Dr. is for Steve Hunter

Continuing the themes da jour - Dino-shelfies; we've seen these before, and it's more from TK Maxx from the other day, still from Geoworld, and still dinosaurs, may even have shelfied the same animals last time (quickly checks the dongle - no, it was some unpronounceable raptor-like thing!), but a reminder never hurt!

Putting my critics hat on I'd say the decoration is lazy on these otherwise quite nice sculpts, the bright colours on both being almost last-minute stab (or spray)-and-hope additions, particularly on the Dilong - stupid name = stupid colours!

These two are much better and the kerthunkersaur 'Polacanthus' is a rather fine variant of the family . . . in fact they are both all less common species than you normally get which is in their favour and helps forgive the red-blobs on the first pair!

That's it, Geoworld, Dr. Steve Hunter dino-shelfies, TK Maxx now!

M is for Massive Mammals and Megasaurs

Brian actually sent me the Rhinoceros (further down) as a follow-up to the lazy-post the other day, while he then sent me the bagged dino' the same day I took the shelfies, so we can throw them all together in one post, as I realise it's more of a box-ticker, likely to be of little interest to most of you, but it has its own validity and despite their size, they are still small-scale as far as the world is concerned!

These are currently in TK Maxx, they (or similar) have previously been seen in both The Works and Wilkinson's/Wilko, and there is a - limited - selection of Dinosaurs, Big Game and Monsters, or at least; a monster!

Close-ups of a kind of spinosaur and a rather leery-coloured triceratops, like everything else in this post they are hollow, softish, PVC-like plastic, and - basically - are squeaky-toys without the squeak!

The other dinosaur is a bit boring, but the turquoise, two-headed, 'Cerberus' dragon is a lot of fun, and would make an excellent foe for a whole bag of M-Toys barbarians; indeed you could stuff about six in his mouths - three in each! Nom-nom-nomnivore!

Brian sent this at the same time, and it appears to be from the same source as the others - back in China. I can't make out the maker or (more likely) importer on the card back, but it looks a bit like some of the Greenbrier/DTSC labels?

Big game; lions, an elephant and a rhino were on show, but I think I've previously seen a larger giraffe of similar design. The TK Maxx stuff is credited to NBC Apparel, but I think you'll agree that's looking more and more like their in-house 'phantom' brand.

This is more cartoony and may well be from an alternate source and it could be an infant toy, or a dog toy . . . just get the squeak re-installed! Also; he looks like he's in the mood to errr . . . 'recycle' a Land Rover.

Various methods of getting across the size have been employed from the Berserker to my hand, via a real Chihuahua! Zazie (the Chihuahua) doesn't look wholly au fait with the situation?

Note that the feet/toenails on the US-purchased Brontosaur are decorated the same way as the TK Maxx examples seen in Basingrad, hence the likelihood they all come from the same place, and at that size he's pretty-much in scale for 54mm figures - that would make for an interesting 'garden game' down the Padre's place; 'The Lost World' . . . throw a double six and you get squashed-flat by a big-footed herbivore, throw a double one and your whole team get ripped to shreds by a T-Rex and it's back to the Nautilus for a new team, after tea!

S is for Shiny Shelfies!

While in TKMaxx the other day, I shot these ornamental lumps for two reasons, one being that they cover a subject we cover here, and secondarily to show how a lot of what might be appearing in local auctions rooms as 'apprentice pieces' might have been made five-minutes ago from recycled drinks cans in Mumbai!

By far the better piece and at £12.99p affordable if it tickles your fancy that much, but not something I need, a vague Mosquito look, it would go well with Tintin figures in a display cabinet maybe? It had a stern label stating it's "...not a toy" and is "...for decoration only", which is probably to save TJX Europe from law-suits for broken toes!

This was frankly ugly, and is the sort of hidiosity you might see in the background of one of those navel-gazing movies about the making of the movies where it would be owned by some unspeakable Hollywood mogul who's Bel Air mansion would have been entirely furnished by an 'interior designer' anyway, but then you can say that about a lot of the stuff in TKMaxx's home-furnishing section!

It also looks a bit like some of the designs in that movie with Jude Law I can't remember the name of (the one with the flying aircraft carriers - and Angelina Jolie as a pilot-babe?)? It had the better propellers though, the ones on the 'mosquito' are vary crude and heavy.

