S is for Seen Elsewhere - Sci-Fi Library (2) Kits, Movie Franchises and Movies

The other half of the Sci-Fi stuff I scanned a while back for elsewhere, and it's less about toys and more about research/information and some kit bits, I'll start with!

 

Mentioned when I showed the recent purchase of a late edit of his general list, this is Burn's Sci-Fi and Figures list, which as well as covering figures, also includes the odd dinosaur, monster, insect and bird kits etc . . . you see, off the back of little pamphlets like the original M.A.P./Military Modelling guide, Burn's and his co-respondents, did ALL the work, which sites like Scalemates took to the next level with their interactive member-pages and issue/brand timelines.

 

So when people bang on about a few dinosaurs and pretentiously add "Researched by . . . ", while adding a bunch of feeBay/Worthpoint images, understand it's just plagiarism! Pretending to do the work, actually done by other people thirty or forty years ago, while failing to credit them, is about as low as you can go . . . for a few clicks?

 

This is a Fine Scale Modeller 'special publication', which is really just a feast of exhibition-quality models, posed against realistic backgrounds or dioramas, and as such, is really another coffee-table book, but a rather nice one!

 

While this is a more general look at the smaller of the two 'big' enduring franchises, I've not got much invested in Star Trek, as there haven't been that many smaller-scale or solid figures in the pile of memorabilia issued over the years, but Playmates gave us small 'Action Fleet' types, there was that set I bought from Colin Penn at a Plastic Warrior show a few years ago, and the current (not in this book)  EMCE sets are still out there, so some stuff can be found in 'our' area of interest!

 

Then there's the other franchise . . .

 

This, minimally illustrated, is an encyclopaedic listing of everything known to hardcore-fans, from the release of the original movie, until the release of the final film in the second trilogy back in the 2005. After which, I think, due to first, the tsunami of new stuff and second, the coming of the Internet, updates became superfluous.

 

But Rebel Scum, the Internet fan-base, helped compile it, and it's THE list of pillow-cases, soaps, wallpapers, novelty lamps, and yes, toys and kits, from the early years of the Star Wars phenomena, though to, say, 2005 - nearly 30-years-worth of marketable tat, alphabetically listed, by manufacturer!

 

This only gets as far as the 1st/forth movie, and may be by the same Beckett? It's a tie-in with a then major Star Wars retailer, Beckett Hot Toys, and is arguably better illustrated than the previous, but more dated now by having the 1999 cut-off, in listed data.

These are really 'bestiaries' of one type or another, similar to the much more expensive, glossy, hard-backed, coffee-table 'technical manuals' which ran around the same time, but relying on mostly black-and-white line drawings. I use them to just find-out the names of things. Mostly from the first three 'classic' movies

 

While this is not one of the just-mentioned vintage technical manuals, but rather a more modern publication, best described as one section of the various Rebel Scum wiki's, in book form, and while it may be of use to you, I only bought it as a shelf-filler, because it was cheap, and can't remember it giving me anything useful, but that's in the context of me being the 'general reader' here, not a full Star Wars nerd!

 

While among the minor franchises, this is a useful tome, but then for collectors, Schiffier have never (? I stand to be corrected) produced a duff one, and I have maybe a dozen of their titles now? Like the Star Wars' ones above, this has non-toy stuff, and you find yourself remembering all sorts, as you flick through it!

 

While this pair are both bestiaries; the former using TV- and publicity-stills, the latter, more line-drawings, but helping to quickly identify two other franchise 'universes' I don't follow closely. There are several similar titles in the Tolkien 'zone', but that's never been with the toy books and wasn't shot with the rest, leave alone scanned with these! Add the Dungeons & Dragons guides, we saw while looking at the 'Gygax' stuff a while ago, and you've most of the monsters you could ever need!

 

While these two, are such useful research-tools I keep them with the collectables library, rather than the Sci-Fi/Fantasy library (where the Tolkien stuff is!), and do dip in them from time to time, especially when I can't remember the name of a movie or character which is on the tip of my tongue/in my peripheral thoughts!

There are lots of books like these, and I have more general ones, another on Westerns, and a very useful old film-library catalogue, from when clubs and societies could order films, in their 'cans', so show at schools, village halls or such-like.

