A is for Amorces - I Need'em for Mah'Forces!

The other (see yesterday's post) great "Take it outside before one of you blinds the other" toy was the cap-firing rocket-bomb, and while I don't have as many as I'd like; or as many as I'd like if money were no object, I have a few, and that's what we're looking at now.

The metal ones - were a common pocket-money thing; on the way home from school, pop-in to the village for milk and Chelsea-buns, receive a quick issue of pocket-money (6d) and grab a cap-bomb from Webb's the Newsagents! The commonest design was the one second from the left. I vaguely recall they came in some of the less reverent Christmas crackers as well?

The one on the far left is a modern one, sourced in Taiwan, which I grabbed with a newspaper (at the same time as-, not a freebie from the publisher!) a few years ago - Henbrandt, Play Write, someone like that?

Reading to the right, the middle one is a more ornate version of the common design (unfortunately with broken tail fins) which I suspect is earlier (1950's), while above them is an alternate head for which I have no body, so I don't know how it differed from the other two? Another variation is the little cockpit sculpted on one side (of the second one) to make it a 'plane rather than a rocket/bomb

12th May - Duh! Missed the actual bomb! Some of you will have known it as the cap-firing cargo from the Dinky Toys die-cast Junker's 87 'Stuka', dive-bomber! If you didn't recognise it . . . that's what it is, utilising the mechanism of the Britains shell . . . I had meant to say as I segued seamlessly to the next paragraph!

Second from the right is the Britains shell from the big howitzer, which uses the same low-tech, to provide a satisfying crack upon landing among the enemy lines. The final item seems to be some kind of anvil for similar ammunition; it came with a load of plastic and metal shells and bombs, but I don't know anything else about it and it could as easily be a crude milk-churn or a washing-machine component!

The plastic ones - I've only ever seen one of the ornate ones on the left so it was lucky I was there to see it and buy it, or did someone donate it? But somewhere, sometime, there were shop-stock boxes full of them, probably in three or four colors!

The blue one is a common-ish design, still around, but not so common with the brass (or more likely phospher-bronze) anvil on the nose. The yellow chap with an orange nose is South American, and clearly comes with the instruction to evacuate capsule before detonation!

The final pair are the common 'pocket-money' bombs of my childhood, they came in various sizes, and vaguely equate to WWI (blue nose) and WWII (red nose) 'standard' bomb shapes.

The carded ones - The Argentine version comes with an atmospheric card, suggesting it's about to land next to the 'Spacex' equipment in the crater (strangely - or; ironically - the old sci-fi landing system is now being employed by Musk's reusable launch-vehicles!), while to its right a card with both common designs in two sizes.

In the right hand image three littlies in a small header-carded bag; they're not 'triple-shot', but rather a trio (or triplet!) of single-shots; pedantry - I know!

They sit next to a very different beast - if you really want to "have an eye out", a good way to go about it is with a projectile of high-impact polyethylene, fired under a jet of air-pressure!

It's basically a hand-held pop-gun in the shape of a rocket-bomb! A wooden piston is pulled-back and thrust forward, forcing the red-end to fly off, at speed, with a pop-sound! I have a couple of khaki-plastic nose-cones in one of the 'odds bags', similar but not quite the same, which may be off an 'army' version of this toy.

This one is a bit of a mystery - clearly it's styled in a rocket-bomb fashion, but the firing pin is at the 'blunt' back and has no spring, plate or anvil, while the hole in the blue plastic cap suggests that this was somehow fired from a larger object (space gun?).

The paper cap being placed between the flat-end of the pin and the hole in the cap, fired by a trigger-pin in the missing object, through the hole? At the same time it was - presumably - shot-off, as a rocket, to land quietly? Anyone recognise it?

Ammo - The early ones were the 'Standard' caps as mentioned on the carded set above, pretty-much predating my childhood, there were still a few around, but with the coming of realistic feed-mechanisms in the die-cast output of people like the UK's Lone Star or Crescent , Rendondo 'pam-pam's from Spain and Italy's Edison the caps were placed on reels, and you had to carefully tare one off to place it in an older weapon, or single-shot toy such as these rockets/bombs.

