Q. When is an Airfix not an Airfix?

  A. When it's a Hong Kong copy.  I've been having an off-on tidy up of my toy soldier room for several months now, it's not that it's a big area but that the concept of "go tidy your room" does not become any less tedious or disheartening just because you've left adolescence far behind!

Anyway, in the darkest corner of a long forgotten cupboard I discovered an old shoe box which I'd quite forgotten about.  Way, way back in the days before ebay, and toy soldier shows plastic figures could be quite hard to find, you could get plenty of hollow-cast Britains or "connoseur models", if you had the money, but plastics were considered to have no intrinsic value and consequently there was no market for them.  It was in this period of plastic austerity that I started collecting pirated copies (or knock offs if you prefer) of mainstream products, mainly out of desperation to collect something, and that long forgotten period came back to me when I opened the shoe box.

Of course the copies weren't all made in Hong Kong, that bastion of enterprise which we Brits rented off the Chinese for the better part of the last century, but they were by far the most prolific.  The most commonly copied figures were Britains, particularly the Herald Khaki infantry but in fairness the British companies making copies of these were legion: UNA, VP, Johilco, Benbross, Tudor Rose etc.  From the shoe box I've pulled a few of the figures that I found amusing in the hope that someone else might feel the same.  First above is a copy of an Airfix footballer, nothing special about that just that the originals are not that common.  The Japanese rifleman standing firing has been made in two parts, he swivels at the waist to make him a sort of swoppet.  The manufacturers really went out of their way with the grey figure in the middle, he's a copy of the Airfix WW2 German infantry running with rifle at the waist but he has been made as a swoppet with six parts.  Like the Jap he swivels at the waist but he also has a plug in base and head (the head is copied from the first version Timpo German with a press on helmet, helmet missing here) but the great thing is that they've made a belt for him in brown plastic with bayonet.entrenching tool and gas mask canister.  Rarely can anyone have gone to so much effort to make something infinitely inferior to the original.

The next bunch I pulled out were two of the Airfix HO (1/72nd) scale WW1 French which have been pantographed up to about 40mm scale.  Pantographing figures down in size and is quite common and in fact most modern 54mm figures are sculpted three times larger than the final finished product and then pantoed down in order to creat a mould with sharp detail.  How great would it have been if they'd worked this magic on all the Airfix WW1 ranges, 40mm is just ideal for table top wargaming.  The two Napoleonic British infantrymen are nice crisp 54mm copies made in Poland and I've included them mainly to give an idea of scale.

My favorites have to be these Airfix American Revolutionary figures, again they've been pantographed up from HO scale to about 40mm, in typical Hong Kong fashion they have taken the American infantry and painted them up as British but retained the stars and stripes on the flag!  These were being sold as cake decorations when I got them, I'd love to get more.

The day I found VICTORY in the bottom of a bottle.

I blinked in the January sunshine, opened my eyes and it was still there.  I could hardly believe it but it seemed such an amazing thing that I felt I must share it with you dear reader (whoever you may be)

Since I no longer work in town I avoid going up into London (because it can be a bit of a nightmare) but a few days ago Mrs C needed to visit Chinatown so I went along as her bagman.  After a pleasant lunch we headed back towards Waterloo Station via Trafalgar Square, the later is of course a tourist destination of International renown with Nelson's Column in the centre surrounded by four podiums.  The thing is that only three of the podiums have statues on them and the fourth stood empty until a few years ago when someone came up with the idea of using it to showcase modern works of art, some of which have been quite controversial.  This particular work has had little or no attention from the media and has nothing to do with collecting toy soldiers, except that it is a model even if it does weigh in at a whopping 4 tons and 15 metres long, so it just had to go in the blog.

I've never heard of Yinka Shonibare but anyone who can make a four ton model of HMS Victory in a bottle has earned their MBE in my book.

Latest Plastic Warrior and Figuren Magazines now out

In the last few days the postman has brought me the latest issues of Plastic Warrior and Figuren Magazines. 