 

We had a film-club at school, which anyone could attend, and I remember specifically seeing what were considered 'X' films, at the time, like Straw Dogs, the seminal Eastward movie The Beguiled, as well as fun stuff like Bugsy Malone and I think we had Once Upon a Time In the West? I think we had some Bond films too, I can't remember all of them, but we had two or three films per term, in the main hall, on a full-screen, this would have been 1977 - '80.

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Sci-Fi Library (1) Toys

I shot these for a Faceplant group, over a-year-and-a-half ago, and unlike the other shots in this occasional meander through my library, these were all cover-scans, taken at the time, rather than the more casual shots of the previous posts (see: Bibliography Tag), and most subsequent posts, which will take a year or two to get through at the current rate, with some duplication, because shooting them all was a bitty business, as they were recovered from the garage, reunited with the stuff in the house, added to on the hoof, and/or sent off to storage, in batches!

 

Beautifully illustrated with, yeap, a thousand images, actually more, and even more items, as there are a few multiple shots, however, the beautiful illustrations, a trope of all Taschen publications, is tempered by another trope of theirs, a 'coffee table' lack of text! It's really just a captioned guide to some of the loveliest Sci-Fi toys ever made.

 

And yes, I need both the figures on the cover! But they are likely to turn up in some mixed-lot from Adrian,  Chris, Peter, Gareth or Trevor (the guys who regularly save me this odd, ephemeral, unknown stuff), as they are likely to turn-up in a rummage tray, at a toy figure show!

 

 

In it's day a lovely book, albeit a cheap softback, it's now a bit dated, but still a useful reference work for quickly flicking through to find the robot you may be trying to identify, or to ID the robot a more generic toy might be based-on, so worth grabbing if you see it.

 

This is a lovely guide to what appears to be one man's collection, and from the given dates (1972-82), there's a suggestion other volumes may exist coving the 1950's or 1960's, but as I bought it for next-to-nothing as a remaindered import from one of the shops in the Charing Cross Road, or more likely, a vast, bare floorboarded, enterprise selling straight from the cartons, on the Wandsworth Road, or Lavender Hill (I can't remember, it was more than 30 years ago!), I've never known?

 

 

These two are less useful, being more in the style of the Taschen, but less well illustrated, and with a fair bit of duplication on the more common robots and spaceships from Horikawa, Masudaya, Yoshiya &etc. but the text is more useful, being as how, while both are also in the coffee-table style, they do have more author's input and narrative text.

 

Think 'Pulp', and this is the meisterwerk! But, it barely covers the tin-plate stuff in the five tomes above, concentrating more on the 'Western' pocket-money ranges of the 'Dime-Store' plastic-era's, bagged and carded toys, and the related peripherals such as board-games, home casting sets, hollow-casts and the like, with chapters on the books, magazines, comics and annuals . . . masks, helmets, costumes . . . cards and artwork, ray-guns, pin-ball machines and such like. But, the modern 'Bible' on plastics, with a very good chapter on Dr Who stuff, contributed-to by an old colleague of mine.

 

More of the same but with a wider remit and covering a bit of everything, it's quite a good primer, and worth having on the shelf, to try, if you can't find something in one of the others!

 

While this is a private, or semi-private publication, I think, very much in a recognisable US style of a certain kind of collectables book, I have quite a few of, now, cars, planes; usually a guy sharing his collection. And, in this case what he shares is quite thorough, but his collection parameters are quite tight, so it's very useful for what's in there - Colorforms, Matt Mason, Zeroids and a couple of others, but that's your lot!

 

While these three are, really, only 'shelf-fillers'! Some nice imagery, mostly borrowed from bricks-&-mortar auction-houses, who may or may not have a commercial interest in the title, post-publishing, beyond the name-checks?

 

But the contents of all three are common or popular stuff, aimed at the general or casual reader - the same-old-same-old, big name toys, few of us collectors have forgotten, or really need to re-learn about, and which now have whole sites, forums and wiki-pages dedicated to them, so/also, of limited use as research-tools and adding nothing to better works! The third is a more general title and could go elsewhere in these posts, but was included here for its connection with the TV-Movie related theme.

