E is for Eye Candy - Naval & Marines

This was shot back in November 2020, so five years ago, give or take the odd day and a leap-year! There's about the same again to be added to this, in the still being sorted pile, at the lip of the storage container, and we've added a couple of rack-toy assault-craft over that time, all seen here in various posts, I think, try 'Vessels' or 'Naval - Marines' in the tag list. But what can you spot?

 

Top left is all the larger 60mm'ish stuff from Marx, MPC, Auburn (polymer, not rubber) or Ideal (?) and so on, originals and re-issues, to their right is the Lone Star sample, with some PVC, Timpo-branded, Toyway reissues, while the more historically-uniformed Charbens are in the little bag.

 

In the box, top right, are the more modern (WWI/II'ish) Charbens with four of the ever more brittle Lone Star marines - fighting in No.1 Dress uniforms! I have added one or two I think, but they may be duplicates. Below them is a mixed tub of the smaller Marx and a few others; Reisler, hollow-cast &etc, which we saw in an early post on the subject. There's been a few hollow-cast additions too.

 

Sandwiched between those two tubs is a wooden, hand-carved, tourist chap, who we also saw here over a decade a go, but there are four, similar, and very interesting plastic versions about to hit the blog! To the left of the mixed tub is a newer one, since enlarged, but still not ready for the definitive post, with the Britains Naval gun, now 'guns', but not all versions yet, although we did have a look at them, in part, a while ago.

 

In the corner are the three Greek assault-boats, copied from Britains, which got a post, and then in the top-left quarter of the box, all the iconic novelty floating toys from Britains and Timpo. You can see the Greek crewmen under the US Assault craft . . . I've actually done an 'Assault River-Crossing', in a remarkably similar boat, but ours didn't have engines, so we had to fucking paddle, in the rain!

 

The final tub, outside the box, has all the European types, obvious are Cofalu/Cofalux swivel-heads and the Coma assault marines, but there's some other stuff, a couple of Atlantic, a Hong Kong or two, and, strangely, mu original Frog trio, who are RAF rocket-troops! They've since been moved, as the sample is up to about ten now!

 

You can add a largish sample of the Gem cadets, those Argentine rubber ones which came in a while ago, and more Atlantic, Lone Star and Reisler, along with some Starlux (not sure where they are?), but, there's actually quite a few to sort into this tub at some point, and more take-away tubs will be needed! Then there's all the ABC and other Hong Kong copies, from hollow-cast, taken from Britains, which we have looked at here, on more than one occasion, now.

T is for Two - Foreign Minor Makes - HO Railways Figures

Many thanks again to Jon Attwood, as these are all his images, I brightened them up a bit in Picasa, and can add a few points of note, but mostly, just eye candy as we box-tick a couple of the lesser makes, but, if you were a Spanish or Danish railway modeller in the 1960/70's, they wouldn't have been that 'minor' to you, as you feasted your eyes on the display at your local hobby shop, so these things are always relative!

Now Aneste Datank, and offering a basic range of Preiser in their own-brand, as a catalogue box-ticker, originally Dat Ank or Datank (?) are a Spanish railway model maker, who, for a while, under the semi-cold war conditions of being in Franco's Spain, were free to produce knock-off's to their hearts' content!

 

And they seem to have settled upon Walter Merten as the target of their plagiarism, although, the lower set may be old Preiser sculpts? Nevertheless, for metal copies of finely-detailed plastic figures, they aren't bad, quite colourful, and were clearly quite plentiful, as, since Jon sent me these images, I have seen quite a few on evilBay.

 

One is reminded of the efforts of Bermania, from Argentina, but these are a superior finish.

 

While up in the colder, wetter north of the continent, Reisler was producing these in an early Cellulose or glass-like polystyrene. We have actually seen these here before, or something similar, different sculpts, but at the time they were 'unknown' or 'maybe Märklin', now maybe Reisler or maybe Lego! They really only have the heavy bases in common.

While these have no bases, and the farm we also looked at previously here at Small Scale World, have very thin bases? So an odd range of sets, which may be bigger than listed on the Tohan site, until someone ID's those others, we won't know!

