About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Arcady. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arcady. Show all posts

Saturday, August 30, 2025

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Five of Six

The penultimate batch of Brian Berke's rack toys shelfies, and  a few more of interest, but more of a box-ticker for the Tag-list, although I know some people have interests different to mine!
 
Didn't know Buzz had a cat . . . Alien cat at that!
 



Imaginext, a Fisher-Price/Mattel property, gets a fair few mentions on Little Rubber Guys, usually in the 'what is this' section, due to the number of parts and constant new production cycle, and there are some interesting things among the sets and accessories, but the figures are semi-deform.
 


Monster trucks!
 

Interactive dinosaurs.
 
Could use a coat of paint!
 
Nice, it's surprising how many sea-life sets there are out there, or probably not surprising if you were always a fan, but we had mostly Britains farm and a bit of zoo, with some Cherilea and Crescent animals, as kids, I never remember sea-life, but there's a growing side-stash of sea-life in the collection, with people like Marx having a stab.
 

More Hunson, I thought these were flocked, at first glance, but i think they are one of the new soft-feel polymers? Thanks as always to Brian for taking the time and trouble to go out and find this stuff and get the images to us.

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - One of . . . Several!

Brian Berke, roving reporter on the other side of the pond, sent some rack toys the other week, which were in the queue, then he sent a few more, then, today, he sent a shed-load! And with me committing to the Gygax stuff in the early-hours of this morning, I've now got my work cut-out to get everything up here before Sunday!
 
So, blurb light, with the pictures speaking for themselves, here's what's hanging on the racks in Queens, New York,  right now!
 

 

 
These are actually in the long-queue, but seem to have been reduced even more in the States, originally movie-related and pricey, the failure of the movie to live up to expectations left them sitting, and you can still find them on offer about the place, the Entertainer here, cleared theirs a year or two ago, just before Christmas.
  






Brian thought these were the best of the bunch, and they do look cool!
 
 
There's a bunch of these in the queue too, but different, smaller sculpts.


Monday, February 11, 2019

News, Views Etc . . . Out There Now!

Quick run of some domestic and contributed shelfies;

Arcady; Assorted Toys; Barbie; Battlestrike; Capsule Toys; Castle Play Set; Current Toy Offers; DA Toys Group Inc.; Disney; HTI Toys; Kinder Prizes; Kinder-egg; Knights Handpainted; Mixed Lot; Mixed Playthings; Mixed Toys; Model Kits; Model Ships; New Production News; News Views Etc...; Plastic Toy Figures; Plastic Toy Soldiers; Police Figures; Ship models; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Teemsterz; The Works; Toy Soldiers; Zaini;
I shot these in The Works on the 30th January, might be of some use to ship war-gamers, I'm guessing they are old 1960/70's tools put-back into production for the express production of a cheapie toy and three-quid's not a lot for a ship kit, even a small and perhaps dated one, anyone recognise the original from the instruction diagrams . . . or the artwork?

40-odd parts and can be finished as waterline, and while I suspect the artwork on the side of the box is the whole [four-kit] line (and my local store only has New Jersey's), they are all large capital ships with class-sisters who could be modelled from duplicate kits? Anyway, out there now, try the website?

Arcady; Assorted Toys; Barbie; Battlestrike; Capsule Toys; Castle Play Set; Current Toy Offers; DA Toys Group Inc.; Disney; HTI Toys; Kinder Prizes; Kinder-egg; Knights Handpainted; Mixed Lot; Mixed Playthings; Mixed Toys; Model Kits; Model Ships; New Production News; News Views Etc...; Plastic Toy Figures; Plastic Toy Soldiers; Police Figures; Ship models; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Teemsterz; The Works; Toy Soldiers; Zaini;
These were TKMaxx, 6th February, more from HTI (Halsall)'s Teamsterz, a three-deck boxed set of approximately 1:48th/50th die-cast emergency/first responder vehicles with two more figures which will start to turn up in charity-shop bags soon and in rummage trays at show in a year or two!

Indecently - the card shipping container/port-a-cabin is an old Blue Box trick! Tom of Finland's got his truncheon out; he must be a special constable! But what's with the peaked, chef's hats! Out There Now!

