News, Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events +

Saturday was looking a bit thin for toy shows, but a few have surfaced, while Sunday is crammed with venues and those using the M1 or A40 to drop down for the London show, could pop into Potter's bar if they have time and kill two birds with but the one stone; although, in the midst of a mass-extinction event, you shouldn't be trying to kill any birds, while doing so with stones is just mindless cruelty and extraordinarily inefficient!

Also; Thanks to the ladies at Vectis Auctions, for sending me pictures/details for their forthcoming dates, I know you all like something to look at while you're reading.

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Toy Fairs

Friday 16th November 2018 (Today!)

Reminder of the Alfreton evening fair flagged a week ago here at SSW;

Alfreton - Toy and Train Fairs (Malcolm Townsend) - Evening fair

The Leisure Centre, Church Street, Alfreton, DE55 7BD

Web. - www.tttf.co.uk

Mob. - 07951 072 790

19:00 - 21:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

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Saturday 17th November 2018

Abington - Transport Collector's Fair

Abington Church Rooms, Park Avenue North, Northampton, NN3 2HT

Web. - www.facebook.com/northamptontransportfair

eMail - steve7941@hotmail.co.uk

10:30 - 16:00hrs

Admission £1.50p

Enfield - NLETE - Enfield Transport Bazaar

St. Paul's Centre, 102 Church Street, Enfield, Middlesex, London, EN2 6AR

eMail - nleevents@outlook.com

Contact - SSAE to: NLETE, 8 The Rowans, Palmers Green, London, n13 5AD

11:00 - 14:30hrs

Admission £3, accompanied children free

Exeter - Ray Heard Train & Toy Fairs

Matford Centre, Matford Park Road, Exeter, EX2 8FD

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01823 480 097

10:00 - 15:30hrs

Admission £2

Free parking, refreshments

Hereford - Chris Dyer Fairs

Hereford Leisure Centre, Holmer Road, Hereford, HR4 9UD

Web. - www.chrisdyerfairs.co.uk

Tel. - 01643 702 757

Mob. - 07966 694 579

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission £2

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Sunday 18th November 2018 [Busy-busy day!]

Buxton - Barry Potter / BP Fairs

The Octagon Hall, Pavillion gardens, St. Johns Road, Buxton, Derbyshire, SK17 6XN

Web. - www.bpfairs.com

Tel. - 01604 846 688

Mob. - 07966 527 177

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission £3.50 (early-bird £6, from 08:00hrs), OAP's £3, Children £1

Devizes Steven Clements Fairs -

Corn Exchange, Market Place, SN10 1HS

eMail: clementfairs@aol.com

Tel. - 01380 725 322

Mob. - 07958 101 891

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

Free parking, café

Llanelli, Wales - Chris Dyer Fairs

Llangennech Community Centre, Off Hendre Road, Llangennech, Wales, SA14 8TH

Web. - www.chrisdyerfairs.co.uk

Tel. - 01643 702 757

Mob. - 07966 694 579

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission £2

London - MKPS - International Antique Doll, Teddy Bear & Toy Fair

Kensington Town Hall, Kensington, London, W8 7NX

Web. - www.200yearsofchildhood.com

eMail - hap@mkps.co.uk

Tel. - +(44) 7875 874 854 (Daniel Agnew or Hilary Pauley)

10:00 - 15:30hrs

Admission charge unknown

Saturday gala dinner

Potters Bar- Toy & Train Fairs

Elm Court Centre, Mutton Lane, Potters Bar, Middlesex, EN6 3BP

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 02082 051 518 (Peter Levinson or Diane)

10:30 - 14:30hrs

Admission charge unknown

Spalding - J&J Fairs (J&J Webb)

Springfields Events & Conference Centre, Camelgate, Spalding, Lincolnshire, PE12 6ET

Web. - www.j-jwebbtoyfairs.com

eMail - jandjfairs@virginmedia.com

Tel. - 01522 880 383

10:00 - 14:30hrs

Admission - Adult £2.50p, seniors £2, 1st child £1.50p

Walsall Wood - Transtar Promotions - Toy and Train Collectors Fair

Oak Park Active Living Centre, Coppice Road, Walsall Wood, WS8 7DG

Web. - www.transtarpromotions.com

Tel.- 01922 643 385 (Geoff or Linda)

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission - Adults £1.80p, seniors £1.50p, child £1

Refreshments

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Tuesday 20th November 2018

Wootton Basset - Steven Clements Fairs - Wootton Basset Evening Fair

Memorial Hall, Station Road, Wootton Basset, Wiltshire, SN4 7EN

eMail: clementfairs@aol.com

Tel. - 01380 725 322

Mob. - 07958 101 891

18:30 - 20:30hrs

Admission charge unknown

Free parking, café

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Auctions

Friday 16th November 2018 (Today!)

