T is for Two - Ships in Bottles!

A very quick one tonight, I've been having a 'bit of a week', boiler wise! Among the items I've inherited are two ships, in bottles, these are they . . .

This was from a Perrier Water promotion in the 1970's, a friend of Mum's (also our friend Guy's mum!) was a promoter who used to go round supermarkets or department stores demonstrating things and giving out free samples (Mum did too; a while later - I became addicted to mini frozen jam-doughnuts at one point!), and as well as the bottles of free Perrier, there were plastic key-ring bottles (which I should have somewhere, but can't remember seeing it for years?), and reward bonuses, and I think this was one of those.

Google and feebleBay reveal other Perrier ships in bottles, but they must have been different promotions or regions, as I only remember Janet having a few of these for her team. The ship - Loch Torridon, a four-masted barque/clipper-ship; one of the last) is fascinating, although it's history varies on the internet, some thinking it Norwegian when it foundered, some Russian, Wiki's probably best for a primer!

I've also seen this exact model in a different bottle, for a whiskey company's similar promotion, so the model must have been commissioned from a commercial ship-in-bottle modelling company!

This is more of a tourist memento/keepsake, and a fine example of blown-glasswork it is, one sail has fallen off, but finding someone with the skill to mend it is going to take a few phone-calls, as while there are craft glass-works about the place, there can't be many who can do key-hole surgery with long molten rods through the end of a bottle!

It's a more fanciful model of a more medieval type I think? That's it - two ships in bottles!

A is for Aggressive Afghans Again!

This is the contents of the last of the tubs I shot quickly the other day, and consists of more legionnaires and some very colourful Arabian types, with the look of Afghans (which they were sold as - despite little interactivity with the FFL, until the 21^st Century!) or Northern Indo-Asians (now Pakistan) with the loose, soft trousers under the shawl blankets worn in that region. But wearing rather hybrid turbans which are more Tuareg with a hint of Sikh!

But first the colonial overlords! Bayonets are a bit short, and some poses are shared with Lone Star's ACW, indeed we saw one of these when I looked at them, and he happensn to be the eighth pose (missing here) standing firing, so I have them all . . . somewhere!

And I believe some say these were sold as confederates, but I'm not so sure, there are red-trousered versions which I don't have, but equally you occasionally see a white trousered version, and given the variation in painting of the knights, Wild West and the Arabs - we are about to look at - I just think Lone Star changed the painting to 'freshen' them on the retailers' shelves?

Not really among Lone Star's better output, they're a bit flat (some of them almost semi-flat!), and bit grey (very grey actually!), well, you know what I mean, 'uninspiring' is probably the word I'm looking for? But they have the charm of early toy soldiers and both the marching guy and the officer are worth a second look.

I have got all eight of these, not only from the 'big purchase' but because they can tend to brittleness (especially those still in shop stock box ones you see from time to time), and I tend to buy them whenever I see them in good (or reasonable) condition.

You find them in various plastic colours, mostly grey or grey-greens, but white and occasionally red (see below), previously believed to be test-shots, they do seem to have got out to retailers in red.

What I like about these is whenever you find them they seem to be new, new paint scheme, or new plastic colour, I know they were done in batches and a Google image search reveals that, but the number of variations makes them fun to collect

As you might have noticed already, the flesh colour also varies greatly from sunburnt ginger northerner holidaying in Torremolinos without sunscreen, to sub-Saharan African dark-brown, or the unpained, sun-bleached zombie seen here; bottom-left! And that sword!

An old, near-dead Picclic image of an evilBay shot, sharpened and enlarged to show both the rare red one and a size comparison with Charbens (et al) on the left and Cherilea on the right, they're big boys for 54mm, heading toward 60mm.

F is for Follow-up - Hing Fat Egyptian Relics

I said - when I showed the Hing Fat bits Peter Evans sent to the blog - that I'd do a comparison with the similar sets from Safari and K&M/Wild Republic at some point in the future, well, by chance I had to wizz the relevant 'Ancients' box back to the house for a couple of hours on Tuesday, so this is that - brief - comparison!

The main elements, Hing Fat's on the left, both Safari sets in the middle and the K&M stuff off to the right with a Pharaoh's head variation I'd forgotten, All three sets are clearly aimed at both museum/heritage gift shops and middle-school project work more than actual playthings, but they are fun - and all the Mummies are figurals!

