N is for November's Sandown Park - Sci-Fi &etc.

On to the odd-and-sods of the last show, and these are a bit of a mix, nothing exciting, but it's all grist to the mill, and there's always something new!

 

I think the devil is probably a rather naff Valentine's Day 'thing', but it IS a bendy! While the green chap, also a bendy, is probably more modern, and wasn't easy to shoot, but I decided to leave him in his crinkled bag for now. He has something of the Muppets about him?

 

Straight from a shop-stock / counter display box, three colours/poses of the Cherilea 60mm astronauts, interesting that the whole box, only had these three poses, the non-EM2 Bullpup armed chaps? And colours tie-in with the Tibidabo issues, so I think it's fair to say the Italians just bought-in the product, but never had the tools?

 

If there's anything exciting in this post it's the left-hand of these two from Yolanda, of Spain, being a large Anime/Manga type robot, Marked Toei, while the other chap is marked Troma I think, the US pulp-Video Nasty producer, and both are the earlier polyethylene, some Yolanda were later issued in a softer PVC-substitute.

 

Adrian gave me this, his head is broken-off, so will need pining at some point, but in the last few years several whole, and part, Cherilea Batmans and/or Robins have come in with one or two bases, so I'll sort them all into the best pair and Blog them again properly, one day!

 

'Gygax' spikey, one of the Crossbows & Catapults figures mentioned the other day, home-painted and play-worn, he needs a good clean, along with a Bandai Power Ranger's villain - I think!

 

What looks like a 1:48th scale aircraft kit's gunner, and one of the Aurora figures from the Lost in Space set with the rock-throwing cyclopean alien. He's lost his hand, but as a first sample, will do for now, although I may have these in white-plastic (Mobius) somewhere?

T is for Thunderbirds' 2, 4, 6, FAB 1, and a Whole Bunch They Didn't Bother to Number . . . are GO!!

Funny story behind this one, the guy wanted (and I don't normally deal with the grubby stuff, but it's central to the story) 55-quid for this, a bit steep I thought, but I know this imported stuff commands a premium, so I thought "Fuck it, I'm playing catch-up with bushy the twig, I might as well?", and got sixty out, "Have you got a fiver?", I asked the dealer, at the start of the day . . . bear in mind, the dealer I was with, had a wad of fivers, and a bag of £1 and £2 coins, because he's prepared his float!

 

"Err, no" he says, so I asked him what we were going to do, and he half-heartedly muttered 'the wife' or something, and with no further words, exchanged a glance with her, and said "No". "Well, I'm not going to give you sixty?" says I, and he leaps back indignantly "I never asked you to!", "No" said I, "But that's the other logical solution?" To which he hummed an acceptance of that logic, and after a laboured silence, I said "Well, I'll leave it than, maybe later?" handed it back and walked away.

 

And I would have left it at that, indeed I went back past the stall a couple more times, gave it the once over, and studiously ignored the set, and would have left it. If you're setting yourself up as retailer for the day, no matter what your 'day job', you either go to the bank and get a wad of fivers and a bag of coins, or, if you don't do that many shows, save your one's, two's and five's in the two-to-four months between shows? It's common-sense as much as anything else.

 

However . . . on the other side of the hall, another chap had the exact-same contents of this set, in two window boxes, one with T2, T4, Pod 4 and - I think - Fab 1, the other having all the other vehicles, and the spare Pod 3, he wanted £60 or £65 for the first, and £40 or £45 for the second, I can't remember the exact amounts, but it was going to be over a hundred-quid for the pair, so in the end, I went back to the first stall, and I bought it after all, while he wasn't there, as it happens.

 

But, that was only half the story, as when I first spotted it, it had no price on, and I asked the lady (who would transpire to be the dealer's wife), how much it was, and she said she didn't know, but that 'he' was coming back, so I hung-on for a minute or two, then she said she didn't know what had happened to him, so I left it with her, assuming she would keep it behind until I returned.

 

The standard approach at shows, when someone shows interest in something, and the helper, for whatever reason, doesn't know what's going on. However, when I returned to the stall, it was back on display, for any Tom, Dick or Harry passing-by, to purchase, with it's newly added pink £55 label!

