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!

L is for Lucky Large Bags!

We saw the two current issues of 'cornucopia' back in December, and one of these in Jan., and there was another, similar beast, in the queue, until I visited Peter Evans the other day, and he gave me a second, so we're looking at them both today, the contents being quite similar to each other, suggesting a common source for the contents, if not the management/corporate origin.

 

To be honest, I can't remember if this was fund in B&M, The Works or somewhere else, maybe The Range actually? Or when - it looks like it may have been this last January. Contents are close to those of the Hunter Price International/Toymania branded one, we saw in May, with the same toys, including the stretchy dinosaur-caterpillar thing, but with a 15-count, rather than the 20 in that previous sample - missing are the two maracas, the two flicky things (ID'd by Mark as 'slap-bands') and the yo-yo.

 

While the latest sample is another of the Toymania ones, but now reduced by 50% to ten items, even the catersau/dinopillar has 'bought it', but, as you can see the car, spinning top and others are identical to the previous set above, so clearly they are from the same stable. As they (this and January's) are both 'Series One', it may be a price-point thing, rather than a 'shrinkflation' second tranche?

L is for Loose Lots from Last Local Show!

41 years ago, I did Street Lining for the President of Mexico, one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences which mould who you are, or who you become. The weather during the practices for the hideously complicated (until you've learnt it, then it becomes a piece of piss, I could probably still do today!) Half-Guard drills was average to cool, quite breezy some days (hard to hear the commands), while the actual day was overcast, drizzly, and foggy. Foggy in June, people . . . 41 years ago it was cold and foggy, in London, in 'Flaming' June.

 

Nobody said extinction would be painless or stress-free, and those people rushing out to buy fans, order air-conditioning, or book a visit from a pool-designer, are only adding to the problem, and making the end sooner, and more painful. Nothing like plugging some more shit in, or taking more water out of the cycle (and treating it with endless chemicals) to help end climate change, not!

 

There endeth today's lesson, but I'm getting mighty sick of the pink-monkeys and their idiocy. At least some of us have toy soldier collections, to take our minds off the gathering storm, and it's current, record-breaking, sticky evidence, and it's the tail-end of the latest Sandown Park plunder tonight/this morning, that might take our minds off the oppressive humidity - it's not the heat that kills babies, or elderly parents!

 

I couldn't resist this, it's a bit battered and hard to date, and I probably paid too much for it, but it has some age, and while you can get stuff like this today, I saw a new one on evilBay the other day, you can't fake the patina of age easily, modern ones have the lattice made from machine cut timbers, while this lattice is hand-cut from hand-peeled veneers, or carefully hand-split pine or box-wood. Upper image is the colour-true one.

 

Toyway-Timpo reissues, box-ticking exercise, box ticked!

 

I need a few reins, but they are the sort of thing I might pick up, in a little bag of ten or so, from the Plastic Warrior show, now only a week away! There was a lot of this stuff kicking around a few years ago, and spares are not hard to find.

 

More antique wood, almost certainly German, and again, some age to these, and a lovely example of something contemporaneous with the transition from horse to horse-power!

 

I know, we've pretty-much done them to death now, "How could you possibly need more, Hugh?", well, they were cheap, they were a largish sample, and there are new 'things', new colours, new combinations, and one day we'll return to them for one more long post, looking at each listed element (from the back of the box), and try to work out what other combinations/elements there were (in Woolworth's pick trays?), as well as trying to give a timeline to the variations between figures, balls, polymer material &etc.

 

I knew this soft-plastic version existed, as I had the broken off horse (still looking for a  red one!), when we looked at them a few years ago now;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/03/c-is-for-cake-coaches-cat-carnage.html

 

And there's something very satisfying about adding another item to a side-bar 'cameo', which has continued to grow over forty-odd years, with barely a duplicate - the mould-tool was hammered at some point, more than half a lifetime ago!

 

These came from more than one seller I think, certainly the dogs were from the 'terrace scrum' before the show, and everything in the shot is bisque, although the stork (heron?) has a more traditional porcelain glaze. The dogs are exquisite, and I assume German, who else did stuff that fine? I thought they were carved-bone or ivory, until they rattled in my hand! A few legs are missing, but very much a case of 'a sample is better than no sample' and the sheepdog is complete!

