W is for Weird Science!

Sadly not Kelly LeBrock at her finest, or even in her finest underwear, but rather; maggots and a worm-mould! Another Halloween post, even though this wasn't being specifically sold with the season in mind, it's the sort of stuff we see at this time of year, as well as being a useful addition to any insect/invertebrate collection, and would make nice 'going-home' presents at Halloween parties, or alternative trick-or-treat prizes.

 

Totally nasty weird science! I think I got this in one of those independent or small chain Poundland lookie-likies, but I can't honestly remember, so I'm not naming anyone, but they are out there somewhere, I did study the other bags in the dispenser and conclude that this was it, whether another carton would have bags with different contents remains to be seen, but I suspect not, this seems to be a one-off novelty item.

You get a bag of maggots to start playing with straight away, and to keep playing with if the moulding exercise proves less than successful, a small, simple mould of two worms (or a worm and a caterpillar?) a spider and a pile of eggs (or a pupa?), and a bag of powdered gel ('goo') mix, not edible jelly thought, rather, I suspect that dentists moulding compound, some small-batch toys soldiers may be being made out of at the moment, not a long-laster?

Those maggots in full! Similar to other maggots seen here at Small Scale World! Out there now, somewhere! Issued by RMS International (previously seen here with a horse-transporter), Google revealed a larger boxed version of this set, and other products under the Weird Science brand-marking.

L is for Late Show Report - Odds & Sods

Getting towards the end of the plunder posts from May's Toy Solder show in Whitton/Twicker's, and it's the bits and pieces which didn't really belong in any of the other posts, but there's a few interesting things among the detritus, dingbats and doobries!

 

Vehicle parts and hand-tools; these will all go to the spares zone until needed/matched with their owners, although of course I know the searchlight mount is Airfix and the horse furniture is Lone Star. The larger machine-gun is actually a copy of the early Airfix one from the Attack Force APC.

I think the two hands are from a Koala bear stuffed toy, they could be from a similarly described mole, but there was a range of tourist keepsake Koala's back in the 1960's, where the Koala's were stuffed rigid; more like taxidermy, rather than 'cuddly', and I suspect these hands are from one of those? We looked at a similar Kiwi from across the straits, here.

Mostly Christmas cracker charms and similar novelties, probably from the very cheapest crackers, or the mini 'tree decoration' crackers. The blue thing I don't know, the khaki piece - some kind of removable hatch from a vehicle or building, with a couple of larger novelties and an old Toy Show badge.

 

I seem to have a large tub of toy show badges, both my own 'earned attendance' examples and a bagful from Brian Carrick, once, and there's a quandry as to what to do with them as they slowly gather in an ever growing pile, they have the nostalgia of past shows, but no real use?

This was in one of the donation bags, and is interesting for being an obviously early piece of plastic, clearly a dolls house item, and it will need careful paint-stipping, there is a sprung-loaded mechanism, which allows the baby chair to switch between rocker, low chair and high-chair, for meal times and has a built-in potty! It's un-marked, and obviously I don't collect this stuff, but it clearly has some historical value, which is probably why it was given to me?

 

Large, rigid, foamed-rubber (or a similar material) scenics, I think they are modern, possibly Early Learning Centre (ELC) or a similar source, and certainly scaled for the larger figurines, they will nevertheless prove useful as future photo-props or display back-drops.

A few more scenics, there's a whole box of the orange log-cabins somewhere, and a growing post on them in the queue, as they come with or without paint, in two sizes, and from several 'names' as well as many generic sets, we saw them here previously in a Pikit Toys set, I think?

 

Lego bush/shrub, a Hong Kong poplar tree which has been home-painted, a pond in need of a railing, and a railing from something else, a vehicle, I think?

 

In Brian C's bag were these glass-tablet WHW tokens, not military, they consist of two from a set of landmark buildings, and a pair of runes, from that set. Ironic, as, being runes they are of interest to lexicographers and etymologists, but, they - the runic symbols - were, by the time of the set, being bowdlerized to provide iconography for the Nazi party and it's war-machine, with various civil and paramilitary unit formation signs, logotypes and SS divisional/unit flashes being based upon the old Nordic runes!

