D is for Donations - Peter - Civilians

Right, I seem to have found my mojo, if only temporarily (there's often a hiatus before Rack Toy Month!), so I have a plan . . .

 

Actually the plan for right now was to be in Camden this afternoon, but that didn't happen, if you made it, I hope you had a good time and found nice things, I'm contemplating telling the Pentagon Natwest's head office is a hive of Iranian plotters

 

. . . and we're going to get all the stuff from Peter Evans, several donations, some car-booty and gifts, and all the stuff from Chris Smith's huge parcel, published over the next few days, twined by theme! Staring with the civilians;

 

We've seen something similar from Keycraft (dinosaurs) and HTI (various), while these Dancers are from AMO Toys in Denmark (as importers/source), and looking at the back of the pack Ninjas, Soldiers, Wrestlers and Monsters are out there somewhere. I think it's supposed to be pronounced wall'ee, to rhyme with crawly, rather than as my childhood nickname!

 

Speaking of wrestlers, these WWE ink-stampers, are very-much in the same vein as the Fortnight, Gang Beast and Ninja Turtle stampers currently out there.

 

Partial contents of a table football game, you get different types of table football, flicky, leaver kick, sprung figures, horizontal bars (mini 'fussball'), and magnetic wands, from whence these have washed up here!

 

There's a post on kicking footballers in the medium queue, and this guy joins a blue one we've seen recently, they're Peter Pan in origin, from the Cup Final game.

 

We've seen the Mousetrap diver before I think, but possibly in another colour, and older sculpt, he seems to have had a makeover, the torso to the left is one I've alluded to several times and needs to be sorted out with all the other sets of four or six primary-coloured board game figural, while I suspect the C3PO is a game playing piece as well, but I don't know the game offhand? It's not one of several Monopoly versions, nor is it the Star Wars Risk, so, any ideas?

 

A group of nicely done, but probably quite recent or even contemporary, road workers, and a diver who at first glance looks like the Hing Fat ones, but he's actually a better quality, and may be from a more nameable/recognisable make or brand's set, just I haven't recognised or named it!?

 

Another modernish road worker on the right, an early, factory painted Jean goose-girl from the farm range, and between them one of those fun gems you find in all these odds and sods, a Hong Kong, reasonable quality copy of an old bisque cake decoration, but in hard polystyrene plastic.

 

More of the Chinese knock-offs we got sent by the German agent, back at the start of the blog. These are large, O or G-gauge, and unlike the previously seen stuff, have locating pins on their feet.

 

The smaller chaps here ARE the Hing Fat ones, while the larger bloke has probably been tied to a carded set in the archive, but likely a generic? And the reason they're down here, is because these are from the latest lot, were shot months after the others and for speed, I'm loading them as they sit in the folders!

 

Three of the Teamsterz road menders, an older one in sea-green (actually, probably a fireman), an unknown race-team mechanic or garage accessory and the small one may be that group of Pioneer-Dacron-Realtoy stuff?

 

Another trio of Teamsterz (HTI), a cheapo rack-toy in brown we may have seen/ID'd before, and another of the Tesco-Woolie's et al ones, all building up for the firefighter page . . . which will happen!

 

Another of the Hong Kong fatty footballers, pencil-top rather than key-ring this time, and a new pose and/or colours I think, a large shepherd of the ELC type and a rather crude driver, probably from a farm tractor, from the stance?

 

All good stuff, and many thanks to Peter for spotting, accruing and/or saving it.

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

There's still a couple of Sandown related things in the queue, but they may join the many folders down the bottom (of Picasa!) which date back to up to fifteen years ago, it will get posted one day . . . it will! In the meantime, here's the sci-fi and fantasy element of my busy scurrying and ferreting, back in February!

 

Gareth found these and brought them to my attention, he managed to get another, 14th pose, but I've already got a reasonable sample of these, and we have seen them here before, painted, and as unpainted late production, including whacky plastic colours (fluorescent pink, green and oranges), as well as visits to bagged and loose Thunderbird additions to the range, in soft rubber and polystyrene, so I've probably got the missing pose?

