A is for All Hallows' Eve - Mystery Monsters

So, these are a mystery and a treat, they are a treat because they were in the August lot  form Peter Evans, and while he was probably thinking of catching Rack Toy Month, they had to be held-over 'till today! But they are also a mystery because they seem to be part of a much larger selection which different importers/jobbers or other clients are picking 'selections' from?

The best way for me to explain is for you to first check-out this post from 'Fantasy Soldiers' Shaun on the SCS Direct set, then look at last year's contribution from Brian Berke, and as we go through the sample from Peter you'll see both similarities, identicalities (which should be a word!) and differences between all three 'lots', although the Greenbrier/SCDT ones are probably knock-offs?

The whole lot; as they arrived, I wondered if the extra small-zombie (bottom right) was deliberate or accidental, as the pair take the sample-count to 21 one feels the extra may have been picked-up by the packing machinery and flicked into 'my' bag as an extra, but he's small enough to be included to make the two 'equal' to a whole one.

Either possibility has merit, but once you see how different this set is from Shaun's, you suspect it may not be complete (there was no packaging) or that it is a whole set of Zombies with some monsters thrown in? There are no pale-grey versions either.

Plain zombie types, there is an element of cartoonishness shared with the set from Terranova last year, and as they are zombies, you could lose a lot of the 'fun-look', with paint - lots of blood methinks!

The sausages for a farm-fresh breakfast I promised two days ago, except we both know it isn't a string of sausages, don't we . . . euuwwe! These four are all doing stuff, although in the case of the first it's just wearing an axe as a hat! The other three are eating body-parts - nice!

Common cinema/popular-culture tropes again with - from the left; a mummy, vampire/Count Dracula, werewolf/Wolf Man type and another vision of Dr Frankenstein's monster.

More mythological are an Indo-Asian looking cyclopean, a devil/Satan bat-type and an itty-bitty baby Godzilla, although given it was a man in a rubber-suit and all the scale was 'in the studio set' it's actually an accurate man-in-a-Godzilla-suite sculpt! Missing from the SCS tub on Shaun's Blog is the Aquaman/Marine-boy/Man-fish/Sea Monster type.

Also missing from that set are the gravestones and giant insects.

This mummy is in a hurry, and here he's compared to one we'll be looking at later today courtesy of Brian, for all intents and purposes they are 'classic' 54mm, unpainted toy figures and happily carrying Airfix or Marx's torch into the 21st century.

Back to zombies and a couple of humans; again the humans are quite comical in their hysteria but this is where you notice the similarities with last year's figures from Brian, although the previous lot had the rack-toy flash not seen on these, the sculpting, plastic colour, large bases and grave-stones seem to tie them into the other two SCS sets as well as this mixed sample.

The duplicate/question-mark pose and a figure which - due to the cartoonish 'Mad Magazine' facial features of all of them - could be a fearful human or over-active zombie? Or, a sort of 'Carrie' figure; chasing after the mummy!

Cheers Peter, lovin'em!

A is for All Hallows' Eve - Haunted House

I found this among a pile of similar press-out card booklets, in a charity shop (Help the Aged/Age Concern) back in the summer, from the size of the pile they were being sold as clearance, probably donated by Poundland when they took over 99p Stores, and taking a while to filter through to the shops.

Branded to PMS, there was also a nice football one with whole teams (larger scale I think?) which I intended to go back for, but the next day they had all gone, no doubt some feeBay bottom-feeder or car-bootie bog-troll saw a profit in them?

The reason for getting this one wasn't the simplistic card building, but the six stand-alone press-out figures which cover the main tropes of horror characters - clockwise from headless; zombie, vampire, Dr. Frankenstein's monster, knife-murderer/serial-killer, witch/hag and mummy.

Two other figures complete the line-up of 'usual suspects' a much-alive skeleton and a ghost, although both are to be slotted into the finished model rather than having independent bases,  while a living tree ('Ent'!) is another useful stand-alone . . . 40p the lot - bargain!

I may try to get some spare game-board slotted stands (for cards) as their press-out stands actually get in the way of the artwork - at least four designs commonly available.

