A is for Art Studio

Not really a part of the current sequence of railway figure posts per se, but rather a follow-up to this old post, and in particular the artists which I mentioned had been included in a Faller set, and we actually looked at that set's contents in an even earlier post here.

 

It happened that while looking for everything else, I passed this in the files, and while I'm not going to subject you to all the 'lost directions' in those files (but a lot will feature on the A-Z's one day), these do illustrate the use of Presier figures in a Faller set, something which probably only occurred a few times if again, and I stress, I'm not aware of another set that actually had figures, but they are often in the catalogues wandering about, and the odd, other Faller set, lends itself to some 'subject-related' figures?

 

The blackout sheet for electrification of the interior also contained a few paintings to be set up around the studio or on the easels, and there were three teeny nameplates on the set's packing sheet!

Bottom left shows the Preiser accessory runner with the art equipment, and that's it really, just ticking a box re. old references!

L is for Layouts and Little People!

There were quite a few figures in the huge box of mostly animals Jon Attwood sent recently, and we're looking at the smaller-scaled stuff in this post. Of interest as my intention is to get some model-railway stuff posted over Christmas, because it's a long time since we looked at any of it in any depth, and the last time we did, it was all that Preiser/Merten stuff, which won't feature this time round!

A late ('yellow' pull-off lid) box of Airfix Platform Figures was stuffed with small scale . . . err . . . stuff! And this is me sorting it into piles! Most of it is grist-to-the-mill stuff you wouldn't want me to go through pile by pile, but what can you spot - the image enlarges quite big, but a little pixel-fuzzy.

 

Some highlights from the previous though; the paratrooper is from a parachute-plane kit, but I can never remember which is which, as there are more than one with a figure, one is Airfix, another Monogram I think, which may be this one? Then a Blue Box German throwing  grenade over a damaged, but rather fine (Edwardian?) board-game piece, to his US oppo', while another of my favourite little Hong Kong cowboys charges into the fray!

 

Faller scenic sets, these are the really useful sets of 'bits', rather than specific kits, and I well remember those coin-operated railway dioramas at mainline and terminus stations in Germany having the contents of 973 stacked round the two cottages under construction, which would be made to look on fire with blackened timbers, cotton wool, hidden red and yellow grain-of-wheat bulbs &ect . . . so the fire equipment of Roco, Preiser, Herta, Praline and/or Wiking could be given something to do, for a feature in one corner of the layout!

 

A lovely sample, of samples, of metal railway figures, both bigger name and after-market, old and new'ish. Jon has also sent images, and I have also had both a photography and scanning sessions, so there will be intermittent posts on some of this in December, all going well.

 

We looked at these years ago, they were samples from a dodgy outfit in China/US/Germany, and Mike Niederman confirmed Tomolio's suspicions they were Presier copies, but fun nevertheless, as figure collectables, and seen here in what looks to be OO- and O-gauges. Upper shot is duplicate poses in the two sizes, lower shot are colour variations of the OO figures.

 

Hong Kong knock-offs of Merit/Randall scenery, with the white stuff attributed to Blue Box and through their Sunshine lable, Marx!

 

Jon also sent this for a very interesting advert on figures from a maker I only knew from their similar ad's in the military modelling press, where they were promoting 1:90 or 1:100th NATO recognition models of Cold War armour! All for the forthcoming posts on Railway figures!

Thanks again to Jon, for all this, which is already proving useful and will continue to do so for years to come. You know, everything which you physically have in the 'stash', is something you don't have to search for, at some point in the future, to feed blog articles or illustrate points!

S is for Something Blue

It don't get bluer than this, I can't remember where I picked this up, some evening train-fair in a school hall probably! But a fascinating 'artifactal' thing nonetheless.

It is basically crêpe plastic! A sheet of shopping-bag type polyethylene has been run though the paper crêpeing [spellcheck says 'crêpey'!] machine (interlocking-rollers?), probably with some heat in the mix, and when cooled you have a brilliant water surface for model railways, that glistens like you want to dive-in!

'Something borrowed' later today!

P is for Prieser's Plastic People

We have the generosity of Gary Worsfold to thank for tonight's post, as it was his donation to the 'cause' that lead me to dig out the others and put this post together. Quite out-of-the-blue Gary emailed me with the offer of some figures, no strings, and when I explained that I'd had parcels from New Zealand go missing in the past and would he mind sending them 'signed-for' - for which I was happy to pay, he sent them anyway - at his expense, so Gary, thank you very much, I share them here with all passers-by...

These are some of the little jewels that arrived (I'm saving the 40mm for another day!), a set I've always coveted, and never had the chance to obtain, click on the image and they are quite superb, and this is a 'factory' paint finish mind.

