Minimodels is also for Almark!

I got a bit shirty a while ago and chucked this first-image up elsewhere, with a 'Sigh', after I had posted one lot (Minimodels) and someone (who clearly couldn't see his nose in front of his face) started lecturing me on how they were the other lot (Almark). Then, even as he'd been corrected, a couple of others' made the same mistake on that and another post, or thread, or whatever you have on Faceplant!

 

Now, don't get me wrong, people already know I'm prickly, or if they haven't learned that, they may have a surprise coming at some point in the future, especially if they cross me, but I don't get this almost teenage attitude among new collectors to open their mouths before they've even read what's in front of them; we're taking grown men in their forties here . . . late forties and fifties mind, not kids. 

 

It's great that there are a lot of new people in the hobby, that's obvious, and it proves the naysayers wrong, with their regular moan of 'Our hobby's dying' . . . Incidentally, everyone keeps saying the Metal hobby is dying, but actually even tatty hollow-cast seems to retain high values on evilBay?

 

And when watching this phenomena I am reminded that it is some miracle my father didn't murder me when I was a teenager - although he almost did the day I broke the 'unbreakable' fork; descending on me from the tractor-cab like a Ring-Wraith! But forks aside, I did ask an inordinate number of stupid questions.

 

I would literally think of something a bit dimwitted, and before I'd given it a moment's thought, ask the obvious! Dad was very good, he'd fix me with his look for such occasions and say "Think about it?", I'd realise I'd asked another dumb question, give it a moment's thought and go "Oh yeah! It is" or whatever!

 

It is similar with some new collectors, they don't bother to learn from the websites or magazine, but rather assume from half-understood bits, or ask about stuff which has been done to death elsewhere as if no one's ever covered it!

 

I'm probably being unfair, but then that's me, and when you post Almark and someone tells you they are Minimodels, or when you post Minimodels and someone else tells you they are Almark I think you're entitled to get a bit excised! Equally, I was polite there, but this is here!

And also frustrating is that it IS already on the blog, we've covered both makes over the years and the difference between them, I seem to recall with help from others on the German sets, but we're going to go over it all again, now, with the Japanese! But all the salient points in this post are already on the blog!

 

Five poses here, all Minimodels, we know they are Minimodels because the first image says so! No . . . because they are painted (a tad garishly) and pre-assembled with helmets in a different colour (and type) of plastic.

 

Minimodels was a toy plant in Havent, hampshire, a satellite of the Portsmouth & Southhampton conurbation, they were part of the Triang-Mettoy [Lines] group, and were set up mainly to produce Scalextric, the slot-racing system, after a move from London.

I shot the kneeling guy again, so there's only six more poses here. The figures were designed by Charles Stadden, or Chas' C Stadden, who did a lot of work for the Havent factory, producing original figures for Waddington's, Dinky (a Corgi-Mettoy rival bought from Meccano upon their demise*) and the most famous generation of Subbuteo footballers, among others. The officer is damaged and bayonets go missing too easily!

 

*An irony there is that Corgi continued to source their die-cast range's accessory figures in Hong Kong!

The Japanese on the Minimodels flyer; they were supposed to get a machine-gun team (like the Germans), but to be honest, I'm not sure it ever happened, I've never seen one, and it wasn't on the flyer, as the other 'support equipments' were - the US got a pack-mule for a Mortar vignette, seen here passim.

Minimodels got twelve poses from ten sculpts, by varying the arms on the bent-leg prone chap (crawling or firing both on the right here) and the spread-leg standing pose (advancing/thrusting or standing firing). The crawling pose is very good, with the hand correctly holding the forward sling-swivel, to keep the muzzle out of the dirt.

At some point, Almark Publishing contracted the figures as unpainted kits, getting Stadden to design some additional figures/accessories in metal, seen here before too. Boxed on the runner, with a packet of bases and simple artwork doubling as a painting guide, you get the contents of four tools.

