R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Two of . . . a Few!

Continuing to look at the stuff Brian B has sent to the blog in the last few weeks, these were all shot in a Target Store in Connecticut I believe, and mostly TV/Movie related licensed characters.

 

My Little Fawn?

 

There is, somewhere in Picasa, a multipart 'miniseries' which never got published (it will, one day!), which Brian contributed to, on the subject of those figurines you see in the windows of game-swap shops, which are interactive, electronic playing pieces, for/from several modern gaming systems, these seem to be similar, but are more music oriented I think? Can't knock The Muppets!

 

Superstuff!

 

Also a bit big for my parameters, but I know from the Plaid Stallions crew, that there's a massive fan-base for GI Joe, Stateside, with the guys telling each other where certain figures have popped-up! Same with the 'new' Mego's!

 

Even dog-food is promoting the new movie! It launched with much hype as the summer's big movie, and a sort of reset for the brand, but it's gone quiet now, so I don't know if it's good, OK, or a bit duff . . . Has anyone seen it?

 

The two boats are halfway between the rockets and the rubber-boats we saw yesterday from B&M, and it looks like the two boats are wind-up workers.

 

Plastic flat, gravity floaters?

Thanks again to Mr Berke for going out and finding these.

O is for Other Capsule Eggs

More standard egg shapes here, some with chocolate, some without, along with a blind bag (Lego) and a Tomy 'gum' ball!

Bandwagoning from Schleich here, and why not, but they're following Lego's blind-bagging band-wagon, not the original Kinder, although that was itself only a commercial formalisation of gum-ball machine prizes, with better quality toys and a chocolate egg!

Bayala is very-much the 'pink & purple' line in Schleich's catalogue, and these eggs, with no edibles, seem to contain one of twelve winged kitten-dragons in ten sculpts, again, not really a bit of me, but they will come in, in mixed lots over time, and it's always nice to know what you're dealing with!

I think we've seen something like these before (from Dracco Candy of Spain) and I castigated them on that occasion, well, I had another go and these are an equal  rip-off with little in them beyond shite, but the jelly-beans were OK! I've lost the brand on this one, but it's around somewhere.

Picked these up in a discount supermarket in North London when I visited Peter Evans, back before lock-down . . . three years, god! Aras Eggo Toys from Turkey, they also do larger sweet-container eggs with thematic branding - army tanks, puppies, Cindy-doll knock-offs &etc.

The toy is a small, simple 3-part jet-fighter, made in China, which I thought I'd shot assembled, but obviously not! While the egg is - for me - a preferable all-chocolate, to that sickly white stuff with makes up half a Kinder egg.

I've had a go at BIP (Holland) before, as well; their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle egg was a disappointment, and that story continues with this jump on the art / designer-toy bandwagon, with an Ugly Dolls button-badge, mini-sticker sheet and those barely edible chalky candies.

I should caveat my attack with the point that I'm coming from the angle of looking for figurals - some kids love stickers . . . and badges, and will be well-happy with this as a pocket-money treat!

Safer ground with Tomy's capsule toys, large dispensers in shopping precincts (malls) and some retailers (The Entertainer always has a bank of them near the tills or the entrance), and here we have two of the Incredibles from Disney-Pixar.

Finally, there's these from Lego, their blind-bag minifigures, I got the mad Doctor Bunsen Honeydew, but would like the band! They'll turn-up on evilBay as full sets of twelve, if they haven't already, some traders buy wholesale and break them down.

H is for How They Come In - Cheap Deals

This post deals with stuff I picked-up while out and about last April-May, or at least that's when I shot the photographs, sometimes things get shot same the day sometimes they don't, nor do they always get photographed in the order they came in, so March may be the start-date of this little lot, but it hardly matters!

This must have been a previous (2020) Christmas range, on clearance, from the same Hobbycraft decoration line we've looked at here recently from the year just gone (2021), which are themselves now on clearance! Not the best sculpt, it seems to be channeling at least two species, but what do I know, the cake-decoration deer have their own box (there's so many of them) and he'll add to that 'archive'!

Erasersaurs, we may have seen them before as another iteration; I haven't checked, but, even if we have, they may be new colours. There is a post on Dinorasers in the long-queue, but these aren't in it?!! Asda supermarkets, and close-enough to the now ended Walmart ownership for them to possibly be findable over the pond in that establishment, but probably not now?

This was 20p in Paperchase! They had a table with tons of stuff, most of it one-offs, some of it quite dusty and had obviously had a serious five- or ten-year stock take and cleared out the forgotten corners, and 'behind the shelves' areas of the storeroom? You can see from the chunky pen that it's a largish beast and had a lovely metallic decoration. 'Bronty' the Biro!

This was in the same Paperchase pile, and also the only one, missing it's cap and not something I would normally give house room to, but A) it's cats! B) I had, only a few days earlier, split the cats, dogs and elephants into their own tubs, and C) 20p!! Soft-foam calico cats with a Biro up their arses!

