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.

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.

R is for Rake of Rack Toys!

I mentioned, after the mad rush to collect and post the horror sets in time for Halloween, that David DeSoto had sent other figures too, and while I shot them at the time, I've only just got round to posting them, here, now! A bit more 'khaki' sneaking into the festive season!

An Imperial set, which, interestingly has those copies of New Ray, which I got quite excited about a few years ago, dating the set, as David writes; "The Imperial set with the New Ray knock-offs came out right before or shortly after Imperial Toys filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 here in the U.S.  [2020, ed.] As you may know, Ja-Ru, Inc. bought Imperial's assets and entered into a separate arrangement to purchase their operations in Mexico", David adds; "The two places where Imperial soldiers were once abundant, Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree, have not had soldiers on their pegs with any regularity since the transition."

Another, slightly older (?) Imperial set with a mix of the old, much pirated Tim Mee GI's, which I've always liked as they are 100% depicting the Vietnam era, along with some mof the more modern-looking GI types, straight outta' China! Colours are donor-specific, so it's Vietnam v's Gulf!

This is one of the more current generics, which we've seen a few of, in recent years here, however these are interesting for being the ones I've only shown as an online image, courtesy of Amazon or Ali Baba, and are the figures where each comes with his own larger-based scenic vignette of street-furniture or defence work! I will get them out and look at them properly once I'm settled.

Another generic, but this time a 1970/80's original, useful for being the copies of Britains/Lone Star swoppet Wild West, another long term project is to try and ascribe as many of these as possible, and while they are dead-common in lose lots, they are always mixed-up by the juvenile original owners, and sets like this help you work out which is which, as far as base-type, ethylene or PVC body parts or accessories, or even poses are concerned. Credited to a Triple D importer/Jobber.

 

These look to be the current (ish) copies/homages of Supremes hearald'esque Wild West, now credited to DL / Du Liang Toys (previousl;y Maxxi Toys, Stobok, Funtastic, Aliki, Liberty Imports and PMS-McColls), and consist of just the foot figures with a play-mat in that strangely metallic, slightly crinkley plastic.

 

I've also left this in the bag for now, as I've never seen one over here, and I don't think Steve Weston has them either, so I'm guessing these are a US 'show exclusive' whereby AIP (Armies in Plastic) get to shift end of line, over production or test-shots in mixed bags at an affordable price?

There's Colonial/Boxer rebellion, some ACW, WWI and a few Marlburian/AWI types I think, and a nice introductory sample to AIP's stuff, of which I don't have a lot, and what I do have is mostly WWI, I think.

There were also these lose AIP figures, which I know I didn't have, sold variously as Gulf War Infantry, Marines and US Peacekeepers, depending on the plastic colour, each in a set A and set B, of six poses each. I think these are the former two, and between them seem to be all the poses*, which some other-colour duplicates, so again a nice sample, and they are - undeniably - very nice sculpts, well animated.

 

It's not that I ignore this new stuff out of some misguided principle, but simply that A) there's so much else to find of either a vintage or more ephemeral (rack toy) nature, B) it's priced to sell-to, and does sell to adult collectors, so will probably always be around, in quantity, and C) as new production, it does get covered-well, elsewhere, not least Plastic Warrior magazine, but all samples are gratefully received nevertheless.

 

And many thanks to David for all the above, and the previously-seen Halloween bits, that's two additions to the Tag list . . . and archive too; DL and Triple D!

F is for Follow-up, R is for Return - Glow-in-the-Dark Aliens

Oh, we love a glow-in-the-dark Alien here! This post was originally a shot of the Toy Major's which had been kicking around for some time, along with a comparison we may have seen here already, but then I snaffled a Soma set, and it was 'Aliens are Go'!

That hanging-around image - I DID have notes on them somewhere - see glowing alien posts passim! It's not very good, and I've reshot them below, so it's just to get us started, Toy Major, glow-in-the dark 'UFO *Glow Power* Aliens', six poses and large'ish at around 70mm, a rigid polyethylene or polypropylene, which glows in the dark!