A is for All Hallows' Eve - Bits & Bobs

Although coming soon after ITLAPD, we had a bit of a bean-feast last year on the 31st October, and while there shouldn't be (and technically - 'isn't'), there is always a sub-conscious pressure to perform similarly the following year, just in case a follower of the blog has been sat at home for the last 364 days, waiting . . . !

. . . and while I'm making no promises for next year, the Blog has managed to pull a small rabbit out of the hat, as at around the 1st August there was one image in Picasa, the next one, and nothing on the horizon, but due to donations from Brian B (Terranova), a contribution from Peter Evans and a couple of last-minute purchases, there is quite a bit to look at today,  which - apart from the bits in this post - we'll look at in the order they were shot/came in, so let's get started!

These three came in a mixed bag from a charity shop back in July, with the red one being one of those horrid, stretchy, cold, clammy, 'wet-feel' silicon things so beloved of certain kids, and not really destined to stay in the collection, but with nothing else for Halloween at the time it was photographed as worth a shot, and I liked how he could carry his commoner gum-ball/lucky-bag novelty skeletons like milk-bottles! As a size-guide, they are about 60mm.

The skeleton on the left in the previous picture is one of those modern semi-flat 'why did they bother?' types, but the other one is older and fully round, with the key-chain/charm-loop removed he'll pass muster in most of the recently issued skeleton armies, but he needs to find a weapon!

Brian also sent the rather sparse display from Scully & Scully's window on a Halloween theme, let's hope the Christmas one is as good as previous years, as they've barely tried for Halloween, although looking up flats the other day, it's clear that while they produce plenty of Christmas and Easter stuff, Halloween isn't something commonly available, being a more US-centric  thing maybe, although getting ever more commercialised in the UK these days. And I love the autumn trees.

Not really a Halloween thing; as I think it's from He-Man (and the MOTU!); but where else do I post an evil looking elf/sprite/Jawa type thing? It's not even evil, being the same 'annoying kid' character many productions have, to give the younger viewers something to connect-with while their elder siblings get into the latent sex and/or ultra-violence, think: the space monkey from Fireball XL5, Tribbles, Jaja Binks . . . and there's always a brat or two in Jurassic Park movies!

It's marked Hong Kong, and made of a spongy yet dense rubber of the biscuity variety which has suffered both crumbling damage and osmotic staining, it took several scrubs to get it clean enough for posting, having had a hand in someone's pretty active and apparently quite mucky childhood! Many thanks to Chris Smith or Jim (from Sandown) for this one I think?

D is for Brucey Bonus!

Didn't get the text done in time yesterday!

This is the regular return or regular roundup - if you like, they haven't been in the queue, but rather collecting in a TBS (to be sorted) bag as they come in until there's enough for a quick phot-shoot. Mostly generic-enough Chinasaur shite, but there's a gem or two among them.

Start with a pair of classic, rubbery, proper-common, cheepo' Chinasaurs, these turn-up all the time and always remind me of baby birds, with their gaping mouths, soft PVC and their eyes painted like gum-ball machine rubber-jigglers or Imperial Poopatroopers. The carnivore won't stand up, so he's punching Dimetrodon in the face! Nature, even bug-eyed nature; raw in tooth and claw!

Having let a whole set through my hands a few years ago, I'm now building the Invicta/Natural History Museum set again, one dino' at a time; this is number three I think! Described as 'Scelidosaurus - about 4 meters'.

A collection of mostly old-school (or old tool) Chinasaurs from the HK days, the one on the right (looks like a mole-rat!) is definitely an earlier issue, with the middle pair of very poor quality, one marked with a bit of Hong... the other not marked at all, while the one on the far left may be a more recent 'China' re-issue.

The per'terra-thingy has been seen here under both Home Collection and Perfect Moments branding, and while the Steggie' looks likewise familiar from those monochromatic sets, it's actually a different sculpt with opposite plates rather than the off-set ones of the other brands, and a very poorly sculpted head on an otherwise reasonable body.

The little yellow one is tiny; about the same height as an Airfix HO/OO guardsman, but a relatively original sculpt, so he may be a baby from a larger parent in a more commercial play-set?

