B is for Big Box of Bounty - Ancient, Medieval, Historical & Ceremonial

Another interesting assortment of figures from Chris Smith's latest parcel, and it's all the other 'Toy Soldier' periods. I keep meaning to do a post on the classification of these things, as it's never an exact science, do you put Huns with ancient, or medieval periods, what about Aztecs, or Ninja/Samurai, when are ceremonials also soldiers (1850's say), or further afield; the whole sorting of civilians, is a nightmare!

 

So, I'll put the Asians first! The Budda votive statuette is a nice piece of scenery for HO/OO type figures, it can even be an objective for your ANZAC's on the war games table! The large figure is actually marked Marx, with the full Hong Kong disc-mark, and is from a set of tea premiums.

 

The guy carrying the straw bundles is from a Hong Kong rack toy called 'Villagers', which we have looked at here, and another of the Kinder Samurai archers, this one complete, will get the base off one of the damaged/painted ones, in my determination to have one of each, in all three (?) colours!

 

Three Ninja's, two from Hasbro, one painted, one in a clear, blue polymer, and the other, smaller one in the middle, from the Panosh set of Lucky Bag giveaways, and other sources? I have tried finding the Hasbro's, but with little success, and suspect they aren't actually Ninja or Samurai, but from something else entirely, Star Wars semi-deforms? Anyone know?

 

Two Crong medieval horses, sans riders, and there's a post in the queue on developments there, courtesy of a Loyal Reader, a Kinder musketeer, Hong Kong copy of Britain's Robin Hood, probably sold as a cake decoration, colours tie-in with things like the Britains arctic explorer piracies, and a contender for 'best in box'. A Hong Kong clone of the MPC small scale medieval knights, and one of the little Blue Box 'Hidden Adventures' castle figures.

 

The little blob in front, is the jester-puppet, from the tip of a jester's wand, as there are very few such figures in the entire canon of toy figures, I guess it must be Starlux, Mokarex or Café Storm? As they often break-off, it may prove to be a very useful spare, one day?

 

Two lead chaps who've lost their armies, on the right looks like he's probably Minifigs, the one on the left looks to be 'a cut above', and might be someone like Stadden or Suren? But I may just be being over-enamoured of his helmet! Equally, he has an interesting detail in the tin-can sword-fist thing, is he a known character from history?

 

Giant-like but no Giant, the reason I didn't attach two of the towers to the wall ends, is because the wall is from a different issuer and the locating studs don't match up with the holes in the towers! We looked at the different types here (https://butisitgiant.blogspot.com/2021/08/golden-trojans-non-giant-gold-plastic.html), but I didn't think to measure the holes/studs; next Time!

 

Three Euro-chaps, the one on the left, I think, is by the maker located in Monaco, and is a Crescent knock-off, the other two probably premiums, and possibly in JC Peiffret's book on the subject - Les Figurines Publicitaires.

 

The Imperial Guardsman has a furry plume, caused by the fraying of a layer of plastic, which cooled quicker than the core (cold tool?), and has lifted and frayed! I could probably restore it with a pass though a lighter flame, but think I'll leave it as it is, as a fortuity?

 

In a similar vein, these plug-ins are part of a series of similar French and Italian types, from the better known Texas, through to several premium issues, each with different bases, but many figures in common, one day I'll cover them properly, but I haven't the time to try and tie-down these, or the previous ones, right now!

 

A lovely Napoleon, possibly made of casein, and a real treat, as I know Chris has a sub-collection of such things, so this must be a duplicate he's kindly sent us, it did feature here in a question-time, and I think Chris is still looking for a formal ID on the figure.

 

The larger figure I think we've seen before and is a . . . no, it's gone, I'm sure he's been ID'd here, or had his ID told to me, by someone, at some point, but it's escaped me now! I thought he might be Tringa, but he's not in my flyer?

 

The big one is almost certainly missing a sand-timer, off the right-hand spigot, and utilises a Deetail figure, unusual as it's more often seen with Hong Kong Herald figures, but he's meant to be in there, he has a large hole in his posterior for the plastic spigot seen in the second image, which is pushed through from the back of the chalkware sentry-box.

