About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Kenner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kenner. Show all posts

Monday, July 1, 2024

F is for Fake Toys & Games

I've been picking these up for about 18 months now, reposted a couple elsewhere, but I thought I'd chuck them all up here for a chuckle, there are a few political memes, but more general humour/satire, and about 50/50 AI-generated against older forms like Photoshop or actual artists arting!
 




These first five are all credited to a Brian Thomas Auker on one of the Faceplant AI groups, he really wants to get'em on tobacco, young! While the top one is a clever joke-within-a-joke!
 
Anti 'Reform' electioneering!

Oh yeah! Overdue I say . . . 

I had a whole load of Trump ones, but I'm not sure where I saved them to, I may have just reposted them straight to my Faceplant feed?

Jesús loves you, unconditionally, but if you don't love him back, he'll torture you in hellfire, until the end of time!

Fisher Price get the most grief in these memes, how have they earned so much opprobrium?

Monday, December 11, 2023

B is for Billions of Blistering Blue Bi-Trons!

Well, over a dozen, and they're not all blue! Just a quick follow-up to one element of Chris Smith's recent donation to the Blog, purely to get them in the tags and attached, that way, to the previous posts as extra imagery for Pikit Toys/Gordy International.

I know that my storage sample of loose ones has more blues, or paler blues to be precise, and while the camera's flash has washed them out, the front pair of red ones are a discernably darker-red than the rear trio.
 
I mentioned last time how the turrets of the little micro-AFV's can be used as back-packs for the Bi-Trons, whether as turrets (which would require some severe bending forwards and looking at the ground around their feet) or as comm's packs is - I guess - down to the owner's imagination!
 
A small patrol of those AFV's out of their blister-packs! And as last time, a reminder that  there is a resemblance to some of the Votom stuff from Tomy-Takara, beyond the similarity of the line's name!

Thursday, August 3, 2023

B is for Battle of the Bi-Trons

You may remember that back in 2020, Chris Smith sent us some robots in one of his donations to the Blog, and at the time I didn't have a maker, but a few months later (2021) I found this set, too expensive, on a Buy-It-Now, told Chris, and put a note on the original post and have since mentioned it cryptically, as and when we've seen bits from it, in other posts, I kept watching until the price came down, and I've now got one, so let's have a look at it! Robots & Space Tanks!
 
Due to the lighting on the day and/or the colours, photographing the whole card wasn't easy, but between the two shots I think I've done it justice, and you can make out most of the elements, the Pikit Toys sets (for that is where we still are, this early in RTM) with this bordered cartouche card-art, were also issued by Gordy International in the USA, with their info' overprinted along the bottom edge.

You get two sets of Bi-Tron robot battle suits, obviously ripping-off several Japanese Anime series including - I suspect - the 'mecha anime' series Dougram or Votoms? One set, here in blue, are the 'good robots' the other; bad!
 
As I wondered at the time, the plugs in the backs are for the turrets which come with the accompanying accessories, a slight daftness, as being single mouldings they can't be bent or animated into a pose where they can realistically fire at anything other than the sky!

Bad 'Bots are red! Whatever colour each 'army' is, you do get four unique sculpts in each quadrigeminal (it sounds more spacey!) team, Only two are carrying weapons, one in each team, here it's the chap on the right.

Early indications were that these yellow versions of the good 'Bots are Gordy and the Blue; Pikit, but then I was reminded that Chris's donation came in three distinct shades of blue (from more than one set, there were duplicates), so I suspect it was a bit more random, or they were issued by another brand, maybe at another time?
 
But this lot did come from the states, with 'normal' red Bad's, and I've seen a second set with yellow 'Bots, also across the Pond, so it may be a 'rule'; certainly a guideline?

Space Taaaaaannks! These are always green/red, and the same oxide-red as the naughty robots, some of which may be copies of the old Kenner Mega Force sci-fi'ish armour? Slightly larger than 1:600 micro-armour, they might be around 1:300?

AT-AT . . . not! There's also a walker, who comes with four jointed legs to be assembled by Junior, and then lost forever in the garden! I'm really not sure on any of the specific origins of any of these models, but I'm sure they are aping other toys, maybe Tomy and/or Takara stuff which never got Western distribution?

