H is for How They Come In - London, March, Boxed & Bits

Playing catch-up again with the show reports! Back to the end of March and the London Toy Soldier show first, where I wasn't expecting to pick-up much but ended-up with some useful stuff anyway.

 

 Worth mentioning, that while there was some pessimism around the new combined (soldiers and modellers/wargamers) one day show, it seems to have gone well, and most I chatted with were pleased or pleasantly surprised; next one's only about six-weeks away now!

I don't actually know (or remember my reasoning) why most of these weren't subsequently photographed, but with the exception of the Kinder barbarian (bottom left) they haven't been? I know the EMCE (top) are featuring in a forthcoming post, but why the rest were spirited off to their TBS boxes without a photo', is now a mystery.

 

Points to note include two Fontanini Nappies, a Cane Turk, a nice bag of khaki infantry types, two UNA in sand, a small bag of post-Giant Romans, and . . . the Guardsman pen with flocked bearskin????? I took him off to shoot the rest of the Novelty ceremonials (we looked at on the 4th May), and forgot to come back and shoot the rest didn't I? That's what happened!

As soon as we arrived I asked one seller if he had anything nice, and he basically said I need to shift these, they're yours for [insert ridiculously low price here] if you'll take them, so I was off to a good start with mostly Atlantic small scale!

 

Also boxed were these two Minikins sets which will be part of a bigger post but not for some time, while the farm animals are Tamiya, and I bought them from one of the kit-dealers in the other - additional - room! Just for fun, really!

 

Other boxed items from the 'other team's' stallholders include the JB Models (now Airfix) 105's, I intend to do one in Wainwright two-tone, towed and the other firing in Falklands black & green. The ACE Models half-track 'Diana' SPG, is a nice variant, while I think I already have the space set (from Dark Dream Studio), but I'll de-runner these and make-up the assemblies.

 

I bought this from the Legendary James Opie's table, although I believe his colleague is behind them, there were several, but I thought this had potential for a lot of different figures/eras? Obviously you trim-back to the base of the fort and stand it at the back of a display shelf, there were a whole bunch of them. The fat chap in a bicorne wasn't a purchase on the day, but happened to be to hand for an example of how they look!

 

I have several of these now, they tend to come in with mixed lots and are mostly - I suspect - from cheap, rack-toy 'knock-off' action figures, god knows if I'll ever get them all ID'd, but there are sites which look at all the also-ran's, so one day . . . maybe!

 

This is fun, I saw a heated discussion out of the corner of my eye, toward the end of the show, and when it had petered-out, I wandered over and asked what was the interest, and the seller explained the buyer had wanted one building, but that as it was a complete run, he wanted to sell them all together, and for only twenty-quid, so I handed over the money before anyone else realised what was happening!

 

In the event I found two duplicates and one missing, but they seem to appear on feebleBay regularly, so I'll find the missing one soon for the complete set. In the meantime they are an interesting thing, Waddington's HO-gauge scaled building that slot together without glue and which can be collapsed and put away again when Mum needs the table back! Eight of the smaller/medium-sized ones were also issued as Weetabix premiums.

C is for Canoes - 14 - Tim Mee

Tim Mee have two canoes, I've seen the first in red, green and yellow, but we're looking at all yellow ones today, courtesy of Brian B again;

The first version is a slightly clumsy design, presumably meant to be a bath toy, but given long rods on either side (missing here) to help its path as a carpet-toy by keeping it upright, the over-emphasised keel otherwise making standing level impossible - Brain has leant his against the bank of his encampment here, to show it to us in a realistic attitude!

 

An online image shows one of the two long rods or spigots which contact with the surface and keep the boat level for flat-surface play, lifting the figure to the same height as any of standing around it!

 

The re-design gave it more of a 'waterline' look, and it's one of the problems with these (the Cherilea particularly), how realistic do you make something which only stays level in a bath or basin, but which is going to be played with on the floor or a table?

