J is for Jimson - 116 & 127 Tank Transporter and 128 'Bulldog' Tank

Except the numbering is not that clear! This is one of those posts, that's been in the queue for ages, but I couldn't decide what to do with all the images, or remember what I'd wanted to say about them, so I just lost interest after the first collage was done, about four years ago!

But I looked them up the other day looking for something else (which turned out to Hover-Hoover!), and I got minded to polish it off, and get it out of Picasa! And in fact it's a tale of two transporters and two tanks!

Jimson 127 Tank Transporter with Action Bulldog Tank. "Fully Metallised" refers only to the wheel-hubs with this toy, but other toys had more chrome-effect detailing, and presumably the message was just put on all boxes! I think this is the same box-art as you get with the Fairylite issues, where Fairylite is just over-printed, but I suspect the Jimson box was different for the second version, but I don't have an example?

 

As they left the box, you will recognise the tank from a previous post on it and it's similarity to the Airfix '1st version' Patton Tank, now believed to be originally a T. Cohn design, the older one is above, and a reasonable rendition of a post-war US 'big rig' truck, the later version is very 'spacey', but uses an almost identical tank.

We'll return to the tanks in a minute, but here they are stripped down, and both have an unexplained, and unexplainable hole in the main bed/plane of the trailer, if I had to guess, I'd say the hole might be to stop warping, as the hot moulding is released from the tool?

The newer version (the trailers carry the 116 and 127 numbering, the cabs are both unnumbered) has two holes for the locating pin and clip of the trailers, and I'm guessing this will be due to a slightly different stud on one of the civilian trailers, I think there were fuel-tanker, and car-transporter bodies available, and maybe a plain flatbed for loads?

How the clip locks the pin/stud into place - older version.

As well as a whacky tractor-unit, the 127 version has whacky wheels, still 'metallised', but far less realistic than those on the earlier version, in this they were mirroring moves in the die-cast market, where realism gave way to silliness, in a need to keep kids interested, or entertained!

Piggy-back! The whole-width ramp of the later model, was separate ramps on the earlier, which loosely sat in channels, using words like 'clipped' or 'locked' wouldn't do justice to the lightly sitting-there, they were actually managing! I think they are meant to be wedged under the two suds behind the cab, but are already quite a loose fit, and with nowhere safe to store them, if you can't find a boxed one, you might not get ramps!

But, while they both carry the 128 code, the tanks are very different, while looking almost the same! The mudguards have been extended on 'II', the cupola MG lost, the main-gun shortened and the flash-eliminator fattened, while the turret itself is set back a bit, and, on my example . . .

. . . there's no push and go motor on 'I', it has the mounting-holes for one, so again, guesstimation suggests the motor was fitted to single-boxed tanks, but not to the transporter ones, because the tractor-cab has its own? But in the end it was easier to have one assembly-line, so the later tanks all have a motor?

The track-guards, extended on II, still short on I, which is how we find them as Airfix, Brumberger and/or T. Cohn, in the smaller scale, in which guise we looked at this last;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/05/p-is-for-patton-pershing-by-airfix-and.html

 

II (left) v. I (right)

 

Image dump;

Type I at a slightly different angle!

 

Even the same-numbered baseplates are not exactly the same.

 

Recent eBay sale, which is a II with motor, it was sold with the 'space-truck' transporter. As per previous viewings, the turrets are soft polyethylene, colour-matched to the hard polystyrene bodies and baseplates, and scale is around 1:48th.

A couple of scans I took at a later date, I think the tank is the key to the odd numbering of these sets, originally awarded 128 as a stand-alone, boxed, and probably motorised version (1960's), when the tractor-unit (unnumbered, and possibly already in use with other-number carrying tanker or car trailers) was married to the flat-deck trailer and tank, the box got the 127 number, because it was spare, and/or closer to the tank's 128, than the trailer's 116?

Then, when the combination was redesigned (1970's), the new trailer was numbered to match the earlier box, because . . . well, it's only conjecture, but the truth won't be too different? Although, as the whole thing would have required new box-art, it could have all been given a new number?

116 - 1st version trailer

127 - 2nd version trailer

127 - 1st version box

128 - Bulldog Tanks, both versions

Both tractors unnumbered

J is for Jimson . . . Firefly XYZ Mk. III

I really don't know what the hell's happened to Google, but apparently The Economist magazine was asking the same question the other day? Certainly, if you Google this, using any search-term, you'll be excused for being convinced it doesn't exist, and never did, even though, here is one, and it clearly does!

 

The box is a reproduction, and while the seller was good enough to point that out, and I'd been surprised at it's clean-sample quality, I wouldn't have known for sure; it's not got that comic-book artwork look, of the home printed ones from a few years ago, and if you rolled this down the drive on a dusty day, and then brushed it off, you'd never know it wasn't a Jimson original.

 

It's a big old chunk of half-Space Car and half-Space ship, and the scale - going on the figure - is a bit bigger than I might have been interested in, only a few years ago, but needs must when idiots try to drive!

 

And, while I would have been happy to just ID the driver, in the past, I've now got one to compare with any similar loose chaps in the pile! There is actually minor damage to the rear-right (facing forwards) of the canopy, but, luckily, it isn't actually obvious, at any angle!

 

This pair, sadly, weren't purchased at Sandown, but - as an in-context 'question time' - were seen on evilBay back in 2021,Rocket Racer behind, Explorer in front, and usually sold as generics - "Another plastic toy", "Another siren toy", &etc . . .

