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.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

P is for the Post-Plastic Warrior Plastic Plunder-Post Picture-Pile Pronouncements

So, did I mention there was a T . . . oh, we've had that meme before . . . well; this is what I carried back to the cave after the hunt . . .

This was the bag of bits I received from Gareth Morgan, in the car park before the doors opened! All sorts of nice things were present, and some of them will be in posts soon. The highlight was actually a small sealed bag of Hong Kong small-scale farm, almost certainly from 'Lucky Bags' or Christmas crackers, and tying two base-marks into one source - so very useful.

Two copies of Airfix zoo animals (already added to their posts) along with various capsule toys and other novelties were also in the bag, as well as several bits of wattle fencing from Britains Garden which make excellent stockade sections for Airfix Ancient Britons! I think the bendy-boxer, blogged last week, was in there as well.

Trevor Rudkin's bag was equally full of useful bits and bobs, although intercepted; it came to me in a roundabout fashion anyway! Highlight was probably the little trail-bikes with riders; I suspect from a board game, there was three (red, green and blue) so possibly another one (four players?) or three (six players?) to track down, along with the game's title - a BGG session I think.

There was also a cake decoration coach in a new colour, which was timely as I'm working on the wagons for the new HK Blog, although it will be a while before they get published. Cherilea cacti and a Lucky Toys Thames Trader with a broken back (easily glue'able) were other items of interest.

Adrian Little brought various bits for me to look at, and I had a few things off the stall as the day progressed; a bunch of Quaker gladiators which are destined for Italy if the reciprocal Co-Ma ever turn-up, an HK salesman's sample, some card flats from a cereal box so old I don't remember when Shredded Wheat was called Welgar!

Bag of bits, tub of bits, 'nother bag of bits . . . Starlux firemen, a large anthropomorphic mouse - playing guitar . . . a Portuguese donkey in a straw hat and green trousers, Wiking Stuka . . . the usual stuff! The Marx 'Sunshine Series' boxing of Blue Box's small scale wagon has been seen here before, but it's a clean one!

This lot mostly came from one stall, up the top of the hall near the entrance; a bag of Marty Toy knock-offs (probably Gordy) which are useful, the Merten sailors will be for a comparison shot with the Blue Box copies one day, the Secret Army Supplies card destined for a follow-up to the post I did - not long ago...timing huh? Thus it ever was!

The little pile of Tractors and things (a pig playing a sousaphone!) was from Steve Vickers's rummage tray - I think (?) - and the Merten knock-off cake decorations were blogged last week.

The LP/LG Buck Rogers bags were from the same stall as the other stuff, I have the robots and Matchbox clones already and have blogged them here and on Moonbase, but the character figures are a nice gap-filler...the Tweedle-Twaddle thing is missing, but at this scale it looks like a child and is no loss . . . I think my distain for that particular character has surfaced here before now? "Weeble-wooble?" Fuck-off, you demented, cutesy, family-living, low-brow, tea-time entertainment, future-past, hideously eighties, R2-unit-cloned, Nazi-helmet equipped pile of ducting: I don't care who's stuck down the space-well!

The same stall I think, also gave-up this bag of Kinder bits, mostly complete 'bits' as it happens, no nice RP figures, but various late-1980's/mid-1990's stuff I missed first time round, and while I have another lot of them somewhere (storage!), these have all the stickers and inserts intact. There's another mini racing-car for the board-game project, along with various trains, 'planes and automobiles. Competition time . . . no prize - find Micky's nose . . . warmer, warmer . . . cooler . . . left a bit . . . !

Above is my quick gathering of harvest from Peter Bergner's rummage boxes, this was five-minutes work, and you could spend all day just on the one task! I also got the Effigies paratroopers from him; the plan is to use the under-scale parachutes to produce in-scale papier-mâché canopies for smaller scale figures. Winner is probably the large blue-rubber polar bear, seems to be missing a plug-in belly-plate, but who cares, he's brilliant!

Other minor purchases included the Replicants medieval clerics, a Blue Box wagon I thought was a colour variation (it wasn't!), some more Lucky Luke premiums and a set of LOTR board-game Hobbits which were a gift from Graham Apperley as part of a deal which didn't happen fully, years ago!

