SS is for Shelfie Session

Try saying that when you're drunk! I had a quick whizz round all the usual suspects the other day, and managed to shoot a few shelfies of stuff which may be of some interest to some loyal readers, or not, as the case may be!

 

Shot this pair in Hobbycraft, and I may go back for the Sherman, if only to compare it with the CTS and Airfix ones? It's the Lego-compatible range of clip-together 'kits', but differing from Lego and Cobi, in not having any studs showing on the finished article, the top layer is all 'site specific' and fully-moulded/sculpted on the final, visible faces. These were new, about two years ago, and I venture to say, at 20-quid-a-pop, all the money!

 

Off to The Range for these, I think we've seen the Harry Potter one previously, but no matter, a reminder is as good as . . . something witty I can't come up with? Hard to pin down, but I'll try - branded to RMS, brand-marked to Project Craft and imported by CDS Group "...a third party logistics (3PL) and supply chain solutions provider!", so there!

 

While these were shot in B&M the other day, Magic Box have clearly moved-on from Crazy Bones, but there's still a blind-bag element to collecting the line, they are too unpiratey (spellcheck says I invented that word!) to save for ITLAPD, so here they are.

 

It's funny, because Bushy the Twig over at planetcamp has started going to B&M, and The Range, he'd better get himself to Smyths and Hobbycraft if he really wants to copy me! And a few garden centres, and Flying Tiger, and the other one! And he needs to stop showing us the stuff he leaves in the charity shops, which he also now visits, because that’s the shite nobody's buying!

Still, he does live castles now, as well, and he's finally added a Blog archive, after nearly 20 years! He added a link-list too, a couple of years ago, but managed to avoid this Blog, and has already cut it down and placed it where nobody can find it - doesn't like sharing, see!

 

But then it took him several years to start tagging, and only after one of his readers (guess who!) kept pointing out the lack of a tag-list! And then never did it that systematically, so it's still hard to find anything, nor did he retro-Tag the first few years' stuff, so that's lost!

Don't get me wrong, there's no exclusivity to any of this stuff, I can't expect to be the only person doing this, that, or the other, and a good idea, nicked, is the purest form of plagiarism, therefore - the sincerest form of flattery!

And so soon after the 'ossuary' thing, he managed to squeeze in a Shogun reference, the day after me (literally the next day!), but I was talking about the MB Games game with the five armies of different-coloured miniature figures, not some nerdy, cerebral time-waster, for a rained-out caravan holiday!

 

It's tragic how threatened or envious he seems to be of what was originally, a completely different Blog, but they increasingly look the same, because he keeps doing what I've already done! In a few years, the only discernable differential between our two Blogs will be that all the eBay scrapings will still be over there, and all the original copy and images (mostly of a [vaguely organised] collection) will still be here!

Anyway, I promise you, you'll never find me making dollies accessories out of hot glue and toothbrush handles, ever, he can keep that! What do you think readers!

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - One of . . . Several!

Brian Berke, roving reporter on the other side of the pond, sent some rack toys the other week, which were in the queue, then he sent a few more, then, today, he sent a shed-load! And with me committing to the Gygax stuff in the early-hours of this morning, I've now got my work cut-out to get everything up here before Sunday!

 

So, blurb light, with the pictures speaking for themselves, here's what's hanging on the racks in Queens, New York,  right now!

 

 

 

 

These are actually in the long-queue, but seem to have been reduced even more in the States, originally movie-related and pricey, the failure of the movie to live up to expectations left them sitting, and you can still find them on offer about the place, the Entertainer here, cleared theirs a year or two ago, just before Christmas.

  

Brian thought these were the best of the bunch, and they do look cool!

 

 

There's a bunch of these in the queue too, but different, smaller sculpts.

I is for Image Dump!

Getretro is a wholesaler of old stock, cancelled toys and other end-of-line clearance stuff, so the fact that I didn't get around to posting these, from the London Show back in 2023 makes sense as this had all, already, been out there somewhere, and those who needed to know about such things would already have found them!

 

 

Retro, Risk, Revell & Role Play!

 

Eaglemoss Dr's Who, Who, Who & Who . . . Who, Who, Who, Who and Who, a bunch of companions, Daleks, Cybermen and someone called War?

 

Lionel, now a trademark for shifting big-box sets from China.

That's it really, just to get them up here and out of the way, as it were! Website;

https://www.getretro.co.uk/

S is for Shelfies - B&M, July

I was over in Basingrad for something the other week, which it seems was actually a couple of months ago (I don't know, but it goes somewhere?), and I popped into B&M for a five-pack of Ruffle Bars (nom-nom-nomnivore!), and managed to shoot a bunch of figural shelfies, and, I think, made a further purchase for the Blog's future, but anyway, here are the shelfies with a few notes.

An egg-full of dinosaurs, one or two larger and several medium-sized critters, with the usual assortment of scenic accessories, consisting in the main of palm trees, but there may have been some 'rocks' in there too? Basically a generic, it's branded-up to B&M themselves.

Also branded to them, but sourced from someone/somewhere else, it this which we may have seen before, but I think the design of 'carry case' has changed from dino' to truck, to this robo-dino' over the years? And helps ID a couple of the mini dinosaur models. Found not in the toy section, but as part of the big-box Christmas gift shelf above the food aisles!

 

Paint your own vinyl Harry Potter figureines and locomotive

 

Stumble Guys from Diramix . . . I had to google it; "Stumble Guys is a multiplayer battle royal obstacle course game where players race to become the last one standing", so that's them then, vinyl solids though, so while I'm not buying them, they will come-in via future bags of shite from Charity Shops!

 

I can't say I know much about this Stich chap either, indeed for a while I got Lilo & Stich confused with Itchy & Scratchy (cartoon characters within a cartoon), my following the developments of neither! I now know the difference, but if you don't, you're probably better-off remaining in ignorance, this stuff goes around and comes around, there's nothing new under the sun, and they, too, are vinyl solids.

 

More of the same from Bandai, and I think we all know who Sonic is now? Mixed assortments, with duplicates between sets, is almost as annoying as blind-bags! But you obviously need to buy both sets to get the four hidden figures to complete the sixteen!

The Sonic figures also come in smaller assortments, and I left the Joker figure in the crop, as while he's not the sort of thing I 'do', I know a lot of the guys & gals on Brian Heiler's platforms will be interested.

 

"100 Years of Furry Friendships", it says, well, if you've looked into 'furry's', you'll know how disturbing that sentence could be seen to be? Not only that, but more disturbing is the fact that these mostly recognisable Disney characters, have been remodelled in a Japanese anime style . . . why? Just why? Horrid!

We may have seen Lady Bug and Cat Noir, or they may be in the queue, Peter Evans gave some to the Blog I think, but anyway, their French TV series is called Miraculous, and these blind-box sets are from Playmates, but obviously in the style of super-deforms or the dreaded Funko-pops, it's not good, unless it's your thing! All of which is a lot more than I knew about them in August when we saw them in a B&M shelfie post!

 

All currently sat in B&M for Christmas shoppers!