N is for New Arrivals Part II - Animals

Having had a dinosaur post a while ago, then another in Rack Toy Month, I can't believe we're having a third so soon, but that's how the stuff comes in!

Monochromatic erasers from WH Smith, 2-quid isn't going to break the bank and they are bigger than the Paperchase ones although the 'kerthunkersaurus' is a poor sculpt.

These are also Smith's, at 3 for 2 and seven or eight sculpts, I chose three contrasting ones including a much better kerthunkersaurus - I must get the proper name of the poor thing! Here credited to Keycraft, these have been in boxed-sets of several animals in The Works for a year or so now under HGL (Grossman)'s moniker I think? But in such presentation - well outside my budget.

[Note - loading this just know (last Wednesday morning) I'm also downloading Target set images from Brian Berke which look like they might contain the same sculpts, will check at home!]

The Toysuarus was offering these at 79p each, well it would have been rude not to, so I got one of each! The Beetles are the ones we've already seen in two packagings at the beginning of Rack Toy Month (or even a few days before?), the Dinosaurs are yet another set of smallies, and I'm going to get them all back-out and compare soon, just for the hell of it, so they stayed in the bag for now, which left the frogs.

I was going to Blog them with the MTC set the other day, but they are in fact different sculpts, being three poses in various colours while the MTC's are all the same [four-ridged back] design.

The reason I went to the Toysaurus was to get these (also 79p), as I'd said they were the ones above when we looked at them last time, but they weren't! A nice lesson in false memory - hours after the event, because I'd forgotten the other set and conflated the two when posting the others, and mentioning I'd seen them in glow-in-the-Dark plastic in Toys R Us!

In fact, the Toysaurus had the normal ones in the party bags, and these from Grossman are actually new sculpts. This is why one should try to use maybe, probably or possibly if the stuff isn't actually on the table in front of you...I think?!

The ladybird is very similar, and while I'm sure standard painted versions exist somewhere, the spots on this one are textured within the sculpt, rather than reliant on paint.

Look! Charity Shop! 50p! Invicta Plastics megasaurus for the British Museum. Herein lies a funny story, well; it might only be ironic?

When I was a small-scale only collector (and a limo-driver), I used to have early-morning runs out to Gatwick or Heathrow on a Sunday; exec's going off to the 'States or wherever for Monday meetings, and I would do the car Boot sales on the way back*, sometimes hitting them as the traders were setting-up - still had to pick up the crumbs left by earlier early-birds like Collectakit's Pat Lewarne though!

Anyway, if there was large-scale stuff, cheap enough, I'd drop it round a mates house and he was always giving me small-scale lots so fair was fair (and he's given me far more over the years - JB for those who know), one day I got the Invicta set in full, in a BM box (lovely set, lovely sculpts, lovely colours), about 15? Maybe 16 in the set, there might have been one missing, but I remember making it up from spares on JB's lawn in the sun.

Fast forward 20 years, finds I'm buying them one at a time...and I had the whole lot in my hands! Still; it's more fun this way and I have got a couple of the smaller ones already in storage!

*It was a Mercedes V-Class, not a stretch - try parking one of those at a car-boot sale! Although I did drive Stretched-limos for a while too, horrible things, horrible customers - except the couple on a Wedding Anniversary who got me stage-side at Robby Williams and gave me £20 for a fish-supper and coke!

These were also a charity shop buy, 50p the lot, they're very small and each has its name on the belly, a definite irony as there is a kerthunkersurus here, but I didn't take note of it and they're in the attic now . . . what am I like!

It was a toss-up between ' I - Figures' or 'II - Animals' for this one, but 'figures' already had 8 images so Peter goes here! Paul Lamond Games, Charity Shop, 99p and it's been a while since we had some paper/card flats on the Blog, I must remedy that properly - he says cryptically!

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Apropos the date: Don't forget its Sandown Park toy fair tomorrow - if you're at a loose-end? 400-odd tables of other people's old playthings . . . I'm on the lookout for a motor for an HO-gauge Tri-Ang LT tube train!

N is for New Arrivals I - Figures

All these came in during Rack Toy Month, or the last week - it is a fact that you will never have 'one of everything' unless you chose a narrow field or genre. If you do choose the latter path, you will soon get bored!

This was in the Toysaurus clearance bin, for 49p! I'm not sure it's worth 49p, but I have a Blog to feed so I bite the bullet . . .