For instance, I thought this robot transporter was from the Takara Votoms range (as I pointed out previously; Bi-Trons - Vo'Toms . . . geddit!), but the one I was thinking of, has a rigid chassis and eight wheels/four axles, in-line, but I'm sure I've seen this prior to the Pikit set, so it's probably out there as something else!

Likewise, I think this might be ex-Takara, or certainly I think I've seen it in a Mecha' cartoon, it's a twin-rotor, very sci-fi, heavy-lift helicopter/sky-crane for recovering damaged 'battle suits', and a rather nice thing to find in a rack toy!

The final item on the set's card is an attack helicopter, and given advances/changes in real life attack helicopters since this toy was issued in the 1990's; quite similar to some in service or heading for service now!
 
As rack toys go, with or without piracy, this is a really nice little set if you have the sense of imagination for sci-fi/futurism, or are a fan of anime Mecha's, however, for simpler minds it would be a bit of "shit" to be left on the peg in favour of a farm, zoo or 'Army Men' set, or some Chinasaurs!

Monday, November 8, 2021

Y is for You Can't Hold a Candle to Them!

Chris Smith sent me the most incredible link a while ago, and I was so amazed, I didn't even look at the price as I hit the buy-it-now (BIN) button! It wasn't terribly clear how many were whole or - indeed - how many were damaged, but then they still had an ocean to cross, so it was cross-fingers-and-see-what-turns-up time!

1962; 1972; Dyna-Cast; Emenee Formex 7; Home Caster Kit; Home Casting; Home Casting Moulds; Home Molder; Home Moulder; Kenner Presto; Mattel Thing Maker; Mold-a-Rama; Molding Machine; Moulding machine; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toymax Metal Molder; Vac-U-Form; Wax Figures; Wax Toy Soldiers; Wax Toys;
And this is what turned up, miraculously a good more than half, were passably 'complete', and I say "passably" as we shall see in a second or two, playwear has rendered a lot of them even more blobby than they were when minty fresh, which would have been pretty blobby, as they are basically made of crayon wax!

1962; 1972; Dyna-Cast; Emenee Formex 7; Home Caster Kit; Home Casting; Home Casting Moulds; Home Molder; Home Moulder; Kenner Presto; Mattel Thing Maker; Mold-a-Rama; Molding Machine; Moulding machine; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toymax Metal Molder; Vac-U-Form; Wax Figures; Wax Toy Soldiers; Wax Toys;
There are four simple poses of generic WWII/Early Cold War types, which, clockwise from the green pair are; Sentry with slung rifle on right shoulder, holding SMG across body, water-cooled Maxim/Browning MG and a bazooka/ATR. And the SMG (where discernible) is more Soviet Bloc than NATO, so really generic!

1962; 1972; Dyna-Cast; Emenee Formex 7; Home Caster Kit; Home Casting; Home Casting Moulds; Home Molder; Home Moulder; Kenner Presto; Mattel Thing Maker; Mold-a-Rama; Molding Machine; Moulding machine; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toymax Metal Molder; Vac-U-Form; Wax Figures; Wax Toy Soldiers; Wax Toys;
Colour variation would suggest they were actually made from wax crayons - one of the Crayola big 64-caryon sets maybe? Bottom left is the broken ones, but I've kept them for some of the colour variations!

Equally, how they came about is a mystery to me, but I'm assuming some kind of home-moulding kit? They came from the 'States which is home to the Mattel Thing Maker (1962?),  which had many mould- or accurately mold-sets (were they for fighting the monsters?), the Kenner Presto (1972?), the Mold-a-Rama coin-op's (1962 to the present day) and more recently the Toymax metal molder (which could take wax) among others (did Hasbro have one?), but the closest I could find was Emenee's Formex 7 sets with the Dyna-Cast which was another wax moulder, and they did do a military set, sadly with four larger scale figures?

1962; 1972; Dyna-Cast; Emenee Formex 7; Home Caster Kit; Home Casting; Home Casting Moulds; Home Molder; Home Moulder; Kenner Presto; Mattel Thing Maker; Mold-a-Rama; Molding Machine; Moulding machine; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toymax Metal Molder; Vac-U-Form; Wax Figures; Wax Toy Soldiers; Wax Toys;
Size comparisons; above with the early war, under-armed, cash-only thank you Mr. Churchill Flying Fortress (from Adrian Little), also in wax and below with an Airfix USAAF pilot, you can see the wax figures are a pretty perfect HO-gauge compatible 18mm.

