H is for How They Come In - Another Box From Peter

Mr. Evans, co-founder of Plastic Warrior magazine, has kindly sent the Blog another box of goodies, this time with no warning, and my assistant didn't allow time for full opening of the treasure-chest either; before she downed-tools and went to sleep in the lid!

It comes before I've had time to fully sort-away the last lots from Peter, Chris and Jim, and a frantic photo-session left another bunch of fledgling articles in the queue and a host of mental notes to dig-out this or that for more expansive posts at some point.

The trouble is - and it's a nice trouble to be in - I'm adding lots of nascent articles to the queue, photographing loads, bringing the two collections together and such like, but . . . time moves on with hideous rapidity, it's only a few months to RTM, ie; a year since I got everything out of storage, it's already four months since Christmas!

Yet I've barely begun to get on top of the consolidation task (I've been sorting Hong Kong AFV's this week, alongside the Peter parcel, an eBay lot and several charity-shop finds) while those who have contributed stuff will know how much of it has yet to appear - I can only say what I've said before - it all will, eventually!

What I finally recovered from under the nose of my sleeping assistant! You will recognise the vehicles as having previously been 99p Store or Poundland (about three or four years ago), now in new packaging/brand marks, the animals in the other blister-card seemed - from a cursory glance - to be from the old unpainted Rado Industries mouldings, but they are actually different, just similar, especially the big cat with spots.

In a plain-white polymer with some whacky paint (the elephant and lion are over-sprayed silver and gold respectively!); we will look at them closely along with the contents of the pack underneath in RTM - if I remember!

The Simpson's character set (some capsule toy/blind-bag thing?) is lovely; they are 'unit-scale' so Marge ends up smaller than her baby, due to her large beehive bouffant! And as Simpson sets go, a good selection of characters with 24 of the most common here in 25-35mm.

The two 'detective' rabbit babes (the one on the left is holding a magnifying glass) seem to go with the Sherlock Homes type in orange with the gun - all three are PVC and marked Yolanda. The 'mouseketeer' is a crumbly-rubber and unmarked, he's lost an arm and his sword, but goes with another - already sorted - in blue or green somewhere, so a growing 'sample' nevertheless!

Some other highlights include a couple of Phidal princesses we may or may not have seen here. It's a fact that those who worry about the state of the 'hobby' need to understand the hobby is a collective of 600-2000 individual ideas about what 'The Hobby' actually is, while the toy industry is quite healthy and full of figures - Phidal are producing more new sculpts per year than Airfix ever did, that they aren't WWII combat troops is of no interest to today's kids, who want TV/movie related stuff!

Three Crocco for Wheetabix figures are next to the Phidal's and a blob of Fischer PVC is on the end of the upper row - Paulinchen from Fix und Foxi's Pauli family.

The lower row consists of mostly older characters, including another of those French (maybe Pif Gadget) figurines, two Kinder Smurfs, a Miss Piggy from The Muppets a couple of unknown (to me)'s and the annoyingly sensible one from Scooby Doo as a pencil top. The key ring is from one of several anthropomorphic insect movies (Bug Life, Antz, or the other one!) from the rush of them awhile-back.

These are interesting in that I have a London Toy Fair report in the queue for a Totaku, which shows another healthy aspect of the 'industry', with the Schleich/Papo/ELC (et all) action-figure sized, synthetic-rubber solids, and here are two others, obviously based on the worst franchise ever (I saw the first and they can't have got better!) - Alien V's Predator.

Further - on the subject of 'hobby' health - consider the vast ranges of incredibly accurate and beautifully decorated animals (wild, domestic and prehistoric) from Schleich, Papo, Safari, Plastoy, Wild Republic, and so on, and measure them against the staid and eventually stale offering from Britains? Or the simplistic sculpts of Charbens, Starlux or Reisler . . . nothing wrong with the Britains range - for or in its time - or any of the others, but the picture is vastly improved and far more dynamic now.

Cheers Peter, another eclectic collection of things to entertain loyal readers going forwards!

