News, Views etc...Welcom Trojan Fans, Cross-pollination, Prices and Books etc...

Welcome Trojan Fans

I had a little spike in traffic yesterday and noticed that a dozen or so hits had come from the same place..."Ay-oop!..." I though; "...there's a link been posted somewhere on't'interwebnet thingy". Sure enough, I followed it back to Cigarette Card Collecting Dot Com, where not surprisingly, they were talking about Cigarette cards! But, toy soldier fans...what cards? Go and look for yourselves;

CCC - Trojan 'Gen' Cards

Now obviously they are going straight to the post they've linked to, but some of them might then click-on the Trojan tag and find this at the top of the search-results, others may click the home button or the banner title to find themselves here, so...

Welcome to you Card Collectors, I'm sure you'll find something here to press a nostalgia button.

Now, those regulars among you who just followed the link back to the visitors site, will have though what I thought..."Hell, another string in the Trojan/Shipton bow!! Obviously I then spent a few hours trawling the web for more details, and while there wasn't much forthcoming, there was a bit more than our visitors have on their thread.

So in the hope that someone from CCC will email me [maverickatlarge(at)hotmail(dot)com] with the complete list from their two-volume 'bible', here's what I found. If one of the CCC guys could send me the rest I'll update the list part with acknowledgement of both individual and reference work!

Trojan Gen Cards by; W. Shipton Ltd. 1959
(and Quaker Oats Ltd. up to at least Group 9 'Stars of Sport')

In 'Series 1' there are five cards in each 'Group' of a 75-card set and there are - therefore - 15 groups of cards. They were sold in their sets of five, in small waxed-paper envelopes. Certain sets were issued with Quaker Oats (in Quaker Oats graphics), they seem to have followed the same numbering system, and the wax-envelopes might suggest that all were issued in cereal, whether they were all issued with Quaker Foods and some got overprinted and others not is a moot point? I'm assuming all 15 'groups'/75 cards were available?

There never seems to have been a 'Series 2', nor any subsequent series'.

Series 1 - Group 1 - Beautiful and Scarce
1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - ?
4 - ?
5 - ?
(Bird? Golden Pheasant?)


Series 1 - Group 2 - Characters of Fiction
1 - Robin Hood
2 - Robinson Crusoe
3 - Sherlock Holmes
4 - Mr. Pickwick
5 - Long John Silver


Series 1 - Group 3 - Stars of Entertainment
1- Lois Armstrong
2 - Pat Boone
3 - Elvis Presley
4 - Tommy Steele
5 - Perry Como


Series 1 - Group 4 - Fight Against Crime
1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - ?
4 - ?
5 - ?


Series 1 - Group 5 - Prehistoric Monsters (?)
1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - ?
4 - ?
5 - ?
(Pterosaurs?)
(Archeopteryx?)


Series 1 - Group 6 - Railways
1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - ?
4 - ?
5 - ?
Flying Scotsman


Series 1 - Group 7 - Racing Cars
1 - ?
2 - ? (Green car)
3 - Maserati
4 - ?
5 - Aston Martin


Series 1 - Group 8 - Insect World
1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - ?
4 - ?
5 - ?


Series 1 - Group 9 - Stars of Sport (definitely also issued by Quaker Oats)
1 - W. [Billy] Wright, Soccer ('Wolves' - Wolverhampton Wanderers)
2 - W. [Willie] Pastrano, Boxing
3 - Peter May, Cricket
4 - H. ['Herb'] Elliott, Track & Field/Running
5 - (Judy Grinham, Swimming OR J. Graham, Motor Racing? [Probably the later])


Series 1 - Group 10 - Animal World
1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - ?
4 - ?
5 - ?
Giraffe
(Bird?)


Series 1 - Group 11 - Nursing
1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - ?
4 - ?
5 - ?
(Male patient in bed with nurse next to him)


Series 1 - Group 12 - Under the Sea
1 - Fighting Fish
2 - Blue Whale
3 - Sea Anemones [described as fish-eating 'plants'!]
4 - Hammerhead
5 - Globe Fish


Series 1 - Group 13 - Ballet
1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - ?
4 - ?
5 - ?


Series 1 - Group 14 - Wild West
1 - Buffalo Bill [Colonel William Frederick Cody]
2 - ?
3 - ?
4 - Wild Bill Hickock
5 - Billy the Kid [William H. Bonney]
Jesse James
("Cowboy")


Series 1 - Group 15 - Motor Cars
1 - ?
2 - ?
3 - A Two Wheeled Car
4 - ?
5 - ?
Cross-pollination

The other thing that struck me about this little series of serendipitous events/links, was that there's not enough cross pollination between the various branches of toy collecting and collectables in the wider sense - one of the lists I found was so 'off the wall' I'm not posting  a link to spare the blushes, but he was a sports cards only guy, and didn't know about the other groups at all.

While I didn't know anything about them as I don't 'do' cards, or, if I do; it'll be regimental colours, or uniforms of all nations or something like that. And at the same time the CCC guys didn't know about Trojan's Toy Soldiers or the other products by W. Shipton/A.J. Novelties, despite all the work done by Paul Morehead and the other chaps and chap'esses at or subscribing to Plastic Warrior magazine (YES! I know, I promise to do the review in the next day or two, or the next issue will be due!), nor the Quaker link...so it's definitely worth spending a few hours idly browsing Google with 'random' search terms, as it will turn up all sorts of stuff you don't think you're interested in, that is linked to stuff you are interested in!

And the question now is what will turn-up next for this prolific mews-stable/coach garage of a factory!

Prices

If you did follow the link above, you may also have followed their link to the buy-it-now (BIN) listing in the US for a graded Wild Bill Hickock at US $499.95...yes-surrr-ee! Fahhvehun'red Dollars!

Now I know I do bore people with my "It's all mass produced shite and it's not worth anything!", but it's true, don't shoot the messenger! Even the poxy yellow caparison on the mounted Swoppet Knight's horse from Britains was mass-produced, in the 20th century, from an relatively indestructible, washable PVC by the biggest company of it's type at the time. Swoppets themselves; they're always on evilBay, only the ACW cavalry are truly rare'ish, as they have gone brittle, but it means their carbines are as common as muck if you know the right dealer!

