News, Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events - Saturday14th - Friday 20th September 2019

The Trump spent some time in his election campaign making hay from Obama having got through Three senior bods in eight years (I can't now remember whether it was Foreign, Home or Defence Secretary, I think Foreign-Sec.?), he has now got through more senior appointee's than the last three Presidents put together.

Not only is his original crowing reduced to a sort of premature-ejaculation of hypocrisy, but it suggests he's the worst judge of character ever to have appointed a senior staffer . . . or fall in love with a Kimjongwatshit!

Meanwhile - in La-la-Land - next Tuesday is possibly more important for Britain's future than the King's Speech in September 1939. If the judges find against Boris, we still have democracy and the rule of law, if they find for him, all bets are off! The idea you need to pirogue parliament for five weeks to write a Queen's Speech (which normally takes three or four days) is risible, but if the Supreme court judges choose to believe it, we've lost the judiciary, whatever side of Brwreakshit you're on.

Meanwhile all the hand-wringing and indignation over the Iranian tanker would help a simpleton believe in Bilderburg-plans and alien-lizard conspiracies, why did no one stop it? No point filling the Mediterranean (a large lake) with EU, US, Nato and other allied naval assets if you're just going to watch it via-satellite, while whinging to the media? Why wasn't it escorted to its supposed destination in Malta? Why wasn't a large bail held by the Gibraltarian court? Why was it released before the vessels Iran has seized were released?

The point is 'The West' is becoming increasingly irrelevant and voiceless in the world they used to organise!

Soon we will only have our toys, so best get out there this week and grow the stash!

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Toy Fairs

Saturday 14th September 2019

Bugger-all; lie-in this Saturday! Save some dosh for all the auctions later in the week!

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Sunday 15th September 2019

Birmingham - Barry Potter / BP Fairs - 'NEC'

Hall 18, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, B40 1NT

Web. - www.bpfairs.com

Tel. - 01604 846 688

Mob. - 07966 527 177

Hours unknown (probably 10:30-15:00hrs)

Admission £8, early-bird (from 08:00hrs) £12, OAP's £7.50, Children £2

[Note: adults and OAP's both up 50p]

Free parking

Eastbourne - Robert Horscraft - Eastbourne Toy & Model Collectors Fair

East Dean Village Hall, East Dean, East Sussex, BN20 0DR

Internet presence unknown

Tel. I - 01323 899 879

Tel. II - 01424 846 676

Hours unknown

Admission £1.50, under-12's free

Free Parking, refreshments

Eastleigh - Steven Clements Fairs

Barton Peveril Sixth Form Collage, Chestnut Avenue, Eastleigh, Hampshire, SO50 5ZA

eMail: clementfairs@aol.com

Tel. - 01380 725 322

Mob. - 07958 101 891

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Newton Abbot - Ray Heard Train & Toy Fairs

Newton Abbot Racecourse, Devon, TQ12 3AF

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01823 480 097

10:00 -15:30hrs

Admission £2.00

Free parking, refreshments

Potters Bar - Toy & Train Fairs (Peter Levinson)

Elm Court Centre, Mutton Lane, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, EN6 3BP

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01282 051 518 (Peter or Diane)

10:30 - 14:30hrs

Admission charge unknown

Rayleigh - SRP Toyfairs

Sweyne Park School, Rayleigh, Essex, SS6 9BZ

Web. - www.srptoyfairs1.co.uk

eMail: srptoys1@hotmail.co.uk

Tel. - 07739 998 012 (Paula or Gerry)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

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Tuesday 17th September 2019

Wootton Basset - Steven Clements Fairs - Wootton Basset Evening Fair

Memorial Hall, Station Road, Wootton Basset, Wiltshire, SN4 7EN

eMail: clementfairs@aol.com

Tel. - 01380 725 322

Mob. - 07958 101 891

18:30 - 20:30hrs

Free parking, café

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Auctions

Saturday 14th September 2019

Poole - Cottees Auctions Limited

Mannings Heath Road, Poole, Dorset, BH12 4NQ

Web. - www.cottees.co.uk

eMail - info@cottees.co.uk

Tel. - 01202 723 177

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Tuesday 17th September 2019

Heaton Mersey - Capes Dunn

40 Station Road, Heaton Mersey, Cheshire, SK4 3QT

Web. - www.capesdunn.com

eMail - capesdunn.caroline@gmail.com

Tel. - 01614 321 911

Collectors and Toy Auction

Tunbridge Wells - C&T Auctioneers

The York Suite, The Spa Hotel, Mount Ephraim, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN4 8XJ (Venue)

