C is for Closer Inspection - "Staff Parade, You 'Orrible Man!"

Normally I do a pretty good job of demilitarising December or Christmas, as best I can, but this year I don't seem to have made much effort in that direction whatsoever, with the TAG, Tente and this afternoon's Highlander, among others, and here's another, but at least it's ceremonial!

 

I also usually try to answer comments with some alacrity, although the odd one escapes, but the 'Unknown' commenter from the 19th November might be feeling a little chagrined that I have not answered his comment, which was suggesting that the - probably - egg-timer guard from Chris's parcel, was Eyes Right, not the Deetail I'd suggested.

 

And the reason I didn't answer was because, while I thought I'd called correctly, equally, his comment seems so sure, I questioned the attribution, and wanted to check the piece, and make sure, rather than argue the toss! And it seems we both have a point, but he (the commenter)'s more right than me, however we are also both wrong!

 

I'd called Detail for three reasons, it looked vinyl, and when I squeezed the legs (off camera last time), it was confirmed to be soft, PVC vinyl; it was standing at ease/easy, which I didn't remember ever being an Eyes Right pose; and he has an SLR, which I didn't think the Eyes Right had, but actually they did, it was the Marines and Middlesex (and Glosters!) etc, who had the Lee Enfields, 'at the slope', the Guards did have SLR's 'shouldered'.

 

If you bent an Eyes Right figure's legs like that now, they would snap like carrots! And the hole for the mounting-spigot is moulded into the figure, not drilled. Also, the figure is very, very sticky!

 

Having dealt with the SLR I have to concede the arm spigots and the head, both bear more than a passing resemblance to the Eyes Right figures, which leave the pose, this is a Deetail pose, the Eyes Right were marching, at attention or at Royal Salute, weren't they? Note the sun-fading on the outward-facing jacket.

 

Welp, Vectis says "No"! There are two figures in this set at an easy 'At Ease', I think they are unique to the set, but stand to be corrected, however, it would seem the figure/pose is from the Eyes Right stable, but equally, it's a complete piracy, from Hong Kong, neither Deetail, nor Eyes Right.

 

A very good one I might add, and taking the best of Eyes Right (the sculpt) and Deetail (indestructible material), but, nevertheless, a copy, and from that mid-seventies period, when Hong Kong's PVC output tended to weep sticky-shit, after, often, quite a short time!

 

And this isn't really a Question Time post, we'll probably never know any more about such an ephemeral figure, possibly supplied in bulk to a chalkware manufacturer, who may have been over here?

 

I think the friction plug for the figure may have been duplicated to hold the egg-timer on to the side, and I guess, the hunt is on for a better one, which may have a label on the base, and give us more to go on?

 

So, that's my answer to your question, Unknown! And thanks again to Chris for the questionable imposter!

F is for Follow-up . . . and Update, and Image Dump, and A-Z Page Update and Contribution and Apology! Highlander Miniatures!

Jason, who I think might be Jason Pontiac (?), sent the Blog a shed-load of Highlander Miniatures stuff, which has been languishing in Picasa since 2020. Now, with Covid-19 that year, then a Mother, Friends and two beloved Cat's, dying about the place, over the next three years, while I fought HMRC, HMCTS, local authorities here and in the Channel Islands, a lazy, belligerent Brother and an . . . uncommunicative Step Mother, not to mention venal auctioneers, grasping antiques dealers, and dishonourable Estate Agents, I hope Jason will forgive me for taking so long to sort this out, especially given that I have churned out some 2000+ posts in that time, but it needed time, it needed a clear head . . . and there's more!

Armour

M60 A1's, A2 'Starship's, M107 and M110 SPG's

 

All the work on this ephemeral firm has been done here at Small Scale World over the last 11-years, with help from several people. And as part of my own research, back at the start (2014) I found, when Google was still useful, a catalogue, listed in a University's research and reference library, back in the US.

