About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 62-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.

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

HB is for Horror Bargains!

And Home Bargains, where I went at the end of August, and found a few bits of interest to readers of the Blog, ticking two boxes here, edibles and white button toys,, and incidentally; I spent a couple of hours last night re-Tagging White Button, which now shares the Clockwork Tag, but Clockwork of the vintage, large or tin-plate variety won't have the White Button Tag I also added Cable Drum as a Tag!
 
Hallow Scream . . . geddit! Well, once you have a few, you just have to keep getting them! A gangling ghost and a perambulating pumpkin, similar to the garden centre ones we saw last year, and with a growing selection of robots, marching troops and a couple of dinosaurs, not to mention a Grinch (also Home Bargains), it's a race to see who dominates what will become a dedicated tub!
 
I thought the 'BOO!' detracted from the overall character of the toy . . .
 
. . . so I removed it with a bit of hand-sanitiser mixed with de-icer!
 
I also picked up these chocolate eggs, and managed to remove the wraps carefully (another collection of mine is old sweet and confectionery wrappers!), and managed to take the outer liner home with them, so I can scan it for the eventual A-Z listing, which in this case is Mon Desir, the people who brought us the chubby, semi-deform Superhero gift-eggs, about ten/twelve years ago.
 
Pretty standard chocolate, not unpleasant, no white chocolate half, and a fun thing for a lunch box, or even the breakfast table - Halloween falls on Saturday this year doesn’t it?
 
Sadly the contents aren't Halloween related, being 'bog-standard' stuff we've seen before from other minor brands, with the bobbing 'chariot' and  jogging dog-team, both mirroring such items from Kinder's past, the frog a common capsule toy, and the 'space' pick-up truck is fun!

Monday, October 26, 2026

R is for Recent Stuff - Follow-ups 1

A few shots I've been taking as I try to sort this years plunder into the ever diminishing space at the end of my storage unit!
 
These are the 60mm Crescent Mohicans (oooh, spellchecker really doesn't like that!) I bought a while ago, four of six and I need the standing firer replaced with a better one, so fast forward to the pair I bought at the Plastic Warrior show in June, and . . .
 
. . . and I'm still short one! The archer with bow, but funnily enough I think I may have one or two of them in with the standard Crescent 60mm Indian sample, as I'm pretty sure one or two have come in with cheapo' lots, and I just put them in the tub 'with the others'! Time will tell, but we're getting there!
 
The Cherilea swoppets who have come in over the last 36-odd months, these are not the master collection, but in terms of the 1st and interim versions, probably excede the 'deep-storage' sample, but in the case of the final version, only a part figure, against a much better sample, seen here, a fair few years ago!
 
I think we've seen all these now, so time for a comparison line-up, I thought the chap on the left might be Husky/Corgi Junior but he's not, so possibly Galoob or New Ray drive-though ice-cream kiosk operative? Then the Corgi standard ice cream seller, then the giant, might-be-Lucky piracy we saw the other day. Then the Corgi streetlamp repair man, then another 'styrene scale up, from Hong Kong! PVC-PVC-PS-PE-PS
 
Interim line -up of French Marine's Fear! Missing a couple of key-rings I think, from the always-been-in-some-sort-of-storage zone, and the composition one we saw here years ago, but not bad, and mostly from Chris Smith, I bet! Still, the absentees will allow for a more definitive Welsh Ladies shot, another day!
 


The sublime (Tudor Rose) and the ridiculous, a hideous pile of Hong Kong tat, which I ended-up with because someone gave it to me, I think? Hong Kong did churn out some fuggugly stuff! I think it's marked JC on the base, but I don't really care, it's naff, kitsch shite, but . . . figures!
 
Finally I said I though the Airfix 1:35th Quickbuild 'Lego' Sherman was closer to 1:32nd, and here I've shot it next to the CTS/BMC one I got at last years PW show, and you can see it's a lot smaller. The difference being OK for a garden war game, but is seriously going to piss-off a purist!

E is for Eye Candy - Starlux Knights

I actually did this back in 2011. Yeah; some things spend a long time in the queue, but everything will appear here eventually, especially now I'm not about to die!
 
A certain amount of trickery was employed in hiding the bases, and lighting wasn't the best as I think the image was in a book, and I had to hid the bulk of the old patterned carpet I used as heathland! Four of the Starlux 40mm knights, against the background of a fortified château!
 

Q is for Question Time - Western Horse

Can anybody ID this chap or chapess?
 
It's loosely based on 'that' horse, albeit somewhat nicer than most, and with a clearly Western or Spanish Gaucho saddlery.. It's gloss painted and hard plastic, and may take a figure in the 60mm bracket?
 

