T is for Tyrannotoy!

You couldn't have a Rack Toy Month without some 'Chinasaurs', it would be like having a Summer Pudding Month without strawberries or a Marquis de' Sade Month without two greased piglets and a bucket of baby-oil!

These are larger JPW/Hunson chinasaurs, four to a pack and looking to be a softish PCV vinyl-rubber, given a basic overspray in one colour (two, for the Stegosaurus) with the eyes dibbed-in, these are quintessential chinasaurs, available off-the -rack, Stateside, now!

Similar paint-job, similar material, but much smaller, these were bought over here a few weeks ago for, err . . . well . . . it says - I thought they were a Pound - Doh! Amscan (FoB'er) organised for Riethmüller (importer/party wholesaler), and they look exactly like the minisaurs given away with dinosaur themed comics/kid's magazines, which they have probably also been used for somewhere?

Medium-sized monochromatics from MTC and Bely, The Bely ones  (imported by AAI) look like old copies of copies of US 1960/70's rack toy dinosaurs or cereal premiums, as do the ones on the smaller MTC card, but the ones on the larger MTC card look to be newer, better sculpts. They all look to be polyethylene, but the left-hand set could be one of the newer, softer materials? Anyone able to tell us?

Alternate packing for MTC and more poses from that better set, even with higher resolution it's hard to judge the material.

These were sold by Henbrant about four or five years ago, now: I believe - to be found in Tobar packaging, they are made of the same material as those retro-looking Robots we saw on the Blog a while ago; five poses in a very soft, squidgy, silicon-rubber and four metallic colours best described as gold, bronze, petrol and copper-verdigris.

Interesting only because the other day someone was saying Ja-Ru always mark their packs; they don't and he makes stuff up as he goes along! The Greenbrier/DTSC importer combination being common to Ja-Ru (I think this is the third we've seen recently?), but Ja-Ru being a FoB-operator doesn't always mark the packs, they provide whatever pack graphics whichever clients want in whereany of the countries they deal with.

If Ja-Ru mark in combination with an/other brand/s or importer/s it's because the packs are either a joint contract (managed by Ja-Ru) or a Ja-Ru own-commission/issue over-printed or stickered after being jobbed-on to a client. Ja-Ru also sell-through themselves and anonymise product, so if someone tells you "...their products and pack had been always branded as made by (JA RU)"; tell them they're making it up as they go along.

Again, these have had a quick pass with the airbrush by way of decoration. They look similar to the better MTC sculpts, but have striated or folded surfaces instead of the former's spotted or bobbled skins. If you open this and the forth image in two new tabs and flick between the two you'll see what I mean.

Another Ja-Ru, this one marked, but the same sets can be be found only marked with Toy Industry Association Inc. of Hong Kong or with both brand-marks. It looks like these are a re-issue of old hollow blow-moulds from the 1970's, but the smaller ones may be solid?

If you look at the accessories you'll see the log-props and rock-pile (also blow-moulded) are from the AJP Noah's Ark boxed-sets copied from Marx via Blue Box (also from the '70's), it might be that AJP turns out to be an abbreviation for Another Ja-Ru Product or something! Could just as easily be Jetta though (long-standing HK contract manufacturer) so don't quote me - I try not to make it up as I go along!

What's come-in vis-à-vis loose examples, via mixed/job-lots in the last four years (we've looked at various sets as they came), not many; I have a load more in storage, and they are similarly bagged with post-it note 'notes' until ID'd from a branded set.

Before 'Chinasaurs' there were no Hongkongasaurs! But plenty of dinosaurs from Hong Kong! Brush-painted, unpainted or air-brushed, polyethylene, silicon or PVC, there are many more bags like these in the storage unit, and now they're all chinasaurs!

Perhaps 'Hongkosaurs', just to differentiate; it doesn't grate off the tongue? Now; I'd like to draw your attention to the bottom-left HK bag . . .

. . . as I had the Dimetrodon when I was a kid, I think it was a Christmas stocking thing one morning of the 25th December, late '60's/early '70's, although sometimes we were so excited I think we might have woken and started emptying ours while it was still the 24th for grown-ups!

