F is for Follow-up - C is for Carrier Convoy!

Well, computer problems seem ongoing; “Unexpected black-screen in the new laptop area”! Hotmail is kicking-off with a data limit they made no previous mention of and which seems connected to my rejecting and uninstalling of 'Teams', '365' and other online/cloud stuff, which will be another battle. A quick notification of a change in the terms and conditions actual or implied with some penalty charges usually results in a change of corporate mind!

But, suffice to say the mojo is well off-track and the Blog is probably the last/least of my worries. However I have cobbled this together, although it's mostly appeared briefly elsewhere in the last month or two - easier to post minimal text stuff on a Faceplant group!

I had the luck to receive 'first dibs' on this from a mate the other week, we have seen the TAT Bren-gun carrier before, but now I have one with box, which is nice! And it's a clean one with the RAF-roundel sticker still in place.

Just a quick reminder of the light-tank version which turned-up under EM branding and which we also looked at last time;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/07/c-is-for-cool-colonial-carriers.html

In the meantime I had grabbed this in passing, larger and the later 'Universal Carrier' mark with full amour-plate down both sides, it is a Marx battery-operated toy with more similarities to the Timpo or Dinky 'boxes', both in size and - with the former - unrealistic wheel arrangement!

 

The Marx Hong Kong mark, I haven't seen the packaging, but presumably it was a late addition to the B/O Patton Tank which ran for years under Marx and other brand-marks, and as various copies.

 

Various views; the battery has actually been disabled and the gear-box removed, allowing full carpet-wheel, hand-action! It doesn't seem to have had a Bren-gun, but I'm pretty sure I have a spare of the Bren which clips to the frame of the old Britains long-wheel-base Land Rover, which will fit nicely on the lip of this carrier's firing -hole?

 

And then, my life was forced to accept an on-going theme situation, when this came in last week, a French composition Renault UE Chenilette carrier, although when I say 'composition' it seems to be a bisque like china/porcelain.

 

Above are before and after cleaning . . .

 

. . . which from the yellowish shade of brown was a few decades of Gitanes or Gauloises!

 

I use clean, cold water and wipes, with a gentle action on something like this, no rubbing or scrubbing. And no, I haven't been buying plastic-shafted Q-tips for several years, but there are a few kicking about and I happened upon some the other day; so thought I'd better get them off to landfill before someone else flushed them illegally - well; you never know!

Maker is unknown, but could be Domage et Cie (who became Aludo (aluminium) or Acedo (plastic)), or SFJB who are known for Bisque items includeing dolls heads? But Elie Tarroux is also known as an issuer of 'general figures and novelties' in composition, from around 1900 to the 1930's (A connection with Starlux is fleshed out in the Thomas/Guillot books); could he/they have survived the war and knocked this out with its Free French flag?

 

Boysie-Boy has no interest in this junk, unlike his late mother, but is looking very pleased with himself for having baggsied my fleece-jacket in the seconds it took to fetch the camera! While I'm very pleased to have picked this up.

 

All three recent additions, off to search for fanatical Hitler-Youth stragglers in the Tory Front Bench! First you demonize them as migrants, when most are subsequently found to be genuine asylum seekers, or refugees, then you call them names (“illegalls”, when they aren't, until they've been found to be, which over 70% aren't), then you switch to calling them “Boats” rather than people, then you deport them (or those who haven't drowned) without judicial process . . . sounds like fascism to me? Go Gary Liniker!

Returning to the TAT's as a final point, I remembered this post, which has a whole TAT gunner who can replace the broken one which I seem to recall one of my (three now I think?) Bren-gun carriers has.

C is for Composition Civilian Contribution

You may recall from previous posts on them that I have a bit of a soft-spot for these craft-oriented plaster (today's examples) or terracotta (previously seen) figures from India (which, after 43-years of 'Free Market' Tory policy which "will provide" has just overtaken us in the wealthy country register! Go Brwreakshit!), and these from Brian Berke are a particularly nice example.

I can't add much to the pictures, but they are all annotated on the base, probably by the owner rather than the maker, as they are a tad confusing, I will go through them, two at a time, as much for fun as anything else!

Starting from the left we have a chap described as a clerk, on the base he is further marked Momarir, which seems to have no meaning, Clerk is Kalaraka in Punjabi, Kērāni in Bangla, Kārakuna in Gujarati or Marathi, Klerk in Hindu or Lipikaru in Sinhalese, yet Google wouldn't suggest it as a personal name either? It (momarir) is however 'Architects' in Arabic?

