D is for Daily Wail from the Daily Fail!

Sources close to someone who didn't want to be named today said the person was 'stunned' by the news that American Comics in the 1950's all but GAVE AWAY (for a small postage fee) exploding tanks even as US tank commandeers were getting exploded in Korea! An anonymous spokesman for the Pentagon said "What the fuck? Get out of my office! . . . where's security?"

An un-named US exploded tank-commander told this Daily Pail reporter he couldn't believe there were toys of his situation, he said "I didn't get exploded to death in my tank so someone could make a toy of me exploding!" This Paper is OUTRAGED! The shocking 'TOY' maker Helen of War Toy has been approached for a statement and we can tell you - NONE has been forthcoming!

This story comes hot on the heels of the SCANDALOUS news last week, reported here at the Daily Whine that Louis Marx produced playsets of American GI's with destroyed trees during the Vietnam War. A destroyed tree near Phnom-Penh - who wished to remain anonymous - was quoted as saying "How would you like it? You're immolated by American Napalm and five minutes later they are selling toys of you with your branches all fire-twisted!" This paper is with the TREE!*

Meanwhile, over at our sister paper The Sunday Sackcloth a similar story has been breaking about how McLaughlin Brothers issued printed wooden solders depicted as casualties, and allied trucks burning during the ACTUAL World War, when actual allied trucks were actually got burnt and actual US soldiers were actually wounded! THE PAPER'S WAR TOYS CORRESPONADANT WAS SO INCENSED HE HAD TO GO AND SIT IN A DARK CORNER WITH AN ICE BAG. ON. HIS. HEAD!

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

A spokesman for McLaughlin was unwilling to be found but a senior tory minister was overheard saying "This is bound to negatively affect home-counties' house prices in the medium-to-long-term?" Yes! Says this paper; except for migrants and work-shy hippies who will probably be GIVEN A FREE ONE!"

YOU TOO can find all these stories and more on the Phew's Group Website - TJF Did!

*Some trees were accidently destroyed in the making of this paper but not from a war zone and we won't be making toys of them.

=====================================

Joking apart; I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw that crap the other day?

Airfix issued figures including both a German and Japanese 'recent enemy'; in 1949 (too close?), Airfix again (SAS) and Matchbox (Para's) jumped on the Iran Embassy and Falkland's bandwagon within months, GI Joe sold best at the height of the Vietnam War, indeed, while Action Man soldiered-on into the 1980's, GI Joe died with the US defeat. Marx issued Viet Kong as the war unfolded . . .

. . . Marx 'revolutionaries'

sneak-up behind an ox-cart

The Daily Rail's click-bait puff-piece and TJF's reaction to it speak volumes about where we're going in the next few years, the piece oozed hysterical false-outrage, over-excited, hypocritical tub-thumping, smarmy fake moralising, mawkish sycophancy and deliberately ignored the historical facts pertaining to War Toys (they're not called 'long-after-the-relevant-war toys') in favour of a 'here and now' rant.

There have always been war toys, especially in time of war, and there always will be, the idea that Airfix have crossed some ethical boundary by issuing a war-gaming scenic of a damaged mud-brick house is just daft, and the Wail's continuing the article by singling out certain aircraft kits only leaves one wondering why they didn't do so after the Gulf wars, when the same date-relevant issue of toy or model Tornados, Challengers, Chinooks and so on was seen from most kit manufactures along with the likes of King & Country and Corgi! But then the Daily Fail supported both ventures!

While movies often pertain to wars still being fought, complete with damage to buildings!

I'm not posting links to either piece-of-shit, if you know; you know, if you haven't the faintest idea what I'm going-on about; you're lucky, you missed both-barrels of a Trumpundbrexidiot fest!

H is for Hospital - Britains Hospital

Theo van der Weerden kindly sent a scan of the1985 Britains catalogue page dealing with the Hospital by way of a follow-up to the post the other day, and it prompted me to shoot the rest of the figures while their tubs were still kicking-around.