. . . as it has a Hummer, and you may remember; it's one of many 'side collections'. The other three vehicles are a '40's Willy's, and '50's 'Wrangler' type (M38? Or something?) my favorite jeep as a kid - Entebee, Aurora's Rat Patrol, Congo, Brazzaville, Yom Kippur! And a 1990's pick-up/'Technical' type.

It also had more Matchbox clones, although the cloner seems to have dropped a lot of the DNA on the lab-floor! Four poses from three different Matchbox sets; about 45mm.

50p from a charity shop last week, he's a softish PVC around 70mm and well detailed, marked 4M, you may remember they produced a nice pirate set with mould-your-own bricks, around Christmas, about four years ago?

Under the eye-glass traces of gypsum-plaster were revealed so he's probably from one of those dig-out sets. Pity the Pucator pirates weren't made in a similar material! He also has the same hexagonal mounting-hole as Galoob/Kenner/Hasbro's Micro-Machines, which both suggests the same vinyl-factory and/or a missing base!

The Hasbro/Takara Battle-Beast has actually been around for a while, but he got left-out in a recent sort, so he's ended-up in this shot. Don't know if the two foam-ball figures (another 50p) are craft or factory, nor whether they are Japanese or Chinese, I began by thinking the latter (Eastern-Chinese muslim Uyghur or Hui and an Imperial court lady), but now suspect the former, Imperial court lady and Ninja?

The final one (10p) is marked Tomy, so might be a poky-man or some TV/Movie tie-in?

 

In the course of the exercise I noticed the Battle Beast was bloody filthy, so had him go into the robot workshops for a service and full valet!

My only evilBay purchase in months was a dodgy-photographed lot of apparent 'chuck-out crud' I was worried might have been shot deliberately to entice, but when it arrived not only was the barman (the only decent figure in the photographs) in one piece, but half the set (Cherilea Bar Brawl) was there!

Although 'Blue Boy' is posed to hide the fact that he lost a hand in a tragic 'sheep-rescue gone wrong' incident! No chairs though . . . but there was also a bunch of Cherilea Romans we will look at as a box-ticker in a day or two and three Britains Musketeers (with two swords, doh!).

F is for Follow-up - Ackerman & Tactik

Just a couple of quick follow-ups to stuff posted about a month or so ago.

 

Ackerman - Battle Squad Army Playset

When I'd finished posting all the recent Chinatroops (which got spread over three or four posts), I was left with a scan of a card; I've collaged it with its set contents as if it were on the rack! And I think it means the two little jeeps weren't from the same set, I just photographed them in the same sequence.

 

Tactik - TMNT Foot Soldier

Picked this up to make four out of five, just got to find a Raphael to make the set - only a matter of time! And someone has sent more TMNT's to the blog - for another time!

S is for Shit Dalek

There's no other way of describing this model Dalek, it's shit. It's a shitting shitter of a shit-thing! The company calling themselves TCS Europe should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for letting this roll out of the factory gates and BBC World should have had the sense to refuse it a licence, not put it on their own magazine's cover.

To be fair to all concerned, you can tell it's shit by looking at it, they did nothing to hide its shitness, leaving the punter to reject the shitty thing and leave it on the shelf! It's so shit it's shittier than a shitty thing that's gone to shit university and been elected professor of shit. It's so shit even shit's afraid of catching something shitty from it.

What does it look like? A decorated traffic-cone? An upside-down ice-cream cornet, with a reportable food-mould? Flash Gordon's loudhailer? A 1950's retro-chic 'designer' reverse-kitch cocktail shaker? A bottle of fancy nail-polish? It doesn't look much like a Dalek, that's for sure!

There's no excuse for this level of poorness shitness in design (of anything) at this point in the 21st Century. CAD-CAM means even a cheap toy can at least be designed with accuracy; in minutes. This is beyond lazy, it's almost a deliberate attempt to rip-off, where there was, and is, no need. And the stalk-tools? Shittier than the shit thing they plug into - they're shit!

How doth one compare thee to a shitty thing, let me count the ways: Too tall, too thin, all round symmetry, bone-dome to high, too round, body domes/bobbles too small, too spaced, stalk-boxes are shit, stalks are shit, shoulders stretched, flat face, step'less base . . . oh ugly thing of shit, thy faults are legion!