Both were marked 'Made in India' which is forth entry in the tag list I think, and reminds me there's still some 'India' in the queue, from Mr. B!

F is for Fairy Flowerpot

We've had a few of these Interplay - IP's shelfied since we first saw them at Toy Fair 2018, always in TKMaxx so a continuous relationship there, and - as with some of the Christmas stuff - not necessarily clearance or end-of-line, but more likely just loss-leaders to keep the toy section ticking over and looking well-stocked - I think I first saw them there weeks after the Toy Fair?

Anyway, some might be interested in these near 54mm fairies, I've yet to find any in second-hand sources so for bow we rely on shelfies and these are a week old and TKMaxx as stated.

"Includes easy-grow seeds" and "Grow a plant in the flowerpot house" suggests you plant above a false floor in the dolls- fairy-house flower-pot?

As I say the fairies are about 54mm (I haven't actually measured them, I don't tend to wander about in department stores whipping out my tape-measure . . . Ooh Missus!) so are useful only in fantasy settings as they are hardly dressed as saloon 'galls' or combat refugees, the other two reasons 54mm women might be of interest to figure collectors of our ilk.

And you get a rabbit, but a bit too cartoony for animal collectors who lean toward species-typical purism.

T is for Tank in a Tin

"It does exactly what it says on the tin!"

Bit of an investment this one, as it was £11.99! I passed on it at Christmas for reasons of price against available budget, but the other day A) I had a spare tenner to fritter away on a tank in a tin, or even a tank not in a tin and B) people had broken the seal on a couple of the aforementioned tank tins, so the contents (light-feeling and anonymous back in December) were open to a quick inspection, and I would then have been failing - both this and the Airfixfigs Blogs - had I turned-away again!

There you go . . . a tin, with a tank; a tank in a tin, there's really no doubt about the matter! The tank wrapped in a bubble-sock and the figures in a little stash-bag! All in a tin.

The customer information panel on the base is a firmly glued card sheet, almost certainly over the printed date of a partner importer elsewhere or the factory  and the Funtime Gifts branding doesn't seem to match what may be that partner/originating-factory's logo with seems to be an 'M' but might be an MW cypher?

The tank (from the tin it's come in) is described as a M41 Walker Bulldog and apart from a road-wheel missing in each side seems to be a reasonable model of one in a slightly over-1:72nd scale, maybe closer to 1:70th or even 1:64?

It comes with 12 copies of the Airfix '2nd version' US Marines, which, through the bag, in the store (Waterstone's have them at the moment) looked as if they were Hornby-supplied, but which upon unpacking were revealed to be good-quality piracies; four each of three poses, manufactured in a PVC-like polymer with some of the properties of a polyethylene.

Further to previous posts, you can see here that a skilled copyist has ensured the pantograph produced figures of exactly the same size, but some detail has been lost by the vibration of the cutting-head/burr-drill which has not be re-etched in afterward (by an engraver/finisher), the Tank in a Tin figure is on the right in both shots.

In the powering-up I encountered a few problems which those of you chaffing to rush out and buy one of your-own Tank in a Tin's need to be aware of;

The AAA (Triple-A) battery is NOT supplied and will need to be sourced. When you remove the screws and split the model, you will find that the middle gear in the drive-chain (A) pops out of it's housing, slip it back in by all means, but don't try tightening the motor-housing screws (C) (as I did - it'll just hold everything too tightly), because the spigots (B) actually hold the gear-shaft in place during normal operation!

Also the PVC glue used to seal the track-join will have filled a few of the sprocket-tooth holes in the tracks, you may wish to open them-up again with a hot needle. For similar reasons (of more realistic running) the sprooket-teeth may need a bit of flash removed and some of the wheels have mould-gate (incorrectly; 'sprue') residue which can be trimmed off.

Finally; if you've not made a note of it before or during the above 'base-workshop' phase, the track-pad 'arrows' point to where the tank is going above the wheels and where it's been below the wheels (yellow arrows) when you need to refit them.

It's a nice little runner - albeit in one direction only - and I'll try to do a video at some point - when the weather improves! The three-point drive-chain reducing the speed to a decent 'scale' speed - it's runs-over the infantry in a satisfyingly slow fashion!

I love a bit of detective work, and I love a bit of a challenge, so when I thought I recognised the silhouetted figures on the side of the tin I had to try and reproduce them!

