1960; [Civil] Civilians, S6 / 01706 / 01706-4 - HO/OO

The Civilians were - obviously - a separate set from the old Station Accessories, who would not join the 'boxed sets' range until 17 or so years after the introduction of this set. Why Airfix felt the need for two sets, why they kept one out in the cold for so long, and why they didn't just drop the stick-thin set when these figures came out are all questions that remain to be answered.

With 25 poses/items, mostly paired, this set was as varied as it's predecessor with a similar make-up, excepting the number of non-human items in the other set, and like the other set; the figures were mostly doing not a lot!

A complete set laid-out in no particular order, these are a great improvement on the earlier set, and contain a few useful figures for military conversions, while they all look suitably sullen (apart from one or two wavers!) to be lining the street as an invading army drives past - grey Panzers chokeing them with French dust perhaps?

The upper shot here shows a few of my suggestions for straight paint-convertions, I've used the seated guy and the old man with a stick to fill out my old ACW armies. The little girl would make a reasonable Paddington Bear...its the hat you know!

The lower shots are comparisons with the soft vinyl figures used by Hornby for several decades now, and also carried by Life-Like and Model Power at one time or another. Made it Hong Kong, they are clearly lifted from the Airfix set (two figures to the left), or using the Airfix figures for inspiration (two figures on the right), other figures in the Hornby sets are/seem to be based on both Preiser and Merten prototypes.

The irony is that Hornby now owning Airfix they can retro-allow themselves to copy something they could have been sued for carrying years ago!

It's not just faceless companies in HK that like a bit of piracy...all but the child (and she may have been mislaid before they came into my possession) are copied here in a white-metal, by a probably local firm here in the UK, advertising as one of the hundreds who come and go in the backs of the main model railway magazines...can anybody put a name to them?

The usual photograph of other bugger's efforts (OBE's), it would seem that the average Railway modeller in the 1960/70's were less bothered with the figures than they were with the scenery! Also there seems to be an unwritten rule that the fat lady wears a red coat!

 

 When you compare the output of the modern companies making both figures and AFV kits, you realise that Airfix are less and less important in the great scheme of things and it's a bit of a miracle that they managed two motorcycles at all...they managed four bicycles though!

Kostas from Greece answered the call for contributions with scans of a 1975 catalogue (mine are in storage) and here we see one of my favourites, the painted line-up. Interesting to note that Airfix themselves follow the 'Fat Lady' rule...red coat!

Montaplex decided to bomb the Airfix figures with a mixture of post-war fast-jets and airliners, along with a carrier-borne British looking thing and a Sea Vixen!

They also included a half-sprue (frame/runner) in each 'Public Works - Roadworks' set..and you get a tractor, with driver, bargain! In point of fact, that 'Old Fashioned Car' would make an excellent Staff car for Airfix's own WWI French Infantry.

Side-by-side comparison, a part set still on the runner, and a whole set laid-out the right way up! 14 poses and the scooter appear on a whole runner, the part-runners gave you either the scooter or the driver!

The fat lady (sans read coat!) hangs around hoping to attract a husband from Mertens country folk! Being closer to OO-gauge she is actually a bit bigger than the HO gentlemen though!

Fat lady in a coat (not in red, so I fixed the boarder!) orders a stein of beer from a German lady (Noch HO) and takes direction from a Military Policeman (Merit OO), she sits nicely between them, but as we saw above she is smaller then the policeman in this set, so makes a reasonable OO figure, but dwarfs the Noch lady.

One of the truths behind the HO/OO thing Airfix adopted was that it gave them freedom to make their figures pretty-much any old size and claim it was whichever one was not the one a complainant was bemoaning that it wasn't!

Compared to the older set; This sets figures are fuller and more realistic, and a little taller, very 'OO' to their ancestors 'HO' gauge. Still very wooden posing though, compared to most of Preiser or Merten's output...it's the stoicism of the Brits knowing the trains late before anyone tells them!

A glossy set that came-in in a mixed junk-lot the other day. Well meaning parents or grandparents would buy you gloss paints thinking they were the right things, and the commonest sight in toy drawers when I was young was the broken spitfire with gloss green and brown wings!

 

An old photograph from the One Inch Warrior magazine days - although I don't think it was ever used - of what are probably Hong Kong copies. Hard polystyrene of that earlier 'glassy' type, in an off-white or creamy/ivory colour, they are poorer copies, whoever is responsible for them.
 