Two ceratopsian's from the current crop of toob sets, which one - I haven't a clue, but there are dozens of them and one day we'll have a proper look at them and make some sense of them all.

These are utter shite, but I love them! Reason being, they are modern shots taken from the old 1970's rubber dino' moulds from which my childhood Dimetrodon comes! They have been moulded in a pale fawn or sand rubber and painted likewise with over-brushing in oxide red or grey for a dusty, desert-dwelling look.

The Dimetrodon on the right is the one I remember with a sharper-tipped sail, the one in the middle has had his sail-tips smoothed-off. The one on the right also ended-up with some flash, pulled away from the gate-mark as he was taken from the mould, and now looks as if he's god and is using a gecko-like tongue!

Anyone who had these in the heyday of their semi-translucent, silicon-rubber, 1970's glory will recognise the smooth scalloped bellies of the other three sculpts, and the rather flat 'fence-panel' of the Dimetrodons!

News, Views Etc . . . E is for . . .

Eye Candy!

https://lang.smugmug.com/Toy-Soldier-Collection/

and

https://lang.smugmug.com/Toy-Soldier-Collection/i-gvcXMqd

D is for Dinosuars 2 of 2 - Regent Products Corp.

We've seen these before as a contribution from Brian B, but he very kindly sent me my own sealed set to open for the blog, which is what I did!

The same four capsules in the same four colours,

branded to Regent, Illinois out of Quindao, China.

Last time I wondered out loud how they might be distributed, given the listing wasn't divisible by four, the answer is; randomly! No duplicates with Mr. B's four; but a duplicate within the pack, along with a mammal!

Now there is a way of calculating how many 'things' you need to buy to find all of a random sample, but A) I can't recall the formula, and B) it was a one-of-so-many formula, not an in-fours-of-so-many, so I don't know how to calculate it, but assuming a totally random distribution of the 16 listed poses, I recon maybe six or eight packs?

Tries to work it out in his head . . . we have one duplicate in 8 eggs, so 16 eggs may be assumed to have two duplicates, so a fifth pack must be bought, but we know from the two packs so far opened that there's a 50/50 chance of another duplicate, so you should (technically) need six packs (24 eggs) to [theoretically] find the 16 sculpts?

As they are stumpy-legged micro-erasers, you wouldn't want to, so it's a purely mental exercise, but I needed some sort of blurb for what is a duplicate post!

Thank you again Mr. Berke!

D is for Dinosaurs 1 of 2 - K & J P

We saw theses briefly in a 'How They Come In' a while ago, one of my nicer 'scores' from a charity shop this year, still on card but a bit tatty Kenner-Parker (KP) Jurrassic Park (JP) stuff from the early 1990's, probably old 'emergency presents' found at the back of the 'phone-drawer years later!

Because they were tatty and due to ever-increasing space-restraints, I have de-carded them, the cards scanned and sent to fire-lighting; at this time of year recycling drops-off here!

From the fact that stickers have been added with an over-print for the consumer-information panel we can tell that these were current-stock as Hasbro bought the Tonka empire to which Kenner-Parker then belonged, and it also enables the set codes to be worked out, the original (un-stickered) cards having only a generic 61027 'assortment' code;

61028 - Brachiosaurus & Velociraptor

61029 - Ceratosaurus & Triceratops

61030 - Pteranodon & Gallimimus

61031 - Ankylosaurus & Hadrosaurus

61032 - Dilophosaurus & Stegosaurus

61033 - Tyrannosaurus & Dimetrodon

61034 - Plesiosaurus & Iguanodon

You distract 'im Baz, and I'll 'ook 'is neck!

Matchbox were doing die-cast JP things at about the same time, so whether it was a shared license, or just a  quality stipulation from the licence issuer I don't know, but it's an odd co-incidence that two companies should be making similar sets in an unusual material (for figurals) at the same time, pertaining to the same movie?

Oooh . . . Me'favorite! Dimetrodon; showing how you can display each model's card in the little slot shown on the back of T-Rex's stand, also highlighting the gruesome fact that 'Rex is about to chow-down on a rather old, sun-faded carcass . . . nom-nom-nomnivore!

