DD is for Dig Den

Once I had decided to take shelfies I looked around ofr other stuff to shoot, and this was the only other figural than which wasn't a full-on action figure type thing, and also exactly the kind of figures which will filter through in mixed lots and rummage trays in a few years time.

Again a generic branded to B&M so likely to be also found nearer you under another make or marque if you're not near a B&M! I could have saved it for Halloween, but that's a while away, and theses were 2-for-£20 in the run-up to Christmas (or 12-quid each?), now reduced to seven, if you're tempted to shell out three-fifty each for two zombies before they all go!

It's all on the box so that's it really, the zombies would make better aliens, and look to be the same pose/sculpt, possibly pantographed to two sizes, one of which glows in the dark and you also get six small insects of two species and four-x-two larger bugs.

What struck me about the set is that it's clearly been designed for two siblings to share, which I thought was a nice touch?

B&M is for Animal Shelfies

I first saw these about three years ago and meant to go back and get them last year, but for whatever reason I didn't get round to it and thought I'd pop-over before Christmas and see if the same store (B&M) still had them, intending get some, but on the day funds were tight.

I checked anyway and they did still have a bunch, so I went back the other day to get them, realised I was already picking them up as loose samples, so despite having budgeted for them, decided to just shelfie them - which I could have done three weeks ago, or three years ago!

These are branded to B&M themselves, for foreign readers; they are a large 'warehouse' type discount store, but not a pound-shop (these were a few-quid each), nor an Aldi/Lidl, neither are they on the same scale as a Walmart, so 'mid-range' warehouse if such a thing exists, imagine if Woolworth's had moved to 'out-of-town' to strip-malls instead of going bust on the high-street, although they also do some furnishings and dry/canned foods.

Anyway the point I'm getting at is that the contents may well be available locally elsewhere in the world, both under different local or phantom brand-marks and/or with different configurations/content counts or assortments, being generics 'off the self' and possibly picked from a larger inventory?

The other irony (after my three-year faffing about and then not actually buying them!) is that there's a Henbrandt-plus article in the queue looking at about six or seven sets of these 'mini-mals', to which I will add these, or the loose ones which are starting to come in now, in mixed lots and Charity-shop bags.

Each set consists of four-each of 12 different animals (I'm sure there was a dinosaur tub three years ago, but they didn't have one on either visit this time), but if you recall a set of poultry which came in loose a while back (yep, charity shop I think!); the suspicion is that there are more sculpts back at the Chinese factory than the 12 present here? But at least you can ID the first 12 from these shelfies . . . and note - another 'lassie'!

·         Sheepdog

·         Cat

·         Cockrel

·         Hen

·         Duck

·         Goose

·         Cow (b&w)

·         Bull (brown)

·         Sheep

·         Ram

·         Goat

·         Piggy-wig

The poultry are a super-scale compared to the others, the cat is also giant, while the cattle are subscale, the only difference between the duck and the goose sculpts would appear to be the length of the neck; body size and plumage sculpting being the same!

These are the ones that I know I picked up some of, loose, a few weeks ago, not all of them, but the zebra for certain, the moose and possibly the tiger, while the hippo' has been kicking-around for a few years I think, we may have looked at it with a foursome (?) of others last time we looked at a bunch of these small vinyl's?

·         Lion

·         Tiger

·         Cheetah

·         Elephant

·         Hippopotamus

·         Rhinoceros

·         Moose

·         Giraffe

·         Brown Bear

·         Camel

·         Gorilla

·         Zebra

Scale is all over the place here too, but the differences are not so marked - from a six-year-old's play-value point-of-view! Both the tiger and the zebra are among the better-decorated from these and the many different other sets out there.

T is for This is Really Sad . . .

. . . as I imagined when I bought it, that I would be able to give this book a glowing report/review here or on Amazon, from where I purchased it as a Christmas present to myself.

