H is for How They Come In - November 2020

Right, now I have 26 posts in the 'H is for How . . . ' sector, and there were 25 until I turned this into two, so there may be 30 or more by the time we've worked through them all!

Also it's a year since I had to call the ambulance that would ultimately end in the loss of my Mother last January, and while I carried on blogging while she was 'only' unwell, it did tail off, to a complete hiatus in the new year, and one of the first things to go was the How They Come In posts.

Now life's all just the long slog of dealing with the estate (a nightmare for another day), it's time to clear these off the laptop, so, in the vague order they came in, that's what I'll be doing in the run-up to Christmas, alternating with other posts to 'mix it up'! And we're starting with this little lot that Peter Evans sent the Blog last November - shots taken on the 5th of that month, they may have got here a day or two earlier

Four modern rack toys and a loose bunch of bits, including the Culpitt's dove-ring we saw in a small poultry/birds follow-up a year ago. The loose figures are the rubbery Shing Hing (SH) we've seen before, they were (still are?) big-bucket stuff in big-store Smyths and are dominating evilBay-lots of this type at the moment!

These aren't in the main picture, so may have come from elsewhere (Charity shop!), but the photo was in sequence with Peter's stuff (taken half-an-hour later though?) and he's certainly sent similar to the blog in the past, so for now - they came with this lot! One or two maker's; sea life, they'll get sorted with all the others for a sea life overview at some point.

PMS blister-carded set; a few leery orange figures of poor quality, a weird gun which is everywhere on Alibaba at the moment and a truck with huge stickers which looks as if it's supposed to be advertising a fantastic movie or a two-player 'shoot-em-up' video game!

The artillery piece reappears in this set, nominally credited to an obvious phantom-brand (sticker, as an afterthought); Toys as Fun, and imported by Habib (UK) Ltd., from an unknown factory in Shantou City, the figures (two balanced 'armies' of randomly picked poses) also share poses with the previous set, but are different mouldings.

From the same source comes this farm set with the larger type of animal, although when I say 'farm' I'm following the packaging and ignoring the inclusion of a bison/wisent buffalo, and the palm-tree! I had actually found one of these in my local, independent, everything-cheap store a few weeks earlier, which I had de-bagged (Ooh missus!), so they are the photo-shot on the right, Peter's will remain a mint-bagged example.

Comparing the contents of the three sets; you can see that the figures (1-3) are very different in both size and finish, with the PMC's (1) much larger and yet cruder than the Habib/Fun set, who are finished to a higher quality. Likewise the farm palm (6) is larger, yet cruder that the also Habib/Fun 'combat' pair (5). A whole jungle (4) from a few rack-toys . . . you wouldn't get that from Airfix, Britains or Timpo bargain!

But the guns - from both sets  -are identical, suggesting the contents of both are bought-in 'mix-and-match' from more than one (or two) sources. While, from the construction method, the 'fire-brigade' helicopter also came from the gun-maker, and is a copy of slightly better ones we've seen before. The tank is what it is!

This, though, apart from the weirdly poor/odd wheels/tyres, is a bit of a zinger! I had seen them on feeBay and Ali' in various sets/configurations including singles from one of those multiple listings where wholesaled set-contents are broken down as a shopping-list, and I thought I'd got one, but didn’t find it when I put Peter's away, so may only have the one still.

But, wheels aside, it's good for Hong Kong/China shite! The forks would make it more of a Zundapp than a BMW, but in the heavy 750cc class, and it is perfect for taking the old Britains Deetail figures who; being pretty indestructible PVC; seem to survive their die-cast mounts in some numbers.

The other item was a large, infant's floor-toy of an insurgent's 'technical' pick-up truck with twin-cannon in the rear cargo-bed. It seems to have a hole in the cab-roof for an emergency beacon/light, so there may be construction, police or fire versions out there? Imported by Goodiez Ltd., another new tag for the tag list!

I really can't hold on to this larger, poorer stuff, so after photographing it (I take a dozen or so against future posts) it went off to charity in time for someone to get it for Christmas, and I thank Peter for sharing it with us first, along with everything else in this post.

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Added 20th Nov. 2021 - My version of the farm set turned out to be a blister-carded set rather than the header-carded bottle-bag set of Peter's donated one, contents were the same but under the added stickers was a clue to either a manufacturer, or another phantom-branding . . . 

. . . namely Wei Ni Da, who real or phantom are currently offering this on Egyptian Amazon! So wheels within wheels and another brand-mark for the tag list . . . as I asked on Moonbase the other a while ago, "Does it never end?"!