Other plunder from the Plastic Warrior Show 2025

 I've been going a bit overboard with the medievals this past year or so, to the detriment of collecting other historical periods, but I haven't neglected them entirely:

My last sweep of the show turned up these four odds and ends for just £1 each, two late version French Revolutionaries made in France by JIM, a Crescent Russian for my Winter War project and a large resin touristy tat knight, not really my thing but I just loved the pose.

The PW Show has always been as much (if not more) of a social occasion than anything else, for many who attend it's the one day of the year they get to meet face to face with friends they've known for many years and there is often a gifting of figures.

Graham Apperley gave me the first two, a cowgirl on bucking bronco made in USA by Beton (Bergen Toy and Novelty Co) and a Gaucho made in Argentina by EGToys (Ezio Guggiari) who were producing these distinctive figures between 1943 and1965, 

Michael Mordaunt-Smith gave me the red plastic figure of Jim Hardie from the 1950's American tv series "Tales of Wells Fargo" which he is currently producing from an old mould, the original figure was made in America by Louis Marx but the consensus of opinion is that this is a copy as it is noticeably smaller. 

The 70mm green figure of Sir Gawain was made in Spain and is very similar to, but not a copy, of the figure made by Elastolin for their Prinz Eisenhrz set, based on the Prince Valiant comic strip created in America by Hal Foster. It was given to me by Paul Stadinger (aka Stad) who at one time was the U.S. agent and distributor for Plastic Warrior magazine, and has been attending the show regularly since the 1990's. 

This group above came from Andreas Dittmann another regular long term visitor to the show from Germany, an Elastolin trumpeter, Lineol grenade thrower, a pair of plaster sheep with a lamb and an early post war East German infantryman made in a papiermache/plaster composition mix by P G H Effelder.

My thanks go to Graham, Michael, Paul and Andreas for their kind gifts and the many years of friendship we have shared. 

And finally......this was actually my first purchase of day, an Art Deco Renault tank, carved in wood, roughly in scale for 54mm figures, the consensus of opinion was that it had been manufactured commercially rather than being "shedware".  I'm tempted to paint it, but I won't!

Rare Sacul knights at the Plastic Warrior Show 2025

 It has been three months now since the Plastic Warrior Show and we are still unearthing the goodies that emerged, here are some more:

These three Sacul mounted knights in plastic were on the table of Joe Bellis at the Plastic Warrior Show last June, notice the one on the right has a shield which is copied from the Britains Wars of the Roses Swoppet range. The Sacul knights were originally made in hollowcast lead and are fairly common in the UK but not so much overseas, later they were made in plastic from the original moulds for a very short time and the plastic versions (above) are very rare. There is just one horse and one rider model but the rider was issued with four different articulated right arms holding an axe, a sword, a standard or a lance.

Curiously the horses turn up more often than the riders and the moveable parts; visor, right arm, shield and scabbard are always moulded in these garish bright colours. The shields are invariably missing, I have one with the original heater shaped shield but I've never seen one with this copy of the Britains WOTR shield in lead or plastic. The Sacul foot knights are extremely rare in plastic, I have only ever seen one example.

My friend Norman Joplin told me "I believe one of the Barrett brothers (Bert) may have been responsible for these along with plastic items marketed as Luntoy and Paramount when I visited his home in Croydon some years ago."  Norman is referring here to the family who originally founded Taylor & Barrett in the 1920's, then later split to form F G Taylor & Sons and A Barrett & Sons after WW2.  The Barrett Brothers bought up moulds from various defunct manufacturers such as Benbros, Paramount and Sacul, which were in due course sold on again to Giles Brown of Dorset Model Soldiers, but that's another story for another day.

The two plastic Sacul knights in my collection, the hollowcast lead versions had a feather plume in their helmet made from the darts used in air guns, the metal point of the dart being pressed into the lead pouring hole of the helmet to leave the brightly coloured tail sticking out.  The same method as used by Timpo in their "Ivanhoe" and "Knights of the Round Table" series, Sacul had been set up by an ex Timpo employee called Lucas (who reversed his name for the firm).  The lead pouring holes were capped off and new plumes engraved into the moulds when they were adapted for use on a plastic injection moulding machine.

The knight on the right has the correct Sacul shield (in plastic) which came with the original hollowcast figure, there is a spigot on the reverse which plugs into the bend in the left arm.  It's curious to note that the horses are made in various colours of plastic and always appear to be factory painted in the Sacul style while the riders are made in a base body colour plastic with multi colour accoutrements in the early swoppet style, this has led us to speculate that the horses might have been produced first in the Sacul factory then sold as a job lot along with the moulds and the riders moulded at a later date.

Also on Joe's table was a good selection of the 60mm Crescent Hurons/Mohicans (I'm never sure which they are supposed to be but I'm sure someone will enlighten us), these are also very hard to find so I thought I'd squeeze in this pic just because they are so nice!