R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Four is for More

Back to Queens, New York, for the last few posts of Brian's rack-toy shots, an eclectic lot, but more figures and animals;

 

 

Modern Transformers!

Bumble Bee, Optimus Prime and Barricade. 

Mario, his box seems - from the illustration

- to fold into an overcomplicated display stand?

I think we've seen these Goo Jit Zu super-deforms, from Moose, here, I've certainly seen them in B&M, but might not have shelfied them, a sort of soft foam stretchy, which is also a squidgee!

 

The classic 'suck your drink through your glasses' novelty!

 

Probably similar mechanism to the rockets we saw the other day?

Sealed unit, movement activated, LED's?

 

Bubble-guns!

 

These Power ranger knock-offs were everywhere, here, about ten years ago, but seem to have disappeared now, over here they tended to come with five mini-figures, in the same colours, which we have seen here, passim. There are colour variations over time/batches, and I think I'm right in saying some issues have a gold figure?

 

Pull back and go!

 

Horses

 

A duplicate horse, so while the contents are otherwise very different and the cards seem to be branded differently (well; Ucok for the horse set, the mixed-farm more generic), the source would appear to be the same. Glued vinyl, there's a lot of this larger animal stuff around at the moment, as well as wild animals and dinosaurs, genres which remain healthy for the pre-teens, and something which will need ID'ing one day; thanks to Brian we have the cards!

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - One of . . . Several!

Brian Berke, roving reporter on the other side of the pond, sent some rack toys the other week, which were in the queue, then he sent a few more, then, today, he sent a shed-load! And with me committing to the Gygax stuff in the early-hours of this morning, I've now got my work cut-out to get everything up here before Sunday!

 

So, blurb light, with the pictures speaking for themselves, here's what's hanging on the racks in Queens, New York,  right now!

 

 

 

 

These are actually in the long-queue, but seem to have been reduced even more in the States, originally movie-related and pricey, the failure of the movie to live up to expectations left them sitting, and you can still find them on offer about the place, the Entertainer here, cleared theirs a year or two ago, just before Christmas.

  

Brian thought these were the best of the bunch, and they do look cool!

 

 

There's a bunch of these in the queue too, but different, smaller sculpts.

D is for Dinky Dan Dare Derringer!

Nothing to do with Dan Dare actually, beyond my looking for an alliterative title! I picked this little sweetie up at the Autumn Sandown Park show, more because of the maker than the subject, the last thing I need is to start collecting ray-guns, but this comes into the category of novelty, both by way of its diminutive size and the fact it's a water-pistol!

 

It's very small, and the sort of thing we might have got in a Christmas stocking back in the day, if not this actual one? Also, it's quite robust in construction, still works with no cracks or leaks, and may have been retailed by Poplar well into the late 1970's, although I don't believe Springwwell Mouldings had a stab, but they may have?

L is for Lone Star's Luna Shooters!

Trawling the archive for more rayguns and water pistols, it quickly became apparent that Lone Star would tick both boxes for us! Isn't that nice of them, now the gloves are off, and we need to get this stuff posted!

From the 1958 catalogue comes the Dan Dare Space Gun, which, like most Lone Star cap-firing guns, would take a whole real of 'amorces' (we need em' for our forces!), and get through it in proper quick-time!

 

Mum would go spare "I'm not buying you any more caps, that's the last two rolls, use them sparingly, when they're gone, they're gone, that's IT", and if Dad was around he'd mutter "Use aimed shots, conserve your ammo.", neither of which entreaties would have any effect on us, as once the caps had run out, we just started "Bang! Bang!" 'ing each other, or the Collidge gang from Mattingley!

 

By 1963 Dan Dare was out, and generic sci-fi was in, with a quick renaming of the toy to The Space Ranger Pistol, which, even from black & white artwork looks to have been a tad more colourful?

 

Also from the 1958 catalogue, was this Trick Jet Water Pistol, with very 'spacey' lines, and if it was die-cast (possibly with similar brass fittings to the HR one?), there should be a few survivors out there, not that I intend to start collecting such things I have neither the room nor the budget!

R is for Renolds' Radical Rayguns!

Famous last words - "Hey, if I live for another 40 years I may never have cause to mention HR again on the Blog so I might as well tare the arse out of the imagery this time!", because, here I am, a mere 7 years later, mentioning them again!

 

HR Production (no 's') again, the Atomatic - see what they did there! And little known beyond the fact that they are water-pistols, in a non-stable polystyrene, which has warped slightly over time, but with a quite robust system, let down by a weak trigger which has gone for a Burton's on both examples, as it has on another, HR design I've seen. 

