H is for How They Come In - November 2020

Right, now I have 26 posts in the 'H is for How . . . ' sector, and there were 25 until I turned this into two, so there may be 30 or more by the time we've worked through them all!

Also it's a year since I had to call the ambulance that would ultimately end in the loss of my Mother last January, and while I carried on blogging while she was 'only' unwell, it did tail off, to a complete hiatus in the new year, and one of the first things to go was the How They Come In posts.

Now life's all just the long slog of dealing with the estate (a nightmare for another day), it's time to clear these off the laptop, so, in the vague order they came in, that's what I'll be doing in the run-up to Christmas, alternating with other posts to 'mix it up'! And we're starting with this little lot that Peter Evans sent the Blog last November - shots taken on the 5th of that month, they may have got here a day or two earlier

Four modern rack toys and a loose bunch of bits, including the Culpitt's dove-ring we saw in a small poultry/birds follow-up a year ago. The loose figures are the rubbery Shing Hing (SH) we've seen before, they were (still are?) big-bucket stuff in big-store Smyths and are dominating evilBay-lots of this type at the moment!

These aren't in the main picture, so may have come from elsewhere (Charity shop!), but the photo was in sequence with Peter's stuff (taken half-an-hour later though?) and he's certainly sent similar to the blog in the past, so for now - they came with this lot! One or two maker's; sea life, they'll get sorted with all the others for a sea life overview at some point.

PMS blister-carded set; a few leery orange figures of poor quality, a weird gun which is everywhere on Alibaba at the moment and a truck with huge stickers which looks as if it's supposed to be advertising a fantastic movie or a two-player 'shoot-em-up' video game!

The artillery piece reappears in this set, nominally credited to an obvious phantom-brand (sticker, as an afterthought); Toys as Fun, and imported by Habib (UK) Ltd., from an unknown factory in Shantou City, the figures (two balanced 'armies' of randomly picked poses) also share poses with the previous set, but are different mouldings.

From the same source comes this farm set with the larger type of animal, although when I say 'farm' I'm following the packaging and ignoring the inclusion of a bison/wisent buffalo, and the palm-tree! I had actually found one of these in my local, independent, everything-cheap store a few weeks earlier, which I had de-bagged (Ooh missus!), so they are the photo-shot on the right, Peter's will remain a mint-bagged example.

Comparing the contents of the three sets; you can see that the figures (1-3) are very different in both size and finish, with the PMC's (1) much larger and yet cruder than the Habib/Fun set, who are finished to a higher quality. Likewise the farm palm (6) is larger, yet cruder that the also Habib/Fun 'combat' pair (5). A whole jungle (4) from a few rack-toys . . . you wouldn't get that from Airfix, Britains or Timpo bargain!

But the guns - from both sets  -are identical, suggesting the contents of both are bought-in 'mix-and-match' from more than one (or two) sources. While, from the construction method, the 'fire-brigade' helicopter also came from the gun-maker, and is a copy of slightly better ones we've seen before. The tank is what it is!

This, though, apart from the weirdly poor/odd wheels/tyres, is a bit of a zinger! I had seen them on feeBay and Ali' in various sets/configurations including singles from one of those multiple listings where wholesaled set-contents are broken down as a shopping-list, and I thought I'd got one, but didn’t find it when I put Peter's away, so may only have the one still.

But, wheels aside, it's good for Hong Kong/China shite! The forks would make it more of a Zundapp than a BMW, but in the heavy 750cc class, and it is perfect for taking the old Britains Deetail figures who; being pretty indestructible PVC; seem to survive their die-cast mounts in some numbers.

The other item was a large, infant's floor-toy of an insurgent's 'technical' pick-up truck with twin-cannon in the rear cargo-bed. It seems to have a hole in the cab-roof for an emergency beacon/light, so there may be construction, police or fire versions out there? Imported by Goodiez Ltd., another new tag for the tag list!

I really can't hold on to this larger, poorer stuff, so after photographing it (I take a dozen or so against future posts) it went off to charity in time for someone to get it for Christmas, and I thank Peter for sharing it with us first, along with everything else in this post.

*****     *****     *****     ******     *****

Added 20th Nov. 2021 - My version of the farm set turned out to be a blister-carded set rather than the header-carded bottle-bag set of Peter's donated one, contents were the same but under the added stickers was a clue to either a manufacturer, or another phantom-branding . . . 