By the 1980's it was mostly the plastic caps either in daisy-wheels as above or in strips as here, both of which are still around, although they could be used with some of the older bombs, by placing them over the tips of the firing-pins, the pin needing to be of a gauge which fitted tightly-enough to hold the cap in 'flight'!

You can also stack the paper ones for a bigger bang, but even as kids we quickly learnt that too many and they cushioned each-other and failed to go off (or flew, unburnt, out the side like confetti), while more than three tended to do damage to the more delicate bits (the two posts between nose and neck of the head-piece), ruining your new toy!

This post shows one of the other cap-bombs in the collection, I think there may be a couple of others with that one, but I haven't got round to combining them with the garage lot (this post) yet, so - another visit in a year or two? It also shows a Hong Kong version of yesterday's rocket launchers.

S is for Spring . . . Sunshine!

I managed to photograph a trio of our most shy residents during this latest hot-spell, all keeping warm under the loose bark of an old oak, I replaced the bark after I'd troubled them with the camera!

A grass snake! I took a video, but while it looked nice on the camera's little screen, when i got it up on the laptop is wasn't good-enough to upload I'm afraid. I think she's a female, both from the dullish markings and a feeling I got from her, she fixed me with a look which said "I won't bite if you don't get any closer"! They will only bite if threatened, and aren't venomous.

Under the next log along . . .

A pair of lizards one of whom stayed around for a good shot or two, the other stuffed it's head under the bark and waved it's tail at me, which was a very silly thing to do, as if I'd tried to pull it out by that appendage, it would almost certainly have come-off in my fingers!

S is for Spring . . . Powered!

I don't know who came up with this first; [Islyn] Thomas or Pyro in the States probably, but it could just as easily have been an European maker, and probably harks back to an earlier poured lead / slush-cast toy or tin-plate toy anyway?

These are a quite late version I think (1960's? But were the first to be shot so can go first!); Unimel premiums from . . . Now, here's a thing; Wikipedia doesn't have a Unimel page, not for the bee equipment, not for Melbourne University, not for the Portuguese thing (whatever it is - I didn't look), not for the pinterest page/guy/gal, so Wiki . . . not so smart now are you!

For Wiki' (don't say I don't help!); Unimel was a conglomerate created by the merging of four French companies in prepared food production; Brochet, SAB, Vandamme (cakes, 1929-merger) and Van Lynden, the company was later taken over by Danone. They issued various premiums usually sourced from other companies such as Starlux [Sources PW153 / Christian Hardy / JC Piffret], now - I think - all part of Kraft Foods?

The other sides are blank, pointing to at least two cavities on the tool, as they are marked on opposite sides, the rocket being closest to the old US-NATO air-defence SAM, the Nike-Ajax surface-to-air missile. And, while the launchers are polystyrene, the projectiles are polyethylene.

These are unmarked generics of - probably - older (1950's?) vintage, and may have been comic giveaways here in the UK where such things were once 'given' away! And in the colours of so much of that 'Dime Store' stuff, again 'styrene the rockets however are - again - 'ethylene.

Ammo! I don't know offhand what toy the smaller version comes from, but I suspect an AFV (probably battery-operated) or bath-toy of some kind? It looks [a bit] like the old Aussie' Malkara which we put (experimentally) on a ferret (Humber 1-Ton?) chassis! The Unimel (top) has the cleaner lines of the two full sized ones.

Jean Höfleur of Germany resurrected the design (with the cruder, extended fin) in the 1970's for its range of rugged readymade's, and 'bolted' it to a trailer with little hex-plugs! Two more were carried by a supporting artillery tractor!

There is a prescient foretaste of drone technology to be found here, ten or twenty-odd years before they were a serious proposition, but I think the 'plane, although also Jean (or one of that 'group' Heinerle-Koho-Layla-Manuba?) and contemporary, was from a  different toy which happens to have the same (common) mechanism! The photographs weren't at the best angle but it's a swept-fixed-wing design, which I think I've also seen in green?

B is for Big Chief Box-Tick!

A real box-ticker; I don't think I even have all the poses, but in sorting the Wild West over the last few weeks these presented themselves as being vaguely photogenic, so I fired off a quick shot or two, and the box can be ticked!

Supreme's Native American Indians, copies of course and rendered in a soft'ish PVC-substitute with a - probably - polypropylene horse and base for same. Airfix piracies with the odd adjustment; note the footrest, the horse however seems to be a more original piece, but I dare say there is a donor/are donors somewhere!

