Einar and New Jersey Toy Soldier Show

Einar and New Jersey Toy Soldier Show, first up I have a photo of Einar from Ougen from Peter Evans. Next, I did the New Jersey Toy Soldier Show and had a fun time.

Einar and New Jersey Toy Soldier Show

Here is the Ougen Einar. Ougen is an interesting company besides doing their own figures, they also imported Elastolins into France. Polk Hobbies imported the Ougen/ Elastolin sets into the United States.

New Jersey Toy Soldier Show

On Sunday, I went to the Wayne Nj PAl for the New Jersey Toy Soldier Show. I had done it in March and was not exicted in what I had found. With nothing going on, and a friend setting up , I decided to give it another chance.

The ride to show was pleasant with no traffic. Once again, I got there a few minutes beore the doors opened. There was a line of fifteen people waiting to get in.

My plan was to start at the back of the room and work foreward. At the back wall, I bought from a dealer I knew a Timpo Bren gun carrier that had been repainted and other figures. Another dealer had a Marx German 88 complete none spring version. There was a quantity of Britains Deetail which I passed on except for two mounted Mexicans. The prices of Britains were all over. One dealer was trying to get $50.00 for the karate set. I passed on canoes for $20.00. From another party, I got a small bag of Athena figures inclluding the frogman.

Saving for last were the figure boxes of Hobby Bunker. The boxes are a mix of foreign and reissue plastic. I got for myself a set of DSG pirates from Argentina. DSG had reworked the Britains Deetail molds left in Argentina. As you see some are minor chages, while others have major changes. I also got from Hobby bunker the three Indians above. Besides making my purchases, I chatted with Matt Murphy to see his reactions on doing the Plastic Warrior Show. He enjoyed it and had a great time.

Hopalong Cassidy

In a smaller room, was my friend Gerry Watts. He was dealing mostly in metal figures. while rearranging his boxes, I spotted three Timpo lead Hopalong Cassidy figures. Two of the figures are of Hoppy, while the third figure is Calforian. Hoppy has a special spot in my heart from a childhood memory. My mother took me to our local Halloween Parade where Hopalong Cassidy was to lead the parade. due to a delay of Topper getting into the city, he ended up at the end. I still remembered the children surrounding him as he waved.

At the last Plastic Warrior show, that Laurie was with me, I had acquired a plastic version of the Hoppy figure. Seeing these figures, I decided to add them to my collection.

Britains Swoppet Indians France

As I will tell you, I love going through junk boxes, as you never know what you will find. Some times i will go through a box several times as I did with Hobby Bunker’s boxes. In one of my picked up a group of swoppet Indians. From the style, I knew they were not from Hong Kong. Going to my friend Gerry, I had him check the bottom of the base. He saw the words France and Swoppet. When I heard those words I knew I found something. Britains had done figures in France.

Placing a photo on Facebook, I got the following response from my friend Peter Evans.

“The story i was told which seems 90% reasonable is that Britain’s had a,small factory in Paris and produced the wild west Swoppets.

Once the contact was cancelled and Britain’s ceased production the tooling was used to create the multi coloured versions and sold as cheap market stall toys. The cowboys do turn up too.”

So the day was worthwhile and I will try it again next year.