N is for No Mystery!

The Marx Mystery Space Ship was so well illustrated on the box it was no mystery at all really! But...best toy ever!

Now, this will be the third time I've announced 'Best Toy Ever' on this blog, but if one casts one's mind back to childhood; that's par for the course...the best toy was always the one you were playing with, and I had to play with this yesterday, to get the photo's of it in 'full flight'!

I am actually missing the curved cradle that should go on top of the pink shaft, but these ships are not rare, there are several on FeeBay at the moment, and there are most weeks, when a damaged or box-less one turns up for a reasonable amount I'll grab it, but it's not a priority. I would point out that some of the buy-it-now's on these are ridiculous.

However, missing piece aside, this is a fantastic toy, and once you get it fired-up you have a package of contained kinetic energy that - if you lose control of it - can do a lot of damage to furniture, china ornaments, gerbil cages and anything else of a frangible nature you might find in a 1950's/1960's living-room or bedroom, or anywhere else for that matter!

Along with the main ship you got two spring-loaded rockets and two strange semi-flats that seem to have been included just to 'square-off' the the mould-tool or 'fill the sprue'? The pilots had a plug in their bums and they need it, as once the thing's fired-up they would rattle-about without a decent anchorage!

There are three boxing, the early one with 'groovy' '50's graphics and US and UK versions of the illustrated and more common later type.

When you Google-search them you will read all sorts of nonsense about them (most of which could have been sorted with a quick 'Google'!), one of which is that the US ones where one colour set, the UK ones; another colour set - the inference being that never the twain would meet. In point of fact there are several colours of ship (yellow, primrose and 'aqua') and all the accessories come in three colours which can be interchangeable.

This is due to the fact that the ships came from a third party (Sperry Gyroscope Company of Brentford, Middlesex; the UK branch of, and probably supplied by; Sperry Rand,  Great Neck, New York; a subsidiary of the Rand Corp. in the US) and weren't Marx products at all.

The figure and accessory 'sprues' were Marx, and again you see these being sold as "...'mint' with seven moon-men and two seated astronauts" or (as one 'definitive list' puts it) "9 unique aliens" and 9 astronauts. Other listings will try to fob you off with one colour only, others give one colour of aliens and the other colour of spacemen...

The fact is you get two un-seperated sprues (correctly; runners), one of each colour, they have 6 different aliens and 6 standing astronauts. There are also 2 seated astronauts in each colour, giving four all together, 6 'unique' aliens (12 in total) and 7 unique astronauts (16 in total).

The only rarity with this set is a small run of oxide-red figures which seem to have been sold usually partnered with the orange set.

The aliens are all different [species], with the last one apparently being related to Frankenstein! The figures are scaled down from other Marx figures from the various space-based play-sets and none of the astronauts are armed - only one alien has a hand-gun.

As to best toy ever...once you've got the hang of the winding, and can crank it up to full speed, you can with little practice or effort get the machine to carry-out all sorts of tricks, it will dance on a sixpence, defy gravity, whirl up and down a piece of string and can do "up to 50 tricks", and...despite the potential for damage, is so robust, there are lots of survivors, and you really should try to track one done, especially if you have young kids...they'll love it!

G is for Great Helms

Sounds like something out of Spaceballs! "Bow-down before the Great Helms or they will pulverise your planet into little-bits, littler little-bits than last time, too!"

These are heavily rated among collectors, but I don't think they are that rare, just desirable and sought-after, so there is a demand for them...but they are always on evilBay. Although I guess it's easier to say that once you've got them!

Also they do tend toward damage, the crests and plumes that make them 'Great Helms' in the first place can be broken-off relatively easily, and the visors can get lost after they crack at the back of the little spigot-hole.

I got these almost by accident, in that they were in with some other stuff I bought in a big lot a few years ago which was mostly early British combat although, with Wild West and European mixed-in, so were one of the nice surprises when they turned-up in the sort-out.

I can't think of anything else to say about them so that's it really; a bit of a box-ticking exercise and some Timpo eye-candy!

M is for Memories

Sorting-out in the loft and I found a box of old childhood Meccano under the eves, in among which were a few things I recognised as being both non-Meccano and from a long time ago!

Taken downstairs and duly washed, they make an intriguing pile I think?

King Kong from Hong Kong, I'm not telling him he's got a  sharpie up his arse!