Arcady; Assorted Toys; Barbie; Battlestrike; Capsule Toys; Castle Play Set; Current Toy Offers; DA Toys Group Inc.; Disney; HTI Toys; Kinder Prizes; Kinder-egg; Knights Handpainted; Mixed Lot; Mixed Playthings; Mixed Toys; Model Kits; Model Ships; New Production News; News Views Etc...; Plastic Toy Figures; Plastic Toy Soldiers; Police Figures; Ship models; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Teemsterz; The Works; Toy Soldiers; Zaini;
Kinder egg's, pink, nom-nom-nomnivore for the use of; have a new series of Barbie's, I've lost count of how many lines there are in the range now, this must be the fourth or fifth line-up? Film Director Barbie, Doctor (or vet?) Barbie and . . . err . . . cage-fighter Barbie?

Figures are quite nice but idiosyncratic, with two clipping firmly into their bases and the other having no fixer and constantly falling-over! And they all have some kind of card interactive or backdrop, which are hideously bent from their time in the ovum and just get in the way, it's not even clear what the left-hand ones do, some sort of game I think, but multi-lingual pictogram instructions leave you with no real idea!

Each also comes with a mini sticker-sheet, but they are those paper ones Kinder have always used, which curl, dry and fall off over time. I wish they'd go over to the vinyl type that Lego use, if you get them straight and rub them on with a finger-nail; they stay-on! Out There Now, don't eat them all at once!

Arcady; Assorted Toys; Barbie; Battlestrike; Capsule Toys; Castle Play Set; Current Toy Offers; DA Toys Group Inc.; Disney; HTI Toys; Kinder Prizes; Kinder-egg; Knights Handpainted; Mixed Lot; Mixed Playthings; Mixed Toys; Model Kits; Model Ships; New Production News; News Views Etc...; Plastic Toy Figures; Plastic Toy Soldiers; Police Figures; Ship models; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Teemsterz; The Works; Toy Soldiers; Zaini;
Sticking with capsule-eggs, but switching to contributions, Brian Berke found these Disney toy eggs in the 'States back in the late autumn, you can find Zàini in the UK, usually smaller independents or the sort of General Post Office/stationers which are becoming an endangered species in the South East!

I do have a few interesting Zàini-LZ (Luigi Zàini), Maraja, Metro, Zepter, Partizan (et al) capsule toys so one day we'll have a 'mini-season' on the minor-make capsule toys here, once the box turns-up in the garage! Although; Peter Evans gave me a bunch of Maraja last May, which are in the queue somewhere?

Arcady; Assorted Toys; Barbie; Battlestrike; Capsule Toys; Castle Play Set; Current Toy Offers; DA Toys Group Inc.; Disney; HTI Toys; Kinder Prizes; Kinder-egg; Knights Handpainted; Mixed Lot; Mixed Playthings; Mixed Toys; Model Kits; Model Ships; New Production News; News Views Etc...; Plastic Toy Figures; Plastic Toy Soldiers; Police Figures; Ship models; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Teemsterz; The Works; Toy Soldiers; Zaini;
Brian also shot these at the end of December last year; really quite good-looking copies of Matchbox Afrika Korps in a nice sandy-coloured plastic, branded to Arcady from DA Toys Group, in the 'States Now!

Arcady; Assorted Toys; Barbie; Battlestrike; Capsule Toys; Castle Play Set; Current Toy Offers; DA Toys Group Inc.; Disney; HTI Toys; Kinder Prizes; Kinder-egg; Knights Handpainted; Mixed Lot; Mixed Playthings; Mixed Toys; Model Kits; Model Ships; New Production News; News Views Etc...; Plastic Toy Figures; Plastic Toy Soldiers; Police Figures; Ship models; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Teemsterz; The Works; Toy Soldiers; Zaini;
And having mentioned Peter; he shot this set somewhere in North or Central (?) London (I guess) on the 14th of January. The fort - an apparently unbranded generic (there may be something on the back of the box?) - looks to be a solid, stackable modular thing, in a soft rubber or faom-plastic of some kind, while the figures have DNA from Starlux (archer) Cofalux (pole-arm) Timpo (mounted jouster) and Supreme (swordsman) among others!

He didn't say exactly where he'd found it - in an (un-named) discount store of some kind, but I've not seen them locally (we have 'Stepford' universal-brand high streets round here!), so try larger inner-city or out-of-town clearance places? It's bit pricy at £12.99 (for tight-wads like me) but very useful and a bargain at 2-for-twenty-quid; if it is in your budget. Also two forts would make a very substantial piece of baronial real-estate! While a single one would be equally useful for small-scale gamers. Out There Somewhere!