The scan; it shows three large sets and a Helicopter Emergency Ambulance playset. The helicopter had started life as an army/air one, and would go on to be exploited as the basis for farm, police and construction (?) helicopters in various configurations, including a crop-sprayer.

The three large sets seem to have the whole range between them, but smaller boxes were available with more intimate vignettes involving one or two figures and a few accessories. Unlike the Mettoy we saw the other say, I don't have the accessories for these yet, so we're only going to look at the figures.

Medical professionals include two doctors; one male, one female, a matron or ward sister and two nurses, these are all Superdeetail over-moulds and looking at them you can see how the Para's were supposed to end-up!

They are ably supported by a medical orderly/hospital porter who has ring-hands for stretchers or trolly-beds, but who doesn't line-up quite for pushing the wheel-chair, so I may be missing a figure there?

He too is a Superdeetail figure (making a 'full set' of six), the patients and casualties being more traditional painted PVC of the plain Deetail type. We have walking wounded, prone cases and seated figures, some of which have locating-studs for fixing to the accessories.

Here we see a hot-seat change for the wheel-chair (or wheeling-chair as they were originally called!), while the woman leaning against the wall has a stud, but doesn't fit in the chair, so must normally be fixed to something in the maternity unit? From whence (the maternity unit) comes the little baby.

Nurse Rhatschett conducts exercise-hour

in Camp Adolph! "Luft, zwei, drei, vier . . .

Luft, zwei, drei, vier, yetz die beine hochhalten, mine schatzen . . ."

Little babies; there's one in every-other mixed lot, and it's surprising how quickly the piracy-elves in Hong Kong managed to get-out copies of the Britains baby, although I'm not sure about the middle one . . . did Britains reproduce it themselves in two sizes? But the blood-stained one to the right is definitely a copy - someone's stitched Harold Wilson's face on to the baby's head! Yes; I'm trying to avoid any mention of the red paint.

Cheers for the scan Theo; got me to pull my finger-out!

L is for Long, Long Ago . . .

. . . in a Galaxy Far, Far Away . . .

. . . all this did happen wiv a furry monkey-manned and black dalekmanned and spacecars thats are bigger than a house and lectric swords wot sing shiny and evwy'fing, its really did, and it is TREW!

With apologies to Morwenna Banks as 'The Little Girl'

Well, as we've been having a contribution/space day, here's another of Jon Alderfer's pieces to finish a one-day mini-season! And what a glorious artwork it is, the composition is lovely, beautifully balanced, well thought out, and both managing to channel the original posters AND covering many more memorable scenes than any of them and doing it all without a - now-clichéd - light-sabre in sight!

From the slightly offset Star Destroyer at the top, a dreaming Luke torn between the light and dark of the two father figures, the four 'kids' flanked by two hologram scenes and two 'Escape from the Star Destroyer' scenes and then the two comedy pairs down the bottom, it's immaculately executed. Even the 'footballs' of security- and trainer-droid's neatly balance each-other.

The rendition of the holographic chess pieces and Leia's distress message are superb, Jon confirmed he does use coloured pencil; some items highlighted with felt-tips, but at this level I think they are referred to as 'art markers' and the technique is 'Pen & Ink'! And the faces, how does he get the faces? That's not commercial art, that's just art!

Stunning piece Jon; humbled, again, to have it on the Blog.

PS - why has no-one done a set of those chess pieces, they would make a fantastic group of 50mm-odd 'Little Rubber Guys'!

D is for Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future . . . Past!

As you may have clocked by now, we are having a Space day and a Follow-up day and a Brian day, because they are all follow-ups to previous related posts of shots Brian had sent. This post is looking at some more of Brian's collection of Dan Dare stuff, and in his own words . . .

"These figures are mostly Unicorn metal, factory painted.

The second and third on row-3 are Phants painted by me and are unlicensed UK made metal figures.

