News, Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events; Saturday 18th - Friday 24th May

Still not Blogging proper, but here's some weekly stuff . . .

. . . last weeks weird strings of letters will have looked like this . . . if you've downloaded the 'SoldierWW2' font from the internet, if your Explorer recognises it, it can read it/will show it - my bad, I didn't think I'd be in a cognitive resonance design bubble of my own making! That last line will give Madame Pardeilhan kittens!

ᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥ ☼ ᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪ

Toy Fairs

Saturday 18th May 2019

Merthyr Tydfil - Chris Dyer Fairs

Merthyr Leisure Centre, Methyr Leisure Village, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, CF48 1UT

Web. - www.chrisdyerfairs.co.uk

Tel. - 01643 702 757

Mob. - 07966 694 579

Admission £2

10:30-15:00hrs

Brentwood - J&J Fairs (John & Julie Webb)

International hall, Brentwood Centre, Doddinghurst Road, Brentwood, Essex, CM15 9NN

Web. - www.j-jwebbtoyfairs.com

eMail - jandjfairs@virginmedia.com

Tel. - 01522 880 383 (J & J Webb)

10:00 - Approx. 14:30hrs

Admission £3, seniors £2.50p, 1st child £2

Oxford - Richard Atkins Fairs - Toy and Train Collectors Fair

Exeter Hall, Oxford Road, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1AB

Web - www.toytraincollectorsfairs.com

Tel. - 01869 347 489

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

Refreshments

Free Parking

Didcot - Retro Ronnie

Civic Hall, Britwell Road, Didcot, OX11 7JN

Web - www.retroronnie.com

Mob. I - 07708 385 061

Mob. II - 07900 266 427

Hours unknown

Admission unknown

ᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥ ☼ ᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪ

Sunday 19th May 2019

Great Bentley - R & G Toy Fairs

Village Hall, Plough Road, Great Bentley, Essex, CO7 8LD

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01206 251 351 (Gary)

Tel. - 01255 473 509 (Richard)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission £2.00, under 16's free

Free parking, refreshments

Newton Abbot - Ray Heard Train & Toy Fairs

Newton Abbot Racecourse, Devon, TQ12 3AF

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01823 480 097

10:00 - 15:30hrs

Admission £2

Free parking, refreshments

Kempton Park - RM Toys Ltd.

Kempton Park Racecourse, Staines Road East, Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex, TW16 5AQ

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 02392 381 529

Mob. - 07957 823 507 (Russell Martin)

10:00 - 15:00hrs

Admission - £4, OAP's £3.50p, Children £1, early bird (from 8:30hrs) £10

Doncaster - Barry Potter / BP Fairs - 'Doncaster Racecourse'

Doncaster Exhibision Centre, Leger Way, Doncaster, DN2 6BB
Web. - www.bpfairs.com
Tel. - 01604 846 688
Mob. - 07966 527 177
10:30 - 15:00hrs
Admission - Adults £4, Seniors £3.50p, Children £1, 'Early Bird' (from 8 a.m.) £10
Plenty of free parking

Orpington - SRP Toyfairs

Crofton Halls, Orpington, Kent, BR6 8PR

Web. - www.srptoyfairs1.co.uk

eMail: srptoys1@hotmail.co.uk

Tel. - 07739 998 012 (Paula or Gerry)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

ᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥ ☼ ᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪ

Auctions

Saturday 18th May 2019

Bury St. Edmunds - Lacy Scott & Knight

Web. - www.lsk.co.uk

eMail - oleggett@lsk.co.uk

Tel. - 01284 748 600 (general enquires)

Tel. - 01284 748 623 (Oliver Leggett - auction)

Toy and Collectors Models

ᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥ ☼ ᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪ

Thursday 23rd May 2019 -

Sheffield - Shefield Auction Gallery

Windsor Road, Heeley, Sheffield, S8 8UB

Web. - www.sheffieldauctiongallery.com

eMail - jmorgan@sheffieldauctiongallery.com

Tel. - 0114 281 6161

14:00 - Finish

ᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥ ☼ ᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪ

If you are an event promoter/show curator/auctioneer and you want your toy, model, collectable or popular-/youth-culture type sale/exhibition/event listed here -  FOR FREE  - or linked to; please eMail me -

maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com

- stating the date/s of the event, address of event, contact details, opening/viewing times, admission pricing and any other relevant facts/details or features - parking, travel notes, disability access, availability of refreshments, event subject matter &etc.