However, having dipped into it over the holiday, browsed it from cover-to-cover, reading all the picture captions as I went, looked-up a few specific 'test' things and carefully read the composition chapter (chp.11; Toy Soldiers March in Goose Step) in full, I am genuinely sad to report, that unless you are a hardcore library-builder/completist, you can save yourself forty-odd quid (+/- €50 or $60) by not buying this book.

Plastics' purists and war gamers can also keep their pocketbooks free of lightening by waiting for something more substantial in their chosen fields; Plastic Warrior magazine only gets a couple of mentions and is pluralised each time (warriors), so the author's obviously no aficionado of that publication?

It should be noted that some outlets are heavily discounting it already (I paid £26), possibly as a result of its initial reception, so there are bargains out there if you feel you must have it.

And the first thing I want to say is that I believe most of the problems with the work are down to poor translation, poor editing and no apparent proof-reading, so the bulk of the blame can be lain, solemnly, at the feet of the publisher, but some of it does, nevertheless, go back to the author.

The History of Toy Soldiers

by Luigi Toiati

After a series of forwards, prefaces and introductions (or - at least - one of each!) the book 'proper' starts around twelve-pages in, and immediately gets into difficulty with the definitions of 'Hunt' and 'Find' as applied to the acquisition of toy soldiers, the - quite laboured - point is repeated again further-on in the work, so it's clearly meant to be one of many theories espoused by the author, but I would argue the opposite meanings are the ones we work to.

The author suggests (pp. 5, 1st para.) you [we] find specifics and hunt for everything else; I would say that we understand the opposite; we hunt for the yellow-caparison, swoppet, mounted knight and find 'odd things' in rummage trays? Scientists find the properties of materials by accident, and hunt for the specific results that the found-properties say should be there.

Now, I know what you're thinking, having not read the work; Blimey Hugh, you're getting pretty bogged down in the semantic minutiae of a single paragraph, and so early-in, aren't you? Yeah - you all talk like that! But firstly it was going to be the only negative (to prove unbiased 'critique) in what I was still thinking would be a glowing review, and secondly, the same type of semantic rule-making or more general theorising is present, and problematical, throughout the work, so it became the 'sign of things to come'.

Likewise, the mention above of scientists is deliberate and due to the Authors use of his Sociology degree to try, throughout the work and through his various theories to read far more into the ["socio-semiotic" I kid you not] history of toy soldiers than is actually there.

Indeed, the use of heavily over-complicated prose (already highlighted by two other early purchasers as making the work 'difficult to read') is due in no small part to the author's attempts to over-intellectualise (in my opinion) the subject - ephemeral playthings.

While the switch from toy soldiers to space toys & action figures after 1977 might very-well be 'semiotic' (significant, sociologically) and worthy of further intellectual study, the differences between British and German toy production - decades before the invention of the 'global village' - is not.

On page 9 he over-justifies a couple of minor decisions on inclusion, namely of including Pharaohnic grave-goods while excluding the Chinese terracotta army as that would necessitate including sex-dolls! Simple; either exclude all grave-goods and start later, or include both, on the understanding you can ignore sex-dolls by simply not mentioning them . . . unless they are holding weapons!

But, to go through the whole book, would require a smaller book as the work is 600+ pages with ancillaries, so I will use the aforementioned chapter 11 (pp's. 321-368) as an example of the greater sins of the whole work.

We are immediately asked to accept some bullet-pointed 'facts', only the last of which is actually a fact (the others more or mere 'assumptions', but not flagged as such) and a fact which fails to include metal (still with us) in what was actually a three-way equation.

He then devotes two huge paragraphs (over two pages) to tying composition production tightly to the Nazi regime, but the fact is the companies already existed, making toy figures in composition, and while some of his later sociological points may well carry some water, to begin with they simply added the current uniforms of the day, as they were changed by the regime, purely for commercial reasons.

He over-eggs the porcelain-head thing and then fails to endear himself to the reader by describing today's anti-smoking drive as an "...irritating anti-cancer campaign" suggesting he'd prefer to see more cancer today? It's there (pp. 324), in black and white and should have been edited out.

