G is for Gashapon - Introduction

Well, these have been in the queue for nearly two years! A mate, Adrian, was doing the Cherry Blossom trail in Japan, with his wife, and I said to him "Oh, you'll be able to fill your boots with Gashapon!", which required a quick explanation of the particularly Japanese take on capsule-toys, as they evolved from Western gum-ball machines, themselves evolved from earlier, Victorian postcard dispensers, a mutual friend - Gareth - backed up my enthusiasm, and Adrian was clearly intrigued enough to look them up while he was out there.

 

What I didn't know was that when he came back, he would present me with results of his research as a fiftieth birthday present! So we're looking at them over the next few days, purely as a brief overview, their full story is far greater and there are catalogue-type books on the subject available in Japanese, rather like the O-Ei-A books on the similar, but tending to more juvenile, Kinder Toys.

 

So, Gashapon, from Gasha (the cranking of a 'one-armed-bandit' handle) and Pon, the actual capsule; Japanese capsule toys; not the occasional tray of chocolate eggs, or the odd machine outside a convenience store, but rather a semi-industrialised craze, primarily 're-invented' by Bandai in the 1970's, with Tomy ('Gacha') and Kaiyodo also heavily involved now. There have, since the late 1990-early 2000's, been whole stores dedicated to banks of the machines, which we are looking at here, all shot by Adrian.

 

Clockwise from the top left we have, 'luck dip' mystery prizes, highly detailed miniature firearms, specifically semi-automatic military rifles, I guess pistols or machine-guns will be separate issues/series? Some kind of miniature viewers (?), construction-brick bunk-beds, cat's arse rings (who knew there was even a market for them!) and Tama and Friends keyrings - more Hello Kitty knock-off?

 

Squishies, manga deforms, some kind of pump-dispenser keyrings (?), Halloween wallets, more cutesy keyrings and miniature lunch-bags - it's quite an eclectic collection of subjects, and materials, especially when compared with Kinder*, but that - in part - explained by the larger capsules, and the fact that adult collectors don't hide under Edwardian leftover shame as we do, in the west, the Japanese 'grown-ups' happily collecting them as an expression of Shōwa nostalgia.

 

*Kinder do seem to be moving (at a glacial speed) in a similar direction, with more keyrings, phone-hangers and luggage tag type prizes, appearing these days. 

 

A canyon of gift-dispencers!

 

Choices, choices!

 

Advertising display cabinet, I believe all the larger Gashapon stores have something like this, with a selection of current of recent offerings, to kick-start the consumer urge, among the undecided!

 

Platform shoes and fishing lures! And the lures, conveniently telling us - in English - that they are the 5th wave, I think? And - even more weirdly - without actually knowing much about it, I suspect, you could remove them from the keyrings, tie them into your tackle line, and use them to fish?!

 

Miniaturised, or doll's house scaled, tea-ceremony furniture, and necklaces of . . . Japanese mythological themes?

 

Miniaturised foods or foodstuffs seem common themes, both modern and nostalgic, and the display of cartoon, Manga or Anime figural models, above the machines, may be some of the staff's own duplicates? Or maybe leftover/end-of-line stuff, or damaged capsule comtents . . . something like that?

 

Likewise, here, where more necklaces and keyrings feature in the machines themselves, including miniature beach sets, blood bags (?!!) and two different 'Juggler' related things I can only guess - badly - at!

 

Watch-battery illuminated, stand-ups of Harry Potter characters.

 

Sci-fi feature quite heavily, along with historicals, and here we see stuff related to The Rocketeer, Batman, Star Wars and The Avengers

 

More Anime/Manga stuff, either side of miniaturised Pioneer Hi-Fi decks!

 

An amazing maze!

 

A mystery to finish, not speaking Japanese, I can only guess these are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland coasters? Featuring Sir John Tenniel's (the first commercial illustrator to be knighted) original artwork? Which would require the largest size of capsule? There are different sizes and designs of Capsule, as we'll see working through them, while a few sets seem to be cheaper or more expensive than the 'standard' Gashapon.

