T is for The Last of the Balls!

For now! Somewhere I have a tub of conventional Bouncy-, Super-, rubber-, Jet-balls, which include a marked Wham-O original, so they will need a box tick, one day, but for now, as a prop to the solid inclusion-balls, here are a few other novelty balls out there now, or recently.

There is a useful thread on the STS animal-collectors forum, which adds a distinctly European flavour to the stuff posted here in the last few days, and both more brands, and a couple of originators, vis-à-vis sculpts, or even product-mouldings;

 

https://sts-forum.forumieren.de/t25502-does-anyone-collect-animal-bouncy-balls?highlight=balls

 

You will probably need to sign-up, but it's well worth it. As an addendum to what's been said/shown there, the above, from a recent Bullyland catalogue shows, not only a range of teeny-tiny animals, but some of them in key-ring balls! I suspect the balls might be liquid filled, with the vignette free-floating?

 

As these babes are! Bought in the small-chain Bargain Buys, a few years ago now (2021), and they are more squishy than bouncy, filled with an inert liquid filling (probably a mix of glycerine, water and a small amount of bleach - to prevent mould/fogging), along with the figure and a pinch of glitter.

 

Something in it, has, nevertheless, reacted with one of the two purple misses, to cover her in a calcium-like deposit? Note also, the arse-injected ball-bearings, utilised to keep their heads up, in a liquid of similar density/specific gravity!

 

I'm not sure if these are liquid-filled, or solids, and the shading on the two at the back (green and orange) would suggest the latter, but I have a feeling that might be part of a bicoloured case, with free-floating contents? Find Hope are probably an Ali Baba or Amazon type phantom brand (image downloaded/obtained in 2005); there's nothing else on the Internet about them!

 

Back to Ravensden for an quick overview of the other stuff out there, and we've seen similar stuff in Show Reports from Deluxebase, Funrise, HGL, House of Marbles, HTI, Huggables, Kandytoys, Keycraft, Kidzone, Playwrite, PMS, Tobar and similar, and if we haven't, it's because they are still in the queue!

 

Ooshies, cushies, squishies, squeezies, executive stress-relief balls, the solid inclusion balls we've been looking at here, recently, funny face balls, odd-bouncing egg-balls, liquid-filled (the eyes are particularly disturbing!) and 'tactile' balls are all out there, I don't collect them, it's the inclusion-balls which brought the subject of novelty balls to the blog!

 

Which brings us to the end of this box-ticking exercise, but I think it's going to lead into another mini-season of Capsule Toys, as it's a few years since we did an overview of the non-Kinder stuff, with help from Brian B, and there's a load more in the queue now, including more images from New York.

 

And, yes, I know, I should be finishing the HO railway figure overview, from two years (three Christmases) ago, and which also has stuff from Brian, Jon Attwood and Chris in it, about ten folders, sat there waiting, and which should make about 12-posts, and an intro-page, and I know I should be doing, getting, finishing, finding . . . the reason you don't get endless eBay scrapings here, like you do at Bushy's, is because when I say there's a thousand posts in the queue, there's a thousand posts in the queue, or, at least, a thousand folders!

 

Take that image above, for instance, downloaded in 2005? I didn't have a computer in 2005! But I did have a dongle (524MB's!), I downloaded stuff to, on/from other peoples computers, so I may have found that image, browsing the coin-operated Internet terminals at Heathrow or Gatwick (one pound for five-minutes if I recall correctly?), while waiting for a client's delayed flight, or someone like John Begg or Paul Morehead might have found it, and emailed it to me, because I was known for the small-scale stuff?

 

We'll get there in the end! Afterbirth eggs next! No, seriously! But, machine-gun follow-up, first!

M is for More Balls - Bouncy Balls!

A bit of an image dump today, as we roll-up, on the balls! The first tranche are quite low-res, but illustrate a few points about how this stuff reaches the stores, while the others just show what's out there, often in the few remaining, smaller, independent Toy Shops, often in smarter towns (Farnham!) or the up-market or 'nice'  areas of larger conurbations. These are also exactly the kind of novelty you'll find in Gift Shops and Garden Centres.

 

I can't remember the company's name, but this was an online, trade catalogue for one of the Chinese factories, I think they might have been called Superball, rather unimaginatively, but here we have Wild Animals on the left, Farm/Domestic on the right.

 

Guinea Pigs & Otters!

 

Panda's and Dinosaurs, and, not those carried by Keycraft Global.

 

On the left Fishes, with a few cetaceans and penguins mixed in, on the right the set which Henbrandt obviously carried all those years ago, with plain, 'slush' and iceberg balls, and a crab?

 

While these last two are larger mixes, with fish predominating in the first set, and turtles/crabs (bottom feaders, shore/beach dwellers?) the second, but with cetaceans, sharks, fish and the odd polar animal mixed in. The point being that you (Henbrandt, Keycraft, Playwrite, Ravensden . . . whoever) go to the Chinese manufacture, and get a tailored selection, which suits the needs of your perceived customer base, budget or forecast trends.

 

The Playwrite (WH Corneilius - WHC/Success) catalogue from a similar time (2006), showing that they were carrying animal faces and insects, in addition to the more obvious stuff, as seen above. This, and the next two images, should enlarge properly.

