O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Introduction

So, slowly catching up, and because this year's show was later, the reports are not as late as last year . . . Bargain! The Plastic Warrior show plunder reports for 2025, a year I couldn't image getting to when I was a kid!

 

Everything got a bit muddled-up this year, and some things seemingly didn't get shot (none of Isaac's bits are in this shot), so as per the last couple of years I'll add a thanks list at the end of each post, but the pink box was a donation from Peter Evans, the box middle-right was a similar lot from Brian Carrick, I think, the single red figure was a freebie 'test shot' from Michael Mordant-Smith, while top right looks like a mix of purchases and Adrian Little loot, although I can't see the Replicants buys, or big pink bag anywhere?

 

Trevor Redkin will have been responsible for some of the small scale (bottom left, or centre?), Barney Brown brought something over during the show, and I think someone else (Steve Vickers or Graham Apperley?) brought over the bench and table (bottom centre), which still leaves several things to attribute, and several names missing, so apologies if I've not mentioned you here (eMail me!), and I'll add all the likely 'feeders' to the posts' thanks-list!

 

This is the plunder, broken down by subject-matter, which is how we will look at them again this year, I'd say it wasn't a vintage year for rarities, but there were still some very interesting things, and the posts all have something engaging in them!

 

You see, for instance, this was given to me by someone, and I've forgotten who, and while it could have gone in the Civilian-Sports post, it's so daft, with pre-walkers on a mobile see-saw, I thought it should go here as an example of the weirder-end of Hong Kong novelty tat! And having seen this year's HKTDC catalogue, you just don't get this genre of push-and-go polymer nonsense, any-more.

 

So whoever gave it to me (eMail!), it's much appreciated, for the sample of it's time, that it is, and as an enhancer of the babies-box 'master collection', mentioned in a Sandown Park post the other day! Literally priceless! And while the box needs work, the . . . err . . . Machine . . . Device . . . Siege-engine . . . is a minter!

 

Also outside the themes of the rest of the posts was this little goldmine of early Plastic Warriors, there were more, about 15 in total, but here's 9 out of the first 10 (missing No.2, which I think I already have), and overall I think I'm only missing about two or three issues now, all in the teens/early-twenties? It's also interesting to see how Peter's header graphic developed over the early issues.

 

I think there's ten posts to come, and it was technically the 40th birthday show, as the next issue will be the 40th anniversary mag', I think? But with a year lost to Covid ('22) and a couple of years of two-show experiments, I'm not 100% sure what show it actually was, and it didn't make a claim for itself, but maybe the 41st actual event?

 

All hats raised to Brian, Paul, Peter and others no longer here, for putting it on, every year, a shout-out to Steve Weston for helping find the new venue (so 'new' we've all been meeting there for about 14 years now?) along with a self-administered pat-on-the-back, to all those who've helped with tables and/or chairs over the years, our best show ever, every year!