L is for Late Show Report - Ceremonial and Historical

Not much in this section from May, and I was going to combine it with the Ancient/Medieval images, but decided to move the images around instead, and add one from the archive at the end, so it'll do, it's only bragging on odd & sods, when all's said and done!

 

Small scale guards; a very broken Airfix was in the bottom of one of the bags! Running back up from him we have a Hong Kong swivel-head, a Zang composition with brown base (I think my existing sample have green bases?) and two of the 1990's Luck Bag/Christmas cracker ones.

 

When doing these temporary 'to be further sorted' sorts, I tend to put pirates or Zorro stuff with this class, so he's here! Those who have followed the Blog for any length of time will know there are a lot of these Kinder 'bits' bags now, with pirates, cowboys and Indians, Samurai, medievals etc . . . and he will join them for the final big sort! Missing his small parts but otherwise all there.

This was funny, a seller had a decent sample of the Colorado Argentines, and knowing I had a few, and fearing the price, I'd tried to ignore them all day, at the end of the day a mate came over and bought a sample of the foot figures (which I have), and I overheard the price, and quickly descended on the mounted pair, which I didn't already have!

 

In the course of the day I also picked up an arm in white plastic, which could be another Colorado, another Argentinian make or the Spanish Torres Maltas; I won't know (the pennant's different) until I can compare with an original or match-up with an 'armless guy!

 

I pick these up all the time, as part of my attempts to get them all sorted-out once and for all, and while I think these are all Airfix, I'm not sure on the academy cadet, he's had paint added I think, and won't fit on either horse without falling off, so may be a mucked-about-with Frazer & Glass, or a Bergan/Beton original, or another?

Horses are both 'bent-tail' Airfix, with a hard-plastic on the left and a soft plastic on the right, Lifeguard is definitely Airfix too, which would have been the end of this post (except it was originally the first image!), but I added this . . .

 . . . which was taken just over a year ago, and excluded the master collection, which was back in storage already (as all the above now is!), but includes that which had come in over the previous two years or so (on the left) and a lot from SAS Auctions on the right, with some sorting of horses and consolidation going-on in front.

 

Two posts were produced over a few moths for 'elsewhere', and it's intended to fully update the relevant page on the Airfix Blog, but I haven't got round to it, and may wait until everything's in one place, to try for the definitive narrative? You may recall there were several of these in Chris's last parcel, and the sample grows continually . . . and yes, there's an Airfix fireman hiding in there somewhere!

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

L is for London Loot - 1 Rack Toys

I had a day 'up the Smoke', the other week, sort of annual thing, and managed to come home with a pile of stuff to short and photograph, for adding to the pile and sharing with you, this post is all the 'new' purchases.

I spotted this in a corner shop as we (Mr Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine and I) were passing, and while it's another BJ Toys one, it's not one I've seen round here, and I've checked out many convenience stores in three counties, around and about, so well pleased to find it. It is what it is, and won't be seen again until I tackle the sea life more seriously, at some point in the middle distance, or get BJ's A-Z Page entry done!

Peter took me to one of his favourite rack-toy haunts, and we'd almost given-up looking and were about to leave the shop, when we saw a bunch in a darker corner and this was one (SM Imports) which left with me, more of the thin-walled, hollow types, clipped together from two polyethylene parts, I love the treatment of the curls on the sheep in pink pad-printing!

 

The other find was this set, again larger sized animals, I never used to track down, but over the years the need to ID or annotate everything that might come in loose, has slowly extended the parameters of the collection, and, while for now it'll stay in the bag, I dare say at some point they'll come out and get a better photo-sesh! Branded to an SHC (Shing Hing Corp.?) in China and imported by LTC (London Top Choice).

 

I also visited the Party Shop at Clapham Junction, as always, and picked up a few pieces, among which were these, I think we've seen the make - Symex - before (from the same retail source), but I hope they are new assortments of what will be Iwako knock-offs!

 

These (Fiestas Guirca) were fun, and there were quite a selection, I chose the two simplest probably, to add to the insect pile, with earthworms and glow in the dark centipedes, while the Sainsbury's glow set obviously turned-up in some warehouse clear-out, and got wholesaled as clearance as they were both cheap, and very old stock which we have seen here before, each bag had different contents and not remembering what was in the previous find (charity shop I think?), I tried to get the one with the more eclectic mix!

