A is for Are You Kidding Me!

Well, sometimes it doesn't rain, but it pours, however, if it pours sunshine, who are we to complain! I managed back in the summer to drop the box with the new addition baubles, when I opened the storage unit's 'blast doors' one day, only one bauble broke, but it was the astronaut from TKMaxx, and given the lengths I'd gone to, last year, to find a second one for a friend, a bit galling!

 

So, I've been going into the store every few days, hoping another will turn-up, as one eventually did last year, and they tend to run decorations for several seasons, or until they've all sold, and while that was one reason I caught the second robot the other day, damn me, if they didn't have a set of three this afternoon, which definitely weren't there on Sunday, when I popped-in before closing.

 

 They also had a new set of mini ones, which we'll look at later, but - three more robots!

 

 

Slightly demented, if not, full-on sinister grins, created by the hint of teeth picked-out in flat white paint, but that may just be cynical me, are they grinning happily, in your more-balanced universe? I have a feeling these are old stock (which holds out hope for a replacement astronaut before the big day), as I think I may have rejected them at a higher price a few years ago?

 

But these work-out at less than two-quid each, with one in traditional shiny gloss, a matted, muted one and a kind of stained-glass window one, covered in colour-matched glitter! It's the same moulding for all three, mirroring the second trio, from Homebase we looked at here . . . 

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/11/t-is-for-theyre-only-robots.html

 

. . . but in glass, not plastic, like those Homebase ones. Homebase are now owned by The Range, who have had nothing like these this year. Together with the original resin (too heavy for the tree) trio . . . 

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2018/11/p-is-for-poundlands-poured-polyurethane.html

 

. . . and the other three found this year . . .

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/11/w-is-for-we-are-robots.html 

 

. . . means there are twelve now, too many for the tree, which already has bears, birds, hedgehogs, musical instruments, and soldiers, among a plethora of other things and themes! With another shelfied in Maxx a year or two ago, and a trio from Habitat in the press, years ago, it's a theme which could run, and run! I have to admit it, I'm now, also, a bauble collector! Is there a BCA - Bauble Collectors Anonymous?

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.

M is for More from London, Third of Three Plunder Posts

Finishing this run of plunder-posts with a right-old mix of Wild West, ancient & medieval, pirates, Sci-fi, cartoon, TV and Movie stuff, and as always, some interesting stuff, some stuff you'll be familiar with, but perhaps juxtaposed with stuff they're not usually compared with? I mean - waffling for the opening paragraph - these posts get the traffic, and people seem to enjoy an assortment of new images with some interesting items buried in them!

 

Red-on-red, what am I like! From the left; European, probably French 'bazaar' figure, small, Comansi 30mm, probably Novalinea, but in a colour and tinney polymer I'm unfamiliar with, possibly a sobre knock-off, or supplied as a premium?

 

Hong Kong Timpo'esque cavalryman, but from the legs, obviously copied from the Hong Kong rip-offs with their plug-on boots, a small Britains piracy, I have a lot of these but always in one's and twos, so probably 'Lucky Bags' or Christmas crackers?

 

A modern PVC figure who seems to be a short-short with truncated lance, and one of those from hollow-cast cowboys, who were Lido over there, and might have been Tudor Rose over here, nobody seems to know, but something must have gone with the hard plastic set of mounted Bergan/Beton-Airfix copies, with the Thomas/Poplar being for the soft plastic issues - but nobody seems to know for certain? And the only TR catalogue image I have is for another set altogether (the large scale stuff), a situation complicated by Hong Kong's own output!

 

An assortment of wagon crew, it's more about finding the last colour variations with these now, and I have many more riders/drivers/guards than I'll ever have coaches/wagons for them!

 

Discussed before, a major job one day, sorting all these out, and not much data you can trust, from a small, mixed sample like this, so they tend to go/be put separately,, against themselves being sorted, once I have worked out which torsos go with which legs, heads and accessories, information you can only get from comparing clean samples to bagged/carded sets.

 

The one on the left is a better pose, and if clean; interesting, while the two to the right look 'correct', but running-waving guy is well-dodgy! 

