P is for Polski Sklep . . . They're Everywhere!

After posting those others an hour ago, I remembered I had this chap in the queue, so went off to find the shots in one of the 'Eastie' folders, then thought there were those other three, which I think we've seen before, but anyway, more shots have been fired-off and uploaded, so here's more Polish-made Wellingtonian cavalry!

He's 70mm, with a more 'Spanish' (production) looking horse, and is a lancer officer I think?

 

The other 40mm trio included another-one of the white cuirassiers, so I now have seven of them, and he had a slightly different horse which I gave to the trumpeter, further swapping resulted in this pair being odd-men-out, and the six cuirassier troopers match! Ulan and Hussar here, I think?

 

 

Quick comparison shot!

K is for Kirasjerzy, Polscy Kirasjerzy

And the 14th Regiment of, if my cursory research in anything to go by, and it probably isn't! Looking for something quick to post after work, and these are a 'seen elsewhere', so let's get them in the Tag list here, PZG's Polish Cuirassiers.

I'm not sure if the horses are correctly distributed/allocated, but they all came together, and if I know anything about Wellingtonian troops, it's that musicians often had the odd/opposite colours to everyone else! And they are small, they're only about 40/45mm.

P is for Polish Roundup - 3 - WWII / Cold War

The third lot of PZG that's come-in recently was this little lot (plus the two figures from 'Four Tanker's & a Dog' we saw a few days ago here in other mixed post) and consists mostly of British production knock-off's, but there are some original Polish sculpts too.

Two ex-Airfix WWII Soviet Infantry, one compared with his donor (grey), all seven Airfix poses were copied, and the clones are a little smaller than the figures they're aping.

Also a pair of US Infantry, again; ex-Airfix doppelgangers, again all seven poses were lifted, and they are painted to match the Soviets, whether this means they were sold as a set of 14 from the same side or two sets of seven I don't know, but the PZG website separates them.

A Polish copy of a Trojan / BR Moulds rendition of an older Crescent hollow-cast figure, painting is quite (six-colour-) colourful on this chap, almost as if the painter liked the figure as much as I do!

Timpo also got the pirated treatment, with the 10 of their larger GI set joining two other (ex-French - Mokarex - production?) figures for a 12-count, these yellow bases can be shared with the previous Airfix clones, as can the paler green paint job on the other crawling chap. From the fact that some of the poses weren't copied by the British plagiarists, suggests PZG took these straight from the hollow-cast originals.

Original sculpts of Soviet-era stuff here, and while the No.2 on the bazooka is missing, they still make a nice vignette of an anti-tank crew or 'brick'. Technically post war/cold war Polish infantry, they can pass for WWII Soviet infantry.

Compatible with the previous set and including the same bazooka, these are painted as Paratroopers, but you can find them with black, blue (UN), green or khaki (above) berets. Both sets are quite large so I have a ways to go, but I've made a start!

P is for Polish Roundup - 1 - Flats, Semi-Flats & Historical Solids

So the plan was always to have three posts here today catching-up on incoming polish figures over the last 14-months, and as a foil to yesterdays space-horror, which only got Easter Sunday because I thought, well, the eggs! And I didn't have anything more festive.

That changed yesterday evening, with the recipt of a couple of eMails and a quick search of Picasa; so we're going to try six posts (I won't make a habit of it, except on ITLAPD!) before the clock register's Tuesday. How we do will depend on a number of factors, not least the weather - I must mow the lawn - second cut!

This post is the oddments, and we're starting with a small mixed lot I bought a few months ago, mostly flats, but not the hard 'styrene flats I got from Grzegorz Maciak, these are more like PZG (recycled Nylon-66), slightly softer, and painted after PZG too.

Indeed, most are credited to PZG on that site we've visited before, these being found under the last button (Inni) which I think is the equivalent of 'other' or miscellaneous? Clearly a Polish winged-hussar and two Cossack types, although (as some of you will know from your studies and others from recent current affairs programmes) at the time both were part of the Empire of Poland-Lithuania or The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but they posed better attacking each other!

