D is for Dragonology!

We had Pirateology back on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, last September, and heaven forfend that I now influence people who used to influence me, but I've put another 'ology on the back-burner and pulled this out of the queue sharpish!

Dragonology, like the preveous Piratology, a pretty-standard board-game under the trope of the dragon theme - gotta' have a hook to hang it on! Nice graphics, although I forgot to shoot the board, but there are two views of it in the post and you can see it's a journey-round the board doing/collecting stuff, with card forfeits/jeopardies.

 

Still carried here by Paul Lamond for Sababa, but also crediting Templar Publishing who hold the 'ology series, there are other games, based on other titles in the book series, with two for Wizardology (heehee!), but not yet an Egyptology one, which is the one I'm waiting/hoping for, although if they do make one, it may not have figures! While the newer books haven't had the momentum yet, to generate the desire/need for games?

 

Obviously the figures are the all-important bit, and this set actually carries more than the Pirate set, with six figures, rather than five, several of whom bear more than a passing resemblance to the characters from Cludo!

 

 

They all have names, as do the dragons (have identities), but I was a little disappointed to see, or not see . . . a Welsh one, but I think Switzerland is doing the heavy-lifting for both Cymru and the Vikings! The right-hand human images seem to be taken from much-larger, highly detailed master-sculpts, rather than than the eventual 35/40mm'ish production figures, which have lost a lot of that detail.

 

You can see how Beatrice Cook could double for Miss Peacock, Dragon Man Dan for Colonel Mustard, Phineas Feek for Professor Plum, one of the others could be repainted for Mr. Green, and while one of the missing women could be covered by the Oriental girl, Miss Ta, either Emery or Drake (best for Mr. Green) would have to re-identify, which would excite the Trumpy Broflakes, wouldn't it!

The nine dragons are all equally well-done, and as per the B&W sheet, display some of the different physiognomies or traits of various dragons from myths and legends around the world, although scale is a little-off, I feel, the Chinese dragon should be one of the bigger ones

The other/another angle for eight of them, not much I can add, they'd go better up against 1:76/72 figures, than anything larger, perhaps with all the fantasy stuff coming from Caesar and Dark Alliance - EY, I'm thinking of you - and you can pick them up for cheapness on feeBay!

 

While the little Knucker (closest to a Viking Wyrm, or the great Earth Worm), has a nice metallic belly which is totally lost when it's on the board!

P is for Peter's Perfect Post-Christmas Parcel! 2 of 2

The other half of Peter's parcel, and in the order I shot them, as I was sorting them for the local TBS boxes, I have five stacks of the smaller cardboard 'produce' boxes which stack on the corners and have open tops and the odd slot/handhold in the ends, through which I can post things without taking the whole stack apart!

Three bigger animals, two makers? The cat's are similar plastic/sculpting, the girraffe is more sort of early-learning or infant-toy with a slightly cartoony look, but all useful and needing ID'ing one day!

 

Some medieval small-scale odds, I think we're looking at Revell's iteration of Accurate's Brit's on the left and something Itlaeri-Zvezda on the right, they'll go down the line to make up complete sets, from odd's, when I have the time!

 

Three Del Prado part-work figures from the Waterloo 'wargame', and a nice flat, probably modern in physical production, but from antique slates? The loader came apart as I was shooting them, which means we can look at how the parts go together!

I actually got the part-work for some time, a local shop kept getting a few in, for months after it was supposed to have gone subscription-only. In the end, I dropped-out, as I did the maths! But we will look at them in depth one day, it was about 20-years ago now?

 

Airfix bits and a Merit feather-edged fence-panel. Figures, kit bits and 'readymade' AFV parts/odds, it all has its place! The series I/II Land-Rover (from the Bristol Bloodhound set), looks a bit like my Uncle's Austin Gypsy did when I found it behind a barn, about ten years after I'd last seen it driving!

 

A very red sample of Poplar Plastic and Tudor Rose soft-platic Westerners, we're aiming for one of every colour on the Poplar's (unlikely, but you never know), and they always seem to be more Tudor Rose horses than riders, so all useful stuff!

 

Two for the spares box, a German parachute bag from Timpo and a small 'old school' dustpan or hearth-brush, probably from a cheap rack-toy doll's set, or budget Christmas crackers?

