About Me

My photo
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.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

G is for Great Scott...What HAVE they got on their heads?

No...it's for Grey-Klip Armies by Grey Iron of course! I've been after a decent sample of these since...oohhh? 1981? First read of JG Garratt's encyclopaedia! Small-scale cast iron...gotta have some of those in the collection!

I actually do have one loose example (he came-in with a bunch of plastics from the James Chase collection's small scale), but I thought he was a Confederate soldier! And that's despite having R O'Brien's book too (which lists them all - I think?), but the trouble with having files on 30,000-odd toy companies and 400+ 'tomes' in the library is...you can't retain everything all the time, and a lot of it just melts into a mush of like names, places, sizes, materials, dates...and lets face it - he looks like Jonny Reb!

Card scans; I couldn't get the stupid machine (Epson, now you ask!) to find the thin edge properly, so it's a bit truncated, but still readable! They (Grey Iron) produced more in the larger sizes, but I think this was it for the smallies!

The figures; divided into a command group and a troop 'squad', set into a steel track (which will open your fingers up if you're not careful!), they are crude, sand-cast lumps and I love 'em! The dodgy headgear is supposed to be the smokie-bear/drill-sergeant/boy-scout 'Campaign hat', but really? Confederates...to a man!

No comments: