T is for The Toy Project

One item missing from the Peter Evans Plunder post this morning was the below bag. Peter has been to visit the shop in London, making a purchase while he was there and it's a good excuse to plug a [toy related] worthy cause again!

It’s funny to see the Toy Boarders coming to the secondary market, but I guess it's a few years since they appeared here on a 'New Production News' tag! Along with a generic 'China Toy' mechanic around 35mm, a slight scale difference, but they are both civilians!

Both sides of the header-card, I'll post the relevant URL's again at the end as useable hot-links.

For those who missed the previous post The Toy Project is a charity that accepts donations from private individuals and works with the Industry, using various models of fund-raising to generate money and or Toys for children in need. They recently worked with the Grenfell Tower children - for instance.

Raising money for specific projects by selling either the second-hand donations like these, or new production donations from the industry, they also channel some of the industry donations straight to their projects, if suitable while more conventions fund raising like sponsorship, or coffee mornings are encouraged.

An A5 Flyer (also printable at A4 &etc.) was also present on the front desk at the show.

The TOY Project

WEB

Website: thetoyproject.co.uk

eMail: donations@thetoyproject.co.uk

TELEPHONE

+44 7590 256 530 (from abroad)

07590 256 530 (within UK)

SHOP

99 Junction Road, Archway, London, N19 5QX, UK

Opening Times

Mon–closed

Tues–Saturday 10am-6pm

Sunday–closed

FACEBOOK

Facebook Page

P is for Plunder Posts - 4 - Two Bags from Peter Evans

At the risk of embarrassing him; I thanked Peter in January for staying firmly 'on the fence' in another matter, a course of action others have not chosen, it is a measure of the character of him as a man, a measure myself and the other party have failed to measure up to.

I'll thank him again, here, on the record and thank him for the two large bags of plunder he brought to the PW show for me, and for which - like last year - he demanded a pittance; it was infinitesimal for what was in the bags!

There was a small bag of small scale, but filled with nice things including these Galoob Micro-Machines, there were four obvious new variants (each highlighted), but I have since ID'd 12 that need to be added to the Galoob Page and while I have updated the photographs and screen-cap's I haven't got round to the task itself yet!

The obvious ones were an un-numbered early man-portable, Redeye AAGW operator (provisionally 10 in my page's numbering) in the Navy paint-scheme, two 33's with brown bases and an MP green variant (65) with flack-vest.

The rest of the bag's contents were (on the left) a useful mix of Galoob's other lines, Hasbro Action Man, Mattel Hot Wheels, Corgi and a Blue Box mechanic along with some Rado for Marksmen and the five on the top row who have been issued by Majorette, but also others.

To the right are the larger figures in the bag with a couple of 'China Toy' firefighters, the Mattel Cylon Raider (new to me) and Earth-searching Colonial Viper pilot's (strangely; the latter is far more common/numerous?) from Battlestar Galactica, another Corgi and some lovely semi-flats for model railways. I have some in storage and they are interesting in that they seem to be scaled-up, cartoon'ified (or caricatured?) copies of the Marklin lead flats. They could be European but I suspect early Hong Kong, anyway we will look at them all together in greater depth one day.

We've seen most of the stuff on the left here before - the superhero/wrestlers (thanks to Terranova) and the unicorn 'babies' (99p Stores?) but the non-Disney 'princesses' are lovely! There's some lead/whitemetal odds (2 Turkish Janissaries or Landschnechts with 'a' separate head and a chap in a top-hat!) and a Mattel CUTIE (bottom left).

While the motorbike is large, crude and seen here before (possibly also from Peter?), but is different enough to have already been comparison-shot with the previous one and added to a motorcycle round-up currently in the queue!

On the right a deliberately vague and long-shot, as a lot of this will get a spot in Rack Toy Month, or a Dinosaur round-up, or a 'lets make a tank-hunter' post etc . . . etc . . . I need to glue the petrol-pump without wreaking the packaging, or it would have been included with the Dinky set the other day, although I forgot the Tiger road signs (doh!), while the rubber eye is so bad it's oddly good, and means I may yet use the rather gruesome shots Terranova sent a couple of years ago!!

