P is for Peter's Plunder - Highlights 2

The rest of the best! Everything else has been filtered into the temporary TBS storage here in the flat and will be used over time in thematic or comparison shots, or eventually, when I stop talking about it and get it done, the A-Z blog entries!

These were interesting, they are hard polystyrene, sub-scale copies of the Timpo GI's (and will need adding to the Khaki Infantry page at some point), probably from Poland, but could be Hungarian or Argentinian, or similar?

 

Four make-weights at the back, but in front is a totally new-to-me figure of a pioneer/SeaBee/mine-clearer, prone with shovel (or is he a combat latrine digger!), I'm guessing (even assuming!) he's from a small, modern play set, or window-box/die-cast vehicle type thing? Could he be from one of the Toy Story sets?

 

I found one of these while putting this one away, so we may have seen it before here, but no harm to see it again . . . imported by Tech H E Ltd., credited to a Just Play, but clearly actually Hasbro via 'Authentic Transformers'?

 

I may have these in storage, Turtle Stampers, they were in the TKMaxx subsidiary Home Bargains a while ago, and I remember trying to select two cards which had the maximum of poses and minimum duplicates, but I'm not sure if I bought them or left them on the peg, after a rare moment of budgetary common sense?

 

Not to scale, a whole bunch of mostly modern mechanics, road/construction workers and race crew, with the old Dinky example in grey 'styrene. Mike Blake shows a larger sample of the yellow ones in one of these new, generic crinkly-bag China sets in the latest issue of Plastic Warrior magazine (issue 193, pp.12), but doesn't mention the hollow-backs, I don't know if his examples are full-solids?

 

The racing champion, semi-flat, looks a bit like some of the farm stuff carried by Padgett Brothers (A-Z), so may be via-them, and while the decoration might be home-messing with paint-markers (there's a lot of it around these days), I suspect factory-paint?

 

To scale!

Cherilea (?) tree, Quaker Foods gladiator's horse and a jumping ghost.

Brilliant!

 

A bag from The Toy Project's shop in North London, much covered in the past and worth a visit if you're near, worth supporting in any event. A Papo pirate, two natives from the Playmates (?) King Kong sets, a Disney Princess and two farmworkers, along with a couple of interesting figures . . . 

. . . being the characters of Duke Kaboom and Combat Carl, both from the Toy Story franchise, and I believe both Toy Story 4? There are various iterations of Combat Carl (don't say GI Joe, they may sue, Evel Knievel's family/estate were threatening to?)*, what's fun is that they are sculpted as mini action-figures, complete with knee and elbow joints - so would make excellent action-figure props in a dolls house! Wheels within wheels, as pop eats itself!

 

*They did, they lost!

 

Many thanks to Peter for putting all this stuff to one side for me, and you, to enjoy!

S is for Slimy Slime From Slimesville, Slimesylvania!

I bought this back in the autumn, can't remember where, possibly B&M or even Smyths, but, I know it was inexpensive?

 

The turtle is not what I was expecting at all! It's an actual turtle, and I assume the other three would be similarly rendered, each is his own shade of green? But I'm not intending to try finding-out, as the slime is like fortified washing-up liquid, it's the vilest stuff you ever encountered, woe-betide any carpet or clothing this come into contact with! Co-branded to Playmates and Nickelodeon, it's pure weirdness on several levels, out there now.

H is for How They Come In - June 2021 - 2 - Three Days in June

Toward the end of May last year I went a little mad on evilBay, call it shopping therapy, call it depression, call it extravagance . . . it wasn't a good time, there were no shows, lock-down was into its 26^th month and it's comforting to go and buy shit, however transitory the feeling it brings, so that's what I did! And I like to think I have a good eye, so it's all worth a look, these are some shots I took not long after the Postman had been!

Tuesday 8^th June - Parcels from the four corners of the world here, almost, with packages from Amazon, the USA, Ukraine and Greece all arriving together! From the latter came the Louizos Toys Wild West set, which I hope contains cowboys around 50/54mm and probably of the Solpa type, but I don't know as it's sealed, and having never seen one before I thought I'd better keep it sealed for now!