 

Many thanks to Adrian for all these images, which give us a good flavour of the subject, and for the toys which we will be looking at over the next few posts.

M is for Mighty Morphin's!

A new Toy Shop opened in Basingrad, while I wasn't paying attention, Toytown, in the big precinct, I think I have mentioned it before, but I bought these there, and kept going back to see if head office had sent some more down, although it was clear they were a discounted end-of-line thing.

 

As I clearly needed the Blue Ranger! Even thought they were clearly old stock, I thought maybe if the parent was supporting the new store with discounted stuff, to get the punter's in, maybe they'd have a couple more strips of these, but after over a year, they hadn't tuned up, and I'd blogged whatever else it was that caused me to mention them before, while the above shot languished in Picasa!

 

However, while visiting Peter Evans back in May, attending the Toy Project charity shop, and filling a few bags with bits, I managed to find these two, and thought "Hum, oversized Power Rangers, which ones do I need?", but, not remembering, I bought both as I was pretty sure I needed one, and indeed it was the Blue Ranger, while Yellow confirms they are the same set, without me needing to remove the others from their cards, or dig them out of the storage pile!

 

A bit big, at around 70-mil, but solids, and quite reasonable sculpts compared to some of the fatties we saw last time;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/09/mmpr-is-for-mighty-morphin-power-rangers.html

 

And, might go quite well with the based ones, we saw a couple of (red & black) in Rack Toy Month from Brian B. Interestingly, despite an ocean between them, the artwork on these baseless-figures' cards, is similar to the black-based ones sent to the Blog in August, so maybe the same prigin/factory?

P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Everything Else!

Sadly, all good things come to an end, and this is what didn't end-up in the other folders for whatever reason! Mostly because they were mixed shots, although a fair bit of the TV/Movie stuff ended up here rather than in the sci-fi post, but, well, it's another post!

 

A Phidal dome-headed 'Mysterio' (one of the things I hate about Marvel/DC is that many of the heroes and villains are named by five-year-olds, like 1950's cleaning products, shine'o, cleanrite, rinsit, floorbrite!), a pair of Fortnite figures, the one on the left is a stamper, the one on the right might be from a key-ring, hard to tell.

 

The Archer is The Archer/Clinton Barton/Hawkeye from Marvel? The other three still have question marks, Mobile Man ?. . . Or Cellphone Man!

 

The surface of the previous shot wasn't level and I could only get two of them to stand-up by turning them round! So here they are leaning against the backdrop the tight way round! I think the chap on the left is probably a 'solid' from Kinder, they have many of these hard plastic figures, a subcategory to the dedicated collectors, and this may be a specific character, or part of a set I'm unfamiliar with, and I could try looking him up, or not worry, if you know, you already know, I'll have a session in the future ID'ing all sorts when I label them up!

 

While the red guy might be a stamper or a keyring, or another source altogether, there is a lot of this Fortnite stuff in the queue, both Peter Evans and me have located a fair bit, and it was mostly shot some time ago!

 

An Anime/Manga schoolgirl keyring, the closest match I can find are free images, but named characters with green uniforms do exist, however with green, black or red bows? Her interest here, to us, is in the over-moulding of the different colours of vinyl. She's a relief flat - which should be 2½D, shouldn't it; not quite 2D, not quite 3D!

 

Somehow escaped the military post, becase it was mixed combat and historical, I guess! A cake decoration figure, seen before here, a copy of Airfix AWI, scaled-up, two dark green versions of figures more usually seen in dung/khaki, a Marx 50mm Training Centre figure, and a premium flat ascribed to Bonnie Bilt in the 'States, a Timpo copy who might be Polish, or a BR Moulds piece, and finally a US 'comic flat' also AWI.

