F is for First Flying Saucer

Except, they're not saucers are they, they're domed, and it's not my first, as I have the wonderfully lethal Marx Mystery Spaceship, and its half-controllable, 20-kiloton, kinetic-engine, with air-raid siren wind-up! But, this is my first 'full size' Hong Kong, placky-tacky, big-box toy, and I think it's one of the more common designs, not least than because PMS reissued it without stickers, a few years ago, also branded to a 'JS' (?), and claimed for China on a rack-card.

 

This is the older version, with NASA stickers, and while it was a bit grubby, which may have contributed to a cheap price, it cleaned-up near new, abart from playware to the gummed-paper flag.

 

What was known as a 'bump-and-go' toy, an eccentric steering, at the front, allowed it to escape obstacles by changing direction every few seconds, like a robot vacuum-cleaner, but it doesn't collect dust, or cats tails!

 

I don't know if the PMS issue had the original markings, or a new China-related message, but as far as I know the original was an unbranded generic?

 

One vinyl, one paper. Another Sanddown Park purchase, it ticks a box!

M is for May Visit - TV, Fantasy and Sci-Fi

So, to the last of the plunder I picked-up in May, and it's all the less than realistic or historical stuff, with a little bit of everything!

 

Another Weetos cereal premium, I seem - over the last few years - to have gone from waiting for the full set in any colour to how many do I have in all colours?! A knock-off MPC and a rocket which might be a missile from a big-box set?

 

Four Phidal 'Busy Book' superheroes, or villains, I already have the second from the left, but without the freezy-fronds, and it was the Archer which kicked that particular odyssey off, back in 2017!

 

Christmas cracker angel, I have quite the orchestra now! Unicorn's were Unique or The Works I think? A Battle Beast sans weapons, often the way, but I do have spares bags of odd action-figure sized accessories, so there will be a mating-up session one day. And a Gem putti/Eros/Cupid cake decoration.

 

Those generic superheroes again, I did find their post the other day, with help from Brian we'd ID'd them one side of The Pond at least as both 'Aircraft Warrior' (JPW I think), or Warrior Super Fighters (as a generic), but - in both cases - sans these little companion figures (here missing the blue one),

 

A vinyl-rubber modern Santa, and an older styrene one, the latter sold as a cake decoration, the newer, probably as part of an eraser set? Soon be Christmas . . . again!

 

Elves or children? Obviously from a board game, and they seem to be moving on tippy-toe, and shushing, with their finger, so maybe they are night-caps, and it's a bedtime game?

 

I thought this was one of the Gormity figures from Ideal we saw, in some shelfies a year or two ago, but they were gunmetal and different poses, so he's still a mystery, and a chunky one!

 

Ben 10 on the left, prbably the green one too, and maybe the chap with a red shirt, I think the last one is Star Wars? While the gezzer in the middle looks like a Disney Princess type knock-off, some kind of price or suitor?

 

Two Mighty Morphin's, Micro Machine on the left, unknown mini on the right.

 

Two of the Hing Fat 'Galaxy Cowboys'. 

 

A mixed lot, with a rack-toy Ninja, Iwako eraser bear, Toy Story's 'Combat Carl' from Phidal, slightly damaged, poured-resin ceremonial bear (needs it's pole-crown replaced), a Munch Bunch banana, and what is, I think, Jess the cat from Postman Pat?

 

UFO with little Aliens, I actually saw these in the store on a more recent visit to Peter, and I can't, for the life of me, recall if they were drowning in slime, or surrounded with candies, but it was one or 'tother? Green or purple, and they are in that stiff but softish synthetic rubber/PVC replacement elastomer, while the saucer is a bog-standard 'styrene. Note they have charm-loops but no chains.

 

Many thanks as always to Peter for most of these, I got the Phidal's and the game pieces from the Toy project I think, he found everything else.

E is for Eye Candy - Daleks and Mechaniods

My new camera really seems to struggle to take decent pictures in strong, natural light, especially on the macro setting, which is bloody annoying, especially when you consider it's cost more than every other camera killed by the Blog, put together, its near five-hundred quid, being more than all their forty-to-sixties! And it struggles both with focusing and compensating for the light levels.

 

So I'm already more disappointed by Olympus, than I was by the two Fuji Finepix I started with, before discovering the Nikon Coolpix, with which most of the Blog, to date, has been produced. Not that they were brilliant, they all died (about four or five of them), either from inordinate fluff finding itself into the lens, or components of the battery-housing catches breaking, and two actually went dead, after lens/focus failure.

