H is for Hyperspeed!

This is an odd one; basically, it's clearance of clearance, of clearance! I mentioned the other day (well, sometime in the last few months?), when we saw a figure lose, in one of the donation/plunder/mixed lots, that there was a post on these in the long queue, and there still is, but this isn't it!

 

This is a couple I didn't know I didn't have, and which I picked up in Home Bargains for £1.99, a couple of days ago! I'd been in there looking for something else, saw these and thought "Do I have all five?", so checked the other folder when I got home, realised I still needed two, forgot to go back the next day, but managed to get over on Thursday, and grabbed the two miscreants, which are now the subject of this post.

 

XL-02

 

XL-07

 

The five sets in the series, there are two larger vessels in other series, a huge vessel in a third, and some wave two stuff, which may not have got to the UK, along with a twin set, containing two of the above. 

 

Now, I never watched the movie, but, with the exception of the Zyclops pods (purple 'eggs'), each of the four 'fighters' are experimental aircraft piloted by different iterations of Buzz Lightyear, who is about four years older in each vessel! The premise of the movie, being Buzz's attempts to develop a fuel cell for 'Hyperspeed'!

 

So, this is the second experimental ship in a series, I don't know if [in the movie] it is armed, although there is a node on the underside, to attach the missile-firer from the larger/twin sets, so it can be (for play), and once the XL-15 enters the picture, conflict does occur with 'Zurg' (an alternate Buzz)

 

And this is one of those occasions where, if you've followed the story or are a fan, you know far more than me, but which also comes down to Disney tearing the arse out of a franchise, and tying themselves in knots, some of which remain unresolved to this day!

 

 

Aaaaannd, this is the seventh! Each time Buzz takes a test flight, four years go by (presumably until the XL-15, but I restate - I haven't watched the movie), back on the planet where his friends are, so by XL-14 (not modelled in either wave - there is a second) at least 56-years have gone by (?), so most of the original crew have died (?), or got old, and their children/grandchildren are running the show.

 

And because he's only a toy in the Toy Story movies, we can sort of assume (whatever Disney says), that all this is in his head anyway! So it's all a bit daft! However, I've been bumped, by this purchase, into bringing the other post to the fore, and will get more into it there, in a day or two.

 

Buzz Lightyear Hyperspeed Starships, in Home Bargains, now, today, for a couple of quid each. But, the fifteen-odd cards on the self, Monday, were four by Thursday, so they are selling fast.

H is for Help Wanted?

 

 

 

 

Post removed at the request of the help seeker.

 

 

 

 

H is for Huggables!

A new name on the import/jobber horizon, but Huggables' website claims they've 30-years experience, so they must have been around under another name, or just been passing generics through to end users, anonymously, and like A-to-Z(Padgett Brothers), and others, are still, also carrying some stock in the original branding. These were shot at the Gift Fair last year, at Birmingham's NEC, and it's mostly run-of-the-mill stuff.

 

The first two shots show models similar to the set of six which have made so many appearances here over the years,under at least six brand-marks and seven or eight packagings, while the third shot seems to show another iteration of that set of six poses! All credited to Chinese brand Jinfenglong (JFL).

 

These are bi-branded Huggables on a sticker and Weinida on the card-art, with that artwork suggesting wild animals, and sea life as well as these dinosaurs being available, somewhere!

 

Some from the previous shots, with a larger set of single animals (right, close ups below), hugeormous insects and reptiles, and smaller dinosaurs in blisters and carded bottle-bags.

 

Those larger models, Lexiang Toys (LX), these are well beyond the pocket-money bracket, think dentist visit treats, distractions for Rover 'going to live on the farm' or half-term shut'em ups!

 

'Zhongjeming'

 

Fantasy dragons and mythological/heraldic beasts in several sizes, and, in the case of the last set, two packing variants, the small blisters, and the last lot having a non-Huggables brand, but it seems to have been obliterated at the printing stage?

 

Many companies are carrying these, which probably come from a central source, and you can find them in petrol stations and corner shops the length and breadth of the land! 3D-printed from a colour-change, metallic polymer, any problem is likely to prove to be the polymer - so far, most 3D printing polymers I've encountered seem to be frangible (and probably short lived) plastics?

 

Novelty animals.

 

Again, the hint of a dinosaur line/bag.

 

Poor shot, sorry, brand-mark might be IPC or IPL?

 

These last four (Jisam Toys - who's going to tell them!?) are either the same as, or aping sets which are detailed in the long queue, but I'll try to get them upgraded and posted before the end of the month. All the above seven shots, are showing more traditional farm and zoo stuff, and in various configurations/sizes.

 

These shiny, semi-metallic, printed on the crinkly plastic 'header card' bags, are common, in various scales, and we’ve seen toy soldiers in them, novelty parachute toys, and etcetera, but never with a firm brand, so they may be a collective/co-op, of smaller Chinese producers, and are usually carrying stuff at the cheaper end of production, material and/or price points.

 

Likewise (cheapness), these carry-case sets, which were hard to photograph, as far as contents are concerned, but were monochromatic, polyethylene types, or one-colour-spray over PVC, with the usual accessories of farm fence sections, and generic plants/shrubs.

 

Novelty key-rings.