 

Henbrandt, we may have seen them before, but if we have, I can debag one lot for proper shots and keep a set pristine. Also erasers; and into the mini-car oeuvre, we've already looked at today!

L is for Late Show Report - Vehicular Elements!

Onwards and upwards and we get to transports of delight! One way or another, I came back from Whitton with a lot of the smaller novelty stuff, in part thanks to the donations from Trevor, Peter and Brian C, whose bags all had a few, so let me stop waffling and we'll have a look . . . 

These are lovely, well, I mean you can see with your own eyes, they are shite, but, they are new to me, new to the collection and new to the oeuvre of mini/micro-mini rack-toy shite! They were in Trevor's bag, and are so clean they might be quite recent, but could equally be old stock, looked-after? Quite wacky and two have a sort of 1970's US muscle-car lines to them, with the type on the right looking like some semi-demented cartoon armoured car, I know nothing else, but love 'em!

 

I think I had one of these scout cars from Barney a few years ago as an 'I've never seen it before' type thing, since when, several have turned-up and with these two I have a troop now, with some spare parts! What I love about them and the similar jeeps is that the little drivers are in scale with Airfix, even if the AFV's aren't, so they could be used in 'old school' wargaming! The Jeep is a modern rack-toy thing!

 

You've seen this stuff coming in, time and time again, if you've followed the Blog for any length of time, and, in ones and twos like this, the master samples continue to grow to workable sizes. We've looked at the semi-flats (front pair) before, both as French premiums with a variety of marks, and as these Hong Kong staples of Christmas crackers, but the Chinese only copied one of the original sculpts.

 

I think the pop-together green car (top right) is an early Kinder (there were similar military vehicles), the silver one may be new (cereal premium?), while the other green one goes with a growing handful of 'chunky' ones, we saw a while back in a mini-season of integral-moulded-wheels 'minis'. The red car in the centre is from the early-learning collection we've seen before, and the solid blue sports-car is another one joining mates in the stash!

The other two sports cars, with pierced bodywork are again somewhere in the pile as a larger sample with more colours, and have something (poor quality) in common with the first image above, while the one with separate wheels is a HK copy of an old Jean/Maurba/Siku type thing from the 1950's/early 1960's, and belongs to the genre we haven't looked at here, yet, but will - those with running wheels. There's many more of them, and several of the samples have outgrown their bags and moved up to takeaway tubs!

 

Again, we have looked at these in an overview, but there's plenty more to tell and plenty more have come-in since. Today we have a banana-plane (bottom right), two which are supposed to be SE5's I think (Biggles was still very big when I was a kid, I read them all in the school library, old hardbacks with glorious, bright, coloured lithographed covers and thick pages which were almost card!), and a small pale blue . . . Albatross? Some iterations of these have the supposed make on the underside, but I didn't think to look with these four, too much else going on!

 

A mix here of rack-toy tat and cracker/gum-ball tat, but again, all grist to the mill, all adding to existing samples, with a possible game-playing piece bottom right, and a possible new sculpt in the little primrose-yellow cracker-toy?

 

Two generations of cracker motorcyclist in the red pair, the third mine-wagon to come it, it must be from a railway scenery kit? One is complete with a cross-bar/brace, the other two like this missing the delicate piece, but when three come-in over 40-odd years, they must be from something relatively common?

 

The large motorcycle is another early Airfix one, and has lost it's handlebar tips, but the other marbled-yellowish one I found was the one we looked at with a crumbly area in the centre of the engine, so they must have had a duff batch with that colour?

 

The final piece looks familiar, but I can't place it, I think it may be the nose wheel from a possibly die-cast mini-plane, but that's pure guesswork, and it will join the spare wheel stock in the hope of being reunited with something, one day!

 

Gisby kindly ID'd the free sample of a Warlord Games 'Cruel Seas' British MTB from the fuzzy image in the Intro-post the other day, which he thinks was given away with Wargames Illustrated magazine, and to go with it are various other vessels.

 

The four silver ones are common, and we've looked at them before, the left-hand submarine is very useful, as it's the last one I needed lose, from the carded set of 1960's hard 'styrene naval vessels we have seen here. The other sub' is a 'Made In England' beach or bath toy which I think is new to me/the collection. 

