C is for Composition Civilian Contribution

You may recall from previous posts on them that I have a bit of a soft-spot for these craft-oriented plaster (today's examples) or terracotta (previously seen) figures from India (which, after 43-years of 'Free Market' Tory policy which "will provide" has just overtaken us in the wealthy country register! Go Brwreakshit!), and these from Brian Berke are a particularly nice example.

I can't add much to the pictures, but they are all annotated on the base, probably by the owner rather than the maker, as they are a tad confusing, I will go through them, two at a time, as much for fun as anything else!

Starting from the left we have a chap described as a clerk, on the base he is further marked Momarir, which seems to have no meaning, Clerk is Kalaraka in Punjabi, Kērāni in Bangla, Kārakuna in Gujarati or Marathi, Klerk in Hindu or Lipikaru in Sinhalese, yet Google wouldn't suggest it as a personal name either? It (momarir) is however 'Architects' in Arabic?

The figure next to him is described as a water-carrier, with Pan-Harin or Pan-Harim in brackets, both of which claim to be Indonesian (under 'detect language') but with no further translation of meaning, pan-harim with an 'm' further claims Turkish as it's mother-tongue! However, water, oil or gee is clearly being carried!

The third from the left is described as a begger-woman (Binka-Rin?), but looks more like a musician or entertainer of some kind, she seems to be holding a form of drum or percussive instrument? Also while plainly-dressed,  her shawl is egde-decorated, qite colourfully ad her undershiry is a bright red, so hardly giving-off an aura of destitution?

The chap in scarlet is annotated as Peon (Chipras-si?), which comes up as a Marathi word, but again no translation and Google's desperate to make it Alexis Tsipras of the current Greek opposition party!

A peon is a lowly peasant in South America, but this guy is dressed as a minor prince from one of the semi-autonomous states, or a palace flunky / senior member of the native-recruited civil or military service in his Delhi Durbar finery - with all that scarlet and gold?

The last two are straightforward and make perfect sense; she is described as Queen (Rani) and a Queen is a Rani in Hindi, while the last chap is titled Washer Man (Dhobi), and you should all be familiar with dhobi wallahs being the laundry staff of the British in India (and elsewhere once the word was assimilated and carried throughout the Empire by the Army) via 1970's comedies, if nothing else, along with punka-wallahs who operated the big sheet-fans!

The fact that the last two are correctly titled/identified and the few other clues suggest to me they might be the cast-name characters in a post-colonial, Indian-written play of the 1950's or '60's which was popular enough at the time to produce a set or two of plaster figurines, but not lasting enough to leave a footprint on Google sixty or seventy years later?

Lovely figures, and from the bases (different design and plaster colour), two part sets? Scaler looks to be a Britains' hollow-cast from set 2095 French foreign Legion. Can anyone shed more light on the various names/titles? Many thanks to Brian - top feed for Small Scale World!

The Queen is Dead - God Save the King

I was going to give you plaster figures from India this afternoon, but events - as they say - had other ideas, so I think this is more appropriate, file under the nostalgia thread.

This is my Grandfather's baton; not any-old baton, not a sports-day baton, not a parade-ground baton, not an "I'm in charge of this ship today" baton, but the baton of an usher at the marriage of Princess Elizabeth Windsor and Philip Mountbatten (Nee Prince Phillip of Greece and Denmark) which took place on Thursday 20 November 1947 at Westminster Abbey in London.

I would imagine there were several hundred ushers, and I don't suppose any of them got to enter the Abbey or sit through the wedding service, as they were there to hold back crowds and direct people or traffic as a near day-long programme of 'Pomp & Circumstance' unfolded, giving new hope - and a reason for a knees-up - to a nation still struggling to shake-off the aftermath of total war.

The baton's really only a wooden dowel, painted, with a gilded-brass badge nailed to it, but it's not what it is, it's what it represents, it's the symbology of nationhood, of continuity, of the hopes of the age, of service, loyalty, pageant, and it's a reminder of the fact that history is also today.

And - on this saddest of days for our nation - also a reminder that nothing lasts forever, but that we are all the products of that history.