The final paragraph on page 325 should have died before birth, the '...olins' are so named for oil of linseed (or linseed oil), not kaolin clay! The rest of the chapter (and the preceding four pages) are therefore written on at least one false premise; actually several once you've understood his theories on German Nazism and Italian Fascism, a semantic-wall he establishes early and sticks to throughout the book!

While kaolin is used in compositions, it's not the first or main ingredient in the camel-dung khaki mixture used by German and Belgian makers (Lineol, Elastolin, Marolin, Duralin, Dursolin et al) which was predominantly wood-flour (not sawdust - another error) and linseed oil.

A fundamental error carried through the whole chapter and which is only exacerbated when the author starts informing us some companies used crushed Linoleum ('lino') as an ingredient in their composition, Linoleum is itself a linseed oil-based composition and the idea you would make a cake by adding bits of broken cake-like ersatz-cake to your pure cake mix is - frankly - daft.

This is poor research convoluting two parallel or contiguous technologies, one in toys the other in soft-furnishings. Now, it may be that at some point a toy soldier manufacturer procured some unmixed or dry-mixed lino ingredients, but that's not what we're told by the author?

And this muddleheaded view of compositions continues over the page when we are told the mixture was porridge-like (it was probably more turgid or dough-like) and casein is introduced as a main component, again caseins are used in some compositions, but the makers being discussed used linseed oil as their mixer/binder.

In the same paragraph (pp. 326, 2nd para.) he also states that plaster was used instead of animal glue at one point, but plaster is a bulking agent (alternate to wood-powder (or kaolin clay)), animal glue is an alternative mixer/binder (to linseed oil (or casein!)), the two have different properties/jobs to do and couldn't substitute each other?

A very convoluted third paragraph on page 328 starts with Hitler and [nearly] ends with a list of Pfeiffer's relatives, then an orphan sentence claims "They then went back to the Czechs in 1946" but to whom - in the preceding list of seven makers - he's referring, is not even slightly clear and the publisher should have excised the line in editing.

The same paragraph - already half-a-page then turns to tin-plate AFV's and Gescha is typo'd as Gesha which is equally close to an registration-abbreviation found . . . err . . . on tin-plate vehicles! Only a typo, admittedly, but a bad one, really, and representative of the rest of the book.

Pages 332/333 delivers some more cod-theorising on Nazism, occupation and 'focus groups' which just doesn't stand-up to scrutiny. Civilians get almost their first mention in the chapter as a core of the theory (Nazi influence verses pre-or-post-Nazi influence) despite the whole chapter barely mentioning the varied output of civilian figures for model railways, or by model-railway makers. There's more on page-336 where we also get the Linoleum references!

On page 341 we get the following line "...some curious oversized 10cm wedding figures similar to those of a wedding cake," . . . err . . . because they are for wedding cakes, perhaps?

At which point - halfway through the chapter - I lost the will to carry on! I won't subject my loyal plastics' readers to many of my thoughts on the plastics section, but suffice to say, he quotes Garratt a lot (and others, throughout the work) and appears to have inherited Garratt's opinion of most plastics, lording Britains Herald's early work and Elastolin's late production and having little to say about the other hundreds of makers!

The chapter gets less of the cod-sociology (his lack of knowledge of the core subject of the chapter precluding social commentary or conclusions) thankfully, but it's really not worth reading even with that minor blessing.

For instance he accredits Hausser to production of WHW's (blaming Fontana) when we don't actually know, and they are - if anybody - more Siku-like, and so it goes on, that the penultimate major movement in toys soldiers (before the current 'New Metal') get only the one chapter is telling.

While the war-games section has a problem with captions for missing images attached to images for which the correct captions are missing - EDITOR!

Apart from the smoking comment and his constant attempts to separate and justify Italian 'Fascism' from German 'Nazism' while seeming reluctant to condemn the latter out of hand either (although he does), there are other moments of personal/political commentary which make some of my rants look tame'ish. Indeed; the amount of time the author spends (through the whole work) on that thirty-year Axis period out of a five-hundred-odd-year toy soldier history is itself concerning.

