F is for From Nutcrackers to Christmas Crackers

So there was I, on one of the hottest days of July, if not the whole summer, pulling twenty-four Christmas crackers with myself, as you do . . . n't! The final hours of Poundworld Plus brought with them a Brucey-Bonus for the novelty-tat arm of the collection!

I'd already had some smaller 'tree' ones, when these were reduced from 50p a box to 25p per box, which - if you recall the other posts at the time (June/July) - was further reduced at the till by whatever had been sent to the computer by head-office or the Official Receivers that morning - suffice to say I got silver back from my grubby quid!

Bog-standard fare - die-cut, stiff-card construction, simple CAD design in positive and negative silver/white colour-ways, six per pack gave me the aforementioned 24-crackers to deal with, and I wasn't waiting 'till now!

First disappointment was no Matchbox knock-off soldiers! Each box had one micro-plane, one hair tie, one 'tiddlywink' frog and one very thin, styrene ring, with two from a top, a spinner or a fake nail. Most of the things in the 'Image for illustration purposes only' picture are of better quality than those actually included but isn't that always the way!

The 'tree' crackers; I don't seem to have photographed the contents, if I find them in the increasing chaos of the 'bringing together' before Xmas I'll try to, but memory serves they were as crap as the bigger ones and relatively similar. Except they were only four per tray, and two of them - per set - had the [same] card-puzzle (like Kinder's) or bookmark, leaving me with only a few bits of polymer shite!

I didn't get the fortune-telling fish, the trumpet or the magic calculator! Both sets were imported by ITP, with the tree-crackers further known to have been manufactured by [PT] Cermai Makmur of Indonesia, so you might find these in KMart . . . now! It's all-right - I buy this shit so you don't have to!

T is for Two . . . Wheels Good . . .

Like Paratroopers and whatever the other thing was the other day . . . goes and checks the 'finished' folder . . . ; footballers (!), this has become another of those perennials, we return to from time to time, dinosaurs, insects and fish are all currently rising-up the queue as well, but today it's a return to two wheels; well, fourteen wheels or - if you want to be a total pedant fifty-seven wheels and at least three - visible - skids!

Roughly in the order they've come in or been shot since we last looked at them excluding a lead flat I think we looked-at separately . . .

Upon the demise of PoundworldPlus back in the summer, this was reduced to 50p with a further reduction at the till taking it to 43p or something! It was worth a punt for a small plastic motorcycle, of Kinder-egg quality? It needed squeezing together properly which I didn't notice until after the photo-shoot, branded to their ITP Imports and coming with a reasonable rendition of an executive type helicopter and a really crappy jeepney-thing which - if pink - would look like Barbie's beach-buggy!

I can't tell you what this cost as it was a present for my Brother on his Birthday! He's one of those people who has everything he wants, and if he really wants something else tends to go and get exactly what he wants himself, so he's very difficult to buy for, but he likes his motorcycles, so when I saw this . . . bingo! Noki are the same people who did the novelty egg-cup and toast-soldier sets, see Small Scale World passim.

I think this is the third time out for this chap, and the second involving contributions from Peter Evans, who recently sent me a very interesting set, with the unpainted black-plastic version. In the meantime I found another (slight colour variation) in the Storage lot, so shot all four together and they now have a new tub, all to themselves, although the black one is still in the bag awaiting next year's RTM.

CHiPs! From storage, from Kentoys, but not the Kenway Cycle Shop of 1950's London, but rather the 1990's Kentoys with a half-mile-long factory in Shatin, New Territories! Now into high-end, larger-scaled, die-casts, they started (as so many HK companies did) with cheaper plastics, these came with blistered sets or singly with larger trucks, in this specific case the 'Wheelers' fire-engine set. They were announced at 1:72 and - basically - would have been in competition with the similar New Ray and Supreme sets of that time; among others.

Is it a Harley Electra-Glide or a Honda Goldwing Aspencade? Now - there's a question for my Brother! Judging from the full-tank and headlight-fairing; I recon a Honda?

