T is for Toy Soldiers

Some more bits on Toy Soldiers in art and design;

Unicef - Turn Toy Soldiers back into children Poignant and thought provoking.

Toy Soldier alphabet Brilliant, but could have been executed to read more easily? (Oliver Mundy)

Amnesty International - CGI Bit raw? That's war.

Gold! Jewellery

Second-life More CGI

Gone to graveyards everyone? Common photograph, but with nice poem.

Saving Ryan's Privates - Ryan McGuinness Different...

Ghostprint Gallery - Francisco Amaya 'Made in China'!

What war does when the WASPS stop waving the flags UK-based Dorothy Collective - Makes you think...no bad thing.

It's amusing in an ironic fashion what minority hobbies we are collectively, yet our figures seem to permeate through society at many levels?

B is for Big Ears

This is quite an easy - non-Giant - one to identify, although as you can tell from the lack of a figure and the torn hand-rails it's the only one in this 'odd' box, I think I've got 4 more somewhere with the correct riders, so will blog this again when they turn-up.

The main identifier is the lack of stars or other decoration on the three discs of the decorative over-lay, this is unusual, with the other five or six types I've so far discovered having 4, 5 or 6 pointed stars or other design in relief on those discs. It's also lacking the little bite in the front of the chariot where a locating stud on the decorative element usually sits. The fact that the decoration is in the same colour as the chariot body is a third identifier as they are normally different colours.

The other 'teller' is the horse, which has pronounced ears cut into the mould, well back on the skull, hence my christening this one 'Big-Ears'. There are also differences in the front piece of 'rococo' trace-work between the horses pointing forwards, but I'll have to look at all the chariots together one day to get those differences properly documented. The chariot is marked 'MADE IN HONG KONG' on the underside but in larger letters than Giant originals.

P is for Pachyderm

It is one of my great bugbears that white-metal manufacturers - from the Hollow-casters of the last century, through to the current solid 'New Metal' guys and taking in all the war-game suppliers who've had a go - continue to provide beasts that are too small for Indian elephants or too 'African' looking or that carry the most ridiculous loads vis-a-vis howdahs...or more commonly; large turrets made of roof-timbers or railway sleepers (ties)!

The following are presented therefore to give an indication of how large an Indian (or 'Asian') elephant is - when in the employ of man. Two of the images are taken from the Wikipedia page on the Delhi Durbar (and they won't enlarge), the other five come from the 'History of the Coronation Durbar 1903' compiled by order of the Viceroy and Governor-general of India by Stephen Wheeler and published by John Murray 1904.

They are not the best images but they are copyright-free and give a good idea of the bulk of one of these beasts, their size in comparison with humans - both natives of Asia and Europeans - and the lightweight nature of the structures they carry compared to the weight of the padding, saddle-blankets (large carpets!) etc..

Elephant Carriage of the Maharaja of Rewa - Delhi Durbar - 1903. [Wikipedia]

Show-off! This is what he arrived in from his home state. One of the facts people seem unaware of is that an elephant is a much better 'puller' than carrier, which is why the Raj used them to such good effect as heavy, siege or garrison artillery 'tractors'!

Trials have found they can carry about 4-times the load of a camel over/for the same distance/time; given that a camel would struggle to carry an Elephants saddle-blanket - you can see the problem of these 'forts' war-gamers are so enamoured of; right there!

Taken at the Retainers review (a sort of un-dress rehearsal?)- 1903

A frisky elephant rears-up, it would seem that his howdah is being carried behind him by humans, in two loads, the chair/throne behind and the canopy closer to the camera? They could be two halves of a loading dais though?

Elephants that had been marched hundreds or thousands of miles across the Alps or the whole of the Near-east would have been dressed in their 'forts' minutes before the battle - or at least between breakfast and the battle commencing! This points to a calling for a lightweight structure on two points, one; it has to be quickly maneuverable by the mahouts or fighting crew, two; someone - probably the elephant - has to drag it around on a carriage or sled between battles, sometimes for years?

But if it folded-up...or rolled-up...and was light enough to carry?