The figure next to him is described as a water-carrier, with Pan-Harin or Pan-Harim in brackets, both of which claim to be Indonesian (under 'detect language') but with no further translation of meaning, pan-harim with an 'm' further claims Turkish as it's mother-tongue! However, water, oil or gee is clearly being carried!

The third from the left is described as a begger-woman (Binka-Rin?), but looks more like a musician or entertainer of some kind, she seems to be holding a form of drum or percussive instrument? Also while plainly-dressed,  her shawl is egde-decorated, qite colourfully ad her undershiry is a bright red, so hardly giving-off an aura of destitution?

The chap in scarlet is annotated as Peon (Chipras-si?), which comes up as a Marathi word, but again no translation and Google's desperate to make it Alexis Tsipras of the current Greek opposition party!

A peon is a lowly peasant in South America, but this guy is dressed as a minor prince from one of the semi-autonomous states, or a palace flunky / senior member of the native-recruited civil or military service in his Delhi Durbar finery - with all that scarlet and gold?

The last two are straightforward and make perfect sense; she is described as Queen (Rani) and a Queen is a Rani in Hindi, while the last chap is titled Washer Man (Dhobi), and you should all be familiar with dhobi wallahs being the laundry staff of the British in India (and elsewhere once the word was assimilated and carried throughout the Empire by the Army) via 1970's comedies, if nothing else, along with punka-wallahs who operated the big sheet-fans!

The fact that the last two are correctly titled/identified and the few other clues suggest to me they might be the cast-name characters in a post-colonial, Indian-written play of the 1950's or '60's which was popular enough at the time to produce a set or two of plaster figurines, but not lasting enough to leave a footprint on Google sixty or seventy years later?

Lovely figures, and from the bases (different design and plaster colour), two part sets? Scaler looks to be a Britains' hollow-cast from set 2095 French foreign Legion. Can anyone shed more light on the various names/titles? Many thanks to Brian - top feed for Small Scale World!

L is for Leader[s] of India

No branding on this as there often wasn't with these terracotta imports, but having only recently watched Gandhi for the umpteenth time it's amazing how easy it is to recognise some of the characters from these crude castings, although castings isn't really the right word, they are hand-sculpts, if placed side-by-side with a duplicate set you'd find each is slightly different, slightly unique.

Box is in the Britains or 'British' toy soldier style, red-paper, laminate/covering but with only small labels on the ends rather than the expansive full-lid labels of Britains and Britain's own!

The funny thing is the printers decorative blocks, which on the Sanskrit label are all neat with all the trefoils facing out; three at each end, but on the English language label, there are four at one end, pushing the long-line down the label and leaving a right buggers-muddle at the other end - an apprentice typesetters' Friday effort?!

The leaders, I suspect at least one is missing but I don't know which one; it's just that a nine-count is an odd number (obviously Hugh!)  and more so with the space still available in the box - you know what I mean.  The set is a mix of pre-Independence leaders 'of the people' (Indian National Congress, Muslim League and minority representatives) and post-Independence Prime Ministers.

The following list is not necessarily correct, nor accurate in name-spelling (or thumbnail-biog's!) and stands to be corrected, but it's the best I can come up with at short-notice, with help both from my mother - who was there (grandfather had a role to play) - and the few illustrations in Alex Von Tunzelmann's Indian Summer and Leonard Mosley's The Last Days of the British Raj.

1 - Indira Gandhi - 3rd Prime Minister of India, Nehru's daughter

2 - Liaquat Ali Khan - Muslim League

3 - Vallabhbhai Patel - Parsee Leader/Representative

4 - Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru (née Gandhi) - 1st Prime Minister [Rashtrapati] of India

5 - Mohandas Karamchand 'Mahatma' Gandhi

6 - Surup 'Nan' Nehru [née Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit], wife of Pandit Nehru, carrying a young Indira Gandhi

7 - Lala Lajpat Rai - Punjabi Author

8 - Abdur Rab Nishtar - Dallit Spokesman (Bengali?)

9 - [Mohammed] Ali 'Jin' Jinnah - Muslim League and First Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam or 'great leader'

Missing but possibly/likely candidates for one of the figurines [missing or] above are;

* - Lal Bahadur Shastri - 2nd Prime Minister of India

* - Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, Mountbatten's replacement as Governor General (Britain's representative) and a possible/likely for 3

* - Madeleine Slade (the Mahatma's English follower) could be a possibility for 6, but it seems her role was enhanced in the movie, over her importance to the historical narrative, especially in the context of an Indian made set of 'leader' figures, produced decades after the events depicted in the movie

* - K R Kripalani was involved in the talks with British Government at which most of the above were also present?