News, Views Etc . . . Herald Toys & Models Back From Summer Break

 Latest news from Barney was heating the ether on Tuesday;

". . . this week we have added some more SALE items to our stock and will be continuing to add more figures from the Wiltshire collection, over the coming days and months, including some Deetail models (though the majority of literally several hundred Deetail models from the collection will be available via our sister Herald Toys and Models eBay Shop). To assist European, USA/Canadian and Australian/New Zealand collectors we are happy to issue a dummy invoice upon request and place it on the outside of your package (please contact Barney directly for more details if you are interested). It is now a little over 9 years since the launch of the website and I just wanted to thank everyone for your continued support and hope you continue to find the myriad of figures of interest."

Barney's site - for latecomers - is to be found here.

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

I was over at John Begg's a week or two before the last London Show (report in the queue!) and he managed to foist a bunch of polymer loveliness on me, which we are looking at now, back from mid-June, you can see how everything slides!

Starting with an odd one, I didn't open it or shoot the contents very well as I thought they would be something common, like generic-packaged Billy V or BMC, but when I came to check - after they'd gone to storage, I couldn't place them.

Indeed, from what you can see here they are a bit of a Curate's egg; the marching Confederate looks to be a HaT 1:72nd scale copy, the kneeling Unionist has no base while the advancing Rebel looks more Comet-Authenticast or Spencer Smith? they also have small cannons (x2) and some mounted figures.

Pretty sure they aren't Imex, Imex-Billy V or BMC, BMC- Americana they don't look like the Hing Fat-Billy V, nor any of the obvious; Revel/Accurate, Esci/Italeri or A Call to Arms, so, for now: China [semi-] originals, in un-branded packing  . . . anyone know anything different, I don't think they are very old? They are now a priority for a re-look at the other end of my - currently stagnated (although HMRC found the missing £10K!) - journey.

The next day -  Loyal Readers to the rescue; Gisby recognised them as being Marx'y, and Peter Evans gave me the following "Those 45mm ACW figures were sold at a tourist concession at Gettysburg They are mainly scaled down copies of Marx 60mm figures, apart from a couple of Deetail copies and Peter's Replicants lying Confederate.", doubly useful info., as I'd not measured them either, so they are 'generic' sub-scale tourist trophies!

When I posted some carded Jean sets, an RTM or two ago, one of the PSTSM's little German shills posted some too! A while later, with the immortal word 'rare'! Please believe me, there is nothing rare about Jean carded sets, they are on eBay every day, these types are 1970's, early 1980's even, and while they tend to be a bit pricey, bargains can be had if you wait, but they are not rare!

This one is 'unusual', consisting of a variation on the Dulcop Charley Kit or Super Charley cartoonish, infant-toy Puppies figures*, and all civilian in this set, with a truck around 1:48/50th? and figures about 54mm, but still . . . not rare.

* A direct translation gives the same puppies as in 'baby dogs', but I suspect an infantile diminutive of the German Puppen for dolls giving Puppies (pronounced; poopees) for 'dollies', 'small dolls' or 'dollettes'?

Four Blue Box Russians; top left, which, with the three that came in a while ago (not shown, Chris, Peter, eBay?), made the full set without me ever getting my incomplete ones out of storage! Bargain!

Below them more Blue Box - knight (much-needed original weapon) and Tarzan, a useful Spot-On Policeman, and three of the many-branded (Tomy, Pressmann, ActionGT et al.) Crossbows & Catapults floor-game figures.

Right above is a mix of bits including a lead para' wargames figure, half an 'Old Bill' Bus Tommy (the other half may be in their bag!) from Airfix, and unusual ACW figure from Hong Kong, Marx Miniature Masterpiece totem-pole, Preiser Bundeswher Engineer from the river-crossing set and some other junk!

Bottom right is a nice Hong Kong stretcher-team, which may be (from the platic colours) two versions/makers or two batches - another Marx knock-off.

A right old mix here! Top left are some more of the educational supplies / cracker prize items, four Indians (I've just learned were cereal premiums in Canada - thanks Gisby), another Dinky clone road-worker, half a handful of comic-ad' AWI and some other novelty bits.