A reminder of another from last Friday's post

Stockton-on-Tees - Vectis (day 2 of a 2-day sale)

Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 9JZ

Web. - www.vectis.co.uk

eMail - admin@vectis.co.uk

01642 750 616

Model Trains

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Saturday 17th November 2018

Bury St. Edmonds - Lacy Scott & Knight

Web. - www.lsk.co.uk

eMail - oleggett@lsk.co.uk

Tel. - 01284 748 600 (general enquires)

Tel. - 01284 748 623 (Oliver Leggett - auction)

Toy and Collectors Models

Newark - Northgate Auctions

17 Northgate, Newark, Nottingham, NG24 1EX

Web. - www.northgateauctionroomsnewark.co.uk

eMail - auctions@northgateauctionroomsnewark.co.uk

Tel. - 01636 605 905

Fax. - 01636 612 607

Mixed toys, vintage and modern

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Tuesday 20th / Wednesday 21st November 2018

Newbury - Special Auction Services (SAS - 2-day sale)

81 Greenham Business Park, Newbury, West Berkshire, RG19 6HW

Web: www.specialauctionservices.com
eMail: mail@specialauctionservices.com

Tel: 01635 580595

Fax: 0871 714 6905

Music and entertainment sale

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Wednesday 21st November 2018

Warwick - Warwick & Warwick

Charlton House, Scar Bank, Millers Road, Warwick, Warwickshire, CV34 5DB

(Auctions held in Court House)

Web. - www.warwick&warwick.com

eMail - richard.beale@warwick&warwick.com

Tel. - 01926 499 031

Facsimile - 01926 491 906

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Other Events

Now - until the 6th January 2018

Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne

Web. - townereastbourne.org.uk

I'm not suggesting you travel any distance to this for any toy possible content, as most of the exhibits are more mainstream 'art' fare, but if you are local it might be worth a punt for any other works by Tony Cragg if the above is anything to go by. I can see a few toys in the . . . collage, work, heap? And they are presumably all pre-1978 items!

Any one of us could do a rainbow carpet, thicker too, but all in figures!

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Missed!

These flyers were much in evidence at Sandown Park last Saturday, but it's a bit late for getting on the Internet for a show the next day, no one is going to rush home and late-promote your show, after an early start and a long-day getting a sore throat under that air-conditioning! Better luck next year guys; try a week or two before the show?

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If you are an event promoter/show curator/auctioneer and you want your toy, model, collectable or popular-/youth-culture type sale/exhibition/event listed here - FOR FREE - or linked to; please eMail me -

maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com

- stating the date/s of the event, address of event, contact details, opening/viewing times, admission pricing and any other relevant facts/details or features - parking, travel notes, disability access, availability of refreshments, event subject matter &etc.

And please mention any flyer-art or poster-/leaflet-scans but send by separate eMail, in case they go to the 'junk' folder, from where they can be recovered and marked safe, but only if I know they're there!

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Toys in the Media

From the 'i' (9th Oct. '18), illustrating some dry piece on social-mobility with regards to educational attainment! It's a poor advertising agency or photographic studio that uses the HK copies off of evilBay, over the original Preiser or Noch we normally see in kinds of shots! Although, as Small Scale World was part [unwittingly] of the original publicity by the pirates, I should probably keep my head down on this one!

Piggy Bank! Also from the 'i' (1st Sep. '18), this was in an advertisement for inheritance tax avoidance advice or something equally thrilling.

Other News

Get painting - if you live in Kansas!

http://fortscott.biz/news/toy-soldiers-painting-contest-entries-due-nov-30

New Zealand - wacky place; you're looking for images 7 & 8 in the slide-show at the bottom of the piece!

http://coveteur.com/2018/11/14/inside-new-zealand-2018-world-wearable-art-show/

T is for Toy Fair 2018 Reports - Action Man

A weird thing happened at the Toy Fair; there was a display of the Action Man retro re-boot up on the mezzanine walkway round the main hall, lovely stuff, but lots of DO NOT TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS signs liberally spread about the smallish stand, so while Peter chatted to them I took the rather poor video that kicked-off this side-season of fair reports.

But then - when we went down onto the floor of the main hall - there was another outfit, also displaying them! "Can we take photo's?" I said, "Of course" came the reply! So I don't know what the first lot thought they were protecting . . . at a trade show? Promoting stuff?

Anyway I shot off a few, they're not the best, but then 12-inch action figures aren't really what Small Scale World is all about, nevertheless, I loved my Action Man back in the day and actually sold my childhood collection to the man behind these figures, back in around 1995/6! And they are Toy Soldiers!

Timely too; as Moonbase had a ‘Mini Season’ of TV ad’s earlier in the week!