The semi realistic Safari Bastet statue sculpt, flanked by two slightly dog-like offerings from Hing Fat, the Hing Fat all come in a gold finish and a salmon-pink which is probably trying to be/represent a bare stone-effect?

Typically, the Atlantic 'styrene one is well-lost in the storage unit, so we'll have to do this line-up again, but we have three resin's, one with a rams head, all showing/sculpted as- a presumed 'how they were',  then the Safari and K&M both showing it as how it is now, with broken nose and severely damaged/eroded lower region and finally a rather stylised one from Hing Fat with a chubby sit-up-and-beg countenance, again more fanciful of what was rather than what it.

While the Safari/K&M stuff is PVC, Hing Fat's are a dense polyethylene or polypropylene, and many thanks to Peter for the Hing Fat sample.

F is for Fertile Crescent!

Well, sometimes a title just presents itself! Although geographically we're staying in the northern point really! And heading-off into the barren western reaches. Crescent's FFL and Arab Warriors, standard Crescent fare, with six-poses each of foot figures and three mounted.

The 'locals'; four firearms and two swords, the red plastic is a bit jarring, they would all benefit from paler washes, although some Arabians go with black or dark-[Malian]-blue (the Tuareg), so it's a moot point, but red's a bit too leery. Ideal figures for destroying (Timpo?) railways a'la the Lawrence movie!

Shield designs include a crescent-moon (of course!) and a hawk, the ruling classes of Arabia and the fertile crescent, and beyond to the 'Stans are known for their hawking abilities, so a nice choice, except Arabian shields tend to geometric shapes and/or ornate/fine calligraphy in worked metal!

The mounted chap with a shield, has exactly the type of thing! While Crescent aren't known for brittleness, I just didn't trust these chaps . . . and wasn't 100% confident of my abilities to get them back on their horses in one piece, so shot them separately for safety's sake!

La Légion Étrangère; As with the mounted Arab, the officers sword is rather truncated, I don't know if this was an early example of toy-safety, or a technical issue with cavity sizes or something, but both seem to be naturally stumpy? Paint is not the best, but Crescent's output never held paint well; the lack of chalk/talc in the plastic (reducing the brittleness) resulting in a smooth, shiny surface which sheds paint!

They were both painted once! Paint's good on the bugler, but I'm not sure what kind of note you'd get from his bugle with it's trumpet missing! Another one for the shopping list!, but at least the officers sword is a better length! The red plastic suggests they shared a tool with the Arab cavalry, but we never find them in blue! That's Crescent's mob of Beau Geste'esque sandmen - box ticked!

B is for ♪♪ "Bobbin' Along on the Crest of a Wave ♪♪ . . . .

. . . . Shit! Whitewater! Hold on to yer'hat pardner!"

A funny one really, I was looking for something to break-up the FFL/Arab posts, and started scrolling through Picasa, hoping to find a near-ready 'quickie', found a couple of raft shots in another place and though "Funnny, they should be in the raft folder" . . . but then couldn't find the raft folder? I had intended to publish the raft post over Christmas, so I guessed I might have, searched the C:Drive and found it in the 'Waiting Sorting' folder on the desktop, where it would be, if I'd posted it.

However, there was no blurb Text.docx, and I hadn't finished cropping the images, so I checked the Blog . . . nothing! I must have picked it up accidentally with a finished post from the desktop (where it was last time I remember it!) and dropped it in 'waiting'? What else is in there though, because often when you do a boo-boo like that you collect several folders/files in the invisible net, I'll have to have a careful check?

So, with the extra images, now all cropped, and months (years) late, here's the 'Rafts & Log' portion of the 'Canoe Season' (which is still in the long queue, but it got more work tonight (3rd), it's going to be at least 14 posts?), a bit of a cheat, as more than two-thirds of the season has come from Brian Berke, while this is all from my stash, but it will all happen fairly in the end!

