N is for November's Sandown Park - Sci-Fi &etc.

On to the odd-and-sods of the last show, and these are a bit of a mix, nothing exciting, but it's all grist to the mill, and there's always something new!

 

I think the devil is probably a rather naff Valentine's Day 'thing', but it IS a bendy! While the green chap, also a bendy, is probably more modern, and wasn't easy to shoot, but I decided to leave him in his crinkled bag for now. He has something of the Muppets about him?

 

Straight from a shop-stock / counter display box, three colours/poses of the Cherilea 60mm astronauts, interesting that the whole box, only had these three poses, the non-EM2 Bullpup armed chaps? And colours tie-in with the Tibidabo issues, so I think it's fair to say the Italians just bought-in the product, but never had the tools?

 

If there's anything exciting in this post it's the left-hand of these two from Yolanda, of Spain, being a large Anime/Manga type robot, Marked Toei, while the other chap is marked Troma I think, the US pulp-Video Nasty producer, and both are the earlier polyethylene, some Yolanda were later issued in a softer PVC-substitute.

 

Adrian gave me this, his head is broken-off, so will need pining at some point, but in the last few years several whole, and part, Cherilea Batmans and/or Robins have come in with one or two bases, so I'll sort them all into the best pair and Blog them again properly, one day!

 

'Gygax' spikey, one of the Crossbows & Catapults figures mentioned the other day, home-painted and play-worn, he needs a good clean, along with a Bandai Power Ranger's villain - I think!

 

What looks like a 1:48th scale aircraft kit's gunner, and one of the Aurora figures from the Lost in Space set with the rock-throwing cyclopean alien. He's lost his hand, but as a first sample, will do for now, although I may have these in white-plastic (Mobius) somewhere?

S is for Seen elswhere - Siberian Tigers

Well, some of them were, which was useful as Taos managed to ID one for me! Not an overview, there are dozens and dozens when you know what to look for, not all mine, a few more have come in, and some were still / are still in storage, and no real narrative of any consequence making itself obvious, so enjoy the eye candy!

 

It's huge!

 

Nayab from both sides.

 

About 1:10th scale? Too big for Action man?

 

Chasing tails!

 

Needs a meal too!

 

Unknown recent addition?

A bit bigger than the Schleich cub. 

B is for Big Box of Bounty - Sci-Fi, Cartoon, TV & Movie

And, so, sadly, we reach the end of the Chris's parcel plunder posts, with some very interesting or useful stuff, and some oddities, along with best in box, which might surprise some, but not those who 'get' me! It's all the fictional or funny stuff today!

 

Power Rangers - I think the two micro-vehicles are Micromachines, along with the Putty Patroller, while the smaller articulated chap (in the style of Polly Pocket or Action Fleet) is still unknown to me, although there are some in the bags we didn't look at in this past post, possibly Playmates, or someone like that? While the Black Ranger is from those key-ring capsule toys.

 

These are fascinating, probably from a generic rack-toy, they are somewhere between the Gordy-Pikit rack-toy Bi-Trons and more formal toy transformer types, two points of articulation at the shoulders, and frontal tampo-printing in silver and gold, I'll be looking out for their set on evilBay!

 

Similar fayre; a larger PVC-alike, marked-up to DIC Productions, Playmates and Tsurubaya, so 'Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad', and again articulated only at the shoulders, and a smaller robot, missing a foot (could have one in the spares somewhere, from non-branded versions, or a similar Kinder type plug-together?).

 

The 'Free Comic Day' over-print is referencing an extant 'thing', the next date, is this coming May (2026), so I guess this was a promotional or freebie associated with that event, in the past. The event seems to be active in the UK, but the outfit behind it is based in the USA.

 

A fine selection of Manzingers, Grandizers, Transformers and/or Decepticons . . . or other things entirely! On the left is a stamper, with the design on it's base underside, at the back are two of the pencil-tops, which may form the follow-up to this post, while in front are two of the little mini's issued in the US by Ace Acme, but probably found over here as either capsule toys in gum-ball machines, or Christmas cracker prizes?

 

While the pair to the right are more traditional Keshi, with one 'proper' marked one (in the flesh-pink polymer), fully deformed, and one bootleg, almost certainly from gum-ball capsules, in blue.

 

OK, so, best in box! But first, the others . . . Three at the back may be from a short-lived toy line called Battle of the Planets (?) or something similar, each fold-open planet came with a handful of aliens associated with it, then we have two role-playing war games figures, one marked Grenadier (on the left) and numbered A 588, which I just cannot find on the Lost Mini's Wiki? The other, half-painted, looking like Minifigs? To their right are two marked Mega Bloks, from a line which has escaped me; I know of the little submariner figures, but these are fully-based stand-alone space/alien types?