I think the Supreme's (1) are all six-colour paint-jobs, which is pretty good for Hong Kong/China, but the copy of a copy (2, we saw in Hunson packaging with some shelfies from Mr Berke), is seven with the base! 3 is a more traditional clone with the original British Airfix sculpt at 4.

However it must be said, none of these are particularly rare, and you can probably find all three copies still on sale if you're lucky? Although in the case of 3 you are more likely to find second or third generation piracies in brighter, primary colours, but we saw a similar set from Imperial here at Small Scale World a while back, while Hunson are running some similar ones too.

Note that while 3 is probably a pantographed copy, the two rubber figures (1 & 2) have the hallmarks of hand-copies with re-sculpted folds to clothing, new chunky-versions of the weapons and less realistic torso contours.

Better view of the rider, the stand-fixing wasn't quite in focus, not that it matters, I couldn't work out how it's fixed, but like Britains Deetail horses/bases, there seems to be an element of wedging involved, which I wasn't going to force for curiosities-sake; in case I broke it!

T is for Two - Eastie Westies!

Technically it's three now, but there is a narrative through them, and a connection (spurious it has to be admitted) with the other day's Jean posts . . . and I'm not starting T is for Three! A few minor things which arose as I was sorting Wild West recently;

So, we looked at a couple of Indians the other week and I had a few cowboys too, all in a soft rubber-like material (which is closer to silicon that PVC, in its properties?) and all from Lisanto in the former East Germany (or Richard Hopf, I'm not too sure, but neither are some of the German websites!).

The 'spurious detail' is the horses - I'm sure I read somewhere that they sometimes come with Jean Horses, these two have (but they could have been added/switched by the owner), and the horses seem better painted than my Jean ones - which isn't saying a lot my Jean ones are pretty tatty, as we saw last week; they are the same as the coach-horses I shelfied on JB's stall though?

But, some sites show them having their own Elastolin'eque horses, so I have my own doubts over the Jean ones? Anyway, the figures fit them perfectly, so they will stay for now! Do you know the truth?

We were then going to use the Eastern-European connection to move to France (next image) but I realised I had these odd copies of two of the Lisanto/Richard Hopf (?) figures, one coming-in quite recently I think, the other was in storage.

They are a marbled plastic, but only from scraps rather that an attempt at colourfulness or decoration I feel, and while the donors have a three part mould leaving flat bases, these have gate marks on a two-part mould's split-line suggesting huge runners, the sort you might find on an amateur tool, or hand-operated injection machine?

They also have a French Santon look about them (phew - still got a link to two/three!), but I can find nothing on them, anyone else got any? Who copied who?

Which neatly mentions France while holding the Eastern link; the right-hand figure here, in both shots, is - I believe - from the French maker Guilbert (but there seem to be various versions of him from French makers?) while the figure on the left is attributed to the Polish firm/organisation of PZG and which - you can see - is a copy, bar the changes to the knife hand, and more blood on the scalped hairpiece, which is ostentatiously blonde . . . it'll be that General George Armstrong' a'dyin' again and again and . . .

P is for Ay to Zed!

I think we've had the other title (A-Z is for Padgett!), which is an example of my pink-monkey editor's lack of imagination! And the funny thing is that when we looked at this 'set' of sculpts years ago (link - if I can find it?) I probably already had these in the stash but had somehow forgotten them.

I didn't have three Wild West posts for yesterday, I had two and this, which ties-in nicely with the earlier post from Mr Berke, as this too is a tub; albeit a smaller one! A reappraisal of what follows may suggest Hing Fat for these too, the colours are quite similar, but it hasn't been tagged as such?

They go in the same-packaged line as/with the Wild West set I've already posted (if I haven't I've definitely taken the photographs, ages ago, so it's in the queue somewhere!) and came from one of those strange farm-shop/gift-shop/convenience stores attached to an architectural salvage and builders merchant's on an old farm yard in the middle of nowhere, South-West of Oxford; I think it was also a garden-centre, storage facility and general auctioneers! With a pet-groomers . . . or hairdressing salon?