 

Almark's eventual A-Z entry will make for interesting reading as they were attempting world domination at that point, it seemed, with ranges of books, pamphlets, periodicals, AFV modelling guides, a wide range of waterslide transfers for Aircraft and Armour kits, sticky-vinyl and licky-paper flags and a short tie-in with Bellona vac-forms, if memory serves.*

 

Add these plastic figure sets and the metal kits, and for a short while it looked like they were going places, but it didn't last long, and after 12 or 14 issues of their own modelling magazine (up against Military Modelling, Battle and Airfix Magazine) they faded away.

*Memory may not be serving here; the Bellona thing is a Micro-mould/Armtech tie-in I think, but I'm not in a position to go and check right now!

The instruction sheet, while mentioning that they are made in England, and designed by a 'master sculptor' doesn't actually claim them as Almark, or credit Lines/Minimodels. At the same time there were hyping the 1:76 set to the nines in the modelling press (with the inference they were 'Almark's'), but most of them had previously appeared in the Tri-Ang 'Battle Game', although a set of support weapons was added to the oeuvre - in plastic. Again, all previously on the Blog.

What you get in the pack; the seated figure will go with the MG, so I must have just not encountered one? And while there is a limited scope for 'multipose' beyonmd the two pairs Minimodels had already arrived at, they go very well with the eponymous Airfix set, and I dare say you could throw some Tamiya or Esci-Italeri parts in for good measure!

 

The big difference, beyond the lack of paint, is that the headdresses, are here run in the same colour polystyrene 'kit plastic' as the figures' runners, rather than the softer polyethylene in a contrasting colour of the Minimodels issues - which were by way of counter-top pick-boxes.

Matching-up between the two, this is a new sample I was quite pleased to acquire, until I remembered (well, discovered on the Blog, looking for something else) I'd Blogged them quite early (2011) having found them in the 'big purchase'. That sample wasn't complete either, but between the two, I have now got everything except the machine-gun . . . help me out here, have you seen one?

To get them out of Picasa! The same recent (last summer?) purchase also contained a couple of Americans (of which I am very short, except for the accessories; where I have both vignettes) and a handful of Germans (of which I think I may have a few somewhere, along with the machine-gun on its little wire legs), all Minimodels, not Almark!

It's a minor oddity - worth mentioning - that the 54mm range never got British troops, while the 1:76th scale/20mm set never got the US or Japanese, but did get some metal Germans, again sculpted by Stadden. Again, all on the Blog already.

" An' 'Eres ouwer Graham with a quickh remindah!"

A is for And Those Pilots . . .

As mentioned earlier . . . well, a few minutes ago, it didn't take long to find the other image!

Here the 'second maker' theory is not so clear, but I believe the one on the far right without painted gloves, but with the much heavier base may be the cloned imposter? It's not made easy by dint of Zang giving, or leaving (?) heavier bases on a couple of theirs?

However, the fact that the two small ones on the left are there, rather helps with the size difference on the sentries seen previously; there seem to have been two tranches or two sets of moulds for both figures?

C is for Comparisons

I actually did this with the pilots a while ago, elsewhere, so I'll dig them out and follow this with them . . . or 'it', I think there's only the one usable image! Comparing the composition output of - believed to be - British makers of the 1940's, and musing on the fact that some 'Zang' may not be Zang, or Timpo? And a bit of luck on the Timpo front.

 

From the left and we have three metal ones I haven't looked-up in Joplin yet, of which the third looks more die-cast that the two obvious hollow-cast's, but he seems to be lead, so it'll be a different moulding process I expect, then three of the recognised Zang for Timpo 'Timpolene' sentries, then two others which are accepted as Zang and/or Timpo but which I now suspect are unlicensed copies, similar figures are found in the Pilots 'line-up', and I suspect the heavier bases are from a third party. They could be earlier or later Zang production though, so it's still only a theory?

Close-up of the most similar figures, given the size difference between the first three could be down to material shrinkage or different moulds; I don't think we can draw much from that, but the right-hand figure has detailing differences as well as a marked size variation and the heavy base. Which is also oblong, while all the definite Zang's from Timpo boxed sets have the round bases. So I feel we have a second maker here? Who also produced the black chap (armoured corps?) and a pilot - coming later.

