A is for Atomic . . . Space Ship

You may recall we looked at this beast before (ten years ago, where does it go . . . WHERE?), a contribution from an anonymous follower of the Blog, at the time he had some space-battle damage to one of them but has since sourced a whole one, so sent a follow-up here to Small Scale World.

Not much to add to these as we have looked at them before, and I was going to save the shots for a 'pulp' season at some point, but thought I'd try to clear some of the contributed stuff now, and so when I do return to dime-store space, hopefully use all the images 'in the bank' in better context?

Largest of the single-moulding (plus wheels) vessels, the Atomic Space Ship was a convoluted pile of three aerodynamic buses, piled on two V2 rockets, given a subway car front and four huge afterburners at the rear! Sort of what I said last time but possibly more prosaic . . . time's tighter this time!

Like most of the contemporary space ships it was carried by more than one company (Pyro too?) and while these are  both Tudor Rose, even these two are not quite the same, the silver one having a thicker chin-line or skirting below the forward cab and thinner window-bars on the three upper sections, which - finding these differences - is half the fun of collecting!

Cheers Anon' - you know who you are!

B is for Bobbing Bunny!

We've seen bobbing tanks here several times in two designs, but this came-in with a mixed lot of mostly British/Canadian 'dime-store' type plastics, and I'd forgotten all about it until someone came round the other day and we were going through them, indeed, if it hadn't been for that visit and Brian's kindness a few days ago there would have been no seasonal stuff here today at all!

In fact I got two mixed-lots recently, this is both lots together, some (from Mercator Trading) have been seen here in the past, others haven't, and a similar-sized lot came from a charity-lot on feebleBay, among which was the target of this post.

I know I've spelt probably incorrectly - Doh! And the wreaker-truck turned-out to have faint PP's on the wheel-hubs so is another Poplar, but the motorcycle-rider is PVC so probably a Thomas left-over. while the Cheerio's are half-and half 'Canada' (yellow wheels) and 'England' (black/white wheels).

It's a Bobbing Bunny! He appears to be driving the bastard-child of a White's scout-car and an Indian Pattern Chevrolet as supplied to the Long Range Dessert Group (LRDG)! And that's all I can say about it really, it is what it is, and you can see that for yourselves!

I'm not saying my diet's that healthy at the moment but I made the little bugger work for his sugar-coated,Mr Cadbury's Parrot, chocolate mini-eggs! Up and down the carpet, up and down the bedspread, up and down the table, up-and-down the mantelpiece, he's quite versatile and delivers all sorts of treats!

Only marking is a Made in England and tool/cavity mark '2' and he probably came with either Jelly-Tots (or similar?) or a great, big, tooth-loosening gobstopper?

R is for Rosedale

Another Box-ticker really, large scale (120mm figure?) farm tractor from (or marked) Rosedale. Actually an 'imprint' of and the parent for Tudor*Rose, and I really only photographed it because I thought it identified the pieces I've been digging-up at the bottom of my Mother's garden, but in fact they are from a similar-sized but different model!

Rosedale used to be a confusing moniker to me, as while it is not a 'Smith' or 'Jones', and seems unusual (as a brand name) there seemed to be several users of the title and for years I couldn't work out who they all were or if - for the most part - they were related or not.

1 - This Rosedale was one of several brands used by Rosedale Associates the company started by Norman Rosedale and one of the companies close to Islyn Thomas/Thomas Toys (see FIM Vol.II for more). This is the one I think of as Tudor*Rose.

2 - There was a Canadian branch (Bonar Rosedale Plastics?) who seem to have used Rosedale in preference to the Tudor*Rose more common over here, and continued to do so later (1980's?) than the T*R mark became ubiquitous in the UK.

3 - Rosedale Figurines, now part of Fleurbaix Toy Soldiers made soft, poured or centrifugally cast, white-metal figures in various larger (54mm-up) scales.

