K is for Keycraft - Keycraft Global

So these have been sitting in Picasa since 2019! The 2020 one published back then, but with the question of dates, timings and alacrity having come-up in a certain spat before hatchets were buried; it's worth mentioning (as there are still many of these old folders) that nothing in this lot needed immediate journaling, and could have waited years more until they would have proven just as useful on the A-Z blogs as they will here, now.

I was interested in the robots as they are all or mostly wood, so sustainable, although with both BP and America apparently voting for annihilation in recent days/months, that's all becoming a very moot point! I don't think you can call them 'Bendys', but they do have many joints with 360º movement, so Articulated Toys will do for the Tag list! Also, I think we've shot these, or something similar, either as genrics or possibly branded to Tobar, in the now lost Hawkin's Bazaar?

Rack toy bags I'm sure we've seen before, with the four main non-military boxes ticked, Farm, Zoo, Sea Life and Dinosaurs, and if I recall correctly there was a 'Trends' post at the time, showing the dinosaurs, specifically the turquoise spotted Stegosaurus in the quite-different sets of several brands.

Bendy Smilies!

 

Bendy Cats & Dogs

 

Bendy Robots

 

Bendy Monkeys

 

Bendy Monsters!

 

There may be the illustrated yellow one underneath, I did dig for it, but only managed to dig the green and purple ones out, while ruining their display? It's funny, I posted a bendy Astronaut (also from Keycraft) the other day and within hours, one of the Paul's over at wandering planet rushed off to eBay to counter the post with what I guess he though was 'original copy', I could have countered with some of these, within minutes, but, well . . . they're here now!

 

Link - https://keycraftglobal.com/

T is for Two - Show Reports - Oxford Die Cast Military Railways - 2019 and 2020!

When I posted the Timely Manner thing the other day, I was - of course - only throwing back at The Jabbering Fuck, that which he had thrown at me a few years ago, if only to highlight the hypocrisy of the turd. Obviously I don't really, and prior to his intervention, had never given cause for anyone to suppose I give a shit who posts what, when, or why, unless they are A) plagiarising me, B) competitively 'following' me or C) attacking me, then - of course - I take umbrage!

 

Although I notice he then stated "sorry for the slight delay in my report, but I had various other commitments that demanded my attention", what, like when I was saying goodbye to my ailing father, or a month or so later, burying him? Or more important than that, because he thought it was fine to attack me for not publishing 'in a timely manner' on that occasion, so whatever he was committed-to recently must have been really, really important for that excuse to be anything more than the pathetic whine of a self-justifying hypocrite!

 

No matter, I have the measure of the man, and to prove how little I give a shit about Timely Manners, here's two, part show-reports, from the London Toy fair from 2019, and 2020! Specifically the military train stuff, which I think we had already glanced at, and therefore flagged-up previously.

2019

The rail-gun which had previously been seen in a neutral greyish-green, was on display with a camouflage scheme and mock-up box, although we were told it might not get to the shops like that. In front was a military 0-6-0 saddle-tank locomotive in the colours of the Railway Operating Division (of the WWI-era Royal Engineers).

 

While the well-wagon with Sherman was back again, along with a weathered flat-wagon, suiable for stores or smaller/soft-skin vehicles. Both had only previously been seen as catalogue images.

 

2020

 

The final production version of the rail-gun, which - for a while - had looked like it might never happen was revealed, and while the same moulding as the WWI 'big push'14" howitzers, previously announced, was now going to be sold as a WWII-era, home-defence 13.5" gun, of which three were produced, and never [were] actually fired in anger!

The unweathered flat-wagon put in an appearance and I got to shoot the Sherman from different angles! And that was them, then, nothing time-sensitive about it, if you want the stuff, you go and buy it, if a Blogger doesn't cover it (and they can never, none of them, cover everything) you go to the company's website, I did, and we'll look at mine, shot in 2022, next!

