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, February 7, 2018

K is for Kandytoys Kombat Kars Keep Koming

Title's a bit lame, then but they aren't all going to set the world alight!

Picked these up the other day (charity shop, but not the same one as the kandytoy pull-back 'plane!); we've looked at some of them before, we've looked at shelfies, we've looked at other brand-marks, so this is really just to get the pictures up here to be found with the others, which means there'll be some odd-looking tags if this is your first visit to the Blog, but otherwise and in any event . . .

. . . 'box scale' die-cast and plastic AFV's, some with a use in small-scale war-gaming, seen a lot in the last 5-7 years, carried by various brands, Chinese source unknown, but some pointers to Pioneer, or a group, busy mould-swapping - indeed; I'm coming round to the idea there are two sources with items from both being 'mixed-and-matched' in/for the orders of/by shippers/end users.

Here wearing Kandytoys moniker; I think the large multi-shelf, window-box set in Smyth's over Christmas was by them, but not with these among them, they are also sold individually and in 'single-shelf' window boxes (HTI).

So far the commonest in the range, these have been found in Poundland, 99p Stores (before their demise) and The Works as well as an independent and under several brand-marks on-line (Little Angel) and retail (Funtastic).

I haven't done comparisons with the others, as we had a long article in Rack Toy Month, and a couple of follow-ups, and they are the same toys as my samples just different colours (VAB-alike) or markings (Hummer), both seen previously on the  Alibaba page's of Avitalk, Kids Car and Little Angel's

The tank; it's even poorer in the flesh than it was looking in the press-photographs/shelfies! Not as common as the previous two vis-à-vis the various combinations seen, sometimes replaced by the better moulding of a Merkeva, but still seen in several lines.

However - at around 1:100 it may have a use in some of the current commercial AFV-based gaming systems around? It's the sort of up-armoured/upgraded/locally-modified M48/M60 you tend to find in those - what used to be called - 2nd world (now 'developing') countries aligned with NATO or the American 'sphere of influence' . . . not for much longer methinks!

These may have been in some of the boxed sets, but I haven't encountered them before and they seem to be newer additions to the wider range.

They are not to the same quality as the other ones we've seen associated with these lines before; the smaller 'Army Force' graphics one (also Kandy's; 'Pro Engine' line) and the larger Funtastic model, being more tinny in construction (like the Hummer) and rather stretched for bog-standard 6X6 trucks?

Also the tilt on the GS/Troop-carrier in this pair is not removable; as it is on the other two.

But the rather daft-looking, multi-rocket pack (harking-back to the toys of the 1950/60's is easy to remove, leaving you with a flat-bed to convert into something more useful!

They also have a 'sit-up-and-beg' look caused by the vehicle models being out-scaled by the wheels, which appears to tip the vehicles forward, even though the cabs are already too high!

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