L is for the London Scene

Peter Evans also sent me some rack-toy stuff in time for the end of a slow month! We've seen some of it before, but images is images and these blogs are all about the images;

There's a lot of this kind of thing around at the moment, funny little pull-back-and-go cars, carts and these trikes, ridden, driven or mostly consisting of baby animals, teddy bears or dinosaurs, and I've seen boxed-sets of multiples!

 

I think we've seen both of these here, but new images, and out there now (try garden centres, if out of town), Peterkin above and Halsall below, the Peterkin's are similar to the old Ackerman (et al.) sculpts, while the HTI set is from a current generation of China-troops in the style of modern US GI's.

 

These are the larger version or 'next size up' from the sets we saw out of Poundstretcher the other day, Supreme copies, but here four figures (instead of two) and two main accessories instead of one, so presumably four assortments, two with cowboys and two with Indians. 

 

 

And I think we saw a green one of these a few years ago, also Poundstretcher, or similar? Soft vinyl or silicon rubber key-ring dinosaurs.

 

Many thanks to Peter for these, all submissions gratefully received! 

D is for Deinos Sauros

Three quickies tonight, long day and I need a shower!

 

I shelfied this back in August and I can't remember where, but it might have been the big farm-shop up at Borden? I was tempted as I have a couple of 'dinosaur' vehicles in the stash, from the die-cast dino' collection from Matchbox back in the 1990/2000's, but I didn't, although Maisto's idea that a Honda Acty is the best thing for carrying a 22-ton dinosaur is rather amusing!

These were in The Range around the same time, and were so cheap I bought one of each, but left them on the cards, as they went straight to storage, a week or so later! A bit cartoony, but in that small bracket, where there are so many to ID one day, I thought it expedient to tick a box while I could!

While I paid too much for these, the other day! They are firmly glued-on, so not really designed for play, or at least, designed not to be pickpocketed from display-cups! Also, I don't think either would actually stand free, the raptor looks front-heavy, while the rather cow-like triceratops has uneven feet. Branded to Depesche, and out there now, as are the others.

S is for Shelfies - TKMaxx and B&M Stores

Mostly dino'toys, in my two most recent visits to B&M in Basingrad, most of the shots being taken back at the end of July, with the rest taken about a month ago, as the Christmas stock was comming in, I'll be back there in the next week or so, with any luck?

 

A set of wild animals, grist to the mill, but the shots might help ID something, sometime in the future, which is always the primary reason for taking these shelfies, along with tying the contents/branding to other configurations on Amazon, evilBay or Alibaba.

Dynaforce, which aught to be some pun on Dino', but which includes the above zoo-animal set, so more of a phantom brand for B&M, it also (see below) seems to be competing directly with the Teamsterz stuff (possibly from Pioneer in China) which is a branding for Halsall / HTI, also carried in B&M's stores!

 

Going up several scale marks, we get this 3 1/2 or 4" action figure with articulated models in two sizes, along with a dino-skeleton kit, probably clip-together, but not the sort of thing I seek out for the stash, but when (not if) the smaller ones turn-up in the future they'll find a place in the collection, even if it's only long-enough to be photographed and Blogged!

 

Similar to the previous truck but with different contents and a sculptural cab which is even closer to the Teamsterz one! Pulling from a larger assortment of models, you only get one per lorry, with a daft egg and an even dafter mini-vehicle!

 

A week or so later - I have a feeling - based on a folder of B&M stuff, that the above are actually, all or mostly, TKMaxx shelfies, as I can't find their folder! Both stores tend to stock Teamsters and/or HTI, so it's easy to get confused, but makes the different truck below, definitely B&M, make more sense, the different designs were for different stores, but the dinosaur models are the same!

 

The older Teamsterz one, which I think we've seen before in both B&M and Smyths? You can see how the Dynaforce one is aping this one, down to the sculptured cab, smaller dinosaur models and daft mini-vehicles, but with HTI's you get more of both and no daft egg!

 

Animals are the same as the earlier Dynaforce conventional-cab truck, so whichever price point the buyer selects, we can assume Halsall get a cut!

 

The more recent visit revealed a new phantom or in-house brand 'Dino Hunter', of which there were, again, larger action figure sets as well as this one, which comes with four larger or medium-sized dinosaur models.

I may get this if they still have some on my next visit, it's only six-quid, and as you can see you get a total of 48 themed animals, in 12's; mini's of domestic, wild and dinosaurs; and a dozen dogs in a larger scale, closer to 54 or 60mm compatible.

