About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Target. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Target. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Two of . . . a Few!

Continuing to look at the stuff Brian B has sent to the blog in the last few weeks, these were all shot in a Target Store in Connecticut I believe, and mostly TV/Movie related licensed characters.
 
My Little Fawn?
 



There is, somewhere in Picasa, a multipart 'miniseries' which never got published (it will, one day!), which Brian contributed to, on the subject of those figurines you see in the windows of game-swap shops, which are interactive, electronic playing pieces, for/from several modern gaming systems, these seem to be similar, but are more music oriented I think? Can't knock The Muppets!
 


Superstuff!
 
Also a bit big for my parameters, but I know from the Plaid Stallions crew, that there's a massive fan-base for GI Joe, Stateside, with the guys telling each other where certain figures have popped-up! Same with the 'new' Mego's!
 
Even dog-food is promoting the new movie! It launched with much hype as the summer's big movie, and a sort of reset for the brand, but it's gone quiet now, so I don't know if it's good, OK, or a bit duff . . . Has anyone seen it?
 
The two boats are halfway between the rockets and the rubber-boats we saw yesterday from B&M, and it looks like the two boats are wind-up workers.
 
Plastic flat, gravity floaters?

Thanks again to Mr Berke for going out and finding these.

Friday, August 18, 2023

M is for Maysun, May Moon, Marty AND M-Toy!

A bit of a reveal tonight, one I've been sitting on since, well, about four or fives years ago, when Bill B gave us his catalogue, so credit to him first, but it meant a few puzzles were cleared up, not least that LP was LB for Lik Be, but that took another year or so to sink in, this was an easier fit as three of the brands were in the one ad! But that will be the next post, this is all about a trip to the circus!
 
 
If you recall my purchase of a circus card at 2022's Plastic Warrior show in Twickenham, there was already a move toward this post then, and had been for a while, I have cleaned it from the dusty thing we saw then, and added the feebleBay image on the right, which I suspect is a 1980's (?) Target set.

Check out the giraffe though! It's the Britains baby-giraffe, commonly copied by Hong Kong makers, but rearing up!

Two more from evilBay; another branded to M-Toy as mine is, the other - 'Crest' from Pioneer Products Inc - more of a curates egg, with the Maysun ringmaster, and some non-circus, wild or 'Zoo' animals, which may be from the M's, or may be bought-in from someone else?
 
While here, back in 1966, we have Wilton carrying two sets, a bog-standard range of the Crescent-for-Kellogg's piracies (black & white image), and a lion-tamer vignette with some more non-circus animals. I suspect these might be from the M's, particularly as they are of similar design/material to the other output, the larger animals in the Pioneer set are chalky and carry very different decoration.
 
I have yet to see the original clown with hoop in any of the M-Toy, Maysun or generic sets, so he seems to have missed the pirate boat at some point?

My newest lot came with this tent, there is nothing empirical to tie it to the figures and it may be from another set-line-range-maker altogether, but it has the feel of Hong Kong in the crudeness of the parts and the fit of the cloth-cover reminds one of all the Strawberry Shortcake stuff, or trolls, all a bit 1970's!

 I don't know when they started adding their own (?) designs, but it's obvious now these are all from the same stable, as various ones turn-up in other sets, with the Kellogg's copies. Being strict, there is still a question mark over a few, but plastic colours, marks (there are several different marks) and paint, tie-them together.

The ostrich rider is a conversion of the standard Kellogg's clown, just doing the splits to ride the ex-Timpo (?) bird! While the seal is very different to the more common, larger, grey one. There is no real sign of the wheel/tyre having ever been on my poodle (ex-Corgi sculpt?), but it could have been there, there's certainly one in the other M-Toys set above?

Figures; we saw the lion tamer and another male in this post - Three Ring Circus - along with a loose version of the carded lady (ex-Marx?), and becasue both performaing animals and new people keep turning-up, we may not have found them all yet, I certainly still need that rearing giraffe!
 
One of the harder to find items is this chap, he's not rare, I've several broken ones including two here from recent purchases/donations, but I managed to get a good one on feeBay a few months ago, and that was a comedy of errors.
 
I'd asked the seller to pack him carefully, which he did, but the useless, overpriced 'International Shipping Program' managed to lose him, 'deliver him' (to their own hub, not me or the sender), deliver him again, to the sender (but he still hadn't received him back either) then they flagged it up as 'at the hub, but missing electronic tracking data'? After two or three weeks of looking at that, unchanging message, daily, I requested a refund and apologised to the sender for costing him, he cheerfully replied that because the 'programme' had lost it, he'd had a full refund too! Four weeks later it was dropped-off without a signature being requested! Our civilisation is literally grinding to a halt!

