the red berets to the RAF chaps for airborne 'rock-apes' though! Do No.II have red berets? They should have!

The FN/SLR's are very well done, but at this size (65mm) they should be!

L is for Lone Star - Harvey Series 54mm Paratroopers (Helmets)

Continuing with the box-ticking exercise, and continuing with Lone Star and continuing with paratroopers, although helmeted not bereted and carrying different stock codes, these also differ slightly in uniform having a lose, un-tucked coat-jacket or jump smock, but are clearly by the same sculptor to a common design-style.

My two main sample-groups are a bunch of camouflaged home/re-paints and a bunch of rather tatty originals, mostly grey helmets, but one green (AFV crewman) and one very tatty UN 'blue helmet'. Some of these probably haven't been seen here before?

To go with them I have a quite nice quality stretcher team with white helmeted medics and a grey casualty. This is one of the better stretcher parties out there in that they do look as if they are carrying heavy weight, under fire - think instead; Britains or Timpo swoppets strolling along like they've got all the time in the world. Marx's was equally good.

Mortar-line; on the left the re-paints, with an original of the smaller 2" mortar-man on the right, his weapon's sculpting is so rudimentory or nondescript, he can be used as a gunner with the die-cast 25-lb'r

There is a fourth mortar, a smaller piece on a separate base without legs. Although posed to be operating a parachute printed on the backing/header card of some sets; the guy waving his hands makes a useful mortar-man, and may have been designed with the missing one in mind - it has a little flame (like the set's flamethrower), as if caught in the act of firing!

Colour variation in the plastic are the same as for the bereted eight, with paler herb green, a mid olive-drab and a more khaki colour, probably the earliest? There's also evidence of multiple cavities (or re-tooling); compare the bayonet/muzzle-end on the two standing firers.

Definitely seen before, and we looked at the [now known to be] Wellsotoy's sand-coloured one again the other day. Bren Gun Carrier crew are the smaller ones left and larger image (gunner) and right (driver) the third figure (middle) is used as a passenger in the rear of the Bren Gun Carrier and also driver for the DUKW and Jeep, and operator of the die-cast lorry or trailer-mounted weapons.

Comparisons between the larger and smaller scale versions, the smaller ones are usually found in UN helmets, with the Germans in red caps (as Communist Chinese forces in Korea), in the larger scales, the UN helmets are not as common as the green, which are also less common that the grey which are dirt-common!

The 54mm figure, far left, is actually a blue-helmeted UN figure, he looks to be the same as the grey ones, but he's just very dirty! If you take a line-up from the point of the collar, you can jsut see a bit of the blue showing; paler than the HO figures, but - if clean - distinct from the common grey ones.

Although they are almost the same, there are subtle differences all over from the hose rings to the trouser folds, so while one led to the other, it was either comprehensively re-worked, or a new copy. I think the helmeted one is the later version, his fuel-tanks are smaller and a bit lopsided or squidged.

There don't appear to be the unpainted Woolworth's versions of the larger ones as there are of the bereted eight, but I may just not have encountered any yet, remember I've only been collection this larger stuff for a few years! Also; while the eight with berets are numbered 1-8 consistently (if numbered), with these helmeted troops the marking and numbering is all over the place, suggesting cavity numbers only.

L is for Lone Star - Harvey Series 54mm Paratroopers (Berets)

These going to be a mini- or semi-season of Khaki Infantry 'box-tickers' over the next few days, we've seen them all before, and I don't think my samples have grown since we did, but I shoved them all into a couple of posts last time, this time we'll look at them one by one. I got them out to have a 'session' with the new camera as some of the menu-items are a bit different and I wanted to familiarise myself with the new 'machine'.

Title says it all; Lone Star, 54mm, paratroopers, they fit in with the helmeted para's quite well having been sculpted by the same chap in a similar uniform although without the long jackets of the helmeted ones, and sans the full-pack 'movement-order' webbing, indeed the flamethrower is almost no more than a head-swap!

