S is for Shelfie-fest!

So to a shelfies round-up, with various bits that for whatever reason weren’t bought but were shot on the shelf and have been added to the queue (which is rapidly becoming a mountain!) since July, in the order in which they were added;

I shot this in Smyths, it's a lovely model (and there were other sets - without figures) but I will never have the room or inclination to start collecting items of farm machinery a foot-long!

But, for ID'ing figures it's worthy of a shelfie, and looking at the base I think we have New Ray as a contender for the originator of Juan's 'Unknown'stretcher team the other day? I say 'originator' as New Ray have done a lot of contract manufacturing and been copied by several rivals, but the heavy, slightly chamfered base is a goodish match!

In the middle of August I found the source of the odd dinosaur set looked at here issued by D&D Distribution in the 'States; our old friends Tobar, which means they should be findable in Hawkin's Bazaar, these were in Sainsbury's and although quite reasonable, and my still needing two or three poses, I didn't get them as it's not a priority and buying a toob of mostly duplicates of things which will turn up in charity shops (as the previously posted did) seemed idiotic, so I shelfied them.

At the end of August Brian attended the Goshen Fair in Connecticut (like our County fairs, with truck-pulls . . . and - strangely - a cow pie bingo? I bet it didn't still have the horns!!!) and sent a few shelfies of stuff he found at a stall there. This shot is not really SSW-fayre, but nevertheless it's nice to see kids can still get the rack-toy stuff that kept us occupied out doors in the fine weather that always seems to accompany memories of childhood . . .

. . . when you're not remembering long wet days in a North Welsh cottage, playing patience and arguing about nothing with your brother! Dart guns, cap guns, Japanese swords, ninja throwing-stars, a compass and a S.W.A.T. badge - what's not to like there!

More of the same!

This is the future, right there! Stalls like this aren't yet 'predominating' but they are becoming more numerous at all shows, Sandown has lots, there were at least two people dealing exactly this kind of thing at Plastic Warrior, and you can't really stop it without imposing a dateline on the show, which would preclude much of interest otherwise.

And look at them - they're NOT rare - but the fact is - there's money in it and there's a demand for it, and there are so many of them, it's hard to keep track . . . it's a much bigger branch of the hobby than ours, but you can't help feeling . . . helpless, when you see it spreading across the show-halls like a virus!

[Wispers - I've got hundreds of the little bleeders, they breed in their box, I swear it!]

Brian also sent this; American piggy-wigs . . . destined for a S.P.A.M. tin? Two points; one - they look just like the pigs my Grandfather was breeding in the 1960's in North Nott's, and two - they look just like Britains piggy-wigs, especially the piglet scuffling (no spellcheck, that's a real word!) near the camera, cheers Brian . . . made my day!

Shot these in TKMaxx a couple of weeks ago, nothing special, but they are ID'ing some farm animals I think we've seen here (they may be in a post not used yet from Rack Toy Month, but I think they were in a post a while ago?) and some of those smaller dinosaurs of which I now have about six or eight sets all marked CHINA in the same lettering but clearly from different sources, sculptor, paint-shop &etc.

Branded to WowToyz, they will be in other brandings, elsewhere, for sure.

Finally a week ago I shot these in Poundland, then weakened and bought the Dino's, even though I suspected they were the same as the little tub of four from The Works (which they proved to be, even down to colours), while the unicorns stayed on the shelf as poor copies of Iwako.

It's now a race to see whether unicorns will be bigger than mermaids this Christmas, flamingos had their day a year or two ago now (and were a more grown-up thing), but cacti are waiting in the wings! I mean it - blow-ups, erasers, candles, pencil tops, puzzles, big-box toys (not cacti!), printed-fabric items, stuffed-toys (including cactuses!) colouring books, cards . . . yada-yada . . . that's shelfies for a while.