 

The saltier half of a pair of Friar cruets on the right, with some Kinder 'fidget-spinners'.

 

A sample of early British Khaki Infantry, they were a nice sample, but Royal Fail or Parcel Farce conspired to deny them a future of use, however they are unpainted and very clean, so could be a worthwhile sample, and will be kept for now, until the next big sorting of that sub-genre.

 

Likewise, this chap, who is not damaged in the post-production sense of the word, but is a short-shot moulding with a constricted, kidney-shaped base and short muzzle-tip, where cooling plastic failed to fill the cavity properly!

 

Many thanks to Peter for this latest parcel, especially at what is the quiet or 'down-season' in the hobby.

P is for Peter's Perfect Post-Christmas Parcel! 1 of 2

Back at the start of January I got a suprise in the post, a donantion to the Blog from Peter Evans, roving-reporter for Plastic Warrior magazine and keeper of the knowlage! And we're going through it's contents in the next two posts!

The opening of these parcels, whoever from, is always the best-bit, as everything is fresh and unknown, even if it's grubby and duplicate, if you know what I mean, and it's all in a jumble, prior to any sorting, so you spot stuff among stuff, under stuff, next to stuff!

 

Three more of the smaller cake-decoration footballers, I've been looking out for them, but so far I haven't seen a retail set, and both Hobbycraft and my Clapham Junction haunt still stock the larger ones! The other guy is a rubber/PVC chap we have seen before, but possibly not attributed and without the base, he's been ID'd but is another of those I keep forgetting the maker of, similar figures are found on springs as more generic 'table football' games.

 

A couple of cave men, we've looked at similar, we may have looked at these and there is a folder of sets from evilBay and sucklike waiting for the great sorting out session! While the Hong Kong version of Cavendish's policeman will be a useful addition, as they are always different when you find one, different pain usually, but sometimes different plastic.

 

Three khaki infantry (Britains and Lone Star - actually a Para') and that pesky naval-gunner/MTB crew-looking chap again, really starting to bug me now, I now have about four here, and several in storage, so whatever toy he came with, must have been quite common, but what the hell was it?

 

China-farmer, as found in the Padgett Brothers (A-Z) sets, and others, a Britains lamb and Barrett & Sons (B&S) calf, along with a larger calf, which may be modern or a clean earlier example, unknown to me.

 

Nice polyethylene Hong Kong swoppet Confederate who's stolen a Unionists hat, he'll need ID'ing against the folder of such things, and one of the PVC Toyway Indians sans plug-in disc-base.

Love this! Semi-relief flat of Santa Claus and his sleigh, obviously meant to be laid on the icing, I managed to stand it up in a moulding detail on the lid of the scanner! Santa looks like one of the Elf on shelves!

 

Firefighter from a large carpet/garden/beach toy, and a bunch of the Lucky (et al) figures form the large-scale plastic copies of Western road vehicles, they will all need to be checked against the 'master collection' for variation, new base-marks etc.

 

The usual gaggle of seated figures and road-workers, the red chap on the right is a marked Buddy L figure, the left-hand one is a short shot, while the three in the front look modernish.

 

Two Hasbro Star Wars Command figures, I'll have to have a go at painting some up, one day! And a novelty 'Munch bunch' style, or actual, pencil-top, who will join all the others in another 'To Be Sorted' project, he's missing a hat or greenery frond, and there are many generations of sub-piracy!

Thanks to Peter for this pile of treats, more to come in the next post.

M is for Minor 'Euro-Makes'!

Actually I'm going to tack a major on at the end, whom we've already revisited once in this occasional series, entering it's third month with at least 12 posts still to come, plus a combined comparison/round-up post at the end. And today, some of the European makers we haven't yet looked at.

From a 1970's Vollmer catalogue, are these wagons, which I think missed the wagon posts a few years ago, they look to be Preiser, but the horses are the smoother, simpler ones more commonly associated with the Roscopf wagons or some Hong Kong copies. Indeed, I think I've mentioned before, that I'm not sure what the relationship is between the three or four (Noch seem to have carried other people's product before they embarked on their own, now Preiser-equalling, range), so I can't add much beyond that the similarities are obvious?

