B is for Best Show on Earth! 3. Ancient and Medieval

So; continuing with the plunder posts from the Plastic Warrior show in Twicker's a few weeks ago, and we're looking at the older eras depicted by toy soldiers, because it's all about the Toy Soldiers, or at least it used to be, these days it's as much about the spacemen or civilians, but you know what I mean!

 

Andy came over and asked me if these two Elastolin were worth a fiver, and while I'm no expert on the subject I said I thought they were given that they were two variants of the same figure, in good condition with the latter, rarer (or less common) moulding, only for him to frog-march me over to the seller? Before I knew what had happened, I was the proud owner of both? I'd thought I was just giving advice!

And they do make a nice pair, there are books published in Germany which go into intense detail on the left-hand figure, with endless colour variations, paint styles, base type hierarchy and so on, while the right-hand figure is unusual for being a harder plastic than the polyethylene of some other samples I have.

 

There are also French and Spanish copies of some of these, usually without the edge/rim to the base, and often silver or gold plastic, sometimes primary colours, usually unpainted.

 

A handful of 40mm Starlux medievals, who happen to split equally into blue/green and red/yellow armies for the purposes of photography, not planned as I picked them out of a larger sample. I have a few others somewhere, I think some have been on the Blog passim, so hopefully when we see them again, they'll be an even better shot!

Food premiums came in the guise of a Kinder Gaulish warrior and two Shredded Wheat 'Kings & Queens' series, I have lots of the latter, but don't know if I have all of them, and seem to grab them whenever I see them going cheap, and they are all over the place, so hopefully when I get them all togther there will be a full set - relief flats with the data on the flat back.

A nice handful of the early Cherilea knights, only bits and pieces, but there's a complete figure in the centre and enough bits for a second, sans helmet. I have managed to get several lots like this over the last few years (I know I have a whole archer somewhere), so when I look at them in full in the future we should get a better idea of them.
 

A small discussion was held about these, from which I gathered they exist, they turn up occasionally, they're interesting, but not interesting enough to buy, so I bought them! I wonder if they might belong with the previous swoppet types, from Cherilea, but currently 'unknown', the arms in non-matching plastic are heat-welded on.

Small scale from three sources and came in three donations I think with a bunch of Italeri/Zvezda Normans, a sub-piracy of Supreme's small-scale horse, a Giant knight and another Norman with a touch of paint.

 

This year's new set/s from Replicants were a selection of ancient/medieval levy/revolting peasants/belligerent civi's . . . they're not going to take it any more! Either side of which are two of the helmets from Airfix's 1:12th scale (six inch) character kits, being Richard III's on the left and the Black Princes on the right. As you can see they'll make nice enhancers for shelf displays or similar?

 

I've left them in the bag for now, but they are sculpted in Peter's usual, very animated, style and a nice mix of male and female types, with a lute player chivvying them all along with a Hay-nony-no, although the lady with a cleaver seems to have heard it before - once too often; you can have too much of a bard-thing!

 

Now . . . I have to get all these right, 'cos Brian Carrick put me right and then I must go and change the old post, which I could have/should have done three weeks ago, but life's too short and it's my 'eemies' who get excited about my odd errors, not me! These two ARE Guilbert from France, as is the horse, who is missing his tail.

 

This is a Colorado horse, which came with the Musketeer lot, also French, but maybe for Wild West? I have somewhere a bunch of painted French Wild West by several companies, in a little box which I think came from Sam of Sam's Minis, and I think they have been repainted, but I must sort them out one day, and hopefully there may be a rider for this beast?

 

These two are Ludorev reissues from the Rene Fisher lot below and like the lot we saw a while ago, one needs a new wire sword, which I will do in the fullness of time. I don't know about the half-barrel/bucket, which could be from anywhere, it looks like the kind of thing toy circuses make elephants or tigers stand on!

 

The Rene Fisher originals, which I think I called Guilbert (on advise) when we looked at them last time, I think we saw them all then except the Milady character figure, but in the meantime I had picked-up a third lot, which hasn't been Blogged yet, so we'll revisit Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan!