 

Disney bits, including two princesses, one of which may be a knock-off, a large LotR Elven archer (presumably Legolas?) from McDonald's, who apparently came without a bow, even though he's clearly firing a bow, due to 'health & safety'? The martial-arts chap on the end will be from Mulan or something similar, I haven't followed the recent releases, just become aware of them through social media or Phidal!

 

The guy on the left here is probably a driver from an omnibus/tram/streetcar model kit, someone like Pyro maybe or a smaller maker, Palmer? Someone like that? Although he's also quite Parker'esque! The heavy chunk of ersatz PVC on the right is from Harry Potter, and is a statue which came to life at one point I think, again, I haven't read or seen any HP stuff, but did get Steven Fry's excellent reading of the first book, one Easter on the Radio, years ago!

 

The small scale here consists mostly of Galoob, from pretty-much all their lines, but there's a Mattel or two in there too (Action Man or Batman villain with pistol, and the firefighter), and a Bluebird Snow White sitting on her own, while a Zizzle Cap'n Jack stalks her!

 

Kinder bits, to go in the Kinder bits zone! I think that monkey may be another from the set which included my CAD-monkey mascot! The helmet is a soft polyethylene knock-off of Lego, while I'm not sure about the large lady, but she's certainly Kinder-like enough for the shot!

 

Also Kinder, but mostly mucked-about with.

They'll go in the future project zone!

 

And bringing us to a close on these posts, the 'Halloween' shot! The two ghosts are also Kinder I think, or one of these sets we looked at a year or two ago, the spotted mushroom is a Go-Go Crazy Bone I think, not so sure on the blue (robo-elephant?) thing, while two earlier novelty flats, probably from 1970's (or earlier) Christmas crackers, finish it all off.

As always, very many thanks to Chris Smith for finding, saving and sending all this stuff to the Blog. It's not just that we get all these posts out of each parcel, with something for everyone and lots to ID, but that in the future, there will be more in specific subject posts, a better picture of everything or anything, and I am very grateful to all those who save or send stuff to/for the Blog/Archive/Collection, especially where, like the probably broken cat flat above, it might otherwise go in the bin, a first sample is a first sample, whatever the condition, so, thank-you very much Chris.

P is for Peter's Plunder - Highlights 1

As I mentioned the other day, I don't tend to post-credit when geldt has crossed palms, but first, I know who gave me the contents of the bag, and second, I know they were cheapies, so we'll look at the highlights!

 

A couple of robo-dino-bots, similar to the pair of gift shop dragons carried by several branding's a few years (couple of decades?) ago, but still around, with the same black undercoat, heavy silver over-brushing and red eyes!

There's a post on these coming soon'ish I think, touristy horses, I spent years waiting for riders to appear, but it seems there weren't any, despite the Western/American saddlery?

 

Three American natives from Jean, the prone one is one of the slightly harder to find poses, but they are as common as Airfix readymades, on the continent, so it's all a bit relative!

 

Very strange manga/anime things with slightly animalistic faces, pre-pubescent teen bodies, angels wings, and a look of mischief about them! Possibly Wild Vibes Zombaes Forever dolls (some Netflix thing), but not the 8cm articulated action figures Google reveals, rather 54/60mm PVC solids - an earlier/capsule-toy line?

 

A bit infant'y, and probably going-on to charity, but they are fun if you like all this 'deforms' stuff, and marked-up to K&M/Wild Republic, so - box ticked! And the horses are less cartoony and could prove useful for spare mounts?

 

Kinder's Disney Fairies, I tried to get them to perform for the camera, but the petals kept falling out, or the fairies fell over, so, well, you get the idea, a similar set of 'Flower Fairies' has been issued recently as well!
 

Space! The lenticular goldfish-bowl-face is a new [to the collection] colour, the orange guy is Safari, I think the green one might be Ben Ten (and was another one who didn't want to stand up!), while the silver guy is an MPC copy, and the other two are mini-action figures from Hasbro, one a Star Wars 'Clone War' figure, the other possibly a GI Joe or something?