I wrote to them asking if it would be possible to have a copy, for wider dissemination (on the Blog), expecting a small fee for a couple of stock images, only to be told it would be in excess of $25 dollars, which makes one wonder how people can afford serious research, the answer is increasingly, they go to European or other countries' places of learning!

Anyway, I didn't proceed at that time, knowing that if it existed it would turn-up, and in 2023, with the images from Jason still sitting here, I found one on eBay, which with postage was less than the American Uni' wanted, so now I have the whole thing, to share with everyone, for free, and which is on the A-Z entry, or it will be in the next few hours (by the time I publish this), covers, below;

Front

 

Back

 

It came with a 1977 dated price list, but there's an extra set, listed in the catalogue, and descriptions differ between the two, and with the cards we've already seen, so it's a hard one to annotate, and I've been re-writing the listing for an hour or two already, and thought I'd get this started to help sort out my thoughts, and the images, some of which will go over there!

Jason's main aim was showing us the longer-barrelled SPG, and the standard M60 A1, but he also has a lot of infantry , guns and other stuff, which he remembers going to a ". . . toy store 'warehouse' in Brooklyn in the mid 80's" with his father, and purchasing them, presumably as clearance?

Image dump - finally!

 

Another small development, was the purchase a couple of years ago of an A3 scanner, allowing for the scanning of larger documents, and so I scanned the old broadsheet-cutting as one piece, and because the catalogue is split here, and whole on the A-Z entry, while the split cutting has been on the A-Z page for a number of years, I thought it could go here, whole, for balance!

So, many apologies to Jason for the time it's taken to get his images up here, and many thanks for his sharing them with the rest of us. His subsequent purchases of carded sets, and some AFV close-up's, have gone on the A-Z entry, along with full-scans of the gate-fold catalogue, the price-list, a fully updated product listing and some card scans.

And to anyone else who's sent stuff, I haven't got round to yet, it will all get put-up here eventually!

 

It needed a quiet Christmas morning . . . and half the afternoon!

 

https://smallscaleworld-g-h-i.blogspot.com/2016/02/highlander-toy-and-miniature-military.html 

 

The full entry is still not 100% complete, and certainly not definitive, but it's the best info' on the Web, and seems to sum up the company's history and product list, to a satisfactory level.

A is for Another 'Lucky Bag', and Some Seasonal Stuff!

A few other purchases in the last few weeks, and after the blind surprise 'Lucky bags' we saw from The Works earlier in the year (October), I noticed similar bags in Poundland the other day, and again got the Dinosaur themed one as the best chance of a figural, and as a comparison with the disappointing inflatable of the last example.

 

A task made slightly easier by the fact that the contents are illustrated on the outside of the bag! Stickers, puzzle, skeleton, collector cards and a 'bonus' key-ring . . . if it's listed, pictured and included in every bag, it's not a bonus, it's a priced element of the contents!

 

A few minutes later I popped into the aforementioned The Works, and bought these, as apart from the fact I thought they would make nice additions to the wooden-trees subsection, they might also prove useful as photo-shoot accessories in the future?

 

To that end, here they are, both artfully arranged (!) in the fashion of an interiors' magazine shoot! You have to imagine they are on an immaculately-polished, white piano, with a recognisable supermodel, just out of focus and staring intently at a Hockney, on the wall!

 

Mostly duplications of one sort, or another, I also picked these up on my day's shopping in Farnham a few weeks ago, they sort of complete what Opie calls a cameo, in that we have previously seen the Santa's in individual bags the same as those the snowmen are in, here.

 

We have also seen the snowmen in the red and green scarves, along with a mauve version, so this blue one is new. And we saw a copy set of the Deer, red-Santa sleigh, snowman (red scarf) and tree, also from The Works, so that's pretty much all known versions of originals and copies, now, in several variations of packaging!

W is for Wroxham Miniature Worlds

This was going to be part of a twin posting/comparison with the 'museum' at Mountfitchet, but things took a darker turn at that establishment, and for now I'll stuff it inconveniently under the carpet, and instead you can enjoy this as a stand-alone!

