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!

F is for Follow-up - Robot Pencil Tops

Except, these mostly have a person inside, as the originals, and are therefore 'battle suits', except that some transformers or autobots don't? I don't know, I barely follow it and haven't watched any of the movies, too loud and too reliant on CGI for me, bah-humbug! We looked at my smallish sample four-and-a-half years ago here;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2021/03/u-is-for-ultrapenciltop.html

A sample which has since grown, not least with the help of Chris Smith, who not only sent that pair the other day (I think the brown one is less common), but who seems to send one or two in every parcel, and a few have come in from other sources, which is useful, as there seem to be quite a few to find altogether, either version type (soft erasers or harder pencil-top-only's), or colour, or post number.

What follows is some Internet scrapings, I've been saving, on-and-off, since 2010, which back-up a comment I made elsewhere a couple of years ago, mentioning the fact that they keep turning up in quantity.

Here's a bulk lot, branded to Treasure Chest, by Goliath-Hall Inc., but obviously imported from Hong Kong, of interest is that the whole lot are in one polymer colour, yellow, but are otherwise the same as all the others, usually sold as generics. There is a current Goliath Games, but this lot were formed in the 1950's and closed-up in 2005.

Four of the poses, possibly on the origianl pencils some issues came with, possibly Tom[y], reading at the top of the left-hand one? I'd like to find more of the green ones! I'm not sure how well this image will show, though, until I publish? It's behaving oddly in Picasa!

Another all-yellow set, no 'Masked Kamen Rider' (thank you Geofry Peeters) in this issue apparently, whether that makes him rarer, when they turn-up by the box-load is anyone's guess!

Blue'ies!

 

Blacks

 

A mix of colours, including a clearly off-white, or cream, as opposed to the snow-white seen in my previous post, It would seem that rarer colours are the two purples (deep and mauve'ish) and the brown, but that could simply be a question of what I've encountered, rather than any genuine rarity!

While this generic, counter-top lot, have been manufactured in an eraser rubber, with no paint, whether it's a good rubber, or smeary silicon I don't know, but it looks eraserble! Rider is back!

Autobots, Godaikins, Grandizer, Mazinger, Shogun Robots, or Transformers, you have to be a more dedicated fan than me, to know what you are looking at, but the toys and minis are plentiful, and fun!

H is for Hoarded Hord of Halloween Horrors

Except none of them are remotely horrible, nor in any way horror inducing, which makes them all the more acceptable as fun figures/items you might use in gaming, or just chuck in the collection as box-ticking completers!

 

Indeed, if you want to hear something horribly frightening, or frighteningly horrible - I saw my first Christmas-lit house on Wednesday night, it's still October! And that's not including those few in our region, who have given-up taking their shite down every year, and just display a mawkish, illuminated-idea of a fantasy fairy-dell, 24-7-365!

 

I think we saw these a year or two ago, but I'm not sure if they went to eight colours last time? In The Works, and the only Halloween-related thing, of a figural nature I found there, worth a penny!

 

I shot these in Sainsbury's, but didn't buy them, as we did a whole bunch of these sets a few years ago, with various posts and comparisons between the contents, the differences between similar items, like the millipedes and such like, and I suspect these are re-issues of some of those, and I don't need them in the collection, nor the vast numbers in the bag, but I guess, for party 'scatter', they are good value. Credited here to a Rayland International.

 

But I did purchase this chap, about 6", so the top-end of the collection's range, and not very animated, he's a box ticker! The amount of safety information on the little card, for a single-piece moulding the length of a pencil-case ruler is daft, but that’s the times we live in!

 

TKMaxx gave-up this little gem of an eraser set, the ghost doesn't stand up, and could use a cotton-thread to hang him off something! In the Japanese, Iwako style, with multi-parts and ethylene inserts for eyes etc.

 

These are new, seen in The Range and too big a hole, for pencils, I wondered at the point of them, until I saw the boxes of glass straws! A sensible attempt to end the plastic straw problem, and invent a whole new genre of 'topper' at the same time.

 

The straws had year-round packaging, so I didn't shoot it - bad-enough I talked myself into buying straws I'd never use! - I thought, although I've since used one to get the juice out of the bottom of one of those prepared fruit-salads with separate compartments, so useful after-all, and luckily they also come with a useful straw-washing brush!

 

Also in The Range; figural 'pop-a-point' stacking coloured pencils, we saw a similar set earlier in the year, and there were others which were too big and or cartoony for the collection (similar in TKMaxx too), but these were figural fun in the smaller scale, or at least the ghosts are - box ticked!

 

Brian Berke sent these from New York, and they are definitely fun items from Forum Novelties, being those semi-sticky wall or window walkers, that jerkily shudder down flat surfaces!

 

I'd normally crop these sorts of images closer, but you can see pumpkin shaped treat-collection jars to their left, which are also quite fun, I've seen similar (in B&M I think?) but didn't shoot them.

 

I thought these were the same as the first item in the post, but bought them for the packaging variation, and the possibility there were colour variances too, only to find they were larger, but slightly less well-sculpted skeletons, in the style of, but all new mouldings. I guess the brand is Tell-a-Tale, but it's not clear, and I think I found them in a garden centre?

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!

W is for Wax Wildlife!

Wax novelty-shaped crayons, a staple of Kinder for many years, but other people do do them, from time to time, and these were picked-up in The Range and TKMaxx, months apart, but they were figural, so . . . Small Scale World's latest wax wildlife!