Paul Stadinger (link removed a year or two later!) brought something to peoples attention the other day, I took a screen-capture of the finished lot;

(Luke-Skywalker Card)

The same week this happened;

(Japanese Robot)

The ugliest robot I've ever seen! It looks like a chocolate-bar dispenser from the 1970's Underground...with arms, that's had a fancy hat-box left on it's shelf!

What these three have in common is A) Modern! Post-1945, mass-produced modern shite! We love it, it's lovely shite, but it's shite...intrinsic value of the above three items? About a tenner the lot, that's five' ninety-nine for the robot, three-fifty for the proof card and fifty-p for the cigarette card.

B) They are also worth what peole will pay for them! There are a lot of very rich people out there among the austerity-starved, there are also a lot of idiots out there with more money than sense AND there are quite a few very rich idiots...most of them working in banking it would seem!

I know - "But it's a 'proof card', they're as rare as rocking horse shit" - Er, yeah...because?

Because they are a sub-stage of the printing process, they are rubbish, they go in the bin when they are approved and they never get attached to a toy, it's exactly the same as selling old sprue or runner.

In recent years we've seen the value of pre-production sample figures fall, because there are so many out there, most being sent straight from the factory to trusted 'reviewers' and often de-based in the process, so the fun of tracking them down has faded. Yes; it's still nice to find those kinds of variants of vintage figures though, but they turn-up in mixed lots at car boots as happened to a friend the other day.

The point is - The cigarette card is currently in a London dealers list for 20 quid (with 39 other Trojan's), while the robot will come-round a local show for £50 or so if you keep looking and the proof card is still rubbish! Let the rich guys and idiots pay the silly money, there's so much out there you'll never have all of it (even if you win the double-rollover Euro Lottery), and you can build a nice collection of anything from cheapies, bargains and swapsies!

Books

At Sandown this weekend, three new books were launched, the second volume of 'FiM' or Farming in Miniature, from Adrian Little, Robert Newson and Peter Wade-Martins, the first volume was issued over a year ago, and I will review them both properly, together in the next week or two (they're gorgeous...it's toy-porn!). Also there was a new book on Hugar buildings published, I had a quick look at it and it too seems sumptuous (but only page-3!) while a book on model villages/towns was also published.

I was busy, so apart from a quick perusal of someone's Hugar tome, I have no details on either of them and will endeavour to follow-up with better 'gen' (Ha-ha, back to Trojan!). If you can't wait try Potter's Fairs, as they were obviously the show promoter on the day and facilitated the launches. I don't even know if the second book is about 'toy' models or the sort of Model Villages you got taken to in the car with a picnic as a child!

Other Bits

Finally - I have been working on a mini-'book' of composition for over a year which I was going to publish as a page, loaded-it the other week, spend three weeks editing it, tweaking it, sorting out a couple of hundred photo's into about 30 collages, saved every time I was in there...Blogger/Google lost the whole F*****g thing the other day! Blank sheet of white-screen and no answers to my exasperated eMails!

Of course the photo's have been filed to six dongles, the text I've got with me is an early edit...yada-yada...so I seriously 'got the arse' and disappeared for a week or two as you may have noticed...upshot is, I've added a few images and a lot of text to the Airfix Blog, but have more to do, and that's where I'm at for a while, but I'll try to put some fresh copy up here, and - of course - the PW review!

M is for Micro, 'Mini' and MPC

MPC mini-planes which were mentioned the other day; Harbert is for MPC!

We've also looked at the Mini-tanks (still one of the most popular posts; or at least the - rather fuzzy - group image is one of the most downloaded!) here; Military Miniature Minis

And, this is a bit of a request post, as I've had a couple of eMails about both these and the ships in recent days! Also, once I'd posted the Harbert ones from Italy it was time to get these up, the shots were taken an age ago! I did cover them all on a forum a while back but they've long gone and generated little interest at the time. The ships will come too - one day!

So they come in four colours (the same colours as the ships and cars) and there is a little variation between batches. Size is odd, as they are clearly all different scales, but there's no attempt at 'box scale' uniformity, with some actual models being markedly larger or smaller, whatever their original real-life size relationship? Were I an aircraft geek I might recognise an attempt to keep them all to three or four 'scales' but I don't!

They have a fair bit of marking both on the undersides and upper-surfaces of the wings and tails in raised detail, which includes the MPC circular logo, the aircraft type depicted, the length and width of a full-sized original, and main nation of service with national markings.

The second lot are marked as per MPC, except the logo is replaced with IPA, presumably a Hong Kong outfit, and the same mark on my green version of the Mini AFV range's Stalin Tank.

I suspect these are made from the MPC moulds, and are always found in silver plastic, I sub-set them 'MPC+1'

I call these MPC+2, although they are poorer than the next lot down the page, these DO have the MPC logo, in the correct place, but all also have 'HONG KONG' somewhere, the low quality of these suggests that they are pantographed copies of the MPC ones, and are trying to be the MPC ones, hence the primary colours?

MPC+3; these would appear to be late issues of the originals, they are the commonest found of all the 'planes on this page, having been included in all sorts of bagged and carded HK stuff in the 1970's, but only ever these five aircraft.

I guess they were the best surviving moulds after the MPC years, transfer to IPA and years of 'careful' maintenance of the mould bank in the New Territories! They are marked only with a 'MADE IN HONG KONG' across the under wings and we looked at the Mosquito in greater detail here; M is for Miniature Mosquitoes

MPC+4 are almost certainly Christmas Cracker or Gum-ball machine types, going on the fact that only 3 have turned-up in 40 years! These are also copies of the originals and have all been given 'Allied' Stars, even the German and Italian bombers!

This lot (MPC+5) has a poorer quality than the others; copies-of-copies, heavy re-cutting of panel-lines and so forth makes them look like models of model aeroplanes! But the range seems to be larger than MPC+3 or +4, again always found in silver...so far?

