B is for Benevolent Buys - 1 of 3

Clearing out a folder of Charity Shop purchases which seem to have escaped some of the other Charity Shop purchase posts over recent months, and nothing exciting here, but all grist to the mill!

 

Actually, from the tail-end of '24, and I can't remember where, a resin jobbie of the sort that fills and has filled window-space in high-street jewellery chains for decades now, it was in good-nick, and pennies to charity, it goes in the box of such stuff!

 

I think this and the next two were from a rare trip to Camberley, I undertook back in February, looking for something else, but it might have just got shot with the others, but be an earlier find in - probably - the Blue Cross shop in Fleet?

 

A couple of the expanded-polystyrene glider novelties, we've seen before here, and of which two more are in the queue, this pair marked-up to Henbrandt, but likely to be the same poorly printed ones we saw a while back in various packagings.

 

Three Disney Princesses, these were definitely from a large basket of such stuff, in a Charity Shop in Camberley, obviously ex-shop, or other 'stock' (NOS in feebleBay parlance), and probably from capsule dispensers of some kind, but could be off a Disney Store hook-tree?

 

While I vaguely remember these, as larger rope/string-dolls, enjoying a brief 'craze' of popularity back in the 1990's (?) As they came with the above Princesses, in a similar quantity, capsule stock, or something more independent is the likelier for both, than the Disney Stores thought, but never rule out what you can't disprove!

 

Two semi-deforms from a while ago, probably the DEBRA shop in Fleet, more Fortnite franchised stuff, and with quite a bit of dust on them, some age, a few years on a shelf at least, rather like the Skibidi Toilet stuff, a youth-culture which has grown, almost organically, away from the figure collection hobby.

 

They look like the kind of quite expensive stuff you find in those funny little t-shirt/gaming/metal 'head' shops in the quieter corners of shopping malls? But as cheap buys in a charity shop, provide 'reference samples' I'm in no hurry to add to.

 

Another Wimsey from Wade on the right, we've seen the one playing with a ball of wool before, but this one looks like it's foil, waiting a chance to grab the ball! On the left two resin, cartoon cats, with kittens, from crafty/gifty shops rather than jewellers I suspect, but maybe both sources? And I believe they are Peter Fagan sculpts from Scotland.

M is for Merry Mass of Malleable Model Mayhem! 8 - Transport

There was a lot of interesting traffic in Chris Smith's recent donation to the Blog, and in this penultimate post on the parcel's contents, that's what we're looking at, right now, as soon as I've loaded the photo's!

Mostly mini-cars, with four Kinder types at the bottom, a Blue Box Jaguar and a funny little kiddy-thing which might have carried a water-based paint pastille in a little tray (?), also Kinder, while the one at the top may be a cereal premium of some age?

 

Four of those educational supplies vehicles, one taxi and three racing cars, along with a soft polyethylene - probably Christmas Cracker - copy of the premium cars in brown, with a maroon original next to it, and another of the lesser version Formula One cars in front.

Below is a bicycle which I fear failed a battle against the mores of Postie! But they are clean cuts, and it'll go back together easily enough as it's polystyrene, although the cross handle-bar is missing. It's big too, occupying, probably. the same area as the three 'beetle' cars, so sort of 60mm compatible, and no sign of a base, so, roof-rack load from a Hong Kong big-box jobbie?

A Pair of modernish rack-toy fighters and a rubber-catapult glider, it's a long term goal to take them all outside and test them, as there are a few now, including the Hornby Battle Space one!

 

Marked W.Germany, this will be KUM, ooh-err missus! Still going, and nearly 100 years old (the firm, not the sharpener), and there's another in the queue. It's in need of new propellers, and is missing it's front/cockpit, which is detachable to empty the scrapings . . . sharpenings? Shavings. Planeings! And very unusual.

 

 

Two rack toy 'planes, sans cockpits and propellers, but useful spares against not having the type in/or the colour, if you know what I mean and plug-ins can be moved about for photo-seshes! The deck-plane is from Airfix's HMS Victorious I think, and should be a Sea Vixen, it'll be on Scalemates or Britmodeller I'm sure. The Concord was a Christmas cracker novelty, with a bomb and a rack-toy which looks like a Cessna A-37 Dragonfly, workhorse of the Vietnam war?

