M is for May's Visit - Historical Bits

We reach the penultimate post in this series, but there's still July and September's lots to go through, so there will be plenty more of these mixed posts, which do seem to get the traffic, even if it fell off a cliff on the 1st October, and probably ain't coming back, something called the 'The &num=100 Parameter Change', which, as I've never chased traffic, doesn't concern me, I post stuff even AI isn't interested in!

 

Two 70mm's from Papo, both women who lived and died [young] in a man's world run by men who didn't like 'uppity' (that's 'successful') women! Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc), and Cleopatra, and I can imagine her, wandering about her palaces, with a cat in her arms, a mini-God for a God-Queen!

 

Nice pose sample of Spencer Smith Miniatures 30mm Wellingtonians, with a colour/mould-purge gun-carriage. It's funny, but when you encounter a sample like this, you know he saved-up his pocket-money, and bought a few of each, just to see what they were like! We all did it!

 

Lido on the left, Hong Kong on the right. The Hong Kong goes with those copies of European wagons and coaches, while the Lido are usually found bi-coloured, but with a clean and dirty yellow, I suspect these halves were unioned years after they left the factory!

 

At last! Loyal Readers who've been with the Blog for a while may remember several posts on these a few years ago, as both Chris Smith and me, kept finding another, then another, then another pose, and it ended-up with Chris having one more pose, the tied explorer above!

 

Which raises the question of the nature of the - as yet - unfound set, one of the Great White Hunter's is free to wander about with a gun, the other is tied up? Shades of H. Rider Haggard or Burroughs about the whole thing! And he looks like a 'Bad Guy'!

 

Papo 40mm pirate and the painted version of the lady we saw, bagged, as a generic, in Rack Toy Month, and whom we had seen before, unpainted in the Webbs' sets, it took me a while to work out she hadn't got her hands tied behind her back too, but is hiding a pistol, to either defend her honour from a pirate, or slot a Revenue Man, if she is a pirate!

 

Three 15mm war games figures, may be one for Gisby? They look to be a command group, with officer, standard barer and bugler, all mounted, for the English Civil War? Thanks again to Peter Evans for all these.

P is for Partially Seen Elsewhere - Acédo African Scene

I posted my small sample of these elsewhere, the same day, I think, but I shot a better sample on Mercator Trading's stall at the show (last London show of last year?), so we can have a better look at this French production now.

Acédo, the plastics 'arm'  of Domage et Cie (Domage and Co.), the company also behind Aludo (aluminium production), are responsible for this little set-up! Obviously made in polymerised cellulose acetate, and apparently depicting a peaceful, or civilian take on African life in a rural village, sans modernism!

 

I wondered about the trees and huts, as they looked a bit homemade (huts) and converted from something like Playmobil (trees), but a quick Google that evening revealed similar huts and some similar, but very different-shaped trees, so I think the pieces were made as flat sections, or bare boughs, and then assembled, with heat, glue and hand-held pyro-gravure work - to hide the joins. Portable hairdryers were invented in the 1920's, and can be set 'too hot' (for scalps!), so all very doable.

 

The running boy and drummer being not warlike, although the full set does include a warrior with spear and shield and a white hunter in pale safari-suit, the warrior is sort of waving his spear & shield as if 'beating' the game toward the hunter.

Close-up of my previously seen sample, other colours of loin-cloth turn-up including dark blue and white, but I don't know what other animals might be considered part of the set, a rhino, hippo, ostrich and more monkeys were in the 'zoo' sets, so there was a species-bank to pick from!

 

Usually found decorated, and the only one seen, on the day, I don't know if it's a late production thing, unpainted, or if it has been stripped, due to poor wear of the original decoration?

G is for Grendon Underwood . . .

. . . a place I actually know quite well, and it's a half-horse hamlet, which in the 1960's would have quite literally been in the middle of nowhere, like all those villages in the greenery between London and Birmingham!

 

I'm absolutely positive this set, or one very similar from the same maker has been shown on the blog already, as an 'unknown', but I just can't find it anywhere, but neither is it waiting to go, in Picasa, so I don't know?

