B is for Big Bag

Just a quickie, another 'lucky bag' type thing, in the same vein as the two cornucopias we saw a while back (Christmas?), and with very similar contents of little use to military figure minded peeps such as yourselves, but, we buy this shit so you don't have to!

 

Courtesy of Hunter Price International, under the Toymania branding, I think I got this in The Works, it was back last August, but I think I've since seen it elsewhere as well? Asda carry Toymania, as do a couple of the Sub-Poundland discount stores.

 

Contents include a quite good sample of 18 standard novelties or party gifts, including light-up cars, bouncy-balls, a shaped slinky, maracas clackers/clappers, blow-ball balancer, 'helicopter', spinning tops, a couple of stretchies, a balancing bird, a disc 'baseball' firer, and two weird bookmark things? Clearly designed to keep two smaller people happy, without fighting over who has what.

 

The stretchy unicorn has a hole in its arse and can pass through itself?

 

Two-colour stretchy smiley.

 

The weird bookmark things? They seem to utilise memory-metal, to roll up or unroll, but why? I think I'm missing something in my old age; both space-themed, they would make useful bookmarks, but I suspect they have another function?

 

It's funny, but memory-metal, is a bit like 3D printing, apart from one or two esoteric medical applications, both technologies have been used primarily to make toys, novelties and other short-life, ephemeral crap! While I don't think Nano Carbon or Buckminster Fullerine have even had a decent application yet, beyond research and being talked about as the next big things . . . it's almost like we are running out of ideas, even as we keep having them, if you know what I mean, ceasing to strive for excellence and sliding back to an anti-democratic, belligerent, less enlightened 19th century mindset! 

 

The launcher of the 'helicopter' disc, they had a period of being 'UFO's didn't they?

 

That't it, might keep younger kids happy for an hour or so!

L is for the London Scene

Peter Evans also sent me some rack-toy stuff in time for the end of a slow month! We've seen some of it before, but images is images and these blogs are all about the images;

There's a lot of this kind of thing around at the moment, funny little pull-back-and-go cars, carts and these trikes, ridden, driven or mostly consisting of baby animals, teddy bears or dinosaurs, and I've seen boxed-sets of multiples!

 

I think we've seen both of these here, but new images, and out there now (try garden centres, if out of town), Peterkin above and Halsall below, the Peterkin's are similar to the old Ackerman (et al.) sculpts, while the HTI set is from a current generation of China-troops in the style of modern US GI's.

 

These are the larger version or 'next size up' from the sets we saw out of Poundstretcher the other day, Supreme copies, but here four figures (instead of two) and two main accessories instead of one, so presumably four assortments, two with cowboys and two with Indians. 

 

 

And I think we saw a green one of these a few years ago, also Poundstretcher, or similar? Soft vinyl or silicon rubber key-ring dinosaurs.

 

Many thanks to Peter for these, all submissions gratefully received! 

S is for Shelfies - Asda Supermarkets

I seem to have had quite a few shelfie sessions this year, we've seen a few, and there are still a couple in the queue, this was some shots I took back at the start of October in Asda, now free of Walmart, but facing a huge debt-constructed black-hole, which seem to have been created by the new-owners using the company as a piggy-bank!

 

I was seriously tempted by the guardsman, given the number of existing chaps in the 'novelty' sub-zone of the ceremonial stash, but thought four-quid was a bit steep for such a simple toy, and concluded that a picture would suffice!

Equally novelty, these are your bog-standard streachy animals, in some kind of gloop-in-a-bottle, as with all these shelfie shots, taken to help ID the stuff lose, in the future, although they are the sort of thing which will probably get several formats/outings? Here credited to Toymania.

I think these are new tubs, obviously, there are so many variants of the palm trees out there now, you never know if they've been bought in as make-weights, or if you're just looking at a new packaging of something seen before!

Reasonable sculpts, as I say, probably seen before, and not given the imaginative colourings of some modern dinosaur models, however, there's not many in the tub, and at the origianl £15, far too much? At the reduced £9 a bit better, but still pricey for what you get, there's a post coming on a wildlife set from another store chain, which at £9.99p will be worth a comparison with these.

Again, there's only six or seven animals, in a larger scale, and a lot of 'playability' detritus, but, to be fair, the size of the tub is deceptive in that these were smaller than the usual tubs.

A is for And so to London - Loot Bag!

While I'm up 'The Smoke' (which has been smokeless since at least the 1970's!), I always look around for a few things I might not find locally, and Peter takes me to his local discount store, to which end the results of my last trip 'up to town' are this post!

In the said discount store I grabbed a box of three capsule-eggs by a minor-make, imported by Unique Plus Ltd., and from a Turkish outfit called Global, but branded Candy Toys and 'Aras Eggo', I've only shot one, but it was a nice clip-together bicycle around the 54/60mm size. I can't remember if the other two were crap, or if I saved them for another day?

These were also there for a quid-each or less, Toymania from Hunter Price International (whose logo is a large bear riding a penny-farthing!), and looked like a bit of Dino-fun, only the two designs were available, I don't know if there are any others, and a soft rubbery polymer, probably filled with the same corn-syrup Stretch Armstrong was?

And this little babe was next to the Dino-sqishes! She's a bit weird, as she has two clip-on dresses, but ony the front/sides are modelled, so from the rear you can see her pink-underslip! Hence the stand and mini action-figure holder, she's for display, with the odd change of outwear! Also from Global Gida.

On the way to visit Peter's work, we passed a junky-antiquey shop and I asked if he ever got anything from it and Peter said occasionally (without much enthusiasm!), but after missing the bus past his work on the way back, I elected to walk up to the next stop, and the next (exercise is good for you and the weather was fine!), inevitably though; the  next bus went past while I was between stops!

Eventually I realised I'd walked back to where the shop was over the road, so I popped in, there was nothing of interest, but the chap there was determined to 'help' me, and when I mentioned I was looking for vintage toy soldiers, model figures or military/space toys, he went out the back and came back with this!

No brand, beyond a tomato in yellow shorts which may themselves be a Chinese character, and clearly not that old, but mid-to-late 1990's is old for some people! It's a space ta . . . err . . . armoured car!

Clockwork, the key's missing but I have a bag of spares somewhere, it has an eccentric wheel to send it off in odd directions, and a sparking engine-bay (so, much like most Russian tanks these days - Slava Ukraine!), and was a bit of fun so it came home with me!

Walking down to Charing Cross and cutting through St Martin's Place you pass a bunch of Touristy shops, and while there wasn't much, I saw these two in a stand at not-much each and grabbed them so you won't have to!

We've looked at animals with pencil-top holes very similar to this horse I think (they may be in the long queue?), so this is more confirmation than anything else, while the guardsman is a pen-dangler, and a little blob of super-deformed poured resin to boot!

When I went to pay for the toppers or the next lot (below, seperate shops) this egg was on the counter by the till, so I grabbed one on the off-chance and got a figural, Minion slinky . . . or 'slinky-Minion? I haven't noted the brand on this, but I saved the wrapper so it's in the 'archive' for future revalation!

Theseare both good and bad, they're good because they were dirt cheap, they're quite nice die-casts, wire brush-polished for that satin/silk look and then both anodised gold and antiqued with a dark wash, but bad because they are obviously drilled for pencil sharpeners, which haven't been fitted, so either a bloody swizz, or an ugly hole, you chose! Imported from China by Elgate Products - previously importing resin Pirates; see Blog passim, also courtesy of Peter Evans.