T is for Two - Euro-Armour

To go with their largish '54mm' Airfix resembling 54mm combat infantry, technically US troops, but aimed at a NATO , or Bundeswher recogniseing fan-base, Jean Hoefler produced a Leopard Tank, and to utilise the chassis tool, a nice conversion to this beast . . .

. . . the Flugabwehrkanonenpanzer Gepard (Cheetah), an all-weather-capable day-and-night, self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG) currently doing sterling-service in Ukraine, bringing down Russian tactical missiles and their 'indestructible' hypersonic bollocks, as well as drones, large and small!

Seen-elsewhere shot, you can see it goes well with pretty-much any large-scale toy soldiers you throw at it with Crescent, Cherilea and a couple of Reisler, used here as scale/size compatibility guides.

 

While this is - I'm pretty sure - a Bonux premium from France, next-door, but it's unmarked, the ex-Manurba-Tallon stuff they carried is marked with the soap-powder's name, but it seems the more unique items weren't. Fictional but fun!

F is for Follow-ups - Space Stuff

Sorting folders I've found two readers contributions following up on stuff from ages ago, so I'd better get them up here before they get any older!

Apologies to all, you will by now have realised it's organised chaos at this end, and with about 800 folders on toys and toy stuff, things do just 'disappear'! Sometimes they actually disappear; it seems that from time to time Picasa will just stop showing a folder on the scroll, so every year or so I try to find an hour or two to go through the 'My Pictures' folder, looking for both empty folders and folders which have been lost / forgotten or hidden by Picasa's ornery rules!

This was sent to the Blog by a loyal reader in Finland (he's since sent me something equally interesting, which is on-hold due to current events in the Independent Republic of Ukraine), and shows playing pieces for a board game which you will recognise as the Reisler spacemen (one shown) but in plain / primary coloured plastic; red one damaged. We partially tied them to Thomas's space figures here.

The game is by a Danish manufacturer Adolph Holst of Aalborg and called Avaruuspeli or 'Space Game', published in Danish there are also Finnish language versions ('rare birds' in the contributor's words!).

The same company produced a WWII type board game; Taistelupeli (or 'Conflict Game'), an example of which can still be seen here, but it's a sales site so it won't be there for ever! You can see it also has undecorated Reisler figures as playing pieces, the rather generic 'combat infantry'.

While Ed Berg sent these as a follow-up to Brian Berke's follow-up to a spring-launched missile post I did!

They are another version of MPC's rocket launcher, the missiles are very different to those shown in the original post. A smarter version still can be seen on Ed's excellent Blog here, while this is awesome!

Cheers guys, it's all bricks in the wall! It's all appreciated and it all makes it here - eventually!

V is for Variations on a Theme

As per yesterday's third post, when I first sorted these out for last Friday's  'Jiggle-O-Chrome' shots, I ended-up with three piles, they have now all been re-united in one bag. Unlike the Wild West figures, these are all marked on the base, but in common with yesterday's set share an eclectic mix of donor-paths.

So, the first pile was 'Armymen'; dark green, and included some figures taken from the old Arco set of Rambo figures, a Matchbox radio operator, Airfix running German infantryman and three prone figures of more original design, the left hand one is closer to the Atlantic Marine than the Airfix one, the middle guy might have a bit of Airfix Russian grenade-thrower about him, and the right-hand one looks vaguely European . . . Atlantic, Layla? I've seen those crossed ankles somewhere . . . Reisler? It is isn't it? The Reisler wire-cutting guy?

The second pile was paler 'Armymen', and had the variant of the Airfix running guy who seems to have originated in a set of Hong Kong figures sent to France, I know mine come from Samewise (link), there's another Rambo pose and I'm not sure about the grenade thrower, the prone are again interesting with a BAR-gunner and another Reisler-like figure, while the two standing figures look familiar but I can't place them right this moment - coastguards?

It was looking like they probably belonged together with the first lot, but I try to be diligent in these matters and was at the same time building a third, smaller pile of . . .

. . . bog-standard, Airfix umpty-something-generation copies in a third shade of green! Because they have been copied from already appalling figures, they do look a little different to the other two lots with a flashy join-line and lumpier detailing, but the base edge matches . . .

. . . and they all have the same mark? So as with the Wild West set, I think they do all go together, and further, the CHINA is the same as yesterday's set so I'm guessing they are from the same source.

