A is for A'maze'ing!

I ventured up to my Alma Mater in Saffron Walden at the beginning of September, a dispiriting move, as it's all being developed into posh flats for London commuters (which only means the M11 will get worse!), but I had some time, well, I was literally, in my own time, so I took a trip down to the town, and checked out the old Maze in the corner of the park!

 

Seems to say as much as I could, after a Google, especially if AI started making it up! We used to walk it occasionally as kids, first as younger kids, in daylight, later as 'seniors', with perhaps a little embrocation of the not so medicinal kind, helping us . . . or hindering us, in the task! 1.5km is a few hundred feet shy of a mile, so it takes a good 15-20 minutes to complete.

 

Start

 

Finnish, about 5 yards from the start!

 

The fair was in town, the same fair which was in Aldershot a few weeks earlier!

 

A drone's eye-view from the council's website!

 

I spotted this on a service cabinet/enclosed pilaster, at Highbury & Islington tube/overground station, when I visited a mate later in the month, it is a simplified version of the same consentric pattern, with the start/finish in line.

 

I don't know if it has any significance beyond helping people pass the time while they wait for friends, colleagues or a taxi pick-up? Nor if there are others, elsewhere on the networks, can any Londoners help us out with that one?

 

Mazes have always been a side interest of mine, along with labyrinths, which is what we're actually looking at above - you can't 'go wrong' so long as you stay on the path. And I'm minded to try and find/visit one every year, and chuck the shots up here, for a change of pace, or 'bucket-list' quest!

W is for Wax Wildlife!

Wax novelty-shaped crayons, a staple of Kinder for many years, but other people do do them, from time to time, and these were picked-up in The Range and TKMaxx, months apart, but they were figural, so . . . Small Scale World's latest wax wildlife!

 

Not very gummi-bear'ish, their arms and legs are too 'formed', and they have proper faces! Pretty sure these NPW were in The Range, back in April, but I'm not as sure now, as I was a few minutes ago, and they may have been TKMaxx clearance?

 

These (Rex London) were definitely in TKMaxx, last weekend!

Gotta' get your ducks in a row!

M is for May's Visit - Combat Troops

Sand, green and field-grey, the proper 'toy' soldiers, and there were a fair few in the bag, along with several paratroopers, who are always welcome here!

 

The blow-mould has suffered from a bit of a facial collision, but might be a new colour, the other three have probably all been seen before, but it's all grist to the mill, and there's always new colours, or new-sized copies-of-copies to be found.

 

China copies of Tim Mee's Cold War warriors, possibly a new colour in the washed-out sand, but they'll need to be compared with the existing samples before I know for certain.

 

Modern mix of Matchbox and newer sculpts.

 

Modern, and dodgy hollow-backed rack-toy rascals, but with several sizes, a few poses and severl colour-ways, it will be a while before I've got all of them, or even most!

 

Japanese infantry from Rado or Hing Fat, covered before.

 

Odds and sods, the interesting one here is the chap in the middle who would appear to be one of the Pioneer die-cast accessory figures in soft rubber, and a new pose, to his left, our right, a less common Manurba-Tallon in grey.

 

Seen on the respective Airfix Blog pages, the yellow figures are new to the collection, and that's the beauty of these lots, there's always something new! Many thanks to Peter for most of these, one of the paratroopers was a purchase, I think.

L is for Lazy Lizard Lounges in Lucky Bag!

So, I said in the shelfie-post the other day, that I'd bought a test one, and I dare say those of you who know me well enough, might guess which one it would be, farm? Unicorn? Noooooowh! Dinosaurs, of course! But it turned out to be doubly disappointing!

 

The first disappointment, it was mostly flat, paper product, and yes, I know kids love colouring, kids love stickers, kids love puzzles, but in my day it would have been a plastic or rubber dinosaur, some sweets, and something which made a noise! We buy this shit so you don't have to!

 

One small surprise was that the stated eight items, were in fact nine; they clearly think coloured-pencils and a colouring sheet count as one item? And it was also interesting to see some of the contents branded to both Playwrite (WH Cornelius, ex-WHC / Success) and Henbrandt, who are rivals in the same pocket-money, novelty field.

 

The second disappointment though, was that the otherwise, kitsch, but cool-looking inflatable dinosaur, was so cheaply made, it leaked air from a half-welded seam, and I had to try and carefully close the cap (no valve) without pushing so much air out, it wouldn't stand up! You win some, you lose some, and now we have half-an-idea what all the bags contain . . . no figures, no sweets, no whistles, rattles or blowers, except a blown blow-up!