 

 

Novelty squishies are a more modern thing, a fine soft, memory foam, possibly a tech' coming across from the bedding sector, and here we have astronauts and a bunch of those dunny-bunny-bear things, with their whacky artwork.

 

A complete irony really, that 'art toys', which were a big thing back in the 2010's when this Blog started, and which could be 50-100+ of your currency units ($-£-Euro), and which would often, quickly resell on evilBay or at auction for many times that, are now being churned out by novelty manufacturers for 50p or a pound!

 

More of the generics in their shiny not-card cards! A half decent T54/55, if you need a Cold War unit in a hurry and have a can of matt-green, sand or brown aerosol to-hand! And a rather dodgy thing, which is a Panzer IV turret, on the same Soviet chassis!

 

Way outside the remit of the Blog (Yile Toys), but figural, so I shot it!

I can't now remember if these were resin, or more of that lightweight 3D-printer stuff (PLA or PETG), but they are big, ornamental and the sort of thing someone like TKMaxx might get in, not as 'clearance', but as shelf-filler, at Christmas! And, look . . . we seem to have the source of our diminutive, enthusiastically signalling NASA'stronaut, as seen a few posts ago, in two smaller iterations!

 

Also, by accident, as I wasn’t trying to shoot them, the equally shiny and metallic, flying foil to the tanks, both would seem to be pull-back-and-go novelty carpet toys. So that's an overview of Huggables, nothing urgent or exciting, and the sticky, stretchy window-walkers (previous post) weren't in the line-up, 18-months ago, so seem to have hit the market since.

H is for Have Screwdriver, Will Travel, Interstellar!

This is all courtesy of Peter Evans, with the carded set coming last year around Christmastime, and the figure being in the latest donation, which I picked-up the other day!

 

Apropos the construction sets we saw in the shelfies from Brian the other day, and credited to a Huan Le Play of china, it's sub-branded, on the reverse, to 'Toys' and imported by Yelsa of Luton?

 

It's the figure we're interested here at the Command Centre, the shuttle's a bit naff, and he's a fully round, slightly juvenile sculpt, but, a useful, and cheerful looking, addition to the pile!

 

However, this almost identical chap has finer detail and a better finish, both in paint and overall sculpt (although the first guy's star-spangled visor is pretty neat!), so the suspicion has to be that the Huan Le set is a knock-off of whatever toy the second geezer came from? Cheers Peter!

H is for Hetman, Hussars and Historiques!

It's the subsection I call Historical; from the post-Medieval through to pre-kharki, sometimes including ceremonial, but there were enough in the plunder to split them into two posts, so we're covering about 4/500-years here, except with the Figurines Historiques, where over a millennium is covered!

 

We had a decent shot of them in the sorting post, but I wanted to do better by them with a few more shots. A winged hussar from Poland, historically and actually, and a standard-bearer who might be contemporary (historically - Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), or even from the same set, but both beautiful figures. 

 

I have to assume PZG is in here somewhere, but the standard-bearer has an unconventional base which is more touristy, than the usual thick-but-flat bases associated with PZG, while the winged hussar has a base more like the semi-flats associated with another Polish firm?

 

I got several things from Peter at Replicants, the wagon was new a couple of years ago, but I've ended-up with another one, so I can get one out of the bag at some point, and a pack-mule with generic handler, both the humans cover several centuries with their peasant's smocks and trousers.

 

While these could have gone in the civilian post, or the combat post, but again with minor tweaks or paint, they, or various among them, cover any insurgency from Garibaldi or some of the Southern America's Wars of Independence, onwards, although, obviously, the chap with a sten-gun is less flexible time/theatre wise, and the detonator guy doesn't cover the range of the others.

 

Including last year's radio-operator, and the - previously seen as broaches - climbers, now given rifles, we have a set of resistance-fighters, or revolutionaries, partizans or Maquis, turncoats, left-behinds, rebels or 5th Columnists; irregulars, in a word! Already well blogged here;

 

Paul via Peter E - https://www.stadsstuff.com/?p=26381

Brain Carrick - https://toysoldiercollecting.blogspot.com/2026/07/new-replicants-french-resistance.html

 

Longer-served loyal readers may remember six years ago, a Hetman from PZG in one of Chris Smith's donations, for which, Grzegorz Maciak kindly supplied a horse? Well, I've since picked-up two more of them, each on a different horse, slightly frustrating, as there are other poses in the set, but they will make a lovely group charging across a shelf at some point!

  

There were 42 of these, or 47, I can't recall, but useful, as I have gaps in the collection of loose figures, and or need unpainted examples of those posibly painted by William J. Carman, so a quick sort at some point, and I should end up with most of the range in unpainted white. The orange one is a sunburnt example, not a plastic colour variation.

 

A bit bashed, but some garden war-gamer might do something with them, they just need pin-swords! Cherilea English Civil War figures.

 

French Cuirassiers

 

British Lifeguards

 

French Hussars

 

French Carabiniere

 

I mentioned in conversation with Paul, that I hadn't found the one thing I'd had on my 'sort of' wants list, this year, the Mounted Napoleonics from Britains Deetail, and he spent the next 20-odd minutes calling me over or directing me to various stashes he found, and I managed to pick-up 7, which leaves five to find - British hussars and dragoons and the other French carabiniere! A couple will benefit from a bit of a clean!

With thanks again this year to Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin.