About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Thursday, March 28, 2024

C is for Card Game, Card Table & Card Players

Matt Thier was at the show on Saturday last, and had his new card player's set for the saloon collection of White Tower Miniatures, the painted figures aren't available yet (but it should only be weeks or days now, keep checking the website), but the castings were there, for those who still have the eyesight to paint their own figures!
 




And they were being displayed on what looks remarkably like the water-butt cover I used to shoot the rocket-launchers, Jean stuff and a few other bits in the garage during lockdown! . . . Where did those four years go?

They are lovely, and I particularly like the standing figure, who could be Lee Van Cleefe, quietly sliding his hand to the six-gun's pistol-grip! Between him and the Moll and an eyebrow code, they've got the game sewn-up, but who's their man? My money's on the old bearded mule-poke, pretending to be a drunk!

They're not on the website yet;


But should appear soon under the Wild West Town folk heading near the bottom of the shop list. And the Windsor Chairs, previously available as part of the saloon range, are delightful!

E is for Easter Bunnies - Let the Party Begin!

 

 
Finally, Miss Fancy Pants turned-up from Sainsbury's in her best frock!

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

D is for Derivative Drivel!

We don't have many 'D's, do we, weird as there's plenty of words being with D, anyway, I was trying to find a synonym for Matter's Arising, which I know we had, not that long ago, and Derivative Drivel will do!

This arrived today from New York, I shot it upside down to hide all the personal stuff, but have since opened it and there's some good stuff coming to Small Scale World soon - many thanks to Brian Berke!
 
While I bought this from Peter Evans at the show on Saturday, and while I don't usually credit by name, when money changes hands (you could never remember everyone, and don't know half the people in the room!), Peter donates a lot to the Blog, and this was well below real value, so there will be a highlights post or two!
 
We looked at this rub-down set from Westair a few weeks ago, I think, but I forgot I'd shot it twice, and you can see the transfers in these shots, different to the old Lettraset or Patterson-Blick ones, but very much in the same vein.

This monstrosity was found when I cleared the weeds from the pond, I don't know why I was clearing the weeds from the pond when we have accepted an offer, and it's technically someone else's house, but there you go!
 
I would have cleaned it for the collection, but it was more than slightly-damaged and went in the bin! It's modern, a bead-soft or whatever they are called, so thrown over the fence from either side, by kids, or possibly stolen and then dropped by a Heron or one of the many Gulls on Fleet Pond?? It's not like I haven't had the water-lily out several times over the years!

I got these Fun Express zombies the other day, from an evilBay seller, we have looked at them before, but that sample was shite, although I may not have realised that time, how similar two of the sculpts are, or how much they differ individual-to-individual, due to shrinkage/heat (arms all over the place), so might have missed some that time, but here are all four poses in both colours, the snot-green is not glow-in-the-dark.
 
Peter also messaged me after the show-post to point out the guardsman I thought might be a Hong Kong copy of Crescent, is more likely to be a Hilco plastic-from-hollow-cast, which is sort of a better find, I checked him and the mark which I thought was one of those blobby Hong-over-Kong marks, is, in fact just a blob, so I bow to Peter's superior knowledge, and better eyes!
 
I found this on a hook in a small independent corner-shop somewhere in the Surry Hills the other night, when the thirst for a Rubicon fizzy-mango came over me, and as it may have been behind a six-hundred-quid card fraud I discovered tonight, I hope you enjoy it! Luckily I had the cash on me, as I'd just filled the tank, when my card was declined!
 
Credited to Asda supermarkets and claiming to be 8 snakes, it seems to be a bunch of previously-seen here, erasersaurs (10) and 2 of the original snakes, make of that what you will, but clearly I should have checked the label!

E is for Easter Bunnies - Still Growing!

 

 
Benjamin Brown (Asda) joins the party!

S is for Saunders . . . Roger Saunders

I hadn't heard of these until a few weeks ago, and I have nothing on them in the archive, so another "Thank you" to Jon Attwood for this submission, and consequently there's not a lot I can say about them, beyond what you see here, with your own eyes! Which is, a couple of railway modelling review articles and an example of packaging, but it gets them up, Tag-listed and box-ticked!


Jon wrote "Roger Saunders is a well known name in the model soldier world and has a write-up in Garrett. So just a pic of the only rail set I have been able to find so far, and a couple of reviews from 1984 & 1985 Railway Modeller magazine.", and I have found and re-read the Garrett entry (pp. 149), which points out he produced sculpts for most of the 54mm solid metal kit makers/advertisers in Military Modelling in the late 1970's/early 1980's!
 

