M is for More Model Matlots

Seen before, both as contributed images and as a donation to the Blog, Brian Berke(who was behind the previous two viewings) sent these a while ago, ostensively off the back of the HO-railway figure season, and I know it's really only, and all about the imagery with this blogging marlarky, so here's some more!

 

Pyro's diminutive ship's crew; as I've mentioned before, there was back in the 50/60's (and to this day some of the mouldings are around) a series of vessel kits of tugs and similar vessels in scales around 1:86/7, 1:90 or even 1:100'ish, mostly copies of each other, and these chaps, are ideal for those kits, most of which had no figures (one had a couple, who are in the stash somewhere!), and a couple of Brian's are painted and serving on the tug-boat in the background!

 

It's the 1:87th scale Pyro Diesel Tug, later carried by Lifelike (briefly) and Lindberg, which could be motorised and taken down to the municipal boating pond for a putter-about, not many left now, but Basingrad still has quite a large one down at Eastrop Park! The beauty of the slightly smaller scale is that they take up less room on an OO-gauge railway layout, while retaining substantiality, and if you need more;

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/pyro-207-sea-going-diesel-tug--1172808

 

Many thanks to Brian for the images.

B is for Beach Buggys [sic]!

When I was a kid I always wondered what '[sic]' or '(sic)' meant after a word or phrase, and while I did ask the odd adult from time to time, I clearly didn't ask the right ones (with 4-billion people to the left of the bell-curve [phrase du jour!], there's a lot of pretty thick adults out there, people; be careful!), and while I kept meaning to look it up, I'd never remember to, when a dictionary was nearby!

Eventually, when I started my Encyclopedia of Military Abbreviations (don't ask, several box-files of shite, all in long-hand, several formats/part-drafts and unlikely to ever be finished, but it probably kept me out of various troubles!), I did finally look it up! I'm sure many of you, too, now know what it means, but for those who don't - from the good old Oxford English;

 

Used in brackets after a copied or quoted word that appears odd or erroneous to show that the word is quoted exactly as it stands in the original, as in a story must hold a child's interest and ‘enrich his [sic] life’ or a hero of antient [sic] Rome.

 

In our case, here, the word should, correctly, be 'Buggies' or 'Buggy's', not the given Buggys. Now I know one or two idiots across the pond will assume I'm having a go, specifically at America/American and that therefore I'm being "racist" (again!), but I'm not, I'm just correcting an incorrection* in the correct manor [sic], because I like a bit of correctness!

*Noun. incorrection f (plural incorrections) a fault, default or impropriety, especially of language. State of what is incorrect. (dated) Character of what goes against courtesy and politeness (Heeheehee! The Rubenstein card is impolite!).

 

Rubenstein's Dune Buggys [sic]; As you can see, they - like ALL Rubenstein sets - have a stock code (3004), and you can find them in single colour sets and multicolour sets, two production tranches or one quirky production run? If anyone knows it will be Kent Sprecher, hopefully he'll tell us, with empirical supporting evidence, in his forthcoming, world-saving, Hugh-beating, article of grand-importance?

Six different designs, very much in the style of Rosenhain and Lipmann from Australia, but are not R&L, and are not claimed as such by the R&L experts. R&L did do vehicle sets including the Dragsters which are certainly in the same vein, but where R&L have lots of fine parts (or several per kit - wheel hubs and axles in particular), these are much simpler kits.

Unlike some of the other vehicle sets from Rubenstein which are a softer polyethylene, mine are in a hard 'kit' polystyrene, however the multicolour set may be the opposite, and it might be that they all got issues in both plastic-types/colour-ways, I don't know, but hopefully Kent will tell us everything, about everything, all at once?!

 

I should point out, before some bottom-burping oaf in Pennsylvania hysterically reports "Ah-Haa, they've all got a name he didn't tell us!", that they all have a name and I haven't told you, only because I forgot to write them down before they went to storage, life is too short and it gives us an excuse to return to them another day! Like when I build the other four . . . I was in a hurry, this all happened about a year ago, you know? I can't presage the idiocy of idiots, 24/7/365.

 

R&L did however, supply Aurora with their little kits, at the same approximate time Rubenstein were carrying their Dune Buggys [sic]! Sold as Snap-a-roos, they were the cereal premium sets, as sixes, sold in little boxes, which is how these (and similar domestically produced) sets were also issued in Italy.

But then 'Burns' reports this group of three, apparently simple, small, clip-together kits as being announced in the 1973 Lindberg catalogue (or catalog, not a '[sic]', but an accepted foreign variation of English), which was subsequently never issued. The feeling being that they were supposed to be, or seemed to have a connection with; the eponymous 'Kilroy' of World War II fame.

 

Which, applying TJF's logic must mean there's a Kilroy 'of The World' fame, out there too! And can you hear that scratching noise in the background? That's Sprecher quickly adding a paragraph to his Magnum Opus! He's probably added several in the last seven days.

