K&M is for Wild Republic

When I covered the space figures here I called them K&M (Wild Republic), but these days most of the output is branded to Wild Republic, the space figures however still carry the K&M marking on the base.

This US firm was founded as K&M (after the owners children) by G.B. Pillai in 1979 and for many years was best known for soft toys of a more realistic (if very fluffy) nature than your average pink rabbit or blue squirrel!

Vinyl animals followed, aimed at museum and safari-park gift-shops and then, after an opportunity to go into retailing itself (presented at/with the Vienna Zoo) was taken-up, the company increased its range of lines to equip that kind of emporium. The result was that sets of 'heritage' figures (and astronauts) joined the catalogue, and there's nothing more heritage than knights!

The parent is now K&M International with offices in at least 8 countries, including - interestingly given current geopolitics - China AND India. In the US it's a 'd-b-a' (doing business as) what in the UK would be T/A (trading as); Wild Republic.

There are two sets, a better set with figures around the 70mm (16656 Medieval Nature Tube) made for them in or by a Hui Zhou of/from China and a smaller set (22862 Mini Knight Polybag) from the Victory & Valour (UK spelling) line, credited to Shantou, which consists of duplicates of four of the larger poses, reduced to a 60mm range.

Peter Evans kindly sent these to the Blog a while ago, and explained that the smaller header-bag had had two-each of the four poses, one-each of whom were detached to another detail before the parcel left for SSW's command centre!

The larger set, I think a slightly darker-blue chain-mace chap has been in one of the Charity shop purchases, while Chris sent the kneeling archer in his last parcel for the Blog, again there are shade-variations with a lighter bow and darker mail.

The falconer is rather nice and a bit different, I can only think of the Starlux pageboy chap, off the top of my head (and Exin's 30mm mounted, poncy-looking Prince type), but I seem to recall someone did a whole line-up of them in Plastic Warrior magazine a while back?

I've said before I'm no expert on armour, but I think it's fair to say you get three early types and one 'high Tudor' tournament type, who looks (in the 70-mil set) as if he should glow in the dark, but it's just a pearlescent polymer.

As you can also see the scale is not constant within the two sets, the yellow guy matches the smaller ones better than his own mob, while 'her majesty' is heading toward 80mm, without the crown! I think the black chap has also turned-up before, but whether from Peter, Chris or charity I don't know; by the time I get them all together they'll need a whole tub to themselves!

Backs of the other five bigger ones, and a group showing how the kneeling archer can also be used with the smaller set, it's not a brilliant photograph, but I was concentrating on getting them all still standing-up!

Cheers Peter, a brief overview, but we'll return to them in future comparisons I'm sure.

News, Views Etc . . . Vectis - Late July

The blurb came through for tomorrows train sale, along with next-week's sale dates, so I'll hand you over to Stockton-on-Tees!

MODEL TRAIN SALE

Friday 24th July 2020 10:00am

Lot 3647

"The Model Train sale to be held on the 24th of July starts with Part 2 of the St Martins Bay Collection, which features OO Gauge British Outline and TMC Models from Hornby and Bachmann plus other manufacturers & accessories; HO Gauge American & Continental Outline, N Gauge and OO Gauge Kit & Kitbuilt. A further private owner collection, The CMM Collection, features Hornby Dublo 2-rail, 3-rail and Accessories. The sale continues with further British Outline OO Gauge and Hornby Dublo 2 & 3-rail, plus HO Scale, Wrenn, Triang, Triang Minic and Triang TT; Z Gauge, Trix, Brass HO, OO Gauge Kitbuilt, Meccano & Other Constructional Toys, Live Steam, O Gauge and our usual good selection of General Trains."

Specialist Die Cast Sale
'THE JOHN WATKINS MATCHBOX COLLECTION - PART 1'

Thursday 30th July 2020 10:00am

Lot 4320

"Part 1 of The John Watkins Matchbox Collection is to be held on the 30th of July, the private owner collection will feature over 500 lots of Matchbox Regular Wheels, Gift Sets and more. The collection includes pre-production models, factory colour trials, promotional issues and rare colour and wheel variations. Interesting lots to look out for include a pre-production trial 36c Opel Diplomat, a rare reverse issue Wreck Truck and a Regular Wheels no.3 presentation set. The collection includes boxed and unboxed models, single lots to groups and features something for every level of collector."

