News, Views Etc . . . Rainbow Joes!

More on Yoga Joes, they've gone psychedelic!

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H is for Heads Up - BP Fairs 2019 Toy Fair Dates

The dates for 2019 were issued at Sandown Park, worth shoving them in a folder where you can get at them even or when you're off-line, I coloured each venue separately in case you're only interested in one or two sites/shows.

BP Fairs 2019

January

Sunday 6th               Bolton Stadium

Sunday 13th   Stafford Showground

February

Sunday 10th           NEC Birmingham

Sunday 24th                         Coventry

March

Saturday 2nd              Sandown Park

Sunday 10th   Doncaster Racecourse

Saturday 16th            Rugby Vintage

Sunday 17th   Stafford Showground

Sunday 31st                          Buxton

April

Sunday 7th               Bolton Stadium

Sunday 14th         NEC Birmingham

May

Sunday 5th                          Coventry

Sunday 19th   Doncaster Racecourse

Saturday 25th             Sandown Park

June

Sunday 2nd                           Buxton

Sunday 16th   Stafford Showground

Sunday 23rd            Bolton Stadium

July

Sunday 7th     Doncaster Racecourse

Sunday 14th                        Coventry

August

Sunday 11th    Stafford Showground

Saturday 17th             Sandown Park

September

Sunday 8th                             Buxton

Sunday 15th         NEC Birmingham

Saturday 21st            Rugby Vintage

Sunday 22nd                      Coventry

Sunday 29th             Bolton Stadium

October

Sunday 13th   Stafford Showground

Sunday 27th   Doncaster Racecourse

November

Sunday 3rd              Bolton Stadium

Sunday 10th                          Buxton

Saturday 16th            Sandown Park

December

Sunday 15th   Stafford Showground

Friday 27th           NEC Birmingham

Sunday 29th             Bolton Stadium

Monday 30th  Doncaster Racecourse

P is for Plastic Planet Playset

I can remember when I bough these, but not the exact date (it should be in the folders somewhere?), they were in a corner-shop/convenience store on the Bellfields estate at the bottom of Guildford between about '97/98 and 2001/3'ish! I was just really pleased to find small scale 'traditional' rack-toys in a shop, with figures AND space stuff!

Carded blister, clearly aimed as a knock-off for the Galoob Star Wars Action Fleet, Matchbox Mega-Rig or Playmates Star Trek stuff of that time. They are also channelling a bit of Games Workshop I think? Little/mini action-figures, with two points of articulation; hips and shoulders; they are around the 25mm mark.

I think they were a quid each and the shop had two 'assortments' so I bought one of each, opened one (below) and kept the other in the blister, the little flitter/flyer thing looks a bit like that Waltii Industries machine the Blog reported-on way back, clearly a  poplar configuration/design in the rim-worlds!

Play value is achieved by lots of little ball-&-socket jointed 'greebles' which have to be carefully packed-away to make the lid close, but otherwise can be moved about and swapped between locations - the influence of other toy lines can be seen, there's a bit of Tom Zoids in the twin-tailed thing - for instance.

If you leave it shut, glue it all rigid and paint it up, it would make an excellent space-station in 1:300 or 1:600, or an even bigger excellent space-station in 1:1200 if you happen to game in those scales.

I wish I'd bough a second set of the 'walker' version when I saw them, as I'd like to paint this up, but won't as it's the only one I have! Although before painting it I'd remove the cannons on the hip-joints, there just isn't room for walking-gear, self levelling gear AND the aiming, firing and ammo-gear in those leg-tops! And NOT an AT-ST at all, no, no, no!

No maker or obvious branding on the packaging or items.

132 is for Roman Soldiers

A bit of a a box-ticker, to get something up for Monday AM, anyway; there's plenty on the Internet if you look and the figures aren't than rare, although the hard plastic, earlier versions tend to a bit of damage.