4 - Rosebud...where the confusion stemmed from, and (I've just Googled it) still seems to. Rosedale/Tudor*Rose seem to have had a 'Rosebud' doll, but a company called Rosebud near Northampton also made toys and dolls in plastic. A listing on the Internet right now describes "Vintage sweet little tudor rose or rosebud hp doll 1950s in darling outfit". Rosebud - the company - was responsible for the model train kits in HO gauge taken-over by Airfix. The rest of the company was absorbed by Mattel in 1967 becoming Rosebud-Mattel for a while.

W is for Wittrock, H Wittrock

Another contribution from our reader/follower in the snowy North, and before I get on to the W of H Wittrock A/S, the company who produced the X-300 below, the first image is of a new and interesting version of the X-100 Scout.

Having two forward wheels and no tail wheels, it also has no window voids, due to the most surprising feature, a second skin or liner in a flecked grayish plastic which runs the whole length of the fuselage, fitting snugly in the nose and tail. I can only assume this was to reinforce the whole model and keep breakages to a minimum, lowering the amount of negative feedback at the time?

Three views of the box for a Finnish produced X-300, the Finnish title is Avarus Raketti, while the Rymdraket is the Swedish version of the translation for 'Space Cruiser, I suspect actually they both translate back as 'Space Rocket'? The same ship also sold in Denmark as Rumskib.

Another box in a brighter yellow graphic, Telex was the brand, but the contributor states that Wittrock were the actual maker. The shorter, blunter profile of the lower tail fin is a deliberate feature of these and given the damage the Pyro/Tudor*Rose ones get suggests this was a good move!

Another major difference between the Pyro one and this Scandinavian beast is the long probe coming off the front canopy...well; if you've taken the breakage-susceptible bits of the back - why not add one to the front!!

S is for Siblings - Take 2

Way back at the start of the Blog, I posted the little 'bubble-car' saloon of the 1950's type VW Beetle/Morris Minor shape here;

S is for Siblings

I then returned to them again here;

M is for Mysteries (which included a look at the probably Tudor*Rose version with thermo-printed star)

And recent purchases have caused me to return to them with a little more info and another variant...

Firstly a bog-standard set of three Kleeware versions from the Service Station play-set, the nice thing about them is that they are all in a 'pearlescent' plastic, giving a metallic effect. Also, I noticed that all three were slightly different mouldings, most noticeable on the grill, where the vertical strengthener varies from partially to fully down the whole grill (yellow one) and the horizontal vents are different, but also windows vary and one of the tow-hooks is more pointed (yellow again).

Then this turned-up - An Ideal version, same size as the Pyro/Kleeware/Tudor*Rose and Lido ones and having similarities with both the other Pyro/Kleeware moulding (licence plate DP 7189) and the unknown (larger sized) one from the first post above with its more boat-tailed shape, but without the separate rear wheel-arch feature of those two, having instead a continuous body moulding line running the full length of the vehicle in a more rakish and 'futuristic' manner.

This one - like the Lido one, the Empire copy and the smaller, angular Mohawk effort - has no licence plate. It came as a load on the inset transporter, but didn't fit well, being a bit small, a different red and a better finish, so I suspect they don't actually go together, but if anyone knows the lorry's make I'd be grateful for an ID. It's poor finish leads one to suspect Hong Kong, but it's unmarked, which is unusual for a HK toy of this type, so it may be an American or European rack-toy/dime store thing?

T is For Trucks - Overview

A bit of a gratuitous post today, these are mostly old photographs I took about ten years ago with my old 35mm Zenit, and in the course of packing for a forthcoming move, I though I'd scan them into the PC, they seemed to scan OK so I collaged them, and am throwing them up here for the hell of it!

Top left to bottom right, clockwise; Airfix (both Types) double convoy of NFIC, the three Tudor*Rose trucks and some slightly smaller trucks from the Beeju stable, with a 'Home Farm' Blue Box type Bedford.

