B is for Bristol Bloodhound

Managed to tick-off a smaller 'grail' at Sandown a month ago, with the purchase of this beast, I knew it existed, I can't remember when or where I saw it, but I had seen one, some years ago I think, anyway, I recognised the box and bought it quickly without checking the contents! I've also managed to shoot it twice, with some of the following 'seen elsewhere' soon after the purchase, so a few more images than usual, and no collaging!

 

The box; exactly the sort of thing I remember from Webb's The Newsagents in Hartley Wintney when I was a kid, colourful, but basic three-colour screen-printed on low quality card, reminiscent of early, cheap, post-war wallpaper like our grandparent's bathroom ducks! It leaves little doubt as to the contents and includes simple graphical instructions in the drawings.

 

Components; there's approximately 30+ pieces, all factory assembled in both polystyrene and polyethylene, with a couple of metal parts. Several small, plastic pivots/axle-pins allow for elevation/depression of the whole launcher, which also revolves on its baseplate, and a separate Bloodhound Missile with spring-firing mechanism can be locked in.

 

Ready to fire; The trigger is slightly damaged, so while I can set it up for a photograph, I can't fire it, and that's probably a good thing, as making such a model in frangible 'styrene was not a wise move, as far as longevity is concerned, and it's a bit of a miracle it's still this complete. And that white button on the back may have had a function, which I haven't yet worked-out!

 

When I first posted it elsewhere, I suggested in might be scaled-up from the Corgi die-cast, but rapidly came to the conclusion it's more likely to be based on the Frog kit, which will give my crew-figures, from that aforementioned kit, something useful to do! It's around 1:35th scale, or maybe a little smaller, I'll have to get the Frog kit, I've never previously been after, to compare! And obviously, no maker, or any clue to same!

Q is for Question Time - D is for Dutch?

Anyone recognise these, they have something of Der Struwwelpeter about them, and yet are polystyrene so can't be any earlier than the 1930's, while Struwwelpeter is from the mid-19C? Also, they look like they might be identifiable characters, from some artwork or another . . . 

 

. . . .even Struwwelpeter itself, I know there have been several illustrated versions over the 170-odd years of it's run? While the three figures are caricature-like, and the duck seems deliberately comedic, the rabbit and hens are really quite normal-looking!

 

For some reason I'm thinking Dutch more than the German of the original book, and while the French too had their 'sabots', there must also have been other books! Factory-painted polystyrene, about 80mm for the figures? Any ideas?

S is for Shelfies - B&M, July

I was over in Basingrad for something the other week, which it seems was actually a couple of months ago (I don't know, but it goes somewhere?), and I popped into B&M for a five-pack of Ruffle Bars (nom-nom-nomnivore!), and managed to shoot a bunch of figural shelfies, and, I think, made a further purchase for the Blog's future, but anyway, here are the shelfies with a few notes.

An egg-full of dinosaurs, one or two larger and several medium-sized critters, with the usual assortment of scenic accessories, consisting in the main of palm trees, but there may have been some 'rocks' in there too? Basically a generic, it's branded-up to B&M themselves.

Also branded to them, but sourced from someone/somewhere else, it this which we may have seen before, but I think the design of 'carry case' has changed from dino' to truck, to this robo-dino' over the years? And helps ID a couple of the mini dinosaur models. Found not in the toy section, but as part of the big-box Christmas gift shelf above the food aisles!

 

Paint your own vinyl Harry Potter figureines and locomotive

 

Stumble Guys from Diramix . . . I had to google it; "Stumble Guys is a multiplayer battle royal obstacle course game where players race to become the last one standing", so that's them then, vinyl solids though, so while I'm not buying them, they will come-in via future bags of shite from Charity Shops!

 

I can't say I know much about this Stich chap either, indeed for a while I got Lilo & Stich confused with Itchy & Scratchy (cartoon characters within a cartoon), my following the developments of neither! I now know the difference, but if you don't, you're probably better-off remaining in ignorance, this stuff goes around and comes around, there's nothing new under the sun, and they, too, are vinyl solids.

 

More of the same from Bandai, and I think we all know who Sonic is now? Mixed assortments, with duplicates between sets, is almost as annoying as blind-bags! But you obviously need to buy both sets to get the four hidden figures to complete the sixteen!

The Sonic figures also come in smaller assortments, and I left the Joker figure in the crop, as while he's not the sort of thing I 'do', I know a lot of the guys & gals on Brian Heiler's platforms will be interested.

 

"100 Years of Furry Friendships", it says, well, if you've looked into 'furry's', you'll know how disturbing that sentence could be seen to be? Not only that, but more disturbing is the fact that these mostly recognisable Disney characters, have been remodelled in a Japanese anime style . . . why? Just why? Horrid!