Also, these have been around for a few years now? I can't remember when the 50th was but Allan Hall from Modellers Loft down there in Dorset (to whom I sold mine, and who is responsible for the three volume work on them) obtained the licence from Hasbro for these many years ago now, and took them to the odd PW show or two and Harfield's  a while back, the 50's have been out for a while now and there were 40th's over a decade ago? It [the license] now seems to reside with an outfit called Art + Science International.

I never liked the 'tiger suit' of the paratrooper, but the latter British Para' was quite outstanding. The box is based loosely on latter boxes from the 1970's, the original was smaller and windowless if I recall correctly?

They are not part of the revamped Hasbro range of all-singing, all-dancing, action-movie types with all the fluorescent idiot-sticks, interactive-whistles and flashing-bells from the owner of the Action Man rights, these are a UK-specific, limited-run, retro 'thing'.

The chap on the left was originally the first tranche / first figure released and came straight from Hasbro's GI Joe, where he is close to the US Army/Marine Corps recruit/basic training uniform of the 1960's, we used the cap with our desert set-up for a Free French FFL type.

I once really upset a Bundeswehr paratrooper-officer 'Fritz' who was staying with my parents by setting-up my Cherilea/Sharna Ware desert half-track under the cherry tree with a face-veil 'camo-net' on sticks as an OP for my three Afrika Korps-dressed Action Mans, went and got Fritz to come and have a look and found him to be rather appalled by what was (looking back) probably anathema to him - a war toy, depicting Nazi-era Germans! He - having been raised in a climate without many such toys - clearly thought I was taking the piss, but I - as a kid - just wanted to impress him!

On the right is the classic British Tommy with Battle Dress and Sten gun, albeit a rather odd stocked French resistance looking type.

I don't know if they've been cleverly matched to the originals or if the/some of the original Hong Kong-based tools were tracked-down but the resemblance to the various outfits of my youth are uncanny.

The footballers were quite problematical back in the day, both the socks and the shirt/jersey sleeves showing a tendency to ladder and unravel into long stings of fluffy fluff! So I hope these are better made.

Likewise; I only hope the wet-suit has been made out of something more modern and hard-wearing that the melty-crumbly suits we had as kids, I well remember the sleeves of our action-man's orange suit slowly getting stickier and stickier as small fragments meandered-off  and stuck to the carpets like little mandarin amoeba!

Again; the skis, ski-sticks and snow-shoes all look to be accurate representations of the ones we had when we were young, and the M1 Garand (in white, there was a brown one as well) looks equally authentic?

E is for Ends; Loose, of Christmas and the Year

Really it's 'L is for Loose Ends' but I know we've had that title before!

The last bits from Brian Berke's recent eMails, my last seasonal shelfie, last words on nutcrackers, baubles and chocolate advent calendars, presents, stationary, catering supplies and a glass animal . . .

. . . .my last present to you this Christmas is to drop all the crumbs left in Picasa or on my desktop into your RSS feed! If you get the Blog via such a thing - I've never really worked out what feeds are, how they work or where RSS's differ from other feeds!

Kicking off with Brian's last present to me . . . a shelfie he took in Connecticut recently of a Crimbo pullover, he suggested I might be able to say something nice about it . . . but I'm not sure I can!

It's got a nutcracker on it so it has its place in the pantheon of nutcracker related stuff we've looked at as a seasonal 'thing', and to be kind to it, it's . . . . err . . . distinctive; if people are found wearing one once I've become Supreme Overlord of Earth (and Emperor of France); it will make it easier to have them rounded-up and turned into pet food (it's for the good of the gene-pool not the pets), but I'm not sure it has any other redeeming features, it's lost its sleeves for a start!

And having seen the weather they've been having in Connecticut in the last week or two, the fact that this is still on its hanger says plenty! Thanks Brian!

Which brings us neatly to another tabloid head-fit over nothing (see yesterday-moning's post), the rink is plenty big enough and there were little two-handled penguins about 3-foot high for kids to ride/lean on if they weren't used to ice, the restrictions on numbers may have been a 'elf'und'safty' thing, but with the best of intentions behind it, (people in authority don't want to be sued because stupid people have hurt themselves doing things which have hurt stupid people since time immemorial!), nevertheless; the tabloids had a field-day of unnecessary outrage.

I have fond memories of both Lichfield and its neighbour Tamworth, being stationed between the two at Whittington for my basic-training back in 1984.

I just saw two more life-size nutcrackers! And the biggest yet at about 9 feet, but they don't beat . . .

. . . attack of the 10-foot-plus woman! I found this young lady looking lost in Woking's main shopping-precinct while delivering a Bah Humbug card in the week before Christmas (nothing to report in/from the Toysaurus), I don't recognise her, maybe advertising a forthcoming cinematographical or theatrical event of some sort?