 

It takes the shine off the day, dealing with these fuckwits, you know? It's not rocket science, there are rules to the art of pretending to be a retailer for a day, and this stall literally failed all of them! Fackin' ell, G'want! An ironic cultural reference, as they went through a phase of wearing Thunderbirds Are Go T-shirts!

 

Anyway, I am now the pround'ish, owner, of a maybe cheaper than I thought it aught to be, Thunderbird Two from Bandai, with most of the more memorable pod-vehicles, to add to the already growing collection of micro-mini's we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/01/f-is-for-five-four-three-two-one.html

 

To which I've already added a vinyl tree-hanger, the dug-out 'Colourform' ones, a board-game foursome, and a couple more, in plunder-posts which didn't get the T-bird Tag!
 

 

Mole, Firefly and the Excavator, which should be red, and which I saw in an episode the other night, there's one of these 24-hour live streams on YouTube, which seems to be connected to the remastered Blu-ray, and I'm dipping into it from time to time, but you never know where in the loop you're going to drop-in, so you then have to fast-forward through a few, to get to where you were, after which the episode cursor stops progressing, all very confusing, but great-fun seeing them all again!

 

Fab 1, and the two blueys, the ray turns on the Transmitter Truck, and the grabs (I don't know this vehicle's name? Another Excavator?) are articulated, the only other interactive one is the Excavator above, where the bucket is clip-on and can be configured for travelling in the Pod, or as shown.

 

I'm minded, if I ever get the time, to scratch-build a few more to go with these, the last episode I watched was 'The Uninvited', about the mysterious pyramid of Khamandides, with the half-tracked 'Jeep', it would be fun to do that in this scale!

 

Three more, I don't know what the first one is, a laser-cutter - should it also be red? The second is one of two Recovery Vehicles, the other would need to be scratch-built, and it can be red or yellow? While I remember a trio of the Elevator Cars (which should also be red, or white with a red cab?) trying to save the huge (and rather silly) Firefly, I can't remember the whole story, and will catch up with it soon, hopefully, but I think they sort of succeeded?

 

Thunderbird Six . . . it's not a Pod-vehicle! My late father's Tiger Moth, which was an ex-WWII trainer, had a very similar paint-job, but blue, not red, and I wonder if the MOD-approved sellers painted them like this, to hide the military markings, prior-to-sale, but, like so many things (you realise, after they have gone), I never asked him?

One of the great continuity errors of Thunderbirds, which niggled me, even as a kid, was the fact that Thunderbird Four, was named thus, and got its own Pod, while none of the others got either a number or a dedicated Pod, I don't even know how many Pods there were, was it six? The two Pods in this set are only numbered on the front, they should be numbered at both ends, and the registering of the sticker here, leaves a lot to be desired!

S is for Shelfies - B&M, July

I was over in Basingrad for something the other week, which it seems was actually a couple of months ago (I don't know, but it goes somewhere?), and I popped into B&M for a five-pack of Ruffle Bars (nom-nom-nomnivore!), and managed to shoot a bunch of figural shelfies, and, I think, made a further purchase for the Blog's future, but anyway, here are the shelfies with a few notes.

An egg-full of dinosaurs, one or two larger and several medium-sized critters, with the usual assortment of scenic accessories, consisting in the main of palm trees, but there may have been some 'rocks' in there too? Basically a generic, it's branded-up to B&M themselves.

Also branded to them, but sourced from someone/somewhere else, it this which we may have seen before, but I think the design of 'carry case' has changed from dino' to truck, to this robo-dino' over the years? And helps ID a couple of the mini dinosaur models. Found not in the toy section, but as part of the big-box Christmas gift shelf above the food aisles!

 

Paint your own vinyl Harry Potter figureines and locomotive

 

Stumble Guys from Diramix . . . I had to google it; "Stumble Guys is a multiplayer battle royal obstacle course game where players race to become the last one standing", so that's them then, vinyl solids though, so while I'm not buying them, they will come-in via future bags of shite from Charity Shops!

