F is for Five Festive Felines

Actually there are, as you will see; six, but one of them is real so doesn't get counted in the title . . . which needed to be alliterative or there was no point in it!

Spot the bar of posh, imported, scented, craft soap . . .

. . . and the cat! This is definitely a polymer, but I haven't the faintest idea what type or how it's done. The base looks like a sanded resin figure, except there is no sign of the marbling whatsoever, and the feel of the plastic is more like polyethylene. There is a small ZEN mark near the base

Also, if you look at the marbling it has the same fault-lines running through it as the old oil-on-water marbling of ancient tome's end-papers or page-edges. This shouldn't be possible if the marbling is formed by two colours being injected as a mix, as they would string and swirl in the fashion we know from old toys? Or the spurious bar of Thai soap above!

Therefore, however hard it is to believe - and I can only guess at the techniques involved - it would appear that a single colour moulding has been rolled or dipped in a polymer 'float' which has been kept molten, or soft-enough, for long enough to add the fault-lines, probably with wires - as you would with the oil-on-water method of yore?

It's large; about 60mm, and clearly some kind of art or craft piece pretending to be an actual marble mantle-ornament type thing, and will go with the miscellaneous cats, I'll Google it when I upload the article and if I find anything the link will appear . . . here! Nothing! The choice of Zen as a mark not helping; pages of cat Buddha's!

Tom (of the music Blog) sent me these back in the summer, I'm pretty sure it's the same Midori that we know/remember as KSN-Midori (Sakai / Riko) from their clip-together AFV's and space toys back in the 1970's, which had kinetic flywheel push-and-go motors you could cut your fingers open-on; folding-back the mounting tabs!

Tom posed them with an Airfix Multipose 'Tommy' who looks less than pleased to be sharing his patrol duty with four well-fed felines! As Tom put it; "perhaps he’s allergic to cat fur"!

I'm not sure where the magnets are; they look to be fully-round sculpting, so not yer'average fridge magnets? Maybe they push and pull themselves around like the old novelty magnetic cars, Scottie-dogs or kissing couples of yesteryear's joke shops?

I've tried finding them on t'Internet with no luck, so you'll have to pop-over to Japan or Australia if you want some!

Meanwhile I've been waiting ages to have an excuse to use these which Brian Berke sent to the blog back in February, a New York store-cat who knows exactly which Very Important Place to guard!

Talk & Train two-way wireless??? . . . "Calling all cats, calling all cats..."

What's interesting is that 'over-here' on the other side of the pond we call the Temptations shown above 'Dreamies', our Temptations are twice the size of Dreamies and come in Felix-logo cat head shaped, pink tubs!

Would I lie to you - it's like crack for cats! I was hoping to shoot the cat-head Felix tub, but we're out!

P is for Poundworld-Plus Plastic Pirate Play-set Preview Post

Or - S is for Shiver me Shelfies, it's a Shifty Ship with Surly Sailors!

Saw this in Poundworld-Plus the other day, a big stack of them for a tenner, Christmas-stock I'll be bound, or my names Buttsttead Forttesque the III! Figures are Schleich/Papo-like, while the ship is better suited to 'HO/OO' compatible sea-borne shenanigans.

I didn't see a brand anywhere [ITP Imports from Toy Bank/Pirate Monkey] but I was holding shopping and a camera so it was all a bit cack-handed in the play-set inspection department, while they were piled-up by the tills, so I was sort of in the queue as I was faffing about!

A tenner? I left it, and I can't think of any collectors I know who are likely to grab one, but if you want an individual item from it and have younger relatives . . . it really would be like taking candy from a baby, "Oh dear, must have got lost in the wrapping-paper - which went on the fire"!

The figures; there's four of 'em.

Of more interest, maybe, for garden/54mm war-gaming (?) is this catapult, it's a bit clumsy-looking, a bit chunky, more like the old MPC one, but a bit of paint would bring it up to some sort of presentable shape! Or the wheels would be a useful addition to the ancient/medieval spares box!

