G is for Gift Egg Updates - 5 - Tarco

We first looked at Tarco here about a year ago, but there is another set or Dr. Who out (actually the third - I seem to have missed one!), and other sets to look at.

So the Dr. Who Figures Part 3, flyer/insert and two figures with the K9 we looked at last time, this set is all new version characters and that's about all I can say?

This lot is more blurb-worthy, as they are also branded to Tarco, but were being vended from a standard, stickered Tomy stack in the local Sainsbury's? Whether this is a legit licence between Tomy and Tarco or an old machine being filled with locally sourced product by a supplier of easy ethics I don't know.

Give him a sword on a baldric and cut those pointed toes down and he'd make an excellent adventurer hanging around the bars in Riverdeep...do people still play proper D&D?

Now . . . I've had these for ten years or more, they were in the Galoob box, not because I thought they were Galoob, but because Hasbro ended-up with Galoob, and Hasbro issued new type Action Man licences, so it made sense to put unknown Action Man figures with the Galoob/Kenner/Hasbro stuff of similar ilk!

Also, Hasbro were responsible for the Subbuteo figures which appeared in Italian gift-eggs a decade or so ago (Can't remember if it was Zaini or one of the others now?), so these figures may be from those Italian eggs. However, the Hasbro mark is the same as the BBC and Disney marks on the other sets above, as far as size, font and the like, so Tarco are also a likely candiate?

G is for Gift Eggs and Capsule Toys - Part II - Current or Recent

This would have been 'the last three weeks if I hadn't just lost two weeks to real life crap AND tonsillitis? At fifty-effing-one...what's that all about? The UN's 2011-declared planet-wide carcinogenic atmosphere, that's what!

Anyway penicillin's kicked-in and these are from late May-early June now, so all still findable!

£1 gum-ball machines (no chocolate!) at the moment, from Tarco International and of the choice, I got the one I'd have most wanted, first shot! It's (robots don't have a sex...not even sex-robots!) around 54mm compatible so I might try and get another for a UNIT dio/vignette with some Deetail or Airfix para's, although; with only 6 in the set it would be worth trying to get the set, I don't know how the maths works out on a random pull, but it'll be maybe as few as 11 purchases?

The others look to be more 30mm size wise, and the Tardis would join a growing collection of small-scale police telephone boxes! From the fact that the K-9 is 'exclusive' suggests the other five have been available previously or elsewhere, it's a very nice little model anyway.

Mimi is slowly collecting these and the first 6 had no duplicates (a baby Rottweiler has been added since the photo-shoot), they are also in sans-chocolate £1 machines, but it states they are series III and I haven't noticed series's one and two anywhere?

Imported by Idea Vending, an outfit called A&A Global Industries seems to be the master behind the throne, and they go quite well with the current Schleich puppies, size-wise.

Back to Zàini and chocolate; these are available about the place (One-stop convenience-store for this actual one) and again I was lucky to get one of the more useful figures, as again there are half-heads looped as charms and some less useful figures!

I feel this is my reward for getting through a Christmas day round my Brother's where small relatives had a doll which played the Frozen theme on an eight-second loop endlessly...and if you tried to sabotage the thing it switched to Spanish until the little ones used tech-magic to 'reduce' the torture back to English!

We looked at the Fravend Alien in a new production round-up a while ago, and I've since found a traditional yellow 'smiley' and this blue one and stuck them in the archive without testing them to destruction like the first green one!

And from the same machines we have that old 1960's perennial; Trolls, the licence is held by Russ Berrie, I suspect these via Brabo-CBG of Belgium are not sending many royalties back to East Rutherford, Nujoisey! Both these are in 40p machines (definitely no chocolate!), or were they 20p? I'll check next time I do the rounds!