 

I can't say I know much about this Stich chap either, indeed for a while I got Lilo & Stich confused with Itchy & Scratchy (cartoon characters within a cartoon), my following the developments of neither! I now know the difference, but if you don't, you're probably better-off remaining in ignorance, this stuff goes around and comes around, there's nothing new under the sun, and they, too, are vinyl solids.

 

More of the same from Bandai, and I think we all know who Sonic is now? Mixed assortments, with duplicates between sets, is almost as annoying as blind-bags! But you obviously need to buy both sets to get the four hidden figures to complete the sixteen!

The Sonic figures also come in smaller assortments, and I left the Joker figure in the crop, as while he's not the sort of thing I 'do', I know a lot of the guys & gals on Brian Heiler's platforms will be interested.

 

"100 Years of Furry Friendships", it says, well, if you've looked into 'furry's', you'll know how disturbing that sentence could be seen to be? Not only that, but more disturbing is the fact that these mostly recognisable Disney characters, have been remodelled in a Japanese anime style . . . why? Just why? Horrid!

We may have seen Lady Bug and Cat Noir, or they may be in the queue, Peter Evans gave some to the Blog I think, but anyway, their French TV series is called Miraculous, and these blind-box sets are from Playmates, but obviously in the style of super-deforms or the dreaded Funko-pops, it's not good, unless it's your thing! All of which is a lot more than I knew about them in August when we saw them in a B&M shelfie post!

 

All currently sat in B&M for Christmas shoppers!

L is for Late Layabouts Languishing in Limbo!

As well as lots of old Charity shop stuff, there's also a lot of toy show/toy fair stuff, which will probably be broken-down into box-tickers, or thematic posts now, and a few Shelfies which seem to have missed previous round-ups, including these, most of which are from the Autumn/Christmas just-gone, despite the fact we did have several 'shelfie' posts from both my Camera and Brian Berke's? But there you are, they hide from me!

This is actually from 2021, so a real hider! It was, then, the latest iteration of the rather generic and poorly-detailed/sculpted 30mm'ish figures Mark, the Man of Tin, has such success, and apparent delight with, in turning them into spacemen, monsters, Napoleonics and colonial thin-red-lines, among other things!

 

We've had various shelfies of these, over the years, since they started appearing, not long after this Blog was born, and Poundland, Poundstreatcher, the defuct Poundworld Plus and 99P Stores (along with others), have all carried them, often in more than one packaging, while Amazon has carried dozens of generics and phantom-branded stuff, tubbed, carded, bagged, blistered and clam-shelled!

 

Which is why I only shelfie them, I have samples of various sizes, in dozens of colours, and they will be findable, mint, on evilBay for decades to come, as ex-stock, if you really need them in packaging! 

I hate this shite, I phuqing hate it with a vengeance, and to be fair to my sensibilities, I hated the big-head/bobble-head/nodding crap of our childhoods, and I hated the Corinthian cricketers and footballers of the 1990/2000's, it's awful stuff. I think it's an extension of clown-phobia?

 

I even hate the 'Nutty Mads' from Marx . . . "Let's apply teenage, 50's surf-culture to World War Two murderers, shall we? Make them look silly! The Butchers of Nanking will look harmless after we've given them some racially-profiled extremities!", said no sane person, ever. Garbage!

"Yeah, but the kids like them", go the supine, brain-dead, left-of-bell-curve parents! Because unethical, immoral, capitalist Toymen, who have a greater love of money than the future mental well-being of the human race, have sold them the concept, while you were getting drunk and watching porn, to blot-out current-affairs and drown the misery of your existence, you dullards!

Deep breath Hugh, take a moment, and then see if you can find some nice dinosaurs . . .

Self-branded/in-house from B&M, I think these are the latest from HGL (Grossman) or HTI (Halsall), repacked for B&M, and at less than the price of a single larger Schleich or Papo, a bloody bargain! Who wouldn't like this under the Tree on Christmas morning?

 

These - Wenno - might be a phantom brand (also for B&M) or an actual brand mark for a China toy maker (I haven't seen them at the trade-fairs?), but they seem to be newish sculpts (albeit, maybe copies of other makers) and relatively well done for the price-point, which, again, beats the big-names hands down, and I thought the giraffe was particularly well done, compared to the rack-toy giraffes of our youth!

