News, Views Etc . . . Forthcoming Events; Saturday 29th February - Friday 6th March 2020

This came through the Wibbly-Wobbly-Way's eMail system the other day, it's just a bit of plastic-targeting spam, but before I deleted it I noticed the second line was in a  slightly different font/size and has clearly been added as a piece of pro-Party propaganda!

I assume "...the best protective" is a government-issue condom over your head?

And propaganda seems to have been the theme this week with Modi claiming India to be the world's oldest democracy, even as he turned a blind eye to yet another pogrom against the Muslims, who - it has to be said - were (as the Moguls) among those running what is now four countries (not one, Mr Modi) as a whole collection of fiefdoms, palatinates, city-states, and dictatorships, a situation that existed when Alexander went to war against several of the not even slightly democratic kingdoms of inherited monarchy!

Meanwhile Boris is determined to start a fight with the EU, do they (Brwreakshiteers) not understand that 'we' voted out, they didn't vote us out, they don't own us a bean, we owe them for everything we signed-up for which might not have gone-ahead if we hadn't signed-up for it!

While Trump talks to us all like a five-year-old, trying to get the blame onto his bother! He's now put Pence in charge of Corvid-19, despite cutting the budgets of all the agencies likely to deal with the thing! It's priceless, humanity ends not with a glorious bang, but a bunch of voted-for wimpers!

We've till got toys . . .

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Toy Fairs

Saturday 29th February 2020

Sandown Park - Barry Potter / BP Fairs - 'The' Sandown Park Show

Exhibition Centre, Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9AJ

Web. - www.bpfairs.com

Tel. - 01604 846 688

Mob. - 07966 527 177

Fax. - 01604 771 070

10:30-15:00hrs

Admission - Adults £6.50p, seniors £6, children £2, early bird (from 08.00hrs) £10.00

Tons of free parking

Best show in the calendar, I'll be there!

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Sunday 1st March 2020

Ashington - David Parsons - Toy & Train Collectors Fair

Ashington Community Centre, Foster Lane, Ashington, West Sussex, RH20 3PG

Web. - www.modelcarmart.co.uk

eMail - modelcarmart@gmail.com

Tel. - 01424 846 676 (Pete)

Mob. - 07742 609 865 (David)

10:00 - 14:00hrs

 Adults £1.50, concessions £1

Falkirk, Scotland - McLaren Models

Tel. - 01324 624 102

(All other details here)

Haydock Park - Barry Stockton Fairs

The Exhibition Centre, Haydock Park Racecourse, WA12 0HQ

Web. - http://barrystocktonfairs.co.uk/
Tel. - 01513 343 362
10:30 - 14:30hrs
Admission - Adult £2, Children £0.50p

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

The Exhibition Centre, Lincolnshire Showground, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, LN2 2NA

Web. - www.j-jwebbtoyfairs.com

eMail - jandjfairs@virginmedia.com

Tel. - 01522 880 383

10:00 - 14:30hrs Approximately

Admission £2.50p, seniors £2, 1st child £1.50p

Needham Market - Stowmarket Railway Club (club event)

Needham Market Community Centre, Shool Street, Needham Market, Sulfolk, IP6 8BB

Web. - www.stowrailclub.org.uk

Tel. - 01449 672 698

10:30 - 15:00hrs

Admission - £1.50p, accompanied children free

Wheelchair access, free parking, refreshments

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

Tewkesbury - Tony Oaks Toy Fairs

Tewkesbury School, Ashurst Road, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, GL20 8DF

Internet presence unknown

Tel. - 01270 652 773

Mob. - 07825 631 323

10:30 - 14:00hrs

Admission £2, free parking

Still; Newish Date - Newish Venue

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Auctions

Monday 2nd March 2020

Rayleigh - Staceys Auctioneers

Essex Auction Rooms, 37 Webster's Way, Rayleigh, Essex, SS6 8JQ

Web. - www.staceyauction.com

eMail - info@staceyauction.com

Tel. - 01268 777 122

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Wednesday 4th & Thursday 5th March 2020

Ludlow - Mullock's Specialist Auctioneers and Valuers - (2-day sale)

Ludlow Racecourse, Bromfield, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 2BT (sale venue)

Web. - www.mullocksauctions.co.uk

eMail - reception@mullocksauctions.co.uk

eMail - auctions@mullocksauctions.co.uk

Tel. - 01694 771 771

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Friday 6th March 2020

Taunton - Greenslade Taylor Hunt (GTH)

The Octogon Saleroom, 113a East Reach, Taunton, Devon, TA1 3HL

Web. - www.gth.net

eMail - antiques.saleroom@gth.net

Tel. - 01823 332 525

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Other Events

From Yesterday 'till Sunday the 29th March 2020

York - York Museum - Viking Trail

Yorkshire Museum, Museum Gardens, York

Web. - www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk

Activities, prizes

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Saturday 29th February & Sunday 1st March 2020

Manchester - Nerfwar - Nerf War Carnival

Event City, Manchester

Web. - www.nerfwarcarnival.com

Mad event for 'Madchester'!

