K is for Kirasjerzy, Polscy Kirasjerzy

And the 14th Regiment of, if my cursory research in anything to go by, and it probably isn't! Looking for something quick to post after work, and these are a 'seen elsewhere', so let's get them in the Tag list here, PZG's Polish Cuirassiers.

I'm not sure if the horses are correctly distributed/allocated, but they all came together, and if I know anything about Wellingtonian troops, it's that musicians often had the odd/opposite colours to everyone else! And they are small, they're only about 40/45mm.

HMG is for Huge Mutha' of a Gun!

As flagged in the previous post, here's me'gun! Because I collect military railway stuff in HO/OO-compatible sizes, and because I knew they were out there, I just found myself a cheap one and got it, I didn't 'need' a blog post to tell me, although there had been plenty, mostly on the rail sites, but also here, prior to 2019!

Shot in the August heatwave of 2022, this is how the beast arrived, a large window box which puts the Duchess of Sutherland's box to shame, as a runt of a thing!

 

Gun depressed for travelling/loading

"I'm a useless gun, nobody likes me!"

(Wot? The oldies are the best!)

Full elevation, they would have fired from suitably angled lengths of track, with recoil partly taken-up by them running away for a few yards, and then being shunted back to their firing position, high spotters, maybe miles away, or even aircraft (?), would report on the fall of shots.

 

It's a strange mix of simplified model and fine detail.

I think this is a frame to cover with camouflage nets for the crew to operate under?

Non-working/non-firing, and both the footplates at the back-end were damaged by whoever shoved the model in its packaging, still, nothing a gentle bend didn't fix though, so all's good!

 

HMG Gladiator, which, if you followed the earlier link, you'll know was based at Martin Mill on the Dover/Deal line, and if I'd read it better I wouldn't have said they were never used in anger, as there was some limited use!

 

When you see the immense faff they went to with these guns, you realise how incredibly awesome battleships actually were, they had 6, 8, 12 or more of these and could fire them all at once, while a single one on a rail-carriage got land-lubbers so excited they gave them names!

The real disappointment with it, is the very obvious split-line down the centre of the barrel, and the lack of realistic breach-detail beyond the unlocking wheel, both of which give it a toy-like appearance, despite the finely detailed railings and cranes. And I think I'd rather have had the storage lockers (under the barrel) closed?

T is for Two - Show Reports - Oxford Die Cast Military Railways - 2019 and 2020!

When I posted the Timely Manner thing the other day, I was - of course - only throwing back at The Jabbering Fuck, that which he had thrown at me a few years ago, if only to highlight the hypocrisy of the turd. Obviously I don't really, and prior to his intervention, had never given cause for anyone to suppose I give a shit who posts what, when, or why, unless they are A) plagiarising me, B) competitively 'following' me or C) attacking me, then - of course - I take umbrage!

 

Although I notice he then stated "sorry for the slight delay in my report, but I had various other commitments that demanded my attention", what, like when I was saying goodbye to my ailing father, or a month or so later, burying him? Or more important than that, because he thought it was fine to attack me for not publishing 'in a timely manner' on that occasion, so whatever he was committed-to recently must have been really, really important for that excuse to be anything more than the pathetic whine of a self-justifying hypocrite!

 

No matter, I have the measure of the man, and to prove how little I give a shit about Timely Manners, here's two, part show-reports, from the London Toy fair from 2019, and 2020! Specifically the military train stuff, which I think we had already glanced at, and therefore flagged-up previously.

2019

The rail-gun which had previously been seen in a neutral greyish-green, was on display with a camouflage scheme and mock-up box, although we were told it might not get to the shops like that. In front was a military 0-6-0 saddle-tank locomotive in the colours of the Railway Operating Division (of the WWI-era Royal Engineers).

 

While the well-wagon with Sherman was back again, along with a weathered flat-wagon, suiable for stores or smaller/soft-skin vehicles. Both had only previously been seen as catalogue images.

 

2020

 

The final production version of the rail-gun, which - for a while - had looked like it might never happen was revealed, and while the same moulding as the WWI 'big push'14" howitzers, previously announced, was now going to be sold as a WWII-era, home-defence 13.5" gun, of which three were produced, and never [were] actually fired in anger!