A bag of 'Armymen', a mixed bag of 'Little Rubber Guys' and cereal premiums and a bag of MPC Africans/hunters from both the 60mm and ring-hand series. Small bag of horses, a wagon which is the level of piracy below the ones we recently looked at, a nice Roman, resin but nice and some Greco-Romans (from a chess set?) marked Roxy, which may be the same Hong Kong Roxy (logo inset) branded to Lucky Toys style racing cars with the same (Lucky) figures?

The chalk-ware cottage is new to me I think and I have several, we will look at them when the rest come out of storage, probably as a Christmas post one year, while the Airfix war memorial in the same bag is probably actually Dapol in that plastic colour?

More rack-toy bits, boxed and unboxed, some of it will probably - in the fullness of time - go on to charity as being outside the scope of the collection, but not outside the scope of the blog, although the 'Smart Shoppers' Supermarket Set will need some thought! Maybe a generic 'Hong Kong' entry under H in the A-Z blogs, for all un-branded HK stuff?

Peter also passed these two my way, and they will get a full 'T is for Two . . . ' later today; the one on the left being a nice home-made vignette of medieval flats, the one on the right being more commercial looking - a hiker resting by a cave - possibly from a model railway range?

There was a bag of capsule-toy capsules which I haven't found time to fully investigate (after three weeks!) but did notice most of them were Balaban or Maraja, so very useful and with Terranova sending me a nice capsule toy just now, there will be a post forthcoming as there is one forming in the queue!

I've over-printed the scan on the right as I have no idea as to the copyright status of it, but I thought this was a nice take on the old play-mat principle; a puzzle which builds into a play-mat, presumably for a HK or - more likely 'China' - farm set from which it has been separated.

Everything else! Novelty Power Rangers pen-top, Wilton footballers and a sample of Spanish sobre envelops with what are called Cromaticos, in English; collector's cards and stickers, two still had a piece of gum attached and are now hors de combat while the Imperial Stormtrooper ^{®, TM & © George Lucas - Lucasfilms - Disney Corp.} toothbush is just what you need to keep your gnashers polished on the Kessle Run - too cool for dental college!

Cheers Peter and thank you!

P is for Plunder Posts - 3 - Themes This Year

As we've already seen today (and will see tomorrow) this year's plunder pile was very eclectic and unlike last year (when I was looking-out for Fontanini and Fonplast), this year I had no real agenda beyond the obvious constraints (or driving-forces) of RTM (Rack Toy Month) and Talk Like a Pirate Day (TLAPD), however, there is/are always a few patterns or trends revealed to be running-through the spoil-heap, once it's sorted and this year there were two manufacturer-based themes in evidence.

Gem, Gemodels, GeModels, Ge-Models call them what you like (they did!), these are mostly Culpitt's anyway! This was the primary synergy in the plunder this year and it raised several paragraphs worth of anecdotal stuff!

You may remember last year (or the year before) Mike Harding offered me three skateboarders, to which I said a hasty "Yes!", well he had some more this year, and there was one in Trevor's bag, so three of them for a start!

I'm hoping the pop-bandsmen are a different brown to the ones I already have, and while the drum-kit is missing a side-drum, it's otherwise complete and will be wholly-so when added to the rest.

The shrub is brittle and missing its 'top-knot' so future photo-background scenery only! But I noticed that the stuff Musgrave issued as Gem, with the base mark (shrub, cowboy and horse guard), are chalkier plastic than the ones Culpitt's had produced for them by a third party (from un-base-marked moulds supplied by George) which are much glossier.

The Santa in the bottom right-hand corner is Festival which are 'Musgrave' of some kind, while the upper-right pair with a set of skis (which fit both) are later HK sourced stuff of/from Culpitt's, probably also carried - in the 'States' - by Wilton. Skiing Bear . . . bear on skis - priceless!

The tennis players however - are driving me mad! There must be a trader at PW who got a job lot of these years ago, and over the years I've bought most of them from him, because; not being the brightest button in the box, every time I see them, I think "Are these the ones I need?", and buy a pair, but every time I get a sunburnt boy with painted base and a flesh-coloured girl with plain base, I need the opposite! Literally - I have three pairs here and another one or two in storage! Big Fat Doh!

I picked-up several more Gem/Culpitt items two weeks later at last weekend's Sandown Park toy fair; boxer's in European and Negro finish, another cricketer, nursery figures, more skis!