. . . namely Wei Ni Da, who real or phantom are currently offering this on Egyptian Amazon! So wheels within wheels and another brand-mark for the tag list . . . as I asked on Moonbase the other a while ago, "Does it never end?"!

L is for Les Souverains de France . . .

 . . . no! No, no, no 'rulers' . . . Les Règle de Mesure de France! Bloody Google Translate! Tchz!

Well, what is it? It's hardly 'Toy Soldier', but it's not really 'Figural Stationary', it is a card flat, except it's wooden, there's nothing hand-made about it, it's laser-cut on a computer and laminated on a production line, but it's fun, and with most loyal readers having fresh memories of the weekend's remembrance services and activities, and those being - still - more centered in WWI than any other, it's apt.

Credited to Editions Valoire-Estel and futher crediting the Musée de l'Armée for the images (obviously taken from manikins in the French National Army Museum), it's a ruler! Six French troops and six foreigners is - I think - quite generous to the foreigners, if it was a British (or American) museum it would be twelve of the parent nation, wouldn't it? 

Probably my last Charity Shop purchase of last year, and for 50p it would have been daft to leave it. It makes you want to go and find your Mokarex WWI figures and get the paint out, for which this is the ideal painting guide to prop-up on the work-table! And you can see from the conveniently-attached 'scale' that they are an almost perfect 54mm!

News, Views Etc . . . Speedwell Special!

Big news from Barney at Herald Toys & Models, on sale items going live on his site tomorrow . . . 

" . . . . this week we have for sale a large collection of Speedwell Farmyard models for sale, including the original trade boxes that were the focal point of the farm article that I wrote for the PW Speedwell Special, a couple of years ago. These trade boxes enabled us to confirm models that we had long suspected as being by Speedwell and others that came to light as Speedwell. These trade boxes will be available to buy tomorrow and are possibly unique if not extremely rare . . . . "

 

Not from Barney's sales - an old SSW 'library shot'!

Also there's the 2nd Sandown Park toy fair since the lock-downs on Saturday, I've heard the first Exeter after the lock-downs was poor, but the 2nd was much better, so let's see how it shapes up at Sandown this weekend?

P is for Postscript on Plasticom and Their Polish Pals!

Return or follow-up wouldn't compute once I'd decided on an alliterative heading and 'Pandect' would have flummoxed most I fear! Anyway, Plasticom were first seen here a long time ago now, and we have re-visited them several times AND looked at Polish versions, so this is another view, with more Polish figures (courtesy of Chris Smith) and, and . . .

I took a lot of pictures, and Chris sent a fair few, so we're starting with line-ups of his new Polish takes on the Plasticom 'Soldabar' sugar-candy/lolly-handle WWII figures above and below from two different angles, and  - the middle - the current rainbow of polymer colours from my Plasticom sample.

Note also slight variations; offset holes, smaller base and deeper reinforcing round some of the holes, also the orange-red 'short-shot/miss-mould' at the back left.

Chris's Polish knock-off's compared with the Plasticom, these would appear - from below - to be from two makers, but I think they are all of the same origin and although we've looked at similar figures here from Konrad Lesiak, and Wojciech Gudaczewski recently covered them on a Faceplant group, the maker/s remain anonymous! Wojciech did say they were mostly produced around Warsaw though, and would be what have been described here before as Kioskowce - cheap 'tobacco kiosk' novelties.

The standing firer is quite an original pose, with a serious attempt to replicate the Plasticom base; a shallower rim to the lolly-socket giving him away, while the 8th Army officer is a straight lift from Airfix's set. We've seen the two Plasticom's before, they are a Crescent (firer) and Britains (officer) clone respectively.

These are Chris's Matchbox clones, to whom belongs the firing figure from the previous image, we have 8th Army and Afrika Korps. Polish troops fought with the Eighth Army, but in Italy when they had gone into long trousers I think (and there weren't many Highland Bren-gunners in the Polish formations!), but still the affinity is there, and it gets round making hated Russians?

While Airfix are plundered for more 8th Army poses and - unusually - Ghurkhas, with both these and the previous, the colours are very hard to photograph under any conditions, and more worryingly - in the case of the center four - made to look almost as edible as the candy-lolly they were holding!

I wasn't thinking when I did this collage, so we have Wild West above (US Cavalry) and WWII below! The bazooka-man is taken from the late Britains Hong Kong output while the advancing pair in the middle are Crescent again with another Britains (damaged) on the left. The cavalry which I didn't recognise last time were ID'd by someone a while back (Vichy?) as Jecsan I think, but it's a fleeting similarity, with the Plasticom's far more naturally stance'd.