 

We saw a set of three figures when I ID'd a previously unknown group, and I was well chuffed to find a six-figure version, which obviously had more poses as I knew I'd only shown four or five in total, previously!

 

So I grabbed it while it was available, but have had to use the sales image on the left, as the shot I took was out of focus, and as you can tell from the scan on the right, I committed the mortal sin of opening the set, so I can't re-shoot it!

When I first showed these, I said I loved them, and that hasn't changed, I guess they date from the late 1980's or 1990's, possibly even closer to now, but they have an indefinable quality to them which reeks of the 1970's despite them not resembling anything from that time? I think it's the colour palette used, they are all sort of dirty, off-pastel shades of fruit-jelly or something!

 

We've seen these poses before, but glove-guy and three-fingers are new colourways, and I think even the grey is a different shade to the previous, paler one?

 

Here, the twin-armed one is a new, sixth sculpt, which will probably prove to be the extent of the sculpting, while the reaching-guy is a new colour, I think the other glove-guy is a duplicate of my original loose sample.

 

And the reason I committed the mortal sin of de-carding them is simply that I have a nice mint threesome, and the card was a bit tatty, while I will probably obtain more of these in the future, as I like them so much, and there are so many variations, a larger sample, whether carded or loose won't hurt!

Two colourways of the same pose, one I had here loose, the other from the set, so I now have five of this sculpt, in four different colours, and re. my previous comments on that, it looks like they will all eventually turn-up in all . . . ten (?) shades - light-glow, dark glow, greenish-glow, blue, light pink, dark pink, orangey-pink, orange, light grey and dark grey . . . that's eleven? We'll see, there may be more!

 

The upper-shot, which we did see a while ago, I've found it, but I think this was another from the sequence, shows the Toy Major, the modern/current pencil-top (yeah, even I think he's had too much publicity!), then a Soma, Imperial, US Toy (Brenner) and an unknown Chian-type novelty, not that they aren't all 'novelties'!

 

The lower shot shows the two sizes of Imperial, the Toy Major and the Soma, with one (also Toy Major - ID post forthcoming) who looks like he should glow in the dark, but is just screaming green!

Re-shot! You still can't really make out the faces, that's just the polymer-material/lighting/flash combining to thwart my efforts! They have large almond eyes orientated at about 45º, giving them a more sinister look than Manga-babes, whose almond-eyes are deliberately puppyish! The aliens' facial features/heads are also quite insectoid, a bit praying-mantis like?

An earlier shot of the Soma figurines was not so successful, I think my camera is starting to die, it will be the third or forth, this Blog has killed, but nothing lasts forever, and there are two to fall back-on, however they are both in storage, so I hope this one will go awhile yet, but it is starting to lose its edge, and it's not the constant reusing of the SD card, as there's a new 32GB one, put in there recently!

 

I should add that the two Nikon Coolpix have performed immeasurably better than the earlier pair of Fuji Finepix, there may have been a fifth, between the two pairs? While the two in storage are a cheap generic, and a minor make (Sony or AGFA?), so we'll see how they do, but they are all the same generation ('ish) and may see the Blog out . . . Although I do keep promising myself a digital SLR type, which can go on a stand and do the heavy-lifting, once I have a dedicated photo-bay/station?

It's an invasion!

Triple set - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2022/02/f-is-for-follow-up-glow-in-dark-bug.html

Loose sample - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/10/b-is-for-bug-eyed-aliens.html

Y is for Yabba Dabba Doo!

Who knew, who knew it had double-B's, who even thought to think of knowing you might have to spell-check yaba-daba-do? But there you go, the World's favourite allegory of the 1950's,  middle-class, suburban, American 'nuclear-family'? Actually the world's ONLY allegory of the 1950's,  middle-class, suburban, American 'nuclear-family', but I'm not splitting hairs!

Imperial Toys, these are a hard polystyrene, and hugormous, as we will see in a mo'. A ridiculously sublime exemplar of everything weird about my life alongside the rest of humanity in the late 20th/early 2st centuries. It makes absolutely no sense, is full of plot holes, anachronisms and plain idiocy, yet, it is absolutely perfect, and I don't know many people who actively dislike its daftness!