Clockwise from top-left;

I have 3 F4-D Skyray's, two of them have miss-moulded tail-fins, the other has snapped along almost the same line suggesting a fault with the mould, it's also one of the 'chunkiest' models.

The re-tooling of the +5's can be clearly seen in this Messerschmitt 163 'Komet'

MPC+3's come in a shiny silver and a duller aluminium shade.

Comparison shot between IPA (+1) and MPC+2 versions of the B58 'Hustler' nuclear bomber.

Treatments for the Junkers J87 'Stuka' from three of the issuers of these little aircraft models, the real beauty of them was that they were sold like rack-toy soldiers, by the box, header-carded bag, a blister-card of all 58 or a mail-away of 116, and as they fit in the fingers, an air battle was instantaneous!

 This shot is for the guys at Moonbase Central who like their 'planes fast and wingless!

Listing - Alphabetical by maker. MPC announced 116, but only managed 58 different airframes, but 2x 58 IS 116, so maybe the mail-away was two of each, or ended-up being two of each?

Avro Lancaster 'Lanc'

Avro [Canada] CF-100 'Canuck'

Beechcraft M-35/F-33 'Bonanza'
Bell X-1 'Glamorous Glennis'
Boeing 337 Stratocruiser 'Clipper'
Boeing 707 Airliner
Boeing B-17 'Flying Fortress'
Boeing B-52 'Stratofortress'
Boeing P-26A 'Peashooter'
Convair B-36 'Peacemaker'
Convair B-58 'Hustler'
Convair F-102A 'Delta Dagger'
Curtiss P-40 'War Hawk'
Dassault MD-452/2-C Mystère (Mystery)
De Havilland DH-98 'Mosquito' (Wooden Wonder)
De Havilland DH-106 'Comet' Airliner
De Havilland DH-110 'Sea Vixen'
Douglas B-66 'Destroyer'
Douglas DC-3 'Dakota'
Douglas F-4D-1 'Skyray'
Fairchild C-119 'Flying Boxcar'
Fokker E-V/D-VIII 'Flying Razor'
Ford Tri-Motor 'The Tin Goose'
Grumman F9F-8 'Cougar'
Grumman S-2F 'Tracker'
Hindustan/HAL HT-2 Trainer
Junkers JU-87 'Stuka' (from Sturzkampfflugzeug - dive bomber) 'Aunty Ju'
Junkers JU-88 'schnellbomber' (Quick Bomber)
Lindbergh 'Spirit of St. Louis'
Lockheed F-80 'Shooting Star'
Lockheed F-104 'Starfighter'
Lockheed L-049/C-69 'Connie' Constellation
Lockheed P-38 'Lightning'
Lockheed U-2 Spy-plane
Lockheed-Vega 'Winnie May'
Martin B-10 'Air Powered Wonder'
Martin B-26 'Marauder'
McDonnell F-101 'Voodoo'
Messerschmitt Bf-109
Messerschmitt ME-163 Komet
Messerschmitt ME-262
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 'Faggot' (NATO reporting code)
Mitsubishi A-6M 'Zero'
North American B-25 'Mitchell'
North American F-100 'Super Sabre'
North American P-51 'Mustang'
North American X-15 Speed-test Aircraft
Piper J-3 'Cub'
Republic F-105 'Thunderchief'
Republic P-47 (F-47) 'Thunderbolt'
Saab J-29 'Flygande Tunnan' (Flying Barrel)
Savoia-Marchetti SM-79 'Sparviero' (Sparrow Hawk)
Sud Aviation SE-210 'Caravelle' (small light vessel) Airliner
Supermarine 'Spitfire'
Tupolev TU-110 'Cooker' (NATO reporting code)
Vickers 'Viscount'
Vought F7U-3 'Cutlass'
Yakovlev YAK-25 'Flashlight-A/Mandrake' (NATO reporting codes)

See the 'older post' (next post down the homepage) for more of this type of toy including a few more MPC derivatives.

M is for Magnificent Men in Their Micro Machines!

So, to other teeny tiny 'planes in the same vague size range as the above MPC (previous) post. A lot of them tend to be one-off's or small ranges of - often - MPC derivatives, used for lucky bags/sobres, Christmas cracker toys, cake decorations and such like, but others are from similar 'sets' to the MPC ones...

The first - definitely pre-dating MPC - seem to have been from the States; Irwin making a set in a phenolic resin or plastic sometime around the 1930/40's or very early 1950's, shown to the top-left in a dark salmon red.

Another set which I'm identifying as Airfix (subject to change!) may have only included four aircraft types (Lancaster, Mosquito, Spitfire, and US Lightning), but they turn-up quite often, so seem to have been numerous at some point, possibly included with a larger toy (as load or cargo), perhaps as a beach-toy?

As early as the Irwin 'planes, but of much higher quality is the blue Beeju 'EVB' Mosquito (top right) we've already looked at here, I don't know how many were in this set/range.

While a small set from China is currently doing the rounds as cake decorations. The DC-3 in blue (bottom-left) is smaller than the MPC version, but of high production values and may be one of a larger set, possibly an American maker, any ideas? [17-11-2014 - It's from the 1957 Air Fleet set from Nabisco's Shredded Wheat Cubs, smaller ranges with 5 or 6 of the same model aircraft were also issued by Empire/Caldwell in the States/Canada in hard styrene and Lido in both styrene and softer ethylene, so possibly supplied to Nabisco by Thomas Toys]

The Irwin types so far encountered by this author, marked 'IRWIN' on one wing and 'MADE IN U.S.A.' on the other, the push-prop (top-left) is an interesting addition (possibly meant to be a Bell YFM-1 Airacuda?) helping to date the set?

Bottom-left is the current cake decoration group, also used for Christmas crackers of the budget variety, there are three aircraft types so far found, in three colours, with the - provisional - Airfix group to the right, these can be seen in full over on the Airfix Blog.