 

 

 

We're on safer ground with Teamsters, having seen them several times before, an imported sub-branding of HTI, covering a variety of die-cast or 'toy car' lines, and I wouldn't buy any of these, new, but they will help ID loose dinosaurs at some point in the future! Also shot in B&M.

And finally a similar set, in B&M packaging, really a generic, but helping to pinpoint an origin for some of the many teeny dinosaurs, if no better candidate comes forward in the future.

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Ephemera

As I posted some of this back in lockdown and as the lockdowns are all a couple of years ago, they might as well go here too! A rather eclectic collection, but the 'Seen Elsewhere' folder is one I have managed to migrate, find and get to grips with.

 

From the Hong Kong firm Star Toys' catalogue, their range of Timpo/Britains (and other makes?) wagon/coach clones. Amusing to see both Stage Coaches ripped-off, and Britains horses on Timpo bases.

This is from the retailer Josef Kober of Vienna's catalogue, from the mid 1970's. We see Timpo Indians attacking a Timpo cavalry/union-manned fort, while Elastolin cowboys get up to all sorts down in the town, including laying in wait for a Timpo stage! Wooden buildings exclusive to Kober.

I believe the shop only closed in the last few years, and when I posted it previously Gubányi István of Hungary recalled the shop was popular with Eastern European visitors during the Cold War, presumably due to Austria's NATO/Warpac neutrality.

This went on Brain Heiler's facebook group, where they like a bit of early evening, older kids, TV serial-related stuff, preferably Canadian, but this is British and another retailer (or actually; wholeseller)'s catalogue, Dekkertoys. I might even have a couple of those fake medal/badge 'Bling' items somewhere! Childhood Fun!

Not intending to park my tanks on Moonbase's lawn, it just happens there's a few white-button/wind-up, giant insects down the bottom of this collection of plastic kits from Bandai's 1975 catalogue, all of which have the clockwork 'walking action', I previously posted this on the STS Animal Forum over a year ago.

At the same time as I posted this image of the Marx prehistoric playset by Burbank Toys, presumably - by then - a Dunby-Combex sales vehicle (also marketing some Mattel), although originally formed in 1957. They also sold the last version of the Guns of Navarone playset, both in contents-photo' box-art, along with a third which I think was a Wild West set, with fort? It'll go on the A-Z listing in the end, with lots of other stuff!

H is for How They Come In - Theo's Parcel 2 of 2

So, continuing with Theo's donation to the Blog . . . I wrote as the opening to quite a bit of blurb, Monday night, for the finished article, which I then managed to delete!

Not the first time, it has to be said, but doing so brings with it both the depression of being very silly indeed and the knowledge you won't manage to re-write the article as well, in your own mind, a second time, it's one of those things, but I got the arse with myself, and sulked for a couple of days, then is was flat-viewing, then car trouble . . . then!

Anyway, we're here now, and continuing with Theo's donation . . .

. . . we'll quickly skirt-over a nice pile of Xandria key-rings, as there are full articles coming on them, but in the meantime and on the right, we have a mouse mascot/premium for the Dutch Frico (Friesian Co-Operative) cheese maker, they're still going and with both Edam and Gouda on their books, what's not to love there? Some warm sourdough rolls, salted butter, a few grapes and an apple . . . heavan! He's lost his nose though!

The other two are Germany's 'Swergs', can't remember if the Gnomes/Dwaves are Manurba (via Peltro or Fontanini, we had a link to a page of them once but I can't find it?) or someone else, although these days the caveat with Manurba seems to be 'Might not be, or might be Dom Plastik or Heinerle', and no one is as sure about all-three now, as they were a decade or so ago!

I think Theo explained the Indian to me but I can't find the eMail! Another mascot/premium type I think? The dog looks to be composition,but it's just playwear, and he's missing a hat, while the clown is hard make much of, he shares some properties with the Xandria stuff, but not the central core and could also be a mascot/premium type?

