About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

P is for Politzi

I'm sure we've had that as a title before, but I can't think when; so I'll live a little and gamble that we haven't!

These came in with a mixed lot from a show years ago, been in the collection as long as I can remmeber, 1989 (?) and seem to be most of the 1970/80's style West German police sets, from the early-number 'six-figure' painted sets, and while they don't have a box now, they might have when they came-in and do seem to be near complete. There would appear to be one each of every pose, including 'perps and crims' (well . . . A perp and A crim!), with six motorcycles and one-each of the four rider poses.

The sets they came from include:

Standard Range (became 10xxx)
0064 - Verkerhspolizisten - Traffic Police (in West German dress, 4 standing and 2 seated, number seen reused on American list as ‘Pit Crew in Blue’)
0065 - “Banküberfall” - “Bank Robbery” (4 German ‘Grenzpolizei’ and 2 robbers)
0066 - Polizisten, Polizei-Kradfahrer - Plainclothes Police + Motorcyclist (x5 German dress figures + BMW R80 motorcycle - number seen reused on American list as ‘Pit Crew in Green’)
0067 - Polizei-Kradfahrer - Police Motorcyclist (x3 in West German dress + 3 BMW R80 motorcycles, different poses)
0068 - Polizei-Eskorte - Police Escort (x3 West German outriders + 3 BMW R80 motorcycles, one pose)
Unpainted sets
0331 - Polizei - Police (x20 + dog, and 6x BMW R80 motorcycles, replaced as 10331 by wedding guests, seen as 0321 in Canadian book, typo?) [The set we're looking at]
Military-Police Painted
2512 - Polizisten, Polizei-Kradfahrer - Plainclothes Police + Motorcyclist (x5 German dress figures + BMW R80 motorcycle, as 0066)
2513 - Polizei-Kradfahrer - Police Motorcyclist (x3 in German dress + 3 BMW R80 motorcycles, as 0068 - one pose)

Not my finest hour, image wise, but you get the idea, nice modelling of the BMW R80 with lots of fiddly detailing - before and after.

I've only made-up two, and never got round to attempting painting. The 802.2513 code on the accessory runner (a frame runner) is for the Military Police set, so that must have been planned first even if the civi's were numbered/issued first, a mute point at the time when the German Police all had a secondary military-role along with the Boarder Guards (Bundesgrenzschutze) in the event of a war with the Warsaw Pact forces.

801.2513 was the runner for the bikes themselves and the dispatch panniers in green plastic, and if you look carefully - I've lost an indicator-light . . . never going to find that fucker, it's probably embedded deep in a carpet seven or more homes ago, and long gone to landfill!

The Preiser Informtion7 'flyer' was included in most larger sets in the 1970's/80's, and usually had either a generic - near blank - B side, or a Bundeswehr themed one (even civilian sets - for the painting guide), this set gets its own set-specific B side, with illustrates the contents with detailed painting guide for the various police uniforms/departments and a construction expanded-view.

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