 

But, it's par for the course, not in modern Britain, but the modern World, they (capitalists) are not interested in the customer, but only in the customer's money, and the customer is no longer first, nor right. We won't get to the stars if we can't build what have become 'basic' electronics, properly, and anyone who's switched (or been forcibly switched) to Windows11 will know we are actually going backwards now.

 

But, enough whinging, I shot these when I was up at the storage unit the other day, and while they're not brilliant shots, they are fun images!

 

Cherilea Daleks and Mecanoids, a pair of each with matching midriff colours! I've since discovered another type of Mechaniod, with handrails running round the 'equator', so my three or four (I think it's three, and enough bits for two crashed ones!), are still only a start!

P is for Post Office . . . Rack Toys!

Specifically, the Cranleigh Post Office!

 

For those loyal readers who aren't aware of the fact (which is probably most of you), Cranleigh is a rather smart villagey-town in an equally smart corner of Surrey Hills, a 'stockbroker dormitory' for those who 'come down' from London at the weekend, in their shiny, black SUV-4x4-Crossover wanker's tanks, and where they park their trophy wives and Eton-bound brats!

 

It also serves some of the smartest villages and hamlets you'll find, like Plaistow, and the 'folds (Ifold, Dunsfold (home of the Hawker Harrier*) and Alfold) and is known to describe the feeling of "A mood of irrational irritation with everyone and everything." from the little-black-book The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd, a surprise, comedy, Christmas-hit, decades ago, now, which was contemplative reading in our loo for years, and rather sums-up those stockbroker residents! Indeed, the less kind might accuse me of suffering chronic Cranleigh! I would - of course - point to the bell-curve (and what's happening in America right now), and argue it's not irrational.

 

* I served in the TA for a while with a Mr. Boxall who was in the paint shop at Dunsfold, and used to do all the markings for Hawks and Harriers, new and refurbishments! I don't know if he did the Red Arrows, but he told of the flurry of activity during the Falklands crisis.

 

Anyway, I have been driving round there, for work, recently, and saw a sign behind the trees in the main street saying "Balloons & Other Novelties", and thought that sounded interesting, so made a mental note to return, on a day-off, when it (which turned out to be the Post office) was open, and did so! Finding a quite well-stocked corner of cheaper toys, gifts, craft work stuff and, yes, novelties!

 

This is what I found;

 

The latest iteration of the set of six largish, but cheap dinosaurs we saw here under several brands about eight/ten years ago (Poundland, TKMaxx, 99p Stores and others), singly or in threes. Currently wearing Kandytoys moniker, and I think this is one of the second paint versions, we saw last time?

 

This was actually branded TKM, so must have been a bulk purchase at some point, from, probably, Home Bargains? A nice set of larger animals for those who collect such things, the elephant is nicely sized for conversion to a 25mm war elephant, but I'm not sure why the lioness is a completely different colour from the lion!

 

This was HGL (Grossman), and goes well with my British Museum ruminant Sauropoda (future post!), it is what it is, but collaged poorly due to its dimensions!

 

This is the 'other' Alien illustrated on the card of the Whitehouse Leisure one I found in Stansted the other week (https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/08/r-is-for-recent-rack-toy-roundup.html), without the Elf's ears, and while I didn't look closely on either occasion, and got both sculpts out of two purchases by pure accident, I think it can be assumed both come in both brandings? This is also badged Kandytoys.

 

I left him in the slime for now, as it has a heat-sealed lid, like a milk carton! The cap, however, is a whacky, LED-embedded, screaming-loud, multicoloured UFO, which is operated from the button on the top, but with a sealed-unit battery, won't last forever! It adds to a growing fleet of mini flying-saucers!

 

It was mostly dinosaurs though, and here another from a set of, err . . . several, each of which has a mini-saur in a decorative egg! I only got the one, to help with future ID'ing, and it shares branding with both Kandytoys (the reused sculpt above) and 'Jurassic Era', but is a new sculpt as far as I know

 

As do these (share the brand/brand-mark), but which, again, I think we saw years ago, as generics or in Pucator branding? These were cheap as chips (not that chips are that cheap these days; even a child's portion can be a fiver!), so I bought two, and will un-dig one of these glow-in-the-dark dino-skeletons, one day!
 

Heading back, I dropped into Borden to check the Poundstretcher for those Supreme knock-off Wild West sets - they hadn't had a re-stock, so no Cowboys (they were in the bigger set we looked at a few years ago), and instead I left with this soft-vinyl, metallic dry-brushed, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, robo-stego-dragon, for something daft like 70p? Bargain! And ideal for figures between 20-40mm.
 

