B is for Big Box of Bounty - Intro' and Sports

So, with much gratitude, we start looking at Chris Smith's Autumn donation to the blog, another wonderful pile of the esoteric stuff he's put to one side for the last few months, and sent to me, to share with you, and there are some real treats among it all.

 

Immediately, we can see useful stuff on the top, I won't say anything, as we're going to go through it piece by piece, but what can you see, and; imagine opening this, and getting to dig through it, especially if your interests are as esoteric as mine!

 

I didn't announce it on Faceplant either, this time, because they want me to provide a 3d video of myself to prove who I am, and as we went through all that a few years ago, when they were asking for scans of passport or driving licence, I don't feel I need to prove my existence again?

 

They don't care who's a member, or how real/legitimate they are, they just want to feed data into their AI-bots, and generate some 3D avatar of me on the other side of the planet, so, I'm consequently rather off Faceplant for now, and maybe forever (check your junk folder, I've eMailed you from .gmail!)?

 

Initial sorting, and I haven't texted over it like sometimes, but a spiral from the top left gives; Prehistoric, Ancient & Medieval, Wild West, Pirates, Paratroopers (not numerous enough for the usual opening line-up shot!) Civilians, Bits & Bobs, Vehicles & Vessels, Wild & Domestic Animals, Historical & Ceremonial Sci-Fi & fantasy (with TV/Movie), Cartoon (also with TV/Movie stuff), Divers and finally, Sports with a Circus horse! And, apart from the horse, it's those last two we're looking at first.

 

These are fun, I thought I'd posted them years ago, but I didn't, so this is their debut - Tomy's Electronic Super Cup Football, a battery-operated, hand held 7-a-side football game, which came with two pre-painted, near HO-gauge compatible teams, in red and blue with yellow and green goalies, already emplaced in the holders on the pitch. But, in little drawers under the game, you got these, blank, flesh-coloured runners for painting your own favourite teams . . . although, no paints were included!

 

Three more cracker/capsule/Lucky Bag/Piñata type Olympians, two sizes and three different base marks give's you some idea of the task faced in sorting them all out, I had a half a go at the small-scale (these) near the beginning of the blog (nearly 19-years ago now!), and we looked at the bigger ones a year or two ago, but there's still a lot to cover/sort out, so every example is valued.

 

The weight-lifter is the same as the one in Peter's last lost, and has broken in nearly the same place, a weak-spot where the two flows of plastic meet in the cavity, a thin point, a cooler point, and a point which will get most stress, in play!

 

Hong Kong cake decoration footballers; I used to have a few of these in a bag, the same two poses, always damaged and no balls, but in recent years thanks to people like Adrian, Chris, John, Peter and Trevor, I've got a better sample to gather together and blog properly one day. But, suffice to say, more poses, some with footballers, complete examples, and several sets/sources are now clear. And there'll be a follow-up later.

 

Board-game or Totopoly pieces, we have seen them before, but it's a set of twelve, in three or four (?) colours (I think three each of four), and with plastic and metal (earlier, but commoner) to find, I still have plenty of gaps, especially as the waterslide transferred numbers can be missing or flaked badly.

 

The little red one is a similar chap, but much smaller, and seems to have plugged-in to something which may be similar to the Tomy football game? New to me, Blog and collection though, and I do have lots of these 'unknown' horse racing figures, most in small quantities. Like football games, there's a lot of horse racing games out there.

 

The little chap is from the Chap Mai play sets, there was the big Aircraft Carrier set, and a few window box 'gift set' type things, with a pair of runners, holding assorted Galoob style figures, in black and khaki.

 

The larger one is really nice, seems to be an unarmed sport/hobby diver, (lacking weapons, and seemingly undamaged), he might be a fish-tank thing, or, like the divers-watch promotional from Down Under, we saw a few years ago, something more commercial? Hard polystyrene, and, yeah, very interesting, does anyone know who he is? I have a feeling we've seen a similar figure, possibly seated?

 

Table-top football games and table-football players! We've looked at both generations of the Subbuteo St. John's Ambulance stretcher teams (left-hand figure), the magnetic footballers will need further work, as the samples are all over the place, likewise the spring-loaded ones, there are many versions/makers/issuers/titles associated with both types.