And having read-up on Pendon Museum, which I was living near-to, for several years (!), I think I'd better get my arse over there as soon as I can? Cheers Jon, a couple of rabbit-holes to crawl down there!

Monday, March 25, 2024

E is for Easter Bundesbunny!

 

 
Lady Favorina Lidl has joined the Family gathering!

L is for Lots of Lovely Loot!

Actually it's not much, but there are some interesting bits in amongst the box-tickers, and almost more metal than plastic, which is not a measure of how far I'm veering from the true path, but just the fact that the London show is the sort of show where some cheap metal is to be had!

Not sure if these are colonial French or British 'native' infantry, nor whether they are Indian or Arabic, or ancient/medieval, but I like to grab these semi-flats when I see them going cheap, and these were better than cheap, they were free! Adrian Little gave them to me, after I asked for a price, as they were in with something . . . err . . . much better!
 
Café Storm Coffee premium of Don Luis de Requesens (1520-1576, Wikipedia states b.1528, but admits problems with the page?) on the left, a mounted Arab from Britains 'Second Rate' subscale, pocket-money lines on the right.
 
Machine-gunners, a growing side-collection! Hollow-cast to the fore, a solid, commercial effort from home-casting mould behind him, the larger composition one is also unknown, but may be Belgian or Dutch and a Crescent gunner is behind them all.

Two shrubs, the left-hand one, more composite than composition, may be an early Faller, I've a couple of Faller trees somewhere with similar bases and construction, but with identifying stickers, or - to be accurate - glued labels. On the right is an aluminium one which could be Wend Al, but is probably Quiralu, as it was with a bunch of other Quiralu that Wend Al never covered themselves.
 
Five more metals, and most are Britians Second Rate's again (note the very different treatments of the two marching (US?) sailors), but the pilot is Crescent, and the running sailor is from B&T I think, from a Woolworth's exclusive set, post war.
 
A couple of ceremonials, one plastic and another of those Crescent sub-scale piracies from Hong Kong, [27th - probably an equally interesting Hilco plastic-from-hollow-cast - thanks Peter Evans] the other a hollow-cast and actually Crescent as far as I can tell, detail seems crisper on Crescent's figures than Britains.
 
I owe Peter Evans a small apology, I was holding two conversations at once, when he came over and gave me the red figure (another freebie!), and I glanced at it and said something along the lines of 'Thanks, I think it's from a firefighter board game like the milkman/dairy delivery one?', later I found the yellow one in a rummage tray (possibly the same seller?), and after getting them home, they are clearly spies or secret-agents of some kind, probably still board game pieces, but not firemen! I think I have the game's details somewhere in the archive, so one day the A-Z entry will have them corrected!

Between them is a rather nice 70-millimetre Nardi nativity Wise Man, from a crèche/crib set, or Presepe, he's got a swivel waist, but is otherwise not very swoppet'y!

The rest of what was only a cupped-hands'full, but all good stuff, especially with the large set we looked at yesterday. Clockwise from the top left, we have another of the soft-polyethylene versions of the Hardy (et al) G.I. flats, which I suspect are 'Euro-premiums' of some kind? A dug out canoe from Safari's Powhatan Indians set, a pack of eight Lilliput hurdles, and two of the maybe Charbens cake decoration plastic copies of the Britains' hunters, another Airfix fox-hound/beagle type and a Quiralu (?) black panther in aluminium.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

E is for Another Easter Bunny!

 

 
Great Uncle Moldova dropped-by on his way back from Tesco!

T is for Timely Manner . . . No! Toy Show Report . . . No! Torres Maltas! Yes, T is for Torres Maltas!

I am back from Camden! Remembering the criticism of me from 2019, when we were burying Dad, by you know who;
 
"There are three items we can not delay reporting : new figure news, collectible toy shows, and toy trade fairs."
 
I thought I'd better get the reports of yesterday's Toy Soldier Show out, in a 'timely manner', I'd hate to delay the importance of the occasion!
 



I picked this up at the show yesterday, I thought I'd got a mega-bargain, and to be fair I sort of did get a bargain, as it's a rare and usual survivor of old Spanish toy soldiery, but once I'd got it home and had a good look at the damage to the box, and its repairs, I figure it was a fair price, but it WAS, not a lot.
 

We've seen the figures before here, they also did Air Force personal, and there is a definite relationship between these 40mm Torres Maltas ('Maltese Towers') and the larger 54/60mm stuff from Manuel Sotorres, in the styling, the movable arms and the subject matters, but I don't know the exact link, or if I do, it's on the dongles somewhere!
 
