An eMail from Theo van der Weerden, a Blog
follower from the Netherlands, adds rich detail to the recent post on PRB, in
his own words:
"When
I read your blog about the Rastignano
Bologna Toy Soldiers it brought back some good memories.
Those soldiers came with bubble gum. The brand was called Bang. It came with a piece of gum of
course and a small cartoon. If
you got a certain picture within your package you obtained a figure.
I remember one time buying 40 pieces to empty a box and hoped to
get a figure. No luck with the special picture, but my brother and I got one
each.
I think the man behind the counter felt sorry for us".
So basically - as I understand it - the
bubblegum was like Bazooka, with a
little paper novelty, but some of them (clearly not many) were prize tickets
earning you a figure you had to exchange/collect from the vendor - in person - which
may well explain why they tend to turn-up in large quantities, but very infrequently;
they are old shop stock to be exchanged for prize tickets which seem to have
been in much shorter supply than the figure-stock?!
General
de Confiteria S.A of Barcelona, Spain issued a
bubble-gum brand called Bang Bang, while
Mis Biskuvi Gida San ve Tic A.S. of Gazintep, Turkey issued
a Big Bang whether either of
these is the same 'Bang' brand, or not; I don't know.
Theo also ID'd those Fire Service
motorcycles from May/June as Minalux,
not the Cofalux I'd penciled them in
as, thanks Theo.
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News
Stamps
Following the brief news of the Britains Trojan stamp, there was more
coverage of the set over the next few days, and for those who didn't follow the link last time, other toys/playthings covered in the eight-stamp set included Sindy, Spirograph, Stickle Bricks, Fuzzy Felt, Meccano, Hornby Dublo and Action Man, along with a Space Hopper and Merrythough teddy-bear . . . apart from Cindy I have fond memories of all of them!
The next set issued by Royal Fail (mid-September) was a set of Ladybird book covers, with three books illustrated per stamp and
six large-format stamps it's a game of spot-your-favourite! I
remembered/recognised the Postman and
Fireman titles; Nelson, the Things to Make
and Piggly Plays Traunt!
Other stamp new concerned the LeedsPhilatelic Society which was drumming-up new members in the 'i' on the 13th September with news of a
roadshow, but no dates, as they tend to say on the Radio "Check local press for details!"
Mr Men
Sticking with books for a second - a set of
adult-oriented parodies of the old Mr Men
books are to be issued, four to begin with and in the same vein as the recent Famous Five parodies, using Roger
Hargreaves old illustrations but with 'alternative' text! To give you a
flavour; one of the books will be called 'Little
Miss Shy Goes Online Dating' and another is 'Mr Greedy Eats Green to get Lean'!
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Mr Man parody-land (Sanrio Publishing), there are now 12 Mr Man / Dr Who mash-ups (one book for each Doctor) available
online from https://shop.mrmen.com/collections/doctor-who
Shropshire!
Inexpertly torn from the 'i' Newspaper's
Weekend edition on Saturday 29th July with a blunt knife, this was 'Image of
the Week' and while I've tried to find a better version online I couldn't, I
just liked the juxtaposition of British Hollow-cast and an Erzgebirge horse
& cart against the rolling hills of Shropshire farmland.
Star Wars
Walt
Disney unveiled the concept models for the new
'land' at Disneyworld, on Thursday
13th July last, as you will have gathered from the heading; it's to be called Star Wars Land!
Meanwhile a life-size model of R2D2 made
from the collected remains of actual movie props sold in June for £2.1-million.
The 3½-foot tall droid was star [wars] item in a sale which also included
Darth Vader's helmet (£75,000) and Luke's Lightsabre (£350,000).
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More
Licensing & Licenses
Paperchase
The High-street (rather; mall, rail-termini
and airport-) retailer (owned by Primary
Capital) announced at the start of August a deal with Hello Kitty to produce a new range of school stationary with the Miffy-clone's branding. Paperchase are also staying quite on
rumours of a public share-offer, but have mentioned plans for US stores - 2
being due to open in Chicago next year.
Pokémon
Character
Group have signed a deal with Wicked Cool Toys in
the 'States to handle the Pokémon licence in the UK, adding the
franchise to their Pepper Pig and Postman Pat stable - the toys will
include Action Figures, Play-sets and soft-toys.