All together and - again - from behind; is the grenade thrower from a WWII Japanese figure; BMC or AIP . . . Rado? And the Rambo rocket Launcher now looks a bit Cherilea modern/NATO 54mm swoppet!

I have heard several anecdotal (and not so anecdotal - from the horse's mouth) stories of rich Singaporean, Malaysian and Hong Kong collectors [or businessmen claiming to be collectors?] offering European collectors big-bucks for whole collections. Could that have anything to do with this sudden flowering of variety in army men pose-counts in sets which had been getting a tad tired through the turn of the century? Or are those Russians working with Chinese producers feeding their spare figures to the awoken very awake dragon?

More thanks to Peter E for another interesting and eclectic set of modern-production figures.

PS - I think all five prone figures are ex-Reisler sculpts? Brilliant . . . unless you're Reisler!

N is for No Spanish Horses!

But more odds-&- sods of a ceremonial or 'on-parade' nature, indeed the first quartet started life a week or so ago in the same tub as two of the mounted reamsa's and the Argentine Lifeguard look-a-like, so may also be from the collection of Barry 'the legend' Blood, from that 2010 sell-off?

These being they! Two Danish guards from Reisler, in the everyday uniform, the red is the ceremonial, the black for day-in/day-out wear. To their left are two Mignalu plastic Monaco police (Carabineers de Monaco) in their summer dress uniform (they also have a dark version for winter), these are taken from a short experiment by Minot (CGB, not Barry) in Aluminium production back in the 1950's.

My three Athena's, I couldn't begin to explain anything else about them as there seem to be so many variations; red and blue, white and blue, kilts, bloused trousers, pom-poms - large, small and no, single or double 'deputy dog' ears, 'wing-boards' . . . and I must conclude that every regiment has its own uniform, or that several guards have summer and winter versions, there is an excellent book or two on them by Markos Plytos and they should make it clearer, in the meantime - my three are a good mix!

The first four were going to be with the Cavalry, before they expanded and I decided they must go seperately as a 'foot ceremonials' post, off to find the Evzones above, I checked Brian B's folders and found this 80'mil-odd chap, who's from Processed Plastic (thanks to Kent's site)'s US Air Force set.

Which in turn reminded me I had this chap (on the left) in with the unknown navy (or navy-like) figures, looking at him anew I suspect he's actually a chauffeur or doorman from a 1:35th scale car kit - Monogram, MPC/AMT-Ertl, Pyro or Revell? He's in hard polystyrene plastic anyway and someone's tried to glue him down by melting his base!

He - in turn - reminded me there was the other black plastic figure hanging around, seen on the right; he's soft polyethylene and I know nothing about him, I thought he must be Marx or MPC but doesn't seem to be either, has some features in common with the Remco Romans, but is lacking the fine detail seen on their shields, he's close to Marx's 60mm naval cadet marching, but of poorer quality and without the shoulder flap on the Marx figure's greatcoat, and, if it wasn't for the base, you might mistake him for an early experiment by Pater Cole's Replicants!

Anyone know, he seems to be a modern re-issue so I guess somewhere someone has a bucket-full of 'um? To be honest he looks like a neighbouring dictator's guard from the Trigan Empire and seems to be carrying an Elephant Brontosaurus-gun! The gun actually looks to be damaged at the tip, but inspection under a magnifying-glass suggests it's all there? Steam-punk Nazi!??!

ABC, Hong Kong rip-off's of Britains hollow-cast marching troops, they look better en-masse than they do individually!

A mix of French troops marching, seen recently here, but again looking better as a group, and also HK copies, this time cloned from Starlux.

A Salvation Army chap I shot on Adrian's stand years ago and which has been sat in Picasa ever since! I may actually have one myself, but either a different pose or a different flag, and I'm not sure where I put it? He's aluminium and Wend-Al.

A scaler on the left, while on the right - they are all ensconced in their new tub! the HK stuff (ABC/Starlux-copies) have their own tubs!

The cavalry grew to fill two tubs, Reamsa and 'others', and the foot got one of their own. The red plastic Reisler's (which we've seen; Blog passim) will stay with the British guards for now, but as this sample grows and fills a deeper tub, they may migrate across (with the correct paperwork - no illegal's here!), while you can see the lovely RHA chap Chris Smith sent the blog a while back has joined them.