 

While this is the 2000 Walther's (Terminal Hobby Shop) catalogue, and we see what are clearly Preiser, in a 'simple paint', we actually saw this earlier in the post series, but I scanned it again!

 

Not sure if these are from Merten or Preiser, (they have the arm'y/leg'y look of Merten?) but again a rolling-stock and trackway manufacturer, getting 'simple-paint' samples from another maker, to enhance their catalogue with a basic set, it's all part of the 'brand-loyalty' work, isn't it? Add a couple of Pola buildings, a level-crossing, some track plans, Heki trees . . . and 'Fleischmann' people!

 

This - the Jouef figures - is a personal embarrassment, as I think it's their third mention on the Blog, over the sixteen years, with the Mettoy Playcraft scans appearing at one point, and yet, despite seeing them go to storage, I still haven't photographed them, but they did appear in One Inch Warrior magazine, I think, in black & white, which doesn't do justice to the loud and leery paint job, of the Playcraft - ironically a Tri-Ang rival from the same Line's empire!

 

I have since found slightly better painted ones (in shade, not the two-colour stab-and-hope scheme), which may be Jouef origianls, from whose catalogue these scans are added to the previous shots! And playcraft sold them from the Jouef bags, so they were only ever nominally Playcraft! Also, didn't Hornby experiment with passengers pre-glued to platform sections at one point? Instant Stations!

From the same Walther's catalogue, this was, I think, the beginning of what has in recent years become a line to rival Preiser, and we have seen one or two here, a Bierfest stand springs to mind, and I will one day do the rude sets, of which I have several and they should have been in the 'Adult' naughty-post before Christmas, but they are in storage.

 

Noch were originally another prefabricated building/scenic's firm, like Pola, Vollmer or Wiad, and like them had a couple of simple figures kicking around the pages of their catalogues, in boats or something, from time to time, but in the last quarter-century have developed a range to rival Preiser, even as Priser swallowed-up Elastolin and Merten to stay ahead!

I don't know much about these, except that they are probably lead or whitemetal, possibly composition, and as listed in this old catalogue? Klinebahn (literally 'small way'), and in sets of six matching the lead of early Märklin, or the sets of Preiser, Merten and those above.

 

And, having just mentioned them, our third visit to Märklin in this railway-figure 'season', and no, we are not going to start investigating O, G, S, 1, BIG or any other gauge, that can be for another day, or for the A-Z pages! But I wanted to post this set of composition figures and - specifically - the interactive or 'working' guard, as it's just so cool! All in O-gauge.

 

The catalogue mentions the 1937 Grand Prix of Paris, on the cover, but seems to be actually the 1949 issue, as they started to recover from the national madness of national socialism.

L is for Let's 'Ave Some More!

No, not nastiness; that was this morning, but after that tiresome rebuttal, I thought we could look at some more glow-in-the-dark aliens as there does seem to be a relatively endless supply of them, I still haven't got the jewel-eyes keyring ones, and somebody posted some nice green, larger scale ones the other day.

Like the pirate ships which have been around for a while now, these seem to be all over the place at the moment under dozens of - mostly - unbelievable brands (Amazon), or as unbranded generics on feeBay, which was my procurement route of choice!

At the equivalent of about 50p each one feels a bit cheap complaining, but they are not packed very-well, and being, in fact a type of poured resin, rather the commoner and more hard-wearing polymers we might expect, two of mine did not pass the Royal Fail test! They are from about 25/30mm for the smallies up to about 50mm for the taller chaps/chapesses!

Some sellers don't offer an option, mine had 'blue light' or green light' with the differentiation apparently being the colour of the eyes, although as a confusion in some shots (there are many!) they clearly all had black ones? I opted for 'blue light', but as you can see, I've got mostly green eyes, two with blue, and one with black eyes, unsurprisingly - given what it's been through - one of the broken pair, who also seem to be a darker polymer?

 

This confusion carried over to the photoshoot, where one shot (previous) confirmed they must be the blue-light set, and another seems to suggest they might be greenies? God knows, but I suspect, given it will be additives to neutral resin, that QC is all over the place on different batches, maybe measuring by hand? . . . Still, you pays your money and takes your choice, and at 50p each who cares? The superglue needed to be mixed with liquid poly before anything took, though!