* - Baldev Singh - spokesman for the Sikh community, pencilled-in as an alternative for 7, he would have had a beard though

* - Sheikh Abdulla - Chief negotiator for the Kashmir and other possible for 7

Also I'm not happy about 2, the glasses are right, but I can't find a picture of him in that kind of costume?

2-7 in close-up, construction is similar to my charity-shop musicians (seen here a couple of years back) with a basic wire-armature holding the low-temperature fired, hand-made, clay model together, painting is mostly matt, either poster-paint or emulsion of some kind and the green bases are given a 'posh' glazed-plinth look with a dip in ink - which has also provided for the footwear!

I assume - due to the hand-made/hand-finished nature of these figures, that there would be a team working on them with each worker producing many like-examples of the figure they have practised-on or perfected? And . . . while they are crude and - it's fair to say - very stylised, they are nonetheless recognisable and that's a clever trick, that's actually art.

From left to right; 1, 8 and 9 similarly closed-up on, with a study of the base underside; there are no obvious markings on any base. Jinnah's height and mean-look has been captured very well, as has Indira's appearance and the angry flick of white through the black hair over her brow which I remember from childhood news footage.

G is for the Game of Kings

And cack-handed, Aspergic, fuckwits! I've never really been any good at Chess, you'd think with a high IQ in the visio-spatial that I'd ace it, but I always end up with a brilliant plan in my head going forward about three moves, trouble being A) My opponent never makes the moves I was counting on them making for my master-plan to come-off, B) my master-plan usually involves my having incorrectly identified at least one of my players as belonging to my opponent or vise-versa, C) while I am trying to jig my master-plan to account for either my opponent's failure to follow it properly or the realisation that my lynch-pin castle is actually my opponent's queen, he/she nicks MY queen - which is really unfair as it means playing for a stalemate is off, and all I have to look forward to is a 'bit of a walk outside the tent chaps'!

However, I do love chess sets, especially when they are more figural in execution . . .

. . . like this one.

This is my Christmas present - which is why I've obscured the price! I grabbed it when I was told about it and someone else is wrapping it, but only after I'd shot the pictures necessary to show it to you!

This shot was taken where it sat on display in the little antiquity/craft place while I asked them to hold it for a couple of days while I rounded up some funding, and at first glance I thought I was probably buying an Indian chess set, aimed at modern tourists in the same terracotta we've seen here before, with 'Black' being Thai/Siamese or Burmese troops, White: Indian or Tibetan/Nepalese types?

The pack-animal Knights looked a bit odd, but who knows what they've got in the Himalayas or jungles of Burma which David Attenborough hasn't got round to showing us yet, huh? And you never look at something the first time you see it in the same way you do when you settle down at your desk for a second (proper) look; many a twinge of 'buyers-remorse' is down to a glance and incorrect conclusion.

The 'Thai/Burmese' side, or are they the Indians fighting a Chinese white-force? Well, it turns-out they are none of the above, they are in fact Amerindians! And speaking of Chess conventions - as I will in a minute down the page - this is the correct way to photograph a chess set - King to the left, Pawn to the right and if it's a more standard set like a Staunton, you'd add a Pawn or King from the other side at one end of the row.

As we'll see in a minute, once I'd got the set home and looked at it properly in was obvious that White are actually Conquistadores and these chaps . . . well? Probably Peruvian . . . or Columbian maybe? I think the pack animals rule out Mexico, while to the south of the Amazon-basin dress is different, with warmer, layered-clothing and felt or woolly-hats.

The thing is, I don't mind they're not from India (or that part of the world) as I have the figures we've previously looked at (a lovely set coming here soon!), but I have had no South American composition; now I have, so a bit of a bargain!

The clincher was the White set, which while looking Asian at first glance, especially against the other set, are actually, clearly Europeans of the Columbian invasion era. I'd mistaken Spanish helmets for Sikh turbans or Nepalese side-hats!

Both sets are presumable thumb-pressed into loose half-moulds, married-together and then turned-out to dry, possibly with a low-temperature firing to speed things along. [There is a page in preparation which explains why this type of clay is 'composition' rather than 'ceramic', but it's proved problematical, been re-written twice and was passed around the experts for proof-reading nearly a year ago to little effect!]

