N is for Not News to Me!

Because I pay attention! Do you think they don't know other blogs exist, or are they just pretending they don't, so - in their own heads - they can convince themselves of the uniqueness of their 'little club', and justify the plagiarism?

 

Peter Evans found these up in London and they were part of the August pick-up, but as friend and fellow blogger Jan had already posted Brainrot on his Site of Curiosities, they weren't new to me! But these seem to be the next step in the franchise, borrowing from gaming.

 

In that they have an attached electrictrickery-box, as a plinth, and do light & sound stuff! These both seem to be new characters as their names aren't on the website yet, but a ninja-takeaway cup fighting a chimp-headed giant banana slice is something anyone should pay to see!

 

We saw the stand-alone figures on the Blog last December, courtesy of Brian B, mentioned several times in connection with the even weirder Skibidi stuff (also from Brian), and those odd unbranded figures we saw at the start of October (also from Peter), they tend to more animal forms, but the Robot 'family' group, are mostly inanimate objects.

 

I haven't tried them, but you have to pull out the white tab, to make the contact which will enable the battery to start operating. The removanle top-half can also be used as a key-ring. Thanks to Peter, two boxes ticked, but I'm not planning on seriously collecting this stuff!

 

Also two new posts on the But is it Giant Blog earlier the morning.

H is for Horror of Horrors!

On a trip to an art supply store, our roving reporter in New York found this lurking on a shelf; the scariest Halloween mask ever, it's named DEATH DEALER and dates from 2020, he thought it would make a good face for a Guy, come November the 5th!

 

Clearly dating from the period whence came the pooping Donald key-ring, and bog-brush Donald, which we've seen here passim, and the world will be a better place when all trace of the buffoon has been wiped from it's collective memory, something which may take centuries!

 

Issued by Rubie's Costume Co, both sides of the North American boarder, and possible jumping off point for Trump and Hegseth's next war; the acquisition of the 51st State! Don't worry Canada, we owe you one, and we'll be there.

 

Now, I've posted my views of the orange loon before, here, but I'm also vaguely active on Quora, a strange website, half useful answers to serious questions, half completely rabid garbage, which makes the discourse on Faceplant or Ex-Twitts  look sane, and I have slowly been honing and tweaking my summery of the current President, in answer to the various MAGAts and Anglophobes who pop-up there with their trolling questions, such as this recent one from someone calling himself 

'Baktash Swearwords'

, who claims to be autistic and to read a lot of philosophy!

 

Is President Trump seen as a hero among the British people as President Churchill was?

 

To which this was my answer, and it remains my current firmly held belief;

"No.

"When a clown moves into the White House, he doesn't become Presidential. The White House becomes a circus."

Trump is no Churchill, Roosevelt, or Truman, he isn’t even a Clinton or Obama. He's a cunt. The draft-dodging felon is the worst US President of all time (a field with several contenders already), and he is the least statesmanlike leader of the ‘Free West’ ever. He is uneducated and suffers from significant intellectual limitations; he lacks wisdom, is ‘unread', incurious and a dim-witted fool. He is classless, charmless, and uncool. He is an untrustworthy, insincere, inveterate serial-liar, a fraud and fraudulent, so he lacks credibility. He is a sex-pest and sex-offender. He has no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace. He’s an embezzler, a bad-payer, master grifter, a bully and a bore. He appears to be a Moscow shill, and yet is afraid of China, so is also a coward, indeed, 'The' back-pedalling TACO coward. He is rude, abusive, and insults his friends and allies as if they were his enemies, throwing tantrums like a five-year-old. He eats shit; this makes him a fucking fat cunt, and he’s ugly, with his beady eyes, teeny mouth, weeny teeth, and tiny hands, topped-off with that weird pubic-wig, often caught in the wind, praying for its own end. He is a racist bigot, homophobic, misogynistic, pathological, socio-psychopathic and a megalomaniac. Guilty of violating campaign finance laws, he regularly practices perjury, obstruction of justice, contempt of court, bribery, malicious and vexatious litigation and malfeasance. He is a self-absorbed, self-serving, self-obsessed, self-aggrandising, selfish, conceited, malignant narcissist. He's foul-mouthed, and he talks too much yet fails to address the topic/subject/problem, wandering off on unfettered flights of surreal fantasy - out loud, on camera! If he gives you a gift, expect a bill, and a knife in the other hand. Because he IS dangerous, he has disgraced America, sullied its word, turned away its friends, destroyed its standing on the world stage, and damaged trust in its institutions. Fuck Donald J. Trump, the orange-painted Trumplethinskin turd and despicable human being, 'Diaper Don', a panty-shitting, pulsating pustule of a monster in a Trumpanzee meat-suit."