The unweathered flat-wagon put in an appearance and I got to shoot the Sherman from different angles! And that was them, then, nothing time-sensitive about it, if you want the stuff, you go and buy it, if a Blogger doesn't cover it (and they can never, none of them, cover everything) you go to the company's website, I did, and we'll look at mine, shot in 2022, next!

 

It was pompous arseholery for TJF to bang-on about timely manners like a self-righteous, god-appointed guardian of the hobbies, in the way he did, when he did, and nobody cares (except apparently him) who posts what, when or why. Although other points have come to the light, so I shall be returning to his recent sojourn in the leafier suburbs of the post-industrial Ruhr, soon, but at a time of my choosing, which may or may not be timely!

P is for Pure Nostalgia!

MFP - Music For Pleasure, a British 'K-Tel', There's lots about both on Wikipedia, so I won't bore you with it, but it's interesting. We loved this, played it all the time! I don't know how it ended-up at our house, possibly Woman's Hour on Radio4 had something to do with it? All instrumentals, some originally having lyrics, and all pop-hits in the early 1970's.

I thought Telstar was on here as well, but I can't see it listed, so there may have been another 'Moog' album! We were quite late to pop/rock, living our early lives mostly outdoors, or, if it was wet (and it was 2024-style wet for years when we were kids!) it was Lego, the wooden fort or Action Man, with the odd dodgy foray into the chemistry sets - which invariably involved setting our work-table on fire . . . Methylated spirts, it's almost magic!

Anyway, as a result this was pretty-much what we got until we were old enough to buy our own, which for me was Blondie's Heart of Glass as a first single, followed by No Mean City by Nazareth as my first album, quickly joined by two space themed orchestral works off the back of Star Wars, then several more Nazareth albums and three from Tangerine Dream, I'm sure the Moog led me to Tangerine Dream, but it wasn't until the advent of Trance-Techno, that the sound I wanted to accompany mile-long starships, failing in C-beams off the Shoulders of Orion, finally arrived. 

 

Obviously by then Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Peter Gabriel, Mike Oldfield and Aphrodite's Child had joined the soundtrack, but that's for another day. However, I can't leave you with an album still, so make what you will of this! I'm not sure what I make of it, I'm pretty sure no one does, but the 1970's were a different planet! Watch the backgrounds, especially the Hooded Swan at the start!

I get sad watching this stuff, not because I'm some populist, flag-shagging, Trumpundbrexit Boris-hugger wanting to go back to some sunlit upland of chocolate rationing and beating your wife with impunity, but because we had such high-hopes then, for a magic, happy, space-age future, and what we've got is closer to the grey dystopia of Metropolis.

And I guess that's the point of nostalgia, it's got some poignancy attached to it, it's not necessarily a happy thing?

O is for Ornamental . . . Forts, Palaces and Shrines

The same funny-little four page AHM catalogue/trade update, also had the first shot here, showing five of the initial six Ornamental Shrines from Funimimokei (better known as just Fujimi), which reminded me I had some more somewhere, so another lazy-post was born!

 

 

I think the AHM is about 1968, the loose-leaf trade catalogue from Fujimi is the 1970/71 one, and the last page, mostly forts/palaces is from the 1985 (or 1995?) retail catalogue, but the beauty of them is the nature of the architecture means they can be used as war-gaming accessories, even if the scale's off! Or the parts can be used to make smaller structures in figure scales?

I also love the quirk of a Japanese model-kit company making a replica of the Coronation crown! Question is, would it fool the Yeoman Warders long enough to get the original melted-down and fenced to 'Fast Eddie'?

B is for Back to America!

We are getting there, but there's still about eight posts-worth of stuff before the final tying-up post, which I may do as a 'Page' at the top of this page? And it's all scans today, and all from over the pond.

This is a kit from Ayers of California, but the text refers to Weston as being behind the interior fixtures and fitting, so they must have supplied the little train guard, or 'Conductor', as he's in an American car!

 

Just box-ticking with these two survivors, the upper one has a manuscript note on the reverse in James Chase's hand, stating "Merten 818-819", so presumably the card carried the tourist set, while the other has five closed staples and may have held something fine, like sign-posts and not figures at all? It's coded on the back A34:250, in a rubber-stamp, but my archive has little else on Aristo-Craft. We've previously seen Preiser circus wagons from Aristo-Craft, and did somebody mention Comet/Authenticast in an earlier comment? So clearly a jobber, repackaging all sorts.