The figures have then been hand-painted, and glazed with a dip in what appears to be pigmented yacht-varnish . . . 'army-painter' before Armypainter!

There is a strong and obvious overtone of Christendom to White, reinforcing the history behind the two sides in this set, not the Bishops but both King and Queen being adorned with large crosses (I also missed in my initial perusal), with the Black side equally obviously being representative of pre-Colombian Amerindians.

White's Knights are henceforth to be known as 'My Little Surprised Pony', while Black's will be 'My Little Andean Not-a-pony', whether it's a lama, alpaca or other, similarly-configured woolly ruminant from that continent (there's several) is anyone's guess. You can also see how the two halves are squished-together and roughly flattened-off before being tipped-out of the moulds.

My use of Black and White has no racial undertones whatsoever, despite the ethnicity of the pieces, it is simply Chess convention to call the paler side 'White' and the darker side 'Black' in cases of polychrome sets - where you [occasionally] get those beautiful stained-ivory sets (ironically; from India!) in green and red, I believe the convention is always Red = black and Green = white, but - obviously - with African soapstone and carved-wood sets, black is black and the red/oxblood is white!

Note also, that while Black's Bishops and Pawns are different designs, the grotty-old euro-pirates get a scale-down OF the Bishop AS a Pawn! And everyone looks as surprised as White's Knights, except the Andean Not-a-pony's who look very sly and not less than a little evil!

Lined-up and ready to go, playing with polychrome sets is even more of a nightmare for me as it's too easy to misplace ones pieces, especially with this set where I'd be losing some Pawns mentally, out of the corner of my eye, as fast as I lost others physically to my opponent!

However another miss-assumption was the age of the set, I thought when I first saw them that they were modern; like yesterday, but studying the - minor - damage/ageing to the board I suspect it's more of a 1960/70's thing?

I shot the hell out of it because it'll be three months before I see it again! If there's one criticism of the set, it's that Black's castles are a cop-out - European outline,  medieval turret-towers; they could have been steeply-stepped pyramids, or something more colloquial, or at least recognisably Amerindian.

PS - A quick Google while uploading this post reveals they are quite common, definitely from Peru and while the designs differ, the theme remains the same - Inca vs. Spanish. There's one with a lovely red/orange board offset by 45º's as a diamond/lozenge and others have round boards or more ornate ones with feet - look for the photograph of a stall loaded with them!

Q is for Quack, Quack-quack...Quack-quack-quack!

I call Ducks Quack-quacks, so this little lot had to be 'Q', only taken into the collection today, I was going to cop-out with something quadrupedal! I found them in a local charity shop (Shelter, if you're wondering), no price and I can't tell you what they cost as they had whatever was in my pocket as shrapnel, over four quid, because the shopkeeper counted the four and threw the rest in the counter tub for another charity!

The lot included a porcelain goose which might be Wade but is a bit small, and too well painted (for Wade) and a resin chick for a tit-bird (non-native so I can't give more, like a colourful long-tailed or grey-tit!) both of which have gone in the TBS (to be sorted) box, where they will be joined by these as soon as this is up. But I'd like to ID these if anyone has a clue.

All ducks, the large one (top right) is terracotta, hollow (slip-cast?) and not so needful for putting a name to, but the others aught to be identifiable, and are within the scope of the collection, being a clay or composition duck (bottom left) and a set (or part-set) of dark brown or black plastic ducks, not much bigger than 1:32, and usable with Britains farm figures.

I say part-set with a question mark as there are three pairs as far as mouldings go and two singles, I suspect there should be ten - 5 pairs. I thought they might be Marx, but they are unmarked, I'm assuming Hong Kong, and the sort of thing Marx would have sourced over there and sold on a card as an adult collectable for cabinets or mantle-shelves. Google is no help, nor is STS on this one, so if anybody knows these; let the rest of us know.

The composition duck also failed the STS search, being too small for Elastolin or the other obvious candidates, and as I say, I'm not sure what it's made out of, and with total paint coverage I can't do my usual exploratory scrape-test! Again; if you recognise it, please comment.

A is for Armoured Car

This is one of my favourite pieces, along with a composition tank I have in storage somewhere which will be blogged here one day! I'm not sure of the material of this, but it would seem to be some form of ceramic, rather than a true composition, but it's a low-temperature fired earthenware such as a clay or terracotta, and in the worlds of marbles and doll collecting (both more populated hobbies than toy soldier collecting) would be considered a composition anyway.

