O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! AFV's

So, the other half of the 'Army Men' post (which was going to be one post, but I couldn't face all that typing in one hit!), their transport, and it's an eclectic mix with a few interesting bits in it!

 

I know, but it was a Jeep! It was a Hugonnet card! It's otherwise the same rack-toy shite churned-out by Hong Kong, but a worthy addition to the collection, and confirms loose figures I've got somewhere! Starlux piracies!

 

These were from Isaac, who's surname I've never caught, but he'd saved them for me (along with the Wild West swoppet bags and some other stuff), and they were a real revelation, as when I got them home I found they were confirming one of the possible combinations suggested by me in this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2015/09/p-is-for-pick.html

  

With the 'Long Tom' on the odd coastal-artillery type platform, as well as getting the 'Speedwell' tank, with/in the same card/bag, so a very useful addition to the collection Something I would have been even more excited about, back when I was a small-scale only collector, and new things were getting thin on the ground! Now I've seen the all-scale polymer mountain to climb, I'm a little more jaded, but these are much appreciated.

 

The CTS (now BMC) Sherman Tank, apparently a bit smaller than the rarer Airfix one, and in a hard'ish ethylene or propylene, I didn't get this from Matt, who I now know WAS Matt!, But either from Steve Weston or somebody near him? On one level it's a gap-filler/box-ticker, but on another level, also a nice model, and it looks the part, which is important with Shermans, get one major dimension, angle or curve wrong and they can instantly look very odd, or daft!

 

They need a clean, but for reasons you don't need to be bored with, cleaning's out at the moment. Also, we've seen them before, they are pretty common, but belong to a family of rack-toy stuff, including the Jeep-trailer/gun combo's we’ve also seen here,with and without plug-in crew, and with two or even three new colours, they are adding to the story, if we ever tease the full story out!

 

And the comments on Sherman's were specific, because this gets a lot wrong! Can't remember of this was a purchase or a contribution, but it's the sort of thing you see on eBay, and think "Even if I get it for 99p, it's not worth the postage!", but it was a box that needed ticking, and it has its own rack-toy charm!

 

Also, a generic, over-branded to Woolbro, and it has a telescopic barrel, to keep the box as small as possible, while the turret on the box art is even whackier than the turret in the box!
 

Thanks especially to Issack, but also 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, who I have forgotten to add.

101/30 is for Airfix US Paratrooper Clones

Had the dithering desperadoes over at shitestuff (see this-morning's post) managed any sort of cursory search for some Hing Fat stories with real merit, they might have placed a feather in their cap with this, as it seems to be the missing set of Airfix US Para-clones, I having only managed to ID the two types; from Henbrandt (and others, I think Hans Postler (HP) might have handled them too) and Artform Industrial.

Most of the images on Hing Fat's web-site (which is so poorly maintained it shows different results depending upon which page you're on, so a folders-within-folders/leftover's thing going on there), show what are clearly the un-attributed copies on the Airfix page (I will re-use this collage over there).

However, it's now not so clear which set is which re. these and the Henbrandt-carried ones and I will have to pore-over all these crappy images to decide; it's alright looking at them together, you can see one lot are slightly smaller (or larger depending on which lot you finger first!), but deciding which is which from dodgy catalogue promotional's and evilBay images is less easy.

However we have some clues to work with, we know - for instance - that the pirates have at least two sets of base-marks not including the better originals (with extra poses, almost certainly not Hing Fat), we know that there are at least five versions of the astronauts, some of which (the better ones) probably aren't Hing Fat . . . so, with effort, it will all become clear.

And I think I have a better image of Billy V's set from Hing Fat, but a further complication is a fourth type and new colours have both turned-up, so the Airfix update may be a week or two yet.

To further muddy the waters, Hing Fat appear to have a second set of very good versions!

I think these are actually the Airfix (CTS or TSHQ/Present Past?) figures, shot by Hing Fat for - falsified - publicity purposes, the join-lines, base dimensions  and the flat edges to the bases all seem to match the Airfix originals, the bases are more typically Airfix than Hing Fat, and no figures of this quality have turned-up in rack-toys sets, Hing Fat-marked, or generic!