T is for Two - Antique Armoured Cars

Well, they're both older than me and I've been feeling like a bit of an antique myself, after a couple of weeks in the garden! These couldn't be further apart, one a clockwork tin-plate toy from Germany, the other a lump of vulcanised-rubber (now stone-like), probably from the US, yet they are also remarkably similar, in both being a yellow-olive, and representing inter-war period, small-run armoured cars, but of generic lines, and both probably actually manufactured in the 1950's.

Marklin, Bing, Karl Bub? Your guess is as good as mine (unless you know for certain!), compatible with the smaller 40mm composition that both Elastolin and Lineol made a few of, it still works, but the key is long gone, although the Mecanno keys fit I think? And while it needs a new flint, it looks like a Zippo flint will fit, so maybe one day I'll do a video of it rushing-about; spitting flame!

It manages to look quite American in its lines, presumably as they would have been the bigger customer; I imagine it escorting gold to Fort Knox for Wells Fargo! I'm guessing it's from the 1950's but may be from inter-war period tooling?

This has more the look of a locally-produced 'revolutionaries' vehicle, of which the 1920's and 1930's were littered, world-wide. Take a prestige car (with a big engine = heavy chassis), or commercial truck and cover it with steel plates down the local blacksmith's or bus depot's workshops; every town and most villages had one or the other - if not both!

I don't think it's Sun Rubber or Auburn? My book on them is hidden at the moment, not in the attic or the garage, but a couple of feet away . . . behind more books, a pile of Sammelerkatalog and a teetering heap of crazy-clowns who didn't combine as neatly as I had hoped they would and are now waiting a new, larger container! I'll tag it to both but try to remember to come back and correct it if I ever find out.

Markings on the tin-plate car consist of the DRGM registration mark and a 'Foreign' mark (which appears to have been sniped through the 'o'!). DRGM stands for Deutsches Reich Gebrauchs Muster and indicates that a unique feature has been registered with the relevant authority. It has no connection to the Nazi era (beyond overlapping) as Reich is an older term for State. The Foreign was an indicator of an import - I think to BOTH - the US or UK.

Side by side they make quite a team! I think the German tin one is a bit too tatty for serious tin-plate collectors, who like their stuff rust-free, mine's seen quite a bit of action in a damp climate . . . Indochina? The counties which . . . err . . . aren't in Ulster any more (lucky them!)?

Likewise, the rubber one is a bit dry and cracked and the tyres look flat at certain angles, but it's just that they are a bit small, and slightly perished, which has led to the shrinkage and radial cracks.

L is for Lucky - A Lucky-bag from Lucky Dip not Mr. Lucky, Luckily that's Lucky!

Or; I is for I Knew I'd Seen Them Somewhere!

It's a Lucky Bag! An Olde Fashioned Lucky Bag 'Sweets and Toys for Boys' from Mr. Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe, contents put-together or supplied by Lucky Dip of Nottingham (parent - Crème d'Or).

I don't know if this is actually the one I thought I'd seen when I last mentioned it (err . . . a 'while ago'?), I thought that was a more colourful one, like the original Mr Lucky bags, but finding one's better than finding none, and it means they are still out there! Google revealed several including Mr. Lucky, now Mr. Sweets!

Quite a downbeat artwork compared to past lucky-bags, and particularly the aforementioned Mr. Lucky lucky-bags, but well in keeping with the corporate image of this mall and airport type 'upmarket' or 'precinct' sweet shop, and not cheap at four-quid, so I won't be buying another for a while, if only to give the supply-chain system time to change the contents' line-up!

The contents are disappointing, but only in so far as adult figure collectors go; no figures - no knock-off wrestlers, He-Man clones, Grandizer- or Transformer-erasers or dinosaurs, no Yolanda Ninja Turtles, ant-soldiers or Russ Berrie key-ring trolls . . . no poopa-troopers!

But, there are four 99p items - all from Henbrandt - and two 50p lollipops (which were bloody-nice!), along with the de rigueur 'activity book'! It's just nice to know that kids today can still enjoy a timeless little treat - the UK's version of a Spanish Sobre or the German Wundertüten.