And then there's this wheeled cage? Has it escaped from a 1970's Planet of the Apes play-set? As a lot of pirates WERE also slavers, it sort of makes sense, but none of the figures included will fit in it, so you'll need to source some miserably malnourished 65mm figures first! Ohh . . . Kinder Barbies - they'll fit, and the pirates will thank you!

At first glance I thought the horse was another of the Maxxi Toys ones we have been looking at but it lacks all the holes and the pulling-tackle just seems to just hook-over the saddle.

So there you go, Poundworld-Plus, and probably ordinary Poundland and Poundworld stores if that's what's local to you, they are all now owned by the same SA-based company, currently under investigation for fraud somewhere . . . Austria? It'll all be in the next 'News, Views...'.

U is for an Unexpected Journey . . .

. . . otherwise known as 'The Hobbit'. Picked these up the other day, sans board, sans rules, sans everything else! But - a complete set of game figures, and as it's a week or two since we last had games figures, lets have these . . . now!

Metallics always photograph with difficulty and these have come out two different colours, neither of which is quite what my eyes are seeing, but I have an unfulfilled prescription for glasses kicking around somewhere, so that's saying nothing!

Softish PVC, 25mm 'game size' which leaves Bilbo slightly taller than Gandalf! These six are the player pieces and like some of the other figures we've looked at here recently from board-games, the more complicated poses are made in several parts and glued together.

There are also four other pieces, much larger, both 'in the flesh' and compared to their descriptions in the book, I don't know what they are for (obviously part of the game play but I don't know their function), but on-line images show each f them holding sway over a corner of the board.

This game - incidentally - should still be available on-line; published by Vivid Imaginations according to BoardGame Geek.

I don't remember Poseidon from the books, but he seems to have put in an appearance, along with one of those sad-looking, fat, giants who always come to a sticky-end, shortly after all the sympathetic old ladies in the theatre (or readers) have fallen in love with him, think: King Kong or some darker, more adult versions of Jack and the Beanstalk!

A couple of scalers with a 23mm/1:76th figure and a vaguely 54mm space monster! As the Wargs (giant wolfythings) in the books are ridable by  humanoid characters it would appear that the silver figures are either around 54mm or between the four - 1:no scale, however all useful for the larger sizes!

M is for Mine's Better Than Yours!

Like all travelling Toy Men, the Santa's like to get together at the annual corporate shindig and works 'Do' in Honolulu and compare wheels (or runners), our roving reporter was lucky enough to catch the action in the car-park and report back to Small Scale World.

The Festival Santa is explaining patiently to the bus-boy that the colour this season is red; the bus-boy is not impressed and points out to Mr. Clause that not only is his very similar re. spec's, but coming from Hong Kong - as it does - was considerably cheaper, and everyone in the motor sledge-trade knows blue is easier to clean!

Indeed: one of the Santa's has a red one from Hong Kong himself! Other's; having lived life slightly further 'out there', have purchased their machines from a dodgy-dealer 'Mick the Minty Motor Man' in Macau for the softer ride afforded by the PVC undercarriage.

Festival Santa insisted his has the better build quality and utilising the very best in ICI Alkathene technology - as it does - has the softest, smoothest ride!

Sadly, as everyone was going home a cross-wind squall swept the resort car-park, catching the annual delivery-target, winners-parade, broadside, leaving them all looking like the tin-ducks in a shooting-arcade, so - good or bad - your presents might be delayed this year!

W is for the White Stuff

Seems to me there are only ten-days to the main event, to wit: one visit per chimney courtesy of Mr. Clause and the reindeer plagued by red-noses.

Given that some parts of the British Isles experienced a quick covering of snow the other day heralding the predictable complete failure of the nation infrastructure coupled with the usual orgasm of hysteria from the tabloid's hinting at the end of the world - except the Daily Wail who were probably predicting a 'snow-mageddon' related catastrophic-drop in house prices or worrying rise in Prep-school fees in the New Year; I thought we'd have a look at some related bits and bobs from Picasa.

I bought this last year in Tiger, but can't remember if he ever made it into the Christmas posts? I don't think so as I don't remember ever writing who the bloody-f**k thought it was a good idea to suffocate Santa' in a dolls jam jar? 60mm; lid-roof to base.