 

Ovni (UFO) from Comansi, I don't know if these are factory painted, or home-paints, the seller and Gareth thought the latter, and when painted, they tend to have brown bases, so these are probably not 'official'. But, they were sold under various guises, as well as the UFO moniker, and the late Thunderbirds sets, they came as Battle of the Planets and as The Invaders TV series tie-ins, so they may have ended up looking like this at one point - the seller had quite a few, all in the same condition.

 

The fact that some faces are painted, others not, is also odd, a home-painter would do them all the same, a team of out-painter's wouldn't be so fussy? The real interest, to me, is in the plastic colours underneath, mid-green and metallic blue, which I think are earlier than my previous samples, making the whole sample, a better representation of Comansi's output.

 

A few minutes after publishing - In fact I think there's more than twenty poses in total, with the six Thunderbirds characters, maybe closer to thirty, we've seen a girl, a chap holding a space rifle parallel to the ground, a zombie/Frankenstein's Monster type, I think there's another kneeling one I don't have, a guy waving a space rifle, a guy holding an equipment box (which gives us 20/26), so when I've got my four or more samples together, we'll have a proper looks at them despite having had several 'proper' looks at them already! Doh!

 

Game playing pieces I suspect, and in the style of all that MB Games' stuff licensed from the Nottingham Mafia (Battle Masters, Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Space Hulk et al), but I'm in the dark as to which game these are from, and it's only the bases of the blue figures which are leading me in the GW direction? 

 

A blow-moulded astron . . . sorry, cosmonaut from the former Soviet Union, and while I'm not posting Russian stuff at the moment, this can be lost in amongst the other stuff. Not believed to be a parachute toy, but more of an infant's garden/beach/bath toy thing, a big chunk for tiny hands.

 

 "Wrestlers sah! Millions of 'em!"

 

Mattel's M.U.S.C.L.E., always nice to add a few more to the tub, especially these - mostly - coloured ones, when I first started finding these, they were usually the flesh-coloured chaps, and early web-pages would suggest the colours were rarer, but I think they were just later, so came to market later, and therefore come onto the secondary market later, too, they seem to turn-up quite often these days, but a nice sample, with a pocket monster to the fore.

 

The sublime and the ridiculous! Cherilea and Matchbox, although I'm being unfair, the Matchbox K-2002 Flight Hunter was a reasonable effort as the long-night of the long-knives in the toy industry of the early 1980's, bit deep. While I got the elusive space-slug, because he was affordable, due to his short-shot foot, I doubt he misses it!

 

Don't forget it's the London Toy Soldier Show tomorrow;

 

http://www.toysoldiershow.co.uk/

F is for Follow Up . . . From Ages Ago!

Do you remember when we looked at the Nazi board game Friegur;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2012/05/f-is-for-friegurwhatever-that-means.html 

 

Well, I managed to pick up a few of the pieces at the BMSS show last weekend, they weren't cheap, but well worth it, to add them to the stash, and they also add something to that previous post, being unmarked and introducing a new colour, useful, as the link to the Leipzig set found by Paul at the time is now dead?

 

A full squad of twelve infantry, with the standard-bearer.

One each of the German Army's poses, the officer has lost his hand, maybe his Mauser exploded! And we can see the oxblood red of the mounted figure (in German helmet . . . ish) must be from another set, as we saw with the whole game, last time, each army is one colour.

 

Likewise, there are 'Frenchies' from two sets, but there were only three items, two foot officers and one mounted, again in the oxblood red.

Comparison between the not very German helmet (the foot figure's helmets are a better shape, as can be seen in the previous images), and the more obvious Adrian helmet of the 'French' side, and a difference of base design, one's thicker too. So we have examples from at least two sets, possibly three, and none of these were marked, whereas there were clear base-marks last time we looked at them.

 

I'm guessing here, but I suspect the different tech' involved in producing Bakelite mouldings, over the later petrochemical-polymer injection processes, might have led to larger tools or bolsters, for oven finishing of whole 'sides', with all the pieces required of a game, being made in one colour batch, then another, and the two opposite sides swapped for contrasting colours, at the packing stage?

 

Certainly the larger components made in the phenolic material for the electrical industry would suggest such large tools/components were not rare, although nowadays, Bakelite is, or can be injected, in quite small moulding machines, so I guess it's a moot point!

Howitzer, trench mortar and the 'lozenge' tank, as seen last time.