The current decision of the White House to move closer to Putin, is despicable, and it's decision to push Ukraine (and all of Europe, by extension) out into the cold is shocking, and a betrayal of every sacrifice of Americans in World War Two.

And so, it is incumbent on all fair minded, democratic Americans, to count on absolutely nothing and drag their arses to the polling booths on Tuesday, to end this surreal, Kafkaesque madness.

 

2nd Nov, I learned two more today - Butterscotch Shittler and Pumpkin Spice Pedo!

R is for Resin Rascals

I meant to post this last night, but I ran out of time, or, work ran me out of time, which is a different state of being altogether, if you know what I mean, but anyway, heeeeere's Horror! Brian managed a visit to another discount chain; Family Dollar, and found this pair of rather nice sets of ornamental poured resin delights!

 

Imported by Midwood Brands, LLC of Virginia, we just don't get little sets of small scale stuff like this over here, there are large boulders of resin crap in most of the supermarkets, and TKMaxx is good for a shed load of unnecessary, easily chipped crud in the several-kilo's category, but these are nice.

 

So many thanks, again, to Brian for finding them and shooting them, and it reminded me I had some resin downloads in the Halloween 'junk' folder (there's probably more on the dongles, but these (below) were to hand), so a post developed!

 

Dated to 2021, and I converted it from a bitmap, so I don't know how it will show on your machine/'device', but here's a whole group of similar, small scale, novelty Halloween stuff, including, front-right, a long-dead pirate!

 

And here's more pirates, which as we had a coronary-related non-ITLAPD this year, is about as good as it's going to get! These are apparently copyrighted Spoontiques, of China, and I seem to have found them a year ago (November '25). Real West Country gift shop (rather than specifically Halloween themed) faire, I suspect they are about 60/70mm, but they could be a little bigger, or even smaller!

C is for Civilian Contributions

I think these are all from Peter Evans, a mix of convenience store finds, car-boot sale's plunder, and the odd visit to the Toy Project store in North London, and they were in three folders, although they are in the order I shot them, which is vaguely the order they came in!

 

Fireman Sam figurines, from Simba, blind-boxed, there were a bunch of these, and I've saved them for another post another day, but here's a sample, with boxes, bag and figures, manufactured in a modern, PVC replacement, and quite nicely done I thought? And they seem to be clearance from a German series, you can find English language versions

 

Nice unknown firefighter with the 'jaws of life', a Corgi fireman from the Simon Snorkel, and a 'Christmas Village' figure - I've already promised myself I'm never going to try and annotate all of them, but hopefully by the time I get round to the A-Z pages, there will be enthusiasts pages to link to!

 

The other figure is from the Teamsterz sets, and is the third of four road menders (the other two came from Peter too), and I was only sorting them the other day, I now have four firefighters, four police, and with this, three road crew, although we may have seen the other in a shelfie at some point; I'm not sure how well they've been Tagged!

 

Another set of firefighters, red, is, as always, a bugger to photograph, but I suspect six of six poses from a rack-toy set, and not one we've seen before?

 

Funny, I found the post where these (Poundland?) wrestlers were shelfied on the cards, the other day, looking for something else, and, at the time, I said something along the lines of, they'll come in in mixed lots in a few years, and, indeed they are starting to turn-up, these aren't the first we've seen I think, just the first since I saw that old comment!

 

I need to sort all these out, but some are to hand, some are deeper in the unit, so it'll have to wait for another day, but I think we've now seen them all in both sizes, and all of them, bar the smaller set, with packaging, from three or four brands/brand marks (here PME), in teams of three-a-side with a referee, and seven-a-side, no referee!

 

This is interesting, and a nice box ticker, but these are the poor quality Hong Kong/China copies, commissioned by Hornby Hobbies, of their own, better-quality Scalextric product, from the previous Lines-Triang iteration, with a loss of details and basic painting. When the pit crew had matching cardigans!

 

More for the unknown seated/rider zone, except I know the big one is Tudor Rose, and he's in the folder I mentioned the other day as sliding into the long-queue, I'll dig him out as a follow-up!

 

Despite being in two colours these seem to be from the same set, and again would appear to be new to Blog? Although possibly copies of others we have seen already.

 

Cakeboards bowls playing cake decorations, I don't know if they are still going but they seem to have produced quite a few of these resin figures, between about fifteen and eight years ago? The missing sliver of the lady's hat is in the bag, so must have broken off on the journey back to Hampshire, I'll get it glued back on! We've actually seen her before, sans hand!

