About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, September 20, 2025

F is for Follow-up - Speedy Gonzalez

Just a quick follow-up to the Speedy Gonzalez from Res Plastics, which we saw in the Plastic Warrior plunder-post this morning, here compared to the relatively common, or commoner Kinder Egg steckfigure.
 


You can just make out the RP mark below the hole for a keyring or cord in the Res's hat.
 
That's it, Speedy Gonzalez from Res Plastics, on the right, Kinder on the left, a comparison! The Res is noticeably tailless. Both are polyethylene.

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Sci-Fi, Fantasy, TV & Movie

As a complete contrast to Pirates, this is the stuff of a whackier nature I picked up at last June's Plastic Warrior show, not as much in this category as some years, but a couple of really quirky things, a nice box-ticker, and a rarity or two!
 
A T-Rex, on a skateboard, waving an axe? It doesn't get much weirder than that, except it's just about to! And while it may be Kinder, it could be a lesser make of capsule-egg, or even a gum-ball type thing?
 
The Heudebert marked copy of a Captain Video figure was a lovely find, and while the original is one prone to damage, here they've shortened the firearm into more of a pistol, and despite the fine barrel, it has survived! While the actually Kinder gnome, is standing front of the Lone Star toadstool house!
 
And no, this is not where it gets weirder, this is pretty weird, but not the real weirdness! A money-box/bank, made by the same division that was responsible for the rubber pet-toys and squeakers, this is a stable (non-weeping) PVC, issued under the Eaglet branding.
 
This is the box ticker, a set of the Toys R Us bucket set True Legends - Mythical Warriors fantasy figures, one of each pose, so someone was offloading their master set? I've seen them credited to both Toy Major AND Chap Mai, it's likely to have been one or the other, and with other True Legend sets having the Toy Major sleleton warriors, for now, I'll go with them. Brian Berke did send us a handful of these, a while back, but no one ID'd them at the time!
 
Weirdness, but still not the weirdest, the Alien is about seven inches, and while made of rubber, seems to have a very solid interior, like it's metal underneath, you could certainly use it as a cosh! UFO lawn-skittles maybe?
 
The Wonder Woman is a cord-tie type thing, I've seen others, for school-bags or whatever, sometimes they are a keychain type thing . . . I don't know, I'm blagging it, off vague memories of things seen, out and about, it was in one of the donation bags!
 
From the right . . . no, the RIGHT, we have another of the larger Captain Video space/GI figures from Lido Archer, then an unknown figure which looks both character-driven and a bit Phidal-looking, but probably not actually by them, maybe a Ben 10 thing?
 
In the middle is the female scarecrow, pencil-top, who looks like a line-up completer, for the John Pertwee era, Worzel Gummidge set; I don't recognise the character? I have three now, I think, and I assume there's at least four, so, with this and two Gummidge's, I suspect I'm still looking for a rendition of Una Stubb's Aunt Sally?
 
The monkey is a tea-bag premium I think, while on the far-left, is the real weirdness, it's so weird, it's been left-off the left of left-field! 
 
This was in a bunch of smaller bits from Adrian, and I looked at it and said something about 'fun' and 'homemade', and he looked a little hurt at my dismissal of his offering, and sure enough, when I got it home (my eyesight is getting shit! But I have got reading glasses now), it became clear that while, yes that is bread-bag ties for arms and legs, the whole assembly seems to have commercial thought, and actual design behind it?
 
Originally a cartoon dog keyring and pencil-topper, the green tie has been carefully designed to have the arm-and-leg twists run over the top of it, and down channels in the sides, so as it's pushed into the pencil cavity it holds everything tight. The boots are gum-ball charm, football boots, while the cartoon hands should have convinced me straight away.
 
Everything is PVC except the bag-ties, which are in a non-standard (for bag-ties) colour, and everything is filled/sealed with what looks like the plumbers-sealant I use for PVC mends. That someone ever thought this up, let-alone thought it might have commercial potential is extraordinary, but someone else looking at it, remembered something like them, in gum-ball capsule machines!
 
