S is for Seen Elsewhere - Kinder Figures

Shown on a Facebook group a while back, and time to get them up here and out of Picasa, many of these Kinder figures have been seen here before, in mixed lots, donations or as bit & pieces! But these are all complete, as far as I know, and blurb can be kept to a minimum! These are mostly from the mid-late 1980's or early-mid 1990's.

 

Diver on the left, mostly polystyrene, an RP-sourced archer on the right, in a polyethylene, but they are starting (like a lot of RP stuff) to get brittle now.

 

Three musketeers, also Res.

 

Fencers.

 

American egg-ballers!

 

Alien, also Res Plastics, also getting brittle now, you have to be very careful of the joins.

 

Small-scale astronauts, and their means of locomotion!

 

Panthers, that are pink!

 

Wellingtonian . . . Enemy dragoon, I think?

 

Charley's, one's Kinder (soldier), the other Hong Kong or Italian copy?

 

Speedy Gonzalez!

 

Ice skaters.

 

Different set from the above, same trope!

 

Caricatures.

 

Two from the 1970's on the left, a later caricature figure on the right.

A is for Another Retro-Rocketeer!

This one's courtesy of Peter Evans, I said we'd probably see more, before the end of the year, and this is current, PMS carried, and a slightly different take on the pull-back motor/white-button oeuvre, but again following the trend this year, for deformed NASA astronauts, and/or cartoon spaceships.

 

You push down on the Rocket racer's head, and an energy storage spring is set to fire, a quick release and off he whizzes, release slowly though, and you get a limp phutt! It's a bit of fun which will probably get passed-on to charity, but imagine getting this in your Christmas stocking, as a kid!

N is for Not Really A Follow-up!

Notes on previous stuff seen here though, and images pulled from three folders and added to a set I got off Steve V yesterday, at the London Toy Soldier Show in Camden, and which opened-up a narrative for the other shots.

Marx's 45mm Air Force figures, with a rouge Space Patrol chap, in the same metallic blue plastic, waving his gypsy earrings about, at the back there! You get seven ground crew and four pilots, which, it being then, the 1950's, means the guy in a leather jacket is probably a milk runner from Transport Command (or whatever the USAF called it), next to him is the SR71 Blackbird or X-Plane pilot in high-altitude 'space' pressure-suit, along with two more conventional, fast-jet pilots.

 

With the exception of the sci-fi interloper who has the older flat base, these are all the later version with the raised under-rim base, and it's interesting to notice that the last pilot on the right has been sculpted to hold something? The hands are the wrong angle for a cockpit rim, and the arms are the wrong-angle for an access ladder, so I wonder if the sculptor's efforts fell on stony ground!

 

I think these are the ones sent by Brian Berke a few years ago, I thought they were gray, and I thought I'd published them, but they may be somewhere on the Blog already, without the needed Tags? Anyway, these are the recent reissues, and came in grey or this flat, sky-blue.

These are the contemporary figures from Deluxe Reading, and this image is courtesy of Chris Smith, as part of an eMail conversation we were having, following one of his donations, and the revelation that the orange ones were issued, over here, by Thomas in a header-bagged, oversized Jeep of theirs, which we saw here.

While I suspect these (MPC, Pyro or Revell?) come from a model car kit, as racetrack personnel, but they could be from a 1:48th scale aircraft kit, and go very well with the figures above, and the other set we saw in the Kennedy Space Centre a while ago, here. The paint on them will be OBE's, and there were at least two shot-runs, one in grey, one in silver, both a polystyrene 'kit' plastic.

 

So, thanks to Steve, Chris and Brian, a quick overview of USAF (and NASA) air and ground-crew, from over half a century ago! And the reason I hadn't got round to them before this, is because mine, mostly rimmed cream, chalky polyethylene (Marx Swansea?), with a few flat metallic-blues, are still in storage.

F is for First Flying Saucer

Except, they're not saucers are they, they're domed, and it's not my first, as I have the wonderfully lethal Marx Mystery Spaceship, and its half-controllable, 20-kiloton, kinetic-engine, with air-raid siren wind-up! But, this is my first 'full size' Hong Kong, placky-tacky, big-box toy, and I think it's one of the more common designs, not least than because PMS reissued it without stickers, a few years ago, also branded to a 'JS' (?), and claimed for China on a rack-card.

 

This is the older version, with NASA stickers, and while it was a bit grubby, which may have contributed to a cheap price, it cleaned-up near new, abart from playware to the gummed-paper flag.

 

What was known as a 'bump-and-go' toy, an eccentric steering, at the front, allowed it to escape obstacles by changing direction every few seconds, like a robot vacuum-cleaner, but it doesn't collect dust, or cats tails!

