K is for Keycraft - Spring Fair, Earlier This Month

So, to the reason for clearing all the previous shots out of Picasa! This year they had a very big stand at Birmingham, and I shot a lot of stuff, the doing of which resulted in a useful conversation and the two free samples (squidgy mice and bendy astronaut) we've already looked at, a while ago, the posting of which led to Wood's juvenile reaction!

 

That spaceman for the last time, with some squeezy/stretchy Shuttles!

 

Stretch [Neil] Armstrong! He's transparent and filled with a clear liquid, which seems to have light-enhancing/magnifying properties, so you get maximum reflections off the glitter suspended in the filling, so he glistens like some universal god-head in a home-remake of 2001 - A Space Odyssey! He also comes in a purple shade.

 

Huge spiders, actuallu quite realistic red-Legged, bird-eating, Tarantulas, for when you want to make your mother hate you for a week, by coming up behind her at the sink and saying, "Look what I found, can I keep it!"

 

Those wooden robots are still in the inventory, and someone has folded some of these up so you can see how they fold and turn many ways.

 

The Hedgehog thing! Sqishies.

 

The golden fleece is still there!

 

Giant insects and another spider!

 

Squishy cats.

 

Smaller, but still large insects, with caterpillars.

 

The Dinosaur 'toob', they don't seem to have any others (farm, zoo, sea-life etc.)?

 

Bigger Dinosaurs.

 

The set we've seen here several times now, nice sculpts, with simple paint schemes which keeps them cheap. I'll try to get them all as I want to compare them with that WHSmith set from a few years ago, the poses are different, but the painting is similar, the eyes especially, and they may be two halves of a larger Chinese line?

 

Another line of medium-giant Insects!

 

New packaging or a third line? I think they're new?

 

Distribution point. I think the new Toyhouse in Basingrad has a two-sided one?

 

Butterfly inclusion-balls.

 

Giant slugs!

 

So, that's Keycraft properly represented on the Blog, and up-to-date on outstanding posts. I'll try to find the other Dinosaurs in the medium-sized set (there's only four illustrated on their website, and I've found at least eight different ones so far), and keep an eye on them, as they have had some cool stuff over the years, and will continue to, we hope!

K is for Keycraft - Keycraft (Global)

In an act of supreme laziness and lack of imagination, I have titled the last three posts according to how they were differentiated in Picasa! These were shot at the Birmingham Spring Fair in 2023, so two years ago, I didn't go last year, too much to do down here, in fact I didn't go to either show last year, and the plan, going forward is to do London one year, and Birmingham the other, and alternate between the two?

 

Dinosaurs! Yes, these are the ones we've looked at recently, twice. I found - looking for something else - that we looked at a handful a while ago, so A) I may have duplicates, well . . . I have! And B) I might try to get the remaining few poses.

 

'Rubber Jiggler' giant Insects!

 

I haven't seen these in shops yet, but they will be out there somewhere, and at 12 per pack, on the small side. We've seen similar paint-your-own stuff and glow-in-the-dark ones, but not these specific sets? However, the lack of windows and the shallowness of the cartons means they may be rather featureless flats, or even flat 'shapes', like glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars?

 

Large farm animals, I think the pale horse looks familiar and may have come into the stash with a mixed lot, I don't search for this over-sized stuff out, but it does slowly come in. Note, both horses are noticeably well-endowed in the procreation-equipment department!

 

I asked if I could get these on the floor to photograph them against a neutral background, purely to ID the animals, and I think they have since all come into the pile? Pretty sure a pair of those calves with their 'world cow' style black-patches, were in a mixed 'H is for...' post, likewise the rather fluffy lambs (or a t least one), and rather pastel piggies look familiar. . . so they will all be sorted-out at the other end and labelled-up Keycraft!

 

They either had quite a small stall, or not much which attracted my interest two years ago, although I was also in a hurry, that year? I seem to have caught the pocket-money toy display stand as being a large safari Land Rover / 4x4!

K is for Keycraft - Keycraft Fumfings

It wasn't the 2020 show report which got posted, it was a cross-reference to that spotted-dinosaur in the Tobar show report! These are the 2020 London pictures! And it clears up a few of the things already mentioned under the Keycraft Tag label!

 

Firstly, that the - illustrated on the box - yellow one was there in the stretchy monsters!

 

Note the mice (green box, top right) were already on the scene in 2020!

 

 

 

I obviously came close to posting the Keycraft report, as I'd scanned the catalogue for this image, if I recall correctly the catalogue was a vast tome rather like some of the old combined Hong Kong Toy Development Council ones. In the style of the mice, with holes in the 'moon' (very small asteroid!) for the stretchy astronauts to weave in and out of!

Likewise with Kittens and a ball of wool, Unicorns and a cloud.

 

Metallic stretchys, we've seen the similar dinosaurs (below) as part of the stash.

