News, Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events

We seem to be well into the quiet period of the summer holidays, with very little action on either the Toy Fair or Auction front in the next week, but there are still a few things to visit if you fancy a trip out or have some spare shekels, burning a hole in your pocket!

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Toy Fairs

Sunday 5th August 2018

Barry Island - Chris Dyer Fairs

Barry Island Railway Station, Station Approach, Barry Island, South Wales, CF62 5TH

Web. - www.chrisdyerfairs.co.uk

Tel. - 01643 702 757

Mob. - 07966 694 579

Admission £2

10:30-15:00hrs

Burton-on-Trent - Chris Eaton (Toy & Train Collector's Fair)

National Brewery Centre, Horninglow St, Burton-on-Trent, DE14 1NG

Web. - www.nationalbrewerycentre.co.uk

Tel. - 01283 532 880 (Nat. Brewery Cntr.)

Tel. - 07877 346 371 (Chris Eaton)

Admission £4, children £1 - includes entry to Nat. Brewery Cntr.

10:30-15:00hrs

Falkirk - McLaren Models

Tel. - 01324 624 102

(All other details here)

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Auctions

Tuesday 7th August 2018

Heaton Mersey - Capes Dunn

40 Station Road, Heaton Mersey, Cheshire, SK4 3QT

Web. - www.capesdunn.com

eMail - capesdunn.caroline@gmail.com

Tel. - 01614 321 911

Collectables & Toys

Newbury - Special Auction Services (SAS)

81 Greenham Business Park, Newbury, West Berkshire, RG19 6HW

Web: www.specialauctionservices.com

eMail: mail@specialauctionservices.com

Tel: 01635 580595

Fax: 0871 714 6905

(Not the 1st of August as advertised elsewhere)

Thursday 9th August 2018

Sheffield - Sheffield Auction Gallery

Windsor Road, Heeley, Sheffield, S88UB

Web. - www.sheffieldauctiongallery.com

eMail - jmorgan@sheffieldauctiongallery.com

Tel. - 01142 816 161

Viewing Wednesday 8th August 2018 09:00-16:45hrs and 9th from 8:30am, sale starts 10:00am.

Die Cast, Railways on O and OO and Tin-plate, plus a circus collection

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Other Events

Sunday 5th August 2018

 

Cancelled due to ill-health

A local event is all I've got for you this week, I'm sure there's stuff like this happening all over the place every weekend at this time of year, but PR (beyond a banner on a shop near a [local] road or two is never the strong point of 'local' things . . ."It's a LOCAL show for LOCAL people; isn't it Tubb's?"!

 

Surry-Hants Boarder - White Dove Collectors Transport Show

Kingsley Sports Ground, Bordon, Hampshire, GU35 9PD

Web. - www.whitedoveevents.org.uk

eMail - whitedoveevents@hotmail.co.uk

I know what you're thinking, but you'll be surprised what turns up at vehicle-shows, from experience we're talking large Tudor Rose old-fashioned cars, other old plastic dime-store/beach toy stuff in general and highly sought-after old Pyro/Airfix motor car/automobile model-kits, for starters, plus all the usual die-cast crud, but all of it likely to be cheaper than toy-fair fare, as it's usually being sold by dealers more interested in the real things, and most of it pretty new-to-market!

Cancelled due to ill-health

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If you are an event promoter/show curator/auctioneer and you want your toy, model, collectable or popular-/youth-culture type sale/exhibition/event listed here - FOR FREE - or linked to; please eMail me -

maveickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com, 

- stating the date/s of the event, address of event, contact details, opening/viewing times, admission pricing and any other relevant facts/details or features - parking, travel notes, disability access, availability of refreshments, event subject matter &etc.

And please mention any flyer-art or poster-/leaflet-scans but send by separate eMail, in case they go to the 'junk' folder, from where they can be recovered and marked safe, but only if I know they're there!

ITP is for Chinasaur Play Set

Although one of the last pieces to be Blogged from the now defunct PoundworldPlus, I actually bought them a while ago, I had been ignoring them for a while as they are real old-school crappy 'chinasaurs', but in the end I thought "Well, they are cheap, and a shelfie is awkward in this instance, so bugger it!" and grabbed a set, which was lucky as they then disappeared and didn't reappear during the fire-sale / stock clearance, and there was a little piece of luck hidden in the tub, we'll get on to in a minute.