Image on the left here is from Theo van der Weerden, with two of the Cofalu clones (one each beret and helmet) of French infantry, more Britains and another US cavalryman, while I have the same pair (lower right) of Frechies, with another, stabbing pose, in various colours - above.

My four together, we've seen this shot on the Khaki Infantry page, but for the sake of completeness it might as well be here too!

Chris kindly sent me three duplicates from his collection, and I will eventually use them in comparisons on the Airfix Blog, but for now, one of each; Ghurkha, 8th Army and DAK above, order reversed below.

And to the wild Wild West! Top left (they too, came from Theo) and bottom are the Platicom from Belgium. The other two shots are all Polish figures from Chris (oops, I've only just realised one of them is WWII British!). Note the higher collar on the two top-right, which may be another maker's work?

There seems to be a bit of mix-and-match with these, but I'm not so au fait with Wild West figures . . . Theo's red figure is taken from Britains Herald Hong Kong, the green chap from the same maker's Swoppet range, the high tube pair might be based on ex-Jean or Manurba poses, the two six-gun chaps (bottom left) Herald (similar) again? The standing riflemen are quite nice poses/sculpts, albeit a bit flat; like most the Polish figures.

All Plasticom and a mix of Britains and continental sculpts being lifted here, I think we've seen them all before, I recognise the four interesting poses but can't place them (French?), while the standing firing and kneeling archer are both Herald HK. The standing bowman looks a bit like Rambo!

Two Polish Indians, again courtesy of Mr. Smith, and clearly a new manufacture for the blue figure, who might be mistaken for 'just' a Kioskowce but that base is hollow and too large to not be for a lollypop to sit in! I don't recognise either pose and the green one is missing a hand.

This chap came in the other day and I thought I'd better add him here for the full overview! He's similar to the Herald Hong Kong one, but the legs are slightly different, I think.

Plasticom's scenics, with a Britains original to the far right, you can see the Plasticom tree is greatly simplified. I think we have Chris to thank for one or two of these as well, but some time-ago now!

The Plasticom 'Czech hedgehog' tank-trap, compared with the Britains Herald Hong Kong accessory, and it's an early marbled one on the left (matching the previously seen tree), with a later plain-brown one to the right.

You may have noticed that the ex-Matchbox advancing pose has what looks like a sign on his base, and I asked Chris about it, as a 'supplemental'! He studied it in depth and took tons of shots to try and get a few good ones (which was all 'a call above' for the blog) and sent me the best results. Stopping the shadow setting down 200% (that's the same figure in both shots) made it clear the 'HQ', 'Tobruk >>' or 'Achtung Minen' I had hoped for is not there!

Moreover, it's not that clearly a sign at all, and Chris wondered if it might actually be doing the job of what I call 'sprulettes', allowing material to pass beyond the products original cavity design, so the figure itself gets fully formed. Chris noted most of the other figures are more balanced with a leg either-side of the lollypop hole, while this was a one-sided sculpt, and it seems to me he might be spot-on? Although the bayonet has still short-shotted!

The last time I mentioned Plasticom online someone stated they were available in Germany from Trawigo, Bloomberg list Trawigo GmbH & Co KG (founded 1953) as an importer and wholesaler of confectionery & related products, not a manufacturer, so they didn't make them, they imported Plasticom's Soldabars, and repackaged them.

As I've mentioned them (Trawigo) now, I'll tag them and anyone searching in the future can come here and read > click here or on the Plasticom tag below this post or the tag down the right-hand side of the page for the - currently- seven other posts on these and the previous looks at Polish production/similar figures < !

And it gets them in the tag-list! Indeed, as we now know they got as far as Poland, and seem to turn-up most in mixed lots from France, Belgium, Holland and even the UK (occasionally), they must have had/carried several brand-marks, do you know your local one?

Many thanks to Chris Smith for help, images and figures, thanks to Theo for images, to Konrad for past images and help and acknowledging Wojciech's input, that's them, again, for now!

F is for Fishy Phishing for Fish!

Although most of the 'family archive' has gone to storage now, some months ago; the odd thing still turns up, and while most of it is not of any interest to the Blog, this fell out of other papers a couple of days ago, so small I didn't know if it would scan at all!

My father, I think in Borneo/Sarawak (pretty sure that's one of the Iban tracker's huts in the background), but he had all four Malaysia clasps (in order of award - Malaya, Brunei, Borneo and Malay Peninsula) on his GSM's, so it could be any of them, but from his age; taken long before I was born!