The magnetic ones can come with different cones, same-coloured figures or painted ones like the above, and in various qualities of pose and/or sculpting. Likewise, with the many versions of the yellow chaps' above -  standing on footballs -who can also be found in straight-armed sculpts, with plug-in springs, flat plastic bases or suckers, and manufactured in rubber, 'styrene or celluloid!

But, again, the chap on the right is very interesting, I have some in hard plastic, from Hong Kong, I think we've seen them here, and their similarity to the Gem ones has always led me to believe they were second generation piracies. But this chap is in soft polyethylene, and looks very 'early British plastic', so I'm wondering if they might belong with the diminutive 18/20mm circus and fox-hunters, in the "Possibly Charbens cake decorations" folder?

Certainly, while they (I think there are two similar poses) resemble the Gemodels goalie, they are less three-dimensional, which is a trait of Charbens sculpting, and something you could accuse those unknown mini-circus figures (and the 'other' Christmas carol-singer set) of suffering from . . . so food for thought there, thanks to Chris!

S is for Shot on the Shelf!

A few shelfies which were a bit too big or pricey for Rack Toy Month, here; and I think they may have been shot over some time in three stores?

 

New 'Britains' farm sculpts from Tomy, shot at the Country Market store in the garden centre near Borden a while ago now, I don't remember the git=rl being in even the last tranche of real Britains, while the vet/farrier is a totally new sculpt.

 

While these are the latest iteration of mouldings over sixty or seventy years old!

But you wouldn't transport postpartum ewes, with both their lambs, AND a ram!

 

Just a bit of fun - sleepy-cat chopstick rests! Homesense, Farnborough.

Just the kind of thing which will be appearing in those charity shop bags of mixed scale/era/make figures, quite shortly I'd imagine! Jada Toys, I couldn't tell if it was a polymer figure or another of their die-casts with a matt finish? About 75mm? TK Maxx, and I'm tagging for Gaming and TV/Movie as a film is due in 2026!

B is for Billions of Blistering Blue Bi-Trons!

Well, over a dozen, and they're not all blue! Just a quick follow-up to one element of Chris Smith's recent donation to the Blog, purely to get them in the tags and attached, that way, to the previous posts as extra imagery for Pikit Toys/Gordy International.

I know that my storage sample of loose ones has more blues, or paler blues to be precise, and while the camera's flash has washed them out, the front pair of red ones are a discernably darker-red than the rear trio.

 

I mentioned last time how the turrets of the little micro-AFV's can be used as back-packs for the Bi-Trons, whether as turrets (which would require some severe bending forwards and looking at the ground around their feet) or as comm's packs is - I guess - down to the owner's imagination!

 

A small patrol of those AFV's out of their blister-packs! And as last time, a reminder that  there is a resemblance to some of the Votom stuff from Tomy-Takara, beyond the similarity of the line's name!

B is for Battle of the Bi-Trons

You may remember that back in 2020, Chris Smith sent us some robots in one of his donations to the Blog, and at the time I didn't have a maker, but a few months later (2021) I found this set, too expensive, on a Buy-It-Now, told Chris, and put a note on the original post and have since mentioned it cryptically, as and when we've seen bits from it, in other posts, I kept watching until the price came down, and I've now got one, so let's have a look at it! Robots & Space Tanks!

 

Due to the lighting on the day and/or the colours, photographing the whole card wasn't easy, but between the two shots I think I've done it justice, and you can make out most of the elements, the Pikit Toys sets (for that is where we still are, this early in RTM) with this bordered cartouche card-art, were also issued by Gordy International in the USA, with their info' overprinted along the bottom edge.

You get two sets of Bi-Tron robot battle suits, obviously ripping-off several Japanese Anime series including - I suspect - the 'mecha anime' series Dougram or Votoms? One set, here in blue, are the 'good robots' the other; bad!

 

As I wondered at the time, the plugs in the backs are for the turrets which come with the accompanying accessories, a slight daftness, as being single mouldings they can't be bent or animated into a pose where they can realistically fire at anything other than the sky!

Bad 'Bots are red! Whatever colour each 'army' is, you do get four unique sculpts in each quadrigeminal (it sounds more spacey!) team, Only two are carrying weapons, one in each team, here it's the chap on the right.

Early indications were that these yellow versions of the good 'Bots are Gordy and the Blue; Pikit, but then I was reminded that Chris's donation came in three distinct shades of blue (from more than one set, there were duplicates), so I suspect it was a bit more random, or they were issued by another brand, maybe at another time?