Leading Elephant, main body - State Entry 1903 - Scene in Chandni Chauk

This is a big beast, now; it's true they would have been using their prize specimens for an occasion such as this, but an army will be using prime examples too.

The following parade - State Entry 1903 - Scene in Chandni Chauk

Rich or poor, senior or junior I can't see any dignitaries riding an elephant here that is not twice the height of the attendants - at the shoulder - the head carries higher.

Lord and Lady Curzon 1903 - leading the State Entry past the Jama Musjid

This is an interesting shot as the European looks bigger and the elephant by default smaller, but Lord Curzon is high in a large throne - which looks bloody heavy and is no evidence to support the war gamers need for heavy forts, this is a fit, domestic elephant, walking a few miles after a good breakfast, he hasn't traversed Persia, in a drought nursing wounds while his ignorant Sarissa's beat him!

1903 - the rest of the parade following behind - Jama Musjid

Some of the following beasts appear to have very heavy structures on their backs, but - as we saw in the second image - they can be broken-down into man-portable loads. [Compare - Red-eye vs. Rapier] You can't make the forts that come with war-gaming elephants into man-portable loads, except the Italeri/Zvezda ones which are lightweight structures (on decent sized elephants!).

Lord and Lady Curzon arriving at the Durbar 1903 [wikipedia]

Another shot of the main-man, you can see from the scale of the mahout that Lord Curzon is looking bigger due to his solar-toupee and the bloody great throne, not because he's a giant of a man, although we wouldn't have sent dwarves to represent the Great White Monarchs!

There's more of this to come....

R ist fur Rote Teufeler

Apologies for the German grammar!

I have one box with all the GI's in, and another box for everything else (non-German), and we are into that box now, although I have an article in the queue left over from the GI box, it's stuck in Piacasa while I faff-around wondering what to do with the images, not that it's that important, they're the Tim Mee/Proctor and Gamble figures and I may bin them for now!

So instead I present the Red Devils in all their finery courtesy of Timpo, fine purveyors of toy soldiery! These are the basic six poses of the first series and are relatively easy to obtain. Armed with the LMG, a Sten/Stirling type thing (with a magazine of about 95 rounds!) and the FN Fal/SLR.

Although these are the first type Para's they are - within the Timpo Swoppet WWII range - technically type II figures as the Americans and Germans had had an earlier cruder incarnation with moulded-on weapons.

These are a bit of a mystery, they are either sun-faded Para's or figures so rare no one has got round to mentioning them before this moment? I have tried to re-produce the effect by leaving a spare red-beret in a jar of bleach on the window-sill in direct sunlight for about 6 months, but with no luck, so for now I'm assuming an SAS test-shot? Although the one on the left has been given a set of late-production legs, they come from a collection that could be dated from the 1950's to the early 1970's - both in conversation with the seller and by the contents of the rest of the stuff that came with them.


Second type Para's (third generation WWII figures), these along with their helmeted brethren are subject to extreme brittleness and will get rarer and rarer in the years to come as they succumb to fiddlers, being dropped and the vagaries of a global postal system!

The stabbing guy usually comes with a pink head and the proviso that you assume he's wearing brown gloves, I've given him an American Indians head as the Para's have had black soldiers for as long as I can remember. Also he's gone back a ways by swapping his SLR for a Lee Enfield SMLE!! While the officer has been watching too many old movies..."You Doity Raaat!".

The working parachutist, as kids we would replace the plastic 'chute with a white hankie and Mum was forever taking the staple out of the back-pack, sorting out all the little shroud-lines and putting it all back together again! The parachutes come with concentric circles in - the illustrated - green or blue and both black (definite) and white (I think), possibly also red but I'm not convinced.

The same moulding was used on both the German and American paratroopers with late versions of the Germans having moulded-on headgear, while the Brits and Yanks stuck with the plug-in beret or helmet - truth be told I'm not sure Timpo ever issued him with a British helmet but as there were two in the lot I gave one a 'head-swap'!

P is for Pathe and Production

A quick film of Britains Hornsey works, you see someone working on a master figure, the hollow-casting process, the speed with which the detail is painted and a brief look at plastics with pre-coloured granules at the end;

Britains Hornsey 1965 1 minute 40 seconds.