MILITARY, CIVILIAN FIGURES, EQUIPMENT & ACCESSORIES

Friday 31st July 2020 10:00am

Lot 5269

"The Military, Civilian Figures, Equipment and Accessories sale to be held on the 31st of July features Britains Limited Edition modern issues; contemporary issues from Del-Prado/Osprey and others including Heyde, CBG Mignot, Astra, and DeAgostini warships. Further items include Britains sets, series and figures, plus Pixyland Kew, John Hill, Charbens, Dinky, Taylor and Barrett and others. Plastic Issues include Swoppet series from Britains/Herald and Timpo, Crescent, Timpo Solids, Cherilea and Dragon Models. The sale will also include bagged Airfix aircraft series, vehicles and trackside series plus boxed kits and original Roy Cross artwork; pre and post war tinplate, Militaria, Britains boxed and unboxed Military Issues, Military Books, Catalogues & Artwork. Plus Plastic Issues from the Connoisseur Collection, Britains Racing Colours including uncatalogued, pre- and post-war issues, and Benbros Boxed Sets."

And Vectis are contactable here;

Vectis Auctions

Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 9JZ

Web. - www.vectis.co.uk

eMail - admin@vectis.co.uk

Tel. - 01642 750 616

Sales [currently] commence at 10:30hrs 10:00hrs

H is for How They Come In - Medieval Knight Types

I've been buying more off of that evilBay during lockdown, and grabbed a mixed lot of medievals the other day, going spare, for one particular figure, but there were other items of interest in it and as they are a theme, we might as well have them as a post!

Cherilea 60mm, swoppets and solids, nothing terribly exciting, but the black-wash over bronze polymer swoppets were new to me and will be retained, while the yellow plug-ins will help with complete figure building - I have a bag (they're too big for tubs) of finished ones and a bag of detritus! Among the solids I think I like the pinky-maroon re-issue the most, he looks like he's been cast in 'boiled sweet'!

The other usable figures, it was the yellow 40mm from Cherilea I was after (previously seen here), but I have a base for the brown Kinder somewhere, who may turn-out to be a different colour to the one I've got?

The headless 1st version Cherilea will go in their spares tub and the Charbens (top left) is a hard plastic one, they used to be a bit of a mystery to me, they did, now (post PW's 'special' publication on the subject) I assume Prison Industries - Prindus?

Nothing else leaps-out, but they are all complete, which is more than can be said for the third 'third' . . .

. . . who have already gone to 'Recyce' for onward conversion to Solent P! This stuff isn't rare, so there's just no point keeping it in this state, unless you happen to be a converter who wants to work with such an awkward material - and that's not a dig, I have much admiration for those who produce workable figures from polyethylene!

F is for Follow-up - Large Scale Cake Decoration Golfer

Rack Toy Month seems to be creeping-in a few days early here, but given Covid-19 has rendered the whole year with a veneer normally associated with that quiet-news period during the summer 'hols' (albeit with a week's worth of proper news every day, all of it viral!), I guess a few extra days won't hurt!

Picked this PME cake decoration up in Hobbycraft Farnborough the other day, we have looked at it before, both in a break-down/review and in the golfer posts more recently; but here's a new colour-way!

Not only is it a new colour scheme, but I then saw yet another on feebleBay the other day, so I will keep an eye on that hook-board, and we'll look at him again when they get the next batch/colour variant!

P is for Priceless Prize Prick

I was going to sort this at noon today, but I had other stuff to keep me away!

This. Here.

Which (because I've posted a few links in the last few days!) was accompanied by three links (to prove he does links! See?!), to the SAME site - a near inactive, commercial site; half-built and passing off articles taken from the publications it was plugging when it (owned by four entities you've never heard of) was properly active - if ever! And that's if it will load "waiting for partner.googleadservice"!!!! It doesn't even have a proper homepage!

https://scoop.previewsworld.com/Home . . . it's still using clip-art for fuck's sake!

You just can't pay for that level of comedy-stupid! You have to hope the gods will deliver, and in TJF they seem determined to keep doing so! He keeps saying he'll have nothing more to do with me (I've repeatedly made no such undertaking), yet he can't leave me alone and has to have the last word . . . it's like pulling grass-seed from a hedgerow at the end of summer - too easy!

Headplant, shakes head, lifts one eyebrow, does the little one-tear sad/angry face thing...

Realises later - he also mentioned circus in the same post, which I'd mentioned the day before! It's pathetic.

News, Views Etc . . . Couple of Links

Literally only the two, but a couple of goodies I think you'll agree?

Nice thumbnail life-story of George Musgrave here.

The [Sussex] Argus Newspaper (formally the Brighton Evening Argus?)

And a nice overview of a museum in Valencia here.