Other examples in the 'Mini Aircraft - Odds and Sods' box! The entire top row are MPC derivatives with the red (and damaged blue) polypropylene and silver polystyrene ones all marked made in Hong Kong (MPC+6), the white and yellow delta-wings having different marks (+7 and +8!).

The large green one to the right is a Hong Kong ancestor of the China cake decorations, The yellow Concord may go with the DC-3 above, same level of detail/production values. The two little yellow ones (top centre-right) are from a Kinder toy.

The red one bottom-left; may be a rocket/missile from a Manzinger type robot or Transformer type toy? The four silver ones along the bottom are Blue Box and others. The dung-yellow one is a Montaplex - I think - and the red and yellow pair bottom right are phenolic and probably quite early, one being a simplified twin-engined fighter/bomber type, the other - possibly a helicopter's body?

The hard plastic gold and orange rocket-planes are similar but not the same as the yellow one to their left, also hard-plastic. The white jet-fighter is a plug-in probably from an aircraft-carrier toy, while the Spitfire in green seems to be a scaled-down copy of the one included in an Airfix board-game and in the same (ABS) material and colour, but with a mounting-hole in it.

The rest are unknown mongrels from Christmas crackers, sobres, lucky-bags or premiums, can anyone give us details on any of them? [17-11-2014 - except the large blue Navion  bottom-left; It's from the 1957 Air Fleet set from Nabisco's Shredded Wheat Cubs, smaller ranges with the same 'plane were also issued by Empire/Caldwell in the States/Canada in hard styrene and Lido in both styrene and softer ethylene, both can be found on Toy Soldier HQ, the unmarked blue MIG/Lightning next to it (far lower-left) is a copy from the Nabisco set]

S is for Supreme / SP Toys...and Titan...Ackerman et al.

We looked at the vehicles for these sets (or at least the military sets, some of which had militarised versions of the civilian or police vehicles) a while ago Here [I've linked the 'Supreme' tag, so this post will be at the top of the page after you click it], so it's about time we looked at the figures!

As this is a Toy soldier blog, we'll start with the military figures;

The very large '800' series sets that contained all the really quite nice vehicles found in the above link came with a number of figures, the contents of three of which are illustrated above, with a shot showing some of the colour variations. Camouflage blobs were a dark olive or dark chocolate brown going onto a yellow or tan field, weapons were black and flesh varies from a pale tone to a bright candy-pink.

There were only four poses though! And the figures are not award-winning sculpts, being generic 1970's infantrymen, who can presumably be marketed anywhere, including at home in China! As can be seen there was some variety between contents, but with each figure in a shaped coffin-section of the larger tray, the contents of each numbered set was always the same.

These sets were all either green vehicles or 50/50 green and 'desert'. As I stated in the original posts, I have seen desert versions of some of the vehicles I only have in green hinting at what the contents of some of the missing numbered sets were, the rest may have been civil versions - in the large size - of the smaller sets...

...which can be broken down into Police, Fire, Trucking ('Road') and Mechanics 'Speedway' as well as the military themed sets. All the above being '900' series; there are medical/ambulance sets as well, while the '600' series included space sets - in storage!

The truck set and the garage are both over-stuck with an Ackerman sticker, they are Still Going and are an import agent for cheap toys, household and other 'bargain' goods. As I recall the three large sets were all 'Ackerman' despite being bought in Wilkinson's two years running, where they were only made available at Christmas (mid/late-2000's), these smaller sets can still be found on the odd 'dollar tree' rack about the place - and not just under the Ackerman, Titan (see below) or standard Supreme labels.

Note the close-up, about 25% of the figures carry numbers; the numbered/not-numbered figures sharing space in the same sets.

On the left are the numbered figures, all poses can be either A or B, and each pose is then numbered 1-4, so the guy with binoculars is either un-numbered, or he has A1 or B1 on his base. All the civilians I have found so far are smooth-based, but numbered ones may be out there?

The smaller accessories from the larger sets are real gap-fillers in the insert tray (compare with the other vehicles we looked at way back when), but I guess the top three have some use, the semi-flat, detail-on-one-side-only motorcycle is however a complete disappointment!

So - the above were all 30mm, but there are also given 'HO'  (23mm) and '1:72' (25mm) figures from the same source (Supreme / SP Toys), while Titan also carried unpainted 35mm figures in other sets (yellow figures above). As can be seen in the top left image, Titan were/are another importer, but they prefer to have their sets printed-up as Titan, rather than accepting generic Supreme sets. Although, as we can see bottom left, so did/do Ackerman - sometimes!

Titan Toys International (one of at least four Titan's in toys!) seem to have ceased trading, while FunFings has been usurped by a craft jeweller's on Etsy!

Some of the small figures have a similarity with other Chinese makes like New Ray or Soma, but there are differences and in the larger scales Supreme have issued some interesting 'toobs' we can look at another day!

The various scales, with the exception of the yellow figures - probably not sourced from Supreme - and the numbered soldiers, all figures have smooth bases, no more than four colours and usually a glossy appearance, and there are a few more civilian poses in the 30mm range, and probably many more in the 23/25mm ranges.

The figures in the Cargo Express set from Titan have squared-off bases more in line with the 23 and 25mm ranges, not the ovoid ones of the other 30mm civilians illustrated loose above with the soldiers. Note how the 'Germanic' fireman, is a copy of the better detail - also Chinese production - figures with flesh-coloured bases issued in various sizes, in imported play-sets sold by Tesco's and others from the late 1990's through to today (Carama? Yat Ming?).

C is for Carabinieri

Or...how all good things come to an end!

I first became aware of Micro Machines in 1993, when I found them in Betties in New Oxford Street, I thought they were silly, however the Star Wars figure sets caught my eye and I started collecting them. But the 'normal' sets left me cold, little squashed out-of-scale-with-each-other cars and trucks and stuff, just silly! And a half-mile long Star Destroyer having less mass than a twin-pod Bespin taxi? Silly.

Clearly though; the guy who came up with the idea understood the 90's kid, as they took off and became very popular and not just the Star Wars and military sets, the really silly stuff did as well! Poor old Galoob can't have had the funds to keep up with demand, so deals were done with the sharks, Kenner started to muscle-in and eventually the little guy got eaten by his partner, who then got swallowed by Hasbro.