Unit 4, High House Business Park, Kenardington, Near Ashford, Kent, TN26 2LF (Auction House)

Web. - www.candtauctions.co.uk

eMail - enquiries@candtauctions.co.uk

Valuations - jamesopie@yahoo.co.uk

Tel. - 44 1233 510 050 (from abroad)

Tel. - 01233 510 050 (within the UK)

Viewing from 08:30hrs, sale starts 10:00hrs

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Wednesday 18th September 2019

Warwick - Warwick & Warwick

Charlton House, Scar Bank, Millers Road, Warwick, Warwickshire, CV34 5DB

(Auctions held in Court House)

Web. - www.warwickandwarwick.com

eMail - richard.beale@warwickandwarwick.com

Tel. - 01926 499 031

Facsimile - 01926 491 906

Catalogue on-line, printed version available on request

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Thursday 19th September 2019

Ludlow - Mullock's Specialist Auctioneers and Valuers

Ludlow Racecourse, Bromfield, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 2BT (sale venue)

Web. - www.mullocksauctions.co.uk

eMail - reception@mullocksauctions.co.uk

eMail - auctions@mullocksauctions.co.uk

Tel. - 01694 771 771

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Friday 20th September 2019

Chippenham - Wessex Auctions

Wessex Auction Rooms, Westbrook Farm, Draycot Cerne, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN15 5LH

Web. - www.wessexauctionrooms.co.uk

eMail - enquiries@wessexauctionrooms.co.uk

Tel. - 01249 720 888

10:30 - Finish

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Other Events

There bloody isn't any! A hot-air-balloon festival at Longleat (Warminster, Wilts) and a steampunky thing in Ipswitch 'till 3rd November (Marvelous Machines) but nothing particularly topical for loyal readers of the Blog I'm afraid!

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Overseas Events

Saturday 14th September 2019

Brooksville (USA) - Regal Railways - Railway Show

Hernando Fairgrounds, 6436 Broad Street, Brooksville, FL 34601, Florida, USA (venue)

Regal railways, 501 East Bay Drive, Apt. 1503, Largo, FL 33770, Florida, USA (promoter)

Web. - www.regalrailways.com
Adults $5.00 children under 12 free
09:00-14:00hrs
Vendors with antiques,crafts and Model Train Layout
Lunch Available

Mulhouse (France) - Club Mulhouse 1/43rd - Toy Fair/Show

Parc des Expositions, Mulhouse 68, France

Tel. - ++0389 406 465

Saint-Ghislain (Belgium) - Philippe Rousman - Train Show

Tel. - ++0475 809 839

Wettingen (Switzerland) - Mr. Romue - Toy Fair

Sportzentrum Tägi, Wettingen, Switzerland

Tel. - ++0566 243 802

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Sunday 15th September 2019

Arlon (France) - Train Modèle Sud - Train Show

Hall Polyvalent, Arlon, France

Tel. - ++063 388 205

Bonn (German) - Jergen Hörner - Toy Fair

Stadhalle, Bonn-Bad Godesburg, Germany

Tel. - ++0210 351 133

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Tuesday 17th September 2019

Knoxville (USA) - Marble City Comicon - Knox Nerd Comic & Toy show
5618 Academy Drive, Morriston, TN 37814, Tennessee, USA (promoter)
Web - https://www.knoxnerdcon.com/
10:00-17:00hrs
Admission $5.00, kids (age?) free - purchase tickets at the door

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If you are an event promoter/show curator/auctioneer and you want your toy, model, collectable or popular-/youth-culture type sale/exhibition/event listed here -  FOR FREE  - or linked to; please eMail me -

maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com

- stating the date/s of the event, address of event, contact details, opening/viewing times, admission pricing and any other relevant facts/details or features - parking, travel notes, disability access, availability of refreshments, event subject matter &etc.

