F is for Follow-up - Robot Pencil Tops

Except, these mostly have a person inside, as the originals, and are therefore 'battle suits', except that some transformers or autobots don't? I don't know, I barely follow it and haven't watched any of the movies, too loud and too reliant on CGI for me, bah-humbug! We looked at my smallish sample four-and-a-half years ago here;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2021/03/u-is-for-ultrapenciltop.html

A sample which has since grown, not least with the help of Chris Smith, who not only sent that pair the other day (I think the brown one is less common), but who seems to send one or two in every parcel, and a few have come in from other sources, which is useful, as there seem to be quite a few to find altogether, either version type (soft erasers or harder pencil-top-only's), or colour, or post number.

What follows is some Internet scrapings, I've been saving, on-and-off, since 2010, which back-up a comment I made elsewhere a couple of years ago, mentioning the fact that they keep turning up in quantity.

Here's a bulk lot, branded to Treasure Chest, by Goliath-Hall Inc., but obviously imported from Hong Kong, of interest is that the whole lot are in one polymer colour, yellow, but are otherwise the same as all the others, usually sold as generics. There is a current Goliath Games, but this lot were formed in the 1950's and closed-up in 2005.

Four of the poses, possibly on the origianl pencils some issues came with, possibly Tom[y], reading at the top of the left-hand one? I'd like to find more of the green ones! I'm not sure how well this image will show, though, until I publish? It's behaving oddly in Picasa!

Another all-yellow set, no 'Masked Kamen Rider' (thank you Geofry Peeters) in this issue apparently, whether that makes him rarer, when they turn-up by the box-load is anyone's guess!

Blue'ies!

 

Blacks

 

A mix of colours, including a clearly off-white, or cream, as opposed to the snow-white seen in my previous post, It would seem that rarer colours are the two purples (deep and mauve'ish) and the brown, but that could simply be a question of what I've encountered, rather than any genuine rarity!

While this generic, counter-top lot, have been manufactured in an eraser rubber, with no paint, whether it's a good rubber, or smeary silicon I don't know, but it looks eraserble! Rider is back!

Autobots, Godaikins, Grandizer, Mazinger, Shogun Robots, or Transformers, you have to be a more dedicated fan than me, to know what you are looking at, but the toys and minis are plentiful, and fun!

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!

P is for Peter's Plunder - Highlights 2

The rest of the best! Everything else has been filtered into the temporary TBS storage here in the flat and will be used over time in thematic or comparison shots, or eventually, when I stop talking about it and get it done, the A-Z blog entries!

These were interesting, they are hard polystyrene, sub-scale copies of the Timpo GI's (and will need adding to the Khaki Infantry page at some point), probably from Poland, but could be Hungarian or Argentinian, or similar?

 

Four make-weights at the back, but in front is a totally new-to-me figure of a pioneer/SeaBee/mine-clearer, prone with shovel (or is he a combat latrine digger!), I'm guessing (even assuming!) he's from a small, modern play set, or window-box/die-cast vehicle type thing? Could he be from one of the Toy Story sets?

 

I found one of these while putting this one away, so we may have seen it before here, but no harm to see it again . . . imported by Tech H E Ltd., credited to a Just Play, but clearly actually Hasbro via 'Authentic Transformers'?

 

I may have these in storage, Turtle Stampers, they were in the TKMaxx subsidiary Home Bargains a while ago, and I remember trying to select two cards which had the maximum of poses and minimum duplicates, but I'm not sure if I bought them or left them on the peg, after a rare moment of budgetary common sense?

 

Not to scale, a whole bunch of mostly modern mechanics, road/construction workers and race crew, with the old Dinky example in grey 'styrene. Mike Blake shows a larger sample of the yellow ones in one of these new, generic crinkly-bag China sets in the latest issue of Plastic Warrior magazine (issue 193, pp.12), but doesn't mention the hollow-backs, I don't know if his examples are full-solids?

 

The racing champion, semi-flat, looks a bit like some of the farm stuff carried by Padgett Brothers (A-Z), so may be via-them, and while the decoration might be home-messing with paint-markers (there's a lot of it around these days), I suspect factory-paint?

 

To scale!

Cherilea (?) tree, Quaker Foods gladiator's horse and a jumping ghost.

Brilliant!

 

A bag from The Toy Project's shop in North London, much covered in the past and worth a visit if you're near, worth supporting in any event. A Papo pirate, two natives from the Playmates (?) King Kong sets, a Disney Princess and two farmworkers, along with a couple of interesting figures . . . 