L’Iber Tin Soldier Museum

"Scary old hermit"!!! Yeah, I think that's more of us than would like to admit!

And if you never make it there; most of it is here!

F is for Follow-up - Poundland Wild Animals

Quick follow-up as I turn a third into a half, sample-wise!

Popped over to Farnborough last week for a few essentials (and another handful of face-masks . . . now in Sainsbury's 10 for £8) and dropped into Poundland to see if they'd a new selection of the Play2Discover Wild Animals - they hadn't had on the previous visit, and they had; six of these!

A water-buffalo, more Asian than African? And an embarassed brown bear who's going to hide his embarassment by biting yer' heeed-orff! Who thought that was a good idea, who came to a production meeting and said "Well, now we've got this half-decent sculpt of a brown bear, I think what would really enhance it would be some blasts of airbrush in International Orange on both cheeks"?

And to be honest his dentistry is more Shrek's donkey than Ursus! They are what they are and as I said last time: 50p each; you can't complain!

R is for Roman Bums

Look, we need to get this straight now . . . every time we look at the output of this strange half-resurrected Montaplex, half resin-pirate, we will make a joke out of their name, because they want us to! They didn't call their track-racing system Bumslot for nothing you know; I'm sure there's at least one British ex-pat' in there somewhere!

I think I intended these to go on the Airfix Romans page, where they are still an obvious absentee, but I seem to have shot them without any comparisons to the aforementioned UK-made figures, so we're having them here, now, and I'll re-shoot some comparisons for the other page another day!

Very crude copies, they get round-tipped (Republican?) shields with Imperial-era uniforms, so . . . Spanish mercenaries? And most of the Airfix figures were copied, but - mercifully - not the running-waving-pilum guy, who was quite idiotic enough first time round, although, the marching chap hasn't been cloned either and he was one of the more useful ones, along with the Persian archer type.

The chariot has had a complete redesign in Ed Roth's workshops and now looks more like a field conversion of a Celt's muck-cart! And it has been reduced from 4hp to one, often the way with those custom jobbies, lots of noise and a fancy paint-job, but as soon as you join 'Run to the Sun' they burst into flames . . . some summer weekends that A30 South looks like a technicolor, smoldering, retreat from Moscow!

There was a 'big box' set as well, but I think the vessel-kit was bought in, I haven't studied it but would imagine it's probably from Academy rather than the older Aurora or the Heller/Směr ones? The same single runner of figures won't provide much in the way of useful crew though and the transfer sheet (there's another in the first image) looks like the bastard-child of Revo and Games Workshop . . . on acid!

News, Views Etc . . . Links & Stuff!

Been a while since we last had a few of these, I meant to post something yesterday but got sidetracked by something-else as you do! This lot might entertain and/or sidetrack you . . .

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Links

More Toy figures than you can shake a Lilo at!

The Toy Department looks like my attic!

The Nottingham Mafia get the Economist treatment

Ridin with Bidin'! Ready for office . ..

Ancient Egyptian boat pictures which are very useful for modellers

The first one (top of the page) has a necklace of Poundstore polymer!

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More from My Modern Met

• ·         Paper Birds

• ·         Miniature Interiors

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Books

London Review of books - the opening paragraph has a nice sideways dig at the poured metal brigade, both users and dealers! And the rest is an interesting read

Do you remember when we looked at this photo-art 'experience', well the shots by the photographer Simon Brann, have been collated in a book which is available from Amazon, here.

Whilst this one is aimed at younger readers and has Toy Soldiers coming to life and having adventures in Central Park - March Of The Toy Soldiers by Carson Morten.

And this one replays the battle of Gettysburg in toy and model soldiers, with (apparetly - I havem't read it) figures and dioramas from around the world - Gettysburg in Miniature - Scott L. Mingus et al

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Charities

All charities everywhere are struggling in or due-to Covid-19 (which we're also calling Sars-CoV-2 for some reason?); their shops may be shut, their fundraising events can't go ahead, they are unable to do the the flag-day/chugger stuff in the High Street, they are in a bad way, so if you normally give to a charity, any charity with any cause, and you've not throught about them for four months, maybe get a PayPal off to them while you're reminded?

Over here we have Jane Garfield's The Toy Project for toy-specific giving and The Toy Box

And while TJF loves to cover the same UK charity as me (did you see him today - T. Cohn because I mentioned them two days ago! He's lost without me, LOST!)*, he seems to have remained very quite on the subject of domestic charities, so for those loyal readers over the pond who would like to donate there's both a US Military and US Toy Industry charities to pick from, for starters.