Hasbro didn't seem to understand the concept or the customer base (or maybe the customers had changed?), and some pretty risible tie-ins resulted with Action Man being a notably forgettable one. Increasingly desperate to make the line work again led Hasbro to produce these...

Exclusive to Italy (well, who else would buy them?) where Hasbro was also getting into chocolate premiums by putting figures from their UK Subbuteo purchase into Kinder-style eggs. They must have made vast quantities of them though, as a warehouse full was issued in the UK last year as clearance through independent discount stores.

The bulk of the range were simply repaints of old/existing moulds - I bet half these vehicles have never been seen in Carabinieri livery, nor indeed been seen in Europe in any guise...not-yellow school-bus anyone?!! However, someone obviously realised something would have to make Italian kids want to buy them, so a few motorcycles were painted-up (always a good seller) and at least one new casting was knocked-up.

A mounted Carabinieri with cloak. The two officers on foot are also old sculpts, but again figures definitely add to the play value of a set like these. there were in fact about 7 sets, but I've already opened the ones with figures in!

A perfect size for HO railways as seen by the comparison with a Preiser ACW Union officer, it's a pity they didn't make the vehicles to match?

I have lots of the motorcycles from the 'silly' range, and we looked at the military one way back at the start of the range, we will look at them all one day (they're currently in storage) but my collection tells me these are also re-paints. And would the Carabinieri use a Harley-D Elecra-Glide in the country that makes Ducati? I don't think so!

That was pretty much it for the Micro Machines, there was - at about the same time - a re-issue of some Action Fleet Star Wars stuff - the AT-AT in a stupid snow-splashed paint job was one - but somehow Hasbro had killed a golden goose!

News, Views etc...Museums...

Two in a row? Well, there's a certain symmetry to these...

In less than a week, the ACW Soldiers National Museum in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania will close its doors for good, due to falling interest, a victim of both tighter belts and more museums...

...while a Mr. Phil Collins, a crooner with a beat combo of some repute - I believe, has given a boost to another; The Alamo, which should secure its future for another generation. See...symmetry!

News, Views etc...Around the Web

Lots of stuff coming into the Op's Room recently, so a dissemination post is well over-due!

Starting with a brilliant Blog which has escaped my radar for it's first 100-odd posts, a fantastic resource for that intermediate period between the vintage and the modern (although he does cover the modern), and a subject that doesn't get the coverage it aught to. I'm definitely going to be identifying a lot of my unknown fantasy and sci-fi figures over there, and can't believe he's only got two followers, so buckle-up people and support...

Fantasy Toy Soldiers by Shaun Christensen

Sticking with Blogs for a second; I loved this Battle Report, it's very old school! While for the politically-minded, there's a quite cerebral, yet very funny Blog at Scarfolk Council



 Meanwhile; back in the real world you can't make it up....Council Meeting or Ork hoards?

I mentioned these the other day, I'd bookmarked them some time ago, and then a couple of weeks ago they pop-up on Facebook! They've since gone viral, more than doubled the sought funding and will go into production;

Yoga Joes!



Exhibitions

An alternative look at Toy Soldiers and the world they represent over The Pond here; Bay Area, last day today for the exhibition (sorry!), if you're in the neighbourhood over there, you've got a few hours to drop-in, but some nice images with the article...it's a slow-loading jerky page due to to much advertising shite!

And missed This One by half a year...doh!



Consumables

Wall Stickers - we may have looked at these before, but this is a UK outlet, I think it was dollars last time?
Swarovski Crystal Ear-Rings - Lovely, they couldn't be anything else despite being a stack of 'random' beads!
Mugs - Every war-games club should have a couple of sets of these!
Cards for every occasion.



That'll do for now!

M is for Minotaur

This has been in the not finished zone for so long, I can barely remember when I started it! I wanted (want!) to do a little vignette of the mythical creature belonging to King Minos of Crete, being despatched by Theseus.

The base is a Hong Kong copy of a Gulliver 40mm piracy of an Atlantic American Indian, to which I have added a real Stag Beetle's head...no I didn't, it had been hit by a car! The head is a loose fit, but a bit of filler will help get it looking right and blend it into the body.

Placed next to a 1:72 scale figure (Zvezda?) for scale, he is intended to be Theseus goading the beast. For accuracy I suppose I should be looking at a bulls head, but I like the slight fantasy element of using something else, which still has 'horns'!

D...eluxe is for Reading...

Continuing to box-tick all this American made American GI stuff, we come to a 'minor make'; Deluxe Reading. The vehicles are in a bit of a state; the main gun is missing, the rocket-launcher is in bits and its half-track is missing etc...but all the figures are on show, or at least they are now the kneeling firer has turned up!

I say 'turned-up' - we saw his base here a couple of years ago and he's the only one I've got, the rest were photographed at a mate's place back in 2007 and are from the 'archive'. That's it really - similar sculpting to the Marx 54mm late production, maybe the same sculptor? Four foot poses and the driver, 54mm 'ish soft polyethylene...1970's...set was called 'Armoured Battalion'...that's it.

News, Views Etc...Dan Dare Puzzle Post

Visitor Andy B has sent a lovely scan of the box-top for the puzzle I blogged at the start of the month, the vastly improved post can be re-seen here;

D is for Dan Dare - Pilot of the Futurepast

H is for MPC!

Harbert...a really Italian sounding word isn't it! These were going to be part of a larger post on the various copies of MPC mini aeroplanes, but closer investigation (to see which of the Hong Kong piracies they were, revealed they were in fact MPC originals, repacked for the Italian market, so; as I haven't done the photographs for the other article, and still need to clear tons of stuff from Picasa, they can sit here under their own name!

There are a number of aircraft types named at the bottom of the card, but A) the blister doesn't contain all the listed 'planes, B) the list isn't a complete list of the MPC range and C) there are other types not printed on the card contained within, so I guess the list is just to attract attention, and that they were random-packed, a few purchases or some playground 'swapsies' being the best way to get a full set. Can any Italian visitors add anything?