 

Which leaves the two little 18/20mm blobs! BEST IN BOX! Against all the other contenders (the four sailors, the putty-coloured guy with the charm-loop, the lovely Napoleon on horseback, the two kneeling khaki infantry . . . ), and the reason is this;

 

I have two already, although I didn't realise it. I have one similar to the red one here, which is in the unknown GI's, as a presumed 1 or 2 cent/pence gum-ball prize, and I have a more obvious female space figure in pink, which is halfway down this page, and kept in the unknown space zone, now I know they go together, and there's more to find!

 

With a robot type and another GI 'space marine' here, I now have four in three or four poses (my blue one may be the same as this red one?)! Does anyone else know anything about them, have you got a bigger sample? They are all very clean, so maybe not that old, but I've had mine for over thirty years? Again, possibly cracker novelties over here, and maybe the small tree-crackers, at that?

 

I thought the finger-puppet was a new, fourth pose, but it's a duplicate, so may be a candidate for future painting, and I had hoped to have a fourth pose in the follow-up, as I found one in gold-paint, days before Chris's parcel arrived, but can I find it again? Can I hell, I'm sure it's in Picasa somewhere, and I've poured over the dozen or so folders it should be in, but I can't find it again, so it'll have to wait!

 

The dull yellow one is a Pokémon I think, and was found towing the French wagon when I opened the box, I have no idea on the bright yellow chap, who's been rather washed-out by the flash (Ben 10?), and the other has been seen before, here at Small Scale World, and is a rubber-jiggler, best described as a duck-billed platterpenguin! He wouldn't stand up!

 

Marked Bandai, I know nothing else about the gold winged chap, the robot is from the Buck Rogers eraser set, through which, upon Blogging here a while ago, we realised Bushy the Coppice really had started his counter-blogging nonsense!

 

The tall guy, looking a little like Moorcock's hero Elric of Melniboné (in a blazer!)  is probably a relatively recent Gashapon figure of some Japanese TV 'anime'? While the figure on the ground is . . . 

 

. . . looking like a Star Wars knock-off of Princess Leia? She's either a poorly-moulded short-shot, or another of the sand-washed beach finds, I think that Deetail Arab, in an earlier post, was, and she may go with that set of green knock-offs which were posted around the Internet about 15-years ago; were they South American, or Japanese?

 

Cartoony bits include a Jolly Jumper, faithful mount of Lucky Luke, most of a Gantoy knock-off of Muffin the Mule, missing his nodding head, he's a first sample, so stays! The weird doll-thing is looked-at below, while the pig is from one of those pre-Kinder, Hong Kong, novelty animal families.

 

We've looked at the rabbit as a teaching aid, and the orange-red blob is a Mini Bogglin, there's actually a huge bag of them in the stash somewhere, so they will get a proper post one day, but it's not a priority here!

 

This 'doll', I've seen before, that chap who was doing the beach-combing displays of polymer-shite washed up in the West Country had one, less this weird one-piece, clip-over, romper-suit, like this one his was missing its head, so your guess is as good as mine, but numerous enough to be known by some - are you one of them?

 

Manta Force from Bluebird Toys, figures and robots, I think these are the 'bots attached to the sides of one of the larger toys in the range, as they are mostly missing their bottoms (tracked units), as they were interchangeable, in that larger set.

 

Two seasonal house-burglars and a Kinder gnome, I think the one on the left is all new to me/collection, not sure on the gnome, it was a multi-issue line which ran for several years (most of a decade?), so there are a lot to find, and I do have lots about the place, but I haven't brought them all together, or compared them to the Sammler Katalog's, yet!

 

Two Matchbox, late production (Universal) on the left, a Bluebird Havok needing a base on the right, and one of those odd rack-toy 'Walker' pilots we've seen here, along with a Dr. Who viral robot 'Cybermat', actually in a much larger scale, but useful!

 

Two characters from Pif Gadget, the French kid's comic, here manufactured by Brabo, but similar figures were issued by others including Yolanda, a Micky Mouse pencil top and a Donald who looks to be almost certainly Xandria from the Netherlands? He's seen better days and all four could use a clean, but a sample is a sample!

 

Many, many thanks to Chris for all this autumn's fine plunder, he doens't have to do this, and it does all provide answers (the 'Best in Box' for instance) as well as new questions, and with so much to find, it's only the help I get from Chris, Peter, Trevor, John, Adrian, Gareth and co., which helps us all, to get to that ultimate bigger picture.

B is for Big Box of Bounty - Animals

The penultimate post of plastic plunder from Chris, and it's the animals, the least documented of the collection, simply because there are thousands upon thousands of them, and they've just never been a priority, and as the pile of unknowns grows, it gets, like any dark secret, too big to face!