Note to Putler - don't attack the land of the Cossack's with a bunch of Siberian conscripts, you'll get your nose burnt, along with most of your tank-crews . . . and your best boat!

A little light reading I've inherited! I've actually had to pack it for now, but I will read it soon, in the meantime, it seemed to be the perfect backdrop to the two figures.

Another unlikely pairing, a contemporary levy (?) to the previous mounted figures faces off against a Highlander? In a sky-blue kilt with his tartan lines at a rakish angle! he looks like he might be another plastic figure taken from old Schneider's home-casting moulds, but I think the Eastern sculpts here are all originals?

The guy on the right is also credited to PZG, but the other two remain question-marks, and he's a swordsman not an artilleryman, but again for the sake of a photogenic vignette; it'll do. They are also from very different eras!

This chap is apparently Urlich von Jungingen from a set of Grunwald 1410 figures, and note he's posed on two different horses, as that was what came in the lot! More a fully round, he's some semi-flatness to him and his horse, and both have the look of what we or the French might call 'from Hollow-Cast', but I don't know if there was a lead progenerator?

This was a shot I took a while back (two years ago) of my small sample of what I thought were all Napoleonic troops, but actually there are troops of several nations and several conflicts many years apart, so it became my even smaller 'samples'! But it makes a colorful group of what PZG (and another maker I think; I've lost the note!) were capable of.

Seen before but this is the 'appeared elsewhere' image! Bought at the pre-Christmas London Show in December, and note the chap in the middle is the same as my existing one, but a deliberately different shade of blue. There is a fifth somewhere I think, so that's a better sample than some of my PZG sets! But they're all growing.

N is for Not Going in the Queue!

And so to the London Toy Soldier Show, a rather muted event in a new (to me) venue, but these are the times we live in, and while the Internet is the ultimate winner, society is losing something of itself every day. I thought that rather than adding it to the 'H is for...' long-queue; I'd get it out of the way and try eating down on that queue, going forwards!

I won't bore you with pictures of the show, the organisers (publisher's Guideline) took loads of photographs and video, someone else was taking video, there was a bloke with a dumb-phone taking footage which may already be online somewhere, and another photographer managed to get a candid shot of me - for his mate - which almost certainly won't be seen in public, but ought to be!

So it's straight to the few purchases I made on the day; and we're starting with the Sci-Fi fantasy stuff! Rear-left is an unusual Tonka figurine from 1988's Willow line, I was aware of them from some catalogue or Blog or another, but didn't know they used the Britains Deetail basing method, of a slotted metal base with vinyl lugs on the undersides of the figure (in this case Airk Thaughbaer)'s feet.

Next to him is a Kinder fantasy figure from the late 1980's, I have one with a blue lizard (and green pants I think?), but not the helmet (also lizardy), so he was a nice addition, while Adrian from Mercator Trading had put the robots to one side for me, similar in size and plastic-colour to the Ace Acme robots, I don't know their origins (beyond 'probably' being both Christmas cracker and gum-ball machine prizes) but will find-out one day!

Three Polish-made Napoleonic cavalry from PZG were not cheap but a steal to find at all, and go with a fourth I found - at Plastic Warrior's show - a year or two ago, while Adrian had also found these diminutive Roman/Egyptian copies of larger Marx figures for me, which will entail taking another shot for a post which should have already published!

Also from Poland's PZG came a better WWII officer than the one I have, and my first (I think) 'Four Tanker's and a Dog' figure. The pale copies of Timpo's GI's, probably come from Argentina, but could be Turkish, and feel-like/sound-like polystyrene, although I don't think they are.

Discussing them with several members of the 'old guard' during the show, more votes were for S. American than Turkey, but I still fancy the Turks, so it'll need something more definitive!

Adrian also gave me a box of Blue Box bits and bobs which included a spare cab-floor for a Bedford RL, so I can rescue one from the junk pile - where a dozen or more languish. What's also useful about these is that the Britains poses are the earlier 'kidney' based ones, not the later, commoner, penny-bases.

