K is for Khaki Kattle-truck!

There is a tendency, particularly among cheaper toy makers, for military versions of civilian vehicles to be produced, by the simple expedient of manufacturing the civilian toy in military-coloured plastic, this third Jimson post covers one of those! And I should point out, yesterday's Land Rover was based on the Daktari one, not a clown/circus one!

 

These came with the Land Rover and futuristic Transporter/Tank combo', and while I don't think the figures have anything to do with the vehicles, I shot them with this one, just in case! They are high-grade piracies of the Matchbox American Infantry from 1974/75'ish.

 

Compared with the transporter's tractor-unit, the body is longer, and the stake-sided superstructure is held in place with the same clip used on the transporters. It would seem these late-cab toys are harder to find, so must have been made right at the end of Jimson's reign?

 

The mounting hole equates to the other position on the tractor-cab, which is the further-back one, not found on the first version, so clearly there was an attempt to mount some other bodies on the tractor, before the newer stretched-chassis was designed, as seen on the cattle-truck? The newer chassis, like the transporter cab-units, has no mark/number.

 

Badly damaged, but I was buying the lot for the Tank Transporter and Land Rover really, and, as I say, I don't think the figures belong with the set, but they might?!

B is for Bibliography - 2 of 2

A continuation of the previous post;

 

I think I picked this up at the Plastic Warrior show, back in the Spring, but 2024! Several Blogs I follow have mentioned it, I think some have play-tested the rules, I may never even read it, but feel I should buy war gaming books in the same way I buy card-game books, so they are there, in the library, 'just in case'. So long as there's a contents page and/or an index, you can always find something if you need to!

 

Both the 'Discovering' series, and Shire Albums are a useful source of information, and blissfully succinct! Obviously they become rather irrelevant once fuller or more worthy tomes are published, but as primers, they are just the ticket.

 

Book collecting is a mild periphery interest of mine, plastics have always had a place, and earlier works benefit from details lost to modern research/websites, particularly some of the early trade-names of plastics, and I addressed to better points of board-game books in the previous post. 

 

This was free on World Book day, although 'free' is a moot point when there's a minimum purchase involved, and I don't think I met the threshold, so paid a nominal amount for it! A box-ticker, it adds nothing to the oeuvre, but joins the other dozen or so works on Lego.

 

Again, box-ticking really, how many times can you teach people the techniques published in things like The Eagle, which we looked at here, and which was issued more than half a century ago? Also, it was not cheap, but I saw it, I felt it needed to go in the library, which has a modelling section, as it has sections on Wargaming, Flags & Heraldry, Chess &etc.

 

Also, new materials and tools come along all the time, and a book like this, although promoting one company's products, often has a useful appendix or two, or maybe a glossary, so in the pile it went!

 

Two more Discovering pamphlets, I tend to get a few every time I visit the second-hand bookshop over in Alton, in part to support one of the few decent second-hand bookshops left in this part of the world, and also because there were so many issued, there's always another to find!

 

I love maps, have done ever since I was a kid making them with friends, in the woods near Bramshill, while the wagon one will join the three I already have on farm & military hoarse-drawn equipment and horse-furniture.

 

I usually only buy doll or doll's house books when I see them cheap, it's not my field, so I'm only getting them for completeness, for anything they may have on another side of toy manufacturers (more the doll books, than the house books), and again; glossaries, indexes and appendices.

 

The book which influenced and indirectly led to the first in this post, and something which - by it's absence - had been an obvious gap in the library, so, box ticked! The Wikipedia page is interesting, and without being able to check, I think this is the '77 reprint.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wars

 

Bear books are a bit like doll books, but this ex-library copy was cheap as chips in a charity shop, so an easy decision, and it's actually quite an interesting read on the histories/stories of several specific bears, I was also surprised to see some of the prices AbeBooks (with none on Amazon) ask for it, but it has a following;

 

https://holeousia.com/time-passes-listen/folk-worth-talking-about/aloysius/ 

 

This was given to me by John Begg, and it is a very odd thing, it's a kids' history/primer on Matchbox cars and 'modern' die-casting, by a famous children's author/illustrator of travel books in the 1950's and '60's. A sort of early advertorial, but quite entertaining nevertheless, and with several other works on Matchbox in the library, will fill a gap I didn't know was there!