P is for Plastic'o is for Osul

I bought this about ten years ago now, maybe longer? I have this thing about not buying everything I see or not being 'greedy', which is a bit bollocks really, as I do have piles of duplicates of things and often will buy stuff I've already got, yet I often leave things on the dealers table, thinking to myself "Leave it for the next chap - you only need a sample!"...well this was on a table with another cow card and a card of kneeling shooters in helmets, and I bought this; not the shooters!

I don't regret not getting the shooters, but do wonder sometimes why I didn't get both and leave the other cow card, I know why I didn't just get the shooters, my reasoning was that the shooters were probably more popular and would 'turn-up again'...they haven't!

Portuguese 20mm plastic flats.

T is for Tobler (or SR?)

This was being sold by the dealer as an SR item, but I suspect it's Tobler, only because it matches the illustrations in the Tobler catalogue doing the rounds a while back - I'll leave you to decide! Is it a Renault?

As with a lot of early metal makers, Tobler's range was given as being 55mm, but the vehicles were sub-scale, presumably to keep them within a price bracket? As a result this is perfect for small-scale/25mm WWI and inter-war stuff, as shown by the Blue Box German officer flagging it down!

Right...and err...wrong! See comments, it is SR and it might be Tobler...wondered what all the points were for! Got Tobler in the Tag-list though...

L is for Lido

Mentioning Lido the other day and not having the Wild West figures to hand, we'll have a quick look at the GI's. As I was late to large scale collecting (figures not info) I only have three originals, but because I'm known for the collecting of small scale Hong Kong stuff, good chaps like Trevor Rudkin, Gareth Morgan and Peter Evans who previously saved the small ones for me have now developed a tendency to pass-on HK tat (thankfully) in the 45/50mm range as well, along with bigger ones in the odd mixed lot, this has led to a shot with most of the poses, just not all Lido originals...

 ...or at least; nine out of ten of the commoner ones - according to Kent Sprecher's experience! I'm missing the crouching ex-Marx officer and if you follow the link you'll find the other five poses - one or two of which I may have in the mixed, base-less, Marx or 'might be Marx' box!

The originals are tagged '1' in the three corners, 2 are the nearest copies, being slightly smaller pantographs, 3 have lost detail and been given new helmet nets, 4 is a crappy thing that won't even stand-up and 5...well he's the business!

He's the only one I've got, so I'm guessing/supposing either Christmas crackers or gum-balls, usually if they came as rack toys they turn up in larger numbers or more frequently, One found in fifty-years suggests they (he? It may have been the only pose so pirated) were thin on the ground from the get-go. We will be looking at the commoner Marx HK small scale shortly.

A bag of type 2's which Gareth sent my way the other day to share with you, there's an opaque sticker over the old price (on both sides of the card), which I think is in cents, so imports of imports, and late 1960's?

A right old mix branded to Petrel here, mid '70's I'd say; I think - from the belt/water bottle detailing - that these are the ones I've tagged type 3, and come with two out-of-scale vehicles and a piracy of the Action Man/GI Joe binoculars!

Does anyone know if the other two poses are 'from' anyone or just cut-and-shuts of the one on the left? I think the card-art will reappear on the blog as I'm pretty sure it was used on more consistently 'small scale' set contents.

M is for Might be Märklin

And they might be even more 'Märklin' than these which we looked at the other day. Not least because they all came together with the metal ones.

Like the funny Welsh lady we looked at a while ago, they look to have been styled for composition, particularly the rail staff in the middle shot. There are no similar figures in composition in the Schiffmann guide, so I guess either further afield than Germany, or new sculpts in the old style, but for the new material?

18-20mm each, they are 7/10 black and pink plastic, so possibly from two batches, the black ones getting the pale flesh paint, the pink ones having the bases painted black.

I know Märklin are supposed to have produced a set of plastics, briefly, after their metal flats and I've never seen them, only an unillustrated listing in - I think - a US market MAERKLIN catalogue from the late 1960's? Does anybody recognise them?

 

Dec. 2023 - I now believe these are early Reisler, but they are not listed on the Tohan site as one of the recognised 'Sortiment's, so Lego could be in the frame, but their Police quartet (the closest Lego figures to these), were different from the four above, who are station-staff anyway?

News, Views Etc...

The P is for Premiums faff-up is now back up with 3 new pictures and 7 collages, all K's changed to Q's and the text revised!

Here

Or about 11 posts down the page!

Z is for err.... ZZ!

An unknown maker, or at least; we know it because it marked all its stuff with a very distinctive logo, but it's unidentified, in that we don't know the whole name of the company, or whether or not it's extant like Blue Box, or gone for good like Lucky Toys?

A year ago I still thought they might be an East German outfit, as they were always turning-up in Germany, and seemed to have a Soviet-bloc 'quality' to them - i.e. better than Hong Kong, but not up to the mark of West European toy finishing.

The distinctive logo being two letter 'Z's superimposed on each other, which I put up here a while ago, the serif is a bit lumpier than I CAD'ed, but the basic idea is there. Sadly there was no feedback that time, maybe these will trip a memory or two...

These are some semi-swopett Indians I photographed on Adrian's stall a while ago, they are around 70mm, and I say 'semi-swopett' as they only have a swivel waist and plug-in bases, or the foot figures do, the mounted figure doesn't even get a base. The figures are copies of the Elastolin swopetts, which were more articulated, with separate weapons etc...

They also copied the cowboys (see the Figuren Magazine link at end), and I suspect knights? I've also read/heard somewhere that VEB Plaho might have been similarly plagiarised by ZZ, but have seen no evidence?

Some close-ups of markings and some more shots of the figures, you wouldn't know the mounted figure was a ZZ if it wasn't found in situ with the foot figures. Equally; if you find foot figures without a mounted figure, there's nothing to indicate that they are from Hong Kong!