Wonder Woman
Time
Warner exceeded their profits forecast, mostly due
to the success of the Wonder Woman movie
and associated licenses (presumably shared with the comic owner DC)
Mr Ben
There was an exhibition celebrating 50
years of Mr Ben, but it ended on the
16th September and I only learnt of it afterwards, however there is a movie in preparation
. . . and an opera! The Author David McKee was interviewed in our local paper (Star Courier) at the time.
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Evil
Empires
£24.99 vs. £29.99, they aren't paying for a
license as an investment to get the feet through the doors or the units through
the tills, they're getting their customers to pay for the license up-front!
Your Lego is cheaper if it isn't Star Wars, yet the bricks cost the
same-per-unit to manufacture.
The Equally Evil Empire
We covered the news last 'News, Views . . . ' and I can't remember
if I nicked this from Matt or Huw's Facebook
feed, but it sums the situation up very nicely, I'm sure the well-paid bosses
of GW will agree!
The Not-so-evil Empire
On the 18th of September a small piece in
the 'i' suggested the Toysaurus might be preparing to file for
bankruptcy . . . on the 20th Toys R Us
filed for Chaper-11 protection in the US (and Canada) with most commentators
giving them little hope of a recovery, long-term - they are sitting on a
mountain of debt; owing £3.6-billion. Although; the 'Wall of Lego'* not selling as fast as normal
will have been a factor?
UK stores are - apparently - not affected,
but having found the huge new aircraft-hanger sized Smyth's in Farnborough (rhymes with 'fleur' not 'morrow') totally
empty - when looking up stuff for Rack Toy Month- I would imagine that whole
retail sector is struggling, but as it's struggling with a toy industry it
actually, deliberately, created (to the detriment of diversity in toys, and all
small toy-makers) I have no sympathy whatsoever and I hope they all fail.
Everywhere you look now, you see the signs
that 40-years of Thatcherite-Ragannomics have failed all but the few at the
very top.
The entire UK workforce (who do have my
sympathy - if it comes to the worst) is only 2,500-odd (in 110 stores), think
about it for a moment, if you closed the Woking branch (average staff: 22.7) and
replaced all the old toy and model and hobby and craft shops long-gone from the
surrounding streets and nearby towns and villages, you would have work for
50-100 people, probably better paid that the Toysaurus's staff, but with a dearth of fat-cat executives flying
round the world, carving it up, for their further profit?
Of course; my naive hopes ignore the
elephant in the room - on-line retail. Comes to something when an elephant can
bring-down a dinosaur!
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Wilco
Another one in trouble and one of the few
sources of cheap toys and novelties outside of the discount stores or Toy
Chains, has also announced difficulties, with 4,000 jobs at risk in the UK; Wilkinson's have admitted they are
struggling with costs due to the fall in the Pound and are in talks with their
staff-unions to make the cuts as kind as possible.
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Useful
Links
Toy soldier bedding and soft furnishing, 'nuff said -
New makers in Singapore with varied product lines -
I've recently discovered (looking for a show date!) Eric Johns has published an index of PFPC articles, too useful! -
We may have had this one before, there are
several around and I still have to look-up the one in the last PW, my favourite
remains the Preiser road workers
doing sultanas to grapes, that was priceless . . .takes a while to load, mostly Preiser -
I'll definitely be ordering number one,
it's for Vichy's, obviously!
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Coming
Shows and Exhibitions
Winter
Reading
War-gamers or modellers of the Ancient
persuasion (I refer to their chosen period of historical interest, not their
age!) may like to know there's an exhibition on the Scythians being mounted at
the British Museum from this Thursday - 12th October - through to Sunday 14th
January 2018.
Title
Next date on my calendar is the final
'Christmas' Sandown Park show which is on Saturday the 18th, but the above show
on the 19th might be of interest to some, from the publicity shots it looks
like it probably has a cut-off date of about 1960, so lots of lovely old toys.
Title
I've totally lost track of the Birmingham
show these day's; I'll try to find a date (it was yesterday! At the time of editing), but in the meantime Peter Bergner's 2nd
show of the year is on the 3rd December at the usual place.
Freize London
The Autumn Frieze arts event (160+
Galleries) in Regents Park featured large-scale (human sized) Dunny-Bunny /
Deathney-Mouse type sculptures in a gunmetal finish which would look lovely in
a large garden, wooded-area, or - indeed - a formal park, and better-still . .
. in a landfill.
Dolls Architecture
A bit late I'm afraid, but this is also
running until January, called 'Small Stories: At home in a Doll's House', it's
on at the Weston Park Museum in Sheffield and is a history of the more unusual
Dolls houses made over the years, I particularly liked the stackable, unitary
tower block (Jenny's Home) with its
leery 1970's wallpapers, but would probably choose the coloured Perspex 'Kaleidescope House' (from 2001) - simply
for its athletics.