I was really taken with it, and had it for years, but I had ripped down the membranes between the spines, it's almost impossible to stop yourself as they are really tactile; and in the end it lost - one-by-one - all the spines and, looking like a fat lizard, was consigned to either the bin or the church-fête as I was heading for the teen years and scaling-back on the toys.

Anyway, this one's come in, in the last few years, and I can’t tell him apart from the memories of mine (the previous owner has also torn the membranes between all the spines!), along with a matching kurthunkersaurus (Ankylosurus?) from the same silicon-rubber set.

In the background is another Dimetrodon (my favourite dinosaur when young), but he's ethylene and marked with his name and a full 'Made in Hong Kong' against the small blocked Hong Kong of species-less rubbersaurs.

That's enough somethingsaurs, even for Rack Toy Month's Chinasaur Day!

Many thanks to Brian Berke for all the bagged examples bar the Amscan one.

F is for The Franchise Awakens

Not all Rack Toys are a Quid, a Euro or a Buck - or less; some start at a fiver and work up to 7.99 or more - in whatever currency!

I vaguely remember mentioning these about a year/year-and-a-half ago? I also think I said that while they looked good, I'd wait until they were cheaper or started appearing in job-lots a few years hence as they were silly money!

Well, the shelves need to be cleared for the coming Christmas stock, so just as the Star Wars Command was flogged-off cheap this time last year, so I notice all stockists in the UK are clearing these at the moment, with Sainsbury's reducing the 3-unit sets from £5.99 to £4.99, TK Max are already getting clearance stock which they are offering at £3.50 (left hand set above), as are The Entertainer chain, while the Toysaurus has them at £1.50 (right-hand speeder-bike set), they obviously don't want them hanging around much longer!

With the 5-unit sets originally retailing at £7.50-£7.99 I hate to think what the larger converting playsets cost, but for a duplicate vehicle and one or two figures, these are among the worst examples of modern toy's rip-off syndrome I can think of? We know from what other rack toys contain and cost that there's not even a quid's-worth of PVC here, let alone £6!

With the Star Wars logo burned into the retinas of three generations and the Micro-Machines logo familiar to anyone under 40, you can have whatever artwork you like on these and still get full shelf-recognition wherever you place them in the store!

A couple more sets, I rather like the mobile MG-nest! I haven't seen the movie and am in no hurry to see it on DVD, to me it has become what Planet of the Apes became (and was recently resurrected as), a dead'hos to be flogged to a new bunch of gullible kids, slowly losing the threads of/veering from the scripts of its own 'expanded universe'!

However, as a toy collector who used to specialise in small scale, they will prove useful additions to the old Galoob stuff and have clearly been sourced from the same manufacturer as the originals.

Contents of the first set I bought after the current clearance process started includes a nice robot Megatherium type thing! This appears to be being ridden by a Sandperson (Sandpeopleson?). Who knew they were so skinny under all those cloaks and hoods and things, they need some all-you-can-eat, roadside, rib-joints on Tatooine!

Funny also how these films keep returning to a galactic rim, backwater, out-of-the-way, arid, bandit-ridden, smuggler's hideaway, shithole of a planet that was supposed to be so safe they could hide Luke there?

And has anyone ever explained why Luke was raised as a country bumpkin in the 'far far away' equivalent of Death Valley, while his sister was raised as an Imperial princess, daughter of the ruling family of an important planet at the Centre of galactic politics? Not so important it couldn't be blown to smithereens though, lesson for Brexiteers there, I feel!

If you don't get them out and play with them occasionally, you need another hobby!

There are some nice pieces here; I love the big orange 'speeder'; in style it looks like they borrowed it from Blade Runner or Dune! The soft-top seems to be referring-back to the custom hot-rods of the 1960's and one of the ranges replacing these on the shelves for the coming festive spending season is a set of die cast vehicles in a scale closer to the old Action Fleet, among which is a larger version of the MG-nest (a flying bunker - I love it!), which is a more realistic price too, I'm tempted!