A little clockwork robot I well remember getting in a Christmas stocking back around 1975, his mechanism has ceased to work, not because the springs broken but because someone (?) forced the winder until it broke its seal to the housing and now just spins uselessly! However he can still help carry a phial of Airfix paint to the recycling!

Tyrannosaurus Rex from Addar, his head needs re-glueing, I made him up and painted him (bloodied him up a bit!) during a wet holiday in Alderney many moons ago, his Raptor mate is actually in the collection somewhere and I wondered where Rex had slopped-off to!

The Morse-code signal kit from Palitoy; Action Man would settle under the Rhus tree by the extension and fire-off missives about the Cherilea-Sharna Afrika Korps half-track bivouacked by the cherry tree!

News, Views...etc...Space Candles

Tom Clague has sent me this picture, which he took in a store 'down-under' somewhere...

As Tom pointed out they are Matchbox sculpts...as candles! I did Google Noup Design and couldn't find them but I did find ten-stud Lego bars as candles and cartoon bombs with fuses!

Tom makes music of a trancy ethereal nature, and gives it away! Details of the new album - which features Airfix astronauts on the cover and mentions Gerry Anderson - are here;

Mood Processor

and the free download is here;

Dropbox

In other news, I updated the Foreign Terms and Figures pages yesterday and should add some more to the Khaki Infantry page today.

D is for Ducks! Flying Ducks

There was a funny little facsista from the North of Italy (where else!) who used to knock-about on the small scale forums, who once - while losing yet another point/argument with the more sensible members of the forum - suggested I was A) less than heterosexual and B) blogged toy ducks for a hobby! Well at the time he was wrong on both counts, and while I do re-post the odd bit of pro-gay stuff on 'the' Facebook (tolerance - it's just common sense isn't it?) he is still wrong about the first point.

On the second point however he's been right for a while, I seem to remember a duck sneaking in to a post some time ago...well, you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb...

Three of 'em! These are painted metal 'Flying Ducks' from Barratt and Sons (or; the Barretts of Sonderburg Road N7, to be accurate), designed for dolls houses in about 1:12 scale, or the 6-inch figure size, that's it really ducks, flying...or 'Ducks in Flight' to be accurate!

But to people from a certain age (or area?) they will always be Flying Ducks, my grandparents up on the North Notts/Yorks boarder had a set scooting across the living-room wall, along with the matching marshland wallpaper (with mallards) in the bathroom and a clothes brush disguised as an Indian Runner. Note the similarity to the Britains 'B'.

They've gone; the ducks and the grandparents, but this little set reminded me of them, unfortunately it also reminded me of 'folgor', but that's life...sweet and sour!

News, Views etc...Update to Khaki Infantry page

Added the Hilco section and edited the Cherilea section to conform. Also added a picture to the Timpo section which was contributed by Dave Scrivener and is most interesting, not least to a Zang enthusiast like me!

I'm sure you're getting annoyed with these 'update' updates on the homepage so I'll find something nice to put up here in a day or two.

UK Khaki Infantry

News, Views, etc...Khaki Infantry Page - Charbens, Cherilea and FG Taylor

I've now added Charbens, Cherilea and FG Taylor entries to the new page; UK Khaki Infantry

The Charbens section is no more than a bookmark at the moment and the Taylor entry is a bit frugal, but it's a work in progress and we already have some contributions to come for Reisler and Zang's entries when I get to them.

News, Views, etc...Khaki Infantry Page - Britains

I've now added Britains to the new page; UK Khaki Infantry

News, Views, etc...Khaki Infantry Page, Benbros and Britains

I've added Benbros to the new page; UK Khaki Infantry, Britains will be next. Eventually it will have entries for Charbens, Cherilea, FG Taylor, Hilco, Kentoy, Reisler, Speedwell, Trojan, VP, various 'unknowns' and piracies from Brazil, Hong Kong and Poland.

While the Britains Swoppets have gone in on the homepage, below this entry.

S is for Swoppet

So the other main range of 'Khaki Infantry' not deserving of a place on the page I'm publishing the rest on is the Britains 'Swoppet' British Infantry. They did lead to piracies and derivatives, but they too are, or tent to be, stand alone, rather than mixed-up with all the derivations of the Herald and Timpo GI ranges.

There are basically four body types in this range, and while some arms are plug-in, others are fixed and the plug-in ones don't have much room for variations, so although there are technically six poses, this was quite a limited set.

The play value really came from the constructional aspect and all the little bits and pieces. Packs in PVC that could be removed from the belt, picks and shovels, separate SLR semi-automatic rifles, pop-on helmets and swivel-heads and waists. The medical sets and the mortar were also stunning with the 'extra mile' that other makers never attempted.

