L is for Louche Lucite Layabouts!

We seem to often arrive at Lik Be during Rack Toy Month, and while I tried to resist poking the Northern cow-pat of competitiveness this year, reader Keith Harrison mentioned he had all the missing clear-plastic 'Vitrine' LB robots, of which we saw the other three of, here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/07/lb-is-for-lik-be.html

 

And he kindly sent some fantastic images of them to the blog; 

 

Family Photo!

 

Base marking - clear as mud, as usual!

 

Wotan's favourite; 'Wotan'!

 

'Rocket Robin', with a partial 'Lobster', whose paint has mostly worn off, but I suspect these may have been decorated with spirit-based art markers, or something equally susceptible to rubbing and fading?

 

Keith also sent this and the next two images, these look like they might be from the same batch/source/origin as the 'eraser' set I got a while back now, as a trio;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/10/s-is-for-serious-score.html

 

But here as a full sextet, and with 'Traffic Cop' being in a semi-transparent dayglo green, rather confirming my suspicion back then, that they are some kind of silicon, not really an eraser rubber, but rather a smudging rubber! However, sold as Dragon Master Fantasy Figures, not erasers like my sample, by what looks to be Tiarri Management Sevices?

 

We've seen these Moon Platoon chaps before, and they were both poor shots, here we can see they are carried by Imperial Toys, (updates to those posts by the time I post this) who, although a US importer, seem to have got a lot of their stuff into the UK, but whether by design, or some back-of-the-warehouse accident I don't know, maybe a buyer's tie-in with one of our novelty importers, like WHC/Success? However, not necessarily this set, just other Imperial stuff.

 

While these are the 'Tesco Finest' version of the sucker 'bots with the - as yet - unascribed mark which may be ATS, AST. STA or SAT, but probably isn't T-anything! I've seen these before, occasionally, so they do seem to have been a 'thing' compared to the commoner ones with airgun blasted blobs of colour, so someone obviously stipulated a better level of paint on their contract? The point here being, it's rare to find them this clean and paint-complete.

 

Many thanks to Keith for all the above, and it got me deep-diving into the image banks to see what was waiting for next-time, which is this time now, or what I could add from the archive;

 

So sticking with the robots first, and this image was sent to another Blog, upon request, many years ago, and got lost in a lack of tagging, or got deleted, it doesn't matter, there's no meaningful relationship with the strange little men over there, now! I suspect the falling-out is more about Bwreakshit than Blogs!

 

We have, in the intervening years, seen all the gaps filled, and then some, but as a guide, it's a new image here at Small Scale World, and from the top shows;

• 54mm hard polystyrene, chrome-type finish
• 25mm hard polystyrene, chrome-type finish
• 54mm hard polystyrene, brushed-aluminium finish
• 25mm soft polyethylene, gunmetal plastic (as supplied to Culpitt and HG)
• 54mm sucker types (marked with a crude HONG KONG)

Here's a gum-ball capsule-machine window card, with 'Stern Gang' as what looks like a pencil top (bottom right), in the same flexible silicon as the sucker chaps. Note also, the cracker-toy motorcycle, the troll, the other robot and a bisque Wade Whimsy knock-off, among other things . . . the mini abacus!

While this looks like the 25mm, polyethylene, gunmetal plastic ones, as Spaceimens! Also supplied to Culpitt and HG Toys, so we have them as play-set accessories, cake decorations and gum-ball prizes! We only need to find them in Christmas crackers for the full "House"!

Which brings us to the Astro-Spacemen* element of that/those original donation post/s, with the same treatment, we have;

• 54mm hard polystyrene, gunmetal plastic, painted both sides
• 54mm & 25mm soft polyethylene, gunmetal plastic, painted one side
• 54mm soft polyethylene, various colours, painted both sides
• 54mm soft polyethylene, white plastic painted one side (as supplied to Clifford)

* I have mentioned on several occasions I have trouble pigeonholing these, as they are armed (spacemen), but wearing NASA kit (astronauts)!

