L is for Louche Lucite Layabouts!

We seem to often arrive at Lik Be during Rack Toy Month, and while I tried to resist poking the Northern cow-pat of competitiveness this year, reader Keith Harrison mentioned he had all the missing clear-plastic 'Vitrine' LB robots, of which we saw the other three of, here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/07/lb-is-for-lik-be.html

 

And he kindly sent some fantastic images of them to the blog; 

 

Family Photo!

 

Base marking - clear as mud, as usual!

 

Wotan's favourite; 'Wotan'!

 

'Rocket Robin', with a partial 'Lobster', whose paint has mostly worn off, but I suspect these may have been decorated with spirit-based art markers, or something equally susceptible to rubbing and fading?

 

Keith also sent this and the next two images, these look like they might be from the same batch/source/origin as the 'eraser' set I got a while back now, as a trio;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/10/s-is-for-serious-score.html

 

But here as a full sextet, and with 'Traffic Cop' being in a semi-transparent dayglo green, rather confirming my suspicion back then, that they are some kind of silicon, not really an eraser rubber, but rather a smudging rubber! However, sold as Dragon Master Fantasy Figures, not erasers like my sample, by what looks to be Tiarri Management Sevices?

 

We've seen these Moon Platoon chaps before, and they were both poor shots, here we can see they are carried by Imperial Toys, (updates to those posts by the time I post this) who, although a US importer, seem to have got a lot of their stuff into the UK, but whether by design, or some back-of-the-warehouse accident I don't know, maybe a buyer's tie-in with one of our novelty importers, like WHC/Success? However, not necessarily this set, just other Imperial stuff.

 

While these are the 'Tesco Finest' version of the sucker 'bots with the - as yet - unascribed mark which may be ATS, AST. STA or SAT, but probably isn't T-anything! I've seen these before, occasionally, so they do seem to have been a 'thing' compared to the commoner ones with airgun blasted blobs of colour, so someone obviously stipulated a better level of paint on their contract? The point here being, it's rare to find them this clean and paint-complete.

 

Many thanks to Keith for all the above, and it got me deep-diving into the image banks to see what was waiting for next-time, which is this time now, or what I could add from the archive;

 

So sticking with the robots first, and this image was sent to another Blog, upon request, many years ago, and got lost in a lack of tagging, or got deleted, it doesn't matter, there's no meaningful relationship with the strange little men over there, now! I suspect the falling-out is more about Bwreakshit than Blogs!

 

We have, in the intervening years, seen all the gaps filled, and then some, but as a guide, it's a new image here at Small Scale World, and from the top shows;

• 54mm hard polystyrene, chrome-type finish
• 25mm hard polystyrene, chrome-type finish
• 54mm hard polystyrene, brushed-aluminium finish
• 25mm soft polyethylene, gunmetal plastic (as supplied to Culpitt and HG)
• 54mm sucker types (marked with a crude HONG KONG)

Here's a gum-ball capsule-machine window card, with 'Stern Gang' as what looks like a pencil top (bottom right), in the same flexible silicon as the sucker chaps. Note also, the cracker-toy motorcycle, the troll, the other robot and a bisque Wade Whimsy knock-off, among other things . . . the mini abacus!

While this looks like the 25mm, polyethylene, gunmetal plastic ones, as Spaceimens! Also supplied to Culpitt and HG Toys, so we have them as play-set accessories, cake decorations and gum-ball prizes! We only need to find them in Christmas crackers for the full "House"!

Which brings us to the Astro-Spacemen* element of that/those original donation post/s, with the same treatment, we have;

• 54mm hard polystyrene, gunmetal plastic, painted both sides
• 54mm & 25mm soft polyethylene, gunmetal plastic, painted one side
• 54mm soft polyethylene, various colours, painted both sides
• 54mm soft polyethylene, white plastic painted one side (as supplied to Clifford)

* I have mentioned on several occasions I have trouble pigeonholing these, as they are armed (spacemen), but wearing NASA kit (astronauts)!

