N is for New Recruits - Seasonal Soldiery

A couple more additions to the bauble purchases, although I think tree-hangers is the correct term for these two non-glass additions!

 

I though, after I'd got him home, that I'd already bought one of these a year or two ago, but in fact, that was a different moulding altogether, and had green trousers or something, so there are now two of these glazed ceramic, slip-cast chaps!

 

Meanwhile, this chap is mostly wood, but with a resin head and accessories, glued on, it's another bear as well, so ticks two boxes, but do I place him on the tree with the bears, and end-up with another soldier nearby, or place him with the soldiers and end up with another bear nearby? What a quandary . . . doh!

 

Highlighting exactly why we will go extinct, possibly within the lifetimes of people already born - they highlight their creditable working with FSC sustainable forestry, then using a polymer-wax glue, place resin blobs all over him, give him a metallised polymer string hanger, and then use one of those annoying, and ephemeral clip-ties to hold ALL the 'paperwork' on, nothing remotely sustainable or eco' here!
 

He came from Haskin's on the Wrecclesham-Borden road, and they also had a family of non-military resins, and blown-glass baubles of bears in pajamas! I was tempted, but if you don't limit yourself to a few a year, you'll drown in them!

B is for Benevolent Buys - 1 of 3

Clearing out a folder of Charity Shop purchases which seem to have escaped some of the other Charity Shop purchase posts over recent months, and nothing exciting here, but all grist to the mill!

 

Actually, from the tail-end of '24, and I can't remember where, a resin jobbie of the sort that fills and has filled window-space in high-street jewellery chains for decades now, it was in good-nick, and pennies to charity, it goes in the box of such stuff!

 

I think this and the next two were from a rare trip to Camberley, I undertook back in February, looking for something else, but it might have just got shot with the others, but be an earlier find in - probably - the Blue Cross shop in Fleet?

 

A couple of the expanded-polystyrene glider novelties, we've seen before here, and of which two more are in the queue, this pair marked-up to Henbrandt, but likely to be the same poorly printed ones we saw a while back in various packagings.

 

Three Disney Princesses, these were definitely from a large basket of such stuff, in a Charity Shop in Camberley, obviously ex-shop, or other 'stock' (NOS in feebleBay parlance), and probably from capsule dispensers of some kind, but could be off a Disney Store hook-tree?

 

While I vaguely remember these, as larger rope/string-dolls, enjoying a brief 'craze' of popularity back in the 1990's (?) As they came with the above Princesses, in a similar quantity, capsule stock, or something more independent is the likelier for both, than the Disney Stores thought, but never rule out what you can't disprove!

 

Two semi-deforms from a while ago, probably the DEBRA shop in Fleet, more Fortnite franchised stuff, and with quite a bit of dust on them, some age, a few years on a shelf at least, rather like the Skibidi Toilet stuff, a youth-culture which has grown, almost organically, away from the figure collection hobby.

 

They look like the kind of quite expensive stuff you find in those funny little t-shirt/gaming/metal 'head' shops in the quieter corners of shopping malls? But as cheap buys in a charity shop, provide 'reference samples' I'm in no hurry to add to.

 

Another Wimsey from Wade on the right, we've seen the one playing with a ball of wool before, but this one looks like it's foil, waiting a chance to grab the ball! On the left two resin, cartoon cats, with kittens, from crafty/gifty shops rather than jewellers I suspect, but maybe both sources? And I believe they are Peter Fagan sculpts from Scotland.

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!

B is for Bibliography - 2 of 2

A continuation of the previous post;

 

I think I picked this up at the Plastic Warrior show, back in the Spring, but 2024! Several Blogs I follow have mentioned it, I think some have play-tested the rules, I may never even read it, but feel I should buy war gaming books in the same way I buy card-game books, so they are there, in the library, 'just in case'. So long as there's a contents page and/or an index, you can always find something if you need to!

 

Both the 'Discovering' series, and Shire Albums are a useful source of information, and blissfully succinct! Obviously they become rather irrelevant once fuller or more worthy tomes are published, but as primers, they are just the ticket.

 

Book collecting is a mild periphery interest of mine, plastics have always had a place, and earlier works benefit from details lost to modern research/websites, particularly some of the early trade-names of plastics, and I addressed to better points of board-game books in the previous post. 

 

This was free on World Book day, although 'free' is a moot point when there's a minimum purchase involved, and I don't think I met the threshold, so paid a nominal amount for it! A box-ticker, it adds nothing to the oeuvre, but joins the other dozen or so works on Lego.