In addition they made farm and zoo animals taken from Britains' 1:32 scale range and Elastolin's 1:25 scale range, along with some unique designs (see also the STS link at end). I suspect from the logo's on the cards that they were premiums for the chocolate brand; Riesen [Giant, Colossal], but due to the size of each carded bag, possibly a mail-away, or token-save exercise to be exchanged at the retail outlets counter? If not; they were definitely trying to link themselves to the - rather lovely - chocolate-coated toffees. However, they were also distributed in the USA by R. Dakin and Co., San Francisco...claiming to be a product of West Germany? And Skyline of Milwaukee "Made and hand-painted in W. Germany"

I also have two (or three?) small tin-plate toys with the mark on, basically either copies or modern designs of old penny-toys, one is an airship, the other a WWI type 'plane and there may have been a third, but I might have let it go as being well outside the collections range (interactive toy? clicking frog? something like that), but they are in storage so we'll have to look at them another time, the thing about them though, is that they seemed brand-new about 6 years ago, and it's very hard to fake newness with tin-plate, you can fake age, but that shiny, mint paint is err...shiny and 'mint'! So they may well still be manufacturing, now 'Chinese' not Hong Kong per se, but Google's no help.

Couple of Links

German language Figures Journal page - the 54mm mounted Indian with base and bag of Cowboys near the bottom of the page are probably not ZZ originals, they're more common Hong Kong 'generic' figures.

Riesen Zoo and Riesen Farm on STS Forum

Can anybody add anything to what's been found on the two links? It may well be that they ARE a German company, copying animals from closer at home, while buying-in the Cowboys & Indians, and sourcing the tin-plate from a third company? But then why the ZZ logo on the HK bases? I think they've got to be HK and the Dakin packs were (deliberately?) misleading...help!

Y is for Yee-Hah!

I mentioned the Ertl Farm Country range the other day, so we may as well look at my small sample. Like the die-casts I shot them with on that post, they are sculpted to the relatively unique (some modern Japanese and 'China' stuff is to the same size) American 'large' HO of/or 1:64th scale.

This is what I have of the Rodeo, the full set was quite nice with stalls, arena and bleachers (what they call temporary stands or scaffold & plank seating in the States), this is a fair sample, the bucking base for the bull went the way of all flesh, and the seated figures aren't represented...but I might have sorted them into the 'Unknown Seated Civilians' box before I knew what they were?

There were also lots of more standard farm sets, and here are a few animals from them, along with studies of the Rodeo bulls and horse. The vagaries of scale, mean that the calves would actually make nice dairy cattle on a European (or any!) true HO model railway layout, the Rodeo animals, long-horns and adult dairy cows are far to big, but could be used with 28mm role play set-ups. Also a close-up of the bases for this range - where present.

A couple of the cards, these being with pigs on the left; a very disappointing set of eight identical animals with identical paint, and the other much better value with a figure, six piglets, some poultry and a really nice dog; is it a coon hound? I think it's meant to be.

X is for.....there isn't one really is there....?

Xachma
X-Acto
Xan Miniatures
XB9 / xB9 Games
Xcel Concepts LLP
X Concepts    
Xebic Toys
Xeno Games
Xenos Minis / Xenosmini / Xenos Miniatures
Xiloplasto / Xiloplast
Xion
X-O Facto
X-Otic
X-Plus
XR
Xth Legion (10th [Tenth] Legion)
X-Toys / X Toys
Xtreme Hobby
Xyston Miniatures

Have I missed any?

X was always going to be harder than Q, and Q was always going to be harder than Z, so looking at the bottom of the tag list, I think I've managed quite well, but we'll put X to bed for a bit. One day I will do listings pages, and at the moment the above is the list of X's to be covered, seriously...have I missed one!

W is for Waiting

I haven't forgotten that I am halfway (closer to a third of the way) through the look at small scale copies of Britains combat infantry I started back in...checks his own Blog...February...was it that long ago? Blimey!

The images for the next section (where Crescent desert troop piracies join the mix) is sat in Picasa, where they have been since err...February (it says March? Ignore the 2003, that's how I move stuff around in Picasa, change the year to an empty one!), and I have cropped them and started to do the collages.

Once we've got this A-Z out of the way, I must do a Plastic Warrior new issue review, and a 'News, Views' as some of the things I've bookmarked for it have got old hat, not least the yoga-troops Kickstarter which went a bit viral on Facebook the other day (Google them, they're amusing, if nothing else!), then I will get back to the Hong Kong stuff as I need to finish them before the years out, so I can reschedule them all together (I'll stick them in March) without upsetting the years total!

V is for Vending Eggs

'Capsule toys' by another name, gum-balls in the States, because they are dispensed from the same machines that are also stocked with balls of bubble gum. Indeed the gum came first. Often very tacky little looped charms in plastic or plated jewellery, early ones came in base-metal. The same little trinkets were also used in early Christmas Crackers and there is still a cross-over with the lower priced crackers today.

They used to be a few pence when I was a lad, now they start at a pound, with the banks of Tomy/Takara supplied machines in the bigger stores being £1.50 or two-quid, I think. Obviously for those sorts of lost-deposits you want a bit more than a chrome-plated ring with painted jewels, so some of the toys are quite fun, and there's a whole sub-branch of collecting out there that caters to the gum-ball/capsule enthusiast.

Sometimes, the toys are figural, or other-ways grab my attention and this machine at the pound-end of the scale (The Meads, Farnborough) managed to wrestle a pound from me last Christmas!

This is a Beaver machine, resupplied by toys from Fravend, a company based in Kromstraat, Delft, Holland. As you can see I quickly tested the Alien to destruction, conclusion; destruction is easy!

U is for Unknown HO Railway Flats

Straight into the image I think...

...right; these are a mystery. They look at first glance to be Märklin, same size; HO, same design; flats, same slightly lozenged oblong bases, but then you notice the colours, far too bright for Märklin, so next thought is did Märklin produce a 'budget' range in simpler colour schemes? Well, there are as many colour changes on these as on Märklin originals, just a brighter - more primary - pallet, so that doesn't really wash.

