M is for Micro-Mini Military Miniatures in Matchboxes

It seems to be an inescapable fact that the longer you collect and/or the wider you cast your eyes, the more obvious it seems that everything made by Western toy makers, under a certain size (about 4-inches), was pirated in Hong Kong at least once! Case in point . . .

. . . here we have the Triang-Minic push-and-go mini-tank (loosely, very loosely based on a Centurion tank) pirated in polyethylene, in a reduced size and sold as a ersatz Matchbox 1-75 type! Simplified with a pair of carpet wheels, it can't have come from anywhere else, as no one else made such a monstrosity of the accurists art!

To accompany it, here's a vague take on the Britains 'Beetle lorry', done as an ambulance. There's no obvious brand on either, a letter 'F' on the ambulance being probably a cavity mark, and an imagination-medal on the box ends holding no clue. A US pattern 6x6 truck and Jeep (probably ex-Dinky) were also available, to my knowledge.

These are in similar 'matchboxes', and are branded to ELM or Elm, a company which was known for producing small vehicular novelties for Louis Marx, in the Dinsneykin size. Indeed, some US sources would have it implied or have you believe Elm were a subsidiary of Marx, but these and what we're about to look-at, would seem to suggest they were only sub-contractors for Marx, free to issue their own production under different brand-marks.

As they are also sold under the Empress Toys label, as kits, now this is where this post falls-down somewhat and could have stayed in Picasa for another year or two, the photo's get a bit muddled/poor, shots weren't taken which I meant to take, and we'll have to return to them at some point, but heay! What the hell!

Anyway, here we have, from the box above, the dark green M44 ('ish) SPG with its corresponding kit, and a loose vaguely Staghound armoured car I had, with its kit. The bi-coloured A/C suggests a third issue at least, at some point?

2-days later - the other one's here!

From the left; French Panhard ERB; Staghound and the T34/85 (seen again below), the M44 seemed to get lost at this point in the photo-shoot, while I didn't do all the card-fronts, so the codes are missing, to which I must add; I never found the one or two I got from Ash, which may be in different packaging, so a bit of a fail overall!

The T34/85's compared, again this was a loose, unattributed sample in the collection until the packaged ones started to show-up, and neither of the boxed or loose pair have markings, but each of the bagged ones have a transfer sheet with basic markings. The kit has black wheels to the colour-matched wheels of the made-up one.

I have a loose turret, apparently from a smallT54/55 or T62*, which happens to sit on the armoured-car, while it waits for its body to turn-up in a junk lot (it will . . . one day!), the little one is an all 'ethylene, probably Christmas cracker/gum-ball novelty and we've looked at both the slightly churchill'ian one (probably a game-playing piece) and the Blue Box style DUKW, which is taken from the Matchbox 1-75 Series before. Finger for scale . . . and I forgot to get the Patton out and shoot it too . . . doh!

 

* When you have to start sending them to Ukraine, with called-up, old-man crews, you're scrapping the bottom of the war-losing barrel Vladimir Vladimirovitch you barking mad-dog fuck. We don't want a nuclear war, and if you start one we will vaporise Russia, you realise that?

H is for How They Come In - November 2021

It's a measure of my failure to catch up with the 'H is for's...', that I'm nearly overtaking the ones still in the queue, as this little lot from Peter Evans came-in last November and it's October tomorrow? Heay-ho, let's go!

These are nice, they seem to be copies of Supreme's copies of Esci-ERTL's 1:35th (approximately 52mm) Germans (in Russia, or 'late war') and Russians, but the quality is such that they are probably from the Supreme tools, for a sub-contractor in polyethylene, rather than the usual PVC and lacking the paint Supreme gave theirs?

Papo or Plastoy medieval horse? I think it's the Papo Mini+ (40mm), two nice 'solid' wrestler characters of unknown origin and a superhero lady-hero in heroic 54mm, but done as a action-figure with a point of articulation at her waist, well, technically, hips.

Crazy Candy Factory, not actually a candy container, but a 'gun-Jeep' with candy in a outer egg, there is a similar one in another post, still in the queue, which I bought when I visited Peter's home stamping ground back in 2019, before the world went totally mad, and I know he has several useful shops for finding this kind of generic or small-maker, traditional novelty stuff.

Another helicopter, of a common modern design, which I will have to check against the others as so far about five have all been slightly different! With which are a handful of Lido Wild West/ACW, including one of my favourite inky-indigo Union troopers!

Cheers to Peter for what was a nice surprise in the run-up to last Christmas, especially after the year I'd had, not that many of us are exactly basking in clover these days . . . boy; it don't rain but it pours!

T is for Tiny Trucks and Traffic Jams

This post has been slowly growing in Picasa for some time, 2016 I think was when Brian Berke sent the first to the blog, and I've been slowly adding bits to the folder ever since, to the point where some of it got shot twice and there are many more unused pictures, than used, ce la vie!