The tub - as bought; A couple of the standard modern trees with soft vinyl pop-on foliage, there wasn't enough foliage for both boughs, so I chucked one, fully-leaved the other and sorted-it out from the dinosaurs before the photo-shoot, so we will have to look at it another day with other, similar trees! Yeah . . . that sounds like a thrilling post!

Meet the guys 'cos the gang's all here! They aren't that bad, but they are low-quality, low for today's output that is, they are better than half the dino-production of 1970's HK 'chinasaurs'! You may recognise the 'ceratopsian (front right) as having been the [reversed image] dino' staring in a recent 'Toys in the Media' advert!

They are that soft, foamy plastic I'm mentioned before and started tagging as foamed-vinyl, with the two-part construction and glued join-line you see quite a bit now with larger toy animals and dinosaurs.

There were two stegosauruses in every tub, indeed, the contents of every tub were the same, why there were two of one moulding is anyone's guess, my guess is that even with the two crappy trees the stipulated (by the client) container (for retail shelf-frontage) was looking empty, but still under target-cost, so they quickly ran a mould-tool again, gave the product a different paint finish to the existing ones - having fallen-out with whoever normally supplies them with those large blow-moulded rocks that usually join the 'filler' trees?

While is a fun musing, the one on the right is one-colour over tan, the one on the left is three, as all the others are two or three, I'd say that for whatever reason the yellow-orange one was a late addition as the budget stretched?

The others, I've already said more about them than the set deserves and I've still the next - important - bit to write, so that'll do for these - and I always hate the pterodactyls in dinosaur sets; they inevitably look stupid!

But, the little bit of luck; this was in the set - the sauropod wasn't glued properly, and revealed that what I've though is-, and tried to describe as- some 'fancy' new foamed polymer is actually just two 'hollow-cast' halves glued together with solvent.

It achieves the goals of allowing for more complicated poses (no 'undercuts') while reducing both material-cost and shipping-cost/weight, but I will have to remove the 'Plymr - Foamed PVC' tag from the tag-lists and replace it with 'Plymr - 2-Pt. Hollow' or something.

I'm guessing lots of kids have discovered this already through violence or chewing (!) but no-one seems to have clocked-it within the hobby and no one's corrected me, prior to my correcting myself - here! And I did use question-marks when I first started Blogging the material, so - Phew, that was close!

News, Views Etc . . . Lego

Whatever your opinion of Lego (and mine is pretty poor!) it is a fact that in any given period of time be it two weeks, seven-and-a-half months or three years; whatever parameter you set, press stories about Lego will out-number those of Hasbro, Mattel, Tomy-Takara and Hornby Hobbies . . . put together!

Whether this is down to a superb publicity machine, or just lazy journalism is a moot point, and my own suspicion is that it's a combination of the two, in that Lego like to trade on their cuddly-wuddly image of playful loveliness (when I [and the world's IP courts] think they are ruthless pirates), while for lazy journalists the rule-of-laziness is 'Everybody loves Lego - run the story'!

But it does mean that from time to time we will have one of these posts . . .

All since last October bar the big two-page spread which was from an early issue of the European back in November 2016. I have been collecting 'Toys in the media' stories on-and-off since the mid-1990's, of which Lego always makes-up a fair whack and I now have 3 lever-arch box-files full of Lego stuff!

I won't bore you with all the details, but with a few images to clear from Picasa, we will skim-over some of the recent stories. And starting with the European piece, it was a really sycophantic filler-piece designed to get the curious (or non-remainers) to buy the new pro-Europe monthly broadsheet - although, in its defence, it did mention Hilery Page, not all the court stuff, but he did get a mention!

Toys in the media - pastel bricks in

an advert for CDO's (my thought exactly!)

 

Housing

Lego announced last November the opening of a house to host Air-bnb guests; unlike James May's idiot house which discovered the limitations of the laws of physics on large Lego constructions (and started cracking before it was finished), this house is a normal brick/concrete/timber and tile construction, filled with lots of Lego stuff - furniture, a cat &etc...

