O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Historical & Ceremonial

This post gets off to a good start, with the third boxed set I got from Adrian, and then goes downhill! No, I'm joking, there are several interesting bits here, but originality of text for the opening blurb-o-graph of repeat posts, like these, is not always obvious, to an amateur author!

 

It would be lazy to assume that these too, are Torgano, like the two Western sets in the previous post of this series, they are A) thinner flats, altogether less robust, B) they have thin, oblong bases, C) decoration is, if anything more leery than the previously-seen, already pretty-colourful samples D) the generic gift-wrap 'foil' covering on the box, is nothing like the set-specific artwork of those other sets E) they are slightly smaller, and F) the subject-matter is altogether more fanciful!

 

Definitely Italians though! Shades of Captain Nemo?

 

Also shades of Captain Video with the American-football/1930's tank-crew helmets!

 

Three figures duplicated, in different colours, everything else is a one-off, and there’s a lot going on, paratroopers, artillery, flying-boat, early rubber boat, spacey guys, a Tom of Finland sailor (everyone loves a sailor!), yacht, battleship and a sinking (?) liner, this set would have been a fantastic exercise of the imagination muscles! And there's a man fighting a giant octopus!

 

The Noris Ivanhoe game has similar unpainted flats, however Torgano's own mini's (space and 'dolls') do have oblong bases, while people like Tibadabo and Co-Ma must have started somewhere? What were PRB or Sam doing in the 1950's? I have the two earlier Italian toy soldier books, and a couple of maker specific things, but I don't have the most recent one, are they in there, can anyone give us a branding on these? 

 

American Civil War, a right old mix here, with 'China' copies of Hong Kong 'solid' clones of Timpo Swoppets, actual Swoppet clones, enough Blue Box for a skirmish and a Waddington's game-playing piece - all grist to the mill!

 

Back to Italy and a nice sample of the Nardi Union/US Cavalry types, you look at these and wonder if they didn't borrow one of Cherilea's sculptors! But their charm is the stronger for the dancing-loon look!

 

The Confederate sample is smaller and lacking more hats, as well as 'kerchiefs and heads, which explains the outcome of that war! Lack of logistical support and fighting men!

 

Ceremonial assortment here, with one of the just mentioned (BMSS post) Monaco guards, sans plug-on base, a broken metal figure, three HK copies of lone Star, a trio of Sacul musicians, four Café Storme Imperials, a Hong Kong highlander, and two Hilco, who rather confirm the Band-Major in that previous BMSS post! And a sucker-guard!

 

Three pirates, too early for International Talk Like a Pirate Day, these are the Fontanini smallest version, but in an usual colour of plastic, and polyethylene, rather than the PVC resin of my other samples?

 

More Café Storm.

 

Two early British-made Arabs, I can't remember who's these are (BMS?), we have looked at them all previously, in dribs and drabs, and I intend to do them all together one day, when they are all in one place!

 

Two probably Fraser & Glass, and one early Herald - polystyrene horses.

 

From the left, a kit figure, Pyro or Revell maybe, another of the growing sample of Spanish terracotta caricature figurines, a French (?) Santon, and a very French-looking sailor, from the novelty stacking sets, we've seen clowns and policemen here, and there are US versions of the same stacking figures.

 

There’s more on this in a follow-up, but here sold as Walco Products Inc., a similar outfit to Grandmother Stover's or SSCO, dealing with both craft items, novelty tat, and cake decoration stuff!

 

Small-scale bits bring the post to a close, with a few Risk board-game pieces and three of my favourite Christmas Cracker prize guardsmen!

 

And again; thanks are due to - Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, I've forgotten to add! Many thanks.

F is for Follow-ups - Various, Old & New

A few follow-ups which have been accruing over the last few years, and an eclectic mix of bits enhancing older posts and a couple of more recent ones.

 

 

A couple more KUM pencil sharpeners, these being a small pistol, and a revolver with a drum magazine! We looked at KUM, with more relevance to the Blog's interests here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/search/label/KUM

 

While this is an advert for pre-printed bookplates, with an emphasis on Sci-Fi / Fantasy, there's also a more traditional, even 'monkish' design. Found on the Internet and credited to David O. Knuttunen, it's the back cover ad from IF (not Galaxy), October 1966, and enhances this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/04/b-is-for-bookplates-1-overview.html

 

BEM - Bug Eyed Monster, an acronym which has faded from favour!  

 

Meanwhile as a backup to the recent posts on Holly, Lik Be (LB) and the 'Gygax' monsters, on the left here is the copy of the Monster Manual, which I was using along with the later lever-arch file.