P is for Pépé's Perfect Portuguese Plastic Pick-Up

I got this back in August, it's a bit big, but it's got figures, and figures have always been the driving force here, so what's not to like about a Jeep with figures! And with Pépé (Plasticos Jato), the maker, being Portuguese, another add to one of the less active Tags!

"Look out!" From either side, I should have done them the other way, facing away from each other! It's a clockwork toy, the key is missing, as is the spare wheel, but neither detract from the whole, and I may have the key somewhere, there’s a whole bunch somewhere. I know what it looks like from others on t'web, with an offset hole, so track-down-able, if I'm minded to!
 
The bonnet sticker has become a little worn, suggesting a lot of play at some point, and I suppose the red paint on the jerry-can, is for 'petrol, not water'. The twin machine-gun is fanciful at best, but just adds to the toy charm, redolent of the time when just about everything military was given twin guns, a radar or a searchlight!
 
The figures have a plug-in, revolving head, to which has been glued a white (parade? MP?) helmet, which is more motorcycle than M1, but I'd imagine Pépé made some motorcycles too, and took an existing helmet, from stock?

T is for They Did What???

You won't believe what they've done? But first, to other things, as this is Brian Berke's findings on a recent visit to Dollar Tree, on the look-out for Halloween stuff, or other figurals, and I'm posting them in shot-order!
 
Starting with more erasers, and we like erasers here, I don't know why they switched the position of the pumpkin and Dr's Monster under the blister, but not the spider, however, it must be a nightmare packaging for someone with OCD, and on two levels! Either fully reverse the order, or keep the order on both levels, but this? The horror . . . the horror!
 
Loving these, the ghost is similar to the one we saw, also from Brian, the other day, but the cat looks to be an Iwako knock-off? Given that Iwako do two mouldings in a dozen or more colourways, and one of those has already been copied, someone with a limited budget, or limited space, could start just collecting Iwako and similar cats! And nothing to upset an OCD sufferer here!
 
White button toy, it looks like a walker, but claims to be a jumper, so might be a combination jumping-walker, it's probably only another piece of eccentric bent wire under the case? There are some more white button toys to come. Seasonal Collection looks like a Dollar Tree branding?
 


Rather nice, if slightly large solids from Harry Potter, depicting Hermione, Harry and Ron, I can't see any kind of brand or brand mark, so they may be Dollar Tree exclusives? But . . . look what they did!!!! . . . 
 



. . . they killed SpongeBob SquarePants and his friends, killed them and stripped every scrap of flesh from their bones! Who could do such a thing? Legend Toys with/for Niclkleodeon, that's who; the despicable monsters! And SpongeBob does not look happy!
 

No link to Halloween, but I rather like the M (for Marvel) bases on these, also solid figurines, Hasbro marked, I think these are what are now called 'classic' versions, the new movies having taken them to a far darker and more GCI'd sci-fi place!
 
Thanks, as always, to Brian, for shooting these for us, and he has sent one more item, the most horrible, terrible nightmare-inducing thing ever to be sold to kids, but I'm saving that for the 31st!

E is for Elastolin Ephemera

Another one from the library, and, if you're an Elastolin fan, probably the one to get for the plastics, although there is a bit, on the end of the composition era, in there, if I recall correctly. Due to it's size, it doesn't go with the other catalogues in the box-files, but rather on the bookshelf, with the other landscape format stuff.
 
The shop proprietors' trade catalogue, and the beauty of this one, was that it came with about eight of the annual update packs, sent out by Hausser to all the properly registered stockists, which I carefully opened and inserted into the folder. With the few duplicates that careful insertion resulted in, I think there are about 300 pages in total.
 
Because I'm a collector, not a retailer, where a line or range was deleted (a sheet of instructions came with each pack, telling you which pages to remove, which to replace and which to add, where), or part of a range dropped, I left those pages in, as I did those pages where the new pages where substantially different, or had new artwork.
 
I also kept all the instruction sheets, and put them at the front of the leaver-arched tome, with/after the original 'how to use this catalogue' guide, in the order they were issued. And I kept the pages that were removed, but they are semi-lost, and occasionally I find them in an A4 Really Useful Box, while looking for something else, and I mean to place them at the back of this folder. 
 
Wild West 'swoppet' (steckfiguren - peg figures or plug-in figures) shop stock boxes.
 
Nativity set in faux carved-wood effect, and factory paint.
Notice how they've reversed the trio in each shot!
Except the Little Baby Jesus! 
 
Giraffes and big cats.
 
Mentioned in the previous post, the Hausser take on two of the Rojas e Malaret board games. They used the Elastolin 40mm figures, I believe with 'simple' paint, rather than the retail decoration? there's a whole section on Hausser's toys.
 
Wooden Wild West buildings and whole streets.
There are also wooden farms and zoos. 
 
Old Shatterhand or the 'Karl May' set, from a popular German TV series, after the books by May, Old Shatterand is best known as the blood brother of the Apache chief Winnetou in the series of Western  novels.