 

Nice from hollow-cast guard, a probably Airfix cadet, a Tudor Rose knight in a bit of a state, and I think the big knight was ELC, or unmarked (now defunct Wilco?). The guardsman is Hong Kong, and the little chap is some fantasy thing, from a mini-play set in the Blue Box 'Hidden Adventure' style of semi-deform.

 

Two pirates from the K&M/Wild Republic tube, modern PVC.

 

A board game man-at-arms taking on a bunch of spray-painted China clones of Italeri, Zvezda or similar, other Bloggers have covered these, which you find on evilBay or Ali Baba and Amazon in - often - large quantities, but of limited poses, here only two.

 

Four Phidal's, I think we've seen three before, the tall, slim babe possibly being from one of the Barbie sets, which I know I haven't looked at yet, I should keep an eye-out for one, while TKMaxx are pushing them through for Christmas!

 

Hasbro's Star Wars 'Command' Stormtrooper on the left, then a fascinating chap, who could earn 'best of parcel', as I already have a white one, I think, and possibly another, but clearly a Hong Kong parachute toy, taken from the Major Matt Mason bendies from Mattel!

 

We then have a common-enough MPC-alike, and a limited-articulation action figure, who's only a couple of millimetres over 54-mil, and who looks like I should recognise him, but I don't, so if anybody can help ID him . . . ?

A mixed bunch here, if ever you saw one (and you're about to see a couple more!), I think the grey chap is from Galoob's small line of Micromachine 'Alien/s' sets, which only went to a handful of cards with one or two - larger than other MM - figures per card, but I'm not sure?

 

Loose Thomas-Poplar PVC Santa's are probably more useful than Western wagoneers as I have several of the sleighs now, in two designs, so for the 'definitive' line-up one day, the correct number of clean, tidy Santa's will be required in the stash!

 

The rest are a mix of modern Kinder, a damaged Games Workshop skeletal horse (useful as it's glueable 'styrene), a Michelin Bibendum, a cake-decoration Santa, &etc.

 

An older Kinder 'steckfiguren', two novelty monkeys which seem to form a larger assembly if you find all of them and a capsule dragon-thing, which folds up into almost a ball, and may be Kinder, Pokémon, Ben Ten or something else entirely - there's so much of this small, blind-bag, limited edition and capsule-toy catoony stuff around now, it's impossible to follow it all, unless that's what you specialise in!

 

More Kinder, racing cars, of one type or another.

 

Again, mostly Kinder I think, the Gnome has a bit of age, but comes from a sub-set of Kinder 'solids', of which there were about eight or ten sets issued, maybe more, and with between six and twelve figurines per set, I'm nowhere near having all of them, but I do have a fair few, so we will look at them, one day.

 

Many thanks as always to Peter Evans for saving this lot, or spotting it at car boot sales, and saving it for me to share with you, here at Small Scale World.

W is for ♪♪♫ We . . . Are . . . The Robots! ♪♫♪

Last year it was spacemen, the year before hedgehogs, other years have had a soldier theme, and bears are perennial, this year I've had some more success with hedgehogs, but also these fellahs all came in over the last ten days or so!

 

I found this chap in Home Sense (the TKMaxx furnishings offshoot) the other day, and thought "Well, if they haven't got any spacemen, you're coming home with me, mate", not intending for it to start anything in particular, but maybe feature in a post on mixed Crimbo Dec's.

 

But then the actual TKMaxx on the other side of the car-park had a few of these yesterday, so I thought "I'm sure I got one in TK the other day, but I'm also sure it wasn't pink?" and took a punt on it, pretty sure it was different, and it was! Well, the game was afoot, Watson! . . . 

 

. . . And I got this one, this afternoon in the big M&S down at the Meadows in Camberley, it seemed to be the only one left, but there were still two, in their pink display tree! He's got a helmet on, so clearly needs some special atmosphere! And with five or six shopping weeks to go, before the big day, I'll have my eyes peeled for additional bauble-bots!

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Sci-Fi Library (2) Kits, Movie Franchises and Movies

The other half of the Sci-Fi stuff I scanned a while back for elsewhere, and it's less about toys and more about research/information and some kit bits, I'll start with!