 

I still buy them, 'just in case' there's something new, interesting or useful, but usually when they are remaindered in The Works or similar, although, in recent years remaindered book stores have all but disappeared, indeed, on the high street it's The Works or nothing, but you can often find them on Amazon or evilBay for next to nothing, and grab them as shelf-fillers/box-tickers.

 

But PostScrip, the mail-order people, often have useful collectables books in their lists, especially the autumn lists, with all the coffee-table titles for Christmas presents! And there's Books2Door, which I haven't tried yet, have you; are they any use?

B is for Bibliography - 1 of 2

I've had a fair few books come-in over the last 18/24 months, and the folder was getting unmanageable, so I've split it into 3, arbitrarily, as photographed, not as they came in (like you care!), and will chuck them up here, as two posts on collectables books, and one on non-toy stuff! This is the first of those collectable's posts.

Back in the 'day', the Burn's guides were THE guides, rather eclipsed by the excellent Scalemates website, now. They provided a good guide to what had been around when, and this came in a few months ago, I have also got the Sci-Fi specific volume, which was a little earlier, this is one of the later 'whole' lists I think.

This was recent show plunder, and I only got it because someone else had left it on the guy's table, after being tempted! Anything New Cavendish is worth a punt, and this is both an authoritative and academic work, and also beautifully illustrated, and has a comprehensive listing of toys made by the iconic tin-plate manufacturer.

One of several general books on games and/or puzzles, but each always has the author's own favourites, or unique finds, so each has something to add, and between them, they have most of the odd lead-flat or microscale wood vehicles and things, I post from time to time, and one day I'll sit down and ID everything, and we'll have some roundups here of ships, cars, horse racers/riders &etc. It may, however, be a duplicate in the library, I'm getting familiarity-vibes, from the cover?

Bought for 'completion', a kids book really, a primer on what to collect, or sugegstions for collecting, but even a basic book will have something to give, especially if it includes fields outside your own interests. Language/jargon, tools, renovation or cleaning hints or techniques, from other hobbies/pastimes.

It's funny, you can be involved in collecting from an early age, and still be totally unaware of a book, which, when you subsequently research it, becomes clear is quite common and well-known - this is that book, for me, recently! I have a couple of the other 'Advertorial' books; 'The Hornby Book of Trains', which ran to several editions, and would, after the amalgamation, include Tri-Ang, but this had slid totally under the radar.

 

To be fair, none of them add much, being only 'chatty' illustrated catalogues, but they are nice coffee table eye-candy, and would have been popular dream-time, wish-list reading for kids, at the time.

Becoming slightly comedic now, but also very useful. Originally Chris Smith (who's Mum worked for Hawkin/Tobar) sent, first images, then a whole copy, to enhance/back-up stuff being blogged here at Small Scale World, after I'd shown a photo or scan, I couldn't remember where from, then I got confused about what I'd shown, when. Then, earlier last year, sorting the whole library, I found a couple more, one in with the books, one or two in the box-files . . . then these three came in from the Late Micheal Hyde's estate!

 

So, allowing for a duplicate or two, I should have five or six of these, from the early 1980's through to the 2000's, with the odd page in a couple of the general catalogues, giving a good overview of the 20-odd years the tin-plate ran for.

 

And it's clear this was a membership thing, a collector's club for a whole sub-branch of the hobby, with regular/annual issues of these catalogues, each of which has a mail-order form, and where all the ZZ/Rogazz, Shilling, Japanese imports and German/Russian reproductions all sit side by side with Chinese retro/fakes! But all accurately described, sometime s with a potted history of the origins of how the tools/stock was found, put into production, or reproduced, etc . . . 

 

Above are from 1983 (October), 1996 (Cristmas) and the Spring 1998 editions. 

Mentioned the other day, one of two or three issued in a rather fantastical sting/fraud which seem to have been set up over several years! There's an interesting reference to it here;

 

https://www.qualitydiecasttoys.com/articles/35 

 

and I quote "We even had Jeffrey Levitt (of Mint and Boxed infamy) calling in as he passed by on his way to Maidstone Prison. He was serving his time on weekdays but allowed home for the weekends. He did this for about a year, still trying to deal in toys whilst jailed for masterminding a massive fraud dealing in toys!" 