So Brian sent the red/green five in the first two images, while I was able to add three more much later; the yellow, tan and an alternate green. The vehicles, old 'Dine Store' novelties were made by Empire Plastics, but they may have bought some of this stuff in, certainly the relationship with Lido and Pyro's similar smallies is not as clear as some would have you believe, and the sculpts may have originated elsewhere!

Also the Parent was a Canadian firm; Caldwell Enterprises, and the Canadians often produced copies under license . . . or not! These are all manufactured in hard polystyrene.

These also came from Brian, and are far more interesting to me, as they are Hong Kong copies, another Empire came out of the colony while 'Empire Made' was a common moniker on the products of several other companies at the time (1950-60's). I also love the colours of these, they almost look edible!

Bottom-right is a comparison between the original and copy tow-trucks, the loss of what was already little detail, renders it less than clear what the copy is meant to be! The copies are all softer polyethylene.

The Cabriolet seems to have been much copied in Hong Kong (as a gum-ball machine prize?), and I now have three, different sculpts, each of which is very different from the other two, but clearly sharing the same DNA.

The modern equivalent, but not at dime-store prices, are the Rush Hour games from Binary Arts, and here we have some which came in in a loose lot from a charity-shop purchase or two, they have better engraving as far as detail goes that their 1950's ancestors, but are more cartoony or fictional than the earlier vehicles.

A more advanced version of the game for older players has more realistic vehicles (of smaller size/scale) attached to tiles, so you move the whole section according to a set of rules laid-down in the instructions, which also contains the various scenarios for start positions, which can be solved. The aim - in each case - is to get oe or more of the three emergency vehicles to the front of the queues.

I didn't need all that extra plastic (another charity-shop purchase), so proceeded to remove all the vehicles from their tiles, which started hard, but once I'd got one off, it was easy to see how to pop the others off with a  screwdriver!

They also do a steam-train version, safari animals and a junior variant of the original Rush Hour game, which I will look out for in the same charity shops, now they have their own tub!

And am I right in suggesting they are all based on a earlier Traffic Jam game? The trouble is this game - like Crossbows and Catapults - is much licensed and there are lots of current Gridlock, Rush Hour and Traffic Jam's out there!

Comparison between the full size Traffic Jam lorry (black), Empire truck (green) and civilianised ambulance sculpt (yellow) to the right, the left hand image being the screwdriver's 'harvest'!

I also have this set (part set!) of probably European (East Germany?) ones, marked PmL, they could be Hong Kong, or anywhere, and I can't remember where I got them, and can find nothing on them as a firm?

I actually have the equivalent of 12-liters of these civil mini/micro 'Dime Store' or novelty vehicles, in four of the Really Useful Box Co's 3-litre CD boxes, but what unifies the ones in this post is their integral-moulded wheels, all the others - for an/other day/s - have plug-in axle assemblies or plug-on wheels/tyres, none of the ones in this post do.

To which end these are a few more without working wheels! The upper shot is a set of Cereal premiums from the UK, being seven of ten BMC models from Quaker's Sugar Puffs, full set to be seen here.

The lower shot has a few odds; the orange one is almost a solid lump and possibly Hong Kong, the green truck is supposed to be another Empire one, but it too is a heavier sculpt with little in common with the above examples which have much lighter walls.

The 'old crock' is a Hong Kong copy of one of MPC's Minis, the truck in front is a cracker-toy/capsule-prize also from Hong Kong, while the little yellow truck is technically a half-track, usually glued to another Hong Kong product, the copies of Tri-Ang Minic's harbour wharves, where it's glued to the deck of the plastic copy of Minic's die-cast piece. And many thanks to Brian for both lots!

G is for Generations of GI

Flagged a couple of posts ago (I'm alternating figure posts and mini-vehicle posts to get some stuff cleared out of Picasa . . . while catching-up . . . a bit!), these are the US troops from Comansi I picked-up at the London Toy Soldier Show a while-ago.

Pretty wacky, and definitely in the 'toy' section of the model-soldier venn diagram, and we seem to have the three main generations here, with a early one at the top, realistic olive-drab plastic, four-colour paint-job and a smooth, slightly clipped-corner, ovoid base.

Below him to the left is a simpler one with the raised-edge base in more of a pointed-end lozenge and to his right a late, unpainted one in a bright, 'infant' colour plastic.

Not sure about the grey paint on bottom-left, or the grey plastic of top-middle for that matter! But clearly there were many tranches/issues/batches of these over the years, note the all-over painted one is white plastic under the paint - he may be a home-painted 'bright' one?

A couple of bazooka men, again, is the yellow one a home-paint? And again with the grey plastic, were they issued as Marines in grey or something? I thought this might be a interesting post, but it's raising more questions than answers!

