D is for Donation - Chris - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

There was some equally interesting stuff in Chris's latest parcel, some of it ID'd thanks to Shaun's excellent Fantasy Toy Soldier Blog (link below), my go-to for a lot of this stuff, although I probably don't consult it as often as I ought to!

 

My second Crackerjack space figure, there were ten, not twelve, which I know because soon after showing my first here, all ten were posted elsewhere by three different authors, well, fancy that, as Private Eye would say!

 

These were the chaps ID'd on Shaun's Blog, here;

 

https://fantasytoysoldiers.blogspot.com/p/name-brand-sci-fi-toy-soldiers-after.html

 

About 2/3rds of the way down the page, as Trendmasters' 'Rumble Wars', and there are many more on that page, but it's nice to have a reference sample, for future comparisons.

 

One of them however, the one on the right here, would appear to be a copy or second tranche figure, he's smaller, unmarked and a slightly different pose, to the figure he appears to be aping, on the left in each shot?

 

I don't know if the larger figure is a King Kong knock-off, or more of a monster-monkey-man, but standard 'zoo' fare, he isn't, and more of a Halloween-targeted 'rubber jiggler' item I suspect.

 

The cat might be from a board-game, while the two googlie-eyed critters might be from the same maker, despite being quite different subjects? The eyes are the same size, they are both the same dense PVC, they are both pencil-tops. Although one also has a charm loop, which could be for a tassel, and it could just be coincidence!

 

More anthropomorphic animals here, with a flocked bear, blow-moulded cat, and several of those 'small animal family' types, which predate Kinder's hard plastics by a decade or so. Particularly interesting are the two Tony-Tiger charms, as they are umpteenth-generation, much size-reduced, copies of the original sculpt also seen here as a larger key-ring.

 

The three-wise monkeys are teeny-tiny, and may be from a kit of some kind, they are 'styrene, and possibly too small for Christmas crackers? While the large black cat must be a Halloween thing?

 

Trolls! Two cracker/gum-ball charms, and what I think must be one of the Wheetos premiums, there have been several sets over the years, having the coiffure'able hair of earlier trolls, the Wheetos ones also have distinctive faces and props/costuming like this guy's fiddle and shorts.

 

A pair of Sugar Puff's aliens, I used to think they were 'cutesy', as you might expect of kid's breakfast cereal premiums, but increasingly, they now seem to look a bit sinister?!

 

Barbarians ('Doomlords of Gulch' if Tomy version) from Crossbows and Catapults, I have mentioned in the past that there are different versions of these, and it's a future post to try and sort them all out, here you can see a clear size difference between two issuers' figures, with a probable Tomy original on the left.

 

Blind-bag Star Wars deform, a couple of novelty cracker/Halloween skeletons, and a damaged Hilco spaceman, with two new to pile figures; a large (60mm'ish?) manga/anime type ninja superhero and a smaller figure who may be a Robocop clone?

 

A large robot, who has a mechanism underneath, which resembles that of a bayblade, and may indicate he was some kind of launched, spinning novelty? A pair of Manta Force from Bluebird/Tomy, and another Buck Rogers 'C3P0' pencil-top eraser to be colour checked against the master sample, and that bloody beebly-beeble from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century!

 

He's damaged, but fully marked, so gratefully received, as a sample, but I hate the little twat! I have a bagful of the Corgi ones and I hate them too - in fact, checking the Buck Rogers Tag, I've never had a good word to say about him, and always manage to insult him anew! He ruined an otherwise good TV serial!

 

Classic, big-box, TV-advertised, this-year's-big-Christmas-hit toy! I'd gone off to be grown-up, or as grown-up as I could manage, and missed most of them, but remember "Tee-Cee-Arh . . . totalcontrolracing!", the Star Bird one, "Em-Be-Games!!!!", Chutes Away, another with a helicopter and the exploding-bridge one!

 

This, originally from Tomy, was one of them, a bit big for me, and it will probably be offered-up as a swap (for other toys), but Chris explained it was only included as a space-saver/packaging. It ran up and down a track while two players fired ball-bearings at it, loser saw his bunker go airborne when the Terrible Tank reached it!

