Pirates

 Ah Jim Lad!! - No not those kind of pirates! Plastic figures have been copied by unscrupulous manufacturers for as long as there have been plastic figures. Not sure what damage this does to profits or brand reputations but it can provide cheap figures and sometimes unusual options for the gamer.

I bought these from my local Post Office in about 1982 - there were lots of them - they were 20p! Obviously copies of the Airfix 8th Army set - I think Airfix had gone bust (2nd time?) at this date so I had never seen the originals at that point but I think they are actually based on the 1/32nd set.

From the same source - Afrika Korps - these saw a lot of service on my bedroom floor! The officer was painted as a naval captain for some reason.

And - some US Army - pretty crude and badly cast but for many years my only Americans. No idea where the guy on the end came from - there was also a figure with a walkie talkie and one with what may have been a flamethrower - hard to tell. One advantage of these figures (apart from the price) was they were a little bigger than the OO/HO Airfix figures so fitted in better with my Esci figures.

 

 

Where I got these I don't recall - possibly a Xmas cracker - they are better quality than the first lot (despite the blobs on their helmets) in a slightly harder plastic which shows the detail more and they are slightly bigger.

Recently purchased via ebay from France; more 8th Army copies - better quality than my first set despite pronounced mould lines they have much sharper details.

Now! What have we here? These are 1/72 copies of the Airfix 1/32 Soviet infantry. Once again this provides a hint that pirates use sophisticated pantagraph technology to resize masters when they copy them - I have seen this done in either direction - I used to have a set of 1/35 French made from the OO/HO Airfix set but they were horrible and I got rid of them. A company called supreme also made copies of Italeri Napoleonic figures in 1/32 which were never released in that scale and those cheap 'knights' you can by in toyshops and supermarkets are pirated from Italeri's Crusaders (also probably the1/72 set). I am personally quite pleased with these as I always considered the Airfix 1/72 Russians to be a poor set and wished they had done this to them!

Finally - from Russia - these are white metal copies of Esci US Paratroopers - very nice as it happens - I got hold of a load of these without realising what they were till I saw them, 

They did a whole selection - mostly Esci - which I have integrated into existing units made of their plastic brethren but as you can see from this dispatch rider Airfix got in there too! These were all WW2 and modern figures but I did once see (in the old military museum in Prague's Schwarzenberg Palace) white metal Esci Napoleonics so there maybe more out there!