 

 

The orange gun is one of those things I keep forgetting, If I recall correctly, it's a smaller copy of an American piece from the dime-stor era, should be German (DOM Plastik?, but might be a sobre type thing, the attribution is in the archive, and may be on the Blog - somewhere?! While the little wooden one is probbaly homemade, but the red-ends have half a look of commercial 'meant' about them, so I don't know, it might be an erzgebirge Christmas tree-hanger?

Horse-drawn equipment includes my favourite, a Christmas cracker cart, body orientation corrected in the lower shot, a small wagon (mine cart?) from a play-set of some kind and a Blue Box canopy from the small scale copy of Crescent's Wild West pioneer wagon.

Military matters include the Hong Kong (and Speedwell) tank, a blue box motorcycle whos seen better days, but is polystyrene,, so modifiable, and off to the spares, a mini Humber truck and a wooden wheel which must be off something like out childhood staff-car, but it looks unplayed with, so must have been lost quite soon?

 

To their right are a bunch of the micro-vehicles which used to fill a blister in early rack-toys, as seen here passim, the blue one however is the cracker version with better wheels - a future post, there are three varients of A/C, two of the gun, only the one 'amphi-carrier'!

And finally - this lovely little thing from Hungary, it will have been from those mixed-content kiosk bags as we saw here a while ago from Vorsas Games, in fact something quite similar was illustrated on the header? Half-T34, half Jagdpanther, all cool!

A lovely thing to find in a parcel of free-stuff, from Chris and I thank him for it all, we will finish off with the Wild West in a day or two, but then the posting rate may drop off for a while, I pick up my new uniform tomorrow, then I'm off out, on the road for my sins!

F is for Ferrero's Fleet of Flyers to Faraway

The rest of the spacey-looking ships, vessels and err . . .  a skidoo! I don't have a vast collection of Kinder, but back in the day I did pick-up a few and Andy Harfield of the now retired Harfield's would talk me into his latest box of junk Kinder when I went down to his shows in Kent, so a few came in over the years, this is the rest of the 'spaceships' . . . and a skidoo!

I like these, they are a bit Battlestar Galactica in the front end, and the nearer two have folding wings like the Imperial Shuttles from Star Wars, while the one at the back just has little folding weapons packs or hard-points.

These were all around at the end of the 2010's I think, the slightly hippy 'Jetson's' one bottom right may be older. The one at the back has a rather daft alie'phant pilot, while the one on the left looks a bit like a flying glass-brick!

Space Shuttles; from two sets I think, one more realistic (red and black), the other altogether more pulp'y! In fact it looks like the sort of thing which might have crash-landed on the Clangers' planetoid and produced a five-minute episode of stop-motion shenanigans!

Standard novelty 'flying saucer' design; the red one is a more recent re-issue, the others are from the 1990's I think, I've lost the launchers for the earlier ones but they fit the red one's so all is not lost, but they were always - and remain - too delicate and fiddly for kids.

I know, I know, well it was in with the space figures/robots and their various buggy, sled and rover types . . . it's a skidoo, I know! Might not be Kinder, might be Maraja, Czapp, Rübezahl or one of the others? The thing is though - or was when my collection was more biased - it's a really nice 1:76/72nd scale!

This was quite a recent one and is a form of fancy glider. It's got a bit squished in storage and I've kept the stickers on their sheet, which show a young lady's flying it, so yeah . . . 'The Last Star Glider'!

These came from the master finder-of-good-things; Peter Evans, in a bulk lot of mostly non-Kinder brands, and is credited to a Metro of Modena, Italy (could it be related to the Cose Progetti of the previous post?), which became Leoni S.P.A. and now appears defunct, although the item is a Chinese import.

Indeed it's a nice piece of post-apocalyptic Mad Max rip-off, straight-to-video, B-movie merch' . . . the Intensive Fighting Chariot! The bagged one appears to have a different front end/fender/ram arrangement, but not the other one on the paper slip, so at least three ITC's to find!

R is for Rack-Toy Gliders

Quick apology to Mr. B - our support in New York; he sent a set of the Superhero gliders we looked at last time to the blog for closer inspection, but I've misplaced them in the attic somewhere so they aren't here. What we do have are some more of the 'traditional' or bog-standard, pocket-money ones in envelopes and a 'pack of three'!