Another general book, or that's what it looks like, but this is co-authored by the parents of 'our own' James Opie, and they did more for the early research of all aspects of 'modern' Childhood, than anyone else, and - while better known for their work on playground/colloquial rhymes, fairy tales and children's song - they also covered the toys, and this has some very interesting chapters on play.

 

The social science of play and childhood is a fascinating field, with the well-meaning Jocasta's of Islington trying to raise 'gender-neutral' offspring, only to discover, on a walk in the woods, that the boys will pick up sticks and use them as guns or swords, the girls will pick up fir-cones and treat them as pets or babies!

 

And as a life-long Radio-4 fan, I've absorbed some of it, indeed, I dare say I've listened to one or other of the Opie parents' discussing it over the years, I've certainly caught James' brother being interviewed on consumer products, more than once!

I think this was an eBay grab, I can't honestly remember, it may have come from John B, and it's the commercial edition, of a book I may also have bought (without the shiny resin badge) as a self-publish/print-on-demand jobbie, from that there Wibbly Wobbly Way, a few years ago? It's a superb, single-subject work, with all the Reamsa rarities.

I was lucky to get this! It was earmarked for 'The Doctor', but he only wanted to check a couple of images on a specific page, then he left it, and I grabbed it with glee! Slightly deflated by realising there are several more volumes in the series! But it will help me ID stuff I know little about - French lead!

L is for Lovely Read

As a complete contrast to the recent disappointment of Toiati's magnum doorstepus, here's another personal journey through toy soldiers which is very readable and really quite charming.

My Toy Soldiers & Me

by Alejo Dorca

Truthfully it's more about war-gaming that the title or cover may suggest but as the author has spent the last ten or so years converting some of his armies from 25/28mm (which he happily lumps together with none of that tape-measure-nazi stuff you find elsewhere in the genre) to 65mm Geobra Playmobile, and has always also gamed in 54mm; it's actually pretty eclectic!

It also reminds me somewhat of 2006's Achtung Schweinehund!; Harry Pearson's memoir of war gaming, albeit without Mr. P's easy use of prose and humour, honed through years in journalism. But that doesn’t mean this book is humourless or bland, it's not, it's a delightful and erudite read, which can be accomplished in one sitting, or dipped into.

If I have one criticism, it's that it's not until you get to the end of it that you realise all the photo-captions are at the back! A second read is consequently much clearer, and you lose the only major criticism you were saving for reviews like this! I understand that an earlier edition was un-illustrated which explains the quirk slightly.

It's funny, you can easily write two-thousand words on a bad book, just pick a chapter and inspect it, but a good book doesn't leave you with the same wide arc-of-fire, so  . . . it's a good book, worth a read and I'd recommend it; I am recommending it!

It won't help you with research much, but you know those moments when you fancy a couple of hours of quiet-time, just you and a coffee, or something stronger, under the big lamp in the corner by the window, fire (or radiator) with a good read - this is one of the ones you will go back-to, for that read.

And it may have stuff to help newer war-gamers - my knowledge of the subject isn't good enough to be more definite - as there are basic and starter rules and a scenario or two among the anecdotes and tips on this and that, all delivered in a modest style - he keeps reminding the reader they don't have to take his advice, nor do as he does or not pay the slightest notice of his last thought!

A genuine little treasure this one and self-published; ISBN 13: 978-99920-3-112-4 it's on Amazonnow - My Toy Soldiers & Me, byAlejo Dorca, published in 2016, get it before it's gone, because I think it may well go!

T is for This is Really Sad . . .

. . . as I imagined when I bought it, that I would be able to give this book a glowing report/review here or on Amazon, from where I purchased it as a Christmas present to myself.

However, having dipped into it over the holiday, browsed it from cover-to-cover, reading all the picture captions as I went, looked-up a few specific 'test' things and carefully read the composition chapter (chp.11; Toy Soldiers March in Goose Step) in full, I am genuinely sad to report, that unless you are a hardcore library-builder/completist, you can save yourself forty-odd quid (+/- €50 or $60) by not buying this book.

