P is for Profuse Plastics from Pandora's Box!

Crimbo' 2021 hasn't had much of a festive feel here, but the effort has been made, and perusals undertaken, and this is what I purloined on a recce' to Pandora's Box in Basingrad the other day.

And shout-out to them as they had the only face-masks in three towns on the 13th March 2020, when we went into lock-down (understanding the science and following the story since 24/25th Dec. 2019; two things our useless cock of a clown Prime Minister seemed blissfully unaware-of at the time), and I managed to grab enough to last until they became more readily available here (in Sainsbury's) a couple of weeks later.

Two resin unicorns (as 'last year' now, as flamingoes are 'last decade'! Although cacti seem to be on the rise?), but from a tag already on the Blog; Puckator, who did the pirates, so I thought I'd better grab them and chuck them up here to fill-out that tag! And they are a nice 28/30mm compatible, so role-play gamers could keep an eye out for them? But then it's cheaper to add the tip of a toothpick to any suitable horse!

The strange 'yoga' Santa's; we may have seen these before, with or without packaging and/or spikes, or even me removing the spikes, but it might have been another set, as there are two or three of these smallest size? Anyway, with packaging and spikes - Anniversary House!

The similar figure next to them was in a display-box at the counter when I went to pay for everything else, branded to Doric (who have also been here at Small Scale World before now), they were mostly very pricey, but one compartment/section in the middle of the tray was cheaper so I bought one of each in that price bracket, he was one.

In fact we dealt with them at length in 2019

The other item was another of the old winter cottage designs we saw here, and which I suspect is a cleaner and better painted version of the third (newest type) in that Post, but it might be a re-cut fourth type, I won't know until they are all got together in a year or so.

In the meantime I had found the bisque original, suggesting that Gem/Festival added the shrubs to the opposite corner to try and hide a bit of plagiarism (although Musgrave was probably around to have provided the master for this one too?), which would mean that the HK copies are in two yolks of a ven-diagram; from-Gem (with shrubbery), from-bisque (without) and it would be nice to find a chalkwear one (if it was done in plaster), for the 'whole' set!

How quick did they get these in the shops?!! the craze is weeks rather than months old (well, about four months, in August of this year none of us had ever heard of it, now no-one hasn't!), and there was a whole box of reasonable sculpts, over-moulded in three colours of substitute-PVC and fitted with a key-chain loop - Squid Game guard, no brand. the big-head renders them 'deforms' or semi-deforms!

I listened to a fatuous piece on Radio4 (which is a shadow of the station I've listened-to all my life) when the craze first became noticeable about how it is a variation of Tag, or the British Bulldogs game, when in fact it's a parable about totalitarianism, closer to hunger-games and taking a deliberate side-swipe at the capitalism which has trashed the planet and is now creating whole swathes of young adults in the UK and America, who can't feed themselves on their wages, or ever get a car or a foot on the housing ladder. While the Korean kid's original is a more complicated struggle between two teams.

Squid Game

Squid (game)

I think I may have bought these before and bloged them (the tags are in Picasa's tag-archive!), but here they are again! Imported by BCG Ltd., and with no other obvious brand, and poor copies of Matchbox 8th Army and DAK. If I have bought another set, I'll open one when I find the other and we'll add them to a Rack Toy Month.

Pandora's Box is the only retail outlet round here with a turnover of traditional rack-toys and novelties, and they don't turn-over that quickly, but it was a fruitful visit this last time.

We have a couple here in Fleet; Izzy's who use Tobar and another which seems to be semi-permanently closed these days and stocks Red Deer, but not all the stuff from them that Peter Evans manages to find, so "keep looking around" is still a must!

V is for Variations on a Theme - Keep-Fit Santa's

This is the held-back and enhanced tail of a post from the summer on the Model Power sets Ed Burg sent me ages ago, as the more I dug-out, the more it looked like a whole other post, but first back to the obverse of the Model Power card;

The reverse of the card gives a hint at the range of sets available in this scale/size and the most interesting one is the Santa Land one, clearly designed to do seasonal front lawn or garden (front yard over there) displays in O-gauge/O-027, of the 'full Griswold' type! But they look familiar . . .

. . . not least than because I have Blogged one here years ago; under Culpitt or Anniversary House branding I think, might have been a smaller cake decoration supplier? We've also seen some of the second set (see below) under the Doric label before now.

