About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Ephemera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ephemera. Show all posts

Thursday, January 29, 2026

G is for Gigantics - Giant Monster Insects

Except, it can be argued Spiders and Scorpions are not technically insects, but they meant well! Originally issued by Fundimentions, (Miner Industries/MPC) when General Mills became involved they were re-branded AMT/Ertl, but MPC and Airfix boxes can be found, although these (below) are the common iteration; certainly in the UK.
 
I got mine out and shot the boxes a few years ago, and then scanned them, a while later, I didn't shoot the kits, as they were unmade, but as they are quite simple, I hope to do them as future modelling projects, with posts on them, here, then.
 
There was originally a fourth model, a Giant Wasp, but it was only issued in the early days, and I won't speculate on the reasons for its lack of re-issue, nor will I 'research' it by nicking other people's stuff, one day, hopefully, I'll just get one! 
 

July 2022, and the lawn's looking a little better than in did the previous summer when I shot the board-game .gif's! I think I got two of these from Modellers Loft, one at the old site off the M25 (Coulsdon Road/Brighton Road?), the other at the Croydon Road shop (I believe they're now based in Bournemouth?), with the slightly crushed Scorpion box, being a Car Booty prize!
 
 
The original reason for my interest in them was the HO/OO-gauge-compatible figures, and while the Giant Wasp isn't listed here, it seems to have had the same figure-count/pose distribution as the 17-figure Giant Scorpion set.
 
Each kit contains, in addition to the monster insect, and figures, a few scenic items, in mixed scales, and card 'corner' to make a display for your kit. And - if I work this out right, below this post you'll find three image-dumps, of the scans I took a week or so later, one for each of the three sets.
 
Other people's research;
 
Blog overview;
 
And he did a Wasp video! 'Funland' has never been less fun!
 
Gigantic Wasp on Scalemates;
 
There were also flyers for a magazine included in two of the kits;
 

Giant Tarantula
 

Giant Scorpion

It seems to have been a very short-lived enterprise?

G is for Gigantic Spider

Yeah! . . . The worst nightmare! Not carried by Airfix, but as common as the two below (if I've posted them right!), although it only got a few figures (eight), and not all the poses. I think I did start to make this one at some point, so may already have a complete Tarantula!
 




Box.
 

This is clever, and the other kits would have benefited from something similar, it's a rest made from a copy of a section of the tool, so the body (thorax and abdomen) rests on it while the leg-glue sets, ensuring they are all positioned correctly and are flat to the ground.
 

Instruction sheet.
 
There was an additional French instruction sheet.
 
Printed card backdrop.

G is for Gigantic Mantis

The first of the two carried by Airfix, for a while, and I guess, being cut in half by a giant Prying Mantis would be a quick and relatively painless end, if accompanied by a deal of sheer terror! This kit got a full complement of the vaguely HO-gauge compatible figures, but only one of each. And - apparently, a male, due to the presence of wings.
 




Box
 




Instruction sheet
 
HO figures, N-gauge tunnels, micro-amour buildings . . . Forced perspective!

G is for Gigantic Scorpion

A sting from a scorpion this big would fill you with so much liquid, instantaneously, you would explode like a water balloon, before you felt the burning seer of any poison! Continuing the image dump/Picasa clearance exercise, with the last of the three AMT-Ertl Gigantics, and the other one carried by Airfix immediately prior-to and during the General Mills years.





 
Box.


As far as I know, this kit was the only kit with a waterslide transfer sheet, for the shopfronts of one of the damaged building mouldings, included in the kit.




 
Instruction sheet.
 
 
Card background/backdrop for arranging the other elements in a rudimentary disorama.

Friday, January 16, 2026

F is for Follow-up - Marx Space

As a follow-up to last Spring and Autumn's posts on the rather mixed contents of my two Marx playset boxes, and associated stuff, here are a few scans with a bit more info'. Not much, but it'll get Burbank attached to the Marx Space tag, and may have clues as to one of the size variants of space-base accessories?
 
So, Burbank Toys of Wellingborough, were the Marx sales 'arm' of Dunby-Combex-Marx, although I think they also carried some Mattel items, and they issued at least one glossy catalogue (in 1979), which has three space-related playsets.
 