When we were kids he would get us by the fire and tell us his "war stories", among which his tale of grenade fishing seemed to be one of his favorites (misbehavior! The apple never falls far from the tree), and from the grin on his face here, I suspect that that is how he came by his 'catch'?

Also, re. the other day's Officer Recruitment adverts, he is wearing JG (jungle green)'s which led to the temperate OG's mentioned then, although by the time we were old enough to pay attention he referred to them all as OG's as they saw out their lives as gardening clothes! No equipment, so clearly a safe-area?

The picture as found, I was amazed it blew-up well enough to use here, as I never set-up my new scanner, just plugged it in and tried it and it started taking scans straight-away! But these modern machines are all more automated in their thinking (AI?) and seem to know to increase the pixel-rate exponentially when you present them with a postage stamp!

It may have been cut out of a bigger image (there's a sequence of Roger Woodiwiss giving first-aid and medical help to Ibans in their village, one of which is often found in the better books), or more likely, been reduced for use as a postcard, and then cut-down for a/Mum's purse's stamp-window thing?

Y is for You Can't Hold a Candle to Them!

Chris Smith sent me the most incredible link a while ago, and I was so amazed, I didn't even look at the price as I hit the buy-it-now (BIN) button! It wasn't terribly clear how many were whole or - indeed - how many were damaged, but then they still had an ocean to cross, so it was cross-fingers-and-see-what-turns-up time!

And this is what turned up, miraculously a good more than half, were passably 'complete', and I say "passably" as we shall see in a second or two, playwear has rendered a lot of them even more blobby than they were when minty fresh, which would have been pretty blobby, as they are basically made of crayon wax!

There are four simple poses of generic WWII/Early Cold War types, which, clockwise from the green pair are; Sentry with slung rifle on right shoulder, holding SMG across body, water-cooled Maxim/Browning MG and a bazooka/ATR. And the SMG (where discernible) is more Soviet Bloc than NATO, so really generic!

Colour variation would suggest they were actually made from wax crayons - one of the Crayola big 64-caryon sets maybe? Bottom left is the broken ones, but I've kept them for some of the colour variations!

Equally, how they came about is a mystery to me, but I'm assuming some kind of home-moulding kit? They came from the 'States which is home to the Mattel Thing Maker (1962?),  which had many mould- or accurately mold-sets (were they for fighting the monsters?), the Kenner Presto (1972?), the Mold-a-Rama coin-op's (1962 to the present day) and more recently the Toymax metal molder (which could take wax) among others (did Hasbro have one?), but the closest I could find was Emenee's Formex 7 sets with the Dyna-Cast which was another wax moulder, and they did do a military set, sadly with four larger scale figures?

Size comparisons; above with the early war, under-armed, cash-only thank you Mr. Churchill Flying Fortress (from Adrian Little), also in wax and below with an Airfix USAAF pilot, you can see the wax figures are a pretty perfect HO-gauge compatible 18mm.

Many thanks to Chris for finding them, and does anyone know where they came from, other than America, which I just told you! A brand; we're looking for a brand! They could even be something more commercial and pre-manufactured, or cast from home-casting metal war-gaming figure moulds?

Later - Correction on the numbers - counting the two images - at this late stage! - It's about 82 good ones to 100 broken, so just under half, some of which have been given away already!

Later still - might be Kenner's 'reusable plastic' Mold master set from 1963? Also found the Rapco - Plasticast and Gabriel - Monster Machine! but putting Kenner in the Tags . . . for now!

A teeny bit later . . . yeah! That's it- 1963 Kenner's Electric Mold Master toy maker No. 1410, now I've got to track down all the AFV's!

R is for Recruiting Rodneys!

A couple of scans from the Sunday Times supplementary magazine, dated 1960 and 1966 receptively. I don't know what it was like where you are (foreign readers), but from the 1960's and into the 1980's our 'Sunday supplements' were really very good magazines, with minimal advertising (against the glossies), interesting articles and usually very good imagery, and where there were adverts, they could be quite good to!

A pose which could have influenced both messrs Ron Cameron and Bill Farmer? Airfix British Commandos (SLR replaced with a Thomson SMG), Britains Super Deetail (tree-branch replaced with grenade!), couple of Matchbox figures . . . both sculptors would have seen this image many times, as these ad's would run, regularly, or for a year or two on-and-off, in several publications.