At one point he seems happy to tell us his father was active against Yugoslavian partisans, that is; he was helping the Nazi-colluding Chetnicks hunt-down Tito's resistance, carrying out reprisals and laying down the bad-blood which then burst forth again, at the turn of this century - I would have kept that to myself, or been less complacent with the fact!

In summery;

At 600+ pages, this work represents the equivalent of half a year's output from a prolific Blog, and several years output from a 'standard' Blog, and had it been issued as bite sized pieces, on a Blog, it would have been perfectly acceptable as a fine body of work, with some interesting theories to develop in the comments, and others; to ignore as nonsense, all for free.

But it's not a Blog, it's a book, it costs a fair-whack of one's dosh and needed to be a darn-sight better than it is. It's a very personal work and represents a massive undertaking, but it would have been better as a Blog; instead - written to deadline - it's sputtered under the weight of the text, not packed, but 'stuffed' into it, often incoherently and with no self-control.

He has over-intellectualised the book, tried too hard to cover everything, including facets of the hobby he clearly lacks knowledge of. Long, rambling, sometimes inaccurate, sometimes muddled paragraphs are the result. There is far too much reliance on borrowed images and quoting previous authors yet wanting that collated (and sometimes mixed) opinion to back-up the authors own socio-semiotic cod-theorising.

The work is episodic without obvious order beyond a vague chronology (and I mean vague!) yet neither does that episodic-nature encourage 'dipping-in'; because of the writing style. It can be/is repetitive and has been poorly translated, poorly edited and I can't believe it ever saw a proof-reader.

In the acknowledgements at least four individuals are named as having had a hand in editing this manuscript, I'm not sure any of them did their job or earned their money, maybe they didn't get paid? But 'Philip' should lose some sleep!

They should have dropped the composition, plastic's and war gaming chapters, edited until their eyes hurt, getting it down to 380-odd pages on the history of metal 'toy' soldiers, and it might have been useful to those collectors? Although the latest feedback on Amazon would suggest the metal sections suffer all the same faults?

But as it stands it's a curate's egg wrapped in a dog's dinner and wearing odd, often Nazi, socio-semiotic theory as a hat . . . a big dud.

Now - I know the guy, I recognised his picture, I think I used to chat to him at the London Toy Soldier Shows in Russell Square fifteen-odd years ago, he's a perfectly reasonable, nice, personable, intelligent, polite, knowledgeable man, and I hate that I've done such a hatchet-job on his book, but it's such a weird book (it is weird) people need to know that, before they buy it.

The 30-odd chapter-heading cartoons are funny and the 'Cameos' written by his friends are fine! But they are less than 25 pages out of 600?

R is for Return to Stretchy Aliens

An even quicker quickie; I treated myself to a post-Christmas present when I saw a few of the Hawkin's Bazaar Stretchy Aliens the other day going cheap.

I think we've seen two of them before, both in these colours and - with added paint - in blue (from Henbrandt), but the pixy-eared one is different to the one with similar ears previously seen and I think the almond-eyed 'grey' (both the green figures) is also new, which gives five poses now.

R is for Renaissance Reptiles

Another quickie, this one covering a few TMNT bits which came in over Christmas from Brain, Chris and Peter, but; working in reverse . . .

. . . with this 'shelfie' which came in the other day from Mr. Berke, who managed to find three of four (no Michelangelo) of these Playmates figurines, imported into his part of the world by Greenbrier; DTSC - their normal 'partner in crime' seem to have passed on this one?

The missing pose's the problem with here-today-gone-tomorrow, rack-toy sets that happen to have multiple characters; that you sometimes miss one! I never found the missing turtle in the remaindered set a few years ago!

Pack-back and a sizer - you can see from the Lone Star shooter (Berserker on his Christmas break?) that these are an almost perfect 54mm, and they are an un-articulated 'solid' figure in a dense'ish PVC or modern equivalent polymer, and I know that because a few days earlier . . .

