S is for Shelfies - TJ / TK Maxx

So; I take the odd shelfie or two every time I go to TKMaxx in Basingrad and while a lot of them are of not much interest, they are all figural, so have at least some relevance, and this is a round-up of the last few month's-worth.

Remember that weird Superman with foam wings, who came-in in a mixed lot, got photographed and went back to charity? Well, the mystery seem to be solved; modern-to-current, made by an i-Star Entertainment and being fired by means of an older type pull-cord mechanism and a more techie' trigger which seems to momentarily store the kinetic energy. And - apart from missing the trigger and pull cord, mine was probably/vaguely complete?

Chad Valley are very much a trading brand now, having been resurrected and gone bust, bough by Woolworth's and gone bust, bought by Argos, bought by or sheared with Sainsbury's . . . and cleared through TKMaxx, while both organs are themselves still trading!

The figures (54/60mm) look familiar and I feel I've seen them before somewhere, but then they would be bought-in, as a trading brand Chad Valley does no original manufacturing itself anymore. Indeed; I think the building has the same sticker as the Ja-Ru (?) set Brian shelfied a year or two ago? But the figures are from somewhere else, the helicopter a common rack-toy trope, the traffic-cone from elsewhere?

Sub-scale shuttle and intermediate scale figures (around the 30/35mm mark IIRC) from Johntoy of the Netherlands, but I was drawn to the satellites which would go well with my Airfix HO-OO astronauts, but it wasn't particularly cheap so I left it one the shelf!

Diving out of TKMaxx for a moment I shot these dolls house accessories in Flying Tiger a while ago, notable for the fact that as polymers continue to be implicated in mass pollution, environmental damage, infertility, biological-androgyny and extinction, wood and metal will regain their lost roles in the toy industry . . . as they will in the kitchen, garden and garage/shed!

Back to the Max' and every boy's Christmas fantasy was a big box with everything in it, and this isn't far off! You even get a small forest of poplar trees! Shit image means I can't read the full logo but it's looks like Play Fund, Play Land or Play Pound (as in 'Dog Pound')? This is likely a phantom-branded packaging - several of the vehicles are recognisable from the multi-brand post a couple of Rack-Toy Month's ago.

The kneeling police sniper is an old (and as we've seen here at SSW in the past) much copied Ja-Ru sculpt, so I assume the others will be two, all-six drawn from a larger 'menu' of figures, produced by a contract manufacturer somewhere.

Just because it's figural . . . and may turn-up in a mixed lot! It says 'Brick' so may be Duplo-sized/compatible?

Seen at the London Toy fair in January '18, seen them in TKMaxx before, Interplay's Fairy Garden the fairy is another one likely to turn-up in mixed lots and may be of use to fantasy collectors, if only to have the game-master declare her 'captured by Orcs' and demand her rescue as a game-wining aim!

Phidal - smaller toy/book confection, and aimed at much younger readers than the full-size My Busy Books, can use non-licensed stuff without hitting sales, not that they aren't loosely based on My Little Pony, but them isn't MLP only a further commercialisation of the pink, yellow and blue animals transfer-printed on our cots and play-pens by Pedigree Triang Mettoy fifty years ago?

We saw a couple here in a mixed lot a while back, both went back to charity the next day, Peterkin are behind this juvenilia.

Two brand-marks here, Country Life and My Lovely Horse, both from Johnjoy out of Holland (a place called Waddinxveen), not my thing, but for farm collectors, horse collectors or animal collectors, they may have appeal, clearly going after the Breyer market, which both Schleich and Papo are also chasing these days.

If Tomy are to do anything useful with that Britains Farm property of theirs, they might do well to dump the Britains tools, double (or halve?) the scale and go after a slice of this bandwagon's pie!

That's yer'bunch of mixed shelfies; with one exception, all recently or currently from TKMaxx.