Old solid-lead motorcyclist (Postman?), I don't know if it's in Joplin and I haven't looked as I know it's not particularly rated (Adrian had it in his cheapie-tray at Sandown last), so probably a copy of anything similar-looking in the aforementioned tome, or more likely a home-cast which may have been made commercially available? The lead-guys dismiss this stuff (and melt it down!) like some in our polymer-branch of the hobby still dismiss HK stuff, but you know me; I'll post anything!

A bicycle, Cakeboards, resin, cake decoration, the resin pile is piling-up! Nice 54mm and a female subject which is never that common, so pleasantly unusual!

Mr. Berke sent a whole box of donations to the blog the other day with his uncommon generosity, and we will be looking at bits from it over the next few days, as some of it was very timely, but there was also this, Greenbrier/DTSC. I don't know if he and Mr Evans are in competition with their contributions, but this is an even larger scale than the candy-container bicycle we looked at in Rack Toy Month! Guy's; I don't know where to put them!

Thanks again to Brian, Peter and Adrian for some of the above!

ITP is for Chinasaur Play Set

Although one of the last pieces to be Blogged from the now defunct PoundworldPlus, I actually bought them a while ago, I had been ignoring them for a while as they are real old-school crappy 'chinasaurs', but in the end I thought "Well, they are cheap, and a shelfie is awkward in this instance, so bugger it!" and grabbed a set, which was lucky as they then disappeared and didn't reappear during the fire-sale / stock clearance, and there was a little piece of luck hidden in the tub, we'll get on to in a minute.

The tub - as bought; A couple of the standard modern trees with soft vinyl pop-on foliage, there wasn't enough foliage for both boughs, so I chucked one, fully-leaved the other and sorted-it out from the dinosaurs before the photo-shoot, so we will have to look at it another day with other, similar trees! Yeah . . . that sounds like a thrilling post!

Meet the guys 'cos the gang's all here! They aren't that bad, but they are low-quality, low for today's output that is, they are better than half the dino-production of 1970's HK 'chinasaurs'! You may recognise the 'ceratopsian (front right) as having been the [reversed image] dino' staring in a recent 'Toys in the Media' advert!

They are that soft, foamy plastic I'm mentioned before and started tagging as foamed-vinyl, with the two-part construction and glued join-line you see quite a bit now with larger toy animals and dinosaurs.

There were two stegosauruses in every tub, indeed, the contents of every tub were the same, why there were two of one moulding is anyone's guess, my guess is that even with the two crappy trees the stipulated (by the client) container (for retail shelf-frontage) was looking empty, but still under target-cost, so they quickly ran a mould-tool again, gave the product a different paint finish to the existing ones - having fallen-out with whoever normally supplies them with those large blow-moulded rocks that usually join the 'filler' trees?

While is a fun musing, the one on the right is one-colour over tan, the one on the left is three, as all the others are two or three, I'd say that for whatever reason the yellow-orange one was a late addition as the budget stretched?

The others, I've already said more about them than the set deserves and I've still the next - important - bit to write, so that'll do for these - and I always hate the pterodactyls in dinosaur sets; they inevitably look stupid!

But, the little bit of luck; this was in the set - the sauropod wasn't glued properly, and revealed that what I've though is-, and tried to describe as- some 'fancy' new foamed polymer is actually just two 'hollow-cast' halves glued together with solvent.

It achieves the goals of allowing for more complicated poses (no 'undercuts') while reducing both material-cost and shipping-cost/weight, but I will have to remove the 'Plymr - Foamed PVC' tag from the tag-lists and replace it with 'Plymr - 2-Pt. Hollow' or something.

I'm guessing lots of kids have discovered this already through violence or chewing (!) but no-one seems to have clocked-it within the hobby and no one's corrected me, prior to my correcting myself - here! And I did use question-marks when I first started Blogging the material, so - Phew, that was close!

