H is for How they Come In - Peter III

Difficult one this as I wanted to get Peter's stuff out once I'd done Theo's and Chris's donations, but I still have a Sandown and a London show in the queue, which should go in that order, but these bits were given to me at the last, recent London Toy Soldier Show, so slightly out of sequence . . . like anyone but me cares about the order of posting!

It's alright! It's still twelfth-night, so we're OK for a bit of crimbo stuff; just! I thought these (upper shot) were a set of three we looked at a year or two ago from Poundland (I think), but they're not, they were all white with touches of black for eyes, these have a full three colour paint-job, with black, red and either flesh or orange, but also a trio and also poured resin, I don't have the brand/maker?

Below are two tree decorations who happen to be the two 'King's men' from a Humpty Dumpty set we will look at again soon. Not clear in this shot are the wire twists set into their backs with which they were attached to the Christmas tree branches.

That blue horse I mentioned a few days ago, he goes with one of the Kinder Frozen sets, next to him is a rather nice novelty skeleton, who actually comes in four parts for a bit of jiggle-action! Along with an Alien 'baby'!

Below them a Timpo FFL-clone and an assault jet-ski! Not sure if we've seen the jet-ski before, but if we have I don't think it had the steering-handle attached?

We've seen a mate of the policeman in a past post I think, I've certainly united them in the last few days, but his 'oppo' might be in one of many charity shop purchases who's photo's are all still in the long queue! Two wrestlers, a Tomte Laerdal jeep with air force types (well they have to be in that colour!) and a handful of useful bits.

Those bits including another of those ubiquitous 'toy town' guardsmen, ubiquitous in the 1990's novelty production industry that is! A Crescent circus horse-clone probably from Maysun, a baby and a clone of the Dinky (or Corgi?) construction vehicle driver.

I've realised, over the Christmas break, that as well as hospital sets, dolls houses and rack toys (baby bath-time type sets etc.), some of these 'odd' babies are actually from Nativity sets, where they get dumped naked in the manger or basket-passing-for-a-manger!

First two on the bottom row here (baby Daisy & Goofy) are Heimo/Bully/Dunby-Combex-Marx types, but the first upper pair are less clear; Donald has a large cavity in his back, and is probably from a die-cast Disney related vehicle of some kind - I have a book on them all somewhere, I'll see if it's in that. The Mickey soldier is a relief flat, possibly from a fridge-magnet, or a hair-clip?

While the two to the right of each row are more of a mystery, I think the upper might be the wolf from the Three Little Pigs story, but doesn't tie-in with Disney's; the hat's wrong? And below him is . . . Figaro? Not sure about the hat again, and the dungarees? So I wonder if they are from another cartoon altogether . . . anyone know who they are; maybe French or Italian kids TV characters?

Thanks as always to Peter for these, they all add to the whole!

A is for And so to London - Stopover

After we'd visited The Toy Project (previous post), we popped back to Peter's on the way to somewhere else, and I shot a few bits on Peter's 'bench' while he threw a small bag of goodies at me!

Following on from the mini-season of Supreme overview-posts in Rack Toy Month, here are a couple more, the rider is possibly from a Simba-specific set, but no doubting the horse or that rich, 'bright' gold as being Supreme's, while the foot figure (here oversized by dint of the collage process) is from the harder to find fantasy set, in the same style as the commoner pirates and skeletons (and believed roadworkers).

A semi-permanent feature of Peter's worktop was this rather fine Egyptian palace/temple frontage, with a mixture of Worlds Apart (Horrible Histories), K&M and what look to be Hachette and might be other resin partwork-type figures, Gods and artifacts.

Hong Kong originating mash-up of Britains/Timpo/Lone Star 'swoppet' style knight, I have some somewhere and meant to blog them but never got round to shooting them before they went to storage, I think we saw them in a larger image of stuff which came-in on the same day? I think the pair are ELC, or similar (Wilkinsons/Wilco have had a nice range on-and-off over the last ten or so years).

Peter also threw this lot at me; I particularly like the solid He-Man knock-off, while the footballer looks like a certain blubbing Geordie whose star shone bright, but not for long? Rabbits are from some 'in my pocket' line I think, or a kids comic/periodical, several titles have this kind of stuff on the cover regularly.

Star Toys Action Jack, next to a wrestler stamper, Kinder 'poppet' figure and some rack-toy wrestlers with a few useful PVC animals, which I'll hopefully make sense of in a single post or page one day, the blue fairies/Princesses are in close-up below.

In the style of or in-between the Blue Box fantasy set of a couple of years ago and that pink/purple set from Poundland or 99p Stores about eight years ago, I'm guessing some kind of rack-toy or cheapie-tub/toob, and it's always nice to get stuff like this which isn't the same-old Disney characters! Many thanks to Peter for this little lot!

S is for Shelfies - Catering Novelties

It's shelfie weekend everyone! Don't worry, it won't be a regular thing, but they have been building-up for about 18/20-months now and I thought I'd clear a few here while I've got them all together, although I know there are one or two others somewhere!

Staring with catering novelties which were mostly shot in TKMaxx, but with the last lot a more conventional toy thing photographed in Sainsbury's.

I'm loving these 'Mexican Wrestler' bottle-openers! Marketed by Kikkerland and presumably the result of some competition or sponsored thing (as our own Design Museum puts on or supports from time to time), and while I could only find two designs, there may be more and/or other colours?

I really ummned and arrrhhed on these, not so much the submarines as the divers, but the deciding factor on leaving them on the shelf was that they were full of liquid and might leak one day, quietly on the shelf, or in the attic or garage, messing something else up? I suppose you could get a plastic-surgeon (geddit!) to syringe the water out and replace it with clear silicon!

Close-up of the little divers, who could just as easily be spacemen or astronauts? Eight for three-quid is about 33p each, and Kikkerland again.

It was frog plant-ties which kicked-off our occasional visits to bendy-toys here at Small Scale World a few years ago, well now you can get chameleons in pairs, in at least six colours, although they don't change colour so more; 'big-eyed geckos'! These were in Flying Tiger (formerly Tiger) a while ago.

Found in Sainsbury's at the beginning of April; within a month Peter Evans had sent me the one on the right with the same green/yellow colourway! The sad thing is that Sainsbury's were selling these internally branded in 12's, three-each of four colours, while a few years ago they were in eights (2x4's), thus we see 'shrinkflation' come to Toytown!

One the left are the Henbrandt aliens (six to a set) in fours . . . Doh!