 

• 54mm & 25mm soft polyethylene, various colours, unpainted
• 54mm Nylon or a propylene, and 25mm (as supplied to MPC, Pipin and Tri-Ang), all finished in silver or gold chrome-effects, which can be removed with a five-second dip in TFR or oven cleaner.
• 25mm hard polystyrene, painted matt-white. 

The previous two lots, all being LB (for Lik Be) production, while this last lot is mostly clones/copies/piracies, with the LB additional poses for the MPC, Pipin and Tri-Ang issues, off to the bottom left, which are taken from MPC's own figures, split between their 54mm and 70mm sculpts.

 

Also, the pair between the first two rows are the 54mm, soft polyethylene fakes, and marked Hong Kong, under domed bases, one pretending to be an LB original, even down to the paint, the white one being from the Shimmel blister-carded Flash Gordon sets. The four more obvious rows are;

• 50mm, soft polyethylene, various colours, unpainted
• 23mm, soft polyethylene, various colours, unpainted
• 50mm painted & 25mm unpainted, both polyethylene soft plastic
•  25mm hard polystyrene, brushed-aluminium finish

There's a more blobby, silver/gunmetal one below that last row, of unknown origin, and an unpainted figure above the MPC group. What sets that last row apart from the other LB output, is that they are unmarked, as are all the MPC mini-clones, but, a lot of the Tri-Ang supplied ones were marked. However, the late Nylon/'Propylene 54mm ones, still in bakers and cookshops in the 2000's, were also unmarked, so a late thing, or a Culpitt (or similar) takeover thing?

We have since (recently) added 45mm copies in at least two plastics, so both sets of previous overviews (and these originals) will need to be superseded by a new round of posts, in a year or two!

 

One of the sources of the - at least four types of - sucker figure, are to be seen on these gum-ball sample cards, from 'Liberty', and, at 25¢, not that long ago? Also of interest are hard plastic 'vitrine' animals at the tops of the cards, micro-mini dinosaurs and sports 'monsters', both probably of a PVC-alike material.

 

While the whole bunch appear to be available here, as Star Warriors, on an unbranded, generic card, I think we've seen better images of them close-up before now, but these cards carry their own nostalgia! And we have all six robots and two poses of the Astro-Spacemen.

 

And, thanks again for Keith's kicking off this deep dive! Best rack toys ever . . . in the moment!

M is for Miscellaneous Modelled Miniatures

This lot dates back to March of last year, when a group of us had our Christmas breakfast and 'show and tell' a tad late, well, a quarter of a year late! Anyway, while indulging in friendship, good home-cooked food and a bit of reminiscing, both Adrian Little and John Begg gave me tubs of bits . . . I respond well to tubs of bits, bags of bits, boxes of bits . . . !

 

These were from Adrian, who had noticed the similarity between the old MPC sculpt and the Hing Fat 'NASA-nauts', with simplified sextant and skien of rope. A green-washed (verdigris!), probably Kinder Napoleonic/colonial era staff officer 'mocherette' completes the line-up.

 

You can also see that the better-marked Hing Fat (or copy?) is the worst sculpt, and while I've lost the reference, I know there was a better yet, Hong Kong marked one, although the definite Hing Fat, on the left, was also originally, Hong Kong rather than China marked. Hing Fat did - of course - also issue straight copies of the MPC chaps in their slighter Mercury/Gemini suits.

 

I think John gave me this chap, large, around five or six inches (in storage now!), and possibly Marx? But I don't know, and lots of manufacturers had a stab at larger beach/garden wagons, stage-coaches and the like, which from his posture is what he might be from, rather than a horse rider, but I don't even know that for sure?

 

This seems to be an ex-Imperial Toys moulding, you can see where all consumer information has been removed from the chest area. Twin-headed dragon/monster in a softish PVC or similar polymer, does anyone recognise it?

 

An articulated baby, in a soft polyethylene, in a Kinder style, but possibly too large for Kinder, so another question-mark? Damaged Britains Jesey cow, probbaly Kinder elephant (Disney's Jungle Book?), and a Blue Box (or Redbox?) crocodile.