Plastics' purists and war gamers can also keep their pocketbooks free of lightening by waiting for something more substantial in their chosen fields; Plastic Warrior magazine only gets a couple of mentions and is pluralised each time (warriors), so the author's obviously no aficionado of that publication?

It should be noted that some outlets are heavily discounting it already (I paid £26), possibly as a result of its initial reception, so there are bargains out there if you feel you must have it.

And the first thing I want to say is that I believe most of the problems with the work are down to poor translation, poor editing and no apparent proof-reading, so the bulk of the blame can be lain, solemnly, at the feet of the publisher, but some of it does, nevertheless, go back to the author.

The History of Toy Soldiers

by Luigi Toiati

After a series of forwards, prefaces and introductions (or - at least - one of each!) the book 'proper' starts around twelve-pages in, and immediately gets into difficulty with the definitions of 'Hunt' and 'Find' as applied to the acquisition of toy soldiers, the - quite laboured - point is repeated again further-on in the work, so it's clearly meant to be one of many theories espoused by the author, but I would argue the opposite meanings are the ones we work to.

The author suggests (pp. 5, 1st para.) you [we] find specifics and hunt for everything else; I would say that we understand the opposite; we hunt for the yellow-caparison, swoppet, mounted knight and find 'odd things' in rummage trays? Scientists find the properties of materials by accident, and hunt for the specific results that the found-properties say should be there.

Now, I know what you're thinking, having not read the work; Blimey Hugh, you're getting pretty bogged down in the semantic minutiae of a single paragraph, and so early-in, aren't you? Yeah - you all talk like that! But firstly it was going to be the only negative (to prove unbiased 'critique) in what I was still thinking would be a glowing review, and secondly, the same type of semantic rule-making or more general theorising is present, and problematical, throughout the work, so it became the 'sign of things to come'.

Likewise, the mention above of scientists is deliberate and due to the Authors use of his Sociology degree to try, throughout the work and through his various theories to read far more into the ["socio-semiotic" I kid you not] history of toy soldiers than is actually there.

Indeed, the use of heavily over-complicated prose (already highlighted by two other early purchasers as making the work 'difficult to read') is due in no small part to the author's attempts to over-intellectualise (in my opinion) the subject - ephemeral playthings.

While the switch from toy soldiers to space toys & action figures after 1977 might very-well be 'semiotic' (significant, sociologically) and worthy of further intellectual study, the differences between British and German toy production - decades before the invention of the 'global village' - is not.

On page 9 he over-justifies a couple of minor decisions on inclusion, namely of including Pharaohnic grave-goods while excluding the Chinese terracotta army as that would necessitate including sex-dolls! Simple; either exclude all grave-goods and start later, or include both, on the understanding you can ignore sex-dolls by simply not mentioning them . . . unless they are holding weapons!

But, to go through the whole book, would require a smaller book as the work is 600+ pages with ancillaries, so I will use the aforementioned chapter 11 (pp's. 321-368) as an example of the greater sins of the whole work.

We are immediately asked to accept some bullet-pointed 'facts', only the last of which is actually a fact (the others more or mere 'assumptions', but not flagged as such) and a fact which fails to include metal (still with us) in what was actually a three-way equation.

He then devotes two huge paragraphs (over two pages) to tying composition production tightly to the Nazi regime, but the fact is the companies already existed, making toy figures in composition, and while some of his later sociological points may well carry some water, to begin with they simply added the current uniforms of the day, as they were changed by the regime, purely for commercial reasons.

He over-eggs the porcelain-head thing and then fails to endear himself to the reader by describing today's anti-smoking drive as an "...irritating anti-cancer campaign" suggesting he'd prefer to see more cancer today? It's there (pp. 324), in black and white and should have been edited out.

The final paragraph on page 325 should have died before birth, the '...olins' are so named for oil of linseed (or linseed oil), not kaolin clay! The rest of the chapter (and the preceding four pages) are therefore written on at least one false premise; actually several once you've understood his theories on German Nazism and Italian Fascism, a semantic-wall he establishes early and sticks to throughout the book!

While kaolin is used in compositions, it's not the first or main ingredient in the camel-dung khaki mixture used by German and Belgian makers (Lineol, Elastolin, Marolin, Duralin, Dursolin et al) which was predominantly wood-flour (not sawdust - another error) and linseed oil.