Top right are a probably French lead gun (RF, RL, SR . . . something with an R in!), and an anthropomorphic donkey, which may be from a Spanish or similar (Portuguese, Italian or French?) TV series? Rather nice, some age and while the paint is a bit chipped, he still sits/rests on his tail which you might expect to be missing!

John also insisted I take a bag of bits which included a bunch of rockets and missiles form Corgi, Dinky and Matchbox, along with ones for the Hong Kong pull-back tanks and armoured cars and a load of kit spares, while other bits include a flag-pole, pile-of-bricks lorry load (Eldon?) and some HVSS suspension/road-wheel units off of a large kit; 1:25, 1:30?

 

This was so nice I shot the arse out of it, you may remember we had the Barratt & Sons flying ducks from this range of doll's house furnishings, years ago, courtesy of Adrian Little I think, but this is so much more fun, No.2: Aquarium, four little goldfish in a little tank, we actually had one when we were kids, AND it had a green enameled wrought-iron frame with glass panels sealed-in with bitumen, which would spring a leak from time to time!

Small scale odds included a bag of Giant and Giant-like bits, a nice 'Cracker wagon', some Blue Box khaki infantry, a Preiser wagon, the top half of a Matchbox petrol-station attendant (the bottom half is part of the die-casting which includes the fuel-pumps and base), a bag of mixed Wild West and a bag of rack-toy 'army-man' bits.

Money changed hands, but not near what it was all worth and only because I insisted, so really it's another contribution to the Blog / Master Collecton - once it's all sorted out at the other end - Cheers John!

K is for Kinder's Klassic Kapsule Kombatants

When it comes to Kinder figures, these are among the most sought-after by the 54mm purists which gives them a bit of a premium they probably don't deserve, which makes them harder to collect purely on cost, but I have had some success except with the Egyptians, where I've only managed to find one - and I forgot to shoot him!

These aren't even that old; 1990's, yet there's one on evilBay at the moment for which the seller is asking £117! They. Are. Not. Rare. I've only been picking them up since about 2010 and I've managed to find between six or eight (?), some here and some in storage, now they're all in storage, and it's actually the ones which were in the garage we're looking at today.

Each was available in all four colours and bases seem to have been random with black or a few shades of green and they are hardly animated, a quick dry-brush of silver and they're best suited for the corridors or lobbies of large dolls houses! But lovely sculpts and - without being an expert on such things - from the high-point of armour design; sort of Tudor'beathan?

This is a 'phew' moment, the rather pathetic contents of my Samurai bag, now, we've seen the archer a few times here I think, in mixed lots, of which one was painted, the others damaged, so it's nice to be reminded I had a good one, also 1990's and a little smaller as around 50mm.

The torso however, kept as a spare part 'in case' is just what I need for one we saw recently in a lot from Chris Smith (last image), who's sword was broken, but was otherwise OK, and with only the two poses in the set I believe, I've now got them both in good condition, an irony as I used to give them away to friend's kids when I was a small-scale collector!

Also much sought-after, and also NOT RARE, because also only the 1990's, the Wellingtonians probably benefit from a firm gluing at the waist and a decent paint job, like the knights they came in four colours, and can all be found in each colour I think, so you can swap legs for variety, but they are really clip-together (or 'pop-together') rather than swoppets, although (and unlike the knights) can have their heads swapped, which might produce other units/ranks, if you know you Nappy uniforms?

Flyer for them, again I remember getting these and giving them away in the early 1990's, made for Kinder by Res Plastics (RP) of Milan, I don't think they ever got a separate issue, but they may have done, and certainly some dealers in the past seem to have cleared unused stock, while I've mentioned the current daft-price knight, there are some reasonable Italian (and German) eBayers selling ex-Capsule toys, often in sets for sensible sums.

Arguably (along with the Egyptians), the finest figures of their type in Kinder's oeuvre, the yellow-tan ones seem harder to find, and being more 'swoppet', they can get changed around, so I'm not sure there's four different here, but you will be looking for four of each leg-pair, torso, loin cloth, shield, necklace and headdress to have all of them, and a flyer would help which I'm also short-of, although there will be a reference picture in the O-ei-A guides.