 

The other two, which came in at roughly the same time, are a fascinating book on the Tommy Gun rival to Action Man, made by Pedigree Toys, and it's surprising how much Tommy Gun stuff my brother and I had, thinking it was Palitoy-Hasbro, because most of our stuff tended to come from the Church fêtes and Jumble Sales of Heckfield and the surrounding environs, or the local tip (dump)!

 

While the other book is a useful history of Marx, an updated volume, I still don't have Vol.I in any version . . . it will turn-up, everything does! 

 

The Mechanoid bits in the smaller inset, came in a while back, and the two ladders are the real treasure, as none of mine had them, now two will be completed, and the radar disc will finish the green one, while a near complete one came-in recently, with nice turquoise legs - also needing a ladder!

 

Looking at them, I think I may have a couple more spares in the 'unknown ladder' drawer of my old multi-drawer cabinet! So when it all comes together I should have three complete, another one with two-each different coloured legs and the gold-accessories one still needing a ladder, along with a few bits - that's a fleet!

 

 

A couple of rather poor images of a set of the Marx copies, and a generic set of the same copies of Cherilea astronauts/spacemen, I actually managed to buy the foot-pump set, twice from the same seller, because I'd forgotten I'd bought the first one (generics from Italy), so we will look at them properly another day, but all three above adding to this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/03/e-is-for-expelling-few-myths.html

 

While this will add a bit to this post from two years ago

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/05/e-is-for-eggcellent-effigies.html

 

He's a Humpty I shot at Sandown Park this weekend just gone, is a lead-solid from Sacul, and has had the base repaired/replaced.

C is for Ceremonial Roundup!

I picked up and shot these first two the other day, and thought it was a good excuse to get a few of the 'odds & sods' images out of the Ceremonial folder and share them with the Loyal Readers, no particular theme, but I left the Spanish, the Cossacks, the Majorettes and others in the folder, so we're looking at UK production of UK figures, even if some came from Holland!

 

So these are the new additions, a second sample of the maybe BR Moulding/maybe Hilco kneeling infantryman of the Victorian era, I'm not sure if it was in the BR mould-list? And a Sacul drummer, the Sacul sample is growing slowly, a few others have come in, and I am looking forwards to shooting them all together!

This was sent by a loyal reader back in 2021, during a conversation about either Sacul, or unknown guardsmen, which I was thinking were from the Crescent sculpt, because of the epaulettes, but as pointed out it's the Sacul moulding.

 

And, further, the correspondent pointed out that the smaller drummer (second from the left) was probably also Sacul, issued as a drummer boy? The unknown is next and another probably Sacul forth, with the common Sacul varient on the left. And, if I recall the conversation correctly, the feeling was that all four were probably Scaul, with the [3rd] nylon'y one being maybe a late issue, early 1970's?

 

These were all sent to the Blog by Theo van der Werden from the Netherlands, back in 2018, again as part of a conversation on his - then - recent purchases, and because I'd covered most of them, I sort of filed them, with a bunch of other stuff, anyway here they are, three Britains 54mm and some nice examples of Cherilea 60mm types.

 

I really like the lifeguard (upper pair in middle image), he's a very unusual toy soldier, being that sort of late Georgian/early Victorian uniform.

 

We've seen better here in the past, but they came in with some mixed lot, or another, and the shot shows the three poses of Gemodels in the less common Horse Guard's blue colourway, which happens to be my favourite! Note also the two distinct shades of blue plastic.

Having mentioned BR, these are now known to have been issued as part of their home-moulding exercise, and here are three very different treatments of the same pose, with a hard 'styrene on the left, odd-coloured, unpainted polyethylene in the middle, and a marbled pinkish one on the right!

 

Finally, also a bit tatty and from some bulk lot, are these; four Herald and a Zang original (larger figure to the right) of the highland infantryman of the late Victorian era, just before the switch to khaki uniforms. The four on the left are not rare, and I may well repaint them one day, if I ever pick up that eye-glass prescription!

 

While (finally finally!) this is a 'seen elsewhere' shot from the archive (and from another folder, 2008) and shows what other bugger's can achieve with a bit of paint on these figures, four of the later Herald in a variety of late 19thC/colonial era uniforms, original on the right. It may have been on the Blog before?

 

There's lots of this kind of stuff in about 30 folders, and I'll try to get some more cleared in the run-up to Christmas, many thanks to Theo and Anon for the images indicated above.