 

Mentioned when I showed the recent purchase of a late edit of his general list, this is Burn's Sci-Fi and Figures list, which as well as covering figures, also includes the odd dinosaur, monster, insect and bird kits etc . . . you see, off the back of little pamphlets like the original M.A.P./Military Modelling guide, Burn's and his co-respondents, did ALL the work, which sites like Scalemates took to the next level with their interactive member-pages and issue/brand timelines.

 

So when people bang on about a few dinosaurs and pretentiously add "Researched by . . . ", while adding a bunch of feeBay/Worthpoint images, understand it's just plagiarism! Pretending to do the work, actually done by other people thirty or forty years ago, while failing to credit them, is about as low as you can go . . . for a few clicks?

 

This is a Fine Scale Modeller 'special publication', which is really just a feast of exhibition-quality models, posed against realistic backgrounds or dioramas, and as such, is really another coffee-table book, but a rather nice one!

 

While this is a more general look at the smaller of the two 'big' enduring franchises, I've not got much invested in Star Trek, as there haven't been that many smaller-scale or solid figures in the pile of memorabilia issued over the years, but Playmates gave us small 'Action Fleet' types, there was that set I bought from Colin Penn at a Plastic Warrior show a few years ago, and the current (not in this book)  EMCE sets are still out there, so some stuff can be found in 'our' area of interest!

 

Then there's the other franchise . . .

 

This, minimally illustrated, is an encyclopaedic listing of everything known to hardcore-fans, from the release of the original movie, until the release of the final film in the second trilogy back in the 2005. After which, I think, due to first, the tsunami of new stuff and second, the coming of the Internet, updates became superfluous.

 

But Rebel Scum, the Internet fan-base, helped compile it, and it's THE list of pillow-cases, soaps, wallpapers, novelty lamps, and yes, toys and kits, from the early years of the Star Wars phenomena, though to, say, 2005 - nearly 30-years-worth of marketable tat, alphabetically listed, by manufacturer!

 

This only gets as far as the 1st/forth movie, and may be by the same Beckett? It's a tie-in with a then major Star Wars retailer, Beckett Hot Toys, and is arguably better illustrated than the previous, but more dated now by having the 1999 cut-off, in listed data.

These are really 'bestiaries' of one type or another, similar to the much more expensive, glossy, hard-backed, coffee-table 'technical manuals' which ran around the same time, but relying on mostly black-and-white line drawings. I use them to just find-out the names of things. Mostly from the first three 'classic' movies

 

While this is not one of the just-mentioned vintage technical manuals, but rather a more modern publication, best described as one section of the various Rebel Scum wiki's, in book form, and while it may be of use to you, I only bought it as a shelf-filler, because it was cheap, and can't remember it giving me anything useful, but that's in the context of me being the 'general reader' here, not a full Star Wars nerd!

 

While among the minor franchises, this is a useful tome, but then for collectors, Schiffier have never (? I stand to be corrected) produced a duff one, and I have maybe a dozen of their titles now? Like the Star Wars' ones above, this has non-toy stuff, and you find yourself remembering all sorts, as you flick through it!

 

While this pair are both bestiaries; the former using TV- and publicity-stills, the latter, more line-drawings, but helping to quickly identify two other franchise 'universes' I don't follow closely. There are several similar titles in the Tolkien 'zone', but that's never been with the toy books and wasn't shot with the rest, leave alone scanned with these! Add the Dungeons & Dragons guides, we saw while looking at the 'Gygax' stuff a while ago, and you've most of the monsters you could ever need!

 

While these two, are such useful research-tools I keep them with the collectables library, rather than the Sci-Fi/Fantasy library (where the Tolkien stuff is!), and do dip in them from time to time, especially when I can't remember the name of a movie or character which is on the tip of my tongue/in my peripheral thoughts!

There are lots of books like these, and I have more general ones, another on Westerns, and a very useful old film-library catalogue, from when clubs and societies could order films, in their 'cans', so show at schools, village halls or such-like.

 

We had a film-club at school, which anyone could attend, and I remember specifically seeing what were considered 'X' films, at the time, like Straw Dogs, the seminal Eastward movie The Beguiled, as well as fun stuff like Bugsy Malone and I think we had Once Upon a Time In the West? I think we had some Bond films too, I can't remember all of them, but we had two or three films per term, in the main hall, on a full-screen, this would have been 1977 - '80.

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Sci-Fi Library (1) Toys

I shot these for a Faceplant group, over a-year-and-a-half ago, and unlike the other shots in this occasional meander through my library, these were all cover-scans, taken at the time, rather than the more casual shots of the previous posts (see: Bibliography Tag), and most subsequent posts, which will take a year or two to get through at the current rate, with some duplication, because shooting them all was a bitty business, as they were recovered from the garage, reunited with the stuff in the house, added to on the hoof, and/or sent off to storage, in batches!

 

Beautifully illustrated with, yeap, a thousand images, actually more, and even more items, as there are a few multiple shots, however, the beautiful illustrations, a trope of all Taschen publications, is tempered by another trope of theirs, a 'coffee table' lack of text! It's really just a captioned guide to some of the loveliest Sci-Fi toys ever made.

 

And yes, I need both the figures on the cover! But they are likely to turn up in some mixed-lot from Adrian,  Chris, Peter, Gareth or Trevor (the guys who regularly save me this odd, ephemeral, unknown stuff), as they are likely to turn-up in a rummage tray, at a toy figure show!

 

 

In it's day a lovely book, albeit a cheap softback, it's now a bit dated, but still a useful reference work for quickly flicking through to find the robot you may be trying to identify, or to ID the robot a more generic toy might be based-on, so worth grabbing if you see it.

 

This is a lovely guide to what appears to be one man's collection, and from the given dates (1972-82), there's a suggestion other volumes may exist coving the 1950's or 1960's, but as I bought it for next-to-nothing as a remaindered import from one of the shops in the Charing Cross Road, or more likely, a vast, bare floorboarded, enterprise selling straight from the cartons, on the Wandsworth Road, or Lavender Hill (I can't remember, it was more than 30 years ago!), I've never known?

 

 

These two are less useful, being more in the style of the Taschen, but less well illustrated, and with a fair bit of duplication on the more common robots and spaceships from Horikawa, Masudaya, Yoshiya &etc. but the text is more useful, being as how, while both are also in the coffee-table style, they do have more author's input and narrative text.

 

Think 'Pulp', and this is the meisterwerk! But, it barely covers the tin-plate stuff in the five tomes above, concentrating more on the 'Western' pocket-money ranges of the 'Dime-Store' plastic-era's, bagged and carded toys, and the related peripherals such as board-games, home casting sets, hollow-casts and the like, with chapters on the books, magazines, comics and annuals . . . masks, helmets, costumes . . . cards and artwork, ray-guns, pin-ball machines and such like. But, the modern 'Bible' on plastics, with a very good chapter on Dr Who stuff, contributed-to by an old colleague of mine.

 

More of the same but with a wider remit and covering a bit of everything, it's quite a good primer, and worth having on the shelf, to try, if you can't find something in one of the others!

 

While this is a private, or semi-private publication, I think, very much in a recognisable US style of a certain kind of collectables book, I have quite a few of, now, cars, planes; usually a guy sharing his collection. And, in this case what he shares is quite thorough, but his collection parameters are quite tight, so it's very useful for what's in there - Colorforms, Matt Mason, Zeroids and a couple of others, but that's your lot!

 

While these three are, really, only 'shelf-fillers'! Some nice imagery, mostly borrowed from bricks-&-mortar auction-houses, who may or may not have a commercial interest in the title, post-publishing, beyond the name-checks?

 

But the contents of all three are common or popular stuff, aimed at the general or casual reader - the same-old-same-old, big name toys, few of us collectors have forgotten, or really need to re-learn about, and which now have whole sites, forums and wiki-pages dedicated to them, so/also, of limited use as research-tools and adding nothing to better works! The third is a more general title and could go elsewhere in these posts, but was included here for its connection with the TV-Movie related theme.

 

I still buy them, 'just in case' there's something new, interesting or useful, but usually when they are remaindered in The Works or similar, although, in recent years remaindered book stores have all but disappeared, indeed, on the high street it's The Works or nothing, but you can often find them on Amazon or evilBay for next to nothing, and grab them as shelf-fillers/box-tickers.

 

But PostScrip, the mail-order people, often have useful collectables books in their lists, especially the autumn lists, with all the coffee-table titles for Christmas presents! And there's Books2Door, which I haven't tried yet, have you; are they any use?