T is for Teeny-Tiny Taiwanese Trucks, Tanks and Tippers!

I picked these up a few weeks ago, as a cheapie on that there evilBay, I don't know anything about them, and the only clue is a small, uneven 'TAIWAN' on the underside of each vehicle/a single component.

I suspect they are [earlyish?] examples of what the Japanese call Gashepon, or vending-machine toys, but - obviously - Taiwanese in origin, and as we will see, very much 'box scale' and simplified, but charming for that. They are also quite idiosyncratic, so we'll start with the easy one!

It's basically a 6x6 Pinzguaer high mobility all-terrain vehicle/artillery tractor, or similar militarised 'mini-van' type vehicle, and comes in at around the 1:90th mark, which would make it an additional asset to a Roco or Roscopf army! It's even in a similar olive-drab colour, and consists of five parts; three clip-in wheels and two body-halves.

The Gepard-decorated box actually contains a late-mark (1A5?) Leopard MBT with a pair of carpet wheels for perambulation. As the build-instructions are for the same, I don't know why they went with a Gepard SPAAG for the artwork? But I did say the set was idiosyncratic!

An idiosyncrasy which continues with this pair, where each has the other's exploded construction view on the back of the box! The heavy ore-truck was lacking a pair of wheels, but they are the same mouldings as the 'Pinzgauer' so I nicked a pair of them for the shots, while the bulldozer will need tracks made-up, which I will do one day from old inner-tube and cyclist's rubber cement.

The final two are a really rather good jeep (basic wheels mind!) and what is best described as a simplified Stridsvagn 103 'S-Tank', but it could just as easily be an attempt at a Scorpion CVRT! It comes from the box with a Tiger I as artwork! You can see the underside is the same as the Leopard's.

The whole line-up, with the dump-truck retaining the spare wheels! The boxes shout 1970's at you, but at least two of the vehicles depicted are screaming 1990's, so your guess is as good as mine as to when/where these first appeared, and I suspect - from the limited number of duplicated parts - there are more to the full range.

HT is for High-speed Transport!

Continuing with a theme, why not? These are the same size as the Politoys (previous post) ones, but represent cars from another era, with their exposed engine-blocks. Made in Hong Kong, they may be copies of Western-made originals, but whether plastic or die-cast donors; I don't know - the 8-car is similar-looking to a Hong Kong-made Marx die-cast I have somewhere in a larger scale?

There seems to be only the four different models, numbered in evens from 2 to 8 on the bonnet/nose and the belly-pan. And possibly two tranches, with one of mine having different wheels, but they could have been replaced at some point, or a deliberate attempt to get extra toy-world mileage (pun intended) out of an old body-type model, after the change to racing slicks (and new bodies) in the real world?

Each car from 2 at the top to 8 at the bottom, with the 4 in both wheel variations; if I was more of an aficionado of racing cars I could probably guess the intended makes (are 4 a Lotus and 8 a Ferrari?), but they are also pretty crude and generic!

The HT mark could be Hang Tjuk but the only logo I can find for them is a rounded-cornered, rectangular cartouche〔‾〕, but they were making plastic vehicles in the mid-80's - probably sometime after these cars were produced.

Other HT's with either no known logo, or different logo's or markedly different product lines are Hang Tat, Heep Tung, Hinstar Toys (who did do some rack-toy shite?), Hopewell Trading Co., or Hanung Toys & Textiles (Singapore, HTT?), whilst Hartung Trading (Germany, with 'China' product) and Hayakwa Toys (Japan) aren't Hong Kong companies and Helen [of] Toy would be stretching it to breaking! Hang Tjuk are 60/40 against, and I suspect it's a long-lost 'nother HT?

The red 4 - with the 'correct' wheels - is a repaint which could be factory- or home-painted; it's hard to tell, and the model underneath is an off-white. All the drivers seem to have had a gloss-red helmet when new, in the same shade, so the car may be a factory-job?

Front row - from the left; this post's number-2 car, then a die-cast Ferrari 36V G.T. R-102 (possibly from the Zee/Zyll/Zylmex stable, but I don't think so?), a Politoys and an unmarked but like and probably Bruder - it has the Made in W Germany mark (with the W blanked-off, so post-1991?) and a numeral 42, along with the same wheels and construction methods as other marked-Bruder's . . . and representing a car from a later era.

Rear row - from the left; A hard polystyrene plastic racer with no marks which could be early British, or early anyone, including Hong Kong, then either a copy of it, or another model of the same car, but hollowed and cheap-looking, and finally a similar car of a different source.

Both the latter two were sold in bakers as cake decorations, probably through Culpitt.