Or did Woking Borough Council just leave a 10-foot, barely-dressed (hardly festive and definitely not 'for the weather'!) woman in the way to surprise unwary shoppers weighed down with Christmas gifts and/or flu? Does anyone recognise her? At about twice life-size it's a new one (2:1) for the tag list!

I shot these on Friday last (29th) in a charity shop window and I would have had them on Tuesday - just for fun - but they went over the weekend, the almost certainly Russian (or Eastern, ask TJF) equivalent of Erzgebirge, little wooden, lathe-turned, onion-towered orthodox churches, ringed for tree-hanging, aren't they charming? They'd make excellent village-markers in/for micro- or map- war-gaming!

Glass trees and the 'big bear' on the mantelpiece this Christmas, I can't remember if I've posted them before, but if I have; here they are again . . . It's still Christmas! The speckles on the mirror aren't dust, that's what age does to mirror-glass!

Most of the cracker presents this year went to the youngsters, but I managed to end-up with a mini pack of cards and a polymer paper-clip! We had wacky little hats this year, which were quite retro and looked more like something you'd see Laurel & Hardy wearing with stiff collars and kipper-ties!

While on boxing-day I lost the hat competition round my brother's as I wanted to go outside and suck on the vape, which entailed facing a raging squall which would have traduced my traditional tissue-paper crown to a piece of damp pulp, so I had to concede early!

My sister-in-law had lovely places set at table with 'merry festive napkins' (as Giles would have put it!) printed and folded in the shape of Christmas trees and Christmas jumpers, which while only ephemeral tissue were quite clever, I thought.

This year's seasonal kitchen roll was bears taking a stroll through the Crimbo-tree woods! A few sheets are saved each year for wrapping the new baubles and tree decorations when they go away with the others for another year.

My only figural present (other than the Peruvian chess set we looked at a while ago) was this little blown and rod-glass, Murano-style rhinoceros - it's OK; googly-eyed, cartoon rhinos don't attack Flying Fortress pilots! Although - that horn is not to be messed-with!

Collectable books didn't include much to interest figure-purists, and I think I have the Mechanical Toys in storage, but all three will prove useful. I also got the Richard Holmes/IWM D-Day book, which is a bit simplistic ('concise' is kinder), but makes a nice, easy-read, day-by-day account.

The Beswick is a bit like the Ramsey's railway and die-cast yearbooks, only not updated so often, but the old ones do turn-up cheap and I have three for four now including the Wade Whimsies one which is very useful, Lladro &etc.

The third Christmas tome is a treatise on Fossil watch tins . . .

. . . something that had completely escaped me, but about which I now know more than I will ever need to call upon . . . as I don't collect, and have no intention of ever collecting, watches, let alone their packaging! From the dates I guess Fossil took a leaf out of Swatch's book, where are Swatch now?

But it's a lovely thing with different years/model's tins arranged on pages with very nostalgic graphics or - as above - in equally nostalgic settings; a REAL 'Coffee Table' book. Come to Colorado 'The railway tree State'!

Brian B also sent these, a couple of weeks ago, the post had published and they might have waited 'till next year, but then this post started to accumulate in a spare folder! They look like the one's I couldn't find when I was whinging about them the other day; Confiserie Heidel chocolate advent calendars . . . proper ones!

I've since learnt that the local Bible-shop does proper ones with seasonal artwork (two designs), 24 windows and 24 different designs of chocolate so I've promised to buy them there next year!

In the meantime these two were in the 'News Views...' to-be-sorted pile, a bit late now, but I will try to work-up something next (this coming!) November, that's a bit timelier for finding them to enjoy over the important 24-days! From the Metro, on the right; the 'i' on the left.

This was the disappointing 25th and untraditional window's treat in my calendar. It's not that I don't 'get it'; everyone appreciates an extra chocolate; but it's a Christian 'event' and their rules say 24 windows, it's not like we are short of chocolates the next day! And nuts and cake and pudding and marzipan fruits, dates, figs, Turkish-delight, mints . . .

 . . . equally; I'm no Christian, but I try to at least pay lip-service to, or go along with the spirit of the thing, as I would at the Hajj or the Kumbh Mela, and it's a measure of how we are losing our souls as a species (to marketing) that we just accept a slide to godless consumption and the worship of the true God - Mammon - over retaining our cultural links with the past, even if we don't agree with the pan-dimensional mega-being element of the thing!

Or even - perish the thought - using education and intelligence to build a better, fairer, secular world for everyone, based on the rule of law and democratic principles.

On those cheerful thoughts (!) I'll wish you all a Happy New Year and hope to all the Gods - real or imagined - that it's better than the fractious, divisive one we've just escaped, but I fear that for many of us 2018 will be worse . . . the lunatics are [none-too-] firmly in charge of the asylum!

B is for Belt Buckles