S is for Seasonal Selfies

I haven't been so hot on shelfies this year, but to be honest, when I HAVE been out, I haven't noticed much change, or activity in the retail environment, beyond the slow death of the High Street which predates the stagnation of SarsCov-2 / Covid-19?

However I did manage a quick tip to Basingrad about four weeks ago, and shot a few shelfies which may be of interest to some.

The main seam I mined was B&M Stores where the stuff was mostly generics sub-branded to them, and while these aren't the best images; you can see the main elements of this knock-off Jurrasic Park play set are six mini-dino' models, a larger T-Rex and a bitey-head thing!

This was fun if only for having an all-new sculpt of a WWII German Tiger tank (around 1:48th) desperately in need of a re-paint, along with an 88mm FlaK-gun on a truck, on what's best described (with all fingers crossed) as a naval or coastal mounting! It's closer to 1:35th scale. The set has no figures, so is of limited value, if 'value' comes into it at 15-quid!

These - at first glance - look like the usual Matchbox and New Ray copies, but are actually closer to 65/70mm and new sculpts, there is an equal number of green ones shaken-down below the paper insert!

A display of over-blown, unnecessary, ornamental Christmas stuff along the lines of Lemax (and other) crimbo villages etc . . . and of all the stuff in this post, the least likely to still be available at time of publishing, but they'll be back next year, B&M tend to carry lines for two or three years, from my observations?

While it's fair to argue that on one level all Xmas stuff is unnecessary, I find the piles of mawkishly sentimental, faux-Victoriana, poured-resin shite  to be about the worst sinner on a dying world, but nevertheless; it is a source of figures, for figure collectors! I could find hypocritical room for the animal bandstand (at sale prices?!!), the elephant with bass/cello reflects an old Lik Be sculpt.

I also found a soft-spot in my armour of cynicism for this polar-bear with passengers, not that I actually bought one, like all poured resin (or whitemetal) it's hideously expensive for what it is and/or how it came about!

Leaving B&M, I only found one thing in TKMaxx worth shooting (no Phidal at all this year), which was this Redbox 'Motormax' Police Station Playset, or actually RBI (Red Box International) as they are calling themselves these days, following their Tai Sang sister-company Blue Box (BBI)'s modern naming-system and corporate structuring!

It's four new poses of US-style policemen! they were about 50mm I think and there's far more play-value in this set than the military one with the Tiger, above. That's it really, we have looked at Christmas shelfies from Poundland and Wilkinson's here as Small Scale World this year, I have a post to come from Poundland, but there was nothing of toy-interest in Wilkinson's (Wilco).