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!
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.
Four useful civilian or military 54mm figures, one with each animal and vehicle blister pack – photographer, binoculars baseball cap guy, female scientist or medic and determined looking adventurer figure with jungle hat.
Useful figure, handy smaller scale lorry and an African animal to boot. Good looking 1:32 or 54mm figures from the back as well. They could be adventurers, Press or war photographers, officer with binoculars, medics. Determined, distinctive and versatile female medic, vet or scientist figure. Feisty enough to suit Star Wars games too. Female Space scientist, tropical biologist, dinosaur vet ??
The usual mix of scales of figures and vehicles can be annoying to some but is full of potential across a range of scales.
Odd mix of scales per set surrounding the 54mm figure 36mm pound store figure conversion, HO/OO Railway figure, 30mm Spencer Smith figure for size comparison with the lorries. Useful trucks and useful (detachable?) wooden crates. The accompanying animals …Ark Toys and Ravensden origin.
These were a useful set of civilian or military safari or zoo figures that I got at a discount, not Pound store materials but certainly useful plastic figures and lorries to accompany some of my Pound Store Plastic conversions.
Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN , Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog 29 May 2018.
Ross Macfarlane of The Battle Game of the Month blog wondered what my Pound Store version of my #FEMbruary challenge might be?
Interesting ideas – not sure what #FEMbruary Pound Store figure conversion I might attempt yet.
Looking back through this blog there are a fair number of female plastic figures ranging from pirates to space princesses, pioneer women and native Americans, zoo staff and visitors, to police officers.
They could be zoo keepers, Rangers or tooled up to become space marines …
Trying to to find interesting 54mm civilian figures is always a challenge. Apart from an unusual set ordered online from China, it usually involves looking out for figures with playsets or vehicles. An expensive way to acquire a few figures!
Britains and other companies used to make civilian and railway figures in 54mm lead but few in plastic, the occasional keeper figure or farm worker.
It was always frustrating as a child to have a zoo or farm or a parade set out but no visitors to watch; it usually resulted in lots of troops parading (H.G. Wells Floor Games style) endlessly through the zoo along with assorted military staff feeding the animals.
Evn today, Edinburgh Zoo has a penguin called Nils Olaf “commissioned” into the Norwegian Royal Guard and occasionally visited and paraded by his fellow (human) comrades in their magnificent full dress uniform.
This was sort of true of British Zoos in wartime – there were special rates for servicemen (and lady friends) in uniform, entertainments in WW1 for injured servicemen. I have 1939’propaganda’ press pictures of servicemen enjoying elephant rides at Belle Vue Zoo Manchester. In the first few weeks of being closed to the public on ARP grounds in September 1939, London Zoo made arrangements for servicemen to walk round for the animals to look at. ‘The Zoo’ also made their canteen over to the RAF as the big houses around became RAF Regent’s Park full of training aircrew.
Britain’s and other lead toy soldier manufacturers made plenty of civilians and farm workers in the more pacifist aftermath of WW1. Plastic manufacturers haven’t followed suit and painted railway figures in this 54mm /1:32 scale are often quite expensive.
Failing the mounting of a full scale military parade through your zoo, Wild West town etc. all day and everyday, some normal civilians are useful for floor games, sandpit games or wargames.
The 54mm female figure from the left is from the c. 2007 zoo vehicle playset, whilst the “Marilyn” stylish 1950s unfinished painted figure is from recent Chinese plastics online purchase of civilians. (Photo / figures: Man of TIN)
These feature sets came from a zoo gift shop with two zebra striped jeeps, some brilliant wooden watch towers and rope ways (of which more anon) , a couple of odd sized animals and these interesting modern civilians.
Something vaguely unsettling about this boy child in his simple factory paintwork. Useful photographer figure though!
Something similar to the girl child in the photos has recently been repainted and reused in a Slinkachu type way on the front cover of an art photography book Micro Worlds about the recent group of artists / photographers playing with scale for satiric, unsettling or comic effect. An interesting book but one which contains some slightly disturbing dystopian or to some tasteless items from a range of photographers.
Another candidate to be my Man of TIN blog photographer? (from a 2007 zoo vehicle playset)
Police and firefighters are now available in poundstore tubes. Back in the 1980s there were Britain’s Deetail nurses, doctors and construction workers, not forgetting the Britain’s farm workers from lead to Herald plastic and a modern farm worker range still around in toy shops today.
In future blogposts I will feature more civilian figures to be used for game scenarios from the Chinese online set to the useful USA manufactured Toob “heritage” plastic figures roughly in 54mm, also purchased online.
Plastic Warrior website also feature an excellent set of Mexican Wild West civilians or peasants.
These are Toob figures from their Jamestown Pioneer set. They are a blacksmith and a woodsman, both handy civilian figures in 16th / 17th century dress that could be repainted to suit later periods such as the Wild West.
A wide range of civilian figures are featured in these Toob figures sets, though they are hardly pound store cheap and arrive prepainted. I ordered these online as some useful civilian figures to enrich games and displays.
More Toob 54mm figures from the Jamestown Pioneer and Wild West sets. The plastic house came from a pet store!
I will feature further figures in a Toob figure review in future blog posts.
This scary looking female comes in a set of cheap painted pirates often found in toy stores and seaside shops.
She comes with some interesting protection tucked away in her hands behind her!
This female figure could be repainted in a variety of ways to suit different periods from 17th Century pirates to Wild West and even Gothic, fantasy, vampires, steampunk and Sci-Fi scenarios.
Civilian or female figures are often hard to find in pound store plastics.
I have repainted the base colour on her face as she had some strange gothic black eye paint in her factory original paint state.
These are Toob figures from their Jamestown Pioneer set. They are a blacksmith and a woodsman, both handy civilian figures in 16th / 17th century dress that could be repainted to suit later periods such as the Wild West.