 

Adrian had a small pile of these at the last Sandown, so the latest addition to the pile, and a nice, light read, well illustrated and a part of that sudden shower of books and websites about 20-years ago on all things medieval and toy, both soldiers and castles, I have one or two of the books I think, with one to find (the big book on castles), and remember the websites, which have disappeared now, with the passing of the authors. Sadly, nothing lives forever.

T is for Tobar Army!

I think we saw these years ago, in the now gone Debenham's graphics as a Christmas generic, but here they are in Tobar branding, and I think they are also, or have also been seen in House of Marbles packaging?

 

Matchbox WWII American Infantry clones, and err . . . that's it!

1 is for 1st Rack Toy of the New Year!

Just a quickie, picked this up on my rounds the other day, it's BJ Toys again, and a new one on me, sadly the four main figures are a disappointment, but I have been noticing more and more Paint Your Own sets, a trend spotted here a few years ago, with the cheapo'sets in The Works one Christmas, and which have since featured several times a year!

 

And, of course, the real interest here is not the handful of 45mm Matchbox GI copies, but the four 90mm Chinese Army figures, original sculpts, although, sadly hollowed-out behind, so after painting - for display only!

 

But they are dressed as they would have been through the war with Japan (second Sino-Japanese War) and the Civil Wars, in total from 1927-49, and which ultimately brought the Communists to power. A bit different, and hopefully, a sign of interesting things to come, from the Toymen of the Far East?

B is for Benefaction Bag and Benevolence Boys!

I haven't been doing much Charity Shop stuff for a while, but did have a couple of good plunder purchases, and this was all garnered back at the start of July, a small bag of plastics and a couple of larger figures from the white-elephant shelf.

A ceramic 'fairing' of a clown, probably copied from a better known or more commercially named maker, I thought it had shades of Fontanini's sculpting about it, and it was cheap, so home with me, it came, although home was - at the time - a motel!

 

A resin tourist jobbie, I don't know if it's a local British thing, of something brought back from maybe Canada or even Australia? There is a cap-badge of sorts, on the helmet, which vaguely resembles a Roman numeral III, if that rings any bells?

 

While the princely sum of £1.99 secured this for the stash, although if a Prince only had 1.99 he'd be considered pretty poor, as Prices go! I could see the level of damage, but thought , at that price, it was still worth a punt.

 

All that damage! It would have been nice if one or two more had survived, but I guess little fingers had handled the pack without due care and attention!

 

Relatively common Matchbox, mostly Germans, with Audie Murphy to keep their heads down! Interesting that they still have quite a few of the little 'sprulettes' (my term) on their bases, these are designed to allow the flowing polymer resin to continue-on beyond the limits of the product, ensuring the actual product section of the mould is fully filled, and you don't get short-shotting.

 

A few useful bits survived, although the Hong Kong copy of a Lone Star sailor is missing his foresight/muzzle. The US Cavalry food premium is worth the whole two-quid though, as his pennant is often short-shot, especially in the metallic variants, so he was a good find. I'm not sure if the two horses are Spanish, or copies from Greece, France or Hong Kong?

 

Survivors of the handling, but one has to remember they will be as brittle as the other Lone Star figures, and treat them accordingly? How they come in!

M is for Motormax, from Redbox

Sort of running out of time tonight, despite finishing early, I've been deep in the contents of a parcel from Peter Evans (next post, brilliant bendy band babes!), so I'm throwing this up before midnight!

Various treatments of camouflage/paint on-, and plastic colours of- the 20mm copies of Matchbox US Infantry, as inherited by Redbox from Zylmex/Zee Toys a decade or so ago, and sold with the larger boxes of military Motormax sets.

H is for Hing Fat, Not 'DGN'

The forth corrective post today, except the calendar says it's tomorrow now, but I'm on an odd timeline at the moment, I'll schedule it for 9.30 in the morning!