Branding

In March Lego was found to be the UK's most recognised brands, beating such luminaries are Gillette and Apple!

Model Events

In July a Lego model of a cinema was included in a UK Film pop-up event, reportedly built from 25,000 bricks, I assume it's a copy (simplified?) of one of the Legoland attraction models?

The same month Raymond Wirick (almost a Star Wars name!) produced a large sand-sculpture for the actual Legoland theme park at Windsor. Back in March Windsor announced the completion of a new model for the summer, a quite accurate-looking Sydney Opera House.

Back in April the shopping precinct at Basingrad (Festival Place) was decorated with 20 large-scale (life-size?) animals made of Lego, there is more and more of this type of thing, and the companies behind them - needing to re-coop their investment (in tens of thousands of Lego bricks) will no doubt hawk them round all sorts of likely venues, so they - or something like them - will be near you at some point! The local paper showed an alligator and the most heavenly snow-leopard cub with fat, fluffy tail, standing on a snow-covered rock-ledge

Further-back; in October 2017, I missed a Farnham and District Model Railway Club exhibition in Aldershot, at which a Lego railway (grey-rail type) took center-stage in the press-release.

In Space No One Can Hear You Brick-Click!

All the national papers seem to have found room for a news story on the Space Suttle model with female mini-figures of Mae Jemison and Sally Ride (astronauts), Margaret Hamilton (NASA scientist) and Nancy Grace Roman (Astronomer). The set, available on-line back in November was part of a programme of crowd-sourced suggestions for sets, and was put-forward by Maia Weinstock (a science writer), who garnered 10,000 votes for her idea.

Wizardry

While I also seem to have missed another story last October! Merlin (who own/manage the theme-parks announced the opening of a new park in New York State (not city, it'll be 60-clicks outside the city), throwing $350m (£264-million quid) at the project in Goshen, Orange County.

Fake News

Having in the past pointed-out the inordinate number of Lego, Lego-related or Lego-themed stories in the 'i' newspaper, I've noticed recently that the Metro is very good at putting new Lego sets in their lust lists, wants lists, tech-gadget  lists, what's new this weekend lists &etc . . . ad infinitum. They have recently covered a Star Wars A-Wing (£169.99p - on-line!), and a US-style Downtown Diner for £129.99p.

Superman came to stay in June

(Charity shop mixed-bag)

Losses

The best news (if you hate Lego) came in March with a profits fall which Lego told the BBC, was due to their having made too-many bricks? Revenues were down 8%, while operating profit dropped 17%. Personally I celebrate every rival set I see, and there are more and more of them.

As an aside - not a recent news story - I believe that the recent developments with Lego, especially their finally following Mega Bloks to more colours has diluted the Lego brand far more than losing court-cases to their rivals, and the QC on some of the new colours is not as stringent as it used to be on the core-five, further muddying the brands identity and making it easier for Lego fans (and parents) to accept the [always cheaper] substitutes.

Lego Crimbo

Last December saw a festive story in the Metro (and other papers - I'm sure) in which they cheekily (and self-reverentially?) managed to include the phrase 'click bait'! Catherine Weightman and Mike Addis had built a large 'Victorian' dolls house out of Lego; they do a Lego display every Christmas; and this was their biggest to date. It was claimed to have 15-rooms, but no matter how I counted them, I could get no less than 18?

Low Blow

Harking back to both the other days Toys Я Us post (location) and a previous story of stolen gnomes; someone stole the head of a large 3-foot Lego figurine which was outside the Crocodile Toy Shop in Cirencester, Gloucestershire and beat him about a bit!

However after a campaign on local social-media sites and Faceplant, the head was returned with a "Sorry was very drunk xx" message attached. The Lego mechanic (whispers . . . "I think he's Duplo"!) was repaired and his hands replaced!

He's been converted [back] from a key-ring

Finally

The most recent Lego story seen by me was in the 'i' last Thursday; a two-page spread on the Lego digital-robotics designers Eric Hansen and Gaute Munch. It was a genuinely-interesting look at the educational benefits of the Mindstorms range - programmable, interactive, USB-supported, electronic construction-sets and add-ons.