 

British Palitoy TV Ad; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMSfzxSy2FY

 

Finishing off with a few more of the Christmas cracker putti, it will be fun returning to them all one day and finding there's a whole, multicoloured orchestra, even if they have a limited number of intruments!

D is for Donation - Peter - Books, TV, Movie and Licensed

OK, so we're on to recognisable characters, although these days, they are coming so thick and fast, from so many streamers, with all the old favourites getting darker (Batman) or lighter (the dreadful Disney Pooh) makeovers, alternate universe versions, good and bad clones (Spider-Man, or should it be Spider-Men now?), indeed, the whole Marvel/DC thing is disappearing up its own arse, as Andy Warhol once predicted, albeit with choicer language!

 

Another Smiley (we've seen one or two recently), but this one has some age, and unlike the modern ones with their overprinted faces, his facial detail is sculpted-in. A Batman keyring, a bit of a caricature, this one, and a Gamorrean Guard from Hasbro's Star Wars Command.

 

This is an interesting one, on one level it's a teeny novelty rack-toy from China in a generic bag, but it's in the style and material of, and the same size as, the Phidal interactive book figure Duke Caboom (Captain Canuck knock-off from Toy Story), and the suspicion is it might be from the same source/factory, maybe a cancelled order, on clearance, and is compatible with the better-known figure? We can compare in a later post of this series!

Disney . . . for girls! And we have two from Frozen, Kristoff and Elsa, both capsule toys, one Kinder the other a lesser make I think, possibly both seen before? Bo Peep from Toy Story, a larger figurine from a source unknown to me, and a less definite 'fairy' like figure, almost certainly a Kinder something?

Some Japanese Anime/Manga thing, don't know anything about him, but nice figure.

Alternate Hulk in red? Actual Hulk from Phidal, we saw another recently, but they are very different shades of green, a Hotwheels figure from Mattel, shades of General Grivous in him, a damaged LB knock-off in 50mm (in the wrong post!) and a stamper;

 

I searched 'yellow suit' and 'horns' for both Marvel and DC, and couldn't find anything looking like him, although I knew several of the new characters have a similar look, then I remembered the flyer from the Fortnite post, and there he was, top left in the 'legendary' section, so a Fortnite character.

 

Current, or very recent Kinder, in two separate lots from Peter here, and interesting as they seem to be copies (fully licensed, the Playmobil logo is all over the packaging) of the children from that toy line, but with clip-together waists, to get them into the eggs. DC Superheroes, they have all the better ones! And, I guess, you add them to your Playmobil tub, as children dressing-up as DC characters? No accessories, but the hands are full-size for standard Playmobil stuff, and - with these - there's already a lot of value packed into the standard-priced eggs.

 

No idea on the Superman, the diver is also in the wrong group-shot, but hey, there he is, definitely to be further sorted (he's probably still in a bag with the other three!) a modern stretchy-smiley, with the over-printed face and a Homer Simpson of the size of, but not from the Monopoly set, so maybe a lesser capsule toy egg issuer like Zàini - LZ or Maraja, like the Kristoff from Frozen above?

 

I suspect these are from a kid's comic or magazine/periodical, they are that two-halves-of-substantial-polystyrene, glued together, which you see with a lot of the cover-presents, we've seen Clangers, Peter Rabbit and Octonauts here so far, this is the Fat Controler from Thomas the Tank Engine I think, and clearly two different issues, one realistically finished, one all in silver?

Super-deforms, I recognise a couple of the recent Marvel Spider-People, don't know the other two. They might be from a blind-bag set Brian Berke sent images off, but I can't find them on the Blog, and I can't find them in the ever-growing Picasa queue, so possibly badly tagged, however, the search did reveal how much of this blind-bag stuff is out there, and how much we've seen, one way or another!

 

Two more, not much idea on the issuers, I think Chewy may be Kinder, the sucker Captain America is the first licensed figure of the type I've seen, but there is a growing bag of the generic cartoonish sucker 'monsters', in the style of Shopkins, Moshlings, Smashers, Ooshies or Superzings, from which he's taken!
 