These are in the local pop-up discount store, and you get three colourful jets, two with vaguely Asian or Asian-reminiscent markings (South Vietnam (orange) and China/North Korea/North Vietnam (blue) ?), the other even more generic in yellow and all three the same die-cut design. Red Deer - it's the fourth or fifth item from them, found by Peter Evans or myself in the last couple of years, so some importer's nom de jour!

I shelfied these awhile ago, but they still have them and I may purchase one (for the life-changing amount of a whole quid!) for next time, as when I was putting everything away in the garage a year ago I found the storage lot and - as I mused before - there is a four-prop Lancaster! . . .  and several older promotional/advertising freebies/giveaways in balsa, so another post due on these in a year or so  . . . got to top-up the tag occasionally!

I was so intrigued by the FW Trainer on the pack-back listings last-time, when I saw them together somewhere, I bought both to compare, as with the others (about five brandings now, these are Rex - London (Rex - International)) the printing as been allowed to deteriorate with age and the change in material they are printed on - they used to be balsa but have been expanded-polystyrene sheet for a couple of decades, or more now.

You can see where the original German crossed have been Photoshop'ped out (although that probably happened before 'Photoshop' ever existed) which is odd as it's the swastika that has the cultural-association problems attached; not the cross?

The 'A-4' looks like a Focke Wolf, I fear the 'TA 152H' trainer (an Eocke Wolf!) is using the same dies as the Japanese Zero!

Red is for Arrows

This was part of a whole bunch of Red Arrow merchandise cleared through Cancer research charity shops, earlier this year and may represent a series of tragedies, steaming from the original crash on the A27 which has recently finished going through the legal process. I shot lots of images on two occasions fitting the wings the other way the second time!

Pieces and packaging

If the first tragedy was the crash, the second was the new rules almost immediately brought-in which as good as prevented any kind of inland air-display where urban areas are within the flight path; something we've seen here, with Farnborough severely curtailed, and the Red Arrows reduced to a single-pass, slow-speed fly-by, in formation behind a transport-giant last year.

Put together

Obviously that lack of public presence will have had a knock-on effect on the sales from the gift stalls' set-up at the shows, in turn affecting the revenue-stream to the RAF Benevolent Fund and/or the RAF Association, the third tragedy.

The Army Benevolent Fund having suffered a similar reduction in stature and public-familiarity as first the big Army Show in Rushmore and then the Earl's Court's Tattoo (and similar regional events) were scaled back and eventually scrapped by Tory cuts through the 1980's and 1990's.

Detail shots and 'Flying Wing'

(it didn't fly - it's a diver!)

The upshot on one level is a ton of stuff to be cleared via-donation to charity, the other is more need is ex-servicemen, and less ability by the established srvice charities to meet that need, leading to all sorts of private charities springing up in their stead; Help for Heroes, Helping Heroes, etc . . .

Of which some are perfectly legitimate and worthy, but others are run by Right-wing or far-Right organisations whose main aim is not raising money, but raising their own profiles and publicising their own agenda. While the landscape of many charities with similar names or aims, gives succour to out-and-out fraudsters, collecting for themselves - The fourth tragedy!

Wing the other-way up . . . correct?

This (above list of tragedies) is not to be wondered at, it's the ultimate goal of everything the Tory grandees (also behind Brwreakshit) have been working toward for the last 40-years, and one shouldn't be surprised.

Not that I'm saying the rural wealthy and urban elite have deliberately organised an air-crash with nefarious aims - that would be conspiracy-theories' gone mad! But, that it has helped reduce the fabric of society and quality of life of the nation, is exactly the sort of convenient, coincident synergy, those pretentions, preening old-Etonian prick's feed on, nay; thrive-on!

The Red Arrows, unable to perform as they used too and no longer raising funds for charity will face the axe that 'did for' Gemini, the Black Diamonds, the Blades, the Blue Chips, the Macawas, the Poachers, and the Red Pelicans . . . that saw-off the Naval Gun Teams, the REME Jeep Race and the White Helmets.

