P is for Photographs of Plastic Pugilists

Just a bunch of old Rospaks photographs from the archive, some are black & white, all are - now - low-resolution and some were used with the original article/s in One Inch Warrior magazine, the small scale off-shoot of Plastic Warrior magazine.

It's all Greek to me! We have looked at these before here at Small Scale World, so if you click on the Rospaks tag, under this paragraph, or down the right-hand side of the page, you'll get it all up, with links to someone else's Rospaks posts I think?

MM is for Roaspaks in Military Modelling Magazine

The short history of Rospaks as a seperate entity of Heroics & Ros (known better for their range of micro-armour, which were much finer castings than the cheap, often lop-sided, Skytrex, I went with!) is best writ by studying the few appearances in Military Modelling magazine, and this post in of those cuttings.

 

November 1981

Trade Ad.

Images show sets AG1 and AG2

November 1981

'Observation Post'

 

December 1981

Trade Ad.

AG2 and AG3

January 1982

Trade Ad.

AG1

February 1982

Trade Ad.

AR1

 

March 1982

Trade Ad.

AR1

April 1982

Trade Ad.

AR1

May 1982

Trade Ad.

AR2 and AR3

June 1982

Trade Ad.

AR2 and AR3

 

October 1982

'Observation Post'

Obviously the magazine is still going (I think; it's years since I bought it), and despite several changes of ownership will still retain some copyrights on the above, which is all from my own archive and shown here for research purposes. The 'Tippex' marks are where I originally wrote-in the publishing dates/details.

It's notable that they stopped advertising some months before the announcement of the end of the line, presumably they were looking for a way to save the project? Less than a year first-to-last and still missed by many, they were quite crude figurines, sculpted in the lead/whitemetal style, but they had a definite charm.

You also have to bear in mind, when these were 99p, a box of Airfix HO/OO figures were about 25/30p?

R is for Rospaks Romans

I want to try and use October as a sort of Boxtober! That is to get a lot of boxes ticked, or at least clear some less substantial stuff from the laptop, and get it into the tag-list, and it'll be mostly short posts with one or two images or old archive stuff I'm starting to scan in, and - to that end - this is what I have in the archive, on the Rospaks Roman infantry sets;

This is 'Sheet 2' the instruction sheet for the Roman sets, I don't have 'Sheet 1' for the Greeks, it's one of the few Rospaks items I don't have! If you have it and could send scans, that would be brilliant, or put it on your own Blog and send me the link to put here; it doesn't matter where it ends-up, so long as it's in the public domain before it's lost forever!

 

Infantry - old photograph

Cavalry - old photograph

The waterslide transfer sheet, T2, was originally in one piece, and while cut for inclusion in the first sets issued, would eventually be sold separately, as Heroics & Ros looked about for a fiscal model that would work.

Note; it's T for Transfers not D for Decals, waterslide transfers are still used by the ceramics industry who had been using them in Britain since the 1750's, although it's now believed someone in Italy was the originator/inventor of the technique? Decal is a modern word popularised since the 1970's, and whose etymology is lost or questionable! But it is widely used in ceramics too now! I think it is an ugly, orphan word whether pronounced as dee-cal, or deck-ul and never use it!

Q is for Question Time - U is for Uglynauts

These were flagged-up by Fred Barratt in an old Plastic Warrior magazine . . . Around the 150's I think, he'd found them on holiday in Australia, I seem to recall, but didn't have a brand name/mark for them.

 

I have a horrible feeling I've even lined them up the same as the PW article, which, if I have, is pure coincidence, but it's how they lend themselves, with the firers to the right and wavey-hands-man over the lowered arm of the next guy!

They are not very good and look like a group of over-acting firefighters! About 50mm and fun, they are - at least - more spacemen! But hard to place in the oeuvre, they're more 'pulp' than anything else? Cardboard helmets, mechanics overalls and wellington boots!

 

Looking at them enlarged, you could claim they are Star Wars knock-offs, one of those dodgy Italian ones with original space-battle clips over pop-numbers and ninjas! There are two 'AT-AT' pilots and four 'stormtroopers'!

Being spacemen, they do have an enemy! Or, the denizens of several planets to conquer/destroy! These are not much better, but marginally more believable, and I have a red example of the chap holding the cattle-prod (2nd from the left) somewhere in storage, so they must have been issued in other colours?

 

Base mark is like some Toy Major stuff, and some of the similar pirates we've seen from Redbox, or even the buff/tan Halloween sets we've featured in the last few years, can anyone add anything other than "They were in Australia around 2010"?

 

Now known to be [earlyish] Toy Major.

B is for Airfix!