A fundamental error carried through the whole chapter and which is only exacerbated when the author starts informing us some companies used crushed Linoleum ('lino') as an ingredient in their composition, Linoleum is itself a linseed oil-based composition and the idea you would make a cake by adding bits of broken cake-like ersatz-cake to your pure cake mix is - frankly - daft.

This is poor research convoluting two parallel or contiguous technologies, one in toys the other in soft-furnishings. Now, it may be that at some point a toy soldier manufacturer procured some unmixed or dry-mixed lino ingredients, but that's not what we're told by the author?

And this muddleheaded view of compositions continues over the page when we are told the mixture was porridge-like (it was probably more turgid or dough-like) and casein is introduced as a main component, again caseins are used in some compositions, but the makers being discussed used linseed oil as their mixer/binder.

In the same paragraph (pp. 326, 2nd para.) he also states that plaster was used instead of animal glue at one point, but plaster is a bulking agent (alternate to wood-powder (or kaolin clay)), animal glue is an alternative mixer/binder (to linseed oil (or casein!)), the two have different properties/jobs to do and couldn't substitute each other?

A very convoluted third paragraph on page 328 starts with Hitler and [nearly] ends with a list of Pfeiffer's relatives, then an orphan sentence claims "They then went back to the Czechs in 1946" but to whom - in the preceding list of seven makers - he's referring, is not even slightly clear and the publisher should have excised the line in editing.

The same paragraph - already half-a-page then turns to tin-plate AFV's and Gescha is typo'd as Gesha which is equally close to an registration-abbreviation found . . . err . . . on tin-plate vehicles! Only a typo, admittedly, but a bad one, really, and representative of the rest of the book.

Pages 332/333 delivers some more cod-theorising on Nazism, occupation and 'focus groups' which just doesn't stand-up to scrutiny. Civilians get almost their first mention in the chapter as a core of the theory (Nazi influence verses pre-or-post-Nazi influence) despite the whole chapter barely mentioning the varied output of civilian figures for model railways, or by model-railway makers. There's more on page-336 where we also get the Linoleum references!

On page 341 we get the following line "...some curious oversized 10cm wedding figures similar to those of a wedding cake," . . . err . . . because they are for wedding cakes, perhaps?

At which point - halfway through the chapter - I lost the will to carry on! I won't subject my loyal plastics' readers to many of my thoughts on the plastics section, but suffice to say, he quotes Garratt a lot (and others, throughout the work) and appears to have inherited Garratt's opinion of most plastics, lording Britains Herald's early work and Elastolin's late production and having little to say about the other hundreds of makers!

The chapter gets less of the cod-sociology (his lack of knowledge of the core subject of the chapter precluding social commentary or conclusions) thankfully, but it's really not worth reading even with that minor blessing.

For instance he accredits Hausser to production of WHW's (blaming Fontana) when we don't actually know, and they are - if anybody - more Siku-like, and so it goes on, that the penultimate major movement in toys soldiers (before the current 'New Metal') get only the one chapter is telling.

While the war-games section has a problem with captions for missing images attached to images for which the correct captions are missing - EDITOR!

Apart from the smoking comment and his constant attempts to separate and justify Italian 'Fascism' from German 'Nazism' while seeming reluctant to condemn the latter out of hand either (although he does), there are other moments of personal/political commentary which make some of my rants look tame'ish. Indeed; the amount of time the author spends (through the whole work) on that thirty-year Axis period out of a five-hundred-odd-year toy soldier history is itself concerning.

At one point he seems happy to tell us his father was active against Yugoslavian partisans, that is; he was helping the Nazi-colluding Chetnicks hunt-down Tito's resistance, carrying out reprisals and laying down the bad-blood which then burst forth again, at the turn of this century - I would have kept that to myself, or been less complacent with the fact!

In summery;

At 600+ pages, this work represents the equivalent of half a year's output from a prolific Blog, and several years output from a 'standard' Blog, and had it been issued as bite sized pieces, on a Blog, it would have been perfectly acceptable as a fine body of work, with some interesting theories to develop in the comments, and others; to ignore as nonsense, all for free.