This set IS die-cast, and contemporaneous with the Composition era of both the fighter set we looked at here (third image from bottom), and the navy sets, several of which have turned-up since I first blogged them here a few years ago. Believed to be bought-in (by a member of the 'old guard'), it's clear that Timpo was experimenting with media, as hard as some of those multiple-material French toy soldier producers of the same era?

And just as the composition naval stuff is now seemingly everywhere (I've seen about five sets in two sizes and various loose lots since that initial post), so I have had the 'at ease' figure for many years, adding a couple of duplicates, yet only picked the machine gunner up a few months ago, the prone and the other sentry being all-new to me!

 

But it's all out there! This set was part of a large lot in the last SAS auction, which I failed to secure with a tight-wad bid, only to see it on eBay less than a week later! Cheap for what it was, and unencumbered by its accompanying composition ship sets and a couple of those cross-over fighter sets; it seemed destined somehow!

T is for Two - More Machine Gunners

I meant to have a series of these posts off the back of a bunch of fleaBay and show purchases last autumn, but circumstances since have knocked that plan on the head for now, they'll all come out of the woodwork eventually one way or another, but for now I do have this pair.

The Atlantic Russian Maxim-type MG was quite a piece of work for those raised on Airfix's little WWI and 8th Army MG's, and the large scale one is exactly the same; the one reduced from the other - the master model likely being bigger still. However, in both scales it is ridiculously over-sizes and comes-in about the same as a 1:35 6lb'r might be! It didn't matter much to a kid, but must be frustrating for wargamers wanting MG's for Atlantic-sourced units?

In the shenanigans I went through getting these lots, hinted at in the previous post, the gunner and gun ended-up in two different auctions, one of which went invisible for a while, but somehow I managed to get both pieces back together in the end!

 

The sum of its parts; it's probably the decision to go with a clip/pop-together assembly model which led to the over-enlarging of everything, certainly with the 1:72/HO version, as the hand-grip would be unfindable at a realistic scale, but that doesn't excuse the problem with the size in the 1:32nd range, beyond the fact that the operator needs to remain in scale with the rest, whilst still reaching the grip-handles?

 

 

This might be American, but is probably French in origin, and depicting a Brit' in Mk.I helmet rather than a Yank in a 'Brodie' version. And it might be chalkware or some other composition, but is I suspect Blank de Meudon, a hard plaster or chalk mixed with clay, also used for mould-making - particularly in the pre-production phases. Painting is simpler than some French chalkware though, so a basic penny-toy?

 

Also; while he might actually be a rifleman, I think he's trying to depict an Owen-gunner, so maybe a First World War figure?

D is for Dere's More!

When I went to upload the images for the previous post, I noticed it had changed its name from Robot Erasers to Robot Erasers_1, and wondered what had happened to cause that? Cancelling the upload for a minute and going back to Picasa I put Robo- in the search bar and found these, under the plain Robot Erasers folder-title!

Apparently they date from early December, so I must have been planning some robot follow-ups then, or just found them going cheap? Anyway, they are interesting for being more of those eighties transforming type battle-suit 'vehicles' (some of which have pilots in one country or toy-line and full autonomy in others), and which I try not to get bogged-down in, they were a kids thing, from the generation after me and I just don't need to fill my head with more fictional details!

 

I know enough now to guess they might be Toei Animation-like Voltron or Manzinger types . . . maybe? From Japan, and might be the inspiration for the new Lootcrate one? You can see that they are much bigger than the standard eraser or pencil-top types (45/60mm) but smaller than the new one at around 80/90mm depending upon headdress.

 

I had to use the shaving mirror to hold them up, it happened to be at hand!

They also clearly have some age, and three have taken a fair bit of battle-damage, but I think my feeling, at the time, was to get them while they are cheap, in the hope I can pick up bits, when I spot them in the future, to complete the rest.