The tank is fascinating, filling both the 'space tank' role as a purely fictional vehicle, albeit with shades of M46/7-48-60 in the nose/front glacis-plate, and looking very Hong Kong'y - if you found it in a mixed lot of loose-stuff, you would happily assume it was Hong Kong. The body/hull a blow-mould, the turret, however, injection-moulded.

While the marbled-plastic gun is closer to 54mm-compatible (here posed with a Crescent GI gunner - I got the Joplin big-book out, to save TJF 'having' to make the effort), and has a matchstick-firing capacity with hidden-spring mechanism.
 
Obviously more to come . . . in a timely manner! Very, very important, that you get this stuff out in a timely manner, apparently?

Saturday, March 23, 2024

E is for Easter Bunnies - Smallies

 

 
The kid's school has broken-up for three weeks!
They're breeding . . . like . . . err . . . rabbits!


Friday, March 22, 2024

O is for Odds & Sods

Probably had that title before, but the hours draw on, and I want to get this up before I go to bed, for an early start, as it's the London Toy Soldier show in a few hours, and a T is for Two would be a bit over the top for a couple of shelfies, so I added a window bag!

Out looking for Chocolate rabbits (ongoing bit of Easter fun) I also found a couple of bits worth a shelfie, these were nearly purchased, however I managed to stop myself, but they will turn-up in mixed lots in the future, so worth a shot for the archive. The history of Ideal's logo over the last few years is very complicated, but here in the UK, I think these are actually Hasbro sell-through.
 
But the two Gormiti character figures are non-articulated solids, around 54mm, albeit sort of sci-fi-fantasy. They were for sale in the Poundland rival, Poundstretcher, and at about 4 & 6-quid, quite affordable, the other figures, were printed-sticker flats though.

While this I shot, again for the fact that the horses will turn-up in odd lots, not because we've been looking at show-jumping, which was coincidental, and there were only four crude horses in the truck, no figures or jumps that I could see.
 
Those horses, I think they may be hollow polyethylene, like some of the BJ Toys or Red Deer stuff, but it wasn't clear and they may well be solids? Branded to Toy Hub and RMS International, they are also around 50/54mm compatible, the truck however, is instantly forgettable.

This was a purchase, the other day somewhere, I can't remember where, but coming after the Schleich blind-bags (I saw in Smyths), and the apparent ex-blind-bag dinosaur I got as clearance somewhere, also 'the other day', it seems they are now using window-bags, so you can see what you're getting, a far more civilised way of doing things.
 
But back to the show tomorrow, Central London/Camden, so plenty of touristy stuff to do before or after the toy-soldier buying, including Camden Market and the Lock! Details are here;
 

Thursday, March 21, 2024

E is for Easter Bunnies Expand

 

 
Aunty Ada's off to Aldi's!

T is for Two - Foreign Minor Makes - HO Railways Figures

Many thanks again to Jon Attwood, as these are all his images, I brightened them up a bit in Picasa, and can add a few points of note, but mostly, just eye candy as we box-tick a couple of the lesser makes, but, if you were a Spanish or Danish railway modeller in the 1960/70's, they wouldn't have been that 'minor' to you, as you feasted your eyes on the display at your local hobby shop, so these things are always relative!

Now Aneste Datank, and offering a basic range of Preiser in their own-brand, as a catalogue box-ticker, originally Dat Ank or Datank (?) are a Spanish railway model maker, who, for a while, under the semi-cold war conditions of being in Franco's Spain, were free to produce knock-off's to their hearts' content!
 
And they seem to have settled upon Walter Merten as the target of their plagiarism, although, the lower set may be old Preiser sculpts? Nevertheless, for metal copies of finely-detailed plastic figures, they aren't bad, quite colourful, and were clearly quite plentiful, as, since Jon sent me these images, I have seen quite a few on evilBay.
 
One is reminded of the efforts of Bermania, from Argentina, but these are a superior finish.
 
While up in the colder, wetter north of the continent, Reisler was producing these in an early Cellulose or glass-like polystyrene. We have actually seen these here before, or something similar, different sculpts, but at the time they were 'unknown' or 'maybe Märklin', now maybe Reisler or maybe Lego! They really only have the heavy bases in common.

While these have no bases, and the farm we also looked at previously here at Small Scale World, have very thin bases? So an odd range of sets, which may be bigger than listed on the Tohan site, until someone ID's those others, we won't know!

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

E is still for Easter Bunnies

 

 
Uncle Brian's back from Morrison's 
and the eldest has six-weeks off from Uni'!