 

I don't know if the PMS issue had the original markings, or a new China-related message, but as far as I know the original was an unbranded generic?

 

One vinyl, one paper. Another Sanddown Park purchase, it ticks a box!

R is for Retro Moon Man

If you have a theme - stick to it! This is actually the last one in the queue for now, but that's not to say I won't find another in the next few weeks, or certainly over the next few months. We're back to Legami, with another retro/deform/NASA astronaut, and this one is a pencil sharpener, with a shavings-collecting back-pack/life-support unit!

 

 

  

He also has one of those movement-triggered LED lights, hidden behind his opaque visor, so when you pick him up or shake/move him, he lights up, like some near-critical loon, about to go nuclear!

B is for Back to London, July, 2 of 2

The other half of the carbooty-bag I picked up from Peter in July, is the civilian and animal stuff, a couple of interesting dinosaurs, a handful of Kinder, with sports, a few sci-fi/space types, and a bag of bits & bobs!

 

We'll start with the Dinosaur pair, neither was marked, both are well-decorated according to current fashion-trends for the muted colourfulness of natural-camouflage, but of more interest is that they both have articulated legs, the whole suggesting they were in a better (and more expensive) set, than yer' normal rack-toy fayre?
 

Standard tourist keepsake, only the marker-pen to remind you where you visited to purchase the piece. He's very much in the same vein as the Xandria stuff from the Netherlands, being a stack of PVC components, but on a plaster base.

 

A sizeable sample of the Hing Fat 'Galaxy Cowboys', we saw a couple of, the other day, and I have a reasonable sample already, so it will be a case of bringing them all together, and sorting out a definitive sample of foot, mounted and horses, by pose and colours.

 

Unknown, or Pioneer/Realtoy buggy, K&M/Wild Republic and Pioneer.

 

Short-arsed LB clone, Marty, MPC piracy

 

Mixed domestic stuff, I love the kitten scratching its ear, the puppy too, is new to me, while the rest are grist to the mill, with tatty Cherilea and Britains farm stuff.

 

Similar wild animals, nice Timpo wolf, and the brown bear is new.

 

Hong Kong and 'China' farm people.

 

Circus - Charbens, Hong Kong (various) and Marty/M-Toy.

 

Road workers and mechanics, a Padgett/A-Z on the left I think, two China chaps, a Dinky and a dumper-truck driver from Hong Kong or China.

 

An interesting sort of 1970's (?) knock-off of Strawberry Shortcake stuff, or something of that age and aesthetic? Unknown mini action-figure and racing car driver, and a micro-tractor from Kinder.

 

Hong Kong copy of Gem footballer, unknown skateboarder (there's a lot of them around), Marx boxer, Remco firefighter, and Corgi US Policeman with megaphone.

 

Bits and bobs, including a sand-castle flag which seems bigger the usual, and may have a bit of age, and some useful rockets and missiles for something, still on their runners.

 

 

There was a tin of contemporary or near-current Kinder animals, some have had several issues, and there can be colour variations (camels), and while some are super realistic, some can be a bit cartoony, or - in the case of the ones with babies - cutesie, and it's another black-panther!

Thanks to Peter Evans for saving this lot for the Blog, there was an even bigger lot in August, which should be next, but I've got a Sandown Park report to squeeze in before the next one, and another supporter of the Blog is sending a parcel as I type!

M is for More Stationary

Picked these up the other day, planets in The Range, and the cacti in TKMaxx, actually looking for Halloween or Christmas stuff, drew a bit of a blank on those, but these were worth a punt, given previous things seen here!

 

Tinc again, on the small ones, the larger are an unbranded generic, and I'm beginning to think the originals of these must have been Iwako, just because of the number of other items pirated from them, and the number of these cacti I've seen, we saw two lots a few years ago, one lot I cut-up and 'painted' with marker pens, to make Wild West scenery, the other set I may have only shelfied, but these two sets, in different sizes, were in TKMaxx on red-tickets the other day, so it was a no-brainer, as the expression is, these days!

 

While The Range was carrying these (CDS Group), and they were nearly out, in two stores, so I must have just missed them on previous visits, they are in remarkably subdued or nondescript packaging, so that's plausible, and because the carrying cartons were nearly empty, I don't know if there were more than the two designs seen here, an Earth-like planet and a Saturn like ringed-world.

 

But it's what's at the core of these planets that got me purchasing them, not giant diamonds, boring! But, a shuttle-craft and an astronaut! Which, judging by the wooden-pick in the shots (which looks slightly longer than the one supplied on the packs?) are about 25/35mm, and eminently suitable for joining the stash!