A is for A Bit of Fun!

Picked these up the other day, an end of line I'd missed in The Range, I saw them and thought "Well, I'd better 'av some a'that", and took them home with me!

 

A stack of Robot highlighters! The pad-reservoir is only about a centimetre long, so they won't last, and will dry-out quite quickly, even without use, but it's six more Robots, and it's funny, whether it's white-buttons, erasers, Christmas baubles stretchies, or other novelties; Robots always seem to join the collection in multiples!

 

The upper shot is colour true, after which, my new, hideously expensive Canon camera started to misbehave and is currently shooting in the 'cold' spectrum of white, and I'm having to recolour in Picasa?

 

While I was there I noticed they had the dig-for-space-stuff balls, seen here a while ago, back in stock, and having satisfied myself they did ONLY have the two designs/combo's (Jupiter/Shuttle and Earth/Astronaut), gabbed another of the latter and dug the astronaut out.

 

Colour is a bit shot on this one too, but you can see, A) it's a darn-sight messier than the plain gypsum-plaster ones, as the (presumably) powder paint used to colour the mix and decorate the outer ball is all powerful!

 

B) there are a bunch of buried 'jewels' which aren't even mentioned in the packaging blurb, and C), the astronaut is larger than I was expecting, at around 28/30mm, and a softish polyethylene, who cleaned-up but had slight staining, which will need bleach - it's all water-based colour.

 

So six Robots and another spaceman in the collection, sorry the images are a bit shit.

M is for Medieval Plunder

Back last May, I shot back over to Basingstoke House to shoot a few things I didn't shoot when I was there previously (2014, published here 2017 - ACW Tag), and I thought I'd check out the gift shop at the same time - here's m'plunder!

 

Poured resin suit-of-armour pen/biro, he'll get the same treatment as that regency lady a few years ago, and be cut flat and based, one day! While the medieval princess is from Papo, and actually a Queen!

 

Modern Westair, they've pretty-much phased-out the old Peltro sculpts now, and issue their own figures in a softer whitemetal, I grabbed Willy Wavelance and Queen Bess, and what I thought was one of the others, in poor light, only to find it was a duplicate playwright! But from the card we can see I'm looking for a Damien Lewis and Sir Francis of the Duck Pond!

 

A fun little activity sheet for the kids gives me two card flats, for that side-bar. You obviously bend the lances after cutting and glueing, and charge them at each other, down the tilts!

F is for Follow-up - Fantastic Flying Fancies!

So, as promised, I fired-off the recently found (and seen here) Tom Smith novelty artifact, the 'Surprise Space Rocket' at our Christmas Breakfast (more of a brunch) meet, and we can now look at the contents and finish studying this delightful example of how Austerity Britain cheered itself up in the 1950's! Actually, probably the 1960's!

 

This has a video of the launch in the middle, but also has all the images from both posts as an accompanying slide show, and I didn't know whether to put it at the start or the end, but the whole point of the thing (post and event) is to see what happens, so it should go first!

 

So, the contents were a bit disappointing, in that I had hoped they might be space-related, astronauts, spacemen, little UFO's or something, but actually they were pretty standard budget-end novelties, classics in fact, with two whistles, one a novelty face, a 'magic' fortune-telling fish, plastic 'tangram' puzzle and small red balloon. In fact, it's all a bit red!

 

Not a game - see video - there was also a very simple card rocket kit to cut out, and glue, the only real nod to the theme of the container, I will scan and print it, laminate it to some stiff card, and make up the duplicate, as a future follow-up, to this follow-up!

 

The six pieces are one-sided (colour/print-wise) as I may be able to build it on a card tube or wooden dowel of the correct diameter, and reinforce the landing legs with tooth-picks or coffee stirrers?

 

The party hats were the bulk of the 'shot', being the sort you see in old TV sitcoms, soaps or drama's from the 1960's or early 1970's, so it may not be the 1950's item I thought it might be?

 

Much taller than modern Christmas Cracker hats, and manufactured in crepe-paper, they have tissue frills around their tops in the same pinky-orange paper as their restricting-for-packing, paper 'vest' wraps, and one is decorated.

 

The decoration is more Easter-themed, with rabbits, bears and little flowery things (it looks like), than Christmassy, but of the same mawkishly sentimental style as wrapping papers of the era, I can still, well remember. So these 'poppers' were clearly aimed at the birthday and other celebratory market, to take up some of the slack of the quiet period between Christmas cracker seasons!

 

Construction was a loosely overlapped card tube, held together with the decorated rocket paper, with chip-board discs sandwiching the spring, and lighter fibreboard or hardboard discs holding the toys in another sandwich above the hats. A gap of about 10-mil, helps the spring generate acceleration, before the contents meet the lid.

 

Turns out the top just slides out, and I'm hoping to carefully feed this back behind the outer wrapper, eventually. For now, I've folded it down to preserve the folds and prevent the loss of the hardboard piece!

 

You will notice from the video, the toys go one way and the hats another, one suspects that if the quite substantial, bed-spring type wire-helix, hadn't been in compression for 50 or 60-years, everything would have flown further! There was no pyrotechnics though, I thought there may be a snap, as with crackers, but nothing of the sort!