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Obituaries

Two toy soldier collectors have joined the too-long list of loses this year, and we're only half-way through it.

Thomas S. Scebelo

Jeffrey Willis

May they find the toys they were still looking-for wherever they are now.

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Thought for the Day

George Orwell once stated that he had seen many children who wanted to play with toy soldiers, but never one who wished to play with a toy ­pacifist, fun sentiment if you want to justify militarism, but I had many friends who stuck with farm and/or zoo toys, civilian vehicles or football/Subbuteo, so in this instance I think Mr. Orwell was being either simplistic, taking an unscientifically small sample of his like-minded peers to generate a theorem, or more cynical than me!

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Meatheaded-faceplant Moment of the Day

The good news is, on either side of the pond both their age/health demographics and their desire to gather in Nazi-saluting groups without facemasks (extreme-left Antifa plot; don't you know!!!! Haahaahhaaahaha!), mean they will be dying from Covid in proportionally larger numbers than sensible, sane 'lefties'; taking votes from Boris and the Orange Loon which won't come back!

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* No, no it's no coincidence, it would be coincidence if it happened once in a blue-moon, but it's happened about eight-times since April! I can't move for him mentioning the same firm or the same person or even the same figures a few days or a week or two later! When I mentioned in passing that I'd refreshed the US retailers list (all 23 of them) he posted a whole two, a few days later! Probably the only two he still talks-to, or two who haven't found him or his monkey-lizard slagging them off on a locked French forum yet! It’s funny, but it's tiresome.

The funniest so far was after I did the Jean Wild West day (three or four posts? I can't remember) and he followed-up with three figures in two pictures, the accompanying blurb for which was too cowardly to call for or against the theory I had proposed - re. moulds - so he tried to suggest I might be wrong, but then hinted it might be the case! No gumption, the man's got no gumption! Then there was the two-day Hing Fat thing but I'll deal with that separately; it's quite illuminating!

H is for How They Come In - Adrian

Obviously in the normal course of events, Adrian and I run into each other through the year on the show circuit, and he often has a little bag or tub of goodies for me and/or the blog, and from time to time I even pay for the odd thing!

Those normal events are no more! And may not be again for some time . . . (let that sink in, I wonder if the Governor of Georgia is reading this, the meatheaded fucktard) . . . so I was very grateful to receive what would have been May's 'stuff' in the post yesterday, along with the five red, soft polyethylene 'Captain Video's we looked at a while ago, after I'd shot them on his stall at a Sandown Park Toy Show passim.

Only the one shot, it's a treat before bedtime! The gorilla is rather nice, he's hard polystyrene plastic which is unusual, it might make him french, or something from a tourist trinket the rest of which is long gone; anyone recognise him? Seated figures are Slater's I think, copies of the Merit versions of the Wardie/Mastermodels die-casts.

The Corgi cyclist is relatively common and I have a few somewhere, but the bike is much harder to find and is a tiny delight with die-cast wheels and a body/frame made of a flexible nylon/rayon type; early polypropylene? Accompanied by one of the cracker-toy 1:72nd scale copies of Britains standing cylist and machine.

The little boy with the 'UGH!' protest sign looks like Bart Simson, but probably predates him by a decade or two? I think he may be from a board game, and - from the base - possibly MB, but I'm not tagging it, just a hunch at the moment and he could be an early Simpsons tie-in, they went viral (as the saying is now) almost immediately?. The rear of the sign also has a sticker, reading 'NO WAY'.

Various other railway bits including another of the [penciled-in] Tiny Trojan's, the spacemen/aliens and an Indian who looks to be from the same source, while also looking like a European ('an' surely?) premium, which might be a useful clue? The three circus figures have some of the properties of Supreme, some of the properties of Pioneer and some of the properties of New Ray figures, so some work to be done there, but circus sets aren't thick on the ground so I'll get to the truth!

Favorite dinosaurs, or, at least; very similar to my favorite childhood dino's, but a little fuller-bodied. Finally a Spot On doctor and the seated lady (bottom right) might be Spot On too, but Dinky had similar figures and I think both lots of drivers/passengers were from the hand of Charles Stadden - the dongles should hold the answer?

News, Views Etc . . . Press Releases!

The first will be familiar to most of you, having been on the Friends of PW and PW Faceplant pages, the PW Blog and elsewhere, they didn't have a date, but were still hopeful of getting something organized for the Autumn, that will not now come to fruition, and probably for the best?

