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.

Thursday, January 17, 2019

T is for Toy Fair 2018 Reports - Terra by Battat

Well, less than seven days to the next Toy Fair, I thought I'd better clear the decks of the remains of last year's! This is actually a combination of the Toys Fair shots, some catalogue-scans and the last of the shelfies Brian B sent some time before the Toy Fair, most of which have already been included in other posts.

African Elephants; Animal Hospital; Animal Toobs; Animal Tubs; Battat Animals; Brown Bears; Bunny Hutch; Cat Tree; Dinosaur Models; Dinosaurs; Dinosaurs By Battat; Farm Animals; Firehouse Dogs; Gorilla Family; Horses; Lion Family; Mini Animals; Polar Bears; Reptiles; Sea Animals; Sea Life; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Terra By Battat; Wild Animals;
Starting with the dinosaurs, these are quite exquisite with really nice colouring, it's funny; not only are Battat trying to break into a Schleich/Papo duopoly (the triumvirate [tripartite?] surrendered to them by Britians a while ago now), but when you look at some of the cheapie-toy dinosaurs these days - they've all raised their game, both in sculpting and the realism of the decoration, as referenced by modern/extant snakes and tropical birds - each of which is a good starting point.

However back to Battat these are all ten sculpts in the catalogue a year ago and while covering all the common or 'headline' types, there are one or two less obvious species in the line.

African Elephants; Animal Hospital; Animal Toobs; Animal Tubs; Battat Animals; Brown Bears; Bunny Hutch; Cat Tree; Dinosaur Models; Dinosaurs; Dinosaurs By Battat; Farm Animals; Firehouse Dogs; Gorilla Family; Horses; Lion Family; Mini Animals; Polar Bears; Reptiles; Sea Animals; Sea Life; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Terra By Battat; Wild Animals;
On the left the dinosaurs, on the right the mini-animal tubs, along with the counter display unit (CDU) for larger farm animals, apparently 2-each of the larger animals and 1-each of the smaller, there's less adherence to scale here, especially the sheep and pig.

African Elephants; Animal Hospital; Animal Toobs; Animal Tubs; Battat Animals; Brown Bears; Bunny Hutch; Cat Tree; Dinosaur Models; Dinosaurs; Dinosaurs By Battat; Farm Animals; Firehouse Dogs; Gorilla Family; Horses; Lion Family; Mini Animals; Polar Bears; Reptiles; Sea Animals; Sea Life; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Terra By Battat; Wild Animals;
Those mini-animal tubs; they seem to be aimed at the party-circuit/market, with not just duplicates but multiples of every sculpt? You feel that one-of-each of pairs in smaller headed-carded bags. Also they are a bit 'bright' and you wonder if they are either bought-in or simply made with less love, for a budget end-price! Note that the 'Reptiles' also contains amphibians.

African Elephants; Animal Hospital; Animal Toobs; Animal Tubs; Battat Animals; Brown Bears; Bunny Hutch; Cat Tree; Dinosaur Models; Dinosaurs; Dinosaurs By Battat; Farm Animals; Firehouse Dogs; Gorilla Family; Horses; Lion Family; Mini Animals; Polar Bears; Reptiles; Sea Animals; Sea Life; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Terra By Battat; Wild Animals;
Close-ups from Mr Berke of the Wild Animals (in the catalogue but not on show last year) and the REP-TILES [with amphibians], at 60 pieces it's obvious that there may be as many as 5 or 6 of each animal in the tub - a likely minimum of 5? Which will make it easy to collect these when they start appearing in Charity shops, but will also mean the duplicates will be near-impossible to off-load (if you're a dealer) other than by gifting to younger relative!

African Elephants; Animal Hospital; Animal Toobs; Animal Tubs; Battat Animals; Brown Bears; Bunny Hutch; Cat Tree; Dinosaur Models; Dinosaurs; Dinosaurs By Battat; Farm Animals; Firehouse Dogs; Gorilla Family; Horses; Lion Family; Mini Animals; Polar Bears; Reptiles; Sea Animals; Sea Life; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Terra By Battat; Wild Animals;
Also from Brian we have two of the 'family' group sets; lions and gorillas, the later look quite nice, but the former are not so hot, there's a slight simplicity or naivety to the sculpts, the lioness particularly looks slightly cartoonish and while manes are never easy, this one is poorer than most.

African Elephants; Animal Hospital; Animal Toobs; Animal Tubs; Battat Animals; Brown Bears; Bunny Hutch; Cat Tree; Dinosaur Models; Dinosaurs; Dinosaurs By Battat; Farm Animals; Firehouse Dogs; Gorilla Family; Horses; Lion Family; Mini Animals; Polar Bears; Reptiles; Sea Animals; Sea Life; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Terra By Battat; Wild Animals;
There's cats . . . and a cat tree! But again there's a bit of a mix, the rabbit set looks very good, bt I'd walk straight-past the dog firehouse, not only does in look a bit daft (do people actually have shit like that for their dogs?) but again the animals are a bit cartoony, although the lioness looks better in this sample!

Also it's nice to see separate sculpts for Brown and Polar bear families, instead of a paint change. Zebra's are poor, but so are just-about all model zebras - against the real thing, which has a subtly all model-animal companies seem to struggle-with, not the shape; they mostly get the shape, but the markings . . . oh dear!

African Elephants; Animal Hospital; Animal Toobs; Animal Tubs; Battat Animals; Brown Bears; Bunny Hutch; Cat Tree; Dinosaur Models; Dinosaurs; Dinosaurs By Battat; Farm Animals; Firehouse Dogs; Gorilla Family; Horses; Lion Family; Mini Animals; Polar Bears; Reptiles; Sea Animals; Sea Life; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Terra By Battat; Wild Animals;
CDU for the larger animals contains some new sculpts and some of the 'adults' from the family-group boxed-sets. The cheetah has lovely markings but the under-colouring is a bit limp, while the midge-collecting bird on the back of the water-buffalo is a nice touch.

I hope the liner has a hole in it for the giraffe, but how do you stack multiples in a warehouse?!!!

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