 

Adrian had less frontage than usual, so there wasn't much in the way of lead-rummage, and while I waited until the end so 'proper' customers got the best choice (well, nearly, P arrived just as they were about to go out to the car!), I still managed to pick out a few interesting figures to add to a growing, but barely sorted collection of such stuff.

 

The charging Britains piracy will be AHI or Minikins from Japan, the pair are like-Timpo on the left, throwing grenade, but CharbensI think? Copying the Timpo Brit', as a Yank! And Crescent (?) on the right, kneeling, radioing, the rest should be British, if not Britains!

 

Brabo idiot parachute toy. With help from Chris Smith there are a few of these now, and with help from feebleBay, their section on the parachute page is probably doable, it's more a question of me getting down to it! Known as Parafools, this is the 'Hippy', and I think they pre-dated the Imperial Poopatroopers!

 

I . . . just . . . can't say "No", there are so many variations, I seem to just grab them all, against a final shot of all of them! Lone Star, not Richard Coeur de'Lion, but rather, king of somewhere Welsh (that's a dragon!)! In blue, with sword, another example, for another 'cameo' grouping!

 

Likewise, this is something I might have already, but it was quite clean, and cheap, so as the die-cast replacement for the composition Zang version, there's quite a comparative sample of these mini-scaled P38 Lightnings (the first use of . . . are we up to four now, or three Lightnings?), as indeed, there is a similar sample of De Havilland Mosquitos!

 

More gash-lead, the cactus is possibly White Tower, or someone similar, I'll have to ask Matt? The Indian infantryman of the WWI'ish era is probably a modern kit, unmarked and has apparently been given a cap-gun carved from a broom-handle!

 

I don't know if the flag belongs to the Guards standard-barer, but it looks OK, although the red ensign should be in the possession of a merchant sailor . . . so I DO know, they don't belong together, doh! Possibly a foreign made flag, with or without the figure, Japan again? That diagonal cross is atrocious!

 

A wooden naval-gun which has lost it's wheels, but it's turned brass and could fire a black-powder (or Swan Vesta!) charge, with ball-bearing, and the motorcycle from the Merit magnetic board-game Remote Control Driving Test.

 

The show's mistake purchase! I thought "Oh, he's got his tyre, I don't think I've got one with the tyre?", but of course, he doesn't have a tyre, he's operating the storm-drain 'Hoover' tube, for the late Dinky Toy road sweeper, and in that capacity I already have him! Hay-ho - by our errors, shall we be known!

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Everything Else

Last of the purchase posts from Sandown Park, it's funny I've mentioned the stash/pile and Battle of the Planets in the last 24/48 hours, and Bushy managed to name-check them both in the last few hours (the irony being, he doesn't have a pile), almost like he can't bare me to post original stuff, but that's all I do; original images, original copy and original opinions - isn't that right readers? While someone else has commented, forgetting what he said about me a few years ago, but stupid people have the brains of goldfish!

 

A nice bunch of Charbens circus. Circus, like Pirates, have become a bit of a side interest for me, but then so have dime-store vehicles, parachute toys, LB, stationary novelties, Cracker & capsule toys, and, and, and! I think the Tiger is quite unusual here, and the different colours of the dogs costumes, and horses furniture, make the sample more interesting.

 

Speaking of dime-store vehicles, here's a couple more of the small, US pattern, row-crop wheeled tractors, Western plastic crap, predating the Hong Kong plastic crap by a decade or two! As you can see, these are basically the same model, but different sizes, and I have near-on a dozen now, nearly all different, so when they're all together, we'll have a proper look/comparison.

 

The blue one is marked Banner, and is the same as one of my military ones, the yellow, is not the smallest, so may be the same as the Merit/Bell ones, but marked Tudor Rose?and possibly the same as the unmarked pair we saw last September? That's a check I can make one evening this summer, when sorting over at the storage unit, where I think there's four or five of these?

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/09/l-is-for-last-mays-lots-of-lovely-loot.html 

 

Action Man command post field telephone set, which was in the biscuit tin from Isaac. This would be connected to landlines (the origin of the phrase, predating the mobile telephone!) connecting the forward trenches/positions, with a platoon net, company net and 'chat net', set at the evening O-group (Orders). Sometimes, on Salisbury Plain, in the middle of the night, you'd pick up Russian spy trawlers in the Channel, due to the power of their sending sets, and the aerial properties of all the D10 landline network!