Still, every cloud has a silver lining, and some of the stalk-tools will improve the old Cherilea Daleks; a tad mind, only a tad.

There you go, a shit Dalek, all the way from Shitsville, Shittington, Shitonia, and no, this isn't the forthcoming rant, it's just a really shit Dalek.

M is for Military Case

As far as the figures go it's a bit of a box ticker for Silvercorn really, other people have Blogged/posted them so the best thing to do is go and look at PSR's post, but a couple of points arise, so to get them on the Blog . . .

. . . several sources, including the above link mention tan figures? I have two sets in storage and the above set (imported into the 'States by Lollipop/L.P.) donated to the Blog by Brian Berke, and not a tan figure seen by me yet. Nor have any of the sources mentioning them shown any.

I believe (until some come to light!) that there is a cross-pollination of visual memory going on here; these sets came out around the same time as the Hornby Railways 'Battle Zone' model railway set, which contained similar (but ethylene) figures in both colours, those figures were also issued by Dollar Tree in the 'States and Toy Masters over here.

Additionally Smart Toys were issuing small PVC figures, again very similar (but painted), which (the Smart Toys) harked back to the Galoob Micro-Machines figures which also had green and tan issues (among other colours). I suspect the common trope of two colours have led people to 'imagine' a tan issue for these . . . but stand to be corrected!

To argue against myself, I have some clip-together 'micro-vehicles' around the 1:285 or 1:300 mark, which may well be from the Land Vehicles, Terrestrial War Games set. They do come in tan and green, but firstly, the bodies are one colour, the tiny wheels another, and secondly they are styrene like the vessels (below). I also have some darker green figures from this set, but no tan . . . yet?

There's also the small matter of the two brownish-grey road-signs, which seem incongruous as there are better sculpted ones on the accessory frames, but they were in my UK bought sets as well as Brian's US purchase, so must have been added for 'value'.

The real reason for this post: Uncle Brian (different Brian) a few weeks ago, mentioned that the 'unknown' vessels in a few past posts were also Silvercorn, and as it happened Brian (Berke) had sent the confirming images a few days earlier, so as I was in the midst of Rack Toy Month, I said I'd post them in September - it's now September!

There are four different frame-runners, each with parts for three vessels (strictly speaking, one has 'parts' for only two vessels as the civil cargo looking-vessel is a single piece), and I suspect - from the duplicates in Brain's sample, that maybe six frames were in the box?

Scale is not constant, with the 'Flat-Top' being much reduced, while I think the cargo type and the submarines are a larger scale, with the warships between the two. The 'carrier looks to be a US nuclear type, and the three different subs follow recognisable shapes for Nuclear Attack (flat deck aft of tower, on the sheet), Patrol (right, above?) and Hunter Killer (left, above), but I'm guessing the other surface vessels may be of Chinese outline?

A few close-ups.

Returning to the 'unknown micro-AFV's' (which are in storage), they are of similar material and construction, hull and belly-pan clipping-together, trapping the wheel/axle mouldings in channels for free-rolling movement. I only have a small bag of them, but they consist of a 6x6 truck, various LAV/Piranha types (6x6 and 8x8 - I think?) with separate turrets and something like an Sd.Kfz.222 if I'm recalling them correctly, I don't remember having any tracked vehicles?

If they are what I think they are, then the fourth set (Air Machines, Aerial War Games) will probably prove to be an assortment of around a dozen modern combat types, probably in this neutral grey plastic, possibly as two halves or with plug-in wings?

I'll keep a look-out for them, and we can return to Silvercorn in a few years! Thanks to the Brian's U for dropping the ID into the blog and B for sending images and samples!

P is for Pendelton's

Brian Berke keeps turning up little gems and then sending me them to share with you! This is lovely as it seems to solve the question mark over why I ended up with a Made In England stick on a Buried Treasure figure, although Brian stresses his aren't so marked - original post with comments and links.

In the age of the Solero or Magnum, it's easy to forget that once upon a time, iced-lollies came on sticks, while iced-cream came - soft - in a cornet or harder between two sheets of semi-edible card-foam-biscuit (risibly called wafers!) or coated in a layer of chocolate to prevent drippage, but never the twain [confectionary formats] should meet!

