I is for Image Dump!

Getretro is a wholesaler of old stock, cancelled toys and other end-of-line clearance stuff, so the fact that I didn't get around to posting these, from the London Show back in 2023 makes sense as this had all, already, been out there somewhere, and those who needed to know about such things would already have found them!

 

 

Retro, Risk, Revell & Role Play!

 

Eaglemoss Dr's Who, Who, Who & Who . . . Who, Who, Who, Who and Who, a bunch of companions, Daleks, Cybermen and someone called War?

 

Lionel, now a trademark for shifting big-box sets from China.

That's it really, just to get them up here and out of the way, as it were! Website;

https://www.getretro.co.uk/

L is for Lots of London Loot - Peter, January

This is the bag Peter brought to the London Toy Fair for me, which due to the nature of the 'everything else' happening on the day, I don't get to look at until I get home, and Peter gets a rather cursory "Oh, thanks mate" when he hands it over, and then I carry it around in my catalogue stash-bag, all day, without looking at it again!

 

Smaller bag of bits, in the bigger bag! A nice mix of Army men who will have to be further sorted at some later date, there are tubs of this stuff waiting to be matched to both my own collection of rack-toys and those images I've downloaded from evilBay over what must be nearly two decades now.

 

A nice selection of icing-spiked cake decorations, which might be a set or near complete set, and a couple from another source/maker. A - probably - part set of Disney princesses, who are smaller than Phidal, but similar, so could be from one of the earlier sets, or  a capsule/blind-bag thing?

 

The robo-morphin in a bag, is a cheapo party-favour from Henbrandt, and a non-articulated novelty solid, while the Dino' is probably an eraser? Other bits you can spot.

 

Disney Rava, from Hasbro, I haven't even googled it, now they are also a streaming service, buying rivals as fast as they can raise the cash, they are churning this stuff out, and a lot of it gets limited, or no cinema release and remains strange to whichever generation it's not aimed at, I guess this is one of them, and I am that generation!

 

It's fun, but it's an 'action figure' so rather outside the scope of the collection, blind tubs, I guess maybe a pound-shop type clearance item, but they didn't make it down to Hampshire?

 

Similar Pinocchio thing from Giochi Preziosi, I didn't even open them as you can see what they look like from the box-art, and I thought they'd be better laid-down like fine wine, against future sale, so any earnings can be invested in other things for the Blogs! But that's not to say I'm not grateful to Peter for saving them, it's literally all grist to the mill!

 

Lovely little white-button UFO from HANS, whom we've seen before here, they seem to be one of the main suppliers of the mechanisms, if not the finished items, and I think we've also seen these on the shelves of one of the toy/gift fair exhibitors?

 

Another 'big head' astronaut, we've seen several in the Toy Fair posts, with more to come I think, so definitely a current trend, and as always . . . I blame Funko! This one as an unbranded key-ring, and it has a strangely pixelated quarter (front left), as if it's melting back into the digital ether! It may have been a sales sample on the day, rather than from Peter's bag, my memory is fuzzy on the subject?

 

This was lovely; there are lots of these Hong Kong piracies in the stash, some clean samples, some bags of bits, what we have here, is a sample of figures from several sources, but each seems to be 'clean' or complete in itself, rather than mucked-about with, so very useful for later sorting of all the others!

 

Is that Cherilea Tarzan on the left? Similar but not substantial enough I fear, but I will check with the old Plastic Warrior article next time they are in front of me. Generic in the middle, and something probably from a sea-life, bagged, rack-toy set on the right, all more grist to the mill!

 

Erzgebirge hens and a diminutive feeder join a modern, but well-executed China foul down on the farm! The wooden trio may be from quite a well-known (in its day) set, as they do turn-up quite regularly, and I may have matching chicks or ducklings somewhere?

 

Phidal's and similar modern soft plastics (the wrestler is from Poundland, I think), along with two much older rubber-jiggler finger 'frights', and a polyethylene key-ring fright, who seems to be quite new? He also seems to have the same lenticular eyes as those blow-moulded space-aliens, some people missed on this Blog about five-times!

Close-ups!

 

A rather fuzzy shot, but one which would take days to arrange a re-shoot of, now everything's been sorted and half of it already put away in storage. Highlights/points of note include the hard'ish plastic dinosaur, who's similar to the two-halves Dino's we've seen before, but seems to be one piece, and the Fox and Panda front/centre who are probably both Kinder or similar, having contractional elements.

 

Almost as fuzzy, but bits and bobs for the spares zone, with cake decoration golfer and one of these oversized KT Beefeaters, who will go in the 'styrene modelling spares zone, as he's already been glued to something, and is incomplete. The paint-brush is an eraser, the pencil is a cake-shop novelty in rubber/PVC.