 

To the left, one of the sucker blokes, he's in a bit of a state, but rather a sample, than no sample! The little chap looks like he was made yesterday, and is polystyrene, so he may be, as he's absolutely mint, possibly an accessory for a tourist die-cast vehicle set which has avoided me, or is he a doll's house toy, as in from the playroom of a doll's house? A lovely little chap in any event, but ID needed!

 

Uncivil war, with a marked ABC figure fighting slavery, and a small lead figure (Hinchliffe?) fighting the Norman landed-class for a smidgen of democracy - they went a bit over the top on protestant dourness though, they sort of banned Christmas for several years!

Crescent conversion OBE, and a figure which could be home-made, or one of those 'Oojah-Cum-Pivvy' figures imported by Shamus Wade from India, between them is what I believe is an ocean-washed, sand-ground, or smoothed, Deetail Arab horse rider!

 

Many thanks again to Chris, some interesting stuff here, and still at least three posts to come. 

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Historical & Ceremonial

This post gets off to a good start, with the third boxed set I got from Adrian, and then goes downhill! No, I'm joking, there are several interesting bits here, but originality of text for the opening blurb-o-graph of repeat posts, like these, is not always obvious, to an amateur author!

 

It would be lazy to assume that these too, are Torgano, like the two Western sets in the previous post of this series, they are A) thinner flats, altogether less robust, B) they have thin, oblong bases, C) decoration is, if anything more leery than the previously-seen, already pretty-colourful samples D) the generic gift-wrap 'foil' covering on the box, is nothing like the set-specific artwork of those other sets E) they are slightly smaller, and F) the subject-matter is altogether more fanciful!

 

Definitely Italians though! Shades of Captain Nemo?

 

Also shades of Captain Video with the American-football/1930's tank-crew helmets!

 

Three figures duplicated, in different colours, everything else is a one-off, and there’s a lot going on, paratroopers, artillery, flying-boat, early rubber boat, spacey guys, a Tom of Finland sailor (everyone loves a sailor!), yacht, battleship and a sinking (?) liner, this set would have been a fantastic exercise of the imagination muscles! And there's a man fighting a giant octopus!

 

The Noris Ivanhoe game has similar unpainted flats, however Torgano's own mini's (space and 'dolls') do have oblong bases, while people like Tibadabo and Co-Ma must have started somewhere? What were PRB or Sam doing in the 1950's? I have the two earlier Italian toy soldier books, and a couple of maker specific things, but I don't have the most recent one, are they in there, can anyone give us a branding on these? 

 

American Civil War, a right old mix here, with 'China' copies of Hong Kong 'solid' clones of Timpo Swoppets, actual Swoppet clones, enough Blue Box for a skirmish and a Waddington's game-playing piece - all grist to the mill!

 

Back to Italy and a nice sample of the Nardi Union/US Cavalry types, you look at these and wonder if they didn't borrow one of Cherilea's sculptors! But their charm is the stronger for the dancing-loon look!

 

The Confederate sample is smaller and lacking more hats, as well as 'kerchiefs and heads, which explains the outcome of that war! Lack of logistical support and fighting men!

 

Ceremonial assortment here, with one of the just mentioned (BMSS post) Monaco guards, sans plug-on base, a broken metal figure, three HK copies of lone Star, a trio of Sacul musicians, four Café Storme Imperials, a Hong Kong highlander, and two Hilco, who rather confirm the Band-Major in that previous BMSS post! And a sucker-guard!

 

Three pirates, too early for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, these are the Fontanini smallest version, but in an usual colour of plastic, and polyethylene, rather than the PVC resin of my other samples?

 

More Café Storm.

 

Two early British-made Arabs, I can't remember who's these are (BMS?), we have looked at them all previously, in dribs and drabs, and I intend to do them all together one day, when they are all in one place!

 

Two probably Fraser & Glass, and one early Herald - polystyrene horses.