Grendon Valley Toys from Ornamental Alloys, sounds grand, and it gets two new entries in the Tag List, but I suspect it was a bloke in a shed, with his mate who had a mate who could print stuff?!! I may be totally wrong, but I have a vision of pots of lead going soft over a camping stove, while the wife spends her Sunday afternoons painting tigers!

 

I've definitely shot a similar set (it might have been five animals and no natives, though?), and I'm sure I blurbed it with the usual 'probably from Schneider moulds, or those supplied by Agasee, or someone like that, commercially sold as a sideline, maybe at Christmastime?

 

Anyway, the whole point was to ID the previous set, which I can't find, so it is what it is; a minor-make, producing a commercial product from home-casting moulds, in the years immediately after WWII, I would imagine? Thanks to Mercator Trading for letting me shoot it (the original, and missing one).

 

Added 12-03-2024 - While thanks are due to David Fisher, who let me shoot this one on his stall the other day.

Z is for Zambia, Zaire, Zanzibar, Zimbabwe and . . . Zululand!

Mostly reissues, but it happens that the one pose I'm missing in the reissue set, happens to have turned up as an original, twice, is that coincidence or synergy. I never know the difference!

MPC African Warriors, colloquially referred to as the 'Zulus' and sold as/in various African jungle/safari/native sets. Eight poses, I'm not sure who handled the reissues, was it Mandrill, or did they only do the Marx reissues?

 

They are a bit tall and thin, but I like them, and with African warriors being one of the less visited corners of the figure-world by toy makers, it's nice to have them existing at all! If I ever feel rich enough, I'll try to get them all in gold, as I think they look really nice . . . Almost Rubenstein'y!

H is for How Much Can You Stuff in a Egg?

The last of the 'Micro' or mini-stuff for now I think, and not a particularly full sample, but fun nevertheless! Kinder have from time to time produced sets of items so small you wonder how they got under the safety radar, but then a lot of their toys include equally small components, so I guess it's all covered by the H&S caveat on the packaging!

A few of my smallest Kinders, the safari (green) is complete I think, the explorer being around 10mm, and I assume the coach must have come with something else? The pale blue bloke with binoculars is a lighthouse keeper, but I discarded the lighthouse at the time (late 1980/early 1990's), the pair are from a fuel set - see below.

That Wil West stage-coach from both sides, about the same size as the teeny capsule/Christmas cracker ones, but with ridgid moulded-in wheels . . . and giant horses!

These came out in the mid-2000's I think, and the animals are a quite good HO/OO-compatible size, being a small pony and a cow with ball-tipped 'safety-horns'! Although they are not quite in scale with the trailers, but that's more about the thickness of their bases!

I'm not sure if this is a parallel line to the previous ones (came-in about the same time), or a rival, the code-letters on the wings suggest it might be Czapp, another chocolate prize-egg issuer from . . . the former Yugoslavia? It's all in the archive and will be correct when it goes on the A-Z Blogs - a job which is still probably a year away?!

No figure/s in this one either, but plenty going-on at the local aerodrome and a couple of mini-trees to add to the jungle. A common trope with these is the stiff foldable sheet of polyethylene or nylon, which slots together and gets covered in stickers to reveal the building's role, really they'd need a bit of carefully applied heat to look good, but tend to end up looking like inflatable's!

Another common trope has been natives, of a sort of generic 'South Seas' type, and I've picked-up a few over the years, the cartoony one bottom-right was part of a set of four I think; each having a more outrageous finial to the hut's roof!

The two-part green canoe near my finger actually goes with the Disney plug-together figures.

Is he a native, a pirate or a Robinson Crusoe type? But the hootch would paint-up nicely for a WWII Japanese-held island or something in Vietnam, while the boat makes for good background scenery. It all goes in one egg!

While I will have to re-shoot this one next time I visit the 'brown water' navy! Hootch is a bit small and impressionist, but could be used as a food store in the same scenarios mentioned above, or one of those horrid POW cages from Vietnam? A few of the boatman would go well fussing-around Atlantic's Nile vessels too!

These were sent in by someone a few years ago, and while I assume they were evilBay, if they are on your site let me know and I'll take them down. I've actually tweaked the light to improve them a tad, and they are here to show the wider range of these micro-sets, and also that you get reverse colour-ways of each so the tool moulds them all in one colour and then they are split, probably automatically by a/the runner-guillotine?