 

Both sets seem to come in many colours of glass, and a couple of variations of paint/layout/final decoration, so we can assume several glassworks were involved, either over time, as separate//repeat issues, or just in providing the hundred's of thousands, or millions, necessary for such a promotion.

These - from Trevor - must be from those mini tree-crackers, they are officially the smallest-scale item in the collection now, I believe, and while I have obviously, and absent-mindedly, placed Admiralty Arch upside down (I initially thought it was a crude 'White Tower' I think!), the icons of London's skyline are pretty clear, with St. Paul's Cathedral, The clock-tower for Big Ben and Tower Bridge being included in a set of otherwise unknown number.

Obverse and reverse of the Lone Star horse furniture from the articulated draft-house we saw here, with my earlier (brown plastic), damaged, collar compared to the new, complete one, and the non-seating saddle for cart/wagon/implement poles.

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

G is for Go Space Trucking!

Really - 'futuristic' trucks!

 

Panhard 1951Titan IE 45 HL Pathe Marconi

 

This existed as one of several futuristic/novelty builds, used for advertising, or as crew-vehicles for teams or media outlets in the Tour de france or Grand Prix circuits of the 1940-50's, sometimes, like the Weiner mobile in the US.

General Motors 1964 Bison concept truck

Chevrolet 1965 Turbo Titan II concept truck

Ford 1966 Big Red Turbo concept truck

 

It's funny, but my childhood was quite liberally sprinkled with iconography related to 'space trucking'? From early articles in World of Wonder magazine on futuristic trucks, through the various multi-wheeled, articulated beasts in the backgrounds of strips or TV series like Dan Dare or Thunderbirds, through Deep Purple's hit, also Space Trucking, and my first Def Leppard album, bought from scrimped pocket-money; On Through the Night, which had a bog-standard 'big rig' rocking through space with a giant, tarpaulin'ed guitar on the flat bed, issued around the time of the most famous space trucker, no, not Han Solo (although - of course - he counts!), but Lone Starr, the mercenary in a Winnebago, from Space Balls!

 

There were a few images in the many sci-fi art books I had, the daft strip in 2000AD; Ace Trucking Co., and the equally interesting vehicles on the elevated freeways of Megacity One and the badlands of the Cursed Zone, and then, Mad Max (and a Plethora of straight to VHS knock-offs - the iconic Herkimer Battle Jitney being notable), while the above four were among many, swirling about in the background of the public conscience.

 

Latterly, we have had Fry and Leela, in Futurama, but they had a more 'conventional' spaceship! All the while, Matchbox, Corgi and Mattel (Hot Wheels) had been producing ever more whacky die-cast spacey trucks in an attempt to hold market share . . . but the dime-store guys had already been there, in the 1950's, before I was born!

 

I can't find this on Google, I'm sure it's been through the Internet at some point, probably various points, but apart from a slightly streamlined Ford saloon (sedan) car, also by Palitoy (for this is theirs), I couldn't find anything about it.

 

The front wheels are a little low, due to the ageing of the thin celluloid (?) belly-pan, which holds a crude steering system, and from, the warping of the plastic, not severe, but there, it must be contemporaneous with the aircraft, we've been working through since the early days of the blog, so the hope must be that more will be out there to find

Gilmark's fire engine (missing a ladder, I suspect, but so is every example I can find on Google!), is probably more accidentally futuristic, being 'just' a toy? The chassis designed - like Beeju's - to take different bodies/loads, and having a tip-back cab, so you can 'work' on the engine!

 

The beauty of all these dime-store types, whether military, civilian or space/futuristic, is that they go quite well with the smaller scales, and both these would suit 23-28mm figures, so your Giant, LB (Lik Be) or Airfix astronaut/space figures, through to role-playing stuff?