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Sunday 1st March 2020

Brighton - Love Fairs - Antiques, Collectables & Vintage Fair

Brighton Racecourse, Freshfield Road, Brighton

Web. - www.lovefairs.com

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Overseas Events

Saturday 29th February 2020

Three Doll Shows (all USA)

Los Angeles - Northshore Doll Club - Luncheon

Pinewood Country Club, Slidell, Los Angeles, USA

Web. - https://dollsmagazine.com/events/northshore-doll-club-luncheon/

Punta Gorda - Port Charlotte Doll Club - Annual Show & Sale

Charlotte Harbor Event Center, Punta Gorda, Florida, USA

Web. - https://dollsmagazine.com/events/port-charlotte-doll-club-annual-show-and-sale/

Roseville - Crossroads Doll & Bear Show

The Grounds, Placer County, Roseville, CA, USA

Web. - https://dollsmagazine.com/events/crossroads-doll-teddy-bear-show-sale-4/

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Mount Hope (USA) - CJ Trains - Mount Hope Toy & Train Show

Mount. Hope Event Centre 8076 OH-241, Millersburg, OH 44654, Ohio, USA (venue)

CJ Trains, LLC, P. O. Box 446, Wooster, OH 44691, Ohio, USA (promoter)

Tel. - ++13 302 627 488 (promoter)

Tel. - ++13 306 746 188 (venue)

Web. - http://www.cjtrains.com

eMail - cathijon@sssnet.com (Cathi / Jon Ulbright)
10:00-16:00hrs

Admission $5.00, children 12 & under free
Refreshments catered by Mrs. Yoder’s Kitchen

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Saturday 29th February & Sunday 1st March 2020

Edison (USA) - Trainshow - Greenberg’s Great Train & Toy Show

New Jersey Expo Center, 97 Sunfield Avenue, Edison, NJ 08837, New Jersey, USA

Web. - http://trainshow.com/edison/

10:00-16:00hrs

Admission $10 both days, $9 Sunday only, under-11's free

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Sunday 1st March 2020

Erie PA (USA) - Carl Amidon - Railroadiana & Model Train Show

Rainbow Gardens, Waldameer Water Park, 200 Peninsula Drive, Millcreek, Pennsylvania, USA

Web. - https://dnltoytrains.com/event/erie-pa-railroadiana-and-model-train-show/

Tel. - ++4 404 658 845

10:00-16:00hrs

Admission $5.00

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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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H is for How They Come In

At one point there wasn't going to be anything here this week, which suited me as I wanted this week's date post to be quick and easy, but then on Thursday (yesterday) three purchases were made in a few minutes in three different charity shops, none of whom had had any stuff for the first half of the week . . . and I may yet pick-up some stuff today?

When I say none though, I had rejected a tub of those intermediate-scale 99p Store-Poundland figures the Man of Tin does such great things with, and I also failed to buy a small bag of farm which was mostly sub-sub-piracies of Blue Box stuff and a Britains horse with no tail!

As a result, when I saw these I paid too-much for them (pound-each), thinking they'd be 'something' . . . although I might still have got them if there wasn't a Friday Dates post to feed, as one's a nice composition piece (dough-craft or chalk-ware, it's not clear) and the other; Ovaltine's resin piece titled 'The Wheelbarrow' is new to me and has a toy figure (penguin) within a toy figure!

A more bearable 50p; I think these are the recent Paperchase iteration, and I've probably got them all, but having only upgraded the Dinoraser box, to a larger one, just the other day, there's expansion room (the lid had been a bit wobbly for a while!) and there's always the longer term goal of each colour in each pose, once you’ve ticked the 'at least one of each colour or pose' box!

Across the road and for another 50p was a proper bag'o'bits, with something for everyone, insects, animals, amphibians, fish and crustaceans! So in the end, the week provided a mix of stuff for the next sorting session.