 

And, while they could also be Jimson, I don't know, Google doesn't know and Alphadrome seems not to, either! Pilots' say no, styling and portholes, say maybe not, push-and-go motors say possibly, plastic colours say probably, the little radar says absolutely! Obviously, the egg-shaped one is missing a green 'wing'.

 

Jimson stuff does appear in generic packaging sometimes, or seems to, you never know if they aren't close clones, but they also supplied Fairylite and others? Could they be the Mark's I and II?* Coding is 609 and 614, close enough for their similarity to each other, but a long way from Firefly XYZ's 101? Could they, despite the higher numbers, actually be earlier toys? I genuinely don't know - do you?

 

*That's not a serious question, I don't doubt there were never Mk I or II Firefly's, and the Firefly itself, has a very lazy XYZ moniker, before the 'Mark III'!

J is for Jug Band

I will make an effort this Christmas, to finish the railway figure series, started two years ago, I meant to do it last year, but it never happened, and it's high time it got done. In the meantime, and as a taster (it's the only image on the firm in the queue), is this, which was donated by a Blog follower who prefers to remain anonymous . . . don't worry, I get it, I'm a loose cannon, and it's a brave man who would be associated with me!

Imported into the UK by Bachmann Europe, is this hillbilly Jug Band, in HO from Woodland Scenics, and it's absolutely lovely! The only thing missing is a couple of drunk neo-Nazi bikers, loosing a fight with Bo' and Luke Duke! We've got a wash-tub bass, a washboard and a guy playing an actual jug, with three more conventional instruments, charming. Cheers Dude, you know who you are!

J is for Jurassic Era!

Purely in the sense that that's what it says on the cards, and that it makes a rarer 'J' title, I'm quite sure an expert palaeontologist will tell me there are hundreds of millions of years between some of the species depicted in these sets!

 

These are in corner-shops, petrol stations and small convenience stores, as I write, and were last seen in the previous two posts, from Kandy Toys, they are retailed for between two-fifty and three-quid or thereabouts (2.99!), and while there are three sets here, each with different animals (four per card), there may be more in total?

 

So, I picked the upper one up back in the Autumn sometime, in a newsagent in Alton I think? Or Borden, not that it matters a jot, and is of no consequence to you, loyal reader, but I feel sometimes these irrelevent facts add . . . bones? To the blurb!

 

Then Peter Evans (Plastic Warrior's London office!), gave the other two to the Blog, in one of the November/December lots, so we'd obviously encountered them at about the same time? Each has the four prehistoric animal models, a twin-palm of common design, a blow-moulded boulder and a 'volcanic' piece, which looks more like a meteor scar, or fumarole, if you recall third-year geography!

 

 

 

Most are one-colour over a base polymer in another colour, with a third pigment if you count the eyes, two are red-plastic, with the Pterosaur being only one added colour, the rest a pale-yellow, and modern substitute-PVC type; soft rubberised polymer or elastomer.

 

Current thinking on the appearance of late Raptors, and a three-colour paint-job (with the eyes), done to a better level than the others. But, as with all toy Dinosaur sets, no scale beyond 'set scale', a matching-size form of the old 'box scale' concept, so this would be much smaller than most of the others, in real life, and I'd call the whole set medium-sized?

 

I think this last one, half-Spinosaur, half-Dimetrodon, is another of the not true dinosaur or mammal earlies, like Dimetrodon, but not related? I don't know, and apart from the obvious ones or favourites, I try to avoid speciation on dinosaur posts, so's not to reveal my ignorance too plainly!

Many thanks to Peter for the pair of blisters, and we have quite a bit covering Kandy here now. Onwards and upwards!

J is for Just Play

Bit of a quickie, I bought this a while ago in B&M, although I'm sure it's findable elsewhere (Smyths, The Entertainer?), and while not specifically Halloween related, being The Nightmare Before Christmas, there is a horror aspect to it, and, well, that's it really!

 

Large vinyl figurines from new name here, Just Play, non-articulated solid lumps, I haven't opened it, so that's yer'lot, I'm not sure if this film has had a sequel, or a serial treatment on one of the streaming services, as the movie's years old now, well 30-years old if the packaging is anything to go by, but there seems to be a background of renewed interest in this Disney franchise (is it just the 30th anniversary?), and it's both Christmas-related and Halloweeny!

J is for Johnnie Walker

The iconic 'Striding Man' logographic has been used to market the 200-year-old whisky brand since 1908, now owned by drinks giant Diageo, the walker was commissioned by another; Sir Alexander Walker, the grandson of the eponymous Johnnie Walker and is counted as one of the earliest corporate marketing mascot/symbols.

 

Marx produced several of these figural mascots, as 'toy' figures, in different scales, presumably as presentation pieces, or some kind of promotional freebie? We've seen the Dewar Highlander from White Lable whisky, as a small scale one (30mm) here I think, back at the start of the Blog, while the 60mm one needs his ceremonial mace fixed before he appears here, but this is the Johnnie Walker, in the same style and probably from the same Hong Kong factory as the Warriors of the World, hard polystyrene, factory-painted figures, and there is a 30mm scaked-down version too.

The latest version has been plagiarised by the Right-wing misogynist 'Proud Boys', Trump's storm troopers, although the brewer is threatening to take them to court. I also have a lead semi-flat (from Britains - I think) somewhere, so one day I'll try to do them all in one post!

16th - Brain Berke has sent his, so he can go here, I've cropped him out of a larger image which has left him a bit pixelated, but you get the idea, and he's reputed to be supplied by Britains, as a 35mm, solid lead/tin, semi-flat.