And so to the London Toy Soldier Show, a
rather muted event in a new (to me) venue, but these are the times we live in,
and while the Internet is the ultimate winner, society is losing something of itself
every day. I thought that rather than adding it to the 'H is for...' long-queue;
I'd get it out of the way and try eating down on that queue, going forwards!
I won't bore you with pictures of the show,
the organisers (publisher's Guideline)
took loads of photographs and video, someone else was taking video, there was a
bloke with a dumb-phone taking footage which may already be online somewhere,
and another photographer managed to get a candid shot of me - for his mate - which
almost certainly won't be seen in public, but ought to be!
So it's straight to the few purchases I
made on the day; and we're starting with the Sci-Fi fantasy stuff! Rear-left is
an unusual Tonka figurine from 1988's
Willow line, I was aware of them from
some catalogue or Blog or another, but didn't know they used the Britains Deetail basing method, of a
slotted metal base with vinyl lugs on the undersides of the figure (in this
case Airk Thaughbaer)'s feet.
Next to him is a Kinder fantasy figure from
the late 1980's, I have one with a blue lizard (and green pants I think?), but
not the helmet (also lizardy), so he was a nice addition, while Adrian from Mercator Trading had put the robots to one side for me, similar in size and
plastic-colour to the Ace Acme robots, I don't know their origins (beyond
'probably' being both Christmas cracker and gum-ball machine prizes) but will
find-out one day!
Three Polish-made Napoleonic cavalry from PZG were not cheap but a steal to find
at all, and go with a fourth I found - at Plastic
Warrior's show - a year or two ago, while Adrian had also found these
diminutive Roman/Egyptian copies of larger Marx
figures for me, which will entail taking another shot for a post which should
have already published!
Also from Poland's PZG came a better WWII officer than the one I have, and my first (I
think) 'Four Tanker's and a Dog' figure. The pale copies of Timpo's GI's, probably come from
Argentina, but could be Turkish, and feel-like/sound-like polystyrene, although
I don't think they are.
Discussing them with several members of the
'old guard' during the show, more votes were for S. American than Turkey, but
I still fancy the Turks, so it'll need something more definitive!
Adrian also gave me a box of Blue Box bits and bobs which included a
spare cab-floor for a Bedford RL, so I can rescue one from the junk pile - where a
dozen or more languish. What's also useful about these is that the Britains
poses are the earlier 'kidney' based ones, not the later, commoner, penny-bases.
I also grabbed the Zang figure as every time I find the soldier at attention, he's a different
colour, and I wasn't sure if I had this mid-khaki shade with no webbing
highlights? Possibly the smallest plunder bag I've ever brought-away from a show,
but all good stuff!