P is for . . . No! Absolutely Not! W is for Wenno!

I shot all these in Smyths and wondered if Wenno was an in-house or phantom brand for Smyths, but a quick Google revealed they are a 2014-founded anglicised subsidiary of Shing Hing who's SH marked Matchbox copy 'Army man' tub we saw here a few years ago, also found in Smyths, so there's that! And we've seen two of them before, in another store.

These are not the same as the ones in the tub (next, below), and may have been around for a while, as I know I've had some come in, in mixed lots/donations, the larger pigs for certain, and it's a traditional cheapie in sense that there's quite a bot of duplication in the bag, but not many sculpts; 5 or 6, 6 or seven 7? But reasonably decorated compared to the old rack-toy farm stuff of yesteryear!

 

These are larger, and more like the Peterkin's we looked at the other day, with the larger scale poultry and rabbits etc. Of interest, and another similarity with Peterkin, is the use of smaller unpainted animals in with the larger one.

I'm sure I'm not the only one, who, on glancing at something on eBay or at a show, and deciding it's needed for the collection, have got it home,/had it delivered, only to find it's a piece of shite, and that I already have a better one? Well, that's because when you're scrolling dozens of tables at a show or hundreds of eBay or auction lots, you are visually overloading your brain, and snap decisions are made without the full facts.

It would seem the latest thing going round the cheapo-toy factories of China is to fill the tubs, buckets and header-carded bags with a few big animals/dinosaurs and a bunch of small ones, to overload the casual browser, in order to get them to think the contents are better than they might be, and take them to the till!

 

Obviously a tropical farm with those palm-trees!

The above two sets were seen in B&M over last Christmas and posted in another lot of shelfies, back in February, but here they are again, further proving the independence of the brand (mused upon then, too), and still looking reasonable, if not decorated to the same standard as the Schliech they were placed near! But then, at 12-quid, you'd be lucky to get two of Schleich's!

 

A couple of aisles over, and in the same line as the farm tub, was this set of dinosaurs, also looking quite similar in contents to the Peterkin set the other day, and other's we've seen shelfied here in the past, Tesco supermarkets carried a tub like this a few years ago, if I recall well? It has one huge dino', several middle-sized ones and more undecorated 'mini' fillers.

P is for Portagiochi

I think we just have to face the fact that we aren't going to escape the 'P's this month, and it's not deliberate! I put 'Rack Toys' and 'Toy-rack' into Google Translate, and they both came-up Portagiochi 'portable toys' (?), so that's what I went with, as I like to go native sometimes with these specifically foreign toy posts!

 

Brian Berke visited Italy earlier in the year, and sent lots of photographs to the blog, on various subjects, enough to provide posts for some time, and it's not like Picasa isn't full of older stuff from him, but Picasa is filled with all sorts, it's a case of me getting round to it, like yesterday's fortuitous slamming together of three folders as four posts! Anyway, Brian sent us a flavour of current Italian rack-toy/kiosk fayre, so that what we're looking at here;

Starting with a lovely 'bog standard' set of Army Men, whose card roughly translates as Assault Troop, and while mostly the sort of stuff we've seen in many of these sets, it's interesting for being clearly Italian market graphics and looks to have new sculpts, the green grenade thrower doesn't ring any bells?

 

Apparently branded to Edizioni Nicoletta, these construction and firefighting vehicles will probably be bought in from someone like Pioneer, now Universal have gone and Mattel are sitting pretty with both Matchbox and Hot Wheels under their skirts?

 

Stretch-Dragonball-Strong! A bit out of our comfort zone maybe, but they are sort of solids, in that while squidgy, they have no articulation, and definitely novelty, while also TV-related, and it gets Diramix in the Tag List! There is a fledgling Dragon Balls Z post in the pile, and we've looked at them a couple of times already, so a useful addition to the Tag! Note they've dropped the 'zee' on this Italian packaging, or left it as it's Japanese character. Dragon Ball Super is the current iteration.

 

Nice to see some people can still get realistic cap-guns (even if they aren't actually cap-firers I'm afraid), here in the UK, it's all multicoloured nonsense, if you can find it, and if you do, there's the clear risk of being shot by half-trained police! And we have both cowboy classics (which are sparking I think?) and a more novelty dart-pistol. But it's also the 'Sheriff' badges, and a holster - proper toys!

 

A larger beach/garden type toy, in a net bag, like we're at the seaside and six-years old again! And while also rather outside the remit of the Blog, I know for a fact that fire-engine/firefighter fans follow the blog.

 

Thanks as always to Brian for these, and I've stopped myself cropping most of them for the hints of other stuff in the peripheries of the shots, not least an interesting sea-life set in the first shot! How the Italians are doing rack-toys at the moment!