Nine poses, flatter than semi-flat, but thick-enough to have some substantiality about them, they come in two colours, blue and yellow, why no - obvious - red is anyone's guess! Following the pattern of other premium flats, the mounted figures are a different scale to the foot figures . . . or further away!

Hard polystyrene plastic on the left of both colour-pairs, softer polyethylene on the right, the soft plastic ones are heavily marked HONG KONG along the edge of the base with an engineer's stamp, as they were all supplied by the same advertisers I think this was probably an economic thing, although there are subtle differences between the two sets of mouldings.

I only have soft-plastic catapults, whether this is due to the hard plastic ones all breaking over the years, or a sign of an addition I'm not sure, I think the ad's always mentioned them? Even in soft plastic they have lost their 'springiness' and settled to the low position so you can't effectively flick them any-more!

Mr Hur and his competitors! You can see clearly here how the soft plastic set are much heavier sculpts that the older styrene ones.

The effect of massed formations is - I suspect - one of the reasons we stay interested in these ephemeral playthings and keep collecting them?

The flyer, I'm not sure where this one came from, but I do have the originals somewhere, Peter Evans gave me one years ago and I've had a couple out of cheap comic buys at car-boot sales, so I will replace this shot with a high-res scan, or add the better image to the A-Z entry.

F is for Follow Up - Highlander Pencil Sharpener

Anon made an excellent suggestion in comments the other day about the possible source of the head for the Hong Kong novelty pencil-sharpener, sadly it doesn't seem to pan-out, but I shot a comparison anyway, and it helps 'prove' Lone Star's plagiarism - if you weren't already decided!

Years ago when looking at Lone Star Wild West's in someone else's collection I noted the similarity with some of the Britains Herald poses (we looked at some of them last year - in a series of posts I never finished! Must do so!), and they said "Yes, well it's still a bit of a moot point as to who was first", then; a month or two ago, when comparing the Khaki Infantry after Chris Smith's contributions, we saw how they had taken a boot with a bent-toe from Britains and included it in a very different figure - who didn't need a bent-toe!

And here, again we see the lines of the plaid draped down the back of the Lone Star figure (right in both shots) mirror both the Britains original (left) and the Hong Kong copy (centre). He has shorter stumpy legs and the distinctive 'fur' or feather striations of the Lone Star headdress, and is chunkier overall, but basically he's the same pose; conclusion - Lone Star were terrible copyists!

 

The pencil sharpener is now known to be from Hong Kong's KT.

Lucas is for Sacul

These are shown in Joplin's Great Book of Hollow Cast, in metal, as Sacul, so I'm going to assume, presume, guess and suspect they are Sacul in plastic too!

Unlike the Guardsmen to which I've added several figures since we looked at them here a few years ago, the Highlander sample is a rather pathetic two! And in a rather non-descript marbled plastic best described as half-stirred hot-chocolate! But they were languishing under the 'unknown' moniker until a few days ago, so that's a small advance!

They are however, lovely sculpts, although I'd suggest the mace is a tad longer than the scaled up real one would be; he looks like he's planning on a joust once the parade's over! Paint is as poor as the Guardsmen, but the piper has enough left to hint at a well-painted countenance once?

Half-stirred hot-chocolate! We looked at a hollow-cast colonial helmeted highlander from Sacul a while ago (several years) whether these are from the same line, or a more ceremonial set I don't know, but suspect the latter.

H is for How They Come In

Wednesday left me loaded with goodies, after purchases in most on the charity shops, ten minutes up the high street (I'm a bloke; in-scan-grab-pay-out, I don't mess about) added several books to the library, a 2nd hand copy of District 9 on DVD and this little-lot!

A Board game (£3) and two 'after' Fontanini Chinoisery statuettes, I say after as they are both unmarked and while the bases (polystyrene) and steel screws are reminiscent of the Italian maker's output, the two figures (polyethylene) are of poorer finish, so I suspect Hong Kong despite the lack of a marking; they were three-quid the pair.

