L is for London Loot - 1 Rack Toys

I had a day 'up the Smoke', the other week, sort of annual thing, and managed to come home with a pile of stuff to short and photograph, for adding to the pile and sharing with you, this post is all the 'new' purchases.

I spotted this in a corner shop as we (Mr Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine and I) were passing, and while it's another BJ Toys one, it's not one I've seen round here, and I've checked out many convenience stores in three counties, around and about, so well pleased to find it. It is what it is, and won't be seen again until I tackle the sea life more seriously, at some point in the middle distance, or get BJ's A-Z Page entry done!

Peter took me to one of his favourite rack-toy haunts, and we'd almost given-up looking and were about to leave the shop, when we saw a bunch in a darker corner and this was one (SM Imports) which left with me, more of the thin-walled, hollow types, clipped together from two polyethylene parts, I love the treatment of the curls on the sheep in pink pad-printing!

 

The other find was this set, again larger sized animals, I never used to track down, but over the years the need to ID or annotate everything that might come in loose, has slowly extended the parameters of the collection, and, while for now it'll stay in the bag, I dare say at some point they'll come out and get a better photo-sesh! Branded to an SHC (Shing Hing Corp.?) in China and imported by LTC (London Top Choice).

 

I also visited the Party Shop at Clapham Junction, as always, and picked up a few pieces, among which were these, I think we've seen the make - Symex - before (from the same retail source), but I hope they are new assortments of what will be Iwako knock-offs!

 

These (Fiestas Guirca) were fun, and there were quite a selection, I chose the two simplest probably, to add to the insect pile, with earthworms and glow in the dark centipedes, while the Sainsbury's glow set obviously turned-up in some warehouse clear-out, and got wholesaled as clearance as they were both cheap, and very old stock which we have seen here before, each bag had different contents and not remembering what was in the previous find (charity shop I think?), I tried to get the one with the more eclectic mix!

 

Henbrandt, we may have seen them before, but if we have, I can debag one lot for proper shots and keep a set pristine. Also erasers; and into the mini-car oeuvre, we've already looked at today!

H is for How They Come In - While in London!

I managed to get up to the party shop at Clapham Junction again this year, it's a routine now, I don't really look at my watch on the second troll round the show (after the pub!), but once it's obviously dark and heading for five' or six'ish, I get the over-ground back to Clapham and wander up to the party shop (which closes late).

I have a little mosey round, and head back to the Station, find an hour or more's the wait for a Fleet stopper, so get the next up-line to Waterloo, grab a burger and get the fast-to-Woking service out of there which slides through Clapham without stopping! It used to be every half-hour from both stations, but since privatisation it's got steadily harder to go anywhere conveniently - thanks Tories!

But before all that shenanigans, Mr. Evans handed me a pack from The Toy Project (one of several toy charities both sides of the pond) as soon as I arrived! They actually weren't at the show this year - having not been invited - but Peter had been up and picked me a handful of useful figures, among which were another Beatle (Macca-moneybags is the left-hooker isn't he?) cake decoration, some Lucky Toys (et al.) figures and a farmer from one of the sets Pagett/A-Z were carrying a couple of years ago.

The Piratical chap in yellow might be from a board-game, he seems to have a cocked or tricorne-hat designed to stack something (counters) on and a very board-gamey base? A Disney princess type and small PVC farmer (New Ray?) make up the lot - thanks Peter, and you can support The Toy Project here.

So to the party shop; they had moved everything around and while the novelty/party-favour section was larger, there was less there of interst to me/you, but I managed a set of Iwako knock-offs including a third iteration of the micro-tank, this time branded to Symex and the same guns we saw last time (The Works) as a single, but now three!

I also bought these as they were dirt cheap, and I think they are a re-shoot of an old 1970's tool; the 'rubber jiggler' / hollow finger-puppet dinos', here a bit stiffer, but still rubbery! Actually there's a fair bit of dinosaur stuff gathering in the queue so we will have a dino-fest soon! And note they have been bought-in as Asda clearance (I vaguely recall eschewing them in Asda as too expensive around the 4/5-quid mark a year or two ago?), so they may still be findable in Walmart 'over there'?

As it happens, the Iwako and 'Rock Star' boxes were both still here, they went to storage last week but I quickly shot these 'cumulative' shots before I shipped them out!