 

Bad rust on the two either end's swords, while an unstable red paint will need stripping which could lead to a repaint, but they are duplicate figures, so it'll be fun to give them a less toy-like countenance!

Thanks to all for everything last month; Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan and Michael Mordant-Smith.

C is for Canoes - 23 - Marx

I've recived shots for a 24th post, which won't surprise you, you had no idea of the plans, but they were originally for 22 posts, which stated to look like more a week or so ago, although the original 24th was to be Thomas-Poplar, but I may hold them for now as we covered them quite well a while ago here, and they can be a stand-alone post in a few weeks, or something?

 

In the end we might have got to 30, but I pulled the posts on Modern Metal production as the images were mostly current commercial ones sent to me more for reference, and likewise a Ron Barzo post, where I think The Toy Soldier Company are still using all the images! But, Dogs Of War, Frontline, Jon Jenkins and Little Legion all have very good white metal native canoes, Barzo have done two or three over the years, in resin, and I meant to do the Crescent slush-cast lead one, but it didn't happen!

 

Did we do the five-piece plastic Cherilea one? Oh yes, years ago, now tagged, and the other day, with bits and bobs in other posts . . . My 'eemies' have very small victories, but they have very small minds! Heehee!

 

Marx UK version of the Johnny West canoe, Now I have a confession to make here; when we were kids I hated the Marx 12" Wild West set, for a number of reasons, all of which fail to meet the test of retrospective scrutiny. To wit: Wild West (we had Action Man, and he was all WWII-to-Modern), PVC accessories (like late Action Man sets!), Hong Kong manufacture (well a lot of Action Man's stuff especially the stuff shared directly with GI Joe was firmly stamped HONG KONG!), different articulation (they still pose well), lack of real-cloth over-clothing (they are well detailed) . . . it was simply some sort of childhood/childish snobbery!
 

The fact is, as 'any fool know', they are very well-made, characterful and the PVC accessories have mostly stood the test of time, if I had a better budget and more space I'd probably start collecting them!

 

Luckily I don't have enough of either, but for those who do, they don't seem to be that rare (but then neither is Action Man these days, after the heady gold rush of the 1990's, a lot has come out of the woodwork!), although, I'd collect through part/bitty/job-lots, as the near perfect ones are often set far higher than they are worth!

But the canoe doesn't seem to come up so often and may be worth any premium it carries, there were none available when I looked on evilBay the other day. A US made version, shown above, I think.

 

Marx also did a 54mm/1:32nd scale canoe, and this is Brian's reissue. We saw the nominally 'HO' one, in the small scale post a few days ago. Many thanks again to Brian for the images.

B is for Best Show on Earth! 2. Airfix and Related

I had some luck with early Airfix at the show, and there were some related bits, so I shoved them all in one post, except the two early motorcycles which ended-up in a mixed shot in the Civilian Vehicles post!

Two of the Airfix mounted figures after Bergan/Beton, both mounted on soft polyethylene horses (with the correct bent tail and cavity mark), although being a hard polystyrene themselves. The lefthand shot is missing the hunter, who turned up later, hence the rethink on how to do the posts!

 

As a result that image also has two probable Argentine figures a ceremonial type (top right, integral moulding) and a Native American (bottom left, separate rider) along with two other 'styrene riders, one of whom seems to belong with the marked-Ajax horse, the other is from the Magnetic 'Bucking Bronco' novelty act - the third I've picked-up in a few months, typical; isn't it, like buses; you wait ages for one, then three turn-up together!

A mixed bunch of the early 'eight figure set', being, from the left; Airfix Paratrooper, possible pair of BR Moulds Japanese and three of Peter Evans' home-casts. The first having the clear mould-release pin-mark which seems to differentiate the Airfix originals, the two Jap's missing an obvious mark, hence the possibility they are BR and the trio being a sharper, rigid resin to the softer pink one we looked at last year?

 

In the last lot from Chris Smith, I held over a bunch of these from the plunder posts, and I picked up a few more the other day, so a major re-hash/addition to that page will be forthcoming, as are similar changes to the mounted 'Bergan Beton' page where an awful lot have come in recently, in addition to the two above.