 

This, both Tim Mee's in fact, are smooth-hulled models in the streamlined style of modern canoes, but I guess by the time US forces or the RCMP in Canada were using commercial designs of plank construction, some must have found their way into Native hands? I'm musing out-loud here, I don't know for sure!

L is for Lazy Post, Lazy Day!

Yeah, I had a bit of a session on the garden yesterday which left me a bit stiff this morning, and so I rather chilled today! I did get over to the flat and start shooting the PW Show plunder for forthcoming posts, however I still have the first of the year's London shows to Blog, and another lot from Sandown this Saturday-gone, so it doesn't rain, but it pours, however; I could have worse things to whinge-about, than to many toys!

Vehicular purchases from the weekend, I missed out on a Tudor Rose forked-lift truck, not that I wanted to buy it, but I meant to shoot the driver figure to help ID one of those primary-coloured ethylene seated figures which come in, before it sold, which I failed to do, however I did manage to photo a few others, and the Taxi here (also Tudor Rose) has a driver.

 

A second Surry (with a fringe on top!) means one can be un-bagged and assembled at some point in the future, while the PP marked version of the Donkey comes with a hay-cart which seems to be the donor for those Christmas cracker minis, and shares a wagon-frame with the Easter bunny we saw here, a few years back now!

 

A 'Military Police' jeep from Thomas is all polystyrene, and more stable than the phenolic polymer army-green one I have, which has been slowly folding-in on itself since before it was mine! Likewise the Ideal steamroller will be compared with the olive-green Banner and Pyro ones at some point in the future too, it's going to be a busy point!

T is for Two - Scarlet Space Fleet!

These two came flying-in from the US-of-A a week or so ago. I think I did add an X-100 about a year and a half ago, possibly a blue or silver (more likely) one, which I vaguely remember putting with the others and sending-off to storage, but I think if you're going to have a Pyro one, it needs to be red!

 

It has suffered a dink to the rear fin, which has been smoothed-off by a previous owner, but is otherwise a clean one with all wheels and a clear Pyro mark under the left wing, which is in exactly the same place as the Kleeware/Tudor Rose 'Made In England' one we looked at the other day, confirming (to me, as I've not compared these before now) that it was a removable drum in the tool, which I have suggested in the past.

This is a Thomas Toy 'ACME' futuristic Airport Limousine, which has most of the future bits firmly anchored in the 1950's, as each decade's sci-fi tends to sit within the meilleur of its own time, Star Wars managing to be an exception, keeping a similar look throughout, which Star Trek didn't quite manage, think of the 1980's uniforms of the early movies!
 

Duty pilots switch at launch-bay Red 1, while service droids get busy with maintenance and pre-flight checks!

C is for Canoes - 13 - Heyde

Not mine and only shot yesterday at the Sandown Park toy fair, but squeezed into the queue for a quickie, and what a charmer; the Heyde (pronounced hide'ah) solid lead novelty Kittens in a Canoe! And why not!

Punting on the Cam, or sculling on the Havel, an attempt at modelling a Norwegian tiller (rope operated) shows the level of detail Heyde would go to with their superior work! Thanks to Adrian at Mercator Trading for letting me shoot this. Back on track tomorrow!

P is for Perfect Plunder Post!

 I'll be knackered again tomorrow evening, so I thought I'd preload this one as well, it's some more stuff I've already posted elsewhere on the stuff I picked-up last weekend, let's hope i find something nice today!

It won't affect the show report posts, as I have decided to combine all the stuff from all sorces and have thematic posts like the recent 'season' of Chris Smith's donation, and it'll all be a week or so away yet, I also have the last London Show plunder to Blog, and will have some more from today with any luck!

Boxed, bagged and carded!

Dime Store transport

40mm Starlux

Atomic Age space figures and a later chap in white

Combat types and WHW

Wild West - no canoes!

Historical and Ceremonial

C is for Canoes - 12 - Triples

Welp, I'm already at Sandown Park for a day of toy mania, but for those of you who aren't with me, or already wending your way to Esher or its environs, here's a few of the 'three-handers' available for your generic Native American tribe!

