R is for Recent Reading

Not from the last few weeks of enforced sabbatical, but earlier in the year, or even last year, but new purchases, rather than the stuff from the 2021-'23 sorting photo's folder, which we have been looking at in thematic lumps, and I can't remember where they all came from, but I suspect a couple of visits to the old bookshop in Alton, and a couple of charity shop purchases?

 

Ironic, as I'd forgotten it, and it has a whole page on the Gowland & Gowland vehicles, whose drivers we looked at a while ago! A useful little primer on 'Old Fashioned Cars', in both die-cast metal and plastic, along with sections on the larger collector models. The cover image includes some of the European plastics we saw a few French examples of, in some posts a year or two ago, here at Small Scale World.

 

This is a fascinating 'document', I can't work out if it is some kind of facsimile, or the actual Bassett-Lowke catalogue of 1968/9 (or for 1969), I suspect the later, but it's very modern-looking for a late-60's tome. It has all manor of sections, including hundreds of old adverts going back to their inception, what appears to be their - then - current range, other makers collectables, in the London shop (including a lovely boxed set of European toy soldiers), future plans, and various other bits of company history, and tech-spec' stuff.

 

I tend to only buy doll, doll's house or Teddy' books when I see them going for a song, as they are well outside my main areas of interest, but they often have useful annexes or appendices, and anything with an index can have a use, if only to look up company or individuals' specifics. And Christies are a better class of auctioneer - if you know what I mean!

 

This is a bit 'coffee table', but without the large format or colour imagery! It's a rambling meander through certain aspects of popular culture, with a bias toward design, and will complement several similar works already in the library. Again more use as a reach-for/dip-in reference work, than a definitive guide to anything!

 

Three more for the 'same size as Shire Albums'' section! There is a bunch of the Miller's somewhere, not seen when we looked at this format and the Shire's last year, because they we shot separately, while the Louis Wain is a catalogue of known collectors/vintage postcards. The other is a glossary of old auction terms, and panders more toward my interest in language and words, than toys, but there's some collectables stuff in there!

 

This seems to be in a similar size and format as the Manga guide, I bought (and posted) a few years ago now, so they can sit next to each other when they are finally set up (was there a superhero volume as well?), and provide a ready-reckoner for stuff I know so little/less about, although I know a bit more about this than Japanese cartoons, I prefer the Euro-stuff which begat Metal Hurlant, or the 2000AD inspired UK output, and often find I need help with the more populist US stuff, and modern 'Indy' publishing!

 

A trio of actual Shire Albums, there is an 'Other Collectables' post on walking sticks in the long queue, playing cards come under toys & games, and will add to several other works on the subject - there's even a book specifically on boomerangs in the library!

 

The tile work will enhance a separate library on the subject, other interests of mine include both the Art Nouveau/Arts & Crafts tiles, and mosaics; ancient and modern. Although I'm also interested in the bi, or tricoloured clay tiles of the medieval period (Church floors), their modern copies (Victorian/Edwardian hallways and lobby's), and the somewhat unscientific science of repeat patterns and mirror-symmetry which drives some forms of tiling/tile design (or wall papers/wrapping papers), which can quickly get you into Fibonacci, fractals and quantum weirdness!

 

This was a brilliant find, coming too late to crib on this Brian Berke contributed (nine years ago!) post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/01/c-is-for-contribution-week-i-circus.html

 

And it's clearly the tourist/visitor keepsake, for the exhibition which Brian visited. It contains a history of both its building, and how it ended up where it is, and has lots of images of the various elements while they were being built. Interestingly, there's no sign of the sea horse/merhorses, Brian shot, so they must be a newer addition, from the hands of the Mr. McGarvey and his wife, whom Brian mentioned at the time?

R comme Régal Pour les Yeux à la Française - Beffoid

Back to work on Monday, so no real excuse to not post something! Easing back into it with a simple one, a few Beffoid figures, from France, they're French, you know! Gets them in the Tag list!

Mainlanders, with two of the Alpine troops (I think, I''ve got it wrong in the past!), in berets, on the left, actually the same pose, with a later, stable polystyrene damaged on the left, and a complete, earlier one next to him, sporting a bit of shrinkage and a sticky paint-job! The two other stable figures to the right, one about 45mm with Zouave (?) parade uniform and the other 54mm in the WWI garb, are both in 'Adrian' helmets.