T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - J Perkins (JP)

JP may well be known to you from your work desk or table where they may be present as bottles or tins of glue, paint or solvent of one type or another, and while I wouldn't expect real-flying model aficionados to be following the blog, they would know them for their fuels, lubricants or coatings, however they currently have a small range of traditional 'novelty' gliders.

As it's over a year since we last looked at these here and less than 660-days to Christmas, time we looked at them again, and we'll start with another report from the January Toy Fair . . . it's been a funny year!

Ohhh! Pretty Lady, what happened to you?

Forty-years of Thatcherite-Raganomic, bigoted, middle-England, parochial, reactionary, Tory-policy, that's what, and what they did to you they're now doing to the whole country! Although we can't escape from the fact you were only ever a planet-destroying, Anglo-French vanity-project for the very rich, so maybe museums are the best place for you?

It's a Concord glider, in laser-cut, coated-balsa wood, too cool for aviation-school! In the background an even more traditional - undecorated, plain balsa - glider, but with the added gimmick of adjustable wing positions to provide what I believe they call 'variable flight-profiles'!

Two more; there aren't many 'Icons of the Air' you can collect the whole fleet-of, but Concord is definitely one, with a few rub-down letters and a bit of Tipex you could make the whole BA-fleet!

Meanwhile, in the background you can see two more Icons of the Air, namely Spitfires and Hurricanes from WWII.

My favourite, I know the Spitfire was prettier, faster, more manoeuvrable . . . yada, yada, yada, but this did the bulk of the work and could take more punishment, it's the 'British Bulldog' to the Spit's greyhound!

The other one! I don't know if you've realised from the camera-shots, but these are much bigger than the pocket-money, enveloped, expanded polystyrene ones we were looking at in the main last time, this is around 1:48th, even 1:32nd maybe? I suspect that both fighter-plane models are based on Battle of Britain Memorial flight airframes?

B is for Believed to Be - More Zang; Horsa Glider

Following on from the naval stuff seen earlier today, and mirroring the aircraft in the first WHW post (we like a bit of symmetry on a thematic-day here at Small Scale World!), I also shot this on Adrian's table - at the recent PW show, and it's lucky I shot it first thing; as it sold quickly!

Thought to be another of the Zang (for Timpo?)* composition pieces, we've seen the Mosquito here before here and I think I've mentioned seeing a similar early Whittle/Gloucester single-seat jet (marked Timpo) so there must have been a set/range of them?

* There's something between an outside and equal chance it could have been made by Ridingberry (Rob Toys), V (Empire Forces) or Brent (Elastolene), but Zang looks the more likely. It also resembles some gliders in the old Airborne Forces Museum in Aldershot, but they may have been Zang too!

The tail is damaged, so I used the rudimentary 'retouch' tool in Picasa . . .

. . . to give you a better idea of the overall appearance of it!

The three now known are mid-/late-war designs, and the finish is better than either the figures or the Naval subject in the previous post, and - obviously - this example is wearing D-Day recognition stripes, so these probably are post-war production, or certainly later than some of the other stuff (which I've previously theorised as being wartime production), and after they 'got the hang' of producing playable toys in such a difficult material?

The zoo animals in Timpo boxes tend to better finish than the military figures, the mechanics/civilians (sold with Timpo slush-cast/hollow-cast sets) are also quite consistent and better finished; all are known post-war production.

P is for Puff-powered Paper & Puffy-Polymer 'Planes

In my day (he says; making himself sound like an old git!) they were all paper or balsa-wood, now they are mostly expanded polystyrene foam, but you still find the odd paper one!

This post is a bit off the beaten track of Small Scale World, and was in part the result of unexpected consequences, following that weird sycamore-Superman I showed back in February, in that Brain B sent a couple of shelfies of equally wacky playthings to the Blog, and it encouraged me to build a post round them, mainly because one set were . . .

. . . Cars tie-ins and I hate Cars like I hate anything, so probably would not otherwise have used the images! From Unique who do appear here from time to time as purveyors of quality tat and novelty polymer loveliness, they are four to a pack and probably as much-fun as anything else in their price-bracket.

There is a Marvel Avengers Assemble set as well - also with four models, but they all appear to be the same; both sets seem to be made from die-cut foam-core sheets which may make them a tad heavy, still; a sharp push into the wind and they should do the business.