 

But this lot did come from the states, with 'normal' red Bad's, and I've seen a second set with yellow 'Bots, also across the Pond, so it may be a 'rule'; certainly a guideline?

Space Taaaaaannks! These are always green/red, and the same oxide-red as the naughty robots, some of which may be copies of the old Kenner Mega Force sci-fi'ish armour? Slightly larger than 1:600 micro-armour, they might be around 1:300?

AT-AT . . . not! There's also a walker, who comes with four jointed legs to be assembled by Junior, and then lost forever in the garden! I'm really not sure on any of the specific origins of any of these models, but I'm sure they are aping other toys, maybe Tomy and/or Takara stuff which never got Western distribution?

For instance, I thought this robot transporter was from the Takara Votoms range (as I pointed out previously; Bi-Trons - Vo'Toms . . . geddit!), but the one I was thinking of, has a rigid chassis and eight wheels/four axles, in-line, but I'm sure I've seen this prior to the Pikit set, so it's probably out there as something else!

Likewise, I think this might be ex-Takara, or certainly I think I've seen it in a Mecha' cartoon, it's a twin-rotor, very sci-fi, heavy-lift helicopter/sky-crane for recovering damaged 'battle suits', and a rather nice thing to find in a rack toy!

The final item on the set's card is an attack helicopter, and given advances/changes in real life attack helicopters since this toy was issued in the 1990's; quite similar to some in service or heading for service now!

 

As rack toys go, with or without piracy, this is a really nice little set if you have the sense of imagination for sci-fi/futurism, or are a fan of anime Mecha's, however, for simpler minds it would be a bit of "shit" to be left on the peg in favour of a farm, zoo or 'Army Men' set, or some Chinasaurs!

O is for Other Capsule Eggs

More standard egg shapes here, some with chocolate, some without, along with a blind bag (Lego) and a Tomy 'gum' ball!

Bandwagoning from Schleich here, and why not, but they're following Lego's blind-bagging band-wagon, not the original Kinder, although that was itself only a commercial formalisation of gum-ball machine prizes, with better quality toys and a chocolate egg!

Bayala is very-much the 'pink & purple' line in Schleich's catalogue, and these eggs, with no edibles, seem to contain one of twelve winged kitten-dragons in ten sculpts, again, not really a bit of me, but they will come in, in mixed lots over time, and it's always nice to know what you're dealing with!

I think we've seen something like these before (from Dracco Candy of Spain) and I castigated them on that occasion, well, I had another go and these are an equal  rip-off with little in them beyond shite, but the jelly-beans were OK! I've lost the brand on this one, but it's around somewhere.

Picked these up in a discount supermarket in North London when I visited Peter Evans, back before lock-down . . . three years, god! Aras Eggo Toys from Turkey, they also do larger sweet-container eggs with thematic branding - army tanks, puppies, Cindy-doll knock-offs &etc.

The toy is a small, simple 3-part jet-fighter, made in China, which I thought I'd shot assembled, but obviously not! While the egg is - for me - a preferable all-chocolate, to that sickly white stuff with makes up half a Kinder egg.

I've had a go at BIP (Holland) before, as well; their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle egg was a disappointment, and that story continues with this jump on the art / designer-toy bandwagon, with an Ugly Dolls button-badge, mini-sticker sheet and those barely edible chalky candies.

I should caveat my attack with the point that I'm coming from the angle of looking for figurals - some kids love stickers . . . and badges, and will be well-happy with this as a pocket-money treat!

Safer ground with Tomy's capsule toys, large dispensers in shopping precincts (malls) and some retailers (The Entertainer always has a bank of them near the tills or the entrance), and here we have two of the Incredibles from Disney-Pixar.

Finally, there's these from Lego, their blind-bag minifigures, I got the mad Doctor Bunsen Honeydew, but would like the band! They'll turn-up on evilBay as full sets of twelve, if they haven't already, some traders buy wholesale and break them down.

T is for Two - O is for Other People's Rack Toys

A couple of rack toys, both of civilian subjects, both sent to the Blog in the last few months for the purpose of sharing with other loyal readers, a purpose ably dealt with right here, right now, in the order in which they were sent . . .