It covered other products too like Raspberry Pi, Minecraft and summer activities for kids such as the International Hour of Code, local coding clubs (www.codeclub.org.uk) and Fire Tech summer-camps (firetechcamp.com).

L is for Lido . . . Not . . . Load of Limp Lookalikes!

These are quite fun, even though they are no more than blatant piracies, again from the March show at Sandown Park I think? Also the copies are soft polyethylene against the hard polystyrene of the originals - if it's not obvious from the pictures.

There are other aeroplanes in the  Lido military range as seen on Kent Sprecher's site (about half-way down the page).

From the fact that both Jeeps and both Tanks ARE here, the conclusion is that someone simply bought the Lido set and posted it to their mates in Hong Kong, who pantographed it, hawked it round the Westerner's agents and probably had it back in the shops competing with the originals within months!

Although - Lido (as can be seen in the link) carried a lot of HK tat toward the end, and this could very well be a complete (less card) No.56 Army Mobile Unit from Lido? It's rack-toy tat anyway!

When I first saw them I wondered if the whole Lido tool might have ended-up in HK, but following the link above will show you that Lido's have a better finish, and while I can't compare with mine for a week or two more (sold my shares yesterday to pay for the removal van!), I know the undersides are neater on the originals, so these are definitely copies, even down to the 'tail-docking' rubber-grommet tyres (tires), but could still be Lido-sanctioned copies?

I'm not sure if I have these two as hard-plastic originals in the 'Dime-Store' tubs; I should have, but I've always been rather puzzled by the World War II STuG (Sturmgeschütz {German} 'Storm Gun') a self-propelled assault-gun (SPG) built on a Panzer III chassis, being included in a line-up of otherwise American toys? Although when I say Stug, I mean 'vaguely Stug-like' . . . really it's another space-tank!

Added on the 14th November 2018 - Here are the main elements compared with the original 'Dime Store' Lido production (most of which I did have!), you can see the finish is better on the originals, detailing is sharper (and different at points) and they are overall slightly-larger models. I don't think I have the Lido 'planes (they may be with all the other micro-planes?), so left the HK ones out of the comparison.

News, Views Etc . . . Hornby Hobbies

Hornby continue to occupy column inches in the business sections of the newspapers, and it's a while since I last covered them, so here's a round-up since January when they saw a drop in share value after a disappointing performance over Christmas.

The 9.3% fall in value followed a profits warning after the seasonal sales fell "...below management expectations", coming in the midst of the 'turnaround' plans, it was considered unfortunate, but not de-railing (geddit!), however by the beginning of April they were again talking to investors seeking more money! This on the back of half-yearly results showing a 22% drop in revenue (down from £21.9m to £17m-quid).

The beginning of June saw the announcement of a £18-million package to 'Rebuild the brands' (that is Airfix, Corgi, Scalextric and Hornby Railways). Management said they were "...unlikely to need all the pot" - only time will tell if 2019's catalogues are any better than the disappointing 2018 efforts seen here at Small Scale World in Toy Fair Reports passim.

The money coming in two lumps - £6m from PNC Business Credit and £12m from Phoenix - HH's largest shareholder; and follows the pull-out of Barclays Bank.

None of which prevented a further drop in share price in June following publishing of the previous full-year's results which were £9.5-million down in the previous 12-month period, leading to pre-tax losses of £10.1-million.

Management are blaming 'previous management' for the woes, but it's far more complicated than that, with manufacturing and supply-chain problems going back over a decade, a lack of vision (ask any war-gamer or modeller about WWI commemorative stuff - four years wasted!), the whole restructuring thing, the boardroom battle last year, the death of the Toysaurus, the Christmas sales-fall &etc.

They are in a hole and only time will tell if they climb out of it, or disappear down it!

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Two other train stories which may as well go here!

RIP = Rest In Plastic

Peter Hurst's sons Paul and Simon were reported in March to have placed their late-father's ashes in a 'Private Owner' coal wagon (Blaenavon) so they can occasionally run him round his own model-railway, when not in use the wagon's home-depot is Ashurst Station . . . Hurst's ashes; see!