F is for Festive Finger Friends!

Getting very close to the sharpest point of what's acceptable on the blog, or within the collection, but, it IS Christmas, they ARE Figural, and it's a bit of fun in a darkening world!

 

I picked up a load of stuff from Peter Evans the other day, but it was owed quite a bit on the shekels-front, so it'll mostly be filtered away into the archive/collection, against future use as 'my stuff', rather than being labelled as contribution, however, there were several items which Peter had obviously grabbed or saved for me, so he'll get credit for them, and this is another of them!

 

Festive Finger Puppets!

(Gem Imports, Barnsley) 

 

Certainly a figural sub-genre or category, and not the first time we've found room for finger-puppets here, they are - again - ideal Christmas stocking-fillers for younger kids, and it's a non-electronic form of imagination stretching, to make up and act out stories in a theatrical fashion. And, it's the second time Peter has found a Gem Imports thing, so many thanks to him, for finding this!

E is for Eye Candy - Sort Of!

I think we've seen this before, in passing, but I took it apart and cleaned it of a lifetime's kitchen grime, a while ago and seem to have taken far too many photographs, which need to be out of Picasa and on the Wibbly Wobbly Way!

 

 

Obviously you need a kettle with the right kind/diameter of spout, and when the water starts to boil, the inner sliding component moves and the bird starts whistling! Before modern automatic cut-offs (which work the same way - pressure, try getting one to work if you haven't closed the lid properly, it'll boil dry!), this was an ingenious solution, to a minor problem!

B is for Big Blue Bellend!

But no Tech-bro' Origin! It's funny, an hour ago I was being sandblasted by warm, horizontal rain, every time I got out of the wagon, and I had to hold the door with both hands to stop it being ripped-back against its hinges, now it's as still out there, as the hour before the heat-death of the universe! How do you get warm rain in December? Oh, that's right, the end of the world, which nobody can be arsed to prevent!

 

I couldn't resist this, at November's Sandown Park show, which, it turned-out, was being sold by 'Ferryman', better known from another Blog, it was he who talked me into than gilded guppy-bus last show, and when we realised who we were, we had a quick chat, and I bought a little machine as well, which will be in the more conventional plunder posts in a few days, but I couldn't resist this, to add to my two German ones!

 

It looks like a giant firework! This is actually my second, I'd forgotten I already had one branded to Lyvia, which, from the artwork, is a slightly later issue. Although it looks like that one may be sunlight discoloured while this one is more of a minter.

 

Unlike the German corporate promotional's, with their simple slots, this one has a fancy mechanism for firing the coins into the domed head of the rocket, from whence they will fall down the shaft. The only trouble is that I don't know the combination, and while with only two discs it should only be 100 possibles, they are very stiff, and it could take hours to crack!

J is for Jurassic Busy Book

A return to Phidal, there's been a big restocking in TKMaxx for Christmas, and while most of them are sets we've seen already, or sets I'm not interested in, this seems to be new, except it's dated 2022, but isn't the one we looked at here, which was dated 2021 anyway! Although with the same 'Phidal' bases, they will go together well.

 

 Cover.

 

Contents.

 

Tyrannosaurus Rex - Giganotosaurus 

Velociraptor - Atrociraptor (best dinosaur name ever!)

 

Allosaurus - Dilophosaurus

Dimetrodon - Parasaurolophus

Therizinosaurus - Pyroraptor 

All from the other side.

Two of these play-mat scenes (top right and bottom left) might make useful background sheets for future photography, but due to the polymer lamination of these sheets, it'll require careful ironing at low temperatures to get all the folds out, but I have hung on to them for now.

O is for On the Subject Of . . .

. . . evilBay providing answers to questions we didn't know we needed to be asking, I picked this up for a lot less than it should have, or could have gone for, and it would seem to be new to Blog and Hobby, but not the Internet, obviously, as it's been on feeBay!

 

I present to you, the Tom Smith 'Surprise Space Rocket'!

 

The 'surprise' being; it doesn't look much like a space rocket! The artwork however, does show a common design from the 1960's, looking like a Thunderbird Missile (real, not Gerry Anderson!) sans the four booster rockets, similar to the Bloodhound we know from our Airfix or Frog kits, but lacking the two side engines, the Thunderbird was the Army air-defence version of an RAF Bloodhound, having approximately half the range. It also has the lines of a Bomarc (Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center [sic]) CIM-10 (IM-99) Missile. All of which dates this cardboard tube, nicely to the mid-to-late 1950's

 

Quite a circus 'Big Top' look to the back of the tube, and this is clearly not aimed at either Christmas, Guy Fawkes Night (5th November), or Halloween (which was a nothing-event, here in the UK in the 1950's), but rather, like the giant 'party-popper' it appears to be, aimed at any-old reason to celebrate, any-old time!

  

And therefore, might have been available for some time, in this configuration, or other graphics, do you remember anything like this? I think you'd have to be over 70? 65 maybe?