They were the SoldierWW2 font (which worked so poorly on last year's PW Show announcement - only three months 'till the next one!) I've posted a link to before , but most of them had been reversed (all but the two underlined ones - both 'duplicates'), so I had to type them into a word document, colour the page appropriately, take screencapchas, put the .jpg's back into the word document as picture-elements, flip/reverse them, screencap' again and remove the two which had to be the right way round and add them as actual font-element/additional over-text's to the picture, and then save!

I think they are older Men At Arms images and might be . . .

m - French or Polish?

C - French

] - German

3 - British Paratrooper (not reversed)

u - Japanese or Russian? (with anti-tank rifle)

e  - Japanese in cap

3 - British Paratrooper

[ - German Paratrooper

o - US Marine?

8 - US GI?

= - US Marine or GI!

e  - Japanese in cap (not reversed)

So that was that half-sorted! The silhouette tank drawn next to them, which the two groups are following round the sides of the tin (with a tank in) is a Soviet T54/55!

This is probably about twice the size (around 1:35th), coming out of Japan and is the old Masudaya (Modern Toys) version of what is - I think - another M41 Walker Bulldog, (not an 'M-12'!) also battery-operated and also reduced to four road-wheels. Thanks to Jan Yarzembowski for the image.

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - D-Gifts (Monza) / D-Kids / D-Video / Dynit

A new name at this year's Toy Fair 2020 was Dynit, and Italian toy seller, obviously using China for it product, but A) working with contractors not necessarily known to us or whose products aren't visually familiar, and B) doing all their own innovation and design.

Their big push at the Toy Fair was blind-bag stuff for which they are looking for UK buyers/stockists. And we'll work though the quite extensive ranges, laid-out in the catalogues, in a minute.

Not in the top-flight of such animals and no real threat to Schleich or Papo, they are nevertheless perfectly reasonable animals, and the catalogue shows higher and lower-grade lines, so the animal collectors will soon know which to look-out for. The adult bear here is better than the painting has left it looking, what with a lopsided nose!

Chatting with the Italian staff I gathered they have begun work with the UK's DC Thompson (comics) on licensing British characters (DCT are struggling at the moment in the balanced-figures department!) and are also talking to Egmont Ltd  (who own the Dean back-catalogue) and Immediate Media with partnership potential.

I tried to see if a combination of flash and the hall (Kensington Olympia)'s lighting might render the contents guessable, but as you can see - no such luck!

Several pages of dinosaurs are currently available (mostly in Italy?), and in several size-brackets (always pack- or 'box-scale'), along with various novelty lines, glow, deforms, skeletons, squeezes/stretchies &etc. Along with modelling-compound/moulding sets.

Wild and farm animals, insects, amphibians, snakes and all the usual lines you would expect from a 'rack-toy' specialist. Indeed they mention 'news-stands' (as the destination for their toys)  several times in their introductory blurb, so clearly Italy isn't yet as far down the corporate, uniforming of the high street we have seen here in the UK?

Sticky-insects, glow-in-the-dark stuff, slime with marine life and Halloween types also abound in an 82 page catalogue of such stuff. Other lines include all the usual furry things, glove-puppety things, dolly-things and so forth!

Little pets and domestic animals share catalogue space with monsters and dragons while I haven't shot all the larger 'action-figure' types which are to be found in each section; Dinosaurs, dragons, wild, farm and zoo.

As with all toy companies of this type; there is a larger pinky-purple section of the catalogue, some of which will be of use to fantasy collectors or gamers, with or without a bit of home-paint!

O is for Oops! Ordinary Oddity!

I shot this on Adrian's stall a while ago, it's a reject from Crescent, but he looks like he's so desperate to defend his fort he's prepared to throw vital sections of the portcullis-mechanism at the enemy!

Or is it a broken ship's anchor? It's all in the imagination! Managed to get something up for Sunday after all!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Toyway - Natural History Museum

More museum/tourist-oriented stuff for our third visit to Toyway today.

Which might be the bigger clue as to the direction Toyway may be wishing to travel? A new Cavendish! These companies always keep their cards close to their chests, but even the Academy Da Vinci stuff is gift-shop stuff?

This - of course - would bode well for the Timpo (and Peter Evans') medieval stuff in their mould-bank; as there are as many gift shops as castles, forts, stately homes and battlefields in these fair isles - which are rather full of both castles and battlefield sites for such a peaceful looking place! But wouldn't bode so well for the non-touristy section of the mould-bank?

