About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Snow-domes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Snow-domes. Show all posts

Saturday, November 29, 2025

R is for Retro Kitsch

The theme we've been revisiting all year, in fact the initial post was last autumn, so it's been over a year! NASA-type astronauts of a cartoony design with rockets of a retro, playroom wallpaper style! TKmaxx seasonal shelfies, I took these weeks ago, and I think they're all sold out now, not something I'd give house-room to, but a fun addition to the trend.
 

Delivering gifts!
 
Scraping the inside of the glass dome!
 

Regolithball fight!
 
I hope they haven't sold-out of these, as I would hope my fellow Brit's have more class, sense, taste and decency, than to spend a tenner on this shite, but I know I'm deluding myself, and Tanyachelle from Essex has already put them on the fridge! Nasty.

Thursday, August 14, 2025

E is for Elgate - Spring Gift Fair 2025

As last, another image dump, but many more figural items on display, this year. With Scotland and Wales having a bigger presence in the various lines, and Paddington putting in an appearance!
 
Poured resin
 

Those non-sharpening pencil sharpeners again!

Not for the collection, but could interest someone? Christmas trees?
 
I've seen a boxing Kangaroo in the last few days, don't know if it was Elgate (didn't look), but they are a bit naff, fun for kids though, which is the main function of novelties!
 
 
 
Nothing of the 'piper' about them, just Guardsman on decorated pens!
 
Roman big 'ed!
 
Keyrings, might be one of the new soft/foamed rubbers? Rather in the style of the old Xandria keyrings from the Netherlands, but modern and made in China.
 
Metal keyrings, if I see the guardsman, I'll grab one for that novelty stash, but the rest can stay on the peg, being more bottle-opener than figural!
 
Egg-cups!
 
The resin parade again, and more egg-cups.
 
A 'Photoclip', what the novelty industry calls a place-name holder, when everybody likely to buy place-name holders have bought a set (or two!) of place-name holders! Also, selling them singly, results in a higher profit-margin per unit . . . and more packaging for a planet which just hasn't seen enough packaging yet.
 
The resin bears!
 


All, also seen before!
 
The big-heads have been replaced with rubber Leprechaun keyrings.
 
Nessie - die-cast Mazak/Zamak
 
Scottie-dogs and a bear!



Close-ups of the snow 'eggs', I think the thinner one is manufactured from poured-resin, the chubby chap may be plastic or a synthetic rubber compound?
 



Various Welsh Dragons in die-cast alloy or resin, mostly smallish, baby 'Game of Thrones' dragons (the die-casts), the larger poured-resin examples could be useful for Role Play, or fans of the Nottingham Mafia system.
 
Paddington!
 
Mostly novelty stuff and pretty ephemeral, but, that's given Elgate a decent presence in the Tag list, and covered most of what they have, which may be of interest, currently, but they're not the only purveyors of this kind of stuff, and we'll look at another soon.

E is for Elgate - Spring Gift Fair 2023

Having mentioned them the other day, in passing, and because their stuff is, if not actually rack-toys, at least within that pocket-money, novelty, touristy branch of the figural tree, I think it's time to clear the queue of the Elate pictures, call it an image dump!
 
The bulk of it is poured-resin 'touristicas' with a bit of plastic and die-cast in the mix, and the post is blurb-light, as it's all pretty self-explanatory. For some reason they've loaded in reverse again, keeps happening, but there's no narrative here so it doesn't matter . . . the Internet slowly getting worse, like everything else!
 
Small resin bears.
 
Bobble heads, no room for them in this collection, unless they are glow-in-the-dark aliens - nobody knows what aliens look like! And the guardsman would probably be allowed in, just because the novelty guardsmen is a side branch with a life of its own!
 
More resin!
 
Not so much pencil (or pen-) tops, as jackets or holders for replacement Biro-ink inserts, again poured resin, and when things like this come into the collection, I saw them off the long body and put them on bases.
 
Orks!
or Goblins?
 
 
Fairies, I know where a few of these ladies hang out, and they are very similar to the Pucator ones, which we saw here, when they were kicking around, about a decade ago.
 
Standard tourist fare, we've seen the pencil-sharpener figures (sans pencil sharpeners), at the time of the Queen's death, I bought a set of three, whilst navigating my way from the North bank to the South, avoiding the miles-long, whimpering queue of simple-minded sycophants.
 
The luck O' the Irish!
 

Snow-globes/snow-domes (and snow-eggs!) of Edinburgh Castle, Highland pipers &etc...
 
Nope!
 

Better! I think we've seen one in the collection now, and if not we've certainly seen several similar beasts, some courtesy of Chris Smith or Peter Evans.
 
