A Well Spent Pound?

Slightly smaller scale figures and vehicles – Airfix Centurion tank copies

Popped in with my Christmas parcel from our upcountry family in 2019 was this lovely £1 bag of plastic soldiers and tanks.

They are the remnants of a playset style bag from a charity shop, picked up pre-Lockdown in late 2019. They were popped in alongside our Christmas presents as padding or packing in the Christmas parcel before posting. Who needs bubble wrap?

Please note: These were photographed in the poor light of Winter 2019 / 2020. I don’t think I posted these then for some reason.

One or two figures had the CE mark on the base.

Larger copies of familiar Airfix figures in two colours

Figures seen here in size order compared to the size of an original 54mm Airfix WW2 British Infantryman.

Again the slight size difference in the same bag of the same poses is interesting … two different factories? Two different mould tools?

Arriving without a header card, a bit of web research and toyshop browsing reveals that these Airfix figure and tank copies are HTI figures, made in China.

Similar bags are still available July 2020 in toy shops, post offices and seaside stores or from online suppliers such as here at Amazon, including with good copies of the Airfix pre-assembled OOHO Centurion tank.

Age range for kids toys stops at 12+, no categories for men ‘of a certain age’ 46-55, 55- 65, 65

I think that’s enough publicity for buying these here from Amazon (July 2020) for one post.

Buy them where you see them and certainly support your local toy shop.

Just seeing the wonky mixed scale content of these playsets so attractively photographed gives me simple childhood joy.

How have sizes changed from the Airfix originals?

I posted some comparison shots here:

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/more-combat-mission-80-pound-store-plastic-soldiers-part-2/

Airfix original 54mm figure getting smaller and stranger with each generation of copies

I really like the running infantryman figure, it originated as the advancing Airfix German infantry man with rifle but in the process of copying over forty to fifty years has become more generic, simpler and smaller. It now has more of a traditional toy soldier look, especailly if painted up in gloss toy soldier paint style.

I can never have enough of these running plastic toy soldier figures!

That red coat ‘Toy Soldier’ look

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/pound-store-42mm-infantry-army-red-army-blue/

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/more-combat-mission-80-pound-store-plastic-soldiers-part-2/

How do they measure up as they get smaller?

The smaller running rifleman or standing rifleman is just under 38-40mm from base to the top of his helmet (or if you measure to the eyes about 35-36mm)

The larger running rifleman is about 42mm from base to top of helmet, 38mm to the eyeliner, which is the usual size that I have encountered these before on these smaller figures. Quite a size drop from the 54mm Airfix originals.

This brings these broadly into line with 40mm Prince August figures for example.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, January / July 2020.

Pound Store 42mm Spy?

The figure is sold as HP24 Jacob Kowalski from the Harry Potter prequel movies Fantastic Beasts and How to Find Them …

During a supermarket stroll past the film and DVD  tie-in sections, I spotted amongst the superhero, space and fantasy figures this interesting 40mm-ish metal figure of Jacob Kowalski from Fantastic Beasts.  Interesting movie, well worth seeing, sequel due soon.

Perfect figure for a civilian, a spiv, a spy or escaped POW?

A suspicious character found on the wired off British coastline c. 1940. Irregular Minitures 42mm British Tommies. Wire from notebook spine.

This Kowalski civilian  figure put put me in mind of some of the stylish 1940 photos and game scenarios set up by Allan Tidmarsh on his various blogs.

http://dorset1940.blogspot.com

http://ww2tanksalot.blogspot.com/2017/

Kowalski  works well with an affordable  joblot of painted, based and play-bashed Irregular Miniatures 42mm metal Tommies. I bought these to accompany a future pound store Home Guard / Operation Sealion  1940 invasion game, bulked out by plastic pound store China clone Germans.  Attractive Irregular Miniatures German Paratroops but £2 each. http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/42mmRanges/42mmWorldWar2.htm#British

How would he match my 42mm-ish pound store figures?

Poundstore unpainted 40 – 42 mm Plastic Infantry, lovely  old Wilko Heroes charging figure on the left. China clone German 42mm on right. 

The Usual Suspect … 40 to 45mm

Arrested by more of my  Blue Army (Tintin-esque Imagi-Nations) pound store c. 42mm figures.