The pages are colour-coded to help the shop staff look things up quickly, and the format is pretty unique, being not an 'A' size, and having the rings a non-standard distance apart, but back then such things were more common, with industrial works, mechanical textbooks & operators guides, and various military publications and vehicle manuals being so published.

Sunday, October 25, 2026

S is for Sandown Park - Ancient and Medieval

With the vehicle post being broken-up now, this is the last of the plunder posts from September's show, although sliding into the long queue are some things I shot, but didn't buy at May's show! Technically we're looking at ancient and mediaeval subjects, but there is a bonus 19th Century figure at the end!
 
 
I actually saw these at Plastic Warrior's show in June, and the seller brought them to Sandown, believing I wanted them, because I'd mentioned my interest to a third party, so, here they are! The Rojas e Malaret army builder sets, designed to enlarge the armies for their board war games on the battle of Hannibal and the Catheginians against Rome, at Mutaro and Zama. Obviously these are the Roman cavalry!
 
 
While these are the Carthaginian infantry. The box's contents seem to have been made up with a figure from another set, who has a far more tanned countenance, not that surprising, given the variations we saw with the Little Big Horn set from Waddingtons, which, along with the early sets' contents, originated with Rojas e Malaret too.

A mixed bunch of Timpo knock-off, swoppet knights, possibly from or with parts from two sets, it's not exactly clear, but with much cleaner samples in the stash already, these will be sorted eventually, and with red, white and yellow tending to be commoner, the black and green here will prove to be useful toward building full samples.
 
More swoppets, here a mix of Britains, Crescent and Timpo, with what looks like a Lone Star solid's plume and an unknown weapon/standard? There's even a Supreme 'Silver Knights' shield! All useful spares for the time being.

And more Hong Kong knock-offs, here lesser quality, but again, all useful grist to the mill, to be compared and sorted into the right pile, then used to build a one-of-each sample, the rest to go on to other causes/owners!
 
There's a theme here, isn't there! I've a good sample of these Britains piracies too, but with all the small parts/little pieces, there's bound to be something useful in this 'donor' pile!

While these will be from one of the above lots, probably the lot two images above, they seem to have some mounted legs. I can't remember where all these came from, but it may have been a donation from Isaak, so many thanks to him, I know he gave me something at the show?
 
Finally, this chap. I've never seen one before, it's a hard styrene, never seems to have had a base, and only the uniform, or its accuracy will direct us to a maker . . . Polish, Russian (green) or something South American? But it's quite well done, and suggests a touristy thing, maybe in it's own little window, or clear plastic box?
 
And this is the stuff I live for, things I've never seen before, this kind of figure will enhance any future post/s on Napoleonics in general, all those oddities from Hungary, Peru or Portugal. Starlux are lovely, but they were mass-produced, Deetail are still basically 'modern' production and the Timpo Nappies are to be found in most mixed lots on evilBay, or rummage trays at shows, although often in a shocking state of home-paint, or just a shocking state, and many are getting brittle now!

Saturday, October 24, 2026

A comme les Anciens

More eye candy, and all French, all ancient'ish, and all pretty old . . . boom-boom!
 
I've picked up a couple more of the Clairet Greco-Romans, one a cleaner version of my first, the other of my second, so no new poses, but - previously - two green tunics and now, two blue, which will mean a nice Peloponnesian War vignette one day! Note the second figure has his original weapon, and it's more Viking farmer than anything Greek or Roman!
 
The separate shield and forearm was barely glued or glued with a non-solvent type? I seem to recall re-glueing my other one two, the join is to obtain dynamism without complicated undercuts, or the odd lumps you find on some figures.
 
A pair from Cyrnos, both in need of better swords, but otherwise pretty clean!
 
One the left a rarer, non-Elastolin Viking type moulding (they fought a set of Normans) from Ougen, fending off a poorly home-painted gladiator from Café Storm, and I think he's supposed to be a Samnite, like a Murmillo, but with a smaller shield?
 
Base mark of the Ougen figure, with the letters of the brand revealed in a tower's castellations which I think is pretty neat!
 
Historia Saracens, two versions of the same moulding, with different heads and plug--in weapons, a cursory search on Google revealed the same figure with the head on the right and an even more ridiculous 'Ali-baba' sword, from the pantomime's prop's department!
 
Issued by a magazine of the same name, not with it (as premiums), but, rather as a separate product line, in little boxes, like Starlux's Luxe range, so maybe aimed at Museums and gift shops?
 
Base marking.
 


This three-piece, 50mm guy,, I'm not so sure about, he might be an early Beffoid, or something else entirely, a minor make; it might not even be French! Obviously from well within the arctic circle, but with a bird of pray, more Siberian peninsular than North America?