 

You may have encountered the phrase 'DGN' in your Toy Soldier scrolling, over the run-up to Christmas, I don't know if it was aimed at me - He has shown a past preference for warming hostilities at Christmas, but hadn't for a year or two - or just a 'brain freeze', he's good at those, and he went on to link it to a sales page clearly crediting SCS Direct (sometimes Wicked Duals), not 'DGN'!

 

Now, I dealt with 'DGN' here, I wouldn't suggest you read all of it, it was tedious the first time round, but The Denouement will give you an idea of the conclusion, without reading the tedium of how I got there! But I thought I'd correct the new nonsense while I'm in a corrective mood!

 

 

If the comment was aimed at me, it might be these lots, all recently Blogged here at Small Scale World, which could have triggered the resurrection of the phrase 'DGN' after more than six-years? All the above are Hing Fat products, advertised on their poorly attended Faceplant page and offered for trade-sale on their difficult to navigate website, which has menus which only show themselves after you've clicked on one of the headings on the left.

 

Faceplant Page - https://www.facebook.com/hingfattoys

Older sculpts - https://www.facebook.com/hingfattoys/photos/pb.100063683895745.-2207520000/1725209017735366/?type=3

Newer sculpts - https://www.facebook.com/hingfattoys/photos/pb.100063683895745.-2207520000/1717159245207010/?type=3

 

Website - http://www.hingfat.com.hk/ 

Older sculpts - http://www.hingfat.com.hk/index.php?c=237

Newer sculpts - http://www.hingfat.com.hk/index.php?c=239

 

Basic research!

They are all based on the old Matchbox American Infantry set, with the smaller set in the lower image being those handled by such luminaries as D&D Distribution in the 'States.

While the other two samples are the newer set, from a larger line, distributed in Canada back in 2014 by Ricochet, as TJF told us himself in a post where the dreaded E. Sell said "These are the same DGN-not HING FAT figures run in different color", even though they are the same colour, and other people attending the post were happy to acknowledge the Hing Fat attribution and to them dating-back prior to 2014!

Peter Evans, roving reporter for Plastic Warrior magazine has been distributing them for several years now, and he gets them from Hing Fat direct, that's the Hing Fat who HAVE a website, who HAVE a Faceplant page, no matter how problematical they might be! And it seems SCS Direct are the latest to take some?

 

And yet, other Faceplant groups are full of 'DGN', several evilBay bottom-feeders (mostly Russians strangely?) are (or 'were', they're all banned until Putler looses the rest of his navy!) using 'DGN' in their listings.

 

But no one in the six years since my rebuttal, in the seven or eight years since Erwin's nonsense on the Vichy site, in the ten years since both types have been on the market alongside each-other, has provided a scintilla of evidence for a 'DGN' - no links to no factory, no website, no trade-ordering page or no Faceplant?

 

No address even, someone has suggested TJF said it meant 'Dounghan-Guandong Niunght', but that's nonsence, Dongguan (different spelling) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong (different spelling) province, while 'Niunght' is a made-up word!

I have in recent months highlighted the fact that with the second version, where sculpting has been taken away from the Matchbox originals, there is some variation in base, probably nothing more significant than different cavities in a multiple-cavity mould (by giving them different bases, you might ID the problem cavity if a problem is noticed further down the 'bench'?), which are the two to the left, but that theory is rather blown-away by the fact that they are approximately 1-in-3, rounded to oblong bases?

The older figure is on the right, or 'older sculpt', Hing Fat are still offering both, to anyone who wants them! Base-marking is the same font or letter type, but slightly smaller on the older design, and all are made of the same plastic, a dense polyethylene or polypropylene type with that slipperiness to the finger-nail of nylon components?

Shade varies slightly between batches, and with the newer design, the two officers in the bottom shot have different sized oblong bases! If you read my original post on the Japanese from years ago (the post which seems to have started the war, even though it took them four years to strike!), it doesn't read quite right by what we now know, but that's - in part - because we're all learning, and we've learnt since then.

 

They were (the Japanese) in part - pose wise - inherited by Hing Fat from Rado Indistries/Ri Toys, and seem to be on their third iteration as Hing Fat with various changes in pose line-up and base-design? And with mine in storage, I haven't paid them the same attention, the three above came in with the Americans, and probably go with them. While an 'over the top' set accompanies the new oblong-based line.