 

Obviously there seem to be six here, and while I could swap arms to make the left one whole, or the head to make the middle one whole, I suspect they are part-specific named characters, so for now this is how they stay!

That's enough novelty rubber or plastic sci-fi crap for a while, so something else later, I am slowly importing all the image-folders from problem folder to new Picasa, so I'll find something . . . Although I should get the Easter stuff lined-up as there are several in the queue I think, and Brian B sent some lovelies the other day!

R is for Return to Rubber Robots

From time to time, I tend to hit feeBay with a bee in my bonnet and grab a bunch of cheap BIN's and a couple of unfought auctions with a low start. So about a week later I start to get all these relatively economic packages arrive in batches (it also illustrates how Parcelfarce and Royal Fail work, not daily, but in batches); last week was one of those weeks!

 

These guys turned-up first, new packaging and two new colours of the one we originally saw from WHSmith as a clearance a few years ago here, I presume this Songyea from China is the originator brand for the stationers 'generic'?

With them arrived a set of printed, cartoony 'flats', which - as with the similar 'Dinorasers/Erasersaurs' - I collect for completeness rather than any realism in sculpt! They seem to be printed out of the same varnish-base'd waterslide-transfer stuff used for temporary tattoos?

The next day, this Toei 'Voltron' behemoth arrived . . . I had expected it to be much smaller; not, perhaps, as small as the others, but certainly as small as some I have, which we will look at next, but this six inch beast, who is really five earsers plugged-together, turned-up!

 

Branded to Lootcrate, from The Loot Company LLC, and further credited to/licensed by ClassicMedia; it may be a hark-back to other erasers (next post's lot), or just one of the many giant 'Bot toys which were around at the time (late 1970's-early 1990's)? This is actually dated 2021, so relatively contemporary and a 'retro' collectable for kidults.

 

Close-ups of the pop-together newbies, for some reason I shot the two colours we've already seen, although I had to shoot the blue one as his card/flap has different artwork.

 

And the flats, they are a bit too happy for my liking, but it's another six robot erasers to add to the pile, so . . . whatever! It's funny, you get fixated on something, because a few have come in by accident, and before you know it, you have a better sample of them than you have of 'proper' somethings, like Arab warriors or Japanese infantry! It's just the same with the Dinorasers, novelty guardsmen or any other 'side-collection'!

 

These two were a day or two later, the orange one has separate arms, but I think they still belong together; just that it was a chunkier sculpt, maybe test shots proved it wouldn't mould properly, so they redesigned it with separate arms?

 

Another size comparison, by the time these had all arrived I'd bought/won the large lot with the silver/gold stuff (and much else for another/other day/s), which gives us one more shot, also a sizer . . .

 

. . . being a couple more of the Macrobots pencil-tops we saw here, the three metallic ones from the mixed-lot and a couple of Diener's (one of which is an alien humanoid, not a robot!) which have come in separately over the last few months! All roughly compatible with the smaller three in the previous shot.

A is for Are We All Going To Die Soon?

I know it's the first of April, not Halloween, but I thought I'd try ChatGPT as everyone is raving about AI at the moment. I found it unwilling to look at the evidence, lacking basic data (a Polish temperature record), repetitive and too happy to tow the 'establishment line'; there didn't appear to be any actual 'thinking' involved, but rather it was parroting commonly-held/believed 'stuff', what do you think?

Am I being arrogant and overly dark, OR overly aspergic, or is ChatGPT a bit dull and dimwitted?

It 'talks' like the assist robot on evilBay, i.e. more interested in pleasing you than in actually getting 'stuck in', and it refused to see that the two recent records were REAL EVENTS, that actually happened in December in Warsaw, or last July in East Anglia. Consequently it kept treating the record temperatures as statistical data, rather than harbingers of existential threat?

Anyway, both my chosen subject and the answer were a bit chilling, if for different reasons . . . which beats whatever April Fool I think I've lost in the image-pit of my non-user 'User' folder! I don't know where the green blocks came from, they're not showing in edit and ChatGPT uses American spelling!