Four foot and two mounted, with one of the foot being an ex-mounted pose, all taken from the old Marx 54mm set, the standard bearer and the two foot figures on the right being the lest changed/mucked-about with (see here, about half-way down this page) and that's it really . . . new horse, with no furniture!

From both sides; they are what they are - rack toy shite for infants, in a tub! Imported from China by Padgett Brothers (A-Z) and titled Super Hero Army.

But in a sand-pit on a sunny day, or on the beach, they're almost as cool as a real knight turning-up on the doorstep, and that's the joy of childhood - greys & blues versus reds & yellows anyone? Bagsies the white horse - it might be Gandalf's!

T is for Those Hing Fat Divers Again!

This is the post I was trying (not very effectively) to get up yesterday; a follow-up from Brain B over the pond on Friday's diver posts, he had a newish tub of Hing Fat, who have lost their red/white Gemini-craft/rubber-boat, but gained a pose or two!

It's a big set, in a big tub! Imported by Stevens International but clearly also marked Hing Fat and obviously we're about to look at the divers, but you get equal quantities of (distinctly New York looking) police, Firefighter and Astronaut figures - all without the chunkier accessories they otherwise come with.

We saw the older versions of the swimming (prone) figures the other day, but I have neither of the standing poses, one of which is harking back to the Lone Star chiseler/mine-setter, but the other - holding a spear-gun across his chest - is all new. The underwater-camera-man is new too, and the chap with the motor thingy, has been issued with a newer, smaller model - reflecting real life?

Really, they are 'all new' as while they look like all three sizes of their predecessors (at least one of which was Hing Fat - I suspect the smaller ones), they are (unless I'm mistaken) larger figures, and newer-sculpts rather than pantographed copies? You can also see (as Brian mentioned) the scale between the four figure sets is not remotely constant!

Many thanks to Brian for a swift follow-up and I received a parcel from Peter Evans yesterday, which will be the subject of a future post, and which had a plastic diver in! But he's from the non-Lone Star origins ones with plug-ins, which I've held back for another day.

News, Views Etc . . . Mighty Rome in Miniature

Bit of a Brucey-bonus; I'm supposed to be doing about five other things I said I'd get done in the last-few/next-few days, but I wanted to get this off the desktop . . .

. . . an update to the Hong Kong small-scale Romans page, with Baravelli's foot and mounted Giant sub-piracies added at the bottom of the main section. I will try to sort out those last bits as well; still needs text and the Britains full-sized sculpts, which I Blogged a while ago, should have done it then . . .Doh!

C is for CoMa's Cosmic Crazies

I was thinking of Lunatics, but these are actually Galenites! Lunatics were R&L cereal premiums!

It's late and I've got nothing ready for tomorrow (later today - it's that late!), there was supposed to be three Wild West posts here today, but I didn't get round to tagging them, then Brian sent me a lovely SCUBA-diver follow-up in the afternoon which I said I'd get out today - if I pulled my finger out, but I didn't pull my finger out, so it was . . . "What can I do quickly, in the early hours, that doesn't require research, fact-checking or lots of blurb?!"

The result is this box-ticker! Co-Ma, Coma, CoMa or Co.Ma.; I've seen all four. Space alien Galenites, these are copies of the bigger ones which were in a wacky fluorescent yellow-green 'atomic' transparent plastic. In small scale they were silver with a later issue in various colours (Kent has a red one . . . and yellow (?) on his site) and just the six poses I think?

They are similar too, and might well have influenced (but are much earlier than-) the blow-molded Hong Kong googlie-eyes/Giant mini's.

I had a small sample, but not all the poses and managed to get a set of six from France a while ago, this is the visual diagram of the sample as it stands, I still need a kneeling one with his top-knot' intact! Unlike the spacemen (who can be found in hard polystyrene) these are all soft polyethylene - box ticked!

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I've got to P on the tag-list refresh, but this post reminds me I must break the 'Space' tag up properly . . . maybe later today?

News, Views Etc . . . Dead Links, Wi-Fi

Links

I have sadly excised a bunch of blogs from the links-list among which were a couple of old favorites; O'Leary Miniatures (gone painting) who I believe is active on a Facebook page and Rocket Punch who seems to have slipped his interstellar-moring and gone off to pastures new?

Two non-toy soldier blogs have gone; Pharygula and The Future Soon along with the trade blog Toy Industry News, Giampiero's small scale blog has also ceased to be, has have Vintage Castings and King's African Rifles.