And, let's be hopeful - Henbrandt do carry small dinosaurs, paratrooping-aliens, wild animals, frogs, and other figural toys, within their 99p lines (we've looked at some here), so they may turn-up in another tranche . . . I'll try again at Christmas; the chap in the shop said they shift loads then - kids buying them for each other, parents buying them for stocking-fillers, seniors buying them to 'have something in' when people go visiting and turn-up suddenly with three bored kids in tow!

By the way; 'lucky' is one of those words that by the time you've written it a dozen or so times, starts to look a bit weird; you think you must be misspelling it!

News, Views etc . . . Couple of Quick Ones . . .

Barney over at Herald Toys and Models has listed the next lot of his recent collection acquisition for sale, blurb as follows;

"Dear Collector, we have just added a wonderful selection of Britains trade boxes of American War of Independence 'Swoppet' figures, in MINT condition, still wrapped in the original tissue, each carton having the original complaints slip. From the Roger Saunders collection, we understand they were obtained from an old toy shop in Godstone, Surrey, during the 1970's and date to circa 1965. A wonderful opportunity to acquire some bright, fresh, figures in superb, crisp, trade boxes. Happy collecting as always! Barney"

And the Vectis bumph has arrive as I predicted, but I don't want to post it all now as it would push the PW174 review down the page a day early! So I've added the Tuesday (tomorrow) stuff to last-Friday's post.Actually it looks like Wed/Thurs are not happening - I'll check it all tonight.

News, Views Etc . . . Plastic Warrior 174

Not too shabby with the speed of review this time, been out about three weeks now, and packed with goodies, the most fascinating thing is Colin Penn's recent discovery, a two-page spread which is probably worth the subscription by itself, which you will need to subscribe too, as it's this review's 'not telling you - subscribe' piece!

Articles

* Frank Lancaster get's this issue off to a colourful start with a look at banners from the Battle of Bosworth field, covering Toyway Tringa figures along the way

* More peow-peows with brumm-brumms on the carpet from James O'Connell (lovely chap, we're still to be looking at that piece of his erudition, in depth, here, soon'ish!)

* Some lovely sets of Britains Khaki Infantry copies from around the world are displayed by Chris Goddard including examples from Oklahoma, Cragstan and AHI (Metal in Plastic Warrior?!!)

* Colin Penn's discovery probably poses more new questions than it answers, but nevertheless has great significance for many of the mysteries of early British plastic toy soldier production - to find-out what his discovery is though, requires a subscription!

* A lovely use of toy soldiers for education and entertainment through public display is explained by Chris Brown of Mr Brown's Pig with shots of his Waterloo, Pirate and WWII displays

* Tom Stark pays homage to Ron Barzo's retirement from active production by giving us his top-ten Barzo Playsets.

* 'What The !&*$?' laughs in the face of five queries (last two issues) with no less than thirteen items of discussion or intrigue

• ·         Peter James seeks more information on a Prior badger marked Roja?
• ·         A GI-type needing a name, sought by Gian Piero Larizza
• ·         Steve Weston wants help getting an ID on his Ming The merciless, who looks familiar, but I think only from pulp-comic art?
• ·         Blue Box Japanese are ID'd for Mike Harding
• ·         Lone Star Colonials are cleared-up for David Sakov
• ·         Another GI-type marked Mondial Toys (world toys?) needs more work for Andreas Dittmann (is it a Tee Mee copy?)
• ·         David Sakov also seeks and receive editorial help on his Poplar Plastics stretcher-case (which I'm pleased to see has a painted face)
• ·         Brian Carrick's seeking help with a mounted Corporal of Artillery he thinks may be from a metal-figure mould
• ·         The total arrives at thirteen queries with five from Eric Critchley varying from Britains' zoo keepers through mechanics to servicemen with an Air Force look (the 'Tubby Mechanic' might be LP and a zoo keeper?)

