F is for Follow-up - Speedy Gonzalez

Just a quick follow-up to the Speedy Gonzalez from Res Plastics, which we saw in the Plastic Warrior plunder-post this morning, here compared to the relatively common, or commoner Kinder Egg steckfigure.

 

You can just make out the RP mark below the hole for a keyring or cord in the Res's hat.

 

That's it, Speedy Gonzalez from Res Plastics, on the right, Kinder on the left, a comparison! The Res is noticeably tailless. Both are polyethylene.

K is for Karate - Kung-Fu!

T is for Two Pairs! An oddity in the annals of toy solder collecting, or toy figure production first. One can see the thinking behind it, and had it succeeded we may have seen a pair of Boxers, Wrestlers, Fencers, maybe even Ninjas, but it didn't succeed and no further sets jointed this rump-line of the Deetail range.

 

The Karate Kung-Fu pairing from Britains, sort of a good idea, but not all good ideas are practical or desirable, and this has no play value beyond an ornament. And you do tend to find them in this condition, near mint, I've even seen near complete shop-display boxes of them over the years, so many were left unsold first time round. Now, of course, it's a gap-filler/collection completer!
 

I've shot this pair too, Kinder's martial-arts chaps, they can, at least, be posed and played with as two separate individuals, to tell 'stories', or whatever, and are pop-together polyethylene against the PVC of the Britains figures. Kinder, of course, did do Boxers and Fencers, while there are quite a few Wrestlers around now, and plenty of Ninjas have been produced!

L is for Late Show Report - Animals, Farm & Zoo!

You could subtitle this post 'Wot no dinosaurs?', as it's rare show these days, where there isn't at least one dino' among the plunder, but, with the exception of the double-headed monster we looked at the other day, there were no dinosaurs at all, in this year's PW plunder, four legs or two!

A few interesting pieces here, along with a broken Britains flamingo, but I may have spare legs for it? The Cherilea panda is not common, and from the hollow-cast I believe, while the croc' is Clairet? The giraffe may be Clairet as well, I can't remember, and is missing a hoof, but stands as a sample (on the back of the crocodile!), and while the gorilla on the right is a bog-standard one-of-meany, the one on the left (from Stad's) is new to Blog with the key-ring/charm-loop.

 

This was silly, I saw the painted cow, and thought "Looks like the Tudor Rose" (which I don't need!), but I couldn't read anything on the belly, and as it looked interesting, grabbed it in a rummage-tray lot, only to find it was the T*R one, heavily painted at some point, with poster paint, which soon washed-off on the Sunday as I processed through the plunder . . . hay-ho!

Looking like the Britains late, PVC version, I think this goat is actually the New Ray moulding? Two Matchbox cattle, one with horns, the other, later one (brown) without horns, from the gift sets. The rest are grist to the mill, with the marbled pig (bottom right), possibly having some value/interest beyond the HK tat of the others.

 

These monochromatics can be found in cheapo' bagged rack-toys, but are as likely from Christmas crackers, particularly the really cheap budget ones, and I seem to have photographed them in such a way as to make it look like the penguin is briefing the poultry on something!

 

"Guys, none of you are safe, voting for Christmas"

 

Three novelty dogs (I think we've had other colours in a Chris Smith donation in the past), could be cracker toys too, or may be low-price (1d or two new pence) gumbal capsule machine prizes, while the tiger who looks like a leopard/panther is a current capsule toy. There is a round-up of capsule toys (with contributions from Peter and Brian) in the 'hopefully by Christmas' queue!

 

More of the same novelty stuff; charm elephants and Scottie-dogs being standard tropes, the micro-mini red plastic take on a carved tusk being more fanciful than the common fare behind it and the donkey/zebra (?) being one of several in a set of chunky sculpts we may or may not have seen here before, I certainly have a few now?

 

And yet more novelties; most of the main tropes covered here, elephants, rockers, charms, Scottie-dogs, other dogs, monkeys, poultry, camels! That blue elephant is about 4mm x 6mm, absolutely tiny.

 

These were mostly in the bag from Trevor, as were a lot of the above novelties, and Trevor has found inordinate amounts of useful stuff for me, over the years, since Paul Morhead put us in touch back in 1995/6?