The US band is a thing to behold now, and that's a fine block of Eye's Right at the end, enjoy.

Addition; 1949

A is for Around and About

Following-on from the Dr. Who Adventures magazine freebies the other night, this is all stuff I've picked-up between the middle of November and last week, most of it should therefore still be readily available somewhere, if only on evilBay (the TK Maxx stuff for instance) where some enterprising soul has bought a whole load and doubled its price on the 'Buy it Now' model of capitalism!

On Saturday the 12th(?) of November I put the whole of my collection in a van and drove it to the storage unit, by the following Tuesday I was able to take this photograph back at the flat! The Minuteman from Britians was my 'best letter' gift from Toy Soldier and Model Figure magazine, the Siku set was a TK Maxx reduction/clearance item (who decided on 1:55th scale for gods sake, when they've already got 1:42, 1:48, 1:50 and 1:60 as standards in the die-cast vehicle universe?!!) as was the Bakugan carded set. the rest came from a bakers that still had old Festival stock along with newer pieces.

Close-up of the Festival Cupid/Eros figure with its factory-paint intact, clearly marked Festival, I know the train candle-holders are Festival as well.

Poundstreacher had the YB vehicles (CAT knock-offs) for a few quid before Christmas and may well have some left, it's been a while since I was there. While the awful pink castle came from the new 99p Shop in Newbury. The castle went strait in the bin but the figures were kept, they're between 54 and 60 mil and have hollow backs...so sort of semi-round?!

Walmart-call-me-Asda gave me the paratrooper, free in exchange for about £2.99, I can't remember where the animals came from (possibly Ryman's?) but they are all over the place at the moment and I know Sainsbury's have a similar assortment - bagged - in their party-favor range and I've seen Dinosaurs as well.

The Huntik thing was another clearance item from TK Maxx, while the new Lego figure range has just come out all over the place and the Clash of Hero's bags are currently in The Works for 99p.

These two were Rymans's and I'm going to take the key-ring off the Dalek, the TY Bear was a 'sample' purchase, I will not be getting any more, but he will help to identify the stuff when it starts coming-in in mixed lots 20 years from now.

These were both Poundshop, one (truck) before Christmas the other (Woodie) last week, both - obviously - a quid! I'll be removing the key-ring again. the truck is a little bigger than 1:76/72 stuff like Airfix or Academy.

These both came from the craft superstore in Basingrad I can never remember the name of, but 'Super Craft Store' will do for now [The Arts and Crafts Superstore - Winchester Road], the Pirate set has 8 lovely 54mm figures but at that price only an idiot would by it, so I asked if I could take a photograph for the blog and they said yes - that's why the image is ruined by about 11 strip-light reflections!

Studies of the golfer cake-decoration from Wilson, the figure is identical to the figure that used to come with large-scale HK vehicles of the Camper-van type back in the 1960's and '70's but the base has been altered to read 'Wilson' and 'China'. The accessories went in the same bin as the pink castle.

So there you have it; lots of bits around and about if you look for it, and in years to come some of this stuff will be harder to find (some would argue - you won't want to find it!) than turn of the last century hollow-casts or 1950's 54mm plastic, because there is more being produced now than ever before, but a lot of it - all that TK Maxx sell-through - is only available for a very short period.

There's a film called 'The Last Airbender' or Water-sucker or something which has spawned at least two sets of figures; small ones I've seen in TK Maxx and larger 4" type 'action figures' which were in Poundstretcher - I think - which (as I've never heard of the film) must have had such a short shelf-life you'll not find them on Google (or it's successor) in 50 years time, and dozens of similar movies are giving rise to equally unpopular figures all the time.

A is for King Authur Pendragon of 'The Round-Tabled'

Arthur's knights were almost certainly dressed as late Romans, so labelling a bag of Roman cavalry as being so is not as far fetched as it might have seemed to a 1960's war-gamer, as the seminal works on such matters and the preliminary articles in the modelling press hadn't been published at the time these were sent to adorn the 'dollar-trees' and racks of the West's newsagents, corner shops and dime-stores.

