B is for Building Brick Blocks . . . I Bloody Loved 'Em!

We all had them, my earliest toy memories are of them, up until about 6 or 7-years of age (when playing 'army' or Cowboys & Indians outside and Lego or Meccano indoors began to take over), these were the toys I played with most; the collection of slowly disappearing bricks which were kept in an old draw-string topped sack or gym-bag.

When I cleared the garage after the leak was fixed, I found a still soggy-bottomed and much the worst for wear cardboard box, that turned out to be our old bricks which Mum had kept; nostalgia, see!

They must have reminded her of our childhood, as much as they did me when I found them - you may remember I also found the old family cake-decorations in the garage a little earlier and Blogged them at the time. Anyway I bagged them, as I saved them from their puddle of nastiness and left them, open, in the greenhouse to dry-out.

A few weeks later I was having the board-game photo-shoot on the lawn and shot them too, the late, great and still missed Girly-Girl thought she would help, first by sitting on them and then by conducting an initial inspection!

I have now bonded with her son - Boysey-Boy, naturally! Actually Katie and Cassius. Basically, I feed him and he fucks-off for hours at a time and comes back with fighty-bitey marks, wanting more food! He recently nearly died from a nasty wound and cost me 1300-quid in vet's bills! It's like American human-healthcare; going to the vet's these days!

And he's been 'done', that's what I don't get, even the vet said his face looked 'intact'; apparently he has choppy-whiskers? After 14-days of confined to house with a cone-of-shame, he went straight back out and got a claw-mark in his shaved-patch, millimeters from his just healed stitches!

Anyway, back to bricks; this is what had survived the 55-odd years since they started accruing, a mixed bunch, here, on the lower left, they have been separated into thematic piles which were then washed - lower right-hand image. You can also see - top left - the little green man from our racing car, already Blogged, who was another strong childhood memory.

If I was the sort of toy collector who wanted to monetise with several websites, a Twitspace, Insta', a Facebook group, Vlogging site and the odd TV appearance (and some do, very successfully) I could - of course - go to a large toy store and buy modern products which are either exactly the same, or so similar as to make no difference, prepare backgrounds, use lights &etc.; to produce something far more polished as an overview of 'Building Bricks' But this is meant to be a vintage Blog, and for reasons of pure nostalgia I'd rather get a Blog post out of this childhood detritus!

While he was Commandant of Brecon, Dad rebuilt a Welsh stone cottage; Tai Hirion, from the ground up, in his spare time, and any useful off-cuts would be added to the brick-bag, and these are what are left after those many years. I suspect the arch and half-moon were more . . . 'custom' pieces!

They, being untreated, had survived the damp worst of all and many went to the compost as shoddy (dry rot) during the recovery phase, but there were enough left for an Airfix 6x6 to take some supplies up to! I imagine an Italian village being liberated, circa 1944!

The truck-load is what's left of one of those 'tap and something' (?) sets, which came with a baize-covered, wood-framed, cork sheet, a hammer, an assortment of coloured wood shapes and lots of little brass nails? They were sort of next thing-up from Fuzzy felt, which we never had, but friends did and I loved that too! There's also half a wooden version of the Christmas Cracker pyramid puzzle toys, we seen before here.

Peg-leg Pete (Kipp brothers?) is defending my favorites of these square blocks, real 'early learning' stuff, they often used (and still do) to come in little wheeled trucks or trolleys, although I don't think his actually did. They have machined alphabet letters on two sides, nicely finished in gloss paint, two numerals branded-in on the other two sides of that 'equator' line, with animals on the bottom, also hot-metal branded, while the top is a blank face.

It meant you could do '3 X DUCKS ڲڲڲ' if that makes sense within the constraints of ASCII code limits! And with about 40 bricks, there were plenty of letters, numbers and pictures. I can find a similar set from Playskool from 1978, but these were pre-1968!