P is for Peterkin - 4 of 4 - New Purchases

OK, so, probably the best post of the four, as we get a bit closer to them, and they are three new sets! These were a few quid each, so I grabbed the three different ones I saw, and they are not carrying the contents of the sets we've looked at earlier this morning!

The My Farm (possibly the least original title for a set of rack toy farm animals ever!) seems to contain a set of totally different sculpts from the bucket, the Dog World hints at a Cat World, which I would have bought in preference if it had been there, but it wasn't, and it may just be wishful thinking on my part? While we have a set of soldiers, looked at properly, below!

 

The dogs are nicely executed, but let down by a rather nondescript colour scheme, with the dogs moulded in either a white or mid-tan polymer, but then decorated in black or a brown of the same shade? But they seem to be new sculpts, although - famous lasts words - they may well turn-out to be copies of Schleich or Papo or someone like that.

It's one of the big jobs in my future, sorting all this farm-zoo-bird-sea life-insect-dinosaur stuff out, and attributing it all properly, but hopefully when I get stuck into the A-Z blogs properly, it will all come together better, for now, we look at this stuff just to help ID some of it!

The horse has a rather daft face (the bucket horse is much better) but the rest of the set is reasonably good, and well decorated for the price-point/rack-toy type, while a smaller bag is stapled into the larger carrier, with the poultry in it, clearly they are a separate tool and get passed across the factory-floor after decoration/sorting!

 

The military set contains 16 figures around 54/60mm (depending on the pose), and they seem to be copies of the New Ray figures (which must be 20+years old now), but the quality of them suggests they may be from the New Ray tool, I won't be able to say until I've compared them all . . . 'them' being several other sets of clones, along with the originals!

 

They are numbered on the underside of the base (or the belly of the prone figure), which will also help with the tool comparison, and are that 'first' Gulf War (liberation of Kuwait) uniform style, US GI's. As you can see, cavity 5 is closer to 70mm if he stands up!

 

So that's Peterkin given more coverage that they probably deserve in one day, but nice to see someone importing that amount of cheap pocket-money stuff these days!

P is for Peterkin - 3 of 4 - Shelfies

If you happen to be within comfortable driving distance of Borden in Hampshire, there is a Peterkin motherlode to be mined in the big Farm Shop there (Malthouse and Osborne Farms, Country Market, Garden Centre, Farm Shop & Shopping Village), along with a lot of Siku and Maisto farm stuff! It's only ten-minutes up the road from Bird World too, or five minutes from the Monkey thing at Alice Holt!

The farm sets take up a fair bit of the shelf space, as farm is the main theme with all the stocked toys, at a Farm Shop! I did purchase some Peterkin (next post) but the bagged farm had very different contents/sculpts from the big tub (which was only £8.99, but I was feeling tight, and don't have the room right now), so they are obviously using different sources in China, for these sets.

Wild/zoo animals and dinosaurs again.

 

Both the farm and wild animals sets in these tubs share the quirk of the dinosaur sets in having the bulky, paint-decorated animals filled-out with smaller-scale 'monobloks' in bright colours of polymer, and all the animals seem to be PVC-types, but the scenic accessories are polyethylene or polypropylene?

And the medieval set was there.

These are the sets which have managed four previous mentions in the Tag List, not something for me, I think I called them Juvenilia last time! And when they have come in, in mixed lots, they have gone back to charity soon-enough, but someone may be interested (some of our fellow collectors chase Lego or Playmobil after all?), and they are figural, if a bit daft, so I shot them, and they are here now!

P is for Peterkin - 2 of 4 - Spring Fair '23

A few weeks after the London Toy Fair in January, I went to the Spring Gift Fair in Birmingham, at Peter Evans' advising, and - for rack toys - it was probably better than the Olympia show, certainly Peterkin had a much better stand, and I shot more there. I should add, I've not managed any of the Trade Fairs this year!

A bit blurred!

Those dragons!

The tower

 

Only more of the same, and I nearly posted them altogether, but as I'm likely to do the Gift Fair more regularly, thought I'd tag it separately, so two posts were the result, and while only the two tubs were out on display at both shows, a year-and-a-half ago, there were a farm and zoo set in tubs, and the next post will show how the line has expanded since.

P is for Peterkin - 1 of 4 - Toy Fair '23

Seems to have been all the 'P's this month, sometimes that how the cookie crumbles! A quick look at Peterkin, who were founded in the 1950's as W.J.Brown (Toys) Ltd., and changed their name to Peterkin in 1995, probably at the changing of the generations (?), and who have managed to get their Tag in the list four times so far, mostly for younger kid's toys.