I have the Arab somewhere (been on the blog I think, or the Airfix Blog?), and guess the coach went with another Wild West set? You can also see the reverse of my fuel pair in grey. These micro-toys (and there have been others) can provide useful stuff for 20mm, 15mm or 10mm war gaming, while some of the vehicles will happily slide into 1:300 micro-armour games with a bit of paint.

K is for Kinder's Klassic Kapsule Kombatants

When it comes to Kinder figures, these are among the most sought-after by the 54mm purists which gives them a bit of a premium they probably don't deserve, which makes them harder to collect purely on cost, but I have had some success except with the Egyptians, where I've only managed to find one - and I forgot to shoot him!

These aren't even that old; 1990's, yet there's one on evilBay at the moment for which the seller is asking £117! They. Are. Not. Rare. I've only been picking them up since about 2010 and I've managed to find between six or eight (?), some here and some in storage, now they're all in storage, and it's actually the ones which were in the garage we're looking at today.

Each was available in all four colours and bases seem to have been random with black or a few shades of green and they are hardly animated, a quick dry-brush of silver and they're best suited for the corridors or lobbies of large dolls houses! But lovely sculpts and - without being an expert on such things - from the high-point of armour design; sort of Tudor'beathan?

This is a 'phew' moment, the rather pathetic contents of my Samurai bag, now, we've seen the archer a few times here I think, in mixed lots, of which one was painted, the others damaged, so it's nice to be reminded I had a good one, also 1990's and a little smaller as around 50mm.

The torso however, kept as a spare part 'in case' is just what I need for one we saw recently in a lot from Chris Smith (last image), who's sword was broken, but was otherwise OK, and with only the two poses in the set I believe, I've now got them both in good condition, an irony as I used to give them away to friend's kids when I was a small-scale collector!

Also much sought-after, and also NOT RARE, because also only the 1990's, the Wellingtonians probably benefit from a firm gluing at the waist and a decent paint job, like the knights they came in four colours, and can all be found in each colour I think, so you can swap legs for variety, but they are really clip-together (or 'pop-together') rather than swoppets, although (and unlike the knights) can have their heads swapped, which might produce other units/ranks, if you know you Nappy uniforms?

Flyer for them, again I remember getting these and giving them away in the early 1990's, made for Kinder by Res Plastics (RP) of Milan, I don't think they ever got a separate issue, but they may have done, and certainly some dealers in the past seem to have cleared unused stock, while I've mentioned the current daft-price knight, there are some reasonable Italian (and German) eBayers selling ex-Capsule toys, often in sets for sensible sums.

Arguably (along with the Egyptians), the finest figures of their type in Kinder's oeuvre, the yellow-tan ones seem harder to find, and being more 'swoppet', they can get changed around, so I'm not sure there's four different here, but you will be looking for four of each leg-pair, torso, loin cloth, shield, necklace and headdress to have all of them, and a flyer would help which I'm also short-of, although there will be a reference picture in the O-ei-A guides.

We saw these back at the start of the blog, so just a reminder and all marked RP for Res, I'm pretty sure everything in this post is by them, and the change from the rather crude stuff which was issued in the 1950's is obvious. You can see in the left-hand bag, these because a source of 'vintage' space helmets for unscrupulous dealers, looking to enhance older figures or the German/Spanish bubblegum figures, so are harder to find intact now.

Other swoppet types were made for Kinder, or supplied to them while having separate issues by the likes of CGGC (Cane-Grisoni; mostly vehicles/motorcycles), Giocattolo, Techno Giodi, Giopi (Wild West) and others, and I do have a few for another day, indeed we've seen one or two here in the past (ACW, Tarzan) but most of them are a lot more fiddly (Wild West and Samurai), and some of them (pirates) are also rather daft-looking!

F is for Follow-Up - Native American Zulus!

Well, it is the first day of Rack Toy Month and while I will try to keep up the current output, I have had a lazy week on emptying a house, so at some point I must concentrate more on real life and trying to find the deeds in a pile of paperwork which if stacked A4 would be over eight-feet tall!