Clockwise from top left; instructions; silver-paper covered card disc, and two shots of the 'pin' which launches the 'rocket'. I have had chats with Adrian Little and Paul Morehead about this, and rather than get their words/points wrong, I'll précis my thoughts on it, as they have evolved in conversion with both, and on studying the object/rocket!

 

When I first saw it, I assumed it would have a bang, from a black-powder charge, like the snaps in Christmas crackers; remember, Tom Smith also produced indoor fireworks; and that the force of the explosion, would propel the contents of the tube, through the silver paper, like a dog (or a clown) jumping through a paper-sealed hoop at the circus!

 

Also, the green 'gaffer tape' (always known as 'army tape' in our household, during my childhood), or carpet-tape, is something often associated with military pyrotechnics, such as thunderflashes, 'Schermuly' parachute flares* and trip-wire pot-flares, as companies like Pains Wessex tend to use the tape in the construction of such devices, often to cover the final triggering assembly from accidental use!

 

But, there's no pyrotechnic warning, as you will find on some Christmas cracker boxes, even those by Tom Smith, on all indoor fireworks, and would expect to find, on something more powerful, such as this 'bomb'. While the "Hold Away From Face" message could just be about flying stuff, rather than explosive stuff?

 

Also, the cuts in the paper-foil cover, which are to help it sit over the heavy particle-board/card base, would also allow it to fly-off? While the silver disc actually seems to have hard-card underneath, not likely to allow things to fly through?

 

So my suspicion, now, is that actually, the outer tube, telescopes off an inner tube, sprung-loaded, rather than pyrotechnic, and that the hats and novelties fall away from the 'rocket' as 'exhaust gases', landing near the launcher where they can all be found, rather than flying up into the air, over an explosion, to be scattered to the four winds, or at least behind all the furniture?

 

It remains to be seen, and, if it is only a spring, it might have been used and re-set, meaning the contents could be unoriginal crud?** The hope, obviously, is that it's all original and unused, and it WILL be tried, at the annual Christmas Breakfast, and hopefully videoed? However, last year's Christmas Breakfast was in the first week of March, so don't get too excited, it's only October now, so it may be up to six-months before the mystery is fully solved!

 

However, when you shake it (I have!), it's clear the items are more substantial that the average Christmas cracker prize/novelties, like rings or charms, so the hope is we may have something figural, even the astronauts or spacemen linked to crackers, but that's probably wishful thinking, with a selection of nail-clippers, whistles, jig-toys and novelty-shaped combs to look forward to? Again - only time will tell!

 

 

* Not 'shamoolie' as the Tabloids prefer, it's named after the inventor, ffs!!

 

** I have studied it with the jeweller's loupe, and it seems to be a substantial bed-spring type thing of about 2.5mm diameter steel-wire, and about three-and-a-half turns, attached to a thick piece of particle board above, closer to chip-board than the PCB-type card of the base, so I think a) it's not been reset and b) it will blow the whole silver disc out and spray stuff everywhere, only time will tell, and it will be told here!

W is for White Buttons & White Ghosts

I shot the first of these in Sainsbury's a couple of weeks ago, found the second a few days later, and Brian Berke sent us the rest a few days ago, and they illustrate one of this year's Halloween trends - short, fat, stumpy white ghosts with cartoon faces!

 

The white button toys in Sainsbury's, among the only Bloggable novelties I found this year (there is another post's-worth), and technically, well, factually, they aren't white-button, they are pull-back & go, so I lied there!

 

I then found this Ghost candle (right) of similar size, both about 70mm high, in The Range, and this design of short (height-to-width ratio), fat ghosts with -  mostly - silly faces, is a real trend this year, with basically this design, found as soft toys of pillow-size, large ceramics of the TKMaxx decor-types, blow-ups and etc . . .

And these - branded to Daiso (of Japan) - are white-button's . . . I suspect, from the left, a jiggler or runner (the ghost), a jumper (the pumpkin) and, obviously, a walker Zombie? Not seen over here, maybe next year, or maybe in another region. And, we find the same basic design of the ghost, possibly with flappy arms? Thanks to Brian for the shots of this last trio.

 

Daiso/Seria seem to be a chain of 100-yen stores, like pound- or dime-stores, but a different value point, in Japan, and also operating to similar values in the local currencies of South Korea and Singapore.

B is for Blow-Moulded Blow-Ups

Another one of the Rico Firenze relief 'posters', also marked up to Master Mount in the USA, this one was lacking the header-card, but is possibly the more interesting of the two, dealing with Reptiles & Amphibians.

 

Snakes, Lizards & Frogs!

 

Lizard.

 

Frog.

 

 

Snake-heads, no gangs!

 

O-Level biology!

Yes, the girls cooked a bit of eye-muscle on a Bunsen-burner and ate it! 

 

Digestive tract.

 

 Hearts.

 

The lighting at Sandown Park is not that conducive to photography, sometimes, it's bright enough, but I think it resonates at a different speed to pocket camera's shutter's and with shooting them through their polythene bags, they've all had to be contrasted and enlightened in Picasa to get them closer to what's actually in the bag, which is very colourful!

 

Many thanks again, to Adrian Little for these.