 

As far as I know the only figures they ever did, small shot injection-moulded, and carried in Walther's/Terminal Hobby Shop, for the longest time, but like so much of this stuff, sliding out of sight in the last decade or so.

 

These Lytler & Lytler are funny-ironic, as I had this catalogue/image, long before I got the 'unknown' figures, which were subsequently ID'd by Mike Cozart, and I revisited the same image with some crops here, it looks like I may have the whole range, including the drug-store cigar-Indian!

Another one from Walther's, these are Master Creations (MC), and I could have done a few scans, but this is probably the best of a line which also didn't change. Cast brass . . . you'd have to get the smithing tools out to work these!

A is for A'h Done Did Me a New Poem!

 

L is for Lone Ranger

I Posted these elsewhere the other day, not something I collect, and we never went down the Wild West route with our Action Man (men?), so purely for those who will like a look, or enjoy the nostalgia hit, it's the The Lone Ranger line from Marx Swansea's 1978 catalogue.

 

Hi Ho! Silver, Away!

S is for Sawyer's Bespin Cloud-car . . . Not!

Twin fuselage craft go back at least as far as the weirder output and ideas of the German aircraft maker Blohm und Voss and others, of the Nazi era, and any real resemblance to the international-orange cloud cars serving the floating city's of the planet Bespin, in a galaxy far-far-away and long-long ago, is purely coincidental, not least because this probably predates both the Movie, and possibly the birth of its Director!

Sawyer's of Viewmaster fame are believed to be behind this superb piece of pulp sci-fi' made solid, in a chunk of polystyrene (or even a Bakelite material?) with four lenses, sorry - engines and pilot/gunner's windows! Because, when it's not being a spaceship, it's a pair of not very effective, novelty binoculars!

 

The decoration revealing its twin-use directive are simple 'panel lines', raised on the surface, above we have what I think is the top, with two cockpits laid-out at the fat (front?) end, and a hint of tailplanes raised at the thin ends. Four cannon holes or ray-gun/laser-ports are lined-up along the leading edge of the connecting airplane/wing.

So, it's a ground attack/support fighter-bomber, in the tradition of the Mosquito, Lightning, Black Widow or Beaufort! The underside (or what I consider the underside) has similar surface detailing for folded landing wheels, bomb-bay doors and tail-wheel cabinets, along with the call sign/identifier PF-939 (for Plastic Fighter?).

 

The lenses have been wedged-in under pressure, to get stuck-fast against more raised lines of polymer, and I'm thinking, if I use a rubber mat and wooden dowel, I may be able to get them all out to clean the interior, and polish the lenses, but that's for another day!

 

Two holes in the outer winglets are for a neck-cord/strap, but the cord that came with it wasn't long-enough to go over a five-year-old's head, so even if it was original it got removed as a rather stained and dirty remnant, beyond the stores required, going forward!

 

At 40/45mm it's a single or twin-seater?

But at smaller scales it could have a crew of six or more, and looks like a serious piece of intergalactic war-kit, with a busy maintenance schedule, when back on Terra Firma! I phuqing love this stuff!

I wonder if George Lucas had one?

Z is for Ziggurat!

Well, I wouldn't have bored you will my travails over the last few days, you don't want to tip your 'eemies' off, but suffice to say a cancer scare has been downgraded to a 'phew', with a slightly ominous "Get it checked if it doesn't go away" caveat. Anyway, to celebrate my lighter mood this evening, here's one of the odder things in the kit catalogues of the 1960's, Imai's M2000T SF Ziggurat, is it a plane . . . yes! Is it a tank . . . yes, is it a SAM-missile T.E.L., yes! Is it goddamned-barking-mad? You betcha!

I've actually been looking for it for several years, but I thought it was in one of the UPC catalogues and when I couldn't find it there, I was stumped, but it just turned-up in a smaller AHM one!

 

It seems to be a mash-up of Imai's Scud-A ('Missile tank BB3' tracks and road-wheels), some Thunderbirds elements and their own fictional SAM 5 rocket launcher parts, so probably around 1:24th scale . . . 'ish! Relatively clip-together, and you can have one for less than 2,000-quid;

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404657806927

 

I don't normally like linking to evilBay stuff, as it doesn't tend to hang-around long, after it's sold, these days, but I think this may remain a hot-link for some time, unless there's an idiot out there keen to be parted from his money! And $4.98, would be the best part $45 today, a lot of money?