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Received with Thanks

More images from Mr Berke in New York this week, including a powered 1:76th scale tank which knocks my recent B/O purchase into the long grass (follow-up forthcoming) but he also corresponded with Hornby after Wednesday's Toy fair 2020 posts and is sad to report that the blue & white striped box (which was used with '3-rail' originally) actually contains a modern 2-rail runner (so ought to be in a red & white stripped box!), while the Dublo-Dinky's have already been seen in the Skeldale range of scenery, so more disappointment in the centenary sets! Thanks for all help and input Brian.

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Toys in the Media

A while since we had one of these, but I couldn't let this pass . . .

. . . it's a ne'kid Barbie-Cindy-Bild Lilly type 'fashion' doll, anyone recognise the neutered pudenda? Go and have a cold shower, you filthy reprobate! David Sedaris is an extremely funny, erudite, social commentator and this collection of his short stories and readings was going for a song at the local library, so I bought it for the good read, the fact that it had a toy on the cover was a bonus!

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Links

The Help For Hero's installation has moved to Plymouth Argyle for this weekend

The Smithsonian on toy soldier collections

Salt & Pepper pot collection, totally understand that, I have a few pairs myself now!

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This Week I Are Bin Mostly . . .

Sortin' Army Men!

Actually I had three nights in the attic and sorted flats, dinosaurs and all the military which has come in over the last year or so, three lots - the ancient & medievals, the ceremonial-historical-colonial and the WWI-II-Modern.

In the doing of which I found the 'pony-tail' and Spetznaz types Chris Smith had sent me a while ago, along with a third US Fritz-helmet type who seems to go with them, but had ended up with the above 'Odds & Sods' (centre left, rifle across body), so apologies' to Chris for temporarily misplacing them; after a suitable time period, and assuming more of this stuff will turn up from various sources, we'll have another look at them!

Something is for Something Else!

I couldn't think of a title! I rather lost the rhythm this week, alcohol was involved (75th; had to happen!), and while I managed to get these shot on Tuesday, I didn't text-up until yesterday and tidied-up this morning! There won't be much more 'till Mon/Tue; there's a show this weekend, firewood to fetch Sunday (before they ban it!), but - for now - here's some mini-mals!

We looked at these right back at the start of the Blog, in a roundup of the various food premium animals, but a few more lots have come in and I needed to do comparisons with the Airfix sets, so I had a bit of a photo-sesh'; the Olá ice-cream premium animals;

The whole sample, unwashed was about eight 'colours' but it was clear that some were so dirty it was hard to tell what was what! Not a large sample, but they now fill one of the small-scale sample-bags (inset) which is not bad since they've grown quite slowly in three small lots and a few odds over forty-years!

After cleaning and it's five colours; with a paler-grey rhino' and two distinct whites, one semi-translucent (and greyish in daylight), one solid, neither clear from the other in this shot, or any of the others I took trying to show the difference!

I have no idea how many are in the whole set, but with several singles in the sample, it's a fair bet there are more to find, and, if I've managed twenty-one so far, there's probably at least 30 all-in? Note the pairs of some animals;

I can't claim any of this is scientific or anything, but I suspect the elephant on the left is trying to be Asian, and the one on the right is trying to be African; going mostly on the ears! Likewise the two reptiles would seem to be a deliberate attempt to cover two continents, but I've only gone on snout-length, and they could be the other way round?

The two big cats could equally be other things, the one on the left a Jaguar, the one on the right a cougar? The wildebeest and water-buffalo (previous shot - top left) are pretty obvious, but why two different hippo' sculpts? That is a mystery!

The real reason I dug them out - Airfix comparisons reveal - if nothing else - a lack of scale consistency in the Olá figurines; the lion is vast while the giraffes are tiny, and while not in the Airfix shots; the pelican is some prehistoric man-eater of a bird!

I won't post links to those pages as this image is good-enough for now, but they're on the Airfix Blog if you fancy a 'plastic smalls' diversion!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Hornby - Other Makers Products

Hornby (as Hornby Hobbies or Hornby Group) is now one of the big six players in the global toy business (Hasbro, Mattel, Lego, Tomy-Takara, Games Workshop), and as such it probably wasn't a surprise to find 'rival' products on their stand, obviously as distributors, also ensuring they get a percentage of the hobby market their own products don't cover!