* Peter Evans delivers on a small range of Carolingians and Moors from Historia in France

* HR Products get an editorial with more on the plastic Vikings and images from Joe Bellis

* An insight into Homeworker's habits from Erik Kemp (of Helmet) looks at the painting of Swoppet horses

* Finally; 'We Know Wot' covers various items which look to be Speedwell; guards previously seen in 'What The !&*$?' submitted by Brian Carrick and the 'Hilco' cowboy firing over his horse?

Regular Features

* 'NEWS and VIEWS and other stuff ' covers

• ·         PW show date - Saturday 11th may 2019
• ·         Sad news of the Hockey Centre in Maybury (well if you won't subscribe; you won't know!)
• ·         Good news on 'What The !&*$?' . . . there's tons in the queue!
• ·         A call for submissions to avoid embedding images in Office for Windows documents and/or dumb-phone or .pnc file-formatting
• ·         Show dates for C&T Auctions forthcoming in 2019
• ·         The sale of TSSD (Toy Soldiers of San Diego)
• ·         Subscription details

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• ·         In addition to all the above named; Steve Pugh gets a picture credit

* 'Readers Letters' include

• ·         Peter Cole, James Delson, Brian Carrick and Tom Stark all follow-up on Peter Nussbaum's PW172 article on The Bayeux Tapestry, with more on Replicants horses from err . . . the horse's mouth (I'll get me coat!), Elastolin, Ougan and various flat figures in a 'Letters Special'

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• ·         Chris Simpson asks for more 'mainstream stuff' articles
• ·         Juan Carlos Martin ID's the 'What The !&*$?' tent from PW173
• ·         Erik Kemp explains equine gaits with a view to accuracy
• ·         Les White talks unpainted Starlux
• ·         James Peter Young reports on rack toys and asks after the Chinese end
• ·         Peter Hall calls for a report on the state of the hobby
• ·         Peter Wall congratulates the magazine and follow-up on S-Model
• ·         Les Collier asks about the perennial question of whether Britains or Lone Star copied the other first? (He should read the Khaki Infantry page here; I think we've put that one to bed - with some bent toes!)
• ·         Steve Norris finishes of with musings on Lone Star's medieval/Robin Hood figures, sets and issue dates with lovely pictures

* 'What's New' is held-over to make room for other stuff however you will always find new releases on Steve Weston's site; www.plasticsoldiers.com

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

Covers - Both continue the Bosworth Field's opening theme with more images from Frank Lancaster

PW's contact details;

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PlasticWarrior?fref=ts

Blogger - http://plasticwarrioreditor.blogspot.co.uk/

eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com

Website's back on the menu but won't be updated (eMail first) . . . www.plasticwarrior.com

Tel: 01483 722 778

Address; 65 Walton Court, Woking, Surrey, GU21 5EE, UK

And they are on Paypal

And it's only a month 'till the next Plastic Warrior toy soldier show, which is something to consider!

F&G is for Hidden in Plain Sight!

Remember the F&G question posed by Collin Penn some time ago now? And remember when in the PW173 review I said "Speaking of Colin Penn, his F&G 'Crazy Clown Circus' is revealed by Michael Bonnefoy of the Plastics Historical Society to be made by . . . [Subscribe!]"?

Balancers & Bouncy Balls

Well, hopefully you were tempted to subscribe (if you weren't already), and with PW174 out now (review currently in the 'short queue'), I think it's OK to reveal that the F&G was Fraser & Glass Ltd., who are further fascinating for carrying the same mounted figures as Airfix, but that's for another day, the thing was, they had been on the PHS's website all along! Like Tatra, they were hiding (from plastic figure collectors) in plain sight!

Musicians & Master's of Mayhem
(the one on the bottom-right has a cellulose/celluloid
drum which is almost powder now)

Anyway, it wouldn't be right to cover all the stuff in the magazine's article, but I say the above because I've got the storage tub . . . err . . . out of storage! And as a follow-up to my own previous post, am showing the [old] newbies here while re-tagging the related, previous, posts to Fraser & Glass!

It's a satisfying conclusion, too, for those of us who were never happy with the two-horse race's favourites - Airfix or Kleeware, as the plastic wasn't really right for either. But if the mounted figures provide a link, the Airfix-plumper's will have a joint first!

