T is for Two - D-Day Dudes

Just a quickie, these are probably one of the last packaging changes/variations from Starlux, and were produced in 1994, for the commemoration of D-Day, and the 50th anniversary of the worlds largest ever, pretty much everything!

 

Largest preliminary air-assault, parachute drop, glider invasion, amphibious assault, air-cover on the day, troops landed in a day, countries taking part, naval armada, vehicles present, stores delivered; it really was the most amazing undertaking, an extraordinary feat of human endeavour, and must have been a hell of a sight, as the dawn gloom cleared, and the battleships opened fire, while thousands of landing craft bobbed through a heavy swell toward the continent of Europe.

 

The figures are slightly anachronistic, as while they produced Germans for both wars, and Pilous in their blue serge uniforms, Starlux never made decent sets of Brits' or Americans, relying on these, who while equipped as Americans, always carried post-war stuff, like French SMG's and, so, which I always equate with the loss of Indo-China or the North African adventures.

 

Ten items per bag, with  nine figures and a piece of equipment, an MG in one, a stretcher in the other, and it's the late/2nd versions of both sets of figures.

 

"Le jour J" translates to 'D-Day' in English. It literally means J-Day (where J stands for jour, meaning day) . . . so 'day-day'! And, while some people like to think the D is for 'decision', I think D-Day is also day-day? Although technically they can both be 'The day, day', which is a bit easier on an autistic brain!

 

Footnote - apparently, one of our Nazi's was killed today, fighting for Russia against Ukraine? Oh dear, never mind, worse things happen at sea, what’s on the telly later?

H is for Huggables!

A new name on the import/jobber horizon, but Huggables' website claims they've 30-years experience, so they must have been around under another name, or just been passing generics through to end users, anonymously, and like A-to-Z(Padgett Brothers), and others, are still, also carrying some stock in the original branding. These were shot at the Gift Fair last year, at Birmingham's NEC, and it's mostly run-of-the-mill stuff.

 

The first two shots show models similar to the set of six which have made so many appearances here over the years,under at least six brand-marks and seven or eight packagings, while the third shot seems to show another iteration of that set of six poses! All credited to Chinese brand Jinfenglong (JFL).

 

These are bi-branded Huggables on a sticker and Weinida on the card-art, with that artwork suggesting wild animals, and sea life as well as these dinosaurs being available, somewhere!

 

Some from the previous shots, with a larger set of single animals (right, close ups below), hugeormous insects and reptiles, and smaller dinosaurs in blisters and carded bottle-bags.

Those larger models, Lexiang Toys (LX), these are well beyond the pocket-money bracket, think dentist visit treats, distractions for Rover 'going to live on the farm' or half-term shut'em ups!

 

'Zhongjeming'

 

Fantasy dragons and mythological/heraldic beasts in several sizes, and, in the case of the last set, two packing variants, the small blisters, and the last lot having a non-Huggables brand, but it seems to have been obliterated at the printing stage?

 

Many companies are carrying these, which probably come from a central source, and you can find them in petrol stations and corner shops the length and breadth of the land! 3D-printed from a colour-change, metallic polymer, any problem is likely to prove to be the polymer - so far, most 3D printing polymers I've encountered seem to be frangible (and probably short lived) plastics?

 

Novelty animals.

 

Again, the hint of a dinosaur line/bag.

 

Poor shot, sorry, brand-mark might be IPC or IPL?

 

These last four (Jisam Toys - who's going to tell them!?) are either the same as, or aping sets which are detailed in the long queue, but I'll try to get them upgraded and posted before the end of the month. All the above seven shots, are showing more traditional farm and zoo stuff, and in various configurations/sizes.

 

These shiny, semi-metallic, printed on the crinkly plastic 'header card' bags, are common, in various scales, and we’ve seen toy soldiers in them, novelty parachute toys, and etcetera, but never with a firm brand, so they may be a collective/co-op, of smaller Chinese producers, and are usually carrying stuff at the cheaper end of production, material and/or price points.

 

Likewise (cheapness), these carry-case sets, which were hard to photograph, as far as contents are concerned, but were monochromatic, polyethylene types, or one-colour-spray over PVC, with the usual accessories of farm fence sections, and generic plants/shrubs.

 

Novelty key-rings.

 

 

Novelty squishies are a more modern thing, a fine soft, memory foam, possibly a tech' coming across from the bedding sector, and here we have astronauts and a bunch of those dunny-bunny-bear things, with their whacky artwork.

 

A complete irony really, that 'art toys', which were a big thing back in the 2010's when this Blog started, and which could be 50-100+ of your currency units ($-£-Euro), and which would often, quickly resell on evilBay or at auction for many times that, are now being churned out by novelty manufacturers for 50p or a pound!