 

Again, box-ticking really, how many times can you teach people the techniques published in things like The Eagle, which we looked at here, and which was issued more than half a century ago? Also, it was not cheap, but I saw it, I felt it needed to go in the library, which has a modelling section, as it has sections on Wargaming, Flags & Heraldry, Chess &etc.

 

Also, new materials and tools come along all the time, and a book like this, although promoting one company's products, often has a useful appendix or two, or maybe a glossary, so in the pile it went!

 

Two more Discovering pamphlets, I tend to get a few every time I visit the second-hand bookshop over in Alton, in part to support one of the few decent second-hand bookshops left in this part of the world, and also because there were so many issued, there's always another to find!

 

I love maps, have done ever since I was a kid making them with friends, in the woods near Bramshill, while the wagon one will join the three I already have on farm & military hoarse-drawn equipment and horse-furniture.

 

I usually only buy doll or doll's house books when I see them cheap, it's not my field, so I'm only getting them for completeness, for anything they may have on another side of toy manufacturers (more the doll books, than the house books), and again; glossaries, indexes and appendices.

 

The book which influenced and indirectly led to the first in this post, and something which - by it's absence - had been an obvious gap in the library, so, box ticked! The Wikipedia page is interesting, and without being able to check, I think this is the '77 reprint.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Wars

 

Bear books are a bit like doll books, but this ex-library copy was cheap as chips in a charity shop, so an easy decision, and it's actually quite an interesting read on the histories/stories of several specific bears, I was also surprised to see some of the prices AbeBooks (with none on Amazon) ask for it, but it has a following;

 

https://holeousia.com/time-passes-listen/folk-worth-talking-about/aloysius/ 

 

This was given to me by John Begg, and it is a very odd thing, it's a kids' history/primer on Matchbox cars and 'modern' die-casting, by a famous children's author/illustrator of travel books in the 1950's and '60's. A sort of early advertorial, but quite entertaining nevertheless, and with several other works on Matchbox in the library, will fill a gap I didn't know was there!

 

Adrian had a small pile of these at the last Sandown, so the latest addition to the pile, and a nice, light read, well illustrated and a part of that sudden shower of books and websites about 20-years ago on all things medieval and toy, both soldiers and castles, I have one or two of the books I think, with one to find (the big book on castles), and remember the websites, which have disappeared now, with the passing of the authors. Sadly, nothing lives forever.

E is for Elgate - Spring Gift Fair 2025

As last, another image dump, but many more figural items on display, this year. With Scotland and Wales having a bigger presence in the various lines, and Paddington putting in an appearance!

 

Poured resin

 

Those non-sharpening pencil sharpeners again!

Not for the collection, but could interest someone? Christmas trees?

 

I've seen a boxing Kangaroo in the last few days, don't know if it was Elgate (didn't look), but they are a bit naff, fun for kids though, which is the main function of novelties!

 

 

 

Nothing of the 'piper' about them, just Guardsman on decorated pens!

 

Roman big 'ed!

 

Keyrings, might be one of the new soft/foamed rubbers? Rather in the style of the old Xandria keyrings from the Netherlands, but modern and made in China.

 

Metal keyrings, if I see the guardsman, I'll grab one for that novelty stash, but the rest can stay on the peg, being more bottle-opener than figural!

 

Egg-cups!

 

The resin parade again, and more egg-cups.

 

A 'Photoclip', what the novelty industry calls a place-name holder, when everybody likely to buy place-name holders have bought a set (or two!) of place-name holders! Also, selling them singly, results in a higher profit-margin per unit . . . and more packaging for a planet which just hasn't seen enough packaging yet.

 

The resin bears!

 

All, also seen before!

 

The big-heads have been replaced with rubber Leprechaun keyrings.

 

Nessie - die-cast Mazak/Zamak

 

Scottie-dogs and a bear!

Close-ups of the snow 'eggs', I think the thinner one is manufactured from poured-resin, the chubby chap may be plastic or a synthetic rubber compound?

 

Various Welsh Dragons in die-cast alloy or resin, mostly smallish, baby 'Game of Thrones' dragons (the die-casts), the larger poured-resin examples could be useful for Role Play, or fans of the Nottingham Mafia system.

 

Paddington!

 

Mostly novelty stuff and pretty ephemeral, but, that's given Elgate a decent presence in the Tag list, and covered most of what they have, which may be of interest, currently, but they're not the only purveyors of this kind of stuff, and we'll look at another soon.