 

From the left, a kit figure, Pyro or Revell maybe, another of the growing sample of Spanish terracotta caricature figurines, a French (?) Santon, and a very French-looking sailor, from the novelty stacking sets, we've seen clowns and policemen here, and there are US versions of the same stacking figures.

 

There’s more on this in a follow-up, but here sold as Walco Products Inc., a similar outfit to Grandmother Stover's or SSCO, dealing with both craft items, novelty tat, and cake decoration stuff!

 

Small-scale bits bring the post to a close, with a few Risk board-game pieces and three of my favourite Christmas Cracker prize guardsmen!

 

And again; thanks are due to - Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, I've forgotten to add! Many thanks.

H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop, November

To be honest, while sorting all these out I couldn't remember when or where I'd got these, but I remembered picking the four Timpo 'Action Pack' Arabs out of a bin of mostly shite, and with all the shots dated together, they must have been a charity-shop round-up, I didn't shoot the bags of?

 

They came with a medium-sized Supreme/SP horse, I think it was 20p each or something, so I just grabbed a quid's-worth, I know I have the Timpo Arabs somewhere, but it's a mixed tub of painted, Action Pack and later re-issues in beige, by Marlborough or Dorset, but I thought it would be nice to tick the box here with a matching set of the mauve ones, whether I already have them all, or not!

 

I suspect a mix of Kinder, Phidal and someone else here, all grist to the mill, and it'll all come out in the wash! God knows what's happening with the Pirate parrot, or the chaps either side of him, anyone recognise any of them? The pink t-Shirt is probably a 'Shopkin' or similar blind-bag, pocket-money collectable.

 

This guy was with the above, beyond the fact that he's some sort of robo-alien, in around 45/50mm, with a very, very big sword, I have nothing else!??

 

While these are Phidal, we've seen the two on the left, before, but the greenish-guy with the claw is new to me, however, a few have come in, not from the sets I've tracked down, so I know I'm missing a a few figures from some of the early Superhero issues.

M is for More Airfix Updates

I seem to be half-and-half Rack Toys and Airfix Blog housekeeping this week! I've added a few bits to the Farm, RAF Personel, Arabs and WWI French, with smaller tweaks to the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood and Combat Group pages, Hong Kong stuff, conversions & OBE's, some AHM catalogue images and/or box scans.

Farm Stock

RAF Personel

'Bedouin' Arabs

WWI French

B is for Best Show on Earth! 5. Historical & Ceremonial

Some of the best pieces from the show ended-up in this category, allowing for the fact that one Rocco lifeguard (Part 4) has escaped this post, along with the Trojan same and Airfix figures which were all in Part 2.

Arguably the nicest thing I got at the show, probably Japanese, but it could be French, and a celluloid-acetate, blow-mould construction, it needs a good clean, and it needs some renovation; the spear is in two parts and the long Arab jezzail musket is broken across the handgrip, while both are also bent in places - my father had two of these guns, a lovely tooled silver/steel one and a mahogany one with ivory detailing, they have, sadly, both disappeared!

 

But an absolutely exquisite piece, with much thought gone into is execution, and a nice paint-job under the dirt, and a beautiful animal; albeit with hollow legs! Cotton thread is used for the reins and camel-furniture and the musket's sling and, well, I bloody love it!

 

At some point I will carefully take it apart - where possible; musket and rider - clean it, straighten and mend the two weapons and put it all back together again . . . like one of the King's men!*

* Except I didn't swear allegiance at the TV, like some mawkishly sentimental, cap-doffing dullard of a sycophantic, fuckwitted serf, so I guess, legally, I don't have a King?

 

Pirate game playing-pieces as a sort of add-on module, I may lose the packaging at some point in the future, but not until I've scanned it on the table-top jobbie. They look like the figures from the game I found a few years ago in The Works, and while that was Musketeers, they'd all go well together, and may share a sculptor . . . on the continent?

 

As you can see, the same flowing, fine detail, overblown drapery almost, with this set having two ladies, although I'm pretty sure 'lady-pirate' is an oxymoron! The third one is not clear, due to his vast beard and mitre-hat, but I think he's a skeleton to boot, so some kind of Pirates of the Caribbean knock-off?
 

