S is for a Surfeit of BJ's

Well, it's been going begging since they first appeared around 2015, and as they are now widespread in convenience store/corner shops and a lot of petrol/service stations/garages, I'm sure more puerile title puns will be forthcoming! These are mostly from Peter Evans, I think, although I have picked-up a few myself, and there may be some un-posted mini's somewhere, I definitely bought, back last autumn?

 

Larger six/seven-inch models.

 

Smaller four/five-inch models. 

 

Jurrassic park knock-off graphics.

I haven't looked too closely at this, but I think it's both a skeleton and a skin which clips over it for a fuller model?

 

All this stuff is out there now if you like dinosaurs. There's a lot more Dino-stuff to come in Rack Toy Month, and with duplicates of both these and previously seen ones, it's getting a bit crowded in their corner of the storage unit, so some Charity Shop donating and de-bagging/carding to come!

 

Added an hour or two later - I knew these had to be somewhere! Bought in three different shops/garages earlier this year, the sculpts are all from the same tool-set, but with differences between the coloured set and the white set, and another sculpt in the magic-sand set, we could be looking at a cavity-count of 2 or more, and they may be the same mini's issued by those Andy's Adventures magazines?

B is for Bab's Aplenty!

Further to the previous post's Barbies, and apropos a comment Tom made a while back, he sent this image of various Barbies, in the smaller scales, some of which we saw here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/04/m-is-for-micro-toy-box.html

 

As a point to mention - there are now several of these micro-mini 'branded' collectables, but the others are more consumer goods or, foodstuffs, for doll's houses, or similar. Anyway, here's the new shot; 

 

And I'll let him explain . . . 

"...a pic of the 'world's smallest toys' Barbies I mentioned the other day:
 

These are a separate line to their original mystery boxes, being closer to 1/72 and sold in their own 'fashion case' or house sets. There are 6 figures in the range (albeit, some are duplicate sculpt/different paint job) - I'm in quest of the dark haired version of 'totally hair'. The two boxed figures to the right are the larger scale sculpts from the original mystery box line.

And there you have it - I am a middle aged man collecting Barbie dolls. But I'm gonna mix them with my army men, promise!"

To which I would add, that the smaller boxed Barbie (left of the pair) is the second series one, the larger box (far right) is the one we saw from the first series. And many thanks to Tom Clague for this update, I nicked the title from his eMail, and he actually uses them in his model railway stories, here;

 

https://tomertonvillage.blogspot.com

R is for Roveing Reporter's Rack-toy Round-up #1

The Blog's New York-based roving reporter Brian Berke, seriously anticipating Rack Toy Month, sent these shelfies, back at the start of January, although he was probably aiming at the novelty-post element of the Christmas season, but for some reason, too much stuff, or my tardiness (checks history, 122 posts over Dec/Jan, so too much stuff!) that never happened, so we're looking at them now!

 

Erasersaurs re-purposed as Romantisaurs, but the only thing which renders them romantic is the sticker on a separate sheet behind them, which has the added bonus of saurian wordplay! Greenbriar claim responsibility for this mawkish nonsense, but they are possibly new sculpts, and I don't think the big Sauropod has been seen in other Dinoraser posts?

 

Thingy and Stitch, I've never seen it, and keep getting it confused, in my head, with the TV-show within the Simpsons; The Itchy & Scratchy Show, a violently slapstick cartoon, knock-off of Tom & Jerry, watched with glee by Bart and Lisa? But they look to be polymer solids, so there's a place for them here, if only temporarily, when they start to turn up.

 

And the same can be said of these, in fact, we saw a similar solid, 54mm Barbie from Mattel, in a recent plunder or donation post, with more in the queue, so these are probably an extension/different wave of the others?

 

Generic Action Figure, Seal Team Six, waiting for the SAS to show them how to do it!

  

Yes, I've looked it up, yes, I'm adding it to the Tag list, but it's still a larger Action Figure, and I have to draw the line somewhere (she's a 'good guy'!), but question - they've named the enemy raiders 'the Kharn', does this mean the long-forgotten owners of Bluebird's intellectual property can sue, or are all alien race names fair-game?

 

I'm trying to avoid Paw Patrol too, thankfully they are too big, but at some point, some small ones are going to come-in, and I know they're already Tagged, and, if they don't interest you, they may be ideal for kids/grandkids?

 

Many thanks to Brian, who has subsequently sent two more lots (I just found the latest in Gmail!), so we'll be returning to the budget-basements of the Big Apple, before the Month's out, if we don't just all get evaporated by the sun first! 

B is for Bunk House

I mentioned in the first part of the Wild West plunder from last month's Plastic Warrior show plunder posts, that I'd got a post in Picasa's 'long queue' on the subject of the orange log-cabins. In fact, it was down in 1971 with the rest of the RTM stuff, and as a fortuitous post elsewhere has just covered them in passing, we might as well have them now - it's nice when a plan comes together!