I said Bachmann were next, and this is next, so Bachmann it is, except it's really Airfix! In fact, let's get that out of the way first, I have read, several times, that these figures are "Airfix copies" or "copies of Airfix".

 

But in point of fact, Airfix during its heyday, had irons in many fires, including a foam-fabricator in Potter's Bar, and among its properties was the German Plasty outfit, who had got close by importing Airfix in the early 1960's, so it's no surprise that as part of the general toy range, we find Airfix imported the Bachmann Mini-Planes and joint-branded them Plasty Airfix.

This (left-hand images) is the 1969 announcement flyer/leaflet, and they would continue on in the toy catalogues for a while, while on the right is the Bachmann booklet from late 1971 (an earlier issue had announced the Spring '71 new releases), these aircraft - which my brother and I had about four of, and really enjoyed, even though they were very delicate - ran through both makers catalogues, at the same time as Bachmann's listing of the Airfix Figures.

The figures therefore were almost certainly either licenced, or more likely from tool cavities supplied by Airfix under a share-deal; "We won't re-export yours back to your territory, if you don't re-export ours to here" type thing. The heavy, glossy paint on PVC makes the Bachman versions resemble the PZG output (which were piracies) from Poland, and I've seen them confused in that manner, but the bases are the thinner Airfix originals, not the thick ones from the East.

 

Packaged in three's and singly in true rack-toy style hanging-cards, this is not the same as the previous post's image, but it might as well be, not many ways to photograph something like this while avoiding reflections!

The full range, as seen in Bachmann's 1974 catalogue, 24 figures, with the 'British Infantry' being taken from the 2nd version Paratroops, as the lack of actual British Infantry was a bone of contention back in the old country, at the time!

 

These vac-forms however, were all Bachmann, if they existed? It states they were sold unpainted, and I don't think I've ever seen one, but they run through the catalogues, so I guess they must have been, I've seen something similar to the machine-gun nest, but Atlantic and Dulcop both produced similar stuff in approximately 1:32nd, so it could have been either of them?!

The two on the left are actually 1:76th, and I was going to leave them out, but what the heck, the only thing of note is that Eidai, Nitto or Fujimi (?) copied the strangely two-dimensional dragon's teeth, as polystyrene solids a few years later!

The 1976 catalogue crams them all on to one page, which suggests they were winding down the line, but it's a smaller pocket leaflet/flyer than the A4 magazine catalogue of '74. I also have half an idea that they were sold briefly in full sixes, but that may be a false memory, and I'd have to check the other files!

L is for Lun'un Taarn!

So back to July's London Toy Soldier show, and I was supposed to be on a tight budget, and - to be honest - thought I'd done quite well, but there seems to be a lot of plunder here, although I think I was lucky with cheap bits, but let's have a look at it all, anyway!

I'll stress now that I can't remember who all this came from, and the photography isn't making any sense, so thanks here to Adrian Little and Peter Evans, as Peter brought me a bag of bits, and Adrian had a tub of stuff too, and I had some cheapies off him at the end.

For instance, I don't know where this mixed lot came from and while I'd like to think they were all in Peter's bag, I suspect the metal figures were in Adrian's lots, and that this was just shot like this, while I was tired?

 

Suffice to say it's an ecclectic lot, with a solid Star Wars Wookie from the 'Clone Wars', not sure of the set, maybe Disney Store, or Hasbro, an earlier Lord of the Rings figure of similar quality, an MPC German I may or may not have, but even if I do have him, there's a 50/50 chance I have him in the darker grey, so he stays untill I can check!

I think the tall chap may be from a chess-set, but he could be a licensed property? The headless Man Bat is a re-shot of the Cherilea one (from Dorset/Marlborough?), and now that recent finds/donations have completed the origianl pair, a nice 'next chapter' sample for that group.

Finally the two metal Lone Star soldiers are oddities, the helmeted kneeling firer seems to be a home-cast copy of the plastic figure, but the other is more of a mystery, I thought I was being thick when I couldn't find Lone Star in Joplin, but he lists them under DCMT and has a small handful of mostly plastic, while all searches for the figure (which I don't recognise) have failed to reveal him in plastic or metal? Is it a cut-n-shit from Japan or Argentina?

 

He's not from the Lone Star poses, having more of a stick that their EM2 Bullpup rifles? Answers on a postcard please - I haven't got a clue! They both seem to be painted by the same person/organisation, but whether home-made or commercial I just don't know.

 

Next Day - from Peter E "The kneeling paratrooper and soldier with foot on the rock are resin castings by me The kneeling paratrooper was never made by Lone Star in their series so I did a version The foot on the rock pose was from a hollow cast by Charbens Painted up by me also" Which is why they both struck me as odd, and a lesson to take notes, a softish plastic resin, not metal! And it means all the above were from Peter, and I've now credited everyone correctly I think!