A couple more JP dino's, we've seen one already and I may have some more in the ex-storage pile, but the dinosaur box/boxes (can't remember) haven't surfaced yet? Pretty standard PVC-type plastic and I used to think the mark was the toymaker's, but believe it's actually a park-owner's tattoo found on the CGI'd animals in . . . err . . . the second (?) movie? So these are probably Hasbro/Mattel too, but I don't know.

News, Views Etc . . . F is for Free Toy Soldiers!

Dunklin County Libraries (Missouri) are giving away free toy soldiers on Veteran Day if you drop by, the links are problematical (I had to view the 'cashed' version, and as a 'text-only') so if anyone 'over there' can get a better link please do and chuck it in the comments.

Link
Cashe
Text Only

Text reads;

Friday, October 26, 2018

As the Dunklin County Library kicks off celebrating Veterans Day, stop by any library in Dunklin County and pick up a toy soldier as a reminder of the men and women serving our country. Also, each location will honor veterans with a special display inviting county patrons to bring in a framed 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 photograph of a veteran. The Dunklin County Library in Kennett will feature a salute to veterans during the month of November with displays of pictures, memorabilia, uniforms, and other veteran related items. Harold G. Walker will be at the Kennett location on Monday, November 4, 2018, from 4 pm to 6 pm, to sign his latest book release entitled, The Grotto. This book commemorates his time as a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam war and the camaraderie among fellow soldiers during this tense period.

 

They're probably cheapish rack-toy figures but support the thing anyway!

F is for Follow-up to Flexible Foreign Farm Folk

Following the recent bucket'ess post Brian Berke kindly sent me the off-shoots of his Auburn Rubber 'Dan Dare' hunt, to compare the - believed - Ohio Arts figure with an Auburn original, this is they!

Not only was the Ohio Arts girl carrying a basket of bread, but the original is carrying a basket of eggs; with one of the Britains' girls carrying a bowl of 'cereal' we have a whole, healthy, farm breakfast . . . in polymer! Sausages coming on the 31st . . . !

Here she is with her husband, except that that is an illiberal, patriarchal, old school assumption, worthy only of a reactionary, parochial right-winger! He may be her son, her brother, one of the farm hands or a neighbour; come-over to give a hand at egg-carrying time!

Cheers Brian, another box ticked!

T is for Two . . . Wheels Good . . .

Like Paratroopers and whatever the other thing was the other day . . . goes and checks the 'finished' folder . . . ; footballers (!), this has become another of those perennials, we return to from time to time, dinosaurs, insects and fish are all currently rising-up the queue as well, but today it's a return to two wheels; well, fourteen wheels or - if you want to be a total pedant fifty-seven wheels and at least three - visible - skids!

Roughly in the order they've come in or been shot since we last looked at them excluding a lead flat I think we looked-at separately . . .

Upon the demise of PoundworldPlus back in the summer, this was reduced to 50p with a further reduction at the till taking it to 43p or something! It was worth a punt for a small plastic motorcycle, of Kinder-egg quality? It needed squeezing together properly which I didn't notice until after the photo-shoot, branded to their ITP Imports and coming with a reasonable rendition of an executive type helicopter and a really crappy jeepney-thing which - if pink - would look like Barbie's beach-buggy!

I can't tell you what this cost as it was a present for my Brother on his Birthday! He's one of those people who has everything he wants, and if he really wants something else tends to go and get exactly what he wants himself, so he's very difficult to buy for, but he likes his motorcycles, so when I saw this . . . bingo! Noki are the same people who did the novelty egg-cup and toast-soldier sets, see Small Scale World passim.

I think this is the third time out for this chap, and the second involving contributions from Peter Evans, who recently sent me a very interesting set, with the unpainted black-plastic version. In the meantime I found another (slight colour variation) in the Storage lot, so shot all four together and they now have a new tub, all to themselves, although the black one is still in the bag awaiting next year's RTM.

CHiPs! From storage, from Kentoys, but not the Kenway Cycle Shop of 1950's London, but rather the 1990's Kentoys with a half-mile-long factory in Shatin, New Territories! Now into high-end, larger-scaled, die-casts, they started (as so many HK companies did) with cheaper plastics, these came with blistered sets or singly with larger trucks, in this specific case the 'Wheelers' fire-engine set. They were announced at 1:72 and - basically - would have been in competition with the similar New Ray and Supreme sets of that time; among others.