1962; American Civil War Artillery, S14 / 01714 / 01714-5 - HO/OO

One of my all time favorite sets, the elder brother of a friend had the blue version of these in a little tobacco-box and when he went off to boarding school, his younger brother and I split them between us!

I think I probably still have one or two in my complete loose blue set. I can't remember the Guy's names...how shocking is that, old age creeping-up! They lived at the top of the hill in Guildford as you head out to the Hog's Back, yes - the 'posh' houses, or they were in 1969!! Was it you, do we still owe your bro?

Two mint in box first version sets, the Blue is the earlier, unmarked box (see below) while the 'neutral' Wild West brown would soon replace it, as kids didn't 'get' the two sets of figures all being in blue. The Union got to star on the front of the box.

Also this was around the time 'Spaghetti-westerns' started to ease the crusading Wayne's out a bit at the box office, and making them in brown meant you could give a gun-team to your 'Mexicans' or Indian allies!!

Upper is the early blue figures box, lower is the brown figures with the US price code in cents ($0.50 - don't know the ASCI for cents here at the library!!). The blue aren't that uncommon; about 10% of the total production, so some would probably have made it into cent-boxes, but I've never seen them in blue-boxes, and if I found one now would assume a dealer had put them there.

By having the Confederates portrayed, the reverse tried to get the both 'sides' message across, but most of us had ripped the box, getting the figures out...after all we were going to keep them in the Havana Cigar box, what did we want a hollow cardboard box for!

The Montaplex pirate's with associated equipment. I'm guessing - from the wing markings - the two union crews are for the bomber, while the two Confederate crews use the guns, the set translating as 'Confederate Artillery Unit'. That is - of course - following the 1950-70's 1st rule of playing ACW;

"All Federals have Kepis, all Rebels have 'Cowboy' hats!

And if you think the Bomber is a bit unfair...wait 'till I post the infantry, they get jeeps with twin-automatic cannon mounted on the back, no doubt heading for Tripoli. [this is a topical joke Circa Autumn 2011, that several years from now with be lost on new visitors]

Side-by-side close-up to show the poor quality of the blatant copies next to the originals, I don't suppose the activities of Montaplex contributed greatly to the demise of Airfix, but it was a part of a market denied to them which must have been annoying, especially as it was on the doorstep, but there was nothing they could do with a fascist dictator in charge of Spain's economic activity!

And it gives collectors an alternate version to look-out for...bargain!

My collection has suffered from a post-1995 surfeit of new-releases which leave me with holes in my knowledge, therefore while I think the gun top-right is Eagle Games, I'm not sure, the others are - from the left; Airfix blue gun, Hong Kong gun of about 1:48th scale which I think came with some CTS or BMC (Americana) bagged rack-toy packs? With the Atlantic Gatling-gun as final member of the line-up.

The Gatling and presumed Eagle Games (?) have nicer carriages than the Airfix, but need work elsewhere, the Gatling could use bigger wheels.

Below them are annother shot/close-up of the Montaplex copy and a Bachmann HO model from the Train sets, the Confederate one was the same but with grey figures (the 2nd rule of playing ACW

OBEs, in this case full gun-crews, clockwise from the simple; blue trousers, through the classic 1970's look; semi-gloss 'toy soldier' finish, to a fully-painted set of confederates in matt finish with a few touches of 'Artilley Yellow'.

Also a shot of the ACW gun with the slightly better detailed figures from the Wagon Train set who make a very laid-back crew...

"What? They're going to slowly walk towards us across the floor of the valley over that 3-mile expanse of sun-hardened dirt? Watkins! Canister! As much as we've got, and all the shrapnel...No, no hurry, they'll be out of range for a while yet, and then we'll have them for ten-minutes before they can come back at us, and by then there won't be many of 'em left. Harrison; while you're picking lice, do you want to pack our pipes, this is going to be a long afternoon, might as well have a smoke!"

More Other Buggers Efforts - the gun crews. I just love how people tackled their figures back in the day, for some it was a bit of blue, others went for the 'Full Monty', in between was everything else...check-out the gloss-brown Union chap!

A complete set as issued, there is basicly a full gun team in action and a second, limbered, for either side, with enough figures to crew both (this is - of course - following the 1st rule of early war gaming; all Union have kepis, all Confederates have rimmed hats), but there was only the one shared senior or staff-officer...

...who is seen here in the upper shot - mounted - keeping order between a Confederate 'team' on the left and a Union set-up on the right. Positions are reveresed for the shoot-off in the lower image.