Hong Kong cheepies, modern style to the left of the older - but still available - rack-toy trucks. Below them a 'Mini-car' from VEB Plasticart on the left and some kits on the right, Matchbox, Airfix and Hasegawa in front; Esci behind.

Two scratch builds from Airfix, and an assortment of die-casts top, Matchbox and Dinky bottom left with various other bits bottom right - Corgi x2, HK, Montaplex and a Dime-store toy from the states by...can't remember! A birds name I think...Montana? I'll have to look when I get home! [Mohawk!]

The inset image is the other reason for this post, linking in with both the stuff I posted a few weeks ago, and the forthcoming article on these mini-copies of the old Lone*Star/Kleeware truck, a Kleeware is on the far end of the row, the very tiny one is from a resent Christmas Cracker.

Marx reissues and an original ambulance (copied from the Dinky Daimler of the 1950's), Roco-minitanks early pattern Unimog (correction; I think this is the Roskopf one?), one each from Jean (right) and Manurba (left) and three Blue Box.

A is for Atomic Age!

This is a quick post actioned by a contributor's kind supply of images of the Tudor*Rose Atomic Space Ship, another of that wonderful range of ships and ground vehicles from several, all or none of a large handful of companies both sides of the ‘pond’ and both sides on the Channel.

Here is the beast, we had the grey one before with its slightly bent nose, but the blue one is complete for a fuller appreciation of its beauty…no, It’s not beautiful is it? It has buckets of charm and a wagon-load of nostalgia, but it looks like several 1950’s rural buses or luxury coaches, welded to parts of an over scale Cadillac! But I’m not being mean (well, maybe jealous?!!), they’re lovely things and I’m pleased to be able to post them here.

If I was in the position to buy two identical ones, I’d remove the wheels and wheel mounts and glue them back-to-back (sacrilege!), then it’d look like a 50’s pulp cover-image ship…if it was standing on its tail. The engine nacelles have shades of Thunderbird 2 or Stingray; No?
These are both marked Tudor*Rose and the contributor reports that they seem to be easier to source in Canada or Australia than here in the UK where they were made! One is marked 1 the other 2 and a third unmarked grey one recently spotted by him was also marked 1, while I have an eBay image for a couple of years ago which is marked with a 2, probably a Pyro version or Kleeware/Tudor*Rose changeover piece?

If you smash the nose of your Atomic Space Ship, you will need to land and deal with any aliens in the way for which you will - obviously, stupid! - need a ray-gun…


This Space Squadron Sonic Beam weapon from DCMT (Die Cast Machine Tools) otherwise known as Lone*Star is the baby for the job! Surprisingly common, I see one every time I go to either Sandown or the NEC toy fairs, sometimes more than one, and at least 3 Toy Soldier dealers I count as Friends have had one in the last few years, one of which I photographed here. It is very robust and rarely has damage, sometimes the little flange or blade under the pistol grip is missing, sometimes the sight has been broken off and glued back on, but they’re usually in pretty complete nick. This appears to be based on a design by Commonwealth Utilities of Chicago, illustrated in 'Blast Off' by Young, Duin and Richardson.

If you click on this one and study it closer it’s seen some heavy work, killing aliens down the garden, behind the shed, up the scout hut and on the common, yet apart from surface scratching is OK, and taking standard batteries and standard bulbs with very simple electrics, it can easily be put back into service, and on a low setting, can help you home in the dark without killing anything, alien or otherwise, which may explain its common status; “A practical ray-gun for Christmas Johnny?”

Once you have cleared aliens from the landing site, you will need to refuel and send the crew off sightseeing while you fix the ship...

Here the Mettoy airport will provide all your needs, with an aerodynamic coach, wrecker truck and re-fueller…humm…when I said aerodynamic bus; I clearly meant fish-tailed brick! Lower gravity don’cha know!