One of those awful costume dolls; 'Empire Made' almost illegible on the gold-card ends, the whole sealed so you'd have to destroy the container to get him out, but he IS a lifeguard, so into the collection he goes; they were only asking 30p!

A handful of animals for 50p rounded-off the loot.

The animals were an odd assortment . . . two Impro pre-historic's, I have a tub of them somewhere which I have seen a couple of times, next time I see it I'll combine with the dozen or so I had accrued here and we'll have a proper look at them, a generic hippo' and a Playmobile wild boar made up the self-seal bag.

There was supposed to be six figures in the box, there wasn't! There was, in fact - 47 figures/36 sculpts! Again I have a whole tub of these so I'll return to them in the fullness of time, I think these are all from the first 60 of what became 240+ items I think, again; I have the notes on a dongle!

Oi . . . soldier! Haircut!

Then today - at time of writing Thursday 30th - I picked this little fella up, although at 95-mil (all-in) hardly 'little', he's a tree decoration who's lost his hanger/loop and will go in the box with all the other Bearskin'ed Guards.

E is for Erwin Watch - Part; the Somethingth!

That cock-whacking monkey-lizard Mr. Sell had a pop the other day (so did TJF actually, clearly they are getting nervous!) I am working on 'the big one' but in the meantime worth a quick look just to remind ourselves how utterly stupid he is.

He first posted this as 4:36pm local time, it reads - after the [charming] thread-quote is removed;

Such post-attack silly unfunded  maniac from UK using edited pictures  was responded here.

http://www.stadsstuff.com/?p=8882

and also here.

http://www.stadsstuff.com/?p=9096

When i post information  i back mine regardless i post all pictures or not ,yet i wait to respond with all i have and make him looks bad again.
I had never ever talk,write or post anything against this person at all ,he also have plenty enemies he had done himself out of his hate in many non toy related toys blogs.
He constantly uses derogatory ,racist words and comments that let few with desire read any of his puzzles sick comments
What is more sad is the fact that in UK they let this person post in magazines such PW when make looks entire british community looks bad .is a shame british let this person be part of collectors .
my thoughts.

Then (having got a couple of back-links posted for his paymaster) he posts it again . . .

 . . . at 4.43pm, just in case anyone missed it (and to get another two back-links posted for TJF), but also in very small text; presumably  in case anyone with the weirdest eye-condition known to man was struggling with the standard text, seven minutes previously!

Now there are two parts to his illiterate drivel, the re-hash of the Co-Ma/Basa thing which I'll deal with in a minute, and the frankly half-idiotic/half defamatory rant woven into the crucified syntax, massacred grammar and stab at spelling he calls 'thoughts'!

Same pack-drill as before - line by miserable line;

Such post-attack silly unfunded  maniac from UK using edited pictures 

Well, it needs translation I fear, but imagine what kind of maniac I'd make if I could get some funding from edited pictures!

When i post information  i back mine regardless

No he doesn't! In the same thread (on a pirate board-game figure) he states "The figures then sold as souvenir or loose in ITALY till well 90s by many companies around with sweet or chocolate as well as free toy gift as well." With no 'back' whatsoever, bear in mind he's said the same thing about another brand a day or two previously and it's not long since the German lollipop posts here - that's how it works; I lead, they follow; badly!

i post all pictures or not ,

Pretty much like the rest of us then? Sometimes we do . . . sometimes we don't! The man's too funny to be kept off the stage really.

yet i wait to respond with all i have and make him looks bad again.

I must have missed that load, was I carrying an umbrella? Good; I hate the smell of fish! He actually wants you to take him seriously, and - to be fair - some people are, but then you realise they too are strangers to the caps-lock and it's just a bunch of gobshites blowing-off.

I had never ever talk,write or post anything against this person at all ,

Except that which we are reading here? And his madness rant a month or two ago (below image)? And his original attacks on my Blue Box / Ri-Toy post which started all this nonsense, five-minutes after he got on-line? And his joint attack with TJF over Christmas 2016? And, and, and . . . he's a liar, a blatant liar, but some people, particularly the Vichy are lapping it up like hungry kittens rats!