 

These are more thematic as a shot, three probably Japanese (Bandai or Tomi/Takara?) figures from some kids TV anime or computer/video game and another of the Avatar II figures we've seen here. complete now I think, from Kinder.

Above shot is the show lot, and I think these did come from Peter, a collection of familiar-looking footballers; modern China-made and older Culpitts cake decorations, but as you can see from the lower comparison shot, the larger figures aren't as large as those we've seen several times here, now, under several brand-names.

 

Being both smaller, and less detailed, they seem to be 2nd Generation knock-offs, and I will need to find the rest and any colour variations, for another look at them . . . a growing 'family' of figures!

Terrible shot I'm afraid, I haven't quite got used to the lighting over at the flat and some of them get washed-out with the back-light, I don't know why as it's mostly the trees screening the M3 from the building, but, moden fancy self-cleaning glass or something?

No matter, it's only a top-up of small scale, mostly Marx/Blue Box or Crescent/Britains clones with a few Airfix G.I.'s, and they'll all get their day on the But Is It Giant Blog in the fullness of time!

Mixed lot here, probably also from Peter, the farner is from the A-Z/Padgett Brothers farm import sets I think, drum-set from Culpitts is very useful, it seems to only come in red, while I have yet to find red musicians, but yellow, green, light blue and two browns have turned-up and one day we'll have a 'battle of the bands' post with all of them, but a couple more side drums (one missing here) and cymbals are needed before that shot can be taken!

 

These are all rather nice, two really 'clean' Lone Star African Warriors I got from Steve Vicker's stall at the start of the show, a quite uncommon Cavendish Drum/Band Major, mercifully in one piece*, who came from a rummage tray and the Marx six-inch caveman is not exactly common either!

 

The Africans, are those I didn't remember having, but I'm now not sure if I had/have any, so I probably should have got the rest, I know we looked at the Hong Kong pirates in some detail with Chris's help a year or two ago, but I'm not sure what I have in the way of originals, I think I have the Cherilea, and most of the Charbens, but not sure on the Lone Star chaps!

And I wonder if showing the Marx caveman will lead to a sudden rash of them elsewhere, Deadleaf showed his BIG's again the other day, twice in five months, he must have the attention-span/memory of a goldfish!

 

And between showings managed to find the audacity to friend-request me on Faceplant; I kicked that in the bin, assuming he'd clicked it by accident while poking around in my details! paint may be home-done, or point to Swansea production?

*The relief over the Cavendish, is not just because it's my third pose now I think, but because years ago, I was helping JB sort some stock when we found two of these in a little box, and as he lifted (carefully - fingertip and thumb) one out of the box, it imploded/exploded under some tension-stress like a grenade, and flew all over the room in front of us, we didn't touch the other!

 

All three of mine have these [Airfix M5?] brown bases I think, the fragile ones had slate-grey bases if I remember them correctly, which may or may not have significance, my own - unscientific - observations are that early blacks (and dark reads) can lead to brittleness, and grey would have black pigments in it?

This is a nice group, some cheap lead from Adrian's rummage trays, I have quite a side-collection of metal/hollow-cast machine-gunners now (some in the old guard melt this stuff down you know!), but the rear three are the more interesting I think?

The Hilco grenade-thrower is not rare, but I thought this example in gray/mauve marbling was a bit different, the Kentoy standing firing pose, is - I think -  a glaring absentee on the Khaki Infantry page, so well overdue, while the musician is rubber?

Now, he's not the hard, dense, shoe-sole rubber of Bata's figures, and I have a feeling he may be of Belgian manufacture, but I have no idea where that feeling came from; have we seen them in one of Joplin or Opie's books? But, yeah, possibly 'best of show' can be awarded to this chap, rather than the Cavendish, or Leopold III.

 

Although, when I say Leopold III (middle figure), I'm not sure, it's hard to find pictures of him in a this uniform (by 'hard' I mean I failed to), but his surrendering of Belgium in 1940, rumours of Nazi sympathies and abdication in 1951 have - I suspect - conspired to leave him a little airbrushed from, if not history, then - at least - the Internet? he has a plug-in plastic dress-sword.

But I think that's who he's supposed to be, I recall a white, summer-uniform version in Jean-Claude Druart's toy soldier magazine 'Les carnets du Sergent Ginger', the same plastic as the doctor on the left above, a more common figure, but one I knew I needed, both from Steve V, who also found and gave me another of the odd Confederates (far left) we saw in the Plastic Warrior show reports back in May/June?