These came with a toy airport of tin-plate and card, with two small planes I’ll post another day, and while it was supposed to be a 1950’s Croydon type facility, they tried to look forward with their support vehicles…the fools!

There you have it, a quick ‘Early British Makes’ Sci-fi post entirely provided by other peoples items - none of these are in my collection - with further thanks going to John Begg (PTS Collectables) who’s ray-gun I photographed a few years ago, and Jeremy Croucher as it was his Airport I took the vehicle shots from.

Z is for Zoo Animal Premiums

This post is entirely the fault of the 'Philosophic Toad' who in her question on the Bonux post, got me started on a day's research which has resulted in my not doing a clients garden, not picking up some cash and not going to the shops! As a result I've run out of coffee and tobacco, can you imagine trying to sort out 11 lots of half-understood animals without nicotine or caffeine? Toad - you owe me, however, for you delectation, and the interest of any other interested passers-by, here is my take on some (not all!) of the non-domestic animal gifts, giveaways and premiums issued over the years. [Toad made-up by sending me two images of the original ad's, and a follow-up post has now been done, when I've more time I'll re-do them both into one, but in the meantime, if you open them both in two tabs, you can flick between the two for a slightly fuller - if more confusing! - picture. new post is here; Update ]

I'll do acknowledgments first this time;

Kent Sprecher's Toy Soldier HQ provides an image of the Lido mouldings here;
Wild Animals

Jean-Claude Pifret's 'Figurines Publicitaires' gives a list and photographs of the Bonux/Mir/Omo ranges.

Wayne Ratcliffe's Cluck Vol.2 gives lists and dates for two sets, and I have a photocopy of the original advert for one set which seems to have come from Vol.1.

Lots of Spanish and Portuguese language websites/pages were found but my lack of both languages meant they were of limited use, however they did contribute to the overall picture, so thanks to the many, everything else is my own guesstimation!

The first picture shows the Kellogs animals as laid out in the Cluck Vol.1 picture, with three other animals, two of which are seen in the Lido set, linked to above; Buffalo and Moose, the Wild Boar is in the same vein, but could well be a Dom/Manurba moulding, or similar (Jean/Big, French premium?). The Lido link means these were almost certainly provided by Tudor*Rose.

Issued by Kellogg's in their Puffa-Puffa Rice and Coco Krispies breakfast cereals, announced as 'Zoo Animals' in kids comic in May 1971 (Hotspur, 22nd May to be specific). A set of ten (still no Wild Boar?) were issued in Canada (and the USA?) in Sugar Pops, also by Kellogg's as 'Big Game Hunters Favorite Wild Animals' (and everything in the picture has been hunted and shot by humans in the last 200 years...), these would most likely have been Lido Originals.

We then hit this set, very similar, but much finer sculpting, and a larger range. Now the first thing you'll notice is - during the photo-session I labeled-up the group to represent the missing figures in the list of animals issued by Kellogg's at some other period (still unknown to me) in the 70's, however, as I was doing the photo's it struck me they may have been Cadbury's not Kellogg's. Ratcliffe's notes in Cluck Vol.2 on the first (8 animal) set gets to mentioning a pose variant of the Buffalo and Nabisco "shaped biscuits", and I think he was confusing the two sets as the same set.

I was already thinking of the Cadbury's Animal shaped chocolate biscuits and Google has not helped! However, I have one 1980's plastic flat of a blue Elephant with a big square base marked Cadbury, so they may well have had a similar promotion in the 1970's?

Because I photographed them as if they were the Kellogg's set below, I left out the two bottom left, if they were issued with biscuits, then they will be part of the set, as will the two Tigers, as I was looking for one! The Moose behind the Tigers is in a hard nylon plastic and points to another source of these animals somewhere? Again apart from the red Moose, these are Tudor*Rose in style and colour, why they needed to re-design 10 of them is anyone's guess, but clearly newer production methods led to finer castings.