This is the Martian Landing Playset, and you can see that the 'Aliens' group (presumably all Martians in this case!) is the same six figures which keep turning up in apple-green, not the seven claimed elsewhere? But that could be a British thing, either a Swansea leftover or a Burbank-specific detail, however it might explain why I have picked up a few of them, now?
 
The Air Command set is, like the Kennedy sets seen here last February, more realistic, and has the trucks and ground crew of those sets, with four delta fighters, while Star Station 7 has the NASA'nauts with a full set of vehicles and most of the accessories. Note also: the Balloon-tyre mould tool seems to have gone missing, or stayed in the 'States!
 
It struck me that the colour of the accessories in both sets here, matches the smallest version we looked at in September, so it may be that they too, are Burbank-specific, which would make sense, as these sets were literally among the last iterations of Marx, and as part of the 'far-flung' UK arm, might well have got a third, or copy set of tools?
 
Schmidt in Germany produced a board game, Weltraumfahrt 'Space Travel' (On Board Game Geek), with four glow-in-the dark astronauts, and you can see the artwork draws (heheh!) heavily from the Marx tower accessory, for the ship which takes our intrepid Weltraumfaher to their destination.
 
I'm not sure if I've got the figures/contents, or if the box came with something else in it, or even empty from a friend, but I scanned it, during a scanning-session, before it went to storage, I was buying a lot of space-stuff at the time, and most of it went to storage unshot, you may remember the shot of the car, all packed up with space. sci-fi and fantasy, when we looked at the pocket sets a few years ago.
 
This is from a Marx branded fold-up flyer which probably came from a toy, you know the kind of thing, Spears and Waddington's were always including a leaflet in their board games, it also included the wheeled skier set (which might help date it?). Not dated, but pre-1971, from the pricing, which equates to about £2.40p.
 
I have a vague memory of a friend having this, and it being quite heavy, I mean to the point where, as an eight-/ten-year-old, you were happy to surrender it when it was somebody else's turn, as your wrist was getting achy! There's a small, pre-digital, record-player and speaker in there, long before true miniaturisation! U2 Batteries became SP2 and are now known as D-cells.

Monday, January 12, 2026

I is for If I Have To!

Not really in the mood, so expect an intermittent service in January! In case anyone else hasn't noticed, the World's going to hell in a hand-cart, and there's no sword-based baby to save us. And who had Putler turning out to be the mere Mussolini to Trump's Hitler, on the card for 2026?
 
Happy New Year!

I know from my job, this was generally, a crap Christmas, the most telling sign of which, was that all the fairy-light shit and illuminated/inflated, technicolour bollocks in peoples front gardens (hey, you can do it tastefully, or you can do it as half-arsed shit, or OTT classless excess, most chose one of the latter two options!) had gone by the 5th. Last year many were up through the second week of Jan', and we weren't swamped, at work, like last year.
 
Anyway, plenty more to say, and I'll keep saying it; those who pretend it's not happening deserve everything that's coming, for never getting involved! Getting back into the saddle with a simple box-ticker, this is from the UPC scans folder, and follows-up, or follows-on from the previous posts on the subject - Monograms many copyists.
 
I was promised a load of stuff on the subject back when we looked at them on one of the other occasions, but I've heard nothing more, and suspect Covid may have changed those plans? We looked at them, in no particular order, here:
 
 
 
 
 
Hong Kong's finest! Still needs a lot of work, but this was a reasonable primer! https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2016/08/m-is-for-monograms-men-made-much_10.html
 
You'll also find Past the Post and ABC, and others, on the Monogram Tag, but this is the UPC supporting stuff:
 
Box art from the HO set (3034), copied from Roco.
 
Rather dodgy early photocopy of the instruction sheet from the James Chase collection. 

Catalogue image, 1968/9.

From the same catalogue, the image (and box art?) for the "1:40"th set (5149), actually the same vaguely 1:35th of all the other versions which aren't reduced to HO/OO.

An instruction sheet I happen to have, and which may sort the question over some of my polystyrene samples, which seems to hint at an alternate box-art, closer to the Revell 'convoy ambush' artwork, of one of the larger sets. In fact, that's a clue as to Roco's being copies of Revell, as the Patton Figure was only in that large 4-kit set, he being the Sherman tank commander?!
 
That's it, just a box ticker!