There's a whole lot more to come on these, from this year's early Gift Fair, so I'll try to get them up tomorrow . . . .that's later today now!

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

H is for Half Moon Bay

One of the trends I noticed at the Spring Gift Fair in Birmingham a fortnight ago, was the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, most of it way outside the scope of this blog, even allowing for the nostalgia element, but at least three stalls had related products on display, and this grouping of stuff from Half Moon Bay, did include a couple of pieces which might tempt some loyal readers into parting with their hard-earned!
 
Specifically the snow-shaker, but the pencil top is close to acceptable as a micro-flat and the ceramic 'thing' could qualify as a super-deform! You can also see the corner of a set of place-mats with all the characters, Blue Meanies, Apple Droppers etc.
 
Website - there's a shaped mug too!

Saturday, November 28, 2020

N is for Novelty . . . Guards - Smaller

So, these were the ones that prompted the utterance that I would return to them nearer Christmas, with Peter sending some back in the Spring or early summer;

Cake Decorations; Ceremonial Guards; Ceremonial Troops; Disney Toy Soldiers; Earring; Earrings; Guards Band; Guards Division; Guards Drummer; Guards Musicians; Guardsmen; Novelty Earrings; Novelty Figurine; Novelty Figurines; Novelty Guardsmen; Novelty Pencil Sharpener; Novelty Soldiers; Pencil Sharpener; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toy Soldiers;
I couldn't find all the ones I know I have and I suspect some are in the minor-makes A-Z boxes, but there are enough to work with here and get the foundations across! This is the 'Hong Kong Guards' box, and from the small-scale only days it doesn't (and couldn't) contain the big wooden ones, the nutcrackers we’ve seen, the washing-up sponge one &etc.

Cake Decorations; Ceremonial Guards; Ceremonial Troops; Disney Toy Soldiers; Earring; Earrings; Guards Band; Guards Division; Guards Drummer; Guards Musicians; Guardsmen; Novelty Earrings; Novelty Figurine; Novelty Figurines; Novelty Guardsmen; Novelty Pencil Sharpener; Novelty Soldiers; Pencil Sharpener; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toy Soldiers;
This is the smallest iteration of the sample, placed in a snow dome above a pencil-sharpener, but it's one of those lame domes with lots of polystyrene 'bits' in. It's not product granule, that's larger and smooth, this is like they put some small off-cuts in an old Italian coffee grinder with the very fast blades and shredded them!

Cake Decorations; Ceremonial Guards; Ceremonial Troops; Disney Toy Soldiers; Earring; Earrings; Guards Band; Guards Division; Guards Drummer; Guards Musicians; Guardsmen; Novelty Earrings; Novelty Figurine; Novelty Figurines; Novelty Guardsmen; Novelty Pencil Sharpener; Novelty Soldiers; Pencil Sharpener; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toy Soldiers;
Next size up are these, originally earrings from a David Halsall (still in the tags as Hallsal! I will sort it! . . . Half an hour later - done!), and I think some of the missing ones are stored under Haswell, which was a sub-brand of the company now known as HTI. I removed the jewellery component to get two fat drummers!

Cake Decorations; Ceremonial Guards; Ceremonial Troops; Disney Toy Soldiers; Earring; Earrings; Guards Band; Guards Division; Guards Drummer; Guards Musicians; Guardsmen; Novelty Earrings; Novelty Figurine; Novelty Figurines; Novelty Guardsmen; Novelty Pencil Sharpener; Novelty Soldiers; Pencil Sharpener; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toy Soldiers;
These are the biggies, so far only the two poses have turned-up; sentry/guardsman and drummer/bandsman, whether they are all available in all three sizes or not I don't know, but they're clearly based on the lawn blow-moulds so popular in the US and spreading across Britain as if we have a better planet to go to when we're done buggering-up this one!

At this size you can get them as crafting accessories, earrings, cake decorations and whatever else anyone can think of for novelty guards! Added to the collection later, I left the earrings intact and on their card. You can still find these out there at this time of year, last year I think I saw the earrings in the British Heart Foundation charity-shops as factory-clearance/new stock.

Cake Decorations; Ceremonial Guards; Ceremonial Troops; Disney Toy Soldiers; Earring; Earrings; Guards Band; Guards Division; Guards Drummer; Guards Musicians; Guardsmen; Novelty Earrings; Novelty Figurine; Novelty Figurines; Novelty Guardsmen; Novelty Pencil Sharpener; Novelty Soldiers; Pencil Sharpener; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Toy Soldiers;
Scaler!