. . . Chris Smith had included one in his latest parcel! Here posed next to the key-ring giant Mr. Evans had sent a month or two previously (seen before here at Small Scale World) and which I have now removed from his seriously large (and limiting) base. Indeed, after this shot was taken I removed the key-chain and ring too.

Cheers to all three for the contributions, and while there is no official Talk Like a Teenage Turtle Day (maybe there ought to be!), we will have to have a full TMNT post one day as I have quite a few of them now.

MC is for My Chap's . . . Geddit!

I know, I know, I'd shoot myself, myself, if I wasn't having so much fun spouting nonsense in the general direction of the Internet! Just a quickie following up on several previous visits to these Chap Mai modern combat, small scale types.

I was going to put this on the 'But is it Giant' Blog, but feel as new/newish-production it should be here, that Blog (which hasn't had a post for a while . . . ?) is really for pre-2000 or even pre-1990 'vintage' stuff.

We've seen the green set before, on the runner, but Peter Evans sent a whole bunch of them loose in a parcel six-or-more months ago, and they included a whole set of the same poses in black, so here they all are together from both sides. I hadn't previously encountered them, but Chap Mai have issued various big-box sets over the years, including some store-branded generics, maybe one had 'goodies & baddies'; their own sets tend to have a single un-clipped runner?

We can then . . . now (?) run through all the charity-shop purchases of vehicles, with the new figures . . . for the hell of it! The M1 Abrahms type is a bit on the small side for the 25mm-odd figures, but the five kneeling poses look better.

The M2/3 Bradley/A-Cav MICV is also a bit small, but looks better with standing figures although the one on the left is more helicopter- than AFV-crew?

Hummers stop for a nosey-about, but they aren't paying attention to the Shat-al-Arap waterway where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's frogmen have a bone to pick with Uncle Sam! Topical humour there, unless you're on the end a Trump-triggered, state-sponsored terrorism 'incident'! The language is lovely these days isn't it? The Coca-cola Games - The Iranian Maimings, The KGB Slow Painful Death Incidents!

Lannies also park-up in 'all round defence', but the spanner's come out - How very 'British Army Procurement'!

The Land Rover and the Hummers are the only ones with the clip-receiving protrusions on the underside (see posts passim under Chap Mai) for parachuting, on a little pallet, out of the big Hercules/Transall/Galaxy transport aircraft play-sets. I guess the others must be from more recent sets involving less parachutes? Although I'm guessing, they will all be on the old Index and Argos catalogues I keep meaning to go though!

The 'Rambo-squad' pulls-up! Jeep Wrangler 'technical' and rather odd-shaped/sized 6x6 truck of vague WWII vintage (which despite the looks actually holds-up well against the Airfix readymade) who are my latest two procurements (in the course of last year) and must also be from more recent/less common sets, as they definitely weren't in the old adverts, but they have the same wheels as the other soft-skins.

I still need to do the same paint-removal job on the jeep bonnet (hood)'s 'SOLDIER' artwork - leaving the allied air-recognition star - as I did on the 6x6 'deuce-and-a-half'. In point of fact - that these two are both 'new' to turn-up and in a new colour and have the same bonnet-markings strengthens the case that they are from a newer set, possibly the source of the equally 'new' (to me) black figures?

News, Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events; Saturday 18th - Friday 24th January 2020

Almost back to normal, I've not quite answered all the eMails, but I'm hoping to as soon as I publish this, this afternoon, but some may wait 'till tomorrow if the weather's going to be bad?

I will also return to my rants here, but it's hard to know what to rant about at the moment, do I rant about what's happening in Australia, vis-à-vis its implications for the rest of us? Do I rant about Trump and his idiocy, or the Middle East and Iran (more Trump idiocy if we're honest?), or do I rant closer to home and the Tory 'Landslide' with 43.6% of the vote and 2-million less than voted for Brwreakshit?