And they were early examples of mechanical 'computer' aided manufacture (CAM), in that a cam-bar with bends, peaks and troughs was followed by a 'pointer' roller, which used a slaved pantograph to transfer the coded information of the contours to a milling-head on a wood-lathe or router, which milled out whichever letter that bar was the 'former' for, the whole process automated, a bit like the holes in the punched cards of self-playing pianos or the pins in the drum of a music-box.

The Hing Fat mob are hiding behind a barrier of blocks I was never that keen on, even as an infant, because (Asperger's!) my visio-spatial sensibilities couldn't get themselves round the fact that the gold-foil letters stamped into the face of the bricks were A) not fucking straight, or centered! And B) faded as they rubbed-off (that's an E on the end) with play! They may have been Hong Kong knock-offs?

The Airfix Guards are establishing the size variation of otherwise similar bricks from different sets.

"X marks the spot"

"There isn't an X though?"

I hate them so much I shot them twice? Another thing which annoyed me about them was that four of the edges were rounded off with ogee profiles, but the other eight weren't, so you had to be careful placing them if you had a form of ADHD which wouldn't be diagnosed for another forty-odd years  . . . and which I don't really believe in anyway; we're all on the 'spectrum' somewhere!

The plastics; they haven't survived at all well, there were several cup towers, which have totally vanished, bar the powder-blue one, while most of Mr. Hilary Page's Pyramid Rings (the other two are 52 and 53) have also gone for a Burton's and not come back! I think the red one is a storage/anti-corrosion cap off the terminal of a Morris Traveller's battery!

While the blow-moulded blocks (pretty-sure these were Blue Box, not because my memory is that good, but I think I've seen them on evilBay) were awful, they crushed easily, the corners could be paper-thin, and I mean cigarette or bible-paper thin! And dogs, cats and young me, or my brother, could chew holes in them!

The other (yellow) item in the pile of rubble being skirted by a contemporaneous Airfix Jeep is the base of a Playcraft railway's road-sign or street-light. The rest of that childhood set are still around, but in storage and I will Blog them, before they go on feeBay - at some point in the future.

I did know (do know, but can't find the resource) who made the little railway, I've a picture of one on the dongles somewhere I think, but surfice to say it came with three ore-hoppers like this one and a little locomotive, a real infant's carpet toy! They were joined with simple chrome-plated hooks-and-eyes, long since rusted to buggery.

Below is one of the things I loved about the sets in the final image below, the way they all nested together in their boxes, trolleys or little lorry/truck to make-up complete layers.

Another comparison, with the Berserker who hasn't been pulling his weight much recently! The church spire was part of a larger modular set, which was probably German, and the orange side bit pivots down to be a wall or ramp? There were various holes in the larger elements, with smaller elements having a matching dowel glued-in, and they all went together in various configurations, the roof is also removable.

These were my favorites of all, we had two or three sets or part sets (we used to get a lot of our toys at the church-fêtes and jumble-sales, so they weren't always complete or 'with packaging'!

And while they all followed  a vague set of 'industry standard' rules, regarding colour and/or shape, they didn’t always match exactly in diameter or length, so you had to be careful pairing them up to build things straight or level!

Glossy painted wood, smaller unit size than most of the above, and there were usually pillars in one or two sizes, acute and equilateral 'roof' pieces, longer beams and shallower half-depth plates, the arch 'bridges' and the half-circles or rounded-corners which went inside them for packing - I loved them, it was all about the colours!

The beams were multiples of the cubes (which matched the rounded corners), they were so bloody tangible, they could keep you playing for a whole rainy-afternoon! I remember one of our friends had a set with different colours and his rounded pieces were apple-green instead of the indigo of ours; I was so jealous!

Most of the wood in the above article started the first fire of autumn 2020, as kindling, it was sad, but nothing last forever and the water damage was too great to keep them hanging about. Little did I know that within three months Girly-Girl and Mum would have gone too.

A bit maudlin, I know; but with all the Monarchy stuff going-on in the background right now, and the inordinate amounts of death in the last three years, I think we are all a tad contemplative these days? And it's the 11th of September today, bloody month needs to be taken out of the calendar and replaced with a happier one  . . . and Autumn is normally my favorite time of year!

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.