H is for How They Come In - London, March, Everything Else

A bit of a mixed bag to finish off, and we'll see which order they load themselves in! I'm not imagining it am I? Computing is getting harder not easier, it might be easy for 'smart phone' owners, but for people who actually work on/with PC's or laptops it's becoming increasingly glitchy and fragmented, the Internet is becoming less a tool for the advancement of civilisation, and rather an entertainment vessel for people glued to their idiot-phones!

Well, we're back to the yesterday system and they loaded in the order they should have, bargain! I know I did need a Vitacup reindeer with both antlers intact, and can't remember if I've already rectified the omission, so I may have two or three now, but this was going cheap.

 

Three little rack-toy old-fashioned cars, I think they may be crude copies of the Charben's 'Old Crocks', but I have to check, the orange one is the same moulding as the blue one, but seen from the rear.

 

Already joined by the two Chris Smith sent, this is a different-coloured plastic and mane/tail paint, so both lots only increasing the whole sample. Exin Castillos 40mm medieval figure; Prince on horse.

 

Premium flat dinosea-saurs! I mended the broken Plesiosaur I picked up a while ago, now I have an undamaged one - often the way! While the Ichthyosaur looks suitably mean and vicious!

Bog-standard rack-toy accessory, but seems to have factory paint, so I thoght I'd hang on to it and see if I can find it's set over time, Hing Fat had a copy, fantasy set, at one point, with a  'Halloween' tree that had a splash of paint, so it did happen occasionally!

 

We looked at these Lone Star African clones with a lot of help from Chris a while back, but worth getting more when you see them cheap, as there may be something new in them/their marks (I don't think so), and because one day you may have a plan to paint some up!

 

Lido or copy on the left, probably Tudor Rose on the right, nothing exciting, and we've looked at both under their tags in the past, including various copies of the Lido and a Tudor Rose bagged set. I've mentioned before that the Lido are among my favourites.

 

Hornby and Mastermodels, the Hornby five showing signs of lead-rot (a sandy whiteness to the exposed surfaces), while the Wardie stuff is safer, being die-cast alloy, but they can crack-up too, with their own 'disease'! A dip-wash with white vinegar and a new gloss paint-job, all over, might save the lead?

 

Cereal Premium!

Someone gave me these, I think, and I didn't look to check the base mark to see if they were Archie McFee/Accoutremants or BuM Slot? But the re-issues of the old Giant Mongols, which give us hope the spaceship, space tank and Viking longship mould-tool's are still out there somewhere?

C is for Canoes - 17 - HO-OO Scaled

A rather limp chapter in this canoe 'season', as I haven't done all the Merten/Noch/Preiser ones for a start, there's at least one metal one, and there are others, but here's a few which I happened upon as I was building these article folders

Atlantic have given us a trapper canoe in the Davy Crockett set and a raft in the Kit Carson set, smaller boxings would have one of each whole runner, sometimes cut into two with a smaller piece (the four - common/duplicate - mouldings beyond the obvious gap) and a larger piece with all that set's unique pieces on. Larger sets could have up to four or six complete runners, they aren’t rare; just over-hyped!

 

Woodland Scenics give us a pair of modern touristy/back-packing boats with obviously young people on a day-out/adventure, pre-painted polystyrene in the manner of the European figures mentioned above, but not painted to the same quality as Preiser or Noch.

 

The little Marx boats from various Miniature Masterpiece sets; silver paint only adds to the decorative nature of these, which were to be parked near the camp (there were no suitable crew/paddling figures), where matching toylike teepees were to be found, some of the other Wild West accessories however were much better, and the same camp would have a really nice little drying rack for an animal skin.

 

My homemade effort, I found it again in the recent moving of stuff, but it got damp in the 2007 flood and needs to be rebuilt, or just replaced! It was an evening's exercise in paper folding or curving; a boat is a dynamic shape, and a waterline model of one has it's own complications! Either side of it are the Thomas/Poplar canoes, painted with gloss brown by someone other than me!

 

Poly Pocket from Bluebird Toys, licenced to Mattel in the 'States, provided another leisure craft for the diminutive little madame to punt about in a flooded powder compact, but hide the seats with stores and paint it up, it's got the lines of a nice Native American boat?