 

• 54mm & 25mm soft polyethylene, various colours, unpainted
• 54mm Nylon or a propylene, and 25mm (as supplied to MPC, Pipin and Tri-Ang), all finished in silver or gold chrome-effects, which can be removed with a five-second dip in TFR or oven cleaner.
• 25mm hard polystyrene, painted matt-white. 

The previous two lots, all being LB (for Lik Be) production, while this last lot is mostly clones/copies/piracies, with the LB additional poses for the MPC, Pipin and Tri-Ang issues, off to the bottom left, which are taken from MPC's own figures, split between their 54mm and 70mm sculpts.

 

Also, the pair between the first two rows are the 54mm, soft polyethylene fakes, and marked Hong Kong, under domed bases, one pretending to be an LB original, even down to the paint, the white one being from the Shimmel blister-carded Flash Gordon sets. The four more obvious rows are;

• 50mm, soft polyethylene, various colours, unpainted
• 23mm, soft polyethylene, various colours, unpainted
• 50mm painted & 25mm unpainted, both polyethylene soft plastic
•  25mm hard polystyrene, brushed-aluminium finish

There's a more blobby, silver/gunmetal one below that last row, of unknown origin, and an unpainted figure above the MPC group. What sets that last row apart from the other LB output, is that they are unmarked, as are all the MPC mini-clones, but, a lot of the Tri-Ang supplied ones were marked. However, the late Nylon/'Propylene 54mm ones, still in bakers and cookshops in the 2000's, were also unmarked, so a late thing, or a Culpitt (or similar) takeover thing?

We have since (recently) added 45mm copies in at least two plastics, so both sets of previous overviews (and these originals) will need to be superseded by a new round of posts, in a year or two!

One of the sources of the - at least four types of - sucker figure, are to be seen on these gum-ball sample cards, from 'Liberty', and, at 25¢, not that long ago? Also of interest are hard plastic 'vitrine' animals at the tops of the cards, micro-mini dinosaurs and sports 'monsters', both probably of a PVC-alike material.

 

While the whole bunch appear to be available here, as Star Warriors, on an unbranded, generic card, I think we've seen better images of them close-up before now, but these cards carry their own nostalgia! And we have all six robots and two poses of the Astro-Spacemen.

 

And, thanks again for Keith's kicking off this deep dive! Best rack toys ever . . . in the moment!

R is for Roveing Reporter's Rack-toy Round-up #2

The second set of images from Brian Berke were all taken in a New Your branch of a Japanese firm called Daiso, and are mostly beyond the parameters of the Blog, but it's a movable feast, and water-pistols/ray guns have crept in over the years!

 

With Dinosaur!

 

Although not the same, this double-decker looking firearm, reminds me of Deckard's piece from the original Blade Runner movie, I'd call it 'seminal movie', but there are about five versions, and the better ones have been watched by the least numbers of viewers!

 

 

Clip-together, or basic constructional infant toys, it's a "yes" from me for the motorcycle, which seems to be a finer model, still on the runner, the other two are more grandchild fodder, but I hope Brian won't mind me pointing out, he does look at this stuff with a grandfather's eye now!

 

Both marked Series B, I must assume another B was the Roaches, with other critters in the Series A, whenever that was current? Ants, Spiders and ? Maybe?

 

Daiso had also sourced some stuff more locally, and these last three are from Jaru, a US jobber/importer of some standing, in both years and ranges, squishy stretch-monsters are cool! Thanking Mr Berke, and there's more to come!

P is for Peterkin's Packs of Plastic Pets

Actually, we've looked at the cats and dogs previously, but there's no good synonym for 'animals' beginning with p? I grabbed most of the outstanding Peterkin sets, when they appeared in one of the local garden centre's as post Christmas re-stock, then Peter Evans gave me another the other day, leaving two duplicates to be shot close-up, and a box-ticking check-list of the others, adding to the Peterkin Tag!