 

But one day soon I hope to tackle it (there's realistic-sculpt Lik Be hidden in there, among other things), and when I do, it will fall into place, or at least some of it will!

 

A Dino-skeleton, a modern phenomenon which is contributing to that pile, although we have ID'd a few over the years, but they keep coming, and this one, one of those 'berry-heads' (Pachycephalosaurus) by the look of it, is larger than most and new to me, it's creeping-up on two arguing cave-men, who are now known (by me, other people knew all along!) to be HG Toys.

 

Small PVC jobbies, and a big job too, with many ID'd and many still to be, here I think we have examples of two modern/current'ish sets, a good [detail] and a not so good set, and one of more vintage, the green one with a splash of pink paint?

 

Not Dinosaurs in my Pocket (Matchbox and cereal premiums), but 'Dino Brites' by Happyness Express of New York (1991), originally Panosh, there's plenty on the Internet about them, this is a good précis on the subject;

 

https://www.littleweirdos.net/2012/02/dino-mites-dino-brites.html

 

 

Larger chaps, with an erasersaur, and one from my favourite rubber set, front right, in a bit of a state, but that state is interesting - it looks upon first glance to be a string, tied by a young owner, which has cut into the foot, but actually, upon trying to remove it, it became clear it was actually an inclusion, running through the leg, and exiting at two points, a piece of cleaning cloth, or hessian sack used to transfer batches of product around the factory floor, which got flicked into the tool? Amazing how it's survived!

 

Two recognisable Holly's (now we've had half a look at them here, as part of the Gygax posts), and the silver one is a nice, but unknown, moulding? Which leaves a softer, more 'Chinasaur' Stegosaurus, who may belong with the Protoceratops and red chap in the second image above?

 

I've seen this chap in mixed lots on evilBay and wondered if it was a copy of one of the Wild West charging/fighting bears, but I think it's a copy of an Elastolin (or Lineol?) composition model, perhaps for Roggatz's ZZ-brand, although not with those green eyes . . . a copy of a copy? Still a nice sculpt, though!

 

Two Airfix piracies, getting a good sample of these now, with and without painted eyes, two larger Hong Kong/China pieces, being a mouse/rat and copy of the Corgi farm dog, a Matchbox boxer-dog from the pick-up truck, and a Berlin-marked bear, with MAMPE, on the other side, a logo-premium for the 'Berlin Mule' kicker-spirit!?

 

A flocked kangaroo, believed to be a Hong Kong-supplied tourist keepsake, three Safari animals, another weakness in the collection, as I've concentrated on the figural sets, and a collectable-series monkey from Topps, who need a better post, along with those Yowies, still in the long queue!

 

Tupperware zebra on the left, chalkware lion from the Naturecraft Christmas crackers in the middle, and one of the two, or four, I'm still looking for! And another bath-toy swan (there was a blue one in the last lot from Peter Evans, and I think I have a pinkish-red one?), which is almost certainly an early post-war novelty, brightening the Christmases, and bath-time's, of the nation's baby-boom.

 

Farm stuff, the composition cow looks particularly interesting (Brent?), while piggy-wiggies and eeeps will need their own ID pages eventually, as there are many of them, and so many copies of known sculpts, it's a collection field in itself . . . Indeed I know a cow collector, who comes round the shows, and from just what I've seen him buy, his collection must be amazing.

 

Two modern horses, and a rather knackered, but still interesting (a sample is always better than no sample) wagon or cart horse, in a solid plastic, which may be Bakelite, or a similar phenol-formaldehyde resin / thermo-set?

 

A bit of fun on the left (but it's a sample!), probably from a modern kid's magazine freebies, and a more conventional beetle on the right, I have half an idea, one day, if I get the time, to mount them all in thematic, glass-fronted, deep frames, as if they are real entomologists exhibits, and ladybirds will be first, as I have a dozen, or more, already!

 

 

Vitacup premiums, mostly damaged, but 'styrene, so usefully glueable, and kept apart, against a future mending session! The baby elephant is more robust, and has survived intact.

 

Lego (?) fish, a Hammerhead, who is damaged, he's missing his lower 'gape mouth' jaw, but it actually, ironically, takes him from the realm of rubber-juggler, to something more realistic looking! A Safari White Shark, and a more generic . . . Mako? Marked China and 'Shark'!

 

Two stretchy 'rubber-jiggler' lizards, probably from two sources, the one unmarked, and flattish with fine sculpting detail, the other fully-round, with fuzzier surface detail (marked China), despite both being metallics, common on these stretchy toys.

 

The turtle is amusing, to me, as I have a blue one which I think is a childhood survivor, despite my not remembering the set, or occasion of its acquisition, it seems to have been in the toy drawer for forever, and nice to find his mate, in another fantastic parcel from Chris Smith.

