Z is for Zoological . . .

God! That was obvious; could have used that years ago! Anyway, when we looked at Peter Evans' donation the other day I said we'd look at the Poundland (for that is who they are!) animal pairs again properly as I had myself grabbed a sample . . . while keeping an eye out for the supposed 'series 2' dinosaurs one assumes will - at some point - follow the series 1's we looked at a while ago!

The two sets together, they did have a set of dogs a while ago, but firstly they were really big and secondly they seemed to only send a few to each store, so getting a whole set or even knowing how many were in the set wasn't easy, so I thought "Well . . . they'll come in loose some time"!

But these are more straightforward for several reasons, first they're smaller and in pairs so you can pick them up quicker (I may try to get all of them now my 'sample' has become a fledgling 'collection'!) and they are on the back (we'll look at it below) so you know what you're looking for - the dog-packs had no such 'check-list'.

I think she's supposed to be a lioness (see card back below) but the sculpt appears to be far more textured than the press-photo's presumed master or early test-shot and the darker colour of the cheap paint-job (Heay, they’re 50p-each we can't be too judgemental!) takes her further still from lionid'ness! I think a repaint as a leopard could prove quite successful?

The ape is lovely, I think someone has confused him by doing the cup-&-ball trick with three buckets and a banana!

Again the rhinoceros looks quite different from the shot below, while the polar bear is looking the other was - which might be down to an image mix-up, but the days of upside-down negatives in art studios is long gone, replaced by digital imagery; where you'd have to chose to invert an image? But both nice for the money.

Four more pairs? If I track them down we'll return to look at the rest, but for now, thanks to Peter Evans for doubling the 'sample' and they're in Poundland now if you're passing.