Below the unknown cowpokes we have a set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Hero Turtle Anthropomorphic knock-offs from the former Soviet Union, and bunch of Japanese glico-style spaceships and UFO's, but from the 'States, and a rather nice magnetic bottle-opener which was one of two I got in the last 18 months or so, I thought it looked like a Matchbox GI-copy, but it's closer to the Marx 60mm sculpt.

This single parcel arriving the next day was several lots from the same seller (Tony; a friend of the Blog), and contained all sorts of nice things, starting in the top left-hand corner, and moving vaguely clockwise - several swoppet knights, some Elastolin 54mm and some Hong Kong copies of Britains mounted Swoppets.

Below which is a handful of the RP issue of Co-Ma's Roman sculpts, with enough duplicates for me to send the five I hadn't previously been able to, to Peter, small thanks for all he sends to the blog, and who I'd originally sent my only one, we now both have a full set!

An empty swoppet box I can fill at some point! Two empty Airfix boxes and a bunch of loose Airfix figures, two of the new 1:144 war-gaming AFV's which have become popular, literally over the lifetime of the Blog! Below them are two Roskopf blisters, which are nice as I previously only had them loose, or in the small tan boxes, while in the bottom corner two sets of the Roco-Minitanks 'Artillery Group' (copies of Tamiya's 1:35th scale desert-attired 25lbr crew), so I will - at some point - make one up.

The 'box-square' of figures to their left are more modern HK/China (Rado) & Caesar and older Roco and Eidai figures in various amounts with a Japanese officer from Marx Miniature Masterpiece's lines.

To their left a mix of larger figures and above them smaller Giant, post-Giant and Montaplex, other HK figures of interest and a 45mm Ri-Toys (a.k.a. Rado) French soldier taken from Airfix. In the centre we have an Airfix boxed 6x6 truck, a post-Giant two-horsed, articulated chariot, Eidai FlaK's (one mounted on a  half-track) and Roco SPG.

While the 11^th brought a very eclectic mix, which I thought to shoot, but not the best photograph of the three, nevertheless full of nice things!

In the distance, lined-up on the laptop is some Comansi Wild West, but not just any-old Wild West, they are the five character sculpts (husband, wife, two kids and uncle) from the High Chaparral, in front of them some cake-decorations (I can't even remember - one looks Chinese?), a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea . . . heehee!) diver from Remco, another PVC bird from that set we looked at the other day and some Toy Major knights.

We saw the two Soviet-era AFV's back in the summer or autumn, the V2 will be made up at some point, I intend to compare all three - Condor, Eidai and Revell! While I'd forgotten the two Hong Kong AFV's, they are the same maker as the one we looked at the other day, so I'll be able to cannibalise one of the Dingo's to give the Humber it's missing set of wheels.

Other AFV's include two guns and the weird six-wheeled AMX30! Three swans (?) a bag of ? (something), and finally; a set of Supreme Saracen/Livonian type knights made up an eclectic list of arrivals. Most got sorted away quite quickly and sent up to the storage unit, some just packed in 'To be Sorted' boxes, so I will have the fun of discovering them all again at some point!

TMHT is for There's More Hero Turtles!

Like Ninja Turtles but safer for poor little British kids who might otherwise be corrupted into whacking each-other over the head with broom-handles or something . . . humm . . . that worked huh!

A quick follow-up from a post last January, and I don't need to subject you to a back-link as they're all here; they are Ninja's. not heroes!

Brian managed to find the missing pose/character from the Playmates set he shared with us back then, and it is the above 'Mikey' Michelangelo to be precise, complete with nun-chucks! That's two broom-handles-worth of mayhem! Perfect 54mm as well!

Complete line-up, you may recall I'd had one come-in from Chris, and at some point I'll get the others myself, just to box-tick, but as far as the Blog's concerned and thank to Mr Berke, the box is already and well and truly ticked here now! Cheers Brian!

R is for Renaissance Reptiles

Another quickie, this one covering a few TMNT bits which came in over Christmas from Brain, Chris and Peter, but; working in reverse . . .

. . . with this 'shelfie' which came in the other day from Mr. Berke, who managed to find three of four (no Michelangelo) of these Playmates figurines, imported into his part of the world by Greenbrier; DTSC - their normal 'partner in crime' seem to have passed on this one?