And please mention any flyer-art or poster-/leaflet-scans but send by separate eMail, in case they go to the 'junk' folder, from where they can be recovered and marked safe, but only if I know they're there!

ᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥ ☼ ᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪ

N is for News

AAC Museum

The Army Aviation museum at Middle Wallop has opened again after a major re-vamp, I've enjoyed several visits - back in the day - wandering round the exhibits, so can only imagine it's an even better reason for a day-out now?

Hamleys

You're probably aware already, but the same day I was reporting the 150-somthingth store opening (last Thursday), the sale (rumoured in the past) went through, with Chinese shoe-empire C. Banner selling the whole concern to India's Reliance Group for around £70m quid.

They also opened their fifth store in Hyderabad last week!

The Works Aren't Working

The Works posted poor results and suffered a loss of share value last week, I suspect it's just a glitch and certainly hope it's not a sign of something more serious; the Blog gets a lot of mileage from them in the course of a year!

ᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥ ☼ ᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪ

L is for Links

Only the one this week, a book, it may have appeared here already in the past, but I can't remember, so here it is . . . again?

https://www.amazon.com/Good-Son-Story-First-Miniature/dp/153620482X

ᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥ ☼ ᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪ

H is for How They Come In

In addition to the pile of plunder I dragged-home from the PW show last week, there have been a few shrapnel purchases from local charity shops in the last seven days . . .

. . . I managed to get over to Farnborough earlier this week and did the three charity shops in the old precinct, nothing in two of them but several things in the third, among which was this Vivid board game; not worth a separate post, and really only the vampire man-bat is of any use to figure collectors.

The sarcophagus would be better if he wasn't wearing comedy 'shades', the pumpkin will reappear in Halloween comparison-shots at some point and the Medusa's head will make a change from-/in a display of- all those cereal premium kings, admirals, explorers and footballer busts!

A china (and probably China) panda and an Ertl rail-trolley operator (large scale Thomas the Tank Engine?) were also procured for pennies!

I ignore these in the shops (well these days I'll take a shelfie) because they aren't worth the price, but in a tatty box for a quid, they are worth the punt as archive items; packaging's gone to the recycling, where it joined the Khufu game's box and main components!

A dodgy Panther, UPS truck (in mufti), high-performance sports-staff car (HMS Queen Elizabeth's?!!) and a reasonable Jeep Wrangler join a tacky helicopter and two road-signs; it's the bottom-end of the die-cast market! All courtesy of Top Toys; an importer based in Northampton we've seen before I think.

This afternoon (Thursday)'s loot included a tenth Halo (of twelve, I may yet get them all?)* a handful of chinosaurs, a Taiwanese Luke Skywalker (magazine part-work) and a pallet of milk-churns, which were joined by a Phidal set of Toy Story figurines; they will get a separate post at some point.

* Except the post I'm referring to is err . . . still in the queue . . . Doh! Forthcoming! The Works (for it is they) are replacing the Jada Halo with Happy Potter (HP II) and Fantastic Beast sets, also in twelve's,  I think?

ᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥ ☼ ᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪᴥᴪ

A is for Army Men - RTM '17 - Part IV - Mostly Smaller Scale Crappytoys!

Or at least, this was going to be the small scale post but a number of larger ones crept in so it's not, also the numbering rather peters-out around the time we find out what happened to the 16 some of you may have noticed yourselves not noticing so far! In other words - it's the loose ends of what has been no more that 'What's in the Fritz-helmet/Modern Chinatroops' unknown's box'!

Seen before on the Blog, more than once I think and being carried by various brands at the moment as the default small scale, they are actually around 30mm and a second shade of silver-grey - distinct from the silver - surfaced in the 'Big Bag' from Peter Evans.

I re-shot the shelfie (right-hand picture) I got so fuzzy last time and we can see rust-brown still to enter the collection here at Small Scale World Towers while Brain Berke shot the left-hand bag when he was last in the UK, it showing an apparently darker green set of figures.