Prince August ‘large’ 40mm Homecast Cowboy, the Kowalski figure  and old bashed Railway figure alongside junk shop find of a bashed 1911 Ford Model T Yesteryear car.

1911 Ford Model T being repainted in khaki as an army vehicle or staff car. Irregular Miniature 42mm British Tommies.

As the Man from the Ministry investigating ration violations … from our previous blogpost https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2018/09/02/pound-store-42mm-farm

 

Dickensian Economics?

Although the Jacob Kowalski figure was not in a pound store (cost £1.97), this and the trashed Yesteryear Ford Model T (£4 junk shop / market stall)  were offset by finding two pots of lolly sticks for 10p each (garden centre sale). These  usually retail in pound and craft stores at £1 to £1.99.

A saving of almost £4 on lolly sticks, which are useful building materials and lolly sticks to attach figures for handling during  painting. Two useful plastic storage pots too!

Result? Happiness.

10p bargains!

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN on Pound Store Plastic Warriors, 2 September 2018.

 

Pound Store 42mm farm

Simple and attractive  box art

Found this on my travels in a National Trust gift shop for the not strictly pound store price of £4.50 (but hey it’s for charity). Pound store bizarreness and  quality though!

It is available online too https://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk

What you get squeezed remarkably into one small box 

I look at these play sets part with the eyes of the child I once was and part with the slightly more adult eyes of the gamer and figure converter.

The National Trust shop product shot on their shop website. 

The calves are small enough to be cows in a smaller railway or gaming scale.

The piglets are pleasingly stocky and wild boar like (lunch for Obelix and Asterix).

The rabbits (?!?)  are just plain bizarre. The chickens and ducks repainted are good for farm vignettes.

The wobbly fencing would make good corrugated iron panels at smaller scales.

What I find most fascinating are the cloned farm figures which are in that indeterminate 40 to almost 50mm sizing. They are in slightly soft plastic, rather than hard and brittle.

Figures to scale. A surprisingly buxom wench (left). The Winston Churchill /  farmer is equipped with pipe, whip or crooked stick and shotgun, proper “get off my laaand!” stuff. 

 

How the mini farm set fits with 42mm figures (Irregular Miniatures WW2 British tommies). Armed Inspection by the Ministry of Ag, looking for illegal hidden  pigs? Saving the Nation’s Bacon!

Throw in a slightly battered vintage car and you change the character of the farmer –  a  junk shop find of Ford Model T Yesteryear model  in the process of being repainted khaki to a staff car. 

It all packs back inside the building and into the box – neat! Great as a child for holidays.

I think the figures will repaint well enough for civilian figures, as will the outhouse repainted to a small distressed farm outhouse. It is a clone of Britain’s Plastic small farm buildings that I still have.

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, 2 September 2018

The Mini Farm set is manufactured by www.keycraft.eu, an interesting low cost plastic toy trade retailer with lots of business retail insights on their website. The Sceince of Impulse Buys? Note:  Trade only.

The Science of Impulse Buying – Who could fall for impulse buys of such low cost, brightly packaged toys? 

Keycraft import the usual suspects – repackaged copy Matchbox US infantry clones (with no enemy) sold by several outlets including book shops.

 

 

42mm Irregular Artillery

Pound Store plastic 42mm  paint conversion of a WW2 figure (based on a 2p coin) next to a recently acquired 42mm Irregular Miniatures WW2 British Artillery.

Exploring the colourful 42mm pound store figures that I painted this winter,

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/pound-store-42mm-infantry-army-red-army-blue/

I have been chatting on various blog posts including Tradgardmastre and CT about their 40mm to 42mm figures.

One of  the challenges is finding plastic Pound Store artillery figures and guns, and even more tricky to find cavalry.

Pound Store 42 mm or 54mm figures tend to be WW2 copies, rather than other historic periods. Conversion of plastic figures is possible for artillery crews but cavalry  and guns will probably need to be metal figures.