This is a fun shot, or at least the upper one is, the lower one is a closer look at the five Gulliver Japanese infantry, one of which is based squarely on an Atlantic 'Sendai' sculpt (Gulliver's go-to for piracies when they weren't copying Reamsa, Comansi or Jecsan!), the other figures being four old Airfix Sculpts.

The upper shot has, in addition, two rather wreaked Airfix originals for a not-very-useful comparison (they've both had their feet mucked-about with), suffice to say the Gulliver are a little smaller, but well sculpted. And in the foreground, a gloss-painted 'Toy Soldier' style home-cast piracy in lead/whitemetal with a wire bipod.

Not Airfix but of the same era, the same rarity value as the 'eight' and the same esoteric range, are two on the left from BR Moulds, a Lifeguard which is almost certainly from the Trojan set (post coming) and an Indian who doesn't seem to conform to any of the known BR mould-tool catalogue descriptions, and has something of the Sacul guards in his plastic colour, but seems to be from hollow-cast, so got included here!

 

These were mixed in with everything else! They go in a big bag which gets sorted into the master-collection/future stock every few years! I actually found a Prussian advancing from the Waterloo sets the other day, trod into someone's lawn, so Airfix 'HO-OO' have become a standard feature of the Anthropocene geological layer, along with crisp packets, chocolate wrappers, drinks bottles & cans, cigarette filters and vehicle parts/metal or rubber fixings!

 

Thanks to all for everything last month; Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith and Peter Evans,

Thanks to all for everything last month; Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan and Micheal Mordant-Smith.

C is for Canoes - 22 - Others, Unknown

Quickie tonight (this morning!), it's funny how there are rhythms in randomness, I often lose or drop my posting rate as a new month starts, and it's nothing deliberate; purely real-life intervening, but as phenomena, these events do seem to come around regularly!

A couple of shots I took at the end of the domestic photo-shoot, using a couple of my buckshee paddlers (20% of the vintage Cherilea items acquired!) and showing one of my unknown boats, it seems to be two halves, but no sign of glue so possibly friction welded and again, like many of the others; a bit too smooth, but would benefit from a painting, by someone who knew what they were doing! Timpo load fits nicely! Unmarked, but Hong Kong - I think, and a polystyrene or hard propylene?

 

I also have this which is quite a big beast as you can see from the two Crescent Natives. It's  hard polystyrene as well, and ribbed a bit like the Thomas/Poplar ones, but with wider gaps between the ridges, also like them, it is sufficiently rounded and keeled to lean to one side on a flat surface, and would certainly displace enough water to float. Any ideas on either of them? Is this one a roof-load from a dime-store car?

B is for Best Show on Earth! 1. Introduction

So, it was the best show on earth three weeks ago, and a bloody good time was had by all, well, most, the Army lost the Rugby to the Navy which is a sufficiently rare event to consider them to have had a shit day! I filled my boots with nice things, and other people helped, but I've decided to treat the plunder like one of Chris's donations and show it thematically.

 

All sorted!

 

So having started to shoot it in a more random fashion as in past years, with individual donations highlighted, I re-shot it by subject-matter, and thought I'd do an Intro' to use up some of the otherwise unused images, and thank everyone at the start.

 

Fantasy & Sci-Fi

 

But I'll add a 'Thank you' paragraph to the end of each subsequent post. I know I get a bit anal about thanking people, but if they've gone to the effort of giving you stuff, saving-up stuff for you or let you have stuff cheap, it's only proper to thank them.

Bag of bits from Brian Carrick

Bag of bits from Trevor Rudkin

Bag of bits from Peter Evans

Bag of bits within Peter's bag of bits!

We have a toy charity here, have you encountered it yet?

Other countries have them too, but nobody seems interested in them!

Heehee!

I also bought this, for a bit of fun, I'll read it and do nothing with the knowledge! I do actually have lots of war gaming books in the library, a testament to past pretensions for something - possibly - better than blogging toys! And for the often very useful appendices!