Plastic Warrior number 146 has articles on: The Crescent story, Very early plastic warriors, Where did the toy soldier go?, Book Review, Britains stuff, Wild Young Dirky, UFOs, Auction Review, Cherilea Commandos and Minor Makers - BMS

Figuren Magazin Nr. 4 2011, has articles on: Erich Leistner - Master diorama maker, Bad Nauheim 2011 figure show, A hundred years of Hausser, Pfeiffers 11cm military figures, Gulaschkanone by Metall-Spielwaren Weimar, German made Indian canoes, "Winnetou" boardgame, Modelling book review, Nativity figures and 32nd Herne figure show.

Both magazines are available by subscription direct from the publishers and in my opinion are indispensable if you are a serious collector of old toy soldiers.

Little Wars armies - progress in 2011

Way back in January I made a New Years Resolution not to start any new Little Wars converting projects until I had completed the ones that were already in progress and , unusually for me, I stuck to it - well almost.

For a couple of years now I have been building up Russian and Turkish armies of the "roughly" 1880's period based on pictures of Heyde solid lead 45mm toy soldiers in the book Bleisoldaten by Hans H. Roer (sadly long out of print).  I came to this period because it's a bit different and exotic, nobody was making the figures at the time so it gave me scope to do some simple conversions which would provide a very personal collection and I like the idea of late 19th century armies slugging it out on fairly even terms (I had long since done the ACW to death).  I started the project with what I consider to be the tedious part of building wargame armies which is knocking out bog standard units of infantry for both sides, that done (along with a bit of cavalry) by this year I am down to wrorking on staff, a bit more artillery and whaterver takes my fancy, this is the fun bit for me and it will probably be ongoing to a certain extent for some time to come.

Turkish staff, made from cheap plastic BMC figures with metal heads from Dorset Toy Soldiers

Turkish command groups, made as above with Britains Herald figures for the officers and buglers, BMC for the standards.

Russian staff and some additional infantry to bring existing units up to strength, these are still WIP.

Russian riflemen from the Caucassus

French naval landing party, still to do - standard bearer and bugler, perhaps an MG also.

French ADC with some generic support troops, a cook and a blacksmith.  I plan to make more support troops in shirt sleeve order with blue trousers striped red, the idea being that they can then be used with any national army rather than have lots of duplication.

A project that's been too long on the back burner for me are Japanese troops circa 1905, I plan to move these up the to do list in 2012.

Chinese have never featured as a project for me but I think that will change in 2012.  New Years Resolution for 2012: forget about existing projects, just do stuff for fun but do lots more of it.

New book by James Opie

I had intended to buy James Opie's new book " Collecting Toy Soldiers in the 21st Century" at the London Toy Soldier Show a few weeks ago, where for the cover price of £30 I would have recieved a signed copy direct from the hand of the author.  However the fates decided that I should not go and therefore I have obtained an unsigned copy courtesy of Amazon for just over half that price (how can they do that when it's brand new?).

Published by Pen and Sword books Ltd. ISBN 978-1848843738, 207 pages fully illustrated in colour throughout.

This is a follow up to James' previous book "Collecting Toy Soldiers" which he wrote 25 years ago and sets out to reflect on the changes in the collecting environment during the intervening period.  And what a lot of changes there have been, the whole demographic of collectors has changed as the older hollow cast lead generation have given way to the baby boomers of the 1950's and 60's plastic era.  Also there has been a boom in availability of figures through shows and the internet, a feast of information through magazines, new books and blogs, and a veritable renaissance in manufacturing both plastic and modern metal collectors items. 

Getting back to the book it's very much a gentle guide through Opie's personal collecting history and his philosophy of what makes a good figure, how to build a collection and how to wind down from it.  That last aspect is rather new territory for me but being a near contemporary of the author I found the concept of "how to stop collecting" strangely compelling as it's something you start to think more about as you get older.  I'm going to shut up now because I'm getting boring, it's a very good book crammed with great and unusual pictures of toy soldiers and I would very hapilly have paid the very modest full cover price for it had not Mr Amazon intervened.