Flying Tiger gave up this for a quid, the same day I think? It was my first trip to Basingrad since before lockdown (a year or so?) and is just for the archive, to ID in the future, to box-tick the brand and items, fun, silicon 'rubber jigglers' in the old-school style.

These were on clearance at TKMaxx, and you know by know I really like these, the . . . start again; We are about to look at three of these sets of Nano-Metal's from Jada, two of which (probably these two) were on clearance at TKMaxx, the other - I think - came in a few days later, either from eBay or Asda stores? But . . . it may have been a donation and because the amount of stuff which has joined the long-queue in the last 14-odd months is vast, I'm not 100% sure on the history of these now! So I'll thank the two obvious candidates - Brian Berke or Peter Evans - for everything they do for the Blog, and carry on as if they were three similar retail/clearance purchases a few days apart, nearly a year ago!

The first set (above) was a straight tie-in with the Incredibles movie, or at least Incredibles 2 which I haven't seen, but I thought the first one was fun and they have that lovely metallic paint which makes this range so lush, while there is a duplicate pose in the second set which is a sort of Disney 'starter' set with figures ancient ('classics') and modern (Pixar joint-productions).

I don't know who Baymax is (actually I've just Goggled him! Big Hero 6, which had totally escaped me?), but there are characters here from seven franchises, with pairs from Monsters Inc., and The Muppets.

The one I'm not so sure about, I think it was reduced in Asda, but . . . which definitely came in a week or two after the other two sets and, again, another 'starter' set to get you wanting more Disney "100% diecast" Nano Metal's, with a lovely pair from Alice in Wonderland, two Scrooge McDuck characters and little Lilo.

H is for How They Come In - Another Box From Peter

Mr. Evans, co-founder of Plastic Warrior magazine, has kindly sent the Blog another box of goodies, this time with no warning, and my assistant didn't allow time for full opening of the treasure-chest either; before she downed-tools and went to sleep in the lid!

It comes before I've had time to fully sort-away the last lots from Peter, Chris and Jim, and a frantic photo-session left another bunch of fledgling articles in the queue and a host of mental notes to dig-out this or that for more expansive posts at some point.

The trouble is - and it's a nice trouble to be in - I'm adding lots of nascent articles to the queue, photographing loads, bringing the two collections together and such like, but . . . time moves on with hideous rapidity, it's only a few months to RTM, ie; a year since I got everything out of storage, it's already four months since Christmas!

Yet I've barely begun to get on top of the consolidation task (I've been sorting Hong Kong AFV's this week, alongside the Peter parcel, an eBay lot and several charity-shop finds) while those who have contributed stuff will know how much of it has yet to appear - I can only say what I've said before - it all will, eventually!

What I finally recovered from under the nose of my sleeping assistant! You will recognise the vehicles as having previously been 99p Store or Poundland (about three or four years ago), now in new packaging/brand marks, the animals in the other blister-card seemed - from a cursory glance - to be from the old unpainted Rado Industries mouldings, but they are actually different, just similar, especially the big cat with spots.

In a plain-white polymer with some whacky paint (the elephant and lion are over-sprayed silver and gold respectively!); we will look at them closely along with the contents of the pack underneath in RTM - if I remember!

The Simpson's character set (some capsule toy/blind-bag thing?) is lovely; they are 'unit-scale' so Marge ends up smaller than her baby, due to her large beehive bouffant! And as Simpson sets go, a good selection of characters with 24 of the most common here in 25-35mm.

The two 'detective' rabbit babes (the one on the left is holding a magnifying glass) seem to go with the Sherlock Homes type in orange with the gun - all three are PVC and marked Yolanda. The 'mouseketeer' is a crumbly-rubber and unmarked, he's lost an arm and his sword, but goes with another - already sorted - in blue or green somewhere, so a growing 'sample' nevertheless!

Some other highlights include a couple of Phidal princesses we may or may not have seen here. It's a fact that those who worry about the state of the 'hobby' need to understand the hobby is a collective of 600-2000 individual ideas about what 'The Hobby' actually is, while the toy industry is quite healthy and full of figures - Phidal are producing more new sculpts per year than Airfix ever did, that they aren't WWII combat troops is of no interest to today's kids, who want TV/movie related stuff!

Three Crocco for Wheetabix figures are next to the Phidal's and a blob of Fischer PVC is on the end of the upper row - Paulinchen from Fix und Foxi's Pauli family.

The lower row consists of mostly older characters, including another of those French (maybe Pif Gadget) figurines, two Kinder Smurfs, a Miss Piggy from The Muppets a couple of unknown (to me)'s and the annoyingly sensible one from Scooby Doo as a pencil top. The key ring is from one of several anthropomorphic insect movies (Bug Life, Antz, or the other one!) from the rush of them awhile-back.

These are interesting in that I have a London Toy Fair report in the queue for a Totaku, which shows another healthy aspect of the 'industry', with the Schleich/Papo/ELC (et all) action-figure sized, synthetic-rubber solids, and here are two others, obviously based on the worst franchise ever (I saw the first and they can't have got better!) - Alien V's Predator.