 

Odds, mostly small scale.

Andreas Dittmann gave me the three on the right.

We'll look at it all in subsequent posts.

The Replicant's purchases all together!

Very blue this year!

We won't look at all these in subsequent posts, as this is the shot of things which got left out of an earlier thematic photo-shoot! Another - probably French - soft plastic Captain Video robot, and another Hong Kong - probably Blue Box or New Maries/Lee Chung - water well, this one with the bucket! A Hollow-backed sheaf (or 'stook') of corn which I've never seen before and a large gull which may be Spanish or Argentine?

 

The little blue lady is from the Morestone TV-tie-in Wagon Train, an Airfix huntsman, a straw-bale which is based on the Scalextric one, but is not, neither is it the flimsy blow-mold usually found in HK racing sets, but is actually a heavy injected polyethylene, so equally new to me?

 

Boat and barrel will join similar piles, eventually, and the spear, a fearsome weapon which looks like it should be wielded by a 70mm Zulu, is actually from those 54mm plinth-based Spanish museum figurines I think, and may be quite a ceremonial/presentation type?

A few Civilian types.

I must also thank Adrian Little for lots of sold well- below value stuff, and Gareth Morgan likewise, whose stuff took another week to sort-out, and then needed sorting into everything else for the big shoot, so didn't get an overview-shot! Lots to come, but like the 'Canoes Season', I'll intersperse it with other posts, to mix-it-up a little!

C is for Canoes - 21 - Others, Known

Scraping the tail-ends fo the folders now, and we've missed loads, but it's been a reasonable wizz round some of what's out there, and here are a few shots, mostly from the Internet, of other brand's canoes.

 

Alphabetically, we start with the Lego canoe from the Wild West range, pretty-much gone now, and started after my Brother and I had given-up Lego, it's obviously marred by the locating-studs in the bottom of the boat, but could provide the basis of a reasonable conversion into something more realistic! 

Safari . . . humm . . . I'm not sure that it's even a vessel to be placed on water, as it might be a cooking/washing utensil? That half-hollowed log next to the boy, centre-right is what I'm looking at, more of an Amazonian Indian practice piece I fear!

Schleich go with their usual larger scaled piece, but it's nicely finished and would make a good war canoe for war-gamers, as it would take a shed-load of 54mm Native Americans!

 

Starlux chose a sort of vac-formed piece which has more of the look of a Nile Vessel, of several thousand years earlier, made from bundles of reed-straw! But, it was only ever meant to be a toy, and its fragile nature means it doesn't turn up often.

 

This is the smaller, earlier Tim Mee again, I somehow missed the image when doing their post a week or so ago, my bad! It's got those weird pins on either side to hold it level and upright, which makes you wonder why it took until Britains/Timpo to come-up with waterline versions, until you realise many hollow-cast and solid metal makers had flat-bottomed canoes, for years or decades prior, and that Tim Mee were just guilty of trying to be too clever!

B is for Blind Bag Box Tick

We've seen Sambro before, doing quite high-quality Turtles of the Ninja variety and Minions of the eraser type, so these blind bags are a bit of a disappointment, but there you go, we buy this shit (in Poundland I think, but it might have been ASDA?) so you don't have to!

 

The more disappointing of the two, a Spinosaurus, nice as it will help ID any future incomers from the same set (on the reverse of the bag). Made of a modern, semi-foamed, PVC-alike, it's quite akin to silicon, and could be a type of the same? But flashy and with a slack-jaw from early removal from the tool (I suspect), the painting is limited to a casual pass with gloss-green!

Slightly better, but probably for being a simpler sculpt, and the same part stretchy, part clammy (but not the same as full-on stretchies) elastomer, and painting is two colours this time; an all-over gloss red and a glancing pass of gloss yellow (a reverse job suggested on the bag), the undecorated underside with red-blowback giving it a greater realism, which would have held better without the yellow stripe!

That's it, box ticked, a 3rd for Sambro on the tag list! Out there now, somewhere!

C is for Canoes - 20 - Wend-Al (and Quiralux?)

