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 Fishel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fishel. Show all posts

Monday, April 22, 2019

F is for Fishel's Fetching Fuchsia Firefighters!

Another quickie! I am hoping to get hold of some Internet time on Monday (today as you read), so will try to produce something more substantial for later on, but for now this box-ticking exercise presented itself during the ongoing sorting process.

Marked, they were kicking around about 12/15 years ago and could be seen as the more commercial wave of the newer-styled, civil, die-cast vehicle accessories, all in a similar vein, although the hats are poorly sculpted and the over-all impression is of the Royal Household's Beefeaters on a picnic!

Ooaawahh! I must change the Firemen tag to fire-fighters before someone says something!

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

W is for ♫♪ Wooarp! Wooarp! - Isdee'Sound o'der Polieece! ♫♪ Wooarp! Wooarp! ♫♪


This is a right old Picasa-clearing, box-ticking, bag of bones today with nods of thanks to Brian Burke and Peter Evans for 'shelfies' and/or samples and a couple of images that have been on my 'phone since 2011!

Getting the aforementioned out of the way first; I can't even remember where I shot these, but it was in November 2011, as I was moving so it could have been anywhere! Looks to be HTI the - then - new branding for Halsall [Toys International] and the figures are about 45mm, we'll look at the firemen from the twin-set tomorrow.

A rather busty police-woman who's been put in 'shirt-sleeve' order to advertise her charms, while her colleague keeps his tunic on! And would you say the uniforms are actually quite Chinese, despite the international [play-value] feel of the rest of the contents?

These should have been in last year's Rack Toy Month (as should a few other things in this year's!), but they got held over. The figures are well sculpted, but a little wooden in their dynamism and have been issued under various brands; here claimed by Regent Products' sub-brand of Good Old Values.

Duplication of pose between sets (which have figure-specific blisters so it's meant) would require quite an outlay to find all the poses, but they do turn-up in other brands packaging or loose on eBay occasionally.

Brian pointed out that the mock-up of a shoulder patch on the Regent packaging is missing the NYPD (New York Police Department) of a genuine ESU original, so it can be assumed this is an unlicensed 'tribute-act' rather than any kind of official 'homage', and as such - a slightly distasteful exploitation of peoples goodwill; we're talking 9:11 and its aftermath here?

Also from last year (but 2009-marked stock) is Jaru's set Police Emergency Rescue with the police sculpts/figures in both blue and red (and with poses I still have to track down). All that; for five dollars? Bargain!

While this year Brian sent shelfies of Imperial's offering which appears to have the same boat as Jaru's, but all stickered-up, along with the same road/traffic signs but a mix of figure poses from two of the sets below.

Note that the importers are Greenbriar/DTSC, while Imperial are a US-based seller in their own right, a fourth unknown 'name' will be the shipper and the factory - a fifth!

We looked at some of these last year, some a few years ago but I think new poses have joined the first row, courtesy of Peter's 'Big Bag', while I grabbed a few others of the same vague size. The figures in the Imperial bag contain poses from both the Jaru and the Top Toy sets but in a better quality than the Top Toys.

Top Toys/Imperial (and others!) are also taking from Fishel in the pose department, while the unknowns at the bottom pay some homage with the pistol-firer almost a mirror-reverse. It should also be noted that while having new poses the Jaru bagged set above has flat-based figures, not the slightly hollowed-out ones sent to the Blog by Brian last year and shown here.

I almost forgot - Brian had sent me this ages ago, too cool for police-college; he's painted up a bunch of unknown police and the Jaru radio guy as what I believe (Brian'll correct me if I'm wrong!) represent Dan Dare space-police in 'planet-side' uniform!

Looking at the guy reaching for his 'piece the others may be additional poses from my unknown last row, but then the shooting-with-bull-horn looks like one of the poses from the larger Jaru bagged set, are they one and the same? Or are mine poorer, 2nd-generation copies of the Jaru 'originals'?

Saturday, June 11, 2016

911 is for Call the Emergency Services!

If you live the other side of the pond that is . . . I remember thinking as a kid that they must be saying '911' in the movies and TV dramas because they aren't allowed to use the 'actual' 999!

Brain sent these a while ago, well it seems like a while ago as it's been a busy time recently, but they arrived a month ago this Friday! Of interest is that they are the basis of the smaller ones we looked at here a couple of years ago ['can't find the link...obviously haven't tagged it properly!].

Six Jaru police in blue and six other emergency personnel, mostly firemen (or firefighters!) in a mix of red and white, but with the same three poses in each colour. Did other sets have those two reversed?

I asked Brian for a shot of the pack for my records this week, but it was good enough to use on the Blog! Also comparisons with the cheepo-copies I found, the police being the inside pair, the fire crew the outside pair. You can see the clones are a bit smaller, and the teeny pistol's ancestor is revealed to be another teeny-pistol! It's like he's pointing his finger . . . "Halt! Or I poke you in the eye perp!"

The lower shot is a comparison with the Fishel figures; they're modelled on a later (more modern) era, with 'Fritz' helmets, something equating to a Heckler-Koch MP-something-or-other and body armour, also they are a better sized 54mm. The upper shot is another comparison between the Jaru in the middle and the clone to the right with a painted vinyl original to the left, which may be modern, or may date from the 1980's and could be via Jaru (they've been around long enough), or some other rack-toy jobber?