Because my old Galoob/Kenner Star Wars are in storage now, I can't compare the Endor Scout Speeders, but I think these are the old sculpts, has anyone managed to compare them?

Also, because I haven't seen the movie, I don' know if it's explained; but the X-Wings are very odd, with offset/set-back upper and set-forward lower wings sharing a root-line, in a design that would adversely affect aerodynamics in planetary-atmosphere work? Yes - I know its make-believe, but I like my sci-fi believable (and the victims in a red shirt - "Jim! They got Ensign Smith")! It's also a design which wasn't used on the Star Wars Command X-Wings which followed the standard pattern of identical mirror-planes meeting in the middle - these things matter you know!

H is for Hangin' on the Hook!

Returning to the 'meat and two veg' of rack toys if you are a toy soldier collector: toy soldiers, or as I call most of them: Chinatroops! And a mix of stuff from Brian Berke, the £1 shops, both Peter Evans' and Brian Carrick's bags from May's Plastic Warrior show and a couple from further afield.

Brian sent me the Bely set (pronounced Belly or Beelee? Or even Beelay?) Warrior - Ready To Play, now there's an honest set title! While the now defunct 99p Stores 'own brand' of PMS gave me the Army Soldiers. Same figures, same little fort (why I shelled-out my 99p!), same modern take on the old pile-of-earth flag-stand, now a pile of robotic rocks! The green ones were PW show-booty.

Top picture was just for fun, most were in Peter's bag, one came from Dario (pale grey one - top right) in Italy a while ago and the painted one (21st Century) shows how far China has come when it puts its mind to it! The figure next to the painted one is a clone of the recent CTS set, no flies on the Chinese - see BMC below! The figure to his left is an unusual take on the Airfix pose with cut-n-shut legs while the guy top left might be a Lido original?

The lower picture is of the Matchbox figures we looked at the other day but with their 'enemy' - I think? They came together in a bag and are the same softish PVC!

A few more groups of random Chinatroops and a set with a Chinese maker's mark (Zhenhai Toys Factory), something which will hopefully become more common now the Chinese government controlling party elite have decided that's what their people are going to do!

Research reveals it's probably the Ningbo Zhenhai Wantang Toys Factory, and further research (a quick five-minutes on Google!) into the second name Magic Source International Inc. reveals the state of play these days . . .

. . . a probably unrelated (to the shipment which the above set was in) bill of lading (BoL) shows Magic (US, probably as an Importer [jobber]) taking delivery from Top Source Trading Ltd (HK-based shipper) with all parties notifying Flegenheimer International Inc. (the US shipping agent, contract manager or FoB'er) of progress of the shipment on-board the MV GEMINI, a ship owned by CMA-CGM (the French carrier).

The cargo was described as "Plastic Toys ( Invoice No.: Ts-928) Plastic Toys ( Bowling, Kitchen Playset, Beauty Playset)", probably from the above Chinese mainland-based Zhenhai, all those fingers in the pie (add at least three trucking journeys, and a similar story on both raw and processed materials) yet it only costs a dollar a unit in the store!

Poor copies-of-copies, covered in a deposit of leached additive!

The problem with getting your toys produced in the East is that they are rendered easier to clone . . . in the East! BMC GI's cloned in China by an outfit called Dan Hai - nothing on Google? Assault Military (as opposed to 'Stay at Home and Watch the TV Military'?') I rather like the two bunkers, but the control-console is a tub-filler, large piece of plastic with thin walls taking-up space which would otherwise be occupied by heavier (more expensive) figure mouldings! Imported into the USA at the moment by Lollipop (L.P.).

These are one of many samples of old Airfix piracies kicking around, I rather like them (enough to photograph and Blog!) because they are quite good copies which have kept the faith with the Airfix base, and they are unusual colours.

WTF is for What The Flippin' Ada!

The third of today's trio of pocket-money rack toys, and a brief visit to the beach . . .

. . . with a look at the Fun Aquad Set. Basically a small group (taken from a larger inventory) of Corgi piracies organised around the theme of water-sports.