Just a box ticker as the two folders (Brian's and mine) thin out to a finish! This was on feeBay about two years ago, and while I did have a couple of other images of colour variations, I noticed the other day they are still on sale! So I won't use them now, but, Dude, if you've relisted something for two years; your Buy-It-Now is set too high?

 

As I've said for years to anyone who'll listen (attracting a few more 'eemies' along the way), none of this stuff is 'rare', it was all mass-produced!

 

Playful, chunky and almost indestructible! for such a 'solid' material, the figure is a nice animated sculpt, but the boat is definitely toy-like, and too short. Wend-Al and maybe Quiralux, in different paint?

 

But retuning to the previous point for a second, I was perusing this Faceplant site earlier today;

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/270886240594726/?hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen&multi_permalinks=1000722010944475

 

 . . . and there are guys on there with boxes of Astrid, or trays of Miniajouets or a shed-load of Gulliver, Pech, Comansi . . .  or whoever, literally; none of it is rare.

 

The rarities are the exceptions, where a set was never issued (Britains 'Superdeetail'), or the mould was lost on the first morning of production (Lone Star Musketeers) or something equally catastrophic, or the firm was very small, and it was a long time ago (some of the early 'from hollow-cast'), but for everything else, it's just a question of waiting!

AFV is for Absolutely Feckin' Vast!

Well, they're not THAT big, but pretty-much the next size-up is Action Man/GI Joe, so they are about as big as I'm ever going to go! We're talking Tudor Rose here, although we've previously seen one of them marked-up as Kleeware, and I'm pretty sure I've seen the same SPG (an M55) under Ideal branding in the 'States?

 

There was a lot of Tudor Rose showing at PW's show a fortnight or so ago, and some of it got a second outing at Sandown Park the following weekend, and I did buy some, but that was all civilian and will be seen in those forthcoming show-reports, in the meantime, this truck came in a while ago now . . .

 

. . . and I shot this quick shot; at an odd angle, seen elsewhere I think, to show off the Blue Box box of Blue Box BB boxes, which Chris had sent in one of his lots, along with a Blue Box four-inch figure, or just under, he's actually 95mm. Well, you'd need a military escort for that load, it's almost a cupboard-full of Blue Box toys!

 

Then these big babies came-in, not that long ago, and while they did go through to storage at the time, I found them the other day while looking for something else, and knowing the truck was still in the flat thought "Well, OK, we can cobble something together here I think!" As you can see they are almost as grubby as the truck, so cleaning as well as photographing was the order of the day.

The M55 got a spray with TFR (traffic film remover) watered-down at about 50/50, and then a drying with kitchen-paper, and I took the opportunity to strip it down to its constituent parts . . . I meant to do a 'parts-shot' for all of them, but kept getting too-keen to reassemble them after I had a pile of dry parts, so forgot to do the others!

 

Apart from the wear to the 'fighting compartment' deck, it came up pretty mint, but I knew it would as the underside looked like it was made yesterday, so it was mostly surface dust. I also re-cut the tab of the firing 'pin' and the furred edges of its receiving slot, as they had had enough play, in the past, to round-off slightly, making it hard to fire without a two-handed faff!

All back together and it's looking like the beast it was, briefly in the 1950'60's, The shells which just sit in the rack on the engine deck were mostly missing; there was only one! And it may be missing stickers (see below), but it's a 1950's beach/garden toy survivor, so I think it's looking good!

The 25lbr, as it's described when you see it in its box (there's one on feebleBay as I write), doesn't look much like a 25lbr! And is a very different beast altogether, not least that while the SPG is 100% soft polyethylene, this is mostly hard 'kit' polystyrene, this to hold a more powerful firing mechanism with metal trigger, securely in the moulding, by having it sealed round the trigger and spring. Wheels are 'ethylene though, with steel axles. It's actually a breach-loader, with a pull-back slotted-tray to take the shell, as the trigger is cocked.