Row four - the four figures on the right are Treens; as per the Phants

Row five is a Crescent Dan Dare/RAF figure, then 3 as per above Phants and Treens. Then a plastic Spacefleet Commando by Eaglewall. Then two larger Auburn Rubber policemen this time the whistle blower is Dan smoking a pipe, followed by two Unicorns and a Comet metal Mekon."

=====================

A lovely display of a favourite from childhood, and - at the risk of being accused of name-dropping;

When we used to fly to Alderney (Britten-Norman Trislander - like a small Lancaster but noisier!), we would sometimes be unable to land (due to fog) and would be re-directed to Guernsey for an unscheduled overnight stay. We used a little B&B, but it often meant supper with General Sir John 'Arnhem' Hackett and his wife.

Now, after supper he and Dad would talk 'shop' (jumping out of perfectly-serviceable aircraft mostly!), while my Brother and I would sit at the top of the stairs going through a whole shelf of Lion, Tiger and Eagle annuals! Indeed we had to be dragged FROM the top of the stairs FOR supper, and were only returning to our 'roost'! Consequently; I knew well, things I should have been too-young to remember, like Harris Tweed, Waldorf & Cecil, PC49, Luck of the Legion and - of course - Dan Dare! "Pilot of the Future" . . . then!

=====================

Although the best thing there is hiding on the bottom row - where the hell do you go to find a figurine of Desperate Dan? "Cow-pie, with horns!"

Brian also sent a close-up of his Auburn Rubber paint-conversions - Cheers Mr B - some real treats!

R is for Rocket . . . USA!

That rocket I posted from Terranova the other month, which I thought might be MP for Mars Patrol . . . it was MP for Mars Patrol!

I based my assumptive presumption of a guess on the fact that the tail logo seemed to graphically represent two similar planets orbiting a larger sun, at similar -but different - distances from it!

Turns out it is a modern reproduction of an original tin-plate toy, although reproduction isn't the correct phrase, it's a re-issue from the original Masudaya moulds, commissioned by Rocket USA who set themselves up to source the Japanese toys of the 1950's and 1960's, committed to issuing toys from . . .

"America's Space Age of Innocence: a time when space exploration and robotics were in the beginning stages and every man, woman and child was full of fanciful notions about robots, space travel and galaxies beyond."

My cursory search has also thrown up licensed toys with Futurama and The Day the Earth Stood Still themes.

I don't know if they are still going, gone bust or just don't have a website, however, you can still get the MP-1, but in a different box - here and they'll be watching the orange Mekon carefully for announcements of forthcoming tariffs, if they are!

The figures turned out to be TMNT castings from Dark Horse Miniatures 

S is for Silly-Season Search for Sci-fi Solids

So, while the Tories spent the summer eating each other alive over Brweakshit, Donald Small-hands loaded so many tariffs on China's (sorry; Chai-Nah!)'s components their trade-surplus with the 'States actually went up (because the US buyers had to pay the extra for the bits they needed!) and the BBC stooped ever lower in its desire to lick the arses of Fox and Sky, but not as low as the daily Wail (get your feed from TJF!), we here at Small Scale World had much better ways of seeing the silly season slide by with its record temperatures;

I got my collection out of storage, Brian B sent me lots of pictures and Gisby searched frantically for an ID on some figures, this post is the result!

Ages ago, like two years ago or more, Brian sent me an image of one of his displays which had this trio in the corner, and I asked him if he had a better shot or knew anything about them. He then sent the image I posted back at the beginning of July and I (being a lazy git) sat back and waited for Gisby to reveal all! Gisby, however; missed the hint and did a fantastic job of finding the Buck Rogers figures instead (for which link I've just looked and failed to find the follow-up! Then I remembered Gisby put the links in the comments)! I emailed him with the cry for help, and he was off!

'Racun' - Critter Commandos

He sort of drew a blank, but had checked Team Frog's 'Critter Commandos' (his first thought), as he suspected it might be the work of sculptor Steve Lortz, before he "checked Castle Creations and Lance & Laser, because he [Lortz] sculpted for them, but nope. I tried Archive and Stan Johannsen, because they make 'that type' of figure, even if a different style, but nope".