More OBEs, the gun getting any metal going! I'm not sure if the two main protagonists in the Civil War had a formal woodwork paint 'rule' like the Napoleonic armies, but both sides used a range of olive or khaki greens, made by mixing yellow or yellow-ochre with black, giving any one of a number of shades.

So most of the above would pass muster - apart from the unpainted ones - wrong brown for natural or weathered wood, some of which (bare-wood guns) seem to have been employed, and the CSA had a set of 4 guns at Gettsburg (12pdr. 'Napoleon' pieces) which were bright red, that would add a bit of colour to an army! Also - and you never see it on these early painted samples - the seat of the Limber should have a copper finish, as a spark-free waterproofing...and for gunners to polish in barracks!

Bottom left show the ACW wheel sandwiched between the Wagon Train wheels, the only other wheel likely to confuse is the RHA wheel, which - if memory serves - has much finer spokes, but I'll check next time I'm in the WWI box and post similar comparisons sometime.

Bottom right...1:76 scale 'Dimestore' pod-foot!

 

 Ashes to ashes

Dust to dust

If the baby's/dog's/cat's teeth, air-gun, matches, vacuum cleaner, washing machine, spirit-burner, conversion tools or land-fill don't get you...

The free-radicals must!

The later 'blue' boxes, changed the cover-stars to the Confederates, balancing the fact that the Union had been lording it in that position for most of the 1960's! Image here is from the 1975 catalogue and supplied to the blog by Kostas, a follower from Greece.

 Imex Union

 Imex Confederate

 Accessory

 

A similar shot to the one above, but arranged to be easier to compare on modern wide screens, I will reiterate, blue plastic came first, and was quite quickly replaced with the brown plastic, blue continued in shops for a while, and ran alongside brown, where it hadn't sold-out, but brown was the neutral (Wild West coded) answer to issuing a joint set in the Union's colours. Note, one's a darker red print-run.

 

The complicated folding of the insert-cards, which were designed to hold one runner in such a manner as to display one row of figures against a plain backdrop, to show off the contents to their best advantage, the rest being slid behind, keeping the display row tight against the window.

 

The card. I have a pile of these, lose, somewhere, and there were a number of print-variations from all blue to all white, some with blue sections rather than this box. The corners were cut to effect easy sliding into the pack.

 

Again, better shots of those posted above, years ago, these are hi-res scans of a near-mint, first version box, with the comic style artwork, and a list of contents, very useful for us early collectors trying to make up full sets! Union forces on the front, Confederate gun-line on the rear!
 

Comparison in blue!

 

Captain Blue and Lieutenant Green are our interest here, the other two are cowboys! I've had these OBE's for years, and I don't know who to credit, but aren't they fun? Captain Scarlet conversions, mostly a paint-job over some pretty crude knife-smoothing, but at this size very effective!
 

Construction insert, which was only from the 'white boxes' onwards, if I recall correctly, if you had the 1st version, you were trusted to be sufficiently practical, in post-war Britain, to work it out for yourself, while the 'Blue Box' art showed the late baby-boomers how they went together!

 

Artwork from the early AHI catalogues, I think this version appeared in two volumes, then they switched to the 'sunburst' ad' seen elsewhere on this Blog, and the same artwork may have appeared in some British magazine ad's, but - obviously - without the prices in cents.

 

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1964; [Medieval] Robin Hood, S20 / 01720 / 01720-0 - HO/OO

Without a shadow of doubt - my favourite set of figures produced by Airfix, and still holding it's own against a lot of the prolific production of current toy soldier manufacturers.

I had these in an enhanced Robin Hood gang, as men-at-arms or rioting peasants in a medieval war-band, in my rather fictional Greko-Roman army (it had Etruscans and Macedonians in it!), my equally fictional 'barbarian' army and glued to my attempt at a stone-age house.

The generic clothing of loose tunics, long-stockings, hooded cloaks and belted short-sleeved tabards make them the locally-recruited yobbos of choice for any army-builder from around 800BC to 1600AD.

Copy of the 1975 catalogue image and blurb supplied by Kostas a reader/follower from Greece, showing the classic combination of 2nd Type artwork on the 'blue' box (box with blue ends for those new to the hobby), the next version would cut the bottom right-hand corner off.

Maid Marion (probably not much of a 'maid' she was shacking-up with an outlaw!), I used to think this was a commonly distorted or easily miss-moulded piece - its size giving it a propensity for shrinkage if removed too fast from the mould - but the two versions turn-up in almost equal numbers, so I think there might have been two moulds? It was a very popular set, and also came in one of the better-selling play-sets, but it's pure conjecture on my part.