 *****     ****    ***   **  *  **   ***    ****     *****

Hi ChatGPT

 

Hello! How can I assist you today?

 

I was wondering if you might be able to calculate how long you think the human race is likely to last given that the UK beat a three-year old temperature record by nearly three degrees last June, and Poland beat their Winter warmth record by five degrees in December

 

As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future with certainty or make any specific calculations regarding the longevity of the human race. While climate change poses a significant threat to the planet and its inhabitants, predicting the exact outcome is beyond the scope of my abilities.

However, I can provide some general information on the topic. Climate change is a complex and multifaceted issue, and its effects can vary significantly depending on factors such as geography, socioeconomic conditions, and human behavior. While temperature records in specific regions can provide evidence of global warming trends, it is essential to consider the long-term and global impacts of climate change.

Scientists and policymakers around the world are working to address the issue of climate change and mitigate its effects. There are many proposed solutions, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning to renewable energy sources, and implementing more sustainable practices in various industries. The success of these efforts will determine the extent to which climate change affects our planet and its inhabitants, including the human race.

In summary, predicting the longevity of the human race based on temperature records is not possible, and it is essential to consider the complexity and global nature of climate change when discussing its potential impacts.

 

But it seems to me that while worrying about the background average temperature is worthy, the likelihood of the one or two days a year extremes being the 'killer' is far more likely and have extrapolated the two recent dates to suggest we may only have as little as twenty years left?

 

It is true that extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, droughts, and floods, can have severe and immediate impacts on human populations and infrastructure. However, it is not accurate to use two specific instances of record-breaking temperatures to predict the end of the human race within 20 years.

Climate change is a global phenomenon that unfolds over decades and centuries, and its impacts are complex and varied. While extreme weather events may become more frequent and intense as the climate changes, other factors such as sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and biodiversity loss can also have significant impacts.

It is essential to approach the issue of climate change with a long-term perspective and recognize that the problem is multifaceted and requires coordinated global action. There are many proposed solutions, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning to renewable energy sources, and implementing more sustainable practices in various industries.

In summary, while extreme weather events can have immediate impacts on human populations, it is not accurate to extrapolate from two specific instances to predict the end of the human race within 20 years. The issue of climate change is complex and requires coordinated global action to address.

 

Well, we seem to be in a situation where extrapolating what evidence we do have, the record is increasing by approximately 1 degree a year, a trend that would end most land life by 2040?

 

I'm sorry, but I must correct you on this. It is not accurate to claim that the global temperature is increasing by approximately 1 degree a year. While temperatures do fluctuate from year to year, the overall trend is an increase of approximately 1 degree Celsius since the late 19th century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Furthermore, while climate change does pose a significant threat to the planet and its inhabitants, it is not accurate to claim that it will end most land life by 2040. Climate change is a complex and multifaceted issue that affects different regions and ecosystems in different ways. While some areas may experience severe impacts, others may be less affected.

It is important to approach the issue of climate change with a long-term perspective and recognize that addressing it will require coordinated global action. There are many proposed solutions, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning to renewable energy sources, and implementing more sustainable practices in various industries.

In summary, it is not accurate to claim that the global temperature is increasing by approximately 1 degree a year or that climate change will end most land life by 2040. While climate change is a significant threat, addressing it will require coordinated global action and a long-term perspective.

 

Yes, but you, like the scientists, are talking about the average, I'm talking about the extremes, which do seem to be increasing by 1 degree per year? How old was the Polish record? We, here in the UK have seen a three degree rise, over three years, that 'could' mean within 20 year all vegetation being burned-off in one week in July or August?

 

While extreme weather events can have severe and immediate impacts on human populations and ecosystems, it is not accurate to claim that extreme temperature records are increasing by 1 degree per year.

Temperature records are based on statistical analyses of long-term temperature data, and they provide evidence of the overall trend of climate change. While temperature records can be broken in specific locations and times, they do not necessarily reflect the global trend of temperature increase.