While I was preparing the article we saw the other day (three posts down the page) Chris Smith was A) taking delivery of more figures (and a carded set!) and B) putting his thinking cap on, which resulted in a hypothesis I think has wings, and a quick trip into the attic this morning to see if I could add anything, which I could, but not much!

So, the smaller set of clones now have a 'set' set - if you know what I mean. Chris was worried about the title, but I think - within the context of the time - it's OK to see, I was worried, when he first mentioned it, that it might include the other n-word, I've seen children's annuals from the 1920's which contain appallingly racist stuff, so Negro Fighters is pretty tame for what was a rack-toy which may date back to the late 1950's?

It can be taken as offensive though, Wikipedia says - "In the English language, negro is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The term can be construed as offensive, inoffensive, or completely neutral, largely depending on the region or country where it is used. It has various equivalents in other languages of Europe." so is presented here within its historical context and for research purposes only, neither the author nor the contributor condone it's everyday use. In Spanish it is the word for black.

A close-up of the really quite charming artwork and a shot of the figures in situ; note we now see/have the crouching guy in the smaller set, which takes the pose count to seven for both sized sets or 22 to find for a one of each with the originals, still considerably more with plastic and paint variations.

But why are we also looking at two Native Americans (top left)? I'll let Chris tell it: "By now you will have spotted the two figures top left in [the] photo 1 and be wondering why they are included. I had had that Indian in brown a couple of times in mixed lots and always put him in with Wild West lots of early Hong Kong copies of British figures for resale. Then when I got the two black larger version warriors there was that Indian in black as well, on checking, the base mark is the same as the warriors and the paint for both the black and brown versions . . . So my theory is that this Indian pose was the 8^th pose, what do you think? Hard to prove until a bag/boxed set turns up."

I think he's right! And it was 'off to the attic' to see if I could find any as I had an idea I might have one somewhere? First stop was the Unknown Wild West Box 2, which is not supposed to have Britains' poses in it, but does if they are part of a mixed-origins set or 'lot'. I found two in a smallish sample, obviously I've only been collecting the larger scales for twelve or so years, but I still managed to find two (marked with asterisks).

However . . . neither quite fitted the bill! One is much smaller and unmarked the other has a faint 'made in Hong Kong' mark in a different font and a bunch of likewise -marked Wild West mates, so it was back to the drawing board - or attic! Note that both have their Britains feather-headdress reproduced.

Turning to a temporary box which got half-emptied in the course of this morning's antics as all the swoppet-copies were 'swapped-out' to a new box with only swoppets in! I managed to find one in a bag by himself!

This is he, and he's also from the larger Zulu type, going by the base mark, the point to note is that there is a definite attempt to created a more African style top-knot instead of the American's headdress, not quite the full quoit, but aiming there?

Chris's pair, one black, one brown, no matching Wild West, it all adds up to an eighth figure / ninth-pose in this range of originals and clones! And while he's right that it will take the finding of a set to confirm, its absence from the obvious set; the Past The Post set seen here, helps firm-up my own theory vis-à-vis that being the eventual/likely brand for the larger set of 'Zulus'.

Chris's are also both from the larger set, so two paces forward, one pace back, are we looking for the same figure in the smaller set and could it be the unmarked one from my unknowns (feathers say 'no'!) or will it, too, have the upper-surface base mark we looked at the other day?

Questions, questions!

While I had them all out I shot this chap, in the hope that flushed with these minor victories (and that carded smaller set which is a proper victory!), we might be able to find out something about this Britains 'Herald' Hong Kong copy. He has a separate knife unlike the donor, which is similar to but heavier than the Timpo knife and has something 'late Italian' about his production values, think Dulcop or all that Kinder/Giodi/CGGC stuff?

Five days later (6th August; early hours) . . . 

Literally sat there looking at me while I edited this and the previous post on the subject! He must have come-in with the other four additions, but not knowing Chris's theory, I'd sorted him out with the other Wild West and he was still waiting on the chest of drawers to go in the Wild West TBS box!
 