A couple of comparison shots, I have a few more dime-store type, rigid-bodied 'space trucks' in the collection, and we may have seen one or two over the years, and a bus (?), but this is my first 'Artic' (articulated/tractor-trailer) type wagon, and hopefully we'll return to them when they all come together, or I find more Palitoy efforts, or even a Gilmark ladder?

 

These both came in at the weekend, last, but I'm not doing a show-report, or, I might do one on the loose figures and bits, but most of what I bought on Saturday, was specifically for posts, given everything else is in storage now! "Go Space Trucking"!

L is for Late Show Report - Animals, Farm & Zoo!

You could subtitle this post 'Wot no dinosaurs?', as it's rare show these days, where there isn't at least one dino' among the plunder, but, with the exception of the double-headed monster we looked at the other day, there were no dinosaurs at all, in this year's PW plunder, four legs or two!

A few interesting pieces here, along with a broken Britains flamingo, but I may have spare legs for it? The Cherilea panda is not common, and from the hollow-cast I believe, while the croc' is Clairet? The giraffe may be Clairet as well, I can't remember, and is missing a hoof, but stands as a sample (on the back of the crocodile!), and while the gorilla on the right is a bog-standard one-of-meany, the one on the left (from Stad's) is new to Blog with the key-ring/charm-loop.

 

This was silly, I saw the painted cow, and thought "Looks like the Tudor Rose" (which I don't need!), but I couldn't read anything on the belly, and as it looked interesting, grabbed it in a rummage-tray lot, only to find it was the T*R one, heavily painted at some point, with poster paint, which soon washed-off on the Sunday as I processed through the plunder . . . hay-ho!

Looking like the Britains late, PVC version, I think this goat is actually the New Ray moulding? Two Matchbox cattle, one with horns, the other, later one (brown) without horns, from the gift sets. The rest are grist to the mill, with the marbled pig (bottom right), possibly having some value/interest beyond the HK tat of the others.

 

These monochromatics can be found in cheapo' bagged rack-toys, but are as likely from Christmas crackers, particularly the really cheap budget ones, and I seem to have photographed them in such a way as to make it look like the penguin is briefing the poultry on something!

 

"Guys, none of you are safe, voting for Christmas"

 

Three novelty dogs (I think we've had other colours in a Chris Smith donation in the past), could be cracker toys too, or may be low-price (1d or two new pence) gumbal capsule machine prizes, while the tiger who looks like a leopard/panther is a current capsule toy. There is a round-up of capsule toys (with contributions from Peter and Brian) in the 'hopefully by Christmas' queue!

 

More of the same novelty stuff; charm elephants and Scottie-dogs being standard tropes, the micro-mini red plastic take on a carved tusk being more fanciful than the common fare behind it and the donkey/zebra (?) being one of several in a set of chunky sculpts we may or may not have seen here before, I certainly have a few now?

 

And yet more novelties; most of the main tropes covered here, elephants, rockers, charms, Scottie-dogs, other dogs, monkeys, poultry, camels! That blue elephant is about 4mm x 6mm, absolutely tiny.

 

These were mostly in the bag from Trevor, as were a lot of the above novelties, and Trevor has found inordinate amounts of useful stuff for me, over the years, since Paul Morhead put us in touch back in 1995/6?

 

Butterfly hair clips from two sources, and a magnetic fly I remember having as a kid, in that little box. Flies were a standard of the joke shop/novelty section, and still are, flies in fake ice-cubes, flies for real ice-cubes, flies in sugar-lumps, magnetic flies, flies with glowing wings, jumping flies . . . and giant flies! And I've just realised I have to correct both the tags, there's no flys!

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

H is for Haversack of Halloween Horrors from Hobbycraft

Some years I do the Halloween stuff on the 31st October as if it's a sort of 'Pirate Day', but really I should post the stuff has I find it, or at least soon enough for those who want to go and look for it, to do so, so this is what I found in Hobbycraft the other day for a few quid.

