About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-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.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

P is for Plunder Posts - 4 - Two Bags from Peter Evans

At the risk of embarrassing him; I thanked Peter in January for staying firmly 'on the fence' in another matter, a course of action others have not chosen, it is a measure of the character of him as a man, a measure myself and the other party have failed to measure up to.

I'll thank him again, here, on the record and thank him for the two large bags of plunder he brought to the PW show for me, and for which - like last year - he demanded a pittance; it was infinitesimal for what was in the bags!

There was a small bag of small scale, but filled with nice things including these Galoob Micro-Machines, there were four obvious new variants (each highlighted), but I have since ID'd 12 that need to be added to the Galoob Page and while I have updated the photographs and screen-cap's I haven't got round to the task itself yet!

The obvious ones were an un-numbered early man-portable, Redeye AAGW operator (provisionally 10 in my page's numbering) in the Navy paint-scheme, two 33's with brown bases and an MP green variant (65) with flack-vest.

The rest of the bag's contents were (on the left) a useful mix of Galoob's other lines, Hasbro Action Man, Mattel Hot Wheels, Corgi and a Blue Box mechanic along with some Rado for Marksmen and the five on the top row who have been issued by Majorette, but also others.

To the right are the larger figures in the bag with a couple of 'China Toy' firefighters, the Mattel Cylon Raider (new to me) and Earth-searching Colonial Viper pilot's (strangely; the latter is far more common/numerous?) from Battlestar Galactica, another Corgi and some lovely semi-flats for model railways. I have some in storage and they are interesting in that they seem to be scaled-up, cartoon'ified (or caricatured?) copies of the Marklin lead flats. They could be European but I suspect early Hong Kong, anyway we will look at them all together in greater depth one day.

We've seen most of the stuff on the left here before - the superhero/wrestlers (thanks to Terranova) and the unicorn 'babies' (99p Stores?) but the non-Disney 'princesses' are lovely! There's some lead/whitemetal odds (2 Turkish Janissaries or Landschnechts with 'a' separate head and a chap in a top-hat!) and a Mattel CUTIE (bottom left).

While the motorbike is large, crude and seen here before (possibly also from Peter?), but is different enough to have already been comparison-shot with the previous one and added to a motorcycle round-up currently in the queue!

On the right a deliberately vague and long-shot, as a lot of this will get a spot in Rack Toy Month, or a Dinosaur round-up, or a 'lets make a tank-hunter' post etc . . . etc . . . I need to glue the petrol-pump without wreaking the packaging, or it would have been included with the Dinky set the other day, although I forgot the Tiger road signs (doh!), while the rubber eye is so bad it's oddly good, and means I may yet use the rather gruesome shots Terranova sent a couple of years ago!!

A bag of 'Armymen', a mixed bag of 'Little Rubber Guys' and cereal premiums and a bag of MPC Africans/hunters from both the 60mm and ring-hand series. Small bag of horses, a wagon which is the level of piracy below the ones we recently looked at, a nice Roman, resin but nice and some Greco-Romans (from a chess set?) marked Roxy, which may be the same Hong Kong Roxy (logo inset) branded to Lucky Toys style racing cars with the same (Lucky) figures?

The chalk-ware cottage is new to me I think and I have several, we will look at them when the rest come out of storage, probably as a Christmas post one year, while the Airfix war memorial in the same bag is probably actually Dapol in that plastic colour?

More rack-toy bits, boxed and unboxed, some of it will probably - in the fullness of time - go on to charity as being outside the scope of the collection, but not outside the scope of the blog, although the 'Smart Shoppers' Supermarket Set will need some thought! Maybe a generic 'Hong Kong' entry under H in the A-Z blogs, for all un-branded HK stuff?

Peter also passed these two my way, and they will get a full 'T is for Two . . . ' later today; the one on the left being a nice home-made vignette of medieval flats, the one on the right being more commercial looking - a hiker resting by a cave - possibly from a model railway range?

There was a bag of capsule-toy capsules which I haven't found time to fully investigate (after three weeks!) but did notice most of them were Balaban or Maraja, so very useful and with Terranova sending me a nice capsule toy just now, there will be a post forthcoming as there is one forming in the queue!

I've over-printed the scan on the right as I have no idea as to the copyright status of it, but I thought this was a nice take on the old play-mat principle; a puzzle which builds into a play-mat, presumably for a HK or - more likely 'China' - farm set from which it has been separated.

Everything else! Novelty Power Rangers pen-top, Wilton footballers and a sample of Spanish sobre envelops with what are called Cromaticos, in English; collector's cards and stickers, two still had a piece of gum attached and are now hors de combat while the Imperial Stormtrooper ®, TM & © George Lucas - Lucasfilms - Disney Corp. toothbush is just what you need to keep your gnashers polished on the Kessle Run - too cool for dental college!

Cheers Peter and thank you!

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