The Landsknechts - those ravagers of Europe in the wars of the 16th Century - have been in the Preiser catalogue for a while now, but like all the more sought after or esoteric/non-model railway sets are hard to track down, so having them appear on a 737 Cargo from the other side of the world was a real treat.

These two are from the Limited-Edition range of full bands. The upper set is of marching Fire Brigade bandsmen, while the lower musicians are the Border Police (Bundesgrenzschutze) band, standing...wearing tank overalls/coveralls? Perhaps a German reader could tell if this was normal, or are they 'at practice'?

This is an occasional-issue range, and consists of selecting the correct number of instruments from the six-figure standard sets and - like the Landsknechts, giving them a superior paint finish. Designed for railway layouts and the Circus dioramas which are such a favorite feature of both German model railway collectors and American 'Railroaders'.

Large Swabische and Bavarian 'Ohm-Pah' bands have also had this treatment in different dress/paint schemes from the six-figure sets and a Bundeswehr band was made from the old US army band issued in the early days of Preiser.

The upper shot shows those US figures from the late 1960's/early 70's with Set 261 leading set 262 out of their little compartmentalized box, they were - I believe - based on the American Color-guards of the Cold War who usually had the chrome-plated helmets, although more commonly with the 'Green Army Uniform' rather than the khaki shown here. I think I may have already posted the Merten 40mm versions of these in posts passim.

They are probably marching out to deal with the public nudity nuisance below them! The Artists and Models set, this is one spruelet, or a third (?) of the whole set, coming either as three separate sets in the 'six-figure' boxes, or a whole sprue in some of the bulk, unpainted sets or - in this case - as supplied to Faller, for their Architect Designed Lake-side Chalet. In which case they were given the basic paint finish and the accessories remained unpainted.

Another sought-after range of figures are the American Civil War sets, and here we see the larger group sets on the left, Union and Confederate, with - to the right - a smaller set of Confederates marching in a 'six-figure' box and the equivalent box for three mounted Union (or Federal) cavalry. Again the attention to detail on these tiny figures is extraordinary and the flag-folding is exquisite.

Like the ACW, the Native American Indians are based of the old Elastolin/Hausser 70/40mm poses, and - like the Revell figures in the larger 1:72 - would have been produced with permission. Preiser ended up buying the rump of Elastolin and produce a fair bit in their main catalogue, pantographed up and down to various sizes, painted and in kit-form. I suspect the Mountie is an Elastolin pose as well.

So; there you have it, Toy Soldier Collecting at it's best, German made Figures of Native and Colonial Americans, Canadians, nude girls and the Holy Roman Empire, waffled about by a Brit with some sent from New Zealand, life is good!

Sets looked at above
Preiser
131 Indianer - Indians
250 Nordstatten-Infanterie I - Union Soldiers Marching
251 Südstaaten-Infanterie I - Confederate Soldiers Marching
252 Nordstatten-Infanterie II - Union Army Group
253 Südstaaten-Infanterie II - Confederate Army Group
254 Nordstatten-Cavalrie - Union Cavalry
260 Royal Canadian Mounted Police
261 US-Militärkapelle, marschierend - US Military Band, marching
262 US-Militärkapelle, marschierend - US Military Band, marching
00270 Musikkorps Budesgrenzschutz - State Border Police Corps of Music
00271 Feuerwehrkapelle im Marsch - Fire-Service Band on the march
Courtesy - Mr. Worsfold;
24600 Heralds and Knights on horseback
24601 Mercenaries
Faller
B-255 Artists Studio [Figures only]

T is for Trees

Clive over at the Hinton Hunter (link to right) covered the Merit trees the other day, so I thought I'd cover the originators and clones. Which is which is as often with early plastics, a moot point!

We start with the most likely candidate for original tree of this stacking clip-together design, the Faller fir tree. Faller started making papier-mache trees - I think - before the war, or very soon after, I don't know exactly when they first produced this plastic version (self seal bag on right) and it differs from the Marx/Merit design in having a separate base and trunk. I have a complete bag somewhere but like too many things it's lost in the heap and will have to be shown next time I do Trees or Faller!

The Marx set came in hard or soft plastic and was probably a copy of the Merit rather than vise-versa, manufactured in one of the Blue Box plants that seem to have produced most of the Miniature Masterpiece range. You would get a bag making six models in most of the larger play-sets.

Playcraft had most of their stuff made for them by Jouef, these trees however follow the Faller pattern and came in various colours, the Minitank trees again have the Faller Trunk arrangement but are soft plastic.

Some other firs, all but those in the second bag from the right on the bottom row follow the same design as the above. Best to click on the image to see the few notes attached to those I have a vague clue on.