Further - on the subject of 'hobby' health - consider the vast ranges of incredibly accurate and beautifully decorated animals (wild, domestic and prehistoric) from Schleich, Papo, Safari, Plastoy, Wild Republic, and so on, and measure them against the staid and eventually stale offering from Britains? Or the simplistic sculpts of Charbens, Starlux or Reisler . . . nothing wrong with the Britains range - for or in its time - or any of the others, but the picture is vastly improved and far more dynamic now.

Cheers Peter, another eclectic collection of things to entertain loyal readers going forwards!

News, Views etc . . . Khaki Infantry Page, plus, plus . . .

Chris Smith has kindly sent photographs of a set of the Toltoys Combat Squad copies from Australia for the Khaki Infantry Page and I've added them there; after Tenco's Model which has also been updated.

Meanwhile Barney Brown eMailed with news of a new bunch of 'Khaki Infantry' subjects in his store which was rather fortuitous timing!

New game: random search-term gave-up Dipsy* with a bullet-hole in his forehead - Priceless!

* Or at least I think it's Dipsy**

** Other dead Teletubbies may be available - check stockist's for details***

*** No Dipsy's were hurt in the making of this Post ****

**** Or were they?

Toys in advertising; dodgy-Muppets flogging credit cards, wasn't it ever thus in bwanking!

Fleet Toys (who aren't actually called Fleet Toys anymore!) have changed their 'gate-guardian' again, we have a unified-German policeman, anglicised! If you had a big estate it would be fun to have a few of these hidden about the place holding hose-pipes or rakes or something! Or you could get some Lego ones and have them fighting!

I've nothing ready for Monday, I was busy with a wild-flower 'meadow' (more of a 'patch' really) on Friday so it will be a late posting tomorrow!

C is for Comics; Characters, Capers and Spain

I love it when a plan comes together by itself, or a post sort of creates its own momentum, this is just such a post and while we will look at little we will cover a lot!

Juan (Gog of Toys From the Past and the free, biannual, Action Figures magazine I mentioned in the week) had sent me the above a while ago, part in response to my previously blogging something he's sent me and partly conversationally in an eMail exchange.

The issue highlighted in the picture/discussion being that the figure on the left is a Heimo original (with damaged feather) of Robin Hood from the 1974 set tied-in with the Disney movie which I remember going to see in Godalming (when it still had a Cinema!), while the other two are bootlegs or 'knock-offs', possibly from Spain?

While it was intended to be used at some point, as a stand-alone image it got put to one side (metaphorically; in actual fact it sat on the laptop's desktop, where I have far too many folders and files!) against the 'rainy day' when it might get used.

Then at PW I picked up the King John, bootleg; not Heimo (left hand figure - it's a crown, not a cake!). So in so far as it went it was so far, so . . . so-so!

Not really enough for a post, but I've also been getting so much Phidal stuff that the Cartoon, TV and Movie - TBS box ('to be sorted') had reached crisis levels of lid-angle, leading to my constantly recovering self-seal bags of often quite uncommon stuff from between the joists in the attic.

However, following more cartoon characters incoming from the PW and Sandown shows I had a big sort-out and putting-away session, finding the other two figures in the course of my endeavors . . . "Ah-ha!" I thought, "Shoot these together and have a conflab' with Juan, I think" I further thought, so I did!

Juan kindly confirmed that the other two were Heimo (which was actually a slight disappointment as I was hoping one or the other might be either a knock-off or by/from Comics Spain - latterly: Comics Figuras).

As you can see, the bootleg-King John has a spurious, meaningless C (for 'copy', heehee!), the woman is marked © W.D.prod. (for Walt Disney Productions) and the foxy-looking gentleman is marked Appolo ©, with what looks like a remnant of a D, possibly a cavity mark?

The woman is called Medusa and is a character from a Disney cartoon movie called Bernard & Bianca (in Germany, here it was called The Rescuers I think), while the fox is called err . . . Fox (Fuchs) and is from a non-Disney set of Pinocchio figurines.

I'm going to guess here that Apollo may be/have been a German/European TV production company and that the figures are characters from a local kids TV version of the tale? Certainly the figure is ascribed to Heimo in the German guide, and the character has no other reason to carry Apollo on its base.

Then, this week, I got four bags of mixed shite from charity shops (the day after the road signs!) and a very interesting deep-sea diver (waiting for new camera!), among which was an actual, fully marked Comics Spain figure from The Muppets and . . .

. . . Bingo! We had a worthwhile post! We've also gone full circle as the post which lead Juan to send me the first image was a Comics Spain post!

By way of thanking Juan for his input both to this post and the Blog over the years, can anyone help him ID these? I know they are late Hong Kong or early 'China' era rack-toys (mid-late 1990's?), probably with dinosaurs and a palm tree or blow-moulded rock or two, but can anyone ascribe a set title or brand-mark to them?

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 . . .