 

But the plungers both work (they'd make your finger sore), and the brass nozzle will be good, it's whether the tube is still performing full-suction that stands between victory or defeat at the hand of some dreaded Mekon from the next street! And note, the foresight is a space-ship!

Funny, despite posting some rayguns before, I don't seem to have Rayguns, or Water Pistols in the tag list? I best get them tagged up huh? Start collecting those dozens, nay, millions of hits from Google, I mean, it must be millions, to be worth falling-out after 15-years?

DY is for Dah Yang

Not often we have bone fide Taiwanese stuff on the Blog, I'm sure some slips by under the 'generic' label as Hong Kong/China, but Taiwan (whatever Beijing thinks) is quite a different place, and these are a lot of fun!

Equally - not often we have ray guns on the Blog, but it has happened before, although I won't know until I publish whether I tagged them as such? Also - do you think the gun is based on the artwork (nicked from a comic, annual or pulp paperback), rather than the artwork reflecting the toy? It's all a bit Dan Dare or Buck Rogers!

Dah Yang; new to me. The gun has a double mechanism of cap-firing and dart-firing and looks to be more modern that the card-art would suggest? This is a 'proper' ray-gun, with the dish-thing that makes it really lethal, the stacked-disc ones are all show and no firepower, I read it in Ray-guns & Ammo Monthly!

They make handguns too! Not only does this one have stacked-discs, but it's got the in-line tube/ring things too; Ray-guns & Ammo Monthly has very little good to say about them! But it's a repeater, and in enclosed spaces?

Just imagine; if only we could get every teacher, shopkeeper and bus driver to have their own - legally held - ray-gun, how safe the world would be?

R is for Regular Round-up!

Like yesterday's football/footballers; for many years we didn't really look at paratrooper toys here, but a couple of years ago I did  an overview of what I had here at the time, and since then with a lot of help from New York and keeping an eye-out, we've had quite a few re-visits.

I still haven't found the 'in storage' box, but I spotted a few buried the other day and it may be with them, so perhaps before Christmas I'll have united the two sizeable samples and we can have a better look or over-view of the genre - a favourite here, now.

How they come in! I bought these in Basingrad on the 9th, two from Wilkinson's/Wilco, the other (Phidal Peter Rabbit) from TKMaxx, the monster [snake!] skeleton was really for Halloween, but you've seen it now - it'll look great with skeleton armies though! Phidal are going to need a couple of days now, there's around ten sets, or part-sets in the queue, and anyway it's the paratroopers we're looking at now.

So, N is for Not That Unique Are They! We've looked at their 54mm solid paratroopers here and we've looked at the blow-mould poses as both a blow-mould and solid by other brands or under other brand marks, but under Unique - as I said - these sets of four are in Wilko's at the moment.

I have a set of 12 in the storage lot which I think also came from Wilkinson's but about eight or nine years ago (possibly the green-carded set), while an earlier set existed. The drop in contents reflects inflation, but a drop from 12 to 4 in one step has a whiff of greed too, especially if you were running the twelve for 15-20 years, prior to the sudden count-drop!

A drop to eight would have been a better start, and if you're dropping to four, why not issue one of each colour?

This is a make-weight for the post, the recent D&D Distribution catalogue shot showing the currently common figures we've seen here under several brands already, they are the ones with the closed canopy and single-shroud which I don't like very much! Also, someone needs to have a word with the copywriter!

We've also seen these several times but I couldn't remember if we'd seen a four-blister one, I know Brian B has sent shelfies of Jaru 3-blister packs and I've bought or shelfied two- or three-blister cards, but have we had a four? We have now! Kandytoys of Exeter.

From the archive comes Norton-Thomson's 1988 Lion Group 'Pocket Money Toys' catalogue, and a different take on the paratrooper toy altogether; they are fired into the sky by a long, rigid . . . err . . . 'member' placed . . . err . . . between their thighs, the . . . err . . . 'snake's head' engaging with a steel spring and catch mechanism . . . well endowed lads, but - ouch!

"Most inappropriate toy in INGERLAND EVER!"; he spittle-flecks down the 'phone to the Daily Wail's 'really important news' desk, for lesser bloggers to re-post! Also issued under TNT branding as The Sky Devils Paratroopers as code M7626A.

F is for Follow-up - Lone ★ Star's Cork Gun Targets

Sometimes the gods conspire to really screw us, sometimes they smile slyly at us from afar, only letting us know they are still toying with us, but happen to be in a generous mood. Last week, they were enjoying the storms they had unleashed upon us, and let me get away with a 'Brucey Bonus'!