He then left a message on a vintage forum and got in touch with Paul Lidberg at Team Frog, who correctly ID'd them as being pretty poor sculpts! We all got a bit excited for a moment, thinking they might be quite uncommon, or a bit 'old school' and better images were called-for; which Mr. Berke duly provided . . .

. . . and I sent some on to Gisby, while planning this post around the rest of them, but RTM was bearing-down on me and I had a four-van logistics exercise to arrange! At this point however the story failed to develop into a full, epic quest as someone on the forum had ID'd them and that was - rather . . . that!

It turns out they are by Dark Horse Miniatures who produced these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sets based on their (Dark Horse's) own comics, the sculptor being Ian Lungold, and the foursome who'd caused all the excitement are titled set 178 - After The Bomb Mutants. But they are still nice 'old school' figures so let's have a closer look . . .

The thing is - while a modern maker rightly feels they are a bit poor, when I was a kid this was par for the course and there were dozens and dozens of these things in Military Modelling around '78-'80, and the pre-GW editions of White Dwarf. I used to buy things very much like this from Tangley Model Workshop in Guildford and if you put them lose in your pocket half the detail seemed to have rubbed-off by the time you got them home!

I'm guessing these were mid/late-1980's (at the time of writing I haven't followed the links myself yet!), but in the '80's lot of guys were sculpting this kind of thing in their bedrooms from Plasticine or candle-wax, casting them in Lego-dams or cuttlefish moulds, which is why I have the occasional unknown posts, I keep coming-across unknown metal!

My favourite, 'she' looks like she may be a she, which if they are dogs (mutant dogs) would make her a bitch, and if you encounter a mutant dog with an eye-patch and a big gun; 'Bitch' is the least of it, but the one word you wouldn't use! I think she's probably the leader of the gang as well?

I don't know what to make of this chap, there's some dog around the jowls, but the rest of him is more turtle-meets-mantis! What looked like an unreadable marking on the base equates to neither the maker or the sculptor, nor even the franchise; so just some fettling-marks or something?

Thanks to Brian for indulging me, thanks to Gisby for all his searching and thanks to Paul Lidberg and whoever put the name to the figures; I think they're great!

B is for Barbari! To Fight your Romani of Course!

Along with my single non-Co-Ma Roman I have a probably non-Co-Ma chap who is sometimes described as a Viking, but he is supposed to fight the Romans, and they had long-gone before Vikings were on the scene, also he has an animal's horns on his helmet which is not a Viking practice at all and - I'm sure you'll agree - pretty barbaric, so I guess when Co-Ma called them Barbari, they were right!

Here he is; he too has the helmet-in-the-mud thing going-on, but it's not as simple as it was with the Romans, he's also that softer plastic though, so probably a copy. Again, no markings, of any kind and he has a single horn like some unicorn-quiffed follower of Pan/Dionysus! Very Barbari!

Brian Berke also has one, but I suspect from the detailing of the helmet in the mud he is a Co-Ma original? Although the spike for a weapon is a bit suspect, but it may be the remains of a handle for an axe which has gone the way of all flesh? The level of detail is superb, and those horns could hurt someone! Very Barbari!

Brian's Berserker was at tea (and anyone who's read Asterix will know we Brits just don't fight Italians at tea-time!), so he sent a scaler with a couple of other Hong Kong/China-Troops, although I'd like to know where that Saracen knock-off got an American Civil War musket from? Presumably the bloke behind him! Anyway, my Berserker is now on the mantle-shelf now for just such occasions; although my money's on the Barbari; he's got longer arms and a shield!

R is for Romans! Co-Ma . . . et al!

