Loser and Winner

"Collect Them All"

By "Collect Them All" they mean all 4 females and some 1/24th scale car racer males.

 I thought it was wind on her skirt on the figure above but the figure looks inspired by this pin up figure below.

I got them for $6.95 at a model RR store. The figures are 1/24th scale and the plastic is rigid enough to take 2 part putty for conversions. We'll see.

Another Dirty Joke.

A guy in the die shop told me this one. I'm setting it back in the Civil War. Here's the set up....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Judson_Kilpatrick

"....On two occasions his coarse personal instincts betrayed him: Confederate cavalry under the command of Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton raided his camp while he was in bed with a young Southern woman he had met while going through Columbia, and, at the Battle of Monroe's Crossroads, he was forced to flee for his life in his underclothes until his troops could reform...."

 http://www.nps.gov/seac/cavclash/note1.htm

"The actual identity of Marie or Mary Boozer is in dispute. Thomas Lowry in The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War (1994) cites sources to suggest her first name was Alice. The presence of feminine accompaniment at Monroe's Crossroads is undisputed in the official record. Brevet Major General Kilpatrick's wife died in 1863, and he is reputed to have been a ladies' man from then on. He reportedly took Alice, a.k.a. Marie Boozer, with him when he was appointed ambassador to Chile after the war. "

(The 1855 Old Farmer's Almanac had a recipe for toothpaste.)

MARX Recast Stage Coach

I was lucky to get the store to swap a red coach body for the brown one in the bag. No interior or super detail like the beautiful old Britains Ltd. coach from 50 years ago but this coach is fun.

Speaking of First Ladies......

This photo has shown up in the United States Library Of Congress by way of another blog.

"Title: Detroit, Michigan. Fashion show presented by the Chrysler Girls' Club of the Chrysler Corporation at Saks Fifth Avenue store. Girl modeling brassiere and pantie girdle."

 http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/owi2001018318/PP/

 As this was 1942 it may be of some interest to WW II reenactors, war gamers, and figure modelers to shy too look up this stuff for themselves.  MY interest is that when I saw it, I thought of former First Lady Betty Ford.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Ford  She was a lady I respected for a number of reasons.

If you go to the Wikipedia page above you'll see that she was in the Detroit area around that time, a model, dancer, and  fashion coordinator and newly married to her first husband. There is a period photo of her in Martha Graham's auxiliary troupe. Compare the photo with the LOC photo. (I think her knees confirm the match.) She would be around 22 at the time of the photo.

Also compare her striking features from these 1930s 40s photos of Betty Ford with the model in the photo.

I think I may have a match to the model in the LOC photo as our very respected and talented First Lady, Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren "Betty" Ford.






 

Les Miserables play set (NOT by MARX)

Rachel gave me the idea for a Les Miserables play set and helped me pick out the figures from my LEMAX, Mokarex, and Conte Collectables figures. She read the book and has seen almost all of the movies versions plus the musical and the movie of the musical.

New Expeditionary Force Artillery

I just got a box and there are some bad elements but generally good figures.

The box contents.....

 The advancing bugler can get a transfer to the dismounted cavalry set,

Nice mounted officer. No reason for him to be galloping around the battery. This figure will be transferred to the cavalry or leading the infantry.

 Toy makers often get the crew poses wrong. With this set the two incomplete crews can make one acceptable crew. Cannon crews had numbers in the drill.

 The # 5's ammunition haversack is too small for the round. That can be fixed with 2 part putty.

 Remove the useless bucket from the figure below. That bucket should be under the gun in a fight. Make this handy figure into another crewman.

 The sergeant below is in a frock coat which doesn't make sense for field artillery but it's not an awful figure. He might get a transfer to the infantry as a color bearer.

I'll get around to painting this set to add to Expeditionary Force's Infantry. More to come on the their dismounted cavalry set.