S is for Shelfies - Geoworld, Imperial, NBC Apparel & Safari Etc . . .

This article's folder was titled 'Shelfies II' revealing the fact that it was supposed to follow-on from another (then recent) shelfies post, which was back in Jan/Feb I think . . . needless to say it never happened!

These were shot by Brain Berke back in the Autumn of last year, but will still be around and about. I don't actually collect these; I have enough of a problem with the few sticky/silicon things I do have to start amassing a new genre of them (the early ones leech gunk everywhere!), but there are probably some people out there who specialise in such things?

Wall Tumblers, Wall Walkers, Sticky Dribblers, Mirror Mountaineers (I made that one up!), Window Jumpers . . . whatever they're called they seem to be having a renaissance at the moment, or is it that they've always been there but I've been noticing them more now I'm looking harder? Imperial, still going strong, bringing cheap rack-toys to the masses!

I'd had a session in TKMaxx just after Christmas, which mostly reprises what I've shown in previous shelfie posts, but you can never have too much imagery! Here we have more of the Dr. Steve Hunters' dinosaurs from Geoworld, and while we may have seen one or two of them before, they are really lovely and I just shot all the offerings they had that day which happened to collage nicely as a quartet.

Fantasy dragons from NBC Apparel, relatively compatible with smaller scales, they could be used with larger figures, if only to reduce space-used by constricting 'scale'. Of note is that colours other than those shown on the artwork are available.

The 'toob' of dinosaurs is also an NBC Apparel branded set, I don't know who was responsible for the large 'baby' farm animals behind them (probably Peterkin?), which I also suspect may be squeakers, but if you have kids or (who are we kidding!) grand-kids, these might be worth looking out for and they are figural! But it was the Dino's I was trying to shoot!

Other toobs include sea-life in the same series as the dinosaurs in the previous shot, and larger dinosaurs and wild animals in longer tubes without the internal divider-card but with 'filler' palm trees - both sales techniques reduce the 'body-count'!

We looked at these - also NBC - around Christmas-time but I took some more shots, some of possibly different animals (I think the giraffe is new), large, hollow, squeegee animals, but quite accurate (given what scant data we have beyond the stone bones!), and - in the case of the big 'Dippy' dino' - as close to 54mm compatible as you are going to find!

Brian also sent these a while ago, I've seen a prehistoric tube from them in their normal series, but these are a larger scale and blister-carded, probably, primarily aimed at natural history museum's gift-shops. Courtesy of Safari; it's one for the family-album - great-great-great^x20 granddad and some of his decedents/our relatives!

T is for Two - Boxed Dinosaurs

Except that there are three boxes with seven animals so the 'T is for . . . ' trope doesn't really stack-up but you'll see what I mean! A big box from TXMaxx the other day, and two from 2017 and the now defunct Poundworld-Plus.

I also shot this shelfie in TKMaxx, about twice the size (of this morning's Poundland set) and five for a tenner they work out as less of a bargain, but still cheap and also reasonably sculpted and decorated, although a bit gapey-mouthed 'Chinasaur'! They're branded to NBC Apparel, which I think is also an in-house, phantom brand?

Top left to bottom right we seem to have; velociraptor, stegosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, spinosaur and triceratops. That last one's a tad too babyish-looking!

We may have seen these, certainly we've seen other examples from the same multi-branded set of six models, and we saw some of the Poundworld-packed ones, but I don't know if I showed any from this sequence which I found in Picasa. Dated to the end of June (right) and beginning of July (left) 2017, so they may have been left out of other posts?

Triceratops and spiky-bastard-a-saur, they have been carried in two color-ways by at least four brands and in five or six packaging types(both sides of the pond) including pairs and trios, and would here (packaging has long gone) be branded to Toy Bank.