With a shaped blister I think you only got the woman, but a man was available, also a Corgi clone. If you think she's looking a little naked . . .

. . . check-out the artwork, an Eastern-European ladies shot-putter from the mid-1970's?

Petrel issued this set in a larger configuration with the male surfer, a copy of the Matchbox motor-launch from the 1-75 Series trailer, several yachts in two sizes and some other bits, in the Petrel version; swimwear is painted-in I'm pleased to report!

S is for Skinfighters!

Fighting skin wherever it's found!

The Larami overprinted import (LIC = Larami International Corp.) in my collection came with divers although I'm sure they would have had the mini-subs (see previous post) as part of an assortment. I've also seen the Larami card with larger single -moulding divers in black, sort of Lone Star clones.

The eponymous 'skinfighters' and their aquacar! Pretty poor stuff, there's no effort gone into these and this level of HK stuff is a mystery to me, why produce a heap of crap, when you could make the thing more realistic for the same money? The cost is in the sculpting and the tool-making, you could make a more realistic (but just as simplistic) vehicle for the same cost. This is lazy and careless.

The artwork (a bit James Bond - probably the market it was chasing) actually shows the better underwater 'sled' also available from other HK rack toy guys, which looks like a shark. I have some somewhere; I'll try to dig them out.

A comparison between the Larami, the Skinfighter and another HK diver. The yellow one is similar to the Skinfighter, but slightly better quality although missing his scuba-tank. He'll be the one 'skinny' is cloned from, and I think he also goes with those odd-looking landing-craft / washing-machine / mine-clearing flail things which turn-up from time to time - I think I have some of those here as well, I'll try to do a follow-up!

In fact, I think I've a carded one in Picasa . . .

[Time passes away from cyberspace, a whole few dozens of seconds (over a week ago)]

Yes, I have, and no, it's a smaller, blobbier, late copy figure with large hand spigots and a smaller scuba-tank! The hand spigots are far too large for any of the holes in the, err . . . 'veh'hick'ull', presumably he's been 'borrowed' from another toy to fill the bag! Despite seeing many of these over the years, I've never seen anything mounted in all those holes (except the front one), they look like they should have the little ex-Airfix/Minitanks riders you get on some other rack toy stuff.

We'll be returning to a lone (or loan) mini-sub in September.

Couple of hours later (the magic of the cyberworld!) and I dug the other bits out. The sharky things, a couple more 'landing craft' - both slightly different - and some more spear-guns; one damaged.

The landing craft would look better with the two shell racks (?) removed, along with the angle-iron frame thing. Stick a mortar crew in the pit and you'd have off-shore fire-support, but all very fictional!

M is for Mini-Subs

We looked at these once before but as I shot them again, and as it's Rack Toy Month we might as well look at them again.

The fleet has grown, mostly riders who've come in with odd-lots, but it allows for a full complement of crew!

Off to look for British Battleships in the Med' I fear! I love these, can you tell! There was an interesting development on these shown on Moonbase Central the other day; "Ah, Perkins, we need a futile gesture, it’ll raise the whole tone of the Blog; take the mini-sub, have a shufti into space, blow something up, don't come back . . . " (with more than a nod to Peter Cook!).

A couple of divers waiting for boats; normally when trying to date early Hong Kong stuff, you'd go with painted being typically earlier than unpainted, but the unpainted one here is of a much better quality (despite the mis-registered mould halves!) than the clone with paint remnants.

The paint, and the feathery silver plastic of the latter figure resemble the work of that little group [of companies?] known variously by their base-marks as ABC, CM, CMV and HK, I wouldn't be surprised if he was by [one of?] them.

L is for Little Livestock

Sorting the stock . . . mooooo!

Yet another of my pet projects is making sense (trying to make sense) of the dozens and dozens of copies - of mostly ex-Merit and Britains - farm animals in - or even consciously aimed-at - HO/OO model railway scales. As pet projects go, it's not going so well and yet, it's not going so badly. But, they are commonly found as rack toys and this is Rack Toy Month!