 

Butterfly hair clips from two sources, and a magnetic fly I remember having as a kid, in that little box. Flies were a standard of the joke shop/novelty section, and still are, flies in fake ice-cubes, flies for real ice-cubes, flies in sugar-lumps, magnetic flies, flies with glowing wings, jumping flies . . . and giant flies! And I've just realised I have to correct both the tags, there's no flys!

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

L is for London Loot - 2 The Toy Project

Another feature of my annual/occasional visits to London on toy business [It's not a business, it's a game!] is the visit to The Toy Project charity's shop in Archway, and while it's not actually that cheap, it is for charity and if you're having a 'day out' in London, you should budget accordingly, and I always limit myself to what I like the look of, rather than what it's going to come to at the till!

This lot is just for fun, I'm not going to try ascribing everything, it's all get better sorting another day, but I think I ended-up with 37 items, most civilian or TV/Movie related, and here we have three Phidal or Phidal-likes, a catapult-novelty superhero and a large chap who may prove to be a Ben Ten thing?

 

Two pine/fir trees, one wooden, one hollow polystyrene, both shot on the radiator, as the - freshly laundered - T-shit I shot the rest on wouldn't allow the wooden one to stand up long enough to focus the camera, but they looked daft lying down!

 

Another Ben Ten, different make/line, one from one of the Insect movies from a while ago now, and an Avatar figure from Kinder I think?

 

Hermione, Hasbro and Haddock!

And probably; a capsule toy, GI Joe and Plastoy respectively.

Pokemon? Unknown? Minion and Spongebob Squarepants?

Three renditions of Snow White, one of which is bound to be a Phidal!

A right-old mix!

Nice pirate lady, the bear might be a corporate mascot,

the bloke could be another Ben Ten figurine?

Dragon, Leprechaun and creepy-Crawley!

Hasbro Napoleon from the Night at the Museums franchise, a nice sea-horse, Tomy era Britains farm-hand, capsule Ninja, sky-diver and a BMC (?) redcoat! Which was 37 items! All grist to the mill.

P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! Peep's 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles!

The vehicular component of Chris's recent parcel contains some interesting bits and bobs, and with nothing more solid to put in the introductory paragraph, let's just get stuck into the imagery!

 

We saw them in the introduction, blocking the 'photo-booth'! Four of the polystyrene premium racing cars, along with, at the front; a robot-car (see below), a mazac game-playing car and a Hong Kong copy in soft polyethylene which has HONGKONG along the bonnet (hood) rather than a racing number.

The car/bot is channelling those odd weathered 'stones' from Kinder, with a sort of non-transforming Transformer twist! A small chunk of polyethylene, it's probably a gum-ball capsule-machine prize?

Artillery came in the forms of a Christmas cracker version of the old Giant gun in approximate 20/25mm compatibility, and a large naval piece, which I suspect once had a firing mechanism and probably knocked something down, but whether that something was figural or more skittle-like is still an open question!

Micro-minis, the trio to the right we've seen before, while the 'styrene PT boat could be cracker-fare or a boardgame playing piece, but looks to have some age, 1950's maybe, and possibly not actually polystyrene but a more phenolic or formaldehyde-based polymer?

Two wagons, both based on the early 'West' German stuff of Maurba, Siku or others, but both from Hong Kong, the nearer a sub-generation piracy of one of the commoner wagons, the circus wagon behind being as well-finished as the Wilton set we looked at here, but needing wheel sets, and suggesting another source, as the colour is both wrong for the same wagon in the Wilton set, and different from the Wilton green?

The Stuka to the left would seem to be a new version of the MPC Mini copies, being the fourth or fifth lot of those knock-off's, with two commoner rack-toy types behind, a Galoob Micro-Machine in the centre and two of the blister-carded rack-toy types to the right.

 

We will hopefully return to all these 'odds' in greater detail one day, as they slowly gather in their bags to make usable or complete samples, and I thank Chris again, for putting them aside for the Blog.

I is for Instant Gratification!

Probably the only time we will ever visit these, because the company has gone, the US parent also seems to have gone, the products are still out there in number, now China imports, and they are very definitely infant-fodder, indeed, the delay in getting them into Europe was the possibility of infants using them AS fodder and choking on a circus performer . . . Well, you would, wouldn't you, especially a whole one!