From the colour I'm guessing the flag-man (10 stripes and 24 stars??) was an early shot of the late base type as he matched the flat-based one in the first shot, the bottom two are grey and green again?

Previously seen elsewhere shot of them all, all is proves is there's a lot to collect if you want one of each . . . I think I'll stop at this lot, I may have a couple more in the storage GI's and I could grab some more of the late, bright-colours if I see them going cheap, just for a wider sample, but . . . well; they're nothing to write home about, although you can get a Blog-post out of them!

♫♪♪ 666 . . . the Number of the Truck! ♫♪♫

With apologies to Messer's Steve Harris and Co., of Iron Maiden! We're having a quick top-up on the 1-Ton Humber 'Pig' story today, with a few bits that have come-in over the last couple of years. I have in the past added a few images to the original eight-or-so posts on the subject, but as they have their own tag 1 Ton Humber Mini Trucks (which seems to extend to 18 entries with this post?), they can go here!

These are interesting and I've been after some for years, as you can see I only managed three crappily-painted ones, but they were cheap and I only needed a 'sample' to illustrate a point, or the 'missing chapter' of the original posts.

You can see the black paint (old school gloss enamel) has damaged the polystyrene substrate, as has the green to a lesser extent and where the black was laid over the green on the cabs the damage is worse, so the camouflage pattern remains visible, but I hope they will polish up when I find the time in the future.

They were manufactured - unpainted - by Hasbro, sometime in the 1970's (I think), possibly as part of a transporter, ferry or collapsing bridge type playset; I don't know? And are about 1:76/72nd. But the point is, however, they are not of the era of the Dinky original, nor the Pyro mini- or Sam Toy full-size copies.

They are - in fact - completely re-designed/sculpted, to a new degree of detail, and may be the donor for the NFIC trucks, and probably some of the sub-piracy generations of Hong Kong mini-truck. And when I say 'may be', both are slightly wider/flatter or squashed than the Dinky original, but we did see an interim one in a larger size from HK here?

I also picked this set up a while ago, these are the eponymous 666-marked trucks of the title, the type I originally listed as Type 4's, and they seem to be among the commoner variations of these mini-trucks.

The card-art actually shows those early Matchbox 1-75 vehicles known to have been copied by Blue Box, 'Blue Bow' and many others, in both soft polyethylene or hard polystyrene, but the actual contents are just the 1-Ton Humber mini-trucks.

Two cherry-pickers and two tipper/dump-trucks were the slightly disappointing contents, but random packing . . . I guess! 1 purple body, the rest are pink/yellow and more bodies/plug-ins do exist.

I also picked-up the full set of fire vehicles (also Type 4's), but can't remember if I got a card with them and forgot to shoot it, or if they came loose? But I think it is all the body-types for the 'set'?

Inventive if not terribly accurate as to the equipments available in the real world, and in the case of a couple, just construction-site bodies in silver rather than black plastic - cherry picker (top middle) and crane (bottom left), but nice to have them all and tick that box.

The modern holder of that novelty/pocket-money niche; Kinder's efforts from a few years ago, apart from a bit of flash on the basket of the cherry-picker, they are manufactured to a high level of detail/tolerance, come in multi-parts and are made in a more substantial material, with a higher degrees of play-ability through moving parts . . . just harder to find under the blind-bag [egg] model!

S is for Show Report - London, July 2022

Can you believe it's nearly the end of September? I took these at the end of June; seems like yesterday, and the next one is already on the horizon!  I picked-up an eclectic mix of bits at the show, although I notice we've already looked at one!

Starting at the top, since all the good works of Plastic Warrior magazine in bringing the background of BR Moulds to a wider audience, it's fair to say we're all looking around for the various items on the list, and here's one; a Mountie!

He could do with a re-paint, but as one can never know if he was factory painted, small-scale commercial painted or home moulded/painted (his intended fate), it's better to leave him 'as found', I think!

Various purchases during the course of the day, on the left, two celluloid guards from Japan, a probably French ostrich in an unusual pose, one of the standers-by from the Gemodels humpty Dumpty nursery-rhyme vignette and six of the figures which I think come from Monaco, common in France, but I seem to recall they were poly-something, or something-poly from Monaco? Copies of Crescent and MPC with another iteration of 'that' kneeling cowboy pose!

On the right a handful of bits from Adrian Little of Mercator Trading, the lucky-bag Indian (top) is a fantastic range of marbled colours, three bubble-gum premiums and a lead pilot below him and some oddments on the bottom row.

We saw the Supreme contents of the big-bag a while ago here, while we're not talking about the card at the bottom, right-now; inhuman bunch'o bass'turds, we'll return to them when they return to the family of civilised countries, while the Spanish card holds a few Comansi space figures.

I watched someone else almost buy it several times over the course of the afternoon before putting it out of its "will'ee-won't'ee" misery and taking it home myself! Branded to the Battle of the Planets license, it contains the standard, painted-era OVNI ('UFO') space figures.