To put ice cream on a stick was innovative enough, to make the stick out of that new-fangled plastic, and put decorative figures on the end, hidden in the confectionary was visionary! Why did these not pass the test of time, we've been back to wooden sticks only since the mid-1970's? And they phased the two-part (one hidden) joke out, on wooden-sticks, so long ago I can't remember when I last had one?

Who remembers four-figure phone-numbers? Our first was 'Heckfield 234', and you always answered as that so the caller would know they'd got the right number, due to the high number of crossed-lines and the fact that there were hundreds of 234's up and down the country!

Now there's not much on the Internet, but I know whole books have been written about the Ice Cream Wars of the 1950's, '60's and '70's, gangs would chase each other off sites, ice cream vans were burned, tipped-over with the operator inside, scoop-tubs spoiled with dog-mess or spirits, entire depots were torched, people were beaten-up and threatened, it all got quite nasty, as local crime syndicates engaged in 'turf wars' - chasing a profit motive, or using the vans to ahem . . .sell other consumables! It culminated in the 1980's with real death in Glasgow.

Even today; there was a piece on Radio 4 about a week ago about a monosyllabic, semi-racist (it seemed to me), avowed Brexiteer (no permit) muscling in on a Polish chap with a council permit to trade.

While all that was going on, the big-boys; Walls and Lyons Maid, were just buying-up all the little operators - like Pendelton's - and the van-franchise that went with each purchase. That explains the disappearance of Pendleton's, but not of the idea, or the moulds? Someone might still have them, the US blog has tracked down two American ones!

I'm sure, that despite the odd subjects of the prizes, especially by today's standards of Pokemon, Star Wars and Ben-10, these would still prove popular. Even supposedly sophisticated 'modern' kids still like their bucket-and-spade on the beach, still enjoy their Christmas cracker and its idiot novelty, still make camps in the woods . . .  while gum-ball machines are commoner now, in their serried-banks 'down the precinct' than they were in my day, when getting one in the village was viewed akin to becoming a small town over-night!

Brian says he bought these in London in 1973 - Bring back Pendleton's Ice Cream on a Stick!, that's what I say!

P ici pour la Population Plastique!

One of the last photo-shoots I did before everything went into storage was to cover my small (and mostly small-scale) collection of Starlux. As I didn't know when I'd be using the PC again I put the shots on the 'S' dongle and forgot about them for a bit, then when I did Blog them a while ago, I forgot to transfer the civilians over to the Laptop, so; a bit late, but there you go!

These are actually from the 54mm range, and are even older shots, taken of John Begg's collection ages ago (2007) and archived. The upper shot shows various farm workers, while the lower shot shows how they differ from batch to batch and out-worker to out-worker!

John also has a wheelbarrow! My measly two are to the right, and compare the 35mm with the 54mm, and she is my only 54mm civil figure - unless you count a few damaged Cowboys & Indians, and a couple of RCMP from Samwise!

These are the earlier versions of the 35mm range, with the rounded bases (a rule that's true for the military figures too), and while four police in three poses might look like a decent sample, there was a shed-load of poses in the set and I've a fair way to go yet!

I think the chap in 'prison garb' is actually a railway worker? And the chap with the bucket is not a '69 student, but a bin-man! The girl waving the 'umbrella' is sometimes shown as being from the farm range, so I guess she's scaring crows off something, or yelling at Peter Rabitt?

The lower shot are few more recent acquisitions, and the guy shovelling is another older figure who's gone . . . sticky! He was with the firemen, and it may be that his red shirt reacted to the two failing firefighters, as he's otherwise OK and seems to be styrene.

We've looked at these before, but this lot came-in in May, and again from the earlier sets. Several of these are pre-styrene (upper picture), in a phenolic resin and two have gone sticky, so have to be kept in separate little bags, the middle lot are stable polystyrene and the lower shot compares two later ones (middle pair) with two phenolic ones (on the ends).

As well as leaching noxious fumes and depositing paint on things, they are slowly shrinking away to nothing, eventually they will crack, like some JIM's I have photographed.

More 35mm, old and new (chamfered-lozenge/oblong bases), with a carded set of road-workers and a few loose ones, a small group of mechanics, a cyclist and a bunch of circus workers, the damaged ones can be seen complete on the circus post.

Because I took these several years ago and can't remember why I shot these separately, I can only suppose that the ones on the right are HO, while the ones on the left are 35mm, however they may be the less common 40-mil, as I think the two standing figure's pose are to be seen in that size lower down? Gives us an excuse to revisit them when they come out of storage!