 

Also of note is the pre-DPM olive-greens ('OG's'), which replaced the WWII/National Service Battle Dress for a while, having first been used in the jungles of Malaya and Borneo I think? DPM was fully introduced around 1966. This may be the Canadian pattern jacket, but the uniform changes of the 1980's are a murky business with no real timeline . . . the Gloster's wore Battle Dress in Northern Ireland in 1970!

 

Yeah! You got that, Johnny Foreigner? The best in the world 'init! Heay, I can be as jingoistic as an arse-kissing lover of Farage (rhymes with c**t) if I want to! Just a bit of fun!

But joking apart; it was - I think it's fair to say - one of the best for some time, regularly winning inter-nation tank performance and gunnery competitions in Europe and Canada, giving the Israelis the ballistic turret outline of their Merkava and producing a barrel and fire-control system any-other nation who could, immediately tried to squeeze into their existing turrets, and while it was getting a bit long in the tooth against later marks of Leopard (and Iraqi T-72's made a mess of Iranian ones in the original 'Gulf War'), it was really only Challenger I and M1 Abrams which chased it into the history books?

Public Service Announcement - Fireworks

No, not the dead graphics software, and not as humorous as a couple of previous Public Service Announcements here, with an added gentle, yes, I think 'gentle rant' attached!

DeBrett's Peerage 1886

I love fireworks, don't ever think I don't, I have loved them all my life, and have let-off more than I care to remember, but as the planet burns and we quietly go extinct due to our own complacency in Capital's rape of that same planet, it is imperative we learn to ask (of every existing human 'thing' and every new innovation); "Just because we can, does it mean we should?"

Every firework heats up the planet just a little bit more, every sparkler, every wick/squib, every struck-match or flicked-lighter, every accompanying bonfire or BBQ. And anyone who's retained the lessons of the 'energy cycle' rules from their school days (E=MC² and all that!) knows that that heat remains where it is until it is turned into something else.

But then there is the pollution? The above graphic (which has been around for a few years and may-well have been rendered in Fireworks!) gives some idea of the damage coming from fireworks, and as we all learn to wheeze and cough from traffic pollution (way over published limits) at this damp, still, time of year, we don't need to be adding to that invisible cloud with even more toxic gasses and particles. Some UN figures put air-pollution as main culprit in 2-million* deaths a year.

* Sorry - 4.2-million deaths: https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution

Another pollutant these days are all the plastic elements of modern fireworks, all the features and effects used to be achieved with card tubes, card and paper pistons, paper wraps and cotton, wool, hair or kapok wadding, and that was still the case, for most fireworks, only ten or twenty years ago.

But now it's all done with low-grade plastics (frangible polystyrenes and crumbly polyethylenes) which rain down, hundreds of yards from the firing point, or which get fired through/over the boundary into neighbouring properties where they join fast-food wrappers, shopping-bags, vehicle parts, old clothing, condoms and helium balloons in laying-down a new geology; the 'Anthropocene' sedimentary (or 'discardery') layer.

Pets and wildlife also suffer from our conceited desire to entertain ourselves with frivolous high-explosives - for many years I had a cat (Munchkin) who could handle 'Guy Fawkes', as the local yobbo's would always provide a week or two of build-up, so she'd get acclimatized, but midnight on the 31st December/1st of January always saw her piss the carpet and/or my lap and disappear under to wardrobe for a few hours in abject terror.

Now, I've been planning this post for a few years but never got round to doing it, partially because the timing's never right; if you do it in the summer everyone's forgotten by now, if you do it now, it's probably too late! So I'll try to repeat it regularly as we have to change the way we live, the way we organise our societies and the way we interact with everything else. If we don't we may be going extinct as soon as 2055?

But in the meantime, there are quiet alternatives which tend toward the 'traffic-light', 'golden rain' or 'silver fountain' type, which will still generate the heat/particulate/chemical pollution, but do - at least - minimise both noise and the distribution of crumbly, recycled/raw plastic widgets.

Some of the small 'family' packs will give a very pretty show with minimal 'collateral' damage and simplified woosh- or wheeish-rockets without crappy plastic-parts .

But remember, it's not just dogs, cats or damaged veterans that might suffer, all pets are in the firing line, hedgehogs are only now going to sleep for four months, birds (who lose enough sleep to street-lights as it is?) moths, bats . . . it's just not our right to disturb, frighten, injure or kill them and still call ourselves 'sapiens'.

https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/

And congratulations to Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer who have started to get some momentum behind the inevitable phaseing-out of fireworks by not selling or stocking them this year. While Co-Op haven't been selling them for five years, Sainsbury's joining that stance in 2019. Tesco, Aldi and ASDA are offering low-noise ranges.