 

 

It's in a net bag rather than the usual cellulose, polythene or vinyl bag, but I don't think there's any eco' message there, as it's a polyethylene net! A whole bunch of stuff for a reasonable price, I think it was only about 2.99?

 

Five large spiders and handfuls of the type of spider rings we've seen before at this time of year, in two colours; the rings are pretty-much knock-off's of those previous ones, but the large spider is a new sculpt and pretty mean-looking!

 

You also get four-each of the glow-in-the-dark skeletons, they are a bit crude compared to others, and not very 'glowy' as they are more transparent than glow-material, while the bats are pretty-much, much of a muchness!

 

However, as an addition to the various sets of finger puppets (described as 'toppers' here) we have also seen here at Small Scale World, in previous years, these are the bees knees! Although with my critic's hat on, I thought it was a bit of a swizz that there weren't two orange ones, a slight cheat there! Hobbycraft, now.

L is for Late Show Report - Ancient & Medieval

Or, at least, that's the usual denominator when sorting show plunder, there's no real Ancients in this lot, so we're looking at the dark ages, the 100-Years War and the field of the cloth of gold!

 

Replicants 'new for the show' was this little doozy, and a very useful item, being suitable without driver for a period from around 4000BC until now, in some parts of the world! With the driver we're nicely covered from, what, 1400 to the Wild West?

You get a wagon with removable sides, a slightly put-upon horse and a chap who can look like he's struggling with the horse/load, or up to no good, depending upon how you pose him, he could even be dodging cavalry! Peter Coles' sculpting is another level.
 

I think this is the third or fourth of these 35'ish mm knights, with one or two from Chris Smith, I think and another from somewhere else, and I'm beginning to suspect Poland, without anything concrete, in their archives, but that's purely going on the thick base? And they are softer polyethylene than the output of PZG or it's rivals, with their nylons!

 

Another look at the new ex-Cody March figures from Michael Mordant-Smith, and these are the ones that are 'ready to go', or were, back in May, he's probably cleaned-up a few more now, but compare with the shots in the Introduction post (1st of this month), and you can see how many still need/ed a bit of work. Because these are producible, Michael produced a few, and they were gifted to friends at the show.

 

A bunch of HK/China types, these were in one of the donation bags and will have to be compared with all the others, they look to be a new shade of grey, so I'll probably hang to a few!

 

A poor shot, but I can't retake it, right now! I've bought a few mixed lots of these Cherilea knights, more pop-together than full-on 'swoppet', in various states, and am slowly building a decent sample, but it is shield-light, so these two will prove useful in making-up a complete figure. There's also a spare belt, and I may use one of these bodies, as a first example?

 

Finally, Peter also had these available at the show, last year's peasant musician and this year's Wagoner, but in Robin Hood green, so Alan a'Dale and a whip-handed merry man?!!

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

V is for Variations on a Theme

Nothing earth-shattering or definitive, so much as a few bricks in the wall, on the subject of the two robots seen in the previous post, which I picked-up at Plastic Warrior's show back in May, these are from a number of image folders I have with lots of pulp-era 'dimestore' stuff in, and were probably all shot on Mercator Tradeing's stall over the years.

 

We did have a look at them here before, as well, and some of those in this post may have since joined my sample in the older post, to which the other two will be joined, when everything gets sorted at the other end, where-ever and when-even that is!

 

I shot these on Adrian's table, this Saturday just gone, the reason being I thought it was interesting to show, that while there are some differences between the early and late runs of the old tool, here we have two originals (blue and copper-bronze), and a Glencoe re-issue (turquoise) who all have the same PAT. PEND. (C) mark on the rear of their torsos, latter Glencoe issues had a larger set of marks for some reason, but I've yet to shoot one, I have a sealed set, which I'll open on here one day, and see what marks that's got!