So, anyway I have one now, and took a knife to one of the others, so he'd just look irate - "It's my turn!"

The Crescent-for-Kellogg's bits, the Elephant has always been sub-scale, and must be assumed to be a performing baby - very cruel, and it's a measure of our slow progression to humanity, as we have always preached but rarely practised, that we have all but finished with real, live animals in circuses and fairs now, not so in other parts of the world though, where bears in particular, and other animals are still chastised for laughs.
 
In the boxed set at the other end of the link, we saw the horse-acrobat with her little seperate base (as she is in one of the sets above), but here she's doing the ridey-thing! And I wouldn't want you thinking all this stuff is from the M's, I have, in the 'master collection', identified several generations of the seal, elephant and lion, while the elephant-riding monkey (also in the linked set) looks like it was bought-in from Blue Box.

As Blue Box, Holly and New Maries all had a level of cross-pollination on farm, zoo and Noah's Ark sets, with similar connections between some of them over Chinasaur-dinosaurs and 'Gygax' monsters, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them also knocked-out a few of these, especially the commoner ex-Crescent scuplts?

A few of the Crescent/Kellogg's figures I had here, not the best sample, but you can see the chap on the far right, bottom, is the one who seems to have escaped copying and therefore remains uniquely British! Probably as simple as that the pirates didn't trust themselves to pantograph and reproduce the fine moulding of a decent hoop?
 
The quite similar horse-rider from Charbens, I don't know which came first, but this was probably the original as it may have come from the earlier hollow-cast?
 

While Blue Box themselves had a stab at the 'Big Top' with these sets of Circus Chimps, although firstly there are more other apes/monkeys than actual chimpanzees, and only two are new for the sets - the piano-playing gorilla and the elephant-rider - the rest are from the standard zoo ranges, suitably enhanced with Wild West cacti and furniture from their dolls house line!

Image added a few weeks later, for the hell of it!

Friday, April 15, 2022

T is for Two - Current Dinosaurs

Just a quickie, I bought a set from don't-know-where (probably Asda?) back in January, and Brian Berke had bought some stand-alone's, also in January, so lets have a quick look.

1 Count; 13232; 421016; Ankyo Development Ltd.; Dino World; Halsall Dinosaurs; Halsall Haswell Toys; Halsall Toys International; HTI; HTI Toys; Parasaurolophus; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Target Stores; Velociraptor;
A nice medium to large pair of the new style hollow in two halves dinosaurs, a Parasaurolophus and an over-sized Velociraptor, available the other side of the pond in Target Stores for a dollar, just a measly $1, so worth a punt. Branded to Anko Development and brand-marked '1 Count' . . . because they're sold singly?

1 Count; 13232; 421016; Ankyo Development Ltd.; Dino World; Halsall Dinosaurs; Halsall Haswell Toys; Halsall Toys International; HTI; HTI Toys; Parasaurolophus; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Target Stores; Velociraptor;
Meanwhile I'd grabbed these, but I can't remember where, I think "it 'as to be Asda", I didn't go anywhere else around then? But there's a chance it was my local independent toy shop, they have a small range of rack toys including the HTI 'army men' stuff we've looked at here in the past. They would have been less than a fiver as I won't go over that on rack-toys!

1 Count; 13232; 421016; Ankyo Development Ltd.; Dino World; Halsall Dinosaurs; Halsall Haswell Toys; Halsall Toys International; HTI; HTI Toys; Parasaurolophus; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Target Stores; Velociraptor;
The supporting bumpf for the Target dinosaurs and a close-up of the dino's. That's it, out there now for a few shekels if you're a dinosaur fan, and thanks to Brian for the US examples.

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

I is for the Idiots Idiotocracy and Their Idiot's Idiocy

There are a few idiots in the hobby, and while - as I've pointed out in the past - they are and remain a small minority of the hobby, they are also quite vocal, fortunately - for the rest of us - they all congregate around the shitstuff Blog like a cloud of flies on a dog-shit.

The Idiot-in-Chief; the Jabbering Fuck has surpassed himself recently and we're going to look at his nonsense today.

On the 27th January he wrote the following to justify his earlier vileness . . .