 

All my versions of the newer set so far found, and they are all Hing Fat, not 'DGN'! And while I am only too-aware of the old adage 'the lady doth protest too much' in this case A) I haven't said anything for over six years and B) you have to nip this crap in the bud, or they will try to get away with more! Tiresome, and 'DGN' is 'Design', abbreviated.

M is for Micro-Mini Military Miniatures in Matchboxes

It seems to be an inescapable fact that the longer you collect and/or the wider you cast your eyes, the more obvious it seems that everything made by Western toy makers, under a certain size (about 4-inches), was pirated in Hong Kong at least once! Case in point . . .

. . . here we have the Triang-Minic push-and-go mini-tank (loosely, very loosely based on a Centurion tank) pirated in polyethylene, in a reduced size and sold as a ersatz Matchbox 1-75 type! Simplified with a pair of carpet wheels, it can't have come from anywhere else, as no one else made such a monstrosity of the accurists art!

To accompany it, here's a vague take on the Britains 'Beetle lorry', done as an ambulance. There's no obvious brand on either, a letter 'F' on the ambulance being probably a cavity mark, and an imagination-medal on the box ends holding no clue. A US pattern 6x6 truck and Jeep (probably ex-Dinky) were also available, to my knowledge.

These are in similar 'matchboxes', and are branded to ELM or Elm, a company which was known for producing small vehicular novelties for Louis Marx, in the Dinsneykin size. Indeed, some US sources would have it implied or have you believe Elm were a subsidiary of Marx, but these and what we're about to look-at, would seem to suggest they were only sub-contractors for Marx, free to issue their own production under different brand-marks.

As they are also sold under the Empress Toys label, as kits, now this is where this post falls-down somewhat and could have stayed in Picasa for another year or two, the photo's get a bit muddled/poor, shots weren't taken which I meant to take, and we'll have to return to them at some point, but heay! What the hell!

Anyway, here we have, from the box above, the dark green M44 ('ish) SPG with its corresponding kit, and a loose vaguely Staghound armoured car I had, with its kit. The bi-coloured A/C suggests a third issue at least, at some point?

2-days later - the other one's here!

From the left; French Panhard ERB; Staghound and the T34/85 (seen again below), the M44 seemed to get lost at this point in the photo-shoot, while I didn't do all the card-fronts, so the codes are missing, to which I must add; I never found the one or two I got from Ash, which may be in different packaging, so a bit of a fail overall!

The T34/85's compared, again this was a loose, unattributed sample in the collection until the packaged ones started to show-up, and neither of the boxed or loose pair have markings, but each of the bagged ones have a transfer sheet with basic markings. The kit has black wheels to the colour-matched wheels of the made-up one.

I have a loose turret, apparently from a smallT54/55 or T62*, which happens to sit on the armoured-car, while it waits for its body to turn-up in a junk lot (it will . . . one day!), the little one is an all 'ethylene, probably Christmas cracker/gum-ball novelty and we've looked at both the slightly churchill'ian one (probably a game-playing piece) and the Blue Box style DUKW, which is taken from the Matchbox 1-75 Series before. Finger for scale . . . and I forgot to get the Patton out and shoot it too . . . doh!

 

* When you have to start sending them to Ukraine, with called-up, old-man crews, you're scrapping the bottom of the war-losing barrel Vladimir Vladimirovitch you barking mad-dog fuck. We don't want a nuclear war, and if you start one we will vaporise Russia, you realise that?

T is for Two - H is for Hong Kong Hovercraft

We haven't had as many hovercraft as we should have done, given their box was in the attic this last 11 years, so I'll have to redress that when I get to final [alive] resting place, but I can make a start here with two bog-standard rack-toy brands, one in Picasa for a while, the other sourced off feebleBay a week or so ago.

Woolbro's Hovercraft with Friction, is more of a whacky Intergalactic US Space Marines space-car, although with the body entirely filled with two large turbines, of limited use beyound getting two humans from A-to-B in a uncomfortably noisy fashion!