And please mention any flyer-art or poster-/leaflet-scans but send by separate eMail, in case they go to the 'junk' folder, from where they can be recovered and marked safe, but only if I know they're there!

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Other News

Rosa Parks Still Sitting Tall

The latest Mattel limited-edition Barbie doll, of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery, Alabama civil-rights activist (if keeping you own seat is activism - which it is to thick, meat-faced, red-necked, white men) sold out within 24-hours of going on sale alongside the Sally Ride doll (first American woman in space).

Poundland on the Move?

The intermediate owner of Poundland (Pepkor Europe) are looking to separate the business from the main owner Stienhoff of South Africa. Poundland has 853 stores in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Lego Down

Hinted at last week - the expansion plans in India and China (and the setting-aside of capital for doing so) has led to a 12% drop in net profits. The plans for Asia include a regional office in Mumbai.

Vectis

Have announced news of a forthcoming auction; the  Tony Hillman Collection - Movie Memorabilia on the 26th of September more in next week's dates post.

"The Tony Hillman Collection, features 129 lots of cinema and film lobby cards and stills, Star Wars press books and literature, Photoplay and other monthly film magazine groups including Empire, Film and Picture Show etc; plus movie posters and production notes, film scripts and screenplays."

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Links

Plastic news, on Plasticsnews! The beauty of this story is that it's giving more publicity to little green, grey or tan 'army-men' than everyone else in the hobby has managed to generate betwwen them in 30-years! And it will run-on, as the same outlets will run the story again when they come out.

Barbie's a Burning Man? Then It gets more interesting

Art meets toy Soldiers with Maria Ansell (NSFW further down page)

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H is for How They Come In

The week got off to a slow but useful start with three Fontanini knock-off ballerina's in silver-plate base-metal (which I'm not showing you as I got the plastic set at Sandown Park  a while back and will do a full post) and a resin hedgehog to join the other's from the 'Cabinet of Curious Things'.

This was mid-week and 20p! It's another Chap Mai, and while slightly fictional, with the same chunky tyres as the Land Rover and Hummer, it nevertheless holds its own as a 4x4 Chevy' pick-up against the Airfix 6x6 as you can see. I removed the 'soldier' from the bonnet with nail-varnish remover and improved it 100%!

I saw this at the same time, but only running to 20p, hoped it would still be there the next day, it was! I think it's missing something from the back, two clip-ins of some kind, hopefully I'll get them off an equally cheap on with a damaged windscreen at some point. Modern Corgi and a bit of fun as it has a figure and will go with the old Batmobile!

Picked these two up this afternoon (Thursday), tub of small scale which is an odd mix of HK Marines and Russians and Esci-Ertl Russians, Italians, French and . . . err . . .Zulus! I got it for a HK motorbike which was also in the jar.

A large resin museum/tourist knight statuette made up the rest of this weeks plunder!

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Toys in the Media

Prieser or Noch again, stack of Pound Coins again - it's a trope! It looks like Queen Elizabeth the II's saying something pithy to Donald!

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The 'dividers' thisweek were supposed to be little red-brick houses, with colored 'mavericks' in each line, but apparently Blogger doesn't support webdings and I've run out of time, the fact that I'm an aitch, makes it look all a bit pretentious, but I can assure you they are supposed to default to forward slashes! Still better than nothing, or; Still - better than nothing!

M is for Mounted Mounties Moseying Majestically in . . . Somewhere Beginning with M

Montreal! Mounted Mounties Moseying Majestically in Montreal!

Following on from yesterday's (where this was originally scheduled to be third post!) ceremonial cavalry types; these were also sat in Picasa, they've been there since 2011 (and this is their third PC/Laptop-home I think!), and are from my attempts at 'realistic' photographs back at the time.

Britains 'Eyes Right' Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman (RCMP) on the left and Timpo's solid 'Mountie' on the right - I have a feeling I may have used one of these shots in the past and asked then; which saddle is the more accurate?

