A is for Archive - Mattel's 'VertiBird'

I can just about remember TV ad's for this, but I may be getting confused with similar machines from Tyco, Airfix, Hasbro or someone else; there were a fair few around through the 1970's or early 1980's, this being originally released in '73 and later licensed to Bluebird as Air Police.

These are from the 1980 trade catalogue. As the rotor-blades don't have variable geometry, all the work is actually done by the red turret/gimball-thing on top of the box on the ground, but - you do get a figure!

Close-up of the figure, the sort of thing I'd expect to have in my 'unknown' sections, but I don't seem to have one . . . yet! The figure looks to be moulded into/onto the rescue sledge/tray, but is listed separately from a 'stretcher' and there seems to be a clip-in pick-up/carrying handle.

H is for Hawkin's HALO Heroes

That's not what they were called, as far as I can remember, just made for a half-reasonable post-title! These are unusual in being branded to Hawkin's Bazaar rather than the more commonly used moniker of the parent; Tobar, and being from the storage lot must be over 7 years old, actually titled 13109 PBF Parachute Soldier.

The five-figure stock code matching Tobar's current codeing, as does the manufacturer code (038728) but while the postcode given is Norwich, it’s different to the current Tobar postcode, however;  there was a solvency problem with Hawkin's a few years ago reported here at the time and it'll all be connected to that.

They are 95mm and made from that odd sort of recycled plastic which is best described as 'sandy' textured, and I must have grabbed all four poses when I saw them, however . . .

. . . they are 'similar' versions of the more recent, slightly smaller (80-mil-odd) Soldier Force figures from Hunson, sent to the blog in the last year or two by Brian Berke. While all the details are not the same, the painting style and plastic type is the same and it may well be they are all from the same contract manufacturer, and that I missed-out on a larger version of the 'Max Headroom' character (or is it Chip Hazard from Small Soldiers?) on the right?

M is for Magnetic Miniatures

I can't remember if we've had this on the blog or not, but I shot it (again?) in passing the other day, so here it is, clearly a magnetic novelty like the coffin skeletons, naked bath/bed ladies, kissing couples or sarcophagus Pharaoh, there's only one problem . . . it doesn't work!

The trope is either that the bullfighter is supposed to chase the bull around, or drag him around, depending on the polarity of the magnets, but actually they do nothing and I know why; both magnets have lost their magnetism!

There are two versions, unmarked on the left of each pair and marked Hong Kong on figure and cloth (right-hand), but these two - who both have their magnets clearly visible - don’t affect each other nor a needle I tried them on.

The magnetic material is that rubberised sheet used for travel-chess and draughts sets back in the 1970's and some early fridge magnets, which you may have discovered are also starting to fall off and not go back on!

As a result of this loss of magic-power, and because the bull is two firmly-glued halves, I can't even say with certainty if there is a magnet in it, whether it's toward the front or to the rear or - therefore - even if it's the correct animal! It came with the marked man, and is equally well-marked so I'm confident enough in myself, but without packaging (empirical evidence!) you'll have to judge your own call from the pathetically non-magnetic evidence!

Might I be able to 're-charge' it/them with a really big magnet? Airfix Guardsman scaler

06th June 2020 - they are credited to a Chemtoy in the states, but were probably sold by many outfits as a bought-in novelty? 

S is for the Super-Size of the Quest Ahead!

So, in case you haven't been reading the blurb for the last few months, the collection is out of storage, and I'm starting to pick-over it, a lot is still in a heap in the garage, and a few things don't seem to have surfaced at all yet, but they will . . . and there's plenty to keep the Blog going, take this as a case in point;

This is one of 9 identical boxes of 'unknown' flats (we looked at some of the 'Wild West' box a few weeks ago), to which you can add another, twice as long, with known margarine premiums, that is: they either have the issuer moulded on, or the little paper label saying ei-fein or whatever; four boxes of US 'comic flats' and all the Russian/East-European stuff, which is more spread around, and other stuff I've forgotten! There are also two crates of those A4 sheets of foam-board with the lead flats.

In front of it are the Christmas cracker 'Putti Orchestra' figurines which have come in over the last 7-years, in a little 4"x5½" self-seal bag, which is my standard size.