Britains' raft; the Flagship of Herald's fleet! If I recall correctly it wasn't a good floater, the raft being a chunky lump of polyethylene, you could get it to sit steady in still water, but any roughness and it tended to go over! the punter's pole is snapped short, but they are hard to find in one piece, so at least I have a longish piece

A young collection, my sample doesn't do justice to the variations of plastic and paint colour out there, you can find quite pale rafts, darker rafts, bright orange baggage &ct. Some (early versions?) had the spigots on the figures feet/knees and receiving holes in the raft which was - frankly - the better system, as these reverse locating ones tend to lose the studs as I have on the left-hand one, something which plagued the canoes of both Britains and Timpo.

Timpo's log raft; not much else one can say, compatible with 3rd/4th generation cowboys (?) and pretty common - several dealers have shop-stock to dip into - it's a nice, novelty plaything which also enhances a Wild West collection. I think it came with a wire keel/weight for floating like the canoes, but the boys always get their feet wet!

Timpo also did a more comprehensive raft, but of the 'daft raft race' type, cobbled together from logs, broken planks and barrels, it's the sort of thing Timmy, the two Wayne's and I nearly won with, in 1984 - there was a lot of cheating, involving bare-legs and a divers knife!

I've seen them with two standing, one standing and one squatting cowboy, or this one with a pair of kneeling cavalry legs, mine is a poor sample as the non-punting passenger is clearly panicking and needs pre-float, aversion therapy! Hold on! I think I can hear him . . .

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!  It's the Plastic Warrior show in less than two weeks and we're still half-way up the Rio Grande! Punt harder! We're gonna' miss it!"

The people who do those one-cardboard-building-per-bag, swoppet piracies, also copied the Timpo raft! Here imported by Oto S.p.A. into Italy, but you find them as generics too. It comes with two sacks instead of the sack/trunk combo' of the original, and you also get a Timpo tree copy, albeit with rather sparse foliage! Note also that the top deck is parallel boughs, rather than planks, so they ex-kape a lawsuit!

Strangely most sets with this header-cad have crappy 3^rd/4^th generation copies of other Hong Kong knock-off swoppets, but the two job-specific figures in this set are quite good, being the keeling and squatting legs you don't often find in HK swoppet samples!

A is for Araber aus Deutschland

These used to be simple; "Manurba" would say the German collectors, then they became Dom-Manurba (or Manurba-Dom), now you usually find them listed as Dom-Manurba-Heinerle! I'm not even going to try to pin that down, but suffice to say they are slightly sub-scale at around 50mm and rather charming!

My sample, bringing something nice from the East, to the West! Carpets? Spice? The heads of their vanquished enemies? they are all unarmed so can be used with Nativity scenes as background population, and it's a small sample.

The full set includes mounted figures (some of whom are armed), horses, several different loads for the camels and other colours, and while usually from a brown/fawn/cream/white palette, I have seen them in red, orange and yellow I think.

That's it, that's them; my little handful of Manfred Urban . . . or Domplast . . . or Heinerle Wundertüten Arabs!

T is for Two - Pistoleros!

Another quick box ticker, sees us down Meh'hi'co way, with a quick fly-by the Timpo and Britains Deetail Mexicans, some of whom are Banditos as well as Pistoleros! Although, it's technically T is for Three, as we're looking at two sets and a part set.

I don't have the sixth pose, except I have, but not in a photographable state! We actually looked at the various combinations a while ago but as a headless colour-issue/batch exercise. Two of mine seem to be on cowboy legs (black and pale blue) while I don't have the darker blue Mexican trousers yet, or a pale blue jacket, but they make a decent enough bunch!

I did spot the sixth pose in the spares bag, could have done a quick switch with one of the others, and don't know why I haven't in the past - probably just chucked him in the bag while sorting, without realising I needed him in the sample? It'll have to be next-time now as they're already back in storage, and note that only 'Mexican' bits go in the spares bag, all the 'cross-disciple' Timpo stuff (pistols, whips, knives) go elsewhere.

Britains Deetail Mexicans consist of a set of six foot (and six mounted; I don't have!) figures, but there is a seventh pose, who ran through most iterations of the ever-changing (or seemingly ever-changing) cowboy line-up, and he's the figure in the upper shot, I have no idea how many variation of these there are, because he ran for ages, but note he's the only one painted-up with a Hispanic/equatorial skin-tone.

The lower pairs are from the Mexican set 'proper' and betray their 1970's heritage with a liberal use of purple and orange! Every generation's movies, comics and toys bare the style of the age they are produced in! The comic guys used to talk of Gold, Silver and Bronze ages . . . what do they make of the current 'dark', MU and crossover stuff? The brass, aluminium and tin ages!