 

More of the generics in their shiny not-card cards! A half decent T54/55, if you need a Cold War unit in a hurry and have a can of matt-green, sand or brown aerosol to-hand! And a rather dodgy thing, which is a Panzer IV turret, on the same Soviet chassis!

 

Way outside the remit of the Blog (Yile Toys), but figural, so I shot it!

I can't now remember if these were resin, or more of that lightweight 3D-printer stuff (PLA or PETG), but they are big, ornamental and the sort of thing someone like TKMaxx might get in, not as 'clearance', but as shelf-filler, at Christmas! And, look . . . we seem to have the source of our diminutive, enthusiastically signalling NASA'stronaut, as seen a few posts ago, in two smaller iterations!

 

Also, by accident, as I wasn’t trying to shoot them, the equally shiny and metallic, flying foil to the tanks, both would seem to be pull-back-and-go novelty carpet toys. So that's an overview of Huggables, nothing urgent or exciting, and the sticky, stretchy window-walkers (previous post) weren't in the line-up, 18-months ago, so seem to have hit the market since.

F is for Follow-up - Sticky Stretchy Space Men, Unguent Unicorns and Zlimy Zombies!

We've seen these a few times now, in recent years, from at least three makers, here's another trio, from two additional brands! Courtesy of Peter Evans, these would seem to confirm a quiet trend in younger kids toys, but really a re-hash of the old gum-ball capsule machine toys from the 1970's, when they tended to be monsters, insects or lizards, rather than actual figurals!

 

These are both from Huggables, who I think have a couple of show-reports in the queue, I'll try to dig them out and get them up tomorrow, it's always nice to clear a few of them in RTM! And we have the titular zombies and unicorns, one pose each, four colours, three of each colour.

 

I seem to recall from my own misspent youth, that they are best coupled with a catapult, so they hit the window with such a whack, they stick for a minute or two, before gravity starts to drag them down the window, like slowly dying slugs. All good, clean fun, except for the person who polishes the windows!

 

Kandytoys are doing astronauts, or 'Star Voyagers' (!?), who look very similar to those previously seen here at Small Scale World by Scrunchems, although these have different backpacks, and sharper detail, so the usual sub-piracy from China, as we used to get from Hong Kong!

 

Card backs were an afterthought, as I was putting them away, and don't add much, or list other sets, but it seems there's a dozen or so of the 25/30mm figures types out there under at least six brands. Try smaller or independent/small-chain toy shops or garden centres, and convenience store's revolving rack-toy trees.

R is for Roveing Reporter's Rack-toy Round-up #3

Brian's third visit this year, was to Hobby Lobby (similar to our Hobbycraft, but ours carries less of the kind of stuff we're about to look at here), where he found some useful sets of classic rack-toys, which seem to tick all the boxes!

 

 

Cold-blooded critters; the amphibians hidden among the lizards again, and we now suspect some Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, because birds are, and they are the direct descendents!

 

Fantasy; and there are more poses here than with the set we saw the other day, including a prone one, I never know if it's lying down, or the equivalent of sitting? Also there's five colourways, not four, but perhaps a more assorted assortment, in fact it looks like each colour is a different pose, with about three in each colour/pose?

 

Farm . . .

 

 

. . . and Zoo!
 

With sets dedicated to temperate/woodland animals and arctic fauna. Sculpt-count is good with these sets as well, but, as Brian pointed out in the eMail, climbing, price-wise. Still cheaper than the European equivalents though (those Peterkins are closer to a tenner, with the cheaper ones £7.99), and I dare say a mix of new sculpts, older sculpts and the odd rip-off of Schleich, Papo, or similar modern brands.

 

The others; insects and marine/sea-life. As with all the above, some look familiar, some look all new, but the suspicion is that where similar, they will be copies, so are 'variants', as far as collecting goes? All the above seem to contain duplicates, possibly pairs of everything?

 

What some of you have been waiting for, the combat troops, sculpts we've seen before, but they appear to be clean, new sculpts, rather than pantographed sub-piracies, of 'Fritz' helmeted generic US/NATO types, with the daft ATGW firer! Vehicles are simple moulding we've also seen before, as are the interlocking wall sections.

 

But these are probably more interesting, ACW types, and I don't think they are the Billy-V/Americana ones from BMC, nor the Hing Fat chaps, so new sculpts? I don't know enough about them, but if they tickle the fancy, I suspect they'll need a purchase over there, to get them over here! In fact, they look like copies of Accurate/Revell? And there's some useful artillery in there, with metal axles?

 

Many thanks to Brian for his visits to Dollar General, Daiso and Hobby Lobby, this year, highlighting the inevitable inflation (resulting from Trumps tariffs), and covering current production in/for the US. I did manage a trip to B&M a couple of days ago and found little, and will also check the rest before the end of the holidays.