R is for Resin Rascals

I meant to post this last night, but I ran out of time, or, work ran me out of time, which is a different state of being altogether, if you know what I mean, but anyway, heeeeere's Horror! Brian managed a visit to another discount chain; Family Dollar, and found this pair of rather nice sets of ornamental poured resin delights!

 

Imported by Midwood Brands, LLC of Virginia, we just don't get little sets of small scale stuff like this over here, there are large boulders of resin crap in most of the supermarkets, and TKMaxx is good for a shed load of unnecessary, easily chipped crud in the several-kilo's category, but these are nice.

 

So many thanks, again, to Brian for finding them and shooting them, and it reminded me I had some resin downloads in the Halloween 'junk' folder (there's probably more on the dongles, but these (below) were to hand), so a post developed!

 

Dated to 2021, and I converted it from a bitmap, so I don't know how it will show on your machine/'device', but here's a whole group of similar, small scale, novelty Halloween stuff, including, front-right, a long-dead pirate!

 

And here's more pirates, which as we had a coronary-related non-ITLAPD this year, is about as good as it's going to get! These are apparently copyrighted Spoontiques, of China, and I seem to have found them a year ago (November '25). Real West Country gift shop (rather than specifically Halloween themed) faire, I suspect they are about 60/70mm, but they could be a little bigger, or even smaller!

R is for Recent Stuff - Follow-ups 1

A few shots I've been taking as I try to sort this years plunder into the ever diminishing space at the end of my storage unit!

 

These are the 60mm Crescent Mohicans (oooh, spellchecker really doesn't like that!) I bought a while ago, four of six and I need the standing firer replaced with a better one, so fast forward to the pair I bought at the Plastic Warrior show in June, and . . .

 

. . . and I'm still short one! The archer with bow, but funnily enough I think I may have one or two of them in with the standard Crescent 60mm Indian sample, as I'm pretty sure one or two have come in with cheapo' lots, and I just put them in the tub 'with the others'! Time will tell, but we're getting there!

 

The Cherilea swoppets who have come in over the last 36-odd months, these are not the master collection, but in terms of the 1st and interim versions, probably excede the 'deep-storage' sample, but in the case of the final version, only a part figure, against a much better sample, seen here, a fair few years ago!

 

I think we've seen all these now, so time for a comparison line-up, I thought the chap on the left might be Husky/Corgi Junior but he's not, so possibly Galoob or New Ray drive-though ice-cream kiosk operative? Then the Corgi standard ice cream seller, then the giant, might-be-Lucky piracy we saw the other day. Then the Corgi streetlamp repair man, then another 'styrene scale up, from Hong Kong! PVC-PVC-PS-PE-PS

 

Interim line -up of French Marine's Fear! Missing a couple of key-rings I think, from the always-been-in-some-sort-of-storage zone, and the composition one we saw here years ago, but not bad, and mostly from Chris Smith, I bet! Still, the absentees will allow for a more definitive Welsh Ladies shot, another day!

 

The sublime (Tudor Rose) and the ridiculous, a hideous pile of Hong Kong tat, which I ended-up with because someone gave it to me, I think? Hong Kong did churn out some fuggugly stuff! I think it's marked JC on the base, but I don't really care, it's naff, kitsch shite, but . . . figures!

 

Finally I said I though the Airfix 1:35th Quickbuild 'Lego' Sherman was closer to 1:32nd, and here I've shot it next to the CTS/BMC one I got at last years PW show, and you can see it's a lot smaller. The difference being OK for a garden war game, but is seriously going to piss-off a purist!

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.