F is for Firefly

An unprepossessing name for a vicious little critter which did a lot to help win the war, and yes, lots of things make that claim, SOE, SAS, Bletchley/Ultra, Bomber Command, Fighter Command, Trinity, Boeing, Hobart and his Funnies, Rolls Royce and their wizard, and to be fair, they all played their part, but this was one of the balance-tippers!

 

Back during a more combative phase of the Blog's past, a lot was made of, and opined, about the announcement by Airfix of new 1:35th stuff, which in fact took forever to get to market, were finally released a couple of years ago, weren't model kits, nor full ready-mades', but rather clip-together, and only appeared - locally - earlier this year, in Hobby Craft, where I shelfied them.. But I thought I ought to actually get them, which I recently did, and this is the first of two posts on the subject.

 

The Airfix 'QuickBuild' Sherman Firefly, a clip-together model which uses the Lego (Hestair-Kiddycraft) mechanism, for that constructive element, even to being compatible with 'other leading bricks', but an addition to your Lego tub it ain't.

 

Everything comes in one bag, with separate instructions and a small, basic sticker sheet, the grey block to the far left is the only piece which might be useful to a Lego fan, being a large, five-way, stud direction changer.

 

My first criticism, and it's far truer for the Sherman than the Tiger, is that the track-links are a bit wank. They go together OK, until you try putting them on the vehicle, at which point they reveal weaknesses which totally destroy the 'playability' of the 'toy', as the slightest carpet-move produces breaks in the tracks?

 

The most Lego-likey element is the instruction sheet, which has full colour stages, each of which involves only three or four parts, highlighted by not being greyed-out, and tracks aside, there aren't many parts, (around twenty-five/twenty-six?), and most of them are chunky bits!

 

Second - obvious - criticism; I had a large spigot of [failed release-pin?] plastic on one of my hull sides, which prevented the construction, until removed, although it resulted in a useful piece of 'styrene rod for the spares box, so "Every cloud . . . "!

 

Turret components, result in a reasonably robust turret, with revolving action utilising the twin-lug system from Tamiya, rather than Airfix's traditional central spigot, for a firmer attachment. Frankly though it's a simplified and toy-like rendition, but that's a criticism for the whole model, and it is meant to be a toy first, and a Sherman second!

 

A small accessory runner in a different colour, this is identical for the Tiger Tank, and contans the turret-interior retaining-piece for the gun-barrel, a jerry can, two ammo-boxes and a pointed entrenching shovel.

 

Running gear; quite simple and straightforward, it took me a minute or so to work-out how the two halves of the drive-sprocket went together, but that might have been more about the need for proper glasses than any failure of my mental faculties, or errors in the instructions!

 

In the end, three useful looking pieces of waste plastic joined the greeble stash! There were a couple more on the track runners, but the tracks are definitely a different polymer, probably polypropylene, which is as much of a nightmare to glue as polyethylene, so they both went to recycling!

 

It definitely looks the part, and, in real life, must have come as quite a surprise to the big cats of Nazi Germany, but it's not terribly accurate, nor that detailed, and certainly not as detailed as it could have been, in this scale. It states 1:35, but seems closer to 1:32nd, but that might just be me, and I'm notoriously bad at judging scale.

 

Although, conversely, the underside has quite a bit of detail, compared to other Sherman models over the years! Also, you can see in this shot, how the drive sprockets don't actually engage the tracks and have been made ridiculously wide as a result, just to keep their teeth away from the track rod ends!

 

The two 'spare' track links don't clip in, and keep falling off, but there are actually quite a few spare links, so you can field 'appliqué' your tank with extra frontal armour!

 

 

 

All-in-all though, a disappointing effort, with track issues that render it unplayable once built, the simple construction is a plus, not including the tracks (and my sprockets!) it can be assembled in about eight-minutes, no more than twenty with track-faff, but simple detailing and stickers, leave it as a toy you can't push anywhere, for fear the tracks will part like the red-sea. I think 7-out-of-10 is a generous score?

T is for Two - Tanks!

Hard to believe, but we don't seem to have had that title before! I managed to pick up two rather nice tanks at Sandown Park's last show, nice for different reasons, and a possible 'sublime to ridiculous' scenario, but which is which, depends upon the personal loyalties of the viewer!

 

This would be an antique toy enthusiast's ridiculous, but the sublime of a 'plastic warrior', being the large scale donor for a whole generation of pretty inaccurate US 'Patton' tanks (sometimes wearing German stickers), in various scales, materials and finishes. We looked at its own little brother here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/07/b-is-for-back-to-blue-box.html

 

Where it's found with three different muzzle-breaks, I don't know if the same will prove true for the larger one, but it's a nice box-ticking of a near-mint, boxed example, with friction motor!

