P is for Plastolin Plasticine!

These may be the only examples in existence, or rare survivors of a small production run, we just don't know, but they are listed on the new Composition Page, so I need to get them up here, in order that a wider audience is made aware of their existence!

 

The label reads;

 

PLASTOLINE

Model Manuf: Co:

Set X1. Gestapo H.Q.

With Officer at Desk

NO.03.

Plastoline - Hand Made, enamelled,

Hard and glossy, copyright, patent.

 

And one has to assume the '03' is the number in a series of similar vignettes? There is nothing on the 'web to suggest any of it was ever patented, and copyright's a long shot, given some, most (?) modellers could copy it to a much higher standard!

 

This is the item described above, he has broken-off at ankles and stool, the shaft if which has been lost. The whole made from Plasticine, probably hardened with Banana Oil, otherwise known as 'Dope', or isoamyl acetate (also known as isopentyl acetate), painted and vanished in a deep gloss to give a lacquered appearance in the 'Old Toy Soldier' style.

 

Also in the box is this WWI'ish (?) machine-gunner, listed as (3) in the list below, as WWII, and which differs from the previous example in also using embedded wire for the machine-gun, not that it's prevented the gun from curling slightly over time.

 

Which, by a process of elimination, and considering the fact that no other suitable figure was in the unknown 'Question Time' post, also dealing with this make's figures, here, must be the number two item - Mexican irregular from the wars of the turn of the last century?

On the underside of the inner box, we have further clues as to the originators of these figures (the Mexican is really quite good, albeit a tad 'footless'), with this label, origianlly in Biro, but added to at a latter date in pencil;

 

(1)GERMANY-GESTAPO   -   C 1940

(2)MEXICO - IRREGULAR   -   C 1900

(3) GERMANY - M. G -    C 1940

(1) By  .  D. BROWN .

(2) By     M, LEECH .

(3) By  .  D  BROWN .

IN PLASTOLINE  .

 

So the clues, would suggest that a D Brown, and M Leech, attempted to manufacture, in Plasticine, a small range of figures with a commercial bent, when and for how long were they in production is anyone's guess, except those who might actually know?

 

And the three figures from Chang-Kai-Chek's Imperial Chinese forces, and the odd chap in a respirator, seen previously, were also stuffed in the same box. Anybody know anything else about them?  I believe, although I haven't found them yet, that there were adverts in the back of the periodicals of the time - Military Modelling, Battle, and/or . . . the other one . . . Campaign?

E is for Everything Else - Odds & Sodds!

There were a few smaller pieces and loose figures picked up at the Last Sandown Part show, which was, in some respects, one of my best yet for purchaes, but in conversation, there's a feeling that while prices are down, this stuff is coming out of the woodwork at the moment, I got a really nice, never seen before piece off of that evilBay the other day.

 

I've never really followed this stuff, nor felt the need to, poorly acted 'C' movies, for kids, in the 'over the top' style of kids programming, never grabbed me, but there is a big following for the whole Kaiju, Gojira, Ultraman, Atomic-boy stuff, and these are probably quite modern 'Ultramen', and may be from one source, but two are realistic 54mm'ish solids, well within the scope of the collection, the other two are a super-deform (right) and big-head (left), both of which, leave me pretty cold.

 

A Christmas cracker bike, and two micro-trucks from Italy, another 1-ton Humber knock-off, too close to the Dinky original to be considered the donor for all the Hong Kong copies, but could be based on the Pyro/Kleeware minis? And a post-war US 'duce-and-a-half' probably an M39 era/generation?

 

Very obviously an ex-Giant chariot, we looked at them on the Romans page (above), and eventually will look at them again on the But is it Giant sub-Blog, in greater detail, but for now, this one needs a good clean, or at least, the horses do!

 

A couple of bags of odds I picked up on a wander, the gum-ball robot will go in a bag with several others and bits, in the hope his arm turns up one day! Two lesser characters from the larger, 'styrene set of Noddy figures, a Fozzie Bear pencil top, and another of the Rupert Bear pencil-top torsos, I think I have four now, two Kinder and an LB for Culpitt spaceman!

 

Adrian found these two for me, French clowns in hard plastic of the polystyrene type, but being French could be Phenolic or a formaldehyde resin of some kind, although both are stable. Cyrnos, Clairet; someone like that?

 

A bit of fun, it links a common-enough piece of scenery to a specific animal, so not that useful, but it also links marks together.

 

Swoppet knock-offs!

 

A nice, early piece of, probbaly German composition, around 45mm, and unmarked, he's obviously a WWI-era German soldier, and I rather like him, as a possibly very old survivor . . . 1920/30's?

 

Isaac gave me these two lots, the Cherilea 60mm's are clean, but have lost 90%+ of their paint, while the karki infantry might have all been home-painted to match, or are a new-to-me paint scheme, the radio-operator is Benbros.