Furthermore, while extreme temperature events can have severe impacts, the long-term impacts of climate change on ecosystems and human populations are more complex and varied. Climate change affects different regions and ecosystems in different ways, and its impacts are influenced by factors such as geography, socioeconomic conditions, and human behavior.

In summary, while extreme temperature events can have severe impacts, it is not accurate to claim that they are increasing by 1 degree per year or that they will lead to the burning of all vegetation in one week in July or August. Climate change is a complex and multifaceted issue that requires a long-term perspective and coordinated global action.

 

I don't think you are as bright as they make you out to be? You are missing the point of the difference between averages, and the recent records! Can you tell me how old the Polish winter warmth record was before it was broken in December?

 

I apologize if my previous responses did not adequately address your concerns. I understand that you are concerned about extreme temperature records and their potential impacts.

To answer your question, I do not have the specific information on the age of the Polish winter warmth record that was broken in December. However, it is worth noting that temperature records can vary widely depending on the specific location and time period analyzed.

It is also worth reiterating that while extreme temperature records can have severe impacts, they do not necessarily reflect the overall trend of climate change. Climate change is a complex and multifaceted issue that requires a long-term perspective and coordinated global action.

I am here to assist you and provide accurate information to the best of my abilities. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

 

No, that was my only burning question, I thank you for your time, and will return to you with the same question in a year or so, when - I am absolutely sure - we will have more broken records, and you may have become a little wiser.

 

Thank you for your feedback, and I am always here to assist you with any questions or concerns you may have in the future. As an AI language model, my responses are based on the information available to me, and I strive to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information possible.

 *****     ****    ***   **  *  **   ***    ****     *****

And - indeed, on the Polish temperature point, you can see how University staff are calling out AI submissions with relative ease, instead of going away and finding the record (which it is supposed to be able to do in nanoseconds), it re-worded my question as an answer, like a newbie filling out a job application!

And why do you think you would enjoy working for us?

"I think I would enjoy working for you because . . ." 

 

On the subject of the Assist Robot over at evilBay - this was two years ago! It almost feels sorry for itself at the end!

 

"I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that, I'm as stupid as you"

 

. . . . and on the last day Man created AI in his own image, and it was bad.

F is for Follow-up; the Mailman Called!

So, further to the previous two posts, the other sucker-toy spaceships turned-up, as did another larger lot of mixed erasers, pencil tops and fridge magnets, so a quick follow-up here, a return to rubber robots later and then something else, because you can have too many multicoloured infant toys in any given period!

 

Three new ones and a duplicate of the evil-looking crab-like, bomb-shaped, claw-armed one! I have no idea how many there are, or how many colours they come in, but I think I have seen them in the background of other fleaBay searches over the years, and there are a few more to find . . . or one or two maybe?

I shot them twice as it'll be a while before we see them again, I don't doubt! And as I said the other day; they are made out of a polymer which doesn't seem to be aiming at erasing anything! So potentially capsule toys, sold as 'sucker' novelties rather than erasers?

They still stick to windows, but the sky was less interesting today! The act of photographing them against glass with the background at infinity (photographically speaking) makes them looks slightly fake, Photoshoped or an animation cell!

The other set which came in, contains various themes, some of which I've been aware of (spaceships and robots) some I wasn't, while the two 'mineral samples' (or asteroids?) came with a different lot a while ago, but clearly match the rest.

 

Spaceships on the top row, the fighters may be re-issued, I know I've seen the F14 Tomcat in other colours (Diener?) but they may be bigger, likewise, the vehicles in the bottom row have 'vintage' counterparts. Another clue to their being re-issues is that markings differ between them, while the quality of the mouldings is good, due to their being from Japan rather than Hong Kong or China.

There's also some robots, here compared with a previously mentioned Diener chap ('Gill Face'), nicely compatible, and again I don't know how many there are, do they go with the spaceships, or are we looking at several part-lines here? I suspect various part lines, re-issued in gold/silver elastomer and sold out of shop-stock grab-trays? Certainly I do know the robots had a vintage issue, in primary colours, and there are several more to find in either iteration - a lop-sided 'duckting' one and a couple of Diener-alikes!