 

The little white one is from the set of mini 'tree' crackers we have seen before, while the deck at the front is a useful spare from the various sets of Hong Kong copies of such Western makes as INGAP, and I may already have a bereft hull for it, somewhere.

Finally, a novelty white-button railway set, we've looked at a few in one or two posts already, and there is a bunch in the medium-to-long queue! I think the B&TAR is a madeupname railway company! I also think it's quite recent, if not still out there somewhere, it's the kind of thing you see in Poundland?

 

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

F is for Follow-up - Stretchy Monsters!

I shot these Stretch Monsters in B&M the day before yesterday, as we've twice covered stretchy toys, recently! And they seem to be perfect - size wise - to act as foils for the stretchy Dragon Ball Super types Brian Berke shelfied for us a few weeks ago, just a pity they are opposite sides of The Pond! I didn't note a branding, but there may have been one on the card backs, but that might just have been B&M?

L is for Late Show Report - Combat Types

I don't tend to look for khaki/combat/20th Century types at a show much these days, simply because there's other more uncommon things to look for, so most of these were from the 'blind' bags and tubs which various mates and contributors passed my way during the show, but nevertheless there are some treats among them, and lots to see . . .

 

As with all these posts, they are in the order I shot them, which tends to put the better bits toward the top of the post, depending on how they were lying about as I grouped them, and so this clean sample was first, and with the next shot, were, I think, both from Barney Brown, who gave them to me.

 

We've seen one or two of these before, and while obviously marked Marx, I now think they were issued with a 'big box' tank or truck, rather than one of the playsets. Although they are from unpainted PVC originals, these 45/50mm figures are in factory-painted hard plastic, possibly after the US moulds had been transferred to one of the Hong Kong domiciled entities?

While this perfect sample of Bonux premiums was rather dismissed by me when Barney first showed it to me, purely because I have a full sample and many duplicates now, marked and unmarked, Johnson &etc., so wasn't in a hurry for more, but later, Barney gave them to me anyway, and they are a very clean sample.

 

To the eye they are all pretty-much a muchness, but under flash-light they have gone to various rich shades of something which looks like it came out of the wrong end of a caterpillar, colourwise, but are also, somehow, beautifully rich?  Waxing lyrical on shades of dung-green, never a dull minute at Small Scale World!

The casualties of war! These will probably all go to recycling one day, but - as I have too much of it - I may just sell them by weight with a 99p start on feebleBay or similar at some point in the future, as some modellers can do a lot with stuff like this? Strangely, there's a lot of Napoleonics in this condition, both brittle Timpo and chewed Airfix!

Mostly Hong Kong production but there's a Marx reissue, back right, and to his left a slightly chewed Australian semi-flat, I have a few of these in various corners, but mostly the smaller ones, and as they don't turn-up here often, it was worth a grab from a cheapie-tray!

More mostly HK, the squatting German - I believe - has factory paint, the copy of a Lone Star German surrendering is unusual, the Jap is a 2nd generation variation of the Star/Marty types, missing his belt and there's a useful Spanish (Pech/Reamsa or an Oliver re-issue?) UN soldier in blue helmet.

US GI/Marine types, the two painted ones probably go with the German above, but the large chap was, I thought, interesting, as he's clearly based on the Blue Box medic, but has been sufficiently redesigned to be a slightly different pose, so maybe not BB, but by one of Blue Box's smaller rivals?

Three Russian 'kit figures' from Aurora, a Galloob irregular from the 'Army Gear' line, a Marx USAF/Rocket forces ground-crew figure and I think the gold one is early Italian, Torgano possibly (?), later copied in soft plastic by Montaplex across the Med'.

I missed out on a bunch of the one painted, centre, but managed to grab this one at the end of the show, he'll be joining various other 'Argentine' copies, and at some point I must add them to the Khaki Infantry page, while behind him, a nice marbled Hilco, a Britains clone, with three tatty 'minor British makes'.

A trio of Toy Story 'army men', referencing Tim Mee's finest GI's, I may have them already, but there were a flurry of these back when the movie/s were headlining, and until I can check them against the master, they can stay! Probably Mattel?

Difficult to come up with meaningful blurb on these, they are what they are, and the 8th Army will be checked against a master collection which has many variants of these Airfix clones already.

The small scale, mostly grist to the mill, but the slightly marbled oxide-brown ones are from one of the lesser sources of the Lilliput piracies, all stuff to come out on the 'But is it Giant' blog one day.