Not a 'talk,write or post...against' me! Liar!

The tragedy is, as he's writing it - he probably believes it! And he knows the Vichy and the PSTSM will support and encourage it, and not just them; Carrick, Bergner, Dittman and others have chosen that side of the fence, instead of staying on the bloody thing!

[I will return to the above quote in a separate post as the main thrust of his premise (public self-therapy) pertains more to his paymaster (TJF) than it does to me!]

he also have plenty enemies he had done himself out of his hate in many non toy related toys blogs.

"Non toy related toys blogs"? Anyone? While you're trying to de-cipher that, maybe you could point me to any Blogs I have 'done myself out of', bar TJF's risible, drivellous, gray-area . . . obviously!

To my knowledge I haven't fallen foul of any other Blogs, although I have voluntarily stopped commenting on one or two - to save their blushes. Someone called James did stop following me the other day, but as I don't follow his and as he did so in a flourish of bilious (and political) hate on TJF's blog (so was therefore - clearly a TJF shill), it makes no difference to my situation and carries no significance for this Blog. And it's a tedious playing-peow-peow's-with-brum-brum's-on-the-carpet type Blog anyway.

He constantly uses derogatory ,racist words and comments that let few with desire read any of his puzzles sick comments 

Ah, yes! The defamatory bit. I have never used racism of any kind? Both Erwin Sell and Paul - The Jabbering Fuck - 'stads' Stadinger (TJF) have now accused me of racism, in public and in private - neither has given an example. The statements are defamatory.

I am beginning to suspect they are both so simple-mindedly stupid, ignorant and uneducated, that they don't actually know what racism is, nor comprehend the tenets behind it, or how to recognise it?

It's true I have been very derogatory, and will continue to be when this kind of shit is being written about me . . . by a fuckwit! Words AND comments? I must be overdoing it! Puzzles? Sick? It's almost enough to drive me to the smelling-salts! Constantly? How do I find time for everything else I'm 'guilty' of!

Even in my insulting derogatoriness I have veered away from the obvious targets, except in so far as originally christening them TJF and the Cock-whacking Monkey-lizard, which was both an amusing Star Wars reference, and - for those who know them - a bit close to the knuckle; but that was their fault for attacking me over Christmas!

What is more sad is the fact that in UK they let this person post in magazines such PW when make looks entire british community looks bad .is a shame british let this person be part of collectors .

The difficult one - In this war (which they started) they (Sell and TJF) keep trying to get other people involved - I try not to. Although I'm happy to shame those who choose to get involved.

What I would say is that I have picked up new supporters and the best part of a million hits in the last 12 months and those who choose to deal with me, do so for their own reasons and don't need Mr. Sell telling them what they should or should not do. The blog is going from strength to strength and I'm going nowhere else.

If, as a collector, you don't want me "be part of " you, have a word next time you see me and I'll try to disengage! And I only ever advise anyone / everyone not to get involved, sadly some have. The reasoning he must be using (at the level of  a12-year-old), must apply equally to Stadinger and himself, with regard the US 'community? But that's the hypocrisy of the two idiot's for you!

my thoughts.

No, no no! Not 'thoughts', his random keyboard jerks! Probably resulting from uncontrolled synaptic-sparks in the brain he appears to have borrowed from a solar-powered lawn-mower . . . too much sun!

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

So, that's his literary efforts dealt with, now back to the CoMa/Basa/Res Plastics thing, which was hilarious first time round, but which (by only posting links to one side) he is trying to misrepresent - and because TJF needs the traffic (for his SEO!)! But Googlebot doesn’t trawl locked-forums! Dum, they're both so dum.

If you missed it first time round it's complicated but well worth bringing together in one place, so it might as well be here! Let's thank him for raising the subject again after 18-months-odd (although; one has to ask why?) and dive in . . .