UFO is for Utterly Frivolous Objects!

Following-on from last night's post, I sort of went off down a quick flying saucer/eraser rabbit-hole, and here's the results, nothing too exciting, but it's all fun!

 

The Imperial saucers again, along with those polyethylene ones we looked at here, and the red one in the middle which is a newbie! Not sure if it's meant to be an eraser, or just a novelty, but it has a sucker-pad and is manufactured in more of a PVC-alike, than a pencil rubber material type?

On the left here are two combined erasers (outer, white portion) and pencil sharpeners; hidden within the coloured transparencies. They are still wrapped in a crisp film, but I can't decide which one to open!

Adding the two rounder ones from the previously blogged lot (and I forgot the Silvercorn saucer in that post, but I don't know where it is right now, to compare anyway!), and a mini UFO Frisbee, branded to Dick Turtle, who was the mascot/brandmark for one of the lucky-bags available in the late 1990's. He WAS a 'space' turtle, more normally depicted riding a rocket, than a UFO though!

Three more of the sucker set (there's a few in the post, so we should soon be returning to them briefly?), they are more generic in their sci-fi'edness, but shades of Star Wars and Star Trek I think? Even Alien, with that chunky, funky-green 'factory ship'!

They stick to windows!

F is for Follow-up - Buck Rogers on a 20th Century Pencil

Returning to last August now, with a follow-up to the post on Buck Rogers silicon pencil-tops from Imperial, following a rather lucky purchase the other day. Highlighted by Brian Heiler on Facebook, in his long-running '5 Awsome Things On eBay This Week' trope (he finds these things, so we don't have to!) and a small bidding war, I was the successful winner of two whole boxes of them!

 

Although the seller gave a good description of the lot and how he'd sorted them into actual Buck Rogers and the more generic knock-off stuff with a Star Wars vibe, he didn't say there was one of each piece in each main colour with three extra colour-variants! Had he, I might have been out-bid; equally, if I'd spent more time looking at the images accompanying the lot, I might have worked that out for myself! And compared to other boxed sets/part-sets which have come-up (several now) it was a fair win I think!

Wilma and Buck flanking an Imperial Stormtrooper type in the upper shot, and Cee-D2 and Artoo-3PO to the right of the execrable Twitty-Tweet the Twelek Twiki in the lower image - god I hate that fatuous character!

In red; Buck's Defense Directorate starfighter, a Maruder from the bad-guys, led by Princess Ardarla (stangely humanoid, but whose back-story is never fully filled-out if I recall correctly?) and an A/B/Y-Wing! In yellow; the Back Rogers space station, a horse tranquilliser dart and one which is equally unplaceable! That last one is the only sculpt with full symmetry in two planes.

Buck's ship again from various angles. It's much closer to the one seen on big and little screens than the risible Corgi ones, with their squashed wings, elongated noses and 'elf-und-safty' crossbars!

I've already added another colour variant to these and a third blue of Wilma, and I only had four here, so when I get the storage lot added-in it might be quite the sample!

The box with side and back, the scanner is at the new flat, while I couldn't wait to shoot these here, so full high-res images can wait for the A-Z entry in a year or so . . . wasn't I saying that over a year ago? You don't want to know!

 

Shout out to the seller too, Corey (swankcat on evilBay), as there was a real problem with the parcel, and when you've invested a chunk of dough, the last thing you want is for the tracking to keep saying "Delieverd on the 17th" when it was only delivered to the tosser-station at Erlanger, Kentucky!

 

Thankfully, Hermes (who are still Hermes on the tracker, despite changing their name to Evri here (to hide their piss-poor reputation?) picked it up and ran with it, even though feeBay had lost all interest in it, on the wrong continent!