However neither the eponymous King Arthur nor his father - Uther Pendragon - could be seen as the model for the spelling! Nor can one ignore the fact that these are High-Empire, not late 400AD's.

A bagged set as it arrived home with the weeks shopping - if you were lucky. The poses are the same as Giant, but the quality is much poorer and the colour palette is again nothing like a similar sample of Giant originals...and Giant would never give you this many figures in one 'retail unit'!

Close up of the figures and horse, this is the horse I call 'Rim-Saddle', die to the fact that in re-cutting the mould to clean-up after a poor pantographing/copying from the same size, a raised edge as been introduced to the outer edge of the saddle, saddle-cloth and other detailing.

This example is Rim-Saddle type four, but I'll go into the types in the same detail as I looked at the mini-trucks after we've seen most of the horse types, as it would be too confusing to try explaining them as we went along without the ability to see them all together, and then look back at the separate posts - such as this one.

The 'palette' of colours - much glossier/shinier than Giant and predominately a dark pastel pink, heliotrope pink and army green with a smattering of primary's and a deep purple...

Smo-----oke on'the War--t--'er;...A Fyiee'yer In The Skyiee!

It should - however - be noted that all the mounted HK Romans are direct descendants of the Giant ones, and it's only horse type or colours that set them apart, the odd positions of the leg-mounted locating-studs are always slavishly where the Giant ones are found and of the same design, unlike the many Cowboy and Indian sets we'll be looking at.

G is for Gladiators

It's a while since I sent a couple of images of these to PSR for one of their critique type revues within the vintage section, and I always like to give things a while there for the PSR fans to find, but there is always a need for more of these on the Internet, not least because people insist on calling them Kellogg's, and when corrected can get quite nasty!

Various shots some of which have been seen before, but they give a good idea of the colour range these came in. After they had been issued by Quaker they appeared in Tom Smith's budget range Christmas-crackers for a year or two, and when you find them now, you tend to either find a large lot in primary colours or a small lot with some of the wackier colours, I suspect that the former are Quaker-sourced and the latter; Tom Smith.

The range of colours is similar to both late production Hilco and Cherilea, so I wonder if one of them was responsible for producing these, however the metallic green is pretty unique (although common elsewhere; particularly hard plastic space-stuff and Roche au Fees circus premiums) and Quaker did buy a mass of Marx moulds when Swansea went tits-up, so maybe they had their own production facility? It would give hope to the mould being around still, as a lot of that Marx stuff has turned-up elsewhere over the years?

Close-up of the three mounted poses, the first one is clearly only good for a Spartacus war-game, being very much a 'Gladiator' on a horse, while the third one is as stupid as the Marx/Giant pose with a full 'Empire' legionary shield, but the one in the middle is very useful for early Republican, late Empire/Arthurian or other Mediterranean/Balkan/Levantine armies over a wide spread of time?

But with a sharp knife and some judicious paint-work they can all prove useful, and although in the hollow Hong Kong style - the horse is well detailed and can paint-up well, he also has that busy look of a small pre-medieval war-pony!

As far as I know (from my samples - mint in bag) the Baravelli range are Giant copies on 'Mexican Small' horses, not the Quaker figures?

Similar shot of the five foot poses, four of these are very useful but the fifth (middle figure) is difficult to place outside of a gladiatorial setting, being bare-chested, with a leather strap arrangement and a trident. The trident is nearly always miss-moulded, I think I have two good ones in a dozen or so figure-sample?

I gave a set of these to Paul over at Paul's Bods and live in hope that he will 'ruin' them with a touch of his magic painting! I couldn't bring myself to do it, but I think they'll paint-up well? I did have some in my childhood painted 'ancient' army, but have long since taken paint-stripper to them and returned them to 'minty'!

The original advert as it appeared in kids comics at the time, see; no Kellogg's!, this is lifted from Cluck, but there is a cleaner version linked-to from the PSR article on someone's Flickr album.

News Views Etc...Dr Who

I will be blogging on stuff available out there at the moment in a day or two, but in the meantime these are half-here half gone...

Dr Who Adventures magazine are offering eight-each Silurians and Silence this week (starting yesterday), and offered Judoon and Ood last week, so a bit late for them but there is a back-issue system on the net somewhere...I'll look up the link later and post it here - but my diners ready!