I had dug out the Lone Star 'Cork •45 Pistol Shooting Game' figures from the storage sample (as you may have gathered by now, I dug out the whole Lone Star box!) where I had said I might have other poses or colours, by some stroke of luck, I had a pair, and they were two different poses and a new colour.

But what had prompted the search was the fact that at Sandown Park, Jim (who otherwise wishes to remain anonymous) gave me a huge box of chuck-outs, among which was a third figure (20-points) to the two we looked at last time and in a new colour; red.

While the gods smiled, they also decided that colours would duplicate, so while my two were the missing two poses from a random/possible five (odds on that?), I'm sure there may be blue or green to track down, mine being one yellow (5-points) and one red (40), but as far as poses goes; I think that's it now!

If your eyesight's even twice as good as mine you may still like to know the bases are numbered with an odd sequence of 5-15-20-30-40 points.

On the left a late re-issue in unpainted glossy ethylene and on the right an earlyish example with all over paint, sandwiched between them two of the game-pieces for comparison, the only real difference is in the base with its diamond-mesh pattern overlaid with a smoothed-out number on the underside and the little wire-clip at the back edge.

The 5-pose seems to have had the back of his base extended a touch, too, but as with the Knights/Medievals from Lone Star, there are base variations for single poses within the line anyway, so it may be a question of which cavity had the work done to it?

A reminder of the picture Paul Morehead kindly sent to the Blog with the original catalogue image of the game. It's clear the figures are different colours, but are they red & yellow, or red, yellow and something else?

Adding ID'd stuff to existing boxes meant these die-cast Roadmasters accessories (ID'd after/at May's show) went away in the Lone Star box, and as they may never come out again, I thought I'd just show you a red driver who has appeared since we last looked at them!

E is for Empirical Evidence!

Courtesy of Paul Morehead, editor of Plastic Warrior magazine.

So, we'll have a few quickies this afternoon, follow-ups and further stuff or loose-ends tied off, with something a bit more substantial tomorrow, but that's not to say today's late-postings aren't interesting, they all are! And again, like the other day - all contributions.

Paul sent this the other day, which I think is a scan of a photocopy of a photocopy of the 1966 catalogue. It clearly backs-up my thoughts on the figures being Lone Star supplied (and 'possibly' Lone Star branded) as they are, but more importantly seems to suggest my memories of red and green ones has some merit too.

And they are bright red and green like the yellow we looked at the other day, they are toys, not 'toy soldiers' and as such were issued in bright, primary colours - I bet some a blue too?

It's hard to tell form the illustration, but it seems they clip to a wooden (or rubber? Plastic?) block with a sturdy wire-rod set along one edge so that the figures (sorry; "Redskin Targets"!) fall backwards when hit by the cork, if you choose to use them rather than the card targets.

We can see at least four poses, a fifth may be behind the card, but I don't think the kneeling one is included, so that probably was my imagination!

PBI is for Poor Bloody Indians!

Having listened, tonight (THursday last), to the 'In Our Time' on the Mexican-American war and what happened to the Comanche afterward (40,000 'locals' at the start of the war 1,500 marched into a 'reservation' after it - at gunpoint, by the war-mongering, 'infesting', illegal immigrants!), I thought this was a timely post, especially given the pure shit that anal-speaking buttock-linguist Trump's been vomiting-forth from his potty-mouth in recent days, the nasty little fascist with his pliant trophy-wives - the latest of whom struggles with English as a second language!

Some people say these are copies, I think they were provided by Lone Star as the sculpts are the same and the bases have the same off-setting of a 'shadow base' you see with the some of the medieval figures and the Para's we looked at the other day.

There are no cowboys. There wasn't a cowboy set. This was about shooting the natives and stealing their land. A wire ran through the clip allowing the figure to fall back when hit by the dart or cork or marble or whatever it was. The maker is still currently unknown I think, but someone like Lines or Chad Valley, or even DCMC themselves must be in the frame?

There is a third figure with 10 on the base, now I think I have him in storage, I know I have one, and I'm sure it's a '10', but I seem to recall it's the kneeling firer, and red. I also think I've seen green ones . . . I think I may be wrong on all counts. All the others I've seen are yellow and the kneeling firer would be hard to knock-over for a mid-score?

A fortunately now long-gone, anachronistic throw-back to our racist, land-grabbing, murderous colonial past and remember; viruses and bacteria have colonies.