We saw these back at the start of the blog, so just a reminder and all marked RP for Res, I'm pretty sure everything in this post is by them, and the change from the rather crude stuff which was issued in the 1950's is obvious. You can see in the left-hand bag, these because a source of 'vintage' space helmets for unscrupulous dealers, looking to enhance older figures or the German/Spanish bubblegum figures, so are harder to find intact now.

Other swoppet types were made for Kinder, or supplied to them while having separate issues by the likes of CGGC (Cane-Grisoni; mostly vehicles/motorcycles), Giocattolo, Techno Giodi, Giopi (Wild West) and others, and I do have a few for another day, indeed we've seen one or two here in the past (ACW, Tarzan) but most of them are a lot more fiddly (Wild West and Samurai), and some of them (pirates) are also rather daft-looking!

P is for Pop is Eating Itself

I've mentioned it before, but this is a particularly sublime example of the genre, as two sets of Tolkein stuff hit the streaming platforms, not quite as Worhol'esque as Star-Wars-Super-Deform-Angry-Bird Pencil Tops, but here, we are looking at a real-world toy line, of characters in a fictional back-story animated movie of fictional characters in an older animated movie franchise, who are fictional toys, it doesn't get much more navel-gazing as an example of 'all out of ideas'!

We/re back with Phidal for the toys within toys licensed toys! Only ten items again, which seems to be the new normal under the cost of living crisis, but the playmat will iron-out at some point in the future and provide and excellent backdrop for space photo's.

Good guys, from the left for those who haven't caught the movie are; Buzz Lightyear (obviously!), Darby Steel (a lady, on parole); Commander Alisha Hawthorne (Buzz's trainer); granddaughter, Izzy Hawthorne and Maurice "Mo" Morrison.

Bad guys, Zurg (purple) and one of his automaton Zyclops's, I am one of those who haven't seen it, although it looks like fun, but I believe it's all about Zurg being a 'Bond villian' (in space) and Buzz saving the world!

Other items, Buzz;s ship (XL-01), an irritating (I'm sure) R2D2 knock-off and a cat, Sox the robotic cat to be precise! We make allowances for cats even if they are the annoying kid/Zoony/Jar Jar Binks/Daggit character! And I don't know if it is; I haven't seen the movie!

T 'other sides! Out there now, must be one of the latest sets from Phidal, the Movie only came out at the beginning of the summer, and nice figures . . . as styles change in the real world, so they change in pop-culture and - space armour wise - I feel these would go well with Halo figurines of similar size - 60mm'ish.

News, Views Etc . . . SCS Direct

Looking for something else the other day (current Supreme stuff!) I noticed SCS Direct have a new set out, a variation of an old set and new formats of existing sets, so this is a quick update with all Amazon/SCS Direct publicity images.

The zombie set is now available in glow-in-the-dark green polymer, this is the large tube with 98 figures, so worth getting together with a  couple of mates and sharing out the contents, but if I remember rightly, this was one of the less evenly distributed pose-count sets, but with only the one colour, there should be enough for two or three of you to get at least one of each? Poor image but you get the idea!

They are now offering a set of dinosaurs under the Wicked Duels / WD brand-mark, only ten poses, they are 'size scale', i.e. no particular scale, all around the same size and no Dimetrodon, so they can sodding wait! They also come in the larger tubes or as a set of ten in a new, smaller packaging.

NASA style astronauts are also new, it looks like the accessories (shuttle, satellite and rock) are limited in number per set, but they aren't the more important element if you're a figure collector, but to be honest the figures are not terribly inspiring sculpts either. Nice touch are the pair (man and woman) with their helmets off.

The new smaller-format idea has been extended to the previously-seen monster and fantasy creature sets, again with one of each you're getting what may not be a consistent half-and-half as far as the two shades of grey go.

None of these (above) seem to be currently available, direct from UK importers, yet, but some of the US / China sources probably ship if you can bear the postage and shipping charges; I'll wait!

H is for Hinchliffe's Heavy-metal H'artillery!

Shot these a while ago, but an email from Gisby earlier today on another matter reminded me they were in the queue, so I finalised the editing of the photographs this evening and they can go up, we don't have enough metal here, but it was and is again mostly in storage!