 

Loving the quirkiness of these, semi-flat, polyethylene, 'monochromatic' dinosaurs, what's not to like? The bases have channels in them which suggest they may attach to something else, but similar channels have been seen in other figures over the years (game playing pieces, IHC firefighters), so there may be a technical reason behind it.

 

More Kinder, and another fail to get a better display shot, but they are from several Barbie series I think, and as spares/to-be-sorted are a useful addition to my smaller sample. Oddly, several of them have pink knickers! But it's probably not that odd to a child and I'm just channelling the inherited residues of Edwardian uptightedness in the matter?

 

More Kinder (or Phidal in the case of the little blonde) capsule-type stuff.

More space! Seven of the LB (for Lik Be, of course!) astronauts, in their soft polyethylene iteration, probably the best surviving of the small scale versions, and posed with the Combex pencil sharpener. I've since learned there is a carpet-wheel version of the novelty, marked only 'B - 5 2 0'.

B is for Billions of Blistering Blue Bi-Trons!

Well, over a dozen, and they're not all blue! Just a quick follow-up to one element of Chris Smith's recent donation to the Blog, purely to get them in the tags and attached, that way, to the previous posts as extra imagery for Pikit Toys/Gordy International.

I know that my storage sample of loose ones has more blues, or paler blues to be precise, and while the camera's flash has washed them out, the front pair of red ones are a discernably darker-red than the rear trio.

 

I mentioned last time how the turrets of the little micro-AFV's can be used as back-packs for the Bi-Trons, whether as turrets (which would require some severe bending forwards and looking at the ground around their feet) or as comm's packs is - I guess - down to the owner's imagination!

 

A small patrol of those AFV's out of their blister-packs! And as last time, a reminder that  there is a resemblance to some of the Votom stuff from Tomy-Takara, beyond the similarity of the line's name!

D is for Dinosaurs, Lots & Lots of Dinosaurs!

And we arrive at the first post from Jon Attwood's latest and huge donation, which will be the last dinosaur post for a few days (already another one in the queue!), and because there are lots of animals to come in Jon's posts, I will try to alternate between donation and other posts for the next few days.

Because Dinosaurs are one of the unsung corners of the collection, which, apart from a few small scale and novelty types, have only really started accruing in the last 15 years, they all need a huge sorting and attributing session, likely to take a week or two, which won't happen for a while, and I can't pretend to be an expert on any of it, consequently I thought to do these as thematic shots, by way of an overview of what's out there, particularly of the Hong Kong / China variety, and to thank Jon properly for them by at least featuring them all here once, as while we will see them all again one day, they will be sorted into sets, by brand/maker . . . hopefully!

 

Here are me'fave's, the Dimetrodons, which, as I mentioned the other post ago, are not technically dinosaurs, but rather, to quote Wikipedia "a genus of non-mammalian synapsid that lived during the Cisuralian age of the Early Permian period, around 295–272 million years ago", in other words, among the first larger animals out of water, but not the first, and possibly warm-blodded?

 

Although there were also small ones, and two similar species - Edaphosaurus (large grey above), and Secodontosaurus are among the toys, which should be leathery, not scaled, but I just like them for reasons of childhood fancy and nostalgia! The pale gape-mouth/spotted pair which are a classic 'chinasaur', are actually dated 2001, but probably shot from old tools? the teeny-tiny one is marked Koka China which would seem to be a branding?

Triceratops, Styracosaurus and similar Ceratopsians, among other favourites from childhood, as there were quite a few different ones and they all looked suitably wacky, and of a mind to not be a carnivore's lunch, or not without a damaging fight! Always stand up to bullies! The blue one second from right is marked Chasmosaurus.

A couple of Protoceratops on the right and lots of Kerthunkersauruses, more formerly known as the Ankylosauria, I have always called them Kerthunkasaurs, because Ankee . . . ancky . . . Annekey . . . the real one is too hard to spell!