We may have seen Lady Bug and Cat Noir, or they may be in the queue, Peter Evans gave some to the Blog I think, but anyway, their French TV series is called Miraculous, and these blind-box sets are from Playmates, but obviously in the style of super-deforms or the dreaded Funko-pops, it's not good, unless it's your thing! All of which is a lot more than I knew about them in August when we saw them in a B&M shelfie post!

 

All currently sat in B&M for Christmas shoppers!

G is for Guardians of the Galaxy

Really it's a bit of a follow-up to Jada and some recent developments in their range of Nano Metalfigs 40mm, die-cast figures. Namely, that one range has been cleared though Poundland, and another is now in that annoying vehicle; the blind bag!

I found these back in June, in the aforementioned Poundland, on each occasion there was only the one sculpt, in multiples, which I took to be a clue that it was wholesaler stock being cleared, but at a quid each they were pretty much half-price on the supermarket stuff we've looked at previously, so I grabbed one of each.

 

Close-ups of the two generations of Groot (a portmanteau word from 'Guardian' and 'Root'?) in the opposite order to how we were introduced to them! As you may have discerned, I'm not a great fan of the Marvel/DC universes, all far too formulaic, repetitive and convenient for me, but I love Guardians of the Galaxy, because it is a stand-alone sci-fi movie, with the tongue-in-cheek humour of Star Wars or the Good-Bad-Ugly trilogy, and while I have now got both sequels on DVD I haven't watched them yet, so I don't know if there are any crossover appearances from other Marvel characters, but I hope not?

 

Keeping my eye out for them after the initial finds I picked up two more, Rocket racoon (my favourite!) and Thanos, branded-up to The Avengers, who IS a crossover-character seen in the Galaxy movie, but so long as none of the spandex-clad, flying, transforming, super-powered loons' turn-up, I can bear his being in the background driving the plot!

 

The 'promotion' seems to have ended, I haven't seen any in Poundland for a couple of months now, so if I ever get the need to finish the set, it'll be me off to evilBay, or keeping my eye out at Sandown Park (where the Poundland-visiting scalpers will be wanting 4 or 5-quid each for them, I have no doubt!), but as a sample they'll do for now!

Meanwhile, on my recent trip to London, Peter Evans gave me this pair for the Blog, we have seen the Jada take on the Harry Potter franchise before with contributions from Brian Berke and show-reports/catalogue images, but as you can see they are now being sold somewhere in blind-bags, a most annoying trend!

M is for More Model Matlots

Seen before, both as contributed images and as a donation to the Blog, Brian Berke(who was behind the previous two viewings) sent these a while ago, ostensively off the back of the HO-railway figure season, and I know it's really only, and all about the imagery with this blogging marlarky, so here's some more!

 

Pyro's diminutive ship's crew; as I've mentioned before, there was back in the 50/60's (and to this day some of the mouldings are around) a series of vessel kits of tugs and similar vessels in scales around 1:86/7, 1:90 or even 1:100'ish, mostly copies of each other, and these chaps, are ideal for those kits, most of which had no figures (one had a couple, who are in the stash somewhere!), and a couple of Brian's are painted and serving on the tug-boat in the background!

 

It's the 1:87th scale Pyro Diesel Tug, later carried by Lifelike (briefly) and Lindberg, which could be motorised and taken down to the municipal boating pond for a putter-about, not many left now, but Basingrad still has quite a large one down at Eastrop Park! The beauty of the slightly smaller scale is that they take up less room on an OO-gauge railway layout, while retaining substantiality, and if you need more;

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/pyro-207-sea-going-diesel-tug--1172808

 

Many thanks to Brian for the images.

I is for International Rescue

Shot these on Mercator Trading's stall at Sandown the other day, purely as eye-candy. we looked at them years ago, but they were sitting there, so why not? The character figures from Thunderbirds, who were added to the existing Ovni ('UFO') line from Comansi at some point.

 

Bones and the Boss are obvious, but as far as the brothers go, it's a case of what colour you paint the sash, I think! There may be some clues for the more dedicated aficionados, but I'm only a casual, childhood-nostalgia type fan!

Seen with a couple of the smaller cereal premiums from Kellogg's, which also got issued by Tom Smith in a set of Thunderbirds Christmas crackers. You can find them in a more stable polyethylene, but these are more of the soft PVC ones, which were kicking about in large numbers a few years ago, and tend to get squished in the pack.

Home painted, we have Bones and Lady Penelope, although different sizes, both sets get across the woodenness of puppets quite well I think? That's it, just box-ticking some eye-candy!

R is for Round-up of Rebellious Rascals

Well, that was bad, wait all year and then forget ITLAPD! Some years Brian reminds me, but this year, despite sometimes thinking it's the 16th and alerting myself, nothing happened, hay-ho! It does mean that everything in the other folder is going to have to be in this post, and having only just got back from work, yawing like a hippo, I'll have to work through to get it done, I'll post before midnight, and then finish the blurb!

Right, these are vaguely in chronological order, with this shot picked off feebleBay soon after last year's ITLAPD, and shows what I think is the Pressman rack-toy as bought in from Rado/Ri-Toys, or more likely; Hing Fat?