I also grabbed the Zang figure as every time I find the soldier at attention, he's a different colour, and I wasn't sure if I had this mid-khaki shade with no webbing highlights? Possibly the smallest plunder bag I've ever brought-away from a show, but all good stuff!

F is for Follow-ups; Recent'ish Posts!

A trio of shots I've taken in the last few months which add a little to posts seen here in the second half of last year.

In August last year we looked at the Star Rider Space City play set by Soma, to which I have added a few of the missing green versions to the loose figure stash, giving the above line-up. There is - at time of publishing - another one on feeBay, which has the outer box-lining missing from mine, unfortunately the postage from Australia is a bit sheesh!

While in November 2020 a quick post on some Polish swaps and a Russian gun covered some plastic flats which I mentioned were from old home-casting moulds, probably Schneider, the above shows one of the plastics against a modern home-casting mould catalogue, to show they are still around!

Taken from the Shilham Miniatures catalogue, Google suggests they are no longer around, but they were about ten years ago and other suppliers still exist.

Finally, last November I did a quick post on 'what had come in' re. birds/poultry, and within weeks of posting it had found the above! Anti-clockwise from the top left; a resin owl (who's trying to escape the photograph?!!); a novelty kettle-whistle (possibly French); a Culpitt (et al) 'love-doves' wedding-cake decoration; a vinyl duck (possibly Macau-via-Portugal), and another PVC piece; a vulture of unknown origin, which could be Wild West toy related? It keeps coming in!

M4 is for Sherman Calliope

Also from Poland (see previous few posts) and also soft polyethylene, comes forth this interesting beast from Centrum in Warsaw;

Mounted on a full [packaging] sized card, it's not so much a header as a backer! Also, while the main body of the tank, running-gear and turret are a straight copy from Atlantic's own clip-together 'readymade', the rocket-tube bundles and bed-frame seem to have been copied from the 1:72nd scale Esci-Revel-Polistil (and other brands) kit.

To the point where it is on a separate small runner, while the rest is on a runner which is also a copy of Atlantic's own with each component in the same place! To produce the M4 Sherman [with] Calliope therefore meant some changes to the Atlantic turret

Close-ups for those who can compare with the Atlantic set (I won't de-'sprue' this until I have a duplicate one!), while the reasons for assuming the Calliope is from Esci, are twofold, A) this predates the Airfix one and is clearly pirating other makers and B) see the T34/85 in a minute!

The card art shows an Allied star as one of the markings, bu what you actually get along with the bridging disc and formation sign is the Polish 'Winged Hussar' symbol, so presumably representing the Polish 1st Armoured Division in the Normandy/Western campaign?

The upper shots are another Sherman, slightly better card shot and slightly different plastic colour by the looks of it, below it is a T34, and a late war T34/85 at that, probably also copied from Atlantic? Both shots supplied by Tomasz Karpowicz about 12-years ago! Everything will appear here at Small Scale World . . . eventually!

Tomek also sent me this, which is quite delightful, as 'readymade' toys go, it's the same T34/85, but with the AMRCR (anti-mine reconnaissance castor roller) mine-clearing frame taken from the Esci Churchill IV kit (albeit greatly simplified) - hence the Esci assumption for the Calliope's origins. Again this would have required a change or two to the Atlantic clone, to take the Esci-cloned parts.

Markings for both T34's are - of course - the other Polish Army of WWII, that recruited by the soviets, but mostly trained at the Western Allies expense in Syria!

M is for More - Polski Zwiazek Gluchych . . .

 . . . et alia.

Chris Smith has kindly sent a pretty comprehensive follow-up to the recent PZG posts, with nice samples of a lot of the missing figures in both sizes from the WWII and early Cold War eras.

These are the PZG tank/AFV crew with their distinctive, padded, head-protectors, looking a bit like a cyclist's helmet (and doing a similar job, but protecting the crew from 'braining' themselves on lumpy pieces of metal AFV interior!) and dating from before the Second Worlds War, they are still in use across ex-Soviet, formally Soviet-aligned and/or Soviet-supplied states.