The bright green one looks like an infant or bath toy, could even be a pet toy, but no squeak, while the four small ones in the middle would look to be from the same maker, but two species, and have the look of erasers, but are polyethylene. The big Proto' with the red head is a lovely sculpt, well decorated, with a nod to modern birds such as the Pheasants? Or, yes, some monkey's arses!

 

Pterosaurs, when I was a little kid, there were really only two of these in all the books Pterodactyl (it's OK with this one, spellcheck gets it!), which all four of these are, and the dog-headed one with a parrots beak, now there are loads, but not many toys, and few really-good toys as they don't lend themselves to posing! But these are all quite good, compare with the various eraser Pterosaurs, which all look like comedy vampire-bats!

Stegosaurs, didn't we all have a soft spot for these, I'm sure half the reason we liked them was because they had a whole driveway of crazy-paving on their backs. You don't see much crazy-paving these days, but when I was young it was everywhere, the ultimate recycling of not so crazy paving!

 

The second largest (green with red plates) is marked SH, which I think is Shing Hing, still around, they did that four-nation tub of 'army-men' in Smyths a few years ago. While the dark one back-right, is called Tuojiangosaurus on his belly, but is using a classic Steggy' tool, the true Tuo' should have spikes or narrow, tapering plates?

 

Sauropods, due to their immense size, they are nearly always a compromise on scale/size, even from good, branded makers, and while the palaeontologists have classified loads of them, we tend to think of Dippy's, Brote's and the other one, and wasn't one banned, but has it come back again, and did two switch name or classification and, and, and, they are really big aren't they?

 

I like the biggest one (marked Apatosaurus) with the head turned on the horizontal. The two long ones are variations of the same tooling, and both also marked SH for Shing Hing.

 

Parasaurolophos, one of the duck-billed dinosaurs, again when I was a kid, the more normal duck-bills tended to be modelled, but now this one with its hollow trumpet is everywhere! And again the red-headed one is particularly smart-looking, while the one bottom-right, with a flap of connecting skin, clearly establishes himself as a different species/subspecies within the genus. he also looks related to the Silurian Sea-Monsters from Dr Who!

 

I couldn't remember what the bumpy-headed ones were called (like I ever knew!), but googling 'Grape headed dinosaur' gave an instant 'Pachycephalosaurus', and I think the various plate-heads are related carnivores, the double crest/crown one is Dilophosaurus, if Gooogle is to be believed!

 

It's confirmed by the bellies of the large green one (Toy Major) and the generic brown one next to him, if you won't trust Google! Face-on to their left is the peach/cream Corythosaurus,

 

You know my view on Spinosaurs, just cheap Dimetrodons! The two little ones look like they could be freebies from the Dino-mag we looked at a few posts back? And two paint-treatments of the same sculpt at back-left.

 

Carnivores; the two biggies at the back are marked Deinonychus on their Chinese bellies, and are paint-variants of the same uncommon, but quite realistic sculpt. And while there was T-Rex and Allosaurus when I wer't'lad, now there are lots of these Carnosaurs.

 

No names on them but various takes on Velociraptor, almost unheard-of in my childhood, they may have been in the books but I don't remember them, now made famous by the Jurassic Park movie-franchise, they are everywhere! They have also been bigged-up in other ways, by the filums, and were actually quite small.

 

Latecomers and oddments include a nice duck-bill (back-left) with an unmarked spiky-fellah in front of him, with a similar skeleton, a cartoony chap and another Pachycephalosaurus to their right, who missed his family picture!

 

Which leaves three dragons! The two larger just marked Made in China, the smaller green one unmarked, but looking like a Pokemon or Anime/Manga character of some sort, with very stylised spikes?

 

Sorting 2020

Just before they went in the car to storage!

 

Many thanks to Jon for all these, they will all be sorted into the master collection (shot above) at some point, and sorting was done as I went, as certain groups made themselves obvious, the gape-mouths with their '2001' mark, were a largish group for instance, so we will return to them as those groups, another day!