 

It was pompous arseholery for TJF to bang-on about timely manners like a self-righteous, god-appointed guardian of the hobbies, in the way he did, when he did, and nobody cares (except apparently him) who posts what, when or why. Although other points have come to the light, so I shall be returning to his recent sojourn in the leafier suburbs of the post-industrial Ruhr, soon, but at a time of my choosing, which may or may not be timely!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - D is for Dongles

Quick 'Stadswatch'

Untrained ventriloquist? Hahahahahaha . . . Priceless!!!! I was a [trained] machine-gunner once, do I get extra points for that? He's so far up his own arse he probably needs to be a ventriloquist just to communicate with anyone! Still he is posting more, better stuff now, so we're wining . . . a slow battle, not that his bursts of improvement ever last - too much effort!

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One of the changes over recent Toy Fair's compared to those I attended in the past has been the slow and steady uptake and application of IT to the whole business, most obvious this year with several big names not even bothering with catalogues, although I think that's short-sighted, as it is a tangible link with customers, helping maintain brand recognition because it's 'free' advertising which hangs around in the consumers own environment?

However, the biggest change I noticed between the twenty-tens and the twenty-teens was the provision of dongles (data-sticks, flash-drives, pen-drives, USB-drives, key-sticks &etc . . . yadayada!) with the press releases for both companies and the Toy Fair organisers - BTHA (British Toy & Hobby Association).

There were only three in 2018 (but I was late getting there!), while last year there was a shed-load (small, Playmobile shed maybe!), of which the best were the 8GB Pinstripe's from Verbatim of which I ended-up with two (black ones, bottom right), put straight to more useful work holding bits of the 'archive'!

They were given away by the Green Board Game Co., who weren’t there this year, and I wonder if their use of such large dongles had anything to do with any subsequent cost-cutting? Most use a half-gig' (512MB) or at most a 2GB drive.

I also thought the credit-card one from Mind Power in '18 was rather clever.

last year there were two uncommon designs which seemed specific to the companies, of which the Jumbo elephant was the best, although you can't use it on a multi-bus but why would you, I geep them as back-ups after copying everything to the archive dongles anyway.

This year there were less than last, and one (Gibson's) didn't happen, while another (Hornby) had to be asked for on their stand? University Games, an established US firm seem to have taken-over or merged with Paul Lamond, although both brands were on the stand, the corporate stuff was all UG, not that it affects figure collectors much, there are a few games from both with figures, and they carry the new Subbuteo.

Really, these dongles are minor curiosities as they contain little for the Blog, however they usually have an image folder with both this year's releases and some corporate or sub-brand logo stuff which will be useful on the A-Z pages in time, and who's to refuse a freebee, especially very small ones which take up little space and can be used for other stuff after formatting!

Already mentioned in the early (not dragged-out for six-months!) overview, the most interesting one this year was an ecologically-woke one, it's not to say you can dump it in the ocean, or any part of the environment, as there are still polymers in the actual drive part, but it has a much-smaller 'footprint' than the others!

And the accompanying press-pack is a throw-back to 1950's bureaucracy as well, with its card-disc/string-tie system, but we'll all be seeing more of this in the next decade, plastic has to be minimised and - indeed - limited to essential uses, while re-usability/longevity needs to be built-in to more 'stuff' . . . in the meantime; hats-off to the Paper Engine - practicing what they preach!

T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - J Perkins (JP)

JP may well be known to you from your work desk or table where they may be present as bottles or tins of glue, paint or solvent of one type or another, and while I wouldn't expect real-flying model aficionados to be following the blog, they would know them for their fuels, lubricants or coatings, however they currently have a small range of traditional 'novelty' gliders.

As it's over a year since we last looked at these here and less than 660-days to Christmas, time we looked at them again, and we'll start with another report from the January Toy Fair . . . it's been a funny year!

Ohhh! Pretty Lady, what happened to you?

Forty-years of Thatcherite-Raganomic, bigoted, middle-England, parochial, reactionary, Tory-policy, that's what, and what they did to you they're now doing to the whole country! Although we can't escape from the fact you were only ever a planet-destroying, Anglo-French vanity-project for the very rich, so maybe museums are the best place for you?

It's a Concord glider, in laser-cut, coated-balsa wood, too cool for aviation-school! In the background an even more traditional - undecorated, plain balsa - glider, but with the added gimmick of adjustable wing positions to provide what I believe they call 'variable flight-profiles'!