S is for Shelfies

A quick round-up of shelfies I've taken over the last few months and not used in specific articles . . .

Currently in The Works, there seems to be only the three variations and the only variation is the figure, so to get all three you need £18, and will end-up with a lot of duplicate stuff, so a Shelfie seems to be the answer for future identification when they turn up loose.

The figures are around the 54mm mark, with two subscale tractors and animals in various sizes. The square 'tube' is quite long - you can see about a third in this shot - as there is a play-mat in the lower section.

Going, going . . . fire sale at Poundworld will end soon, these are - clearly - a bit 'pink and girly' but they are solids, around 80mm, and again, should they turn-up in mixed lots in a year or a few; label them ITP Imports!

Twins! Vacuous-looking twins at that!

I think I shot these in TKMaxx and I just like the fact that other brands are fighting back against the hegemony of Lego with cool licenses of their own, Brian B has sent me a fantastic Bending Unit which will go in the next Lego-likey post!

Wilco-branded (Wilkinson's - the real reason Woolworth's died), these are large, mixed scale PVC type animals, and again will help ID them in the future.

Back to the closing-down sale at Poundworld Plus here in town, these were reduced to 80p so I got the blue one . . . motorcycle! The vehicles are really 'cheap and nasty' and typically - for these days - no military option, but a motorcycle is not to be sniffed at; for less than a quid!

These are statuette crayons, with a pointed-bit hidden behind the battlements of the catchy packaging. With a King, Queen, princess, wizard and witch; that soldier's got a lot of guarding to do! But they're figural! NPW, who's novelties have featured here several times in the last few years; these were shot in TKMaxx.

These . . . TKMaxx . . . I just don't really get? It's apparently a glass drying mat, but with four semi-flat ballet-dancers. How are you supposed to dry the glasses? If you catch the dancer as you place the glass over it with wet hands you may drop the glass, what about shallow glasses? What about narrow champagne flues, or champagne bowls, why only room for four? Or do you place the glasses between the dancers, in which case; why have them? And even if that's the case there's only room for about six, and no mugs, the handles will get in the way - the whole concept is just daft!

A triumph of farty-art idea over practicality, hundreds of people were involved in designing, tooling, producing, packing, procuring and shipping this Caca!

It seems to me to be a sublime example of everything that's wrong with consumerism, as espoused by Thatcherite-Raganomics and the mantra of 'market forces' for the last 39 years. A totally impractical, ill thought-out, relatively unnecessary product, packaged to appeal to a certain type of 'lifestyle' cretin or brain-dead fashion-victim! People with bows behind their family pictures, matching his'n'hers anoraks and pink loo paper! The same people who've been buying waistcoats over the last two weeks.

The figures have fully-round skirts and plinths, but chunky block-flat bodies, they are silicon-rubber (I think), around 50mm (not counting the base) and could be fun; taken off the mats and displayed with the Britains, Gem and other dancers, but they represent our need to keep consuming until there's nothing left, it's not a good sign.

News, Views Etc...In Brief

So, I sort of lost my mojo over the weekend, I was going to post something for Sunday afternoon and this morning but my can-be-arsed tanks ran-dry on Friday and it didn't happen, and although I have tons of stuff in the queue I don't really know what I'm playing at for the next week or two.

New Additions 2017

In my defence we will hit 450-posts before the end of the year whatever happens so I'm not too bothered, clearly why the 'can't-be-arsed' reserve has kicked in! A few shelfies in awhile and the latest PW review later today, nothing for tomorrow yet, I may post something Spanish later, for tomorrow, but I'm doing Christmas trees and cutting wood and looking for holly with berries and important stuff like that right now!

That Pirate set the other day was imported by ITP, and branded to Toy Bank and Pirate Monkey . . . Toy Bank was one of the brands on those big rubber insects, so we can deduce that Pirate Monkey and Green Geko [sic] are madeupnames of Toy Bank. I'll add all relevant tags to the Pirate Ship's post before you read this.