S is for Some Shots from Sandown Show

While I was at Sandown Park back in February I took the opportunity to shoot a few things on Adrian's Mercator Trading stall, some of which may still be available if you want to eMail them via the website.

Mentioned in the previous post; these are 8 of 10 sculpts from the Quaker cereal premium ship set. I have most of the colours seen here in my small sample, but I don't think I've found a yellow one yet.

Sticking with ships, this is confirmation of the 'believed' Zang for Timpo composition vessels we looked at a while back. An actual Timpo box, the label a bit faded and the set is submarine-heavy with a carrier, battleship/cruiser and two destroyer types, all painted in the same dark grey-brown and green camouflage scheme we saw with the loose set last time.

He also had this loose card (which may originally have had a smaller matching box- see thoughts below), however, this time they are all one colour, and the Battleship seems to have utilised an old slush-casting lead-mould?

A close-up of the carrier, which - with that heavy mast/tower - could be trying to depict the inter-war/early-war carriers Hermes or Eagle (both lost in the war to enemy action), and the rather scratched and faded Timpo labels on both sets. the simpler paint on the smaller one and corner label may hint at a 'budget' set, available from a counter-display box with multiple cards?

Bill & Ben, the flowerpot men! And Weeeeeeeeed! Hollow-cast figurines of the early 'Watch with Mother' TV characters, made by Sacul, there are repro's out there now, but these are oldies! I never really liked them, they were a little too close to those weird Eastern European TV-puppets, we used to import, for my taste and consequently it was years before I realised Weed was actually a sun-flower - Slava Ukraine!

This is a bit of fun, Adrian knows someone who makes fun figures from the remains of old, bashed, hollow-casts, and here we have a Pirate (or Gypsy - there were a few Gypsy wagon sets, camp-fires, knife-sharpeners and the like, back in the hollow-cast days?) playing a squeezebox, married to a farm foal!

Clearly a set of board game counters, but who or what I don't know, the figures and bases have a look of Crescent hollow-cast production about them, but what do I know about hollow-cast? Very little!

All nice things, and thanks to Adrian for letting me shoot them.

Q is for Question Time - Sacul Drummer . . . Not!

This rather interesting figure came in from Chris Smith the other day and if anyone has any idea's he'd love to hear them!

At first glance he looks to be slightly better sculpted or finished, but a closer look suggests he was probably poorly pantographed and then over-etched to re-establish surface detail? The drum's carrying-strap is vastly improved over the donor's and the left stick is extended while the hand's position is changed slightly. A heavy base lifts a much smaller figure and he looks to be relatively chalkless, so could be quite late . . . 1970's even?

Minor British make? Premium of some kind? Another of these BR Moulds Plastic Warrior has been tantalising us with . . . they mostly have thinner bases, but the ex-Airfix paratrooper has a blobbier one? Even a Hong Kong copy with a fort set of some kind? Thinking of the Tom Smith re-use of Kellogg's Thunderbird figures (Crescent), could he be a cracker prize?

It's plastic, so it was mass-produced, there must be more out there! Other poses?

Lucas is for Sacul

These are shown in Joplin's Great Book of Hollow Cast, in metal, as Sacul, so I'm going to assume, presume, guess and suspect they are Sacul in plastic too!

Unlike the Guardsmen to which I've added several figures since we looked at them here a few years ago, the Highlander sample is a rather pathetic two! And in a rather non-descript marbled plastic best described as half-stirred hot-chocolate! But they were languishing under the 'unknown' moniker until a few days ago, so that's a small advance!

They are however, lovely sculpts, although I'd suggest the mace is a tad longer than the scaled up real one would be; he looks like he's planning on a joust once the parade's over! Paint is as poor as the Guardsmen, but the piper has enough left to hint at a well-painted countenance once?

Half-stirred hot-chocolate! We looked at a hollow-cast colonial helmeted highlander from Sacul a while ago (several years) whether these are from the same line, or a more ceremonial set I don't know, but suspect the latter.

R is for Rag....and Tag & Bobtail!

To Sandown Park Toy Fair yesterday, where I shot more stuff for future posts, including these three little chaps...

Manufactured in hollow-cast lead by Sacul, these are the three main characters from a glove/hand-puppet show which was part of the old BBC daytime thread 'Watch With Mother' in the late 1950's and early 60's. As such the bottom halves must be invention, but they've (Sacul) managed to get the glove-like posture of Rag, so he's not just a generic rat, and remains recognisable as the child's favourite!