2020 Toy Fair; 35390 Giessen; Andreas Dittman; Andreas Dittmann Giessen University; Britains Deetail; Chaihai; Deetail Germans; Deetail Mortar Team; Department of Geography; Diana Freitag; Doctor Andreas Dittman; Dr. Andreas Dittmann; Fun Express; Gießener Geographische Gesellschaft; Giessen; Giessen University; Halilit Imports; Halilit Terra By Battat; Human Geography and Development Research; Justus-Liebig-University; Party Pig; Paul Stadinger; PB Toys; Peter Bergner; Professor Andreas Dittmann; Senckenbergstrasse 1; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stadinger; Stads Stuff; Stadsshite; Stadsstuf; Stadswatch; Terra By Battat; Tombola; Toy Fair 202;
I don't know why he centred the text, he clearly thought it was of above-average importance or something? Anyway we will deal with it line-by-line as always; far better to quote empirically than to make it up as you go along! And we'll do the quotes in shit-brown as he has shown himself to be a douche-bag.

In my post Odds Ends Toy Trade Shows Preview, I greatly upset someone (no he didn't; he disgusted me for the reason we will come on too) with the use of the words in a timely manner.

What I was saying that I would get my reports on the various toy trade shows out quickly as I could. This person last year stretched his reports on a toy trade show. for several months. That person was me, and - in the first instance - I took three months off Blogging while my farther passed away and was buried. He's a very nasty man.


There are three items we can not delay reporting (says a pompous git as if he's seen it written in stone by Moses! And it should be 'cannot'): new figure news, collectible toy shows, and toy trade fairs.

Let's deal with those one at a time;

new figure news - new figures, by their very nature are going to be around for a while, and therefore there is no urgency whatsoever. It's nice to learn about their issue, say on the company's website, or their Faceplant page, or even on a Blog, but a few days or a few weeks delay will not ruin your day, nor mine!

What he really means here is he will try (and often fail) to competitively Blog against people not consciously competing with him, by reposting stuff from Faceplant or the companies' own websites, after they have been posted there - where they were done so, in a more timely manner!

collectible toy shows - Well, as I have posted some 2000+ events before they happened in the last 24-odd months, so that you can get to them if you wish . . . and Mr. Stadinger has told us of around . . . phfff . . . forty (?) events in the same time period; half of them after they have happened, so you couldn't have attended them if you might have wanted to, any intended criticism here would seem to apply far more to him than to me? So we have hypocrisy, a bit of a lie and the wittering of a very stupid man.

Not that I'm encouraging him to try copying yet another Small Scale World trope - we all know he would do it poorly - although better coverage of the North American circuit would be useful, my listings are - naturally - UK-centric; I'm only highlighting the bullshit emanating from this lumpen oaf.

Let me reiterate here . . . I give you 7-20+ event-dates, ahead of time, every week, with links, he gives you one or two a month, often after the event, often without a link. He's a very stupid man!

toy trade fairs - the same criticism applies equally, not only did I notify readers of the London fair two days before Stadinger (both this year AND last year) but I got my overview out days earlier too . . . both years!

And in the case of both announcements and overviews, they were held-over for the regular Friday 'News, Views . . . ' posts, so if the lazy mother-fucker that is TJF had been minded to get his out in a more 'timely manner' he could have, but he didn't, in fact he waited until I'd posted (17th Jan.), reminding him (annually) it's time for him to take my posts as his trigger to start pontificating in reaction, this year on the 18th!

Further, my overview (24th Jan.) was what I had seen/experienced the previous Wednesday, his overview (27th) was four links to leading toy maker's own websites, a trope he stole from my post of the 21st January, where I was making the point that these posts are not the be-all-and-end-all he's talking them-up to be? While last year my post was similarly a 'walked' site-report while his was regurgitated, second-hand news.

He then tried to write-up the Airfix site's news, forgetting that company websites are sales sites, and often talk shit! The Sherman Firefly and 'new' Tiger have been announced more often than the end of the world, and I (like Airfix) announced the 1:35th series a year ago (slightly more 'timely mannered' than the jabbering fuck) and pointed out that A) they were only drawings, and B) might never happen. I.E. the only original copy in his overview was old hat!

Let me reiterate here . . . he is bitching that I "dragged-out" my 12 or so posts . . . he did one . . . it came after my initial overview . . . and was itself, a generic overview! He's a very stupid man!