S is for Stretch Stretchy Scrunchems

Following the large stretchies in a post the other day, Brian Berke sent some shelfies from the States, the same day I'd found a few in the Garden Centre shop near Borden, and, not knowing I already had a few in the queue, however, while I intended to get it all out before the end of Rack Toy Month, that hurdle blew over before I got to it! So, we're looking at them all now . . .

 

I can't remember where I got these, but it might have been TKMaxx or possibly Flying Tiger (who I think are just Tiger again?), but it was a few weeks ago, and therefore they are out there, to be found. Very similar to the Henbrandt ones we saw over ten years ago now, both in size and material (stretchy metallic polymer), they are slightly different sculpts, and not sold as pencil-rubbers (erasers) like the similar robots we also saw some time ago now.

 

 

I then found these, in a branch of Waterstones, the booksellers, these are both stretchy, and they're made of that type of material which rolls down smooth, flat surfaces like windows or gloss coated things like doors, shower curtains, or kitchen cabinets, and they are near, or a 'vague' HO-OO size, so what's not to like!

I can't tell if it's one pose with lots of distortion, or two, or more, but they are vaguely NASA types, and come approximately 50/50 silver and white, so a game could be generated with target scoring, or last one hanging.

 

The material has been around for years and is what we used to call rubber jigglers, although we made little distinction between the actual jigglers (usually on a elastic string or sucker) and these true stretches, which tended to leech some vile oily material after some time or if stored in plastic containers, I don't know if this is exactly the same stuff, or, more likely, a modern replacement which may prove more stable?

The full gamut of modern 'rubber jigglers' (if you limit "full gamut" to reptiles and amphibians!), and stretchy! Courtesy of Brian in New York, with a Club Earth brand-mark, and we have the same metallic 'brights', looking larger that the Dinosaurs above, these are the sort of thing we chased the 'girly' girls with when we were small brats, but ours tended to be black, muddy-orange or some shade of dark green/khaki, and old school PVC without much stretch!

 

These are in The Works, and while I'd bought them a few days earlier, they didn't get shot until I shot the purchases the same day as Brian's eMail arrived, so they are here due to the chronological nature of the images!

Obviously for Halloween, which is rapidly heading toward us, albeit still nearly two months away, but over the last week or two the Halloween stuff has gone out, and I noticed tonight that The Range is putting out the Christmas stuff!

 

The beauty of them from our point of view is that they are a perfect size for 54mm figures/displays, being a little shorter than the fleshed-out bodies! And at 25p each, pretty-much a bloody bargain!

The same day as Brian's lot arrived I'd literally been finding a motherlode of stuff at that farm shop among which was this Dimetrodon, indeed it was the only one, so end-of-line? He's the newest style of stretchy, with the poly-beads in a soft case (as the Brian shelfies may be?). He's also by Keycraft Global, who issue the set at the top of this article, and is posed in the lower shot with one of Keycraft's solid dino's, they are both classic 'gape-mouth' Chinasaurs!.

I also took shelfies, and while we have three different brands here, I suspect - from the packaging -  that they are all coming from the same place as the Scrunchems astronauts, and are all the same crawlers. Toy Hub are relatively new to me, but this is their second outing, while HTI we've seen before both under this moniker and the older, last century, Halsall/Haswell brands.

More thanks to Brian for the shelfies, and that's the current state of the figural stretchy market!

P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! Modern Combat Types

Toy and Model soldiers; where it all started! Onwards and upwards as they say, with the next batch of donated figures from Chris Smith's last parcel, and we're into khaki military, but as I've added some sailors it's really 20th/21st Century!

 

Two Toy Story chaps flank the last Blue Box WWII figure I needed to complete an at-least-one-of-each sample of them, and it wasn't the usual 'I don't need this so you can have it' donation from his purchase sorting, it was a 'I have one you can have' from Chris's collection, so double thanks for this chap. I have quite a few, painted and unpainted, but they are all missing their mine-detector, which is too easy to pull-off, or be short-shot in the moulding-tool.

 

Not sure if I have the other two, but there were several sets over the years, and until I get them all together, I won't know!

I think these are Pilsen from Turkey, but the Solpa figures from Greece (next door) can also have the contouring on the base some of these have, and as Solpa also sourced capsule-toy robots and Hong Kong small-scale stuff, it may prove to be that Solpa were using Pilsen?

A mixture here, with a Galloob Micro-man, some HK chaps, a bubble-gum premium and what appears to be a homemade/home cast clone of a French plastic? The two HTI's (right) both have the base marks we looked at briefly a few years ago, but they are different marks, so when I get round to an HTI A-Z page, there will be a few of them to study!