But it's not a Blog, it's a book, it costs a fair-whack of one's dosh and needed to be a darn-sight better than it is. It's a very personal work and represents a massive undertaking, but it would have been better as a Blog; instead - written to deadline - it's sputtered under the weight of the text, not packed, but 'stuffed' into it, often incoherently and with no self-control.

He has over-intellectualised the book, tried too hard to cover everything, including facets of the hobby he clearly lacks knowledge of. Long, rambling, sometimes inaccurate, sometimes muddled paragraphs are the result. There is far too much reliance on borrowed images and quoting previous authors yet wanting that collated (and sometimes mixed) opinion to back-up the authors own socio-semiotic cod-theorising.

The work is episodic without obvious order beyond a vague chronology (and I mean vague!) yet neither does that episodic-nature encourage 'dipping-in'; because of the writing style. It can be/is repetitive and has been poorly translated, poorly edited and I can't believe it ever saw a proof-reader.

In the acknowledgements at least four individuals are named as having had a hand in editing this manuscript, I'm not sure any of them did their job or earned their money, maybe they didn't get paid? But 'Philip' should lose some sleep!

They should have dropped the composition, plastic's and war gaming chapters, edited until their eyes hurt, getting it down to 380-odd pages on the history of metal 'toy' soldiers, and it might have been useful to those collectors? Although the latest feedback on Amazon would suggest the metal sections suffer all the same faults?

But as it stands it's a curate's egg wrapped in a dog's dinner and wearing odd, often Nazi, socio-semiotic theory as a hat . . . a big dud.

Now - I know the guy, I recognised his picture, I think I used to chat to him at the London Toy Soldier Shows in Russell Square fifteen-odd years ago, he's a perfectly reasonable, nice, personable, intelligent, polite, knowledgeable man, and I hate that I've done such a hatchet-job on his book, but it's such a weird book (it is weird) people need to know that, before they buy it.

The 30-odd chapter-heading cartoons are funny and the 'Cameos' written by his friends are fine! But they are less than 25 pages out of 600?

S is for 'Special Publication' and Solido Belge

For various reasons, not least the passing of my father, I've got a bit behind with the old 'housekeeping' including both January's Toy Fair stuff and the fallout from Plastic Warrior's show in Twicker's back in May, it will all happen soon, although my mental-diary says a new PW mag' is due any day now? So that will be slipped, high, into the crowded queue!

However and having missed it at the show (where it sold-out, I believe?), I managed to pause briefly at PW Towers on my way back from the Smoke the other week, and picked up a copy of Daniel Lepers excellent little monograph of the 55/60mm output of Solido Belge.

When I say 'little', it's 27pp's and a back cover which is a wraparound short of the 32 pages of the quarterly mag', but, being dedicated to one maker; it's quite a fulsome overview. And when I say 'pause' It's a mile to the command-centre and a mile back to Woking station, which - knackered as I was - after a day in London, shows what efforts I'll go to, in order to deliver the news to those of you [Philistines] who still don't subscribe!

The news being; unless you are very specific in your collecting theme/s, you need this!

I have been picking these (the figures) up since the 2010 PW show, and thought I was doing quite well with a blue one and a yellow policeman and a couple of other interesting pieces to go with a handful of 'khaki infantry', but oh-boy! I still have a long way to go! However I now have a wonderful guide which will also play the part of checklist.

Solido - better known for their die-cast vehicle range, which tended to use Starlux figures where figures were needed or required, had previously produced these under the Solido Belge moniker, and there is stuff in this publication which was new to me, ceremonials, footballers even some Wild West (which I suspect we will hear more of in PW in the future?) and enough motorcycle variants to shake a big stick at!

I can't recommend Mr. Lepers' work strongly enough!

PW's contact details;

They're on the Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/PlasticWarrior?fref=ts

They're on the Blogger - http://plasticwarrioreditor.blogspot.co.uk/

eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com - mailto:pw.editor@ntlworld.com

Website'sback on the menu but won't be updated (eMail first) . . . www.plasticwarrior.com -

Tel: 01483 722 778

Address; 65 Walton Court, Woking, Surrey, GU21 5EE, UK

And they are on Paypal