★★★★★

After I had pointed out that Erwin was wrong about my Blue Box and Ri-Toys post, they both got the arse big-time; inventing a whole port and industrial estate [Tain Sang - too funny] in Hong Kong - which doesn't exist! I pointed that out too - among a plethora of other things they'd cooked-up as they went along!

As a result they started having the odd pop at me over at plaid-stuff, suggesting I didn't know anything and was always wrong . . . so one day I pointed out that Erwin was making it up . . . again!

The funny thing was I only had the one figure, and I only had photographs of it! But it was all I needed.

★★★★★

He had tried to tell the Vichy that he was showing them Peruvian-made Basa Romans, while actually using Italian-made Res Plastics figures, I pointed out that the figures were RP and he was making it up as he went along - again. (E is for Erwin Watch - Res not Basa).

They (both were involved) then tried to make out A) I was wrong and B) he had not used RP figures (1^st link from Erwin above), by photographing some new figures (actually the same figures after someone had taken a screwdriver's hot hex-bit to them!) and claiming they were the figures he used - ergo; I was wrong.

So I went back to the Vichy thread, took screencap's of the RP-marked figures he had used (and which are still there!), compared them to mine and called them out for now lying about the lie! You can't make shit this up! Although; they try to! (I is for is it Res Plastic, Basa or DSG?).

This led to a spittle-flecked rant from Standinger (2^nd link from Erwin above) which attempted to paint me as a conspiracy theorist (I know - dum! But they get their learnin' from tabloids), with the aid of an spurious, additional, CoMa original! However by now, Erwin was getting shaky on the details in reply to someone's comment and they both ended up contradicting just about everything they'd said on the subject and each other.

I dealt with that, line-by-tedious-line in this post (Stads Watch / Erwin Watch - Back to Basa'ics !) and we moved on to Fontanini, Rojas plagiarism, the risible not-DSG thing and, well, most of you have followed enough of it to know what the flavour is!

Until the little-retch decided to resurrect it all the other day!

In the meantime I have shown the CoMa originals (or late production from those moulds) and another slightly different figure. With what came-out in the original spat, and what's turned-up since (R is for Romans! Co-Ma . . . et al!), it's clear that there are at least three sets of moulds;

• CoMa (Originals)
• Res Plastics (RP)
• Unknown (as yet)

And that the Res Plastics moulds went to DSG in Argentina, who may or may not have run them (or ex-RP stock) with or without the RP-mark and/or hex-driver holes. That there was a late issue of/from the CoMa tool and that there's a third 'cheapie' set - which may have been cleaned-up (or copied) to become the RP set?

At no point has anyone (at shitestuff, Vichy or here) shown a figure which can be authenticated as Basa, and while Basa may have worked with CoMa, there is little actual data on when or what the relationship was and no empirical evidence they specifically handled the Romans. If they did they would be the CoMa sculpts; which - ironically - Erwin also showed!

While Erwin - who claimed to have corresponded with Basa's owner - has failed to explain why he was (still is - thank God it's a locked forum) passing the RP-DSG sculpts off as Basa? Nor has he provided any evidence of this correspondence to 'win' his case.

And while the PSTSM shill's will bleat about me 'getting excited about mere toys', I am in fact responding to criticism (for 'criticism' read 'nasty, factually-inaccurate, illiterate, drivel'), while their self-proclaimed 'Legend' of a leader gets equally excited . . . about toys! Witness the second either of their posts.

And - this blog is err . . . about toys! When I blog on [more important] stuff like politics or the environment they get equally irate, so I can't win either way, but then; they're not a bright bunch, and if I can't win, I'll carry on regardless, being me; and they can go hang! Is that racist? Fuck'em!

The recent spate of attacks on stadsshite and over in Vichy are no doubt due to the fact that Christmas is coming, clearly; they are winding themselves up! I'll help!

Tatra next!

And if you're wondering about the apparent hypocrisy of the internal back-links I've managed to get into this post, actually Googlebot can mark you down for too-many of them, however I'd rather you find the stuff more easily, but then - I'm not the traffic-whore; TJF is.