While to the right, a couple more of the soft, polythene plastic 'Euro-premium' versions of the ubiquitous flats we looked at again, only the other day, I can't remember why, but I'm sure there was a good reason for doing so!

A mixed group of animals, a bit disappointed by the tiger, I thought it was some modern PVC thing, and didn't realise 'till I was home, sorting them, that it's just the poxy Atlantic Circus/Christians one, home painted! A mistake of the kind we all make from time to time!

 

The Polar bear is hard polystyrene, and probably French in origin, while the dog's new, the Dino' is welcome grist to the mill and the horse - Reisler - will prove very useful at some point, indeed; I think I have a Reisler Mountie in need of a horse?

In the multi-figure picture we have two Kinder, one of the swivel-part 'super-deform' caricatures, of a cowboy and a plug-together 'Steckfigur' as the Germans call the Italian figures, he may be missing weights or dumbbells? A Corgi milkman, another of the ex-Crescent cowboys, and a better-than-average Hong Kong tractor (copy of Britains Lilliput I think), and a Legoland trailer with a few bits in.

Among the bits are a three-part seated figure who I suspect is Thunderbirds Lady Penelope, she could only be from a FAB 1 Rolls-Royce, but the Dinky and Century 21 are both in pink, and while the recent Corgi Classic is in brown, she seems to have her hands in her lap, with white gloves, so this must be from a Hong Kong knock-off . . . anyone know for sure?

I have another one somewhere, also polystyrene, where she's in a lime-green 'flapper' dress? So there are a few around, but the 'swoppet' elements of this figurine rather tickled me! And she may not be Lady P' anyway? 6th Nov - She's from the Mattel movie-related Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang, where she's one of four similar figures

Bachman set of three Airfix US Infantry,

- we'll be looking at these next

 

These are interesting; the six above came-in at the show, while fortuitously, the three lots which have come in, in the last few years, happened to all be here, so below, is the six newest, one freebie from Adrian (the first I'd seen) and four I found on evilBay about a year ago.

 

Now, my initial thought when Adrian gave me the first one was probably Canadian (or American) cereal premiums, but the four off feebleBay were being sold in the UK as British cereal premiums, which in conversation someone else said that had happened, but I don't think they are on Cerealoffers, or, at least, I can't find them, and the ones on feeBay at the moment are all in Canada (and shocking prices!), as Kellogg's Canada, issued 1956/57, so for now we'll assume Canadian cereal premiums!

I'm definitely missing a goalie, and with six poses in my sample, can guess at an eight-count, pose wise? They are also found in grey plastic, and are standard polyethylene of the Airfix/Marx/MPC type. Don't they look a bit Rubenstein . . . heehee!

Seemingly based on MPC's Prehistoric animals and dinosaurs, these have hollow bodies, and while unmarked, may be Hong Kong stuff? The seller had a large stock, but only these eight poses and three colours. Despite having the whole show to pick these out, I managed to pick two damaged dino's, so I'm hoping the seller has them again in December! Premiums of some sort?

This bag was a bunch of rumage-bin finds;

 

Cherilea 60mm guards, which I think are, or were (are still a partial -) gap in the collection, I have the riflemen, but not the musicians, they're in good condition except the paint (and a broken trombone), but even the paint is better than most of the type, these days!

 

Wild West types, with several of the Kwong Wah (or similar - flatter bases) chromium-finished Lone Star Metalion clones, two Giodi for Kinder or just plain Giodi (a decade earlier) ACW; one near-complete Federal and a parts donor, from the armed insurgency! The green one looks like that Yugoslavian outfit, and there's a Paramount, bottom right.

Finally; a nice Cherilea knight, he's on a Timpo horse base, but given the fact they often turn-up like this, and given also the relationship Timpo had with them at the Sharnaware end of things, it may be meant, as also; some of those knights struggled to stay-up on the standard bases! I'll leave it like that for now and sort it out another day.

Behind him is a Tim-Mee European-factory gunner, a Starlux Alpine Troop's horn blower and a nice pair of Charbens paratroopers, I always buy the latter when I see them going cheap, as there are dozens of paint-schemes and plastic colours, with variation within schemes - as here, where the camouflage blobs are very different colours.

H is for Harvest Moon

Not the greatest shots, but I managed to get these shots of the last 'Harvest Moon' through the light-pollution of the M2/M4 corridor last night!

I don't think it was as close as it was at the beginning of the month, but we had cloud that night and the next, so I only managed a chopped moon a few nights later;

 

I drove out to a more secluded area for this one and got a better level of detail, resting on a farmer's gate! All taken with my Nikkon pocket-jobby!