This pair of pure-white muppets was on a Christmas cake a few years ago, they look to be from one of the 'proprietary brands' of Christmas Village (what secular people use to celebrate a religious festival instead of nativities!) but I seem to remember that they were more generic in their China'ness!

The big one looks faintly bemused by the whole thing (whatever it is), the one on the right looks . . . errr . . . . inbred, there; I've said it, he looks inbred - Norfolk's lost a village idiot!

The rest came in a junk-lot on evilBay a while ago, I always try to get these earlier in the year as those lots, nearer Christmas itself, tend to be priced for a needful market, but Christmas cake decorations in the summer tend to go un-bid-on!

These are the less interesting pieces. I like the tree - in its wooden barrel - as we had them on the cake with our plaster snowmen and cottage when we were kids, the deer is one of many and the sign is hard plastic, the latter-two HK, the tree probably a German, Polish or British product, jobbed to many.

Thinking out-loud department . . . dissolve the plaster snow in vinegar overnight, remove the wooden barrel and attach the tree to a string of curtain-weights and you'd have a very useful shotgun cleaner, in a fetching green . . . "Merry, festive shotgun cleaner, half-price - Only this Bank-holiday Monday!"! . . . There's my next business-venture, right there!

Awwwww . . . Snow-baby's got an igloo, how cool is that . . . err . . . hard to be cooler than ice?!!

The reason for buying the lot was the Santa Clause who came with both skis, now, I have this sculpt in storage, more than one in fact, possibly including the Festival original, but this is the first hard polystyrene one I've found with both sticks, his skis are softer ethylene though.

We shall return to tobogganing snow-baby this afternoon, he's a copy of the old Gem/Festival ones.

Finally for this little round-up, Brian B was rather taken with these skating Santa's, not enough to buy one, but enough to send us a shelfie, he's is a jolly-looking chap, with the best crimbo-jumper ever! And if you look carefully; his skates are made of Candy-canes.

Is it beginning to feel a bit like Christmas?

3 is for Has Anyone Seen the Other Two?

Soldier Combat Set 3 received with thanks from Peter Evans a few weeks ago, this set is imported by BGC Limited of Manchester.

Not so much a box-ticker as an aid to recognition! There are so many of these in so many packagings it's nice to put any name to them for the purpose of sorting them out (if you're not among those who avoid this stuff altogether), and BGC will have to do for now!

Pose-count seems to be around the 8-mark, with Matchbox 8th Army and Afrika Korps providing most of the 'inspiration', the other guy is hard to place and such a poor sculpt he could pass for many or any past figures in the same pose - I think he's meant to be one of the New-Ray poses!

Obviously they are sub-piracies of the figures we looked at the other day, and common sculpts for 'Armymen' at the moment, there's a slight colour variation in the orange-brown ones, partially lost in the photography.

Super Military Series - Thank you Peter.

Added as I was editing . . . Brian Berke's painted-up China-troops, I thought maybe the Ocean figures but Brian thinks they may be someone else like the Shing Hing we looked at the other day, as they came in a larger set, to quote Brian "My clones were blue plastic from a bag with four colour figures, blue British, grey Germans, cream Japanese and green GI's." which sounds more SH, or Jaru? Whoever made them they paint-up as well as the original Matchbox sculpts, nes't pas? . . . as Hercule would say!

Brain also mentioned that he thought the Timpo 'Action pack' Bren-gunner was the best and I totally agree with him on that, the whole set was good, the Monty was excellent although I never liked the bayoneting chap and the mine-clearer was a bit wooden, but wouldn't you be if your next false move could blow you into the world-after-next!

B is for the Big Little Baby Jesus!

They don't often come much bigger than this, and Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a nativity, so without further ado . . . Jecsan's 10cm Belenes; Christmas Story / Crèche / Crêche / Crib / Crupio / Kresch / Krip / Krippen / Manger / Nativité / Nativity / Noel / Nöel / Presepi / Santons / Santoùos / Santous / Stable et al. . .

. . . as a group - I had to photograph them on the floor as they take-up so much space!

