I is for Iwako

Right...total surfeit of vintage crap in the last few days so lets have a look at some modern crap! This crap is - on one level - real crap, but it's also trendy-crap which means that in about 15 years time you'll have 30-somthing's on whatever replaces Facebook, or whatever Blogger's morphed-into going "Ooh, I remember collecting them back in the twenty-teens!"

Take the Deiner Industries robots I posted right back at the start of this blog as a minor make, they now have several web-pages and a couple of forum threads across the Internet, dedicated to them by the LRG (little Rubber Guys) collectors, who are a generation below me.

Anyway lets look at them...

 ...except of course - you've already seen them...there are great piles, tables, racks, tubs and other displays of them in WHSmith, Paperchase, Staples, Rymans, all the toy chains, most of the independent toy shops, Wilko/Wilkinson's and most supermarkets!

You just saw them out of the corner of your eye and dismissed them as crap - correct, well done, move to the back of the class and muck about!

But a massive collectability-factor with endless colour variants means they are taking-off like Loom-bands did last year (readers in the US had the bands craze a year or two earlier...I won't be covering them here, nor Hipsters with Merman hair-do's!!! Planet's going to the dogs...), and as new packaging types come out the older ones get reduced - and they're not expensive to being with - so collecting on pocket money budgets is a goer.

The above are the two standard formats from Iwako themselves; carded sets of 6 or 7 items and individual bags with a header card.

Ty have re-packed some in the hope of repeating the success of their now fading Bennie-Babies, but giving them a name and doubling the price hasn't helped when the originators are flooding the market with their originals!

There are non-animal subjects around like these trucks, although these might not be Iwako originals, the Wilko ones seem close but not quite (see below), however they are cheap, with the three cats being offered for 49p

Anything coming from the Far East is soon copied in the...er...Far East! these are fakes, found in an Independent toy retailer and were also only pennies. They (Playwrite) are quite poor, with daft colours and a poor register for the components, the Wilko ones are closer to the originals but made in China, not Japan

A comparison between various Iwako and non-Iwako giraffes, some dice (also Wilko) and a nice Battleships game from WHSmith wihich was around five or six quid I think, but I couldn't resist it. Wilko also do three larger stacking space-ships, but I forgot to photograph them!

All these are made from a new hybrid synthetic rubber, which is a softer version of the stuff HäT used on their Assyrian Chariots, it is gritty, easy to tare and not very good at the job it's earmarked to do...erase pencil lead!

However the old PVC and soft styrene that made the best 1970-90's erasers were very damaging to the planet and the UN are keen to get PVC phased out completely in time, so this stuff is presumably a step toward that goal?

Some more shots, it's all self explanatory. Apart from a bear that was blogged here a while ago; I was bought the first few as gifts, and since last autumn have been building up a small collection specifically for this post, that's them done and I won't be seeking any more, but they will start to come in in mixed lots in a few years - guarantee it!

Link:
Iwako Company Website

A is for Around and About

Following-on from the Dr. Who Adventures magazine freebies the other night, this is all stuff I've picked-up between the middle of November and last week, most of it should therefore still be readily available somewhere, if only on evilBay (the TK Maxx stuff for instance) where some enterprising soul has bought a whole load and doubled its price on the 'Buy it Now' model of capitalism!

On Saturday the 12th(?) of November I put the whole of my collection in a van and drove it to the storage unit, by the following Tuesday I was able to take this photograph back at the flat! The Minuteman from Britians was my 'best letter' gift from Toy Soldier and Model Figure magazine, the Siku set was a TK Maxx reduction/clearance item (who decided on 1:55th scale for gods sake, when they've already got 1:42, 1:48, 1:50 and 1:60 as standards in the die-cast vehicle universe?!!) as was the Bakugan carded set. the rest came from a bakers that still had old Festival stock along with newer pieces.

Close-up of the Festival Cupid/Eros figure with its factory-paint intact, clearly marked Festival, I know the train candle-holders are Festival as well.

Poundstreacher had the YB vehicles (CAT knock-offs) for a few quid before Christmas and may well have some left, it's been a while since I was there. While the awful pink castle came from the new 99p Shop in Newbury. The castle went strait in the bin but the figures were kept, they're between 54 and 60 mil and have hollow backs...so sort of semi-round?!

Walmart-call-me-Asda gave me the paratrooper, free in exchange for about £2.99, I can't remember where the animals came from (possibly Ryman's?) but they are all over the place at the moment and I know Sainsbury's have a similar assortment - bagged - in their party-favor range and I've seen Dinosaurs as well.

The Huntik thing was another clearance item from TK Maxx, while the new Lego figure range has just come out all over the place and the Clash of Hero's bags are currently in The Works for 99p.

These two were Rymans's and I'm going to take the key-ring off the Dalek, the TY Bear was a 'sample' purchase, I will not be getting any more, but he will help to identify the stuff when it starts coming-in in mixed lots 20 years from now.

These were both Poundshop, one (truck) before Christmas the other (Woodie) last week, both - obviously - a quid! I'll be removing the key-ring again. the truck is a little bigger than 1:76/72 stuff like Airfix or Academy.

These both came from the craft superstore in Basingrad I can never remember the name of, but 'Super Craft Store' will do for now [The Arts and Crafts Superstore - Winchester Road], the Pirate set has 8 lovely 54mm figures but at that price only an idiot would by it, so I asked if I could take a photograph for the blog and they said yes - that's why the image is ruined by about 11 strip-light reflections!

Studies of the golfer cake-decoration from Wilson, the figure is identical to the figure that used to come with large-scale HK vehicles of the Camper-van type back in the 1960's and '70's but the base has been altered to read 'Wilson' and 'China'. The accessories went in the same bin as the pink castle.

So there you have it; lots of bits around and about if you look for it, and in years to come some of this stuff will be harder to find (some would argue - you won't want to find it!) than turn of the last century hollow-casts or 1950's 54mm plastic, because there is more being produced now than ever before, but a lot of it - all that TK Maxx sell-through - is only available for a very short period.

There's a film called 'The Last Airbender' or Water-sucker or something which has spawned at least two sets of figures; small ones I've seen in TK Maxx and larger 4" type 'action figures' which were in Poundstretcher - I think - which (as I've never heard of the film) must have had such a short shelf-life you'll not find them on Google (or it's successor) in 50 years time, and dozens of similar movies are giving rise to equally unpopular figures all the time.