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.

T is for Two - Legami & Tinc's Astro' Erasers!

Retro Space Stationary! It almost trips off the tongue like it's a real 'thing', but then we've seen on the Blog, this year at least, it HAS been a real thing! These are sets' six and seven I think since January, with the two larger sized sets from Home Bargains a year or two ago, and another set a few years before them, but this has been THE year!

 

So, these came from Rymans back in April, although I think they are still in there, and when looking just now at exactly how many of these sets we'd seen this year I could only find four under the 'Eraser' Tag, as I think several were in the Toy Fair/Gift Fair posts, and this may have originally been one, we did look at Legami's stand I think. I also got the Panda USB stick/dongle, going cheap!

 

Only the Astronaut in this set, and his visor is a coloured plastic transparency, rather than more eraser material. Which is another minor bugbear about these posts, over here, in the UK we call them rubbers, or pencil rubbers, and because my PC knows it's in the UK, with UK settings, I get the blue-line from spellchecker every time I write 'eraser' with the option to change it to 'rubber', and the question "Do you wish to switch to American English"!

 

Or worse, a full admonishment; "Eraser is a common American expression. Consider using expressions more common to British English", which is daft in itself, as there's no such thing as British English, there's English, named after England, with regional accents, but we don't call them Scottish English, or Geordie English, we call them the Scottish and Geordie accents, otherwise we'd have to have an English-English!

 

Likewise, we talk of Canadian or Australian accents, not Canadian or Australian English, there IS an American English, because Noah Webster decided, arbitrarily, to 'simplify' some spellings, over those already established by the Oxford and Cambridge university dictionaries.

 

I actually decided to use eraser, way back when I first blogged them - The Diener robots/aliens, I think; 2009 - as I knew more people would likely search for that term, but in those days there was no impertinent spellchecker, hovering over my metaphorical e-Shoulder!

 

 Not the best shot, but he joined the stash, back in April/May!

 

Then I picked this up the other day, no, yesterday-evening! In TXMaxx,  Astronaut - check! Dodgy satellite - check! Retro-rocket - check! Planet - check! With planetary rings - bargain! Claiming to be designed in the UK (but made in China) by a Tinc (which may be a graphical branding of 'T' Inc.,?

The four items in close up, very much mirroring other items seen this year.

 

Quite the little steckfiguren, isn't he!

L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown February - Space & Pop Culture

So, I would seem to be catching up with the stuff that's come in over the last ten months or so, and the Sandown Park show, just gone, produced quite a collection of bits and bobs across scales, types and genres for the stash, this post is what I'd normally call the Space and TV, but they weren't TV first, being corporate mascot and comic characters!

 

I have quite a few Bibendums, and we have seen him here before, but this is far more animated than the usual standing types. Quite large and a modern PVC-substitute, I'm sure it's a pretty contemporary promotional piece?

 

Slightly futuristic lines to these dime-store pieces, the car and caravan being more conventional, and marked ACME, one of the trading names of Thomas Toys in the US, I think the truck is unmarked, but I'm sure it'll be in Bill Hanlon's book? Looks like a simplified copy of Archer's 'Future Cars' sculpt?

 

Adrian had saved these two Cherilea / Hilco's for me, the standing guy has a damaged weapon, but they both have their correct helmets and put my squad, much enhanced with superglue up to about ten, with most complete, but all short on helmets!

 

Bully Lucky Luke figures, the eponymous hero, his horse Jolly Jumper and his dog, Ratanplan, these are soft PVC and scale well with the Comansi/bubble-gum premium ones seen here before.

 

The Dalton Brothers, from the left; Averell, Jack, William and Joe, also Lucky Luke characters, these are in a hard, possibly phenolic plastic, or early 'styrene, from JIM in France, and are in a larger scale.

 

Brabo bendy toy! Larger again, and manufactured in that slightly sweaty PVC, some Hong Kong makers used/favoured at times, but only to a slight shininess, not the full-on weeping stickiness of some old toys from the colony!

 

Mixed, larger-scale space figures with two of the Marx metallic blue ones, a Tudor Rose (marked) licensed copy/mould swap of Premier's pulp spaceman waving pistol and a - probably - 1970's PVC gum-ball, capsule-machine robot.

 

Three of the LB (for Lik Be) copies, I couldn't remember which ones I already had, so just grabbed all three against the possibility I might still need some poses, which may be among this trio, and because paint was quite good, except the bases!

 

We've seen them before, and now attributed them to two names, Toyway and the original GLJ, with packaging, so I thought we should see them from the back! I got excited as I thought I'd 'found' a fourth pose, but we've actually seen them all before!