It's dinosaurs in branded-packaging so I won't say much . . . but they are lovely sculpts, probably supplied by a bigger maker.

I didn't see a Dimetrodon so big disappointment there!

I'm not sure about the Carnotaurus's horns; it looks like it knocked them up as a comedy party-hat, from rubber-glove thumbs! I'll show that T-Rex!

Ah! It turns out Wednesday's spiky-bastard-a-saur is actually called a Kentrosuarus, I think spiky-bastard is better! And look at the tail on that Dippy', but in the actual museum, he's been shelved in favour of a whale (it's not a country Mr President) skeleton - I believe the one currently 'on tour' round the 'shires is actually a resin copy! Although something like 90% of it has always been first plaster, then resin.

Finishing with a kerthunkersaurus! And all available here.

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Toyway - Wbritain

Peter had been chatting to the sales rep' for a while when I caught up with him and so knows more about the plastics (same plan as last year and the year before . . . probably the same outcome - nothing!) which may be in PW at some point. Peter sculpted some of the early Toyway medieval stuff, and some Romans they never issued.

But they are carrying the tourist line from Wbritain, an American company who like to think they are the descendants of Britains, but they're not, Tomy have the farm and zoo, and DSG have the bulk of the Deetail, while everything else (Herald and Eye's Right) seems to have gone forever.

I asked the rep' if these were cheaper than the 'collector' figures and he said yes, but not by much which is a bit troubling because the prices of 'new metal from them, K&C and Figarti is just stupid. I suspect however he didn't know that these companies are charging anything from 25-quid to over £60 for even single foot figures, and that these will be found to be a lot cheaper?

And they will be found in the kiosks, museums, galleries and heritage sites of the London or wider-UK tourist trails' gift shops. Styled to match the Britains New Metal Models which followed 71's Detail in the late 1973, but I think they are solid poured metal, not the separate-based die-cast alloy figures of the 'proper' Britains back then.

Although don't get me wrong - these aren't new, it's just the first time I've photographed them (and they might be in updated packaging?), but they look fine; if they're around a fiver for a foot figure I'll probably pass, but if the boxed sets are under £20 I might be tempted, by one, as a sample?

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Toyway - General

There wasn't much of any substance on the Toyway stand, but there was enough for three posts, so that's today's endeavour and we'll start with the bits and bobs and then look at a couple of things they are distributing for other people within the UK.

Divorced from Minicraft (who may have gone the way of all flesh?), Academy are still out there somewhere (Korea?) and producing the eclectic range of kits they were always partly known for, and it doesn't come more eclectic than a range of box-scale kits of Leonardo (he's not a real turtle Mr. President!) da Vinci's 'inventions'.

I use inverted-commas as some of these were only ever drawings, and where models exist, they tend to be either incomplete or disproving of the theory behind the original idea. That armoured car must be in someone's preferred scale . . . 54mm?

While half-out of shot you can see AFV and aircraft kits, a steam-pumping engine (I think?) and tools - under another brand - off to the right.

A rival range of die-cast aircraft in 1:72 scale from Aviation 72 are designed to give Corgi a run for their money. The Gazelle was always a favourite of mine; only went in one once, but you could (still can occasionally) tell them from kilometers away due to their high-pitched turbine whiney-whistling-wooshing! Sea Hawk above.

Tucano huh? One minute you're blowing them away, next minute you've got so many you may as well start using them. Don't cry for us Argentina 'cos we've got all your T1's! I know it's not that simple, but it's still funny! Folland Ger'nat for a Ger'nome!

De Havilland Tiger Moth, my father actually had one, although it was sold a while ago and spent most of the last forty-odd years in a yellow and blue stripy-number, but it looked like this when it was sold-off by the MOD in my childhood, I sat in it a few times, but never flew in it . . . sniff!

But these! These are branded to Toyway themselves and must be about 1:8th or 1:9th? They're Chopper's, Raleigh Chopper's; I would have stolen one if they weren't in a sealed Plexiglas case (they knew I was coming!), just too cool for the swing-park!

If you remember trying to change gear, finding you couldn't shift the 'shift-stick' looking down and then crashing into something you know what I'm talking about! Go [over the handlebars] Chopper!