T is for Two - Pool Party!

I went back to B&M to try and get another set, so balance up the figures a bit, and they were sold-out in two stores! But I found these beach-toys, and shelfied one while buying the other!

 

Fun for kids, but the rubber boat would be useful for garden gamers. I suspect I bought these (or something very similar) a few years ago, which was why I only shelfied them, that and the rather too chunky, white-button motors!

 

De-carded now, so I can't retake it, I'm struggling with the settings on a new camera!

 

They are actually soft polymer (like a dense PVC), and totally sealed units so when the stack of three watch-batteries run out, there'll be no more lights, and the shock of them hitting the water presumably sets them off, I didn't work it out until I dropped one! It's the same tech' as all these flashing kids' shoes and suchlike!

 

B&M, now, three-quid each!

W is for Whacky Walkers

No wall required, but Winter's coming and no mistake! These, like the jumpers, are a growing collection, or sub-collection I wouldn't have given houseroom to, in my small-scale only days, and couldn't have imagined a few years ago, but after robots and ceremonials, it was only a matter of time before Halloween (or Christmas) entered the ledger!

 

Welp, they were like 79p ladies and gentlemen, so under the 'we buy this shit, so you don't have to' rule, I managed to find the shekels for the eyeball as I knew we had another in the pile, and then went back for the pumpkin!

 

They both came from Home Bargains and I think there may have been a different eye, or a purple pumpkin (which seemed daft?), I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure I left one on the rack? Green eye maybe?

 

The other eyeball was in one of Jon Attwood's boxes (and I have a feeling another one came in a few years ago, possibly from Chris?), and we looked at a set of them from Amscan, here, many full-moons ago, via New York!

Then, the other day, I found two end-of-line walkers in the local garden centre while looking for Christmas Decorations! Now these two ARE walkers in the common sense of others we've seen here, the pumpkin and eyeball are actually hoppers, like the original 'ACME' cartoon (and real) teeth, often used to chew-up Tom the cat's tail, or similar!

W is for White Button Walkers . . . and a Jumper!

Having seen a jumping Guardsman in the previous post, I guess this little lot can slot in here, as, while they are mostly robots, there's another of the riders first!

 

I think we are actually talking US cavalry here? But with Union and Confederate versions of the white-button walkers out there, he could be drafted into the Union forces. Size wise, he could be a useful officer to a bunch of Playmobil infantry, if you're into that kind of thing  - and two recent books on toy soldiers have both touched on them? It's not for me, I haven't got the room for more juvenilia, and I have enough infant toys, not least; US Cavalry Jumpers! And Robots;

C & D industrial (or Industry) Ltd., are claiming responsibility for this slightly demented-looking blue-meanie! It's almost like they've tried to apply the rules of those spiky Manzinger Z/Gundam types to a traditional walker, with a bit of the then current big hit - R2D2 - thrown in for good measure!

 

Lovin' this guy, very similar to the yellow childhood one who was the first of these seen here at Small Scale World, and he has a similar removable, coloured, transparent dome and chromium-plated gubbins beneath, however I think he's a rival set as the dome is deeper and the feet are different, I well remember when the yellow-one was found in a Christmas stocking, the other stocking had a different design, but the domes were the same!

 

This guy is definitely mirroring one of the larger battery-operated types, but in miniature, it's almost a disappointment his cabinet doors don't open to stream-forth a shower of sparks! I also think he's probably the newest seen here yet, and modern China-production (no markings), maybe even quite contemporary?

And, yes, I'm still up, listening to the local election results, Tories are getting a kicking, and Labour are under performing, so the Librals and greens are picking up the slack!

U is for Up! And Down! The Squway'ah!

This is as close to any Coronation bollocks as I'm going to get, so if you're wetting your kecks at the thought of all those gushing 'Royal Correspondents' on the flickering cod's eye this weekend, this is as good as you're gonna' get here! And Lizzy said Cam'ie could be Queen Consort, not "Queen"! They don't have my allegiance, inheritance-tax evading, promiscuous popinjays . . . and I'm certainly not muttering an oath at the telly on Saturday, like some slavish serf!

 

What's the actual fucking matter with people, find your balls, you sycophantic soap-dolls! We could be a secular democracy with a written constitution holding the government to account and a figure-head president of the type Italy or Germany enjoy, instead people are having paroxysms of wetness, at the inheritance of accumulated wealth, stolen from us!