Also Francesco Ferretti sent me the most fantastic shots of his Kinder collection last Thursday and they will make lovely eye-candy for the 12-days of Christmas, both for closing 2017 and setting us on the right path for 2018.

Maintenant - ici est un blog Français bel pour les jouets en plastique

http://www.lesjouetsdenicolas.fr/

P is for Poundworld-Plus Plastic Pirate Play-set Preview Post

Or - S is for Shiver me Shelfies, it's a Shifty Ship with Surly Sailors!

Saw this in Poundworld-Plus the other day, a big stack of them for a tenner, Christmas-stock I'll be bound, or my names Buttsttead Forttesque the III! Figures are Schleich/Papo-like, while the ship is better suited to 'HO/OO' compatible sea-borne shenanigans.

I didn't see a brand anywhere [ITP Imports from Toy Bank/Pirate Monkey] but I was holding shopping and a camera so it was all a bit cack-handed in the play-set inspection department, while they were piled-up by the tills, so I was sort of in the queue as I was faffing about!

A tenner? I left it, and I can't think of any collectors I know who are likely to grab one, but if you want an individual item from it and have younger relatives . . . it really would be like taking candy from a baby, "Oh dear, must have got lost in the wrapping-paper - which went on the fire"!

The figures; there's four of 'em.

Of more interest, maybe, for garden/54mm war-gaming (?) is this catapult, it's a bit clumsy-looking, a bit chunky, more like the old MPC one, but a bit of paint would bring it up to some sort of presentable shape! Or the wheels would be a useful addition to the ancient/medieval spares box!

And then there's this wheeled cage? Has it escaped from a 1970's Planet of the Apes play-set? As a lot of pirates WERE also slavers, it sort of makes sense, but none of the figures included will fit in it, so you'll need to source some miserably malnourished 65mm figures first! Ohh . . . Kinder Barbies - they'll fit, and the pirates will thank you!

At first glance I thought the horse was another of the Maxxi Toys ones we have been looking at but it lacks all the holes and the pulling-tackle just seems to just hook-over the saddle.

So there you go, Poundworld-Plus, and probably ordinary Poundland and Poundworld stores if that's what's local to you, they are all now owned by the same SA-based company, currently under investigation for fraud somewhere . . . Austria? It'll all be in the next 'News, Views...'.

F is for Follow-up -Poundworld-Plus Insects

Well . . . I bought them . . . it's funny, a few years ago I never would have bothered with this stuff, and - indeed - have been studiously  not buying the other set since the store opened back in the spring (or was it last year? I can't remember when I first Blogged their stuff?), but after the plethora of insects came together in one day last year (or the year before!) and with the Halloween tat piling-up this year, it's almost like why wouldn't I? And when you follow the traffic-stats per-post; it's funny what people actually want.

Buying the other set the other day obviously triggered a re-stock message back at head office as there were a whole bunch more when I was in the other night, and sure enough the other six of the "12 to collect" are on the other card, so 'two to collect' really!

No spiders in this sample, but we get two longer coffin/ground beetle types, three more hedge/garden beetles (the yellow one is very chafer-like) and a roach-alike.

They still look better dead! Gas! Gas! Gas!

Countdown to Halloween - 5 - Poundworld Plus's Rubber WTF's

While I was getting the previous 'countdown' post's back of bugs from Poundworld Plus I also purchased these - so you don't have to!

These are not part of the Halloween range, and I have been studiously ignoring them in the toy section of the store since it opened back in the spring, they are basically shite; large blobs of poorly executed silicon rubber, vaguely representing generic species, three spiders, two beetles and an ant, except that the ant is probably not an ant and therefore the only really interesting item on the card.

The card claims both Toy Bank and Green Geko [sic] Industries as brands/brand-marks but are actually another ITP Imports item - here in the UK at least.