A large bag of the current 30mm figures we've seen here several times, but usually in shelfies, rather than purchases, although Mark, the 'Man of Tin' gets good paint-conversion (and more) results from these figures, almost exploiting their nondescript design! And their sample grows as they have been issued in many packagings, colours and brands/brand-marks since the early 2000's.
 

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

T is for Toro, Toro, Torres!

We first looked at these 15 years ago, here at Small Scale World, and while I've reused the main image in this post (brightened and cropped slightly for a better user experience!), it's still worth a link for the oddments, in the lower image of that older post, before we get into the subsequent developments.

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/t-is-for-torres.html

 

And by developments, I mean that in addition to the ones we looked at earlier today, in the show-plunder post (below this post), which although similar in execution, probably have no real, direct connection with the Torres ones at all; I have also obtained the second series, a colour variation, and a few other bits which deserve a second look!

 

So, first to compare with the ones we saw in the post below, they are similar, but only for being the same sized models of the same thing; a male, fighting bull. Just as the British art world is known for its renditions and sculptures of horses, I would imagine Spanish artists know their 'bullflesh'.

 

I don't think it's the same sculptor, nor the same manufacturing source, and with comparisons to the older Torres (lower image), and newer one (upper image), both as close, pose-wise as I could get it, the touristy ones are rougher sculpting.

 

They are moulded in black or white plastic with horns in the same white for both animal types, the white ones painted with black splodge-patches, black examples overpainted with white, and the horns differ from the Torres set in being two identical-parts glued into small holes in the sides of the head, rather than Torres' one-part unit, slipped through a tube in the skull, and you can see from the size of the sample in the background, I'm pretty sure there's only the three poses, two with sash-collars, painted red or red.black.

The older shot, cleaned-up, there are four poses here, and I may have had a few more come in, but not to be seen here right now, and it's become clear that they weren't always on all the wines from Torres, nor where they always on any given brand or vintage, but have been used as promotional freebies/collectables, just like ice-cream, bubble-gum or cereal premiums, from time to time.

This has also been found, and would likely have been something given away by salesmen, or included in a whole box/crate/order, or something like that, rather than an item you could buy seperately, It's interesting for a second reason as it's 'TORRES' moniker has been picked-out/highlighted in white paint, maybe a whole tranche of them was on some bottles too? If so, I would imagine an earlier iteration?

But, even as I was posting them last time I'd found a newer set of sculpts, only one or two, on evilBay, so I've been quietly waiting for this post to build for a while! These are smoother, and have a slightly Art Deco look about them, with some quite stylised sculpting, particularly on some of the legs/hooves.

 

Note also, the first one on the far left, is a comedic sculpt, with his arms folded behind his head, and one leg crossed over the other, as if he's sunbathing or waiting for the bullfighter to get a grip of himself!

 

If you look at the upper middle pair you will immediately notice that while one has the TORRES mark, most of these are actually marked ST which is for Sangre De Toro, or Bulls Blood, which I understand is a 'first pressing' or new season wine, like France's Beaujolais?

All eight known sculpts of the newer ones, removed from all packaging and tags/tabs, the horns are the same as the older ones, a single piece which is slipped-through the hole running across the skull, and you can swivel them slightly to further vary a heard of these, although I'm not sure if you can keep fighting bulls together? Their 'wedding tackle' isn't obvious though, so maybe you could use them as a herd of long-horn chonkers, on a model railroad!

A few lose ends, I'm pretty sure I saw a blue version of the 'art deco' ones when I was looking 15-years ago, but might have imagined it, and I haven't found a gold one on the newer sculpts yet, but this red or burgundy one has turned-up, probably a Bulls Blood promotion, although not with the ST mark?

 

The tabs on the ST versions have what we used to call bogie-tape on the back, the same stuff they attach free-samples to magazines with, and, while there is no sign of the ribbons found with older versions, the tab for them is still at the base of the 'plant label'!

Who would have guessed you could get so much info' on one small set of freebies, but the Casa (House) Miguel Torres Carbó (established 1870) have been issuing these on-and-off for many years, certainly since before the 1960's, and with periods of hiatus between issues, changes were bound to creep in, leaving them as an interesting side-pursuit!