Aaaannnnd . . . rant over! Well . . . it's all so silly and medieval! I have picked up a few novelty and other ceremonials since Christmas, most in a single purchase from someone thinning his collection, and one or two others, there was a newie in Chris's lot (yes, I thanked him elsewhere the other day, Chris Smith has sent another fantastic parcel of oddments!) but he'll appear separately in future posts, as he's paired with a policeman.

Here we have a pair of resin guards and a clicking-biro with flocked bearskin, a 'white-button' jumping mounted guardsman with two more resins; one cartoony the other a teddy-bear, which is the third iteration of Bear Guardsman I think, so well have to gather them together in a post of their own, one day!

 

He's called a 'Cugglie Wugglie' which is almost as nauseating as your average Royal Correspondent, but some marketeer though it was a good idea, even cuddly-wuddly would be an improvement on that massacre of the language! Branded to EPL, good luck finding anything about them on Google, English Premier League takes all the spots! There's plenty about CW's and plenty about EPL CW's, but nothing about the company?

The big guy seems to be some sort of powered-novelty, with a red light in his chest, but I can't work out how he works, his moving-arms, err, don't, and his flap (which hides a red light) just falls open, so I'll have to unscrew him at some point and look for a battery compartment . . . and possibly a broken spring or catch of some sort?

Two 40mm Spot-On Tommy Spot figures, one fully decorated in matt paints, the other half-decorated in gloss? Not from the Pomeroy stuff, so a mystery as to the reson/origin of the second one? And two Japanese blow-moulded celluloid 'doll' types, I have quite a few of these now, all slightly different, and never pass up on a cheap one!

I think we've seen these before, but they were here and got included in the photo-sesh' round-up! A pooping guardsman dropping a Putin and another novelty Biro!

 

Disney (and Warner) goes to London? Guys? WTF? NO! Dress them as US Marines, by all means, but we don't want you colonising our pomp and circumstance . . . the 'pomp being pomposity, the 'circumstance' being that William the 1st stole all the land, and they've held on to most of it! Another Coronation? It there no-end to them? Perhaps we could book-end monarchy with a pair of Williams' . . . now there's an idea! Yah-Boo, Sucks!

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!

A is for And so to London - Loot Bag!

While I'm up 'The Smoke' (which has been smokeless since at least the 1970's!), I always look around for a few things I might not find locally, and Peter takes me to his local discount store, to which end the results of my last trip 'up to town' are this post!

In the said discount store I grabbed a box of three capsule-eggs by a minor-make, imported by Unique Plus Ltd., and from a Turkish outfit called Global, but branded Candy Toys and 'Aras Eggo', I've only shot one, but it was a nice clip-together bicycle around the 54/60mm size. I can't remember if the other two were crap, or if I saved them for another day?

These were also there for a quid-each or less, Toymania from Hunter Price International (whose logo is a large bear riding a penny-farthing!), and looked like a bit of Dino-fun, only the two designs were available, I don't know if there are any others, and a soft rubbery polymer, probably filled with the same corn-syrup Stretch Armstrong was?

And this little babe was next to the Dino-sqishes! She's a bit weird, as she has two clip-on dresses, but ony the front/sides are modelled, so from the rear you can see her pink-underslip! Hence the stand and mini action-figure holder, she's for display, with the odd change of outwear! Also from Global Gida.

On the way to visit Peter's work, we passed a junky-antiquey shop and I asked if he ever got anything from it and Peter said occasionally (without much enthusiasm!), but after missing the bus past his work on the way back, I elected to walk up to the next stop, and the next (exercise is good for you and the weather was fine!), inevitably though; the  next bus went past while I was between stops!

Eventually I realised I'd walked back to where the shop was over the road, so I popped in, there was nothing of interest, but the chap there was determined to 'help' me, and when I mentioned I was looking for vintage toy soldiers, model figures or military/space toys, he went out the back and came back with this!

No brand, beyond a tomato in yellow shorts which may themselves be a Chinese character, and clearly not that old, but mid-to-late 1990's is old for some people! It's a space ta . . . err . . . armoured car!

Clockwork, the key's missing but I have a bag of spares somewhere, it has an eccentric wheel to send it off in odd directions, and a sparking engine-bay (so, much like most Russian tanks these days - Slava Ukraine!), and was a bit of fun so it came home with me!

Walking down to Charing Cross and cutting through St Martin's Place you pass a bunch of Touristy shops, and while there wasn't much, I saw these two in a stand at not-much each and grabbed them so you won't have to!

