L is for Last Minute Present Idea

If you're the other side of the Pond! Sent by Mr. Berke, who has been busy ensuring his grandson has a roaring time on the 25th, these are the latest in prehistoric entertainment from Greenbrier in the 'States and DTSC in Canada.

From the left we have a Stegosaurusaur, a Rex-sized raptor, a actual T-Rexington and a flappy-chappie down the front! These are in a larger size and look to be very good for the pocket-money/rack toy price-range they will be in, I saw similar stuff in The Works the other day, but hadn't taken my camera, doh!

Ray Harryhausen eat your heart out! The Pterasaur fights one of the now finished SCS Direct fantasy figures, he (the skeletal human) doesn't look too fazed, but if you're [un]dead and already pretty-familiar with Hades, I guess another demise is just part of the job description!

I had to look twice at the knight, I thought he was one of the K&M/Wild Republic set! While the ladies aren't taking any chances, that shot will go through the roof of Rex's mouth and straight into his very small brain! The SCS figures paint-up nicely and scale well with these beasts.

Oh! . . . Well, it's a very big axe and he's quite a small target? I think the Steggie' is just a panicking veggie, so it's those two-foot long, Atlantic-grey claws old Gimli needs to watch-out for! Cheers Brian, they are nice dino-sculpts, and the SCS are looking good!

D is for Dino III - The Search for Karn...'ivore

I love that title! Sometimes you think of one and you think "Yeah, there's about four levels there!" . . . anyway, it IS the third Dino-post today, the second from Brian Berke over in the Big Apple, and we're looking at the Dollar Tree dino's, most compared to the Dollar General ones we saw earlier today.

These are branded to our old friends and regular visitor's to these pages; Greenbriar/DTSC, who are more widely available I think. Again there are no species given on the sales-tags/labels - I didn't ask Brian if they have monikers on their bodies?

Sizeing with both the previous lot and our trusty Crescent rifleman reveals a larger animal from a similar species, indeed it's almost a scale-up, but there are differences.

Compared to the pretty basic 'Chinasaurs' of our childhood, there are some very good models out there now, and while the real biggies from Schleich, Papo and Co., are very, very good, these cheapies are also excellent sculpts. I think a lot of it is in the skin-textures they give them, think of that WHSmith's set I was buying a few years ago?

The new set runs to seven against the five we looked at earlier and here the 'Tree's are compared with their 'General counterparts, except the Triceratops who is compared to the old Timpo one (which Brain pointed out is as good as a dinosaur 'dinosaur' such is its age!), the new one is a really nice pose, in my opinion! A second meat-eater should be identifiable from the larger arms but is unknown to me?

The two Steggie's are quite similarly posed, but the new one has slimmer limbs, while the Dollar General example seems to be barking! And there's a kerthunkersaurus to finish-off the line-up

Cheers Brain, that Dino's done in RTM, but I've only got a few days to tick the annual motorcycle and paratrooper boxes . . . it's in hand!

W is for ♪♫♪ . . . We're the Gnomes From America, Woo'ooo-hoo!

. . . We're the Gnomes from America woo'ooo-hoo, we're the Gnomes that any'body can buy . . . dah, dah, dah da'da-darh . . . dah, dah, dah da'da-darh - whoo-hoo! ♫♫♪

As you may have guessed, these were also in Picasa, courtesy of Brian Berke and waiting for 'Ger'nome' day; no, it won't become a 'thing' here . . . merely occasional! In-stores now, that side of the pond; I'll be looking out for them in Poundland, it's the most likely destination here . . . and I don't doubt Peter E will be on the look-out too!

I think that Fairy Garden is the brand-mark, Forest Figurine the over-brand, but with the Greenbriar/DTSC partnership of respectively; US/Canadian importers, claiming for them, they are both probably phantom-brands?

And, throwing back to my point about the naming of the gnomes in the first post; these are being called 'Fairy' even though Disney's Snow White would recognise them as Dwarves, and I think they are classic Gnomes.

Also there are marked differences in size and painting between the see-saw pair and the three stepping-stone menders (I assume that's their occupation from the Fairy Crossing title), but they look like gardeners! So they seem to have been sourced by the two importers from more than one maker (or - at the very least -  two catalogue lines?).

Many thanks to Brian.

H is for How They Come In - Often from America!