A nominal listing is;

 

1960's? [string]

- Celluloid (provisional)

 

Approximately1970-90's [ribbon]

- 1st version polyethylene (painted 'Torres', round tab, also/only key rings?)

- 1st version polyethylene (unpainted, round tab)

- 1st version polyethylene (gold, round tab)

- 1st version polyethylene (angular tab)

 

 2000's to recent time [plant label]

- 2nd version polyethylene 'Torres'

- 2nd version polyethylene 'Torres' (burgundy)

- 2nd version polyethylene 'ST'

- 2nd version polyethylene '?' (blue, provisional) 

Obviously all those above without tab, tags or tings have had them removed to imporve the lines of the animals as stand-along figurines.

L is for Late Show Report - Civil and Sports

Often the section which throws up the more interesting figures, due to the vast numbers of accessory figures from other toys, die-cast vehicles, beach-stuff, tourist items and the like, and the last show was no exception with several interesting new pieces.

 

These, for instance, were totally new to me, presumably Spanish, and around the size of the Torres Maltas stuff, but the two riders are cruder and don't have swivel arms, likewise the bulls are similar to the Miguel Torres bottle-top mascots. But I don't think there's a connection. However, they do make you realise that there';s probably far more bullfighting stuff out there than the half-dozen or so 54/60mm makers commonly known to collectors?

Football; another genre with many examples, here we have premiums (2 cream/white), a Hong Kong cake-decoration (painted), board-game pieces from Waddington's (5, Soccer Boss) and Tomy (2) one as supplied, the other a 'paint your own team/spare, also supplied with the game (Electronic Super Cup Football), in a hidden drawer, and a couple of broken Airfix, front left.

'Allo 'Allo! It's thee leau! From the left; HIT/Teamsters, Timpo policewoman, Solido traffic cop and a currently unknown (I'll spot his set on Amazon or eBay at some point!) cop in a US style, who has the distinction of being a still warm piracy of the quite recent Teamsters accessory, or - at least - a very similar sculpt!

Other sportsmen include a snowboarder who's probbaly a cake decoration, a Marx and another premium, a teeny-tiny horse racer probably from mini-crackers and a baseball player from the 'States.

 

Dancers; they always look the same, donor wise, but that's just because there's only a few 'classic' or standard poses, which suit cakes, music boxes, make-up stations, charms and all the other places you find these!

 

The large charm/key-ring here is smooth-flat on the reverse, the purple is a new colour of the Euro-premiums/US comic Ad' set, and the fallen one may be missing a base or cake-spike, but seems to be a new size/pose, she's hard 'styrene, like the charm, purple is polyethylene.

Taylor and/or Barratt, most of the road crossing patrol set and a couple from other sets/toy vehicles, I think I have most in the collection, so it's a case of grabbing them to compare because they were cheap, or finding them in the donation bags when I got home, as they are all sub-scale, and tend to be sent my way sometimes, by the generous.

Bully (ex-Heimo) Bullyland farmers, a bit stumpy and juvenile, but a nice addition to tthe stash, and not a series I was familiar with, I now know there were animals too, and will have to check my piles for one or two!

Sort of civilian! Cheilea farmer, new production and Matchbox hunters, a Blue Box (or Redbox?), or, more likely sub-piracy zookeeper, taken from Britains and a French or Spanish (?) African native, possibly Clairet? He's missing a weapon, so a bit of a box-ticker for now!

Mixed bits, the two larger ones are from the closedown of the Elastolin factory a while ago now, and were probably supplied to someone else, Tipp & Co (Tippco/TCO), Bub, or a smaller maker? The smaller one has a metal locating-tab buried in the composition.

 

Not sure on the ringmaster, he might be quite new, or older (French?) but he's new to me/the collection, while we have a Corgi lab-tech, Leddo wagoneer, early stretcher-case (Matchbox or Dinky?), a Poplar (?) or HK-copy driver, and one of those tiny copies of the Britains cyclists, which come in smaller rack-toy bags and Christmas crackers.

Poor shot on the divers I'm afraid, but we've seen the bath toys before in quite full detail, with a fair bit of help from Brian Berke, and will return to them again, while the Triang boardgame James Bond diver is damaged, as - like yesterday's Wild West - they often are!

A comparison on the difference between the closest poses of new (behind) and Miguel Torres) bulls, the next post will go further on these. Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.