On the right we have two Oriental types with faux-antiquing, similar to other Euro-premiums, while we saw 'Bad Santa' the other day. The MacDonald's Dragon is interesting as I'm pretty sure I have another in a different pose, possibly two, so they must have been a Happy Meal set, but some time ago? And I like the blow-moulded mouse, reminiscent of some Soviet-era Russian/East European stuff and maybe also a mascot/logo premium?

Mostly Kinder and the hard plastic cartoon figures who have their dedicated collectors but aren't that rare, just fun! The fold-up/curl-up animals on the bottom row are modern versions of the older wheeled '90's one, while the sloth-bear is part of the current trend under MPG for realistic or semi-realistic (some have doe-eyes) wildlife sets.

Some more Kinder and other egg/capsule toys (Onken, Nestle), mascots and premiums, I rather like the grey bear who looks to be someone's logo-character? And the rail or bus/tram worker looks familiar? The four down the bottom (orange warthog to blue elephant) are rubber and similar to Schleich 'mini' animals, but more cartoony, and probably part of a larger set/series?

Loving the little tree and I think the sheriff's badge (from the typesetting/font) is for Desperate Dan, mascot of Dandy Comic for years, while the little green man may be an early (1970's) Kinder prize?

Above will probably go on to charity (in storage at the moment) as I can't start on Action figures, no time, no space and the wrong generation! Although - see below - for a exception, but they all get recorded as they come through and the little Playmobil-like character may be an early Maxi-Egg prize?

While the stuff below used to be a single takeaway tub, but are now sorted into a stack of thematic tubs; traffic lights, road signs, other street signs, traffic cones, pumps & dispensers, street-lights/lamps, barriers, other street furniture &etc! All grist to the mill and one day I'll get an ID page organised for them all.

Only recently covered the integral-moulded wheel minis', but there's a few here (and I found a lot from a loyal reader in Finland I left out of the recent posts, so follow-ups coming!

In this lot are three nice Kinder old fashioned cars (middle left) and a die-cast from the same source, several earlier trucks (top row) some of which may be Siku, which might actually make them DS Plastics of Holland as they inherited a lot of Siku's 1950's novelty moulds.

Nice Land Rover (sans windscreen) and a teeny-tiny Transformer type with a double-barreled turret, and I think I've seen that Grand Prix racing car, either on a card, or in a board game?

This is lovely! Modern (1992) and made by Bandai, it's a near perfect 1:76/72nd scale, pull-back motor Thunderbird 4, and will look good on a shelf with those Captain Scarlet conversions from Airfix cowboys; I know they are different franchises, but one show's 20mm puppets are good enough for another's!

Almost saving the best for last, these are action figures, but they will stay, as they are plug/pop-together, soft polyethylene (think Airfix or Jean), and when I first saw them I thought either the Plasty-Airfix figures to go with the tee-pee we saw here a while ago from Gareth, or maybe Jean/Manurba.

But the Plasty-Airfix figures are smaller and there's nothing useful or obvious on Google for either Manurba or Jean, and both Theo and myself have drawn a bit of a blank. The problem being they are totally unmarked. Also they wet to storage before I measured them, so I can only say I think they were about between four and six inches.

The closest I've found is several models of Wild Bill Hickock (and a Wyatt Earp), from the Legends of the West set by Exel Toys of Hong Kong, which are apparently both marked, and dated 1975, but the figures seem to be joined/jointed with steel-tube rivets, while the donation samples are all-plastic, take-apart/plug-together?

The best I can come up with is that they must be copies of the Exel set (itself ripped-off/resurrected in 1991 by Imperial, with fatter polypropylene figures), probably by an anonymous rival a few blocks away from wherever Exel had their plant? Or; an earlier/later version of the Exel set? But any help from Action Figure aficionados would be appreciated to tie these down, or even just add a bit of background however shaky?

Many thanks again to Theo for all these, I hope I've done them justice shareing them with you, lots of interesting stuff, and we're starting to build a nice picture of DS Plastics here at Small Scale World, with gap-fillers and Kinder bits for future posts . . . Xandria next, then London, then Chris's lot, Peter, Sandown Park, more capsule updates, more other stuff . . . and canoes! Cheers Theo!