 

Not very gummi-bear'ish, their arms and legs are too 'formed', and they have proper faces! Pretty sure these NPW were in The Range, back in April, but I'm not as sure now, as I was a few minutes ago, and they may have been TKMaxx clearance?

 

These (Rex London) were definitely in TKMaxx, last weekend!

Gotta' get your ducks in a row!

L is for Lazy Lizard Lounges in Lucky Bag!

So, I said in the shelfie-post the other day, that I'd bought a test one, and I dare say those of you who know me well enough, might guess which one it would be, farm? Unicorn? Noooooowh! Dinosaurs, of course! But it turned out to be doubly disappointing!

 

The first disappointment, it was mostly flat, paper product, and yes, I know kids love colouring, kids love stickers, kids love puzzles, but in my day it would have been a plastic or rubber dinosaur, some sweets, and something which made a noise! We buy this shit so you don't have to!

 

One small surprise was that the stated eight items, were in fact nine; they clearly think coloured-pencils and a colouring sheet count as one item? And it was also interesting to see some of the contents branded to both Playwrite (WH Cornelius, ex-WHC / Success) and Henbrandt, who are rivals in the same pocket-money, novelty field.

 

The second disappointment though, was that the otherwise, kitsch, but cool-looking inflatable dinosaur, was so cheaply made, it leaked air from a half-welded seam, and I had to try and carefully close the cap (no valve) without pushing so much air out, it wouldn't stand up! You win some, you lose some, and now we have half-an-idea what all the bags contain . . . no figures, no sweets, no whistles, rattles or blowers, except a blown blow-up!

T is for Two - The Works

I popped into The Works the other day and found a couple of bits which might be of some interest, to some people, reading the Blog, so a quick T is for Two... presented itself as the obvious, despite it being more than two of any measure, the 'two' being sharpeners and erasers!

 

Stubby little moon-rocket pencil sharpeners, not terribly realistic, as is, but a coat of paint could render them useful cargo containers in some space-station/space base diorama, and, like a lot of space-based stationary . . . A bit of fun!

 

We may have seen all these before, but the larger Dinosaurs may be new to the Blog, or new in these small 'back to school' containers, but I got them and shot them, because the Blog is a bit of a gaping maw which requires constant feeding!

D is for Dinorasers

I'm sure we've had that title before, but I can't be arsed to think up something else! Not exactly a Rack Toy Month perennial, yet something we have returned to often enough, and probably during some RTM's, but it happens I've found four new (or newish?) Dinosaur eraser sets recently, and these is they . . .

 

This was the missing Iwako set, which we did eventually look at I think, but I can't remember if it was shelfies, sealed, a show-shot or the full enchilada, so I grabbed this one when I saw it a while back now (garden centre I think, early May?), so I'd know I had one!

 

We've seen the Pterodactyl, and the other four biggies in close up for sure, but this set (and another multi-animal set) also has the two smaller, single-piece Velociraptors, and a pair of Archaeopteryx (Archaeopteryx'es?) for a nine-model count.

Then, at the end of May, I found these Kiwi dinosaur pencil rubbers, and again I can't now remember where, but it was probably another garden centre, but might have been Home Bargains, the TKMaxx full-price but cheapo' off-shoot? They are straight copies of Iwako (with the exception of the green cartoony smallie, who's also a single piece moulding), but more obvious piracies for not following the colours of Iwako as other clones do, but making for a more interesting heard, when added to the existing Iwako/Hawkins ones!

 

The other day I found these in . . . yeap, a garden centre, but this time I know where! It was the big Longacres  one up at Bagshot, and they are familiar sculpts in a new packaging, this time branded to Deluxbase.

 

And one new colour - the red Spinosaur! Although the two greens are quite different too. We saw the Range/i-doodle set a while ago, but for comparison, you can see it's basically the same assortment. 'Back to school' season, can be a good time to look for these things!

S is for Shelfies - The Range

Shot these back in February, but like a lot of things, they got caught in the general malaise here at Small Scale World this year and languished, lost in Picasa! So, with a rather Easter flavour, here's what was trending in The Range, six months ago!

 

Paint your own Rocket, what's not to like - 

And the umpteenth cartoony-retro rocket this year!

 

I shot these out of a sort of nostalgic feeling, one of the first things I ever reviewed in PW was the encapsulated toys, imported, then, from the USA (circus, wild animals and dinosaurs), and facing stringent safety stuff, due not to the swallowing danger (the capsules melted in warm water . . . or throats), but because the foam would then expand and present a breathing difficulty, they are now around the place in several formats, with no hysteria! Although, these are larger and for print-stamp painting.

 

More paint-your-own!

 

Blobby infant toys, but might turn up in mixed lots in the future?

 

Again nostalgia bit and I bought these, reminding me of the old Pop-a-point pencils of my youth, I've since seen several other similar products, bears, pigs etc . . . as pencils, coloured crayons or felt-tip markers, so clearly another bandwagon trend this year.

 

I also bought these because while the main 'Iwako Eraser' fad, seems to have cooled off, pencil-rubbers remain a great favourite, and you do still get the odd set of Iwako clones or homage-copies, and with a section of them in the collection, it's worth adding to, occasionally, to keep a picture of the genre's trends. These are not direct takes on Iwako, and bent ears seem a defining feature of the set! Branded to i-Doodle, everything else was in-house for The Range or CDS Group.