H is for How They Come In - London, March, Military

Hmmmm . . . I've just discovered, for some reason Google have changed the image-upload system (again) overnight, for no discernable purpose (again) and it's loading them in reverse order . . . not for the first time! But as I gave up pre-editing and SOE'ing with this new, glitchy picece-of-shit (but not as piece-of-shit as an HP) computer back in January, it's just another 'thing' in the fragmenting 'Internet' of a declining civilisation - enjoy it while you can; 'cos we've had the best of it! Anyway, military stuff this post;

 

Possibly Mars-Hindenburg, but unmarked these two are about 45/50mm and almost semi-flat, they're depicting the German army of the WWI era, and composition, so I had to have them as soon as I saw them!

A small bag of Sky Birds (and others), possibly from Adrian, nothing terribly exciting, and I think I have them all, but getting the various marching poses with the rifles intact is always a bonus!

Couple of Coma/Co-Ma matelots, I couldn't remember if I'd got some of these (or the air force) at a PW Show a year or two ago, so grabbed them while I saw them, and will sort them later, the one on the right needs some rust removed!

Interesting figure on the left, being a copy, scaled-up of the Giant and other Spacemen, kneeling with ray-gun. Look's like a pretty bog-standard rack-toy, of some age, but I've never seen one in this size before?

 

To his right is a 'from hollow-cast' cowboy in a bit of a state, hardly any paint left, and I think he’s had his base trimmed-off, so 'damaged', but my first example (as far as I know) and maybe one of the BR Moulds stable?

Couple of Frenchies, I haven't looked them up so I won't attribute them, or try, my 'eemies' have such fun at my attempts in that sphere! Colonial Infantry on the right, khaki on the left, slightly small at around 50mm and polystyrene.

The Hong Kong 'swoppet' paratroopers i always think-of as French-looking, we've seen them before, but these are a different (more yellowish-olive) colour plastic and with colour-matched bases, they also have black and brown plastic weapons against the silver of my larger sample.

A bunch of Hollow-cast from Adrian's cheapie tray, I can't remember if they were 50p's or £1's this time, but as it had been quite a frugal show as far as purchases went, i rather filled my boots!

Now the text is all over the place, I just started adding this at the start and when I tried to delete it found I was deleting the line below? In fact the cursor is jumping all over the place (especially when I hit 'enter') and the radio is reporting problems with British Airways leading to 90-flight cancellations . . . and they think we're going to get to the stars? We can't make a garden shed waterproof for ten years!

Three more Siku premiums, you may have noticed these coming in, in ones and twos for almost the whole history of the blog, they are rather all-over the place and I'm still miles away from a full set of cowboys or Indians, in either size, painted or unpainted, but it'll still be nice to get them all together soon and have a decent look at them!

Finishing off with a few more of the HK copies of the Waddington's/Rojas e Malaret US cavalry from the Battle of the Little Bighorn boardgame, These must have been a gift from someone, or very cheap as they're not something I'd normally buy.

 

I keep hoping I'll see their - probably bagged - set on evilBay, as they're not exactly rare and must show-up with some empirical clues at some point! And because I do have a tub-full, I hope to paint up one of each one day soon'ish!

C is for Canoes - 16 - Hong Kong II

This was also sent to the Blog by Brian in time for last year's Rack Toy Month, and again I posted it in the bag as I knew we had his close-ups in the queue, more of an infant toy, made in two halves of polystyrene and equipped with four carpet wheels.

From the reverse, the card suggests some age to this set, 1950's maybe? And that would mean if there is a donor set they could be hollow-cast figures, not that I've checked Joplin as I should have done!

The juvenile quality is continued with the two holes 'hollow-log' style, and so far they've only been found in the fetching pink! And the standing figure is a copy of the plastic Crescent chap, so really I'm just running out of things to say about canoes aren't I!!

 

Just in case he is from a hollow-cast figure, or if anyone recognises him (let the rest of us know), mine is in the same red as the set Brian sent me, his are a more realistic brown plastic, and you need to bend the oar/hands to get the latter to hold the former. And, thanks again, to Brian for images and donations.

H is for How They Come In - London, March, Sc-fi, Fanatsy, Cartoon & TV/Movie Figures

Continuing with the London show plunder, and it's the fictional stuff tonight, slipped over midnight somehow, but I'm a bit bleure this evening, and I don't know if it's a head-cold or overdoing it in the garden and getting a lungful of pollen?!!