In the box are approximately 150 four-by-five-and-a-halves, each with an index card 'stiffener'. At an average of two posts a day there's nearly 3-months worth of posts there, technically, in the one box, but as you can see; some subjects have several bags, while lots of bags only have one or two examples in!

After sorting the new ones into the older sample, there are still several with only one! You can see it's the earlier 'Hong Kong' ones (1) which are building-up fastest, as there are more of them in the backs of hall 'phone drawers, or 'the' kitchen drawer, to end-up at car-boot sales, or in the hands of house-clearers and so slowly enter the secondary market.

I've numbered them as I think they were probably issued, but it's only a gestimate, with (1) in from the mid-late 1970's through to (5) being probably still current, the pink 'china' one being in a cheapie-cracker in a restaurant in Frimley a few years ago. I also added annotations to the cards as I was combining the two lots, makes it easier to sort into them next time.

Ignoring the base marks for a moment, these are all the poses and colours so far found, on these ephemeral, cartoony, seasonal, novelty figures, and with the exception of the red one, they are all so flimsy their bases tend to fold flat in the bags!

The next card in the box, and only added at the time these shots were taken, are these alien/clown orchestra figures, are they from 'down below'? We know the Devil has all the best tunes!

All figures of both types are about 30mm and soft polyethylene; the last three sculpted on both sides, the Putti are single-sided reliefs, smooth on the reverse. And they will probably be moved to a fantasy box, as they are hardly 'civilian', just non-military.

In the same box was something instantly recognisable . . . now! Clearly another Rundlutscher Spitztüte Wundertüten probably from Kuefa Kreisel, and I expect to find more as I dig-out the other boxes!

F is for Fuchsia-Flushed Feline

As well as 'the year of the footballers', 2018 has also been the year of the carmine cougar, here on Small Scale World; equally accidentally, although with some design in the middle of the year when I looked for a few on feeBay! There weren't many in the storage lots, but three have turned-up in time to be posted before the year's end!

The key-ring we've seen before, around 50mm and old-school PVC, the 'green panther' is an old European premium (Olà Ice Cream?) in polyethylene and showing all the signatures of Tito except the mark, while the bike must have been Corgi's entry for novelty vehicle of 1979!

A rocket-firing, low-raked, street-fighter! What the fuck's that all about, the Pink Panther may have covered his little nemesis in paint occasionally, even helped him down a few holes in the road or pavement, but last time I looked he wasn't a cold-blooded killer?

The cowling is a styrene polymer and can be damaged if it comes into contact with the PVC cat, while the die-cast body has polyethylene wheels and I think this probably went in a little sub-set with the Muttley thing?

F is for Follow-up - Fearless Floppy-hatted Fellows

It's one of the Toy Soldier rules that being in possession of a soft, broad-brimmed jungle hat is a sure sign of ANZAC credentials! The exception to the rule being the Airfix Ghurkha's! We looked at a few of these a while ago, and this is the contents of the 'Aussie/NZ' tub in storage.

Timpo swoppet figures, only the first version got these hats, with squared locating studs, I'm not sure you can even get them to fit the last version Brit's or US Infantry? And it's only the hats which differ from the 1st version British Infantry, Armoured Corps, US-import 'Green Berets', Para's or - possible - SAS.

We saw a few of these Trojan's last time too, but I DID have a few from the 'Big Purchase', I was practically giving away the Germans at the last (2011) Birmingham show (in fact I did give a handful to a mate), but there were only the four ANZAC's and I'd forgotten them! The third figure seems to have a kukri, but they would have had the long-bladed parang or heavy, issue, jungle knife for clearing the thicker secondary and lower, shrubby/grassy, tertiary jungle, as modelled by Airfix's officer . . .

Much copied by Hong Kong's finest (upper shot - dung-yellow examples) and err . . . cut'n'shut by Rado Industries (lower shot, field-grey green), that is; Ri-Toys, funny, I have a whole tub of them in one of the Blue Box crates which we looked at here, but I had these five in the Antipodeans tub!