Did I say purple and orange, you can add natty yellow jump-suits to that list, these guys are so psychedelic, you think they might be a touring trick-shot troupe on the fringe at Woodstock! "Manolito and his Magnificent Musical Mexican Mustachioed Mariachi Muchachos!"

The earlier version share the wash-style paint of the earlier cowboys and Indians, and the two on the left here are actually quite sensibly decorated! I just looked the DSG ones up on Google and they are more subdued too - a bit too much white maybe, but altogether more believable than Britains original offerings!

Anyway, that's some o'me'Mexicans! Box ticked.

S is for Service in the Sahel!

My Britains Deetail Foreign Fighting Lot and a few wandering Dervish Berbers who were with them, I hope there's some more somewhere, but I'm not sure where, or if!

I don't know if the Gatling Gun officer has been put in the base by an owner, or if they were cleared like this (middle right) by Britains as the Roman charioteer was, and the assault-boat crew, who turn up on Khaki Infantry bases from time to time.

One is in a paler plastic (bottom left) and another has the unavoidable evidence of a stuck release-pin (top right) while I'm missing a pose . . . standing firing, so better put him on the mental shopping list for the 14th! You haven't forgotten? You have haven't you! Plastic Warrior Show - all day!

Close-up of the mould release-pin 'monopod', he's my 'elite' sniper! And the method by which the packs were casually attached with a dollop of Evostick!

I only found three poses of Arabian berserker, so whether I have the others somewhere in another tub or what I don't actually know, but I'm still hoping the missing Indian colonial infantry from Cherilea and Charbens might turn-up so there may be another of these boxes somewhere!

There are two versions of each with either a long-barreled Arab jezzail weapon (trio above), or a more Western musket (lower figures), and the fact that I'm missing all the swordsmen/any mounted figures also points to missing tubs/a missing box? Anyway, that's a box ticked for now.

B is for Brief Board-game Bonanza!

Another box which got shifted from the garage back to storage was this one, but it was jammed at the bottom, and while I like to carry-on like I'm still 25, the simple fact is - I'm not! So I had to break the tape and temporarily empty-out the horizontal games laying on the top, to make it light enough to jiggle about while lifting, 'cos it's a big box; it had a boiler in originally!

A mixed bunch, the Star Trek only has large 54/60mm card flats, and I think I picked-up a lose set a while ago, so this will probably go at some point, but there's a few treasures in here too, we saw the Formula 1 game ages ago, and the Belagerung with Marx figures (I can't remember if it was here or One Inch Warrior magazine though?) and we've seen the 3M Feudal figures, loose.

Tri-Tactics (Gibsons) is also card flats; beautiful old litho'd ones, we've seen the Show Jumping plastic flats once or twice I think and the Keys to the Kingdom figures? While there's so much on Axis and Allies now on-line I may never bother with a full post, but they're there for comparison shots and the A-Z!

I photographed the contents of the other box back in the summer of 2020, and a couple of those posts are still in the queue (although I don't think Shogun has turned up yet?), but I'm going to quickly look at three of these, which have already been sealed back-up again and gone-on to the store.

Waddington's Camelot, we have seen the pieces here already, they have been in one or two mixed lots, but we may return to them here, to compare with some black & white ones I think I have somewhere.

Dean's second - bi-lingual - version of the Peter Rabbit Race Game, original sets had hollow-cast lead figures, fully painted and supplied by Timpo, the tool for which these polyethylene plastic ones were moulded from, a third 'heritage' version was issued a few years ago with 'antiqued' chrome-finished mazak-alloy pieces. I think the lead ones have been seen here? Squirrel Nutkin is the odd one out, with a full/all-over coat of paint, on cream-white plastic.

This came from Matt Thier of White Tower Miniatures, who saw it and saved it for me nearly 20 years ago, and he let me have it at his cost, which was car-booty pennies I seem to recall, so many thanks to Matt, for that!

An Italian-language (Noris toys or games) one or two-player game, you are Ivanhoe (or Roger Moore; even if he looks like Tony Curtis!), fighting the baddies of King Prince John!