Here the same figures are being offered on Alibaba by an 'E-Toys', made-up brand if ever I read one, but clever and you wonder why no one else thought of it first, but maybe they have!

Number 16 has been in the collection for a while and may date back to the Hong Kong era, but he has the chalky look of more recent China production.

The broken figure seems to be Hong Kong, but without a base it's not clear, he also seems to be quite original? Next to him is a green, soft PVC, copy (?) of the believed to be Galoob for Realtoy (et al.) in denser plastic. I've put the question mark in brackets as he may be from the same factory/mould, just for a different contract, and some of Micro-Machines own figures - especially the early, unmarked, small scale 'combat' ones were in softer PVC anyway?

The other three are small-ish scale (all in this shot are around 40mm) copies (or homage) to the ring-hand MPC figures, I have no weapons or helmets for them so don't know if they had them but suspect they must have, if only by going by the little belts - which are removable! I'm guessing gum-ball machine capsule toys, but they may have had a header-carded bag, or blistered outing too?

Speaking of Realtoy and moving up a scale, if anyone tells you the figure lower left is Realtoy, tell him he's making it up as he goes along - again! The Realtoy one is bottom right and we looked at them here a while ago.

The upper image shows the unknown 50mm figure, a couple of the denser/harder PVC Realtoy (et al.)'s; they have also been marketed as Daron and Sky Marks, while I've been told they were Galoob, and certainly follow Galoob poses; along with the softer 'copy'.

In the lower image we see the various colours now found, the sailors being consistently painted the same, the others coming in desert-sand, olive-green, a 'Russian' SF/SWAT/Urban camo', a general camouflage and the woodland green 'copy', however there is a commoner reverse camouflage with sand as the dominant background and blobs of green and brown but I don't have one in this pose!

Similar figures (looking odd as they have no belt-order/webbing) are being offered by Smile Station on Alibaba and evilBay (upper shot) or at least they were a year or two ago, I can't find them now, but that's made-up brands for you, easy come; easy go!

Another set of similar figures were Blogged here.

While the various unknown carrier-deck ground-crew in the lower picture manage to look like both the unknowns; the five in black PVC are very similar to the green chap but a tad taller, while the lower three are in a soft silicone-rubber and look like the not-Realtoy figure!

However, I now know the lower chaps aren't carrier-crew, they were sold in a Realtoy-like, but unbranded/generic window-box 23710 Die Cast Metal Airport Play Set, two per card, so that may where the larger unknown figure originated, not the civil airport; but another generic window-box!

Found these on Alibaba, they look to be all new poses, of some merit and in a smaller scale; mabe45mm judging by the accompanying vehicles? And - note two new variations of the CAD-CAM-hulled AFV we looked at the other day.

Those Tamiya 1:48th copies (which Arlin Tawser ID'd here a while ago) came-in again, in a larger sample with the 'Big Bag', still unknown, but by adding one 'missing' figure gave a photo-opportunity of 6 poses x 4 figures x 2 armies for a 48 total which I suspect will prove to be the/a full-set/set-count? Miss-moulding has reduced a couple of the B.A.R-gunners to mere riflemen!

Finally, we looked at Skylark yesterday with a nice set of figure sculpts in a larger scale but in the smaller scale they are offering these really poor copies of some pretty poor 1990's copies of copies of Airfix, which (the 1990's ones) were also issued with Majorette AFV's.

A is for Army Men - RTM '17 - Part I - Older or Bigger Crappytoys!

This is one of four posts for which I've run out of Rack Toy Month to squeeze them into, so we'll go-over into September slightly!

Trying to sort them into any sort of order was impossible, so the titles, particularly of the first two posts are for the sake of having a title rather than any reflection on the contents of the post

Likewise; the numbering of the figures has NO significance whatsoever and imparts nothing other than that I needed to keep track of them as I photographed them, edited them and pushed them around the - eventually - four posts.

While the text will reveal some things are separately numbered when they turned-out not needing to be, while a 28 was added when in preparing the above shot and the correction shots I found a set which had missed being photographed in the main session!