The Swoppets posed with their nearest rival in the Herald range. The similarity is another failing of this set, why didn't they (Britains) give them new poses? Though the fact that they all had SLR's rather than the experimental EM2 was a bonus!

Back in the summer I bought a Junk lot off a chap who collects Swoppet Knights and always contacts me with the pictures of what's left.The pictures included the one top-left here, a nice shovel and the standing stretcher with storage box were the high-points of a typical car-boot lot.

However, once the deal had been done and the stuff had arrived there were some bits not shown in the photographs, namely the plasma-bottle and another shovel. This 'missing' bottle allowed me to add the whole vignette to the collection, although the blanket is brittle and on the shopping list!

Another shot of the kneeling firers and a close-up of the exquisite mortar tube round-off the collage.

Typically - Hong Kong couldn't leave this set alone though, so there are various versions of both the 'swoppets' in the lower shot and the solids above them to be sought-out by the completist collector. The solids are also given an additional pistol, while the mortar bomb seems to have become a walkie-talkie!

The 'Regiment' by S (Star?), the upper torsos are soft synthetic vinyl rubber as are the packs (by both S and Britains), and there is a hint of Herald Khaki Infantry in the pointing officer and one of the poses is struggling to hide a Timpo bugler's heritage!

Ethylene piracies of the swoppets done as single-mould solids as seen in the upper-shot three pictures above.

F is for; From Hollow-cast Mouldings

Further to the new page on UK produced plastic 'Khaki Infantry' I've started (see UK Khaki Infantry at top of the blog-page), some sets were stand-alone. We looked at some of the modern troops a few years ago, and Trojan's Germans and small scale have been covered, along with some of the 'swoppits'. Another set that suffered little plagiarism or derivative production, but was itself derivative of it's own hollow-cast forbears was the WWII British Infantry from Timpo.

Nine poses in plastic, from ten in metal, I don't know what the tenth one was, I suspect a motor-cycle dispatch rider, a casualty of some kind or a sentry/ceremonial marcher? These were all themes in the US set of the same era. Prone firing - see comments, thanks Dave.

There are two generations with the British in plastic, the first taken from the hollow-casts with little change, although the bases where beefed-up and given the same marks as the early plastic Wild West from hollow-cast range; 'TIMPO ENGLAND' or 'TIMPO MADE IN ENGLAND' in the recess under the base of most - but not all - the figures. They also had a gloss finish. The later versions have a matt finish and the mark is now on the upper surface of the base (like the later 'solids' from Timpo), reading; 'MADE IN ENGLAND' only.

The above shots show older bases/figures top left, and - from the top; left, right and centre of the right-hand pictures, with bottom left being the newer version, along with right, left, right of the smaller images. The left-hand figure in the bottom-right image is the hollow-cast original with the drain-hole showing in the helmet.

A couple of line-ups; Above being the earlier set in  a glossy plastic with gloss paint and the deeper bases. it can be seen that a couple of the figures don't have the deeper bases, but rather have the original 'puddle' of their hollow-cast brethren. The kneeling shooter has no base, as per the original and in contrast to the US GI's, where all the kneeling figures taken into the plastic range were given an additional base.

The lower group are the second versions, they are matt-finished, and the plastic has added chalk to help the paint adhere, as a result these suffer far more from brittleness than the earlier set. They've now all got the larger base with the upper-surface marking, even the chap steadying himself on a substantial rock...a really nice pose as well, by the way! I haven't tracked-down a kneeling firer from this second batch, so don't know if he got a base, he may not have been kept, I believe some sources think the second set only went to 8 poses (?), although I would drop the crawling guy if I had to drop one...

From left to right on both images; lead hollow-cast original, intermediate glossy plastic and final incarnation in the matt scheme. Note how time also lowers the quality of the painting from 7-colours, to 5, to only 3, with the gaiters, bayonet frog, chin-strap and eventually waist-belt & yolk falling by the wayside.

It goes some way to explaining why the old hollow-cast collectors always viewed plastics people with a little pity, the figure on the right is but a shadow of the figure on the left. A mass-produced plastic 'scrap' with a stab-and-hope paint job in three colours, as opposed to a figure hand-cast from a scoop of molten-lead - a carefully measured scoop by an experienced eye, hand-finished (fettled) and hand-painted to a high degree!