Theo van der Weerden sent me this a while ago, and it's interesting for two reasons, firstly it shows the other (or 'some more') figures to go with the road workers we looked at here and followed-up here, secondly it ties them into Tootsietoys, although Tootsie' were primarily die-casters and may well have bought the figures in, so the possibility they are/were originally Pioneer remains.

Also the third figure (with clipboard) has some similarities with one of the sets of ground-crew, which may tie them (the flyboys) into Tootsie' too? Although Tootsie' may itself be only a 'bought brand' these days, I'm not sure who owns the brand.

When Britains finally died and the assets were broken up, the Asian toy giant Tomy-Takara bought the branding and the farm/zoo tooling (or elements of it), which is why the US pretend Britains have that mouthful of a brand 'wuhabritain', the attached image is the current carding of spare tractor/harvester drivers, from Tomy, who still use the last common iteration of Britains official logo.

Brian Berke had purchased them for a project he's working-on, for which there will be one or two posts in the fullness of time here, but they are in the long-queue at the moment, maybe for the autumn or winter, there's a lot of nostalgia wrapped-up in them!

Note the painted-overalls are designed to tie-in with the main tractor brands (most are made in the same factories, they just change the body-shells), we see here New Holland, John Deer, Massey Ferguson and Claas/JCB I think/suspect. When you spend £180k or whatever it is these days, you get a free set of corporate overalls.

 I was that guy in red, I was dead-proud of my MF 'body-suit', it zipped right up the front so you could take a pee behind the hedge (or the tractor wheel!), had elasticised, wooly sleeve-cuffs, but loose trouser-legs to go over work-boots, or inside welly's and was made of something pretty tough as it lasted for years and was second hand when I got it -  well, when your uncle gives you his old tractor, he gives you his old overalls!

Thanks to both Brain and Theo for the shots, it's all grist to the mill, and all appears here, eventually!

2nd is for Tranche

We looked at an almost complete load ofthese years ago, when I inherited my brother's lot and cleaned them up, these were in the storage lot and between the two I'll have quite an army!

The one figure missing from my brother's childhood stash was the radio-operator, so that's sorted! I also think that with a bit of warm water (to soften the lugs) I will end up with a complete set of the first six poses on both brown bases and green bases, and with my storage one, have matching mortar teams now, but will need to track-down the mortar bombs for both.

Seven more, just as I have the figure missing from my brother's set, so his sample has the second issue's marching/sentry figure I am missing! Also my squatting shooter seems to have had a terminal accident with his muzzle, and will be looking at permanent surgery to an arm-swap conversion of the type we looked at last time, now I have the spares!

I have two of the various vehicle crew/riders but no vehicles for them! The pale-grey motorcycle is also still to join the fleet, and the only thing missing now really.

On the right are the two I picked-up a few weeks ago in a Farnborough charity shop, these are the last version issued - to date - and are a bit leery. I suppose Tomy Britains have these now (but only run or develop new farm moulds); DSG have the Afrika Korps tool, but not the German infantry one I believe?

The best set was the mid-1990's set which got a good paint-job, matt dark-green bases and differing shades of helmet paint. Funnily enough I handled tons of them but it was before I collected the larger scales and so I now have none!

Both recent issues seem to use a re-jigged bolster with two cavities from the first set; the above MP40 guy and the grenadier, and four cavities from the second set; the above officer, and the radio-operator, squatting firer and advancing/walking with anti-tank rifle chap.

Stop Press Image

The whole army (almost) after the two units have been amalgamated, I'll sort them further another day, give that kneeling guy a new arm with a different weapon/pose and sort the six brown bases into a set, hopefully I know who to go to for a set of helmet decals, originals not copies, and there are enough for some of the arm swaps we looked at last time, but, after this shot was taken . . .

It's OK the presses are still stopped stop press image!

. . . the missing motorcycle turned-up! Along with another of the latter ones, but with the earlier rider, all I need now is another black Kar.98 and I'm sorted! they were both in the Motorcycle box, and despite an autumn Blog-post taken from that box, I'd forgotten these were in there?

You can see how the earlier versions have a plug-in rifle, rather than the plug-on rifle in tan of the later versions. And that really is it - box ticked.