 

Compare this ice-cream or snack vendor from Scalextric, with the featureless figures above, I've never fully got my head round these, because as well as various generations, painted and unpainted, hard 'styrene and soft 'ethylene, there seems to be a set of scaled-down figures as well, and I've never understood where they fit in the line.

 

Next to him is a Timpo policeman, and I'm not sure which of the set I have, which I need, this one's leaning a bit, had a wee dram against the cold of a night-shift! Unknown motorcyclist, probably from an Hong Kong plastic jobbie around 1:25th, and another anonymous construction/road worker.

 

These might go with the four figures above, they were in the same lot?

 

And to finish, some smaller chaps, being three more of the Hornby plastics, which with the ones the other day is most of a loose set in a few weeks! A Dinky police officer and another Merit platform staff, moving a milk churn. Tanks again to Peter for all these, more useful stuff, and more images for loyal readers!

T is for They Did What???

You won't believe what they've done? But first, to other things, as this is Brian Berke's findings on a recent visit to Dollar Tree, on the look-out for Halloween stuff, or other figurals, and I'm posting them in shot-order!

 

Starting with more erasers, and we like erasers here, I don't know why they switched the position of the pumpkin and Dr's Monster under the blister, but not the spider, however, it must be a nightmare packaging for someone with OCD, and on two levels! Either fully reverse the order, or keep the order on both levels, but this? The horror . . . the horror!

 

Loving these, the ghost is similar to the one we saw, also from Brian, the other day, but the cat looks to be an Iwako knock-off? Given that Iwako do two mouldings in a dozen or more colourways, and one of those has already been copied, someone with a limited budget, or limited space, could start just collecting Iwako and similar cats! And nothing to upset an OCD sufferer here!

 

White button toy, it looks like a walker, but claims to be a jumper, so might be a combination jumping-walker, it's probably only another piece of eccentric bent wire under the case? There are some more white button toys to come. Seasonal Collection looks like a Dollar Tree branding?

 

Rather nice, if slightly large solids from Harry Potter, depicting Hermione, Harry and Ron, I can't see any kind of brand or brand mark, so they may be Dollar Tree exclusives? But . . . look what they did!!!! . . . 

 

. . . they killed SpongeBob SquarePants and his friends, killed them and stripped every scrap of flesh from their bones! Who could do such a thing? Legend Toys with/for Niclkleodeon, that's who; the despicable monsters! And SpongeBob does not look happy!

 

No link to Halloween, but I rather like the M (for Marvel) bases on these, also solid figurines, Hasbro marked, I think these are what are now called 'classic' versions, the new movies having taken them to a far darker and more GCI'd sci-fi place!
 

Thanks, as always, to Brian, for shooting these for us, and he has sent one more item, the most horrible, terrible nightmare-inducing thing ever to be sold to kids, but I'm saving that for the 31st!

S is for Sandown Park - Ancient and Medieval

With the vehicle post being broken-up now, this is the last of the plunder posts from September's show, although sliding into the long queue are some things I shot, but didn't buy at May's show! Technically we're looking at ancient and mediaeval subjects, but there is a bonus 19th Century figure at the end!

 

 

I actually saw these at Plastic Warrior's show in June, and the seller brought them to Sandown, believing I wanted them, because I'd mentioned my interest to a third party, so, here they are! The Rojas e Malaret army builder sets, designed to enlarge the armies for their board war games on the battle of Hannibal and the Catheginians against Rome, at Mutaro and Zama. Obviously these are the Roman cavalry!

 

 

While these are the Carthaginian infantry. The box's contents seem to have been made up with a figure from another set, who has a far more tanned countenance, not that surprising, given the variations we saw with the Little Big Horn set from Waddingtons, which, along with the early sets' contents, originated with Rojas e Malaret too.

A mixed bunch of Timpo knock-off, swoppet knights, possibly from or with parts from two sets, it's not exactly clear, but with much cleaner samples in the stash already, these will be sorted eventually, and with red, white and yellow tending to be commoner, the black and green here will prove to be useful toward building full samples.

 

More swoppets, here a mix of Britains, Crescent and Timpo, with what looks like a Lone Star solid's plume and an unknown weapon/standard? There's even a Supreme 'Silver Knights' shield! All useful spares for the time being.

And more Hong Kong knock-offs, here lesser quality, but again, all useful grist to the mill, to be compared and sorted into the right pile, then used to build a one-of-each sample, the rest to go on to other causes/owners!

 

There's a theme here, isn't there! I've a good sample of these Britains piracies too, but with all the small parts/little pieces, there's bound to be something useful in this 'donor' pile!

While these will be from one of the above lots, probably the lot two images above, they seem to have some mounted legs. I can't remember where all these came from, but it may have been a donation from Isaak, so many thanks to him, I know he gave me something at the show?