Colour variations with the earlier green figures range from quite yellow-greens from the olive range, through to jadeite or emerald blue-greens, and when sorting it's worth spending the time getting them colour matched where possible.

The photograph bottom-right shows one of the commonest faults with this set, the single character figure with a small wood-choppers axe is more often than not waving a blob on a stick, but for stone-age or earlier bronze-age also-fought's he's fine as it does look like a nice stone axe-head. The same problem pesters the sword on the other lower pose.

Paint-stripping, washing and sorting, I gave a tedious blow-by-blow on the washing/stripping business the other day on the Sheriff of Nottingham update so won't repeat myself here, but note the same 'phenomena' of differing densities leading to floaters and sinkers!

The full range of variations of the greens are clear in the line-up prior to sorting. A full set is lined-up to the left as a quite to picking, and more figures (from the drying process) are waiting to be added. I start with the darker ones as they are all from the jade/emerald spectrum of blueish greens, then I do an olive/yellow green set from the paler range, once you've done that two or three times, you're left with a bit of a mix and these are made-up into mixed lose sets as eBay-fodder.

Various conversions, and the contents of the 'damaged/painted/converted' bag (bottom left); drawing-pin shields make for instant Anglo-Saxons, while damaged bowmen can often be sent strait to the front as swordsmen receiving cavalry!

The Roman soldier head-swap is typically from the Terry Wise school of army-building, while I'm afraid I removed Robin's feather to make him fit my 'Ancient Briton' force majure! Who went to all that effort cleaning the main from the horse when it would have been easier to get a Sheriff's man or Arab's horse to do the same job is not recorded, but they were more frugal times!

The remains of the recruits to my bronze-age band of ner-do-wells is top right, yes - I know - far too colourful, but I was thirteen at the time! Although, some of the work of modern thirteen-year-olds on the figure painting forums puts mine to shame, but that's progress...or practice?

 Along with colour variation in the later cream sets and a couple more views of The Maid.

A complete set in green and one of each pose (from the other side) in cream, it was not 'heavy' is poses, not because it didn't have the typical 15 of Airfix - it did - but because there were numerous duplicates of a couple of the figures to counterbalance the character figures.

From the right in  both line-ups we have Marion, Robin, Friar Tuck, and a guy with a pole arm one presumes is Little John, the other two can be seen as Much the miller's son (with a wood axe) and possibly Will Scarlet (sword)?

More conversions, these images originally appeared in Plastic Warrior's One Inch Warrior Magazine, and are scanned from old-school photographs, so aren't that high-resolution. The guy with the wooden shield is another of my childhood additions to the reaving war-band, he worked quite well with a lump of Araldite two-part epoxy holding the shield onto his arm, the same can't be said for the fat Friar, who's 28mm spear-shaft must weight in at a hundred-weight!

The sling and hedge-knife pole-armed plastic people came in with mixed lots, while the two spears between the hedge-knives in the close-ups were hammered and turned by me. You can get away with dress-makers pins for shorter javelin type missile weapons as someone has top-left to create a sort of peltast/skirmisher type.

The latest incarnation of this set, with a handy guide to the contents - an idea taken from Strelets*R and Orion/DDS (Dark Dream Studios), who introduced the habit while Airfix was going under for the umpteenth time somewhere in the 1990's...oh how the mighty had fallen!

All pieces from both sides still on the sprue. In time I will do numbered line-ups like the PSR or Eric Williamson sites as I know some people like the information in that form, and as I'm aiming at a 'Scrap-book' format, the more visual information the better.

Although the set as a whole seems to have missed being pirated, this extraordinary piece of innovation does exist. Being based on the Maid Marion figure, it is a crude re-sculpt, designed to be Queen Elizabeth II, reviewing the troops at the annual 'Trooping the Colour' pageant, which she used to do year after year. The sculptor has given Her Majesty a bearskin which looks more like a motorcycle helmet!

See the Guards Band and Guards Colour Party posts for the rest of this carded set, I will get some better images up next time I'm photographing the HK carded stuff. [25th August 2014 - done]

Close-up of the recent re-issues, they are a nice colour and with the moulds cleaned-up from the tired state they had got into; this set has a new lease of life and could run for years yet if Hornby have half a brain, and sometimes I wonder!

 

 

 

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