M is for ♪♪♫♪ Mamma Mia, Here He Goes Again, My-My, How Can I Desist Him? ♫♫♪♪

Oh yes! TJF thought to put paws to keyboard again in the matter of what I'm doing over here!

He started with a pirate ship which first appeared on a Faceplant group (to which we are both associated) back in 2021, and which then appeared here at Small Scale World in September of the same year (I'd been holding them for ITLAPD, and never comment on that poster's stuff) and again in 2022, so he's playing 'Simon says keep-up, catch-up!' there!

 

2021 - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2021/09/b-is-for-big-boxed-buccaneers-black-boat.html

 

and:

 

2022 - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/09/itlapd-is-for-its-that-long-assorted.html

It has, in fact, been around for some years and had several issues, in several territories, under a half-dozen importers and a plethora of phantom, or in-house brands!

 

Then he managed to spell Plastoy as Plastotoys, which he was literally copying/quoting from a two-week old magazine, in his hands! His stupidity is the gift that keeps on giving, his 'arse-torn-out' is still up there, after a couple of weeks! He was referring to the set we looked at here, a few months ago:

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/09/a-is-for-additional-adventurers.html

Before showing us more new production from someone else's website, and a few figures of merit, he gets on to the nitty-gritty of the day, with the following puff-piece on my post of a few days ago, pertaining to Wing Wah and BMC:

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/02/bmc-is-for-wing-wah-plastic-factory.html

We'll need the coloured crayons for a bit;

Hugh Walter in one of his latest posts talked about finding the BMC Alamo Mexicans on the card with a company name of Wing Wah. Well thank you! As I hardly provided empirical evidence for them being Wing Wah, you've obviously gone off and Googled them and found what was there all along! This card was sold in Greece. Was it? I said that, I might have been lying? You make it up all the time, after all! Don't worry Loyal Readers, I wasn't! He was confused about how the figures got to Greece. Err . . . "confused"? No, I gave the four possible scenarios from the available evidence, which were:

1. BMC licensed a 'generic' Wing Wah set
2. It was issued before BMC's involvement.
3. Wing Wah were just shifting stock behind BMC's back.
4. Wing Wah didn't have an 'exclusive' with BMC for the sculpts/production.
   

To clarify the situation I have to go to the conversations Laurie and I had with Bill McMasters of BMC Toys. Conversations he had more than ten or twenty years ago? With two dead people, and no empirical evidence? Given the level of memory he's shown us, in the past? But, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt! Bill told us he had an arrangement with a Chinese (in 1994 it was still very much a Hong Kong company, based in Hong Kong) company to produce playsets and figures. He provided the sculptures (the quality of the products hardly backs-up that hyperbole, but who are we to argue with a dead man?), box art (undoubtably), and other materials (do tell!). In return, he got an exclusive to sell the product in the United States. The Chinese [Hong Kong] company which we now know as Wing Wah from Hugh had the right to sell to the rest of the world. So the set from Greece is an example of that. As I said, it was?

 

So, firstly, if a 'legend' credits you, what does that make you? And secondly, I preferred my option-two, he is confirming option-four? It doesn't matter, I wasn't "confused", I was on the right tracks and hedging my bets against the available evidence. Now he's told us, we all know! But, it is both hearsay, and hyperbole!

And he's revealed how closely he follows this Blog, his post was two days ago, and I only posted the day before! And he's probably sent some extra traffic to the post, including - one hopes - those members of the PSTSM who are so loyal to The Jabbering Fuck, they really try not to follow my blog, even though the person who told them not to, clearly does . . . he's a very stupid man.

And while TJF also uses the term 'exclusive', generally, an 'exclusive-contract' is when the stuff can't be sold elsewhere, except by, or with the permission of the contractee, or under their logographies, it is in that context I used the word, and as such, was correct.

 

He (McMasters/BMC) didn't have an exclusive, the stuff was sold elsewhere, he had an embargo on- or memorandum of understanding with- Wing Wah for not shipping their product to the States, except in so far as it was for/marked-to BMC.

Bill did several of his playsets with this company until the owner died. The owner’s heirs had a falling out with Bill forcing him to find another company for his playsets. Americana Toy Soldiers came into Wing Wah and arranged to sell the old BMC product.

 

Ah, the red-letter moment! I'll just throw Wing Wah in there, like I knew all along! If you want to know what really happened, read the link at the end, as hinted-at above, TJF's got his memories in a twist!

To situation we will now call them Wing Wah soldiers the answer is no. They have been and will stay at BMC Toys. this is what the public know as well. This sentence is illiterate?

 

We can dispense with the colours now. what he's trying to say in that garbled last line, is pertaining to my red-letter comment, but he has already failed that, in a Godwin'esque fashion, by casually using the name in the previous sentence, as I had predicted people would, although in this case, he has already credited me with the origination!

The point I was making, was that those party's listed last time, would now refer to Wing Wah, when discussing the double-W logo, not the Alamo set specifically, not BMC in general, however as we have discovered before, his comprehension skill is very poor and is matched only by his ability to come to the wrong conclusion!

 

A logo which, prior to my post, some people had written absolute garbage about, tying it - falsely - into/with various other companies, and sometimes describing it - as fact - as a single W - Wello, Welly, Wentoys, Willco, etcetera!

Also, Americana didn't 'come into' Wing Wah, like the Airborne over Grenada! They got some stock, probably through an agent! Wasn't Imex involved at one point? I'd have to go look at tedious files to answer that myself, and it really doesn't matter!

 

Elsewhere (globally: the rest of the world! He's talking about a few hundred American collectors as if the rest of us don't count!), it would have remained Wing Wah, and that may even apply to my Greek set, by dates, I don't know, and I don't really care, the point of the post was identifying Wing Wah, period. Not the intricate, yet inconsequential, vagaries of global shipping programs for bagged, carded or boxed rack-toy import/exports! And to a Greek collector they ARE Wing Wah, as issued by BMC in the 'States!

 

I suspect, eventually we will find that in the UK we got both, with toy-soldeir dealers shipping from BMC, after reading about them in the Winter 1994 edition of Plastic Warrior magazine (issue No. 46), while independent convenience stores would have been getting WW-marked or generic sets from down the Hong Kong rack-toy pipeline, possibly earlier?!

I don't know why he keeps doing this, it's only a week or two since he got - as fact - a figure completely wrong, yet here he is trying to correct me, when I was correct? It's pathetic, it's stupid, and it's destroying any 'legacy' he thought he had? This tired, sad old man, shouting nonsense into the wind!

And then, when it can't get any better on the International Idiocy Scale, the cockwacking monkey-lizard popped up and said this;

I have the pirate ship but with two different poses inside.
I found mine at a theme park few years back .
Thanks for making clarification in the BMC history .
Is always great to set the facts straights rather than assumptions or made out tales run around free .

 

Yes! Yes, it is illiterate funk! He spaffed his pocket-money on some words from a dodgy geezer in the car-lot behind the diner, and then glued them together blindfold, it's a good effort! It's like a mutual-appreciation society of fuckwits, they never land their punches, and then I rip them to shreds, again! Even their fans must be getting bored with it now?

Some imagery from Bill B's 1987 trade catalogue. Yes, I've been sitting on it for years, I keep telling you there's about 800-and-something articles in the long queue, and yes, TJF should have learnt by now that whenever I reveal/reacquaint the hobby with one of these Hong Kong producers, there is usually more than one post to come!

 

You will note there are similarities with the output of both Rado Industries (Ri-Toys, the landing craft) and Kwong Shing-KS-Kamley-Kositoys (the aircraft and Chieftain tank), but sometimes when you study them next to each other, there are subtle differences, different wheels, different release-pin marks, dimensions &etc. Equally, they bought and sold this junk to each-other, or from third-parties, to make up the sets, so while it is my hope, one day, to attribute some of it, more definitively, that's still a big "We will see?"!

 

In the meantime, bog-standard Airfix figure piracies, with various accessories, which by the mid-1980's were starting to look like the tired 1970's fare they were! And the brighter among you will have noticed the base-undersides of the Wing Wah Alamo figures, bear a resemblance to the Crescent copy ceremonials we looked at a while ago, and some of the Herald ACW copies out there, could they (factory painted) be earlier product of Wing Wah?