The re-issue of the Cherilea canoe is getting harder to find itself, but for those whose budget can't stretch to the original which we saw here (shot on Adrian's stall, at Sandown ironically - and equally ironically; I don't have either model yet!), it's a nice model, if a little hard to keep level, yet probably too heavy to float well?

Here it is off on a raid with a Dulcop-Timpo combination on the left, Dulcop providing the boat, while a Dulcop-Hong Kong combi' on the right have the crew coming from Italy! The Cherilea is in five parts, with each crew-member having a plug-in station on the deck insert.

 

Also from Brian, is this shot of the later (?) MPC offering, another triple-crewed vessel, this one has three of their own 60mm  'ring-hand' figures who had holes in their bases which slid over a stud in the deck of the boat.

 

While this (which won't enlarge much, I'm afraid) is from a Toy House/World Toy House leaflet and is probably a Hong Kong copy of MPC's other trio-boat, with piracies of Tim Mee's 60mm figures. It would fit with the wagon recently seen on Ed's Blog, and seen a while ago here. MPC also did a two-hander in the Jungle range.

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Everything Else!

Oh no, it's the last post! Being everything Sci-fi, fantasy, TV and Movie related, plus an animal which ex'caped the earlier post! And speaking of capes, as I managed to with some convoluted slight-of-English . . . 

These came in together! Now, I actually bought the Robin because I knew I needed his base, and in Chris's lot was both the Batman head/cape AND the Robin cape, which I'm not sure if I knew I needed! More than that, I don't really recognise the batman head/cape at all, so, while I thought I had a whole batman (needing base) and a couple of Robins' also needing bases, I think I may have had (prior to this lot) a bat man body, and a couple of robin bodies - who thankfully have a head!

What is also interesting is that the studs on this base are offset from each-other, symmetry-wise, while the one I got at a Sandown park a while back and showed here has studs with more symmetry, so they are figure specific . . . and I should now be able to produce two complete figures at some point in the future when - the now three - stashes are brought together! Indeed that, there, is a complete - Cherilea - Robin the Boy Wonder; it will just be a case of which one's got the best surviving paint!

Another of the articulated Dinosaurs! But this one is more 'monster-like, so ended up here with the premiums, which include two Weetabix stackable Poppit 'Puff-Kin' cereal premiums, and two of the Pop Pallino's from Raja ice cream. It's very hard to date the dinosaurs, the three that have turned-up so far, are all so clean they could almost be current (however, I've not encountered them?), but the styling is equally 1970's, gum-ball novelty/capsule-toy type, so . . . any ideas?

The King of the Seabed Serenader's, Neptune himself courtesy of Kellogg’s's Puffa-Puffa rice, found here in the UK, as a set of eight, and in Australia as a fifteen-pose count. Another of the 'Macrobot' astronauts we looked at a while-ago, a modern chap who might be Ben-10, and another polyethylene 'monochromatic' robot type.

 

He may go with those small spaceships we looked at recently - I saw four in eraser rubber the other day which mentioned Dunkin (not empirical, it was an evilBay lot!), but the lot included one of these mecha's, and I have several in both materials, so there may be more to come on the whole-lot; mini-ships and robots?

Three from Disney, a Marx full-size thief from 101 Dalmatians, along with a Disneykin Captain Hook, and a rather nice Peter Pan from JIM of France, damaged, but happy to take him as a first sample.

 

Another of the sucker things, I did get a name for them the other day, but I've forgotten it! Some current or near-current 'blind-bag' collectable though, with a Kinder (or Nestle?) Frozen to the far right, they flank a skeleton archer from Polotoy, hard to find, I still only have three or four now, but I think Shaun of the Fantasy Figures blog might have bought them all!

 

A LotR game piece and deform Star Wars pencil top, a Harry Potter (or knock-off) and a figure who could be a policeman, could be a chauffeur and has some of the look of a Gerry Anderson character about him are the middle row, that last one probably needs the trouser paint removed?