The missing pose's the problem with here-today-gone-tomorrow, rack-toy sets that happen to have multiple characters; that you sometimes miss one! I never found the missing turtle in the remaindered set a few years ago!

Pack-back and a sizer - you can see from the Lone Star shooter (Berserker on his Christmas break?) that these are an almost perfect 54mm, and they are an un-articulated 'solid' figure in a dense'ish PVC or modern equivalent polymer, and I know that because a few days earlier . . .

. . . Chris Smith had included one in his latest parcel! Here posed next to the key-ring giant Mr. Evans had sent a month or two previously (seen before here at Small Scale World) and which I have now removed from his seriously large (and limiting) base. Indeed, after this shot was taken I removed the key-chain and ring too.

Cheers to all three for the contributions, and while there is no official Talk Like a Teenage Turtle Day (maybe there ought to be!), we will have to have a full TMNT post one day as I have quite a few of them now.

A is for Another . . . Board Game with Turtle Ninjas

. . . another charity-shop purchase . . . another Nickelodeon-licensed to Tactic game . . . another box ticked!

Now I'm back using the library for internet, these boxes get shot in the shopping precinct and left there! I may be more honest and open with friends and family about my collecting than some in the hobby (anyone read the recent story of the family sorting out their late father's property for sale, finding thousands of quid's-worth of model trains under the floorboards, even the deceased man's wife new nothing about!) but I'm not wandering around town with a kids toy box under my arm any longer than I have to!

'Kimble'? It used to be called Ludo or 'Pachisi' when I wer't' whipper-snapper nipper!

Four times four figures, each colour-coded by 'Lone Ranger' style 'kerchief mask and coming in at a comfortably-compatible with role-playing figures' 28mm, you'd have to remove the locating-tube under the bases though. Softish PVC-replacement polymer.

The only point to note is that the purple one (Yeah! I could look 'im up, but I can't be arsed! Botticelli the Younger, Mona Liza Presley . . . one of them!) comes in two variants; two-each with the staff bent forward at the top, two-each backward and there's no apparent reason for it?

S is for Silly-Season Search for Sci-fi Solids

So, while the Tories spent the summer eating each other alive over Brweakshit, Donald Small-hands loaded so many tariffs on China's (sorry; Chai-Nah!)'s components their trade-surplus with the 'States actually went up (because the US buyers had to pay the extra for the bits they needed!) and the BBC stooped ever lower in its desire to lick the arses of Fox and Sky, but not as low as the daily Wail (get your feed from TJF!), we here at Small Scale World had much better ways of seeing the silly season slide by with its record temperatures;

I got my collection out of storage, Brian B sent me lots of pictures and Gisby searched frantically for an ID on some figures, this post is the result!

Ages ago, like two years ago or more, Brian sent me an image of one of his displays which had this trio in the corner, and I asked him if he had a better shot or knew anything about them. He then sent the image I posted back at the beginning of July and I (being a lazy git) sat back and waited for Gisby to reveal all! Gisby, however; missed the hint and did a fantastic job of finding the Buck Rogers figures instead (for which link I've just looked and failed to find the follow-up! Then I remembered Gisby put the links in the comments)! I emailed him with the cry for help, and he was off!

'Racun' - Critter Commandos

He sort of drew a blank, but had checked Team Frog's 'Critter Commandos' (his first thought), as he suspected it might be the work of sculptor Steve Lortz, before he "checked Castle Creations and Lance & Laser, because he [Lortz] sculpted for them, but nope. I tried Archive and Stan Johannsen, because they make 'that type' of figure, even if a different style, but nope".

He then left a message on a vintage forum and got in touch with Paul Lidberg at Team Frog, who correctly ID'd them as being pretty poor sculpts! We all got a bit excited for a moment, thinking they might be quite uncommon, or a bit 'old school' and better images were called-for; which Mr. Berke duly provided . . .

. . . and I sent some on to Gisby, while planning this post around the rest of them, but RTM was bearing-down on me and I had a four-van logistics exercise to arrange! At this point however the story failed to develop into a full, epic quest as someone on the forum had ID'd them and that was - rather . . . that!