Having proven that my Blue Box were in fact, actually Blue Box and not the 'Ri-Toys' Erwin 'makes it up as he goes along' Sell stated they were, a couple of years ago; I think it's only fair to prove that his 'Blue Box' are in fact the Ri-Toys I had stated they were several years earlier! They'll learn, but it's beeing a long, drawn-out, hard lesson.

The Enemy! I dealt with the small scale twenty-odd years ago in One Inch Warrior magazine, and looked at my small sample of larger scale ones back at the start of the blog, and after a flurry of activity it hasn't grown much (couple more Tim Mee blobs perhaps and some extra Airfix), but these two came-in just before everything went into storage, indeed, as it was going into storage, the show being in October and my move being two or three weeks later! I don't know if the yellow one is Trojan or one of the others in that group of five or six early British companies? There is a third, but it's the standing pose, duplicated - with very poor paint!

Bye-the-bye; Chris Smith sent 3 Blue Box Japanese in the summer donation, and I picked-up the officer's horse (in one of Jim's donation lots I think!), so we will look at them again at some point, but right now I am literally drowning in Stuff . . .

. . . 'Storage stuff' photo's, contributed/donated stuff, other photo's, shelfies (mine and contributed), News & Views stuff, archive scans, charity shop stuff, gliders, a Viking long ship, flats, paratroops', circus, Lledo, 'Mocherettes', Funimals, cereal-premium kits . . . I just spent an evening combining the Starlux lots and sorting the 30, 35, 40, 45, and 50mm Rocco, Crescent, Hilco and Cherilea mounted (with a couple of 54mm Charbens!) and discovering four more Disneykins, a Japanese APC and a ceramic cat. . . it's all coming, Small Scale World can't be built in a day; but I'm not complaining, just panicking slightly in a "whatever!" sort of fashion!

I is for Interlude

C is for Carded Cartoon Characters for Concourse and Carriage!

I can't remember if we looked at these properly or in passing as part of a show report, but I know Peter Evans gave me some at PW's show earlier this year, while I added a few I had here, I've now added the card from storage, but was sure I had some lose figures in storage too, and I haven't found them yet, so there may be another few somewhere, however - the card is the important bit . . .

. . . as it adds two poses to whatever we looked at whenever we did/didn't last look at them!

So; the full breakdown is five staff members, and five passengers, semi-flat, Hong Kong and around 25mm. I think I have a spare of the green chap elsewhere as well, due to his looking like a meant-to-be fully-round figure, if/when found on his own!

Based on/scaled-up from the old lead HO figures from Märklin (via Hans Wettig?), specifically set 0201 and limited to the ten poses from that set - There were two other sets in the Märklin catalogue, a forth in Schiffmann 12 (under Wettig) and the unknown set we looked at here, none of which have turned-up, scaled-up in hard Hong Kong polymer, although the rail-maintenance set (0203) were pirated in soft polyethylene, same size.

Close-up of the fat lady (she hasn't sung so Small Scale World goes on!) and a member of the rail staff from the era when A) there were rail staff to find on the platform and B) having been found they were happy to oblige!

I is for I Just Couldn't Come-up With a Good Title!

Following on the heels of the Britains Trojans and Cherilea Roman 'returns' and the other day's box ticker on Toyway, comes the next obvious one in the queue, Crescent's Romans, although going with an RG prefix and some of the sculpts the accurate title is probably Romans and Gladiators!

For some reason (not thinking, that's the reason!) I didn't shoot the overview shot in numerical order, although the next six collages are in the right order which is;

RG1 - Kneeling with small round shield (Gladiator)

RG2 - Spearman (Legionary)

RG3 - Standard Bearer (Legionary)

RG4 - Wounded with Arrow (Legionary)

RG5 - Advancing with small round shield (Gladiator)

RG6 - Full-on Gladiator (Gladiator!)

Basically; a rather odd assortment, let's look at them closely . . .

People consider him a roman soldier, but the small round shield says Gladiator to me, I know they each have a name for their role/uniform & equipment, and one or two were dressed as 'regular' Romans, but the shield is designed to be a weakness, while the short stabbing dagger is a gladiatorial weapon, designed to wound and prolong the 'entertainment'.