The same day Peter's parcel arrived, another hitched a ride with it on Postie's trolley, in fact with both of them sent regular-mail and the postmen working under cut-hours (or under-cut hours!), he didn't even knock, just tucked one on the other, behind the wood-stack in the porch and I found them both returning from the station with the daily Metro!

It was from Brian in New York, and had all sort of goodies in it!

He sent three bags of the Flixstars from Mattel we looked at last time he sent some! I'm going to have to keep one mint, but don't know yet which of them will be the two to open, but I must say I think they're fun, and from the front they all make nice figures.

I opened this one straight-away, because the packaging is a huge thing, and I can scan the card sometime for the archive, which will stack flat 'for posterity'! He's a bigg'un, about 80mm if we assume they grew to human size, and from Monogram 'the new'.

Funnily-enough I found the old Playmate's 54mm'ish TMNT's while putting that Plume Brisse (or whatever it was) Indian premium away the other day and I thought that with the ones we've seen in the last few years and others including the Yolanda Sobre ones we might have a round-up of turtle ninja, mutant-teenager figuress in the spring!

This year's packaging colour-way from Dollar General/Dolgen, I would save it for October, but thought I'd clear the decks now, as we can compare all three - to date - next year, they being; black, orange and purple cards. Still unfair that the Mummy's get ten poses and the Skeletons only eight!

Brian also sent three bags of some of his finds on the secondary market; the top bag has a mix of MPC 54mm (which I know I'm short of) and Hong Kong Monogram clones, the middle bag are the Payton (? I'll check before I blog them again) copies of the Marx hard plastic polystyrene figures. We did look at them, but it was ages ago, so they will prove really useful when I return to them here.

The last bag was particularly kind of Brian as we've already had the images - indeed it leaves me with a quandary as I'd like to shoot them again (now they're here!), but with some more CMV shots (for that is what they are) from Chris Smith added to the mix, they were/are fully covered on the khaki infantry page, so I'll have to be patient, or get a grip on an A-Z entry!

A return to Mattel with these two 65/70-mil'ish figures, a nice Batman and The Rock - who's pretty-much escaped me but I know of him from my Brother's enthusiastic gabbling on the Fast & Furious franchise!

I shot the card backs to illustrate a point previously highlighted - the mass of consumer information you find on these things, these days - they must be as 'safe' as a lungful of mountain-air!

Mr. B also sent three more of these large stretchy 100mm combat types from Greenbrier/DTSC for Imperial with a new colour and a new pose - the bazooka firer. Thanks as always to Brian and wishing him and the rest of you a Happy Christmas . . . I know - but it's not far off; any-day-soon and it'll be in the past already!

Z is for Zombie Men . . . Women, Dogs and Mummies!

We've managed black cats, skeletons, a possible yeti, assorted monsters and a bunch of ghosts, there's only one trope left really, the undead! The risen from the dead and the rising from the dead! Let's tick those boxes for the finale!

Again, we saw these last year as shelfies (or sent images) I think, but Brian B then kindly sent some to the Blog so here they are in close-up, issued by Greenbrier in the 'States and DTSC in Canada.

It's a fact that all the best of these Halloween/Horror figures come from (or via/due to the efforts of-) North America. Apart from the odd thing like 99p Store's re-issue of Dolgen or the odd Amazon offer (see below), I've looked hard this year and the mountains of plastic tat available for Halloween are of such shite quality and ephemeral robustness they constitute an excuse for banning Halloween here altogether!

It's also a fact I'll get this whinge into one of the posts every year!

Both sides of the card for those who archive this kind of stuff - I do!

A comparison with the other set (SCS Direct in the 'States) which Peter Evans had sent to the blog in time for last year's posts.

Now, I mentioned Amazon, and I did find these on Amazon UK from Fun Express (aping that other firm's packaging again, Amscan . . . or Unique?) and they were quite cheap so, despite the imagery being less than helpful or hopeful, I ordered a set, and this is it, but it wasn't much fun!

What you get is 12 figures, which seem to be split 6 each of the two colours, one a drying-blood red, the other looking to be glow-in-the-dark, but not; just a greenish-white - interior decorators would call it apple-snow or some pretentious crap like that, think - raw tripe!

But when it comes to poses the pack disappoints. Totally random contents with four of some and one of others, I ended up with three poses, one in both colours. now they were cheap, and I did intend to get a couple more sets to see if there were other poses, or just to get all (?) three in both colours, but I kept putting it off as there's no guarantee (from my first sample) that even two more sets would achieve that?