Many thanks to Chris for finding them, and does anyone know where they came from, other than America, which I just told you! A brand; we're looking for a brand! They could even be something more commercial and pre-manufactured, or cast from home-casting metal war-gaming figure moulds?

Later - Correction on the numbers - counting the two images - at this late stage! - It's about 82 good ones to 100 broken, so just under half, some of which have been given away already!

Later still - might be Kenner's 'reusable plastic' Mold master set from 1963? Also found the Rapco - Plasticast and Gabriel - Monster Machine! but putting Kenner in the Tags . . . for now!

A teeny bit later . . . yeah! That's it- 1963 Kenner's Electric Mold Master toy maker No. 1410, now I've got to track down all the AFV's!

Monday, August 24, 2020

News, Views Etc . . . Catch-up

Summer Sale

New message from Barney Brown over at Herald Toys & Models;

"Okay so the heat wave is well and truly over, but we have over 300 very hot SALE items to tempt you with! Just click on our 'Specials' pages to take a look at our many new sale items, with further reductions on many others and "Get Them While They're HOT!" Stay safe and keep well everyone."

I've been over to have a look and there is a lot of good stuff!

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Toys in the Media

This was a Faceplant 'sponsored post' which appeared uninvited in my feed for some local (well; Reading) IT company of some kind, it's more Preiser doing stuff in a human world, rapidly becoming a tired trope as far as originality (or 'artiness') goes but always fun to see.

While I suspect unpainted Preiser provided the population for this shot illustrating a Tic Toc article in the 'i'.

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Hammer Prices

The was some feedback from the special Action Figure single-collection auction at Vectis last week;

"A two-day sale of action figures, TV & Film ty collection sold for£210,000 at Vectis Auctions today.

The sale was mainly made up of a single owner group of small-scale action figures many people will remember from the 1980’s – 1990 including Masters of the Universe, Thundercat’s, Tron, Buck Rogers, Clash of the Titans, Flash Gordon and many more.
These toys would have cost a few pounds each when originally sold, with many in the sale now reaching three or four figure sums.

Lot 5582, a Palitoy Star Wars vintage Power Droid 3 3/4" figure sold for £4560 against an initial estimate of £800. Palitoy were the UK manufacturers of the original Star Wars toys from the 1970’s and are now highly sought after by collectors. Another similar Palitoy Star Wars vintage Greedo 3 3/4" figure appealed to buyers raising £3840 against an £800 pre-sale estimate.

Vectis regularly achieves high prices including world records for selling Star Wars toys but other less know character releases were snapped up too. A Ben Gali Belgian figure from the 1980’s Thundercats cartoon television series sold for £840 against a £200 estimate. Another popular series from the same era was Masters of the Universe He-Man with a single figure snapped up for £696 against a £200 pre- sale estimate.

The selection of Kenner M.A.S.K boxed vehicles and accessories were especially popular; the 24 lots saw fierce bidding with the highlight being the M.A.S.K SWITCHBLADE vehicle selling for £2160 against a £400 estimate.

Another strong section were the Transformers. You would have to be prepared to pay a minimum of £264 to buy any one of the single toys up to £708 for the Hasbro Transformers G1 1984 Dinobot SNARL. Even empty boxes WITHOUT TOYS commanded money – Lot 3143 Hasbro Transformers G1 1984 SOUNDWAVE, BOX AND INSERT ONLY (NO TOY) sold for £168.

As with most collectable pieces the condition of these toys was excellent, they were unopened and un-played with, in essence a collector’s dream!

The extensive collection is the best of its type ever to be sold in the UK if not the world and confirms the popularity of ‘in living memory toys’."

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Links

NME explore a new game which even has me wondering if I should have a go and I'm sworn-off the ultimate 'bread & circus' time-waster that is PC gaming . . . in my own opinion of course!