We've looked at animals with pencil-top holes very similar to this horse I think (they may be in the long queue?), so this is more confirmation than anything else, while the guardsman is a pen-dangler, and a little blob of super-deformed poured resin to boot!

When I went to pay for the toppers or the next lot (below, seperate shops) this egg was on the counter by the till, so I grabbed one on the off-chance and got a figural, Minion slinky . . . or 'slinky-Minion? I haven't noted the brand on this, but I saved the wrapper so it's in the 'archive' for future revalation!

Theseare both good and bad, they're good because they were dirt cheap, they're quite nice die-casts, wire brush-polished for that satin/silk look and then both anodised gold and antiqued with a dark wash, but bad because they are obviously drilled for pencil sharpeners, which haven't been fitted, so either a bloody swizz, or an ugly hole, you chose! Imported from China by Elgate Products - previously importing resin Pirates; see Blog passim, also courtesy of Peter Evans.

J is for Junior Motor Assembly Plant

'A Codeg Production', so before they saw the light and became a contractor/jobber of licensed (and not so licensed sometimes, I'll bet!) TV-related and novelty stuff from the Crown Colony, they must have been manufacturers in their own right? This has been sat in Picasa since November 2017, so high-time I got it 'out there'.

Did all toys come in red boxes once! Except at Christmas, of course, when they came in patterned boxes with holly leaves! Slightly misleading artwork gives the impression you will construct a whole fleet of eight-foot lorries, but covered by the blurb; against complaints.

Some of you may have heard this already; my mate JB once sold a Britains Garden kiddie's lawn-slide to a chap on feebleBay, who immediately gave him a negative feedback and complained it was a misleading description because it was a toy!

It was listed in the toy section, under vintage figures and Britains, sold for a few quid and was posted to another continent for less than a pair of shoes, what the f*** did he think he was getting? A ten-foot, polished-steel, piece of outdoor play-equipment - with postage - for less money than a shoulder of lamb! Terri-catta . . . lightweight Caribineri!

The sum of the parts! If the artwork in the previous image is to be believed there would have been green parts as well. Also some of the blue pieces are a different shade, so it wasn't a case of dropping whole runners into the box, or even stripping runners or sections of runner, but rather picking from bins of assorted coloured pieces.

Instructions; by today's standards this could be seen as a simpler toy for simpler times, one-and-three-part 'dimestore' trucks in a box, saves on glue huh?!! But suppose it was a crew-cab Toyota Hi-Lux with four clip-in body types? Suddenly it would be all 'modern' and OK!

The design is similar to the lorries carried by Beeju, who did do some scaled-up versions I think, maybe they supplied these to Codeg if they weren’t making them themselves, if they are Codeg-manufactured, then definitely 'derivative'!

Thanks to Adrian Little for the pictures!

T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - Tobar & Schylling - Tin Plate, Rack Toys, Novelties and Die Cast

I say Schylling, but it was Tobar's stand, just that they have a close relationship with Schylling in the US (not Germany Mr. Sell; definitely not Germany) and carry each other's stuff, they also both import from Supreme (SP Toys) but more on that in a minute.

The main direction of the tie-up this year is a range of retro tin-plate, these may well be from the same source as the tin-plate tree-hangers carried by both Shylling and Ingo Roggaz's ^Z_Z (not George Zimmermann Mr. Dildobrand; definitely not Zimmermann) back in the 1990's? Particularly the small hot-air balloons? The duck on a tricycle is a timeless novelty, while the three robots cover all the tropes of their 1950's forbears.

Radio Control is getting very interesting, with new digital tech', miniaturisation and lessons learnt in the mini-drone sector being converged into smaller and more sophisticated toys at affordable prices, here a set of two 'firing' tanks are more traditional, while who could resist a digger which digs!

On the subject of construction vehicles; Maisto (a Thai-centered, US headquartered group of Chinese factories and brands) who I think now own the Bburago name (ex-Italian; Mebetoys) are another one probably coming to Tobar via Schylling or as a joint-purchase with Schylling; and here we see various die-cast construction sets in two scales and several formats along with dinosaur play sets.

Counter-display cases of more traditional clockwork wind-up and squirty-toys! Not really 'my thing' but it's nice to see these things still out there; they are the 'meat & two veg.' of toy sellers; the everyday earners.

I thought this was a lot of fun; a mini or nano-bot cockroach, with a very small motor driving (or jiggling) tiny hidden legs to propel a larger 'rubber-jiggler' shell across surfaces - what's not to like?