 

These have been a steady stream-in, over the last few years, Italy's sub-scale copies, titled Space Legion (Legione Epaziale), from little pocket-money cards, again copied, but from Archer as well as the Premier biggies. I like the marbling, it gives each figure a certain character or uniqueness!

 

These are the Giant sub-copies I called 'Copy 2' here, and while the most common of the four types so far found, this particular batch is a late-production run, with a lot of heat-shrinkage dwarfism! They are also, mostly, in a darker gunmetal than the usual samples? You can spot the three more common silvery ones among them, and they are guarding two valuable dome-helmets (Archer / Glenco and Britains?) for the spares box!

Y is for You Wait Ages for One and Several Come Along At Once!

Hot on the heels of the two sets we saw a month ago, and the pencil top/clinger pair shown here at Small Scale World over Christmas, comes a fourth space-related set of erasers in as many months! This one credited to an Ooly, and containing 12 erasers for four-quid, or 33.3r-p each! 

Galaxy Blast! In the style of Iwako, as the previous two were, with a 'puzzle' element, they are press-together segments of different coloured rubber. If the connecting studs are the same diameter, we could have fun with all three sets, and others we've seen in the past? A future post maybe!

 

Peep's; the guy on the left looks a bit like a space faring Wimpy The Moocher from Popeye, I don't know why! In the middle, a domestic fembot of some kind, maybe a waitress at a drive-in, and an Alien Panda?

 

Spaceships; A pair of Bezos phallus-rockets in the background, and a fourth (seen here recently) pulp-ship in the centre, with two generic fighters/atmosphere craft either side!

 

Two more planets, both with rings, a giant telescope to the left, and a dish-concentrated death-ray to the right, ready to go to Hoth! Add the planets in the Home Bargains 'Blast Off' sets we saw here in '23 & '24, and there are more than enough now, to arrange for one to be Pluto!

P is for Puckator - Birmingham NEC

Having been quite pleased with my five shots at the London Toy Fair, it came as a bit of a surprise to see their stand at the NEC, where I managed fifty-odd photographs which I've only managed to boil-down to forty-six!

 

As mentioned in a previous post, this was the second lot I shot, but I saw other similar displays, so clearly a coming trend, but the 60th anniversary of the movie will be next years, so that makes sense, there's bound to be plenty of terrestrial/BBC schedule filling crap on the subject.

 

Flamingos and Unicorns, two recent trends, only cacti missing!

 

Buger, fries and a drink . . . AND pizza? Greedy git! A current trend, hanging on the coat-tails of blind-bag novelties like Shopkins and others, we'll have more on a similar theme soon, here at Small Scale World.

 

A few fuzzy images have been deleted, or I realised at the time and took a second, better one (some of the knights below), but this is the only shot of the other members of the set, from which the Panda we looked at earlier today came from.

 

Private Atkins is going, under the heat of the display lights, but he's keeping his back nice and straight! I shot the resins again too, but it was one of the now deleted fuzzy images!

 

Two lots of cartoony Dinosaurs, both involving over-moulding (as many of these pencil tops do), with the zonal colour-layers on the semi-flats, and a more Timpo-style colour-over-colour on the fully-round figures.

 

Aa-Haarrrrr! Poirates!

 

I think these are jiggly-dancers, probably hit the black (heat?) pad, to get them wobbling, and as well as dancers we have a royal family (including a ghost!) touristy subjects a cat, and an aforementioned cactus!

 

Space, again trends we've already seen here, some more than once, includes red-white-&-blue pulp-rockets, and big-head astronauts! I blame Funko! I'll be looking out for the eraser rocket, to join the two we saw the other day, and the one we saw back at Christmas.

 

Chunky flats!

 

More over-moulds!

 

In the style of the Keycraft/Senmsory Place mouse we saw the other day (and probably from the same factory, in China?), another trend, and one casting its references back to 1970's novelties . . . what goes around, comes around.

 

These weren't the only glittery, fantasy items I shot on the day!

 

Stately-home or historic building gift-shop fayre! There's some nice pieces in the above, but mostly resin I fear, which is very hard to keep undamaged, particularly in the hands of little-ones. I didn't handle them though, so hope some of the smaller stuff, like the key-rings is manufactured in a more substantial polymer like a PVC-substitute?

 

Witches cats! Four poses.

 

We saw these as generics in The Works many years ago!

 

A bit of religious stuff to finish-off. More like wedding-cake decorations!

So quite a line-up from Puckator, seen in Birmingham, but it's finding it out there; that garden centre I found the other day only had a very small proportion of this stuff, so it'll be tourist attractions, 'end-destination' leisure-facility gift-shops, seaside & novelty boutiques and the like, for locating most of it?

 

Link - https://www.puckator.co.uk/