While the bottom pair are a Hasbro Action Man (new type) micro-figure and a Star Wars 'Twi'lek' from Wizards of the Coast, a line/range we will look at properly one day, I had a large tub of them from years ago, and bought a boxed set with extra figures not that long ago, but all currently in storage!

A couple of battered 'dime store' spacemen, but of interest as they are the smaller ones around 40/45mm (and I picked up another three at PW last weekend), I assume, from their UK purchase that they could be Tudor Rose or Kleeware, but it's by no means certain!

 

Finally, this chap missed the animal post, but cartoony stuff ends up with the above at first sort anyway! I love him because I think we had some when we were kids, possibly, therefore, a cereal premium I'll have to look-up on Cereal Offers at some point, not sure if it's the Pink Panther, or just a cartoon animal, but it's obviously missing its slot-in arm section.

As always, it's many thanks to Chris for everything we've seen in these posts, some sell this stuff at car boots, some give it to charity, a lot throw it away, but when I bring it all together at the other end, you'll see how it forms the whole and fills the gaps (that's a mixed metaphor, if ever I used one!) - Cheers Chris, lots of wonderful things!

C is for Canoes - 11 - Dulcop

In the continuing checking of stuff for these posts, I found the blue one from the introductory post (which was in the Hong Kong folder) was actually the Dulcop one from Italy, so I've corrected there, and we'll have a quick look here!

Quite a nice model, but still - design-wise - the sort of thing you find for hire in aluminium or fibre-glass reinforced resin at the lake/riverside today! I think these are the correct figures too, and unpainted like this, they'll be from the later production which included the stuff contracted/imported by our own Plastic Warrior Magazine, but I don't know if they carried this piece.

 

Re-crewed with Timpo's chaps, no knife out this time, but I don't think axe-fishing is a particularly successful technique! As this is a brief post, Brian's river/lake surface is worth a moment's study, I don't know what the surface is, painted wood, Vinyl/PVC or some other sheet material, but I thought Tom's varnished floor-tile was also quite good the other day.

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Ancients & Medievals

So, we're back in time a bit from yesterday, with a look at the various bod's in armour, leather or chain-mail in Chris Smiths recent parcel to the Blog, only the two shots, but lots to cover!

Going vaguely clockwise from the big metallic maroon chap, who you may recognise as being the chariot driver (well; 'crew', he's hardly in control of a team of horses!) from the Hong Kong copies of the Thomas chariot, then we have one of the red copies of Airfix Romans, he's from the odd HK sets which come with a chariot but no wheels . . . and - sometimes - an ACW gun, in 54mm!

 

In the right-hand corner we have a Kinder Roman auxiliery cavalryman, with no damage (they can be brittle, as can the similar set of musketeers), and both halves of his horse! Below them the unmarked (smooth base) version of Giant Roman clones, seen here as Woolbro / Generics, with a Quaker/Tom-Smith gladiator's horse in the middle. So, it's all Mighty Rome in the ancients department this time, even if some of them are Trojan clones!

 

The Medievals are an equally interesting mix, with two of the Exin Castilos figures, these came with a Spanish Lego-likey building system, to add playability to an otherwise - really nice - infant toy.

 

But to their right, up in the corner is a very interesting figure, which I'm guessing is Eastern European, although equally he might be Portuguese, he's similar to those Starlux copy premiums, but isn't a Starlux pose? And I thought I already had one or two, possibly also from Chris, but I can't find them on the blog, so they may have come from somewhere else and gone to storage?

Below him is half a Kinder knight's horse, the other half is bottom centre! The other two on the bottom row are mentioned again below, while the silver/gray pair are the MPC small knights.

The white guy is also MPC, but from the larger set, and he's in one piece, I do have one or two in the 'master collection, ironically red and black ones I think, but they are scruffy and damaged, this chap is complete, they tend to break at the bow string or bow itself, so a very useful addition.

 

While the Lido clone (of which we have already seen hard and soft plastic copies with or without paint), is semi-flat to a thinness that qualifies as just 'flat'! Possibly a gum-ball capsule-machine prize? But might have had a rack-toy issue as well? I may have one or two in an orangey-red from years ago somewhere, so expect a return to these in a future 'odd flats' round-up!