OK, turn to Schiffmann's catalogue, volume 12...nothing, not under Märklin or anywhere else, what does become clear though is that these aren't Märklin poses either, similar to but not the same, to the point where you think that they are trying really hard to look like Märklin?

I'm guessing they aren't German, so early French? Jouef liked some bright decoration? Two of the poses who might be mistaken for railway staff seem to be a postman and a wagoner (wagoneer? Spellcheck's not happy), so they might be for enhancing a wooden toy village or something and nothing to do with model railways? Although the guy in blue buying a paper seems to be rail staff.

So does anybody have any idea who made these and when?

Added the next day; I'm going to suggest they are by Spielwaren [Hans] Wettig, who were apparently the supplier of the Märklin flats, and who made a set of their own 28mm flat civilians (see the above mentioned Schiffmann pp.196), and might therefore have also produced an HO range, despite the Märklin contract. The fact that some of these figures are similar to both Wettig's 28mils and the 18mm Märklin's helps?

T is for Tractors

Definitely had that header before! We have visited Tractors on more than one occasion and will doubtless visit them again, as I like tractors, I used to drive them...Massey's* of course! These aren't Massey's though...

This is a boxed set of Matchbox 1-75 type small scale models, die-cast with plastic wheels and plug-ins, otherwise available separately. The indivdual boxes simply being dropped into a larger liner.

All represent John Deere machines, a brand which has the same kind of fan-base among American farm kids as Massey Ferguson inherited from Furguson's 'Fergies' over here. Ertl made their name as a toy company with their relationship with 'JD' and there's a very good book on Ertl tractors kicking around with all of them in it.

They are nominally HO Gauge sized, but...the American toy industry has two HO's. The HO gauge they use for model railways (or 'railroads' over there) is - as far as I know - the same as everyone else's (maybe closer to the UK's OO in the modelling of passenger cars?), but basicly what you think of as HO in Europe, but - through the radio control hobby - they have a slot-racing HO size, which is actually aiming for 1:64th scale...these are they! [Potato Pottarto, Tomato Tomartto!]

I'm not going to show you all of them for three reasons, first, we might look at some another time, second, they look like the drawings on the boxes above and thirdly...I hate row-crop tractors, I really do, it's irrational, I know, but really?...holding your legs together like a virgin on a crowded-train is not macho, tractors should be macho, and row-crop tractors are stupid-looking! "Ooh, get me! Tip-toeing through the tulips like a ponce!" is what a row-crop tractor says to [shouts at] me!

Luckily, the early models and later beasts have their wheels where they should be - so here's one of each to give a flavour of the set. The figures are from the Ertl Farm Country range, specifically the Rodeo sets.

* There was a short while with an all-white David Brown I like to draw a veil over...Tractors should really be red (or green at a push!), with WIDE front wheels...have I told you what I think about row-crop tractors...

S is for Sacul

I think I photographed this back before I started blogging, but it's sat in Picasa, being moved to each 'new toy images' file, every time I have a sort out, and for some reason never got blogged and never got stuffed in the archive dongles...anyway, here it is, a colourful little thing!

Sacul was one of the smaller firms making hollow cast toy soldiers in the post-war period, and along with all the usual guards and highlanders illustrated on the box, made some larger TV character toys and such like. These are chrome-plated with little feathers for headdresses.

With the paint; there's enough lead in this box to produce a whole cabinet of retards, given that Sacul were apparently over-priced (Garrett), clearly only well-healed Conservative types could imbibe, which explains a lot...I'm not sure pink is a true heraldic colour though!

R is for Rocketry

A couple of poorish images for you in this post I'm afraid, but it gets a new tag in the list and clears some stuff from Picasa, so win-win for me!

I love this, branded to Lyvia, this Hong Kong made money-box has a mechanism which allows you to fire the coin into the cone, how long before it would crack the cone or knock it off is open to question, but what a fantastic, practical 'toy'! I also love it because it has a combination lock at the bottom; when I was a kid, I had a post-box money box, also made in Hong Kong, so there's a nostalgia hit in this. I occasionally see the post-box one on evilBay, but so far have managed to resist!

I never saw one of these when I was a kid, if I had some serious badgering and car-cleaning would have ensued! A forerunner of the modern Estes rockets, and slightly safer, this seems to rely on 'Epsom Salts' tablets and the instructions are interesting reading, comparing what was acceptable for sale as a plaything 40/50 years ago with what is acceptable today...

Q is for Quack, Quack-quack...Quack-quack-quack!

I call Ducks Quack-quacks, so this little lot had to be 'Q', only taken into the collection today, I was going to cop-out with something quadrupedal! I found them in a local charity shop (Shelter, if you're wondering), no price and I can't tell you what they cost as they had whatever was in my pocket as shrapnel, over four quid, because the shopkeeper counted the four and threw the rest in the counter tub for another charity!

The lot included a porcelain goose which might be Wade but is a bit small, and too well painted (for Wade) and a resin chick for a tit-bird (non-native, so I can't give more, like a colourful long-tailed or grey-tit!) both of which have gone in the TBS (to be sorted) box, where they will be joined by these as soon as this is up. But I'd like to ID these if anyone has a clue.

All ducks, the large one (top right) is terracotta, hollow (slip-cast?) and not so needful for putting a name to, but the others aught to be identifiable, and are within the scope of the collection, being a clay or composition duck (bottom left) and a set (or part-set) of dark brown or black plastic ducks, not much bigger than 1:32, and usable with Britains farm figures.

I say part-set with a question mark as there are three pairs as far as mouldings go and two singles, I suspect there should be ten - 5 pairs. I thought they might be Marx, but they are unmarked, I'm assuming Hong Kong, and the sort of thing Marx would have sourced over there and sold on a card as an adult collectable for cabinets or mantle-shelves. Google is no help, nor is STS on this one, so if anybody knows these; let the rest of us know.

The composition duck also failed the STS search, being too small for Elastolin or the other obvious candidates, and as I say, I'm not sure what it's made out of, and with total paint coverage I can't do my usual exploratory scrape-test! Again; if you recognise it, please comment.