I think the base on the left-hand figure is a re-paint and I'm not sure about the bright silver on the other (comments that apply to a lot of these), which came from a collection with a lot of re-painting, the final one is unpainted and I have no Hong Kong or other copies of this pose . . . yet!

This is a nice rendition of a Roman legionary, he is armed with a straight-shaft spear or lance rather than the more expensive (to produce) pillum, I don't think that's particularly anachronistic, but would bow to more knowledgeable members of Slingshot!

Also he carries a proper Roman gladius short-sword with broad blade, sheathed at his belt, suggesting that the 'dagger' of the above Gladiator was a deliberate act by the sculptor. Happy with the painting on these two, early on the left, later reduced-paint; centre, and a Hong Kong dwarf on the right!

Standard Bearer, I can't remember which is which or what one this is called . . . signifier? I should have waited 'till the books were out, or stuck to non-Latin 'toy soldier' stuff! Another legionary, and paint looks good on both Crescent examples, while there's a slight colour variation on the HK's wolf's head headdress.

The third legionary is not much use, being hors du combatt! Re-painting to the earlier scheme I fear, but following the original and a very nice sword stuck in the ground/base.

I'm sure this is a gladiator, he's got a Greek bell-cuirass and an attic (?) helmet with fancy plumed-crest, there was a gladiator called a 'Greek' (or Illyrian?) I think, but seem to remember he only had one greave? Again the small round shield says 'slightly hamstrung'.

I don't have one of the HK dwarves for this pose, but a much nicer full-size blue chap, who must come from a bigger pose-set? I think the paint's right on the two Crescent's but I'm not sure?

Definitely a gladiator (retarius?) and having two equally colourful paint-schemes and a heavy sword, he is handicapped by the ridiculous helmet restricting vision - as it boils his brains! The Hong Kong copies are the best of a bad-bunch and some have a red belt!

So that's that box-ticked, an odd set as you've got one obvious gladiator, two probable's, a wounded man and a standard bearer, which leaves the fate of all Rome and it's mighty Empire in the hands of a man with a sharp stick! But, if the idea was to pull on the draw of the Spartacus movies, I'd say the gladiator's have this one in the bag!

Funnily enough there was a small lot on feebleBay the other day with the missing 'aitchkay' copy of RG5, but it was more than I would pay for what was two duplicates and a piece of shite, even if it was a piece of shite I'm still looking for!!

F is for Foreign Fellows on Phut-phuts

Heay, I don't care - anything for an alliterative heading, me!

So soon after the last two-wheeled round-up, but I was re-jigging the garage stuff to make room and found several boxes I was happy to re-acquainted myself with, including the motorcycles box, and so we're back to them with a quick look at some of the larger ones from foreign makers.

Across the North Sea Reisler were turning this out in various guises including civil and police colours as well as the 'Friendly' (with rider) and 'Enemy' (abandoned!) force colours seen here. Made from an early polystyrene, it has a soft, warmness to the touch and a naturally glossy finish, to which they added minimal paint-highlights.

Some Spanish outfit - I'd better not try ID'ing them in case it says something else in TJF's bookie-wook, leading him to another on-line rage'gasm. In the shot bottom-right, you can see the holes present in all machines for a side-car, and both variants seem relatively common, sharing the swoppet elements of figures by Manuel Sotorres with the moveable arms also seen on the smaller figures from Torres Maltas, this rider though has more in common with the larger output credited to Juguetes Teixido . . . damn! Committed myself . . . helmets on!

From the land of Uncle Sam came this rather nice machine, sans rider, a Harley' or an Indian? Milwaukee steel-horse anyway! Made by Pyro as part of their dime-store military range and also included in some of the larger 'big-box' sets, it never had a rider as far as I know and was out of scale (larger) than most of the other vehicles in the range.

Covering Germany from Italy, comes this crude'ish sculpt which can be taken as a BMW R75 or Zündapp KS 750 due to the front forks being an accurate rendition of neither!

The Atlantic figures are stiff and the machine is chunky, and I think my back-seat may be a battlefield modification from an anti-aircraft mounting . . . you can't win 'em-all! This is a later issue in a leery colour, probably from the blister-packs with collector stickers.