Later the next morning!...

Well - it seems they have switched publishers in the last few weeks and thing haven't been updated for a bit, while the Back-issue service has disappeared, but they do turn up on FeeBay in the weeks after each issue, so keep an eye on that...there were Weeping Angels in two poses in November as well as re-issues of of the previous ones so it's becoming a good little series, pity about the 'Fatleks' replacing the original sculpts.

HO is for Half-O Gauge, not scale, not size, not ratio - GAUGE

Being the distance between the rails on the model and their relationship to the real thing! The crap you read about scale, size, ratio and gauge on the Internet (especially when someone is trying to justify their having brought out some figures slightly bigger or smaller than the norm) is enough to make you hair grey....oh! - It already is!

It sometimes seems to me that the 'Internet Generation' can't get their heads round the difference between them, even Wikipedia (and I've several links to them - bottom of left column) get all confusing trying to explain it!

If something is 20mm high, that is its 'size'...it is - in other words - 2cm tall. If it is 4mm 'scale' then it is representing something in real life at a 'ratio' of 4mm to one foot, making a 20mm figure representative of a 5' high real person, but if the figure is described as HO, it simply means it is designed to go with model railway stock running on rails that are a specific distance apart.

The details of which I'll save for another day as I was only casting around for a hook to hang tonight's post on and I intend to come back to figure sizes again!!

So what was worth all that...This lovely little set here, all nestled in bright-green wood-shavings.

I believe these are by Berger a company that operated from Thuringen in the former East Germany, and who produced these sometime in the 1960's. The reason I think they are Berger is down to the little details that set all manufacturers apart.

In this case the similarities are;

*Small wire-hole (?) in the base
*Short legs
*Dumpy bodies
*Heavy bases with a cone-like profile
*Plaster-like compound/composition material
*Around the 2.8cm stated as being right for these figures in Reinhard Schiffmann's Sammlerkatalog - Band 12 (collectors catalogue - part 12)
*Colouring - particularly the pinks
*The way the faces have been painted

When trying to give a name to an unknown set you must always admit the minuses as well;

*No patterned paper lining on the lid of the box
*Bases are green not grey

While they - at 28mm - would be rejected by today's hyper-real purists as being too big, the 'size' includes the heavy base necessary to keep weighty figures upright, and the tin-plate trains they were aiming at lacked accuracy themselves, nevertheless they were the HO range. And err...they were TOYS!

J is for Jogging

Following-on from the Giant Cowboy and Indian Article the other day, we have this little lot who use all the same poses as Giant but with another horse, the one I called 'Jogging' in my original series of articles for Plastic Warrior magazine. I suppose I should have called him 'trotting' but didn't think of it at the time and it's too late now!

The foot figures are easy to identify as they have a a 'HONG KONG' mark in very small letters that are graphically arranged to make two little oblongs to the naked eye. Also see how while similar, the colour 'palette' is very different from a Giant Sample.

A close-up of the Jogging horse, again - easy to identify as he doesn't have the all stretched-out legs of most other HK horses. Mounted figures again are Giant poses, but much glossier and in different colours, my two samples being one - pastels, and the other - primaries; red and blue.

The larger card is similar in style and graphics to a non-Giant chariot set we will look at in the fullness of time.

L is for Late again - Show Report; Sandown Park

Missing both December shows (London Toy Soldier and the NEC's general toys) my last show of last year was the other big general toy fair at Sandown Park racecourse in November, and in complete contrast to the post below, I only bought 10 items and none of them that exciting...

These all came from Adrian at Mercator Trading (who has more should you fancy some - link to right of page [all gone - sorry]), I have a side collection in all ammunition, whether inert 'real world' rounds, Drill or Practice or toy and model rounds, shells, suckers etc...and these three are a welcome addition to that collection.

The Lone*Star ones were late production and I well remember as a kid being a bit miffed that they wouldn't go in all our existing cap-guns which took either the round loads (usually red plastic) or the paper strips. The Devil Bangers are those paper-wraps little boys still annoy people at bus-stops with to this day...and may even be current? The Italian set is totally new to me.

