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!

F is for Feelin' Feline!

An obvious title, I'm surprised I haven't used before now! We actually had a roundup of cat stuff not that long ago, and while half the stuff in this post is recent, some of it was found elsewhere in the unused archive!

A largish resin lump I picked-up at a charity shop back in '22, made by Sheratt & Simpson, I guess it's from one of those overpriced series of such stuff in jeweller's windows? But it's a reasonable sculpt, and when £20-something becomes 50p or similar, I ponce . . . like a cat!

Boysy-boy eyeing it with a modicum of suspicion! I still miss him every day, his weight on the end of the bed, his little complaints when he thought he ought to have a treat! But I miss both his Mum's too, and that's the burden of getting to this age, dealing with more and more death, in one's life.

Large Japanese blow-mould, marked on the other side with a three-leaved clover mark, and Japan in ink, and moulded on the body.

This is a modern set from Shing Hing, the people who brought a four-nation 'army man' tub to Smyths a few years ago. There's a lack of imagination in the decoration, but otherwise they are reasonable sculpts for a rack-toy type thing.

Three from Schliech, we looked at five back in October and I think two are duplicates, but the Egyptian-looking one is a definite paint variant, and the long-haired Persian is a new addition.

They are no better as cat's, than they were as dog's, who buys this shit?

Shelfied in Home Bargains.

Oh . . . I do! I actually grabbed these at Waterloo yesterday, a series of mini-adventures I could have done without - Travellers closing Charing Cross, football hooligans, and cancelled trains - led to my browsing the 'boutiques' on the new mezzanine, and I thought these were particularly stupid! The cord already hangs over the side of the vessel, how is a cat's tail going to make any difference, or improve things, one iota?

I found they preferred to sniff the fumes of sloe gin!

What? It's Christmas! 

F is for Follow-up - B&M Stores

 As a follow-up to this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/12/s-is-for-shelfies-b-stores.html

 

I did go back and get a set of the mini-animals;

 

12 Dogs.

 

12 farm animals, including another dog!

 

12 wild / zoo animals.

 

12 Dinosaurs.

They work out at less than 10p each! The dinosaurs are much-of-a-muchness, I've got worse, the wild animals are more hit-and-miss, while the farm animals have their scale all over the place, but are mostly reasonable sculpts, the dogs are probably the poorest of the four sets.

 

Two of the poultry were designated to carry the consumer information for the whole set, while a comparison between the farm's collie-dog and the dog's Alsatian, reveals the different levels of expertise in two sculptors!

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.

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.

B is for Benevolent Buys - 3 of 3

Along with the cats and turtle/tortoise (you'll agree it wasn't clear, but flatter = turtle?), came this bag of shrapnel at the start of October, nothing special, but all fun!

 

A Fiver's the top-end for this kind of thing, but it'd been a few days since anything joined the stash, and withdrawal was starting to itch, so what choice did I have?!!

 

A near-complete set of the 'Nabisco' Magic Roundabout, and in a follow-up I'll explain way I haven't italicised the Nabisco, and have placed it in single-quotes, but for now, strange that it's all in red, with no sign of the other colours normally associated with the 'cereal premium'?

 

Standard Erzgebirge houses and church, but larger than previous ones we've seen here, with an extra window each, The Church/Public building with Zwiebelturm (onion tower, one of the first German words I learnt, the dreaded Umleitung came second, Bummelzug third!) is one from our childhood, I've been after for years, so really pleased to add this to the pile!

 

 

Other wooden stuff of the Erzgebirge type, with the train possibly a later Kinder one, and the car probably from a board game. Some of it may go with the cottages in the previous shot, but it's not obvious, while styling, paint, varnish &etc. . . suggests several sources, and many years between oldest and youngest samples.

 

Mostly 1970/80's rack-toy scenic stuff, but the greenhouse is from the New Ray HO civil/model railway accessory range, and the two Poplar trees are new to the collection, and - with those huge bases - probably from something more infant-oriented, and also, probably more modern.

 

Odds & sods; the barrow looks like it should have a pencil-sharpener attached, but there's no sign of such an accoutrement having ever been attached, and I don't know what the blue-cap is from, or if it's even anything to do with toys whatsoever? 

T is for the Third Time of Asking!

I post steam, he shows . . . err, was it steam? It was far, far away! I post books, he posts books, I show football game figures, he mentions football game figures, I show a Pirate's mountain top, he does . . . Dinosaur poo? I mention Casdon, he namecheck's Casdon, it's childish! Invicta (original copy) for Invicta (feeBay scrapings!), you get the picture, well he does, usually from somewhere/someone else!

 

23,000 toy companies, millions of toys, but he seems glued to my Blog. Is he really that insecure, or does he think he's being funny, is this what passes for comedy up there on the Wirral? They do like to refer to themselves as Scallies, the little Wags! I must be missing something, but it's a game which can be played both ways, especially if you're going to copy me umpteen times a fortnight, or should that be Fortnite! He did Fortnite, so I'll do Fortnite!

