R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Five of Six

The penultimate batch of Brian Berke's rack toys shelfies, and  a few more of interest, but more of a box-ticker for the Tag-list, although I know some people have interests different to mine!

 

Didn't know Buzz had a cat . . . Alien cat at that!

 

Imaginext, a Fisher-Price/Mattel property, gets a fair few mentions on Little Rubber Guys, usually in the 'what is this' section, due to the number of parts and constant new production cycle, and there are some interesting things among the sets and accessories, but the figures are semi-deform.

 

Monster trucks!

 

Interactive dinosaurs.

 

Could use a coat of paint!

 

Nice, it's surprising how many sea-life sets there are out there, or probably not surprising if you were always a fan, but we had mostly Britains farm and a bit of zoo, with some Cherilea and Crescent animals, as kids, I never remember sea-life, but there's a growing side-stash of sea-life in the collection, with people like Marx having a stab.

 

More Hunson, I thought these were flocked, at first glance, but i think they are one of the new soft-feel polymers? Thanks as always to Brian for taking the time and trouble to go out and find this stuff and get the images to us.

G is for Gygax Monsters - Part V - Lik Be (LB) Piracies

I am assuming, from size, style and numbering within the wider LB oeuvre, that these appeared around the same time, and in similar sets to that which we looked at here, and indeed, with that set called Monster Fantasies, may have been another/the other assortment with the same header-card and cavemen?

 

Knowing what I do about Google and it's SEO (which isn't much!), and what with that being the third time I've linked to the same article, in a few days, in posts also multiple-mentioning Gygax Monsters, it will give the bots something to mulch on, and if it annoys the 'LP' dilettantes at the same time, well . . . so much the better, and my work here would be done, before we've seen the images!

These came in as a 'clean lot', suggesting that either the previous owner had two sets and lost an orange 'Friendly Monster', or that the original set had two of each, with a similar AWOL orange monster scenario, and, even without empirical evidence, we can be pretty sure they are Lik Be's, as their numbering is midstream* with the farm 'funimals', and includes the two previously seen prehistoric mammals, from the linked-above set.

 

Listing

No. A111 - Macrauchenia (? Prehistoric camel/giraffe ancestor/ant-eater) [seen before]

- 

No. A122 - Crustacean 'Gygax Monster' (Smaller copy of prone Rust Monster Chinasaur) 
No A123 - Wavey Fan Whiskers 'Gygax Monster' (Smaller copy of waving Chinasaur)

No.A124 - ?
A 125 - Ardvaark 'Gygax Monster' (Smaller copy of standing Chinasaur, also 'Armadillo Man') 
No. A126 - Dinocerata-like (? Large, tusked mega-mammal) [seen before]
127A - Friendly 'Gygax Monster' (Smaller copy of horn-nosed, cartoony dinosaur) 
A.128 - Wavey Winged Whiskers 'Gygax Monster' (smaller copy of waving Chinasaur) 
A.129 - Spiney 'Gygax Monster' (Smaller copy of double-row, spine-backed Chinasaur)

 

If LB copied the Gator/Lizard Man sculpt, he/she/it could be the A.124? Likewise, any of the missing ones, but that's probably the most obvious? Pure conjecture though!

 

* To be honest, once you plot all the known Lik Be / LB (previously ID-IDL-ID Ltd-LP) stuff, the conclusion is that the numbering is either pattern codes or cavity numbers, as the Funimals are all over the place, these and the prehistoric minis are split, with the cavemen between, a jump to the 200's of the Wild West sets with divers, fishermen and Spacemen/alien-robots never numbered, but surely filling some of the block gaps, while a few 500, 600 and four figure numbers exist for sets, or what appear to be earlier hard polystyrene production only? There are also a few B-codes, with the Explorer Cars (space tanks) having their own system!

Standard Holly Plastics on the left, you can see how much smaller the Lik Be copies are, it's literally a magnitude smaller; about half the size, and a quarter the mass? As OO is to O-gauge, or 1:64th is to 1:32?