I can't just publish a photo of the image in FP without the permission of the author/publishers, and don't have time to seek it, so will describe as best I can. There are two sets of animals, both sets are in both gold and Silver/Gunmetal with a painted Giraffe and variants of 3 of the larger set giving 30 to look for, with others bound to be still undiscovered/yet to be ascribed.

In the larger set The Bear is the same as that in the second set above, with the Moose and Zebra similar and the Camel and Giraffe bearing a good resemblance. In the smaller set the Hippo and Rhino are the close matches. The similarity's weighted against number of unrelated castings would suggest piracy in a different vein to the above sets, where the 8 are clearly the same.

Bonux are nominally linked with the larger ones only. Mir seem to have the larger set too, with a Hippo from the smaller set (to my eye it should be with the larger animals) leaving Omo with most of the small animals and the largest of the three Hippo's plus the painted Giraffe.

Animals similar to all the above sets were also made by Marx and Renwal/Plasticraft, again; good pics on Toy Soldier HQ.

The second Kellogg's set; 'Zoo Animal' is actually the set in green, red and brown bottom right with the missing Gorilla and snake, they are similar to the set in the larger picture which are the bubble-gum animals from Mundi Toys/Tylers and Dunkin, both selling to the Iberian Peninsular.

The Kellogg's set is not identical, with loss of detail on some, while others are noticeably larger. Note that apart from the Snake, all the Kellogg's are duplicates of the larger series from Spain, and as the Spanish set was issued in 1967, it's fair to assume the Kellogg's set was the copy rather than vis-a-versa.

I think the long-horned red thing belongs were I've put the missing animal card '2nd/3rd Deer' but it's hard to tell from the packet. The Tylers/Dunkin soldiers I covered a while ago came on sprues of 8 figures before being broken down into packs, so with Ratcliffe reporting the Kellogg's coming on sprues, in fours, that makes sense as you could cut an 8 figure sprue of animals into two 4 figure 'spruelets' and ensure 4 different animals in a box with a 25% chance of new animals each time you ate your way to another purchase!

The other side of the pack from Mundi Toys, I think it translates as Animals of the Savanna (or Velt?), along with similar products from Tito (cartoonish) and Olá (the name for Wall's Ice cream in Portugal and southern France), I can't find the source for my having ascribed them to Olá, so it should be taken with a pinch of salt...The Tito are marked with their little wobbly-diamond. Finally a comparison between the Kellogg's and Spanish Hippo's.

leaving us with a further size comparison, main picture, bottom, from the top left reading L-R; Kellogg's, Cadbury?/Nabisco?, Kellogg's, Mundi/Dunkin, Olá?, Unknown.

To go with the unknown Elephant is a Giraffe (smaller inset photo.), above them is a small sample of tiny soft PVC/vinyl rubber animals [Schlicht 'Minis' with the little black-dot eyes worn off!] and a group of Christmas Cracker gifts of recent origin to the left, both with Spanish bubble-gum Elephants for scale.

My sofa during this afternoons constructive activity! That box on the right is 'Animals, Unknown, Wild' and contains about 150 envelopes like the ten on the board! So it's gona'be a long life if the man upstairs wants me to finish this task!!!

Further study;
Wikipedia; Animal Biscuits

Still No Ducks

M is for Mysteries; Slight Mysteries?

I've covered these before, but a couple of things I noticed while preparing the photographs for the Banner and Pyro posts below are worth a mention...

The first thing I noticed is that there are two mouldings of the saloon car, the green one is noticeably longer and has a few detail differences, smaller hole in the towing-hitch, chunkier bumpers (fenders) and some variations in window size.

The second query is really anal; The two saloon-car number plates BV4672, top left and right, with the coupe bottom left - DP 7189. Now Kent Sprecher over at toysoldierhq has the saloon being DV not BV, is this a typo or are there two different number plates for this car?

