D is for Donation - Chris - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

There was some equally interesting stuff in Chris's latest parcel, some of it ID'd thanks to Shaun's excellent Fantasy Toy Soldier Blog (link below), my go-to for a lot of this stuff, although I probably don't consult it as often as I ought to!

 

My second Crackerjack space figure, there were ten, not twelve, which I know because soon after showing my first here, all ten were posted elsewhere by three different authors, well, fancy that, as Private Eye would say!

 

These were the chaps ID'd on Shaun's Blog, here;

 

https://fantasytoysoldiers.blogspot.com/p/name-brand-sci-fi-toy-soldiers-after.html

 

About 2/3rds of the way down the page, as Trendmasters' 'Rumble Wars', and there are many more on that page, but it's nice to have a reference sample, for future comparisons.

 

One of them however, the one on the right here, would appear to be a copy or second tranche figure, he's smaller, unmarked and a slightly different pose, to the figure he appears to be aping, on the left in each shot?

 

I don't know if the larger figure is a King Kong knock-off, or more of a monster-monkey-man, but standard 'zoo' fare, he isn't, and more of a Halloween-targeted 'rubber jiggler' item I suspect.

 

The cat might be from a board-game, while the two googlie-eyed critters might be from the same maker, despite being quite different subjects? The eyes are the same size, they are both the same dense PVC, they are both pencil-tops. Although one also has a charm loop, which could be for a tassel, and it could just be coincidence!

 

More anthropomorphic animals here, with a flocked bear, blow-moulded cat, and several of those 'small animal family' types, which predate Kinder's hard plastics by a decade or so. Particularly interesting are the two Tony-Tiger charms, as they are umpteenth-generation, much size-reduced, copies of the original sculpt also seen here as a larger key-ring.

 

The three-wise monkeys are teeny-tiny, and may be from a kit of some kind, they are 'styrene, and possibly too small for Christmas crackers? While the large black cat must be a Halloween thing?

 

Trolls! Two cracker/gum-ball charms, and what I think must be one of the Wheetos premiums, there have been several sets over the years, having the coiffure'able hair of earlier trolls, the Wheetos ones also have distinctive faces and props/costuming like this guy's fiddle and shorts.

 

A pair of Sugar Puff's aliens, I used to think they were 'cutesy', as you might expect of kid's breakfast cereal premiums, but increasingly, they now seem to look a bit sinister?!

 

Barbarians ('Doomlords of Gulch' if Tomy version) from Crossbows and Catapults, I have mentioned in the past that there are different versions of these, and it's a future post to try and sort them all out, here you can see a clear size difference between two issuers' figures, with a probable Tomy original on the left.

 

Blind-bag Star Wars deform, a couple of novelty cracker/Halloween skeletons, and a damaged Hilco spaceman, with two new to pile figures; a large (60mm'ish?) manga/anime type ninja superhero and a smaller figure who may be a Robocop clone?

 

A large robot, who has a mechanism underneath, which resembles that of a bayblade, and may indicate he was some kind of launched, spinning novelty? A pair of Manta Force from Bluebird/Tomy, and another Buck Rogers 'C3P0' pencil-top eraser to be colour checked against the master sample, and that bloody beebly-beeble from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century!

 

He's damaged, but fully marked, so gratefully received, as a sample, but I hate the little twat! I have a bagful of the Corgi ones and I hate them too - in fact, checking the Buck Rogers Tag, I've never had a good word to say about him, and always manage to insult him anew! He ruined an otherwise good TV serial!

 

Classic, big-box, TV-advertised, this-year's-big-Christmas-hit toy! I'd gone off to be grown-up, or as grown-up as I could manage, and missed most of them, but remember "Tee-Cee-Arh . . . totalcontrolracing!", the Star Bird one, "Em-Be-Games!!!!", Chutes Away, another with a helicopter and the exploding-bridge one!

 

This, originally from Tomy, was one of them, a bit big for me, and it will probably be offered-up as a swap (for other toys), but Chris explained it was only included as a space-saver/packaging. It ran up and down a track while two players fired ball-bearings at it, loser saw his bunker go airborne when the Terrible Tank reached it!

 

British Palitoy TV Ad; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMSfzxSy2FY

 

Finishing off with a few more of the Christmas cracker putti, it will be fun returning to them all one day and finding there's a whole, multicoloured orchestra, even if they have a limited number of intruments!

D is for Donation - Peter - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Probably the best subsection after historical, for general interest, and new figures, due, as much as anything, to the large number of die-cast or big-box play set enhancers, or small run/low pose-number figure sets; drivers/pilots and play-accessories, novelties, or game-playing pieces, which turn up, and both donations have stuff which is new to me!

 

And we'll start with these which are all new to me, allowing for a couple of missing figures, they would seem to be a 48-count, split into four sides, each of 3x4 poses, although some of the poses are very similar.

 

Something of Groot, or Ents here?