Moomins
The Moomins
have their own museum! The 'Moomin Muesum'
(clearly they used the same naming agency as Star Wars Land!) is in the Congress Centre, Tampere, Finland, and
contains 1,009 original artworks, donated by Moomin author Tove Jansson before her death (2001). As well as the Moomin stuff, the Museum exhibits 38 of the
wonderful models and dioramas made by the author's partner Tuulikka Pietila.
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Other
Bits
Meccano
I was looking at a Meccano motorbike the other day (French owned I believe), and it's
come a long way from the slightly rusty, anodised mild-steel of my child-hood,
or the even rustier, heavier red/green of my father's childhood; it's all a bit
Lego-likey with specialised parts,
powder-coated alloy shapes (or at least - they look to be alloy, they may be
plastic?), and not much construction, there were about 72 nuts/bolts and 12 of
them were the spokes! But worth a thought as you start the seasonal shopping
for younger family members or friends.
Trending
Next big craze - if the hype works (and I'm
indulging too, so it must be having some effect!), are things called Hatchimals which come in egg-boxes and
have to be hatched; Tamgotchi plus
ten years extra technology! There are 70+ to collect and what you get inside
the egg is something resembling multi-coloured Gonks crossed with wind-up walker-toys!
Yacht Race
Some local lads (Epsom Collage) are hoping
to become the first team to successfully navigate a remote-controlled model
boat across the Atlantic Ocean, the boat was expected in Antigua in six months
time a couple of months ago so should have been far enough-out to miss all the
recent nothing-to-do-with-human-driven-climate-change-oh-no-definatley-not-that's-a-Donald-fact-not-fake-news
series of record-breaking storms battering that part of the world.
Kids Bed
Cuckooland have a bed in the shape of a
high-performance sports car in red (unbranded but I think we all know which
brand of Itailan Sports car we are to infer), suitable up to age 12 or so, it's
£249.95 which seems a lot for what is probably only a coated MDF box! Still -
that 5p saving makes all the difference, huh? And the VW Beetle's over a thousand-quid!
Trumpundbrexit News Department
An RSPCA inspector was called out to
deliver a 'terrified' family from the long, slow painful death about to be
provided by a rubber toy spider the other day, in Alresford (home of the best
model-railway show), there was me thinking we bred brighter souls in Hampshire,
no, clearly not!
Hampshire
Spider - apparently!
And that story (Hampshire Independent 28th
July) came a month or two before the national 'news' story of the family
(London? Birmingham?) who had to be rescued by the Fire Service from a
smelly-sock 'lizard' under a bed.
People are becoming incapable of serious, rational,
independent thought.
...●==================◦●◦==================●...
Follow-ups
Three other stories from previous 'News,
Views . . . ' have returned to the headlines;
Plastic on the Beach was highlighted in a
novel fashion in July - here reported by the Metro on 20th July 2017
Sheds
The Britains
Best Shed competition (accurately: Cuprinol
Shed of the Year) was won by something which looks more like a tree-house
which I think is a bit of a swizz!
Lost Bears
Following the lead of the Spanish holiday
firm we looked at in June's 'News Views .
. .' Glasgow Airport has started a lost-teddy service, from the
press-release photo it looks as if stuffed dogs and Muppets (good news for the PSTSM if they get lost) are included in
the rescue plans, but girly-dolls will be melted-down and served in-flight to
customers in economy-class!
I'm joking - or am I; have you tasted
in-flight meals?! If you are travelling via Glasgow, with bear-equipped kids;
be sure to collect a 'Take Care of my Bear'
tag when you first check in and then if the chap or chap'ess gets lost, they should
be quickly reunited with their young owner.
...●==================◦●◦==================●...
Back to local news; Alton played host to
the annual Teddy Bear Festival on June 17th in the Assembly Rooms, bears and
bearabilia (?) old, new and orphaned were on show, sale or available for
adoption, while songs and stories were performed to younger fans!
Zeus on the Loose
Found this on Amazon a while ago, I won't
be buying one but I know two Blogs who are working with Asterix or bubble-gum
Romans, in the larger scale, who might like a cartoony Zeus to add a bit of
mischief to their narratives! And it'll be turning-up in mixed rummage trays at
toy soldier shows in a few years! Gamewright