The 'ant' looks like a Velvet Ant, which is actually a wingless wasp and a worthy species to have as a model, but the beetles are poor and while the three spiders are all different and all resemble the outlines of real creatures, they are chunky infant toys of no real merit, fun for five-year olds!

I would add, that while I've been ignoring them for a month [and wouldn't have bought them if it wasn't for the fact that over the last few weeks what was going to be multiple posts on the 31st became an insect related set of rack-toy posts suitable for a countdown trope], I have as yet to find the other six of the advertised "12 realistic insects for you to collect", despite checking the toy section at least once a week. Now that I've weakened and bought these I'll have to get the other six - if I see them!

They look better . . . dead; now that's a proper bit of the spirit of Halloween, right there!

C is for Countdown to Halloween - 9 - Poundland's Spine-chilling Decorations . . . not!

Arguably the best of these (there are eight more to come!), and the first I obtained, this set was from Poundland back at the start of the imported [within my lifetime], plastic-tat festival which will result in up to 40-million cheap, nasty costumes going to landfill, incineration (sorry . . . EFW . . . or RDF!) or recycling in eleven days time!

Shipped by ITP Imports, the bag contains various bits of ephemeral shite, all of it polymer but a mix of types; still, it was only a pound! The skeleton was so poor he went to recycling without a curtain-call!

The best bits? Finger-puppets of typical Halloween subjects; I think I've said before - because this was a US 'festival' for the longest time they've had loads of this stuff over the years and small figurals do appear on evilBay from time to time, a lot of them with some merit for collectors, but in the UK I haven't previously found much of this type of stuff, this year - as we shall see in the coming days - there has been a fair bit, but mostly insects and spiders, not witches and ghosts, I want more witches and ghosts!

They are in a softish PVC and with the orange proved a bit of a bugger to shoot, if you think these are bad images, you should see what I've chucked-out! Sometimes the mojo just breaks and you can't 'get it right'!

Far from being even remotely "spine-chilling", they look like they are dancing-together at a school-disco and yes, I know 'it's a bit of fun for the kids', but the hyperbole annoys me, they're not "extracted from the dead" and there's no "terror" involved, to misquote Monty Python, they're just slightly naughty toys!

There was also a larger spider in the same PVC as the 'finger bobs' and smaller spider rings in a tinny polyethylene which only fit very small fingers, but even then - not comfortably I suspect; so I cut the rings off two each of the two colours and chucked the rest straight in the recycling!

Interestingly; the novelty retailer Tiger carried small bags of the rings in the same colours (orange and black) but close inspection showed them to be slightly poorer copies and at £2 a bag (one colour per bag) common sense carried the day, rare for me I know, but I left them in situ, with just the mental note made! If I remember to get a shelfie, if I pass Tiger again, if it's before the 31st - I'll shoot them!

This was a semi-rigid PVC (or semi-soft ethylene, it's not clear!), and as rubber bats through the ages go; was a pretty poor example, but as far as Halloween poly-tat goes, an improvement on whatever/what little I've seen the last few years!

N is for Novelty Erasers

We saw a couple of these the other day with the motorcycle post, so we might as well tick the rest off and move on to something more acceptable to the conservatives!

Another of my purchases from the new Pound-Plus shop, there are about five or six sets, all aping the oeuvre of Iwaco; the others are beyond even my interest; household objects, food, that sort of thing. They all come in the same box/liner, with a different tray insert.

To go with the bikes were four other micro-vehicles; van, ship, 'plane and helicopter, they are all slightly cartoony, a bit short or 'deformed', but I like the way the liners yellow-bit makes a row of lifeboats!

The delivery truck and the helicopter both have plastic parts for the difficult/stressed pieces, these are in a dense ethylene or polypropylene.

Seen the other day and far more realistic, they were the reason for the purchase, along with the fact it was only a quid for the six.

 

They won't be finding their way onto the jig-puzzle page, as like all these multi-part erasers are only clip-together, there is no mystery to their construction.