Other brands and known outlets are/were Henbrandt (singles in counter dispensers), Lollipop/LP (carded), Pounland/Funtastic (separately boxed) Out of the Blue (singles) all in the other - common -colour way, then TXMaxx (pairs and triples, brand-mark unknown) and these - both in the later paint-scheme.

D is for Dino'shelfies!

Although there are a couple-of-three other animal sets, it was a title waiting to happen! A quick look at a few sets out there at Christmas time in case you need to buy yourself a present.

These are branded to NBC Apparel, not the first time in TKMaxx (for that is where they were) at this time of year. Mini animals and mini Chinasaurs in bog-standard toobs, but at five or six quid I only shelfied them to ID them as they come in loose - indeed I think that Hippo may already be here somewhere, and the Dino's with blue bellies look familiar!

A bit big and a bit toy-like, but I know the serious Dinosaur collectors will want one, especially as it seems to be a specific, yet less commonly modelled species, namely; an Eustreptospondylus! Let me get my teeth back in and I'll have another go . . . Yoos-trepto-spondye-luss (or 'dee-luss'), not that bad actually! Geoworld for this one.

The Daddy! "Inspires Learning"? Yeah; learn you don’t go anywhere near carnivorous dinosaurs as tall as your house! Playtek LLC, another we've seen before in TKM. They've both been manufactured with that two-halves hollow PVC or ethylene, but it's the standard way these days; larger mammals or other toy animals come the same way now, even big ducks!

Three tubs from Ravensden PLC; sea life, Chinasaurs and wild animals, again the metallic blue 'ceratops looks familiar, although to be honest I thing the sea-life is the better value-for-money, the other two having a number of duplicates. All three sets also have some relatively new or unique flat tress or other plants/shrubs/seaweeds.

Half a mile from TKMaxx these were made for B&M Retail (B&M Stores) by . . . err . . . whoever made then for 99p Stores (twice?), TKMaxx, Poundland, Poundworld Plus and the other lot . . . Blue-something or something-Blue? I've even done a post on all the brands we've seen these under, and after singles and triples you can now get the lot in one hit!

I'm beginning to regret the three or four quid I've spent on my three or four animals, as they are going to be common in Charity shops for the next twenty years (although with some scientists only giving us fifteen years now (their climate models underestimated), that might itself be a clever trick!), still, I can pick up the ones I haven't got, remember there are two paint variants (so far!) for some of these - or all six.

However, note the price; rounding off, the unit price of one set's individual animals is £2.20p, or for the B2F20, £1.60p (if my math's are right), both way over the 99p or £1 we've previously seen them at, even the tripple set at TKM a couple of years ago was only about £4.99p (giving roughly £1.50p each), and that's how capitalism works - these will more than pay for previous discounting, and there's less packaging per-animal here, so the true differential is even greater!

Q is for Question Time - Composition Queries

Chris sent me an interesting shot last week, and as I had a few in Picasa, I thought it might be an idea to put them out here - all new-to-Internet, if not new-to-hobby?

This was Chris's question-mark. Flanked by two known or believed to be Zang or Zang for Timpo (Timpolin) figures - a pilot on the left and Tommy Atkins on the right - is an unknown guardsman in a similar material and style, but with a strange stalactite of flash running down his front, which Chris reports (it's not clear in the image) is painted a different colour. I wondered if that might indicate the removal of a drum or standard, but neither would match the arm/hand positioning?

I also think he may have been re-painted as he looks very clean and the flesh is pale for Zang? Now I know some Zang ceremonial guards have recently turned up but I was lead to believe they were matched to the 30/35mm highlander, not this 50/54mm size, so a big question mark here?

If not Zang, a name-in-the-frame could be Plastoline (Msrs. D. Brown and M. Leech) of whose 'output' or 'production' I know of the first three items (more on the 'known' another day).

They worked in Plasticine, hardened with what the old school (old-old-old-school) euphemistically referred to as 'banana oil' in old figure-modelling tomes, which could be any one of several things; cellulose 'dope' (flying-aeroplane modelling), cellulose lacquer or nitro-toluene thinners (automotive trade) or acetone (nail-varnish remover), or even wood-hardener - destroyer of good brushes?