At one-time toy trade shows were showing products that would be out for the Christmas holiday. Today, the products are coming throughout the year. An example of this is the figure on the left. He is Bane from Batman being done by Spinmaster. He is part of a thirteen figure blind bag series. The figures are out now.so I will have ('have' Hahahah! Pompous idiot!) to report on them. Again he twists and wriggles on the hook he's forged for himself! Using the exception (blind-bags) to prove the rule; most of the stuff debuted at the Spring Fairs IS destined for the Christmas market! The Bill & Ted board game (already blogged) is a mock-up, looking for orders, if it appears, it will be in time for Christmas, same with the Airfix 1:35th-stuff - it's waiting for a favourable market . . . or better finances at the parent Co.!

The companies also often show their standard ranges just to remind the buyers they are there! He (Standinger)'s talking shit as if he has half-a-clue what he's spouting!


Sadly items that have to be reported in a timely manner do not allow excuses. This is an illiterate garbage-sentence, apparently constructed from random words, that's makes no sense, to the point where it's hard to even guess at the point he's trying to make? Naughty 'reported items'; someone should punish them!

If this other person had ignored my comment as I ignored his profanity lace comments, he would not have defended himself. Arch-twisting now; I have stated that I won't make the same promise as him (to ignore me), so he should have expected a rebuttal, while he KEEPS saying he's going to ignore me, only to keep coming back with another cheap comment, or copy post, more lies, more hypocrisies!

And we have both a lie and a hypocrisy here as he clearly isn't ignoring me, in the line of the post were he says he is! The man's a blithering idiot . . . although Man's a bit strong, the 'infantile man-child's a blithering idiot!

Instead, he took offense and has responded with vicious attacks. As I've said I always will and therefore; as was to be expected! If I ignore him, he gets worse, we've seen it before.

All I was stating a fact I learned in doing my printed lists and carried over to doing my postings on the internet. Self-regarding, self-absorbed verbal diarrhea, bigging-up his opinion of himself! And as we can see; no 'fact's above - just pontificating, self-justifying bullshit.

Attempting to justify the fact that in posts which also name Dr. Adreas Dittmann and Peter Bergner of PB Toys (among others) he, Paul Stadinger, attacked me with a bitch-kick, suggesting that by taking time-out to bury a parent, I was 'dragging-out' posts.

Anther hypocrisy - Those posts I 'dragged out', were extra-to the Toy Fair 2019 overview, and were posts Stadinger never had, never has, as, having pompously told us he would be reporting from London, Nuremburg and New York, last year; he actually gave us one rather bitty overview (in a less 'timely manner' than me) and nothing else!

I always take lots of photographs, speak to the 'toymen' (and toywomen!), collect a shed-load of catalogues, the odd sample and produce a number of follow-up posts, very few of which are time-sensitive and get placed among the other output of the blog to - hopefully - keep the mix fresh!

While this gobshite-arsehole, talking shit, tries to be me, or tries to make his Blog look like/sound like my Blog (as opposed to any other), by sitting in my dust! AND - Mr Lickshit, Mr Dildobrand Hildabreath (or Deadleaf Hairband as someone called him the other day!), Doctor Dittmann, Mr. Bergner . . . he does it so badly . . . WITH your help!

Are you all happy to be associated with his making capital out of my father's death? Well, then; you're all arseholes?

What is the Justus-Liebig-University of Gießen's policy on your association with this filth Andreas? I mean; if you're all happy with the situation, I'll start putting you, your department and the university in the Search Engine Optimisation of all Stadinger/Sell rebuttals, so we can get it all pushed up the good-old Google page-rankings?

Now - let us now go back to the 25th January . . .