Kinder first! We saw my sample of these a while ago now, but several more complete or not so complete have since come-in via Chris, Peter and my own purchases, and I picked these up for a song in London.

 

There's even a spare boot, the sort of bit that's often missing, and while there are only two complete figures (and one of them has the wrong helmet I think), it's about the fun of trying to get four of each boot/helmet/belt-backpack in each of three colours on three or four colours of figure, a relatively unattainable goal unless you're a dedicated Kinder collector!

 

We looked at my small fleet of these not that long ago, but this is a colour variation, with all three landing feet intact, so it came home with me, it's one of the tropes of Kinder to issue the same toy in different or - sometimes - opposite colour-ways.

While this is becoming a bug-bear, I've posted one before I think, shot a few for somewhere else, then had a couple more come in, re-shot them, then this chap turns up and has to go here (ocd rules!), so the rest are on hold again, but by the time I remember them, it'll be time to unify everything and shoot them again . . . properly! Kinder fantasy barbarian in loin-cloth and para' jump-boots!

 

I think these are Esso premiums, and while they are claimed by French collectors, there must have been a UK issue (or issues) as we had some when we were kids, one of my favourite toys going back to when my memories begin is the hedgehog from the woodland animal set.

 

Here we have two cartoony ones on the outside, and two Disney characters from the Jungle Book in the centre, but there were other sets, including the aforementioned wildlife, dinosaurs, Babar the Elephant &etc. They can be described as erasers, but are in fact a silicon-rubber which just smears pencil!

Aaaaaaannnnnnd, we confirm a solving of a mystery! Returning immediately to The Jungle Book, and here's some more painted ones, so anyone whose been following this micro-saga since the sad news of David Pomeroy's passing and the stuff I managed to save, will see this is the evidence that while one of the snakes was a pre-production design, and some of the plastic colours may have been experimental, there are commercial ones out there, as this is the second source/lot to come in along with the Tiger which turned-up so fortuitously and soon after the initial bag of workshop bits.

 

Not only that, but this Mowgli is the fourth I've seen and possibly the third I have, not put with the others [yet] as the other two came in as 'Maybe Marx', years before! And the fact that he has a separate, glued-on, clear base would have kept them separate if this lot hadn't appeared! 

And this might be Disney, might be branded, but I've forgotten even if it's hard plastic or PVC! And it's gone away now; so it'll have to be properly Blogged another day? Obviously a cartoon cat in the style of Marx, or early Heimo, Comic's Spain or similar?

These are current Kinder, and obviously from the recent Avatar II movie, being the two leading characters, I watched a sort of speeded-up highlights/précis thing on YouTube the other day and now don't have a burning need to watch the film, as I know what happens!

Don't know if it's a full set, but I picked-up a few more at the PW show, which are all duplicates I think? And the bottom row here are all second views, so there's only eight sculpts present; two humanoids (previous shot), three sea-monsters (top) and three flyers (middle) with printed fabric wings.

C is for Canoes - 15 - Hong Kong 1

I should have keyed this in after the triples, as it's another version of the stretched-limo' of canoes, somewhere between the post-Giant HO one and the various MPC-Toy House ones with Tim Mee-clone figures, as we saw on Saturday last.

Brian actually sent one of these to the Blog which we looked at here, but I didn't open it as I knew we had this lot in edit! Detail wise it's as featureless as can be, but it has the lines, with the swept-up tips, and as a 'war-canoe' can be stuffed with figures, for a proper carpet raiding-party!

At last! The skulking guy on the Island gets picked up for a day trip! The funny thing is, we're going to have to return to this, because despite all the photo's in two posts, there's no decent shot of the interior, so I can't show how it differs from the other similar canoes! And that's my fault 'cos I had the bloody-thing in front of me at one point! When it all gets sorted at the other end . . . !

 

 

In the meantime, I did have a few of the crew in the loose, unsorted zone (standing with the scalp), and with the canoes in the canoe & raft box (paddler), but I hadn't made the connection between the two, thinking the scalper was more of a Texas knock-off type thing!

I think the rower has an original (Cherilea?) oar, and I've placed him in one of the worst of modern rack-toy canoes, and I mean sub-Hing Fat (who are responsible for one of the Britains' 'trapper' canoe copies), which is no more than a silver blob, and manages to look like an inflatable beach-toy!

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!