F is for Follow-up - " ♪♪♫ . . . aaaaand there were Clockwork-men and Clockwork Cop's & Bot's" ♪♫♫

Mentioned in passing the other day (when looking at the other robots), the Spanish guy gets his fifteen minutes in the limelight today, and another robot turned-up in the Storage lot, so we'll look at it too.

Here he is! Civil Guard - Spanish National Police? I think they are the equivalent of Federal police or Gendarmerie? I stand to be corrected; but he's a Spanish policeman and that's good enough for me!

He had to borrow my Guardsman's bayonet, as he came without one, but the other figures I've seen on that there Intermerweb thingy (Federal and Confederate ACW) both had one. I'm guessing these are aimed at the tourist trade in each territory, and there may be others to find.

The Spaniard compared with my Guardsman, which we have seen before here, briefly. You can see the only physical difference is in the headdress - along with plastic-colouring, and the tampo-printed uniform and face decoration, obviously!

I did try making a video, but the light was all wrong and you have to hold the wound-up figure/s 'till you press record, then get your hand out of the way, at which point they fall over, or go away from the camera or march into out-of-focus, or - when I tried both together - collide with each other, so I gave that up as a 'bad job' requiring five arms, three of which I've yet to grow!

From the sides.

As I say, I have seen Union and Confederate soldiers from the same series, in the US, often quite cheap, but the postage-cost has dampened my enthusiasm, a quick Google or feebleBay search will reveal them.

Base code/markings (or technically 'foot codes') are the same for both, but the Spanish chap has had a branding added to the other foot - he's not Hans, he's mine! The arms swing and the head turns from one side to the other by a few degrees each way, as they march-along. I think this was a charity-shop job, but it may have been in Jim's big box, so shout-out to Jim!

The robot in the left is the addition; we've seen my old yellow and red Christmas stocking one before. The ones we looked at last time (thanks Adrian) and mine are - for the most part - single action toys, just 'marchers', but the new one has similar cam-wheels with pins (to the arm-swinging Guardsman & Gendarme above) between different plastic 'plates' to make the arms punch in-and-out, or the antenna to move up and down as it walks.

W is for Wind-up Wobots

As Walter would have said . . . no, not me; Walter the wobot! And don't mess with his boss - he is the law!

We looked at one of these ages ago which I found in the attic here, a left-over stocking-filler gift from Christmases' past, and there is currently a set of figures doing the rounds with these mechanisms, a Guardsman (also seen here), a Spanish Gendarmerie (presumably - like 'our' Guardsman - also aiming at a tourist market), while in the 'States they have a pair of protagonists from their Civil War, in blue and grey.

The wonderfully wonderful Wonderful! 12 to a box, four each of three designs, there was only one original left in the box, so the rest are obviously part of a nascent collection, and as they are all pretty-much the same thing, blurb will be a bit thin after the first one!

This is the Wonderful chap/chapess (probably what is now called a phantom-brand) and while it's easy to say these are trying to be C3PO, most of them pre-date the original movie (I know the attic one does), what they were trying to be was smaller, cheaper versions of the all-singing, all-dancing, whistles, buzzer & bells, lights flashing, battery-operated robots in tin-plate and plastic coming out of Japan and Hong Kong at the same time.

This and the next one have a completely different mechanism for locomotion, hitching or hoicking themselves along with alternate steps, made as the two, long, too-long arms pass the base, helped by near-flush carpet-wheels. Looks like a juke-box!

'Jukebox's brother is some kind of 1950's labour-saving kitchen device (electric coffee grinder?) from the wish-list pages of Woman & Home!

Universal (who would be buying the remains of Matchbox around the same time) are responsible for the last two, apart from the next one, the others are unmarked.

This chrome-plated chap is a bit later (1979 - Tomy) and is it based on the Lost in Space or Black Hole movie robot? Geoffrey Peeters recently showed another here (link) and these would make a nice mini-collecting theme if you are short of space and/or budget, as they turn up pretty constantly, there are dozens of them if not hundreds (depending on where you draw the line) and they are usually affordable, but their mechanisms have often been damaged with over-winding, rust or gritty dirt/dust.

If you cast your net beyond robots, you will find all sorts of figural subjects, monsters, Easter-chicks, eggs, Christmas novelties, cartoon characters; and these dinosaurs, which are quite recent, if not current. There is a similar jumping or hopping mechanism with similar subjects. Many thanks to Adrian Little for letting me shoot these.