 

Seen in a recent book-post, useful little monograph on Selwyn Miniatures.

 

I'm guessing this is American, but it could be French, or from down the road! It's a solid lump of die-cast Mazac / Zamak or pure aluminium (not light enough?) with wooden wheels, and may once have been a penny-toy . . . a whole penny!

 

Make your own caption! How cake-decorations are born!

C is for Cool Car-Booty!

A week or so before the trip that provided the Invicta dinosaurs, but f-all else, I'd had a little more luck wandering about the same Car Boot Sale one Bank-Holiday Monday, and that's what we're looking over, in this post

 

This was a quid! It's the kind of stuff you find a whole shelf of at The Range or TKMaxx, in three colours, and I'd ignored it, until I'd realised how little there is at these sales nowadays - pretty well picked-clean over the years, or ravaged by the 5/6-am 'early birds', so I went back for it at the end, but photographed it first as it was on top of everything else in the plunder bag! It's a hollow ceramic slush-cast, modern, and about 7/8-inches!

 

These were a revelation, Toyway WWI Aeroplanes, new to me, Google's AI Overview came up with another corker;

 

"Toyway WWI aeroplanes" likely refers to model or toy aircraft of World War I vintage, rather than a specific brand called "Toyway"

 

Technically, 'World War I vintage' means manufactured between 1914 and 1919! Dumb, and the highlighting is a mystery, it wasn't a hot-link? AI is dumb, it might be good for specific tasks like finding new drugs, but that's more about programming a good algorithm, rather than free-thought, or compooda learnin'!

 

From the card graphics I'd say an earlier product of theirs, from the 1980's, and probably by someone like Universal (but not their inherited Matchbox stuff, Matchbox never did 'planes like this), but made in China anyway, and a nice pair, adding to the WWI air-wing!

 

I drew a snake a bit like this, many years ago, and thought I'd scanned the image with some other stuff a while ago, but I can't find it, so I can't show it to you! But due to its similarity with my little sketch, I couldn't resist it. Like the ceramic astronaut, it's quite big and may be a companion piece/accessory from a larger action-figure/doll type thing?

 

These are fascinating, from the same seller, who had a lot of 'genuine' domestic/house-clearance stuff, so these probably went together, we have a marked and painted version of the believed to be (or more accurately; 'probably') Siku moulding of a fawn, which ended-up as one of the Vitacup premiums, along with two actual, carved wood Erzgebirge horses, in the same style of scalloped whittling. 

 

This is why I collect, to join the dots, to look for, and hopefully find the bigger picture, and put it up here so other people understand the connections, a fascinating trio, to me at least! And there'll be a follow-up on the 'Vitacup' deer later.

 

Probably home-made, possibly an apprentice piece, or turned for a Lancaster Bomber model-kit, I believe this is a reasonable rendition of an RAF Tall Boy, or more likely Grand Slam free-fall bomb of the WWII era, and in silver-plate brass, a rather unique thing? Except there may be hundreds of them? Who knows! It is (if either of the mentioned bombs) missing its pointy-tail, but it looks like that may have been cut-off for some reason?

 

The seller of the biplanes, had obviously had some good stuff earlier in the day (early hours of the morning!), and was selling her late father's collection, piecemeal, there were a bunch of Micromodel card kits, i was tempted by, but I left them, however at 50p I took these three, which are a - probably - Hong Kong racing driver from a carpet toy, and two home-cast replacements of an old die-cast or lead toy driver.

 

I think these were 10p each, so I wasn't too bothered by them, the space-car seems to be missing half its whole? The Thunderbird 2 pod-vehicle is supposed to be a bulldozer or ladder truck I think, but as it's a modern Carlton effort, I thought it might make a conversion project! And three probably duplicate Bruder, but there's always colourways to find, with them!

L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown February - Other Figures

The final post in this sequence is the rest of the figures, I think we've caught-up with 'London Loot' too, but there will be some 'H is for . . . s' to come, with more Toy- and Gift Fair revues to intersperse with them! And Easter's coming, and there's other stuff in the queue, and, and, I seem to be in a productive phase!

 

A couple of hollow-cast WWI French (Britains?), although they went to war in 1940 with pretty-much the same stuff, just in khaki! Both from Adrian's pound-tray, with the little unknown tin-plate howitzer/gun from his five-quid box, of such gems! It probably fired little wooden balls or dowels?

 

Two post-Giant on the left and a Quaker mounted Gladiator on the right, square-up for a bit of argie-bargie, at the feet of Cherilea's Sphinx. I was so pleased with the Sphinx purchase, I got it out to show a mate, and he pulled the same one out of his pocket! I think we'd both bought them from the same seller!