Fake products including toys are planted in stores to confuse and amuse consumers

Collector Peter Nussbaum gets his collection in the local paper - Star Tribune

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More My Modern Met


Preiser's Plastic Pudding People Part Two  

Thursday, October 31, 2019

W is for Who You Gonna' Call? Ghostbusters!

This is a late addition, there were going to be only six posts this year but these turned-up along with the MEG premium figures, but we've seen them once and while I've added a handful (including a nice purple witch), to those we've seen in the past, I know there's a whole tub of them in storage somewhere, and when I've brought them together we'll return to them. In the meantime, these are more fun!

Film Character; Film Characters; Film Promotionals; Ghostbusters; Ghosts; Ghouls; Glow In The Dark; Glow In The Dark Ghosts; Glow-in-the-dark; Halloween Novelty Toys; Halloween Play-Set; Halloween Toy Figures; Kenner; Monsters; Plastic Ghostbusters; Plastic Ghosts; Plastic Ghouls; Plastic Monsters; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; TV And Film-Related; TV Characters; TV Related; TV Tie Ins; TV Tie-ins; TV Toys; TV/Movie Related;
From the difference in the date-marks I assume (and yes Erwin - it's a real guess!) they were timed/issued to coincide with the movie release and the VHS/video-disc release? Video-discs were the future, back in the past (!) and I well-remember a small selection of them in Berlin's NAAFI for those stupid-enough to have bought a machine from the PX, not realising the Philips Laserdisc was already failing back in UK!

Anyway . . . these were (I think) 'box companions' with larger (4") action-figure/dolls from Kenner?! I did read-up on them once, but it's all gone, I believe they are all based on ghosts actually seen in the movie, but mostly those seen briefly, just flitting about during the major infestation?

Film Character; Film Characters; Film Promotionals; Ghostbusters; Ghosts; Ghouls; Glow In The Dark; Glow In The Dark Ghosts; Glow-in-the-dark; Halloween Novelty Toys; Halloween Play-Set; Halloween Toy Figures; Kenner; Monsters; Plastic Ghostbusters; Plastic Ghosts; Plastic Ghouls; Plastic Monsters; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; TV And Film-Related; TV Characters; TV Related; TV Tie Ins; TV Tie-ins; TV Toys; TV/Movie Related;
Also dated 1987, like his red counterpart, I don't know if this was a latter issue or a limited edition version, but he glows in the dark which is very ghost-like and pretty-cool!

The trouble with glow-in the dark toys is that the molecules which provide the glow, are quite nervous (it's their movement which is exploited to produce the glow, by exciting them [the particles] with light beams [waves]; it's quantum stuff), and over time they bugger-off (migrate), like free radicals in ethylene (leading to brittleness) or thalates in PVC (leading to sticky messes), and it gets harder and harder to produce a glow, and even when you do - by holding them against a light-bulb - they dim very quickly (because the remaining particles are too far apart to excite each-other for long), but I managed a half-decent image after about ten tries!

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

News, Views Etc . . . Micro-machines

The update I flagged the other day has gone in . . .

. . . with updated images and/or text-box screen-capcha's to provisionally numbered figures 6, 10, 13 and 24 and actual numbered figures 28, 31, 32, 34, 36, 43, 60 and 65. It's starting to look like there was a set of sequentially numbered brown-based figures in sand or grey plastic to match the previous unnumbered sets from the mid-1990's, and a whole crossover set in navy uniforms with numbered and unnumbered bases. It's all on-line somewhere, and I'll write-it up one day, but for now it's not a priority, however the image updates are here.

Monday, December 11, 2017

K is for Kinder Katch-up . . . Follow-up, News, Views, Bits & Bobs and Contributions

Or better late than never!

So, it's back to Kinder, with all sorts of stuff to cover, some of it covered the other day elsewhere, but as I pointed out earlier in the year; the more they try to be me, the more you all are the winners, and the picture is more complicated than their 'news, views'!

To the news from El Cheeto 'the orange Brillo-pad's' America that Kinder will be allowed, but only, apparently; Kinder Joy, although that's only as far as capsule toys are concerned, the edible-only's are also available as this American price list shows.