 

Ravensden catalogue from the same era (2010's/20-teens), also has a full range of subjects, including some familiar looking ones, either from the recent, previous posts, or from the trade images above. And between them all, there must be a couple-of-hundred of these incredibly small sculpts, most of which are quite well done, and nicely decorated, down to species/subspecies identification, in some cases.

It's worth noting most of the above are either clear/tinted-transparent balls, or the bi-coloured, half-opaque ones, there are few of the background discs which were a feature of most of the Henbrandt imports. There are a few more in the last post of this series.

S is for Shelfies - A Roundup I

Just a few bits and bobs which have piled-up, got lost, been found and sent somewhere else, brought back together and split into two posts and with several of them; duplicated at one point! The first shot actually goes back to last October, and got really lost for a while . . .

. . . not exciting, but shot in a newsagent (or Sainsbury's?), not so fussed by the funny little semi-flat ones above, but I thought I'd better grab a shelfie of the four-inch (or thereabouts) Disney Princesses as they may turn-up in mixed/job-lots in a year or two. Paint Your Own Frozen . . . and not the first time I've seen them.

Then in December, a visit to TKMaxx (I think) found this wild animal set from Ravensden. The giraffe wasn't quite as bad a sculpt as this forshorteing suggests, but it wasn't the best either and the tiger looked decidedly demented! The elephant's alright, but his tusks are a bit short/fat, but it puts a name to them!

 

At the same time I shot this lot from Playtek LLC, who I think we've seen before here as a brand, probably also in TKMaxx, bigger, they are less likely to appear in mixed lots of toy soldiers, but for animal collectors, may need a box-tick at some point!

While 'Maxx often turns-up these die-cast vehicle sets from HTI with a few figures, here road workers, but Peter Evans has sent me several Police (extant, or forthcoming posts) with similar bases, possibly from the Toy Project's charity shop in North London. 40mm and a replacement PVC-alike polymer, I dare say there are firefighters too?

A few days later, but still close to Christmas I shot these in The Range in Aldershot (I was rushing around trying to buy bathroom storage with suckers on because of the no glueing/drilling rule in the new flat!); two takes on T-Rex, although I thought the one on the right looked a little more Allosaur to me?

But, again, both Paint Your Own kits, from unbranded on the left (credited to and possibly clearance from Universal themselves, I assume they have gift-shops in their theme parks?), and Kandytoys on the right. One has a useful base, the other is going to keep falling over!

Finally, and an hour later I was at B&M in Basingrad (still looking for bathroom accessories) and I shot this, normally I only give the little vehicles a quick one-over for military or space, but this can be built-upon with Hestair Kiddybricks or Megabloks (other compatible building systems exist!), which I thought was novelty enough for inclusion here! Titled 'Brick Rides' this one is Bricking Trails.

D is for Dino'shelfies!

Although there are a couple-of-three other animal sets, it was a title waiting to happen! A quick look at a few sets out there at Christmas time in case you need to buy yourself a present.

These are branded to NBC Apparel, not the first time in TKMaxx (for that is where they were) at this time of year. Mini animals and mini Chinasaurs in bog-standard toobs, but at five or six quid I only shelfied them to ID them as they come in loose - indeed I think that Hippo may already be here somewhere, and the Dino's with blue bellies look familiar!

A bit big and a bit toy-like, but I know the serious Dinosaur collectors will want one, especially as it seems to be a specific, yet less commonly modelled species, namely; an Eustreptospondylus! Let me get my teeth back in and I'll have another go . . . Yoos-trepto-spondye-luss (or 'dee-luss'), not that bad actually! Geoworld for this one.

The Daddy! "Inspires Learning"? Yeah; learn you don’t go anywhere near carnivorous dinosaurs as tall as your house! Playtek LLC, another we've seen before in TKM. They've both been manufactured with that two-halves hollow PVC or ethylene, but it's the standard way these days; larger mammals or other toy animals come the same way now, even big ducks!

Three tubs from Ravensden PLC; sea life, Chinasaurs and wild animals, again the metallic blue 'ceratops looks familiar, although to be honest I thing the sea-life is the better value-for-money, the other two having a number of duplicates. All three sets also have some relatively new or unique flat tress or other plants/shrubs/seaweeds.

Half a mile from TKMaxx these were made for B&M Retail (B&M Stores) by . . . err . . . whoever made then for 99p Stores (twice?), TKMaxx, Poundland, Poundworld Plus and the other lot . . . Blue-something or something-Blue? I've even done a post on all the brands we've seen these under, and after singles and triples you can now get the lot in one hit!

I'm beginning to regret the three or four quid I've spent on my three or four animals, as they are going to be common in Charity shops for the next twenty years (although with some scientists only giving us fifteen years now (their climate models underestimated), that might itself be a clever trick!), still, I can pick up the ones I haven't got, remember there are two paint variants (so far!) for some of these - or all six.

However, note the price; rounding off, the unit price of one set's individual animals is £2.20p, or for the B2F20, £1.60p (if my math's are right), both way over the 99p or £1 we've previously seen them at, even the tripple set at TKM a couple of years ago was only about £4.99p (giving roughly £1.50p each), and that's how capitalism works - these will more than pay for previous discounting, and there's less packaging per-animal here, so the true differential is even greater!