B is for Big Box of Bounty - Civilian

I rather broke the rhythm with the last post, it should have come after a bauble post, of which there are still one or two in the queue, but, hey-ho, worse things happen at sea, much worse! Looking at the civilians from Chris Smith today, and there will be a follow-up!

Another contender for best in box, I found the A-suffixed marking first and thought I/Chris had found a group of sculpts missing from the Lik Be (LB) listings, but it looks unlikely, comparing all four. However, they are rather fun, and obviously, back in the day, a touristy thing, at a price which would have been well below the hand-carved wood, or poured resin alternatives, probably sold as a set in a window-box, but possibly separate too, and, were there a D or E suffix, more even - I hope this is a complete set?

I think of them as; 

414 - A private owner or ‘weekender’, motor not sail!
414 A -  A Trawlerman.
414 B - The ‘Old Salt', probably also the local  Pilot and/or Harbourmaster! 
414 C - A Russian or Eastern-European 'jobber’, or seaman for hire.

A nice set of modern, maybe even still current China police, we did some work on these a few years back, rather by accident, with much help from a series of shelfies from Brian in New York, and it's something I'll have to return to when everything is brought together, as there are many to formally ID, even if they are on the blog somewhere already.

But for a while we were making headway, with stuff from Dolgen, Greenbrier and Jaru et al., over there and Poundland, Pound World and 99p Stores etc., over here. Where a group of Western companies will carry the same set, and another group, another set, with other sets hanging in independent convenience stores, and people like HTI sourcing yet more sculpts from somewhere else!

As with the oft-mentioned (because both Brian and Theo have sent stuff for it) firefighter page, there will need to be a police page, a footballer page, and page on motor-race officials, spectators and mechanics, with better posts than so far on fishermen, divers, cricket &etc . . . all these things take time!

Likewise, these game-playing pieces! I don't know this lot (but they may be in the archive somewhere), I know the guys with suitcases, I know the people waiting for a bus, I know two or three sets of busts, and while several of them are police/espionage/crime related, and I think these three (of four?) will be of that ilk, I currently don't know!

Three polystyrene Blue-Box copies of Dinky mechanics, and one of the lesser sub-piracies in grey polyethylene, as an aside, I picked up three of the Marx construction worker copies, mentioned in passing in the Military plunder-post the other day, at Sandown park, so they are in the queue, and it's another example of a page that will need to be produced one day, all the road-work and construction figures!

We've either seen this guy before, or the matching motorcycle rider (possibly also from Chris), and I do now know who he is, he's The Lucky Toys, in a 3-inch scale they usually didn't touch, next to him is a marked Funrise figure, and a small novelty badge (a simple pen-clip slip-over), for which there is a drawer, somewhere!

Farming; the figures on either side (children?) may be connected, but their differences match their similarities in number - I think they ARE the same source. He looks as if he should be holding a sack, or a lamb?

 

The second figure is possibly Lemax, from the Christmas Village (enough items listed now, for a busy city!), becoming quite common over here now (it was a US thing), with two Garden Centres known to me stocking them, the squirrel has lost it's tail and looks like a gopher!

While the larger is another of, or from the same source of that multi-series, multiscale, multi-issuer range which was around in the 1990's, as die-cast vehicle and big-box play set accessories who will need a big post one day!

Seated figures include a Blue Box tractor driver, a couple of Tudor Rose (or copies - green and yellow chaps), a possible Thomas in blue (top right), a possible Blue Box copy of Marx dolls house figure (painted woman), a more modern driver and a couple of racing car drivers with some vintage.

A real mix here, with a Marty circus horse, Zoo Quest hunter (Ariel), HK copy railway figure (pink), two Slater's or similar O-gauge railway figures, the painted kid is marked (C) 98 & INRES if that means anything to anyone?

The chap with the charm loop, might be a European product mascot/premium, and one of the major members of the animal forums uses an identical one, as his sizer for animals and dinosaurs, so when I become more active on those than I have been so far, he will prove very useful indeed, but I don't know his origins?

Likewise, the chef, is probably a product/retailer mascot of some kind, he's on a plinth (poor photograph, sorry). The figure far-left could be Kinder, or similar and is a reduced-scale Playmobil clone, and the guy in blue overalls might be Supreme, but he looks too well detailed?

Firefighters, with a possible Pioneer or Realtoy (painted, sand base), two Matchbox (silver), and several others, far right is probably French, and from a die-cast (or aluminium?) fire appliance, and I think we've seen the brown one, bagged!

Many thanks as always to Chris for all these, and everything else he shares with us, I'll gather a few bits for a follow-up, and maybe get something out tonight.