F is for Follow-up, Just a Follow-up!

I few things which have popped-up here in the last few weeks, to which I've added another 'thing', so, shove them all together and we've got a bitty post, of limited interest, but hey, you can't be perfect everyday!

A shelfie I took in The Works last week, nothing exciting, but it all helps, or will help ID this stuff in the future, I think there were three different packings of the dinosaurs; clearly combining a set of medium-sized ones (the ones from WHSmith a few years ago?) and a set of smallies, while the farm sets all seemed to have the same contents.

 

I would have bought a couple, but until we complete on this place I have to be frugal, in case I need to find another six-month's rent in December - which is frighteningly not far away now!

Charity shop handful, the large Policeman's base matches the farm lady we saw here a while ago, she was an Elastolin clone, and while I think he's more original, the connection might help explain his slightly German look?

 

The bear is a MEG Teddy in my Pocket, and just happens to look like Paddington, I don't think he's meant to be/represent Paddington, but I'm equally sure it wasn't a coincidence! And the Toy Story model of Jessie is a Nestle premium.

 

While on the blind-bag front, from the 'We buy this shit...' department, and also from The Works (although they will be all over the place), came this Super Thing, from Magicbox, a small foamed-rubber 'kin, with a hole which can be stretched over a pencil, even though they don't seem to be specifically designed for pencils?

M-Toy is for Marty, May, Moon and . . . err . . . Sun!

This should have been combined with last night's post, but I was tired and running out of puff, so I just split it and went with the circus stuff first, although, as I then spent an hour or so, finding and adding the last three images in that post, I might have been better integrating this lot and leaving the others for another day, but there you go, some pretty fluid evolution here at Small Scale World!

The press page as presented in Bill B's catalogue, I've enlarged the relevant or interesting bits below, and we'll look at it all in more detail, bearing in mind that extracting decent imagery from a .pdf folder is never easy!

The company is called May Moon, but I don't think I've ever seen a toy branded to May Moon, or 'Maymoon', however we have seen here, an early (1960's) set of those I-Ton Humber mini-trucks in Maysun branding, while some of the Circus are marked Maysun, under the base, of which some come in M-Toy packaging, so we can extrapolate that it's all the same Maysun-M-Toy-May Moon, which leaves Marty, who again have some bi-branded cards (Marty and M-Toy)

The best place to go for the Marty story - which seems to be unique to the fantasy-Sci Fi set of aliens & barbarians (ray guns and axes!) is Shaun's site here, where one of the sets is in that same Gordy packaging as the Pikit sets we saw back at the start of this year's Rack Toy Month, so there may be a Pikit version out there, Brits?

As this catalogue is dated 1986 and makes no mention of Marty, we can safely assume from all the available evidence that Marty was a short-lived (one line) brand-mark and May Moon traded first as Maysun, then as M-Toy.

 

Any connection with Marty McFly (which would point to hellish-cynical marketing) is dashed by the fact that the toy set came out several years before the first movie!
 

Among all the usual rack-toy guff, I thought these two were worth enlarging as they are a copy of the Raphael Lipkin set we saw here, although they may have been changed to lay flat, but it might just have been arranged like that for the catalogue images?

The tractor/trailer seem to be a pure Timpo farm knock-off's?

While the above pair were enlarged for obvious reasons! The number of times I've seen these confused with Star Toys recently is a mystery, I mean, how do you confuse rubber copies of Britains with polyethylene copies of Airfix & Timpo? And years after other people have sorted it out? Well; because, the trouble with Faceplant is that some of these guys are whittering-away [as fact] from a position of pure ignorance!

I think we've seen the helicopter before, but nice to put a name . . . or three . . . to it! While I had the lower shot, of colour variation in the German infantry bodies, kicking around for a while, taken with a load of other stuff, so that's that out of Picasa, and Maysun, Moon and Star sorted out . . . d'yer see what I did there! I will do it all properly, one day!

M is for Maysun, May Moon, Marty AND M-Toy!

A bit of a reveal tonight, one I've been sitting on since, well, about four or fives years ago, when Bill B gave us his catalogue, so credit to him first, but it meant a few puzzles were cleared up, not least that LP was LB for Lik Be, but that took another year or so to sink in, this was an easier fit as three of the brands were in the one ad! But that will be the next post, this is all about a trip to the circus!