 

 

Three of the boxes I found in the garage, when I was sorting everything back in 2021-'23, and combining (or part combining!) garage and attic with bedroom stuff, and the large number of purchases I was making at the time (a story for another day).

 

With the heavy box being all the Skybirds and similar, while the middle one is just loose Greeks in sets and part sets, conforming to known runner ('sprue') layouts, but the other one is the 'small scale' log-cabin, in orange polyethylene, with about 12 complete and a dozen or so spares to which, two ends are obviously about to be added, in the above image!

 

I've used small-scale in inverted commas as it's only turned-up in sets with larger figures, but is ideal as a bunk house for 20-25mm US cavalry or ACW scenarios, although it can equally be used for a gold-rush trading post, or mine accommodation, even a Midwest, claim-stake shack. Josey Wales, turf roof, porch made out of barrels?

 

And it comes in various shades of orange, from a quite dark mandarin or Chinese Orange (my favourite shade of Windsor & Newton gouache!), through to a bright, almost international 'emergency' orange, with wishy-washy versions.

 

Now, Ed just added a set to his collection with one of the log cabins in it, ascribed to a Basic Line;

 

https://toyconnect.blogspot.com/2026/08/basic-line-corp-f002-cowboys-and.html

 

While we saw a similar set contents from Pikit here;

 

https://smallscaleworld-n-o-p.blogspot.com/2023/08/moneyitem-limited-pikit-toys-limited-pt.html

 

Both with the very-poor 'final generation' of the Jean copy figures, also associated with Hong Kong Toy Exporters . . . 

 

1986 catalogue image courtesy of Bill B.

 

. . . where the contents are pretty-much the same; however, accessories differ between them slightly, so each jobber, whole-seller or importer had their own ideas about what constituted a 'Cowboy & Indian' set, or value for money - while remaining profitable, or just having sufficient playability?

 

 

These have been harvested from feebleBay over the years (both in 2021 as it happens!), and now we have the windmill (post on that, in this Blog's future!), and one of the Blue Box water-well clones, along with a copy of the Britains Hong Kong trapper canoe, in the upper set, which is otherwise a generic, there's an unreadable importers sticker (top right) and what appears to be an obliterated branding, from the original (?) artwork - top left.

 

But a fundamental difference is the figures which look to be second-generation Airfix 54mm copies? The first generation tend to the same cream/white as the Airfix origianals and can confuse newbies. And another set, has a common-enough wagon, also found in other sets of the era, the 1980's

 

You can also see (as I didn't expand on the photoshoot of the boxes, with anything as sensible as all the pieces, or an assembly!), that it has six parts, a rear, with two firing slots, a front with two windows and a door, two identical gable-ended short sides, also with two windows, and two identical roof pieces.

 

The four sides interlock, leaving the ragged corner of a log-cabin, while the roof sits on four blobby studs, which can rip off on more played-with examples. There are also similarities with a Wing Wah set we saw a while back, but hatchets have been buried there, so I won't link back, and no log-cabin, anyhoos.

 

 

The smaller, soft plastic version, seems to be based on the 1970's Star Toys 'blockhouse', which forms the corner of the hard polystyrene fort, with two deer-skulls over the gate, itself a copy of an earlier European fort, with four corner towers, possibly also sourced in HK, but I'm not going there, we're doing log cabins today, not forts, or windmills!

 

This, of course explains the firing loopholes in the rear wall, it's the outside of the fort's corner; however, it also highlights a flaw in the Star Toys fort - the Indians can force the two windows on the outer end! It also has a chimney, not reproduced in the smaller clone.

 

There is a third version, which, size wise, is between the Star and the generic, and while is otherwise the same as the smaller one (orange 'ethylene, four stud roof, no slots, interlocking corners), has painted highlights, the windows and door frame being painted blue, or red, I can't remember, but I do have a couple, so we can look them when we have a better look at the components, next time!

 

And returning to my boxful above, I tend to colour-match them, as I make up complete examples, but I've seen them with different shades together, so clearly there was a huge stock of them, possibly with one of the smaller family concerns in the Kowloon slums, with their single tool and a hand-pressed injector, and they were supplied to the end-users, bulk, in mixed shades? 

News, Views Etc . . . Toys in the Media

We haven't had a 'news/views' for a while, nor have we had a 'toys in the media', so here's a quickie, using a couple of dodgy shots I took off the screen, from a puff-piece on sci-fi movies on YouTube, where if you watch one, you get another hundred in your feed!