 

The rack-toys were also carried by Tobar, without the Fumfings addition to the card, it was in that guise we saw them here at Small Scale World previously, and as they may be in the stash, via Hawking's Bazaar in Basingrad or Camberley, before their demise?

 

Very-much in the vein of K&M (Wild Republic)'s toobs, these are cheapo-dino's from China, and are still in the inventory, indeed, I think they are in both forthcoming posts!

 

The Dinosaur balls and eggs! In point of fact, the balls are mixed animals, there is a post coming on these, as Henbrandt, from the 1990's, so we will be covering the whole 'inclusion' range in the fullness of time, although I think we did have a brief look at them back at the start of the blog, including digging a few out of their balls, to find they are teeny-tiny, even over their look in the balls, as the balls have a slightly magnifying effect on the models buried within!

 

Again, yellow, the obvious colour for the Smiley, was missing from the previous post, but is out there, I think I have one in the Bendy-toy tub, but a vintage one from the 1970's, not this chap? Along with the mini 'emoticon' one, from the capsule toy Brian Berke sent to the blog a few years ago.

 

Since obtained, Blogged and Tagged, with more images in the Parachute Toy page's queue! And seen in several brandings I think?

 

Those stretchy dinosaurs, I thought one set (the smaller ones on the right) was the same as the Henbrandt ones we looked at years ago, but I think they turned out to be subtly different poses. The slightly larger ones can be considered Keycraft / Fumfings originals, until they turn-up in other branding/s!

There's a possibility that the oddly-spelt Fumfings sub-brand, is as such, due to the fact that there was a previous Fun Things, which was part of the 1980'90's marketing of the small-scale Supreme/SP Toys stuff by the likes of Ackerman, Titan and co., in the researching of which, I seem to remember finding the name Fun things had been registered by a jewellers (?) by the 2010's?

K is for Keycraft - Keycraft Global

So these have been sitting in Picasa since 2019! The 2020 one published back then, but with the question of dates, timings and alacrity having come-up in a certain spat before hatchets were buried; it's worth mentioning (as there are still many of these old folders) that nothing in this lot needed immediate journaling, and could have waited years more until they would have proven just as useful on the A-Z blogs as they will here, now.

I was interested in the robots as they are all or mostly wood, so sustainable, although with both BP and America apparently voting for annihilation in recent days/months, that's all becoming a very moot point! I don't think you can call them 'Bendys', but they do have many joints with 360º movement, so Articulated Toys will do for the Tag list! Also, I think we've shot these, or something similar, either as genrics or possibly branded to Tobar, in the now lost Hawkin's Bazaar?

Rack toy bags I'm sure we've seen before, with the four main non-military boxes ticked, Farm, Zoo, Sea Life and Dinosaurs, and if I recall correctly there was a 'Trends' post at the time, showing the dinosaurs, specifically the turquoise spotted Stegosaurus in the quite-different sets of several brands.

Bendy Smilies!

 

Bendy Cats & Dogs

 

Bendy Robots

 

Bendy Monkeys

 

Bendy Monsters!

 

There may be the illustrated yellow one underneath, I did dig for it, but only managed to dig the green and purple ones out, while ruining their display? It's funny, I posted a bendy Astronaut (also from Keycraft) the other day and within hours, one of the Paul's over at wandering planet rushed off to eBay to counter the post with what I guess he though was 'original copy', I could have countered with some of these, within minutes, but, well . . . they're here now!

R is for Return, to Keycraft Dinosaurs

They've managed to get a couple of mentions in the last few weeks, including the freebies from the Gift Fair, but it's their turn for show reports and not only do I have a load of Gift fair shots, but there were three in the archive from, 2020, '22 & '23! But here are a few physical Keycraft items!

 

Inclusion balls, under the Fumfings sub-brand, we have seen them before, briefly, in a Chris donation post, I think, and there are longer posts in the long-queue, but I picked these up, one of each, as samples a while back (January '20), not at the fair, but possibly on the way home, from the party shop at Clapham Junction, but I tend to publish those posts closer to the time, so it may be that they came from a discount store in Aldershot?

 

Construction/manufacture is slightly different on both of them, as well as the shape variation, with the Steggi's placed on the set green layer of his ball, sideways to it, while the Dimetrodon has been placed feet-first in the top of the red layer, before it was fully cured, so it's bled into the clear layer on top, leaving him floating in an egg of red-mist!

 

While on Monday I went back to Hobbycraft, and got three more of the dinosaurs we looked at the other day, knowing this sequence was in the offing. As with the others they are quite well done, if having unimaginative paint, and all three are from the 'green' batch, or same tool-run!

 

They are unnamed, with a Made in China mark and an alphanumerical code with an A or B prefix, so may be models previously seen elsewhere, and I suspect some of the set were in that big batch of mixed prehistoric's from Jon Attwood.

 

I was also going to suggest, previous issuing from Toy Major, but their markings/product codes tend to differ I think? However, the point I'm making is that with two code lines, there could be between a minimum of 12 to as many as 16 or even 24 animals or more (?), being found in a full set?