On the left another superhero I think, but I don't recognise him or his line/make, then a Barbie, which looks Kinder, but is a whole figure and wouldn't fit in an egg, so some other cheap bagged, capsule or rack-toy line? Disney dwarf, and another Fortnite stamper, easier to ID, as most of the female characters seem to have those armoured knee-pads!

 

Thanks again to Peter for saving all this for the blog, quite an eclectic mix!

Z is for Zorro

I can't believe we haven't had that title yet, given Z is one of the hard ones to find decent titles for! Heay-ho, we've had it now, and the Zorro in question is a set of chocolate egg collectables from Maraja from a good while ago, and which I found as a complete set, probably on feeBay, back in 2022.

 

Piled with the insert sheet.

 

Good guys and babe!

Bernardo (Zorro's deaf & mute valet), Zorro (Don Diego de la Vega) and the dancer.

 

Bad guys!

 That's it, simple box-ticking exercise; gets them in the Tag list!

SPV is for Soapy Persuit Vehicle!

Heads-up, it's the BMSS (British Model Soldier Society) show tomorrow, in Reading, Berkshire, And, it's a full moon tonight, so lock up any lycanthropes' in the family, lest you fall out with the neighbours, big-time! I happened to need to go to Reading last weekend, and managed a quick trip to a couple of old collectables shops I know . . .

 

. . . of which the first, to be fair, is mostly comics and the usual Star Wars action figure type stuff, while the latter is a more eclectic shop. They are both next door to each other in one of the few remaining Victorian covered arcades. We used to have one in Aldershot, but it was ruined, blocked-off at one end, and replaced with a rebuilt fake, a couple of decades ago.

 

However, I did manage to find one of 1993's Captain Scarlet SPV soaps from NAPA Products, which had seen better days, but was, nevertheless a bit of fun, and which, being modern, in my eyes at least, will probably end up being used in the bath!

 

The dust of ages, or, at least, 33 years!

 

The vehicle - marginally smaller than the Corgi model - was more battered than the box, but you get the idea, and there's not a lot I can add to the photographs, it's a soap, with no rope! But I thought the colour was well-chosen?

 

After a bit of a wipe with a damp cloth!

 

If you do happen to go tomorrow, both shops will be open, and are minutes, or hundreds of yards from both the station and the show venue.

L is for Local Loot - 1 of 2

Managed a quick pass through the charity shops at the end of January, and succeeded in grabbing a few things, among which were a couple of real oddities.

 

A bag if bits, a bag of animals and a large squidgey . . . thing!

 

Starting with the squidgey thing, is it a lizard, is it a dinosaur, is it some kind of salamanda? One of those soft silicon-rubber toys filled to bursting with expanded polystyrene beads, which give it a stiff 'beanie baby' vibe, and no markings to speak of? The primordial amphibious ancestor, whose existence annoys the anti-Darwin brigade?

 

Probably a full set of ten smaller PVC-alike animals, not sure, but they are all of similar size, quality and material, and with so many of these sets out there, something we will return to one day, when I try to ascribe all, or most of them properly!

 

Three that don't seem to match the rest, and might be from one than one source?

 

The bag of bits contains some right oddities, with a bit of Kinder, some Kinder-like, a few 'army men' and other oddities. The apple with worm, might be a Pokémon, or one of those Studio Ghibli vinyls, they produce 25-figure advent calenders these days, so there's quite a few out there to find.

 

These are both mildly disturbing, the green spider has a gold, polypropylene key hidden in a slotted pouch in its belly, while the eight-legged chrysalis type thing, seems to be designed to contain a larger solid? Both are a soft rubberised polymer/elastomer of some kind, and may be connected to some of the other odd things in the previous image, such as the pink crab, or strange yellow baby?

G is for Gashapon - Bandai Namco - Ultraman Cityscape

It is the bane of blind or random selection that you won't always get what you want, what you hoped for, or what you need to complete a run or set, and while this set has three nice figures, both Adrain and I ended-up with the same simplified, micro-building, hay-ho!

 

The machine!