2020 Toy Fair; 35390 Giessen; Andreas Dittman; Andreas Dittmann Giessen University; Britains Deetail; Chaihai; Deetail Germans; Deetail Mortar Team; Department of Geography; Diana Freitag; Doctor Andreas Dittman; Dr. Andreas Dittmann; Fun Express; Gießener Geographische Gesellschaft; Giessen; Giessen University; Halilit Imports; Halilit Terra By Battat; Human Geography and Development Research; Justus-Liebig-University; Party Pig; Paul Stadinger; PB Toys; Peter Bergner; Professor Andreas Dittmann; Senckenbergstrasse 1; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stadinger; Stads Stuff; Stadsshite; Stadsstuf; Stadswatch; Terra By Battat; Tombola; Toy Fair 202;
I Am a Collector, despite what one sad man thinks. He's not a collector, he's a dealer, he's obviously retained a few bits, as we've seen, but one of these, one of those and one Timpo 8th Army does not a collection make and his output remains poor because he doesn't have the 'stuff'. Nothing wrong with poor output, there are lots of mediocre Blogs out there, lots of small collections, but don't start fights you can't win! (He even wrote a silly song (It is a measure of his humourlessness (which we've seen before) and lack of cultural references (which we've seen before) that he thinks Ms. Sinatra's big hit is a 'silly song' and while I'd love to take the credit for it, it was actually written by Lea Hazelwood, I just engineered the parody. He should put that in his little black book!) with a lyric saying I am not.) Besides that, I am a writer (If he was a 'writer' he wouldn't have placed the preceding sentence in brackets after a full stop!) ( I have epublished one book with two more to be formatted), an untrained ventriloquist, and dealer among other jobs (I doubt he's done a day's hard work in his life!). Most dealers like myself started the same way. I enjoy being a dealer as I can find items for people and myself.

His eBook has (and I've mentioned it before) so many syntax, grammar, spelling, punctuation and lower case-v-capitalisation errors (some 57 if memory serves) in its introduction, only a retard would pay the $4.49 to read the work itself. And what does he mean '...to be formatted'? You format discs to clean them, you format lists, tables or web-pages to follow a pattern, or system, but you edit a novel!

'Untrained ventriloquist'? Is that like an untrained brain-surgeon, or an untrained explosives expert? Untrained banker? I now have a vision of him operating Erwin Sell by shoving his forearm where the sun don't shine! Gime Gerwin Gell! DeeGheeEnn, DeeGheeEnn, day ere galled DeeGheeEnn! Get a gottle o'geer gor Gewrwin!

Sigh . . . we go back to January 23rd

2020 Toy Fair; 35390 Giessen; Andreas Dittman; Andreas Dittmann Giessen University; Britains Deetail; Chaihai; Deetail Germans; Deetail Mortar Team; Department of Geography; Diana Freitag; Doctor Andreas Dittman; Dr. Andreas Dittmann; Fun Express; Gießener Geographische Gesellschaft; Giessen; Giessen University; Halilit Imports; Halilit Terra By Battat; Human Geography and Development Research; Justus-Liebig-University; Party Pig; Paul Stadinger; PB Toys; Peter Bergner; Professor Andreas Dittmann; Senckenbergstrasse 1; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stadinger; Stads Stuff; Stadsshite; Stadsstuf; Stadswatch; Terra By Battat; Tombola; Toy Fair 202;
One thing I like on the internet is we can not only share items with friends, but with others. People can find out about new items or remember having them. This is being accomplished through my site, Facebook, and other places. The sharers have done across various platforms or exclusive to one site. Never should anyone degrade a person for staying exclusive with one site over theirs.

I couldn't - on first read - work out what point he was trying to make here, as it reads like a bit of a self-justifying whine to his own ego, in public? But further study suggests it is a whine about my including of such luminaries as Shitstick and Hairbreath in my rebuttals of the endless stream of botty-burps from JTF and his fuck-monkey Sell?

Well, let's get a few things straight here, shall we?

After TJF's original attack on me (17th December 2016) some of his friends thought to comment in an equally-derogatory fashion in the comments, as they again did in another attack on me a week or so later.

I responded to them with the same veracity (or was it voracity!!!) I had done to Standinger and Erwin's risible nonsense, after the Christmas, in a series of rebuttals - I wasn't going to ruin the holiday by stooping to the level of the PSTSM's slime-balls.

It took a few more exchanges of salvoes for most of them to learn that if they stayed out of it, I stayed off their case . . . not that they had originally had a 'case', all the efforts of the terrible two'o in those two December posts were based upon a litany of lies, falsehoods and misappropriation . . . oh; and an invented 'quote'!

In the meantime, I have never suggested any entity or website, not even stadsshite, shouldn't have its supporters, even exclusive ones, and I don't attack many of Stadinger's supporters in my rebuttals, if they haven't harmed me, have stayed out of 'the war' or were there from the start, and it would be arrogant of me to do otherwise.

I wouldn't - for instance - put fake comments purporting to be from one of his supporters on my Blog? Stadinger can't make the same claim! Nor - for that matter - have I ever suggested anyone 'come over', I've just suggested they stay on the bloody fence.

But . . . and it's a valid 'but'; Merkle Littlewick and Deadbeat Herder both 'got off the fence' after Stadinger's initial attack on me, and both continually help the loudmouthed blowhard in his efforts to 'be me', and by doing so have made themselves legitimate targets.