 

Of the six Tagged visits to stampers, two of the most recent three, have featured the Fortnite stampers, and I did mention a while ago there was Fortnite stuff in the queue, so shall we get these out of the way, and do the key-rings over Christmas? See, that's a heads-up for him to go and scrape some key-ring shit off of evilBay!

 

The broken blind-bags (which aren't blind - it was a poor joke, the first time!)

Contents - predominately female.

 

Outer.

 

Flyer.

 

Comparison between the stampers and the keyrings.

65mm (75 with base). 

 

Three loose ones which came in a charity-shop, something else he seems to have picked-up from this Blog, where I was showing you the shit I took home, even if it is 'shit', from early-on, while he didn't use to do charity shops, and now shows us the shelves of shit he left behind! How many crushed boxes of Connect-4 or Operation do you need to be shown in a given period?

 

 Group shot!

 

When they were in The Works, back in 2019 (I guess stupid people have poor memories, or was he concentrating too hard on not recognising Buck Rogers erasers!), we saw the blind bags, five-figure 'pack' cards and two-figure boxes, and to be honest I can't remember where this four-figure set came from (in 2023), possibly Peter?

While my not-so Blind Bags, came from Poundland (store-closure program expanding), in 2021, so they've done the rounds for several years, if you've kept your eyes open, and had several formats of retail presentation! Note also, how both types seen here, state '36 to collect', yet we have a 37th?

 

The guy on the left is not in any of the artworks? 

 

Again, females are central to the gender-mix, so I was guessing Fortnite is a game played by both sexes, divided relatively equally, but AI (who we've discovered can't be trusted) says, no, mostly males, so I guess they must like dressing as 'Tank Girls', don't tell The Donald, he'll have it banned, and them, arrested and deported, for un-American, gender-bending, 'woke' activity!

 

You'll also notice, there are similarities with the clothing of the two women, this is even more noticeable with the key-rings (whenever I get round to them), and is probably a result of characters 'skins' being chosen from a menu, and populism, the default of the majority of humanity, dictating people keep choosing the same gear!

 

The stampers (red, blue and indigo ink on mine, so far, I've also seen yellow-orange), only give you the head of the character (like the Nina Turtle set), which when other stampers seen here (Thundercats, Action Man and bug-eyed Alien) have had whole figures - albeit, very small - seems a bit of a swizz!

 

Spare shot, slightly better colours!

Now, when you find this stuff going cheap in either The Works or Poundland, you tend to think 'end of line', but in fact, with these, I think now, it was more an exercise in clearance to make room for the 'Battle Royal' Series Two wave (red cards), and to get as many people as possible hooked on them by making them so available? They are now up to series three - purple cards.

 

And, as well as two or three series of key-rings, there are some mild 'deform' figures, a pair of whom will be seen here shortly, not scraped off the internet, but in the collection!

 

And, yeah, anyone can post anything on their Blog, and if you want to turn what was once the best space toy Blog on this planet, into a pile of shit internet scrapping, fine, fill yer' boots, after all, you were doing a fair-bit of that from day one, but we sort of ignored it, for the - in context - space toys, however, if you want to continue this constant niggling, point-for-point copying, I'll give it back in spades.

D is for Discounted Dino's!

A quickie now, a bag of dinosaurs I got from a charity shop a few months ago - the trouble with having had two months away from the blog this year, is that everything is 'a few months ago'! But it was a better than usual bag, with three Schliech and several other nice examples.

 

The three Schleich's first; a stunning Brachiosaurus, a Triceratops and a kerthunkersaur called Salchania, all dated 2002 or '02, and among Schliech's earlier models, certainly a cut-above your average Hong Kong models of the time, but they have helped raise the bar, with some modern dinosaurs from China, just as good as the Schleich/Papo world!

 

A chunky-monkey from China, Dimetrodon, usually my favourite, but I'm not keen on the frayed, goldfish fin edges to his, or her sail! Most modellers, over many years, have given them stretched skin, like bats wings or the web between a human thumb-forefinger?

 

The Jaru and others (?) reissue of an old Holly sculpt on the left, and an actual Holly Pterosaur on the right.

 

"Slava Ukraine!", says . . . err . . . Bi-ceretops! A better quality, modern Chinese dinosaur from Happy Kin Toys, depicting a Nedoceratops, which had been called Diceratops until someone realised there were also wasps with the same name!

 

Based on a single skull found in Wyoming . . . it may not exist!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedoceratops

 

Compared to the Schleich.

 "Why habben'd you god a lumb on your dose?"

 

More traditional fayre, from China, and above average, but more in tune with older Hong Kong stuff, there has been an attempt at overwashing/overspraying a bit of realism! Fiver the bag, gives the ten a 50p retail cost, per animal, which is how I like to get these larger models!