L is for Loose Ends

This was loaded two days ago and I meant to publish it yesterday, but Vodafone (the princes of digital-darkness) had other ideas and an Internet Interregnum imposed itself on me for 24 hours...I swear Vodafone couldn't organise themselves out of an old paper bag with a sharpened, flaming, sledgehammer! But they'd still charge you!

The thing about this stuff we've been looking at for the last three weeks or so is that it's universal and never-ending. I popped round Mr. Morehead's yesterday (bit of in-hobby name dropping never hurt!) to pick-up the Hilco special which is available agian after selling-out at the show back in May, and he gave me a bag of bits with some flat charms (same source, three sets) I could add here, or use as a follow-up and that was just after I'd picked up a rubber alien catapult (you can't make it up when novelty shite's involved!) a few minutes earlier for a pound at a charity shop. It just never stops.

But there will be plenty of time to return to Aliens, flats, charms and etcetera! We haven't looked at the mass of Little Rubber guys who come in Gum Ball machines, larger animals, Ninja's, sea creatures, we've looked at some of what's out there, and rather than follow-ups, we'll look at the few bits I've got ready here and call it a day on these for now.

Musical instruments that don't play, one blow-moulded the other styrene, a mini whoopee-cushion, lucky horse-shoes (useful if GI Joe/Action Man is thinking of retraining as a blacksmith!), another chess piece, again - appearing without any of the other pieces - needed to make a game - having ever turning up!

Mirror, yo-yos, another rattle, soft plastic version of the metal wire-puzzles and soft plastic scissors! A magnet...another 'theme' we've not covered in these 50-odd posts, but we've looked at them elsewhere on the blog in the past.

The Quantas suitcase is interesting as presumably it was a re-packed rack-toy of dolls stuff re-branded to Quantas, given to kids to amuse them on long flights? Without the sticker it's just a cheap novelty suitcase, with the sticker it's a branded premium/giveaway!

More plastic tat, more rattles, another lenticular; this time just a very small picture - it's neither a badge nor a charm. A Britains flower-pot: plagurised, a polyethylene bat/gargoyle ring, more charms...The woodpecker toy, which normally comes as a finished toy with a stand and wooden pole was a gum-ball givaway..without instuctions or a  pole, but is made to fit a pencil!

A tourist item, really outside the scope of these articles, but it was in the big lot and is a source of a plastic figure that - without it's die-cast mazak base - is just another piece of plastic kak. It must be quite common as it's the second one into the collection now, which is useful as I always hoped to get a second, so I could remove the figure and use it in some Ray Harryhausen type setting with some Greek Hoplites or a skeleton warrior? Statue of Liberty.

[Later the same day - Andrew Boyce suggested it might be from the Triang-Minic waterline ship range, and it is, so it doesn't really belong in these posts at all! But it's the second one I've seen displayed or sold as an ornament, so that's clearly it's fate...to be unrecognised as a toy, and written-off as a keepsake! I does however mean it's quite common and track-downable!]

Award cups...again we haven't looked at the various 'collectable' sets you could get, [American] football helmets, miniature baseball pennants and the like, I'm sure these come with lots of messages (here; 'golfer' and 'father'), and similar objets existed, but that'll do for tat, shite, caca for a while!

Well...for a day or two! I picked-up some nice figures in the 99p store the other day coming to a blog not a million miles from here in the next few days! Also got some contributions to come, some news, some follow-ups, a PW review, still got those bloody French articles in 'edit' and still got thousands of shots in Picasa, which I seem to add to quicker than I clear! And my 8-gig 'unknown' dongle has red-lined as I file these novelty images, so I need a 16-gig before I can clear the desk-top!

I had plans for a premium article with contributions for tomorrow, but Vodafone's upset the plan (like I ever have a 'plan'!), so we'll see, if I have a day or two off: may I extend my wishes for you to have a happy Christmas and thanks for watching! Now I'm a TV announcer!

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