Loot from the 50p box on the stall behind us; the Liverpool gang - as always: with nice things. There are some Blue Box Brit's and Germans, a BB knight, HK copies of Britains Khaki Infantry (destined for that page), a couple of Chinatanks (in the style of Zee Toys/Zylmex, but different, I suspect), a rabbit, a Spanish, terracotta, touristy, caricature, policeman and a couple of paratroopers. The three steeplechasers came from Brain Carrick's table, and at the moment are vying for 'best at show'!

Girly-girl thought she'd help sort-out, but didn't do much helping until . . .

. . . she decided to try unwrapping a 53-year-old card box with those claws . . .which I explained wasn't really helping at all!

I also got an Anzio Beach from Aurora: box was tatty but saveable and the contents - which were mucked about with and covered in gloss black, brown or green - have actually presented some paint-free smaller parts, plus the usually never present transfer sheet. There were also three Bellona bunkers and a bridge in the box . . . Bargain!

Mid-sort finds most material boxes ticked, most scale boxes ticked, most subject, era or object boxes ticked...you get the picture!

The 'junk' bag from Brian, there was one from Peter Evans too, similar contents, but I forgot to photograph it, and it's all been broken down and sorted now, but thanks to both.

It's the bags of bits I go to the shows for really, if you want a set of quality Timpo something's or Starlux something else's, you can ring a dealer, go on evilBay, or just ask around at a show, but the things that make the story whole, the things that make some of the posts here more interesting, or complete, the real 'gap fillers' are to be found in the oddment bags! So special thanks to Adrian, Brian, Gareth, Graham, Peter, and Trevor for looking them out for me, to share with you.

Less than a year to PW 32!

10 comments:

Jan Ferris said...

OMG! What a haul. You will be blogging until the next ice age. There are so many interesting tidbits here. I look forward to your posts on these new additions to your ever growing collection of plastic goodness.

Brian Carrick said...

Nice Cat!

Hugh Walter said...

Cheers Jan....some of it already has appeared! Some may never appear, some may only appear on the A-Z Blogs (if I ever pull my socks-up on that project....doh!), or if I do an 'Unknown' page/section/Blog, but it's all 'Grist to the Mill' as they say!

H

Hugh Walter said...

Thanks Brian, I've never seen another quite like it so pretty rare I think? Trouble is; it won't fit in the standard bags I use for archiving, so I may have to disassemble it, for storage in pieces, which isn't a problem per.se. although I might have trouble putting it back together for 'photo's and such-like, as Lego - it 'aint!

H

Doug said...

I love that coach! Second picture, top left. How you manage to sort through all of that..., I'm impressed. Cats do seem to love the toys don't they? Let me know if you are looking for any particular wagons, I have a few odd ones, somewhere.. Take Care!

Hugh Walter said...

Hi Doug

I might be able to supply one? I have a few of them and the odd duplicate...I'll dig around. Cats - being very wise - like small colourful things! You should watch ours trying to catch stag-beetles at dusk!!

H

Bernard Taylor said...

The Welgar name was certainly in use in the late 1960s and was derived from the location of the factory - WELwyn GARden city. The Nasbico branding came in the '70s, I think, but later it was Nestles (Yes, I still call them that, perhaps just to annoy them...)

Hugh Walter said...

I'm with you on that one Bernard...Ness'ulls, no fancy French umlaut or silent-nonsense for me! Thank's for the dateing too!

H

Anonymous said...

Can someone tell me the conpany of the soldiers of this picurehttps://2.bp.blogspot.com/-clLr3Lew2p4/V07j7Sq6uHI/AAAAAAAAN9Y/5OrQA6Rh55cw6VqIhioNV3GELoQlLtCHgCLcB/s1600/11%2BP%2Bis%2Bfor%2BPlastic%2BWarrior%2B31%2B-%2BShow%2BPlunder%2BPost%2B-%2BDSCN8721.JPG

Anonymous said...

Sorry i mean for the last picture the soldiers out of the box