Indeed, while the likes of TJF and his ilk may resent my knowledge (and try to invent their own!) it's satisfying to read my earlier musings on the maker (three years ago) and find it stands-up adequately to the recent discoveries!

Were Morestone (also 'something & something'; Morris & Stone) situated near F&G, or did they (F&G) supply Airfix with both horses/riders and clowns, or licence production to fill large Woolworth's orders? There's always another question or two!

The Shrapnel

The bottom of their tub contains a few bits which will be combined with the attic-lot to make-up some of the missing formations! One of them actually still has his mates head between his feet so must be from a pair formation, so I'm hoping I have a headless one in the other sample!

The piece of card (CIRCUS?) came with one lot, as did the wooden pole with a plastic finial which seems to match some of the Crazy Clown's yellow stuff? Equally it could be a non-functioning component of a 1960's washing machine, or part of a lawn-game! I've also tried various solvents on these (and the other larger, sample) and they are mostly polystyrene, only a few are cellulose or celluloid types.

G is for Grandmother Stover's

I know I've mentioned them in passing a few times - like SSCO's items - they turn-up on feebleBay (US [.com]) all the time and I shove the image in the folder for future reference and the odd sideways mention, but I've had this for years, and though it was about time to show it!

The smallest version (of 20+) copies of either the Britains (in this case) or Fontanini dancers I have yet encountered are these bitty-babes; they come in at a very good 1:76th scale! I keep one 'mint', and have opened the other - in case I have to decorate a Swan Lake cake one day . . . of course!

Hank suspected th't that last Messerschmitt had broken the back of 'Painted Lady' and set-off the bomb-load at 18,000 feet, but the sadness he felt, momentarily, for his mother and sweetheart was somewhat salved by the fact that things were clearly looking-up - wherever he'd found himself . . .

I is for Indian Camp Set

I bought this the other day offofov evilBay, I'd had it bookmarked for some time, a year or so, and thought well, if I can't celebrate Brwreakshit after all, I'd better get myself a prezzie or two instead! I don't know if the seller has loads or if no-one wanted this one, but for a generic pocket-money rack-toy I thought it was dinky and inexpensive!

How it was presented on the feeBay, contents had come loose due to perished rubber-bands, but it was otherwise in one piece and an interesting combination of Britains piracies, a Jean-copy totem-pole, scaled-down, and the tee-pee.

The remains of the elastics along with the marks on the three brown pieces, all having a simple HONG KONG. The tee-pee has a MADE IN HONG KONG, which is double/part-triple stamped on the inside of the rear wall of the tee-pee, and almost impossible to photograph, so you'll have to believe me (except TJF the poor love; he'll have to wait until someone he trusts holds his hand and confirms the detail!), but as a small scale collector, for years, over years, I'd hoovered-up about ten of them, loose, and I can assure you they all have the same mark.

Put together, as it was before old-age attacked its integrity - lesson for us all there I fear! I've seen the other bits before but the Jean rip-off is new to me, it's quite reduced in size I think (I'll do a comparison at some point) and painted, but then so were early Jean issues. I'll be looking for a loose one now as having put it back together I can't put it in the side-collection of totem poles.

All back 'in one piece' on the right; when I take these apart I ease everything off the opened staples, leaving them in one side of the card, and making a note of which-way round the bag was and where the folds were.

When I put it back together I ease each layer of the bag onto the staples, ensure any folds in the bag have laid-flat correctly, then slip the other half of the card onto them and close them (the staples) down again.

The main image shows what was probably an [earlier] donor for this set's 'second-generation' copy teepee; it's larger, has different painting, better etching of detail and a HONG KONG mark on the outside rear. We have seen later, mono-coloured versions of this tent from Rado and someone else here in the past, while full-size copies also exist.

Happy Birthday to me,

Happy Birthday to me,

Brwreakshit's been-kicked....further down-the-roaaaad!

Happy Birthday to me!

And it was days ago so none of that mawkish shit in the comments! But I'm off the hook now, it can be someone else's day, if it ever happens!