You can tell from the above that there wasn't much to excite plastic figure collectors on their stall this year, but it just so happened that the managing Director of Schylling was on the stall at the same time as me, and the lady from Tobar offered to get me a slot with him, I explained he probably wouldn't want a farty, middle-aged, toy-collector/Blogger trying to confirm or deny Erwin's bullshit with him (slightly more politely than I've just written-it, of course - I know how to behave in public!), however she confirmed that both companies import from Supreme (indeed; looking at Supreme's 1986 HKTDC year-book advert', the cockroach may well be theirs), have done for years and that Supreme are a stand-alone toy manufacturer.

[latter offices: Room 504-507, Tower B, New Mandarin Plaza, 14 Science Museum Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong]

Now most of you already know this, it is - after all - a good decade since Plastic Warrior magazine was carrying editorial provided by Tiger Hobbies on their importation of Supreme's 60mm figures, and longer since the figures were first covered there.

Tiger had through the 1980/90's being importing the first series 54mm knights and Wild West (Deetail style bases) with Strawberry Group (who further worked with 3-D Licensing) and (or alongside) Toy Major, Simba carried them too. While Ackerman and Halsal/HTI are known importers of Supreme, as are Titan, while they are now also re-packed for on-line platform Sunjade and, through Schylling via-Tobar, are - as I write - now probably in Hawkin's Bazaar?

Yet Erwin, who, electing to start pontificating only in 2015, and who clearly wasn't around to read 'from the horse's mouth' a decade ago, has decided to make Supreme his second favourite go-to brand-mark for bullshitting-about - after Blue Box!

He has variously claimed Simba 'designed' Supreme figures "...first" (with no quoted source or empirical evidence), that Supreme are actually Schylling (while trying to flog his own Schylling stock), that Supreme are a sub'er for Sunjade (when the opposite is probably true, despite Supreme having their own wholesale unit) or sub' for Schylling (who admit the opposite) and that Supreme are 'just' an exporter and x all else. Oh . . . and that Schylling - with a 'y' - are German! And while his utterances are spread over many comments, posted over four years - he managed to repeat most of them in the single comment above!

I could do a word-by-word autopsy with lots of screen-cap's, but this isn't the post, suffice to say wherever you find Mr Sell pontificating on any of the above, know that he doesn't know what he's talking about! They are all getting this product from an old, established Hong Kong toy maker; Supreme/SP Toys. Luckily for the hobby most of his nonsense-utterances are hidden in Shitestuff's comments or on the locked Vichy-forum; both places ignored by the Googlebots - phew!

P is for Popov's Patented Plastic Perambulating Planetary Pedawalker

It's been a while since my last video (read; attempt at a video!) and nothing shouts 'make a video' quite like a clockwork toy, so I took advantage of the fine weather to have a pop, should have done that armoured car at the same time . . . heay-ho . . . one day!

This is the beast; A soviet-era, Russian clockwork Luna exploration 'walker'. A simple mechanism allows the thing to walk slowly and - due to a short spring - for a very brief moment, in a usually slightly right-handed curve forwards!

Each wind (from a non-original key) gets about 15-seconds of perambulation, and, if you watch the two crew, not a journey anyone would want to make in real life; an hour in a vehicle like this would leave you looking like you'd gone three rounds with Muhammad Ali after having your arms tied behind your back!

It would be better if the feet lifted and dropped slightly in mid cycle, but most of the time they are working against each-other, it's the same with that Tiger Electronics battery-operated version of the Galoob Action Fleet AT-AT (another candidate for a future movie); they are OK on a flat surface with a bit of grip or texture, anything more-contoured, loose or bitty and they struggle.

I like that the 30mm'ish cosmonauts are red! The inner deck has an odd lithographed graphic which seems to be a forward-looking view from the cab of a larger-scaled vehicle, but set as the floor of a smaller-scaled one? It's held in place by the revolving antenna/radar dish.

You can also see how short the spring is, a Western toy would have three times as many loops in it, when we were kids, our budget clockwork-railway, starter-sets from Tri-Ang would send a 0-4-0 shunter and three wagons about four times around a figure-eight track!

Markings are 'Stop' (as in stop/start) and 'Price 1 Ruble, 80 Kopecks'; abbreviated - which - by the way - is (or was!) bloody cheap!

I'm not sure if it should be right-hand drive, but that's how I found it; maybe it's been captured by some Brit's hiding in a crater, and converted!