 

We saw the Birds, bagged, a while ago, so here they are 'in the flesh', pretty standard selection, unnamed on the packaging but I'm guessing here, from the lop left - Goose, Swan, Vulture, the Ashamed Eagle (currently looking for a new home, Canada; it's got more gravitas than a Beaver?), another Goose, the Guinness Toucan, an Owl, a Parrot and a Parakeet?

 

Giant Insects and small Unicorns, there seems to be two poses, each in four colours, and we may have seen them undecorated from another rack-toy issuer?

 

A mix of Cetaceans and Sharks, again, pretty standard, and pack-scale, rather than 'in scale', and some reptiles, which includes amphibians and a living dinosaur!

 

Scale here is all over the place, but it makes the Komodo Dragon perfect for 54mm figures, while a giant Chamaeleon dwarves a Frilled Lizard.

 

Possibly the poorest sculpt is the crocodile/alligator thing, which harks back to the gape-mouth dino's of the 1970's (which you can still find occasionally!), while a couple of snakes in the background are vaguely a Cobra and a more generic green Mamba/Tree Python.

 

Presumably a 'Giant Galápagos Tortoise', but not one of the more distinctive breeds, so rather a large normal tortoise! And two tree frogs, neither of which species am I going to try and guess!

 

I didn't get a good shot of the Dinosaurs, but I have a feeling this will prove to be a duplicate set too, so I'll open it and shoot them properly another day, maybe for next year's Rack Toy Month?

  

 

 Farm set

 

 

 'Zoo' set (wild animals)

 

Both pretty standard, both eight-counts on the mouldings, and I wouldn't be surprised to find a lot of these are based on other peoples previous stuff, their (Peterkin's) combat infantry set are clones of earlier mouldings by other people.

L is for Lucky Large Bags!

We saw the two current issues of 'cornucopia' back in December, and one of these in Jan., and there was another, similar beast, in the queue, until I visited Peter Evans the other day, and he gave me a second, so we're looking at them both today, the contents being quite similar to each other, suggesting a common source for the contents, if not the management/corporate origin.

 

To be honest, I can't remember if this was fund in B&M, The Works or somewhere else, maybe The Range actually? Or when - it looks like it may have been this last January. Contents are close to those of the Hunter Price International/Toymania branded one, we saw in May, with the same toys, including the stretchy dinosaur-caterpillar thing, but with a 15-count, rather than the 20 in that previous sample - missing are the two maracas, the two flicky things (ID'd by Mark as 'slap-bands') and the yo-yo.

 

While the latest sample is another of the Toymania ones, but now reduced by 50% to ten items, even the catersau/dinopillar has 'bought it', but, as you can see the car, spinning top and others are identical to the previous set above, so clearly they are from the same stable. As they (this and January's) are both 'Series One', it may be a price-point thing, rather than a 'shrinkflation' second tranche?

S is for a Surfeit of BJ's

Well, it's been going begging since they first appeared around 2015, and as they are now widespread in convenience store/corner shops and a lot of petrol/service stations/garages, I'm sure more puerile title puns will be forthcoming! These are mostly from Peter Evans, I think, although I have picked-up a few myself, and there may be some un-posted mini's somewhere, I definitely bought, back last autumn?

 

Larger six/seven-inch models.

 

Smaller four/five-inch models. 

 

Jurrassic park knock-off graphics.

I haven't looked too closely at this, but I think it's both a skeleton and a skin which clips over it for a fuller model?

 

All this stuff is out there now if you like dinosaurs. There's a lot more Dino-stuff to come in Rack Toy Month, and with duplicates of both these and previously seen ones, it's getting a bit crowded in their corner of the storage unit, so some Charity Shop donating and de-bagging/carding to come!

 

Added an hour or two later - I knew these had to be somewhere! Bought in three different shops/garages earlier this year, the sculpts are all from the same tool-set, but with differences between the coloured set and the white set, and another sculpt in the magic-sand set, we could be looking at a cavity-count of 2 or more, and they may be the same mini's issued by those Andy's Adventures magazines?