 

Tomte Laerdal Renault Floride Cabrio sports car, note how much better the wheels are moulded on these than on the Galanite ones we saw the other day;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2026/04/l-is-for-local-loot-2-of-2.html

 

A couple of interesting Animals, Adrian found the horse, I think, which is similar to, but not the same as the Britains Shetlands, longer, thinner legs for a start! The composition squirrel is damaged, but was always a small delicate moulding, and squirrels are another thing I have a soft spot for, along with elephants, and hedgehogs!

 

Better Hong Kong copy of Lone Star, than some (but may be Spanish, South American or even an actual Lone Star, hard to tell, until I compare), and a kit accessory, possibly from a Jacques Cousteau ship model of Calypso?

 

Upper lot are Holly or Holly-like, we saw some of them in the recent Gary Gygax posts;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/search/label/Gary%20Gygax

 

While the lower shot shows their 'rubber jiggler' clones, as part of my favourite childhood set, indeed, the Dimetrodon to the right, is pretty-much how I remember mine to be, prior to my tearing all the spines free of each other, and ruining it!

 

Random, newish Dino', which turned-up during the course of the day!

Thanks to Adrain, Gareth, Isaac and Steve for bits at the show.

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

There's still a couple of Sandown related things in the queue, but they may join the many folders down the bottom (of Picasa!) which date back to up to fifteen years ago, it will get posted one day . . . it will! In the meantime, here's the sci-fi and fantasy element of my busy scurrying and ferreting, back in February!

 

Gareth found these and brought them to my attention, he managed to get another, 14th pose, but I've already got a reasonable sample of these, and we have seen them here before, painted, and as unpainted late production, including whacky plastic colours (fluorescent pink, green and oranges), as well as visits to bagged and loose Thunderbird additions to the range, in soft rubber and polystyrene, so I've probably got the missing pose?

 

Ovni (UFO) from Comansi, I don't know if these are factory painted, or home-paints, the seller and Gareth thought the latter, and when painted, they tend to have brown bases, so these are probably not 'official'. But, they were sold under various guises, as well as the UFO moniker, and the late Thunderbirds sets, they came as Battle of the Planets and as The Invaders TV series tie-ins, so they may have ended up looking like this at one point - the seller had quite a few, all in the same condition.

 

The fact that some faces are painted, others not, is also odd, a home-painter would do them all the same, a team of out-painter's wouldn't be so fussy? The real interest, to me, is in the plastic colours underneath, mid-green and metallic blue, which I think are earlier than my previous samples, making the whole sample, a better representation of Comansi's output.

 

A few minutes after publishing - In fact I think there's more than twenty poses in total, with the six Thunderbirds characters, maybe closer to thirty, we've seen a girl, a chap holding a space rifle parallel to the ground, a zombie/Frankenstein's Monster type, I think there's another kneeling one I don't have, a guy waving a space rifle, a guy holding an equipment box (which gives us 20/26), so when I've got my four or more samples together, we'll have a proper looks at them despite having had several 'proper' looks at them already! Doh!

 

Game playing pieces I suspect, and in the style of all that MB Games' stuff licensed from the Nottingham Mafia (Battle Masters, Hero Quest, Space Crusade, Space Hulk et al), but I'm in the dark as to which game these are from, and it's only the bases of the blue figures which are leading me in the GW direction? 

 

A blow-moulded astron . . . sorry, cosmonaut from the former Soviet Union, and while I'm not posting Russian stuff at the moment, this can be lost in amongst the other stuff. Not believed to be a parachute toy, but more of an infant's garden/beach/bath toy thing, a big chunk for tiny hands.

 

 "Wrestlers sah! Millions of 'em!"

 

Mattel's M.U.S.C.L.E., always nice to add a few more to the tub, especially these - mostly - coloured ones, when I first started finding these, they were usually the flesh-coloured chaps, and early web-pages would suggest the colours were rarer, but I think they were just later, so came to market later, and therefore come onto the secondary market later, too, they seem to turn-up quite often these days, but a nice sample, with a pocket monster to the fore.

 

The sublime and the ridiculous! Cherilea and Matchbox, although I'm being unfair, the Matchbox K-2002 Flight Hunter was a reasonable effort as the long-night of the long-knives in the toy industry of the early 1980's, bit deep. While I got the elusive space-slug, because he was affordable, due to his short-shot foot, I doubt he misses it!

 

Don't forget it's the London Toy Soldier Show tomorrow;

 

http://www.toysoldiershow.co.uk/