 

While the antique guy thinks this is sublime, while a plastic warrior thinks it's a ridiculous novelty 'what tank IS that?' I think they both have their merits, and the beauty of this is it still has both tracks! A bit saggy and perished, and there is one break, out of sight, but getting these with tracks is hard, you see many examples of both Japanese and German tanks with their shiny, or surface-rusty wheels, but tracks are rarer, and while you do find modern replacement tracks, they are too new!

 

I guess it wants to be a Renault F17 or similar, and Japan took various early tank designs to China, before the World War was a 'world' war, so given the yellow-dun shade, I'm also guessing that's where this particular "Foreign" import came from, rather than Germany, where grey or 3-colour camouflage were the norm.

A is for Available in Any Colour, as Long as it's Fast!

I seemed to do quite well in the racing-car department, at Sandown, I rarely go to Sandown with anything like a shopping list, it's a question of what's there (and cheap) on the day! And, a month or so ago, it was racing cars, apparently?

Rather highfalutin instructions, and blurb, bigging-up a basic mechanism in this Maserati, which had been known to aficionados of balsa flying machines for several decades before this was issued? And the addition of a crown and bevel makes the 'starting handle' a harder wind than the propeller usually employed for the winding of rubber-band models!

 

To be honest, and given the quality of some more obvious 'facsimile' boxes I've seen recently, I have my doubts over the authenticity of this box, it's just too good, too clean? But the jeweller's loupe seems to suggest it's litho- or screen-printed onto an absorbent card, and shop stock stuff does turn-up, from time to time, but I'm not confident, either way?

 

This is my second FROG (Flies Right Off [the] Ground) Penguin (flightless bird), but is very different, the previously-found jeep being a heavy, vulcanised rubber, almost composition in consistency and weight, while this is a lightweight, plastic (early 'styrene?) and tin, novelty.

 

A future post (currently in storage) will be two of these helmets, one of which, in silver, is identical to the one depicted on this driver figure (the reason vehicles started to gain traction in the collection), with the set-forward or stand-off, drop-down perspex sheet, mounted around the front of a rigid visor.

 

They both came from 'Old Mr. Bening' (might be Benny or Benning), who was a silversmith, in a little shop/workshop, I think at the T-junction of the B3004 (Forge Road) and A325, just shy of Bordon, Hampshire, although the premises seem to have gone in a junction remodelling over the 50-odd years since he died, and we last visited him.

 

It may have been somewhere else, nearby, the memories are weak, and Google is no help with everyday, local historical stuff, there might as well have been no world prior to 1997! But he had been a racer in his younger days, and gave us a couple of his old helmets.

 

Ingap large scale Porsche F1, my first larger Ingap, and another in that classic fifties or sixties metallic blue plastic! I don't know if the box is original (packing from a larger carton?), or fashioned by a previous owner, but it fits well, and keeps the car protected, so I'll hang on to it! Both the above are about 1:43rd/48th scale.

 

Not a racing car, and closer to 1:35th/32nd, but just for fun, it was one of the items missing from my flood-damaged set, which we looked at prior to my discarding the packaging as beyond saveable a few years ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/08/ab-is-for-vidalis-brothers-joy-toy.html

 

And given the price Greek sellers on evilBay want, for everything, it was a bargain! I guess it's trying to be a VW Carmen Ghia, or early Porsche Carrera? Bonnet's not right for either! Equally, the Greek Hellas sports-car, might fit (after a quick Google!), but whatever it wants to be, it's still, a nice find.

I is for If I Have To!

Not really in the mood, so expect an intermittent service in January! In case anyone else hasn't noticed, the World's going to hell in a hand-cart, and there's no sword-based baby to save us. And who had Putler turning out to be the mere Mussolini to Trump's Hitler, on the card for 2026?

 

Happy New Year!

I know from my job, this was generally, a crap Christmas, the most telling sign of which, was that all the fairy-light shit and illuminated/inflated, technicolour bollocks in peoples front gardens (hey, you can do it tastefully, or you can do it as half-arsed shit, or OTT classless excess, most chose one of the latter two options!) had gone by the 5th. Last year many were up through the second week of Jan', and we weren't swamped, at work, like last year.

 

Anyway, plenty more to say, and I'll keep saying it; those who pretend it's not happening deserve everything that's coming, for never getting involved! Getting back into the saddle with a simple box-ticker, this is from the UPC scans folder, and follows-up, or follows-on from the previous posts on the subject - Monograms many copyists.