If you try, good luck, they are sized to fit others and as army-builders are a useful addition to the canon, but with most rack-toy issuers getting quite good at packing balanced lots these days it is disappointing to see these, especially as they seem to go to the effort of counting colours? Just pick from 'pose-bins' . . . some firms have automated it so you get a whole or part-runner in each bag!

You can see how he goes well with the WWII set (far right - EMCE Toys 'Previews Exclusive, Zombies At War') we looked at a year or two ago, and he's not much smaller than the two grey zombie sets (far left), so they are useful, but you may need four or five bags to get a good sample?

The big mummy is marked similarly to Phidal stuff but is a softer material than they are currently using and seems to be from 2009, so he may be an early issue from this increasingly prolific (55 sets in the 2019 catalogue?) figure source, he's also another candidate for a Scooby-Doo related-set?

While I don't know anything about the other chap, I'd guess a 1980's rack-toy . . . possibly a He-Man/MotU rip-off? He's a very dense polyethylene or some type of nylon?

Finally Mr. Berke has sent a shelfie of the same black carded version of Dolgen's Mummy Army, and how come they keep getting ten poses while the skeletons have always been limited to eight? Some Pharaoh's-curse rubbish I'll bet . . . fussa-russa!

Thanks again Brian, thanks again Peter, see what turns-up in twelve-month's time!

S is for Squat Squidgy Squadies and Safe Samurai 'Sassins

You may remember a while ago, Brian Berke sent some shelfies to the Blog of these delightful little weirdoes, well; he only went and sent the Blog some in his autumn parcel - didn't he!

 

Imported into the 'States by those new-old favourites Greenbriar/DTSC, but apparently on behalf of Imperial to whom the figures are also branded, and they are a soft, hollow silicon rubber, a bit like squeaky-toys but sans squeak, or; sans squeaker!

Ninjas; too cool for martial-arts school and the colours are lovely; the camera's flash has reddened one, who - to the eye - is a pinky-heliotrope sort of colour, while the purple one has reproduced quite accurately. Style is slightly 'deform', or cartoonish with big heads, hands and feet.

The cool colours extend to the generic (but vaguely 'Fritz' helmeted) combat infantry, with butterscotch, mint and blueberry, fairy-cake, icing hues! I have no idea how many colours there are in ether line, nor - indeed - whether the rich colours of the Ninjas carry over to the soldiers or the pastels vise-versa?

Equally I don't know how many poses there are in either line, although they are numbered sequentially; so this may be 'it'. While the packaging carries the details of Greenbrier and DTSC (for Canada) it carries the logo of Imperial, however the figures are all marked Greenbrier International.

You can also see here just how squidgy they are and - courtesy of the 'Berserker' that they are around the 100mm mark. Many thanks to Brian for sending them.

T is for Two . . . Wheels Good . . .

Like Paratroopers and whatever the other thing was the other day . . . goes and checks the 'finished' folder . . . ; footballers (!), this has become another of those perennials, we return to from time to time, dinosaurs, insects and fish are all currently rising-up the queue as well, but today it's a return to two wheels; well, fourteen wheels or - if you want to be a total pedant fifty-seven wheels and at least three - visible - skids!

Roughly in the order they've come in or been shot since we last looked at them excluding a lead flat I think we looked-at separately . . .

Upon the demise of PoundworldPlus back in the summer, this was reduced to 50p with a further reduction at the till taking it to 43p or something! It was worth a punt for a small plastic motorcycle, of Kinder-egg quality? It needed squeezing together properly which I didn't notice until after the photo-shoot, branded to their ITP Imports and coming with a reasonable rendition of an executive type helicopter and a really crappy jeepney-thing which - if pink - would look like Barbie's beach-buggy!

I can't tell you what this cost as it was a present for my Brother on his Birthday! He's one of those people who has everything he wants, and if he really wants something else tends to go and get exactly what he wants himself, so he's very difficult to buy for, but he likes his motorcycles, so when I saw this . . . bingo! Noki are the same people who did the novelty egg-cup and toast-soldier sets, see Small Scale World passim.

I think this is the third time out for this chap, and the second involving contributions from Peter Evans, who recently sent me a very interesting set, with the unpainted black-plastic version. In the meantime I found another (slight colour variation) in the Storage lot, so shot all four together and they now have a new tub, all to themselves, although the black one is still in the bag awaiting next year's RTM.