 

There's not enough evidence to call it, but it's food-for-thought . . . for the thoughtful, not for idiotic morons like TJF and his sidekick!

 

And I should add that all the above, and everything in the previous post pertains to the previous iteration of BMC, under the leadership of the late Mr. McMasters, and not the current iteration of BMC (VictoryBuy Inc.) with Jeff Imel at the helm, he bought the intellectual property of the older firm, and others, and probably some late stock, but the improved Alamo figures are re-sculpts (2018'ish?), with new bases, and no aspersions are intended to be cast on the new BMC by either post.

 

And Mr. Imel explains it all somewhat more clearly than Mr. Stadinger, here:

 

https://warhorseminiatures.com/2017/09/04/an-interview-with-jeff-imel-and-the-return-of-bmc-toys/

H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop Backlog - 2021, 2 of 2

I think this lot all came from Blue Cross, the animal charity, they tend to get my cast-offs too, although that has led to me buying back my own Chinashite on at least one occasion! But it had had some good stuff added-in with it, and it's all for charity!

Beginning sorting, I shot this badly, as there are several bags hidden under the one with the label, but they are all in the .gif-shot below! Date for these is August of that year, an immaterial detail, but if I don't tell you 'everything', TJF is likely to cum in his pants again!

 

I see he's going to show us all the Blue Box characters I failed to, the other day, or at least I hope he is, so far he's only shown a duplicate, and much more of that would be 'Simon says catch-up, follow-up, copycat!'. And strange that he didn't show them to us six years ago, when I was accusing his Blog of falsely claiming - through his little apprentice - as fact, that there are 33, when there are only 12, or 24?

The contents of the upper bag, were the detritus of smaller dinosaurs the shop had gathered over time, the pile in the middle are shot again (below), while the little yellow jobbie and the bigger blue one (bottom left and right) may be from the kid's magazine we had an overview of here a while back.

 

The bat is a bit of Halloween fare, and has already been seen in that capacity, I think, here at Small Scale World, while the snake looks like an accessory from a larger-scale play set or action figure companion piece?

 

This is one of those rare occasions where two shots are so similar they can be slammed together to make a '3-D' .gif image which gives an idea of the shape, size, bulk, even texture of the figures!

 

In fact, it's showing rather small, so here;'s one of the original images, from the hidden bags, we have a pile of Kinder Super heroes, several cats, probably from kids magazines, and a large China-goat! Heay, it will be indispensable when I get round to the mighty Goats page/post!*

We're about to look at the multicoloured pile - top right, while the Jasmine mini-action-figure from Disney long-ago went back to charity! Novelty frog, dogs, penguins . . . I've had a lot of penguins come-in over the last decade or so, many of these pocket-money, softish, animal sets seem to include a penguin sculpt!

 

* For a certain type of American - that's humour, b't . . .  am I joking?

So, the multicoloured pile, I suspect some kind of early-learning / infant toy, there's a lesser possibility of them being from a boardgame though, or family 'carpet-game'? But they are more like all that Merit, Galt, Salter or Pedigree stuff of our own (50/60-something)'s childhood, the nuclear family in a robust, simplified form, for little fingers to manipulate? But in this case, of not-much age?

 

I also suspect the yellow 'family' is complete, and that the whole sample is all the colours - four? I don't need any more, it's almost too big a sample, given how far removed from Toy Soldiers, wargaming, modelling or model railways it is, but I do need a blue cat - any missing cat, is a cat missing from that side collection!

 

I shot them last, but these are the larger central pile of mini-chinasaurs from the second image, they obviously go together, and as I've mentioned in the past, I will bring them all together in one post, someday, as there are so many of these 2/2½/3-inch types! These are a semi-translucent white polymer, soft PVC-alike, with a one-colour over-spray.

 

The green Steggie' (top left) was in the 'odds' bag, and probably doesn't belong with the others, but I included him in the shot, as he is in the same size bracket, so illustrates the previous point about so many of them, mostly different, but sometimes copied, or - in the case of the Toy Major ones - marked differently for different contracts/end-users, or decorated differently, while he's very similar to the other set.