The other day we had Dildabreath Hardbrick getting together with Stadinger to lie about show purchases in order to confirm what I'd said two day earlier about palm-trees, a pointless move, but dishonest - fake, phony, frauds . . . very stupid men.

And if you are going to fake stuff for an unclear reason which is - nevertheless - clearly aimed at baiting me, you will earn my opprobrium - don't then act all-surprised! Stupid!

Likewise if Doctor the Professor Dittmann and Mr Bergner are happy to be named in, or contribute to, posts attacking me, they have to accept the consequences, especially if those posts involve my dying father.

AND . . . the only person who has called for any Blog to 'not exist' is TJF, who suggested I "go and do something else" back at the start of his war with me - more hypocrisy! He's a very stupid man.

It's been a new low at shitestuff over the last week or so . . .

2020 Toy Fair; 35390 Giessen; Andreas Dittman; Andreas Dittmann Giessen University; Britains Deetail; Chaihai; Deetail Germans; Deetail Mortar Team; Department of Geography; Diana Freitag; Doctor Andreas Dittman; Dr. Andreas Dittmann; Fun Express; Gießener Geographische Gesellschaft; Giessen; Giessen University; Halilit Imports; Halilit Terra By Battat; Human Geography and Development Research; Justus-Liebig-University; Party Pig; Paul Stadinger; PB Toys; Peter Bergner; Professor Andreas Dittmann; Senckenbergstrasse 1; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stadinger; Stads Stuff; Stadsshite; Stadsstuf; Stadswatch; Terra By Battat; Tombola; Toy Fair 202;
 January 18th "We will report it and other items in a timely manner not dragging it out six months"

. . . which we now know was designed by Stadinger to provoke me and the Germans were in the thick of it. I never involve this (Small Scale World) Blog's supporters in these 'spats', but Stadinger does everything he can to involve other people and some of them . . . let him?

Stadinger, the Jabbering Fuck, is a spoilt brat, with little self-awareness and an over-developed sense of his own self-importance and entitlement, who constantly tries to big-up his presence in the hobby, by bleating-on about his lists (long-gone and not very good) and his Frontpage page (a litany of his fallings-out with other people in the hobby!), while sitting turd-like in his lair waiting for his idiot followers' to help him prove he is . . . who he actually isn't. He's a very unpleasant man.

It made me laugh the other day when they started arguing over whether another dealer was a bottom-feeder or not, oblivious to the irony of the moment or the fact that they're all bottom-feeders! They're very stupid.

His Blog has no 'voice' (beyond a grey monotone tedium!) because he has so little 'stuff', so little imagination, so little originality and so little vision beyond trying to do something, or get someone else to do something for him, in the next few days, or week or two, which might perchance strive to look a bit like that there Small Scale World!

Everything at shitesuff, the re-posting of Faceplant or company-website stuff, the digs at Small Scale World, the posting of single figures following posts or subjects posted here days or weeks earlier, even to last weeks shenanigans about Toy Fair 2019, is 'reactive' to what I'm doing, even to the point where if I take time off, he takes time off! He's very transparent.

They don't copy any other blog, and that's because whatever I'm doing, I'm doing right, and you know it, because you're here every day - so are they!

****************************************
 
Corrections & Clarifications

This is a new 'experimental' section of the Small Scale World Blog, but if it proves popular we'll try to run it once a month or so - There's plenty of material, this is the tip of the iceberg!

'DGN'
There is no such company as DGN, no empirical evidence or primary source-material has surfaced yet, nor have any internet links been provided by those who wish you to believe in this imagination-station's existence.

It is [one of] the abbreviation(s) for 'Design' now found on the bases of figures by three different makers, at some point the idiocy will have to be admitted, and starting to use it again is sillier than my song lyrics!

Britains Deetail WWII German Mortar Crew

2020 Toy Fair; 35390 Giessen; Andreas Dittman; Andreas Dittmann Giessen University; Britains Deetail; Chaihai; Deetail Germans; Deetail Mortar Team; Department of Geography; Diana Freitag; Doctor Andreas Dittman; Dr. Andreas Dittmann; Fun Express; Gießener Geographische Gesellschaft; Giessen; Giessen University; Halilit Imports; Halilit Terra By Battat; Human Geography and Development Research; Justus-Liebig-University; Party Pig; Paul Stadinger; PB Toys; Peter Bergner; Professor Andreas Dittmann; Senckenbergstrasse 1; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stadinger; Stads Stuff; Stadsshite; Stadsstuf; Stadswatch; Terra By Battat; Tombola; Toy Fair 202;
Seen on Small Scale World err . . . twice in the last ten years, but not, as far as I can recall - in a UK magazine yet?

