Bill Nevins sent us another Comment Time which talks about Accurate Figures. I hope you enjoy the work that Bill has been doing.
COMMENT TIME APRIL 1989
First two paragraphs deal with Stad going on vacation. Not included here.
Some info on ESCI. Their next group of figures will be WW 2 Russians, WW 2 British Paratroopers, NATO Assault Troops and Warsaw Pact Troops.
I would like to take a moment to speak to you about a new company named ACCURATE FIGURES. This is an English company that has just released two boxes of American Revolution troops in England. They are the British Infantry and the American Militia. The detail is excellent and will add to our choices in figures. If this company is successful, they have great plans for the future such as releasing twenty different boxes of American Revolution figures. The next planned release is American Civil War, which will be u sometime in the late summer. Keep your fingers crossed.
We will be supporting this company and hope that it will be successful. We will see that you the collector can get the product at a fair price. One thing that I can guarantee is that the figures will be in the country within the next two months. Not six months as another source has indicated. Stay tuned.
Any Dr. Who fans out there? I have some of the doll figures from Darpool of England. Contact e for details.
INTERESTING ITEMS FROM THE SALES LIST
Timpo Prairie Rocket…..Mint in Box. Great piece for your western layout…$ 300.00
Colonial Mansion Playset………………..Large set missing a car and the parents. We only have the Sears box top and not the bottom. The pool, the kids and the maid are in bags………$ 125.00
Horses, Horses, Horses…..Mint playset bag containing two Marx cavalry horses, two harness horses and one Indian pony. This month a bag of 5 horses is only…….$ 10.00.
Starlux Knights……10 different foot knights. Second grade figures………….$ 20.00
Irrigation Sets…..Mint in the Box. Great for your farm set……………….$ 20.00.
Farm Truck Sets…….Companion piece to the irrigation sets. Water truck and several pickup trucks with loading platforms. Mint in Box……………….$ 20.00
Camp Swampy……By MPC Looks complete. Mint shape…………..$ 250.00.
This month must be the Accurate Figures month as Plastic Warrior Magazine did an article on the history of this company. The Accurate Figures was started by John Jeffrey, who had the idea of making of plastic figures. The Plastic Warrior article tells their experience with the Accurate. The Accurate did American War of Independence, (we call Revolutionary War), Civil War and Knights. The figures were sculpted by Bill Farmer who did the Matchbox figures. Some people like Farmer’s work others do not.
John Jeffrey is an interesting person. He had many ideas of figures he wanted done, but unfortunately did not have enough capital to make it happen. I have sent this to Plastic warrior. John Jeffrey showed up at a New York Toy Fair and was telling people different items he was going to do including Napoleonic soldiers and cavemen. This annoyed me as I knew it would start all kinds of rumors in the hobby and I would be hearing them for months and having to tell the collector don’t hold your breath. When finally got to his booth part of the UK Exhibitors I said to him what stories are going to give me. He was not happy with me and I did not care.
Marxman got some of the Accurate figures done in special colors which I believe Bill has few around yet. Some other companies may also have Accurate figures run in special colors as well. In the 1/72 scale you will see poses that were never done in 1/32 scale. There were two Accurate Revolutionary War figures that are hard to find. The first which is mention in Plastic Warrior of Rev War figure kneeling which was never issued due mold problems and only exist in test shots. The other pose is Rev War figure biting the cartridge. I was told that was replaced. Can anyone confirm that?
John Jeffrey had other people do sculpting including an art school because of problems with Farmer. Plastic Warrior has a series of photos of samples done by Mike Ellis and Peter Evans. Laurie and I have seen the ones that Peter Evans and they are nice. The figures are several times larger than what the original figure would be. This was done to get the detail. Then the figure is pantagraphed down to the scale that you want. As far as I know Jeffrey did not use any of these sculptures in his figure line. In the next issue of Plastic Warrior Peter Cole of Replicants will talk about his experience with Jeffrey.
The company went into bankruptcy. There are stories of police being called to the shareholders meeting due very noisy disagreements between the shareholders. The molds were sold off and were then used by Revell of Germany and now by Imex. John Jeffrey has left the business and no one has heard of him. Plastic warrior is hoping to get more information to share with his readers.
One thing before I get into the items listed, Bill got caught on what Laurie calls what the hell are talking about Paul? I will start one thing then move to another subject then go to another subject before we come back to the original subject. By this time Laurie is complete confused on what I am talking about. The other aspect is I will use a word figuring everyone will know what I am talking about. Bill had this problem when I used the word pickups instead of pickup trucks in the Farm Truck Set listing I did that to save space, figured everyone would know what I was talking about or did not realize I was incoherent. The Farm Truck Set was from the Amish Farmer Marx Find.
On the Marx Horses I have no idea where I got those from. Timpo Prairie Rocket Train is a great piece for 54mm western layout. I have gotten a number of them over the years. We bought three of them one year in England each in their original box. They were from a find of Timpo Trains that were done in Yugoslavia. The suitcases we were using at the time could hold one of each of the trains. The suitcases we use now for traveling would not be able to carry them home and I would have to ship them. I saw a loose Timpo train at the last Plastic Warrior Show we attended. Laurie saw it too and gave me a look like don’t even think about it. I passed on it.
The Camp Swampy the Beetle Bailey Characters figure look like characters unlike the Matt Dillon from the Gunsmoke Play that MPC did. I use to use the Matt Dillon figure as Frankenstein in my stories. The only problem with the MPC Beetle Bailey figures is they are not into scale.