Look what turned-up! Like the spare Frog Bloodhound-keeper I had no idea I had these, and they weren't in the Romans tubs, they were in the unknown military pre-1900 box! I do vaguely recall buying them as a set, in one of those boxes that 16 of the Ambassador's chocolates used to come in, at a Birmingham show, but whether it was the 2009, '10 or '11 show I can't remember.

A set of six, two are integral mouldings, four had ring-hands for a variety of weapons; I have a standard, two spears and a short-sword, although I don't suppose it would look that short sticking out of your Briton'ish clavicle!, but that is what they are called.

It is the separate weapons that supposedly tell us they are Co-Ma as ably demonstrated by TJF a year ago as he proceeded to contradict everything he and his self-abusing monkey-lizard had previously said about them, over the prior month or so!

Note; there are no remnants of spangle-helms in the mud of their bases.

With sword or spear; he's clearly been annoyed by someone or something, and is intending to take his frustration out on a soft, fleshy, target of non-Roman citizenship! Thus the pink-monkey's ever-were, and remain so to this day!

Again some alternate weaponry posing, with the kneeling guy, a spear works well for 'receiving the enemy', but it looks awkward in the hand of the standing guy; who seems to have been designed to take the standard. Sometimes the 'ring-hand' thing has more to do with sculpting and tooling vis-a-vis undercuts than any deliberate attempt at 'swoppet-ism'!

While the figure below and to the right is . . . I haven't the faintest idea! What I do know is that unlike the other six, I've had him for years (long before my short-stay RP figure) due to his sub-size, and that those other two f-witts don't know either!

Hell, he may even be the elusive Basa! But as last year's spat failed to provide a single figure they were sure was Basa, nor any empirical evidence that Basa ever 'did' the Romans, it's still up for grabs! And I got him in Europe, before the Internet was a 'Thing'.

My feeling is that he is an interim design - probably an Italian or French 'bazaar' toy - a piracy, coming between the Co-Ma originals and the RP (Res Plastics) figures, which may well be from his tool, but after it was cleaned-up and the RP moniker added. He DOES have a discarded helmet in his mud, and it's similar to RP's, but he has no marking at all. He also has a slight twist or turn-away compared to the older pose.

As we can see the RP one did here, against the donor! And again; the spangle-helm. Both the twists AND fallen-helmets suggesting RP's moulds WERE the cleaned-up tools of the silver-copy guy; they are - supposedly - the moulds which are now with DSG.

Now . . . IF and it's a big 'if''; Basa got the tools direct from Co-Ma, these main six above could ALL be Basa, they're clean enough to be later production (and not as sharp as Co-Ma original Barbarians or Astronauts), but I don't know - any more than those other two idiots did, once they were 'put on the spot' (just use the Basa tag for the whole sequence of Trumpundbrexidioscy a year ago) - so for now they remain labelled 'Co-Ma (probably)' in the box. What I do know is that my six aren't RP, aren't the poorer copies and probably aren't DSG.

The point I'm making here is that Erwin did use the RP figures on the Vichy site, claiming they were Basa, he then denied he's done so and with TJF's help (and possibly some self-vandalism involving a heated hex-driver bit) used a second set of figure shots to prove nothing other than their joint dishonesty, before they both managed to contradict themselves and each-other with the help of a Co-Ma original/figure matching mine!

Mine are currently commanded by a slightly over-scale Reamsa re-issue on a horse which I assume, presume, and guess is also a Marksmen-era, Reamsa re-issue mount, but I'm 100% sure - I'm not sure! Oops, did I just guess about Spanish toy sol... . . ? Have I just left mysel... . . ? Will TJF have a... . . ? Is he Jecs... . . ? Doh!

F is for Follow-up to Frog's Fissile Flyer Fellows

When I got those three Frog Bloodhound Missile crew a year or so ago [exactly a year ago - as he checks the link!], I said we'd seen the missing figure on the Blog (I don't think we had - I can't find him) and that it was a coincidence that the one not in the recent purchase was in storage.

Turns-out I had two in storage the missing one and a rather grubby 'look to the skies' dude who must have come from a rummage tray at that last Birmingham show judging by the state of him and the fact that I'd forgotten I had him!