CHiPs! From storage, from Kentoys, but not the Kenway Cycle Shop of 1950's London, but rather the 1990's Kentoys with a half-mile-long factory in Shatin, New Territories! Now into high-end, larger-scaled, die-casts, they started (as so many HK companies did) with cheaper plastics, these came with blistered sets or singly with larger trucks, in this specific case the 'Wheelers' fire-engine set. They were announced at 1:72 and - basically - would have been in competition with the similar New Ray and Supreme sets of that time; among others.

Is it a Harley Electra-Glide or a Honda Goldwing Aspencade? Now - there's a question for my Brother! Judging from the full-tank and headlight-fairing; I recon a Honda?

Old solid-lead motorcyclist (Postman?), I don't know if it's in Joplin and I haven't looked as I know it's not particularly rated (Adrian had it in his cheapie-tray at Sandown last), so probably a copy of anything similar-looking in the aforementioned tome, or more likely a home-cast which may have been made commercially available? The lead-guys dismiss this stuff (and melt it down!) like some in our polymer-branch of the hobby still dismiss HK stuff, but you know me; I'll post anything!

A bicycle, Cakeboards, resin, cake decoration, the resin pile is piling-up! Nice 54mm and a female subject which is never that common, so pleasantly unusual!

Mr. Berke sent a whole box of donations to the blog the other day with his uncommon generosity, and we will be looking at bits from it over the next few days, as some of it was very timely, but there was also this, Greenbrier/DTSC. I don't know if he and Mr Evans are in competition with their contributions, but this is an even larger scale than the candy-container bicycle we looked at in Rack Toy Month! Guy's; I don't know where to put them!

Thanks again to Brian, Peter and Adrian for some of the above!

R is for Rubber Round-up

I don't know when 'eraser' replaced 'rubber' or why, I vaguely remember the new wave of European rubbers from Pelican, Staedtlar Norica, Rötring and co., coming to the UK at some point in my childhood with 'eraser' on their little card wraps, and while much better that the old India-rubber ones which seemed to be made of either wood-pulp (the pink 'pencil' rubbers) or recycled sandpaper (the 'ink' rubbers)* I wondered at the need to change the name, after all they rubbed stuff out didn't they?

I ask because for a while they were interchangeable words or terms, but these days rubber is rarely used, and when listing on auction sites, or tagging on Blogs 'Eraser' is supreme and 'Rubber' carries the slightly giggly baggage of French Letters and English Overcoats!

* While ink rubbers had a tendency to drill holes in your exercise book, they weren't as vicious as 'typewriter rubbers' which seemed to be made from recycled concrete!

Anyway - as the trope of 'A is for . . . ' I stuck-with years ago continues ad nauseum (it was going to be a quick single run through the alphabet and then more normal post titles) it gets harder to find title-words which haven't been used for those things which keep coming-up.

All of which is a overly long-winded intro for bugger-all's worth but it's also sometimes hard to find an intro paragraph in a fuzzy brain . . . and it gets us to picture one!

As a follow-up to January's football mini-season, Terranova sent me this image of another Amscan rack-toy which - if nothing else - is fun! But it's also useful! I suspect the bar-hole that appears to run through the shoulders is designed with the placing of a pencil in mind, for the playing of school-desk-table-bar-football!

Brian also sent this which is similar to a set of four we looked at a couple of Christmases ago as a shelfie from Basingrad, but I think this chap is larger and more angular? Obviously one of four, he is distributed also by yesterday's new tag; MZB, as Imaginations this time, not Inc. He may be the same in individual packaging though, I can't find the images now, but will check when I upload the post!

Really meant for TLAP Day, but we can return to look more closely at the figures then; I picked this up in Woking on Tuesday in an end of January Sales clearance sale in Paperchase, in April??!! There's no way I'd give you four-fifty for a half a palm-full of erasers, but one-fifty? . . . Bargain!

Brian also found these . . . how f*****g cool are these? These are too cool for the International Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol School, that how cool! Imported into North America by the regulars here; Greenbrier (USA) and DTSC (Canada) I've got my eyes peeled until they hurt so's not to miss them if they turn-up this side of the pond!

Soldiers and erasers, erasers that are soldiers; "Rub him out Private!", I'd like to think my work here is done, but this is the Internet and you're only as good as your last post, so - more to come! And thanks to Brian for most of these.

N is also for Nippon and Nunchuck!

So to a few other Ninja types; most sent to the blog by Mr Burke, many thanks to him and the first lot are the interesting set vis-à-vis this morning's post . . .