First purchase of the day was the bag of micro-vehicles during the car-park trading before the doors opened, simply marked 'MADE IN WESTERN GERMANY' twice and 'ASST 18' (presumably meaning; Assortment 18 - of how many?). I adore the polythene truck marked err...'POLYTHENE TRUCK' a title that covers both the subject matter and material very succinctly!

The Chariot is a Hong Kong copy of the Thomas/Polar Plastics one with the old Bergan/Beton horses, while the tractor (also from Adrian) is a fair copy of the Britains [not Dinky!] number, and they've even copied the lifting mechanism on the hay-rake, but in plastic. This was surplus to requirements vis-a-vis a forthcoming book on farm vehicles, which I will plug until it's published in the hope of a cheep signed copy!

Finally; wandering around the halls during lulls, or on the way to get coffee I picked up a decent Britains Beefeater, I'm trying to get one of every version made - not hard; but it gives you a little goal within the world of "never collect it all". The flame-thrower in 50mm looks Spanish, but is made of PVC and I would love to know more about him [see; 'comments' on this one].

The Skybrids figure I picked-up as I couldn't remember if I had him already or not...I think I have and had blogged him, but he's clean, so nothing lost. While the Action Man spanner came off the floor when we were clearing-up; Thanks Mr. Don'tcheckyourpitch Guy!

L is for Late - Show Report; Birmingham, October

As I track down images from three different hard-drives and a dozen memory-sticks, I'm coming across all sorts of stuff which I meant to blog and didn't get round to at the time, one set is this lot of the 'Plunder-pile' after Dave McKenna's Birmingham show last October.

And while there will inevitably be an element of 'showing off' in a post of this type, it's also instructive as to how a collection develops, especially when you've only recently decided to start collecting the larger scales you've always previously ignored!

So when I get home after a show, the first thing I do is put things into piles of like-objects and replace the various bags and tubs with those I use for the collection, and in so doing half-sort everything. Enlarging this image will show all manor of stuff, among which is the star buy - three blow-moulded Godzilla monsters from the Japanese film, including Godzilla himself and two I have yet to name...any idea's from the odd angle? [I think - after a quick Googling - the silver one may be Zigra and the other either Gargantua or Gabara?]

Top left sees the tray of oddments, including a couple of new-production Zvezda sets from the gaming system they seem to be concentrating on at the moment, various premium type things including to gold flats from France (I think), a nice Starlux boxed set of mediaevals and two trees from the inter-war period, similar to the early Faller ones but unmarked. Several one-piece wagons and a lovely tin-plate armoured car are sitting next to a TAT friction car (I can't remember what was in the box, but it's not the Bren-carrier Plastic Warrior covered a while back, something civilian I think but it's in storage now!) and behind that; 3 'Charley Kit's (HK copies of Kinder/Dulcop) and two complete room/ward vignettes from the Mettoy/Playcraft 'Emergency Ward-10' play set.

Toward the front of the tray are a bag of HK copies of Italian Nativity figures, various civil figures, a bunch of cake decorations, Marx Yogi and Boo-boo, several of the Cavendish wives of Henry VIII and he - himself! Lastly there is a handful of 30/45mm Lido (and other) spacemen.

The tray to the right has a large blow-moulded Hussar in a Gloster mug! [I've lost the guy's details. but he has a really nice range of mugs for most regiments, arms and services and I will blog them next time I run into him - he had a good day that day]. A kit we'll look at later in this post, a handfull of early Airfix mounted figures (or are they?) and an early paratrooper by the same firm, a Hong Kong circus set, bag of Lido knights and and odd horse! The two open trays have - in one - a mix of Rose and Higgins Wellingtonians and Indonesian tourist flats - in the other. Next to that tray is a near-mint Mighty-Antar (a few weeks after I blogged my painted one - such is life!).

Forward of the rear trays are various bags of new-production, small-scale HK stuff and things we'll look at below with the third tray itself containing various odds-&-sods; plaster cake-decorations and a Thomas/Poplar sleigh, some of the less-common Kinder metals, a nice group of Blue Box knights, a Nosco (or HK copy?) cocktail-glass giraffe, a bear drinking from a bottle [I've photographed him somewhere as there was a trade-mark on the bottle and I'm hoping someone can identify him, but the shots are missing! I googled him and found a village in the Czech republic!!], some metal flats from different sources, a Polish Wellingtonian and several Solido combat infantry in 60mm.