 

The shots Chris Smith took on a visit to the Wroxham Miniature Worlds attraction up in Norfolk, just NE of Norwich . . . 

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"From the outside the building looks like an industrial unit with entrance via a propped open fire door escape, I knew entry price was £13.95, did think about not going in... But took the plunge.

Very well laid out displays, some massive model railway scenic setups. Not my thing but couldn't help but be impressed by the standard of work involved in creating them, 100's of plastic buildings and 1000's of small figures included. All the trains controlled by a central PC program.

A number of working flight and driving simulator PC games from the 80/90's set up to try. I was useless at these back then so passed on trying."

"Good Scalextric track and display. Pelham Puppets, another massive collection on display. Huge vintage Star Wars action figure collection, figures, vehicles and boxes"

 

"Only other plastic figures I spotted were four Britains RNLI boats and crew in with some other, larger model ships."

"The Lesney/Matchbox bus was amazing, the sheer amount of vehicles was staggering. They do need to improve the lighting in this and the head height is an issue if you're over 5' 9" having to stoop on both levels."

 

 

 

"A small display of more general toys of interest were Magic Roundabout Figures, Sooty & Friends cereal premiums and a strange space bike with no rider, approx 1/32 scale that I'm sure would know the maker." [MPC Fireball XL5]

 

"Massive Lego display, from vintage Lego city to more recent lines of  Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter etc."

 

"Knitting! Not my thing, but impressed with the level of detail and work involved."

 

[Excellent use of a mirror-back display cabinet, to visually double the size of the diorama]

 

"Airfix models, poor display, obviously not loved. Poor quality build and a bit battered now. Were a few Airfix painted 1/32 figures and 1/72, but at ground level and hard to see.

 

One of my favourites was a collection of penny arcade machines all in working order, old pennies available via a change machine a £1 for ten, which I enjoyed spending. 

 

Overall, I'd recommend it to anyone if you're in the area on holiday or in Norfolk visiting/working. Personably disappointed by the lack of plastic figures."

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To which I'll add my tuppenny's worth, firstly thanks to Chris for sending all this to the Blog, and secondly, it appears to be a much better curated and displayed than others I have seen, the Airfix 54mm case, not withstanding!

F is for Follow-ups - Recent Bits

When Chris Smith sent his parcel a couple of months ago, I told him I'd seen another of those finger monsters, a day or so before, and then spent ages looking for it, real rabbit hole stuff, in the end I went through most of the near-thousand folders in Picasa, thinking I must have moved it by mistake (sometimes you pick something up, absentmindedly, on the cursor and dump it elsewhere, without even realising it, on the way to somewhere else!), only to find it the other day, in the short or 'this year' queue, in a possible post on an exhibition!

 

Definitely a forth sculpt/pose, and if the paint-chips are anything to go by (almost certainly home-painted), this one is yellow plastic, which reinforces my - still possibly false - memory of a brown one? And obviously some kind of Kaiju from the Godzilla or Ultraman franchises.

 

From two different show reports, the Reliable figures and probably Reliable side-by-side, the standing shooters look different, because the foot-plug on the older version is not fully pushed-home, but I lined them up, and they are almost identical, even down to the long, adjustable iron-sight, over the breach, so clearly they just added integral bases changing the tool from a two-part to a three-part mould.

 

And thanks to Anonymous for highlighting the link, in comments, I was using the Way Back Machine version of the now defunct Ponylope as a guide!

 

Also from recent posts; show reports and donations, we've seen three of these recently in two posts, the others earlier in the year, brought together, you can see the two sizes (bigger pair on the right), to which can be added the several base marks, which I previously highlighted.

 

When combined with the couple of dozen which have come in over the last three-or-so years (get-at'able in storage), it will give an even better picture. While the master collection, buried in the container, which also includes the big ones, when all the new ones are added to them, will be the basis of a much better overview, one day.