 

While these silver ones have no markings at all, and must be copies? You can tell they're not from the same tool by the lack of a collar/washer on the rivets compared to the Archer originals. I'm pretty sure the one in the two comparison shots is now in my stash, while the top left image of the back was taken at Sandown, at the weekend, and shows a more gunmetal/aluminium coloured moulding. The green one I picked up in May is the same moulding.

Suggesting these (bottom image) are clones too (Ajax, Banner, Dillon or Empire? Maybe Tudor Rose or Kleeware over here? Nobody seems to be 100% sure! Indeed, one source states no one else produced them, which is patently false.), while in the upper shot, I compared them to a few other spacemen from Marx, Manurba (et al) and Torgano., that were available on the day! Really only musing on the robot, I have rather neglected all these dime store era space figures, but soon hope to have the time to play catch-up with all of it.

L is for Late Show Report - Sci-fi, Fantasy, TV & Media

Some interesting items were found or donated in this section back in May, always interesting because all the genres are popular, and have given rise to lots of toys, over the years and decades, so ancient and modern figures turn-up in equal measure. Well, that was a load of flannel, but I've got my opening paragraph! The post from whence came Mr. Chitty, the Potato -headed!

 

The one on the right (Wild Republic) has been seen before several times, but the one on the left (Safari) is new to the Blog, I think. We've seen ten to fifteen or so, sets of these modern astronauts in recent years, which I suspect has more to do with the Chinese space programmes, and Chinese toy manufacturers rather than anything NASA or Musk have done, but whatever the reason there's a lot of it about at the moment!

Last year we saw three of the key-ring spacemen, but I realised when I got them home that I had rejected a probable forth pose, thinking it was a duplicate, but luckily the seller still had it in his stock, so I rectified my daftness and got him this year (large white figure), while the pale blue chap is my first Cracker Jack alien; I think there are eight or ten to find?

 

The others are a pair of Matchbox Adventure 2000 figures, still attached to each other, a Crossbows & Catapults barbarian, a Galoob Xpanders knock-off and a teeny-tiny astronaut, probably from those decorative mini tree-crackers?

Four of the standard size Christmas cracker angel/putti orchestra, there are several types/generations of them, and they all get separated and sorted into their own types' bag.

From the left we have a modern Tootsietoy Flash Gordon, a bendy taken from a Japanses Tokusatsu, probably the Ultraman franchise, the missing blue 'goldfish bowl' spaceman, which I celebrated immediately after the show, and Applause's vinyl figurine of the Rocketeer, which I have been after for years!

An Ajax/Archer full size robot, to join the others, and chrome-plated modern copy from the re-issue 'magic' question/answer games, with a sub-size copy from the same sculpt-set in between, I happen to have picked up another of the smaller ones yesterday at Sandown, in the copper finish, this off-gold or dirty-silver being less common, I feel?

Chris Smith found the caveman as he went round the hall at the Winning Post, and presented him to me, which was thoughtful! Disney I think, for the yobbo in pantaloons, while the flocked ape came as a surprise, as I thought the one I had, was the only one, so now I'll have to find the accessories for this one, while the horse behind them is also from Planet of the Apes, I believe, from the MPC set, being the mount of the firing ape rider?

A damaged premium pirate, a funny face I know absolutely nothing about, but which seems to have some age, a small angel statue, similar to one off a Faller fountain, which I already have in the collection, so I guess it's from another model railway lineside piece, of some kind?

 

The green thing is a Puff-Kin Popit from Weetabix, while the fawn seems to be a cheapo copy of the Marx 'Kin sculpt, which I now have in various plastic types and sizes for what James Opie would call a nice 'Cameo' collection!

These were mostly in Trevor's bag I think, along with the angels and the little blue chap, and are Bluebird Zero Hour/Code Zero figures, very useful for making up sets, or filling gaps in the existing collection.

While this beast, scaled with a  Zero Hour figure, was in Peter's donation, he's hugeormous! I think I've seen this twin red-headed dragon'o'saur credited to Imperial in the past, but the example here is a generic just marked Hong Kong, and very much in the style of a Japanese Kaiju.

 

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.