C is for Canoes - 10 - Non Wild West

 A very eclectic mix in this post, and by no means all, or even most of those I could have found, but more of a taster of what's out there, if you're tempted by these posts into specialising in canoes!

 

I think this was a Charity Shop purchase about a year ago, i.e., some time after these posts had begun their journey to publishing! But it helps fit the next one into the oeuvre, and who doesn't have a soft spot for Snoopy! Marked as if licensed and made in Hong Kong, it's probably been manufactured for someone like Applause?

This was also a latecomer to fill this posts folder! Included in a previous donation from Chris Smith it was a mystery for a time, I thought maybe an eraser, but after finding Snoopy and noticing the Bully mark I have tied it into a similar Smurf toy!

 

We've seen these before I think, probably more than once as they are part of a bigger line which incudes or crosses-over into sports, beach and divers! Cheap Hong Kong rack toy copies of a Corgi original, they are in storage! The oars are always missing or broken!

Also not appearing in these posts, is a similar 1:70th'ish canoe, as a roof-load pair from Hobby Dax, which I got in Lidl about 20-years ago, in fact, there is a whole family of them from Majorette and Matchbox (both also paired), Guisval, Spot-On et al!

 

This is the now out of production - Canoe, MkII, 'Ard Bastards, For the Use Of - kayak, courtesy of Ronara Store, a Chinese outfit, via Brian Berke, who was wanting to reproduce the infiltration device of choice of the 'Cockleshell Heroes', it's manufactured in resin and is nominally suitable for 54mm figures!

 

Brian's finished model, I'll let him set you right on the model . . .  

 

"Recently on eBay out of China came what I hoped was the long-awaited canoe of my dreams. Listed as 1/32 it falls far short. Moulded in resin, it was difficult to glue and getting the arms to stay in the correct position to take the hands with paddles proved to be beyond my patience. So here it is. The real Mk II canoe was 16' long, 28.5" beam, the model is 4 5/8" long"

 

I thought I might have saved these from evilBay, but in following-up on the eMails for these posts I find Brian sent them, but he saved them from evilBay! It's the Renwal 'dime store' civilian pleasure boat, and the figures are about 30/40mm and look like they might have been sculpted by whoever sculpted the figures for Pyro's military vehicle sets? It also seems to be missing a clip-in oar?

Many Thanks to Brian for his input, lots more to come!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Combat Troops

We've seen the paratrooper parachutists in the first post, but this is the rest of combat types, which is World War One to the present day, and we're starting with a bit of heavy metal; "Generals gather in their mass'ehhhhs . . . just like witches at black mah'has'ehhs!" Probably one of the worst lyrics ever, it's the sort of song lyric 14-year old Rock-dreamers write on the back of their geography text books! It's the same word Ozzy, you can't have masses twice, it grates!

The above trio are all probably home-cast piracies, with this quick-mix, soft silicone it's very easy to make short-life moulds now, and we have two Matchbox US Infantry clones and an older Lone Star who seems to have been painted as a German Fallschirmjäger?

But, below, are far more interesting, as they are a further example of the ones I got from Italy, as a follow-up to the plastic ones Chris sent in a previous donation? Royal Fail managed to break one, but they are die-cast, so a spot of superglue and the activator pen should sort that problem in an instant!

 

And all comments in the previous post about Peltro apply here too. There is some more to come on these at some point, but it'll have to wait for a 'bitty post'! Unlike the Germans, where each got a separate title, these are all dubbed simply 'US MARINE'.

A right old mix here, have we had the top left one before? I'm pretty sure Chris or Peter E have sent us one, and I think I had one somewhere, he seems to be from some kind of wire-slide thing, or possibly a helicopter rescue/extraction set, but could be a parachute toy? Odd anyway!