These are almost certainly Blue Box, a conclusion drawn by the fact that Marx carried them in their 'Majestic Series' which matched their 'Sunshine Series' which was Blue Box Wild West small scale - rebadged! Also the plastic colours match other larger animals and figures from Blue Box, however, without the smoking gun of a Blue Box logo'd set, they stay apart from the main collection, especially if they are overprinted with a WH Cornelius' logo!

The main sculpts of the range, in storage I have a few seated/prone calves and foals (and possibly another item of poultry - single goose or turkey?), but they seem uncommon and must have only been supplied in larger sets.

Likewise the unpainted sets - which have the cows in 'horse' plastic, and the additional ex-Britains lambs and the sheep -  would seem to have been from a later tranche.

The sample here is about a third of the size of the sample in storage; for years various friends like Trevor Rudkin, Gareth Morgan, John Begg and others have saved this stuff for me, from long before anybody knew anything about any of it, or if it had any value (it still doesn't really!), yet without that collective effort, drawing any conclusions would be almost impossible.

Below are two question mark samples, one (on the left) being almost certainly just copies of the Blue Box, but with a newer mould-stamp, that just happens to look like the Blue Box one. On the right though are better painted figures, but with a poorer stamp, again the same design. Until they turn-up in an unsealed rack-toy or boxed 'Home Farm' type set, any conclusion is pure guesswork.

The next most numerous type of these is similar; same ex-Britains figures, same ex-Merit cattle and horse poses, but new pig and [larger] sheep designs and different markings. So far there is no clue as to maker, and both sets are unmarked generics with graphics that might be later 1970's?

You can see the animals are cruder sculpts, but plastic colours are richer, yet chalkier. I'm not going to get too bogged down in markings today, although we will look briefly at all of them in a minute. It will take an in-depth page to do them all justice when I get the rest out of storage.

So with only the above two (the commonest two) ID'd, and then only to small packagings, you can see why I say the project is going not so well, but then this bag turned-up a while ago (Trevor or Gareth!), and helped to ID (as far as you can) one of the minor samples, which means it's going not so badly!

Almost certainly a Christmas cracker insert, it may also have seen service in a larger capsule or a crane-machine, but seems to have been designed to roll-up and stuff in a cracker. These are late, monochromatic versions in a dowdy range of colours, brightened by the orange and yellow of the bagged set.

While we won't look at large scale sets today, this mid-size set might as well shine for probably its only outing on the Blog. Pikit Toys of Birmingham anyone? Thought not! [Apparently - two years in the late 1980's!] It's also trying to look like it's by both Imperial and S for Star (visual shelf-recognition!); when really it's a generic with a local importer's name on it.

Again the numbers in storage tend to be larger, but not always, and I have some single-item samples in storage as I have here (capsule toys and such-like undoubtedly), also I have some samples here I hadn't yet encountered, and more examples in storage than are here overall.

While my handwriting was the reason everyone thought I was dyslexic for 35-odd years, (when in fact I was an Aspergic retard/genius!), all the typo's, reverses and inversions here are deliberate.
There are two types of engineer's stamp; those for stamping ownership or data on the outside of a machine, which, like typewriter-keys; leave an impression which is readable in the normal way. Then there are mirror-reversed stamps for marking the mould-cavity, so that the reverse impression will be readable on the moulding. Then: there are menkind, and menkind, like Brexit voters; can be stupid.

They use the wrong stamps on the wrong thing and it all comes out a bit wonky, like the current affairs of the UK! Sometimes they mix the two sets of stamps, so some letters are inverted, some read normally, or trying too hard, with too few brain-cells (Brexit again) they try to mentally reverse the word when they don't need to and you get 'Kong Hong' or Honk Gong!

These can be clues, tying some of these animals to, say, some of the combat figures, or rubber aliens or whatever, but really they are a starting place for sorting the myriad copies, and copies of copies that turn-up.