C is for Carpet Warrior Clones

A slightly bitty post this one, as I'd already got some images in the long queue when - as a continuation of the series of Jungle Explorer set's revelation posts a year or two ago, I think (?) - Chris Smith sent me his shots, only for me to take some more, lose the post, find it again, delete the duplications between the two lots and then - the other day - get some more in and take a separate shot which hung around for a few weeks as I couldn't find the folder again! In the end I found it didn't have African, Warriors, Lone Star, Jungle or even Tarzan in the title, but the rather obvious Zulus!

Anywhoos, it means this is a bit of a meander rather than a straight narrative, but I can sneak a separate Charbens shot it, so hopefully some of it will be of some interest to some readers!

We'll start with Chris's main shot as it is a comparison between some of the better clones and the Lone Star originals (which I haven't been able to locate (one reason the post was on hold in the 'long queue'), and may not have, although I thought I had them somewhere - maybe only the Cherilea 'Nubians'?); Lone Star black plastic, Hong Kong clones; brown. In Chris's words;

"Fairly common Hong Kong copies of the Lone Star natives, I happen to like them even though they are turd brown lumps of plastic!"

"I had a single black one then recently got a yellow/cream one so thought I would do a comparison shot it is then I noticed they are a slightly different mould, smaller with a squarish base and Hong Kong mark on the upper surface . While sorting out the best brown copy for the shot turns out I also had a brown one in this smaller size. Thing is all three of these smaller figures are the same pose, okay there maybe others out there but another possible diecast accessory or cracker gift? The black and brown ones are painted, the yellow one isn’t, both the black and yellow have one feather missing."

My sample a while ago now, and I have a few more of the black copies (no originals in this shot, they're all HK), some coloured ones which I think came from the legendary Barry Blood's sell-offs back in 2009/10, and which I also think are where Chris's cream/yellow one belongs, and another smaller black chap (bottom, yellow shield) who I used to suspect to be from a third source; he's not, he's a probably earlier version of the 'monochromatic' ones in bright colours. As you can see i think most poses will appear in all types - see caveat below!

I have had one Lone Star come in with a odd-lot recently and here he's compared to one of the brown ones in close-up, the larger brown- (and black-) plastic ones are the first generation copies I suspect, certainly they are the closest size-wise.

A base comparison; better one coming below.

Charbens only did the three Africans but they go quite well with the Lone Star set having the leg-feathers if not the head-quoits of their stable-mates.

I had a few more of the coloured ones come-in, enabling this better shot of them, I am suspecting the 7th pose (knobkerrie) wasn't copied over to this smaller set, as the Lone Star (8th pose) stomping 'chief' (channeling a bit of native American he is!) wasn't carried over to the larger clones? But, I stand to be corrected on both musings, neither Chris nor I have large enough samples to draw firm conclusions from either absence?

Lone Star originals, Black and brown larger copies and painted and unpainted smaller copies, I can't call the single sample black or brown, he's a dark, damp-looking khaki, while Chris has brown AND black, so they may have had several plastic-colour issues under the paint? It's also confusing that the throwing spear figure is a heavier/larger sculpt in both lines, while the waving spear pose is lighter/smaller in both!

Improved the contrast! Assuming the absences mentioned above are held over time, this gives us a target of 21 (8+7+6) figures to collect to have one of each physically different figure, but many more if plastic colour or paint variation is to be sought to the n^th degree!

Lone Star have a pretty standard mark, for them, the larger figures have a crude and roughly engineer's-stamped 'Hong Kong', most with a mould-release pin-mark, while the smaller figures as Chris pointed out above are marked on the upper surface of the base with a neater stamp; 'Hong Kong', as two small blocks.

Something else I would point out (against an eventual return to them, here at SSW) is that the base markings on both sets above tie them in with the similar Crescent/Lone Star Wild West copies and some Britains/Monogram/Timpo 'Khaki Infantry' clones, some of which we've already looked at here (Past The Post for instance) in the past, so we'll compare that way another day, in order to try separating some of these copies into potential manufacturer 'families'! Indeed I wouldn't be supprised to find some of the above figures (larger?) came from/in those long Past The Post boxes?

That's it, a bit of back and forward, but hopefully something of interest? I think I can say both Chris and I are rather enamoured of these funny little piracies!