Is it a Harley Electra-Glide or a Honda Goldwing Aspencade? Now - there's a question for my Brother! Judging from the full-tank and headlight-fairing; I recon a Honda?

Old solid-lead motorcyclist (Postman?), I don't know if it's in Joplin and I haven't looked as I know it's not particularly rated (Adrian had it in his cheapie-tray at Sandown last), so probably a copy of anything similar-looking in the aforementioned tome, or more likely a home-cast which may have been made commercially available? The lead-guys dismiss this stuff (and melt it down!) like some in our polymer-branch of the hobby still dismiss HK stuff, but you know me; I'll post anything!

A bicycle, Cakeboards, resin, cake decoration, the resin pile is piling-up! Nice 54mm and a female subject which is never that common, so pleasantly unusual!

Mr. Berke sent a whole box of donations to the blog the other day with his uncommon generosity, and we will be looking at bits from it over the next few days, as some of it was very timely, but there was also this, Greenbrier/DTSC. I don't know if he and Mr Evans are in competition with their contributions, but this is an even larger scale than the candy-container bicycle we looked at in Rack Toy Month! Guy's; I don't know where to put them!

Thanks again to Brian, Peter and Adrian for some of the above!

M is for Multicoloured Miniature Motoring Marvels From Across 'La Manche'

We were going to have some Dinosaurs here but I ran out of time on Friday-gone and posted this quickly so there'd be something sitting here, come Monday morning!

From the French concern Minialuxe, come these delightful 'Personnage de Tacots' which is like 'old-crocks people' or passengers for old-fashioned cars, scaled to 1:43rd and painted beatifully, I have seen some with plainer decoration, but mine all seem to be 'off to Henley' in their Regatta finest!

Obviously the top one is a part-set and I'm not sure about the packing on the bottom one, I think the figures pre-date the invention of bubble-wrap, let along its common usage!

P is for Paltry Plastic Packet of Popular Pugilistic Polymer Pencil Perching Pals

I know, but sometimes once it's in your head you have to use it or you don't get it out of your head!

We like figural pencil-tops here at Small Scale World, we like plastic personages and we like Tom & Jerry, so that's alright then . . . Phew!

Scale's a bit shot, if I was Tom I don't think I'd be looking quite so unconcerned at the situation, Jerry obviously had his spinach for breakfast, his pintaday and put muck in his boots and - to be fair - Tom's looking a tad effete, maybe he's turned-over a new leaf! Brilliant!

R is for Regular Round-up!

Like yesterday's football/footballers; for many years we didn't really look at paratrooper toys here, but a couple of years ago I did  an overview of what I had here at the time, and since then with a lot of help from New York and keeping an eye-out, we've had quite a few re-visits.

I still haven't found the 'in storage' box, but I spotted a few buried the other day and it may be with them, so perhaps before Christmas I'll have united the two sizeable samples and we can have a better look or over-view of the genre - a favourite here, now.

How they come in! I bought these in Basingrad on the 9th, two from Wilkinson's/Wilco, the other (Phidal Peter Rabbit) from TKMaxx, the monster [snake!] skeleton was really for Halloween, but you've seen it now - it'll look great with skeleton armies though! Phidal are going to need a couple of days now, there's around ten sets, or part-sets in the queue, and anyway it's the paratroopers we're looking at now.

So, N is for Not That Unique Are They! We've looked at their 54mm solid paratroopers here and we've looked at the blow-mould poses as both a blow-mould and solid by other brands or under other brand marks, but under Unique - as I said - these sets of four are in Wilko's at the moment.

I have a set of 12 in the storage lot which I think also came from Wilkinson's but about eight or nine years ago (possibly the green-carded set), while an earlier set existed. The drop in contents reflects inflation, but a drop from 12 to 4 in one step has a whiff of greed too, especially if you were running the twelve for 15-20 years, prior to the sudden count-drop!

A drop to eight would have been a better start, and if you're dropping to four, why not issue one of each colour?