Finally I've deleted the Miniature Zone as it (the Blogger version) was a temporary platform and I must work out how to get the actual site (which is still active) up, probably in one of the lists on the other side of the page?

Wi-Fi

That BTWifi-with-FON thing I've signed-up too is better than I thought (apart from when it disappears for most of a day!) as I've realised it's not 30 calendar days, it's 30x24x60, which counts-down on the 'voucher' page, so three weeks+ in, and I'm only about half-way through my allocation, so over the year it won't be any more expensive than any no-limit package/contract, so definite recommendation if you're looking for an alternative.

Tagging

I went back to the earlier letters, with additions to the 'Drill' tags, a difficult one as a lot of the posts are mixed poses, so I'm only adding the tags where it's obvious, the trouble is the 'Ceremonial' tag is getting big and unwieldy, but it's the best I've got, and if I added 'Staff Uniform' or 'Dress Uniform' tags (and I might, one day?) it would only take a few posts out of the whole tag-result. And by the time you read this I should be doing (or done, on going through) the 'Band' tag, converting to Pop, Pipers, Drums and Musicians . . . or similar; rock-folk, rock-pop, band majors, gweetaars?

Bum Slot is for Montaplex!

We might have had that title before but I think it's worth having again! I was looking for something to make it a thematic day and thought about the smallies, but we've seen them once or twice over the years, except the Atlantic set (which was the other obvious absentee in this morning's post, but I should leave something for you-know-who to dust-sit with), when I found these whilst looking for something else in the garage!

BuM got hold of the old Montaplex sobres (surprise [bags]) moulds back in the 1990's, or - at least - they got hold of enough surplus product to start churning-out boxed sets, I'm not sure as to the full history; I think it's all been on Akala's Kiosko Blog, but my Spanish isn't good enough!

Anyway, this is two ex-Montaplex sets in one box; British Commandos (ex-Airfix) and an original-design (?) submarine.

The commandos are unremarkable, the two grappling-iron guys being notably poor short-shots, but the ladder is a whacky thing and possibly more dangerous to the user than climbing the enemy cliff-face naked except for a pair of mittens and some bedroom slippers!

It also ironic that Airfix-Heller were churning out the same old set (having apparently 'lost' not one but two new tools in the previous decade!), at the same time, in the same shit-brown polymer!

But this? Now . . . hold on a sec' . . . over here we had to wait for Birthday's or Christmas for pretty-much anything in the past, but the Spanish were getting these brought back by Mum or Dad, uncle or granny . . . with the morning paper!

It's a whole submarine! OK, it's a bit simplistic and there don't appear to be any holes for the two missile-things, but how much fun could you have over breakfast with this dropping out of a little envelope . . . it's a WHOLE SUBMARINE . . . for pennies!

SCUBA is for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

I think . . . I didn't check it! And invented or developed from nascent military experiments to commercial/civilian-use by Jacques Cousteau and his team of early eco-filmographers.

There really only appears to be one set of note out there which is the Lone Star set of eight, upon which most others have then be derived, there are stand-alone figures from smaller toys - the two Britains Minisets for instance, Ideal - and Jecsan did some nice ones with sea creatures, but Lone Star seem to have carried the day over four or five decades with this subject.

They were issued in three schemes, these are the 'James Bond' set, referencing the movie Thunderball (I think?) and were the last version so the easiest to find, as (like the Afghans) there was a number of ex-shop stock boxes, of near-mint examples, kicking around after the hobby got organised in the mid-1980's.

They went alongside bare-skin versions (as enemy), pink plastic with coloured swimming-trunks, while the first versions were in the same heavy-rubber suited (military?) black of the mini-sub' crew we saw in the previous post.

There are eight poses altogether, but I've not found the chap carrying a wrench yet. Two of the figures (top left) are designed to stand up (not very successfully!), one shining a light, while the other chisels something off a rock-face or sunken hull . . . or sets charges on a bridge!

Much copied, the little 'lamp' being replaced by a more substantial arc-light type thing, they can be found in various sizes - at least four. Most of these are later types, with the additional swimming pose (middle-left) and have all had their tanks enlarged. Some of these may still be out there if you're lucky, but are common-enough in mixed lots on feebleBay.