Figures are semi-flat, in the European premium style, about 25mm and hard polystyrene. The TV series was actually an early ITV joint UK/US co-production and Roger Moore hated doing it apparently!

O is for Out in the Sand!

A box-ticking quickie looking at Cherilea's unquestionably small set of Arab warriors and Foreign Legion figures in 54mm plastic, with two of each 'side', the conclusion must be that they were either testing the water, or designed them for a specific reason/client, maybe 'Beau Geste' cake decorations?

I had totally forgotten I had these, I think the painted originals were in the 'big purchase' from Portsmouth, but the re-issues must have been one of those last Birmingham shows (2010/11) or a PW show of around the same time? This is reaching-with-dagger bloke; the reissue is a bit flashy, while the paint's survived well on the original.

Running-forward chap has had an accident! Again the reissue is flashy and the original's paint means I will try to save him, but I know from past experience - trying to fix these old chalky figures is often more trouble than it's worth.

I actually photographed him first, then did both sides of all the others, so returned to him, them couldn't decide which was the better shot, so used both! Mr. casually-watching-the-manic-hysteria-of-the-other-three guy!

He's a really nice figure and only highlights the lack of a half-dozen other poses! Maybe they had two tools and one was damaged beyond repair before production commenced?

Because I'd forgotten I had these, I was today-years-old (actually yesterday!) when I learnt, or re-learnt that when they were re-issued, they produced a third legionnaire, an officer, from the chap obviously fighting-off the first Arab!

And looking at the bases, they copied the clubbing guy, and gave the copy a heavier base, then re-cut the original tool cavity to produce the officer - who is on the old base?

N is for New-Old Find!

I was moving stuff up to the storage unit yesterday and was looking for a couple of small boxes in the garage to make up a load when I spotted a rather crushed bankers box under something else and though "What the hell's in that?", dug it out and found it was a bunch of missing tubs, split between 'colonial era' and wild west . . . most of which I'd totally forgotten, and a lot of which has now been duplicated over the last few years!

Two of the tubs on the bottom had been deformed by the weight, which had pushed the end of the box over a hard edge, and there was some damage to the contents, but more due to age and three or four moves rather than what's happened to the box!

Anyway I shot a few for some box-ticking posts, and we'll look at a some in a sec', but you can see one of two tubs of Timpo Arabs (top left, the other - underneath - is the grey/white/pale blue poses), the Supreme (as supplied to various others) Wild West (middle bottom), which will make for an interesting comparison post at some point in the future, as it was only last year - I think - that I Blogged the newer versions and noted at the time there were colour variants out there.

We're about to look at two of the others, but bottom right is the 'early British' FFL and Arabs, something I know has been added-to over the years, and which requires a bit of research to get right, so only a glimpse today! Although we did look at some back at the start of the Blog I think.

Altogether there were 25 tubs, and I put them in a 35-litre Really Useful 'Euro' box last night, where there was room for five more, so for now, they got the Polish lollipop-figures (from Chris Smith) and three other's that were hanging around waiting for a home, but the Wild West and Colonial 'master' collections both have other boxes; already in storage, so this lot will be broken down in the near future and sorted into them.

Marx reissue generals (names and solid bases), and copy (? names removed, hollowed-bases) Wild West Characters, nothing special, they were common a while back, and you still see the odd lots' of them on evilBay, I think Marksmen imported the blue ones, not sure about the brown, but I have the WWII Generals/Admirals somewhere in green, blue and brown, so I guess it was all from Ri Toys?

Quick box-ticker of the Crescent Wild West, they are really quite nice figures, anatomically, somewhere between the quality of all the early Swoppets and the hyper-realistic late Timpo set, six of each pose and mounted versions available on the three standard Crescent horses, they fall down on the limited plastic-colour range.

A small lot of mixed Arabian/North African types with two French bazaar copies of Reamsa French (or Spanish) Foreign Legion, a colonial cavalryman (Pech/Reamsa) and two Marx Arabs, one of whom will require the superglue! The chap on his camel (and the camel) are a vulcanised rubber and may also be French, he looks a bit like Quiralu/Wend-Al FFL, could he be from a aluminium mould, anyone know? Next day - JIM or JIM-copy? See comments - following post.

Anyway, that's a taster, there's a few more quickies to come, and when they are all sorted back together we'll look at the rest one day!