Speaking of Comansi, someone had a heap of them and I kept going back and getting a few more and a few more until I had a shed-load! Can't remember if it was Gareth or Steve, but they were reasonable on the day! Here we have most of the Italian Infantry from at least four batches, mid-life (thin, ridged-edge bases, factory paint), A German (top right, earlier with a flat base) and a Brit'.

There were a bunch of US troops too, but they will get their own post shortly. These are 'real' toy soldiers in that they are largish, daft poses, quite crude sculpting and wacky weapons in wacky colours, but that makes them more fun, not less!

Nice mix here, again, from around both halls I think, can't remember if the astronauts came from Adrian or somewhere else? But both have still got their nice green faces and their helmets so a very useful addition to that sample, I only need a good robot now, I think?

In the same image; a nice Merten Indian tied to a tree, a French Indian and similar C20th infantryman, prone, a HK copy of a Timpo bear, a French (?) circus horse and the Black Chine pirate from the Isle of Wight.

The Dragon is a tiny bendy about 4cm, all-in, probably from a gum-ball machine's prize capsule, while above him are four really nice figures; a Spanish Dancer and a Spanish bullfighter, who is not from the 'usual suspects' but a slightly smaller, hard 'styrene tourist trinket I've not seen before?

Next to him is a slush-cast Napoleon, also touristy, who has - as his honour-guard - the Babes In Toyland pose from Marx I was missing when we looked at them recently, so a nice box-ticker - dubbed Valiant or Hooligan! I'll call him Bob! I don't know if I have two now? Rather lost track of them!

These were definitely from Adrian, and I think he obtained them the same day I got my original set, about 15/20 years ago, so I know how cheap he let me have them for and thank him. It's a full set of the Raja ice-cream premiums from Regimento ("The Regiment"), but a cleaner sample of the red/blue than mine, which I specifically chose for the other colour figures.

With a couple more 'other' coloured ones which came in from Chris Smith a while back and another from a show, it means I now have a really nice sample of these. Below them is one of those dress-up/play hunting-horn Indian 'riders'.

On the left we have more premiums, Flintstones and some Gem 'popsters' . . . I can't stop buying them, as there's so many colours and I've had enough luck with drum sets, so aim to make up several whole bands!

To the right more French production, Brian explained about Harry's box the other day, and I managed to get my mitts in it before everything had been hoovered-up, among which were these - some of the other French stuff, mentioned above, came from the same source.

The named Indians are what they are, while the knight is a copy of someone else's figure I think, but the two Zouave types are early SEGOM and a really nice find, we looked at the small scale back at the beginning of the blog, and I knew of both larger versions and the metal production, but I had no idea these existed in plastic, obviously the one on the right is missing a standard or flag and pole.

T is for Teeny-Tiny Taiwanese Trucks, Tanks and Tippers!

I picked these up a few weeks ago, as a cheapie on that there evilBay, I don't know anything about them, and the only clue is a small, uneven 'TAIWAN' on the underside of each vehicle/a single component.

I suspect they are [earlyish?] examples of what the Japanese call Gashapon, or vending-machine toys, but - obviously - Taiwanese in origin, and as we will see, very much 'box scale' and simplified, but charming for that. They are also quite idiosyncratic, so we'll start with the easy one!

It's basically a 6x6 Pinzguaer high mobility all-terrain vehicle/artillery tractor, or similar militarised 'mini-van' type vehicle, and comes in at around the 1:90th mark, which would make it an additional asset to a Roco or Roscopf army! It's even in a similar olive-drab colour, and consists of five parts; three clip-in wheels and two body-halves.

The Gepard-decorated box actually contains a late-mark (1A5?) Leopard MBT with a pair of carpet wheels for perambulation. As the build-instructions are for the same, I don't know why they went with a Gepard SPAAG for the artwork? But I did say the set was idiosyncratic!

An idiosyncrasy which continues with this pair, where each has the other's exploded construction view on the back of the box! The heavy ore-truck was lacking a pair of wheels, but they are the same mouldings as the 'Pinzgauer' so I nicked a pair of them for the shots, while the bulldozer will need tracks made-up, which I will do one day from old inner-tube and cyclist's rubber cement.

The final two are a really rather good jeep (basic wheels mind!) and what is best described as a simplified Stridsvagn 103 'S-Tank', but it could just as easily be an attempt at a Scorpion CVRT! It comes from the box with a Tiger I as artwork! You can see the underside is the same as the Leopard's.

The whole line-up, with the dump-truck retaining the spare wheels! The boxes shout 1970's at you, but at least two of the vehicles depicted are screaming 1990's, so your guess is as good as mine as to when/where these first appeared, and I suspect - from the limited number of duplicated parts - there are more to the full range.