Couple of variations in Hinchliffe packaging, with a later poly-bag on the left and one of the earlier boxes on the right, they soldiered-on is shops like my local; Concord Models for years as shop-stock boxes though.

Between them are the two Wellingtonian guns I have, one unpainted might be from the 30mm range - ME/30/1 - British 9 PDR. 1800-1860 - while the other painted is the same as the one in the bag, from the 25mm range: 25/K - British Napoleonic 9LBR Gun.

You can see the larger piece is much better made and more detailed, I wondered if it was the 24lbr., from the 25mm range, but am pretty sure now it's the 30mm piece, they (Hinchliffe) also made 54mm stuff, distributed through Rose Miniatures for a while.

Detail shots of the larger piece, the chains have been soldered-in by the owner/modeller, as have the buckets. not much more I can say, it is what it is, a bare-metal casting, assembled! Scale aside - this piece has a narrower track than the 25mm 9lbr.

Catalogue image, it doesn't say what it is, but my crew have the typical heavy, oblong/square bases of the 25mm range so this may be the 30mm set, but the gun looks a bit basic?

I also shot these as a bit of fun; Hinchliffe gave you a paper flag with each bearer, but you had to colour them in yourself! Quite a good idea with the English Civil War, as a lot of them followed a similar pattern/format but were all different colours with dots or stars and things (rank-amateur vexillologist talking here) you'd need to draw/paint onto the main field, but I wouldn't fancy painting the small French one, they're busy little buggers, while you'd need a steady hand to do the nappy 'Queens Colour' Union-flag one justice!

B is for But Is It Giant - Vikings

I've put the loose Giant Viking stuff up on the Giant or What? Blog, nothing exciting, bit of a box-ticker, but I realised I'd done no small-scale stuff over there during the recent Rack Toy Month!

I've shown the copies too, side-by-side, along with ship, fort, mounted figures and ex-Marx catapult.

F is for Follow-up - Supreme and it's Customers

Well, we seem to be at the end of Rack Toy month, yet I've barely touched Rack Toy Month; hardly any of the stuff left over from last year (a couple of the knights posts?) got done, hardly any of the other stuff earmarked for this year's RTM, none of the Indian Canoe posts (which have been added to), a bunch of shelfies from Brian B, non of mine (well those daft wheeled dino's aside!), it seems not much really, yet we've seen over 30-posts so there must have been something!!

Anyway, I think, while I have other stuff to go, and some H is For's to clear before the next Sandown Park show (only a few weeks away?), I'll try to keep going with the HK/China cheapie stuff through September, just to get some of it out of Picasa.

In the meantime - two pieces which missed the Supreme posts; the above was in Playwrite's 2006 trade catalogue and shows one of the smaller sets, consider selling these (note the different contents of the boxed one)  at a petrol station or corner shop for £5.50 (if bought in at the blue price) or a mere fiver (if bought at the red price) and there's always a least 25% profit  in there, plus, those red and blue prices must have some profit for Playwrite built-in, so god knows what the 'Unit Price' is, but it must be less than peanuts, pound-for pound, or kilo-for-kilo!

This got missed in the final post of that previous sequence (The Supreme tag will get all of them up), it's a Toysmith set of the cheap polyethylene versions of the small Esci copies as also carried by Halsall / HTI and Kandytoys.

News, Views Etc . . . Ukrainian Video

My friend Oleksandr Batrak, last heard of helping out damaged buildings in Kyiv, has made a video with his friend Oleh Smorchkov, unfortunately the AI lady-robot translation is a bit idiosyncratic, but the video is interesting, and you can buy the figures he makes (mostly 40mm) from his Facebook page (search for Александр Батрак) occasionally, the Polish Winged Hussars are lovely . . . anyway; enjoy;

Hmmmm . . . I think that Hauptmann at the end had some lucky dice!

СЛАВА Україні!

SLAVA Ukrayini!

Slava Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!

F is for Follow-ups - Space Stuff

Sorting folders I've found two readers contributions following up on stuff from ages ago, so I'd better get them up here before they get any older!

