H is for Hot-metal Hexing Heroes - Harry and Hermione

These were sent to the Blog in the late autumn by Brian B, and rather got left to one side by other things, but they will now fit here rather nicely; as today's Toy Show '18 report is also on Jada, who are the company behind these die-cast alloy figurines.

Harry Potter, who's not a potter but a wizard, and his classmate Hermione - did they ever get together? I've not read any of the books nor watched any of the movies, so apart from a couple of hours of part-one read by Stephen Fry (?) on Radio 4 at Easter many years ago - everything I know of the whole phenomena has come from the cultural affairs 'background' on everyday life and newspaper stories! Indeed the only bit I remember is the school-joining letters coming down the chimney by the sack-full and something called Quiddich!

Close-ups, they are rather nice and although bigger, call to mind the short lived series of 25mm Pocket Force die-casts from Monogram, if only because apart from them and a set of Micro-Machine types there haven't been many painted die-cast figures, and they all have a similar appearance, paint-wise.

A scaler, with Mr. Berke's trusted, practically adopted by the Blog (when I get mine out of storage I'll start using him too!), Crescent 'Berserker' making his first appearance for a while, not because he isn't doing his duty in various posts or material sent by Brian, but because there's been so much else on, and I lost the best part of a week to flu!

You can see that as an adult, Harry would scale-out at around 60/65mm, maybe even as much as 70mm, but that's not the whole story, and - as the berserker shows us - the kids are perfect for 54mm.

The back of the card, giving a listing of figures to look out for if you're tempted, 31 so far, will the line be extended - is the question?

To which the answer would appear to be yes - there's an extra [to the above list] Haggrid to start with - Disney, Marvel & DC and some Wwrestler thing also, already signed-in! With play-sets! I think from the description the play-sets are in plastics, but although they are in the catalogue, they weren't on show at the Toy Fair, so I couldn't see them . . . and everything in the above image has to treated with caution until it actually appears - retail.

However the answer to the scale questions is - 'Box Scale', all figures being about 48mm (50'ish with the base); all figures - whether adults, children, Haggrids or squeeky-voiced meeces - being the same height.

I don't know why they are calling them 'nano' either, that's got to be a degree or two below micro, itself below mini, so just the toy industry not following its own 'rules'! In my book these are barely, but closest to: mini-figures!