 

Finally, this chap. I've never seen one before, it's a hard styrene, never seems to have had a base, and only the uniform, or its accuracy will direct us to a maker . . . Polish, Russian (green) or something South American? But it's quite well done, and suggests a touristy thing, maybe in it's own little window, or clear plastic box?

 

And this is the stuff I live for, things I've never seen before, this kind of figure will enhance any future post/s on Napoleonics in general, all those oddities from Hungary, Peru or Portugal. Starlux are lovely, but they were mass-produced, Deetail are still basically 'modern' production and the Timpo Nappies are to be found in most mixed lots on evilBay, or rummage trays at shows, although often in a shocking state of home-paint, or just a shocking state, and many are getting brittle now!

C is for Combat Contributions

Bit of a theme this PM, but it seemed to make sense to get a bunch of toy soldiers up on the Toy Soldier Blog! There's so much stuff in the short queue, I'm spoilt for choice, on one level, but on another I keep wondering how to do them all justice.

 

Some subjects will make show reports, or more than one post, some are a bit thin, and with stuff from Adrian, two lots from Peter and other bits, they'll go together in the end. This is from all three donation-purchases, in that I paid for them, but at definite 'mates rates'!

 

German Red Cross WHW's, this is the last of Adrian's recent stock, from which I and others have been picking for a few years, now that I've identified at least three issues in bare, and one painted on black plastic, I feel I need to enlarge the core sample, to see how many variants I can identify?

  

 

A nice tin-plate Sikh, possibly a cigarette premium, another Zang Tommy (slightly drunk), and what I thought was a Spanish-made Spanish paratrooper, but I can't find him in the big book, so he might be Italian or Portuguese? Marked '185' on the base underside.

 

From one of Adrian's junk drawers, came these metal bits, including one of the Timpo die-cast machine-gunners.

 

From Peter now; ABC 8th Army types after Timpo 'solids'.

 

Small scale - with a bag of Airfix 1st version German Infantry and 8th Army, two of the Chap Mai figures who need de-gate-mark'ing! And a tatty Blue Box G.I.

.

Hong Kong/China odds! Taken from Airfix, TimMee and Lido originals.

 

More ABC or related - I can't remember what was on the base!

 

Modern rack-toy junk, still have their place, but I've probably got them all, I think the bag is the HTI stuff we saw when they were in the shops (probably still are!), while the lot in front seems to be further-generation copies, in that crumbly, over recycled plastic you see men in sandals making from unwashed plastic bags in weird 'industrial' video 'shorts' on YouTube!

 

MPC, need to be sorted against what I already have, but I think the blue chap is new?

 

Late  production New Ray, or good quality copies of the same?

 

A pair of Deluxe Reading and three rack-toy skinnies!

 

The two on the left look like late Speedwell, the Hilco on the right matches them rather nicely, colours wise! I'm looking forward to sorting all the finds from the last few years into the master collection, and giving the Khaki Infantry page a good update/correcting session!

 

God knows! Marked Hong Kong, so copies, but there are so many versions of these; several US, a couple of Canadian and a few HK lots, I will have to do a big sort-out one day, and matching-up the little silver accessories will send a Saint insane! originally MPC.

 

These have the satin sheen of a fine-nozzeled 3D-printer about them, and they are all, indeed, 3D printed, Peter may have mentioned a maker, or download library title, I can't remember, and they are a bit 'Army Man' or generic G.I.

 

The sandy figure is a Monty, complete with both cap-badges, but a little dumpy I feel, smaller, and better fed than the Timpo solid one!

 

Crescent swoppets, a nice clean sample, although I think the colour variation in the green accessories may be down to sun-bleaching?

 

Anyone who saw the shot of the French/British paratroops I sent to Plastic Warrior a while ago, will know I didn't have the sand-coloured one, so despite the missing top of the string-loop (a common fault with these after seventy-odd years), a really nice addition to that line-up!

 

And, after my minor disaster at this years PW Show (the Aussies who weren't!), here's the desert version of the M-Toy or Star (lesser quality?) swoppet copy, stretcher-case I just need to find the porters now! 

 

Finishing a rushed blurbing (got stuck behind a Nissan Juke going no-miles-an-hour on the way home tonight - some people just shouldn't drive in the dark, or in the rain, or at all!), a few of the soft plastic versions of Marx's Miniature Masterpiece Americans, being scale-downs of the larger figure ranges.

 

Many, many thanks to Adrian Little and Peter Evans for constantly putting this stuff to one side for me, it's all grist to the mill, and there's always interesting bits among it, cheers guys!