It's a commercially manufactured, 'homemade' bendy toy, gum ball prize! Of a dog, in a tie, with Mickey Mouse gloves, and football boots, with googly eyes!
 
A couple of Matchbox whatsit-2000 figures, an Aristocat cereal premium, an unknown . . . trash-panda? Kinder maybe? A phone-ornament/hanger, of Buzz Lightyear, an Autobot's fireable fist (?) and a Star Wars looking, action-figure sidearm!
 
Kinder either side, Daffy Duck as a plug-together 'Steckfigure', along with one of the cartoon 'deform' spacemen, but between them, in slightly marbled yellow plastic, too large for a Kinder egg, is a Res Plastic solid, of Speedy Gonzalez! And obviously punched for a key-ring or cord.
 
As I can never remember which of these Tinykins I have, I'll always buy them, if I see them going cheap, and these were reasonable, so I grabbed them. I think I have most of them, but the cousin-ducks are all different, and I don't know if I have all of them, and wasn't sure if any Thumper I have has both ears!
 
As before; thanks are due to - Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, I've forgotten to add! Many thanks to all.

Friday, September 19, 2025

A is for At Bloody Last!

In all meanings of the word, because I've only got an hour to post this, I'm knackered, and may well hit 'publish' sometime before midnight, with half the text missing! Because this is the post which has been held over for at least the last two years, and because this is it for ITLAPD 2025!
 
And, before we start, many thanks to Adrian Little, Brian Berke, John Begg and Paul Stads for help, contributions or stuff for this year's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
 

So, I got me the Tim Mee Pirate Fortress! More of a Wild West frontier/cavalry stockade fort, but as a bolt-hole in Hispaniola, up some coastal creek, sheltered from the open sea, both weather-wise and line-of-sight wise, it'll do, and timber's easier to replace as the jungle damp rots things!
 
Big Bags!
 
Lots of 'stuff'! 
 
Assembly - shades of Marx's earlier sets are hard to ignore!
 
Believe it or not, the Tee-Pee 'sticks' are actually supposed to be a stack of muskets! And the moulding on the water-pump leaves nowhere for the water to flow up the stand!
 
The pile of logs, and the well, have more Marx DNA than Tim-Mee's!

Dark-brown accessory pack has a secret island, treasure chest and little jolly boat!
 
 
 The secret island stash!
 
Once it's all been 'de-sprued' (removed from the runners) it fits into half the box!
 
In the full figure count, I seemed lucky to get the yellow captain, or maybe you only get one per set, which would mean either a lot of captains going back as re-grind, or a much higher captain-count in the figure bags?
 
Only seven poses?


Yeah? I took 'em, . . . but I can't remember what point I was trying to illustrate? Maybe that you can fit a figure on the lid of the island! And I don't know why I collaged two shots of the same figure's back?
 

 Playing with the other accessories!

Rack-toy figure bags were available without accessories.
 
My original shot, posted elsewhere as a "Who are these?", Paul Stads put me right, although I had them on downloads of Sprecher's site, but I had been looking in the wrong place, namely Shaun's Fantasy Toy Soldier Blog, hoping they were there, as they look very Toy Major/Hing Fat/Red Box!
 
In fact, that's the earlier Hing Fat, there, to the right in green, and the Tim Mee's are more compatible with the later smaller set of limited pose numbers, so around 50mm, but I'll Tag 54mm too!
 
Sticker sheet
 
Instruction sheet
 
Well me'arties! That be it furr anotherr year! Oi managed ter get the lot out on time, but nut'un in the booty-bag furr next toim - avaarrst me blue blistering barnicles, oi'm away to hunt for morr Poirate Plunder!  

R is for Return to Wooden Jolly Boat!

Brian took a few more shots of his wooden boat with those slightly 'deform' PVC pirates, from some infant toy, I think, and I found another in my files, along with a couple of Guttenberg Project images, so quickly . . .