 

Marked Hong Kong and possibly cake-decorations, these are smaller and polyethylene. Fred and Wilma Flinstone and their neighbours Barney and Betty Rubble, live life as many american families were, or aspired to in the late 1950's, even to having cars, pets and salery-jobs . . . in a rock quarry, of course!

 

These are vinyl, and unmarked, so maybe knock-offs, or more recent playset stuff? Clearly based on the next lot down, but I've loaded them as I shot them. What would they make of the world we've created since, and I mean the people who watched as well as the characters!

Polyethylene copies (probably from the same tools) of the old Marx Minature Masterpiece set, these will almost certainly be from Rado Industries / Ri-Toys, but were not offered to the likes of Marksmen. Both Rabbit Angstrom and Willy Loman were, in their own ways the epitomes of Fred Flintstone, they both lived in and afforded (with troubles) the newish houses in suburbia, which they confidently hoped their kids' would, too.

 

Eraser to the left, Marx original to the right, as a sizer. Now, their kids can't get on the property ladder, and the longevity so sought 60-years ago, is the new millstone round the necks of people who have to sell those houses to afford healthcare over the pond, or 'downsize' for the cost of living, here?

 

Newer stuff from the eminently forgettable 'live-action' remake, along with a Bullyland Dino the Dinosaur - Wilma's been cut-off her base. But elsewhere in Europe, where they understand liberal-socialism, or social-responsibility, things are a little better, CEO's do not earn the same ridiculous amounts they do in the English-speaking world, healthcare is now usually better than Britain's, wages are higher and disparity is lower, while their old and infirm are cared-for, looked after.

 

Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, these are Imperial too. Done in a faux-vitrine style. All that promise, all that promise of a brave-new-world and a bright-tomorrow, built on the '"white heat of technology", and it's come to nothing for most, and the poverty index is climbing into the middle-class, even as we create more billionaires who've never done a day's hard work in their lives, either as aluminum-siding salesmen or rock-quarriers.

 

It's no coincidence that the Simpsons, knocked the Flintstones off their perch as the most financially successful and longest-running, network television, animated series ever, the gentle parody holding the hope of the former, replaced by the cynical, near-hopeless, satire of the latter.

F is for Follow-up - Deep Sea Divers

Mine wasn't Tresco, although looking through past posts on the Divers - Deep Tag, I do have one, however, by then I'd shot the ones I have here, and Brian had sent me a bunch of shots of his, so I raided the Divers & Submarines folder for a few carded sets off of that evilBay, and we have a quick post!

Two Tresco's from Brian Berke, old and new, with the Tobar one, still on the card, and which I know you could also find in Hawkin's Bazaar, as I saw it before I was collecting all scales, so at least 15-odd-years ago?

 

What seems to set them apart as two groups, whether copies or originals, Tresco versus Hong Kong, is that those from or after Tresco have a small 'pouch' like a binoculars case, on the chest, while the Hong Kong lifts have a longer, thinner case-like object you might find spare machine-gun-barrels in!

 

In the centre is what must be Tresco's last production, in bright yellow, while to either side are the ones with the tubelike piece of equipment marked-up to Imperial and Kingsway, a quick check-back to Brian's image, and you'll see all three are the same Tresco design, with the packet/parcel.

 

While all three of the ones I have here are the tube-design, which I'm calling Hong Kong, to which I added the giant 5" one we saw a while back, so you could see how giant he is! From the apparent age of the paler two, I suspect they may be earlier and the origin of the tube-design, changed from the parcel of the Tresco they were aping?

 

I should have shot that fish-tank one from Chris again too, but . . . next time! Divers are a bit of a favourite here, and we do return to them regularly! Brain also sent three individual shots, but as we've seen the subjects before, and they are in the above line-up, I put them in the folder to replace the three carded ones, against another of those re-visits!

 

There are some very interesting things in that folder, but I need to find more in context to Blog them with, and I have a feeling there's some on the old 'unknown' dongle? So we may return to divers sooner rather than later?