This post will take us up to number 12 in the above shot, although 14 is here, we'll be looking at them again in part 3.

So 'New Type' 'Chinatroops'!

Number 1 are the dancing loons of today's post, and as will be seen below, as I was sorting them out and putting them away it became obvious 3 and 13 were the same lot, some are quite good but overall a really poor set, taken from various others (the chap on the far right is loosely based on an old New Ray/Toy Major German!).

While 2 are pretty standard fair, but I'd like to know who made 4 as they are quite good for this type of rack-toy shite - the helmets let them down but almost tie-them into the vintage and rare Kentoys Space Commandos! However a few head-swaps would give you a nice bunch of Rambo-style 'Vets'! I wondered if they might be clones of someone like Mars or TSSD, but they seem to be pretty unique?

So this is the full lot, I've crossed 3 and 13 off on the subsequent images. Conspiracy theorists may have something to say about the coincidence of 1 and 3 going with 13 but I can assure you it was only coincidence!

Two of the common current types (6 and 7) rather dwarfed by the 5's who are around 60mm and quite blobby in the detail department! As with all these modern, generic Army Men, there's always one or two which will paint-up OK, but that's always tempered by the poses you wouldn't (ahem . . . shouldn't!) give house-room to! 

In this case it's the SF-looking, Vietnam-era chap in a beret although of course the ex-Matchbox poses will paint-up better than the rest by dint of having better donors! Which reminds me - some of these sets (in all four (?) posts) are missing their ex-Matchbox figures as they have previously been sorted into elsewhere!

We've seen the type 6 several times already here on the blog I think, these are both from Brian Berke and show the Bely take on them with dark green and red-brown versions, together with the little keep/watch-tower.

Meanwhile, JPW are shipping them in grey and green. Brian also sent these and we can see his Crescent 'berserker' giving us a scale guide, they're not bad for 54mm, but pretty bad for usefulness!

The 27 lot from Post II turned out to be early versions of those I'd numbered 7, they are definitely better finished, but going on all the other variables - base shape, release-pin marks, blemishes in the mouldings they are the same figures from the same tool.

If you look carefully at the guy waving a Browning Auto and M16, you can see how the one at the bottom is well moulded, the one at the top is starting to lose the tip of the rifle, while the two between have truncated pop-guns, that's mould-degradation; right there!

Also; that bottom row, which are the ones from tomorrow's 27 shot, are in a less chalky material which will have helped. Conspiracy theorists can go ape over the 7/27 coming so soon after a 1/3/13, but that's life! I can't remember which of the sets were attributed to Funtastic, but they are elsewhere on the Blog.

A Dio Toys 'Trade' Co. (on Alibaba so a good chance it's just a marketing vehicle) are offering a set which looks to be somewhere between 6 and 7, having the useful chap with beret from 6 and the skeletal standing firer from 7, but a slightly different grenade thrower from either of them!

The Top Toys (both types) were here - on the Blog -  a couple of years ago, these Army Force 'Toob' figures being much nicer that the bagged Army Troop set, the Jumbo Trading I saw on feebleBay the other day but will have been carried by others, the New Ray though, I'm not so sure about.

I've seen them credited to New Ray but mine (in storage) are better finished and factory-painted, although I have a catalogue somewhere which I think has unpainted figures in the tub/bucket play-sets, so a bit of a question-mark.

For safeties-sake (or accuracies' sake) I'd think of them as 'probably' copies of New Ray (as 10 are), and I think 11, 12 and 26 in the top picture are all of a likeness, just different colours/materials and all three; too-small sample's to arbitrarily put together . . . yet!

Current sales image from an outfit called Ever Glory shows what appear to be I suspect may be PVC figures, size wasn't given but they have pulled poses from several of the previous sets and there are a couple which look to be more unique, although only cut'n'shut's or moved limbs.

Thanks

Peter Evans must be thanked for maybe half the above figures and in numbers, many more, and Brain Berke's contributions have been helping keep the Blog afloat for well-over a year now, equally some of the above will have come from Brian Carrick or Gareth Morgan so many thanks to all four, for their help or contributions (all of it volunteered) to this and the next three posts.