 

 

We actually looked at these in the Supreme mini-season, back in '22 where they were generics off of that Amazon, after previously being under the Toy Major label, currently here in Peterkin packaging, and the best way to get them if you haven't yet, as you get both foot and mounted with siege engines, along with two dragons and a tower.

 

While there was also a dinosaur set on display with a mix of larger, decorated models, and smaller 'monobloc' types in brighter-coloured plastics. I know where you can get these in the Central Southeast (forthcoming post), but they should be findable on-line, as everything is on-line . . . Somewhere!

A is for Around and About!

I've managed to find a few rack-toys in the last few months, and here's a few, one as a shelfie, just for fun, the others now in the stash, but not opened yet, one day some of them may be, but really, when it comes to the animals or dinosaurs, it's more about being able to ID 'unknowns' at some future date, than any need to get them out and set them up or play with them!

 

The shelfie, I think this was The Works, but it might have been Asda? Imported by PS Imports of Belfast, NI (so probably Asda?), I thought they were worth a shot, as we saw these years ago, as a net-bagged set from New York, courtesy of Brian B, and also - the tug - as a miniature capsule-toy type, with possibly an archive shot, yet here they are again, a probably 1960's 'dimestore' design (or tool?) still turning-up as new, decades after they first came to market. It was a non-chain discount store in Aldershot.

Three bags of those larger, hollow, two-part soft, polyethylene/hybrid plastic animals, the dinosaurs look familiar, but I suspect not because we've seen them branded before, but there may have been some loose ones kicking around at some point, or the decoration is similar to others we've seen?

 

All three sets are imported by Kandy Toys, and are the modern equivalent of the old 'box scale' being more accurately 'unit price scale'! Found in a general/hardware or convenience store in Farnham of all places, I hope to visit the castle there in the next few days, and will check out the gift shop, but suspect (in conversation with Peter Evans the other day) it will all be Schleich/Papo or Westair/Ancestors?

While this is another BJ Toys set, found on my rounds, in a newsagent's over Fernhurst way, I think, a few weeks ago. Both solids, I thought they were rather good for what they are, with a good wing-area to body ratio making the dragon realistically airworthy, and the fantasy knight being toward the Schlich-Papo-ELC size at around 65/70mm, and maybe a copy of the same or similar - Wilkinson's/Wilco also had a nice range in the last few years of their existence.

R is for Real Rack Toys!

Possibly concerned by the lack of rack-toys in Rack Toy Month here at Small Scale World, Peter Evans and Brian Berke both sent me rack toy images on the same day, earlier in the week just gone, and here they are! There are some more in the queue, and I'll try to get them out this week, by holding the PW show-report stuff 'till September; welp - better late than never!

This was the one from Peter, and he's kept one for me, so we'll have a closer look at it another day, for now, suffice to say they are Britains Deetail copies, in the same vein as those from 'H', Webb's Supertoy, or Kwong Wah, and something we will have to properly sort-out one day! The accessories are cloned from the much-licenced Crossbow & Catapults game.

20-11-2024 - Now here and in the queue, issuer is Arty & Mell S.L., of Madrid.

 

This is probably the most useful one from Brian, imported by JMC Allstar, and the picture on the back shows even more in the range, not least a very useful-looking HO-compatible building of the lineside/railway type (top left of the lower picture), some useful scenics and a towed artillery piece in a very 1:32nd-compatable size, taken from New Ray I think?

 

More aimed at infants, but construction vehicle collectors may be interested?

An oddity;  from a Xinleyang it says 'Fruit Cash Register', but contains an assortment of doll's furniture and a small, lilac, fantasy fort, with a Funko-style/headed doll! Artwork is all a bit retro with a Strawberry Shortcake vibe!

There's a fish, crab and lobster!

Novelty figural, magnetic puzzle.

The rest are from Hunson (and JPW/OKK), who haven't had a new entry in the tag list for a while now; Brian pointed out that it's been a while since he's found new Rack Toys to show us (but in fact ha has sent a few in recent donations).

 

The farm and wild animals, along with the unicorn (a My Little Pony rip-off?) are quite juvenile/cutesie sculpts, although the muntjac (?) and baby elephant both look passable, however, the sea life set appears to have more realistic mouldings overall, which, if that genre is your 'thing' should be a must for the wants list, if you haven't found them yet.

 

Many thanks to both contributors for these, and they are all out there, now, somewhere, it's just a matter of tracking them down, in a market that seems to have little place for them these days. I will try and get a sea-side visit in, over the next few weeks to see what can still be found there, as Brian had some success in that direction a few years ago?