We had a swimming-pool at school, which was an old outdoor, unheated, circular thing with no shallow-end, and a low wall round it, with half-round bricks on top. It was freezing, even in the summer, except '76, it got quite pleasant in the heatwave, but started to go green and got over chlorinated, making everybody's eyes sting!
 
But we were allowed to sail/float boats in it, in break-times, supervised by the 'duty' teacher, and while the rich-kids all had big battery-operated things which inevitably filled with water and sank (to huge cheers)*, and would need to be recovered with the leaf-net, us poorer kids would have wooden vessels of various kinds, of which this is very reminiscent of some. I had a little green Star yacht, which actually worked when it was breezy, but otherwise just bobbed-about, becalmed!
 
* The biggest cheers were kept for when someone reached too-far trying to get their toy boat out, and fell in, fully clothed - usually several times a term! Always funniest in the Winter, when their teeth would chatter like a cartoon skeleton's, as they were marched off to Matron!
 
 
I don't know why I took this shot? But I did, I don't know if they came with the ship, I can't remember? Neither can I remember if I've Blogged it, nor do I have the time to check - I'm supposed to be getting changed for work! But it's the same figures, and I think four poses have appeared so far, in varied paint versions?
 

I went off last night and found these on the Project Guttenberg, from Ships of the Seven Seas by Hawthorne Daniel, in order to try and ID these, but they are all toys and don't quite fit any of the outlines. The illustrations here are all 'full sailed', and I think Brian's is more of a sloop with light sails?

I is for Ideal Jolly Boat

I've also picked-up this, the Ideal Pirate Ship, recently, a bit sun-faded, but otherwise complete, as far as I know, but I didn't have time to shoot it with figures, so a bit of a box-tick, gets it up here! Hard plastic, probably a polystyrene or polypropylene hybrid of some kind, it has soft polyethylene ratlines and rolled sails.


 
Beached!

 
Fold-out gang-plank!
 
 
Firing cannon.
 



 
It also has a ship's boat, which is similar to the other makers', so there was definitely some homage-copying going on, but who was first?
 
As per the last couple of years, time is of the essence now, I have two more posts to do, but I have to go to work, so whether I get them out before midnight is anyone's guess!

B is for Big Jolly Boat

So, the other TN Thomas boat, the seller assured me there was a card once, and it was Thomas, not Poplar, but sadly, long gone now, while the bag was so dirty and so shredded it wasn't worth photographing, so you'll have to take my word of his word, but this is the Thomas big boy!
 

I don't know who was first, but there is a pattern to these, whether Ideal, Marx, MPC, or the two Thomas-Poplar ones (and remember there's that third set of 'believed to be' Thomas/Poplar who may have had their own - third - ship?), Marx have a single, central staircase to the poop-deck, MPC have deeper scupper holes, but the basic layout is the same for all five vessels, whether single or twin masted.
 
I suppose this is a 'ship', as it has a little yellow jolly boat! 
 
Confirmation on the oars we saw, when we looked, in reasonable detail, at these figures back in 2018, the Pirate 'logo' is the same plug-in style as the smaller vessel we looked-at earlier, but this boat has two masts. A two-part treasure chest can be carried by the figures with one arm down, again all similar to the MPC accessories.
 
Interestingly, when we looked at them last time;
 
 
the colourways were the same, with green/blue for the larger and red/yellow for the smaller, so it may be they were limited production runs, as far as the colours run, goes? The green here is a much brighter 'highlighter' green, though. If I add the flag from that previous post's sample to this one, I think this one will be complete?
 
A comparison between all three of the small copies so far found, and their big brothers.
The middle red one is a cut-n-shut of two larger poses. 
 
Bird's eye view of the boats, I forgot to mention that the red, larger vessel has no marks.
Note there are ten position-plugs for the five crew. 
The red is missing carpet-wheels, the blue never had them.