There were two toy fairs in Florida about three weeks ago, they were reported to be populated with people who weren't wearing face-masks or observing social distancing, Florida is now outperforming the whole UK in deaths-per-day and positive tests, and that's with the lumpen blow-hard Trump, trying to keep tests down, as if you have less tests, you have less positives . . . no shit Sherlock!

I am lead to understand the German show - despite what you may have read elsewhere - was a bit of a washout, literally (as the heavens opened) as well as figuratively, with both dealers and punters sensibly staying away . . . and 'elsewhere' makes it up as they go along!

Meanwhile in photographs of the show, most of those present are seen taking their masks off or wearing them round their necks like weird scarves! You can't attend these things until you can trust everyone else to behave, as while you may keep your own mask on; your eyes are still a nice, damp, vector for the virus to enter you.

Only a fool* would go to any kind of organized event (pretty much what I said here on the 13th March) until we have either conquered Covid-19/Sars-CoV-2 (which may never happen) or we have compulsory face-mask wearing in public.

*Sadly, the last few years have shown about half the population to be fools at any given moment, a fact only reinforced by their behavior over the last few months!

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Meanwhile, over at Barney's Herald Toys & Models, there is important news for overseas customers, particularly those from the United States

"Royal Mail have recently issued a revised tariff of prices for International parcels, including a new pricing zone (World Zone 3) for the USA, which sees a significant rise in postal costs to the US. During the Worldwide pandemic, we would prefer to send all international packages tracked and we may have to send a supplementary invoice to cover the additional cost from a standard to a tracked service. Thank you for your understanding"

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It seems neither the size of a parcel, nor its contents are any barrier to nesting . . . even scraps of tissue paper . . .

. . . and she'd had her head stuck in the box before I got to the camera! [Chris - I got them! Re-listed about three times, but 30-odd-p each; can't complain!]

H is for How They Come In - March to July!

A couple of Charity shops have re-opened, one has already gone, is cleared-out and being decorated by the landlord while the rest are still closed (and dumping tons of stuff straight into their skip-bins), but I managed to grab a few bags of plunder earlier this week for the first time in months, so we have an H is for . . . post!

Four bags, the larger bread-basket they were in had room, so I suspect a feebleBay bottom-feeder had beaten me too it, the shop opened last Monday, I got there this Tuesday, so I wasn't expecting much and was happy with what I got - four-quid all-in, can't knock it?

Contents of the four bags laid-out in absolutely no order whatsoever beyond vague morphing of themes!

Not looked at below; a couple of Pepper Pig types, probably from kids' magazines, four Ardman Animation figures, one or two of which may be Phidal, an unmarked Soma-like rubber builder, two Russ Berrie trolls (late type cereal premiums?), a clean Crescent Indian,  a handful of Hing Fat pirates and a farmer with a huge pitch-fork!

Another! This one is turned to the right, or glancing to the left depending on your point of view, but it's another! You, loyal readers, have watched this sub-collection growing, by accident, almost in real time!

His flesh is purpler than the previously seen examples, and his hat brim has gone the way of all flesh (and hat brims!), but that's a simple matter of cutting a washer of black art-paper/cartridge paper and slipping it on, the flat board at the back has survived, if a little dog-eared, so stiffening with super-glue and he'll be right as ninepence!

You'll also notice I've touched-up his chips with a black-marker between the overview picture and this one. That's two officers and a trooper now.

I think these (Marx Disney figures) are worth the whole four pounds? Neither has any damage, despite some thin or delicate parts although both are dirty and a bit paint-chipped. The plastic is not the chalky stuff of my unpainted Swansea ones, and I wonder if these aren't some of the first mementos to be brought back from the original Disneyland Park in California which opened in 1955.

The state of them (tatty) but also quality of them (no damage) suggests they may have been in a cabinet or on a shelf somewhere, but regularly taken out/down and loved? They'll clean-up a bit and were a real treat to find in a bagful of shite!

The four teddy bears are waiting for dark to fall, and they are going to give that modern Disney shit, sorry; pooh, a new [old] nose! Three 'in my pockets' (MEG?), one Disney squeaker/pet toy (?) and an unknown happy-looking chap who can be a pencil-top, but actually has a larger cavity?

New colour-way for the collection on the Deetail, and a Supreme for Toy Major, imported by Tiger here, hard to believe they are 25-odd years old now. I suspect the Deetail is a newer one from the 2000's re-issues?

The really quirky stuff, two wooden figurals (cat and rabbit) made from turned balls with felt ears, and a plastic cartoon cat, they all have a place in the sorting boxes! Hopefully, there will be more plunder now the Charity shops are opening-up again, but a lot of it is going in the bin in the meantime.