They came as a single lot, and so I suppose (like assumption or presumption but a bit wishy-washier) they were sold together, even though the Shepherds seem to have been taken from the 75mm set, as they would be - or can be seen to be - younger men or boys, it may be a deliberate move on Jecsan's part?

But as people buying a Nativity for Christmas don't follow the same criteria as toy soldier buyers, it may well be that both ranges where side-by-side in the store, and a 'pick-n-mix' ensued!

Three Wise Men, Magi, Kings, or Princes, three ships of the desert and three pre-Christian Jeeves's! A single camel moulding, reflected also in the smaller ranges, but the tassels seem to have been a feature of the 10cm set (the figures are actually only about 95mm)

Close-ups, again; I don't know if they are meant to be colour-matched (as in: sold as three-part sets) or if the original purchaser just matched them in the store, but it helps us to imagine they come from three far-off lands, as does; that the menservants have different coloured bases!

Bible fact - apparently - nowhere in the bible does it state that there were three, or only three, there are three gifts mentioned, but only by type, Jesus could have taken delivery of several parcels of each, from a dozen star-gazers!

The other figures, Joseph is looking suitably cuckolded, I fear! The chap on the far right should have a draft-animal with a shaft that plugs into the plough he's brought to the stable! The donkey is of a size that he may also be from the 75mm series, again I don't know. I have a few in storage, but not these, the smaller ones.

You are not supposed to place the big-little baby Jesus with the crib until midnight on Christmas-eve, but as this one is about 18-months old, I fear that metaphorical-horse has well and truly bolted!

Date palm and angel, the angel has a bit of fuse-wire which looks - if not 'original' - of the same age as the figures and it hooks over the back fronds allowing the Arch-angel to deliver the hallelujah from mid-air.

To help prevent unwarranted "Tiiiimm-berrr!"s, the base of the palm is weighted with a plug of bitumen, the bane of old model railway collections from the same era (1950/60's) as it was used to glue stuff down on the layouts.

As measured; for some reason I shot the chap bending over, the pair with the little girl are a better 75mm. The two outside items are HK copies in polystyrene of other nativity figures (Marx or Jean?), we saw my in-storage set of them years ago and they're just here for comparison.

09-05-2017 - It seems the smaller ones are Oliver - which explains the different bases! So a 'pick & Mix' did ensue, they just weren't all Jecsan . . . I'll add Oliver to the tag list! Thanks Fritzie!

F is for Follow-up - Shing Hing's 'Army Toys'

Speaking to someone over the pond who has no charity shops like ours, and where the equivalent 'Thrift Shops' apparently don't carry the old tat I've been picking up, made me think . . . firstly that we're lucky to have such shops here, despite the existence of both feebleBay and the Car Boot Sale movement - and it is a movement now, with management companies organising the regular sites and magazines telling you where to go and when - and secondly that the luck extends to the current round of purchases.

I've been checking charity shops for years and this year has been a particularly good one for finds; no rhyme or reason for it, it just has! I used to get the odd bag here and there, through the 1990's/2010's but I was only looking for small scale, yet would only see - to pass on - the odd larger-scale bag of farm or dinosaurs, while occasionally noticing the Fontanini stuff which is a perennial staple of these shops; only the other day I let a couple - of poor-paint clowns - go.

Then I had a bit of luck when I started moving to large scale back in 2009/10, from shops in Newbury, but this year's haul has been quite sizable and varied, with something every week or two.

Back in Rack Toy Month I was discussing in one post the Jaru sculpts and their similarity to those of Ocean, Soma and Shing Hing's sets. In the case  of Shing Hing I was using shelfies I'd taken in Smyths' bloody-great, empty-hanger in Farnborough, and what do you know; they turned-up the other day, loose, in a charity shop!

I'll probably save the comparisons 'till the next RTM or the next time we look at all the figures together, but as a box-ticker on Shing Hing, let's add them to the tag-list! Four nations, German, US, British and . . .

. . . Japanese troops, all in the same soft PVC as those aforementioned makers and pretty-much run of the mill China-troops, but all worth a comment or two.

