F is for Phour More Phidal Phat-Books with Phigures

Most of this has been sat in the queue since before the PW show, and is one of three related posts, as this stuff - a complete mystery to me until last autumn - is everywhere, once you know what you're looking for, which is; fat-spine books in the children's section, whether that be a book-shop, newsagent's, TKMaxx or a charity shop!

More Disney Princesses, we've looked at another set already and two of at least three Frozen sets, the beauty of this set being that they are approximately 54mm, and apart from the costumed Snow White, all can pass for regency ladies.

Comparing the contents (usually incomplete if found in charity shops) with the artwork above, there's a green fish/frog/gecko thing missing, a grey blob (donkey?) and two girls, the one in gold and one of the newer Disney Princesses with ethnicity (other than white) in a green dress.

One can't complain at the missing items, as these charity shop sets are usually 50 or 75p, if one does have a 12 count they tend to be a quid though!

This was a 50p one! Incomplete, but only missing the little cave boy, had I known they were cartoon caricatures; I probably would have left it, but there you go - another piece of the puzzle.

This was the full whack! All £5.99p of it from TKMaxx! I done did a video di'unt I!

Watch, enjoy, hear my evil laugh at my secured plunder! Yeah . . . I'm still learning the movie thing, each time I watch it I see another error, or niggle I'd change, but this is the third edit (I think) and each one takes a while to get right, and involves looking for folders that hide themselves in the system!

I like the Killer Croc character as it's a straight-lift from Marvel's Hulk, but with knobs-on! 

Here's our Graham, chooks - with a quick reminder! They are the smaller size at around 50mm (Batman), I don't know what Robin thinks he's wearing, but it was Pride the other day, maybe he is trying to tell us something we've already guessed!

Another day; another charity shop; another Phidal; another license! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with up to six enemies (which is unusual for TMNT toy lines!), the trope with this set is that the play-mat is also a board-game with simple mechanics. Other sets can be puzzles, magnetic flats (fridge magnets!) or sucker-flats.

Note also, that it points to another source of these sets (as yet unknown to me) selling at £4.71p (with VAT), that's more than a  quid less than TKMaxx and over half the price of WHSmiths, yet crooks on feebleBay are selling them BIN for 12.99-a-set (plus post!) with no book! It's criminal, but that's capitalism.

Given the locations of both me and the found object (Basingrad) it may be a Reading Warehouse (Tadley) thing, but it's been years since I was last there.

I can't work out if it's missing a green tentacle-armed humanoid, a larger black, white and yellow monster or a small turquoise rolling-die, but the eleven-count is wrong. A slightly older set (dated 2014), it seems the figures with bases are newer, while the older sets (I've found dates back as far as 2006/7 now, I think) tended to be baseless.

While I had them all out together (new container, for a growing sample pile) I did a quick scaler or two, although they are marked (by me) and measure up as 54mm, the princesses are a tad smaller than the Lone Star sailor, due in no small part to his chunky base and hat!

The thing with these Phidal's is; there's no rhyme or reason to size, I thought it might be due to cost, but with one set having twelve 60 or 65mm figures and another have 12 45mm figures (or their cartoon equivalent) it seems that the only 'rule' is that within sets figures should be in-scale, but even there; two DC sets, or two Marvel sets, two Frozen sets, two Disney Princess sets can be completely different scales from each other!