N is for New Finds, Pt.7 - Gold Daleks and Pencil Tops

Or...B is for Bluesky, Blueprint and Bluw Ltd...

So, this little lot of interrelated things were all coming in to the collection over Christmas just gone, as I went about seeking things out for other smaller people, the linking trends being names with blue in the title, gold Daleks and/or pencil tops!

So the first purchase (back in the late summer/early autumn?) was the Bluesky pull-back motored, hard-styrene space-shuttle pencil-top and astronaut rubber (that's 'eraser' to those so childish they can't say rubber without giggling), there were other designs, I can't remember them but I know I then found more on the Internet but this was the one with a figure, so this was the one I got. Can't remember where either, but it was a cheepie shop - I think?

Then at Christmas I was passing through Basingrad and found a little old model shop clinging on to the pile of new precincts joined together with poured concrete. In a mug on the counter he had white, yellow, blue and orange Fatleks along with a TARDIS as pencil-toppers, this time by a company called Blueprint out of Harlow, Essex (importers I imagine), I bought a yellow one.

At around the same time Dr. Who Adventures were re-running (?!) their pencil-toppers, so an issue was acquired.

This meant I needed to go back to Basingrad to get a TARDIS (for comparison!) and another - blue - Dalek...because it was there and er...the orange and white ones had gone! The TARDIS is a pen top, not a pencil top.

A week before Christmas doing last-minute shopping for jelly window-stickers (a tradition) I found this die-cast key-ring of the new-old-shape gold Dalek in Robert Dyas (UK hardware chain) and had to have one...for comparison! I also couldn't resist taking it part to see how it was put together. it's a very robust little model but the eye stalk is the softest PVC ever. This is the Bluw contribution.

Then just after Christmas I got this big one in Waterstone's bookshop, it's part of the range of little boxed games and 'executive toys' they do on a rack near the tills. I've previously bought the little set of foam aeroplanes. I suspect it's a re-boxed toy from the action figure lines but is unmarked?

Comparison shots include the Character Options minis in black and gold, a styrene Fatlek from Dr. Who Adventures/HMA and another of the Basingrad Fatleks - in orange, because...

...in January I returned to see if he'd been restocked and he had, so red, orange and white were added t the growing pile of approximately 35mm Fatleks!

The shots to the right are the final comparison for now and include two colour variations of the DW Adventures pencil top, the Blueprint pen top and a resin Police telephone-box from Harburn Hamlets.

Now when I wrote '(?!)' above, that's because when I was putting all these away I realised that the Christmas Adventures TARDIS pencil top (which came with a note book) was different from the one issued with a Fatlek and other things a year or two ago (see blog passim), so HMA have issued two different TARDIS's (what IS the plural - Tardis, Tardii Tardises or Tardis's?), but that will have to wait for another day when we can also look at the Dinky and Wardie/Mastermodels Police boxes!

Relevant Links;

Church Street Models - Basingrad
Bluw - Daleks
Blueprint Collections
Bluesky Designs Pullbax

N is for New Finds, Pt.6 - Dr. Who Adventures Magazine

A return to this publication, which we have looked at several times already, and despite its having gone to fortnightly - meaning you have to wait 6 months for things to come round again, rather than the three or four you used to be able to count on! - is still issuing useful stuff from time to time. I don't have all the dates of these and because I've published some of the items in-between; means that these might be up to 18 months/2 years old, the latest (bottom of this thread) is still on sale today!

Left - bog-standard Dalek and Cyberman 'army' card, this is issued regularly in this format. Bottom Right - another build-your-own Fatlek, this one in blue...previous issues have been white and red? (I think). Top right - about a year ago the Fatleks appeared in a metallic blue and vermilion, I think I said something at the time (but it might have been in an eMail to an interested party), the upshot being that I'd missed them in the shops, but managed to get a late set, which I will split with the other party!

Close-up of the metallic Fatleks, really nice colour, ties in with no known TV/Movie Daleks and they were issued after the new-old Dalek shape - All these magazines appear to have gibbons for marketing personnel; whether it's the original (1990's) Lego comic, the current one, the Horrible Histories or this, they are missed opportunities time after time?

On the right the inner tray from the pre-Christmas issue Advent Calender. There is no Auton, no Minotaur and no Weeping Angel with arms out (packaging restriction), some of these figures are becoming far less common than others?

Outer wrapping, box and playing board for the game to play with the pieces as they come from the box, one at a time over 24 days!