A study of the image (click once and it'll open, or right-click 'open in new tab') will reveal it's very crudely moulded with a poorly-mixed material (that alone pointing to low-temp firing, with all the air trapped in those un-squeezed-out folds it would likely explode at the temperatures necessary to create 'china' or porcelain), which has lead to some shrinkage and deformation.

It's been loosely 'shoved' into a mould, the pressing of the hollow cavity in the underside forcing the material into the corners of the mould and - after firing - airbrushed with gloss enamels, brown over a yellow base.

The crudeness points to a craft piece or penny-toy, even a home-made, and while date is hard, and subject matter (vis-a-vis actual vehicle depicted) impossible; I'm guessing it's early, pre-WWII, but not as early as WWI, the design - such as it is - is later. Anybody got an idea as to the make depicted...or maker?

It's roughly 'small scale'; big'ish for 1:72 but a bit small for 28mm role-play. Also I wonder if it might actually be French in origin. If war gaming I'd say a 2lbr, it's bigger than an MG!

C is for Charmingly Cheerfull Chaps Choon'ing

Although I had to pass-up the French terracotta figures I showed the other day, I will always obtain the more esoteric figures when I see them at an affordable price, and these are a case in point coming-in at 50p (less than a single Euro or Dollar) each from a charity shop the other day.

Despite Googling every possible combination of India-Indian-Pakistani-Pakistan-military-Army-Navy-Air Force-uniform-turban-headdress-ceremonial-red and blue-band-Bandsman and music-musician I can find no hint to the regiment or unit here represented, any ideas?

There is among the higher echelons of the collecting fraternity a chap who - a decade or so ago - imported lots of lovely little sets of Indian Army bands, each of about 8 musician figures in a soft pink terracotta/clay materiel and while he's been pointed out to me at the odd show, I'm ashamed to say I can't remember his name*. Anyway, I was always taken by the sets - which often still turn up either as the original trayed, boxed sets, or as a handful of rather dusty 'casualties' - but they were smaller (around 45/50mm) than these, which stand 70-75-odd millimetres with their heavy bases.

*Shamus Wade 'Ooja-cun-pivvy'!

There is a requirement for a new hand, and there will have to be some careful straightening of the brass-wire instruments at some point, but given the nature of the material and the fact that they've become divorced from their original packaging, they are in remarkably good-nick.

Close-ups of the instruments, quite crude, but they do the job, and have that 'craft' charm you don't get with say the Airfix Afrika Korps, which are lovely but commercially finished 'Models', while these are very much 'Collectable Figurines' (away from India), yet 'Toy Soldiers in the slums and villages where they are probably sold for about the same as I paid for them!

Lovely little doll-like faces only add to the charm, a couple of them seems to be reading the music of the chap next to them! And how they are seeming to be enjoying the playing!!

As the Indian Army do have some very fancy ceremonial or 'dress' uniforms, I am assuming this is the No.2 or 'undress' uniform with it's majority Khaki? Again anyone who can identify the unit please drop us a comment. I don't think it's a UN turban, they tend to be all blue. The small figures I mentioned come in very smart dress uniforms, but I'm not sure they were all military, or even representing actual units, yet these seem to be trying to represent a real unit...cavalry perhaps?

T is for Terracotta

I saw these on Mercator Trading's stall at Sandown Park the other month and just fell for them instantly, a bit outside my purchasing power but Adrian let me photograph them for the blog. I just love the more esoteric toy or model soldiers, and these are pretty off the wall or 'out there' compared to the usual plastics or lead figures.

A nice group of plaster, or soft white terracotta French Marines or a Naval landing/boarding party with wire rifle barrels, no idea as to the make, or how many poses there were originally? Made in an open-bottomed mould like slip-wear, it was a miracle they got out of the factory in one piece, let alone survived half a century or more of transport, storage and play.

In the same batch he had these other odds-and-sods, also French, but of more durable fired terracotta or clay. The inset top left has an undecipherable (by me!) makers mark which someone may be able to make more sense of, it might be better the other way up (but that didn't help me!).

To the right is what appears to be the number 74, probably a workers mark for QA purposes? Likewise the two red dots on the lower-left shot. Note also how the base material varies from a true terracotta pink through a clay-beige to an almost blue-grey colour