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 Magic Box International. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magic Box International. Show all posts

Monday, May 25, 2026

O is for Odd Ossuary

OK, so to the last post on the Gogo Crazy Bones from Magic Box which have been in Picasa for too long (as have lots of other things, and they're still there!), not least because they have limited pull for most Loyal Readers, beyond this box-ticking exercise!
 
So, I bought a final big lot which came with a Gogo's tin, I didn't shoot these as to a certain extent they were much of a muchness, both with the ones in the original post, and the first few of this sequence, But note, in answer to my comment in the preceding Crazy Bones post, here we have a decent number of dark greens in both opaque and transparent. Likewise with the blues and a bunch of candy-mice and bubblegum pinks.
 
There were also a lot of the glass-clear ones, with more transparent in the reds and oranges, but it was the odds which proved more interesting and are looked at below, by visible marking, the reason being, I didn't look so closely at the original post's figures/bones;
 
 
. . . but suspect a few of the undecorated ones in that lot were from the groups below. It should be noted that the link in that original post also talks of Coca-Cola premiums somewhere, but below are various issues/tranches of their offerings.
 
Apparently issued by Imperial, who pops-up here, regularly retailing novelty tat, and things which look like other people's things, those non-Brabo bendies, for instance, and here they have gone to Israel of all places, and found a Laor Toys, to make several tranches of their Jojo's, over three or more years in the mid-nineties.
 

A whole set of T-Shirts?
 
I assume Tim Foot is the 'designer', however, I don't know the significance of 'Haxey', but will put it separately in the Tag list for those who do! And these seem to predate Gogo's by a year at least, however the collector's wiki, seems to have various producers of these 'bones', before Magic Box blew the gaff wide open?
 
Metallics, China, not Israel, and not of the same quality as the later Magic Box ones; quickly worn away with play, likely a high shine spray, rather than a genuine heat-coating or dip-plating?
 
Don't know?
 
So, we have a kid's craze in the mid-1990's, major player is Magic Box, an unknown Spanish company who will become a global giant off the back of them, who call their product Gogo's Crazy Bones, and which are designed to be used like Roman or pre-Roman knuckles, in a variety of games, rules for which were included in the blind-bags they were purchased in.
 
Flat colours, Metaflek, clear, semi-transparent, metallised, decorated and undecorated, possibly used as premiums by Coke-cola, Hubba-Bubba and others, rival brands, unique sets per. Country, special issues for smaller organisations (UK's FIFA World Cup team), convention and swap-meet exclusives (usually an existing moulding in a special finish), there must be several thousand to find, I've picked up a couple of hundred or so now, and that's too many!
 
A couple of useful links for those who are really interested;
 
Fandom
 
Wikipedia

Thursday, May 21, 2026

C is for Charity's Colourful Carrion

This was a smaller purchase, around the same time as the others we've seen, i.e., more years ago than I care to remember, or have actually remembered! Nothing new with these, but the last post is interesting . . . ish!
 
Anodised metallics, with a transparent blue monkey on the left, it's actually one of the more realistic Crazy Bones so far, with the yellow tiger/cat (2nd post) a close, but demented, second, then I think we have a butterfly, a Hitler Dog (it's just the flash!), another animal and two pirate skulls.
 
Pastels and purples! See; not really a Hitler Dog!
 
Everything else Gogo! I quite like the ghost, bottom-right. Overall there haven't been many dark green ones from Magic Box, have there? The last post in this sequence will add further to the story, then we may have a more rambling post on all these blind-bag things, then there's more from Brian and some larger ones, before maybe some more Kinder and Lego?

Monday, May 18, 2026

D is for ♫♪♪ Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem . . . Crazy Bones! ♫♪♫

Another quick box-tick of colourful weirdos, this was a charity bag in 2018, I can't believe I've been threatening to post these on and off since 2016, I knew I'd put it off for a year or two (it's hardly high priority), but a decade? How fast has that gone!
 
Playing!
 
Blacks, whites and greys.
 
Some proper reds.
 
Greens.
 
Tart's nail-polish colours!
 
Camel dung!
 
Blues.
 
Oranges, yellows and caramels. 
 
Another factoid to add to the previous stuff, this was the first one with Metafleck type glitter inclusions, in a semi-transparent polymer, I have no idea if that has any significance beyond a new variant, but it might have!

B is for Bones, Box-Ticking Crazy Bones!

This is from the folder 'Crazy Bones II', except they have five mentions in the Tag list already, but some of those mentions are in passing, of the Magic Box stuff in these next few posts, when they came-in, and are now all part of the capsule and blind-bag Picasa clearance exercise!
 
The original post was here;
 
 
And, because I've learnt very little more about them, nor given them much more thought, beyond editing the posts in vaguely artful ways (by colour, alright! I sorted them by colour!), they really are just box-ticking, so any genuine fans who might find them, might feel inclined add comments of merit (like - are there any rare ones!), for those of us who remain no more than mildly curious!
 
Metallic finished ones.
 