They look like Warmington's finest; Captain Mainwaring and the others, in the village square looking up at the German pilot stuck on the clock tower! From the left Cpt. M himself, Sgt. 'Uncle Frank' Wilson, Frazier and Private 'Can I have the Tommy-gun now, it's my turn!?' Pike.

Anyway, it means that as well as these four I have a spare, if you need the grubby one (it's fine under the dirt!) and are planning on being at the Sandown Park toy fair next weekend, eMail me in the week with an offer of a suitable swap (figure/s, vehicle/s, scenics - whatever) to the [your] perceived value and it's yours without cash changing hands!

T is for ♫♫♪ There's a Girl With My Bucket . . . Dear Liza; Dear Liza! There's a Girl . . . ♪♪♫♪

This is not the post I was hoping to have here, but I ran out of time again this week and threw this up here so there'd be something for the weekend!

Left to right; Timpo over-mould/swivel-waist; a Hong Kong giantess and what I think is the Ohio Arts version of the Auburn Rubber farm girl - I'm going on Kent Sprecher's comparison shot and the little 'smile' of the apron's hem seems to indicate Ohio along with the cowl of her hat?

I don't think it's a bucket either, it's a basket of bread so what the hell's she doing in the same tub!

Same procedure; Timpo 'solid' from hollow-cast mould; Charbens - likewise but re-cut with a larger base; Crescent (with passing goose!) aaaaand . . . not 100% on this one (there's some mileage for TJF!), early British - for sure - she looks like Hilco? She's similar to the Charbens one, but that sculpt has a solid stool (upturned bucket or log/stump) while this is more like the Britains stool and looks similar to the Johillco lead version?

All Britains, the early one is almost certainly a re-paint, but well matched, colour-wise I think? The rest are later HK vinyl's, indeed the last one (with separate - hinged handle - bucket) may be a China-for-Racing Champions or Tomy effort? Actually one of these only has a basket . . . and that last one has both, I must have decided buckets and/or baskets for the tub; I'll let Ms. Ohio off!

I know I have some of the intermediate Herald stuff (from the Charity-shop bags last year/earlier this year) but I thought I had some with these, I suspect it's just because I sorted tons of them when I worked for a dealer a decade ago (where does the time go!); so we will return to them once they have all been sorted together.

Women with buckets [or baskets!] . . . there's more!

T is for Tony Tigers . . . They'rrre Grrrrrreat!

Obviously I've had the Kellogg's box out and while I was shooting the Magic Roundabout and knights I threw this together!

The badge is probably from the 1970's, but I don't know, the five Ashford Mouldings semi-flat Sports Tony's (there's a skier missing) were quite recent as was the Coach Tony; a larger box 'exclusive' from the 1st Monster Wrestlers in my Pocket promotion.

The one's I remember from our childhood were the little (probably R&L) model-kit Tony Tigers, but they are harder to find than most of the above!

K is for Kellogg's Knights; Knot Krescent!

These were issued in 1994 by Kellogg's, pretty much the last time anyone issued 'proper' figures in breakfast cereal, although they were a tad small at around 45mm.

The figures are all in pretty casual or 'at ease' poses, either waiting for the battle to hot-up, or for their turn at the joust, you got one per pack (whatever size/weight of box) and each came with a sheet of four stickers.

The sheet was the same for all of them so you could build a unit of six identical servants of one 'house', or end up with two duplicates if you used them all at least once!

Backs; the relaxed stance of the figures is probably also - in part - explained by the need to reduce undercuts and have simple, shallow moulds, producing simple product with a fast cycle, resulting in a minimal unit-cost. But - they will still paint-up nicely, and one day I may have a pop!

They're not rare!

These were on evilBay, not that long ago either, and you often find complete sets of six, the trick is getting the sticker-sheet, but you only need one-and-a-half of them for maximum effect! It's a box-ticker; box ticked!