Another large scale tank commander (sand yellow), I was looking at them on eBay the other day and there's a lot of these 1:24, 18, 16th or larger models out there, but the budget required for that hobby is beyond me! Another of the seated US sailor/gunner . . . someone must know what he's from, he keeps turning-up, so there must have been a shed-load of them once?

Kit legs from some poor unfortunately eviscerated soul, two types of 'Payton' (et al) seated figure - we will do all the trucks one day and colour match the crews, but I haven't made a concerted effort to find and purchase the necessary lorries yet!

A nice Timpo swoppet first type US officer clone, a Supreme Russian and a copy of the Deetail Japanese Infantry, but it's not the Kwong Wah version, which have a separate, plastic version of the later style Deetail base, with rounded ends? This one has the earlier, oblong base, integrally-moulded.

The base of the Supreme figure is marked Fuliduo Toy Factory, which may give sustenance to one of my 'eemies', but I don't think there's much to excite, the figures were wildly announced in the Toy Press as Supreme back in the day, and I suspect this is either the full name (as in address) of one of Supreme's facilities or a subcontract/contractor? And they're not a Russian firm, they just copied a lot of the Zvezda-Italeri sets!

The two red figures are probably Italian firefighters from a large beach-toy fire-engine, a stable-mate of the Politoys (et al) DUKW? Some more shades of those funny flats of the Lone Star/Britains khaki infantry - I picked up a red one at PW! The gunner from the Corgi Dingo is useful, as is the Dunkin (et al) machine-gunner.

 

The kit figures (top left), Monogram and Aurora (I think), are also nice additions as there are often many colours of these kits, each production-batch being produced in a new colour, so building sets takes forever, while to their right we have another two commanders from battery-operated/radio-controlled/push-and-go or clockwork tanks, which will all be attributed one day, and having the figures is better on 'room used' than having all the tanks!

All good stuff and many thanks to Chris Smith for them!

C is for Canoes - 9 - Not Giant!

Actually Mikephil in the US and a generic here in the UK, and I've never known if that's pronounced as a rather clumsey 'Mike-Phil', the smoother 'Micky-phil', or something esoteric like 'Mike-a-phil'? Guidance from US or Canadian readers gratefully received!

 

We did actually look at this briefly many years ago, and it will need to go on the Giant blog at some point, but they aren't Giant, they use the two sets of six (and only six) Giant foot figures, possibly even the old tool cavities, but with the lesser, non-Giant mark (Made in Hong Kong), and with new connecting runners, joining them together in rows, one of cowboys, and this one of Indians.

 

The Mikephil (I'm now saying Mick-effhil in my head!) shots here are all courtesy of Brain Berke, the generics are from the collection, except the green one which was a fleaBay image I took years ago, as you don't often see the green canoe.

 

Note that the Mikephil one has a monochrome image in blue-and-white on the back mirroring the full colour image on the card fronts, the generics available over here just have plain, undecorated card backs.

These images might have been used last time? This shows how the strips of figures are attached in the bottom of the canoe; the connecting pieces routed in the base of the tool are wedged in the little forked/slotted studs, holding them long-enough (one or more connections often pop-out while still in the packaging) to further hold them in, with the angled blister!

Brian did a scaler, and I have a yellow boat with the figures, unusually, placed-in facing the other way! Commonly the figures are firing/moving to the right, except the cowboy on the other end, but someone reversed some!

 

I must assume all colours of figure can be found as boats and vise-versa, but some seem commoner than others, so maybe the missing ones went to a country/region where they were less likely to survive the tests of time, like Mexico for instance?

 

One of Brian's sets in situe, the boat seems to be another brighter chartreuse yellow, to my aged lemon, but it could just be flash, the teepee is looking darker in the other image? It's also a perfect demonstration of how most '54mm' totem poles are better scaled for 25mm figures! Thanks again to Brian, for his images/examples.

 

And note this post is really about the canoes, the figures are far more interesting, and complicated, and, while we did touch on them briefly, a long time ago, here, I will do them properly as a series of posts on the Giant blog another day. And, the boat is a scale-down of another we'll look at in these posts, itself apparently; a full-size copy of a third!