Riverside Museum - Glasgow

In May the Mature Times (I am, so I do! . . . Nah; it's free from the library and has a crossword!) carried news of the re-vamping of the collection at the Riverside Museum of Travel and Transport in Glasgow, already famous for its collection of model ships, it has laid-on a collection of model railways and locomotives to commemorate 50-years since steam stopped running across Scotland.

Full sized [real] stuff is on display as well as many static and 'real-steam' or garden-scale models.

Web. - www.glasgowlife.org/museums/venues/riverside-museum

Tel. - 01412 872 720

The Museum is free entry and open from 10am-5pm daily except Fridays and Sundays when it opens at 11am.

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Which reminds me - I haven't kept the cutting as it didn't involve toys, models, games or collectables per se, but - I also read recently (last week or two) that the Science Museum in London is going to surrender Stevenson's Rocket to York's Railway Museum (I thought I'd seen it there about 40-years ago; they must have a similar-aged loco' or a replica?), however, before it arrives in York it will be doing a 'tour' of stints in other venues around the North of England - worth checking the dates/venues.

RTM is for Rack Toy Month - S is for Soldier Shoot

So first post for Rack Toy Month and what I consider to be the quintessential rack-toy - carded knock-off toy soldiers and a dart-firing gun! There's also a bit of synergy involved as it's only a few days since we looked at the Lone Star equivalents, only this time it's not ganging-up on Native Americans but rather blowing-away generic khaki infantrymen!

And instead of 'Careful; You'll have somebody's eye out' corks, we've got 'Careful; You'll have somebody's eye out' sucker-darts.

The bag with its rather leery header-card, I think both the font and the colour-choice places this firmly in the mid/late-half of the 1970's, it's that vague attempt to re-create the zeitgeist of the psychedelic-sixties, with a dodgy sheet of Letraset lettering!

Figures are copies of the Crescent 60-millimetre khaki infantry figures - in fact the reason I bought this (at March's Sandown Park show) was because I think I have the figures loose and it's always nice to tie loose HK into a set, even if there's no maker . . . it's a start!

Simple 'Hong Kong' mark in a spaced DIN-type font, set into a tablet-shaped recess under the heavy base. The pistol looks like the sort of toy which managed about 20-shots before the slackly-applied glue failed and the whole thing fell into two halves - we had toys like this when we were kids!

H is for How They Come In - Yesterday!

A bit of a Brucie Bonus; even as I was posting the last two How They Come In's yesterday, I was carrying these four in my pocket, a quid each for the Mermaid (The Works) and the -  over muscled (has he had a makeover?) - Goblin from Marvel (Newsagent) and 50p for the two kittens (Charity shop), which I assume are from one of the pocket-pet series'? Ten minutes in/up the High Street!

Poured resin, and glitter, it's not got a lot of redeeming features, but it's a figure! Although I notice there's a design-matched sticker hiding a printers typo ....made, ....miad, ....mayd?

Seen 'em before, Zuru, six new designs, this is my second, and . . . err . . . that's it.

It's a never ending stream of figural stuff, some of it really good, or really cool, or really rare, some of it so-so, some of it is utterly pointless shite! But it's 'horses for courses' and all in the eye of the beholder (or self-deceiver!) and I only hope everyone finds something for them in the Small Scale World saloon!

News, Views Etc . . . Pound's, -World, -Land and '+Plus!

Poundland

I'll start with Poundland, who after their often featuring in these News' posts in the past as they took-over 99p Stores and then suffered a hiccup or two of their own, have been pretty quiet recently, while Poundworld have been filling the column-inches with their own woes.

Last December (I know, I haven't done a decent 'News, Views . . .' since October - too much other, better stuff to publish . . . and some fun shite!) shares in Poundland plunged by 63% in a day following the sudden departure of Markus Jooste, CEO of Steinhoff amid news of financial irregularities. Christo Weise (head of Brait - the biggest shareholder) took over and the keel evened. PwC are investigating, so nothing to report there; huh?