Three weeks ago we got a polypropylene build-your-own Weeping Angel with clockwork motor, this was a bugger to put together, but the judicious application of a No. 3 Swan Morton blade soon took care of that. Comparison shot with the kit figures issued back in the Autumn (which have been blogged) and the little PVC rubber ones from the figure sets. They are approximately 70, 59 and 38mm receptively.

Last week's (and still on sale) was a blind bag...I took a punt (after feeling through the plastic what I thought might be the pencil tops - Dalek blister is Dalek blister!) and found moulds for a non-branded 'play-dough', it's fun, but I'm not recommending it to figure collectors...although...at some point I'll try the Cyberman and Sontaran with an oven setting modelling compound!

N is for New Finds, Pt.5 - Kit Lot

At Sandown Park the other week I encountered a chap who had a stack of kit boxes, mostly AFV's but a few aircraft and a ship or two. Checking a couple of boxes it was clear they were not what one might call mint! The seller leaned over and said "They've been given a good seeing-to, make me an offer!"

Well, I started sorting them into stacks of 'apparently mint' and 'buggered about with' and asked him what he wanted for the buggered-about stuff, which included a couple of bags of bits and all the either empty boxes, or boxes with signs of tampering, plus an envelope of header cards and transfers. A deal was done...

Top image is how they came home, the lower image is sorting in progress. It turned out to be a reasonable spares purchase, not least than because there was a complete Airfix Matilda and Bren/6lbr in their bags, five Midori squeezed into one box with the wheels, tyres and gear-cogs in the other box...no casings for the pull-back motors though, just loose cogs!

The header cards will have to be checked against the collection as there are two distinct printings of the 2nd type 'full-artwork' cards. The early 1:50 Tamiya Crusader was pretty much absent, but the box is good and all three instruction sheets, the parts for wiring-up the motor and the plastic motor-housing were present along with the transfer sheet, so I may get something back on evilBay one day for that?

Further investigation revealed that the little tin of bits for a Cole's Crane suspension (and front mudguard) was from another kit, and this one is complete on the runner, so I feel a couple of conversions coming-on there, one day! The bags of bits contained the missing turrets for the Midori tanks and most of the 'medium sized' parts for most of the kits in the Airfix inventory (no JS.III or modern armour), along with a complete Bloodhound, launcher and transport trailer.

But...no AFV hulls or running gear (clearly in another bag, 'bagged' earlier in the day) and few wheels. The wheels aren't a big problem I have a lot in the spares dept., but turrets without hulls are a bit of a pain! There were also several floor-plates for the 5.5in Gun Paul posted on Mystery Model Monday, but a week when I wasn't on-line, typical!!

There's something very reassuring about a well stocked spares dept. no?

N is for New Finds, Pt.4 - Sci-fi and Fantasy

These are all all less than a year old I think (the insects may be a slightly older purchase?), and again should all still be in the shops if not on the Internet somewhere.

Could have been in the Works post, as that is where they came from, but I was looking for ways to divide up all the pictures in the 'new stuff' folder in Picasa and a Sci-Fi/fantasy post seemed a good idea.

Really these are 'action figures' of the type I don't usually bother with, however I saw in the carry-cases a potential for Bamiyan Buddha/Petra style rock carvings for use with small scale figures,...a quick dry-brush, marbling and wash should have them looking like Easter Island monoliths in no time, or set them in a cork or plaster 'wall', so I grabbed the two when I saw them...they were also dirt cheap...they were also Blue Box!

These are still available all over the place, I bought two blind bags when they first came out and ended up with two of the better figures so stopped! Mainly because they will be turning-up loose for pennies in small groups at shows or on evilBay for the next few years - should I fell the need to get a full set.

The marketing ploy here is three different antiqued-metallics for each figure (gold/brass, silver/pewter and a copper-bronze), but that's no different to various colours, so hardly a whinge! About 60mil, the deep, plinth-bases make them awkward for playing with, but you could try to create a chess-set or something? I also think they'd paint-up nicely.

I've seen various versions of both these exact models (the same Poundland carried them a few months later is realistic finishes) and other brands of giant insect, but thought these - with their charcoal and chrome plastic - would make excellent robo-sects for my LP spacemen to battle one day?

Also - if you follow the blog regularly - you'll know my love of Stag beetles and Rhino Beetles meant I was never going to leave them on the rack....at a pound a piece? Not sure if Funtastic are the same as Fun-Tastic, but I'll give them the same label for now. [2016 - They are and I've changed them all over to Funtastic!]