 

"Movies which broke the studio", "Sci-fi movies nobody saw", 10 sci-fi movies which everyone's forgotten", Sci-fi movies which never got a cinema release", 20 best erotic sci-fi movies" (tamer than you could possibly imagine), "20 Italian Sci-fi knock-offs" that sort of thing, they show you the same clips of the same few dozen sci-fi flicks, most of which were actually on VHS in three versions for the whole of the 1980/90's!

 

 

Among which is The Terrornauts, a 1967 film which utilises a fleet of Pyro/Tudor Rose Space Clipper toys, previously also seen in the 1950's Spaceways Annual;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/search/label/Space%20Clipper

 

That's it, just a bit of a factoid!

H is for Hasbro's Air Raiders

We saw one of these back at the beginning of the Blog, but sometime in 2021 I picked up another one, the trouble is, it's the same one, I still need to find the purple 'enemy' or other side, although we've seen some loose! But we can have a quick box-tick of this card, as it's been sitting in Picasa for five years waiting!

 

And, of course, with reference to an exchange of comments the other day, another example of some sub-scale (50mm/2-inch) action figures I seem to be collecting, despite not collecting action figures . . . Doh! Issued in 1987, they are nearly 40-years old!

RTM is for Red Deer's Toy Merchandise!

Bit of eye candy for the lovers of low-brow, low shelf kaka from the former colonies of the Far East, and these are out there now, with Peter Evans having provided some, while I found the others locally. We've seen Red Deer before, but these are further branded, or ascribed to an OTL of Leeds . . . and Poland?!

 

Hing Fat Japanese Infantry clones (and that's funny in itself!), in pink, with a basic, mostly plastic pull-back-and-go aeroplane in another scale, along with the de rigueur flag & stand, it's a real throwback to the rack-toys of yesteryear!

 

Spellcheck says "Using many exclamation marks might seem excessive (in this case: 3 exclamation marks for a text that’s 577 characters long)" . . . Have they not seen my Blog before?!!!! It's august, it's Rack Toy Month, lighten-up, you robotic retard!

 

Nth-generation copies of Matchbox's venerable (1975?) 8th Army sculpts, in bright blue plastic with a yellow fighter!

 

Vaguely German, that's RTM off to a good start! With exclamation marks!

 

"Using many exclamation marks might seem excessive (in this case: 11 exclamation marks for a text that’s 1030 characters long)"

W is for World War Warriors

So, we come to the last of the PW show plunder posts, twenty posts I've got out of it, this year, and some fine loot was scurried back to Small Scale World's command centre here in North Hampshire, to be shared with the rest of you, and we're finishing with the khaki-clad chaps and their contemporaries.

 

OK, so Google hasn't just changed the graphic on the upload page, they've tripled the time it takes to do everything, great! Paratroops/parachute toys, all three were from the donation bags I think, everyone knows I like a good parachute toy!

 

On the right, another of the Mogul (Meccano) Germans originally sent to the Blog by Chris Smith, almost certainly designed by Stadden, and now with his rather fine MG34 'Spandau', it's a specific moulding with a truncated stock, and a small block which locates in his hand.

 

While another of the finds of the show is a composition figure similar to those of Zang, the 'similar to Zang' unknown and the V - Empire Forces guys, if only by dint of them all standing to attention at around 54mm, in Battle Dress . . . but a new pose/moulding, also unknown, so a lovely comparison heading this way, when I get them all together! I think the pink goop in the moulding recesses, is the result of someone trying to take a mould of him in silicon or Plasticine?

 

New to me/collection/Blog, although I was vaguely aware of them from previous research into Wizards of the Coast's larger figures, these are for the recent trend in out-of-the-box 1:144th scale war gaming, and the upper shot has the Germans in the middle with soviets to the left, pouring out of Silesia, and the Yanks to the right, advancing to the Elbe from Aachen! The lower shot has two Japs on the left, two Brits on the right, with a Chinese, French and Rumanian (I think) behind.

 

They are not impressive sculpts, and the paint makes things worse, trying to sort them by eye, I only guessed about six of them right, the moulding is poorly defined and blobby, weapons and - particularly - helmets, are inaccurate, and painting seems pretty arbitrary? I believe these are from the first tranche of Axis and Allies, and subsequent editions scaled up to 15mm (1:100th), nominally, from the 10/12mm (1:144th) of the original series?

 

Marx, grist to the mill, but quite a nostalgia hit, we all seemed to have a few of these in with our Airfix, Timpo and painted-odds, back in the day!

 

Cherilea, these are the interim ones between the first and third versions, with elements of both, and while missing their weapons, will make useful additions to the tub, where I'm slowly accruing decent samples of all three types.

 

Atlantic air force ground-crew figure, on the left. I don't prioritise Atlantic large-scale as I have them all in small scale, and, whatever scale, they tend to be priced/valued far too highly for what they are - recent'ish, mass-produced figures, which were piled-high in Beatties, Tangley and that place in Woking, from 1980 to the middle of the decade.