I played with the next image using the basic tools in Picasa, and reading from the top middle image you can see the original colour shot, a sepia-toned version, a black-and-white picture, an enhanced variation of the B&W one and finally the antiqued one, also below; . . .

. . . with the addition of a boarder! They had to be cropped-off at the horse's knees to hide the Britains horse's base, I learnt the 'touch-up' tool later! Up on the hill, looking for miscreants; they should try Pennsylvania!

M is for Mounted Malleable Mouldings' Men

Shot on Adrian's stall (link) back at the March Sandown Park show, sat in Picasa for a while, found them at the last minute and I was going to add them to the previous post, but though it would only complicate, so they might as well go here as a 'follow-up' kind of thing, especially as I've also found some other ceremonial type mounted's for a third post; make a day of it - it'll be tomorrow now . . . the time's slipped this week!

Royal Horse Artillery I think; they could be some esoteric Yeomanry regiment, but I don't think Malleable offered such rarities in their exhaustive, but complicated - to follow -  list (which I have somewhere and will post one day), so RHA until I know otherwise.

The figures appear to be hollow and have had their headdresses drilled to receive their hackles as very small slivers of plastic. Note also; the two very different bases, one; an integral moulding, the other; a glued-on piece of sheet material which appears (from the distortion) to be a phenolic or acetate of some variety. A situation which bears reflection;

There were other, earlier makers of plastics of interest to us, Bergan and German WHW types being the obvious, but Malleable were trying to invent a technology (or applications thereof) without the support the Nazi regime might have given their plastics industry before the war (IG Farben, polystyrene - 1929), or the booming economy of post-war America, but in an economy broken by the same war which had proved such a boon to the US.

Consequently, the fact that they produced such a variety of figures and figure types; whole mouldings, assembled kits-of-parts, integral bases, separate bases and soft polyethylene figures, hollow and solid; in such a short life and from both ex-metal and original moulds, in stable and unstable paint finishes, should come as no surprise to us now, and the work they did must have benefited those who came after . . . all of whom (Zang-Herald, Timpo, Charbens, Cherilea and Crescent) adopted the polyethylene Malleable were using at the end, but most adding chalk for paint adhesion!

And if you think that last point is a bit off-the-wall, keep watching this space.

A Life Guard or 'Royal', I've always preferred the Horse Guards or 'Blues', they are one unit now, anyway and that's him; blurb done!

G is for Gala, Garcia, Generalisimo, Gormasa and Guardia

Bit of a departure from recent output and a return to Spain, so strap-in for a bumpy ride as at least one of them is a great big question mark which should exercise the idiots of the Penn-State Toy Soldier Mafia and have them flecking dribble on their big book of Spain! So here goes nothing . . .

. . . and we start with this trio who were in storage and I think all came for the collection of the legendary Barry Blood back in 2010 (where one or two could be seen in the plunder-post at the time), from the left; we have a - probably(?) - Argentine life-guard type, the horse looking to be copied from Jean, but Jean had based their plastic horse on earlier composition mounts, so that's probably where this one is taken from.

The most interesting thing about him is that his right arm is attached after moulding / trimming, but before painting, and it's done with the old hot-knife/screwdriver technique! Next to him is a trooper from the Soldados de Alfonso XIII (Alfonso XIII Regiment - officers have red trousers), from Reamsa.

The final figure is also Reamsa; from the Guardia Municipal de Gala, or Ceremonial Municipal Guard. Looking these Spanish figures up over the last week or two has revealed the problem that they all seem to have two names - the monarchist-periods title and the moniker of the fascist interregnum - to that end I think these have reverted to Guardia Real, or Royal Guard?

They are compared to a Life Guard bandsman from Britains, who may be on the wrong horse, as he's using foot-stirrups with a one-handed instrument? I also wasn't happy with the last Spanish chap's horse, and went off to the orphan-horse box . . .

. . . where I found similar horses which have clearly been broken off a Wild West wagon's draw-bar, they aren't the same, but the paint is, and the rider's leg is hiding a big hole, also his horse has a shorter tail, so I think he still needs a correct horse.

Meanwhile this was in the To Be Sorted pile from May's show, and is the officer from the same set, but on the correct horse (in both cases the horse is too small for the figures, who are huge) he's lost his gold epaulets and white trouser-paint but is otherwise a nice figure, if not rare.