 

Interesting because apart from the ship which has been known to be Pressman since it appeared in Plastic Warrior magazine (I think) a couple of decades ago (mid 1990's ?), also contains copies of the Marx 54mm pirates, two little 'jolly boats' and the totem pole which I think is Hing Fat?

 

The Toy Major figures which we've seen on past Pirate Day's, here a complete set of originals, which actually came in more recently, but got collaged with the painted one, who came in last year, and seems to be factory-painted?

 

Their enemy were the standard Toy Major skeleton army, who are slightly Egyptian in fashion, and because it was a large sample, I managed to bend a couple of arms (lower image) to produce easy pose variations!

 

A couple of ELC figures which came in via a charity shop purchase I think, they might have been in a donation from Brian or Jin Attwood? Thanks to both for all their help, but anyway, however they arrived, this pair joins a growing sample of the larger vinyl figures.

These are also a bit bigger, at 70mm and as Tim Mee, might be the European production as I suspect they, also, are factory painted, but I might be wrong, decent home painting could produce the same results, what I like is that it's three of the poses who, instead of a base get a tripod arrangement by dint of the accessory they are resting on the ground!

Hong Kong copies of the 'cutsie' child-pirates from Fontanini, can't remember where these came from, but I suspect a charity shop's White Elephant shelf? Also big, they are around 120mm.

I think these were in some show-plunder, or a donation, and hidden in whatever posts I did at the time, in order to have them fill this post's folder, when I didn't know how this would pan out. From the left we have one of the Premium pirates, a Kinder (and probably CGGC-Grisoni) swoppet type, marked CAPTAIN PEG LEG in English on the base underside and another Blackgang Chine memento from the Isle of Weight.

Another one I pulled from feeBay, although now I know it exists I will look out for one, however if I remember rightly, this came with a stupid doll, and a prohibitive BIN/Postage total! Wilton's pirate ship cake decoration, I think it's meant to go with those crude copies of Marx we've looked at before and which are also below?

This image is courtesy of Ray the Pirate! And shows his Weet-Bix Crazy Pirates, seen before thanks to Glenn Sibbald but always nice to have more images and/or different colours

Like the Toy Major, some of these have been moved around to be brought together, but the six fatties came in with a Charity-shop lot I think, and while we have seen one or two, on ITLAPD, in this type of round-up/odds-n-sods post, it's the first time I've had all six together. A bit cartoony, but they are non-articulated solids, so have a place! I'm pretty sure it's the two middle ones who are 'new to Blog'?

And then I found these on Amazon! They go with the ship which in previous years has had two different pairs of pirates (also seen here at Small Scale World), but which is now also offering a six-count? I doubt they rushed-off and got two new ones sculpted, so they must have always been available in other sales-territories? Usually found as generics or phantom brands.

Papo 50mm mini which appeared at some point, I honestly can't remember where/when or even if 'who', so thanks again to everyone who send us stuff, he just got shot and put away! It's a set I've not actually bought, but seem to have picked-up about half of the figures from now!

Another internet image, it's the Hong Kong copies of Marx (as mentioned above), and is branded to Pioneer Products of Florida AND Canada! They are also the figures Jamie Delson was on about here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/04/t-is-for-toys-in-media-part-somethingth.html

 

and which we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/09/c-is-for-colourful-cake-corsairs.html

 

I've just deleted two images which three of you saw! Needs more research (I've lost the notes) and more, better blurb! These are a small sample of Zizzle's roughly 54/60mm solids which I bought because they were going cheap and couldn't remember which one/s I needed, I think in the end it was either the second one, or none! But it's another image!

Turning our backs on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, because I got there too late for entry, this is a life-size fibreglass model, from the rear! To be found at the Funland Amusement Park on Hayling Island, an otherwise disappointing visit; most of the tourist/gift shops which used to be there have gone, and I mean bulldozed in favour of yuppie-flats built to look like cruise ships! You know the things, all angled-fronts, curved baloneys and coloured metalwork, lots of glass, and palm-planters everywhere; clichéd Barbie architecture! It was pretty-much the same when I visited Bognor Regis a week or so later.

 

The figure is reminding me of the Corsican pirate of my friend Louise;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/09/c-is-for-corsican-corsair-from-corsica.html

 

I wonder how many of these there are around the world, like the life-size zoo animals and birds, the any-size dinosaurs and the oversized nutcrackers, there must be, or have been several manufacturers over the years, if you know of any or encounter one, sent a piccy to the Blog, and we'll do a round-up of them one day.

So, an even worse ITLAPD than two years ago, it should have been several posts, but that's the way it hangs at the moment, hopefully it will be better from next year, but I've been saying that for several years, and it's all still rather in the air! And there's no point closing with pirate-talk it's well after midnight here, in fact it's gone 1am, but hay ho, onwards and upwards!