 

Poor shot I'm afraid, but they will mostly return here one day in other round-ups or comparisons, the plastic truck is nice, the old-fashioned car is probably Kinder, can't remember on the black space vessel, but I think it was marked?

 

Bottom left is a pull-back-and-go motored novelty from the pocket-money shelf, the white die-cast is a sub-piracy of something better I suspect and the Matchbox Jeep with recoilless rifle completes the group.

 

Having seen the Cosmix knock-off of MUSCLE the other day, here's Remco's answer to Mattel's import from Bandai, they are original sculpts, slightly larger (heading for the full 54mm), and more recognisably wrestlers, that some of the MUSCLE figures, who presaged Skibidy Toilet or Brainrot, by being made out of spanners, chains, bolts, shop tills, tyres, Rubik cubes or whatever, one was a pile of combination-locks!

 

Mixed lot of Nottingham Mafia output, but in these coloured plastics probably from a Milton Bradly tie-in board-game, the Space Marine's Space Hulk maybe? Or one of the add-on/extension packs?

 

Odds and sods for the spares boxes, aircraft kit parts, a base from something (anyone recognise it?), a Kamley/KS gun in need of a wheel/axle assembly and a ball-bearing puzzle, apparently given away by a railway company as part of the forced privatisation which has proven so successful, against all the naysayers had to say at the time!!! Although it might just be an 'Intercity 125' giveaway?

Thanks to Adrian and John, all useful stuff, one way or another! Plastic Warrior in less than Five Days!

O is for Odd Ossuary

OK, so to the last post on the Gogo Crazy Bones from Magic Box which have been in Picasa for too long (as have lots of other things, and they're still there!), not least because they have limited pull for most Loyal Readers, beyond this box-ticking exercise!

 

So, I bought a final big lot which came with a Gogo's tin, I didn't shoot these as to a certain extent they were much of a muchness, both with the ones in the original post, and the first few of this sequence, But note, in answer to my comment in the preceding Crazy Bones post, here we have a decent number of dark greens in both opaque and transparent. Likewise with the blues and a bunch of candy-mice and bubblegum pinks.

 

There were also a lot of the glass-clear ones, with more transparent in the reds and oranges, but it was the odds which proved more interesting and are looked at below, by visible marking, the reason being, I didn't look so closely at the original post's figures/bones;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/10/c-is-for-crazy-bones.html

 

. . . but suspect a few of the undecorated ones in that lot were from the groups below. It should be noted that the link in that original post also talks of Coca-Cola premiums somewhere, but below are various issues/tranches of their offerings.

 

Apparently issued by Imperial, who pops-up here, regularly retailing novelty tat, and things which look like other people's things, those non-Brabo bendies, for instance, and here they have gone to Israel of all places, and found a Laor Toys, to make several tranches of their Jojo's, over three or more years in the mid-nineties.

 

A whole set of T-Shirts?

 

I assume Tim Foot is the 'designer', however, I don't know the significance of 'Haxey', but will put it separately in the Tag list for those who do! And these seem to predate Gogo's by a year at least, however the collector's wiki, seems to have various producers of these 'bones', before Magic Box blew the gaff wide open?

 

Metallics, China, not Israel, and not of the same quality as the later Magic Box ones; quickly worn away with play, likely a high shine spray, rather than a genuine heat-coating or dip-plating?

 

Don't know?

 

So, we have a kid's craze in the mid-1990's, major player is Magic Box, an unknown Spanish company who will become a global giant off the back of them, who call their product Gogo's Crazy Bones, and which are designed to be used like Roman or pre-Roman knuckles, in a variety of games, rules for which were included in the blind-bags they were purchased in.

 

Flat colours, Metaflek, clear, semi-transparent, metallised, decorated and undecorated, possibly used as premiums by Coke-cola, Hubba-Bubba and others, rival brands, unique sets per. Country, special issues for smaller organisations (UK's FIFA World Cup team), convention and swap-meet exclusives (usually an existing moulding in a special finish), there must be several thousand to find, I've picked up a couple of hundred or so now, and that's too many!