The other trend which revealed itself in the sorting stage was Blue Box, it's an annual thing - in part because I do look out for them, in part because they were successful, so the stuff is pretty common, and they had quite a wide range, branded to themselves.

This is both Blue Box and Blue Box-like, I'm not happy with the wheels on the hay-cart (I think they may have been taken from a Tudor Rose type beach-toy truck?), but I have a near mint one with card insert (which we've looked athere), so it can stay as a curiosity for now, while the blow-moulded hay-rick is very different in style and colour from the ones I already have.

The Noah family probably are Blue Box, but there are many Noah sets and at least five or six generations of figures associated with them, they were popular with both Bible or religious book shops, and mail-order 'openers' in Sunday supplements and cheap weeklies through the 1970-80's,  so for now they are Blue Box-like in the sorting, especially are they are all poor copies of the sublime Marx Miniature Masterpiece original!

The tailless 30mm horse has already gone to recycling, but his base stayed!

P is for Plunder Posts - 2 - Fellow Collectors Brought Stuff

Various people save me the odd bit, and while you'll be familiar with their names as I've mentioned them all in past plunder posts, it made sense from an image-number perspective to have a separate post this year, although Peter gave me so much stuff, he's getting a separate day - tomorrow!

This was Trevor Rudkin's bag o'bits; he apologised for the small size of it, yet it had several nice things in, not least a  complete set of Triang Minic Motorway figures (centre right), a bunch of Ge-Models ('Gem') below them and a few Spot-On first type figures. Even the Hong Kong plastic copy of Minic Navy aircraft carrier turned out to be new to collection, when I put it away; it's slightly smaller than the ones that have been seen here before.

Chatting to Trevor I pointed out that it is probably 24 years since he started saving me his gash stuff, HK shite, flotsam, jetsam and other bits and bobs, and my collection (or this Blog) wouldn't be what it is without the contributions of Trevor, the other people mentioned in this post and others such as John Begg, Graham Apperley and Micheal Melnyk or Jim ('from Sandown'!), whether gifted or just 'let-go cheap'.

Due to confusion during sorting and photographing, I don't know if these were in Trevor's bag or Brian's, so I've put them between the two! They are odd things, as they are not that rare, not that pretty, yet quite sought-after, as they are the Hong Kong monsters (issued in several sets and copied/reissued in several generations - with or without additional dinosaurs) which Gary Gygax used to illustrate the bestiary which accompanied the original first edition of his Dungeons & Dragons role-playing rule system.

As a result, they are collected by D&D/Role Play fans for that reason, Then they are collected by straight 'fantasy' fans as non-dinosaur, proper 'monsters', they are also collected by some LRG'ers, despite not being monochrome, or rubber, as early examples of monsters, and they are collected by 'one-of-each' complete'ist nutters - like me!

The one on the right (Pterodacturtle)  is my favourite, and I have him in several versions/sizes/colour-ways, the pineapple-prawn monster is - in contrast - my least favoured! I don't know what they are called in D&D!

This year I had a small bag to give Brian, so more of a swap! Brian's bag - interestingly - had a pile of the same fish Peter gave me last year, but with some variations, I wonder if they split a lot, years ago?

There were two other marine-related animals, a large (but not that large) whale and a sea-horse, similar to one currently offered by Aneco, but not identical, the same can be said of the sea-grass, although this older (Hong Kong) pattern was a common filler in many tubs and play-sets (along with blow-moulded rocks!), as the mini, double palm trees's are today.

Adrian Little brought lots of small-scale bits and bobs for me to look at, and with the bits I had off his stall, I ended up with a large bag of interesting-to-very-interesting things from all over the world, in all scales and from most eras or genres! And he charged me peanuts for them, so they belong in this post.

We'll be looking at some of the highlights in the next few days, so I won't go through the whole image, what can you spot? The rest will come out in the wash over time, or be filtered into the master collection - for instance; the little box (top right) is for the Minialuxe figures for their 'old fashioned car' range, it's incomplete, but I have a few in storage with some spare figures, so it will either be 'made-up' or used to store all the buckshee figures, it should have a layer of cotton-wool as well.

Likewise, I picked-up three more Lido-type space figures (middle left), but won't bore you with another post on them until I get the rest out of storage in a month or two - it looks like it will be mid-August. The same is true of the pod-foot Wild West flat (lower centre, red). The Jig-toy crown will go on the Jig-Toy page, but not until I get another out of storage - with the original instruction card for a fuller collage.