Could BV be 'Banner Vehicle' with the DV being a Pyro copy? And could the larger, slightly cruder civilian version be a Kleeware or Tudor Rose re-tool?

The mould-number (?) in the roof of the cars, it doesn't look it, but the 4 is a very crude hand-scratched thing, it seems to have been straitened by my attempts in Picasa to make it visible! The 6 is about half the size and is a standard engineers mould-punch, done correctly - back to front - so that it reads the right way on the product, something the Hong Kong producers often forgot to do, using instead product-punches, leaving the HONG KONG upside down and back to front, they were helped by the fact that only the 'N's and 'G's were noticeable, and then only to a close observer.

Interesting also how the thermo-printed star shows through the roof as a faint...er...star!

M is for More Space Stuff!

This image was sent in by a reader/follower from Finland, who wishes to remain anonymous, however many thanks to him for doing so as there are two bits of real interest here...

First is the reversed colourway for the Space Hawk/Spaceship from Pyro/Poplar, which rather confirms my suspicion that the 'Tudor Rose' one below is actually another Poplar moulding. I was told it was Tudor Rose and the 'Made in England' rather throws you...but the Welsh (in the 50's) weren't as bothered by their status as some are now, and 'England' would get exports more recognition than 'Wales'?

Of more interest in the photograph are the four X-100 Space Scouts at the back, these are in a semi-transparent/marbled plastic, and in conversation with the guy who supplied the photo, the thought is they are local production. If not Finnish, then Scandinavian at least...Now, the Ajax/Beton/Everybody else mounted figures from the very early days of plastic, were carried/produced in Europe by an unknown French company, Airfix, Remsa and, in Denmark, by Riesler...could Riesler have produced these four?

The other two are a silver X-200 Space Ranger like the red one below [this is a pyro original] and an Atomic Space Ship (with a damaged nose), [marked] Tudor Rose.

P is for Poplar Plastics (and Pyro?)

Normal service will be resumed in a day or two, in the meantime here's a couple more additions to the 1950's space fleet. I will re-do the last few posts in a more informative and ordered fashion soon.

On the left is a Poplar Plastics (UK 'Spaceship'), copy of a Gilmark (US 'Space Hawk') model, on the right is [probably not] a Tudor Rose (UK 'Rocketship') copy of a Pyro (? US) model, but being reversed colours to the Poplar, it could be another one of theirs? [I think it probably is - see above post] The Poplar is unmarked while the single engined one has the typical 'MADE IN ENGLAND' of Tudor Rose, and Poplar were based in Wales. It could also be a Kleeware design, or even Marx, they used bronzey colours on some of their readymade/dimestore stuff? Either way it's missing its dorsal fin!

I is for Invasion Fleet; Kleeware & Tudor Rose

R is for Ranger, X-200 Space Ranger by Pyro

C is for Clipper, Space Clipper by Tudor Rose

X is for X-400 Space Explorer

A family tragedy means no urge to write for a few days, this will have to do...

S is for Siblings

A few things that were raised by the Tudor Rose article, sort of more loose ends or, things I hinted at but didn't cover properly...

Staff Cars - The middle row are all Pyro (issued in the UK by Kleeware in threes in a service station set), showing the difference between the two designs with the coupe on the left, the booted (trunked) saloon in the middle and a civil colour-variant on the right.

Behind is the Lido example, not a straight piracy, but clearly drawing on both with the boot of one and the long swept-back wings and windows of the other.

Finally in the foreground, a bit of a problem vehicle, unless someone knows for sure? The colour is near Tudor Rose, the tow-hitch is more Lido and the wheels are similar to those used on Poplar Plastics helicopters and Pyro/Kleeware & Tudor Rose spaceships. Size wise it could be Tudor Rose or Banner, but Banner had their own 'Woodie' estate body/shooting break staff car?

With three votes, it stays in the Tudor Rose box until I know otherwise!