 

This was one of two sets of party favour animals Henbrandt were carrying at the same time a few years ago, we looked at one in detail here, and saw a catalogue scan/online image of the other, not sure which this is, but it's the older 'Harlequin' card!

 

Many thanks to Peter for another bunch of useful bits, interesting examples and other things which will prove useful to the Blog/s going forwards, and we've box-ticked two sets of action figures!

R is for Roman, but not Roman's!

I had an interesting chat with the couple manning the Roman stand at the NEC last month, not stuff I need to pass on, as they knew little of the history of Fontanini, had never heard of the elusive Fonplast, and were really just trying to find customers for their US-based stock, of whom I clearly wasn't one, but I shot a few of the modern 'Precepi' while I was chatting to them.

 

They've come a long way since the hand-crafted terracotta being prepared village by village between the wars, but it is now mostly poured-resin, and most of it wasn't worth shooting, as it just wouldn't have interested any loyal readers! And I think the Joseph's Studio stuff is 100% American in any case?

 

Company website;

https://www.roman.com/products/nativities/

N is for New Face!

I don't know how many Toy Fairs I've been to, not that many, probably less that twenty since I went to my first one in . . . the late 1990's? But I can't remember ever having seen Safari? Schleich and Papo are near each other on the wrought-iron edged mezzanine/balcony and have been for over a decade, while the others - Bully, CollectA, K&M, Mojo etc., are more on and off, with Battat being found on several other people's stands, but Safari never seem to have bothered, or at least not the years I've attended?

 

So it was a bit of a surprise to find them at Kensington Olympia this January past, with what looked like a hastily-prepared stand, mostly draped orange cloth over trestle tables (next time take a steam iron guys!) and pin-board/divider panels, so whether they got someone else's cancellation slot, or intend to build a presence in future years and just left preparation to the last minute, I don't know, but there were two newish things on display.

 

But first, the classic Toob's;

 

Trying to study these using Amazon is an exercise in both frustration and futility, one of the follow-up posts on the horses in Jon Attwood's donations was going to be a set of Safari, only they turned-out to be from several sets, and several more were on Amazon, so I rather gave up and put them back in the long queue!

 

Also, my recent misidentification of the Arctic vignette, lead me to discover there are two versions of that set, an older 12-piece set with two human figural items (in different scales), and a newer 'shrinkflation' version with only the ten animals.

 

I tried raising the difference with the display-team member who was guiding me round the stand, but he wouldn't be drawn on the subject, while on Amazon (and similar platforms) some traders are still selling the older versions of these sets (it's not the only one with a 12-10 cut, when you start looking), some are selling the newer sets, but off the old images (so a disappointment will arrive), and only fresher, or newer dealers are selling off the new 10-count images.

 

Which means that A) at some point in the future, some items will become 'rarer' and/or therefore, more sought-after, and B), there is a remaining window of a year or two, in which you can track-down the older sets, before they are replaced totally in commercial stock inventories.

 

One of the surprises for me, although I was led to believe they have been around for a while now, are larger animals, following the CollectA-Papo-Schleich market. I don't think I have any yet, not even in the Charity shop bundles which sometimes contain one or two of the others, although the Prehistoric Hominids set Brian Berke sent us, a few years ago, was a clue to larger scales braking out at Safari!

 

I need an albino hedgehog! But there are some nice subjects here, lizards modern and prehistoric, fantasy and domestic farm animals, something for most tastes? That octopus looks great too, and would make short work of pirates!

 

The other new item, actually released last year, I think the chap said, were these mini animals, which would have be going head-to-head with the Schleich-Minis, but I don't think Schleich offer them any-more?

 

Being 'unit sized' some will be useful for HO-OO use, some better suited to larger scales, some may even hold their own against N-gauge or something? They were actually hard to shoot, given the way their display stands had been positioned.

 

A few other shots;

 

The newer issues, from one end of the display table.

 

Not the world's best photograph, I'll grant you! I've checked the butterfly set against the Insect Lore set, and they are not the same, in the middle is the set Brian drew to our attention back in 2020, while a set of Planets is actually a Sun and eight Planets . . . poor bloody Pluto!

 

Also heading for a slice of the novelty market?

 

Useful larger-scale figures.

 

The other end of that table!

 

All-in-all, despite the Lothario's just-got-out-of-bed-sheets in tangerine, there was a lot of good stuff packed into one of the smaller stands, and while I may give the show a miss next year (? The plan is to alternate, but it's a nice day out, and I get to meet friends), I look forward to seeing what they have next time I do visit?

 

Safari's website;

https://www.safariltd.com/