. . . as they are 'not quite' copies of the small gum-ball capsule ninjas we saw earlier, only in a larger scale and with adjusted or new poses and as they're being imported by Amscan - a similar company to A&A Global - might possibly be from the same source as the diminutive ones.

It's not terribly clear but they are definitely larger and not quite the same, although colours are similar, material looks to be the same (PVC or its modern equivalent) and the childlike, slightly 'deform' sculpting is in the same style as the small ones in the preceding post.

'Terranova' also sent these shots back in February, of resin Kung Fu practitioners, for sale in a gift shop and clearly based on the inimitable Brice Lee and in three sizes - the larger as 'paint-your owns' (like Bendy Toys; another new but recurring trope here on Small Scale World!); the smaller two sizes seeming to be 54- and around 60mm's?

The smallest - titled 'Kung Fu Man' - also appearing to have a wider range of poses and to be the better painted, although the painted version of the large figures (hiding behind the two unpainted ones) is a second pose in that scale, so there should be more?

Mr B also took a couple of close-ups of the nicer figures and you can't complain at three-dollars-fifty can you? These resin figures need to be purchased (or shelfied!) as soon as you see them as they are nearly always limited quantity production runs, due to the rapid degradation of the air-setting rubber, silicon or latex moulds, and with no obvious maker (WCP?) on the price label; they're off for a - probably - long stay on the 'Unknown' dongle!

Brian also sent these - carried by the 'usual suspects'; Greenbrier/DTSC - they would appear to be a continuation of the large Firefighters and GI's I bought a couple of years ago from - the now defunct - 99p Stores under - I think - PMS International's label? Brian's sent shelfies of those giant soldiers too - in new packaging - but they're for another day. These will be 4-inch, polyethylene figures, and one expects all four to turn-up in both colours.

We've seen firefighters, GI's and superhero types of these before too; mostly also from the Blog's New York agent and like those, these are that odd thing; Action Figure types which aren't really action figures due to the limited number of points of articulation, more like the old knock-off Action Men/GI Joes'.

These are also from Terranova, but have been sat in the older folder for a while now (over a year!) waiting for a suitable post; such as this one! But they ARE Ninjas! They will be in a dense polystyrene or polypropylene and come with rather over-decorated Ninja-type weapons/accessories.

Rounding-off the day with a dice-rattling lump of styrene; I've had two more lots of those Gogo Crazy Bones come in recently and so two posts are in the pipeline, but one of them is Ninja-like enough to close today's look at Ninjas! He may be more 'Kamikaze' than true 'Ninja' though?

And that's covered most of the main scales, several figure-types and all the major polymers in one post - Thanks Brain/Terra!

M is for Miniature Menagerie

Which may be a title we've had before, but I'm stuffed if I can remember, so I shall press-on regardless! Continuing with the recent purchase of Novelty toys from the party shop up at Clapham Junction, we find more Henbrandt single packet 'party favour' stuff.

Now, with the definite exception of the caterpillar (more on whom latter!) and one or two others; these are scale-downs of the larger ones we saw a while ago, found by Brian in the US in two packagings, both branded to Greenbriar/DTSC. The truth being that the Greenbrair/DTSC 'Backyard Travels' are actually scale-ups of these, lacking the finer detail, even at the larger size.

They also seem to be part of a larger wholesale set, some of which have been carried elswhere/else-when by Innovative Kids and/or Toy Major, but there are enough differences in line-ups and details to raise the possibility of several sets all copying elements off each-other!

The spider was not copied by Greenbriar's scale-ups but the others were, and while the caterpillar is in the greater 'whole' elsewhere, here it actually has a different code, with the other seven being coded T02 970, while the butterfly's larvae is T02 683.

The 'Bad Guys', we know they are bad guys because they are marked PSTSM . . . only joking . . . because they are red and black and yellow and spikey!

The 'Good Guys' are all green and 'eco'-looking! Even if one of them is an insecticidal, murderously killing, ambush-machine!

As I was putting them them away I found the correct 'Number 8' as far as coding seems to go - on the floor! A rather vile-looking fly, also copied-up by Greenbrier/DTSC.

So; it would appear that Henbrandt have taken the Innovative kids/Toy Major set (or very similar clones of the same) and split it, with bees, beetles and things still to find, probably with the 683 code, and a possible eight-count for the 970 code.

While I shot the dragonfly upside down to show the bog-standard 'CHINA' mark and the white PVC-like polymer they are all made of - like yesterday's dogs.