Another highlight of the show has to be these Timpo Cossacks, I had intended to try and find these on the day, and got them in the first hour or so, the seller also had the mounted in similar condition, but by then I'd already got the Britain's teepee under my belt, and felt that I'd had enough greed for one day!

 

But these are very clean, they're all basically mint bar the barrel's missing fuse, and two are in a cream white rather that snow white, which by be 'smokers home' or just a different paint, it's not clear?

My other Replicants purchase on the day was a bit of catch-up, the Naval Gun was issued a while ago, but I'm still missing a far bit of early stuff, so I'm trying to pick them all up slowly! The two pirates are original MPC, who can have the spare weapons from the reissue runner in blue plastic I got last year . . . the year before?

 

Also loving the pair on either end of this collage. Probably Argentinian, as is the one behind the British guardsman, the bag is full of bits from two renditions of Airfix's 'Connoisseur' range 54mm Hussar, which came in separate donation, they go in the 'bits zone'! I think the Guardsman is Cherilea, but might be Hilco, I can't check right now!?

 

More Guardsmen, including a novelty Erzgebirge-style tree-hanger, but as likely Chinese-made as German these days! The two 50mm's are Hong Kong piracies of Crescent, and I was totally unaware of them until Chris Smith pointed them out, by which time most had gone I think, but I grabbed the last two, and a post will be forthcoming, courtesy of Chris.

Others are a standard Hong Kong copy of Lone Star, Hilco (I think some call them Fusiliers) and a Sacul trumpeter. Two small scale, one from Christmas crackers, one from the 'Maid Marion' rack-toy set and a rubber swoppet with the wrong base!

Atlantic Gendarmerie band, remains of factory paint points to one of the early window-boxes, but they are tatty and I have the HO sets in various boxing's, so it was just a box-ticking exercise to fill a gap in the collection, and to compare with the others one day! One of each pose!

 

Kinder odds and sods! One-and-eight-ninths of Kinder Zulu's, a Kinder pirate in need of a paint-strip, bits of a Kinder samurai, legs off one from the other Samurai line and a spare ancient/medieval horse!

 

Real mixed lot as the rump of this section, I think I may have the Starlux Napoleon already, it's odd, I had the 1:72nd sculpt from the odd eastern 'character' set in various colours for years, and no other narcissistic corporals, but in the last few years lots have come in, and I have somewhere between eight and, maybe fifteen or more? I haven't been counting, and everything from 30mm PVC to 8-inch ceramics, through metal!

Character figure is from Linde I think, but it's unmarked, so may be another issuer! And I know I have all the variants of the little Hong Kong AWI gun, in both sizes, so I may try to remove the plating on this one's barrel and paint-it up. lead wargame figure and a spare head, join two early British (BMS?) FFL officers and a pair of LB cavemen to finish off.

Thanks to all for everything last month; Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little and Andreas Dittmann.

E is for the Elephants in the Room!

This is a fun post, mostly new to hobby, Blog and Internet - except eBay, where they all came from! Credeco, a new name to me a year-and-a-half ago when I bought the first of these (a couple were on another blog years ago), and while these have mostly been posted elsewhere in dribs and drabs over the last year, the article folder has been on the desktop for most of it, slowly being added to!

Where we 're up to now were up-to when this post had 12 images! Although there are more to find, a strange mix of wholly original sculpts of some ingenuity or imagination, and crude cut-n-shut copies of Britains Trojan warriors, from this lesser Spanish make, in the bazaar/rack-toy style.

This was the first one in the bag, he came with two other non-Credeco lots, and the seller (Miguel Angel) included a freebie (some Italian swoppet Wild West figures)! How could I not buy a War Elephant I'd never seen before!

Following up the seller's other lots while leaving feedback for the first three purchases lead to two more! One has a hole in it and I wondered if someone had cut the rider out, but I've seen another one others, which are the same (and now have a second, see below), with a rider in a different colour, so they may seem to have had single-moulding and two-part lines?