 

 

If you recall my purchase of a circus card at 2022's Plastic Warrior show in Twickenham, there was already a move toward this post then, and had been for a while, I have cleaned it from the dusty thing we saw then, and added the feebleBay image on the right, which I suspect is a 1980's (?) Target set.

Check out the giraffe though! It's the Britains baby-giraffe, commonly copied by Hong Kong makers, but rearing up!

Two more from evilBay; another branded to M-Toy as mine is, the other - 'Crest' from Pioneer Products Inc - more of a curates egg, with the Maysun ringmaster, and some non-circus, wild or 'Zoo' animals, which may be from the M's, or may be bought-in from someone else?

 

While here, back in 1966, we have Wilton carrying two sets, a bog-standard range of the Crescent-for-Kellogg's piracies (black & white image), and a lion-tamer vignette with some more non-circus animals. I suspect these might be from the M's, particularly as they are of similar design/material to the other output, the larger animals in the Pioneer set are chalky and carry very different decoration.

 

I have yet to see the original clown with hoop in any of the M-Toy, Maysun or generic sets, so he seems to have missed the pirate boat at some point?

My newest lot came with this tent, there is nothing empirical to tie it to the figures and it may be from another set-line-range-maker altogether, but it has the feel of Hong Kong in the crudeness of the parts and the fit of the cloth-cover reminds one of all the Strawberry Shortcake stuff, or trolls, all a bit 1970's!

 I don't know when they started adding their own (?) designs, but it's obvious now these are all from the same stable, as various ones turn-up in other sets, with the Kellogg's copies. Being strict, there is still a question mark over a few, but plastic colours, marks (there are several different marks) and paint, tie-them together.

The ostrich rider is a conversion of the standard Kellogg's clown, just doing the splits to ride the ex-Timpo (?) bird! While the seal is very different to the more common, larger, grey one. There is no real sign of the wheel/tyre having ever been on my poodle (ex-Corgi sculpt?), but it could have been there, there's certainly one in the other M-Toys set above?

Figures; we saw the lion tamer and another male in this post - Three Ring Circus - along with a loose version of the carded lady (ex-Marx?), and becasue both performaing animals and new people keep turning-up, we may not have found them all yet, I certainly still need that rearing giraffe!

 

One of the harder to find items is this chap, he's not rare, I've several broken ones including two here from recent purchases/donations, but I managed to get a good one on feeBay a few months ago, and that was a comedy of errors.

 

I'd asked the seller to pack him carefully, which he did, but the useless, overpriced 'International Shipping Program' managed to lose him, 'deliver him' (to their own hub, not me or the sender), deliver him again, to the sender (but he still hadn't received him back either) then they flagged it up as 'at the hub, but missing electronic tracking data'? After two or three weeks of looking at that, unchanging message, daily, I requested a refund and apologised to the sender for costing him, he cheerfully replied that because the 'programme' had lost it, he'd had a full refund too! Four weeks later it was dropped-off without a signature being requested! Our civilisation is literally grinding to a halt!

So, anyway I have one now, and took a knife to one of the others, so he'd just look irate - "It's my turn!"

The Crescent-for-Kellogg's bits, the Elephant has always been sub-scale, and must be assumed to be a performing baby - very cruel, and it's a measure of our slow progression to humanity, as we have always preached but rarely practised, that we have all but finished with real, live animals in circuses and fairs now, not so in other parts of the world though, where bears in particular, and other animals are still chastised for laughs.

 

In the boxed set at the other end of the link, we saw the horse-acrobat with her little seperate base (as she is in one of the sets above), but here she's doing the ridey-thing! And I wouldn't want you thinking all this stuff is from the M's, I have, in the 'master collection', identified several generations of the seal, elephant and lion, while the elephant-riding monkey (also in the linked set) looks like it was bought-in from Blue Box.

As Blue Box, Holly and New Maries all had a level of cross-pollination on farm, zoo and Noah's Ark sets, with similar connections between some of them over Chinasaur-dinosaurs and 'Gygax' monsters, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them also knocked-out a few of these, especially the commoner ex-Crescent scuplts?

