A is for And so, to Reading!

While I'm playing catch-up with the big shows (after PW, there's another Sandown to cover), there have been other incomings, with both my own and Peter's car-booty to come, various new-production results of shopping trips, and this, a quick pop-over to the teeming metropolis of Reading in April, for the BMSS's annual show, where I found a tub of Circus awaiting me, courtesy of Adrian little, some interesting stuff on Steve Vicker's table, and a few other bits.

 

Another sample of wooden ceremonials, probably from Germany, but not necessarily, these things are pretty universal, and the red/blue of Danish guards is also the standard paint-job, a bit damaged, but that too, is par for the course, with wooden toys this small.

 

Another of the Dunbee-Combex era, Marx Disney figures in PVC.

The Britains Lilliput OO 'Trooscale' Centurion, compared with the Airfix 'readymade', bottom-right, a nice find and cheap because it has a few paint-chips, in the die-cast world things are either mint, and pricey, or gash! It's clean-enough for me.

 

On Steve's table were a bunch of Athena ceremonials, and I grabbed one of each, three sentry/guard duty types and eight bandsmen, there was a 14th but he was damaged, and the cymbalist only has one cymbal, but as a catch-up sample, they'll do!

 

A - probably commercial - BR Moulding behind, and a chap in front I don't entirely know, he looks familiar, in a sort of Cherilea fashion, but is too small for them, can't be either of the Charbens ones (oval or round bases), so Hilco from hollow-cast? He's soft 'ethylene, against the BR's hard 'styrene.

 

East German at the front? Reamsa reissue of a Mountie, probably from Marksmen, Gulliver copy of Atlantic's Apache hunter, a Poplar-Tudor Rose (green) and Crescent hollow-cast copy in yellow at the back.

 

The hard plastic chap in white is a ceremonial from the Principality of Monaco I think, but probably a French-made figure (there was a plastic maker in Monaco, but they made Britains and Crescent copies!), while the other two are Spanish, Reamsa 1st version, I think.

 

Some unpainted Britains Deetail ACW, also on Steve's table, someone recently posted the bugler, in similar nakedness on the Friends who like Plastic Warrior Faceplant group, you do find them from time to time, usually old out-painters stock, filtering their way to market as sheds and cupboards are sorted-out!

 

While Adrian's tub of Circus (his third in two years) was very useful, none of the rarer mouldings, but something more useful, confirmation!

 

The third image is sadly fuzzy, and I only realised when I edited this, last night, so there’s no time to reshoot it, but a very useful sample for showing three tool-cavities, with long, thin left foot (shorter figure), rounder foot and short foot, and with the bases being one Maysun, one 'Hong Hong' and one blank, confirms that most of these Crescent copies are the same Marty-Maysun--M Toy production,

 

For years, I've kept these in two or three lots, due to obvious differences, especially among the standing-tub markings of the Elephant and the Lion's box. But getting these three together, the same quality, plastic colour and paint, means they can all be unified now, and I can thin them out, to a better 'overall' sample.

 

One Crescent original among them, the right-hand elephant, with the beach-balls in two colours, a very useful addition to the whole sample.

 

While a couple of Corgi's Cinderella Coach horses w=also work for circus animals, the jockey is a Hong Kong copy of Britains jumper, and the Charbens clown has been repainted! Many thanks to Adrian for the freebies!

F is for Fanciful Fellows!

Bit of a box-ticker, literally as it's the contents of the Charbens & odds ancients tub! I don't have many, but have managed to find most types (I've just realised I think there's a blue Hong Kong copy missing?) and all the poses.

My two originals, paint's a bit thin on the ground these days, but then the ground is shiny polymer which never held paint well, and although some early Charbens were chalky for the reason of pain adhesion, this set was a late addition to the range and didn't get a chalky iteration.

Unpainted/home painted, they may be from one of those home-paint sets, I don't know, but it would make sense? Flesh plastic and another two poses, you may have noticed they are all fighting over the wild strawberries . . . in their scale; the size of watermelons!

He's just helping himself with an axe swing! They were sold as Romans, but everything about them screams Greek, and a rather fanciful, pre-Classical era, Trojan War/mythical Greece at that!

This one is unpainted hard polystyrene, and may be a Prindus (Prison Industries) figure who avoided the painting phase in his hurry to find giant strawberries?