I've also obtained the other set that comes within the remit of the Blog (and the collection) in part because I thought it was amusing that two months ago I had no sea-horses, now I have three - remember; more than a pair of anything is a collection!

Again there is a slight cartoonishness to a couple of the models (sea horse and shark) but the basking shark is very good, as it the manta ray, while the turtle will look quite acceptable in the bag of turtles and tortoises currently in storage - not next to the Britains version maybe, but against most of the others.

Only four of them have a constructional element although the sea-horse has a pale plastic tube to hold the plastic eye-rod it shares with the shark's design. The coral will be useful as background scenery for Sci-fi photographs in the future!

M is for "♫ Motor'bikin'! ♫ . . ♫ . . ♫ Motor'bikin'!! ♫ . . .

. . . ♫ Moving on the Queens High'way; Lookin' Like'a Streak-a'Lightning ♫"

It is a mystery to me how this stuff comes in, it only seems a few weeks since I did a round-up of motorcycles thinking "That's it for a while", and damn-me if I haven't got a whole lot more to share with you! And to show it isn't really a mystery, but rather synergy; these all piled-up in the last couple of weeks!

This was first, an email from Brian Berke with a few 'shelfies' and a note to the effect he knew I liked motorbikes on the Blog and thought this was worthy of my attention. It is! And it's also the 'other' FunTastic, so I'll have to be careful with the tags!

It says 'three styles' and what looks to be an identical one is seen below, with a different colour-way, whether that's it, or whether there are different models and colour-ways leading to the necessity to collect a whole fleet is something the Atlantic will prevent me investing in a search of the definitive answer to - no bad thing - but thanks for the shot Brian!

At the other end of the spectrum in every sense is this Holgar Eriksson designed generic 'combat troops' machine in 30mm lead. . . weird for having an obvious sticky-out, kick-stand (both sides) but no sticky-out handle-bars? Unmarked by dint of its design, I'm assuming Comet/Authenticast, but it is just a likely to be SAE?

We've seen the silver chap (recently I fear?) but the gold one with blue wheels turned-up at Sandown the other day, so a fleet of these seems to be in my future . . . oh lordy!

While below them two more [purported to be] Airfix bikes to add to the - currently in storage - bag, sans riders (but that made them cheap!), they normally have a chap in a sort of field-cap/service hat, but there may be other riders.

Because by Monday just-gone, I could see a bike post building; when I saw these I nearly bought them on the spot . . . but went back and got them first-thing Tuesday! From a larger set of Iwaco-type erasers (a pound for 6) we will look at separately; they're too cool for driving-school!

The gods of space-saving: Crammy and Pylitup, decided I couldn't add these to the stack, so I photographed them on Adrian's Mercator Trading stall at Sandown Park - French, look like Cofalux (?), it's very similar to the damaged black one we saw here a while ago (separate handlebars are even closer) and the pointy-hands of the riders suggest I have a spare military rider somewhere!

And as the Belgians were stalled-out behind us - with some nice modernist melamine shelving - I took the opportunity to shoot them on a contemporaneous, '50's-feeling, patterned-background! But I forgot the jiggit on the camera-lens, Doh!

The interest element here is that you have polystyrene bikes, polyethylene handlebars and vinyl-rubber figures! The comedy element here is that they are motorcycles? Presumably the ladder folds into the side-car and the hoses are micro-bore, everyone's using micro-bore now!

It was the best way of getting more desirable toy subjects (police, fire and even ambulances) into a budget for every pocket, like all those family-saloons and estate-cars/shooting-brakes sold as Fire Chief's. I think we had more fire chiefs in our toy box than all other fire vehicles put together . . .

"Hey Chief!"

"Hey yer'self Chief! Oh, look here's the Chief coming..."

"You Chiefs over there, can you grab the County Fire Chief when he gets here; and go and blow on that fire, see if you can put it out?"

"Who made you Chief?"

"Who made you Chief?"

"Who made you Chief?"

"Who made you Chief?"