The two larger (yellow and white) ones, with both arms forward, are from another source and were just in the tub with the multi-coloureds!

Most of the previous shot originate with these reprobates; Hing Fat, although they will have copied them from the slightly earlier (slightly bigger) ones! This is the 'two-kids' logo packaging; from a 2006 magazine ad.

These are also based-upon the Lone Star sculpts, although there are changes, and my 'young' collection is mostly Hong Kong-marked (usually on the flipper) copies, although I think these are mostly earlier than the previous multicoloured ones (some of which are 'China' marked), with a possible original (Spanish?) top left, but he's so tatty it's hard to tell - however he's larger and unmarked. The three main sizes are all painted with the same scheme of yellow helmet/hood and red straps.

Likewise the pair at the bottom may be LS originals, but are so play worn as to be un-callable. The major change with these is that they have a rudimantry chest-pack breathing apparatus, rather than tanks on the back, a situation reversed by the four newer HK/China figures who have had tanks added (middle row), and a possible new pose with dart-gun, but he may be in the earlier sets, I've only found a few of each?

The chap middle-right is from, or belongs to, the previous 'hing fat' line-up where he's the smallest size, as a guide to all of them.

The conversions; from Lone Star on the left, and back to air-tanks on the right, the left is marked 'Hong Kong' on a flipper, the right is unmarked but has all the hallmarks of a 1980/90's rack-toy/carded-bag type figure and I may have seen them in a set with a rubber boat, but I can't find the referance.

D is for Dive! Dive! Dive!

We looked at the Lone Star mini-sub/2-man torpedo with box a while ago, courtesy of Brian Berke, and at the time I mentioned the divers I had which were unfindable, well, I found them! And they weren't where I thought they might be, but that's collecting, as I'm sure some of you know only too well!

Mine is sans box (as is most of the large scale collection; too busy filling gaps to worry about packaging), but is otherwise all there, the only difference with Brian's in that his propeller was silver (polished steel!), while mine is gold (steam era bronze!). As you can see I need to find another rider - in either paint scheme - as mine don't match, one has an all-over silver suit, the other is mostly black with green straps on the helmet (matching Brains), but it doesn't end there . . .

. . . as I have a third, who doesn’t match either of them! He's not in the soft PVC-like material of some of the other Toyway re-issues, being polyethylene. Equally I don't think any of the marques who've been involved with the British re-issues have done the 'sub, so I guess a test shot of the mould-tool?

My propeller is a bit loose and keeps falling out so I keep it in its own little self-seal bag (with the equally loose counter-weight), but the hook is still there, so I could power it up if I wanted to. To be honest; I'm not sure the grommet hasn't been replaced with the end of a cheap, BIC-like biro?

Timpo's was a simpler affair with no motive power and an underside too narrow for one of those Hong Kong made, battery-operated - usually red/white - motor units you could by separately for such things, but which were also supplied with a lot of model vessels.

Mine is missing it's 'coat hanger' counter-weight, a thin [-shaped wire, similar to the Indian canoes, but a different length, which was designed to keep it upright while you pushed it about the bath! The propeller does turn, but you need a pencil or toothpick to make it so or make it go!

Timpo get a support-boat however, and there are other colours of scuba-tank (are there green ones?), the boat being used by other figures, and there is a four-man version but only with Brit's I think?

I see these on evilBay frequently, and recently missed-out on a  pearler which was bid to a reasonable sum! The divers are Britains copies I think, but the 'sub itself is relatively unique in design, but may be a copy of a toy I'm unaware of (Italian or Spanish maybe?).

From the nature of the graphics on the ad's I cropped these two out of, and the logotypes, I suspect Koon Yip were the manufacturer, while Mayfair some kind of middle-men - wholesalers or shippers? I also wonder if there is a motor nestled underneath, and whether it's B/O or wind-up?

All still on feebleBay yesterday, one (top left) a colour variation on a generic card, another (bottom right) described by the seller as Heinerle (which I doubt), the other two in Koon Yip-branded packaging and available - between the four - from the US, Canada and Germany!

The Britains one is the obvious absentee in this post, but first, I thought we'd seen it here already (but can't find the images) and second while I also thought I had one, I now can't find it . . . if I have, so 'another day' for that one!