 

That's it, short and sweet, the Lik Be chapter is more of a side-bar to the Gygax Monster's tale, and while unusual for LB to be pirating like that (obviously now we recognise the mini dinosaurs (A.70's) as being reduced-size Holly clones too), they did, also, seem to have knocked-off some of the Western Christmas cake decorations as well, so they had prior 'form' for copying. 

D is for Dinorasers

I'm sure we've had that title before, but I can't be arsed to think up something else! Not exactly a Rack Toy Month perennial, yet something we have returned to often enough, and probably during some RTM's, but it happens I've found four new (or newish?) Dinosaur eraser sets recently, and these is they . . .

 

This was the missing Iwako set, which we did eventually look at I think, but I can't remember if it was shelfies, sealed, a show-shot or the full enchilada, so I grabbed this one when I saw it a while back now (garden centre I think, early May?), so I'd know I had one!

 

We've seen the Pterodactyl, and the other four biggies in close up for sure, but this set (and another multi-animal set) also has the two smaller, single-piece Velociraptors, and a pair of Archaeopteryx (Archaeopteryx'es?) for a nine-model count.

Then, at the end of May, I found these Kiwi dinosaur pencil rubbers, and again I can't now remember where, but it was probably another garden centre, but might have been Home Bargains, the TKMaxx full-price but cheapo' off-shoot? They are straight copies of Iwako (with the exception of the green cartoony smallie, who's also a single piece moulding), but more obvious piracies for not following the colours of Iwako as other clones do, but making for a more interesting heard, when added to the existing Iwako/Hawkins ones!

 

The other day I found these in . . . yeap, a garden centre, but this time I know where! It was the big Longacres  one up at Bagshot, and they are familiar sculpts in a new packaging, this time branded to Deluxbase.

 

And one new colour - the red Spinosaur! Although the two greens are quite different too. We saw the Range/i-doodle set a while ago, but for comparison, you can see it's basically the same assortment. 'Back to school' season, can be a good time to look for these things!

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Four is for More

Back to Queens, New York, for the last few posts of Brian's rack-toy shots, an eclectic lot, but more figures and animals;

 

 

Modern Transformers!

Bumble Bee, Optimus Prime and Barricade. 

Mario, his box seems - from the illustration

- to fold into an overcomplicated display stand?

I think we've seen these Goo Jit Zu super-deforms, from Moose, here, I've certainly seen them in B&M, but might not have shelfied them, a sort of soft foam stretchy, which is also a squidgee!

 

The classic 'suck your drink through your glasses' novelty!

 

Probably similar mechanism to the rockets we saw the other day?

Sealed unit, movement activated, LED's?

 

Bubble-guns!

 

These Power ranger knock-offs were everywhere, here, about ten years ago, but seem to have disappeared now, over here they tended to come with five mini-figures, in the same colours, which we have seen here, passim. There are colour variations over time/batches, and I think I'm right in saying some issues have a gold figure?

 

Pull back and go!

 

Horses

 

A duplicate horse, so while the contents are otherwise very different and the cards seem to be branded differently (well; Ucok for the horse set, the mixed-farm more generic), the source would appear to be the same. Glued vinyl, there's a lot of this larger animal stuff around at the moment, as well as wild animals and dinosaurs, genres which remain healthy for the pre-teens, and something which will need ID'ing one day; thanks to Brian we have the cards!

G is for Gygax Monsters - Part IV - Enzinger & Co., via Holly

So to a German (I think) rack toy which is otherwise all Holly Plastics, and a better look at some of the marking, which all comes from the same stable.

 

Original sales image, this was from an outfit called CardboxDE I think, I had bought quite a bit off them, over the previous year or two, but after the full Boris Brwreakshit deal of February 2020, they got very silly about postage and selling'shipping to the UK (as did some US sellers), cancelled an order for 40-odd quid, didn't reimburse me and tried (against eBay's rules) to get me to re-order on another platform, so they got my forty quid, I didn't get the stuff, and they've lost hundreds in repeat orders, and get slagged-off for being thieving shits (I've still got the emails), here! All a bit stupid, and that 40-odd quid means I get to use all their images!