This is a make-weight for the post, the recent D&D Distribution catalogue shot showing the currently common figures we've seen here under several brands already, they are the ones with the closed canopy and single-shroud which I don't like very much! Also, someone needs to have a word with the copywriter!

We've also seen these several times but I couldn't remember if we'd seen a four-blister one, I know Brian B has sent shelfies of Jaru 3-blister packs and I've bought or shelfied two- or three-blister cards, but have we had a four? We have now! Kandytoys of Exeter.

From the archive comes Norton-Thomson's 1988 Lion Group 'Pocket Money Toys' catalogue, and a different take on the paratrooper toy altogether; they are fired into the sky by a long, rigid . . . err . . . 'member' placed . . . err . . . between their thighs, the . . . err . . . 'snake's head' engaging with a steel spring and catch mechanism . . . well endowed lads, but - ouch!

"Most inappropriate toy in INGERLAND EVER!"; he spittle-flecks down the 'phone to the Daily Wail's 'really important news' desk, for lesser bloggers to re-post! Also issued under TNT branding as The Sky Devils Paratroopers as code M7626A.

Y is for Yes . . . I'm Clearing Odd's From Picasa Again!

Little Tykes polymer Little People - eat your hearts out! I Shot this back in July and when I found it I couldn't believe he was still around, almost certainly our first toy figure, he was one of a pair, and may have been preceded as THE first by an equally wooden stacking guardsman on a pole, but I think this came earlier?

When I found him in the garage he was time/sun-faded and mouldy, but a dip in that Barentine wood-treatment and he's almost back to his old self, maybe not quite as green ('army-man' green!) as I remember!

He was one of two, I seem to recall, one behind the other in a big chunk of wood shaped like a racing wedge, open-topped with four large wooden wheels, we loved it when we were very young (3-5 maybe?) and would push it round the house until we banged our heads on something and settled down to a quieter pastime for the afternoon, or . . . got a bollocking for ramming it into some 'so called' valuable piece of 'grown-ups' furniture!

I'll call him Guy, and he can go in the 'Unknown Wood & Other Materials' box. What do you mean "Where's the other shots?"; he's turned on a lathe - this is ALL the shots, his arse really is his elbow!

P is for Penalty Shoot Out

It's funny, but 2018 has turned out to be the year of the footballer on Small Scale World, I don't think we even had the tag before January? But quite by chance they've kept coming, even after the deliberately queued mini-season in Jan'!

I picked this up today (Wednesday) as one of those odd things some charity shops carry from time to time; a corporate donation of over stock, end-of-line clearance or canceled-order stuff and £3.99 is near the retail price I'd imagine, I'd seen them a few days earlier, and they still have a few?

Desktop Distractions from Paladone Products it's been numbered PP3481, 707804 and - most recently - 134774, so has clearly 'done the rounds' of the retail world before ending-up in SCOPE (the mental health charity previously called MIND) the last numbering being added as a sticker over the previous codes and on the goal's stand?

Goal-keeper is hand-operated from a long stick which locates in his back so he would need a base (or a lump of Blue Tac - other proprietary blobs of squidginess are available) to be added to any cabinet/displayed collection! Sculpting is lacking in the facial features department, disappointing given the size, but it's a football game rather than a 'figure toy'?

The striker is a variation of the old rack toy one . . . one of which I think we saw here not that long ago, I seem to remember getting one the other month and shooting it? Try the Football tag!

Anyway, press his head and either a toothed rod running down inside his body activating a hidden cogged arc of plastic at the top of his thigh, or - as in this case - a simple off-set hinge/rod, similarly hidden, causes the foot to fly forward and kick the ball, a spring-return 'resetting' the figure for another go.

With a stretch you can play it with yourself! My 'berserker' needs to find some victims who are actually going to quake at his toothpick of a bayonet; recently he's been going-up against some much bigger opposition!

70mm and interestingly the packaging states it's manufactured from PET (Poly-ethyl[ene]-terephthalate) a polyester with similar properties to polypropylene, ie; it will take the punishment likely delivered from excited little handipuds trying to score goals - yer' typical executive in other words! I'll list it under PP to save having another tag; it's about type/properties and is only a guide!

Ghosts in the machine!