CT recommended looking at 42mm Irregular Miniatures

http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/index.html

and the STS Shiny Toy Soldiers  Range available from Spencer Smith Miniatures.

http://www.spencersmithminiatures.co.uk/html/s_t_s_.html

 

Irregular Miniatures 42mm British Artillery

Recently I picked up some ready-painted 42mm WW2 Irregular Miniatures British artillerymen and some British infantry secondhand online.

http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/42mmRanges/42mmWorldWar2.

Some very attractive WW2 British Home Guard figures to note for future reference.

I am tempted to paint up some 42mm plastic enemy ‘German’ figures to oppose this small British skirmish force, even though this is a return to sludge khaki grey and green. Occasionally 42mm American plastics turn up in seaside / pound store plastics. These would be as good for garden games as tabletop games.

Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN on his Pound Store Plastic Warriors, 19 September 2018.

How do Schildkrot 40mm figures measure up?

 

Prince August 40mm homecast Cowboy and Indian either side of a slender 40mm  Schildkrot infantryman. On the right a cheap plastic 42mm pound store infantryman.

Chatting to 42mm collector CT on my blog comments page, CT is exploring whether to use Schildkrot 40mm figures and how semi-flat they are.

By chance I have only one attractive Schildkrot figure and mould in my collection.

https://www.zinnfigur.com/en/Casting/Moulds/Schildkroet-oxid/

They are attractive figures, what I call semi-round or semi-flat and slender in stature compared to my 40mm semiround Prince August Holger Eriksonn mould Cowboys and Indians.

 

 

Compared to other 40 to 42  mm figures in my collection, they appear slender but the Schildkrot figures are an attractive but historically limited figure range. Fine for Little  Wars or Imagi-Nations type troops.

In my next blog post I will show my cheap plastic pound store 42mm figures compared to my few 42mm Irregular Miniatures metal figures.

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN on his Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog, 19 September 2018.

Pound Store 42mm Infantry Army Red Army Blue

 

Army Red Infantry – riflemen, grenadiers and machine gun troops.

Army Red Rifleman with white issue helmet

Army Red Rifle Grenadier

Army Red Machine Gun Infantry

Army Red Rifleman and Machine Gun Troops with Black Issue Helmets

These figures came in packs of pound store 50-54mm figures but are slightly smaller, about 42mm.

They are painted in Acrylic Gloss toy soldier style with simple Twopenny or Tupenny Bases to add some weight.

This in itself is close in size to the wonderfully retro Irregular Miniatures Deutschland Homage range designed by Andy Partridge. I shall have to buy a character figure or two to compare them. http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/42mmRanges/42mmDeutscheHomage.htm

Shadow Warriors

These are the finished figures which appeared by accident as Shadow Warriors, shown in a recent blogpost: https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/shadow-warriors-of-the-pound-store/

These 42mm figures were figures from packets of Combat Mission 80 pound store plastic warriors from the seaside stores, although I have had some of these rifleman figures painted up in since about 2006/7. They are often found mixed in with 50 to 54mm pirate or clone copies of WW2 figures.

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/06/10/combat-mission-80-plastic-pound-store-soldiers-part-1-charge/

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/more-combat-mission-80-pound-store-plastic-soldiers-part-2/

They have a lovely Bordurian / Syldavian  feel to them, straight outta Tintin, By the Whiskers of Kurvi-Tasch! https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/18/tintin-and-imagi-nations-games/

The White Stuff

I noticed on someone’s blog feed recently a useful Youtube video from Tabletop Minions on “How to Photograph Your Minis”

https://youtu.be/oZtE6HWXg0E

a top tip from Uncle Atom of Tabletop Minions https://tabletopminions.org/tmx/

This featured a very useful photography tip about using a sheet of white paper taped to a box to give a smooth curve in a good natural light source. This seemed to work well enough.

Onward! Army Red led by a pirated copy of an Airfix Japanese Officer. 

I also photographed  the figures en masse against a felt background, seen at the top of this blogpost.

 

A busy painting table anyway, finishing 42mm figures at the back and undercoating the next bunch of small 36mm Poundland penny dreadfuls.

All these larger ‘Toy Soldier’ figures are raring to go for a 42mm (slightly smaller than normal) version of H.G. Wells’ (slightly) Littler (than normal) Little Wars.

Blogposted by  Mark, Man of TIN, on Pound Store Public Warriors  10 November 2017.