ZZ is for Hawkin's Bazzar, Ingo Roggaz, Schilling and/or Tobar!

We've looked at them before, Hawkin's have gone under for a final time since Chris supplied his potted-history and the connection with Schilling was proven at a toy fair, but there was one item I really wanted, and another I quite fancied from the tinplate range, and both have been secured since January, so that's what we're looking at here!

The best! Only because I can't really afford those beautiful old French or German ones when they come up occasionally! Vaguely Prussian or Austrian (even Italian or French) cavalryman of that 'colonial' period 1840-1914 so beloved of figure painters (and print artists) for the colours of the splendor of often quite OTT uniforms, many - well 'a few' - of which survive, simplified, as ceremonial uniforms to this day.

The reigns serving as the gilded tree-hanger, and the whole being three sheets of die-cut tin-plate, pressed to shape and assembled with bent ears/tabs in the traditional way.

My line-up now looks like this, with the fictional Vomag (Vogtland Maschinenfabrik AG, actually subsumed under communism and surviving as IFA - Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau) fire-wagon/ladder-truck as the other 'newbie'.

When we looked at these last time I marked some up as not by Hawkin's or Tobar, as they weren't in the catalogues to hand, but they all seem common enough here in the UK for an assumption that all three importers (Schilling [USA], Tobar [UK] and ^Z_Z /Roggaz [BRD]) carried the full range in one catalogue or another, one year or another.

Really a generic fire fighting vehicle with lines that are more American (showing the input Schilling had from the beginning of this ^Z_Z-branded line?) than anything else, the overly complicated bar the ladder is fixed to obviously doubling as pipe-work for interest/external detailing.

Couple more shots of the additions, the ^Z_Z mark being something I've never managed to do justice to within the font limitations of Word-for-Windows! And Dinky's Centurion again shows how small these little tree-hangers are.

There must be loads in people's attics, cellars, sheds and under-stair cupboards, coming out every year and going back on the tree? And they are perfect to take off the tree as presents for sudden, little visitors . . . my late mother always had a few spare bags of chocolate-coins hidden in the center of the tree - on the fat-ends of the branches - for little people to search for, something she was still doing two years ago when the new neighbours brought round their daughter, and a tradition I will continue when I get to wherever I'm going-to.

ABC is for Another Beauty Catalogued!

I received some lovely 'might be/probably' ABC figures from Chris Smith a few days/weeks ago, which are in a future 'H is for How . . . ' post (and which I have posted elsewhere recently for those who saw them), but I've also managed to track this down;

It's starting to lose its bonnet-graphics and is missing a spare-wheel (which may turn-up in the spares box), but is otherwise in good nick for something which probably dates from the late 1950's or very early 1960's. The next question is whether it goes with the green figures we've seen here before, or one of the various iterations of Monogram copy - we've also seen, and I suspect the later, so will be looking at them more closely when they come out of storage, but for now - new Jeep!

V is for Versus . . . Plants!

One single trope seems to connect the most of all the Zombie sets, the 'Zombies versus Someone', or 'Someone versus Zombies' title or set theme, usually as a 'vs' or simple 'v'. And these are no exception, despite my knowing slightly more than nothing about them.

Plants versus Zombies, I picked these up a while ago as they were going dirt cheap, and I haven't got the time to look into them right now, but I'll give them more time in a year or two and we'll return to them here with a full picture.

What little I've gathered from a few minutes on evilBay/Google is that they are quite a big thing, or recently were, possibly among the 5-10 age group, or 8-15's? Related to a computer game and dating back to around 2006 (game) / 2008 (toy licenses?) and the figures are made by Jazwares/The Zoofy Group (I think!).

Also there seem to be loads of them in various sizes of sets, with some commoner figures (most of the above ten?), and seem to have been around for five, maybe ten years? Fun things anyway, and although sculpted in a heavier style, and with some cartoonishness, are otherwise - at around 70mm - about the right size for the Accoutrements and Safari sets in the previous post.

I don't know if this chap goes with them but I think he does [no he doesn't - see comments], I thought he was a gardener, but he has three spanners hidden in his hair and another in his hand, so maybe the plants need the odd tune-up before they go hunting Zombies.

Also totally forgot Jan had looked at them a while ago; https://site-of-curiosities.blogspot.com/2017/07/plants-verses-zombies-toy-miniatures.html