UFO is for UAP - Imperial / CEM / PMS / Titan - Sammy Steel Series, Micro Adventure, My Adventure Journey, Space Adventure, Space Explorer

So, the last trio, except as Sammy Steel it extends to nearly a dozen sets, and two or three of them were issued as generics in France by the looks of it, but for the purposes of this post we're looking at the non-Sammy Steel sets issued in the UK and Germany, which are a trio.

 

For the Imperial US/Australian Sammy Steel story (which seems to include Titan Toys here, but I've not seen them in packaging), this is the start page for a four-page explanation;

https://mikestoybox.net/2014/07/12/sammy-steel-series-1-mighty-max-knock-off/#jp-carousel-6429

 

So, my two are in the middle, both PMS (which - at the time - might have meant a 99p Stores exclusive?), with the card back to the left and a generic from feebleBay on the right, although decent shots of the rocky one have escaped this post, it may be in storage?

 

We get two identical flying saucers, but only on the outside, as even then, they are different colours, while the inner liner is very-different between them both. To go with them is a rocky 'meteorite' based on what is supposed to be a volcano sculpt!

I didn't really notice that the German one is another card, and while I did shoot it in its entirety for the group shot at the end of the first post in this sequence, I don't have a decent single card shot! This was imported by a CEM?

I haven't opened this PMS set, but you can see the 'rest of the world' generics have all the contents of the Sammy Steel sets, but in new colours and without the Sammy character figures, although, I'm pretty sure I have him, the sabre-toothed smilodon (on the Blog somewhere?) and a couple of the other pieces not found in this trio, so they will all turn-up eventually!

 

Note the plug-in dish/ariel and fold out ramp, scudding about loose in the blister!

I did open the PMS version of this one after I'd got the CEM one to keep whole! The lizard man looks better in green than the Sammy Steel orange, in my opinion, although the fliver/flyer/hover-bike is probably better in the original grey? And these are all - sort of - 20/25mm compatible.

So, six true UFO 'saucers' and three more esoteric designs . . . I hope these posts have helped some with the ID'ing of these which have confused for some time, and as I say, these posts are a bit half-cocked, and we will return to them when I get everything in one place, and find the few missing bits (I may have the meteorite/cave), maybe do it as a single page, with all the sets/links together in one place?

And this is only what I've found, there's probably more; more packagings, more importers, more brand-marks, and while I don't often address money here, I was going to have a long paragraph or two ranting about the money being asked/paid for the US/Aussie sets, only to find someone has one of these PMS cards up on evilBay right now for 50-smackers? WTF? These are recent, cheapo rack-toys, you should hope to get, or pay no-more than 15-quid for, and - intrinsically - they are a fiver's worth of tat!

W is for Water World

The next part of Jon Attwood's donation parcel to be looked at is the sea, pond or river life, and lots of interesting items were hiding among the dinosaurs, to be uncovered and shared here.

Bottom feeders, and the nice kind which aren't bidding against you on feebleBay to turn a quick profit on the only two things in the lot worth the not quite as much as they will reappear for, a few days later, on a BIN!

The larger lobster is marked for Shing Hing, and the two bigger starfish (brittle-stars) are maked BCLA 1997, which may mean something to someone (there could be a connection with the US 'jobber' Imperial?), the rest are simple 'China' marks.

Sharks, the two yellows are from one maker, the other pair from another, with a simple 'Shark China' on the yellows' (colour variants of the same sculpt) and only a China on the other two.

 

Mostly unmarked or carrying simple China-marks, the reef and flat-fish, I think the unmarked may have "Hong Kong" age, while the others are a little newer.

 

The cetacean sample has big whales (they're not a country Donald!), modelled small! Dolphins and probably a porpoise (I'm not sure if I know the difference - like kangaroos and wallabies; does it just come down to size and blood-tests?!) and a killer whale, off to Gibraltar to sink a yacht!

 

The fur-seal pup, is a two-part, possibly Iwako type eraser, but the polymer's a bit too hard, and the grey pup in a larger scale is in a dense 'polystone', and again the small sample ticks all the boxes, with seals, sea-lions and a walrus!