We have a new phenomena in the UK (seventh richest country on Earth); 'in-work poverty', yet they - the 'working poor' of the North East, the West Country, the fishing (ex-fishing) villages of East York's, Norfolk and Kent - voted for the people whose policies over 41 years have got us to this point, the people (Mogg, Weatherspoon, IDS and the rest) who pushed Brwreakshit to avoid the coming tax-regulations of Brussels . . . you can't make it up!

Or do I rant about Harry Hewitt and his wife, making their own way in the world? Well, I wouldn't rant about that, I'd rant about how the intrinsically, institutionally, hardly-disguised racists of the tabloid filth have treated them - since about five-seconds after 'the wedding of the century'!

So for now let's just look forwards to more old toys to buy . . . it's actaully still quite quiet, but there's enough about this weekend at least.

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Toy Fairs

Saturday 18th January 2020

Brentwood - J&J Fairs (John & Julie Webb)

International hall, Brentwood Centre, Doddinghurst Road, Brentwood, Essex, CM15 9NN

Web. - www.j-jwebbtoyfairs.com

eMail - jandjfairs@virginmedia.com

Tel. - 01522 880 383 (J & J Webb)

10:00 - Approx. 14:30hrs

Admission £3, seniors £2.50p, 1st child £2

Ludlow - Tony Oaks Toy Fairs - Ludlow Toy & Train Collector's Fair

Ludlow Racecourse, Bromfield, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 2BT

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01270 652 773

Mob. - 07825 631 323

10:30 - 14:00hrs

Admission £2.00

Free parking

Nottingham - Townsend Toy & Train Fairs (Malcolm Townsend) - Nottingham Toy Fair

Bluecoat Academy, Nottingham, NG8 5GY

Web. - www.tttf.co.uk

Mob. - 07951 072 790

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission unknown, accompanied under-16's free

Light refreshments

Free Parking

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Sunday 19th January 2020

Coventry - Barry Potter / BP Fairs

The Connexion, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Coventry, CV8 3FL

Web. - www.bpfairs.com

Tel. - 01604 846 688

Mob. - 07966 527 177

Fax. - 01604 771 070

10:30-15:00hrs

Admission £3, seniors £2.50p, children £1, early bird (from 08:00hrs) £6

Free parking

Newton Abbot - Ray Heard Train & Toy Fairs

Newton Abbot Racecourse, Devon, TQ12 3AF

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01823 480 097

10:00 -15:30hrs

Admission £2.00

Free parking, refreshments

Orpington - SRP Toyfairs

Crofton Halls, Orpington, Kent, BR6 8PR

Web. - www.srptoyfairs1.co.uk

eMail: srptoys1@hotmail.co.uk

Tel. - 07739 998 012 (Paula or Gerry)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

Admission charge unknown

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Auctions

Wednesday 22nd January 2020

Warwick - Warwick & Warwick

Charlton House, Scar Bank, Millers Road, Warwick, Warwickshire, CV34 5DB

(Auctions held in Court House)

Web. - www.warwickandwarwick.com

eMail - richard.beale@warwickandwarwick.com

Tel. - 01926 499 031

Facsimile - 01926 491 906

Catalogue on-line, printed version available on request

Trains, die cast, model soldiers and other toys

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Thursday 23rd January 2020

Sheffield - Shefield Auction Gallery

Windsor Road, Heeley, Sheffield, S8 8UB

Web. - www.sheffieldauctiongallery.com

eMail - jmorgan@sheffieldauctiongallery.com

Tel. - 0114 281 6161

Viewing - Wednesday 22nd 10:00 - 16:45, from 08:30 on sale day

14:00 - Finish

General toy and collectable sale

Stockton-on-Tees - Vectis Auctions

Fleck Way, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 9JZ

Web. - www.vectis.co.uk

eMail - admin@vectis.co.uk

Tel. - 01642 750 616

Sales commence at 10:30hrs

General toy sale

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Friday 24th January 2020

Elstree - Excalibur Auctions (day 1 of a 2-day auction, day 2: Saturday 26th January)