Duplicates from the recent/current form of re-issue, a dense, rigid polymer in a neutral grey. You may have also noticed the kilts are a bit short? The greaves look a lot like pantomime booties as well, so there's a quite theatrical look to them, but they have plenty of charm, and might work as Etruscans against true Romans?

Because there's a bit of room in their tub, they get the odd's which are - from the left; an Athena Greek . . . Greek tourist figure, not that rare, but finding the spears intact (polystyrene) is always a bonus.

Then a chess-set pawn, who's a bit more Roman. I think you can still find these in various finishes on Amazon, as whole (and not cheap) chess-sets, in metal or plastic, but these older ones are often to be found in rummage trays at shows, and while not a copy, his shield seems to have been influenced by one of the Marx 60mm set. Finally a modern Greek from Conte Collectibles, I think.

This guy's also in the same tub, a bit bigger than the others around 60-65mm (I didn't check at the time!) and from the liberal quantities of gold and silver paint; probably Argentinian! The fish-plate or scalloped armour has me thinking of Poseidon, was he from a set of gods? Also quite Ray Harryhausen'esque!

F is for Five Do Follow-ups

Tying-up a few loose-ends from posts recent or not so recent, with the help of various contributors, bit of an eclectic line-up, but that's very much the nature of the Blog! I'll do them in the order they've come it, most recent first.

Theo van der Weerden sent this last week as a follow-up to the previous week's post on ceremonials, four more of Athena's models of Greece's finest in their finery! The two on the right are the same as two we looked at the other day, but the two on the left are both colourways of another uniform type, and also show two of the other plug-in arms these figures come with, being the standard bearer and 'sword downwards' arms.

The sword might be meant to be held against the waist/thigh, but their definitely had their hands through the hilt, so it may be more significant? While - having handled many more of these than I have got - I know the flag-staff is very thin polystyrene, and you don't often find it in this condition . . . it's also the spear issued to Athena's ancient Greek warriors.

Ha-ha! A few weeks after I'd Blogged the weird composition hedgehog in Chris Smith's donation parcel, look what I found on a shelf in the legendary Peter Evans' abode, and which he kindly let me photograph - a whole family of them!

Peter did tell me what they were, but I immediately forgot and had to Google them . . . trying 'Belgium' and 'Holland TV Hedgehog' with little luck I broadened my reach and found this;

https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=951

https://housefulofhedgehogs.typepad.com/houseful_of_hedgehogs/2009/07/mecki-micki-macki-mucki.html

So that's them then! Mecki (and Macki, Micky amd Mucki) the hedgehog[s] . . . Brilliant!

These came in a while back, the Coke-Cola/Fanta premiums (sadly still no springbok) but with the remains of paint, heavily worn, they were clearly much-played with and I initially assumed they were home-painted, but given the un-Coke-marked ones have started to turn-up in other colours and more modern plastics, it's obvious the tools have had a good life, and I offer them here as a maybe factory-painted issue, maybe home-painted curiosity?

Around the same time and while I wasn't Blogging; Chris Smith had also found the hunter that goes with the Hong Kong African's he (Chris) had already helped with, back in the Spring.

Because I had already got the show-reports done (with my similar find), these got put to one side, but I shot the bases to show the smoothness and the translucence of the brown figures, where not enough pigment has been added to the neutral granules (cost cutting), rendering them 'smoky' in the thinner sections.

Finally Brian B sent the figure on the left ages ago and I didn't add it to the recent post on them, as that was plunder . . .  while the old feebleBay image on the right shows what might be the same set but which is I suspect a 5th generation copy (compare the dickey-bow) of Brian's 4th, against the 2nd/3rd generations we saw last time (larger hats), of Fontanini's originals. Although with both Peltro and Kinder (among others) also copying them, whose generation of copy is which generation, is a moot point!

Many-thanks to Brian, Chris, Peter and Theo for the input.

N is for No Spanish Horses!

But more odds-&- sods of a ceremonial or 'on-parade' nature, indeed the first quartet started life a week or so ago in the same tub as two of the mounted reamsa's and the Argentine Lifeguard look-a-like, so may also be from the collection of Barry 'the legend' Blood, from that 2010 sell-off?