Various Wild West accessories, a bag of ray-guns and a Marx pyramid from the Noah 'Miniature Masterpiece' play set round-up that tray...oh - and the Hong Kong copy of the Cavendish guardsman with sentry-box along with a little tray of Soma figures and a rabbit family still connected by their sprulettes.

In the bags not covered below are a hand full each of Texas Cowboys and Britains French Infantry from the Wellingtonian period, a bag of Marty Toys with their little space-car (seems to be a copy of an Atlantic item), some East German Cowboys (apparently supplied with Jean horses??), 3 bi-planes which could be Kleeware/Tudor*Rose, Thomas/Poplar or even Airfix (?) and an Armtech carded set.

Also visible are a bag of Cherilea 60mm Knights including the mounted one I've already blogged (2nd-equal 'Star Buy' of the show!), a really nice Starlux catalogue in full colour, a couple of 60mm Romans a bag of Giant-type fort bits (you can never have too many bits to make-up whole ones), some Cacti and a good facsimile of the original Britains Swoppet Knights 'flyer'.

So - among the bagged goodies was this lot of Fantasy and Sci-fi gaming pieces, the baseless ones are Dragon Ballz. the two brown-based ones are form one of the plethora of 'minis' games (as the newbies call them), most of the rest are Games Workshop and/or Citadel/MB Games stuff...all grist to the mill!

Another bag contained a mass of kit figures (military) with ammunition from Airfix, Nitto and Eidai (at least), most of the Esci figure kits, Fujimi 8th Army, a mixture of Aurora and UPC copies of the Roco-minitanks copies of the Monogram/Revell GI's and various other bits including a pink cymbalist from a Christmas-cracker.

An Airfix gun-team, some soft-plastic bits including an Atlantic medics set, a monkey, Airfix naval crewmen, an Eidai range-finder and a naked lady - bargain!

A similar bag was filled with the civilian equivalent to the previous shot, with about 4 complete sets of the Merten 19thC passengers, the Preiser artists (their model was by coincidence - different sellers - the naked lady in the other lot!), a pink duck ('cos you can never have too-many pink ducks!) and various Lledo/Vollmer etc...

The biggest surprise in this bag (and the reason I bought it) was a number of Atlantic wagon drivers in brown. Another Christmas-cracker guardsman settled it for me!

This was a bit of a find, seems to be missing two small pieces of body-work I'll have to find one day, but otherwise complete, with all horse-furniture and the instructions for a second kit!

This was an odd little buy, I suspect someone like Scale-link? But I'm not sure and if anyone knows - please inform the rest of us! They are all in Victorian garb with obviously a porter, other rail-staff and passengers, bathers, boaters, a lovely photographer with a tiny little tripod to super-glue (!), picnickers and 'walkers-in-the-park'

I would imagine this is the contents of several sets rather than one?

The usual bag of HK 'bits' (which contained the fort bits- above - as well), unusually this was the only decent sample at the show this year - often I'll get three or four bags of this type of stuff at a show - there was a big bag of the common 'Wavymane' Cowboys and Indians but the chap wanted over 20-quid for it and it's not worth that.

Anyway - it was a reasonable bag with what looks like a near complete set of Mongols V's Knights from Giant, some non-Giant Roman cavalry, two wagon/chariot teams (also non-Giant), a couple of non-Giant foot figures (in need of some paint stripper!) and a Marx soft-plastic Viking. A Britains ACW swoppet arm (Union, trooper, for the use of) and a Quaker Foods Gladiator and horse made-up the rest of the bag.


Finally I bought these from a 10p rummage-box along with a Timpo-copy totem-pole, I think they are modern, Hing Fat or Toy House or someone like that, but they'll make a nice backdrop in a cabinet one day!