In the case of the Japanese it's worth noting that while four of the poses are ex-Airfix, the other eight (for a 12-count pose total) are taken from the Ecsi/Ertl poses previously copied back in the 1990's by Rado Industries and others as we saw here, previously in polyethylene, quite tinny in the case of the Ri-Toys, but a softer Airfix-figure style polymer in the case of the copies-of-copies.

The' enemy' for the Iwo Jima battle I seem to recall suggesting back in RTM, although six of the poses are the common 'Fritz helmet' post-Cold War China-troops common to many current Chinese manufacturers and their shippers.

The other six are good old Matchbox's US Infantry set, copied with little attention to detail, ironic as the half-dozen modern figures are among the better versions of these common poses.

The ambiguity of the US soldiers is not a problem carried-over to the British set, again 12 poses, but all taken from Matchbox; their 8th Army this time. Only missing the Monty character, the heavy-weapons and crews and the surrendering German DAK 'Schultz', I've also kept two pipers so I can paint-up one at some point!

These will need comparing with the Ocean Desert Sales figures to which they look very similar, but Ocean don't have the second figure from the left on the top row - as far as I know.

The Germans pull from three original Western manufacturers 1970's-set's; two Matchbox (Afrika Korps - 7 poses, and German Infantry - 2 poses) and one Airfix original; German Infantry which provides the three poses bottom left.

There is a small amount of colour variation among the figures, most noticeable with the paler and darker greens of the Japanese, who also had a miss-mould, shooting downward, as he's curled-forward a bit.

Every figure is marked with an 'S. H. MADE IN CHINA', following the newer trend we've watched unfolding here for Chinese and HK-Chinese companies to build brand, and brand-recognition in a way few used to.

S is for Seasonal Show Shots

Third year running I think, and clearly going to be an annual event, I'm only sorry if I missed the first few! I tried collageing them but I'm not sure if the collages really work, so I'm posting both them and the original shots.

Not much blurb, as the picture do speak for themselves and it's all someone else's efforts; as in previous years - Fleet Historical Society and their Christmas exhibition in the Public Library at the Hartington Centre. Upper-floor; and worth a visit if you're passing.

The first two shelves are showing the items on the recent set of Classic Toy postage stamps, Fuzzy-Felt was fun, and Action Man was boss, but I want a wind-up, clockwork, Spacehopper! That's too cool for the school playground . . . although I suspect it's less contemporary, but neither is the Action Man, that's a modern re-boot one.

The rest of the sets are rather crammed onto one shelf with Spirograph, Cindy, teddy bears, Stickle Bricks (I don't remember stickle-brick horses . . . or people? Are these from another modern re-hash?), Britains (showing zoo not the Trojans on the stamp) and Hornby, although I think that's the Airfix kit of Stevenson's Rocket?

Meccano gets a corner of the third shelf and then there is a farm feature with all sorts going-on, mostly Britains with the separate play base, but there's Dinky and Corgi among others.

I know it's for kids but I spotted the two 'things' - it's Christmas, you have to enter into the spirit of this stuff!

The final shelf is a village scene with all sorts of old favourites busily being busy! As well as the listed/numbered items I can see Merit trees.

The table-cabinet this year has a collection of craft kits and plans for making your own accessories for dolls and soft toys - check out the Wonder Woman; front, far right.

Seeing the multi-coloured wool reminds me of my favourite jumper when I was a kid (5 or 6), a friend of my mother's offered to knit me a jumper (birthday?) and said I could choose the wool, so we went down into Brecon, and there's all these colours, and I'm umming and erring over the predictable dark reds and greens when I spot this multi-coloured wool, it was very similar to the ball in the above shot, but the base colour was black not red (so red was one of the rainbow-section colours) and I said "Can I have it made with that?" . . . "Of-course you can" came the reply, and sure enough a few days later I took delivery of a woolly -jumper which looked like an explosion in a fireworks factory! Black as night but with all these flashes of bright colour; I don't think I stopped wearing it until I couldn't get it over my growing head (still growing huh . . . Vichy?), or it fell apart, I can't remember which came first now!

A lovely collection of nostalgic bits and bobs again this year and here's hoping they go at it again next year!