These being they! Two Danish guards from Reisler, in the everyday uniform, the red is the ceremonial, the black for day-in/day-out wear. To their left are two Mignalu plastic Monaco police (Carabineers de Monaco) in their summer dress uniform (they also have a dark version for winter), these are taken from a short experiment by Minot (CGB, not Barry) in Aluminium production back in the 1950's.

My three Athena's, I couldn't begin to explain anything else about them as there seem to be so many variations; red and blue, white and blue, kilts, bloused trousers, pom-poms - large, small and no, single or double 'deputy dog' ears, 'wing-boards' . . . and I must conclude that every regiment has its own uniform, or that several guards have summer and winter versions, there is an excellent book or two on them by Markos Plytos and they should make it clearer, in the meantime - my three are a good mix!

The first four were going to be with the Cavalry, before they expanded and I decided they must go seperately as a 'foot ceremonials' post, off to find the Evzones above, I checked Brian B's folders and found this 80'mil-odd chap, who's from Processed Plastic (thanks to Kent's site)'s US Air Force set.

Which in turn reminded me I had this chap (on the left) in with the unknown navy (or navy-like) figures, looking at him anew I suspect he's actually a chauffeur or doorman from a 1:35th scale car kit - Monogram, MPC/AMT-Ertl, Pyro or Revell? He's in hard polystyrene plastic anyway and someone's tried to glue him down by melting his base!

He - in turn - reminded me there was the other black plastic figure hanging around, seen on the right; he's soft polyethylene and I know nothing about him, I thought he must be Marx or MPC but doesn't seem to be either, has some features in common with the Remco Romans, but is lacking the fine detail seen on their shields, he's close to Marx's 60mm naval cadet marching, but of poorer quality and without the shoulder flap on the Marx figure's greatcoat, and, if it wasn't for the base, you might mistake him for an early experiment by Pater Cole's Replicants!

Anyone know, he seems to be a modern re-issue so I guess somewhere someone has a bucket-full of 'um? To be honest he looks like a neighbouring dictator's guard from the Trigan Empire and seems to be carrying an Elephant Brontosaurus-gun! The gun actually looks to be damaged at the tip, but inspection under a magnifying-glass suggests it's all there? Steam-punk Nazi!??!

ABC, Hong Kong rip-off's of Britains hollow-cast marching troops, they look better en-masse than they do individually!

A mix of French troops marching, seen recently here, but again looking better as a group, and also HK copies, this time cloned from Starlux.

A Salvation Army chap I shot on Adrian's stand years ago and which has been sat in Picasa ever since! I may actually have one myself, but either a different pose or a different flag, and I'm not sure where I put it? He's aluminium and Wend-Al.

A scaler on the left, while on the right - they are all ensconced in their new tub! the HK stuff (ABC/Starlux-copies) have their own tubs!

The cavalry grew to fill two tubs, Reamsa and 'others', and the foot got one of their own. The red plastic Reisler's (which we've seen; Blog passim) will stay with the British guards for now, but as this sample grows and fills a deeper tub, they may migrate across (with the correct paperwork - no illegal's here!), while you can see the lovely RHA chap Chris Smith sent the blog a while back has joined them.

Because PVC can melt polystyrene, the three Greeks and the artilleryman get PE bags, which prevents that kind of damage occurring and provides padding for all the figures in the tub.

S is for Sentry-Box Ticking!

Not the greatest sample I'm sure, compared to some of your collections, but I've only been fagged with this large-scale malarkey for ten years, and larger items - like 'large-ticket items' - tend to be a lower priority! But, and as with totem-poles, I do grab them if they're going cheap, others have come-in in mixed lots, while a core of British designs were in the big purchase.

The two main British makers have both had a stab, Timpo (right) went with one tool, manufacturing in two colours and then gluing opposite-colour pieces to each other for a choice of two, otherwise identical boxes!

Britains (left) had three, the Herald one in the middle we'll return to in a second, there was a larger one in the later years (which is a near-copy of their (or T&B's (?)) earlier hollow/slush-cast one I think?) and the semi-flat or relief 'stage scenery' one from late Herald [Hong Kong]'s windowed, long-box sets.

Returning to the earlier Herald version; it gave rise to a family of near-identical, but different boxes, with here from the left; Herald, Kentoy, Cavendish, and two unknown's either of which may (or may not) be Trojan, UNA or VP, or even Speedwell . . . or someone else entirely?