 

Three colonial troops, and either a fourth, in parade finest, or a Cossack? Again the first two are the same figure, with a much shrunken and crystallising figure to the far left, and the more stable later version next to him Some are fully marked Beffoid France, others just France, but all in the same Roman typewriter style typeface.

R is for Rubber Retro Rocketry

Sort of box-ticking, as we've definitely seen one of these in a shelfie, and I have a fancy I've subsequently bought one and posted it, but I can't find it under the Tag, so, whatever! While the other seems all new, so we'll start with it!

 

New from Legami, a kids craft glue-stick with a retro rocket on the cap! The veritable flood of such stuff '23/'24 has slowed a bit, and I haven't been checking the usual haunts as often this year, so may have missed a few! But fun item to add to the others.

 

This pencil top was shelfied at a trade show, and we looked at the back-pack sharpener a while back. I though I'd got one of these too, but I can't find it on the Blog, so if it's had two outings; lucky it! The 'perfumed' rubber smells of soft, Cornish, butter fudge, which is not as overpowering as the usual strawberry or tutti-fruity you get in similar cases.

R is for Roveing Reporter's Rack-toy Round-up #4

Some of you may have had a weird alert for a post you can't find, this is due to my being an Aspergic idiot, and wanting to have four posts between each of Brian's posts, forgetting I'd done four because of the 'help wanted' post, which now isn't wanted (don't know, don't care), so, yeah, 'Hyperspeed' will post again in a few hours!

 

In the meantime, Brian sent a last minute set of shelfies from Dollar General in the 'States, and it's about half stuff not generally found on the Blog (but you never know who's visiting, or why), and half, some useful stuff, and here it is;

 

Wot? No caps!

 

Above is the stuff of less ineterst to the Blog, although the Mickey is a solid, and Spiderman has a solid fan-base, whatever size or figure type, and it's always nice to see figures who aren't WASP's, if you know what I mean, and it's a growing trend, to be encouraged.

 

Looks like fun, although some passing little scrote has squidged his head-in!

 

Both solids, and with existing, even 'vintage' figures of both Sesame Street and The Muppets, from Schleich, Comics Spain (and others), and a couple of breakfast cereal producers, a whole sub-genre of figure collecting, and/or TV/Movie related stuff.

 

Lego-likey, and always like Lego-likey as it's not plagiarist, lying, expencive Lego! And it's always interesting to see how 'other bricks are available' producers design their mini-figures, here we have real waists/hips and ripped shoulders! These officers could easily arrest any Lego mini!

 

I've seen similar in B&M and elsewhere, but not something that's lighting-up my universe! Although I 'get it', and they are the collectables of the future.

 

This looks nice, and a 'solid'?

 

I've also seen these, we may have had shelfies in the past, these here are possibly more colourful than the ones I've seen in UK stores, and like those minis we saw the other day, are window-walkers, in that sticky, cold, very-soft, silicon type polymer.

 

Many thanks to Brian Berke as always, rack-toys to be found in Dollar General, now. The four post thing was accidental, but after two, it made sense (to someone on the spectrum!), to continue it for [self-imposed] compliance sake!

R is for Roveing Reporter's Rack-toy Round-up #3

Brian's third visit this year, was to Hobby Lobby (similar to our Hobbycraft, but ours carries less of the kind of stuff we're about to look at here), where he found some useful sets of classic rack-toys, which seem to tick all the boxes!

 

 

Cold-blooded critters; the amphibians hidden among the lizards again, and we now suspect some Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, because birds are, and they are the direct descendents!

 

Fantasy; and there are more poses here than with the set we saw the other day, including a prone one, I never know if it's lying down, or the equivalent of sitting? Also there's five colourways, not four, but perhaps a more assorted assortment, in fact it looks like each colour is a different pose, with about three in each colour/pose?

 

Farm . . .

 

 

. . . and Zoo!
 