Because PVC can melt polystyrene, the three Greeks and the artilleryman get PE bags, which prevents that kind of damage occurring and provides padding for all the figures in the tub.

S is for Sentry-Box Ticking!

Not the greatest sample I'm sure, compared to some of your collections, but I've only been fagged with this large-scale malarkey for ten years, and larger items - like 'large-ticket items' - tend to be a lower priority! But, and as with totem-poles, I do grab them if they're going cheap, others have come-in in mixed lots, while a core of British designs were in the big purchase.

The two main British makers have both had a stab, Timpo (right) went with one tool, manufacturing in two colours and then gluing opposite-colour pieces to each other for a choice of two, otherwise identical boxes!

Britains (left) had three, the Herald one in the middle we'll return to in a second, there was a larger one in the later years (which is a near-copy of their (or T&B's (?)) earlier hollow/slush-cast one I think?) and the semi-flat or relief 'stage scenery' one from late Herald [Hong Kong]'s windowed, long-box sets.

Returning to the earlier Herald version; it gave rise to a family of near-identical, but different boxes, with here from the left; Herald, Kentoy, Cavendish, and two unknown's either of which may (or may not) be Trojan, UNA or VP, or even Speedwell . . . or someone else entirely?

Rather than try to explain all the differences, it's easier to present them as a table for those whose levels of geekiness equal mine to pore-over and compare with the above images!

I will waffle over the marks though! (1) is obviously the Herald design, (2) is the Kentoys version, which - frankly - is the [slightly] better design, it's a tad 'cleaner', more symmetrical and better etched than the Herald version. (3) is the Cavendish version, it's clearly had an attempt at removing the 'KENTOY' first line, although it remains readable if you do that 'turning-it in the light' thing!

I think (4) is the one credited to UNA in the Plastic Warrior 'special' of 2009, it's also seen in grey (as a copy) in the Kentoys special of the same year; it has a heavier gable/roof edge? Trojan don't have one listed (so far!), neither do VP (yet), but then there is (5) waiting for an ascribing too!

Also; given the similarities between the Herald and Kentoy ones, might Gemodels' Musgrave be in there somewhere, I had presumed Norman Tooth for both similar designs? Although there's no larger ex-Herald one in the new Speedwell 'special' (post due . . . overdue!), one has to consider them for the unknown '5' above along with the other possible 'names'?

I seem to have crammed the rest into one collage, but that's how the cookie crumbled, so that's how it is and what we have to work with!

Image A has the 'foreigners', with Афина (Athena) from Greece at 1, and Reisler's equally common Danish box at 2, both have been sold as tourist keepsakes for decades and are just as common as Britains' examples. 3 is from Hong Kong and must be from larger playsets? The Riesler has an incorrect flag, actually taken from a Guards musician!

Image B shows - on the right (2) what I'm pretty sure is Crescent's wooden one which ran alongside their figures through both the hollow-cast and plastic years, but I have a half-an-inkling the heavy steel 'tin-plate' one is Crescent too? But I stand to be corrected by someone who does know! Chris Smith is to be thanked for sending the wooden one to the Blog the other day.

Image C is not that clear, I used to think they were die-cast (and probably Wardie/Mastermodels; they're quite small?), but they may be a hardish whitemetal ('lead') slush-cast, which would open the field of possible makers considerably?

Image D has the diminutive Speedwell box on the right and an unknown wooden giant (also from Chris Smith - thanks again Chris) on the left, the chevron stripes are a bit 'Euro' looking and I suspect a reasonably modern, probably infant's wooden castle or building-blocks type set?

All of them in size-order with the two 'middle' ends duplicated and the addition of the little Airfix one from the Guards Colour Party on the far end of the last line-up. The Athena one should have a sentry glued to it - like the Reisler one

Favorite? I quite like the little may-not-be-Mastermodels may-not-be-diecsat, I'm 'pleased' with the Speedwell from the big purchase, but I don't think you can beat the octagonal Reisler with its pointy, fairy-tale roof and Royal-cipher transfer if you are thinking of starting a collection of these.