It's like the spiv in the spats and burgundy-trousers knows the Secret Service agents (or are they from the local crime boss?) are coming for him, but he's going to coolly enjoy his last drink, the waiter is bricking-it, waiting for it all to kick-off, then he'll dive under the table shouting "Not the face, oh god, not the face, anything but the face!"

The three unpainted 40mm's, presumably sold with/as/for die-casts (VReM or Solido?) or railway figures?

And a late set of unpainted HO farm workers, the bag seems to have been cut to take whole runners from various scales and is therefore far too-big for this set!

The whole sample of HO stuff, they are issued with or without bases (for fixing onto railway layouts) making them either 18 or 20mm! As you will have noticed, all poses in all scales are from the same 'set', and if you click on the Starlux tag, you'll find a line-up of military figures in all scales, and other comparison shots.

The boxes contain 12 based-figures, but the later (?) bags contain 6-based and 6-unbased.

While the civilians come in HO and 35mm, the standard 'small scale' military range are closer to 30mm for some reason, and with more having come in, we may look at them again in a while?

Also two animals which were added to the collection a few years ago, we have actually seen the elephant before, but I felt the giraffe needed someone to talk to in the bag; although they look like they don't get on!

A couple more additions to the collection are a 54mm Alien who looks a bit like tone of the LB robots, and a small-scale Totem Pole which is a different design from the larger one, but clearly marked Starlux.

Arco is for Noah's Ark!

I received these fascinating images from Brian a while ago, but they got put on hold (along with a load of other stuff) for the passage of Rack Toy Month, and now they can have their 'fifteen minutes' on the Blog.

I only vaguely knew of the Arco ark from the odd mention elsewhere including Rudik's book I think (although these are 'large scale') and had therefore assumed that they would be another Marx rip-off like the Blue Box/AJP types, however, it's quite a nice little set-up and it turns out I've got the figures, although they are in storage; under 'unknown ethnic-dress/religious/nativity' figures!

Anyway, like the Men of '76 we looked at in July (and more on them soon), there is more to the sets than the 'Arco made an ark with animals in bags as a petrol premium' story, one usually finds. Not least that there were more than one version, two tranches of animals and several header-bag variants. Let's have a shuftie at them . . .

. . . as supplied to the Wisconsin Toy & Novelty Co., Inc. We have a much larger ark than the Marx ones, even the large scale one we saw on the Blog is not as large as this, and the barn/hut/superstructure is very different. The overall shape is similar to most of the others mentioned, but the ends (bow and stern) are more ornate or substantial.

Nothing on the box to indicate Arco, but then as FoB agents they would have procured for other clients. A study of the pictures will reveal that before Photoshop was invented, there was err . . . the photo-shop! Reversed images, kids plonked-in later and a bit of airbrushing on negatives . . . what I love is that they moved a few of the animals to hide the fact that they reversed the image, just move a few more and take a second photo, you idiots!

The giveaway is the contents, as we find both Noah and his wife, but no kids (or their wives . . . all drowned!), and 15 bags of paired animals, in Arco packaging, but 'New' Arco Ark Animals. While I said it was unlike the Marx ones and bigger, you can see that there are - at the same time - a few similarities (there's only so many ways to build an ark!), with the long ramp to the top deck being one of them and the clam-shaped hull; another.

Brian's usual berserker from Crescent reveals the size of the thing, and the animals that go in it, 'one inch army' they 'aint, but to be fair they aren't really to a constant or consistent scale either! The 15 sets of animals are all new from the petrol premium (listing that is - see note on cards below), and the two biblical figurines are in the accessory bag, they were bagged as a pair in the earlier issue I believe?

While the animals are similar to . . . or correctly; While some animals are similar to some Blue Box sculpts, others are stand-alone sculpts. Obviously - Britains and Elastolin feature heavily in influence as they do with all these '1970's' Hong Kong zoological specimens!