Right, I've got a week or so to fire out as much rack-toy stuff as I can, and will try to make an effort!

T is for Transports of Delight

I know I'm supposed to claim to be a toy soldier and/or model figure collector, but vehicles have always had a place, not least because of the Airfix 'readymades' when I was a small-scale collector, but just as scenics and then spaceships started to feature, alongside Dinosaurs (quite recent) and erasers or cracker/gum-ball novelties, so mini and micro-vehicles have taken a growing corner of the stash for their own.

 

The fact that collected brands like Manurba, Pyro/Kleeware or MPC gave-up micro-AFV's, or the little trio of gun/armoured car/carrier thing, which came with so many rack-toys, was the start, but once you're into novelties, vehicles feature quite often, and these have all been added to the pile this year!

Actually, the exception which proves the rule - this came in some time ago, if the bedspread is anything to go by, it's been in storage for well over a year now, I think! A soft polyethylene copy of the Matchbox Greyhound coach, possibly from an earlier 'styrene Blue Box one, but starting to get a bit truncated, almost a 'deform', and smaller than the original. This may have been a put-aside from Gareth Morgan or Chris Smith.

 

A die-cast Benbros Qualitoy Gypsy wagon, these were the sort of wagon the itinerant knife-sharpeners, tin-smiths and other crafters would take village to village, all gone now, but there were still one or two on the road when I was a kid. Now rich 'celebrities' have fake ones placed in their gardens! This also shows other ways vehicles sneak into the collection, firstly my side-interest in wagons, and secondly; small-scale horses!

 

Two pieces of slush-cast lead, probably British, and a die-cast fire-engine, probably American? These were saved for me/donated to the Blog by Adrian Little, a while ago I seem to recall, and help with ID'ing them would be gratefully received! They may all, also, be board-game playing pieces?

 

Picked up in the September Sandown Park show, we have four from one series and a racing-car from another, all polystyrene, and all Hong Kong product. We looked at all my 'moulded-on wheels' micro-stuff a year or so ago, but there's also tons of this working wheels stuff, a lot of it marked W Germany, but plenty of British and HK lots, so these will join their samples against a proper look at them all one day.

 

Two of them are marked Made In Hong Kong, while the other two have an additional stock or tool number, but wheels/axles tie them to each-other.

 

I'm loving this, I'm pretty sure I already have one, possibly in the same red, which may have been on the Blog already (another Chris Smith jobbie?), but I seem to remember it having damaged engine-nacelles, while on this new example they are all present and correct. I suspect this might be a slightly upmarket (but still budget-end) Christmas cracker inclusion?

 

 It's also a spinning-top, which looks as if it should also whistle or howl, through those slats in the bodywork, but I can't get a note out of it! Of interest is the three nipplettes arranged around the spin-nipple (all my own nomenclature!), which help to prevent it from tipping too soon, or wobbling, so, help keep it spinning!

 

The flying saucer (here seen after cleaning!) came with these and the items in the next image, all around the same size, but obviously from different sources, the plane here being a bubble-gum capsule, a small piece of generic pink gum, similar to that which came with the little tanks, being stuffed in the nose and wedged against the tapered body as the two were closed together.

The yacht could be another cracker prize, or a basic/budget bath toy, or even supplied with a piece of bubble-gum 'cargo'? It was a much produced/copied novelty from both W Germany and Hong Kong, back in the day, but this seems to be the best quality one (with realistic, relief-sculpted, racing markings on the marbled sails) in a growing sample of them (we've seen a few over the years, not least a whole card of Rado/Ri Toys ones!), and while unmarked, may be British?

The wheeled passenger-boat is all soft plastic, and probably the most modern thing in the post, maybe as late as the 1990's or 2000's, and could be cracker, gum-ball or rack-toy, while the HK copy of a Manurba mini-sub is one of several generations of piracy, previously seen on the blog as rack toys.

 

Once they've all joined their like-for-likes, we'll return to them here, hopefully with details to add, or just 'bigger-pictures' as far as numbers in sets, or polymer/paint colours go! I was going to add some Internet images to this post, but there's so many of them, they can be another - 'lazy' - post, another day! And thanks to all who save this stuff for me, in addition to those named above.

H is for Here's Something a Little Different!