 

A couple of useful links for those who are really interested;

 

Fandom

https://crazybonespedia.fandom.com/wiki/Crazy_Bones_Pedia-Wiki

 

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo%27s_Crazy_Bones

F is for Follow-up - Combat Plunder Post

Basically looking at the 'who are they' figures, I'm afraid it doesn't add much, but is a useful reminder of where we're at with these. I had a couple of other supporting images in Piacsa, so I've put a few up, at the end of the post.

 

This is a shot of the versions I was originally told were Galoob, and which are copies of the Galoob Micromachine smallies, or were pantographed-down for them, but there is no evidence to date that the 40mm versions were actually, ever sold by Galoob, however they are quite common as Realtoy, Daron or Sky Mark. I'm now pretty certain these came from whichever Chinese factory was supplying Galoob.

 

While this set is the softer copies, which I have pencilled in, with the minimal of circumstantial evidence as being from Pioneer, or whoever supplied Pioneer, given they were primarily a die-caster. Here in Imperial/Buddy L branding, we have also seen them as Stonegalleon and Woolbro/Toy Leader, while the smaller, unpainted copies, are more likely Pioneer. This is a poor shot, which I think must be the seller's picture of a set I bought, as . . .
 

. . . I have managed to scan the lining-card! You can see several of the firefighter figures which have come in with mixed lots, and some construction workers, I hadn't even made the connection on! The prone figure is not a Galoob sculpt.

 

Shipped into the UK by Titan, which puts Supreme in the frame too, but only loosely, they had their own sculpts, the larger Ackerman et all., set. I'll try to remember to do a follow-up or 'roundup' on them too, once the Chris donation posts are done.

 

The best way to understand it (or not!) is to click the Realtoy Tag, but it's all getting a bit confused, and I'll need to bring everything together in a larger post, with all the sets, and the many loose figures (no duplicates so far, due to three sizes, two materials, and a dozen or so plastic colours and/or paint-ways), set side-by-side.

 

And then, are the bigger (50/54mm) ones we saw from Greece (Zita Toys) also Pioneer or another supplier, the evidence is they are Pioneer, and they have some of the firefighter poses too. The fact that the rough, oblong based versions are now being found alongside the smoother, ovoid 'Galoob' bases, suggests one source for all bar the Realtoy, and what evidence we do have, is that Pioneer (or their supplier) may be that supplier?

 

Some more of the poorer copies of Marx's 45mm GI's, in two shades of green, I have a few of these too, somewhere! We looked at them quite early-on in the Blog's history, here

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2012/07/l-is-for-late-thanks-to-blogger.html

 

The hard-plastic, painted-polystyrene versions turn-out to have been a troop supplied with this battery-operated ("Bateries not included"!) Power Mite truck. A similar yellow truck with (I think?) cement-mixer OR aggregate-tipper bodies had the six (?), very finely sculpted, 35/40mm construction workers, like Blue Box's copies of Dinky, but much nicer, and very brittle. They may also have had a later, window-box issue? I think a comment on that old post may have been confusing these with the smaller Miniature Masterpiece sets?

 

A reminder of the smallest packaging variant of the Supreme/SP Toys issues.

P is for Plastic Glass!

Sort of a 'part three', but not really connected to the previous two, which dealt with the 1950/60's stuff, these are the more common stuff from the 1970/80's, and will be quite recognisable to most of you, and really no more than an overview of the other plastic 'vitrines' out there.

 

I sorted the Tags out last night, and 'Glassware' covers everything made of glass from marbles up, but not these, 'Vitrines' covers the real glass versions of these, and they will also have the Glassware tag, while 'Glass Animals' will cover both these plastic ones and the glass ones, so these will have the latter Tag only, marbles will get Glassware only, and real glass animals will have all three Tags, which will hopefully help someone in the future, get the right search-results up?