The HK and H[dot]K here are joined by H[dot]K[dot] and reversed examples in the storage samples for instance. And while I have a bag with about 7 of the charm-loop tailed cows in storage, I hadn't clocked that that was what they were, these came in with all the other charms, from the December 2015 posts, but escaped the camera then!

The other thing about all these marks is that from time to time, like when you find a carded or bagged example, you often find that a couple of sub-marks actually go together, so you can combine a couple of bags. More of that kind of work will be on the New HK Blog. As we look at sorting all the many non-Giant small scale figures.

The real problem lot - some of these will turn-out to belong to other marked samples, where someone forgot to stamp one cavity in a multiple-cavity mould, all have to be sorted very carefully, using little signature marks.

The green girl with bucket for instance, had a release-pin ridge under her base and I know I have a bunch in storage, so she doesn't belong to the bag with the white farmer, who has a smoother, thinner base and may be the same as the Plasty ones we looked at in 1" Warrior magazine, I won't know until I find another Plasty set, or get mine out of storage! Painting - as in the spray-painted ones - can also be a signifier.

The lower three are Airfix copies and they have been looked at, not here; but on the three relevant entries on the Airfix Blog, with the storage samples (and bagged farm versions) included, these are what's turned-up in the last four years . . .where has it gone; four years!

Nearly ten years ago I was active on HäT Industry's forum for a while, and one of the guys there (known only as 'B') was asking about ancient cattle for a little project of his, I said these might be useful, as their poor sculpting meant they could be from any-old era, sent him a few and about a month later he sent me these images, showing what a bit of paint and some consummate scratch-building can do . . . good; aren’t they? Not mine - Brecht's!

Then China got involved and it all stops being fun! Crap copies-of-copies . . .of copies, several or no 'China' marks, mixed scales, a poor quality copy of the Britains Hen House, a moulding which started life as a lead casting I think; 70, 80-years ago?

Horrid, careless, loveless, flash-ridden, sink-hole ridden, miss-moulded crap, imported by House of Marbles and sold through a local department store in a market town about four Christmases' ago. Nasty.

Three figures for the collection-total though . . . got to look on the bright side!

B is for Blackrock Castle . . . again!

In 1960 there were over 550 plastics factories in Hong Kong employing over 18,000 workers, with the subsequent changes in business practice, mergers and take-overs, the odd triad murder (Lucky Toys) and including the move of production to Mainland China in the last 20 years, then bearing in mind that the number only includes those legally registered.

Now that total is likely to be at least three or four-times its 1960 figure (and that was up from 30 factories in 1954). Add-in the former British colony of Singapore, the former Portuguese colony of Macau and the independent, non-communist, Democratic (as in: real elections) Chinese state of Taiwan and I'd hate to think what the final number is! Thousands.

In my archives I have - named - maybe 250, 300 of them? 380/400+ if I go through all the 'unsorted, bagged & carded' folders, books and old magazine-ads and again. Bear in mind that most of them didn't mark their products.

A drop in the ocean of the research still to be done, even if a lot of them didn't make toys (Hong Kong was the world's centre of the plastic flower industry long before it got a reputation for cheap toys) yet the job gets harder every day, as this set (another from Brian Berke) shows; we've looked at it once already and when we visited it that time I think I mentioned I had previously encountered it in another form?

So; this time marketed/imported/packaged/Fobbed by and/or for JPW/Hunson. But what has their role been? Are they straight importers, FoB facilitators, a re-carding operation like the old Giant warehouse, a factory, a front, shell company, parent, subsidiary or a co-op?

These days you can get a single carded figure with two, three, sometimes up to five 'brands' on it, especially with licensed products, you have the image holder (DC say, or Warner), the licence handler (usually 'Somebody' International Inc.!) the FoB company; maybe Ja-Ru, the importer; say Greenbrier and maybe another Canadian, UK or European end-user.

Where do you place that in your archive? All five? The two, or three you already have entries for? Does it matter? In the age of the internet it will be blogged, eBay'd, Amazon'd, press-released and critiqued in a dozen places, traces of it will remain on the Waybackmachine or Internet Archive, probably forever and collectors will lay a few down like fine wine - never to reach the heady values of a good musty grape-juice.