Loot bags! A modern thing, for those 'consolation' presents I mentioned back on the Marx 6" figure post a week or so ago, in our day we just carried our Indian home, letting him look out of the window of the Morris Traveller. Now they get so much stuff, toys, sweets, a sticker sheet, gods - and harassed parents - know what, that they get a bag to put it all in!

 

I'm sure it's just a CAD-CGI-Photoshop mash-up (Don't tell Princess Pure, she'll have the kids on a 'real' spaceship for the official Christmas card!), but I thought the two ships looked plasticky enough for the Blog! In fact, they are somewhat channelling elements of Toy Story or its toy lines?

 

That's it, a small, plastic shopping bag (approximately A5) on Small Scale World, box ticked! And I'm being unfair I know, we had pass-the-parcel, which always had a prize, sometimes some smaller-ones, hidden in the many layers, so some kids did take home a few things? Or a slice of cake, if it was a fruit-cake, which some were . . . in fact, I demand loot bags for 60's kids, now! Sooooounfair!

UFO is for UAP - Imperial / CEM / PMS / Titan - Sammy Steel Series, Micro Adventure, My Adventure Journey, Space Adventure, Space Explorer

So, the last trio, except as Sammy Steel it extends to nearly a dozen sets, and two or three of them were issued as generics in France by the looks of it, but for the purposes of this post we're looking at the non-Sammy Steel sets issued in the UK and Germany, which are a trio.

 

For the Imperial US/Australian Sammy Steel story (which seems to include Titan Toys here, but I've not seen them in packaging), this is the start page for a four-page explanation;

https://mikestoybox.net/2014/07/12/sammy-steel-series-1-mighty-max-knock-off/#jp-carousel-6429

 

So, my two are in the middle, both PMS (which - at the time - might have meant a 99p Stores exclusive?), with the card back to the left and a generic from feebleBay on the right, although decent shots of the rocky one have escaped this post, it may be in storage?

 

We get two identical flying saucers, but only on the outside, as even then, they are different colours, while the inner liner is very-different between them both. To go with them is a rocky 'meteorite' based on what is supposed to be a volcano sculpt!

I didn't really notice that the German one is another card, and while I did shoot it in its entirety for the group shot at the end of the first post in this sequence, I don't have a decent single card shot! This was imported by a CEM?

I haven't opened this PMS set, but you can see the 'rest of the world' generics have all the contents of the Sammy Steel sets, but in new colours and without the Sammy character figures, although, I'm pretty sure I have him, the sabre-toothed smilodon (on the Blog somewhere?) and a couple of the other pieces not found in this trio, so they will all turn-up eventually!

 

Note the plug-in dish/ariel and fold out ramp, scudding about loose in the blister!

I did open the PMS version of this one after I'd got the CEM one to keep whole! The lizard man looks better in green than the Sammy Steel orange, in my opinion, although the fliver/flyer/hover-bike is probably better in the original grey? And these are all - sort of - 20/25mm compatible.

So, six true UFO 'saucers' and three more esoteric designs . . . I hope these posts have helped some with the ID'ing of these which have confused for some time, and as I say, these posts are a bit half-cocked, and we will return to them when I get everything in one place, and find the few missing bits (I may have the meteorite/cave), maybe do it as a single page, with all the sets/links together in one place?

And this is only what I've found, there's probably more; more packagings, more importers, more brand-marks, and while I don't often address money here, I was going to have a long paragraph or two ranting about the money being asked/paid for the US/Aussie sets, only to find someone has one of these PMS cards up on evilBay right now for 50-smackers? WTF? These are recent, cheapo rack-toys, you should hope to get, or pay no-more than 15-quid for, and - intrinsically - they are a fiver's worth of tat!

UFO is for UAP - Hinstar / Avra / DAS / Dival / Eugene / Simba - Galaxy War Striker, Star Warriors

Chapter two of this particular story, and my first encounter with it, I'd picked up a few loose micro-mech's a few years before I got my dog-faced trio with their big, blue space-taxi! And one of the first to get a good write-up (as Hinstar) about 16-years ago, but I now can't find the site?

 

Marked on the underside as Hinstar without a date, each of the three machines (only one is strictly a saucer), comes with eight robots, which I assume are based on/cloned from commonly licensed 'Mechs', from Japanese or US Kid's TV output?

 

Imported into the UK by DAS, into Greece by Avra, and Germany and it's neighbours by Simba, they are all brand-marked Eugene, and I have a screen-cap which seems to indicate a Dival also imported them to somewhere, but Google won't search for Dival, defaulting to 'Devil' without the option to search for the asked phrase/task instead?