Gormasa re-issued these under the Soldis label (yes, I've called it Soldat in the past - more than once I think - but, a mental-typo isn't making it up as you go along!) in quite large 'touristy' sets so they do turn-up pretty regularly.

This chap was hiding in the WWI box as a [possibly] German Ulhan! He is in fact depicting the King's Lancers (Lanceros del Rey), in the ceremonial uniform of the 1970's, at which point they were called the Escolta del Generalísimo (or Fascist Bastard's Escort, if I've got my Spanish correctly?!!), they may also be a type of Cazadore (whatever that is? Is it French, it may be French!), I think these can also be mistaken for Santiago Dragoons (Dragons de Santiago)? But they all have red trousers?

Still; I'm not sure who made him, I assume (helmets on!) he's Jecsan, but there are elements of Pech Y Hermanos (Pech & Brothers) to the horse, which is otherwise like Jecsan horses, apart from the little blobs on two feet. Also - while the cloak fits nicely, and the saddle seems right, he may not be on the right horse?

Marte (Julio Garcia Castresana - 'Castresana Y Marte') also issued a set, but theirs look more formal / relaxed, this chap is in a hurry and his lance is different to the hammered-head, metal Marte ones I've seen, here a plastic blade/pennant moulding, plugging-on to the plastic shaft, but both sets have movable arms and clip-round-the-neck cloaks, so he may have just been wedged on a Jecsan/Pech horse? Means I get to put Marte in the tag-list!

Maybe they're Teixido! I'll put it in the tag-list!

You can see the lancer penciled-in as Jecsan or Teixido makes a better match - size-wise - for the British figure, and I've posted Her Mage in die-cast alloy from Britains' 'New Metal' range of the late 1970's/early 1980's, riding side-saddle, sans horse, in front of the parade.

While the pennant on the Royal Guard trooper may actually be from the Reamsa Medieval/El Sid figures? Also I'm pretty sure both of mine are Reamsa originals as the Gormasa-Soldis ones tend to a glossier finish.

There you go anyway, five ceremonial oddments from the stash, four Spaniards and a probable Argentine, and he's probably the rarer, as the others will have gone all over the world as Tourist keepsakes, but then maybe he did too, although Argentina isn't the Tourist trap Spain has been?

S is for 'Special Publication' and Solido Belge

For various reasons, not least the passing of my father, I've got a bit behind with the old 'housekeeping' including both January's Toy Fair stuff and the fallout from Plastic Warrior's show in Twicker's back in May, it will all happen soon, although my mental-diary says a new PW mag' is due any day now? So that will be slipped, high, into the crowded queue!

However and having missed it at the show (where it sold-out, I believe?), I managed to pause briefly at PW Towers on my way back from the Smoke the other week, and picked up a copy of Daniel Lepers excellent little monograph of the 55/60mm output of Solido Belge.

When I say 'little', it's 27pp's and a back cover which is a wraparound short of the 32 pages of the quarterly mag', but, being dedicated to one maker; it's quite a fulsome overview. And when I say 'pause' It's a mile to the command-centre and a mile back to Woking station, which - knackered as I was - after a day in London, shows what efforts I'll go to, in order to deliver the news to those of you [Philistines] who still don't subscribe!

The news being; unless you are very specific in your collecting theme/s, you need this!

I have been picking these (the figures) up since the 2010 PW show, and thought I was doing quite well with a blue one and a yellow policeman and a couple of other interesting pieces to go with a handful of 'khaki infantry', but oh-boy! I still have a long way to go! However I now have a wonderful guide which will also play the part of checklist.

Solido - better known for their die-cast vehicle range, which tended to use Starlux figures where figures were needed or required, had previously produced these under the Solido Belge moniker, and there is stuff in this publication which was new to me, ceremonials, footballers even some Wild West (which I suspect we will hear more of in PW in the future?) and enough motorcycle variants to shake a big stick at!

I can't recommend Mr. Lepers' work strongly enough!