 

A frog of more decorative/ornamental origin, and two turtles and a tortoise who dragged some lizards to the party! For terrapins, see kangaroo/porpoise note above!

Again I thank Jon for sending them to the Blog, and we will have final reckonings when all this stuff is reunited, soon I hope, and we can start tying all the odds into sets, and attributing them to brands, lines or generic rack-toy titles!

H is for How They Come In - Brian, Two of Two

Which is really post number three of the lovely things Mr. Berke sent to the Blog for me to share. And we will start with the other mystery suprise, and again we need an ID on these new to hobby-collection-Blog figures!

Who are these lovely ladies? Approximately 54mm, and two being more realistic (on the left), two a little cartoony (right-hand pair), really loud colour, but from whence and whom have they come?

 

If they were found here, I would assume a kids comic/magazine, they all have something on them these days (forthcoming posts, but I don't watch them like I used to when Dr. Who Adventures was giving away figures regularly!), but they've come from America, and I don't know if they have the same type of kids magazine freebies . . . Interesting figures though, and totally new to me?

 

Basically we've got: Dancer Babe, Royal Babe (fairy-tales for the use of), Superbabe and Rock-Chick Babe!

 

Equally, loud colours for these MTC carded rack-toy party favours, and probably quite recent production as they are sub-copies of common sculpts doing the rounds and probably seen here before in more 'normal' greens and khakis, but I prefer these dudes!

 

In with the micro-smallies we looked at the other day, were a whole bunch of other kit figures and these are they, I won't say much as they are all going to need a major session at some point in the future, but I think the two astronauts (top right) are Revell (1:48th kit?), while the six dark greenies are old-school from the 1950's.

The sandy-coloured panzermann and girl might be Heller or Italeri, they both included interesting figures, suitable for dioramas in their kits? While the two white pilots (bottom right) might be Cylons or Earthmen from 1980's Sci-Fi kits?

I know, I should save them for Pirate day, but I feel donations should be fully covered, I used to do highlights but when everything is this good? And these are all interesting, the lower - black - figures (poor shot I'm afraid) are the Toy Major originals, and they look bigger that the various copies we seen so far (we may have seen one or two of these?), so a decent comparison article of the three or four sets will be a definite feature here one day, but they are all in storage at the moment, so it may be a while.

 

While the yellow line-up are the Imperial ones I've been after for ages now, reduced-size copies of the larger Hing Fat figures, these are from the two-adversary sets, we have seen here as shelfies before, possibly from Brian, and I've now tracked down the Police & Skeletons, Zombies & GI's (ex-Tim Mee GI's) and these Pirates fought red Ninjas which I may still be looking for?

 

The base mark.

Now . . . MPC armaturtoise! Clearly marked, and I will have to go back and check those blue & green ones I picked up at the last London show, as I carefully avoided calling them MPC, and just said probably premiums, as I wasn't sure, and they didn't seem to be marked, but I'll check, and a new colour anyway!

Speaking of colours, there are nice, common-enough copies of Airfix Indians, but in an unusual colour way, and like a lot of the rack-toy figures in the stash, overdue for a sorting, I have ID'd several sets and makers for them, but it's a question of tying colours and base types to downloaded and catalogue images of sets!

Marked Hong Kong, and another genre needing a better sort one day, these may be the ones issued by Payton, but I think they went with other colours, copies of MPC's figures and seem to be limited to 5 poses only?

This is what Brian sent all the micro-figures in, and it's a carry case for C-in-C micro-amour, which was fitting for all those diminutive figures, but my first example of packaging, or C-in-C anything, so cleaned and saved!

And to wrap-up, some proper rack-toy army men, not some people's cup of tea I know, but they will all get sorted one day, and a lot of them will get some kind of definitive attribution, so the more, the merrier!

 

Again, I can't thank Brian enough for all this, there are some real treasures here, as well as in the two previous lots, and I'm very grateful. I hope you've enjoyed them too, and if anyone ID's those heliotrope-pink figures in the first shot, they'll be doing better than the 'group experts' elsewhere!