Thanks all!

P is for Plunder Posts - 1 - General 'In the Hall' Purchases

I didn't really take any general shots of Sandown last weekend, the show reports don't get terrific traffic, I guess people who were there know, and people who weren't don't want to be reminded of what they missed! I did take a few shots at PW, and some video, but neither are that conclusive of anything, so I may knock something together in a day or two, I may not.

'Plunder Posts' on the other hand always get good traffic, so I'll show you what I took away in my swag-bags on the 12th of last month. Starting with my general purchases around the hall, I suppose I go round about four times, as a 'thorough look', pop back for a few bits and maybe do another row or two on my way back from the gent's or something, or someone may call me over to look at something and I'll check the odd rummage tray on the way back!

There's no rhyme or reason to these pictures, they are just stuff as it was unpacked and made a vague square to photograph! This was mostly rummage-tray stuff I think (and possibly the floor sweepings at the end - next to the 50mm mounted Indian), which got combined into a couple of larger bags, I know I got the submarine from Steve Vickers and I think some of these were from Colin Penn, but I can't name check everyone!

I look at some of it later and wonder "Why?" But rummage trays are like lucky-dips, 'cos you're going through them at speed, and palming things you 'think' are useful on the spur-of-the-moment! The HK scarecrow for instance; I'm sure I've got one already; a better one - and the reissue Charbens knight it hardly a priority, but I didn't have the reissues when I blogged them (not that long ago) so any future box-ticker can - now - be that bit more comprehensive. And - why did I buy the hard, tinny reissue bull, when I have the original!

Odds and sods, literally . . odds & sods! The Hong Kong 5-inch GI is probably the highlight, although I was pleased with the trio of swivel-waisted gunslingers on Hong Kong card from Barney Brown - we actually looked at them a while ago too, but these will be there next time . . . or Rack Toy Month isn't that far-off!

The cripple's crutch is odd, it's cream polystyrene painted silver and may be from an Aurora horror kit, or something like that? It's not Playmobile or anything of that ilk, but could be a doll's thing? It must have been a make-weight in a 20p tray, or off the floor?

The commercial issue of cereal premiums type mini-kits will get their own post, they are quirky and from Italy. A bag of Charbens horse-flesh will prove useful, the pirates will appear fully on TLAPD with a second group I got the same day.

While the large resin lumps? I know, I know . . . I'm not even that big a fan of resin, but they were a bargain from a mate and I may paint them one day? When I used to go to Herne you'd see a lot of this stuff, from these five-inch 'smallies' to figures about three-feet high - or bigger, usually Vikings or Wild West, but from the Beefeater I guess these are a more British thing?

The three Bonux came from Brian C, the two Montaplex from Steve, can't remember where the others came from, we'll look at the tank more closely in another post, while the buildings are Marx Miniature Masterpiece scenic pieces from the Troll Village or Disney's Sleeping Beauty I think, one of those sets?

A youngish guy who's name I didn't catch had these at a pound-a-piece so I made-up a tenner's worth, but he then came over a few minutes later with an 11th - which was kind. Nothing really exciting, but nevertheless useful Giant, Blue Box/Triang-Hornby and Unimax 'army builder' stuff, the 'plane is missing it's nose, but I think I may have some bits in storage, along with a whole BuM one, but this looks to be a Montaplex original - not an easy science?

N is for 'Nother News Flash! Charben's Tome Hits the Libraries of Britian!

The other news today was a new 'Special Publication' from the show's organisers, Plastic Warrior, It's really quite awesome and full review with be forthcoming in a week or two . . . which is all the time you need because it sold-out today!

Unlike previous editions of the Charbens 'check list', this is a book-bound (flat-spine) tome, with an absolute wealth of information and illustrations, most in glorious technimacolishiousness!

Further details - but give them a fortnight to print some more first!

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N is for Newsflash! New Replicants Figures Hit the Streets . . . or should that be 'Hit the Plains'!

The new figures from Replicants were on show today and wow, what a line-up, available from Steve Weston's - presumably from tomorrow - if you didn't manage to make it to the show.

Here's a little preview I knocked-up this ar'vo! I will hopefully do a better review later in the week or the week after maybe, so much to do!