Equally, I'm not sure if this was factory paint or home paint, but I wasn't convinced as to the latter, so deciding on the former, shot the hell out of it (in case) before sending it to the bleach vats for an overnight snooze. Either way it's not good painting.

Overnight snooze in the bleach vat!

Gives me a unit of 35mm Carthaginians! They're not terribly realistic, obviously, but no worse that certain Cherilea output I could mention - and often have! They are, after all, proper 'toy' soldiers first, and I imagine if not actual sobres, as least kiosko! The red soldier may be missing a spear-tip, standard or sun-shade of some kind? Also they fit quite well with the Rojas e Malaret board-game war elephant.

By now I was on a roll, or a quest, found the mounted ones I'd remembered elsewhere, and managed to grab these two with the blue one in the final image, obviously taken from Britains Trojans, one is just near copy ('Ulysses', right) with a head swap, but the other ('Ajax') has had his broadsword replaced with a rather crude spear.

The Ulysses knock-off has a hole in his shield which seems deliberate, but has no apparent function and may be something like a broken mould release-pin that somehow got stuck or fired into the figure?

'Paris', Troy! The archer gets the biggest makeover, losing his bow, arrow and quiver in favour of a sword and dagger, which rather leaves him looking like an over acting character hamming-it-up in a pantomime!

The final purchase (for now then) was these three, it was the Roman on a camel I'd remembered (or found in the archive folder for Creadeco, which is the same thing; that's the whole point of the archive!), 'Hector' loses his javelin in favour of an axe, and a wood-axe at that! He also gets a head swap, while 'Achillies' now has Hector's head and a move of his sword-arm, both have been given new hoplon shields.

The mounted figure is the best (and I love the elephants), and why not, the Roman empire had a vast desert boarder in North Africa/the Middle East, camels are recorded as coming west with Darius and/or Xerxes, so whether Roman or Greek (Carthaginian or Trojan) why not have him on a camel, especially as his protagonist is an Arab! He's half Britains 'Agamemnon', and half the Marx cut-and-shut with came out of Hong Kong courtesy of Giant and others!

Yeah, I seem to have taken and awful lot of shots of them for some reason! Checking the old Trojan post here I wonder if these aren't actually copies of the 'believed to be' French bazzaar rack-toys, some of which are in that post?

The above has been ready for publication for some weeks (some months for the early drafts), but I took delivery of what will be it for a while, the other day so we plow-on, although no 'family photo' as the rest seem to have gone to storage!

This is another of the elephants with the hole, and you can see how a little diminutive figure is just stuffed in the hole like a cheap Hong Kong turret crewman! I think the silver on this is factory-paint, and having stripped the other, will probably leave this one as it is?

A couple of close-up's really taken to help me see if he was 'meant' and yes, that's all tool-machined marks round the feet, not a figure taken from a base. The trouble is, with my eyesight these days he could be mistaken for a damaged figure, and while it wouldn't stop me keeping him as a sample/example if I found him, I bet a lot of loose ones have been chucked-out as being [or; appearing to be] both damaged and odd-scale.

The horse is a ringer, taken off of a wagon team, so I still need another camel, but the figure is lovely! Tumanbay eat your heart out, my General Qulan rides again!

A few recent sellers on Todocollection, I think the archer may be an Atlantic roman stuffed in the hole? Evidence, so far, seems to point to four slightly different elephants, being two pairs of similar variations of the same sculpts, the one providing two with separate crew (head-spike and no head-spike), the other two with integral crew (sword & shield and sword & spear/parasol/standard?), and all possibly being variations of an original master, with leg and trunk changes?

Finally, not Creadeco - this guy was bought with the two red ones, as I figured he might go with them, but he's a lot taller and was obviously a copy of something else - he looked familiar? He was neither the Elastolin or Reamsa pointing chaps (which I thought of first) the former's holding a scroll in the left hand, the latter is pointing the other way!

In the end he turned-out to be a copy of the Jecsan Centurion! He also looks slightly effete, like he can hardly be bothered to point anywhere with any seriousness! "You! Soldiers! Err . . . go over there and do . . . something useful, but don't trouble me again"

Creadeco Punic Wars - box nicely ticked I think!