O is for Odd Ossuary

OK, so to the last post on the Gogo Crazy Bones from Magic Box which have been in Picasa for too long (as have lots of other things, and they're still there!), not least because they have limited pull for most Loyal Readers, beyond this box-ticking exercise!

 

So, I bought a final big lot which came with a Gogo's tin, I didn't shoot these as to a certain extent they were much of a muchness, both with the ones in the original post, and the first few of this sequence, But note, in answer to my comment in the preceding Crazy Bones post, here we have a decent number of dark greens in both opaque and transparent. Likewise with the blues and a bunch of candy-mice and bubblegum pinks.

 

There were also a lot of the glass-clear ones, with more transparent in the reds and oranges, but it was the odds which proved more interesting and are looked at below, by visible marking, the reason being, I didn't look so closely at the original post's figures/bones;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/10/c-is-for-crazy-bones.html

 

. . . but suspect a few of the undecorated ones in that lot were from the groups below. It should be noted that the link in that original post also talks of Coca-Cola premiums somewhere, but below are various issues/tranches of their offerings.

 

Apparently issued by Imperial, who pops-up here, regularly retailing novelty tat, and things which look like other people's things, those non-Brabo bendies, for instance, and here they have gone to Israel of all places, and found a Laor Toys, to make several tranches of their Jojo's, over three or more years in the mid-nineties.

 

A whole set of T-Shirts?

 

I assume Tim Foot is the 'designer', however, I don't know the significance of 'Haxey', but will put it separately in the Tag list for those who do! And these seem to predate Gogo's by a year at least, however the collector's wiki, seems to have various producers of these 'bones', before Magic Box blew the gaff wide open?

 

Metallics, China, not Israel, and not of the same quality as the later Magic Box ones; quickly worn away with play, likely a high shine spray, rather than a genuine heat-coating or dip-plating?

 

Don't know?

 

So, we have a kid's craze in the mid-1990's, major player is Magic Box, an unknown Spanish company who will become a global giant off the back of them, who call their product Gogo's Crazy Bones, and which are designed to be used like Roman or pre-Roman knuckles, in a variety of games, rules for which were included in the blind-bags they were purchased in.

 

Flat colours, Metaflek, clear, semi-transparent, metallised, decorated and undecorated, possibly used as premiums by Coke-cola, Hubba-Bubba and others, rival brands, unique sets per. Country, special issues for smaller organisations (UK's FIFA World Cup team), convention and swap-meet exclusives (usually an existing moulding in a special finish), there must be several thousand to find, I've picked up a couple of hundred or so now, and that's too many!

 

A couple of useful links for those who are really interested;

 

Fandom

https://crazybonespedia.fandom.com/wiki/Crazy_Bones_Pedia-Wiki

 

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo%27s_Crazy_Bones

C is for Charity's Colourful Carrion

This was a smaller purchase, around the same time as the others we've seen, i.e., more years ago than I care to remember, or have actually remembered! Nothing new with these, but the last post is interesting . . . ish!

 

Anodised metallics, with a transparent blue monkey on the left, it's actually one of the more realistic Crazy Bones so far, with the yellow tiger/cat (2nd post) a close, but demented, second, then I think we have a butterfly, a Hitler Dog (it's just the flash!), another animal and two pirate skulls.

 

Pastels and purples! See; not really a Hitler Dog!

 

Everything else Gogo! I quite like the ghost, bottom-right. Overall there haven't been many dark green ones from Magic Box, have there? The last post in this sequence will add further to the story, then we may have a more rambling post on all these blind-bag things, then there's more from Brian and some larger ones, before maybe some more Kinder and Lego?

D is for ♫♪♪ Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem . . . Crazy Bones! ♫♪♫

Another quick box-tick of colourful weirdos, this was a charity bag in 2018, I can't believe I've been threatening to post these on and off since 2016, I knew I'd put it off for a year or two (it's hardly high priority), but a decade? How fast has that gone!

 

Playing!

 

Blacks, whites and greys.

 

Some proper reds.

 

Greens.

 

Tart's nail-polish colours!

 

Camel dung!

 

Blues.

 

Oranges, yellows and caramels. 

 

Another factoid to add to the previous stuff, this was the first one with Metafleck type glitter inclusions, in a semi-transparent polymer, I have no idea if that has any significance beyond a new variant, but it might have!

B is for Bones, Box-Ticking Crazy Bones!

This is from the folder 'Crazy Bones II', except they have five mentions in the Tag list already, but some of those mentions are in passing, of the Magic Box stuff in these next few posts, when they came-in, and are now all part of the capsule and blind-bag Picasa clearance exercise!

 

The original post was here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/10/c-is-for-crazy-bones.html

 

And, because I've learnt very little more about them, nor given them much more thought, beyond editing the posts in vaguely artful ways (by colour, alright! I sorted them by colour!), they really are just box-ticking, so any genuine fans who might find them, might feel inclined add comments of merit (like - are there any rare ones!), for those of us who remain no more than mildly curious!