Looking at them I can see that several of them DO belong on the Khaki Infantry page, even though I chose to keep them off; as the set (as a whole) is not pirated from either the Timpo or Britains sets which that page is based on, but equally the kneeling firing and officer are highly derivative while the advancing is 'after' and the waving pose owes a bit to Britains casualty? So I might have a 'similarities section, before or after the HK/Unknown sections down the bottom of the page?

Plastic colours; The early ones tend to shades of camel-dung or true khaki (elephant dung, where do you think 'kak' comes from!) or a dark olive-drab, while later ones also come in the fetching herb-green of the left-hand shooter. Note also that both the shooters have that offset, double base you sometimes see with the medieval knights.

Painted as paratroopers or Royal Marines/Royal Marine Commandos, most of mine (which came from a single source) are either  unpainted ones (Woolworth's) or had the paint stripped from them for some reason? The beret is the floppy WWII one (despite the anachronistic EM2 - dealt with in posts passim) which seems to be part Tam o'Shanter and part individual shelter (!), as a result the headgear could be painted khaki as regular infantry, or other corps.

Base marking can include a numeral - same for each figure - which may be cavity marks or figure/pose numbers but certainly do for the latter anyway; versions also exist with no number and the odd blank one turns-up.

Send three-and-four'pence; we're going to a dance! A rather simple heat-conversion on the unpainted officer's elbow has produced a nice, effective variation which I intend to paint-up one day.

AFV is for Among my Favorite Vehicles!

We've seen these here before at Small Scale World, not least than because I quite like them, and while I did pick a few up back in the early days, they tend to carry a bit of a premium these days and can't be found for 'pennies'! I shot these after the toy soldier show at Witton back in May, and thank Adrian of Mercator Trading for letting me do so.

The low-loader, not really a tank-transporter, but given the diminutive size of the tank in the series (Tri-ang Minic's plastic 'Push-and-Go' range) manages the job and is seen here mounting the - conversely - rather large armoured car.

The clear-plastic radar dish has warped slightly, something the similar dish-shaped piece from Wells-Brimtoy also suffers from, I don't know if this was a specific problem with early styrene in 'clear' or if they were still using a celluloid base for the material, but it mars an otherwise unusual subject.

Like the crawler-tractor, this is as common in civilianised colours (bright orange and red seem commonest) as it is in military guises, and like everything on this page (except the 'Jaguar'?) was also available in an RAF blue-grey.

My absolute favorite (and not in my collection), I thought I'd posted this before; a lovely civilianised (or Dr Death's SMERSH-affiliated secret army) one in black and red but I think it may be one I downloaded from the Internet*! Everyone else was doing twin-mounts, this has 'something of the dark' (or Dalek's) about it!

*It may have been sent-in by somebody, but I have no recollection of it so I can't run with it as I've no provenance, if you sent it, let me know and I'll do it as a follow-up.

Army fire-engine! The important thing here is the ladder, so often missing or damaged; it's nice to see it complete and in a sensible colour - a lot of toy fire engines end up with bright yellow or silver ladders! I have one [now below] - sans ladder!

This seems to be a Jaguar and was new to me, whether it came in the larger military boxed-sets or was just moulded in the same plastic and sold as a civilian car I don't know, but given the numbers of all the other models in the range I've seen over the years, I'd go so far as to say this is a less common piece.

These were all in the previous posts showing my examples, although I think my breakdown-truck (wrecker) is not so well-equipped with original hook! My crawler is green - I think - and we saw the orange logging one a while back. I always think that if you swapped the turrets on the two AFV's they'd both be dramatically improved!

I found a few images of mine 'from the archive', preparing this post, the shots were saved when I shut-down my ImageShack account - a fair few years ago - and they have lost some resolution. The dark green is a late colour without the red-yellow, painted formation-sign, fore 'n' aft, which all the early ones have.

A couple more saved from the same place, compared with a 'Chinatruck' on the left and an older NFIC, itself a Pyro-Kleeware copy of the 1-ton Humber truck on the right. Without the radar (which I didn't know it was missing first time it was posted!) it still makes a useful office-body for HQ units (old school war-gaming!) and at least I know what ladder I'm looking out for now! Cheers Adrian.