These are second generation copies of New Ray, I think, I got quite excited about a couple of the poses a few years ago, following one of Chris's earlier parcels, but more have come in, overtime, and they are less exciting now, maybe, but there seem to be two tranches/sources, so there will be a full article one day!

Arguably common, but there are many, many variations of these mid-80's rack-toy clones of Airfix British paratroopers, with or without beret/helmet conversions (at the factory) and in dozens of sizes and many plastic colours, so always welcomed for the final sort-out!

Kit figures, two Aurora Russians on the left, and two early (1950's) 'box-scale' on the right, but the chap in the middle is new to me, a scale-up of the Nitto 1:76th German (which was a copy of the earliest Tamiya German set I think?), and in a 'German' blue-grey plastic? All five are glueable, brittle polystyrene.

Probably Kwong Shing  (Kamley-Kositoys-KS) figures, but these coloured ones are less common, and well worth adding to the stash for the final A-Z line-ups! Here, oxide red and grey, rather than the silver we've seen before, I think?

Still need set titles or a maker's marque for these Hong Kong sailors, originally thought to be Navy or Police, for a while, and in discussion with other collectors, the turning-up of the semaphore chap rather confirms the former at the expense of the latter, and probably from a 1980's big-box naval vessel or aircraft-carrier playset? they are around 18/20mm.

L is for Late Layabouts Languishing in Limbo!

As well as lots of old Charity shop stuff, there's also a lot of toy show/toy fair stuff, which will probably be broken-down into box-tickers, or thematic posts now, and a few Shelfies which seem to have missed previous round-ups, including these, most of which are from the Autumn/Christmas just-gone, despite the fact we did have several 'shelfie' posts from both my Camera and Brian Berke's? But there you are, they hide from me!

This is actually from 2021, so a real hider! It was, then, the latest iteration of the rather generic and poorly-detailed/sculpted 30mm'ish figures Mark, the Man of Tin, has such success, and apparent delight with, in turning them into spacemen, monsters, Napoleonics and colonial thin-red-lines, among other things!

 

We've had various shelfies of these, over the years, since they started appearing, not long after this Blog was born, and Poundland, Poundstreatcher, the defuct Poundworld Plus and 99P Stores (along with others), have all carried them, often in more than one packaging, while Amazon has carried dozens of generics and phantom-branded stuff, tubbed, carded, bagged, blistered and clam-shelled!

 

Which is why I only shelfie them, I have samples of various sizes, in dozens of colours, and they will be findable, mint, on evilBay for decades to come, as ex-stock, if you really need them in packaging! 

I hate this shite, I phuqing hate it with a vengeance, and to be fair to my sensibilities, I hated the big-head/bobble-head/nodding crap of our childhoods, and I hated the Corinthian cricketers and footballers of the 1990/2000's, it's awful stuff. I think it's an extension of clown-phobia?

 

I even hate the 'Nutty Mads' from Marx . . . "Let's apply teenage, 50's surf-culture to World War Two murderers, shall we? Make them look silly! The Butchers of Nanking will look harmless after we've given them some racially-profiled extremities!", said no sane person, ever. Garbage!

"Yeah, but the kids like them", go the supine, brain-dead, left-of-bell-curve parents! Because unethical, immoral, capitalist Toymen, who have a greater love of money than the future mental well-being of the human race, have sold them the concept, while you were getting drunk and watching porn, to blot-out current-affairs and drown the misery of your existence, you dullards!

Deep breath Hugh, take a moment, and then see if you can find some nice dinosaurs . . .

Self-branded/in-house from B&M, I think these are the latest from HGL (Grossman) or HTI (Halsall), repacked for B&M, and at less than the price of a single larger Schleich or Papo, a bloody bargain! Who wouldn't like this under the Tree on Christmas morning?

 

These - Wenno - might be a phantom brand (also for B&M) or an actual brand mark for a China toy maker (I haven't seen them at the trade-fairs?), but they seem to be newish sculpts (albeit, maybe copies of other makers) and relatively well done for the price-point, which, again, beats the big-names hands down, and I thought the giraffe was particularly well done, compared to the rack-toy giraffes of our youth!

 

 

 

We're on safer ground with Teamsters, having seen them several times before, an imported sub-branding of HTI, covering a variety of die-cast or 'toy car' lines, and I wouldn't buy any of these, new, but they will help ID loose dinosaurs at some point in the future! Also shot in B&M.

And finally a similar set, in B&M packaging, really a generic, but helping to pinpoint an origin for some of the many teeny dinosaurs, if no better candidate comes forward in the future.