With sets dedicated to temperate/woodland animals and arctic fauna. Sculpt-count is good with these sets as well, but, as Brian pointed out in the eMail, climbing, price-wise. Still cheaper than the European equivalents though (those Peterkins are closer to a tenner, with the cheaper ones £7.99), and I dare say a mix of new sculpts, older sculpts and the odd rip-off of Schleich, Papo, or similar modern brands.

 

The others; insects and marine/sea-life. As with all the above, some look familiar, some look all new, but the suspicion is that where similar, they will be copies, so are 'variants', as far as collecting goes? All the above seem to contain duplicates, possibly pairs of everything?

 

What some of you have been waiting for, the combat troops, sculpts we've seen before, but they appear to be clean, new sculpts, rather than pantographed sub-piracies, of 'Fritz' helmeted generic US/NATO types, with the daft ATGW firer! Vehicles are simple moulding we've also seen before, as are the interlocking wall sections.

 

But these are probably more interesting, ACW types, and I don't think they are the Billy-V/Americana ones from BMC, nor the Hing Fat chaps, so new sculpts? I don't know enough about them, but if they tickle the fancy, I suspect they'll need a purchase over there, to get them over here! In fact, they look like copies of Accurate/Revell? And there's some useful artillery in there, with metal axles?

 

Many thanks to Brian for his visits to Dollar General, Daiso and Hobby Lobby, this year, highlighting the inevitable inflation (resulting from Trumps tariffs), and covering current production in/for the US. I did manage a trip to B&M a couple of days ago and found little, and will also check the rest before the end of the holidays.

R is for Rack Toy Roadies

I tend to grab the odd die-cast from time to time, usually to ID a figure or animal, for future reference, but occasionally I'll buy a figureless one because . . . military or space! They, or their images, have been building in Picasa for a while now, so let's get them cleared out!

 

This actually dates back to 2015, and may have been seen, possibly in a green version in another post, but was grabbed, along with the more accidental find of the Chap Mai one, and in addition to others seen on Small Scale World, for an eventual follow-up to this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/04/h-is-for-hummer-humvee-hmmwv-humbug.html

 

If I recall correctly, these High & Drive, were 99p, in the - now - long-defunct 99p Stores, which were still going that year.

 

The same year, this was added to the pile, and I didn't even get it out of the card, it's the Jackle AFV, I think, a hurried replacement for the Land Rover Wolf, WMIK and RWMIK's which were proving so vulnerable in Afghanistan, and excising the tabloids. The front's a bit wrong, but it was quite a new vehicle back then, and in real life, the type remains in service with Light Cavalry as a reconnaissance vehicle.

 

This bit of fun was bought in 2021, and I really only purchased it because, a quid! And it's military green, but all fictional, a bit surfer culture, a bit post-apocalyptic (and 'straight to video'!), with a hint of suitability for the Gaslands or Car Wars role-playing/war-gaming rule-sets? Corgi's 'Rod Squad'.

This was a funny one, the first of three purchases in 2024, it was bought for the bike, and purely as a future ID'er, for the chopped Harley/'US Custom', but what was weird, was that none of the other vehicles on the rack had the necessary or even 'a' tow-bar/hook to pull this trailer?

 

In the old days of the 1-75 Series (originally 1-50), several vehicles in each tranche, would have the hook necessary for whatever towed caravan, boat or motorcycle was in the range at the same time, but, despite looking at every rack, pile or box of Matchbox since this purchase, I have not yet found a towing vehicle?

 

 

Actual surfer, this was bought purely to ID the figure in future mixed lots, and I could have shelfied it, but again this stuff is always between 99p and a couple of quid, so, what the hell!

 

 

Siku, apart from a Leopard Tank in sub-scale a few years ago, there is very little from them either these days, military anyway, but I managed to find this in vague 1:72 scale (I think most of this stuff is closer to 1:60?), and again it's more about ID'ing in the future than anything else, but, a nice horse sculpt.

 

While this Pass N' Go from Mattel's line of Hot Wheels came in the other day, and I just thought it was fun that the old Monopoly car had been 'given life' as it were! Nothing to do with the collection, core or peripherals really, just a fun, impulse purchase!

Note - This is the first post using Grammarly for Firfox, instead of the old LT Spell Checker which decided it wanted money now! I had to re-start to get the Grammarly activated, but it seems to be working, however, apologies for any typos which get through..