 

Notice on all these, the uneven finishing/sanding of the bases, as opposed to the marked set we saw last time, where they were all clearly ground level, in a uniform fashion, here they've just been touched to the sanding belt, to remove high-spots. It would be interesting to know if these are earlier or later production, I suspect the latter, maybe licensed to another maker, the Leipzig connection from last time? Although I've tagged them Denkmeier and Fischer to keep them together with the previous post.

 

The cockpitless Messerschmitt Me.109 'drone'!

 

So, marked or unmarked, in black, khaki or oxblood, I still have a few to find before I'm happy with the sample, given that an actual game will stay well outside my budget parameters! But this is a nice start! 

L is for Local Loot - 2 of 2

It looks like I might be picking-up two lots of donated loot at the BMSS show this Saturday, if I can swing my carcass out of bed, early enough, something I have been struggling with recently! So at some point I'll have to get back to a more regular posting, but with over a million hits since Christmas, the Blog seems to have reached a self-supporting momentum, based around it's existing content, which is nice, but may be one of the [subconscious] factors contributing to my lack of motivation? Never thought I'd accuse myself of sitting on my laurels! Anyway, in continuing the plan of some weeks ago - there was a second successful trip to charity shops at the start of the year . . .

 

A bag of bits, a bag of animals and a couple of Stegosaurii . . . Stegosauruses?

Before and after cleaning - three Galanite infant-toy vinyls from Sweden, the poorer brother of Tomte, Both in accuracy (although the BMC 1100/Mini is quite good), and the wheels, which are no way as nice as Tomte's, or even the cheap 'W.Germany' (Stelco, Vinylline) and Hong Kong (Miniflex?) clones which were around at the same time. But collectable nevertheless, and there's a tub of them all somewhere!

 

There was also these . . . they went to 'Recyche'!

 

I'm pretty sure these are from the Corgi Chipperfield's Circus sets, and will need to be compared to the others, there's a bigfull somewhere, to get the best samples in the 'master collection', then the others can be disposed off, probably to charity! They all suffer from paint loss due to play-handling.

 

I suspect these are Corgi too, I don't remember a Zebra, but the same Hong Kong identifiers, and lack of marking, suggest they go with the giraffes? Close to the Britains sculpt, they are also very close to the various Blue Box, Redbox, Holly and New Maries zebras, which I'm one day going to have to try and sort out!

Likewise, note-wise, these two yellow tigers, the white one being marked and probably Holly? Again, someone, someday is going to have to sit down with all the boxed, carded and bagged sets, any catalogue images and all the loose examples, and try and sort them all out and get them annotated correctly by plastic colour, paint, markings etc . . .

 

Britains Llama, Corgi Rhino; a later vinyl moulding, and the bear, which again, may be Corgi, it's quite common in mixed lots, and has a lot in common with both the Rhino and the Corgi Bull from the Lamborghini, so it may be another Corgi, but I'm not sure I have it listed?

 

Modern, Chinasaurs, two makes, both unknown, but we may have seen them in show-reports, or carded acquisitions/donations, all to be sorted another day!

 

 

 

I also picked up this for next-to-nothing, a couple of the figures are damaged, but they just join a growing sub-branch of the collection . . . Box in the recycling bin, and I kept a couple of the accessories, as a sample!

 

Popular movies or other licensed productions, TV, Comics &etc, produce a plethora of crap over a shortish period (unless they really take off like Star Wars or TMNT), and while there's a lot of Minions stuff around at the moment, in 30-years, they'll be more like Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite or Richard Scarry animals are now - half-forgotten, and "What was all the hype about?"!

T is for Toys-to-Life

A bit of a lazy post today (although it's involved a lot of editing!), and very much a joint enterprise, which has been in the queue since 2017, from whence all the images date, after early submissions from the Blog's roving reporter in New York, Brian Berke, in that February, through summer shelfies (from both of us, I think), to some scans of that years' Argos Christmas Catalogue. A situation not helped by both the passage of time and the fact we were, at the time, both using cameras with a default prefix on image titles of DSCN!

 

Also, everything here has already been replaced by NFC (Near Field [digital] Communication) games, lines and ranges, so it's all, already obsolete. And while the tardiness in publishing has been explained before (a lot has happened here at Small Scale World Towers in the last few years - and is ongoing), the subject is very peripheral to figure collection, and this is a mostly Wikipedia-worded box-ticker, overview or primer, covering the three main ranges, back in 2017.