Jeeps - With so many made, I will cover Jeeps and Land-Rovers on another occasion, but here are a few to be getting on with. Rear row, left to right; Tudor Rose, Manurba and Airfix. Middle; Lido large size with towed equipment. Front row - the real subject of the post - Pyro, Kleeware, Merit, Lido small size and Marx.

The four 'similar' jeeps, I say similar as close inspection reveals three different mouldings. On the left the Pyro original with the Kleeware produced casting (from the same mould) next to it. Due to the vagaries of import tax in the late 1940's-1950's, it was cheaper to ship the moulds over for a month or so than it was to import finished product, and a lot of mould sharing went on. Also, some of the UK companies at the time were set up by the same guys who owned the US companies, so natural affinity/group ownership played a part in the - sometimes hard to follow - duplication.

However, the fact that duplication was widespread, only made it easier for the less scrupulous to take advantage, with the result that on the right we see the Lido piracy, a smaller (pantographed) copy, with less detail transferred. To it's left is the Merit version by J & L Randall, this has a number of detail differences, not least the turn-in at either end of the windscreen and the rounded corners of the seat cushions. This was probably a licensed copy rather than a complete pirate, Merit did carry some of the Kleeware (Pyro) spaceships in a boxed set at one point.

Undersides of all four, the first two have just had the trade-mark stamp changed in the mould, while the Merit one is quite different. The Lido one is clearly scaled down all round and of lesser surface quality.

Begs the question - why didn't Merit and Lido just design their own, this is a very crude, too-wide-for-it's-length (scale wise) simplified model, in one piece, they could have done much better!!

S is for Spencer Smith Part 1; Figures

Some time ago we had a few of these figures sent in to the 'What the #%&*' section of One Inch Warrior (see Plastic Warrior link on right), and in a follow up article by Stuart Asquith used some of mine to help illustrate it. I photographed them - on that occasion - with Tudor Rose vehicles in support, and liked the combination so much I've returned to it here. We'll look at the Spencer Smith Miniatures first;

A bunch of advancing poses and the bazooka team, they are mostly a generic 'Combat Infantry' in style, somewhere between the Second World War and the mid-1960's, and you can see the Holger Eriksson ancestry straight away. The khaki-green ones are the most common, with sand coming a close second, the loader is just a colour variant produced when the green is run into an injector previously running the primer-brown used by a lot of the AWI/7YW figures. The black figures are the least common, being - I suspect - a late batch, while the grey are usually re-moulds from Harlow, especially if they are all shiny and clean!

Mortar and MG with crew and a couple of fighting poses. The MG is clearly modelled on something like the French Hotchkiss while the SMG's look like the Yugoslavian M56, a copy of the German MP40 with 'banana magazine, so a right old mix...but more on origins below!.

The two artillery gunners, one has a small round ideal for 25lbr's while the other guy is packing some heavy shite. Both guns here are Hong Kong products. Like all Spencer Smith, these were designed primarily for war gaming, accuracy of detail and/or moulding was never an issue.

I am not a war-gamer, I used to fight micro-tanks with a schoolmate 33 years ago, but not now, however I have all the stuff needed in 'The Collection', so thought it'd be a bit of a hoot to set up a little scenario from the Terrance Wise (I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!!) school of how to do it! here the boys are rushing across a road 'dans la bocage', as they slowly encircle a small village.

While in this shot the mortar line provides suppressive fire-support with 2" 'personal' and 3" 'Infantry' mortars.

[Can any of the metal collectors tell me who or what should be attached to the plug on the log in the background?]

S is for Spencer Smith Part 2; Lose Ends

Ooh...Tudor Rose appear on the scene, dont'cha love 'em, No? Wrong blog mate, move along please, keep browsing, move along - nothing to see here!! Ammo re-supply squad wait for orders while something vaguely resembling a 25lbr fires in support of the assault.

Tudor Rose armoured car providing a bit of a stiffener for the guys holding the crossroads, wagons are from various sources and the hedges are all Merit (J & L Randall).