Now, it was the arrival of the two wooden-ones from Chris that pre-empted this post, the two (now three) tubs had been here for some time waiting for a post's photo-shoot, but also waiting to have the sentry-boxes here sorted into them, which may not have happened? I can't remember!

It doesn't really matter, but there may be a creamy- or dirty-white version of the yellow Hong Kong one somewhere, and possibly a Starlux one (another common one for tourism reasons) although we have seen the small-scale version here at Small Scale World in the past. Also missing is the Hong Kong [and/for] Cavendish one, with its plinth, but that's also been on the Blog, recently!

I have another small-scale lead one somewhere, which featured with a penguin and some Danish Guards years ago, possibly on HäT as a long-gone Imagshack-upload, but I'm not sure where they've ended-up . . . they're here somewhere; along with a flat one.

There are plenty of cheapie-kahki types from rack-toy playsets, but they are another thing altogether, there's a few small-scale card ones kicking around in the 'paper' crate I think and I used to have the mail-away with 'stars' 1:12th Action Man one, which differed in design from the retail one, both were heavy, mounting-card.

Also Fujimi, Hasegawa and Nitto produced small ones with check-point kits as did Airfix in 1:32, in fact I think I have one somewhere? I seem to recall a bag of grey polystyrene bits (no bridge?) came in at some point - possibly from Jim?

So, we'll have to return to them sooner rather than later! In the meantime, thanks to Chris for triggering this post.

News Views Etc . . . Khaki Infantry Page Update

Finally got round to texting-up the latest tranche of images for the Khaki infantry page including the brilliant stretcher comparisons from Chris Smith, the rest of my Reisler along with a shot from the late Dave Scrivener and a Britains 'Hong Kong' shot, which have been sprinkled through the page, with the stretchers given a separate section, as the mortar's already had, but located alphabetically in the 's' slot!

F is for Foreign Fellows on Phut-phuts

Heay, I don't care - anything for an alliterative heading, me!

So soon after the last two-wheeled round-up, but I was re-jigging the garage stuff to make room and found several boxes I was happy to re-acquainted myself with, including the motorcycles box, and so we're back to them with a quick look at some of the larger ones from foreign makers.

Across the North Sea Reisler were turning this out in various guises including civil and police colours as well as the 'Friendly' (with rider) and 'Enemy' (abandoned!) force colours seen here. Made from an early polystyrene, it has a soft, warmness to the touch and a naturally glossy finish, to which they added minimal paint-highlights.

Some Spanish outfit - I'd better not try ID'ing them in case it says something else in TJF's bookie-wook, leading him to another on-line rage'gasm. In the shot bottom-right, you can see the holes present in all machines for a side-car, and both variants seem relatively common, sharing the swoppet elements of figures by Manuel Sotorres with the moveable arms also seen on the smaller figures from Torres Maltas, this rider though has more in common with the larger output credited to Juguetes Teixido . . . damn! Committed myself . . . helmets on!

From the land of Uncle Sam came this rather nice machine, sans rider, a Harley' or an Indian? Milwaukee steel-horse anyway! Made by Pyro as part of their dime-store military range and also included in some of the larger 'big-box' sets, it never had a rider as far as I know and was out of scale (larger) than most of the other vehicles in the range.

Covering Germany from Italy, comes this crude'ish sculpt which can be taken as a BMW R75 or Zündapp KS 750 due to the front forks being an accurate rendition of neither!

The Atlantic figures are stiff and the machine is chunky, and I think my back-seat may be a battlefield modification from an anti-aircraft mounting . . . you can't win 'em-all! This is a later issue in a leery colour, probably from the blister-packs with collector stickers.

From 'Chye-Nah' as the Orange Loon refers to them; comes a modern road-bike/tourer type with 3-spoke alloy wheels, a camouflage paint-job and convoy/escort beacon. New Ray's is a lovely model but the equally well sculpted (yet rather over-burdened - given his storage pannier's size!) rider cannot be made to hold the diminutive handle-bars which is a pain and something which should have been sorted-out at the production stage; maybe he's from another machine?

A few more shots of the New Ray pairing!

Warh! Err . . . Well . . . , this isn't foreign, what's it doing in this post? Someone must have sneaked it in here to advertise another post? Ah! That's it; check this out . . . Airfix, don't you know!