Yet try finding a single 'brand' for any of a hundred generic carded or bagged rack toys from the 'sixties, 'seventies and even into the 1980's and you're on a hiding to nothing! Even now a lot of rack toys are generic. Until the guys in Hong Kong start asking their parents and grandparents "what did you do in the toy industry", we'll only ever uncover the odd clue from time to time - if we're lucky!

And the collectors in that part of the world (and there are many), don't collect in the same way as people like me, they like clean, complete, preferably 'mint' objects in illuminated cabinets, old - but polished - tin-plate robots next to brand-new vinyl 'collector' dolls; they don't collect the history, and they don't seem minded to.

Meanwhile the 600-odd companies who invented and 'owned' Rack Toys for the longest time, were pirates, they pirated the Western companies they eventually helped destroy, they pirated each other, they shared moulds, they shared sub-contractors, they shared salesmen, artists and printers, they shared-out work and 'out-work'! They shared Western contacts and they were all family firms, with clan-loyalty and . . . they just don't talk.

90% of them never marked a thing with more than the origin (Hong Kong, HK, Made In... &etc), Blue Box, Imperial and Lucky being the obvious exceptions and when there is a mark or a brand on the packaging, it's usually either invented or the importer's moniker (Giant). So if someone says to you "Chinese factories when selling under their real name ,mark the toy with it stamped or engraved 90% or generally", tell them they're making it up as they go along.

At the same time - on 'our' side the importers and FoB firms shared buyers, customers and clients, shared contacts in HK and shared salesmen or even offices in the Toy Building!

But there's the fun in the collecting; finding out by digging, comparing and searching. These Blackrock Castle sets will get three entries in the A-Z, they've earned them, still don't know who really made them though! As I said last time (I think) these figure poses were available in pretty-much every size, plastic type and paint variation from the late 1980's to almost the present!

50mm, mostly ethylene, the silver chap is PVC, two different base types, some bearing a resemblance to Western-produced small scale figures and they came in blister-cards, header-carded bags, tubs and 'toobed', in black and grey, grey and gunmetal, silver and black, with skeletons at one point, they came larger, smaller, painted, part-painted and unpainted . . . Generics! But somebody made them first - Supreme, Applause? I've asterisked the poses closest to the Blackrock guys.

W is for Well . . . these are Interesting!

Back to the very lowest price bracket for rack toys with these, which are - without doubt - Interesting Toys. A shilling (1-) was 12 old pence, which became 10 New Pence - I think! Heay, I'm a child of post-decimalization, no good asking me about florins and shit, init!

It seems that these were a 'brand'; for as I find more of them, the evolution of the card art through the 1960-70's is clear and the contents are pretty consistent on colour/style, with a slight improvement in value for money in the later 1970's multi-blister versions.

On the left is the missing set from the Monogram post the other day! The middle is a mix of real low-budget, cake-dec, novelty cack isn't it? Two sports cars, a yacht without a sail, a railway passenger coach and a bottom-voiding ore-carrier! The one on the right is a low-res from feebleBay and is presented as it seems to have a logo, but a bit blurry to fully make out.

I'd like it to be a large 'G' with the lower line being an artistic PMS as that would be the Gardener's firm; a stalwart of the colony's toy industry before 1973, but I know it's just wishful thinking, it seems to be some kind of sea serpent, or maybe a graphical realisation of a Chinese character/pictogram?

These two we've seen before; both two- and three-blister cards with slightly better contents. Airfix guardsmen copies, ex-Giant poses of Trojan/Greco-Roman types (mixed with ex-Woolbro pose Cowboys & Indians! And the MPC mini-plane piracies we've seen before.

A quick look at the figures in the right-hand card might lead you to think they are Britains copies, a closer look will reveal Airfix in the mix, but a study of the figures shows that actually they are copies of the EKO copies of the aforementioned firm's figures, the Airfix poses having the egg-shaped bases of the EKO, rather than the usual square ones of Airfix, and with the crawling figure EKO also copied being present.