 

Flamers, if you study the hands you'll see they are different sculpts - just!

 

Likewise with the second and fourth poses here.

 

Is it Earth, Fire, Air and Water?

 

A simple 'CHINA' is the only clue to these, who would have required a quite large bag or box. They are a softish PVC-alike polymer, possibly a silicon, but not the old glossy type of Diener erasers? Anyone recognise them, I don't think they can be that old, and may be/have been, from a game?

 

Two probable game-players here too, either side of a magnetic ger'nome of unknown origin. That's 16 out of 16 totally new items! Good start!

 

This is all new as well, or is it? We may have seen it here as a 'paint-your-own' shelfie, possibly from/in The Range, as I suspect that's what it is, I wondered if it might be/also be glow-in-the-dark, but it isn't/doesn't.

 

HG or DFC types, they all need a bigger sort out, as quite apart from three or four companies issuing this stuff through the 1980's, mainly, there were also sub-piracies, and base variations, which all need to be properly annotated.

 

I think we've seen these before, one Halloween, or in the build-up to, and despite the disparate nature of the and/or the materials they are made from, I seem to recall they were all the contents of one big-bag, from one of the UK's major supermarkets. It was a few years ago now, and recent years have seen no similar offerings.

 

Grist-to-the-mill here, but the more of these which come in, the more paint/finish variations pop-up, especially in the treatment of helmet visors, and the amount of paint on the figures, NASA-types, from four or five sources, here we see the smaller, believed to be Pioneer (for Realtoy/Dacron) and K&M (Wild Republic) sculpts.

 

A trio of MPC clones to be sorted into the collection, and a number of the Mon Desir chocolate egg premiums, but four sculpts we didn't see last time, so possibly-probably an earlier 1st, or later, 2nd tranche?

 

Five of the Lik Be (LB) spacemen, these are the later - Clifford era - version, following the paint scheme of earlier issues, but simplified (no green air-tanks, unpainted bases) with no paint on the back halves of the models, and the strangely blue-eyes; really late sets being unpainted.

 

And finally . . . an ornamental ger'nome, of the fairground side-stall prize variety - hoop, hook or shoot the ducks, fish or clowns, get a ger'nome, to take home! A solid chunk of polystyrene, decorated by automated or stenciled air-brush, it's very much in the same style as the Irish passenger-jig we saw a few years ago, as a PW show-purchase.

 

And, when I said it was a month to the next show the other day, it was actually two months, but now, it's only about six-weeks! Thanks to Peter Evans for all the above, does anyone know who the first lot are, or the pair with the magnetic Gnome, or for that matter, what he is?

A is for Animated Animals in Amniotic Afterbirth!

I may be over-egging it slightly, but it's still a rather odd thing for anyone to think might make a toy, even a toy for older kids, as one presumes these were aimed at? They literally come in a rubber amniotic sack!

 

Made of stretchy-rubber, probably a silicon, and various colours, designed to produce a sort of limited-colour rainbow effect, with the 'smoked' bicolour eggs, which are a hard propylene, or flexible hybrid-styrene, the amniotic sack IS what constitutes the afterbirth, isn't it, I'm not making this shit up?

 

These were a charity-shop purchase back in 2018, who have been sitting in Picasa while I tried to find an angle on them, but I'm not sure if I have, really? Anyway, we're going to run through them quickly as a box-ticker!

 

There are two parallel lines, one more Dinosaur recognisable, the other more Monster'ish, and both had five models in the first tranche, although I don't know if there was a second wave, and they were issued by Canadian Mega Brands (of Mega Bloks), and may have been designed to enhance that companies little Lego-like 'minis', which at the time (2006) included fantasy stuff, and - if memory serves - rather overblown Vikings.

 

Plasma Dinosaurs

 

The two Dino'types, a steggi' and a tricerah', they are well-made and decorated for what they are - pocket-money'ish, plug-together fantasy toys. Made of a dense but softish PVC substitute, and dry-brush weathered over a two-colour, basic scheme.

 

They plug together from seven parts, remarkably like the Blue Box Gormiti we saw here;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2014/03/n-is-for-new-finds-pt4-sci-fi-and.html

 

And may well be manufactured in one of the Tai Sang plants, for Mega, who knows, they are certainly the same material, as well as having the same plug-in construction?

 

An eighth part takes the two dinosaurs off to the realms of pure fantasy, being sets of wings which plug-onto the back, at the shoulder joint area. But to get the wings you have to have the full-on dragon-monsters too!

 

Plasma Dragons

 

Construction of the two monsters is similar, and if you studied the scanned ephemera on the way down the post, you'll see the idea is to collect all ten, and then twin them; one each, dino'monster, with it's dedicated full-fantasy monster, to create even larger monsters, through mix-and-match of the various parts!