A price list which has Americans paying up-to - or more than - four-times what we pay for them? Given the amount the average American has been [not] paying for Levi jeans and petrol this past fifty years, they will forgive me for having little sympathy; they should've saved enough by now to pay through the nose for these plastic novelties!

The third image is of one of the still 'illegal', or 'still not allowed' original Kinder Eggs, which was bought in the same US store, literally (I am led to believe) from under the counter! Well, if you are dealing with say; a Canadian firm, and he has a plentiful supply of the eggs - legal in the more enlightened market north of the boarder - you may be tempted to have a few cartons tacked-on to the 'for retail display' portion of the order, for to err . . . not display!

The supplier of these images of FDA contraband must remain anonymous to save him from the gulag's of the rust-belt coal-seams El Cheeto is so determined to mine-out before the climate kills us all.

However - it shows the nonsense of a 'policy' being made on the hoof, with more of a nod to what's being said on the Wikipedia page than any real commercial pressures. We have this year and last looked at two products with no real, practical, or "Health & Safety" difference to a Kinder Egg, feely available in the 'States, with connections to Turkey and Mexico, so whatever the continuing problem with Kinder's flagship-product are . . .they are not the Health and safety reasons given by Federal spokesmen! Sorry; it's 'spokespersons' these days isn't it!

Meanwhile a certain Mr Berke of New York, contributor to this parish, legitimately bought some Barbie figurine Kinder Joys for his Beryl the Peril to worry, how cool is that Beryl?! To the right, another Barbie, this one sent to the Blog by Peter Evans the other day.

The toy has four parts and a sticker sheet which you are supposed to use to decorate the model's shirt, bag and base; frankly - they are best left on the sheet! The larger sticker is for wherever!

Here she is in all her glory, they are nice little toys, and now that Kinder Joy and Kinder eggs seem to be having a convergence of offered toys, they will not be rare, as there will be hundreds of thousands of them, if not millions!

The insert shows the set of eight to find in the current range, and they were first reported in Plastic Warrior magazine (issue 168) where Les White showed previous waves that are out there to be collected, and which have slightly different (Barbie 'B') bases, this one too is the 65mm of the figures Les showed.

Having mentioned Kinder Joy and the apparent convergence of toy contents between the two ranges, these were Joy-only as far as I know, and this little lot were part of a larger charity Shop purchase the other day . . . well a couple of months ago now!

They seem to be pulling from all angles of popular culture, with nods to custom 'art' figures, traditional monsters, anime/manga art, smiley-faces (now emoticons!) and real-life animals (in the monkey-face), even native-American/Polynesian tribal iconography; my favourite is the rather laconic-looking (or spaced-out!) triclops!

Francesco Ferretti sent this fantastic shot to the Blog, being an impressive collection of Res Plastic's robots made for Kinder back in the 1990's; the 'golden age' of steckfiguren as the Germans call them - and the best way to find them on European evilBay sites.

On the left we have a Kinder-like Minion, which I think IS Kinder (they had some minion-branded/tie-in stuff a while back), but there were/are other Minion things out there (the big plastic eggs), but I don't know for certain where he comes from.

To his right are a pair of . . . err . . . fairy-butterfly-teddies! Peter E also sent these, with the news that they were imported via Turkey or a Turkish wholesaler. Now; Turkey is behind a lot of capsule-toy chocolate eggs (and bears!) including some of those previously seen here at Small Scale World . . . being retailed in the New World.

And as we become an ever more global community (against the best efforts of the trumpundbrexitt 'iers), this sort of thing will become more common as smaller importers search around for the cheapest deal, or businesses run by immigrants go to/through their relatives 'back home' or contacts in the country of origin.

I don't have  a problem with this, anything which by-passes the big-boys and may increase my choice is all right by me, I disagree with the Orange Wonder on this point, and his walls will only prevent US citizens - living abroad - from facilitating reverse traffic. Ooh! A tad-more policticticticing there; but relevant, and pertinent - if your world-horizons extend beyond the Deleware.

A couple of inserts from Peter, we will look at the parrot below, and it seems Peter sent the Blog 2/3rds of the whole set of fairy-butterfly-teddies!

Lidl's in-house Mister Choc branding - who we've seen here before - have had a makeover in the packaging department with an animal-related junglie-scene, a theme sadly not carried-through to the contents!