The Village Hotel, Elstree, Hertfordshire, WD6 3SB (venue)

Chiltern Business Centre, Woodside Road, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP6 6AA (office)

Web. - www.excaliburauctions.com

eMail - enquiries@excaliburauctions.com

Tel. - 02036 330 913

Free Tea or Coffee

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Other Events

Saturday 18th January 2020

Leicester - National Space Centre - Space Lates

National Space Centre, Exploration Drive, Leicester, Leicestershire

Web. - www.spacecentre.co.uk

Interactive stuff

Swansea - National Waterfront Museum - Amazing Astronomy Afternoon

National Waterfront Museum, Oystermouth Road, Maritime Quarter, Swansea, Wales (it's not a sea-going mammal Mr. President)

Web. - www.museum.wales

Interactive stuff

West Stow - Anglo-Saxon Village - 420-2020

West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village, West Stow, Suffolk

Web. - www.weststow.org

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Tuesday 21st-Thursday 23rd January 2020

London (West-Central) - British Toy & Hobby Association - The Toy Fair 2020

Olympia Exhibition Hall, Kensington Olympia, Kensington, London, W14 8UX

Web. - www.toyfair.co.uk

Tel. - 08458 685 820

Tue/Wed. - 09:00-18:00hrs

Thursday - 09:00-17:30hrs

Admission by pre-booking/invitation only, no children without authorisation or equity/ performers-card

Annual trade-fair; I'm hoping to be there on the Wednesday.

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Overseas Events

Saturday January 18th 2020

Brooksville (USA) - Regal Railways

Hernando Fairgrounds, 6436 Broad Street, Brooksville, FL 34601, Florida, USA (venue)

501 East Bay Drive, Apt. 1503, Largo, FL 33770, Florida, USA (promoter)

Web. - http://regalrailways.com/regal-railways-upcoming-toy-and-collectible-shows-sale/

Tel. - ++17 272 441 341

09:00-14:00hrs

Admission, $5.00 children under 12 free, 'early-bird' $7.00 (reserve between 08:00-09:00hrs)

Vendors and exhibition model train layout, antiques and crafts

Lunch Available

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

maverickatlarge[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 a link; if the event or your organisation has a web-page.

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!

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Toys in the Media

The British Government has got a figural trope going on their current pensions campaign, which will be familiar to UK readers, but for those of you further-afield;

Couple of Ger'Nomes! There is some gnome stuff in the queue, but I need to speak to the owner on a detail or two.

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Other News

Stadswatch

The bands must march! The bells must be rung! Call out the clowns, the jugglers . . . err and an elephant! The ticker-tape must flow in Allentown's Main Street; after 18-odd years of internet presence and more of computing, TJF has learned to crop images!

But he had to use some extra-special re-sizing software, which has apparently rendered them un-embiggen'able! So while his Blog shitestuffdotcom is measurably less useful, it now looks prettier! More Blue Box palm-trees should sort it all out, or some other cockamamie piece of bullshit cooked-up between him and Hildabreath or was it Lickshite? I wasn't paying attention!

Still - it was nice of them to visually confirm what I'd said 48-hours earlier! The hobby wins again!

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H is for How They Come In

Very little this week in the second-hand department, in fact nothing really, but I found something, lying, abandoned in the car-park at the railway station!

A flocked kitten who's commuter footfall-related mange led me to conduct a complete skinning, which - surprisingly - it looks all the better for! He's PVC so not a Sylvania', probably a modern In-My-Pocket type or a giveaway on the cover of a kids comic/periodical?

In order to have something else here I threw this in with a dino'lot (heading for a separate post) when the shopkeeper offered a discount; a lump of die-cast mazak, made in China (where else!), Great British, Little Englander, semi-privatised, half the collections for ten-times the postage, pillar-box! No branding.

Compare with the Dinky pillar-box appearing here next Monday at 11am local time!

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