 

Metallic finished ones.

 

Comparison between the 'traditional' ones and the metallics of the same moulding.

 

Blues.

 

Reds, yellows and oranges.

 

Pastels, purples and greens.

 

A couple who came in around the same time with more mixed lots, and this was all happening back in 2018, the flood of these to charity-shops seems to have receded, but for a couple of years I was picking up huge bags of them for pennies.

 

Something to add to the previous post's info' is that it seems that a late (or even 'contemporary' a few years ago) issue of Gogo Crazy Bones had these flat, triangular bases with curved tips, I don't know the significance of them, or whether they all had them, but it was taking them further from the original 'bones' concept, which, of course goes back to antiquity and a dice-less, dice-like game played with knuckle-bones, as is Jacks!

D is for Donations - Peter - Animals

The sorting of the animals is going to be one of the bigger tasks, one day, the hobby is probably bigger than Toy Soldiers, certainly, it supports several vigorous forums, and there are as many makers, if not more, while mine are rather in an anonymised heap within the bigger stash, but they keep coming in, and here's some more!

 

A nice cat, which looks like it might be an accessory from a non-animal set of some kind, the lizard is from the little small-scale, rack-toy play sets from Toy Major/Ackerman, while the bear is both a bit crude and a bit unusual!

 

A whole sub-genre are this smallish scale, softish vinyl sets from toobs, tubs or bags, which are sort of 35/40mm compatible, but really 'bag-scale' or unit scale, and while some are marked, other's easy to ID, many sets are to be found on FeeBay-Amazon-Alibaba, as generics or under obviously phantom brands. These seem to go together, but a couple of them are questionable. Nice, different, cactus!

 

Two generic rack toys, over-stickered to Toys As Fun, which I could have saved for Rack Toy Month, but I think there's plenty for then, and this is the next size up, again, a bit unit-scale (elephant undersized, pig oversized), but mid-sized animals are coming out as 54mm-compatible, which is useful for dioramas and vignettes . . . big cat stalking a patrol, that kind of thing!

 

A couple of proper antiques, I love these! The pressed-wood farmer seems to match the common girl feeding chickens we've seen here before, in point of fact, she or her chickens, turn up so often she must have been from a popular set, for several years, but this chap I've not seen before. Although the blue paint has suffered badly, the other colours remain in sufficient quantity to give a good idea of what he looked like new!

 

While the horse in tin-plate might be a cigarette premium, while we, here in the UK, had cards and silks, as giveaways, some brands on the continent had tin-plate flats, prior to replacing them with the numerous plastic flats used as premiums with other products too. You fold the base out, after the item has been slid out of the packet of cigarettes.

 

From a more recent pick-up in London is another Toy Major lizard (used as a dragon/monster/dinosaur in both the cavemen and medieval sets), two tree frogs and a very daft-looking sauropod!

 

Some larger animals, I think a couple were Triple-A marked, and the green pony is from the Tupperware interactive building blocks, we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/11/g-is-for-great-grey-green-greasy.html

 

Where they were used as, removable, playable rattles, in opaque blocks, unlike the transparent ones from Airfix and others.

 

A large lump of dense vinyl, makes a rather nice Hippo', and these are starting to grow as a side collection, purely by accident, and we did look at a load in a lazy post a while ago!

 

This is from PMS, and I ummed-and-arrred over whether or not to open it, in the end I though I had to, or I wouldn't know what I was dealing with, and was quite suprised to find a gold mokey!

 

I don't know wheather it's a 'chase' figure, or if the whole range is finished in a similar fashion, nor do I know how many there are as there;s no flyer/leaflette . . . probably a £1-shop thing, and therefore stripped to the minimum on unit-price!

 

Another group of - probably - related small vinyls - wild!

 

And another - domestic!

 

Mentioned the other day I think, and seen with a few others a while back, oh yeah, it was the post on mixed shots, a week or so ago. Anyway, here's the farm one, courtesy of Peter, and these sets annoy me, nice animals in a vague scale, so why add huge dogs and ginormous poultry! They haven't even got the excuse of box-scale, because there's plenty of room occupied by the plastic end-filler!? I know, it's a cost thing!

 

Again, many thanks to Peter for all these, they're not just grist to the mill, but also 'bricks in the wall', gaps filled in the archive.

L is for Lost . . . Kitties!

I'm going to try and tackle the backlog of capsule toy and bland-bag stuff, popping one between each pair of donation posts, and it seems fitting to start with another contribution! Brian Berke found these back in the autumn of last year, and from the date given and the price, we can assume clearance of an unsuccessful line, so good luck finding any, but someone will be selling full sets on evilBay at some point, almost certainly for a premium they don't merit!

 

But, it's cats! And we like cats here, even daft, multicoloured, cartoon cats, and this is how they come, a quite substantial 'blind box', like a small milk-carton of the 1980's. Not Lost Kitties, just hidden, by Hasbro!