PW's contact details;

They're on the Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PlasticWarrior?fref=ts

They're on the Blogger - http://plasticwarrioreditor.blogspot.co.uk/

eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com - mailto:pw.editor@ntlworld.com

Website'sback 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

S is for Some More Bloody Desert Rats!

The trouble with doing a thematic 'mini season' even one which jumps between theatres and nationalities is that you start to get a 'writer's block' on suitable titles, and having failed to start the blurb on this post twice because I couldn't come up with a humorous, alliterative or otherwise mildly erudite title, I gave up! It's just some more bloody 8th army! Charben's this time . . .

. . . and I'm missing the flamethrower. To be fair these seem harder to find than some of the others, and with brittleness become a factor on most of them now, particularly the chalky early British production of Timpo, Lone Star and these, the long, sticky-out bit of the flamethrower has probably rendered good ones few & far between.

But I'm relatively new to this large-scale malarkey (as I like to keep reminding you-know-who), and a flamethrower will come. It's like the Hilco 8th Army/ANZAC's, I've seen them, but they were outside my budget - stupidly I don't think I photographed them when I had the chance!

There seem to have been three generations, following (or followed by?) Timpo's set in the first instance with a change from/to black or brown weapons and a further issue in green plastic which may be supposed to be the 'Forgotten 14th'?

And following-on from the other day's comments - these chaps are definitely wearing 'footy-bags' rather than the shorts stipulated-for in Kings Regulations, Clothing, Troops, For the use of!

Yellow-tan on the left and greenies on the right, the Vickers MG is another of the family of mouldings with the ammunition feeding into the trigger mechanism - as earlier hollow-cast MG's had been more accurate (exception below!) - this has to be a case of lazy cloning by sculptors, the question is - who's came first; Timpo, Lone Star or Charbens? Both Timpo's water-cooled Browning (which lead to all the Kahki Infantry clones) from the ex-hollow cast US G.I's/W. German solids, and their later Swoppet Vickers were more correct.

I have late unpainted (or Woolworth's?) figures in the green and the grenade thrower seems to have the same leachate (is that even a word?)/leached deposit as the much later Matchbox figures would suffer from; some polyethylene Bergan/Beton were also afflicted with the same phenomena.

I have very few hollow-casts, good examples are way outside my budget, but along with a Crescent (or Timpo?) sailor, the Timpo launderer and the odd knight, cowboy or guardsman (I got two nice ceremonial hollow-casts at the last Sandown Park show), I picked this slush-cast lump of playfulness up at some point. It fires matches, or fishing-line weights, or gravel or inky-paper blots . . . bargain!

I is for I believe There's Some Interest in These!

I'm vindictive, but there yer go, 'e wanted it, 'e started it, but 'e doesn't like it up 'im Captain Mainwaring! Jim? Oh yeah, I posted one about a week ago . . . as a comparison! It really is pretty low-brow, puerile stuff isn't it? The emperor's got no clothes but he can rustle-up two Jim!

We see here some Lone Star, vintage, soft-polyethylene plastic, 54mm WWII German Infantry and/or Afrika Korps' toy soldiers. The theatre in which they are supposed to be serving being dependent on the colour of plastic with which they were manufactured. Some sources call the dark grey ones 'stormtroopers', but I don't know if that was how Lone Star advertised then at the time?

I don't have perfect samples of either colour, and while we have seen these in small scale, here I think (if not they are definitely on the Airfix German Infantry HO pages, both types - and DAK?), there are more poses in the larger scale, although as most of them are surrendering, they aren't that much use!

The six nearer-/either side of- the centre-line are duplicated in 1:76th (dark grey only), the four to the outsides were only available in 54mm. Colour-wise; the pale grey (and greenish-grey) being the 'Afrika Korps' iteration, and the darker greys; the standard Wehrmacht.

I had to repair two for these shots, the pale flamethrower was in three parts when I dug him out, and one of the surrender-flags had . . . err . . . been dropped! There seems to be a DAK = black boots & base, Wehrmacht = brown boots & base rule thing going-on here, almost the complete opposite of what actually happened in real-life?