 

A nice set of six from Hans Postler over the Channel, they are better known, to us, from their many sets of rack-toy soldiers, more in keeping with the main thrust of the Blog, but that this is here, reminds us most of these guys were general 'Toy & Novelty' importers/wholesalers, and would turn their hands to anything they thought they could make a small profit on, and, these are probably 1980's, or later?

 

These have more the look of the '70's about them, and they have tree-hanger rings in them, so there you go, get a daft-looking mouse hung for the festive season! But, you know, if you can't afford the glass ones, because you have some shitty, underpaid job, and live on a trailer-park, and you see these going cheap in the local gas station, or drug store, why not, if only for the kids?

 

Kids aren't snobs, now, I am a bit of a snob, specifically on Christmas decorations, but I was raised to be so, by my late, and much missed mother, who had her own reasons for being like that; Nuns, an even stricter mother and an Edwardian upbringing!

 

'The sins of the Fathers . . .', 'The child is the father of the man'  and all that! There is always a truism in old sayings, wives tales and aphorisms. The tragedy is that somehow, 70-years of progressive democrats, totally failed to educate enough idiots, as to what they were trying to do, and we now have enough Morlocks and Yahoos, who don't get 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel', and they are giving justification to the Trumps, Farages and Le Penns of intolerance?

 

Just as we need the World to come together like never before, the warmongers, climate-deniers, the superstitious, and the anti-science brigades, rise, like muddy, Ork scum from Isengard, to wreak the planet with their ignorance, and singularly selfish stupidity.

 

A knock off Snoopy, an elephant who's also a key-ring, two more of the cocktail glass donkeys, we saw in brown, last time, and a variation on the Hans Postler elephant. The HP set is basically the six commonest types (from experience; that may not be strictly true!).

 

Another elephant, slightly better (slightly earlier?), another mouse, and the deer we saw in one of the comparison shots a few weeks ago. The elephant, if cleaned would have that faux uranium-glass look to him, but I don't know if it's a transparent marker (like most of them) or dyed plastic, and fear if I cleaned him, he might lose all his original colour!

 

A swan and yet another mouse!

 

Two of the mieces, back to back, but not yet in pieces!

 

Two of the elephants, with a small rhinoceros, he's probably from a Christmas cracker, but could equally be a gum-ball, capsule-machine prize, or something from a Lucky-bag, this stuff tended to get around!

 

The Rhino', it's missing one of those crappy plastic key-rings, you press both ends of, to hook onto the plastic oblong which he has retained. Is it meant to be a woolly-rhino'?

 

Only came in recently, and a charm-loop suggests gum-ball or Christmas crackers again?

 

These are interesting, Bam Bam and Pebbles, from the Flintstones, by Imperial, both larger sculpts to, they seem to have been taken from the sort of PVC stuff Bully and Comics Spain might have been issuing, he's holding a club behind his back!

 

While these are equally interesting for having been taken from a set of dogs, which we may have seen here in more realistic colours, as polyethylene toys, but here in the same clear 'canopy' 'styrene, enhanced with transparent coloured marker-pen! We'll look at proper glass ones next!

T is for That Tortle, No, Turtapin, no, Terratoise . . . Doh!

Speaking of Holly musicians (as somebody might have been?!), here's a small orchestra of them from my own collection! I've mentioned this tortoise several times over the years, and I think we've seen him in a mixed-lot post, and this picture has been sat in Picasa since 2016! And, actually, he's got cartoon hands (four digits), so he's neither a turtle nor a tortoise, and definitely not a terrapin! While, maybe only two of these are Holly!

 

The two probably Holly are to the right, neither associated with the Gygax stuff we looked at recently, and not seen together, in a set, I mean, yet, nor do they have the 900-codes of some of the Holly funnimals. But on the left, are cruder copies of both, in the style of stuff by Diener or Imperial, but not marked to either brand, however, manufactured in the same soft silicon-rubber which makes for shite erasers, but excellent pencil-smudgers!

 

The pig will be a lesser-make cake decoration, probably a set of musicians, but maybe just three (the 'Little pigs'), I don't know, while the Topo Gigio character (another left-hooker!) could also be the Portuguese Balin, but I don't think so.