Target Stores
It has been suggested to Small Scale World by Leanne  at Target's HR, that Mr. Erwin Sell is not an Operations Manager (DC level - whatever that is!) for the company and that therefore his comments pertaining to Target or its agents do not represent the company, its thoughts, policy or future plans.

Someone making stuff up as they go along again? Perhaps OM DC stands for operator, manual; duty-cleaner . . . dish cloth . . . dickheaded clodbrain?

Unknown Spaceman

2020 Toy Fair; 35390 Giessen; Andreas Dittman; Andreas Dittmann Giessen University; Britains Deetail; Chaihai; Deetail Germans; Deetail Mortar Team; Department of Geography; Diana Freitag; Doctor Andreas Dittman; Dr. Andreas Dittmann; Fun Express; Gießener Geographische Gesellschaft; Giessen; Giessen University; Halilit Imports; Halilit Terra By Battat; Human Geography and Development Research; Justus-Liebig-University; Party Pig; Paul Stadinger; PB Toys; Peter Bergner; Professor Andreas Dittmann; Senckenbergstrasse 1; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stadinger; Stads Stuff; Stadsshite; Stadsstuf; Stadswatch; Terra By Battat; Tombola; Toy Fair 202;
As told here at Small Scale World, in increments, over time, with full acknowledgements to other sources or contributors, the figures were originally issued as rack-toy party favours by Party Pig, re-surfaced in 25mm as Tombola chocolate-egg capsule prizes and have recently turned-up as a smaller pose-sample in green from Fun Express (apart from Tombola - all using the same zip-code) by Chaihai, as Easter gift-eggs. Fancy neither of them knowing that when at least one of them is following Small Scale World so closely he thought to tell everyone he'd be following me 'very' closely!

Although Erwin's ex-evilBay image added a little to the whole and he has promised to give us a fuller rendition of his knowledge, let's hope he credits his sources! Hahahaha! Not a fucking chance!

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Forthcoming

2020 Toy Fair; 35390 Giessen; Andreas Dittman; Andreas Dittmann Giessen University; Britains Deetail; Chaihai; Deetail Germans; Deetail Mortar Team; Department of Geography; Diana Freitag; Doctor Andreas Dittman; Dr. Andreas Dittmann; Fun Express; Gießener Geographische Gesellschaft; Giessen; Giessen University; Halilit Imports; Halilit Terra By Battat; Human Geography and Development Research; Justus-Liebig-University; Party Pig; Paul Stadinger; PB Toys; Peter Bergner; Professor Andreas Dittmann; Senckenbergstrasse 1; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stadinger; Stads Stuff; Stadsshite; Stadsstuf; Stadswatch; Terra By Battat; Tombola; Toy Fair 202;
Coming to Small Scale World between now and . . . err . . . whenever! Hopefully by the end of September, or earlier . . . or later, or not at all! None of it is terribly time-sensitive, if at all? And some of it may never appear as a TF2020 report; it really doesn't matter? I look forwards to the equivalent 48-odd posts appearing earlier on stadsshite in a "timely manner" though!

And yes! Stadinger will use this image to try and do spoilers, but my output is so far removed from him and his acolyte's idiotocracy, it makes no difference, when he does manage one! It just makes him look smaller and more pathetic.

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These posts are getting to be a tedious chore, but I did say back at the beginning (winter of 2017) that it would take five-and-a-half years, and we are still only just over three years into the lunacy - only encouraged by the inaction of people who should know better - so there's a couple of years or so, still to go, before I start to look inaccurate!

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

News, Views Etc . . . Unknowns . . . Now Known!

So we've had readers ID a couple of items recently and as they may have been missed over the holiday season (traffic was right down!), or because the post concerned was some time ago, and also because I didn't put them in the Tag List at the time; I thought I'd shove them in a 'News, Views', to highlight them again.

Dan recognised these unknowns from Brian B as having been sold by Target, mid December and then remembered they were on Thor Trains 'Army Men' site, providing both links. When I was putting everything on the dongle I found a folder with the [now] familiar title of 'Double Dippin' Fun' and realised Shaun had posted them a while ago as well!