S is for Sacul

I think I photographed this back before I started blogging, but it's sat in Picasa, being moved to each 'new toy images' file, every time I have a sort out, and for some reason never got blogged and never got stuffed in the archive dongles...anyway, here it is, a colourful little thing!

Sacul was one of the smaller firms making hollow cast toy soldiers in the post-war period, and along with all the usual guards and highlanders illustrated on the box, made some larger TV character toys and such like. These are chrome-plated with little feathers for headdresses.

With the paint; there's enough lead in this box to produce a whole cabinet of retards, given that Sacul were apparently over-priced (Garrett), clearly only well-healed Conservative types could imbibe, which explains a lot...I'm not sure pink is a true heraldic colour though!

G is for Guards - Trumpets, Bugles, Cornets or Horns

Like the tubas, I haven't the faintest idea how to tell the difference between a Trumpet, Bugle Horn (except a straight horn, but then - some trumpets are straight? Doh!) or cornet, but as Paul Morehead (of Plastic Warrior fame) did once explain it all to me, while studying this very subject (guards musician figures), I'm going to quickly Google it so he thinks the lesson hit home...ssshhhh, don't tell him!

Bugles and Cornets have a tapered cross-section, Trumpets - commonest of the three - have a tubular cross-section only widening at the bell end. Trumpets and cornets have three valves, the bugle usually doesn't. Cornet valves are nearer to the face (so better for beginners?), however in American 'drum and bugle corps' bugles can have rotors (whatever they are) or 1 or two valves  - which are really just modified Trumpets, Mellophones, Baritones or Tubas!

What?!! Mellophones?

Trumpets and cornets are very similar, sound wise, commonly found in the B-minor key...but can be found in any other! C, E-minor and F being among them. A single cornet in E-minor is found in a brass-band as the 'soprano', while C keyed trumpets are found in orchestras. The cornet is a mellower sound and the trumpet louder and brighter. Cornets are considered 'band' instruments, while trumpets are orchestral, but both can be used in either!

Flugelhorn - flatter cross-section to the tubing with a larger bell, gives an even more mellow sound.

Baritone trumpet - Larger mouthpiece makes it still easier to play.

Bugle horn - A straight-through or slightly curved 'bugle', no valves, hunting horn, Light Infantry / Jager cap badge type instrument (but not the US Rifles badge), the half-moon or Hanoverian bugle horn is a full half-circle.

French horn - A circular bugle...'post horns on coach-doors! And US Rifles cap badge

Mellophone - Commercial 'French horn' with lots of turns and three valves?

I think!! And medieval fairy-tale trumpeters are actually buglers?

Left to right; Cherilea 60mm, Timpo solid, Lone*Star reissue, Lone*Star original and two Sacul, one in a chalky white the other a garish apple-green marbled with cream.

Crescent for Kellogg's unpainted, Crescent painted and four different Charbens including one in hard plastic on the far right.

Close-up of the Timpo solid showing the typical shoulder marking of a lot of the Timpo solids, although others were marked on the base or even legs.

G is for Guards - Shouldered Arms

As David Scrivener pointed out the other day the old Lee Enfield and it's predecessors were 'shouldered' on the left shoulder - Slope Arms. The SLR on the other hand was locked into the gap between arm and body on the right hand side - Shouldered Arms.

There was - with both weapons - a 'Change Arms' drill, for particularly long formal marches, which was quite complicated until you'd got the hang of it. The purpose being to give the weight-taking arm a rest and get it's circulation going again by waving it around for a while! You would always have a reverse 'Change Arms' before you got to the destination position, so that the gat was in the right place to carry out subsequent drill movements, while on really long marches you could get several, the problem being knowing when they were coming or hearing the order, over the noise of crowds, traffic, 'planes and a rival band with the unit marching behind you - in my case the poxy Rock-apes of Crab-air, marching to their own speed!

I had to learn it several times; Street Lining for the President of Mexico's visit to London in 1985, and - in Berlin - Allied Force's Day parade and Queen's Birthday parade.

At attention, shouldered-arms; unknown (I keep calling Charbens?), three from Britains Herald and Herald Hong Kong, newest to the left, and the second type Timpo swoppet with SLR.

Marching with arms shouldered; Lone*Star, Charbens early version, three more Britains Herald, oldest on the left.

Left to right again; Timpo, Cherilea, Unknown (Charbens?), Crescent, Timpo swoppet - first type, Unknown (Speedwell?) and the ex-Sacul hollow-cast figure David also identified.

Finally; the maybe-Charbens at attention, the 2nd Type Timpo marching and a Britains Detail, both with the SLR.