It turns out they are by Dark Horse Miniatures who produced these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sets based on their (Dark Horse's) own comics, the sculptor being Ian Lungold, and the foursome who'd caused all the excitement are titled set 178 - After The Bomb Mutants. But they are still nice 'old school' figures so let's have a closer look . . .

The thing is - while a modern maker rightly feels they are a bit poor, when I was a kid this was par for the course and there were dozens and dozens of these things in Military Modelling around '78-'80, and the pre-GW editions of White Dwarf. I used to buy things very much like this from Tangley Model Workshop in Guildford and if you put them lose in your pocket half the detail seemed to have rubbed-off by the time you got them home!

I'm guessing these were mid/late-1980's (at the time of writing I haven't followed the links myself yet!), but in the '80's lot of guys were sculpting this kind of thing in their bedrooms from Plasticine or candle-wax, casting them in Lego-dams or cuttlefish moulds, which is why I have the occasional unknown posts, I keep coming-across unknown metal!

My favourite, 'she' looks like she may be a she, which if they are dogs (mutant dogs) would make her a bitch, and if you encounter a mutant dog with an eye-patch and a big gun; 'Bitch' is the least of it, but the one word you wouldn't use! I think she's probably the leader of the gang as well?

I don't know what to make of this chap, there's some dog around the jowls, but the rest of him is more turtle-meets-mantis! What looked like an unreadable marking on the base equates to neither the maker or the sculptor, nor even the franchise; so just some fettling-marks or something?

Thanks to Brian for indulging me, thanks to Gisby for all his searching and thanks to Paul Lidberg and whoever put the name to the figures; I think they're great!

S is for Small-Scale Superheroes

A weak post, but it clears a load of bits & bobs out of Picasa, so it's an exercise in housekeeping if nothing else, and the last image is all-new, and interesting.

Carrying-on from this morning's Kinder, I think the chap with a skidoo is from a superhero set of some kind, but also from a capsule toy or blind-back type line? Toy Options are part of a UK outfit (Character Group) with quite a few tentacles and have carried Galoob clearance in the past, this looking like a re-paint of a standard micro-machine winter-sports item, it may have been a James Bond thing; not a superhero thing?

To his right are the contents of the 'Miscellaneous' bag in the Galoob box, the pirate is for another day, while I don't know if the damaged bike is from Ninja Turtles (see below), Small Soldiers (seen here sometime; Mattel) or Biker Mice (storage, Applause?), but the chap in the middle is looking like he might be the spandex-bedecked victim of a nuclear accident, or radioactive spider's bite?

The image above is the side panel off something we've looked at before (Galoob baseball players) and shows some other BatSets^TM!

We've also looked at this Playmates set before, but it seems I had some shots left! Teenage Mutant Ninja Heroes in a Half-shell and some dude who's so fat he needs a tank to go to the shops! He'll be the bad guy; bald, loud-shirt, grey equipment, definitely a bad guy!

Seen before, but I had a spare image; they accompany larger action figures, found in corner shops and pound-stores, I'm still missing the blue one!

Now, these were sent by Brian Berke a year-or-so ago, but should still be findable and I quite like the looks of them, but I haven't seen them over here anywhere, not even Asda, which is where you'd look given that they state 'Walmart Exclusive'.

Not 'deforms' so much as slight caricatures, and from Marvel who come second to DC in my book, but none-the-less a nice little set of what look to be 28/30mm figures.

I don't recognise the first one (Phoenix Man?) or the second (The Man Snail^TM), Captain A and the Archer bloke are a bit more familiar, while for UK readers - is the forth one down Bodie or Doyle!

H is for [Super] Heroes in a Half-shell!

How can you possibly follow Bat-Bots^TM but with humanoid Tortles . . . no; Turpins . . . err . . . Terratoises . . . Doh! These shelfies from Brian Berk were sent in a while ago, but they should still be available in the 'States or on-line?

The back of the pack gives news of a full set of four being available and that if you put children under three years of age in a wheelie-bin, they may take-on a miserable countenance; so Don't! It's Christmas, everything goes in the bin after the New Year!

"Hey kids! If you're going out to beat things up with nun-chucks, remember to wear skate-pads!" Michelangelo keeping his chained fighting-sticks warm under his armpits!