Returning to one of the collaged pictures and a point made earlier today, the minimum you could order would appear to be 288 sets, not many people can drop orders like that and you'd probably have to order far more than that,  the first few times to become a trusted-enough customer to then purchase single cartons, this stuff has to go in a shipping container and travel half-way round the world; they won't go to that effort for an order which has a cost price of less than, what? 200-quid?

Someone like the Toysaurus could order multiple container's worth and have one sent to the UK, one to Aus' and the others to the States, where they can be broken-down and road-or-rail transported to distribution hubs and stores. But they would order these, or astronauts, Pirates or Wild West, as would Jaru, Imex et al, not rugby footballers, or - sadly - Terracotta Army?

L is for Land of the Rising Sun

There will be a slightly thematic style to a lot of the posting in the foreseeable future as I have to grab whatever is to hand when I visit the storage unit, find somewhere quiet to photograph it and throw it up here. Case in point is this post, I thought I had some Britains Detail Japanese for some posts to appear above in the next day or two, but I don't, however with my fledgling large scale collection being still small it is stored thematically (with exceptions - Speedwell for instance) rather than the alphabetical by make of the small scale, it was not until I'd dug the Jap box out and brought it here that I realised I didn't have any Britains.

Anyway; as the 54/70mm stuff seem to be closest to the storage unit doors, there'll be more like this to come, and as a starter here's the Japanese - I have picked-up in three years of sporadic purchases - as enemy for the post above, when it appears!

Better start with the British production, as stated; the Detail are yet to be collected (despite a false memory that I'd found some!!) and the exception that proves the rule is my one Speedwell Jap, who is not it the Japanese WWII box but rather the Kentoys/Speedwell/Trojan box!

At top - in this shot is an incomplete set of Minimodels works-painted Japs, the missing bayonets are mostly painted over the 'join' suggesting miss-molding in the factory, but one or two have broken-off. The set was later sold unpainted by Almark on the sprue in the same green plastic.

Bottom is one each of the Airfix 1:32 set, which needs to go on the Airfix blog/page, but I'll re-take photo's for that job when I get round to doing that set there. Above are four Hong Kong/China copies of which the right hand two are piracies of the standing firing Airfix pose.

The one on the left I'm really pleased to have found, a friend picked one up a few years ago and I liked it then although I wasn't collecting the large scales then, so was happy to later find him myself - he reminds me of the Atlantic 'Sendai' sniper! The one in the middle is a 'CHINA' marked copy of the Chinese Hing Fat's take on Japanese troops, they are also not here being in with the Blue-box/Rado/Ri-Toys 45/50mm ones which I will have to make a mental note to try and cover another day.

These all seem to be the Spanish firm of Jecsan, I thought some (the UN helmeted troops) might be Comansi and had titled the image to that effect but a frantic search of the Spanish blogs in the early hours reveals that they are all Jecsan.

The two with chunky bases are early production Japanese Infantry, the officer is from the River Kwai set I think (plastic colour?) The others are late production repainted as UN forces to take advantage of the interest in the conflict in the Congo in the late 1960's-early 1970's, and I think the waving guy may actually have been a US soldier originally.

The Americans, having such a great role in the defeat of Japan, made quite a few, and some of the best, top in this collage of vintage makes are Marx, a mix of old figures and re-issues in various colours, with the very similar MPC set below them. The MPC figures are slightly gangly, but still quite animated.

Below them are three Lido figure with what is best described as 'Toy Soldier Charm', I like these and the similar German set because of their crudeness rather than in spite of it!

The US has been responsible for more Japs in recent years and here are samples of two of them; BMC above and CTS below, sadly not very compatible with each other (one lot being closer to 60 mil and quite chunky, the other 54mm and of more oriental slightness), but in a rug-war joining with all the above; they just add to the display as they should...they're toys!

While writing this I've reminded myself that Atlantic are also absent, I might have one or two in a mixed large-size Atlantic tub somewhere, but already having the small ones, Atlantic are a low collecting priority for me in the larger sizes.