 

The capsule, and prize, I couldn't work it out until I'd got it out of the packet and studied the sheet! It's a small (1:600th or even 1:1200th) type micro-bulding, to be made-up, with five others, into a cityscape, for the 'Giant' Ultramen to stand amongst as they battle Godzilla or Mothma, or something equally daft and rubber-suit sized!

 

Paperwork, I don't know if the three figures are different heros. different generatuons/movie-versions of the same guy or what? Having never really followed the franchise (I haven't seen any of the recent big-budget Hollywood takes either, and I'm not in a queue to!), it always struck me as a kid's daftness, and while you can have nostalgia for your own (I wish someone would find a stash of Hector's House recordings), I don't think you can retro-establish a love for something aimed at kids, as a cold, cynical, logical adult?

 

Powered by a sealed watch battery, the novelty has a limited life-span, in its illuminated form at least, but you can, hopefully, from the right-hand image, get an idea of how a bunch of them would look with one or two of the figures looming out from the midst of them!

G is for Gashapon - Bandai Namco - Ultraman Monsters

I forgot to shoot the figures with this post, and they are long buried in the storage unit, so this one's just a quickie now, to get us to the end of the sequence, and my favourite set! Not that these were in any way shabby, and I actually ended-up with two sculpts, the 1st and 3rd in the line-up below.

 

 

 The machine responsible for this truncated post!

 

 

 Pink balls . . . Ooo-eerr missus!

 

Paperwork, and that's a wrap! Well, more of a fold . . . bah-duum TISSH!

G is for Gashapon - Bandai Namco - Onepi No Mi

Here, we're looking at a Bandai set known as the 'Fifteenth Naval Battle' of the Onepi No Mi series, and you probably have to be a pretty dedicated follower, or Japanese, to understand that, but it's the one set you're most likely to encounter going forwards, in Western 'head' shops (which, these days, seem to be very expensive gift shops with no smoking or drugs paraphernalia at all!), or mixed lots/rummage trays at shows, as it has been prolific since it's teased-launch in 2021, this set being issued in January 2024, shortly before Adrian was popping them out of the bottom of . . .

 

. . . this machine!
 

Created by Bandai specifically for the Gashapon machines, and based on a Manga series, just called One Piece (following the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his crew, the Straw Hat Pirates, as they seek the legendary One Piece treasure), from 1997, the capsule toy title, like 'Gashapon' itself, is hard to directly translate, as it's part title, part verbal pun, and all pictogram in the original, but sort of breaks down as One Piece [of my Devil]-Fruit!

 

Which isn't enough is it, but Google Translate can't, Google AI is struggling as much as me, and the websites assume prior depth-of-knowledge. And it's in part due to the design of the capsules, which we'll get on to in a minute! 

 

Through the 40-plus issues (around four a year, plus specials - 200+ items, and still counting) a set of typical Japanese 'popular-culture' themes show themselves, being, part Steampunk, part pirate, part recent/current popular culture and part pre-pubescent schoolgirl fetishism, which touches most of the standard Manga/Anime bases, just missing giant robots and fast motorcycles!

 

The capsules look like any others on first sight, but the Japanese are the masters of exquisite design, folding furniture, sliding doors, miniaturisation and such like, and their skills have resulted in capsules which can be assembled to resemble a fruit (the devil fruit), or can be stacked as an ever-growing display case, or - it looks like - used as Christmas tree-baubles!

 

Which is how the Gashapon series ends up being called Onepi No Mi, "Onepi" for 'One Piece', "No"  is a possessive - 'Akuma' or 'Gomu Gomu no mi', the Devil's Fruit, or Fruit of the Devil (the capsule design), and is further tied-in to a battle-cry in the Manga strips!

 

Here, you work it out if you need to! It's killing my brain-cells, trying to get my head round it! I think maybe if you say it quickly; "Onepinomi", it makes sense, if you speak Japanese!?

 

I've ended-up with a definite pirate type, and an electric bagpipe player (?), who in the first instance I think is called Shiryu (and an enemy of the Monkey D.?), while the other should be Helmeppo, who I see being played by one of the less salubrious personae of Bill Nighy!

 

It's all very . . . Japanese!