I actually have the Jane's Surface Skimmers and Hovercraft tome (and a tome it is, good for bodybuilding) and it is amazing to see how quickly Hovercraft went from British post-war excentricity in the 1950's to hundreds of designs all over the world by the 1970's (I think I have the '72 edition), and some of them do look a bit like this I think, but the forward perambulation isn't clear and the book's currently buried!

Carpet wheels aren't part of a real hovercraft which would have a hollow-belly to fill with pressurised air! Branded to an MMF and numbered 812, mine is obviously missing an ariel, but I will look out for another, better one as it also has that yellowish staining on the starboard side.

Learning something every day; although it sounds like the sort of thing Mum would have told us as kids, I learnt the other day that before 1844 it was Larboard and Starboard, but the Roayl Navy changed what was an obviously confusing (under fire/in a storm) convention, in that year.

The other reason to look out for another one is that the box on this one is shot to bits. The Woolbro stamp looks like the kind of overprint a few of their earlier sets carry, so there may be a generic version of this out there somewhere?

On safer ground with the SRN6 (Saunders-Roe, Naval, Type Six), this is another regular rack-toy star; Clifford Toys, and would seem to be a copy of the Matchbox die-cast, in military colours (which Matchbox also did). The Royal Marines used these for years, and the Griffon's they use now are quite similar in design.

I have the die-cast black & white civil one in the under-visited box, and this copy must be a slight scale-up; because, although small; it wouldn’t fit in the standard 1-75 range's box? It's also all plastic and like the Woolbro/MMF one, mostly polystyrene.

R is for Recent Purchases

Although I checked the image dates and one of them's from over two years ago, while another is over a year old now, but, sometimes I purchase a mixed lot, or a few parcels end-up being delivered on the same day and I shoot them for 'posterity'!

These were a few of the highlights of a big mixed lot I grabbed, for a single figure I think, or because it was going cheap? Anyway, I know there were more of the Weston's Mexicans, a lot more, but mostly the same poses, so presumably the ones the seller hadn't liked, used or wanted!

We saw the ex-flocked Womble when I posted the renovation/conversion, while the three Charbens African are useful, the Butch from Kellogg's Sooty set (probably by Crescent) is a slightly chewed box-ticker; I can never remember which figures I've got in which colours!

An LB cartoon American Indian is a bonus, the Palitoy (and others) kicking footballer is always fun, while the Imperial version of an Impro Triceratops is my first, I have all bar the Plesiosaur in the UK iteration, but Imperial's are harder to find this side of the pond! I think the Dylan is Corgi, but he's not the guitar one?

Seven parcels? French Albator boxing of Space Captain Harlock from Atlantic, and colour variations of - I think - the Goldrake Vega set, which I have on the runner in bright apple green (Brian Berke as sent shots of them in this sand shade, but they're still in queue, with 90% of everything!), above which is a bagged set of the Humber 1-Ton's with all six fire engine bodies, one of which is shared with the military versions (ambulance) but here in silver.

We saw the pair of die-cast Play-Me and 11resin pirates on ITLAPD, while the Hussar got sent to Plastic Warrior as a follow-up to Chris Smiths excellent article on Kwong Wah Industrial.

I can't remember if I've blogged the larger vehicles, but I'm not blogging that country's stuff if I can help it, at the moment, I was right to call out those promoting the wrong side of the Donbas line's products (earned me more opprobrium from the Morlocks and Yahoos at the time) when I did, and I try to keep to my own standards/principles!

So many ironies; Dave over at PSR has also stopped promoting/reporting on that nation's products for the duration (?) while some of the producers on the Ukrainian side are still operating - if they're not in the actual combat zones, they're desperate to keep their economy running as normal, while if we end-up in a nuclear exchange with Putler, you can guess the choice words - for some in our hobby - my last 'I told you so' post will contain, even if it never gets out to the ether!

These were a cheap 'small scale' mixed lot, which were about half-and-half non-Giant Cowboys & Indians I really didn't need, and other items, which I'll look at now:

I suspect these are probably accessories for a die-cast or plastic vehicle or play set of some kind, very similar to the sets on the back of the box of the space set we saw here, but a rival line - we've seen the firefighters and mechanics from the same line before, and they are a dense PVC to the other generic's 'styrene, with key-slots rather than peg-holes in the bases to lock them onto the cards. Obviously, yet more Monogram copies! 