You may have them as Wilton or Carrousel, but in 1986 two Hong Kong factories (from Bill B's catalogue) were both advertising them as 'new'! The truth is probably that Argeal made them and Greensward shipped them but a third contract manufacturer could have made them, with both Greensward and Argeal then taking them to load their novelty lines for wholesaling to Culpitt or Wilton . . . and now Model Power have them!

I only seem to have one (on shelf), I thought I'd got all of them, but they may be in with the Kinder stuff? A second, more modern set also exists, clearly influenced by the mid-80's set (possibly from the same source - decoration is spot-on - yet smaller belt-buckles), but six new poses, also doing things you;d expect to see in a gym, not from Santa Clause! We see three above . . .

. . . and the other three, with their icing-spike (pick)'ed twins. Whether the spike came first or second I can't tell you, but the spikeless set show no signs of the removal in the moulding (lump or scaring), and they may have been two sets?

The spikeless set are the ones we've seen before, I got them in a Christmas pop-up store in Basingrad a couple of years ago, probably as old stock, but not that old, so . . . last ten years? The Snowmen who accompany them have a large (almost but not quite pencil-top size) hole in them and each gets a crude'ish fir tree and a motto/sign for the cake.

A seller was offering them with sleds (sledges?) this time last year, but as 'assortments of three - six designs'. Looking at the sledges (sleds?) they are drilled for a string or wire (to a reindeer?) and might be the seller's marriage of two bulk purchases, rather than an original commercial offering?

A third set of six Santa's is out there, slightly smaller and probably another source, they either started life as gnomes, or where designed to be both gnomes and Santa's, having all the boot and hem trimming one associates with cake decoration Santa's, but clearly engaged in a spot of more gnome-like gardening . . . or mining - the chap with a lantern; is there a seventh pose somewhere?

Cheers again to Ed for the Model Powersets.

3 is for "On the Third Day of Chrissssstmaaas, His True Love Sent to Hiiiiiiimmm...."

[Are you ahead of me here?] Another Snowman!

Ok, ok...three snowmen is not excessive and they can now have proper conversations, in the meantime the driver and him got the unloading down to 15 minutes so the driver had time for the offered coffee and bit of a chat - while the snowmen got acquainted!

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As yesterday! Different poses!

2 is for "On the Second Day of Chrissssstmaaas, His True Love Sent to Hiiiiiiimmm . . .

 . . .A'errrrr.....'nother Snow'ho-maaaaan!"

Well, he guessed she wanted them to keep each other company, like he said 'quirky', and the driver and him got the unloading down to 17 minutes!

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Today's Snowman is another blistered one from Doric (bulk-buy from the bargain-bin in a corner-shop!) this time a styrene (or very dense ethylene) one - with his hat intact!

1 is for "On the First Day of Chrissssstmaaas, His True Love Sent to Hiiiiiiimmm . . .

. . . A Snoww-man with'out a Pear tree!"

He didn't actually know why she mentioned a lack of Pear tree on the delivery docket, as he wasn't expecting a Pear tree, not that he was expecting a Snowman either, but that's his True Love for you, a bit quirky...it took the driver and him 20 minutes to unload (refrigerated-stand, an'all), but once it was up, on the front lawn, it looked fine . . .

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Today's snowman comes courtesy of Doric, and while I could have used (should have - although I've found the piece of hat rim - the bane of poured-resin; brittleness!) the Fiddes Payne one, we've already looked at them I think?

Indeed, this '12 Days' meme is a variation of one I ran on the Facebook several years ago, possibly before the Fiddes Payne set was in the collection!

As with the header/bagged sets we looked at the other day (yesterday? I've scheduled so many posts in the last few weeks I don't know where I'm at!) these blister sets are filled with a mix of ethylene, styrene and resin bits and items in other materials, some of which are shared by other packers like Culpitt, Fiddes' &etc.

D is for Doric

A made-up brand if ever there was one! Although they have a postcode and everything, I bet they share it with several other domestic household product and catering equipment brands!

We are going to be looking at the products of this 'company' a couple more times in the next few days, but these came-in about a month ago and are not covered by the forthcoming posts.

Showing signs of having been taken out several years on the trot, it's often hard to date this seasonal cake-decorating stuff, the graphics shrill 1980's, but the condition suggests later?

Contents of both sets; A mix of styrene, ethylene and poured, polyester resin polymers obviously bought-in from other makers, some is shared with more recent Culpitt stuff, while (as we shall see) Doric also carry the same tuff as Fiddes Payne.