Some of the above mentioned contents, a novelty windmill and a deux-chevaux with cam-operated jumping bonnet (hood) and a set of stickers which I haven't applied. Note that Mister Choc's inserts are sub-branded to Lotto, while rival Poundland's are called Toto? Toto-Lotto was the old German lottery, plastered on newsagents hoardings.

Even as I was starting to edit the folder for this post, I bought two generic Kinder Eggs (no Boy/Girl, Disney, Star Wars or/&etc graphics, just a tray of 'basic' eggs), and got lucky with these little slightly-cartoony animals, both with a minor kit-element; the whole 'egg-magic'!

The Bobcat is the more realistic of the two toys, the Bears having googlie-eyes!

There's a Black Panther! Both sets are Katoons (geddit? K for Kinder!), but the upper set is clearly aiming at a level of realism the lower set isn't? And I wonder how may sets there are in the total line? I suspect also different sources for the two sets as one had a separate consumer info. chitty, the other had the toy instructions and consumer panels printed on the one sheet.

With the Superheroes (we looked at the other day), various Barbie waves and these, there is clearly a move from Kinder toward stuff we haven't seen in numbers since the change in gift-management back in the late 1990's, and I think more chocolate will be on my menu in 2018!

Among the lot Peter Evans sent to the Blog was this loose, novelty ring, which has a flying fairy, she goes round and round and round and round and round and round  . . . . and round and round and round until she begs for death!

And while she's very small, she's neither my smallest figures overall - Preiser Airliner figures in 1:500th scale, nor my smallest Kinder (1990's-issued lighthouse keeper and safari guide).

Also coming in an odd lot was this handless Sylvester with both eye stickers, so he will donate vision to a more complete one in storage! Peter also sent a scale-down of the old pull-action UFO launcher and the parrot, who is supposed to be a finger brush, but - fortunately - for those of us with larger fingers than your average infant; he fits on pens and pencils!

It also reminds me that the last time I saw this kind of paper paint-pallet, it was as a child, at Christmas, when our Rupert The Bear annuals often had these pages which looked like rather dull cartoons in various dark pastel shades, but when you wet them with a watery brush, the encapsulated paint in the dots of the cartoon-colouring blossomed into bright colours and you then had to fill-in to the black lines without going over!

While these are the contents of a 3-pack of Toto's from Poundland (upper shot) and the Mister Choc from Lidl (below) with very different capsules, although I think we've seen them here at Small Scale World before?

The nodding head (and tail!) triceratops is fun (and figural!); the others are only plastic tat!

Finally Francesco also sent this shot of one of the shelves from his RP collection's display, these are all classic 1980's or early 1990's Kinder toys and hopefully we will see more in the future when Francesco gets some more images to me, but I'm proving a problem in the receiving of them with my luddite eMail-based ways of doing things in the cloud-age! My Bad!

Thanks to Brian Berke, Francesco Ferretti, Peter Evans and the will-remain-unknown; purchaser of smuggled, Canadian-contraband, eggs; for their contributions to this post and/or donations to the Blog.


"Semi-legalization in the United States

In May 2017, Ferrero announced that the Kinder Joy (a variation of the Kinder Surprise) will be available in the USA starting January 2018. They will be partially released, exclusively at Walmart stores for 30 days after the official release nationwide, starting Black Friday."

So - even the Kinder Joys were technically 'contraband' when photographed! And the Mexican/Turkish Emoji and Star Wars eggs Brian has sent in the past are both still technically illegal?

Friday, May 12, 2017

News, Views etc . . . Last call for PW Show!

Let's get the boring bits out of the way first, recent toy news in the newspapers:

Kiddybricks-call-me-Lego
Recently opening a new Lego Store in central London; Lego have now announced 'up to' four new 'Discovery Centres' for Australian shopping precincts.

Iraq
The 'i' announced on the 24th April that following the removal of the so called ISIS (surely ISII? Easier to call them Deash) from East Mosul; toy shops are making a comeback, with Teddy Bears, Dolls and Action Figures available again! They don't say how anyone on starvation incomes will be paying for them?