There only seems to be the one design for this size (I have other sizes of cake decoration/rack-toy racers; for another day!) and as you can see they seem to be being driven by men in Tommy/Brodie helmets!

T is for Two - Soviet Era Rocket Launchers

Or; J is for Just a Bit of Fun!

You may have noticed in the earlier post an odd green 'thing' in the pile of 'Other Vehicles', well it was a real 'thing', an infant-toy rocket on trailer from the days of the USSR.

I think it should have an integral/moulded-on tractor cab/unit which has been removed with a hot knife from the look of the burn-marks at one end and is a sort of Semi-flat design with a hollowed interior.

It's not so much 'military' as being all a bit 1950's Buck Rogers, you can imagine a plume of stop-motion cotton wool 'smoke' trailing it, as it rushes toward the camera, dangle-lines clearly visible, while someone plays a vibraphone in the background! Cheers Chris.

Meanwhile; this early FROG-type, battlefield tactical 'nuke' on a modified PT76 (or MT-LB?) chassis, which is approximately 1:87th, has been sat in Picasa since I last had a few Russian posts back in 2015! It came with the flats and marked vehicles/vessels we looked at then, but is unmarked and was waiting for some more unmarked-Russian AFV's (or rockets) to come-in . . . well, one just has!

U is for Unknown Aircraft

While sorting out the Photograph for the Battle of Britain memorial piece last night, I shot these two as well, now I have lots of unknown aircraft I wouldn't dream of boring you with, but these two are worth a more public forum in the hope of identification...

The first is presumably meant to be a Czechoslovakian-service Russian Mig fighter, but is managing to look more like a V1 on it's launch-skid! It is missing the top tail-plane, and from time to time I consider making a replacement, but feel one shouldn't bugger-about with what may be a rare thing! Any ideas? It's about 1:90, 100% wood with paint, the red disc on the tail-fin is on both sides, there's no markings underneath.

The second one is even more interesting, a polished perspex model of - I think - a Messerschmitt Me.109? Could be a modern western 'collectable' from Franklin or Danbury and co.? Or, a post-war corporate desk model from Spain, Finland, Switzerland or Roumania? Either way, I suspect it's having been attached to an ash-tray or similar 'objet'.

Secondly - Could it be a Master, for a range of white-metal models?

The other alternative is that it is from National Socialist Germany. around 1:100/110 and obviously missing a propeller and tail-planes it also has a small hole for a mounting-wire (?) underneath, forward of the cockpit, under the cockpit itself is an air-scoop. No other details or markings. Again - any Ideas?

R is for Recent Aquisitions

Various bits and pieces that have come into the collection in the last few months, other than all the loose stuff that is!

Three Imai caricatures based on Star Wars, or at least using the coat-tails of the Lucas cash cow to 'fly'! A robot 'walker' from Bandai, this is apparently 1:144, but as it's a lot bigger than the Takara 1:144 robots I covered back at the start of this blog, there's a lot of flexibility as to what scale it - or any large robot - actually is. With some being manned, and others autonomous, and with most either imaginary or based on TV cartoons on the other side of the world, you can make them any size you want. I'll probably make these up as they're all pretty modern.

Finally a nice early pattern StuG in resin and white metal from Alemany, not a bad kit but the tracks are quite poorly moulded, and as the cheapest item in the kit, could have been replaced at source.

Dkwookie on the HaT forum brought these to our attention the other week and I managed to pick some up that weekend, still available from 'The Works' discount book/craft shops here in the UK, at 1:90 they are passable for war-games in 15/20mm.

They also do three different M1 Abrams paint variants and some helicopters or aircraft.

The LCF train set came from Peter Evans, one of the founders of Plastic Warrior, who knows the eclectic, completest nature of my collecting well enough to buy a piece of Hong Kong tat - so bad it's good - whenever he sees it!! It also arrived a week before he said he'd send it, thanks Peter!

I've already put a battery in it and rolled it round the floor a few times. There are now 4 or 5 of these in the collection, mostly civilian (plus a Skooby-Doo tie-in), and another only adds to the whole! [That's two mentions for Skooby-Doo in two days?......spooky!]

The HK 'Cattle', copies of the Airfix farm were an eBay purchase a while ago, but as they were still sitting on the 'still to be sorted' table, I took them for the photo-shoot.

Finally, this came from Mercator Trading (link to right), I sometimes help out on his stall at shows, and had watched it not sell for a couple of outings, but people did keep looking at it, so in the end I coughed up and will cover it fully in a day or two. A whole box of Dregeno wooden tractors from the former East Germany...Bargain!