Easier to just reproduce the listing as it is so far, from the A-Z entry, which is awaiting a rewrite! These animals (pictured above) are the second lot listed below;


Noah Sets (for and/or including some of the below-listed animal pairs)
- Noah and Wife (cartoonish caricatures)

Boxed Play Sets
- Noah's Ark (Arcotoys Inc., with 14 pairs of animals and Noah bagged)
- Noah and The Ark (Texaco (?) Petrol premium with 9 pairs of animals on separate larger card and Noah)
- Noah's Ark (Wisconsin Toy and Novelty Co. Inc. with all 15 pairs of '3rd tranche' animals and Noah)

Animals Pairs
Arco Arc and Toy Animals (1st/2nd tranche cards, bagged in pairs with header card)
- Alligators/Crocodiles
- Ant Eaters (great hairy)
- Deer (European type, 2 different sculpts)
- Elephants (crude, sub-scale, 2 different sculpts)
- Giraffe
- Gorillas (1 copy of every other HK copy of Britains, 1 sculpt has 1 arm down)
- Hippopotamuses (2 different sculpts)
- Lions (2 different sculpts)
- Monkeys
- Ponies (heads up, see also; Horses - below)
- Rhinos
- Sealions
- Skunks (2 different sculpts)
- Tigers (female issued elsewhere, in black plastic, as panther)
- Zebras

New Arco Ark Animals (3rd tranche cards, bagged in pairs with header card, numbered to above photograph - not Arco numbering; corrections welcomed vis-à-vis species!)
1 - Ant-Eaters (Aardvark, 2 different sculpts)
2 - Brown/Black Bears
3 - Buffalo/Bison
4 - Camels
5 - Donkeys
6 - Gazelle/Antelope (? one brown, one black, long straight horns)
7 - Warthog/Wild Pig/Boars
8 - Horses (heads down, see also; Ponies - above)
9 - Indian/Asian cow (or water buffalo? Gia or something?)
10 - Kangaroo/Wallabies
11 - Koala Bears (much larger scale)
12 - Moose/Gnu/Caribou (? dung-yellow plastic ruminant over-sprayed brown)
13 - Polar Bears (2 different sculpts)
14 - Squirrels (much larger scale, possibly still around as PVC cake decoration?)
15 - Turtles (1 black, 1 white, or 1 each green and brown paint on yellow plastic)

Other Animal Sets (for/including the above animals)
- 9 Sets Eighteen Hand Painted Animals (backing card with nine smaller carded-bags of animal pairs, as issued with petrol premium sets)


Whether the petrol premium promotion extended into the second set of animals is a moot point at the moment, there is or was a set of 'all nine' on a card somewhere on the Internet, but as it clearly had header-cards from three print-runs and both issues, two pairs of elephants and different staples, I think it was an evilBay dealer's 'cobble-together', so not useable from an evidential/conclusion-drawing point-of-view.

And these are the header cards, now: I did have them collaged with the middle one at the top as I figured with it being a mock-up (look at the 'barn' and the height/angle of the giraffe sticking his head out of the window!) it must be first? However, I then noticed it contains animals from both tranches, so might be a later version of header-card?

Also while I have pencilled-in Texaco, I know the star in the bottom corner of the card I've now put 'first' isn't a recognisable Texaco star, nor is it a Caltex, White Star or Star Line Gasoline star, so that's still to be sorted! It appears to have I-T-U (or similar) written in-line down its centre-line?

In other words; until more work is done on these, the cards could be in any order. To further confuse, there appears to be two sheep and two pink, domestic farm pigs on the deck of the middle card's ark! Indeed if you remove the pigs, sheep and two camels (from the second set) you pretty much have a mock-up for the painted card above it with monkeys replacing the camels, and Noah standing in for the pigs! As the camels are pretty bog-standard Britains piracies, it may still be that the middle card is actually the first?

While it makes sense to put the Blogged set's card last (as a second 'line' within the 'range'), one might argue the photo-version with both types of animal must be even later as a combined issue?
Can anyone shed some light on the darkness? For instance - the brand of the petrol company running the premiums, which should be easy, we're talking the 1970's here, not the 1870's, but there's nothing online?

There are also different print runs of the cards, so there must have been a fair few of these shifted over the years.

News, Views Etc...

Daily Mash
As I'm sure you've heard by now, toys will be removed from the destructive reach of pesky kids, who can all go and look for strange-looking men in ghost-costumes instead!

Adults Only

Posting
I might take a break for a week or two as I need to get a couple of real-life rants together and send them to my insurance and IT provider. Capitalism . . . it's grinding to a halt in front of our eyes!