I believe they depict characters from a Polish TV series of the 1960's. The TV crew had a little dog, which PZG didn't model as part of the set?.

Chris reports there is one pose missing; a chap holding his rifle across his chest. As seen they are the hollow-based 50/54mm range.

A further selection of the WWII figures, most of which come under the 50/54mm heading, but the second guy from the left is heading for 60mm, and seems to have been given a thinner base to compensate . . . you call him 'Lurch' (or Lurchski!) and keep him back until Rambo or 007 are played by the other side!

Chris added that the officer in the centre is unmarked but seems to fit.

In Chris's own words; "Polish copies of the “unknown/Kentoy?” lying firing MG figure, nicely factory painted over a hard white plastic. Again attributed to PZG but I’m not sure that’s right."

Another shot. I think I've tried to ascribe the originals to/as Trojan on the Khaki Infantry page, but it's only a theory and still up-in-the-air/open to interpretation, nobody knows for sure and nobody seems to know the Polish maker of the copy for sure either!

Chris also has two of the question-mark-maker figures but feels; "...the marching figure in Puttees does depict Polish troops from the start of WWII." . . . and provides an image (below) of the soldiers so attired.

I suggested these weren't PZG and while the figure on the left is - like mine - self-coloured, the one on the right is painted over the same re-grind PZG are known for, however this seems to have been a feature of a lot of Polish production, and may well be another reason for so much stuff being so casually attributed to PZG, I've seen unpainted pencil-sharpener tanks in the same stuff on feebleBay, sometimes with coloured plastic turrets or tracks.

In defence of my theory; Chris also notes; "Very stick like weapons." . . . which does distance them from PZG's other production and ties-in with my lone example, if nothing else; the work of another sculptor?

The picture Chris sent. It wouldn't blow-up, so I had to enlarge it in Photo Viewer on the desk-top, take a screen-capcha (.png) crop it and save as a .jpg to get it large enough, so it's lost some resolution!

I'll leave the last shot's blurb to Chris; "Two bigger 60mm'ish WWII soldiers both wearing the polish Rogatywka hat. Officer has tall boots but the running guy is again in puttees. I know of 3 more poses . . . all have puttees. Always seem to be attributed to PZG but the bases are unmarked."

I've always been told they're PZG, and I think the solid 60mm versus marked-hollow base 54mm 'rule' is similar for the Northern War, streletsi, medieval and other PZG (or believed to be PZG!) stuff to?

Known Polish Makers of Vintage Plastic Toy Soldiers

Andrzej Kawecki - PVC 1:76th copies of Airfix for 'Ruch' Kiosks

Centrum - unpainted flats, 50 & 70/80mm

CZZP - unpainted 40mm modern semi-flats/demi-ronde (and full flats?)

Globus (Global) - HO-OO piracies of Airfix and Roco-Minitanks

PZG - Wide range in 50, 54, 60mm and larger scales, the trouble being they are so common they have become the generic title for anything which looks Polish

Spojnia - Small scale copies of Esci figures and 1:35th'ish  AFV's (PZG crew? Now a kit manufacturer)

Uniwersum (Universal) - As per Globus

Wyrob - Pestana via Garret credits them with the 54mm Polish winged hussar often credited to PZG, may also be responsible for some of the thick-based figures credited to PZG

WZUP - Pestana via Garret credits them with 54mm equivalent to Britains, might be responsible for some of the larger (3, 4 & 5-inch) statuettes sometimes credited to PZG?

F is for Follow-up - Polish Production

I mentioned the other day that a lot of stuff gets credited to PZG which probably never saw the inside of their workshops and this post is in some way to explain that point, while clearing the smaller samples from my Polish WWII/Soviet-era tubs, most of these are described as PZG somewhere on the Internet.

Stating with a scaler/sizer, we have the Airfix Cold War troops at either end of the top row, struggling to be 54mm at about 52-mil! Inside-one on the right is the full-on 54mm WWII Russian from the same maker, with two of the PZG's from the previous post - the rest are to be looked at below and vary from around 55 to 75mm, bases having a lot to say in the final height though, with 56mm as a starting point.