The two, together with their ammunition, there's a bagful for the 25lbr, but only the one for the M55 . . . sniff! However, I can report - after extensive testing against the end of the bed - that both will take each other's rounds, the 25lbr's are snug in the SPG's barrel but fire efficiently, while the smaller rounds of the M55 roll-about a bit in the breach tray of the howitzer which could affect accuracy over garden ranges!

The Jeep completed the trio, and we're back to all-polystyrene, with the exception of two steel axles. Not the best rendition of a jeep, but not the worst either, it gets the 'look' right, but is a bit boxy or square, and lacks the rear quarter-bumpers/fenders/foot-steps, which help with the distinctive lines of a Jeep.

 

Mine is missing it's spare, and like an idiot, in order to shoot one in situ, I took the back one, instead of a front one, so had to prop it up with my fingers! Yes, I could have quickly sorted it out and re-shot it, but what fun is there in such sensible conformity?

Then it was go fetch the truck, and give it the same treatment, with this I didn't remove the rear cargo-bed from the frame, as it looked like I might damage it if I forced the six clips, but the cab came off and the seats came out, while tail-gate and headlight bar both popped-off.

 

It's not a recognisable mark, but more of a generic . . . Bedford? And scale-wise, sits between the larger Jeep and smaller M55. It has a towing hook, but isn't as happy taking the 25lbr as the Jeep is (tighter space), so I may be looking for a smaller gun, or trailer for it?

 

The other obvious difference is the two-tone colouring and I think I've seen civilian versions with red, yellow or blue superstructures as 'tipper-trucks', was there a builder's/road worker's generator trailer or cement-mixer, maybe?

You can see the PVC door stickers didn't survive cleaning, one is lost forever (down the plughole I fear), the other fell off while drying, they were both time expired, the stars however (being a separate contract/print run) survived much better, and leave the question, should they all have/did they all have stickers, or were they added from other toys/models, to this truck? Stickers aren't normally a feature of Tudor Rose, nor did the Kleeware version M55 have any.

Still cleaned-up nicely. It's slightly bent, which is more of a construction thing than an age thing; as the frame gets heavier (as in a heavier moulding) under the cab, where the front wheel-arches begin, the frame has curved slightly and could do with a bit of hot water on the long spars with a press-down at the cab-end of the bed to get it all parallel with the road surface, but it's not bad enough to worry about really!

 

Interestingly, there seems to be a missing steering-wheel, well, that's not interesting, that's annoying, but there are two receiving holes (that's the interesting bit!), so an export version must have been sold with left-hand-drive? Across the Channel or across The Pond?

All cleaned and reassembled, if I had to scale them off the top of my head I'd say about 1:20 for the Jeep, 1:24/25 for the truck and 1:30/32 for the M55, it's about the same size as the Airfix Abbot SPG.

 

Hopefully if I find a cheap, maybe knackered Jeep (perhaps missing its windscreen, or chewed-up), I'll be able to take a wheel as spare for mine, and use the steering wheel for the truck - it looks like it would fit? Trouble is, one knackered-enough to be cheap is likely to be missing its steering wheel too!

The marking is clear on all four items, with 'Tudor Rose' repeated on some, if you recall (or followed the link just now) the Kleeware 'Howitzer Tank' retains the central 'Made in England' disc, but looses the other two, having a heavy KLEEWARE raised on the underside of the deck floor/rear step, aft of the bulkhead.

 

Which conforms to the fact that after they had taken them over and as Tudor Rose concentrated on more trade-related matters (raw materials and machine tools), they handed production of some of their old models to their [Tudor Rose's] new Kleeware 'brand mark/division'.

Last minute checks before setting-off, a runner is sent up from the back to speak to the convoy packet-commander, who looks ready to shoot him, if he says anything too stupid!

 

The figures used are all about 95mm, or just short of the full four-inches, and are an earlier painted Blue Box, a later unpainted Blue Box, both with the same mark as the soft ethylene issue of the 25mm GI's, and the third, unmarked is almost certainly a Rado Industries (Ri-Toys) issue, from the same ex-Blue Box (or ex-Tai Sang!) mould tool.

"Gentlemen! Start. Your. Engines!"