 

The material seems to be a wheat-chaff sand, titled "moulding compound", so a bit like Play-Doh maybe, but with more texture on the fingers? It looks like peanut butter, and one suspects the warning on the packaging wasn't enough to prevent some juveniles helping themselves to a portion!

 

Obverse of the flyer, should enlarge to the point where you can get a good idea of the whole set, which probably never went to a second wave, despite the urging to buy before early 2019, suggesting a limited shelf-life, as things like Shopkins and Lego minifig sets have, to make way for the next tranche/issue?

 

It's looking even more like peanut butter, once Brian started digging in it, I'm actually going to have a soft roll with PB, as soon as I finish editing this, as it's making me hungry, just looking at it!

 

Well, I didn't make it to the end of the editing, I finished the line and made myself a quick Warburton's soft white with Sunpat smooth . . . Much better now!

 

It says three items, but I suspect that's a sticker in the bag, for a four count, emergency-green, contortionist 'Cubbie' cat, basket, calculator (as '80's as a folded, waxed, milk carton!) and sticker. For the right age-group/target market, I can see these being a lot of fun, but with the wrong marketing, or the wrong promotional budget, many of these concepts fail within months, remember the Horrible Histories figures?

 

We don't see him so often these days, only due to circumstance, but the very useful Crescent sniper, size comparison shot, says these are quite large compared to some of the other blind-bag toys out there. Many thanks to Brian for spotting this, and sending us so many images.

A is for Another 'Lucky Bag', and Some Seasonal Stuff!

A few other purchases in the last few weeks, and after the blind surprise 'Lucky bags' we saw from The Works earlier in the year (October), I noticed similar bags in Poundland the other day, and again got the Dinosaur themed one as the best chance of a figural, and as a comparison with the disappointing inflatable of the last example.

 

A task made slightly easier by the fact that the contents are illustrated on the outside of the bag! Stickers, puzzle, skeleton, collector cards and a 'bonus' key-ring . . . if it's listed, pictured and included in every bag, it's not a bonus, it's a priced element of the contents!

 

A few minutes later I popped into the aforementioned The Works, and bought these, as apart from the fact I thought they would make nice additions to the wooden-trees subsection, they might also prove useful as photo-shoot accessories in the future?

 

To that end, here they are, both artfully arranged (!) in the fashion of an interiors' magazine shoot! You have to imagine they are on an immaculately-polished, white piano, with a recognisable supermodel, just out of focus and staring intently at a Hockney, on the wall!

 

Mostly duplications of one sort, or another, I also picked these up on my day's shopping in Farnham a few weeks ago, they sort of complete what Opie calls a cameo, in that we have previously seen the Santa's in individual bags the same as those the snowmen are in, here.

 

We have also seen the snowmen in the red and green scarves, along with a mauve version, so this blue one is new. And we saw a copy set of the Deer, red-Santa sleigh, snowman (red scarf) and tree, also from The Works, so that's pretty much all known versions of originals and copies, now, in several variations of packaging!

C is for Cone'ucopia - 2 of 2

This is still out there, I've seen it quite often in petrol stations (service stations), and some of the smaller convenience stores, or at least those which carry stock from BJ Toys, such as the Premier store in Pirbright, which seems to have replaced the NAAFI, and from which I got mine, at about the same time Peter Evans also found them, and mentioned them to me.

 

BJ Toys; blue cone is for blokey kids, pink is for less-blokey kids! I got a blue one!

 

A real cornucopia!

 

Clockwise from top-left; Rocky keyring and collector/backing card; sports themed puzzle and colouring book; a self inflating light-stick (read 'lightsabre'), which I haven't inflated yet; a multi-hole bubble-wand and bottle of bubble liquid; three packs of fizzy candies; a Dino' mini-set, which contains stuff we've seen in BJ carded sets here at Small Scale World; and, finally, a Letrabot blind bag.

 

The dinosaur, comes with a ridiculously over-sized egg, which is more chicken than dinosaur, so clearly the egg came first! And a new take on the current palm-tree design, in that it's a single moulding, with bi-colouring, dwelt-on before, here.

 

I see a lot of this stuff in the fish departments of pet stores or garden centres, even at The Range, and I suspect that industry might have had a hand, along with the fake flower people, in the multi-colour shot techniques becoming so common now.

 

Rather aptly, I got the letter H, and it's a simplistic transformer 'bot'.

 

Sub-branded Planet White, which may be a wave-indicator (?), the Letrabots (or Letr-A-Bots) are from an Italian outfit called Ciciboom Srl., and Letranimal, Kartbots, Numberbots (with symbols) and Letrazoo also exist!

The cones retail at £4.99, and with the equivalent of three rack-toys, and several other novelties, I think they are worth the money, for kids that is; this sample will be enough for me! Remember, sometimes we buy this stuff so you don't have to, otherwise we'd probably be desperately scraping flying saucer pictures off of that evilBay!