 

In the centre is a 40mm from Spain or Argentina, I can't remember off-hand, but I think we've seen a larger sample (trio?) here, with mounted figure, they are certainly in the collection, and will appear here eventually!

 

And another HO'ish Zang pilot, for years I used to treasure my lone example, but I think I have about 15 now, and most shows seem to throw-up another one, which doesn't mean I'm complaining, or showing off, but rather I look forward to getting them all together and shooting them as a group, with any obvious variations..

 

Smart Toys on the right, I think he may be a new pose, and three of the Pioneer for Realtoy (et al), the Smart being a copy of a larger Pioneer figure, and the two on the left being of the six poses I still needed, complete, I had the blue-chap, mucked about with!

 

This show's lemon! Someone came over to me and asked if I could ID this for their mate. to which I replied ". . . looks like Marty/M-Toy, but I've never seen it with Australian heads . . .", the owner then came over, and we had a chat, he was looking for a fiver, which I'd happily give for the GI version, so I went off with it.

 

And I was quite pleased with it, showed it to one or two people with some enthusiasm, but started to wonder if the heads were right? Now I've mentioned before, the lighting at the venue can be a bit confusing, not as confusing as it used to be at Dave McKenna's show in the Mason's lodge in Birmingham - the number of colour variations I took home from there over the years, which were normal colour when unpacked at the other end! But nevertheless, confusing enough!

 

And, as you can see, as clearly as me, when I got it home and into normal daylight, they are Aussie heads from Timpo! But, I may leave it for a while, as is, it's quite a clever, if simple conversion, and I have the US one, I just need to sort the belts out!

 

Monogram clones to the left, other bits to the right, the baseless chap is interesting, but I think we may have seen him a decade or so ago, during the heyday of Poundland/99P Store stuff, which has almost dried-up now?

 

Ackerman (et al) to the left, New Ray clone, Marx mini and a larger 60mm 'pod-foot' GI.

 

Soma, biggies, similar to the weird set of HO sci-fi/pilots, so probably the same sculptor, but more irregular types, and I'm guessing here, but almost certainly to be from a set of ten, possibly in two colourways?

 

Picked-up four more Trojan, in two plastic colours, an olive drab, wounded, and three in a richer olive-green. Until I've got them all together, and sorted, I can never remember which ones I have, and which ones I need, so tend to grab them when I see them, although I'm pretty sure it's the sand-plastic ones I'm short-of now!

 

Incomplete set of Marx medical group, probably re-issues in this silver? The nurse thinks there's a chance, with her blood/plasma bag, but the priest's given-up and is administering the Last Rites, morbid phuquer! The doctor's gone off to have a brandy by himself, and I suspect the poles are replacements?

 

More bloody metal! What sort of a plastics show is it?! SAE WWI 'Doughboy' from South Africa on the left, an interesting figure (with lead rot) next to him, in the style of the composition figures described above, a nice semi-flat who appears to be similar to the 25mm metals, ascribed to Fantasyland (from Hong Kong), so possibly from the same stable?

 

And two Skybirds, one an obvious copy/home-cast (on the right), the other more original, but not right, so either stripped and re-painted, or one of the Douglas Miniatures re-issues, home-painted?

 

And finally . . . on the left a bag of small scale, mostly grist to the mill, but there were some interesting figures in there to sort into the collection, the WHW machine-gun team, seen before here, and a huge bag of kit figures, which need a serious sorting, being not the usual 50-70mm early or box-scale stuff from Pyro, Adams, UPC, Revell, Monogram, SNAP etcetera, but rather 25-50mm smaller stuff, although some of the same names may be responsible - all for another day!

 

So, many thanks again to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for everything they did or contributed on the day, additional thanks to those also mentioned in the text of the various posts, including Andreas Dittmann, Brian Berke, Chris Smith, Micheal Mordant-Smith, and Tony H, John Begg, Gareth, Steve V. Peter Cole at Replicants, Graham, Mike, Theo and Glen, the Poles and Russians, and everyone else, for everything, over the years. In fact, it's time I did an acknowledgements page!

 

But also, special thanks to Paul Morehead, Brian Carrick and Peter Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine, for organising another brilliant day, where we could all get together, buy plastic shite to our hearts or needs content, and catch-up. I hope you had a good show, if you were there, and it's gotta' be only 11-mothns to the next one!

 

I'm actually off to London today, to pick up eighty-quidsworth of stuff I haven't even seen yet, so we'll get Rack Toy Month out of the way, and then there'll be more like this in September, with any luck, some Dime Store spaceships are coming from the US, and it's back to Sandown in a month's time!