Comparison between Starlux (on the left) and Reisler (3rd from the left), the Spencer Smith figure is a little below the 30mm of the other two. I gave the Hotchkiss it's correct crew! They - perversely - are too small!!

Origins; Mr Smith almost certainly didn't have permission to copy the HE figures in the way he did, and it's probably only the fact that by the time Spencer Smith flourished (late 1960's - mid 70's) Holgar Eriksson was so well known and well regarded he didn't care, also he (H.E.) was known to avoid the limelight and a court/piracy case would have entailed publicity, I don't know?

Anyway, Smith copied from all over Eriksson's oeuvre, as can be seen here, the grenade thrower comes from the 40mm Comet range, the kneeling artilleryman is an HE original with a head swap, the ammo-Carrier was an ANZAC once! And the advancing figure was one of Eriksson's favorite poses, the 20mm one is Comet/Authenticast from the States, while the larger one is an HE figure. Meanwhile he was copying ACW and AWI/7YW figures (which will be covered another day) from the SAE range from South Africa! Also to get a day of their own in the limelight.

Smith put generic heads on most of them (Sort of half-way between the British Mk 3/5 piss-pot I had to wear in the 80's and the American M1), but a couple do have the 'Brodie'/British Mk 2 type helmet, most noticeably the kneeling firer.

T is for Tudor Rose Part 1 Vehicles

So, on to the support act - stars to me! In the 1950's Tudor Rose (Rosebud/Rosedale) made their own range of vehicles, while everyone else ran around copying/licensing each others, i.e.; Banner, Pyro, Merit, Kleeman/Kleeware, Lido and Wannatoys among others!.

The best is the Churchill tank, ignoring the dodgy turret, it's a nice model and fits in well with the only other high-street player of the time; Airfix. Detail is - especially on the suspension/running gear - a bit 'surface' or cosmetic but it does it for me.

The amphibious Jeep is too big and too ugly, so moving on...is that an AEC armoured car? I think it might think it is!!! Hey cumon! They were TOYS! And who's going to turn down a whole squadron of AEC's at pocket-money prices? Damage to aerials and windscreens is almost total after all these years, but the odd whole one turns up from time to time. The three that suffer are the Jeep, Carrier and 'amphijeep'.

Note also that some have the Liberation star recognition mark and some don't, these were thermo-printed, to such an extent you can use oven cleaner to strip war-gamers paint-jobs from these without removing the star underneath! I've yet to find a Churchill with the star.

The Jeep with gun and limber, a bit fictional on the artillery, while the ambulance is based on the Bedford MWD. Again the red cross is thermo-printed, but the cream roof is painted in household gloss! Likewise the rear gun (in the photo) has had the cream paint treatment, the hint of silver you will see in close-up (click on the image) was added by the war-gamer from the collection of whom this vehicle came. It has adhered to the cream underneath and won't fully come off.

He had a large collection of early plastics, all painted with red, blue, black and yellow markings (his four armies/units) and all the vehicles (Airfix/Blue Box/Marx etc...) were enhanced with silver, big blobs of it, all over tracks, radiators, mudguards, and gun barrels!!

My favourite Tudor Rose and one of my favourite pieces within the whole collection is the twin Bofors portee on a CMP chassis, all the early plastics guys (and Lone*Star in die-cast metal) did a twin Bofors, and they were all much copied/pirated.

In front is the best Bren carrier I have, the front gun is OK and the drivers bench also survives intact (it's a really thin moulding), but the pintle-mounted LMG is sadly missing its barrel.

When cleaning/paint stripping these you have to be careful of the wheels, they appear to be made of a vulcanised rubber/Bakelite material, and not only develop a white bloom or mould in storage, but can soften if immersed in oven cleaning foam for too long. So I tend to strip them in quick phases with periods of rest in between to allow the wheels to stabilize. Three sessions usually does it.