Rather than try to explain all the differences, it's easier to present them as a table for those whose levels of geekiness equal mine to pore-over and compare with the above images!

I will waffle over the marks though! (1) is obviously the Herald design, (2) is the Kentoys version, which - frankly - is the [slightly] better design, it's a tad 'cleaner', more symmetrical and better etched than the Herald version. (3) is the Cavendish version, it's clearly had an attempt at removing the 'KENTOY' first line, although it remains readable if you do that 'turning-it in the light' thing!

I think (4) is the one credited to UNA in the Plastic Warrior 'special' of 2009, it's also seen in grey (as a copy) in the Kentoys special of the same year; it has a heavier gable/roof edge? Trojan don't have one listed (so far!), neither do VP (yet), but then there is (5) waiting for an ascribing too!

Also; given the similarities between the Herald and Kentoy ones, might Gemodels' Musgrave be in there somewhere, I had presumed Norman Tooth for both similar designs? Although there's no larger ex-Herald one in the new Speedwell 'special' (post due . . . overdue!), one has to consider them for the unknown '5' above along with the other possible 'names'?

I seem to have crammed the rest into one collage, but that's how the cookie crumbled, so that's how it is and what we have to work with!

Image A has the 'foreigners', with Афина (Athena) from Greece at 1, and Reisler's equally common Danish box at 2, both have been sold as tourist keepsakes for decades and are just as common as Britains' examples. 3 is from Hong Kong and must be from larger playsets? The Riesler has an incorrect flag, actually taken from a Guards musician!

Image B shows - on the right (2) what I'm pretty sure is Crescent's wooden one which ran alongside their figures through both the hollow-cast and plastic years, but I have a half-an-inkling the heavy steel 'tin-plate' one is Crescent too? But I stand to be corrected by someone who does know! Chris Smith is to be thanked for sending the wooden one to the Blog the other day.

Image C is not that clear, I used to think they were die-cast (and probably Wardie/Mastermodels; they're quite small?), but they may be a hardish whitemetal ('lead') slush-cast, which would open the field of possible makers considerably?

Image D has the diminutive Speedwell box on the right and an unknown wooden giant (also from Chris Smith - thanks again Chris) on the left, the chevron stripes are a bit 'Euro' looking and I suspect a reasonably modern, probably infant's wooden castle or building-blocks type set?

All of them in size-order with the two 'middle' ends duplicated and the addition of the little Airfix one from the Guards Colour Party on the far end of the last line-up. The Athena one should have a sentry glued to it - like the Reisler one

Favorite? I quite like the little may-not-be-Mastermodels may-not-be-diecsat, I'm 'pleased' with the Speedwell from the big purchase, but I don't think you can beat the octagonal Reisler with its pointy, fairy-tale roof and Royal-cipher transfer if you are thinking of starting a collection of these.

Now, it was the arrival of the two wooden-ones from Chris that pre-empted this post, the two (now three) tubs had been here for some time waiting for a post's photo-shoot, but also waiting to have the sentry-boxes here sorted into them, which may not have happened? I can't remember!

It doesn't really matter, but there may be a creamy- or dirty-white version of the yellow Hong Kong one somewhere, and possibly a Starlux one (another common one for tourism reasons) although we have seen the small-scale version here at Small Scale World in the past. Also missing is the Hong Kong [and/for] Cavendish one, with its plinth, but that's also been on the Blog, recently!

I have another small-scale lead one somewhere, which featured with a penguin and some Danish Guards years ago, possibly on HäT as a long-gone Imagshack-upload, but I'm not sure where they've ended-up . . . they're here somewhere; along with a flat one.

There are plenty of cheapie-kahki types from rack-toy playsets, but they are another thing altogether, there's a few small-scale card ones kicking around in the 'paper' crate I think and I used to have the mail-away with 'stars' 1:12th Action Man one, which differed in design from the retail one, both were heavy, mounting-card.

Also Fujimi, Hasegawa and Nitto produced small ones with check-point kits as did Airfix in 1:32, in fact I think I have one somewhere? I seem to recall a bag of grey polystyrene bits (no bridge?) came in at some point - possibly from Jim?

So, we'll have to return to them sooner rather than later! In the meantime, thanks to Chris for triggering this post.