From 'Chye-Nah' as the Orange Loon refers to them; comes a modern road-bike/tourer type with 3-spoke alloy wheels, a camouflage paint-job and convoy/escort beacon. New Ray's is a lovely model but the equally well sculpted (yet rather over-burdened - given his storage pannier's size!) rider cannot be made to hold the diminutive handle-bars which is a pain and something which should have been sorted-out at the production stage; maybe he's from another machine?

A few more shots of the New Ray pairing!

Warh! Err . . . Well . . . , this isn't foreign, what's it doing in this post? Someone must have sneaked it in here to advertise another post? Ah! That's it; check this out . . . Airfix, don't you know!

A is for Another - Sculptures UK; Highland Piper

Like an 'R is for Return...' but new and differenter (which should be a word!), we looked at one of these Sculptures UK figures (from Peter's plunder bags) back in the summer, and it turns out that not only was there one in the storage-pile, it may be one of the first larger scale figures to join the collection, being - from memory - a charity-shop purchase in Newbury or Hungerford in late 2008 or early 2009

Looks to be a different sculptor, or maybe he was better at layers of flowing garb (the face is similar to the previous figure's), but I think a different hand/technique is involved here? The pipes and - I suspect - the hands are a single metal casting set into the resin, which is sensible as otherwise the thing wouldn't survive removal from it packaging, while this has survived losing its packaging years ago, a trip to and from charity and seven years in storage!

As with the previous post I haven't the faintest idea who's tartan this is, or indeed; whether it's a made-up one? Following Gisby's lead last time I found several Highlanders including Royal Stewart and Black Watch piper paint-ups of this sculpt - this is neither. But it's cleverly done with four colours over the base, which is finely etched with both lines and a cloth-pattern, giving the appearance - by eye - of a very fine print, all done through 'technique'!

As you may have gathered by now, the Highland box turned-up the other day, so I will be giving them the same treatment as the Guards, but I need to combine with the attic stash first and look up Regimental-tartan, hopefully over the weekend?

Q is for Question Time - Highlanders

These are odd, I had five in storage and picked-up a couple more this year somewhere; PW's show or Sandown Park? I have a feeling someone once told me who made them or where they come from, and they are similar to the Toyway vinyl run of Timpo solid late version combat highlanders (a dense, glossy-painted PVC), but obviously these are parade/musician types with smaller bases.

Upper shot, let top right - the four poses so far discovered by me (that's not a 'discovery', they do turn up and I'd seen them before with dealers and so on before I started collecting larger scales a few years ago); Drum Major (Pipe Major?), drummer, bass-drummer and piper.

Lower shot - there are several tartans on display, leading one to wonder if they represent real or generic cloths and might be touristy things. I seem to recall Britains collectors saying the all-green one (second in) is Black Watch, but I'd need to gen-up properly before attempting the others!

I love the little 'big' cat's head over the shoulders of the bass-drummer! The bass drummer needed a hot-water treatment before he would stand-up properly, and follows the pattern of most similar figures in having the drum affixed by a long, integral spigot spearing the drummers chest!

These two drummers are actually different mould-cavities, note the thicker base on the right-hand example in both pictures (yet he's still also slightly shorter) and the yellow-weave stencil of their tartan is slightly different too, suggesting they may have been sprayed together while still on the runners?

I'm not sure if the left-hand drummer is a repaint or not (again the thinner-based, taller moulding), looking at the little area of waist-band between the halves of the jacket, there's no sign of a previous scheme so I guess the kilt is genuine, but I suspect the white may have been touched-up by hand . . . including the eyes!?

The most recent piper (right-hand of pair) has a deposit/film on the base which seems to have been some reaction in the factory, as it's under the green paint, and doesn't scrape off with a finger-nail. Perhaps someone sprayed a mist on the tool to cool it and it puddled on the flat area of the base? Too much mould-release lubricant . . . something like that?

Anyway, that's them as I have them so far, are they Toyway, or the same HK lot that did the Salvation Army bands, someone else . . . anyone know? And thanks to Chris Smith for the latest additions.