Originally the US company Instant Products line, at one time called Magic Grow, these were introduced to the UK and Europe at the London Toy Fair back in 2001, which I attended as One Inch Warrior magazine's 'roving reporter' (I think there were three of us, but I was specifically tasked with keeping my eye out for the small scale stuff), by a CCL, who seem to have been a phantom-brand for Europa Consultants UK?

 

Modern generic Chinese ones

The trick with them was they came in a gelatine capsule, like those bead-drugs, which was designed to melt in water, at which point the contents burst open with a florish and revealed very, very small, novelty bath sponges, about the right size for Action man to lather himself up!

 

My original five, as used in the subsequent show report, of little use to toy-soldier or model figure collectors, but nevertheless, if someone give you a freebie you owe them the courtesy of a mention, and thanks to Darnel Penrose (whom I hope went on to better things, with a better-lasting company!) for supplying the samples all those years ago!

 

An old evilBay image, you can see robots, a monster or two, a ghost and skeleton and teddy bear, among the more usual animals, dinosaurs and sea-life. I thought the over printed ones were interesting, I have memories of full sized novelty sponges over-printed with designs or slogans which would leave you with little bits of black or white print stuck to your skin after the bath, and which - as designs - only lasted a few bath times on the sponge!

 

And while the choking was a very real concern this side of the pond, resulting in packaging which was designed to be fully immersed without being opened, they were clearly slow to take off, and have now been totally replaced with this Chinese stuff, probably from the same factory/ies supplying the originals?

Z is for Zàini

First post of 2024, let's hope it's a better year than the last four, because people have literally given-up on the funny-how-awful-this-year-is memes, as they get steadily worse, you don't want to tempt fate!

So, I bought these in Lidl while purchasing mini-stollen before Christmas, and thought to eat them and photograph them while I listened to the few fireworks, if New Year's 'Moment' said anything about the coming year, it's that poverty will bite, as hardly anyone bought fireworks this year . . . no bad thing for pets and the environment, but, Tory-sponsored hunger and evictions hover.

They had two choices, I can't remember what the other one was, but it was 1-in-3 of something 'girly', so I chose the Scoobie-Doo one as I've always been a fan of Scoobie, although you have my permission to turn Scrappy into lion-meat.

It's the same with Tom & Jerry; who's the stupid kitten, who's the idiot different-coloured mouse in a nappy? Phuq-em off, out of it, we want the old characters doing what they do, to each-other, over and over, and over again, we don't want mawkish juveniles intervening after some focus group's been talked round to liking some new characters!

 

I was on a focus group once . . . not only did they try to convince us to 'choose A', but went with A after we'd explained why it was a bad idea, and then disappeared without a trace. A toy soldier thing, I'll have all the bumf in the archive somewhere, they paid attendance for the day, London-parking and mileage, coffee and biscuits, there may even have been a buffet lunch, I can't remember, but, still, it was a good breeze!

So, we've got the cam-snail, an old novelty, which Kinder have done a bigger version of, over the years, an over-moulded pencil-clinger and a figure in 40mm polystyrene from the Train Your Dragon franchise, which was (with the exception of the figure) a bit disappointing!

 

The guide says not all surprises are shown, so while there are more figures, there are also more lame pencil decorations, but the Zàini (apparently founded in 1919) are less than half the price of Kinder, so luck dictates that if you buy enough, you should get what you are looking for.

It's the same with the Scooby-Doo stuff, the inner sheet has two 'Mr. Saunders' dressed-up as haunting monsters, so the range is worth the collecting, if you've got kids, I'll look for complete sets on evilBay in a year or two!

F is for Follow-up - Novelty Animals

I obviously lost this in the pile, or they would have been in Augusts post on the subject, and as most are duplicates, they are here now purely as a fillip to that post;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/08/n-is-for-novelty-animals.html

Some of these may even be in that post, but I don't think so? Points to note: 'tabby' version of the common cats, a tiger, new cow, pigs in two colours and a penguin! Also, a new chick with a beret, which makes him an anthropomorph! That's it!

K is for Kinder Cam Toys

A common trope with Kinder since the start, is toys with offset, angled or split axles or studs (offset cams), whereby the offset section/s drive other components, which produces novelty action as the toy is pushed or pulled over a surface, not much blurb needed, so here's a few I shot earlier!

Group shot!

Note different style of ice-cream cart with lower sides.