More bad news - for the Poundland management - followed at the beginning of February when the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) pulled all the online adverts 'staring' the Elf on a Shelf' for gratuitous sexuality.

The elf was posed playing strip-poker with three dolls; naked in a sink with two dolls taking selfies (or were they elfies?); getting a little too-close to a donkey for most jurisdictions (I think it's legal in Alabama, and 'blind-eye' acceptable in some parts of Central Asia!); and errr . . . 'riding' a [Santa's] toothbrush. As I fucking hate the [recently imported, nothing to do with Christmas traditions] little shelf-elf fucker, this was - in my opinion - bloody good news!

In May the original founder (Steven Smith, he sold the store-chain in 2002) of Poundland's house came on the market for a cool £3.9-million pounds, apparently priced to sell because they wanted a quick sale! Best described as 'plantation-style' porn-palace pile in pink-brick, it was originally offered at £6.5-mil'!

Finally and taking-us neatly on to Poundworld; Mr smith announced earlier this month (July) that he was interested in buying some of the ailing Poundworld empire to try to save it.

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Poundworld / Poundworld+Plus

Easier to do this one as a diary, I have been chatting to the guys in Poundworl+Plus here in Fleet as the whole thing unravelled, as there are few new jobs for lesser-skilled or younger job-seekers in a middle-class dormitory-town like this, and they were happy to get the positions when the store opened not that long ago. What they were being told by head-office varied greatly from either that which was in the press and what tended to be announced to the 'City', the day after they (the staff) had been told something else!

April 27th

It is announced that up to 1,500 jobs are at risk as Poundworld pursues a restructuring plan that could shut about a third of its stores. It is looking at a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) to enable rent-reduction and the closing of up to 100 unprofitable stores - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us! TPG capital (the owner) is reported ready to inject £40m into the business, they also being owners of the Prezzo restaurant chain - also seeking a CVA and closing sites!

June 7th

It is rumoured that Poundworld could collapse within days putting all 355 stores (and 5,300+ jobs) at risk. Between the April and June headlines TGP had trousered the £40m and put the chain up for sale, potential buyers Alteri Group were by the beginning of June having second thoughts - presumably having seen 'the books' - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

June 11th

Administrators appointed - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

June 19th

100+ redundancies are announced at head office - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

June 21st

Closing-down sale begins with consultants Hilco called in to organise clearance of stock, administrators Deloitte taking over from what's left of management  - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

June 22nd

Someone [unnamed by the 'i'] blames the Government for denying a rate-cut to Poundworld which would have unlocked £4.1m of funding (your/our 'tax-payers' money), from a fund of £3.4Bn earmarked for ailing companies, it relies on the rate cuts that should have come with the CVA - but was probably also reliant on the owner's forking-up of the £40m?

July 3rd

Original founder of Poundworld (Chris Edwards - 1974) blames the administrators for preventing his rescue bid of 180 stores. Creditors are fingered by Deloitte as being a 'priority' while Mr Edwards claims that with every day of fire sale the stores become harder to save as stock isn't being replenished, bankers Santander finally wake-up, too late!

July 10th

As mentioned above, rival founder of Poundland (Steven Smith - 1990) throws his hat in the ring; at this - late - stage, he's presumably looking for a bargain to offset against his cut-price house sale!

July 11th

Deloitte announce 25 branches will close on Sunday (15th), with the rest of the chain continuing to trade while a buyer is sought, despite all buyers pulling out, and neither Chris Edwards or Steven Smith apparently being considered? Clare Boardman of Deloitte explains that it would be nice to sell part of the business while banging-on about failing to sell the whole business! Number of stores is now being reported to be only 335 - typo there somewhere!

July 13th

Fleet store puts "Last 10 days" signage up, despite not being on initial published list.

July 14th

Announcement of another 80 stores to close, bringing total redundancies to 1,266; Deloitte 'still trying to find a buyer' but clearly not the two guys trying to buy it?

July 18th

Another 40 stores join the growing list - back to the Toys 'Я' Us model of doing things!

July 20th

Head office closes, warehouse operations cease (meaning all outstanding stock is in stores), and an unspecified number of extra store join the list. The Times reports all stores will close 'early next month'.