 

My original sample, shot in 2013, at the time they were in the Galoob boxes, as someone had authoritatively stated they were Micro-Machines, not an attribution I was ever happy with, they didn't have Galoob quality, they didn't have MM bases, they didn't have Action Fleet or Army Gear articulation, and they were both polyethylene and clear knock-offs?

 

But you can see they had three colourways, and more than eight sculpts (I still haven't tried to work out how many sculpts there are?!!), with metallics that vary from batch to batch and are best described as Brass/Gold, Copper/Bronze and Silver/Gunmetal/Aluminium. The one on his own at the bottom is mould-damaged, and quality on all is no better than rack-toy 'army men'.

My three, with the original 9 and others which have come in I should have enough to calculate the total number of poses, but simply haven't got round to it yet! Generally the colours of the robots tie-in with each ship, but there were larger space-station sets which may have got a larger mix of figures.

 

While one issue (Holland?) got human or humanoid figures in primary colours which I haven't tracked-down yet. Their vessels may all be different colours too, the pale blue 'arrow-head' is navy-blue plastic in the Dutch issue.

Two spaceships and a flying saucer, which has offset 'battleships guns' sticking out to be broken off! All these sets can be traced back to Polly Pocked, not the Mighty Max most websites suggest (for all three sets), as Max himself owes his existence to Polly, who predates him. Equally, Galoob, who had the most success with this stuff, were only exploiting an existing idea from Bluebird Toys.

A couple of interactive parts, with a moving radar dish and sliding 'elevator' capsule, mine all came together about 18-months ago, but then went straight to storage, so I can't remember offhand what details the other two had, the silver one may have had sliding seats, and the orange dome in the brown one may have done something?

 

The Greek Avra sets, they were issued as the above three designs as well, with an Avra sticker, but here have been given new ship designs (on the same Eugene cards, slipped into the Avra boxes) and you only get five robots per card/box.

UFO is for UAP - Uni-King Toys / Peter Kiri - Mysteries of the Universe UFO

So, I'm not so fussed about the absolute order of these, but these are the 'better' of the three lines (marginally), so I'm leading with them, even though the Uni King sets (which I call the 'Triple Flap Families') were dated 1996, against the 1993 of Imperial's Mighty Max knock-off - Sammy Steel!

 

March 2021 - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

These three posts are a bit of a mix of Internet stuff and my stuff, as the bulk of mine went to storage before I'd got all the shots I wanted, although some of them had already gone, or been separated at some point, the best are the Hinstar (next post) as all three loose sets came together at the end!

 

So, variously generic or, as the larger sets, credited to a Uni-King, and sometimes the UK importer Peter Kiri, these are a lot of fun, and you get little 'families' of aliens (hence my shorthand name for them!) with a few accessories, in a 'flying saucer' or UFO which unfolds in three sections and has a micro-mini UFO as the roof-piece, which can be flown off! By fingers!

We saw my first family, incomplete, way back at the start of the blog, the dog-faces, in the blue saucer, and a black saucer came loose from Chris Smith I think, not that long ago, but they are both in storage now, one with a couple of bits missing, the other sans contents.

 

But I did get the figures from the black one, although I'm not sure if I shot them, and these (Greenies) may be an evilBay image? The 'Greys' I did have to hand, but the accessories were only partial! Basically, you get two adults and two kids!

 

The green set, with its micro-UFO sitting atop the central column. This one also has three not-so-greys, moulded into their stasis-chambers, and - like the other three - a revolving floor, which allows for a second layer of detailing underneath, visible in sections as you push the missing segment of floor/gap around the central column.

Spiny-twisty things, there seems to have been plans for a third cover/hatch (hole next to left-hand feature), but for reasons of budget, or technical difficulty (or forgetfulness?) it never happened? The saucers and accessory-pieces are a 'styrene, or brittle'ish polypropylene, while the figures are PVC or one of its substitutes.

I'm missing a tripod, which should be red, but is white on the packaging artwork, in fact all the packaging artworks show pre-production stuff, and there are various subtle differences in design and contents. The missing elements mean we can return to this set another day, when I've got everything together and filled any gaps!

 

Each set is themed around a couple of tropes of the UFOlogists, here it's 'Greys' and the Easter Island Moais, the huge monolithic sculptures carved by the Rapa Nui with NO help from phuqing Aliens! And the little Moai is also missing, but I may have one somewhere in the stash, but I fear mine is Lego, Kinder or something similar?

18/12/2023 - Late Addition:

My original 3 of 4 'cute' aliens, I'm missing the other 'child'.