I think the click-and-go refers to the base; there's no sign of other moving or replaceable parts?

Around 70mm, I'll be looking out for them over here, although [he thinks] I'm still missing one of the smaller Tactik ones (Donatello) I was picking-up a couple of years ago. These are under the new or second Monogram label, the same lot behind the Batman pencil-top bust we looked at a while ago, also courtesy of Brian.

Cowabunga!

F is for Follow-up - Ackerman & Tactik

Just a couple of quick follow-ups to stuff posted about a month or so ago.

 

Ackerman - Battle Squad Army Playset

When I'd finished posting all the recent Chinatroops (which got spread over three or four posts), I was left with a scan of a card; I've collaged it with its set contents as if it were on the rack! And I think it means the two little jeeps weren't from the same set, I just photographed them in the same sequence.

 

Tactik - TMNT Foot Soldier

Picked this up to make four out of five, just got to find a Raphael to make the set - only a matter of time! And someone has sent more TMNT's to the blog - for another time!

H is for Heroes in Half-shells

Back in the late 1980's when these guys first picked-up momentum (and kick-started the modern graphic-novel moment (in the English language that is; the Europeans were - of course - way ahead of the Anglo Saxons on that one . . . bigoted Brexit idiots!), I'd just got out of the army and was living in Aldershot where one of those combined head-shop/t-shirt/punk-badge/comic kiosks had both the US TMNT editions and the self-censored TMHT version . . . our kids weren't to be influenced by Ninjas apparently, they had to have 'Heroes' . . . go figure!

Carded Leonardo and Michelangelo, the figures are about56/60mm, but as they represent cartoon anthropomorphic turtle Ninja warrior monks who live in a sewer and allow themselves to be trained by a giant rat, I'm not sure that their being a few millimeters taller or shorter than your favorite figure-size is much to worry about!

I picked them up in a non-chain clearance/pound shop in Aldershot the other week, three of five, the missing figures being Raphael and a 'Foot Soldier'. And this gets Finland in the tag-list again!

Donatello in his blister and a line-up of the three, I've been back to see if I could get the others, but it's clear I got the last three of an end-of-line thing! Still - three-quid for the trio? I bet Forbidden Planet had them at  +/- a fiver-each whenever they were 'high street' retail stock!

The cards that came with them made no sense; nor did the all-languages/no language graphical instruction sheet! There seems to be an element of having to give your figure away if you lose at a round of 'Top Trumps': madness! There's a video on-line that might make it clearer. . . no, I haven't and I won't be, I'm a collector, not a thrower-away of good figures on the turn of a card!

These are nice sculpts, well painted, in a tactile material, if you see some, get them, put them on the shelf next to your JIM Napoleonic's, Timpo swoppet 'Great Helms', Marx beach babes and Cherilea Mexican bandit, they all represent the same thing - Childhood.

M is for Mini Play Sets

I can't remember when I reviewed these in One Inch Warrior magazine, but I seem to remember it was an early issue, so they must have been shown at the Toy fair around 2001/2-'ish? They started turning -up at car boot sales about 2006 anyway, and I've procured this little handful, which are really only good for a box tick, as while they have been branded to various stores and chains, they were originally Blue Box, so this gets them on that tag!

In the style of Micro-machines or Action Fleet from Galoob, but a little stumpier; I think these were a Knights of the Round table play-set with (note sword 'in stone') King Arthur centre, and Guinevere as one of the two ladies of the court top right.

Other sets had a more magical or fantasy setting with dragons and ghosts and stuff. All the little weapons are the same, but the shields had different stickers and the horses alternative paint.

When a set has background stickers on a separate sheet, there are often on or two that can be turned into a card 'flat', such is the case with this suit of armour, I have similar Storm-troopers and a couple of crowds of civilians in my Galoob Star Wars collection!

Larger accessories, there were also sets of Romans and US Cavalry/Wild West if I recall correctly? With various accessories being issued in more than one set. Each set was centred on a small, not terribly realistic/useful [to gamers], clip-together fort.

I'm not sure if the Turtles weren't issued by Playmates, but that might have been something similar? Clearly there was also a pirate set, with what looks like one of Tom of Finland's friends starring in a leather jerkin! That's Blue Box micro-action figures ticked off.