Apologies to all, you will by now have realised it's organised chaos at this end, and with about 800 folders on toys and toy stuff, things do just 'disappear'! Sometimes they actually disappear; it seems that from time to time Picasa will just stop showing a folder on the scroll, so every year or so I try to find an hour or two to go through the 'My Pictures' folder, looking for both empty folders and folders which have been lost / forgotten or hidden by Picasa's ornery rules!

This was sent to the Blog by a loyal reader in Finland (he's since sent me something equally interesting, which is on-hold due to current events in the Independent Republic of Ukraine), and shows playing pieces for a board game which you will recognise as the Reisler spacemen (one shown) but in plain / primary coloured plastic; red one damaged. We partially tied them to Thomas's space figures here.

The game is by a Danish manufacturer Adolph Holst of Aalborg and called Avaruuspeli or 'Space Game', published in Danish there are also Finnish language versions ('rare birds' in the contributor's words!).

The same company produced a WWII type board game; Taistelupeli (or 'Conflict Game'), an example of which can still be seen here, but it's a sales site so it won't be there for ever! You can see it also has undecorated Reisler figures as playing pieces, the rather generic 'combat infantry'.

While Ed Berg sent these as a follow-up to Brian Berke's follow-up to a spring-launched missile post I did!

They are another version of MPC's rocket launcher, the missiles are very different to those shown in the original post. A smarter version still can be seen on Ed's excellent Blog here, while this is awesome!

Cheers guys, it's all bricks in the wall! It's all appreciated and it all makes it here - eventually!

A is for Audit of Alien Astrofarers!

Yeah, well, with well-over four thousand posts now, the thesaurus needs to be dug out occasionally! It's a brief look at a small sample of Kinder and Kinder-like Aliens to finish a flying visit to the subject!

One of the first shots I took off evilBay about 18 years ago (the date on the image is the 1st of January 4501?!!), these were late 1980's I think, and there were equally cartoony, mounted knights and cowboys in the line, I should have a couple somewhere, but they weren't in the main pile when it pased accros my bows the other day; Robot's on Robot horses!

They are small, about 28/30mm equivalent, but the horses - particularly - are styled very-much like the Hing Fat 'Galaxy Cowboys', while the riders are styled like Arco's or Pikit/Gordy Bi-Tron robots so could be used as scout/reconnaissance units in an army of rack-toy robots!

These seem to be quite common, in that I have three and keep seeing them on feeBay, but the other item in the pair/set seems harder to track down, it was a similar balance/move toy. Three aliens in mini-saucers, 2000's I think, up to no-good!

This was from 2002, and while the creature looks like the Aliens in the previous mobile, the fact that the other member of the pair has polar-bears (with the biggest in-scale mushroom-house you ever saw!), he may be meant to be a more earthly thing like a caterpillar? But he's taking photographs, so I suspect an Alien reconnaissance team for the saucer aliens!

2010's for these and the next lot, I meant to get more of them at the time, but budget constraints and the randomness of 'blind-bag' purchasing curtailed that idea! I don't know if they are Aliens or robots or battle-suits, but they were quite cool given how shit Kinder toys got for a while once MPG had taken-over the toy side of the Ferrero chocolate eggs.

They are semi-action figure with swiveling legs and ball-socket arms to give them a surprising level of articulation for such small things and - of course - the arms can be swapped around between 'platforms'.

These came out at around the same time as the previous lot and are only spoiled by the googley-eyes which could be removed to make them more spacey 'mech's'? They are more sort of junkyard, or anthropomorphic robots? I can't remember if there's an element of interchangeability with them and didn't try while photographing, I think if there is any, it's minimal and accidental?

Another one from Metro (Leoni), and I can't remember if I found him somewhere, or if he was in the lot from Peter Evans, but thanks to Peter anyway, he gave me a bag-full, most of which may never appear here! You never-know though; there's - hopefully - plenty of RTM's, or capsule 'round-ups' still in my future?

Not sure if he is meant to be a robot, an Alien or an ice-monster? And he's the sort of 40mm LRG (soft rubberised polymer, or 'elastomer') you will find credited to gum-ball machines, because he was to be found in gum-ball machines, when he wasn't in a budget chocolate egg!