. . . being the characters of Duke Kaboom and Combat Carl, both from the Toy Story franchise, and I believe both Toy Story 4? There are various iterations of Combat Carl (don't say GI Joe, they may sue, Evel Knievel's family/estate were threatening to?)*, what's fun is that they are sculpted as mini action-figures, complete with knee and elbow joints - so would make excellent action-figure props in a dolls house! Wheels within wheels, as pop eats itself!

 

*They did, they lost!

 

Many thanks to Peter for putting all this stuff to one side for me, and you, to enjoy!

E is for Eye-Candy - Best of the Rest

After I'd done the first two posts/shots (posts below this one) I had a sort-out, and this is the rest of the odd's and stand-alone's, here at the moment, and an eclectic bunch they are too, but mostly bigger than the previous 'mini' Bots.

The large red one, to the left, is a huge blow-moulded, thick-walled, hollow PVC lump, possibly Japanese rather than Hong Kong, and probably 1970's, but unmarked, with plug-in PVC arms and ariels/helmet-guns. The other one, to the right, is one of the Arco-Mattel bendies, with plug-in 'ethylene weapons and a Hong Kong sticker on one foot. The other red one, between them, is unmarked apart from a 'C1' on one foot, and probably quite modern?

Four eraser-types (x2 silver, orange and yellow) which may have missed previous posts on the subject are front centre, while the right hand green one is another M.U.S.C.L.E. (also Mattel), giving us a scaler with the previous post's image. The other green one is actually more of an action-figure, in polystyrene, with a self-tapping screw in his back holding all the moving parts together.

The other articulated droid also has a screw in his back and moving components, and is a Manta Force Karnoid from Bluebird Toys, some - probably not this one - via Tomy.  While the yellow individual on the far left is more humanoid, but his head is all 'mecha', so if it's not a robot, it's an android of some kind. The best reason AI will have for keeping some of us alive, is to provide them with headless, locomotive bodies!

 

As a Brucey-bonus, and apart from the green one above, the only other 'styrene ones I have here at the moment, these are modern, marked China and obviously come in different colour-schemes, I don't know how many sculpts there are, but they are more like the previous 'minis' in size.

E is for Eye-Candy - Fantastic Plastic

These are the other bag, all rigid polyethylene, 'propylene or nylon/rayon low-friction bearing type plastics, and like the previous lot, novelty items, of the Christmas cracker/capsule-prize variety. The pink Dinobot is a Power Rangers knock-off.

 

Apparently, approximately twice as common as the soft, squidgy ones, it's NOT scientific! The large green one bears a resemblance to the Voltron ones we've seen here once or twice, he . . . it's also a parachute toy, as is the fat, dumpy, green one, front left. The green one front middle is marked Rigo China.

 

The two oxide red ones are similar to the Arco ones, but a bit smaller and different sculpts, but could well be from the same factory/sculptor/team of sculptors? While the blue one back left is a plug-together 'swoppet', missing an arm and marked ANT with a pictogram of an ant! The orange one with a base was known to be Ace Acme in the 'States.

E is for Eye-Candy - Rubber Suits

Just a quickie, having a sort the other night and photographed all the minor-sample, droid-mecha-auto-tranformer-battle suit, small bots which have come in over the last few months, these are all soft, PVC-like or eraser-rubber, technically - mixed elastomers!

The three larger erasers we've seen before here, while the two taller blue ones are interesting for being my First marked 'Korea'. The sucker-bot is about half the size of the Lik Be (LB, because it can't realistically be anything else) ones, and the checked-chap in pale blue is a M.U.S.C.L.E from Mattel via-Japan, and the small blue one with the big exposed brain is another Japanese Kaiju type mini.

 

The rest (green, silver, orange and sucker) are Hong Kong's finest, with the green one being an apparent conversion, from the straight pantographing of a parachute toy licensed from He Man, I think, by removing the shroud-line hooks.

 

Added within the hour; the sucker-bot has a full set of M.K. and T-in-a-circle marks for Mei Kee, (also and since around 2016/17 credited to one of two Tai Hing's on Moonbase, I can't remember why) and is actually about 2/3rds of the size of the LB ones, not 1/2 as I said above - I'm shit at judging by eye!

 

There's loads of this mini-stuff in the stash, and one day I'll try to make more sense of it all!