F is for Follow-up - " ♪♪♫ . . . aaaaand there were Clockwork-men and Clockwork Cop's & Bot's" ♪♫♫

Mentioned in passing the other day (when looking at the other robots), the Spanish guy gets his fifteen minutes in the limelight today, and another robot turned-up in the Storage lot, so we'll look at it too.

Here he is! Civil Guard - Spanish National Police? I think they are the equivalent of Federal police or Gendarmerie? I stand to be corrected; but he's a Spanish policeman and that's good enough for me!

He had to borrow my Guardsman's bayonet, as he came without one, but the other figures I've seen on that there Intermerweb thingy (Federal and Confederate ACW) both had one. I'm guessing these are aimed at the tourist trade in each territory, and there may be others to find.

The Spaniard compared with my Guardsman, which we have seen before here, briefly. You can see the only physical difference is in the headdress - along with plastic-colouring, and the tampo-printed uniform and face decoration, obviously!

I did try making a video, but the light was all wrong and you have to hold the wound-up figure/s 'till you press record, then get your hand out of the way, at which point they fall over, or go away from the camera or march into out-of-focus, or - when I tried both together - collide with each other, so I gave that up as a 'bad job' requiring five arms, three of which I've yet to grow!

From the sides.

As I say, I have seen Union and Confederate soldiers from the same series, in the US, often quite cheap, but the postage-cost has dampened my enthusiasm, a quick Google or feebleBay search will reveal them.

Base code/markings (or technically 'foot codes') are the same for both, but the Spanish chap has had a branding added to the other foot - he's not Hans, he's mine! The arms swing and the head turns from one side to the other by a few degrees each way, as they march-along. I think this was a charity-shop job, but it may have been in Jim's big box, so shout-out to Jim!

The robot in the left is the addition; we've seen my old yellow and red Christmas stocking one before. The ones we looked at last time (thanks Adrian) and mine are - for the most part - single action toys, just 'marchers', but the new one has similar cam-wheels with pins (to the arm-swinging Guardsman & Gendarme above) between different plastic 'plates' to make the arms punch in-and-out, or the antenna to move up and down as it walks.

W is for Wind-up Wobots

As Walter would have said . . . no, not me; Walter the wobot! And don't mess with his boss - he is the law!

We looked at one of these ages ago which I found in the attic here, a left-over stocking-filler gift from Christmases' past, and there is currently a set of figures doing the rounds with these mechanisms, a Guardsman (also seen here), a Spanish Gendarmerie (presumably - like 'our' Guardsman - also aiming at a tourist market), while in the 'States they have a pair of protagonists from their Civil War, in blue and grey.

The wonderfully wonderful Wonderful! 12 to a box, four each of three designs, there was only one original left in the box, so the rest are obviously part of a nascent collection, and as they are all pretty-much the same thing, blurb will be a bit thin after the first one!

This is the Wonderful chap/chapess (probably what is now called a phantom-brand) and while it's easy to say these are trying to be C3PO, most of them pre-date the original movie (I know the attic one does), what they were trying to be was smaller, cheaper versions of the all-singing, all-dancing, whistles, buzzer & bells, lights flashing, battery-operated robots in tin-plate and plastic coming out of Japan and Hong Kong at the same time.

This and the next one have a completely different mechanism for locomotion, hitching or hoicking themselves along with alternate steps, made as the two, long, too-long arms pass the base, helped by near-flush carpet-wheels. Looks like a juke-box!

'Jukebox's brother is some kind of 1950's labour-saving kitchen device (electric coffee grinder?) from the wish-list pages of Woman & Home!

Universal (who would be buying the remains of Matchbox around the same time) are responsible for the last two, apart from the next one, the others are unmarked.

This chrome-plated chap is a bit later (1979 - Tomy) and is it based on the Lost in Space or Black Hole movie robot? Geoffrey Peeters recently showed another here (link) and these would make a nice mini-collecting theme if you are short of space and/or budget, as they turn up pretty constantly, there are dozens of them if not hundreds (depending on where you draw the line) and they are usually affordable, but their mechanisms have often been damaged with over-winding, rust or gritty dirt/dust.

If you cast your net beyond robots, you will find all sorts of figural subjects, monsters, Easter-chicks, eggs, Christmas novelties, cartoon characters; and these dinosaurs, which are quite recent, if not current. There is a similar jumping or hopping mechanism with similar subjects. Many thanks to Adrian Little for letting me shoot these.