And the business is . . . ephemeral fun, which if not timeless, probably goes back to well before the Wright brothers - if Da Vinci was drawing them, chances are kids were experimenting with toy ones?

As Mr. Berke was sending me his shelfies I had been buying this from Clinton's as a birthday card for someone who's hard to buy cards for!

I went back for a second; the wings were a bit loose until I worked out how to shove them back into a tightening section, not bad and all-paper! Despite the militaristic marking, it's unarmed, clearly a two-seater and probably based on a trainer or powered-glider of some kind.

Ah, yes . . . this, believe it or not; is HTI's Thunderbolt. Back in the day - the balsa-wood day that is - they were either outline printed in black on wood, or they came with a reasonable two or three colour screen-print; this has been fully litho'ed, but poorly and onto un-sized, expanded-polystyrene, which gives a opalescent look.

It has fold-up ailerons and stabilisers in the wings and tail respectively which the old balsa ones didn't, but we sometimes put them in our folded-paper 'planes at school, it usually resulted in a nose-dive or a tail-stand . . . followed by a nose-dive!

By now I was on a roll vis-à-vis getting a post together, and discovered that not only do women get less wages and pay more for their pink stationary, but despite making-up slightly more that half the toy-buying population, they pay more for their glider-toys too! This was £1.50 against the 99p's and flat £'s of the 'boys toys'! Investing in journalistic excellence, or being taken for a mug? Doh!

More like the ones Brian sent to the Blog as shelfies this one from Grossman's HGL is properly three-colour printed on foam-core board, and despite it's odd look, fly's as well as any . . . oh yeah; there's been ruthless testing!

Only this weekend I saw Tobar gliders of Dinosaurs, the same fighters we're about to go back to, and something else which I've forgotten, something cartoony and/or thematic? And I remember birds from when I was a kid.

But here's a thing - when I was rushing around looking for a couple of these to Blog a few weeks ago, at 5.25pm in a small parochial town that goes dark at 5.29 on the dot - I went into the discount store and asked if they had any and they didn't, but on Saturday - they had three different boxes of them . . . clearly; it pays to ask!

Although now I feel guilty for the little toy shop, as they did have them last time and that's where I ended up getting the four in this post, but now they have competition a few doors down, and it may be my fault! They had HTI and Tobar mixed in the same dispensing box, and after getting the Thunderbolt, I went back for a spitfire and Tomahawk, and half-wish I hadn't, as we'll see.

But first a comparison of the two packagings reveals that there is a slight difference in line-up, both companies are offering 12 aeroplanes, but only 11 are duplicated between ranges with HTI offering a MkII Spitfire to Tobar's Hellcat, as these sets always had a Messerschmitt Me.109 when I wer't'lad, I can safely assume they are both purchasing from a longer list offered by the Asian manufacturer. Also there's a couple of oddities on the list - Focke Wulf trainer?

Tobar's artwork shows them as they could be, HTI's as they are, you will notice there are only a few different pressings, with HTI the different artwork used is 'best as can be'; once you've opened the packing the actuality . . .

. . . is far more disappointing, with very poor QC, very poor registering within the cut lines, very poor pigmentation, very poor accuracy (we have a Japanese Tomahawk!), mirror-image of fuselage-halve artwork, leading to inverted lettering and reversed codes, all very poor!

The reason all the shots of the Thunderbolt above show the same side, is because the other side looked more like melted bubble-gum than aircraft artwork! And these were almost as bad, all over - a pinky-purple mess.

At least HTI aren't going to disappoint to the level Tobar's are!

I will look out for vintage versions and maybe come back to these in a few years - there were advertising premiums and some used to have a central balsa spar to which a rubber-band motor and wire-mounted wheels could be added, but if you're of a certain age; you know that, we all got through a couple or more - every summer!

I think I may have a four-engined Lancaster Bomber from a beach-day in the 1990's somewhere in storage, which was a better print, but the same sheet-foam construction - for now though; that's 'paper' planes!

29-03-18 (Very auspicious day!) Re- Tomolio's comment, these are being imported into the Antipodes by Pink Poppy - anyone recognise the logo on the stock-box?