 

I was promised a load of stuff on the subject back when we looked at them on one of the other occasions, but I've heard nothing more, and suspect Covid may have changed those plans? We looked at them, in no particular order, here:

 

Revell/Roco-Minitanks - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/07/m-is-for-monograms-many-mates.html

 

UPC (1st post!) - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/05/u-is-for-universal-powermaster.html

 

Fujimi - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/07/us-army-is-for-more-clones.html 

 

Model Power - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/08/r-is-for-roco-as-rack-toys.html

 

Hong Kong's finest! Still needs a lot of work, but this was a reasonable primer! https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2016/08/m-is-for-monograms-men-made-much_10.html

 

You'll also find Past the Post and ABC, and others, on the Monogram Tag, but this is the UPC supporting stuff:

 

Box art from the HO set (3034), copied from Roco.

 

Rather dodgy early photocopy of the instruction sheet from the James Chase collection. 

Catalogue image, 1968/9.

From the same catalogue, the image (and box art?) for the "1:40"th set (5149), actually the same vaguely 1:35th of all the other versions which aren't reduced to HO/OO.

An instruction sheet I happen to have, and which may sort the question over some of my polystyrene samples, which seems to hint at an alternate box-art, closer to the Revell 'convoy ambush' artwork, of one of the larger sets. In fact, that's a clue as to Roco's being copies of Revell, as the Patton Figure was only in that large 4-kit set, he being the Sherman tank commander?!

 

That's it, just a box ticker!

H is for Holy Self-Signed Toy, Batman!

I bought this at Sandown Park, I won't tell you what it cost, but suffice to say it wasn't cheap as chips, and I was initially a little disappointed by it, suspecting a mug had been seen coming, a little buyer's remorse crept in, but, like last night's cartoon, that's something which often accompanies the post show sort-out!

 

Holy boxed battle-taxi, Batman!

First, it was sold to me as AHI (Azrak Hamway International) when it's not, it's the later Australian reissue from Len Hunter Trading, and dating from 1989 (AHI carried this in 1977), and that it was signed, which I quickly convinced myself was a bit dodgy? However, having seen the prices of a few unsigned ones, and enough samples of Adam West's signature to be slightly more convinced by its sloppiness, I'm much happier about the purchase now!

 

 Holy facsimile figurines, Batman!

 

The main body of the Batmobile is all-plastic, so it ticks one box, and has two figures, of The Batman and pesky Robin, The Boy Wonder, so it ticks another box there, and is clearly a scaled-up copy of the Corgi die-cast, where that was 1:43rd, this is closer to 1:35th/32nd scale.

 

Holy Batbath brum-brum, Batman!

 

The boat is the same, and while I initially though they were blow-moulds; so many of the bootlegs and knock-off's have been, it is actually a couple of lumps of polystyrene, the frangibility of which means they are far worse survivors, than the original Corgi die-casts.

 

Holy crime-fighting combination, Batman! 

 

I think the figures can be used in the Batboat, but the seats are closer together, so maybe only one at a time? I noticed, before purchase, the blister had been off at one point, and not replaced brilliantly, so there's an option to remove it again, in the future, photograph the combination in close-up, re-set the Batboat in it's trailer properly, and try resetting the blister a little better?

 

Does the fact that the autograph is 'To Robin' from Adam West, give it a little extra caché? And, as I said to the seller, with all its faults or potential faults, when was I going to see another one? Holy philosophical fuckwittery, Batman!

B is for Bristol Bloodhound

Managed to tick-off a smaller 'grail' at Sandown a month ago, with the purchase of this beast, I knew it existed, I can't remember when or where I saw it, but I had seen one, some years ago I think, anyway, I recognised the box and bought it quickly without checking the contents! I've also managed to shoot it twice, with some of the following 'seen elsewhere' soon after the purchase, so a few more images than usual, and no collaging!

 

The box; exactly the sort of thing I remember from Webb's The Newsagents in Hartley Wintney when I was a kid, colourful, but basic three-colour screen-printed on low quality card, reminiscent of early, cheap, post-war wallpaper like our grandparent's bathroom ducks! It leaves little doubt as to the contents and includes simple graphical instructions in the drawings.

 

Components; there's approximately 30+ pieces, all factory assembled in both polystyrene and polyethylene, with a couple of metal parts. Several small, plastic pivots/axle-pins allow for elevation/depression of the whole launcher, which also revolves on its baseplate, and a separate Bloodhound Missile with spring-firing mechanism can be locked in.

 

Ready to fire; The trigger is slightly damaged, so while I can set it up for a photograph, I can't fire it, and that's probably a good thing, as making such a model in frangible 'styrene was not a wise move, as far as longevity is concerned, and it's a bit of a miracle it's still this complete. And that white button on the back may have had a function, which I haven't yet worked-out!

 

When I first posted it elsewhere, I suggested in might be scaled-up from the Corgi die-cast, but rapidly came to the conclusion it's more likely to be based on the Frog kit, which will give my crew-figures, from that aforementioned kit, something useful to do! It's around 1:35th scale, or maybe a little smaller, I'll have to get the Frog kit, I've never previously been after, to compare! And obviously, no maker, or any clue to same!