 

And, no, I don't know where that eight-years went!

 

Fistley, the opening paragraph from this Wikipedia page;

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toys-to-life

 

"Toys-to-life is a video game feature using physical figurines or action figures to interact within the game. There are several technologies used to make physical figurines appear in game such as image recognition, quick response (QR) codes, Bluetooth and near field communication (NFC). Depending on the technology, the game can determine the individual figurine's proximity, and save a player's progress data to a storage medium located within that piece. It was one of the most lucrative branches of the video game industry especially during the late 1990s and 2010s, with the Skylanders franchise alone selling more than $3 billion worth over the course of four years."

 

While this Wikipedia page informs us of the above Skylanders game;

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylanders

 

"Skylanders is a toys-to-life action-adventure video game franchise developed by American video game developer Toys for Bob and published by Activision. 

Skylanders games are played using NFC-enabled collectible figurines of playable characters, alongside a specially themed NFC reader dubbed the "Portal of Power", which reads and writes data stored on a microchip within the base of the figure. This includes the corresponding character to use during gameplay, as well as ingame [sic] upgrades and statistics, allowing figures to retain their game data across different games in the series.

Each Skylander is associated with one of ten elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Magic, Tech, Life, Undead, Light, and Dark. Skylanders of different elements are stronger in certain areas of the game, and can unlock areas of the game hidden behind "Elemental Gates"." 

 

The next biggest was the Disney Infinity franchise;

 

Again from Wikipedia

 

"Disney Infinity (2013) was a toys-to-life series based on Disney characters and franchises. Since the initial game's release in 2013, there had been three installments [sic]. Disney Infinity was the first game, focusing on Disney and Pixar characters. In 2014, Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes was released as the second game, which focused on Marvel characters and properties. The third game, 2015's Disney Infinity 3.0, centered [sic] on the Star Wars franchise. All Disney Infinity figurines could interact with various games in the series. The line concluded in 2016, when Disney announced that production of the series had officially ceased, and that there would be no more future titles. "Gold Editions" of each game have since been released on Steam, containing a majority of the original content with the toys integrated into the games."

 

The other big seller back then was the planet destroying polymer plagiarists . . .

 

. . . Lego, and their Dimensions.

 

Wikipedia again;

 

"Lego Dimensions (2015) was a toys-to-life game developed by Traveller's Tales that used physical Lego figures, featuring characters from various Warner Brothers and Lego franchises, as well as other third-party intellectual properties such as Back to the Future, The Simpsons, and many more. Some franchises, such as Adventure Time and Sonic the Hedgehog, had never seen releases in Lego format prior. The game involves a heavier emphasis on the physicality of the genre, with characters having vehicles that could be rebuilt into new forms, as well as mechanics that involved moving characters on the Toy Pad. No sequels were released, with new content being added through a series of "Year 2" updates. On October 23, 2017, Warner Bros. officially announced that they would not be developing further content for Lego Dimensions" 

 

and from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Dimensions;

 

"Lego Dimensions is a 2015 toys-to-life platform video game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Wii U. It is a crossover between Lego and over thirty different franchises, from which levels can be played through a USB toy pad peripheral. The Starter Pack, containing the game, the USB toy pad, three minifigures and one vehicle, was released in September 2015, while additional level packs and characters were released over the following two years."

 

Obviously, Brian bought a Donald Duck for purely ornamental purposes, and why wouldn't you?! I know I hate Mickey and Mini, but I don't have trouble with the rest of them, although the whole Pluto/Goofy thing is a bit odd, and Donald having turkey for Christmas is downright disturbing!

 

These are starting to turn-up in mixed lots, at Car Boot Sales, or in small Charity Shop bags, but I actually try to avoid them as the rigid bases (where all the electronics are) mean even loose, they take up a lot of space, and there may be a future session of debasing those I have picked up, as the figures are often very good examples of the art. Also, the electronic exchange shops (like CeX, geddit: these kids are soooo edgy!) still tend to have cabinets full of them, as many people still play with them, even if they're now discontinued.

 

Many thanks as always to Brian for his help with these, at some point we will return to them, I'm sure, but not a great priority, they are electronic gaming pieces, not strictly toy figures!