 

 

A full scan of the card as I decided to de-bag the set for this series of posts. Some of the images are dated 2020, some 2021, so you can see how these posts build on Picasa and why there's over 900 in the long queue, yet sometimes I'm stuck to post something, the [admittedly mild] OCD that comes with Asperger's means I sometimes need things to be just right, or I'm waiting to take a specific shot, or something!

 

And it can sit there for years, a bit silly really, as I can happily post absolute shite, without conscience, on another occasion! The vagaries of the human mind!

The contents from both sides, the suspicion with this set is that the contents were constant, from bag-to-bag, and needing more of some sculpts than others (in the more random offerings), may be one reason for the variations in Holly's output, and markings, and the likelihood that subcontractors or duplicate lines were used for some jobs/contracts.

 

Certainly the seller's open set, closed set, and my set, all have identical contents, with the plastic colour as constant as the species count! Not that all the species, are all that clear!

 

 

Enzinger stamp and the HP of Holly Plastics both present on the card, I can't decipher the centre of the Enzinger stanp though. One assumes Enzinger were in the same vein as Woolbro or WHC, over here, having their moniker added to otherwise generic rack-toys, only in this case with the Holly logo also left on.

 

The common bird-footed Tyrannosaurus Chinasaur!

 

Six bog-standard, dense polyethylene, chinasuar sculpts, and among the commoner of Holly's output, with this set, four of them have the dinosaur's name stamped into them and nothing else (I'd previously only found one in a similar vein), the other two having a rough MADE IN HONG KONG similarly stamped, the chonky standee, and the duck-billed dino'.

 

To which are added two prehistoric mammals, neither of which has any mark at all! Both of which are the ones copied by Lik Be/LB, in the set we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/08/m-is-for-monster-fantasies.html

 

Which were tentatively identified at that time as a Macrauchenia (on the left here) and a Dinocerata-like animal, whose odd horn arangement may be due to undercuts/the difficulties of producing in plastic, especially in the late 1960-early 1970's? LB also copied some of the Gygax Monsters, and some non-'Gygax' monsters, which we will see in the next post of this series.

 

 

But the definitely 'Gygax' Bullette, is the final member of this nine-count set, and again unmarked, which is unusual for this beast, who is usually marked with a neat MADEIN  HONG KONG, as three separate stamps, sometimes lined-up, sometimes a bit wobbly, but here, not marked; again pointing to multiple tools or cavities, or something! He is, though, in the 'standard' Holly paint-job. More on the markings in the last two posts of the series!

S is for Shelfies - The Range

Shot these back in February, but like a lot of things, they got caught in the general malaise here at Small Scale World this year and languished, lost in Picasa! So, with a rather Easter flavour, here's what was trending in The Range, six months ago!

 

Paint your own Rocket, what's not to like - 

And the umpteenth cartoony-retro rocket this year!

 

I shot these out of a sort of nostalgic feeling, one of the first things I ever reviewed in PW was the encapsulated toys, imported, then, from the USA (circus, wild animals and dinosaurs), and facing stringent safety stuff, due not to the swallowing danger (the capsules melted in warm water . . . or throats), but because the foam would then expand and present a breathing difficulty, they are now around the place in several formats, with no hysteria! Although, these are larger and for print-stamp painting.

 

More paint-your-own!

 

Blobby infant toys, but might turn up in mixed lots in the future?

 

Again nostalgia bit and I bought these, reminding me of the old Pop-a-point pencils of my youth, I've since seen several other similar products, bears, pigs etc . . . as pencils, coloured crayons or felt-tip markers, so clearly another bandwagon trend this year.

 

I also bought these because while the main 'Iwako Eraser' fad, seems to have cooled off, pencil-rubbers remain a great favourite, and you do still get the odd set of Iwako clones or homage-copies, and with a section of them in the collection, it's worth adding to, occasionally, to keep a picture of the genre's trends. These are not direct takes on Iwako, and bent ears seem a defining feature of the set! Branded to i-Doodle, everything else was in-house for The Range or CDS Group.