T is for the Third Time of Asking!

I post steam, he shows . . . err, was it steam? It was far, far away! I post books, he posts books, I show football game figures, he mentions football game figures, I show a Pirate's mountain top, he does . . . Dinosaur poo? I mention Casdon, he namecheck's Casdon, it's childish! Invicta (original copy) for Invicta (feeBay scrapings!), you get the picture, well he does, usually from somewhere/someone else!

 

23,000 toy companies, millions of toys, but he seems glued to my Blog. Is he really that insecure, or does he think he's being funny, is this what passes for comedy up there on the Wirral? They do like to refer to themselves as Scallies, the little Wags! I must be missing something, but it's a game which can be played both ways, especially if you're going to copy me umpteen times a fortnight, or should that be Fortnite! He did Fortnite, so I'll do Fortnite!

 

Of the six Tagged visits to stampers, two of the most recent three, have featured the Fortnite stampers, and I did mention a while ago there was Fortnite stuff in the queue, so shall we get these out of the way, and do the key-rings over Christmas? See, that's a heads-up for him to go and scrape some key-ring shit off of evilBay!

 

The broken blind-bags (which aren't blind - it was a poor joke, the first time!)

Contents - predominately female.

 

Outer.

 

Flyer.

 

Comparison between the stampers and the keyrings.

65mm (75 with base). 

 

Three loose ones which came in a charity-shop, something else he seems to have picked-up from this Blog, where I was showing you the shit I took home, even if it is 'shit', from early-on, while he didn't use to do charity shops, and now shows us the shelves of shit he left behind! How many crushed boxes of Connect-4 or Operation do you need to be shown in a given period?

 

 Group shot!

 

When they were in The Works, back in 2019 (I guess stupid people have poor memories, or was he concentrating too hard on not recognising Buck Rogers erasers!), we saw the blind bags, five-figure 'pack' cards and two-figure boxes, and to be honest I can't remember where this four-figure set came from (in 2023), possibly Peter?

While my not-so Blind Bags, came from Poundland (store-closure program expanding), in 2021, so they've done the rounds for several years, if you've kept your eyes open, and had several formats of retail presentation! Note also, how both types seen here, state '36 to collect', yet we have a 37th?

 

The guy on the left is not in any of the artworks? 

 

Again, females are central to the gender-mix, so I was guessing Fortnite is a game played by both sexes, divided relatively equally, but AI (who we've discovered can't be trusted) says, no, mostly males, so I guess they must like dressing as 'Tank Girls', don't tell The Donald, he'll have it banned, and them, arrested and deported, for un-American, gender-bending, 'woke' activity!

 

You'll also notice, there are similarities with the clothing of the two women, this is even more noticeable with the key-rings (whenever I get round to them), and is probably a result of characters 'skins' being chosen from a menu, and populism, the default of the majority of humanity, dictating people keep choosing the same gear!

 

The stampers (red, blue and indigo ink on mine, so far, I've also seen yellow-orange), only give you the head of the character (like the Nina Turtle set), which when other stampers seen here (Thundercats, Action Man and bug-eyed Alien) have had whole figures - albeit, very small - seems a bit of a swizz!

 

Spare shot, slightly better colours!

Now, when you find this stuff going cheap in either The Works or Poundland, you tend to think 'end of line', but in fact, with these, I think now, it was more an exercise in clearance to make room for the 'Battle Royal' Series Two wave (red cards), and to get as many people as possible hooked on them by making them so available? They are now up to series three - purple cards.

 

And, as well as two or three series of key-rings, there are some mild 'deform' figures, a pair of whom will be seen here shortly, not scraped off the internet, but in the collection!

 

And, yeah, anyone can post anything on their Blog, and if you want to turn what was once the best space toy Blog on this planet, into a pile of shit internet scrapping, fine, fill yer' boots, after all, you were doing a fair-bit of that from day one, but we sort of ignored it, for the - in context - space toys, however, if you want to continue this constant niggling, point-for-point copying, I'll give it back in spades.

M is for May's Visit - Boxed and Carded

In addition to the stuff I bought on the day, Peter had also encountered some rack-toy and other stuff, which he put to one side for me, and with the next Rack Toy Month a while away, they can go here!