They all came with a collecting card too, and I'm sure if I dug deeper, I'd find there's more to them, I have a tin of Orks (Tolkien not Kremlin) somewhere (their own tin, illustrated like the paperwork here), from Mega Bloks, which are far more adult-oriented toy figures, than even the current Lego stuff, yet they are similar age (20-odd years old, or thereabouts), and there may have been gaming elements or rules, to, or between the two lines, in an attempt to muscle-in on the Nottingham Mafia's action, but I don't know?

R is for Rack-Toy Round-up - New York

Brian B has sent us a sample of what's hanging on the hooks in New York's Bodegas and Trading Posts this festive season, and there are some past names to check again, with soldiers, frogs and, err, well, we'll get on to Brain Rot in a minute!

 

A nice set of tropical frogs from JPW International, probably seen before in different packaging, possibly available elsewhere for more 'geld' under a bigger name (K&M, CollectA or one of the Japanese moulders?), but with 8-10 in the bag, around the 30-cents mark, per frog!

 

Hunson's current 'Army Men' offering is a mix of two armies of figures, being later sub-piracies of Matchbox and other figures, it's better than nothing in a landscape which has so few army toys beyond the big-box, generic, action figure stuff.

 

Speaking of Action Figures - this unbranded set has an interesting action-figure scaled swamp-bike at the top! I can't really make out the figures, but I think they are the little ones we've seen many times now from Poundland and the long-gone 99p Stores?

 

While Brain Rot is . . . err . . . a knock-off? Continuation? Extension . . . take? I think we'll call it a 'take', a cleaner take on the Skibidi Toilet meme-stuff, which we also saw here, also courtesy of Brain a while back, apparently not coming out of Italy, I shall defer to Jan, who covered them on his Site of Curiosities a few weeks ago, and found a link which goes some way to explaining!

N is for Nerfing Necrophiles!

Had a brilliant eMail from our roving reporter in New York last night, an enhanced shot of the Scully & Scully Christmas tree has been added to the bottom of that post, and he sent us these;

 

And, because they are Lanard Toys, they may well come to the UK, specifically Smyths, who carried their (Lanard's) sci-fi set for some years. Indeed, this may already be here, I had a disappointing visit to Smyths the other day, but I wasn't necessarily looking properly in the Nerf Gun section, so I'll head back there and have a look? Ideal xmas prezzie too! Many thanks to Brian for finding these.

N is for Not a Follow-up!

As a sort of [pretty tenuous] follow-up to the last post, and the mention of Crong, I'm posting something which was already in the queue, but isn't coming in the order I'd like it to, and doesn't tell all the story, but hopefully still of some use to some Loyal Readers!

 

Donated by a friend of the blog who prefers not to be named, but occasionally comes up with little treasures, Battle Knights by Feva UK, is one of the more recent iterations of a carpet 'wargame', commonly known as Crossbows and Catapults (Tomy, Base Toys, Action GT, Zatu, et al), but also having iterations as Weapons & Warriors (Pressman), and Battground (Moose), which has been around since the 1980's.

 

The originals have produced several generations of two figures, a small squat fantasy figure (Doomlords of Gulch) in a putty-coloured polymer, and a sort of Hollywood Viking/Barbarian type (the Impalers of the Clannic Shelf), in various shades of brown or ginger, which we have seen, in various mixed/plunder/donation posts over the years, but which I haven't posted-on, formally, yet as my main sample has always been in storage.

 

The Pressman version changed the dynamic slightly, with press-pads instead of loose walls, and other innovations have tried to make it more fun or keep it relevant to new generations of electronically-distracted kids, here it's spring-loading. Pressman also changed the figures, to medieval types (Castle Storm), along with a pirate version (Pirate Clash), both also seen here, in past mixed-lots/shots. 

 

This Feva version adds mounted figures, and they are the unknown figures from the Crong post (the tentative link being used here!), although this set has green bases. The foot figures are scale-downs of the Pressman set, and I now think they are all Games Workshop knock-offs?

 

 Other useful bits!

A couple of banner-flags (or pennants?) missing 

 

Could be useful, but would need work to hide the nature of the balls or discs all these sets fire at each other, the oversized culverin for instance has quite an Elastolin look to it . . . fill in the hole and give it an antiquing, with washes and dry-brushing?

These turn-up in every junk-lot on evilBay, the Supreme medieval knock-off's from several brands have versions of them, and there have been large bow-like ballistas and larger cannon, but they'd all need a lot of effort to get realistic-looking.

 

As a Brucey Bonus, these are the Moose Toys figures from the other more recent iteration, Battleground Crossbows & Catapults, and were also a donation, I think from Graham Apperley, but hidden in a PW plunder-post a few years ago.

 

Smaller at around 25mm (the Feva are 30'ish, the older sets closer to 35 (C&C) or 40mm (W&W)) and a soft PVC, against Crossbows' polyethylene/propylenes and Weapons' polystyrene. It's quite a franchise, with many US and foreign-language/foreign-market sets, and worth a proper study, which will appear here one day!