Miscellaneous 'civi' types, most already in the collection, but again - from a plastic-colours point of view - you can't find too many of the Märklin HO track-gang, copies, nor the Dinky road-gang clones! The Matchbox hunter, on the other hand, is just boring now, he came with at least two 1-75 vehicles and I have a bag-full, one day I might paint a squad up as ACW Confederate volunteers!

These were what the bid/BIN went-in for. The Romans are poor quality Giant copies, but tracking them down is a slow process so finding seven at once is useful, and they came with a genuine Giant tower roof and flag which I know I need, a probably Giant medieval/Mongol horse and two yellow 2nd type Giant knights.

The Mongols only ever seem to appear in red or yellow, and I've never seen a 2nd version Knight in red, but alongside the common black & silver ones, these yellow versions do turn-up occasionally, where they're from the Helen of Toy 'Gold Crown' game/comic-offer with paper board, not Giant at all!

The other items of interest in the lot were the Airfix animal knock-offs, the farm have been pretty-much nailed now on the relevant blog page, with two or three generations and various pack types, but the zoo copies are still more of a mystery, with at least two generations, the flat colours and the washier, cream-coloured ones with the eyes dotted-in, or red-lips &etc.

And there's a few of each here, although one of the gazelles has been converted into a short-eared Llama . . or Alpaca, or whatever the other ones are called; Vicarious Guanos?

These only came in the other day, and were going unloved, again I have most of them already but as with the stuff Chris or Peter sends, it's the odd one you don't have which makes all the difference!

Here it's the HK copy of the Gem diver (top left), the runner, mid-left, the chap top right and the PVC Flintstone in brown - I have a few, but again - colour variations! The bloke who looks like a composition pirate in maroon coat is just a cut-about Spencer Smith AWI gunner!

Back to the chap top right - in the late 1990's/early 2000's, a company or companies unknown (there may be a brand on the die-cast forums) was producing these flesh/sand figures in various iterations and scales (at last four sizes?), which were sold as generics and home-branded to various volume sellers; supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury's), Woolworths/Chad Valley and etcetera, as well as other branding elsewhere

The only way to tell them all apart is by the base-markings which vary greatly between issuers, and must have reflected contract data, and the base shape. One day we'll look at them all properly, the commonest is probably the German firefighter (in fritz helmet) who seems to have been in everyone's range and every size! I annotated some of them at the time, which should help make sense of them, but I only bought them when they were on clearance! Smaller sets usually had one vehicle, but often with useful accessories like wheelie-bins, street-furniture, skips (dumpsters), recycling bins, etc . . .

There were also three of these Hong Kong flat railway figures, and this shot which I took a while back reveals that I needed the green lady with umbrella and red case, loose, to complete the line-up, now I have her!

I'd actually bought two lots of these mixed/vehicle accessory lots a few days apart and this is the other one, and while - again - not only do I have most of them, we've seen most of them in the mini-seasons onMatchbox and Corgi I did about ten years ago (still waiting for shouty-man's corrections?!!) 

These are the new, the better examples or the not sures. For instance I know I have the chap with the hose from Matchbox's airport fire tender, but I'm not sure about the chap with the axe, while to his right is one who matches the Monogram guys above. Can't remember if I have the green clown (Corgi), and there are about four versions of the Dinky Moon Rover/Chariot crew, so he may be needed.

Another of the believed to be Hornby rail staff/loco-crew, but in a new, lighter blue, with the boy from the late Corgi straw-stack next to him. The little black figure (probably a bomber pilot) is sculpted similar to the Kleeware/Tudor Rose Space Clipper or X-400 crews, so might be early 'something'!

The middle of the right is a cartoony character from something modern I suspect, but I don't know who or what and the skeleton will be one of those Mattel motorcycles, or a similar knock-off! It's all good stuff, which fills the holes in the story of 'Toy and Model Figures'. Lots more to come . . .