Comparison between the 'traditional' ones and the metallics of the same moulding.
 
Blues.
 
Reds, yellows and oranges.
 
Pastels, purples and greens.
 
A couple who came in around the same time with more mixed lots, and this was all happening back in 2018, the flood of these to charity-shops seems to have receded, but for a couple of years I was picking up huge bags of them for pennies.
 
Something to add to the previous post's info' is that it seems that a late (or even 'contemporary' a few years ago) issue of Gogo Crazy Bones had these flat, triangular bases with curved tips, I don't know the significance of them, or whether they all had them, but it was taking them further from the original 'bones' concept, which, of course goes back to antiquity and a dice-less, dice-like game played with knuckle-bones, as is Jacks!

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

C is for Crazy Bones

The first images in this post were going to be part of the main 'News, Views . . . ' which has been building for a while, but as often happens they sort of grew a bit and became a post in their own right which -as with the Leprechaun, the Lego stuff and others - helped retain manageability in the News folder!

Originally sent in by Konrad Lesiak as examples of his recent purchases, there are three different sets of figures represented in these shots;

·         a Disney 'Frozen' Prince on the far right of both line-ups - there seem to be at least three different sets of these capsule toys/capsule-type toys around at the moment, one set was covered complete in Plastic Warrior magazine; I think I looked at another here on the Blog and this chap would appear to be from a third.
·         In the middle are what look to be three TV-related figures, Konrad reports they are marked TM & © '05 Fox Made in China, which I assume is Fox TV? Can anyone ID them?
·         The other pair looked both interestingly like 'designer toys' with a kaiju/manga look, and slightly familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on them? So I told Konrad I'd pop them into 'News, Views . . . ' and see if anyone could help.

Konrad has provided the markings on one of his as PPI 30 Worldwide (the other looks to be 33) but in both cases (and it's the left hand 'Fox' one that still needs a full ID) they were hard to shoot being grey-scale which always goes either bright white or dark charcoal under flash or in Picasa!

So, while they (Konrad's) sat in the news folder, I picked these two up in a mixed bag from one of the charity shops in town, and as well as just being two new examples, the familiarity - with a bit of colour - was greater and I thought "I'm sure I've got some of these in the attic somewhere from another mixed lot?", so off to the attic the other day where I found the rest of the post in a tub of similar mini-super deforms (Star Wars in a few days), Zomlings, Fungus Among Us &etc.

The two new ones are marked with a number and Magic Box International

By now I thought they were probably called crazy bones which was at the back of my mind, due to the fact that while the obverse's are all different, the reverse's are all similar and look a bit like vertebrae - or molar teeth-roots!

Now; I don't have a folder on the dongles for 'Crazy Bones' and the PPI folder only has a few PVC-looking LRG's of a Halloween type from evilBay, but I do have a Magic Box International folder - with only one document in it . . . Soupie's post from a few years ago.

Therefore everything I know about these comes from there, or the links already posted there, so the rest of the post will just look at these as examples - follow the links for more info. if you need it.

The above are - obviously - the yellows! From the left, the first is a sort of 'Mecha' with tampo-printed highlights in two colours, then we have what can only be described as a tracked, US-style, fire-hydrant! And; the only one here without a bonelike obverse - having full mirror-symmetry; front-to-back and side-to-side.

The last two are disembodied faces, one similar to 'The Mask' with sort of hand-feet, the other more like Laurel from Laurel & Hardy!

The odd shapes/odd colours, I call the green one 'Arrow-dildo' - ouch! The weight-lifter on the end is similar to a Zomling I picked-up in a mixed lot, but the copying will be the other way, crazy bones are earlier. The blue one is very 'designer' in execution and of a very different quality to say the silver one next to it. On the left is a telephone?

Colour-transparent red ones, we have a sort of ghost, a pumpkin and something I call 'Underpants Face'!

The metallics; another 'sort of' ghost on the left, a surprised pig in the middle (I love the colour) and the new one, a sort of designer Dunny-Bunny thing? A Wilt Dismal Manky Mouse!

Two designer types and a clear one which is so clear it's unclear exactly what it is!

I don't know for certain anything about Konrad's two grey ones but I wonder if PPI are a local Polish licence holder for these globally available lines, there are certainly limited editions, national lines and fast-food tie-ins available as reported on Soupie's post, so I suspect they might be less common ones?

I would love to spend some time following-up the links myself, but I have another 25,000 posts to get out and only the one lifetime (don't laugh - I've done about 6%!), so if anyone else does do a bit of digging; let us know what you find!

However, I'm pretty sure A) I've a similar-sized sample in storage and B) these have become/will remain common in mixed lots for the next few years/decade or so; so we will return to them, despite the fact their presence here almost certainly upsets the 'Toy Soldier' purists, but I don't call myself an iconoclast for nothing; there's no sacred cows 'ere! And it's four new tags!

Thanks to Konrad for kicking-off this little journey and if anyone can help with the Fox figures or his Gogo's Crazy Bones pair I know he'll be grateful.