60-mil with base, but actually the smallest at around 55mm foot-to-crown, these are PZG, and I suppose (like 'assume' Erwin, but a different word, just for a change!) they may be an earlier incarnation by dint of a slight finesse over the chunky based ones, and the fact that they seem to turn-up less often?

Bearing in mind what Gisby said in the comments section of the previous PZG post, these appear to be copied from the Airfix HO/OO (1:76th) scale set! Which also dates them to no earlier than 1964; probably a year or two later.

Base mark, I've dealt with the PZG in the past; Polski Zwiazek Gluchych (Union of the Deaf or 'Polish Association for Deaf People'), the ZSP is an abbreviation for - in Polish - Zwiazek Syndykalistów Polski (Polish Syndicalist Association), which seems to be a second tier of bureaucracy, some collective/state function? I think it's a bit like our putting a 'Royal National' in front of Institute [of the] Blind to get RNIB, or RNLI for the Lifeboat Institution?

The largest are these 75mm prone figures, and the odd thing is no standing or based figures to go with them? Except, I think I may have the standing figures in the still missing box of Eastern Bloc flats, along with another BRDM-type like the ones we've seen here previously, which means they are probably Centrum not PZG?

Plastic Colours also match those Centrum AFV's, along with the flattish nature of the prone poses, the actual 'flat' nature of the upright troops and the AFV's and the fact that their material is cleaner (or 'purer') than the insipid, striated, flaky re-grind and recycled off-cuts PZG tended to use.

Now, these are interesting, I think they may also be Centrum, due to their semi-flat nature, size and the mould-release pin marks, but I don't know for sure. The second-largest at 65mm and carrying the same yellow paint on their bases PZG are known for?

What they depict is equally interesting, it's hard to tell from the sculpted-blob whether it's a soviet style paratrooper badge, Polish paratroopers (most likely) or a UN peacekeepers globe and wreath, if paratroopers it might mean they are Russian production, but the Poles did partake in several UN missions before the 'wall' came down and continue to, so it would be nice to think that's what is depicted here?

[At time of posting - Google suggests they are polish paratroopers Iin UN berets, WITH the polish cap-badge, which is just perfect!]

The Bases; the two central, evenly spaced release pins are similar to those on the Centrum AFV set, but under collectivisation, different toy firms would have been getting tools from the same machine-tool firms!

This chap is very interesting, and the only one I've found of the type, if you didn't know better or if the base was a glue-on, you'd be forgiven for thinking 'Bloody hell, un-documented, rare as rocking-horse shit, Malleble Mouldings khaki infantry figure?'

Sadly the base IS attached as part of the moulding, and the paint points East! But where in the East? . . . your guess is as good as mine . . . but someone knows?

With the leggings/puttees and helmet I'm thinking Czechoslovakia, Hungary or Rumania . . . Bulgaria . . . maybe; one of the lesser Soviet satellite-states anyway, but big-enough to have their own toy-production, over-and-above Russian imports? People use the Airfix Italians as Rumanian troops, from the puttees; so Rumania seems likeliest?

Two orphans, probably both PZG, the radio operator is in blue plastic under the paint, but has a late (?), solid, thick PZG type base, while the harder plastic, cruder-sculpted bazooka-man is less obvious - being baseless - and looks familiar, but I can't place him . . . cut-n-shut of the US Infantry bazooka and kneeling firing 2nd version Para' from Airfix?

Base comparisons of some of the above figures.

Three more which turned-up elsewhere; must have been from the November show in Birmingham 2011, and went straight into storage in the wrong 'zone'! All PZG, but one's a 60+mm against the two standard 54mm's.

The larger guy's base in  a third or fouth variant of PZG's and the second hollowed-out type, with a clever PZG-ZSP with the zed used twice! The 1 - 2 will be a production code or batch number or something equally insignificant, I doubt it's a '1-of-2'!