Warlord, Bolt Action, Osprey Publishing and Esci-Italeri all here, as thick as thieves, in the worlds of both licensing, and proprietary or sealed-system war-games and rule-sets. It wasn't clear if the diorama was connected to some of the displayed products or just for display interest?

They are also handling Dr. Who, Master & Commander, Blood Red Skies and Judge Dredd stuff, now I clearly didn't spot the Judge Dredd 'thing' as I didn't photograph it properly/separately and don't know what it is, if it's a game with figures . . . .wantone!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Hornby - Centenary

As the title suggests Hornby are celebrating 100 years of the brand, in actuall fact the 'firm' really died at the merger of Tri-ang/Rovex and Hornby, but such details are irrelevant when it's all about branding and the brand was founded by Frank Hornby at Binns Road in Liverpool in 1920.

The deal is supposed to be to have ten special or limited-edition items available, one for each decade of the branding, and reflecting some of those older logos or brands, but the salesman explaining it to me couldn't rationalise the display with that 10-total!

He did realise that one of the Rocket's (yellow box) is from the standard range, but that still/then leaves either 11 or 9 other items/groups on display?

Anyway, they are from the top, an

• ·         [Meccano] 'The Hornby' electric train set
• ·         Hornby-Dublo 'Sir Nigel Gresley' train set
• ·         Hornby-Dublo locomotive - stripped box
• ·         Range of Dublo-Dinky 'OO' vehicles
• ·         Tri-ang 'Stevenson's Rocket' (red box)
• ·         Tri-ang Hornby locomotive 'Evening Star'
• ·         2x Hornby Railways locomotives (different price points)*
• ·         2x Hornby [Hobbies] locomotives (different price points)*
• ·         Rovex train set

*I think they are also representing four different 'standard' packaging changes?

This was nice but also possibly the most disappointing of the lot, as it's obviously meant to represents the old burn-your-house-down before a zeppelin gets to it, bare-wire carpet-railway early electrictrickery train sets of the inter-war period, and while on one level it does so very well, especially if it runs on vintage O-guage track (?), on another level; it's a horrid colour/finish.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a fan of maroon locomotives and treasure my Duchess of Southerland despite the fact it hasn't run for over 30-years and may need a complete overhaul, but semi-matt, or eggshell or whatever they call it . . . really? It should have been shiny-gloss, with broad black & gold pinstripes round the tank-case, surely?

These, on the other hand, are both lovely and interesting. Lovely because they are 'true' OO or 1:76 or 23/25mm-compatable vehicles of use to model railway fans and war-gamers everywhere, yet interesting because they are NOT the original vehicles, or reproductions of them (there was a sports car and a tractor, but not these) . . . which, loyal readers, might suggest that if they/their sales are successful through 2020, it could make them the vanguards to a new range (half planned already?) in competition with Oxford Diecast? Only thinking out-loud!

Already two of the vans would make useful (if inaccurate) vehicles for French Resistance units!

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Hornby - Harry Potter

After one got over the lack of catalogues on Hornby's stand this year, one's eyes were drawn to a larger diorama they had in one half of the stand, which had a little train going round-and-round!

They had to go with a rival's fort because they've never strayed far from the trackside (a few cows and a set of pylons maybe!), I don't recognise it offhand, with my Walther's' in front of me maybe, but they've mucked the walls about to fit it in the corner!

There was a flying car (Ford Anglia?) which gives a clue as to the theme! Probably also bought-in, possibly Oxford Die-cast? The train - obviously - is the Hogwarts Express, leaving from platform something-&-a-half (thirteen?), I've never read the books, never seen the filums and only heard the first section of the first book read by Steven Fry (which was very good, I was laughing out loud as the letters spilled from the chimney-breast) on Radio 4 years ago!

Round and round and round it goes, where it stops; everyone knows . . . Hogwarts academy of geeky weirdoes!

Hornby still have a lot of support for the franchise, but how long that will last is anyone's guess as I think it's fair to say the popularity of Harry Potter is on the wane, and while I understand it's kept alive with stage-plays, 'Extraordinary Beasts' and DVD boxed-sets, that will only carry it (the franchise) so far?

The Hornby Group's subsidiary brand of Corgi also have Harry Potter stuff, I don't know if it fits in with the OO-gauge compatibility of the Hornby sets, but assume it looks the part, although I'm guessing the gauge on the Corgi locomotive is 'carpet-gauge' not a scale 4 feet 1½-inches (13.17mm to 1 metre) or an actual 16.5mm between wheels? It certainly won't be powered.