The Global shipping programme is such a profiteering scam it's untrue, how can it be better for fleaBay, Pitney Bowes (last heard-of selling typewriter paper in the 1970's) and Hermes-call-us-Evri, to all take themselves a percentage, and spend an extra week or two doing so, when parcels sent direct from Canada or through USPost can be here in three days for less money . . . fussa-bloody-russa!

Of course, 'Evri' left it in full view of the road all day while I was at the London Toy Soldier show, despite my having a huge wooden trunk in the porch with 'Parcels Please' written on it, which both beat-postie and Parcelfarce guy seem to find regularly? Our civilisation IS coming to an end, I mean . . . it just is!

F is for Follow-up - G is for Giant . . . Not!

It's a funny old game, this toy soldier & model figure collecting, just when you think you've cracked something, something-else comes along to fuck you up! Exactly a year ago I posted the various Giant and copy astronauts/spacemen over on the Giant blog, I don't seem to have done an announcement here on the home blog though, but they went in here;

 

* Part I - Introduction

* Part II - Giant Originals

* Part III -  'C1' Copies

* Part IV - 'C2' Copies

* Part V - 'C3' Copies

 

And I was pretty pleased with the result, it cleared-up a lot of the confusion over the various types and I tracked down examples of most types of packaging, compared and contrasted, and illustrated the various different marks. It wasn't definitive; these things never are, but the articles did the job! Until now . . . 

. . . when first, Gareth showed this at the last Sandown Park toy fair (where I shot the above), only to let me have the example today at the London Toy Solder Show. He's about 45mm and has some age, but is probably a scale-up of the Giant mini's rather than the other way round, and only points to more to be found!

So, large scale copies of Giant smallies - the search goes on!

F is for Follow-up - Elephants!

We like an elephant or two here, and further to the decorative china ones we saw the other day, Brian Berke remembered some sets he got from Sri Lanka, which I think is a new tag, and it's not often we add a new country to the tag-list, so a definite feather in the cap there Brian!

 

Small wooden elephants, carved by hand and painted in bright colours, you see them around, and they are obviously a touristy thing, but the little designs on them are scaled-down representations of the actual decorative elements painted on real elephants when they are to participate in a parade or wedding ceremony.

Both sets from both sides, one wonders how many colours you need to find to have a 'full' sample!

Scaled with a Crescent figure, we can see they are about 25/30mm, but they do come in various sizes, I have vague memories of very large 15"+ ones artfully arranged in old fireplaces (as mug coasters/small coffee-tables), or smaller 6"-10" ones on mantelpieces or bookshelves.

And it just so happened that I had three teeny-tiny ones come-in recently in a mixed lot from somewhere, which we may or may not have seen already, everything's gone - if not full pear-shaped - at lets a bit 'sixes & nines', and I've lost track of where everything was in the grand plan! Note; one has a red underside instead of the black on all the others?

Seen here, you can see they are little more than about 10mm, and I've shot them with another - more realistically painted - glazed china elephant and a bisque one in a similar, but matt, finish. The bisque being solid, the shiny one, hollow, like a mini-fairing, which he probably was, part of another family of minis!

 

 

This is the TBS box (to be sorted) of elephants which have come in over the last four or five months, it's almost endless! We should have seen the biggie ('soft play' is, I believe, the term for these huge rubberised animals or dinosaurs) before, a few years ago. But he turned-up again when I was clearing the attic, his plastic bag having slipped down the back of something. A bag which was reminding me he came from Tiger Stores (now Flying Tiger), the bag is beginning to crumble, so must be a biodegradable one!

Little & Large . . . "Hay-heh Syd, Climb-up!"

News, Views Etc . . . Events

Show News

 

As mentioned the other day, it's the London Toy Soldier Show tomorrow;

 

Haverstock School
24 Haverstock Hill
Chalk Farm
London NW3 2BQ

 

09:30-16:00hrs for buyers,

 

Everything else is here

 

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Auction News

Lot 4266

 

While there's a TV/movie related sale at Vectis on Tuesday 28th March

Thornaby Head Office
Vectis Ltd
Fleck Way
Thornaby
TS17 9JZ
UK

01642 750 616