Between Thor's site and the Fantasy blog there's good imagery for both the figures and accessories along with the packaging . . .for two brand marks, links;


And Shaun's right, they are a bit foppish! But I think that's par for the course with medieval toy civilians, think Merten's Ladies in Waiting, Starlux's Courtiers (above) or even Exin's diminutive castle figures, their mounted Prince is such a  fopping-fop he's more foppish than a fopping fopper and no self-respecting Princess would go anywhere near him!

No offence to fops anywhere, any-when, but I want my Medieval Princes man'ed-up and killing stuff; not waving at butterflies with a pomade!

The other day Mike Cozart ID'd these from a 2012 post and his comment tells the whole story so I'll reproduce it verbatim. . .

"... MOST of the 1/87th (HO Scale) unpainted metal Victorian figures are by LYTLER & LYTLER Scale Architects - they made metal and plastic American Victorian architectural kits for HO scale model railroads - their figure line was called RAGTIMERS . There were sets with names like LADIES & GENTS , LARIMER STREET MERCHANTS, FOURTH OF JULY, BORN WINNERS & BORN LOSERS, THE DIGNITY OF LABOR , SUNDAY ON THE LAKE.

These were manufactured between 1979 and 1993. They were highly detailed and on par with the quality of Preiser's sculpting. Each set included about 8 figures and often a few accessories, except SUNDAY ON THE LAKE which included the boat, oars, a man and a lady. For a short time there was a company that sold many of these figures individually in painted editions."



Elements of a couple of the sets isolated from the above image, to the left of the boat is a possible 'Shoeshine' vignette, while the photographer must go with some of the standing figures - those in their best Sunday finery?

Mike's use of 'most' is not unfounded either, getting this post together I noticed that the figure 'A' above is both smaller, and seems to be a near-copy of the Matchbox hunter from the dog-carrier in the 1-75 range, while 'B' is looking like a figure from the Airfix rail-gang ('maintenance of way' in the 'States) set, also smaller and both figures lack the mounting spikes of the Lytler figures, although some of them have had theirs removed as well, so that's no proof of anything and they'll need a closer look.

The trouble with obtaining a start-painted, lose-in-a-bag set like this - often from a bereavement sale - is that it's rarely 'clean', cirtainly can't be 'taken as clean' and there seem to be a couple more which might be home-casts from Airfix (or the Meccano-Hornby 'lozenge-based' set), one even looks Preiser-like (The not very American-looking policeman with 'feltmutze'), but until I can find more on the Lytler originals I can't 'set' them-up or sort out the detritus - I'm hoping my old Walther's catalogues will help when they come out of storage, where I think the figures may be now as well? They weren't in the unknown civilians when I did those metal posts last Spring . . . must do rest of the Napoleonics!

Finally; 'Spectrum' ID'd the above, again - in his own words;

"As no-one has yet identified the bowman as yet, it is a figure of 'Hawkeye' the Marvel comics character. This figure is from the Phidal company's line of 'Busy Books' which you can see on their website. He is from 'Avengers Assemble' and there are others including both Marvel and DC titles along with other licensed tie-ins. Actually they are often found in TK Maxx stores in the children's books next to the toy section. As well as a story book you get 12 figures and a playmat. Hope this is useful to you."

As I said at the time; "...very useful"! What’s annoying is that as a comment, I myself didn't take it on board, so when I was in TK Maxx this afternoon (5th Jan.) and saw the mass of kid's books in the January sale, I didn't look through them for those interactive book/play-sets! As I won't be near a TKM for a week or two . . . it's up to you - whoever you are - if you're passing one of their stores in the next few days . . . sent us a shot of the contents - if you find any - and they can go-up here!

A couple of them appeared elsewhere, and were equally unidentified, which was so surprising to me that I was surprised by the level of my surprise, indeed I was so surprised to be that surprised I nearly went to the floor and x all else! Joking apart (and the whole thing with the PSTSM is a joke), he thought to correct me on 60/70-year old Spanish PVC (from behind the frontier of a fascist dictatorship) while he himself can't ID current, 'high-street' PVC any better than the rest of us! It's too funny.

Because the ID's tend to lye forgotten in the comments I will try to make an effort to record them and re-hash/highlight them at a later date in posts like this one, in the future.

From the Top:
Target Inc. - Double Dippin Fun - Castle Accessories
Lytler & Lytler Scale Architects - American Victorian - Various
Phidal Co. - Busy Books - Hawkeye (Link to website)