 

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In this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/02/t-is-for-two-roarsome-rack-toys.html

 

We saw a metallic dino'bird/pterosaur kind of thing, which bore little resemblance to the other four on the card-back, but separately, and also from BJ Toys, I've been picking these up at petrol stations, namely the Esso outlet at Tongham/Hog's Back, and Bordon's BP station!

 

Plant spider!

 

Reverse colours.

 

Balrog's horns on this one!

 

The trouble is, they seem to appear one or two at a time, in a large counter display carton on the bottom shelf of a dedicated/custom BJ Toys sales display unit, mixed-in with an assortiment of other novelties, so I don't know how may there are, or whether they all have reversed colour versions.

 

And if you think this link is tenuous, for a follow-up - I thought I'd already posted one! But they were in two folders, with the other not photographed, so I was happy to find the Dino-phoenix, looking for the non-posted dragon! The point being, I think they are from the same source, not BJ; in China?

 

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On the subject of ducks,

 

The two vintage British plastic foul, one from Peter and one from Chris (pretty sure I have another in pink, or a maroonish-purple somewhere), brought together with the TK Maxx crayon ducks and a generic CHINA-marked goose from a rack-toy bag/toob/tub, for scale.

 

Similar, but simplified toys from Sonsco of Hong Kong, again I have several of these in various colours, including a fluorescent pink one which is just as leery as the green one in this set!

 

And on GI's,

 

This set of re-issue ex-Marx figures, being a mix of different sets, has the chap, both Chris and me thought "looked like Marx?", middle-top, and, sure enough, he was a Marx sculpt!

 

But I'd totally forgotten that Chris sent me this shot ages (six years) ago, when discussing something else, probably wanting it to feature in a Question Time, so, to repeat the earlier question, we know the re-loader is a Marx pose, now, but can anyone give a maker/brand to this marbled maroon-brown chap, and B) does anyone know anything about the figure on the left?

C is for Cone'ucopia - 2 of 2

This is still out there, I've seen it quite often in petrol stations (service stations), and some of the smaller convenience stores, or at least those which carry stock from BJ Toys, such as the Premier store in Pirbright, which seems to have replaced the NAAFI, and from which I got mine, at about the same time Peter Evans also found them, and mentioned them to me.

 

BJ Toys; blue cone is for blokey kids, pink is for less-blokey kids! I got a blue one!

 

A real cornucopia!

 

Clockwise from top-left; Rocky keyring and collector/backing card; sports themed puzzle and colouring book; a self inflating light-stick (read 'lightsabre'), which I haven't inflated yet; a multi-hole bubble-wand and bottle of bubble liquid; three packs of fizzy candies; a Dino' mini-set, which contains stuff we've seen in BJ carded sets here at Small Scale World; and, finally, a Letrabot blind bag.

 

The dinosaur, comes with a ridiculously over-sized egg, which is more chicken than dinosaur, so clearly the egg came first! And a new take on the current palm-tree design, in that it's a single moulding, with bi-colouring, dwelt-on before, here.

 

I see a lot of this stuff in the fish departments of pet stores or garden centres, even at The Range, and I suspect that industry might have had a hand, along with the fake flower people, in the multi-colour shot techniques becoming so common now.

 

Rather aptly, I got the letter H, and it's a simplistic transformer 'bot'.

 

Sub-branded Planet White, which may be a wave-indicator (?), the Letrabots (or Letr-A-Bots) are from an Italian outfit called Ciciboom Srl., and Letranimal, Kartbots, Numberbots (with symbols) and Letrazoo also exist!

The cones retail at £4.99, and with the equivalent of three rack-toys, and several other novelties, I think they are worth the money, for kids that is; this sample will be enough for me! Remember, sometimes we buy this stuff so you don't have to, otherwise we'd probably be desperately scraping flying saucer pictures off of that evilBay!