 

I think we've seen the Unique set before, but the stretchysaurs from Tobar are all new. Similar to others we've seen here, but a bit bigger. And with several comparison shots of these party-favour type monochrome beasts, in the smaller scale, now seen here on the Blog, I think the first image is the 'missing link'! 

 

KTL Topco Limited would appear to be a trading name for Kandy Toys, they share the same business park and postcode address/es, and this larger-scale set may give us a clue to one or two of the many mini-sets, as that bright pigmented spray, over a greyish-white synthetic PVC, is seen in mini-sets of Dinosaurs, sea-life and wild animals?

 

I think Peter really just wanted off'ski for this, and I said I'd try to offload it, but I didn't really know how, then I realised the gazebo/folly, and a couple of the other elements, might make useful photo-props in the future, so for now it's in the storage unit!

 

There used to be a chap who specialised in Bayko (it's not Bakelite, it's polystyrene!) around the shows, but I haven't seen him or his distinctive Bayko knitted-jumper for a while, probably not since . . . well,  lockdown, so I fear the worst - when you look at the Blogs which haven't uploaded/posted for five years, you realise Covid cut a bit of a swathe through old toy collectors, I'm afraid.

 

Many thanks to Peter for all these.

H is for Hell, it's Halloween!

Or it will be soon, and while I haven't found much, I thought I'd post before the 31st this year, instead of saving it all 'till the 'The Day', it's not the same as ITLAPD, and if you do happen to like the look of anything, you need the time to go and find it! These were all sent to the Blog by its roving reporter in New York, Brian Berke, and then there’s a big, fat apology at the end!

 

Brian reported he didn't find much to interest figure collectors, and neither have I this year, but there are a few bits for another post, and I may raid the internet images for something, but one thing I had seen, but not shelfied, was some of these, and very Warhol'ian 'pop eating itself' are Christmas nutcrackers, transmogrified for Halloween! Shot in a store called Ollie's?

 

Bats! Safe now, Ozzy will be flying with them, this year! Note the gold ones have lost a lot of glitter in transit, from rubbing, I guess? I found the same thing with that 'sugared' Gummi Bear, Christmas-tree bauble, last year (or the year before?), in several baskets of them, spread around the sales area, it was hard to find one without bald-patches, a little more glue, or a shorter time between glue and dipping in the glitter/beads would solve the problem! Dollar Tree, now!

 

While I owe Brian a big, fat apology for this one! He sent it in 2018, and somehow it got lost in Picasa? Scully and Scully who don't always do Halloween like they do Easter (or Christmas, but Easter seems to be their biggie?), and, in my defence, I think that was the year they did all the blown-glass stuff, some of which was published at the time, some went in a sea-life round-up, and one or two (frog?) may still be waiting to be added, to something more thematic?

 

But Scully and Scully are a favourite, and I think the autumnal tree is particularly stunning! Cheers Brian!

D is for Discounted Dino's!

A quickie now, a bag of dinosaurs I got from a charity shop a few months ago - the trouble with having had two months away from the blog this year, is that everything is 'a few months ago'! But it was a better than usual bag, with three Schliech and several other nice examples.

 

The three Schleich's first; a stunning Brachiosaurus, a Triceratops and a kerthunkersaur called Salchania, all dated 2002 or '02, and among Schliech's earlier models, certainly a cut-above your average Hong Kong models of the time, but they have helped raise the bar, with some modern dinosaurs from China, just as good as the Schleich/Papo world!

 

A chunky-monkey from China, Dimetrodon, usually my favourite, but I'm not keen on the frayed, goldfish fin edges to his, or her sail! Most modellers, over many years, have given them stretched skin, like bats wings or the web between a human thumb-forefinger?

 

The Jaru and others (?) reissue of an old Holly sculpt on the left, and an actual Holly Pterosaur on the right.

 

"Slava Ukraine!", says . . . err . . . Bi-ceretops! A better quality, modern Chinese dinosaur from Happy Kin Toys, depicting a Nedoceratops, which had been called Diceratops until someone realised there were also wasps with the same name!

 

Based on a single skull found in Wyoming . . . it may not exist!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedoceratops

 

Compared to the Schleich.

 "Why habben'd you god a lumb on your dose?"

 

More traditional fayre, from China, and above average, but more in tune with older Hong Kong stuff, there has been an attempt at overwashing/overspraying a bit of realism! Fiver the bag, gives the ten a 50p retail cost, per animal, which is how I like to get these larger models!