I think 'P' only ever gets used for Plastic
and Plunder! Over three weeks ago now, the first date in a calendar which these
days only really has five dates in it, it's ages (eight or nine years?) since I
went to the Kent or Birmingham shows, I caught a London show a while back (two
years ago?), but really these days it's four Sandown Parks, Plastic Warrior,
the charity shops and maybe one or two evilBay purchases per month.
So the shows are quite important, both for
the collection and for the Blog; but before we see what I got, I think it's
equally important to thank the organisers (BP
Fairs) who moved mountains to save the show from the weather, and succeeded
- in my opinion.
It was clear that a lot of stall-holders
had cancelled, but by the time people started to arrive all the tables had been
re-jigged to account for those cancellations (which can only have been short
notice, the weather was only really bad from the previous Wednesday evening) in
such a manner as to mean the hall-maps were still reasonably-accurate to where
people where, and - as more sellers didn't turn-up on the day - they continued
to spread the load - as it were - to
ensure than the day was still worth attending, which several buyers I spoke to
said it was, and while traffic was down, it was still brisk and busy to the
mid-afternoon.
The whole stash! You'll recognise quite a
bit as we've had some of it on the Blog already, this was mostly from mixed
lots, rummage trays, 50p tubs, one was a ten-for-a-pound tub, I had several
quid out of that, and then there was a bag from Adrian I've previously
mentioned (the whale Ahab; the whale!). I managed to find a handful of nice
civilians on Abid's tables, I was tempted by some of his trains too, but I
can't run to those budgets when there are figures everywhere!
And! A bag of put-asides had travelled down
from the Midlands from Graham Apperley, which was very kind of him and a nice
surprise for me! I can't remember everything in it (or Adrian's) as they were
all sorted into the below without separate photo's, but it had all sorts of
nice things in, much of the game-playing fantasy stuff for instance.
We've looked at the Lido stuff so moving swiftly along - the right-hand stuff is all
composition apart from the hollow rubber or semi-perished latex British
soldier. A few tatty 40mm Linol's that
will need new rifle tips, a couple of train staff, one is in Schiffmann
- Band 12 as unknown, the other seems even more unknown - bargain!
A couple of Brent's WWII (one of each size) and an export type, small-size
(54mm), Elastolin (British head on
German jack-booted legs, painted as an American!) make up the batch.
'Early British' or similar on the left,
nothing terribly exciting, along with the VT
wagon we looked at here the other day (it seems to have got itself into two
shots!), while on the right were the animals - including the Whale . . . it's a
whale; that dives and floats; too cool for cetacean-schools!
The two sheep are marked Italy, but a soft
PVC so newish precepi I think? A Lucky donkey, a pug-dog which is
interesting but has poor paint and a bit of hollow-cast in the rabbit and
poultry department, although I think the white hen is a solid lump!
Vehicles and War Gaming sections; the
vehicles are all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, but the cereal premiums are in
uncommon colours and the bag of green stuff (Lido HK copies) will reappear in rack-toy month, I was probably
most pleased with the marked-Kleeware
locomotive whistle, and I never say no to board-game flats, especially when
they are also motorcycles.
The war gaming being a bunch of rather
brittle Spencer Smith and two Willies . . . or were they Suren's, I've put them away now!
Civilians and Sportsmen on the left,
medieval on the right, we've looked at the better of the medieval stuff, while
the civi' stuff held no real surprises, apart from the bag bottom-right, which
I took the shots of last night (Wed 21st) and will hopefully post sometime next
(this) week.
Fantasy, carton, silly and gaming pieces on
the left here, 'Interesting Misc' on the right, mostly Euro-polymer with a
couple of early British and some 1970's small-scale space!
On the left the highlight is the plaster Christmas
cake decorations, even though one is a bit molasses-stained (the plaster draws
it out of the cake!) as I think they are both new sculpts to the collection.
Also in the fantasy lot the bottom-right
bag is Havok, and figures I didn't
have, no bases, but anyone following the blog back in the day will remember a
bunch of extra bases, so hopefully I'll have another set out of it all?
Army-men and ancients, the big bag of
Chinatroops will also return in RTM, the smallies are just colour variations of
the sub-Blue Box stuff looked at
before here, I think I have the HK-marked 8th army chap but two are better than one!
Now - does anyone know for sure which kit
the cavemen come from, I tend to assume Aurora,
but I'm not sure which kit (until I get the Aurora
book out of storage), simply on the number of them that turn-up, but other
people did kit-type 'playsets' including Revell
and Marx I think and I'd like to get
him labelled, there's a her as well - if memory serves - running?
See! The wagon snuck across the bedspread
and got itself into another shot, like one of those 5th-formers or NCO's who
used to run around the back of the school-/company-photo; to appear at both
ends in the final print! I notice also te non-animal flats have escaped a
close-up, but we’ve seen them on the blog.
The Gun has figures and is for RTM, the tub
has something for a future post the black and multi-coloured bags are pieces
from a board-game I have to research before posting (thanks to Graham Apperley for
those), while I took the shots of the gum-ball charms last night with the
ethnic dancers, so should post any day now.
All in all a useful haul, it all adds to
the whole, thanks again to Adrian and Graham for the put-aside bags; that's
where the real treasures and ephemeral oddities turn-up!