 

Late Blue Box (polyethylene) Britains copies on the left, Blue Box for Triang-Hornby (polystyrene) on the right, also squaring-up for what looks like it will be a fairly uneven fight, so unfair! With an explosion between them, which I think is a modern re-mould of the old Lineol shell-burst?

 

Early Westair ECW type. In this packageing they predate Kinder by several, if not many years, the full story will be on the 'Mocherette' page, whenever I get round to it!

 

These are nice! Two of Charles C. Stadden's war-gaming figures, around 35mm, home painted in a glossy, toy-soldier style, I spent some time googling Nappie's marshals, before switching to 'Russians', with no more success, but other uniforms I found, suggested they were more likely to be Russians (1812) than French, but then I tried 'Prussians' and found images of Frederick the Great (not Blucher), which looked like the chap on the right, so we go back a ways, to the 7YW and all those successions, and find the chap on the left is probably Hans Joachim von Zieten? Seen here as a flat, the blue on the Stadden being a little too pale, while 'Old Fritz' should have a silver breast-plate with those shoulder straps!

 

Clockwise from the greeney; who is a1990's Lucky Bag piracy of Marx's Pecos Bill, and a Kinder piracy of Lone Star's 'Metallion', Pat Masterton, who's full sized version was seen entering the stash, courtesy of Chris Smith last August!

 

A Hong Kong copy of, or 'after' Crescent (I think), in the style of Blue Box, but not one of theirs, a Kinder knight, from the two-part horses, these are nearly always found with their weapons broken these days, very brittle shafts, so a good find, another of the Morestone Stagecoach drivers, and, in the centre, the old 1960's Lucky Bag Indian in gold 'styrene.

 

This is Thomas, but much mucked-about with, painted and with a replacement set of handle-bars, which are attached with a lump of god-knows-what, it could be play-doh! So, again, at some point in the future, I think I'll try it in the ultrasonic cleaner, and see what that leaves me to work with? Pretty-sure I have a good one anyway, so I can afford to 'try something' and see!

 

Adrian found a stash of Hong Kong farm figures while sorting his stock (he is semi-retiring as I write), and passed them to my stash, and while the hope is to attribute a fair few of these to makers and/or named-sets, one day, this isn't that day! So it's just eye candy for now.

 

I have tons of this, lots of it from Chris, Peter, Trevor &etc, tubbed (large scale) or bagged (smallies) by pose, and most of these will be duplicates, but you can see the many variations between them means a few will be the first sample.

 

Strangely, various makers (or issuers) used the same colour schemes - blue/white, red/blue or red/yellow, which I suspect is because lots of smaller makers (sub-pirates, all of them!) in the blocks of the Kowloon Walled City slum (demolished in the 1990's), were being employed to produce all the farm and zoo stuff for repeat orders, for the pocket-money/rack-toy jobbers of the west, a similar situation with all the sub-Giant Wild West, and various generations of 'Army Men'?

 

Differentials include size, base shape/type, base marks, holes or pin-release marks and plastic colour, and they are all copies of other people's sculpts, with the obvious exception of the New Ray 'Country Life' chap holding the lamb-poodle-piglet hybrid! He comes in different colourways too.

 

Again clockwise from the far-left, we have an Airfix motorcycle rider, of whom I still need a few for my fleet of machines, I'll leave the paint (chocolate brown, on chocolate brown?) for now, after the lesson with the bikes! Next to him is a construction-worker/driver, and I think he may be French? He's a hard polystyrene, and well detailed, so I don't think he's Hong Kong, and he may be in a vehicle catalogue somewhere in the archive?

 

The robber is Lledo, the race-horse and jockey will probably be from a board-game, while the seated figure would appear to be from a model railway line/range, but I don't recognise the figure, or the charcoal styrene under the paint?

QAIMNS (R) is for Angels!

One of the more unusual things in my possession is this old kit bag, about twice the size of the one I was issued with in '84, but half the strength of material, being quite soft, compared to mine which is like a canvas belt material, only bags bigger!

 

The base is heavier though, to prevent wear on trains, mud-tracks and ferries! It's brown, I don't know if there's a colour code, but I think the Navy have always been white, ours were standard 'army green' and the RAF had theirs in the same blue as their best dress, so there maybe/may have been a code, with women's' forces or reserves in brown?

 

It's marked MK DALY - QAIMNSR - BEF, which is the name of the owner, the unit (Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve), these days you tend to put the 'R' in brackets, but back then they clearly didn't! And British Expeditionary Force, our troops in France.

A little non-arduous Googling quickly revealed some of her history, she seems to have served from at least 1916 sometime (one of some 10,000 women), probably earlier, with a war diary in the National Archive revealing;
 

"Recommendation for 1 months’ sick leave for Miss M. K. Daly, QAIMNSR, 1 General Hospital, suffering from neurasthenia."