A few of the Crescent/Kellogg's figures I had here, not the best sample, but you can see the chap on the far right, bottom, is the one who seems to have escaped copying and therefore remains uniquely British! Probably as simple as that the pirates didn't trust themselves to pantograph and reproduce the fine moulding of a decent hoop?

 

The quite similar horse-rider from Charbens, I don't know which came first, but this was probably the original as it may have come from the earlier hollow-cast?

 

While Blue Box themselves had a stab at the 'Big Top' with these sets of Circus Chimps, although firstly there are more other apes/monkeys than actual chimpanzees, and only two are new for the sets - the piano-playing gorilla and the elephant-rider - the rest are from the standard zoo ranges, suitably enhanced with Wild West cacti and furniture from their dolls house line!

Image added a few weeks later, for the hell of it!

P is for Picnic Time!

No blurb, as this little lot are way outside the Blog's parameters! However, I have got into the habit of posting these local/community type things, and this was to be found in the library this week, nowhere near Christmas! And given the number of tags for Teddy Bears (40), one hopes the odd 'bear person' gets directed here by Google from time to time?

The theme is promotional, advertising and fund-raising bears I think.

B is for back to B&M

Except these were shot months before the ones we saw this morning (yesterday), being the other, larger half of the stuff in the lost folder! It's mostly this modern trend for blind-bag collectables and nothing for toy-soldier purists, but it is what it is, and we shoot this stuff so you don't . . . err . . . you know what I mean!

Rainbow unicorns . . . "Rainbowcorns"! Two types of packaging, a starter set with multiple blind egg capsules and top-up bags in a counter-display carton. Zuru, they're 'up there' with Moose on this stuff!

"Bunnycorn" . . . yeap, you guessed it! Really; it's nasty stuff, in fact, it looks like it's been designed by Douggy Pledger or Dr. Knorkles [Artistic Oddities] in AI!

 

Playmates are chucking-out these Miraculous'ly like Pokémon figures, I know nothing else about them, and probably don't need to!

 

I can see these having more mileage than the above trio, and with larger play sets, there's the whole dolls-house thing going on here, but they will turn-up in mixed lots soon, especially those colourful Charity shop bags, so, if nothing else, it will help list them accurately on evilBay!

 

Not even close to the parameters of this Blog, action figures from the pink/purple end of the spectrum, but I shot them, so they're here! Licensed to Character Options.

 

I've seen these around a few times, and they are squidgy-stretchy types, but not something I'm tripping over myself to seek out! Branded to Jakks Pacific, who I thought had folded a few years ago, Google says I was probably confusing the death of the founder with the death of the company!

 

Another Playmates product, quite a nice set of totally out of scale (with each other) figurines from one of the recent movies, but was it a Godzilla movie or was it a King Kong movie, and does anyone except a hard-core fan give a shit?

 

These 'franchises' are being thrashed to death now, aren't they? Planet of the Apes, Alien-v-Predators, there's supposed to be a new/third Bladerunner on the way . . . sigh! I want new visions, not hackneyed old ones with their arses torn-out of them.

 

Poppy Playtime figures from Phat Mojo, some sort of happy-horror-anime? Wiki' says "Poppy Playtime is a horror video game where the player plays as a former employee of Playtime Co. who returns to the abandoned toy factory of said company . . ." So now I know!

 

These Among Us are of interest both as being boarderline useable space-aliens, and because we saw the same figures without the keychains, as similar blind-bags from Poundland recently? While . . . 

 

. . . these have just been seen WITH keychains (and no bases), in Poundland? The suspicion is, both were poor sellers in whatever was the earlier guise, and are now being cleared any way the wholesaler's can come-up with, and that subsequently the 'Series 1' they both march under will prove to be the only series for either? Both are on-line, multi-player, 'party' games.

 

And it was needing to make/highlight the twin-format point (keychains/no keychains) which led me to realise there was a missing post somewhere, and find it earlier today/yesterday, now. Both from Toikido, the Gang Beasts further branded PMI as manufacturer.

 

And three more, all from the above companies, the Goo Jit Zu from Moose having a window bag rather than being blind, a far more civilised way of doing these things, while both Brawl Stars (PMI) and Pet Simulator X (Phat Mojo)are kids video-games, although why they are still called video-games now technology has moved so far from VHS/Betamax is anyone's guess!