Two more; there aren't many 'Icons of the Air' you can collect the whole fleet-of, but Concord is definitely one, with a few rub-down letters and a bit of Tipex you could make the whole BA-fleet!

Meanwhile, in the background you can see two more Icons of the Air, namely Spitfires and Hurricanes from WWII.

My favourite, I know the Spitfire was prettier, faster, more manoeuvrable . . . yada, yada, yada, but this did the bulk of the work and could take more punishment, it's the 'British Bulldog' to the Spit's greyhound!

The other one! I don't know if you've realised from the camera-shots, but these are much bigger than the pocket-money, enveloped, expanded polystyrene ones we were looking at in the main last time, this is around 1:48th, even 1:32nd maybe? I suspect that both fighter-plane models are based on Battle of Britain Memorial flight airframes?

T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - The Toy Project (Toy Charity)

I said two weeks ago there were a couple of posts regarding The Toy Project in the pipeline, this is one of them!

Having discovered this charity the previous year, it was nice to see them at the show again, more loyal readers will know that with Peter Evans's help, we have revisited them since, but a charity can never have too much coverage!

This is Jane Garfield, the founder of The Toy Project, with a recycled giraffe, and lets be honest here, who knew? Who knew a recycled giraffe could look so healthy! In the background one of the legendary Plastic Warrior magazine founder's; Peter himself, checking out all the little bags of recycled, figural goodness!

Anyway, a quick look round the stall, then - later today; a visit to the shop, you can do that on the Internet, remove an 8-month gap!

Some Aussie bloke who supports the charity (he's the Patron), I've mentioned him before, but I don't think he collects Toy Soldiers - which is a bit lucky for the rest of us, as I understand his buying power is a tad greater than yours or mine, so he'd hoover-up all the good stuff!

Other shots are of various projects the charity has helped with, both at home and abroad, and they seem to have done a great deal in a very short time?

More of the same; toy libraries, donations, playgroup support, children's hospital visits, you name it, if in involves kids and can involve toys, The Toy Project seems to be in there doing good work.

A bit late now, had I blogged earlier some of you might have been tempted, but this Year's panned-out a bit odd, and there's the thing, but anyway - there were calendars going; worth thinking about one for next year though, make nice presents (do I get the 'mentioned Christmas in context first' award this year?!!), contact;

Web. - www.thetoyproject.co.uk

eMail - donations@thetoyproject.co.uk

+44 (0)7590 256 530 (from abroad)

07590 256 530 (UK)

SHOP

81 Junction Road, Archway N19 5QU

OPENING TIMES

Mon–closed

Tues–Saturday 10am-6pm

Sunday–closed

Registered Charity - 1164282

Twitter - @the TOY project uk

Facebook - The TOY Project UK

Having been to the shop now (next post) and not seen any of these little parcels there, I suspect that these are what are given out to kids, wrapped in gift-paper as is happening in one of the shots above? The knights look interesting, as does the fire-breathing dragon!

Larger and mostly recognisably iconic character toys were on a shelf, jogging memories!

We can't leave The Toy Project without a 'what can you spot' shot . . . and I think that's Harvey the calendar-bear in the background?

T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - Tobar & Schylling - Tin Plate, Rack Toys, Novelties and Die Cast

I say Schylling, but it was Tobar's stand, just that they have a close relationship with Schylling in the US (not Germany Mr. Sell; definitely not Germany) and carry each other's stuff, they also both import from Supreme (SP Toys) but more on that in a minute.

The main direction of the tie-up this year is a range of retro tin-plate, these may well be from the same source as the tin-plate tree-hangers carried by both Shylling and Ingo Roggaz's ^Z_Z (not George Zimmermann Mr. Dildobrand; definitely not Zimmermann) back in the 1990's? Particularly the small hot-air balloons? The duck on a tricycle is a timeless novelty, while the three robots cover all the tropes of their 1950's forbears.

Radio Control is getting very interesting, with new digital tech', miniaturisation and lessons learnt in the mini-drone sector being converged into smaller and more sophisticated toys at affordable prices, here a set of two 'firing' tanks are more traditional, while who could resist a digger which digs!