July 22nd

Fleet closed - so far, so Toys 'Я' Us!

Deloitte (one of the 'big four' global's) will get their money, Santander (Spanish) will get their money, TPG Capital (US) will be registered as creditors and probably get their money, redundancies will be marked-down by the level of collapse and the staff will only get some of their money! Suppliers and Landlords will have to fight for theirs!

That's Thatcherite-Raganomic free-market capitalism folks and you keep voting for it.

50,000 jobs lost in the last 12 months - on the high-street.

Toys 'Я' Us, Maplin, and Poundworld are the tip of an iceberg which TGP's restaurant chain Prezzo will join!

And Brweaksit won't help, it will make it easier for US companies to dump UK assets and harder for Spanish banks to save them! But then - if you still believe in Brwreaksit, now; you're a fuckwit.

H is for How They Come In - One Day in July . . . 2014!

Another day's purchases, this from a trip to Basingrad in July 2014, and we've had articles here on most of it, but I'm clearing Picasa with these posts you know!

The Noch bar set and the Model Scene came from the Church Street model shop, the skydivers and the pencil/eraser/sharpener set both came from The Works I think, not sure about the Team GB Olympic clearance thing (the now defunct 99p Stores?), while the blind-bag dino's and Hobbit stuff was also The Works I suspect.

The Bart Simpson was a blind-bag from WHSmith's or someone similar - it may have been reduced in Tesco, but it was a while ago!

Can't remember if we looked at these here, or another pair, also I think these and the dino's may have been bought in another Works a week earlier and just hung-around to end-up in the same collective shot?

Much covered elsewhere, so I won't bore you with the minutiae, there were differences between the first and second series' plastic colours I seem to recall, and these are 2nd series I think?

The naming of the parts! This has been sat in Picasa waiting for god-knows-what post, but I thought the way the bare runner was arranged in the blister made it ideal for labelling-up, if only to illustrate the difference between the 'Sprue' (missing in most kits/figure packs) and the 'Runners' which a lot of people refer-to as sprue, and a few idiots lesser mortals [I must stop insulting everyone] call sprew, sproo or spru!

Some kits, in the past, have had sprue left on; early Aurora, Pyro and Revell-Monogram type model-kits often included them while some of the late-production, unpainted Starlux 40mm in the 'figure set' boxes were packed with the sprue intact, in both cases (old kits and later figures) the sprue had a tendency to damage the box/box-art over time by wearing a hole/working through the card.

The reason the actual sprue ends-up cone-shaped is because it stretches as it's pulled away from the still-hot injector head during the removal of the runners/product from the mould-tool.

New, Views Etc . . . Toys Я Going...Going...Still Going!

Kerching!

Despite the end coming some time ago, news stories continue to surface about TRU, not lest the recent spate of articles - in the major press - on the sale of six former Toy 'R' Us sites for £30.5m squids, one of the purchasers being Cardiff City Council? Plymouth Council has bought another (and funnily enough Plymouth is one I've been to!), I guess they are looking at conversion to sports facilities or maybe those multi-store craft/antiques markets?

Three have gone to an unnamed retail chain, so will remain shops of some type while the sixth is to be converted into housing it seems?

Gone Under - Down Under

Back in June it was announced that the 44 Australian stores were all to close through July, the whole group including the US parentage is going to be wound-up in the fullness of time, with a few US stores continuing as clearance depots.

As I've said before, not something I'll actually morn, they created the industry-model which destroyed them.

Still Trading!

However there was a good news story (for those who persistently and without reason, cling to a vague 'faith in humanity'); in Cheltenham one autistic lad was so bereft at the closure of his local store, and unable to fully comprehend it (it was his favorite store from infanthood) having fixed-it in his mind, as a constant in his life (as autistic's can), that his mother wrote to TRU explaining the worrying predicament.

Gloucester store invited him down, showed him the 'dead' Toysaurus, gave him a tour so he could finalise its demise - mentally - and presented him with logo boards (including Lego!), point-of sale display boards, an opening-times entrance sign, a large Geoffrey Giraffe and etcetera; allowing him to re-create a permanent TRU in his bedroom - which he has now done!