The dark grey flamethrower looks a lot dirtier under the camera flash than he did in daylight, however to remove the dirt would take more paint-off so he will stay as he is, and it really doesn't look that bad in normal light - I guess a lot of silicate or quartz in the dirt have reflected the flash!

These have also been washed-out by the flash, the two nearest the centre-divider are actually the greenish grey, see surrendering guy above! Of course - with their 'Lone Star' caps, they make excellent Spectrum troops to back-up the Timpo captain's Scarlet & Green and Colonel White!

Comparison with the Charbens officer and a couple of similar poses from the ANZAC set.

Ah! Friedrich Paulus's 6th Army! The guy at the back is going to take his chances in the snow . . . he became the signal-box operator at Brookwood junction, you know; he wrote-up his memoirs as 'Through Hell for Hitler'!

Sort of 'stop the press' image, but more 'additional' as I hadn't done the blurb for this post when I shot these, it still goes at the end though, as I had done the other shots. A re-issue Charbens and second Lone Star DAK officers from that charity-shop lot the other week (month?), along with a less-dirty flamethrower who's come-in at some point; last PW-show, I think?

T is for Two - German Infantry - ΕΠΑ and Marx

These two are very short on completeness, but give a flavour of the full sets, although in the case of the latter we'll see them all in small scale sometime (if we haven't already) here at Small Scale World, while the former figures are part of a larger set of about . . . err; let's look at them first;

ΕΠΑ, or EPA (Epsilon, Pi, Alpha), which might be Epia . . . which might translate to Epic? I'm winging it there - I know - so don't quote me! . . . Google says PSC!

Rather crude figures out of Greece, which look more like some Turkish production; to be honest. They copied several (most?) of the Crescent 60mm Khaki Infantry set (far right figure), and several other figures (two of whom can be seen here) and which look to be ex-composition sculpts, so - set pose-total is at least six, but may be eight or even ten?

Here painted as Germans, I've seen them in other colours and - to my knowledge - they also come in green, UN helmets, white (snow troops?) and brown, possibly for Turks? They were sold in long window-boxes with sentry posts, possibly aiming for tourist traffic against PAL/Athena's better-quality figures?

Having had some success with the British Warriors of the World's, I have failed totally on the Marx German front, with only four and two of them the same pose! 60mm and hard polystyrene plastic, factory painted.

The helmet strap seems to be a batch-thing with some having them painted-in and some not? And possibly only on earlier figures, note the poor delineation of the flesh-painting on the right-hand figure; such slackness is usually a sign of later production.

B is for Bren Guns - Lots of 'Em

Having mentioned them earlier, we might as well tick the box! I only have the five poses, so a way to go yet, but I was late to this large-scale malarkey!

Cherilea's 60mm 8th Army; I suspect the were sculpted by the same guy responsible for the outrageous UN set and slightly manic East/Central/King's African Rifles, but he was clearly improving with each stab at the art, and these are really quite nice, a bit gawkey, while the running guy has some Dr. Who weapon or something, but they'll do!

I have to thank Bill from Moonbase Central for the well-painted kneeling guy who was one of the first to join the squad about ten years ago . . . I know I keep asking it, but where does the bloody time go?!! It just sort of leaks away . . . whole years of it . . . while you're not looking!

Colour variation in the prone grenade-thrower and a re-issue to the right.

Another nicely painted one and another re-issue, I think the left-hand one was from this year's (or last year's) Plastic Warrior show? It's a new addition anyway, and another Brno-Enfield .303" LMG! I've fired them, a reassuring series of steady thuds to the shoulder and a solid, regular, heavy sound, but a 30-round magazine was no match for those 'Spandau's', they fed rounds into the field-of-battle like Satan's seed-drills!

As an aside; the old factory building for MG34/42's was about two-hundred yards from Wavell Barracks, and you could walk past it on your way into town, it was a slightly 'long-way' but only a minute or so, and you could see the age and signs of the Allied bombing/Soviet finality in what was left of the outer wall's brickwork.

Although by then it was being used for storage or car-mechanics or something . . . I have a feeling it was the local dairy? It was a bit like an old French farm in the middle of low-rise concrete flats, long, low workshop/stable type buildings round a central walled yard. At least . . . we were told it was the old Spandau machine-gun works!