Hornby
Despite good news in recent 'News, Views...' and better forecasts from the company, there is still 'trooble int'boardroom' down there in Kent (Brexitland HQ) with a major shareholder trying to get one of the directors replaced and himself installed! It's unlikely to get through an all-shareholder vote at the AGM but has negatively affected shares.

Meanwhile the company; which also owns the Airfix, Corgi and Scalextric brand marks, has announced the 1st phase of their planned-recovery complete.

Hasbro / Kenner
News from the press-room of the bleedin' obvious saw Kenner-Parker issue a profits warning about three weeks ago (21nd April) with the announcement of a drop in Barbie sales, then on the 24th April Hasbro announced a 'better-than-expected' quarterly profit result - well fancy that!

Other Bits

This was in one of the papers a while ago, given to the Queen by the Chinese it's one of last year's presents, the deck and bridge look to be of the finest quality, matching old silver neff centrepieces in workmanship, but then it looks as if they gave-up trying on the crow's nests and masts? However: it's about HO-OO gauge compatible, so on the list for me to pay the Pink Panther to perloin for me, once I win that all important triple-roll-over on the Euro-lottery, that I don't buy tickets for!

This is from ages ago, but is worth a quick show; a couple of Preiser (or the new-generation Noch?) figures illustrating a front-page banner [inset] for an in-depth article on earnings inequality in the 'i' back in September.

Also falling through the publishing-timetable hoops here at Smallscaleworld Towers was this Metro fluff-piece from last December with B-B-B-B-B-B-Bob Mortimer putting in a mention for childhood poopertrooper-parachuter Toy Soldiers and having it illustrated by some fresh out of Journo-school picture-editor's junior numpty with a modern 'Made in China' copy of the old Tim Mee GI's - look: no parachute; you dimwit - in three years time he/she'll be on Sky News calling wheeled-APC's "Tanks" - you know I know it!

The nature of Arco-Mattel Mobile Attack Cannons seems to have gone from badder to worstest! "Mr. Ford, Mr. Ford - Herald Tribune here; is it true we can buy any colour of Mobil Attack Cannon we like, as long as it's pink?"

I can't remember which paper this came from but it looks like a Metro column-filler, it's a very fanciful stock-image probably by some Victorian copper-plate artist and needs at least five banks of oars each side. While you'd need at least twelve Zvezda kits just to scratch-build the hull! However, it could be lazer-cut?

This is another one which has missed previous News & Views posts for a while now; the UK mobile telephone network '3' has had various adverts in various sizes with a general aura of nostalgia provided by toy imagery, here a knock-off (or real?) Muppet spews-forth knock-off (or real?) My Little Ponys! Blehhrrr! Weird marketing from those crazy guys at marketing-central! "I puke rainbow-ponies, buy me"

Plastic Warrior's 32nd Plastic Toiy Soldier Show - It's tomorrow peeps!

There is a toy soldier show, tomorrow, here, in England's green and pleasant land, it's the 32nd show - in a row!

There will be rare and valuable single figures for amounts of geld that make your eyes water, there will be bags of Hong Kong tat for pennies and everything loose, boxed, bagged or carded in between; they may be painted or unpainted, home painted or paint-stripped; they may be old, new or copies; military, paramilitary or civilian, spacemen, space-warriors or space aliens, historical, fantasy or TV related; Wild West or wild animals; there will be premiums, sets, bits, parts and handfuls; they will be from 15mm (or below) to 200mm or above; they may be hard polystyrene, soft polyethylene or floppy, bendy, stinky PVC and they will all be under one roof - you need to be under it too!

An updated aerial shot of the scene of the crime, it doesn't add much to previous posts, but it's new imagery!

The map version may be easier for some; that Hospital Bridge Road is the easiest way in I think; turning into Percy Road especially later in the morning as you don't have to worry about the one-way nature of the dual-carriageway, or the traffic!

There is plenty of parking, the local railway station is quite close and further details can still be found from the on-line PW portals:

PW on Facebook
Blogger - The PW Blog
[a bit late to-] eMail; pw.editor@ntlworld.com

"Your target for the morning gentlemen -
The parkungspaltzen at Polimerfürtt - try not to miss"

There may be a further post here at the Smallscaleworld around Greenwich-tea-time, I couldn't possibly say for sure . . .