Part two-of-two looks at the Easter half-term stuff, a few recent minor purchases and a couple of other bits.
Movies
Films likely to have an effect on toy
production, coming to a cinema near you in the next few weeks (or days) include
a Smurfs cartoon; The Lost Village, a live action Power Rangers movie and (fancy that -
with all the other news stories surrounding the brand recently?) a Pepper Pig feature 'My First Cinema Experience' is in cinemas from the 7th April; a
hour's collection of 5-minute cartoons stitched together with sing-along
sections. For older kids the Japanese manga-made-flesh
Ghost in the Shell looks likely to
produce merchandise - if it takes off?
Easter Events in the UK
Kew Gardens are running a Moomin Adventures 'Fun for all the
family' thing from the 1st to the 17th April.
Moomins are also to be found staring in the Southbank Centre's Adventures in Moominland, now extended
to August 2017
Also on London's South Bank is an
exhibition run by artofthebrick on DC Superheroes . . . modelled in Lego.
The Acton Depot Museum of Transport for London (TfL) are having a double open day on
April 22nd/23rd with rides on a live-steam garden railway.
Sticking with railways; the Epping Ongar Railway have an egg hunt on
their full-size, steam line with Bertie
Bunny putting in an appearance!
Kenwood
House (Hampstead Heath) are also running an EasterEgg Hunt, with kings, Butlers and Roman Centurions helping kids solve the clues.
While the Wetlands Centre in Barnes have an Easter Giant Duck Hunt, staring Dusty
Duck - also 1st-17th April, with an additional Celebrity Dusty Duck Trail from 1st April until the 21st May;
Michaela Strachan seems to be involved too, so I may go myself!
Further afield Willows Activity Farm in Hertfordshire (St Albans) are running an Easter Eggstravaganza event from
1st-17th with a Peter Rabbit theme.
Other egg-hunts are being held at London
Bridge (Saturday) and in Battersea Park
Museums
Rachel Whitread (the first female Turner
Prize winner back in 1993) has revealed a permanent exhibition called 'Place (Village)' in the V&A's Museum
of Childhood. In situ since the 25th march, it consists of 150+ vintage doll's
houses, all lit from within, but empty "...evoking haunting memories and
melancholy", arranged on a bank of shelving like a hill-side village.
Notting Hill's Museum of Brands (Ladbrooke Grove) is also holding an egg hunt over
the half term holiday.
The Tower
of London is also gearing-up for an event; the 'Go Medieval at the Tower'
festival, which will be running over the bank-holiday weekend - 29th April/1st
May - with knights sword fighting, archery with crossbows and other attractions
recreating the world of warfare from 1445.
The National
Army Museum in Chelsea (the old Duke of York's barracks) is re-opening
after a three-year refurbishment/upgrade.
Recent Minor Purchases
Charity Shops
This was a 50p bag in a charity shop in
Basingrad the other week, nothing exceptional and we've looked at the Cherilea chickens already, but a full
set of 4 Corgi calves and rather
tatty B&S (Barratt & Sons) giraffe were worth 50p - each!
The yellow camel is another of those tinny,
dense, propylene-like versions we looked at when I did the premium animals
(seven or eight years ago?) so there are definitely at least four origins of
them including the US originals. The green one is a Kellogg's bog-standard one and by comparing the forelimbs it's easy
to see that the harder ones are copies, not the same moulds being re-used.
Another Torres
bull - joined by Matchbox bulls and Blue Box mini-cattle - I have a whole
stadium of them now! The set of three HK rabbits have good paint and the Britains medieval charger must be worth
another 50p? As - indeed - should be the Timpo
farm's heavy-horse.
The two vinyl bears are modern 'CHINA'
marked in the same vein as the Henbrandt
we've been looking at. The goat's nice but the two HK sheep look to contain
bee's DNA! The rest's mostly damaged shrapnel, or common/HK shite, but for 50p
you can't fault it!
These were from the Animal Charity shop
also in Basingrad a couple of months ago now; the smiley is also a bendy toy
(yes! Another one!), but he's so small he's a bit stiff and I could only bend
him forward a bit and slightly move his arms up.
The Bear's resin, but more anthropomorphic
that the 'teddy' designs of the other resin bears we looked at last year, so
she will go with similar stuff in storage eventually, unless I can put a brand
to her.
Capsule Toys
As we're looking at smiley's; these blobs were
20p 'gum-ball' capsules from a corner shop on Friday last, same machine but
different eggs/packages, the pale one with the cruder face being branded to CBG Bv. (Brabo) of the Netherlands, the
other one to FIAM of Turin, Italy.
I'm sure they both come from the same Chinese factory, just different
contracts/different batches, I'm equally sure they also conform to the previous
versions seen here at Smallscaleworld, I'll try not to test them to
destruction!
What also set these two apart from the other
2 or 3 we've looked at in the past few years and which links them together, is
that while carrying different branding, they have both been in the machine for
so long they have 'stuck like that', failing to spring back to their original
shape as the others did when released from their capsules, a situation which
prevailed after 'hot-water' treatment was tried.
Don't Forget
Details available from;
eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com
And they are on Paypal.
The old website is to be run-down/retired. And
also don't forget that table prices have been reduced this year.
Finally
Peter
Rabbit is being given a starring role on the new
50p piece. Designed by Emma Nobel there are full-colour enamelled limited
edition type things available from the Royal Fail website and plain stamped
metal ones, due for general release, but these 'specials' rarely seem to make
it into your small change! Jeremy Fisher,
Tom Kitten and Benjamin Bunny will follow quarterly through the year.
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