On the subject of construction vehicles; Maisto (a Thai-centered, US headquartered group of Chinese factories and brands) who I think now own the Bburago name (ex-Italian; Mebetoys) are another one probably coming to Tobar via Schylling or as a joint-purchase with Schylling; and here we see various die-cast construction sets in two scales and several formats along with dinosaur play sets.

Counter-display cases of more traditional clockwork wind-up and squirty-toys! Not really 'my thing' but it's nice to see these things still out there; they are the 'meat & two veg.' of toy sellers; the everyday earners.

I thought this was a lot of fun; a mini or nano-bot cockroach, with a very small motor driving (or jiggling) tiny hidden legs to propel a larger 'rubber-jiggler' shell across surfaces - what's not to like?

You can tell from the above that there wasn't much to excite plastic figure collectors on their stall this year, but it just so happened that the managing Director of Schylling was on the stall at the same time as me, and the lady from Tobar offered to get me a slot with him, I explained he probably wouldn't want a farty, middle-aged, toy-collector/Blogger trying to confirm or deny Erwin's bullshit with him (slightly more politely than I've just written-it, of course - I know how to behave in public!), however she confirmed that both companies import from Supreme (indeed; looking at Supreme's 1986 HKTDC year-book advert', the cockroach may well be theirs), have done for years and that Supreme are a stand-alone toy manufacturer.

[latter offices: Room 504-507, Tower B, New Mandarin Plaza, 14 Science Museum Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong]

Now most of you already know this, it is - after all - a good decade since Plastic Warrior magazine was carrying editorial provided by Tiger Hobbies on their importation of Supreme's 60mm figures, and longer since the figures were first covered there.

Tiger had through the 1980/90's being importing the first series 54mm knights and Wild West (Deetail style bases) with Strawberry Group (who further worked with 3-D Licensing) and (or alongside) Toy Major, Simba carried them too. While Ackerman and Halsal/HTI are known importers of Supreme, as are Titan, while they are now also re-packed for on-line platform Sunjade and, through Schylling via-Tobar, are - as I write - now probably in Hawkin's Bazaar?

Yet Erwin, who, electing to start pontificating only in 2015, and who clearly wasn't around to read 'from the horse's mouth' a decade ago, has decided to make Supreme his second favourite go-to brand-mark for bullshitting-about - after Blue Box!

He has variously claimed Simba 'designed' Supreme figures "...first" (with no quoted source or empirical evidence), that Supreme are actually Schylling (while trying to flog his own Schylling stock), that Supreme are a sub'er for Sunjade (when the opposite is probably true, despite Supreme having their own wholesale unit) or sub' for Schylling (who admit the opposite) and that Supreme are 'just' an exporter and x all else. Oh . . . and that Schylling - with a 'y' - are German! And while his utterances are spread over many comments, posted over four years - he managed to repeat most of them in the single comment above!

I could do a word-by-word autopsy with lots of screen-cap's, but this isn't the post, suffice to say wherever you find Mr Sell pontificating on any of the above, know that he doesn't know what he's talking about! They are all getting this product from an old, established Hong Kong toy maker; Supreme/SP Toys. Luckily for the hobby most of his nonsense-utterances are hidden in Shitestuff's comments or on the locked Vichy-forum; both places ignored by the Googlebots - phew!

T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - HGL - Rack Toys and Counter Displays

As I'm well behind with the Toy Fair '19 stuff, and as it's Rack Toy Month, it seems to make sense to combine the one with the other by clearing one of the UK's bigger Rack Toy, novelty and pocket-money plaything importers from the 'Toy Fair '19' sub-queue!

POS (point of sale) novelties included wind-up robots (becoming another perennial favourite here at Small Scale World) in red and black (left hand bin) although there were several color-way/design combinations on the two base-plastic colours, for a four or six 'set-count'; two or three black and the same - red?

The right hand bin is larger scale - several times life-size - insects, which may be of interest to insect collectors, but they may already have found them, January was a while ago now!

