H is for Henbrandt

Which could also have been News, Views etc...my camera's fucked!

But we'll run with H is for Henbrandt (a pretty bog-standard importer who crop up from time to time!), and deal with the news in passing.

You may recall that last year we looked at a few key-rings (fobs, chains....) I'd got in a clearance lot for 50p or something and I suggested they would be available as sets somewhere at some point . . .

" . . . three of them were unmarked and as I said earlier in the year - may turn-out to be from a more recognised range of toys, just 'converted' to key-rings with a screw-eye. . ."

Well, the monkey had already seemed likely to be from the MTC sets, and now we have the water snail (for that is what it is!) turning up in a full set . . .

. . . the original posted one to the left, the new one to the right, even the brown areas are the same, but this chap is imported by Henbrandt as a little pocket-money bin-toy, among a set of other sea-life (mostly reef creatures) as seen below . . .

. . . a rather nice set of figurines and of unusual subjects, of which there may be more than these 8, in a 'full set'. You may however have noticed that the new image - cropped from the above - is pretty poor? Well I have a problem . . .

. . . see that black smudge to the right of the centre, that's a bit of crap on one of the internal lenses on my little Nicon L29  pocket camera (which is the 'News, Views' bit!), which has done sterling service for over two years now, making it the longest running of the five this Blog has killed!

As I can't afford to pop-out and get a new camera willy-nilly, it's a question of working round the problem for as long as I can, but it will result in a lessening of the quality of images for a a while. it's also about light-levels and flash, and I probably could have re-taken the shots, but for a passing post on sea-life it's not worth the effort!

And that 'working round' means either shooting from further away, or moving the camera after the green light has flashed, so the focus gets fucked-up!

These are a bit better, so it will be 'OK' for a while, but just be aware that that's why some sots will be a bit crap going forward in the short term . . . I'm saving for the PW show, I can't go dumping sixty-quid on a camera!

These wild/zoo animals were also Henbrandt, but their little bags were thinner affairs with Oker Brand screen-printed across the seal-strip. You may see the similarity between some of them and the horse key-ring, so wherever these came from (and it's unlikely to be either Henbrandt or Oker or  Perfect - see below), there is a consistency that points to the key-rings coming from the same place as the little bagged sets

These on the other hand are Poundland via Perfect Moments, twelve dinosaurs for a pound, that's less than 10p each! In fact, I think - with the current exchange rate - it's less than 10-cents each! It's only about 120 to the pound now?

Except they too have Oker Brand on their slightly larger bag, given the number of sources and brands for all these sets (there are metallic rubber dino's, seals/sea-Lions, fish and dogs that I know off, plus the hinted-at monkeys and horses, and probably cats and insects too?), I began wondering if the Oker Brand wasn't in fact the sometimes supplier of the little resealable bags?

Google said; "Yes, good call!" Packaging, sealing-tapes and such-like. So Oker are nothing to do with the little sets, other than supplying the bags - and maybe the key-rings?!

Now that's two assumptions, presumptions or guesses followed through to fact.

Remember - I never deliberately make it up as I go along, and never will, but if Erwin's attempt to rehabilitate himself is to re-write everything he's already written, but without mentioning hard plastic or trying to stuff a Japanese gun in a too-small Blue Box box, then it's going to be a long cold summer over at that blog!

What he should be doing instead of repeating stuff we already know, is get on with writing his 'Part Three', you know as well as I do - people don't want to read about the same Russians for a third time, they want hints and allegations, they want war . . . and train wreaks!

On the subject of cameras, when the Blog started - back in 2009 - I originally had a Fuji Finepix but it's brain failed and it was the second Finepix to go bang, so I tried a Samsung, which gave us good results here, but wasn't so hot on my outdoor insect macro-photography, the last two have been these Nicon Coolpix, and they've both done well, the first (an L27) was never quite right in the mechanics, and when it failed 12-days inside the warranty, I got an upgrade-replacement with no questions asked, while Fuji had 'failed' to find the poor images I posted of it's failing piece-of-shit, so 'Buy Nicon' seems to be the [un-]scientific message!