A euphemism for what we later called shell-shock (see below), and now call PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), from Abbeville (the Somme) on the 15th October 1916, suggesting she had already seen more than most of our generation ever will, and most of it pretty bad.

However, they were made of sterner stock in Edwardian Britain, and the same diary's entry (I couldn't ascertain the name or sex of the author) for 15th June 1917 reveals;

"To Frevent (Frévent, about 18km NE of Abbeville, ed.), to 6 Stationary Hospital, arriving at 12.15 noon. Went round the hospital with Miss Daly, the A/Matron, and the CO, Lt. Col. Harding. All in excellent order – had been evacuating largely – about 350 cases in hospital at the time of the visit. Saw the new hut for officers suffering from shell shock – not yet in use, to be opened next week, which will greatly relieve the existing Officers’ Hospital, which was overcrowded on the day of my visit, owing to a large number of shell shock cases. 59 officers in hospital altogether. Had lunch in the Sisters’ Mess, most comfortable and well kept."

 

So, she had returned to work, and was helping officers recover from what she had herself suffered from a year earlier.

The third mention of her I could find was her gazetting in the King's birthday honours list for 1919, where the British Journal of Nursing reports on January 25th;

"The King has been pleased to award the Royal Red Cross, second class, to the following ladies in recognition of their valuable services : — . . . Miss M. K. Daly, Staff Nurse, Q.A.I. M. N. S. R. . . .  "

 

At no point was her Christian-name or middle-name revealed, there were at least two other Daly's, one seems to have spent her war in the hospitals at Colchester, the other gets a brief mention in Scotland (I think, it was 'in passing'?), and one wonders what happened to her, all three of them, or indeed, the many thousands who 'answered the call', after the war?

The Quims (as they were 'affectionately' known), would become the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC), in 1949, commonly known as QA's. I briefly dated a QA after I'd left the Army, and once fell in love with a Captain, but she (along with two nurses, who were 'in on it') played a terrible trick on me and 'Snoz' Reed, which is another story for another day!

L is for Last One For Now!

 I know it's not everyone's cup-of-tea, but I find this stuff fascinating, and there's plenty still in the queue, both from Alderney and closer to home, but this is the final part of the recent visit to Hazeley Heath and the cable-testing station of the Royal Engineers and their antecedents.

This is the building or structure the winding mechanism/s was/were housed in, it was far more substantial, but all the reclaimable steel and reusable elements are long-gone now, leaving the two outer walls, some floor mounting stuff and a protective plate.

 

There's enough roadway in front of the structure for flat-towing tests, as well as the extreme tests allowed for by dragging things up the ramp we looked at last time! The top of the ramp is in the far distance in both shots, in-line with the structure and roadway.

 

This was apparently the mounting for the main winch/winding engine, presumably bolted to the two rails with a drip-tray between them to collect all the gunk which tends to find its way out of such machinery!

 

Beyond it is what looks like an inspection-pit, all filled in, but the blurb suggests another machine mounting, so I assume someone has dug it and found it to be not deep-enough for inspecting things?

In front of them is this, which probably mounted a pulley to carry the cable a bit higher over to the ramp, where a similar pulley, and its mounting have long-since been removed.  Also, there may be a secondary function of preventing whip-lashing broken-cables from damaging the machinery?

 

Heavy steel RSJ remnants hint at a heavy-duty, or over-engineered roof/shelter, designed again, or primarily, to protect the machinery and operators/observers from snapping cables, rather than enemy action, having been probably build long before the Second World War?

 

I gave them a quick tug, and they are set-fast in the landscape, whether they are old telephone cables or the old three-phase power-supply . . . Your guess is as good as mine!

 

I either read somewhere, or heard as hearsay from some MOD-procurement chaps or BAE Systems bod's, that how it works with these things, is that you decide you want a 50-ton main battle tank, for instance, you give the job to Vickers Engineering, and if you’re happy with the prototypes, order, say 250, with ten driver-training versions, plus a number of recovery variants . . . and cables (etcetera!).

Those cables then get rated at 55-tons, by the Royal Armoured Corps, who will have to use them, the MOD-wallah's up in Whitehall, agree to 55, and add another 5-ton rating to be safe, that gets sent to Vickers, who tender-out the contract, because they've now got 260 tanks to build and some recovery vehicles to design, and can't be arsed to start twisting wire hawsers! They add 5-tons capacity to the contract!

GKN take the wire twisting gig, and add an extra 5-tons 'just to be safe', before their hawser and cable division plait another few tones of capability into the finished cables! You end up with a steel-rope, which is specifically designed to be carried by 50-ton vehicles, but which can recover 70-ton vehicles from sticky mud! All that early work seems to have been done behind a little village in rural Hampshire, in the 1930's and 1940's!