News Views Etc...Plastic Warrior Show Date 2012

Hot'mail off the Press "The PW Show is confirmed for Saturday 5th May 2012. Please pass the word and post this on your website if you have one." All other details from the PW website at; Plastic Warrior Best show of the season for plastics, except for err...Birmingham, maybe and err...Herne maybe!!!

C is for Cowboys (and Native Americans!)

Well, I had a day to spare so I dug into the box I've been blogging the Giant Stuff from and had a half a sort-out of the Cowboys and Indians, at the same time because I needed the 40mm canoeist, I got the box of carded sets out of the loft and the result is a stultifyingly tedious look at the minutiae of Giant Wild West - if you are a casual visitor to this blog; or a decent overview of what is or isn't Giant to those who get so excited about this HK-production importer from New York.

These are the 6 Giant foot poses in the wild west range, apart from the canoeist (below) they are the only known poses used by Giant, all other foot figures (and there are many) were imported by other firms.

Even with these 12 there are question marks over when they are Giant (dealers premium - kerching!) and when they aren't (dealers description "Believed to be Giant"), more of that below, in the next part you'll find a explanation of the base marking changes with these guys, in the meantime, the simple rule is the better the quality the more likely they are Giant, however as with all rules there are exceptions.

The 6 mounted poses, there are as you can see three Cowboys and three Indians, in my articles for One Inch Warrior magazine I think I identified 40 or 50 mounted poses of hollow-horsed Cowboy or Indian, and only 6 are Giant. Again these poses are used by non-Giant brands and carriers, usually of a poorer quality.

In the Cowboy image, all three are on the horse I have christened 'Smoothie', in the Indian shot, the centre rider in on another Smoothie, while the archer to the right is on a 'Mexican Small' and the chap in the full war-bonnet (not necessarily a chief) is on a 'Mexican Large'. Along with the medieval charger these are the horses typically associated with Giant, but again there are exceptions, and again the other 20/30-odd hollow horses out there are not Giant...unless they are!!

From the left; Mexican large; Mexican Small and; Smoothie. Occasionally a smaller version of Smoothie appears in a Giant lot, usually towing wagons or artillery, he's called 'Pony'. The Smoothie seems to be based - loosely - on the Marx running horses, lacking the wave in the mane of the more common horse based on Crescent's running pose, but with the stirrups removed and a fatter tail, while the Mexicans seem to have something in common with both the Ajax 60mm horse and the Rel horse.

Colours of Giant horses are usually pretty reserved, being black, either a solid or slightly translucent white or many shades of brown, however as we saw the other day, there are exceptions and sometimes wild colours appear like red, green, pink, mauve, purple...in fact; any colour the figures come in.

Ideal would later carry a larger version of hollow Mexican in their Fort Cheyenne play-set.

The only other figure I've linked to Giant is this copy of the Thomas  'girl' paddling a canoe. It's hard to give him a scale as the original series was all scales for making box-dioramas from cereal packets, so in the bag with the others he looks like a boy, on his own in a carded canoe set (see 2nd post below) he is a 40mm adult.

It's not a terribly clear picture but it's the best I could do and I took dozens of shots with and without flash or natural-light and at all angles, but the plastic blister is old and tatty and very scratched so this is it. Also; of the four figures in the set he's the only one not damaged, it's rare for this HK stuff to get brittle, but it does happen!

An idea of the colours you'll find these figures in, it might look as if you can find them in any old colour under the sun, but when you look at a sample of Giant against another brand or unbranded set there are differences.

Typically Giant are matt rather than gloss, have a pastel hint/tint to them and are 'solid' colour - it's hard to explain but it's there! Indeed one way to tell late/post-Giant issues of these figures (as opposed to all the others) is that they get shinier the later they are dated - not because they're cleaner, but because the plastic is different

Top left shows the 'spruelette' as it leaves the machine, they survive like this as they were issued in a non-Giant branded Canoe set, with the long connecting pieces between the first and last pairs of figures wedged into slots on spigots in the base of the canoe. I should have stripped the home-paint from this one but I have others and was hoping to use them...but they are in the missing 'proper' boxes!

Below that is an interesting sample of Type II figures (see post below) in a limited colour range that all came together. To the right are a hot-pin conversion above and a sharp-knife conversion below.