H is for How They Come In - Sandown Park, November, 1 of 2

Well, I certainly didn't think I'd be doing a two-poster here, I was still on a tight-leash, and behaved myself, with a total spend of well under a hundred which is not common these days, back when I was a small-scale collector I could go to a show and get away with 60-quid, and still go home with huge bags of shite to sort out, not that you find those bags for a fiver these days! And I've just done a London show for less than 60, but they are future posts!

This was a real bargain, or two, the Brabo soldier (who I've been after since I first saw him in evilBay about 15-years ago) was a grail-find, and came in the bag with the scenic bits I think (Timpo, Britains and Speedwell), but the 'witch' was a surprise find, more so as we saw it here, quite a few moons ago, as a probably American newspaper cutting, the cutting is almost certainly American (it was from the James Chase collection), but this figure, clearly the same, is equally clearly marked MADE IN ENGLAND?

 

As an aside, it had escaped my notice that the Timpo sandbag-walls came in two sizes?

 

Novelty tape-measure, almost certainly from Japan, and you can see the tape is mostly missing, after failing near the spring. A quick google suggests I may be able to track down a replacement with the same dimensions, if not I have some old 'boring' key-ring tapes somewhere, and I bet the mechanisms will prove useable for a restoration job?

 

The Indian is a caricature type, but would go well in a display with the similar figures from Jecsan and Lik Be / LB, as they are all as daft as each other!

Some kind of Transformer knock-off?

 

Space tank! Space rocket! Space robots . . . Spacemen! A few days later, Chris (forthcoming posts) sent me a better rocket! All grist to the mill here, I'd love a brand on the tank if anyone recognises it?

 

Skandi' tractor, German coach and a pile of shite! Actually a couple of useful jig-toy trucks, one of which will need paint stripping, a Lucky Clover chariot (and very brittle driver) and cracker-toy, water-squirt pistol novelty.

 

This is fascinating, if only for its age, it's marked-up Pressman who are still with us, but will be a WWII-era, US, austerity piece, it's seen better days and with both the box and the soldier 'tray' now failing all over the place, Adrian announced it would probably be going in the bin, so I ended-up with it!

 

After I'd cobbled together the previous shots, I finally released them from their die-cut slumber, and popped one together for this post, but they are all in a bag, and I will try to find a way of displaying them at journey's end.

Duplicate Montaplex ACW set, still carrying a late 1930's bomber! And one of the 4D puzzle toys, we have looked at before now, seems to be the same as the Poundland Tiger/M1's of a few years ago, but another issue/tranche, here as a generic?

H is for How They come In - Even at Christmas!

I had an emergency Christmas parcel from Peter Evan arrive out of the blue the other day, small but perfectly formed with several items of interest, so let's have a look at it . . .

Two Disney figures (centre) and two Disneyalikes (outsides), from three sources, I think the Jasmine is Kinder; she's a polypropylene kit in three parts, I don't know where the Wasabi comes from, he's a bit Phidal-like, but on the small side and a softer PVC as are the two 'princesses', but they are not actually Disney, being Papo's 40mm fantasy models.

I love these! I think they are probably cavemen, but Peter wondered if they might be South Sea islanders (she certainly looks the part!), which would be nice, as there might be palm-huts or a dug-out canoe somewhere, they are also interesting for being two-part hollow mouldings like those dinosaurs we looked at a while ago. I guess a rack-toy thing and large'ish at 80mm

Wing Lung's copies of Matchbox US Infantry in 30mm, the MG gunner was missing from the end of the runner last time we looked at them (also courtesy of Peter!), and I think the other missing pose is probably the shooting officer as seen here, oversized and marked 'China', and also in the lot sent a couple of days ago.

These are some kind of rack-toy Transformer knock-off, there are no instructions, but trail-and-error will probably suffice, and I will build one, one day, just for fun! I have a yellow one somewhere, which probably also came from Mr. Evans, and the red one has a short-short component, otherwise they are the same tooling.

Cheers Peter - fun post for Christmas, and "Happy Christmas" to all Loyal Readers, let's hope 2022 is an improvement on the previous two!

Which also means that at some point in February we will have 22:22hrs 2nd of February 2022 which could be shortened (at twenty-two seconds past the minute) to 22:22:22-2/2/'22 . . . if that's not an invitation to one of Beelzebub's underlings - I don't know what is! Look out Yellowstone - your time may be at hand!