Smaller blister sets and larger, bagged sets with header-cards containing all the common tropes; insects, reptiles, farm & zoo animals and dinosaurs, there's also a single - Halloween-ready - bat (sans blister), and a slight departure on the normal fare; a set of flying birds, or birds in flight!

Some close-ups; I didn't think to get the birds properly and the bat was a balancing afterthought crop! The birrds are a departure and you can see the mallard clearly, I think/suspect the others may include an eagle, vulture and owl? But the orange one may be another duck-like bird and you'd half-expect a sea-gull?

I think a few of the dinosaurs have come-in over time, in mixed lots, and while these are technically generics, with the animal collectors often having the China-maker's name, it's nice to be able to round a few up next time I sort the 'unsorted' and scribble an HGL moniker on their bag!

Larger scale farm and zoo sets include counter dispensers for the biggest and tubs for medium-sized animals (54/60mm compatible stuff in the main), while the little zipper-satchels with their animal-pining, vac-formed trays bear a striking resemblance to the small-scale horse sets from Brayer!

When the biggest animals come-in they tend to go back to charity, but I always photograph them for the archive, and shots like this might help ascribe them all one day. The bigger insects we saw at the top also have a counter-top dispenser, huge snakes were a regular in the toy-box when we were kids, often an 'attendance prize' when leaving someone else's birthday party - and a pack of cetaceans, which brings us to . . .

. . . the oceans! Sharks! It's all sharks for 2019 . . . I think there's a dolphin in there somewhere, but basically sharks are it! They all seem to be the same line but in a variety of packaging options. Then there's the cartoon one with a pink-monkeys foot in its mouth!

Pan-out and it's still 'all sharks' on the left, while on the right we get down to the serious animal for the serious young animal collector to seriously collect - My mother volunteered for many years at the Bernardo's charity shop in town and reports that there were several small boys who would come round buying the dinosaurs and nothing but. And they knew all their proper names, no "kerthunkersaurus" from them!

I think we've seen most of them before, but to note are the larger squidgy ones and the small rack-toy bag of older 1970/80's sculpts still going strong.

Again, these were all in last year's shots I think and I know I highlighted the Magasaurs branding across the lines/range then.

The smaller bag and the tubs have the older sculpting while the larer bag looks to have all new sculpts with the more on-trend decoration taken from the more colourful lizards and birds alive today, rather than the dowdy twin-tone or monochrome, often muddy decoration of the past.

Note: HGL has totally replaced H. Grossman formally (corporate usage), but Megasaurs.com has not replaced Ozbozz, just sits alongside it!

T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - Revell - Naval Models

We looked at a couple of large scale (compared to other ship kits) warship models last year and this year there were three of note in 1:72nd scale on display, all new issues or new tooling who (which?) were displayed alongside a rather nice Eurofighter Typhoon in Luftwaffe 'Ghost Tiger' tiger-meet markings.

1:72nd scale submarines, there are a few around now, and they are bloody-awesome! And; no oars, so they can slip onto a narrow shelf somewhere, plenty of crew too, from the old Airfix E-boat crew, through Revell's own 'soldier box' set to resin figures from aftermarket garage-concerns. Below it are a US Fast-PTB and a German Schnellboot which we'll look at closer, first.

I don't know much about these, or what the difference is between an S-Boot and an E-Boot? Is one bigger, or more powerfully-engined? All I know is they are mean-looking mofo's and I love the Dalek cab! Sorry Granddad . . . Dalek bridge!

Sticking with the Kriegsmarine brings us to Unterseeboot 203 a type VII/C '41 with a vast array of finely detailed brass parts on a large, acid-etched fret. I like the camouflage, which really does look like rippling waves but it looks naked without a large deck-gun? Although there's enough firepower in those pulpit/baskets to sink a small vessel or bring down a flying sub-hunter!

Again I don't know much about this either, although there are lots of MTB/FPB kits around, some showing their age (box-scale or 'universal' hull-scale) and I've always wanted to make one up, but never got round to it! This seems to be a new tooling and would I be right in saying a post-WWII boat; Cold War or Vietnam campaign maybe?

Addendum - PT588 saw no service - http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/05588.htm 

Neither did PT579 - http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/05579.htm