That they (the Aurora set) never appeared and Rubenstein's wouldn't appear until sometime in or after '77, suggests that the Rubenstein set, was whatever was left after the above three pre-production artworks went through the production process, those driver/Kilroy figures would have required much more complicated (and therefore expensive) tooling for undercuts &etc . . . so there is a possibility they were simplified into this set . . . but I stress, that it's casual musings on the subject, not canon-history or any fact of any kind.

Another candidate for the Aurora no-shows is this similar set from R&L, but again, not these, and again; fine parts, a feature. However, there are similarities in one or two of the main-parts, with both the Lindberg drawings and the Rubenstein set, so who knows; Burns didn't, I don't, Sprecher doesn't, The R&L guys don't and TJF never will!

F is for Follow-up - Pyro Sailors

By way of a follow-up to his own donation to the Blog, Brian Berke has sent the following to add to the post with the Pyro sailors from April gone . . .

The Pyro Schooner model kit came with colour-matched runners of the figures we previously saw as stand-alone marine-modelling accessories and - for a second - I thought "What a swizz, you had to buy two packs (of the seperates) to get all of them!", then I realised the kit has two duplicate runners!

However Brian further reports that the later iterations of the kit (Life Like and Lindberg 'Classics' boxings above) don't have the figures included, which is odd as Pyro being gone (for the moulds to move-on/change hands) you wouldn't be able to source the little set we saw last time, or not with assumed ease?

I guess it was a separate mould, which would make it a smallish, man portable tool, which may have been nicked at some point, damaged or lost? Anyway, whatever happened to the figure mould; many thanks to Brian for the follow-up!

L is for Look Upon Our Wonders Ye Hobbyists and Purchase!

A real oddity today . . . and a real survivor! I believe this is an old Aurora shop-window display model, from the early days of both model kits and hobby stores, and has managed to survive a transatlantic crossing with no more damage than two broken block & tackle lifting-rings, both of which I have in a little self-seal bag somewhere!

And the transfers, the original waterslide transfers are being slowly shed like the last fragments of a snake's old skin! Although the modern Atlantis re-issue has the same sheet on better quality stock!

Back in the day, the early plastic kit manufacturers - Adams (Revell/Frog), Hawk, Monogram, Pyro, SNAP and Aurora, (among others) - would set out-workers to constructing so many of each new kit, which would be sent out to adorn the windows or display cabinet's of selected hobby shops to show the finished article.

A basic paint job was added along with a full set of transfers (as per the instructions!), in this case a reasonably austere scheme of black and silver . . . yes, I know, but you should see the gloss Buckingham or racing-green some of them got! It was a different era, and the companies knew 'little Johnny' might be using a tin of household gloss from the garage!

A few highlights. The construction is professional (clearly liquid-poly has been used - long before it was commercially available), everything has been properly trimmed back, all flash and gate marks cleaned-up and the paint seems to have been airbrushed on the runners and touched-up only where necessary, the highlights on the rear deck achieved with a printers roller and only a team building the same kit all day could get the tracks that perfect . . . oh, is that just me . . . Mr. Gardenglove Fingers!

I don't know if these are worth much, after-all you can still buy the kit  most days of the week somewhere on the secondary-market as about three Aurora boxings, two (?) Lindberg or the current [full price!] Atlantix and make it how you want it, so it's probably more of a curiosity? And . . . when you find those 1:30th/1:50th hard 'styrene crew figures in a rummage box, with a basic flesh, silver and gloss black paint-job, they probably came from display models?

1:48th scale, M-46 General Patton Medium/Heavy Tank . . . it just managed to be an M-[19]45! And if you do find one the Atlantis is a slightly different moulding (but matches late Aurora tooling) with the MG placed forwards, two (too thick) aerials added and some other, lesser changes

L is for Lindberg - Little and Large...

A bit of a contrast with this one, from very small to very big and both kits from the same maker!

The Little; I've misplaced the tyres on this one and probably lost the windscreen! Approximately HO/1:87th scale American Roadster of some sort (I've put it away and I'm not digging it out again for a name, it's not a core area of my collection!) with an Airfix figure for size comparison.

It's the Mercedes SSK...87thscale.info/lindberg

The Large; George Kearton was exhibiting this at the Central Toy Soldier Show in Birmingham the other Sunday, and has now put it on evilBay here: Lindberg 1/16 scale American Civil War kit ,worth it's start price, in my opinion, I've seen it in lists occasionally but never 'in the flesh'. It's all there and purist collectors will only need a bit of oven cleaner on the horses and figures to return it to near-mint, I think it needs to be built!

George - having recently moved to the west country - is settling down to plan a update of his seminal 'Collectors Guide to Plastic Toy Soldiers 1947-1987', originally published by Ross Anderson. So watch this space for news of that.