These four figures, however, are unknown but in the style of Plastoline's known figures (anatomy wasn't their strong point) and anything anyone knows about them would be very helpful.

I suspect the first three are Chang-Kai-Chek's Imperial Chinese forces from the 2nd World War (70-years ago today - there's always method in SSW's madness . . . well, nearly always!); an officer (marked 10) and two soldiers (one marked 14) while the last figure is probably an early (WWI'ish) NBC-warfare (ABC/CBN) operative (marked 4), spraying gas by hand, whilst dressed in protective equipment, but which nation, or is it Sci-Fi, or an early Air Force firefighter, or a DDT fumigator?

He appears to have two tanks on his back, presumably; one to breath, one to spray shit with . . . stopping other people breathing forever?

It's very unlikely to get much odder, more unusual, or any rarer, on Small Scale World than these chaps, so if anyone can add anything; it'll be appreciated by the other 800-odd daily visitors.

Many thanks to Adrian Little and Chris Smith for the images.

S is for Shoot of Shelfies

I don't know what the collective noun is for Shelfies, but as it seems the term was invented here at Small Scale World (albeit only as a construct of 'Shelf' and 'Selfie'!), I think it's reasonable to assume Small Scale World can declare the collective, so it's 'Shoot'!

A few photographs taken mostly in October and designed more to ID figures in future mixed lots, but a couple of more stand alone items too;

Taken on the 12 October in TKMaxx these Halsall Toys International imports (probably from Pioneer) have a figure each in all the double sets, there's a couple more below, and I've since (30th Nov.) seen another police pose and farm sets with one-each of two figures along with a pair of animals (cow and sheep), which I forgot to take pictures of.

Majorette don't offer a human figure, but do include a nice selection of animals in this farm play-set. Around 1:64th, but with the tractors hopelessly out of scale with the pick-up truck, some of this stuff would be useful for railway modellers.

Shot the same day is this toob of dinosaurs, which I shot just to get a 'name' for some of my unknowns which I recognised behind the 'glass', however it's not clear, they are credited/branded to NBC Apparel, care-of a TJX Processing Centre (which I assume is TK / TJMaxx) and manufactured by Fast Champ Industries (or 'industrial') Ltd, of TST East, Hong Kong - which is the one I'll use.

A Trip back to TKMaxx on the twenty-third of October found this from NJCroce with two of their bendy Bat-blokes and a car. But the car is a non-moving display, so utterly useless for kids, yet not of sufficient quality to make a decent display model, being a pretty-cheap moulding in styrene or propylene.

The 28th of month saw this arrive in my inbox from Mr. Berke over in New York, and from a store apparently called Ocean State (Job Lot?), again the aim to to ID the construction workers/mechanics as they come-in, in the future.

Brian was eMailing again two days later with this toob set of armymen, can't see a branding, but there is a TJMaxx price-label and I think we've seen these as generics on one or two occasions in the last two or three years, so probably just new packaging for Christmas? But there is a 100 of them!

I myself was back at TKMaxx on the 11th of last month where I shot a couple more of the HTI sets, in both cases there is a one-colour paint highlight; a black walkie-talkie and a blue stretcher bundle.

TKM seem to have a high turnover, so if you want to purchase this stuff you need to be quick or try more than one outlet, but at this time of year their home furnishing subsidiary also carries an enlarged toy section. I'll wait until they appear in mixed bags from charity shops or 50p trays at Sandown Park!

I went in again on Saturday and caught this set of rather nice Marvel Avengers' figures in the 70mm bracket (?) from Jakks Pacific, a big over-muscled maybe, but not as bad as a set of cartoon-deform Avengers (or Junior Avengers?) I saw in the Phidal display!

Bigsheephornsman!