I've put a few more posts on the Hong Kong blog, but only more easy stuff! The 1st draft for ZZ is nearly ready published for on the A-Z blogs, and I was going to update the Arco entry, but the amount of info, and the way it falls, means I need to do Arco, Sarco, Giant and the Rosenberg Toy Co.  at the same time and it looks like the companies will just get 'listing' entries, with all four cross-referenced to a 'Rosenberg's' entry for the full history.

[The above was written a month ago, and I think it's all happened/been announced!]

There are a couple of updates for the early stuff to go on the Airfix blog and I need to kick start the 54mm posts, so I may do some of that in the autumn, but I think I said that a year ago and did pretty-much bugger-all, so don't count on it - only so many hours in a lifetime!

There's also a nice set of Hong Kong Britains copies going on the Khaki Infantry page courtesy of Brian Berke, with individual close-ups of all six common poses; unusual for HK to do all six.

[Also happened; but not yet announced - I've still got to do some text on that page, just call me fuckwit!]

Paddingteddy Bears
As a follow-up to a resent post while-ago post on the subject, Brian's wife sent us a couple of images of Paddington Bears, all of which were new to me. In Brian's words:

"The red coated one is 2.5" high, flock covered, made in Hong Kong by H.C.F., purchased in UK mid 70's. Blue coated flock bear grips if you squeeze arms. Bought in US mid 70's, made in Korea for Eden Toys who held the US Paddington marketing rights. [Pair of] Plastic Pencil Sharpeners made in Hong Kong, purchased in London 1976. Marked Paddington & Co/Filmfair Ltd who made the animated Paddington TV show."

You may recall we've looked at both Robertson's 'Golly' pencil-sharpeners by HFC, and pencil-top Paddingtons here before, so the 'whole' becomes greater!

Plong Bubblegum Toys - Moon-Panorama Cards
Can anyone supply a shot (flat or straight-on) or scan of card number 6, I have managed to stitch various combo's together in Picasa over the years, then in May I was able to shoot 1-5 in a row and 7 & 8 as a pair, all I need is a six and I can show the whole panorama!

Say it Like it Sounds Department
The end of the human race right there! That's a hundred years of compulsory schooling and the 'information-age' in action . . . and fifty dollars for a tourist-trinket ash-tray; really?

Things to Come
With Rack Toy Month well and truly over, I've got about 23 things in the queue, with contributions from four or five people, but I may not post every day in September so we'll see how it goes, and only about three weeks to the next PW (by my reckoning?), so there'll be another post there if I pull my finger out!

Rack Toy Month only half-emptied Brian's folder, and Picasa is still stuffed full of odds and sods, so we'll have another 'RTM', probably next August but maybe sooner? I've got some more novelty type stuff for Christmas, and five other posts 'in the bag' so busy, busy!

Unknown Combat GI's
Can anyone help put a brand or set name to either of these; the upper trio are a dense but soapy polyethylene or -propylene and seem to be from the 1990's with the 'fritz' helmets. The lower three are a medium-density PVC-rubber in the style of Supreme, but unpainted and with an Italian 'feel' to them. Both lots are about 35mm - could be 40-mil, it's an old photograph.

"When I grow-up I wanna' be a flat-top with a nuclear engine, four steam

-catapults, some Chinooks and squadrons of Navy Raptors"

Another follow-up to recent goings-on here; we've seen them both before, the large Ja-Ru one the other day, the smaller one back in December '15, but I forgot to bring them together in the rack-toy post!

Speaking of the forthcoming PW: I took this at Plastic Warrior's show back in May, a Lever washing-powder (?) premium, with more than a nod to Crescent, but of the same size and style as the Solido figures. I think it's thanks to Adrian at Mercator, for letting me photograph this.

And Finally . . .
I wondered if I shouldn't rename News, Views . . . to something like 'Bits & Pieces, Odds, Sods, Bobs and All Other Stuff &Etc.'? Heehee, only joking - nice to know I'm so influential! But some people seem to think it's a competition, and so, not for the first time this year; It's not a competition and if you think it is; you're probably heading for a fall.

With a couple of breaks, I've been here for a while now (longer than you - oh competitive ones!), and I'm not going anywhere, I've posted the same stuff in the same fashion (the 'voice' changes a bit over time) and I intend to continue to do so, although I haven't had a rant for a while, hummm . . . maybe I should have a rant! Google's algorithms seem to like it, the visitors keep coming back - so live with it; oh competitive ones!