M is for May's Visit - Combat Troops

Sand, green and field-grey, the proper 'toy' soldiers, and there were a fair few in the bag, along with several paratroopers, who are always welcome here!

 

The blow-mould has suffered from a bit of a facial collision, but might be a new colour, the other three have probably all been seen before, but it's all grist to the mill, and there's always new colours, or new-sized copies-of-copies to be found.

 

China copies of Tim Mee's Cold War warriors, possibly a new colour in the washed-out sand, but they'll need to be compared with the existing samples before I know for certain.

 

Modern mix of Matchbox and newer sculpts.

 

Modern, and dodgy hollow-backed rack-toy rascals, but with several sizes, a few poses and severl colour-ways, it will be a while before I've got all of them, or even most!

 

Japanese infantry from Rado or Hing Fat, covered before.

 

Odds and sods, the interesting one here is the chap in the middle who would appear to be one of the Pioneer die-cast accessory figures in soft rubber, and a new pose, to his left, our right, a less common Manurba-Tallon in grey.

 

Seen on the respective Airfix Blog pages, the yellow figures are new to the collection, and that's the beauty of these lots, there's always something new! Many thanks to Peter for most of these, one of the paratroopers was a purchase, I think.

F is for Follow-up - Space Cars

Except they are more future-past cars, which look nothing like what we are driving now, nor will ever drive, being firmly locked into the 1950's aesthetic they were born out of! And while we're revisiting what were badged-up to Tallon, last time we looked at them, without any packaging, they are really 'just' Manurba!

 

I bought these from a mate on Saturday, although we haven't agreed an amount yet, and I won't actually pay for them until the BP Sandown Park toy fair next Saturday (put it in your diary now), but they are here and photographed, which is most of the battle won!

Blue instead of yellow, this time, and it's beginning to look like there's just the three sculpts? However, it is still up in the air and the canopy note last time - which was only musing - can probably be corrected to coloured canopies = Manurba/Tallon, and clear canopies = Hong Kong clones? As you can clearly see there are three different colours of canopy in this sample, which is what I was 'remembering' the HK ones to have had!

DC 77

RS 17

ZA 567

 

That's it really, it was mostly said last time, they all have a moniker/code name, and impossible speed stat's on their undersides, and we will revisit them again when the HK ones come out of storage, and we can look at them all together. In the meantime, here's a few bubble-canopy concept cars from that there Interweb;

 

1955 Ford Beatnik Bubbletop

1956 Buick Centurion Concept 1

1961 Ford Thunderbird 'Thunderflite' Bubbletop

Fictional car from a boy's annual or illustrated magazine . . . 1975, heehee!

(Don't know)

Ian Roussel's Thunder Bubble

http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/01/outer-limits-ive-also-read-it-was-named.html

 

None are particularly close matches for these toys, but the influence is undeniable, and they may be more closely based on other designs of the era, Dark Roasted Blend is a good source of images for this kind of stuff. There are many more, including more double-bubble canopies, of which the most famous is . . . 

 

. . . the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car . . .

 

. . . upon which Batman's original 'Batmobile' car was based.

Citroën Karin concept car - 1980

T is for Tallon't

Hey, everyone's allowed a bad pun occasionally! Picked these up at a recent show (I haven't done show reports for the last couple - London's new 'combined' show this Saturday!), but I thought we could use a bit of novelty, rack-toy tat!

Space Toys! Technically Manurba I think, but seen here in their UK iteration of Tallon, they were also copied in Hong Kong at some point, or maybe the moulds ended-up there? I've never compared side-by-side to know definitively, but they are a perfect scale for the Airfix astronauts or Giant and copy spacemen and googlie-eyed aliens.

 

Image seen elsewhere the other day; I have a similar trio of loose ones which I thought I'd put on the Blog years ago, but I can't find them, so . . . well, these'll stay in the pack as I know the loose ones are there . . . and they weren't that cheap! I'm not sure if there were the three sculpts or maybe a selection of 5 or six, but when the loose ones turn-up we'll have another look.

 

I think the HK ones have blue canopies, but they may be clear, whereas all my W. Germany marked ones are yellow, equally the clones are pastel colours, while these are always primaries/secondaries. Bodies are soft polyethylene, canopies, hard polystyrene. Going back to the future as we'll never have cars like these, which ooze 1950's Pulp-styling!

T is for Two - Euro'Rack-Toys

If nothing else, Rack-Toy Month will lighten Picasa's load! Spain and Germany provide today's frivolous novelty baubles of polymer loveliness!

Actually by Manurba, once they had crossed the channel they became Tallon . . . there'd been a war or something and it was considered practical to hide Germanic titles from the Brits, now the 'Brexit' idiots have re-dug the channel so thoughtlessly, maybe Tallon will be re-born, carrying Schleich or Playmobile. . . or worse . . .Nutella!

We've looked at them before, and will return to them when the rest are out of storage, but for now, here they are, Anglo-German Rack Toys in Rack-Toy Month!

Wholly uninspiring figures I'm sad to say, they look like what I think they were meant to be in a de-militarised Germany - NATO troops on manoeuvres! Available in grey or green, about every 40^th figure is marked ‘WEST GERMANY’, usually the officer or the standing ‘at ease’ pose, although I think I’ve a prone figure with it written down the leg? There’s probably an eighth figure, maybe ten (the bulk of mine are in storage), but don’t expect them to be any more lively

Oh Dear! The Spanish running out of steam; painted 54mm and unpainted 60mm with not enough horses presented by Comansi in a too-big bag? No wonder they changed their name to Novalinea (New Lines) shortly after! It's a Rack Toy, what'da'ya expect for a couple of shillings and sixpence? And the artwork's lovely.

M is for Manurba

Manfred Urban was a German Company, producing cheap plastic toys at the time Germany was going through it's 'Hong Kong' moment, they produced the whole gamut; 54mm toy soldiers, figural pencil sharpeners, premiums for confectionery companies etc...

There is a forth tank, a Russian one, probably a T54/55 and the various chassis were also used for some space vehicles. The US tanks are about 1:72. the Panther is small next to the Airfix ready-made, The track unit on a space tank marked 'Russian tank' is also on the small side for a 'T' series so both about 1:87th a popular 'Euro size'!

All the military vehicle range were issued in a dark green, olive green (and most shades in between!) and also silver. Sometimes they are marketed under the Dom trade mark, while in the UK they appeared in Tallon branding as a 'pocket money' or rack-toy. Sometimes wheels/tyres are pale grey or charcoal rather than black.

The large scale (approximately 1:72) truck is - I think - based on the post war Jupiter used by the Budeswher, the little trucks ('N' gauge) which had a range of different rears/loads were more fictional.

This is a classic matchstick-firing gun mounted on something resembling a Mercedes truck, with a simple pull-back action it would keep a young you amused for minutes until the polystyrene gave, broke or came apart somewhere!


Other items which with the exception of the 'trench mortar' (rear right) are Manurba, the other may be; I've been told by a German collector that he thinks it is and it's certainly the sort of thing they would make for gift bags or some such. The Jeep and trailer are a bit on the big side for war gaming, the little gun (rear left) also fires matchsticks