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.

G is for Guardians of the Galaxy

Really it's a bit of a follow-up to Jada and some recent developments in their range of Nano Metalfigs 40mm, die-cast figures. Namely, that one range has been cleared though Poundland, and another is now in that annoying vehicle; the blind bag!

I found these back in June, in the aforementioned Poundland, on each occasion there was only the one sculpt, in multiples, which I took to be a clue that it was wholesaler stock being cleared, but at a quid each they were pretty much half-price on the supermarket stuff we've looked at previously, so I grabbed one of each.

 

Close-ups of the two generations of Groot (a portmanteau word from 'Guardian' and 'Root'?) in the opposite order to how we were introduced to them! As you may have discerned, I'm not a great fan of the Marvel/DC universes, all far too formulaic, repetitive and convenient for me, but I love Guardians of the Galaxy, because it is a stand-alone sci-fi movie, with the tongue-in-cheek humour of Star Wars or the Good-Bad-Ugly trilogy, and while I have now got both sequels on DVD I haven't watched them yet, so I don't know if there are any crossover appearances from other Marvel characters, but I hope not?

 

Keeping my eye out for them after the initial finds I picked up two more, Rocket racoon (my favourite!) and Thanos, branded-up to The Avengers, who IS a crossover-character seen in the Galaxy movie, but so long as none of the spandex-clad, flying, transforming, super-powered loons' turn-up, I can bear his being in the background driving the plot!

 

The 'promotion' seems to have ended, I haven't seen any in Poundland for a couple of months now, so if I ever get the need to finish the set, it'll be me off to evilBay, or keeping my eye out at Sandown Park (where the Poundland-visiting scalpers will be wanting 4 or 5-quid each for them, I have no doubt!), but as a sample they'll do for now!

Meanwhile, on my recent trip to London, Peter Evans gave me this pair for the Blog, we have seen the Jada take on the Harry Potter franchise before with contributions from Brian Berke and show-reports/catalogue images, but as you can see they are now being sold somewhere in blind-bags, a most annoying trend!

M is for Micro Toy Box

I know one or two other people have covered these either on Blogger or elsewhere, and, to a certain extent, that is the nature of covering new or current production, but that doesn't mean they don't need to go here, if only as a box-ticker!

I only became aware of these when they were on clearance at Aldi, about a year-and-a-half ago, and bought these three, at about a fiver each, as they all had at least one figure! And I had intended to leave it there; a fun sample.

 

This is the Rock'Em Sock'Em Robot (originally a Marx toy, but for many years owned by Mattel), reduced to about 25mm! The green one being a 'common' item in the set, the red adversary was also available as a 'rare', and I think I did end-up with one, but we'll get on to that!

 

Under the card you get four more 'blind' toys, each actually in a blind bag, so no cheating, but a mountain of waste on a dying planet? I'm guessing the line didn't do that well, as in some jurisdictions, window sets of 10, 15 or 20 items were issued, where most (6,10 or 14) were unpacked and visible, with only a few (4, 5 or 6) 'blinded' behind a graphics card.

 

The three top/visible items in that first purchase. about a dozen of the items in the first series were figural, and most had a balance or 'oppo', but I guess the original idea was not to get them out and add them to your Airfix soldiers, but keep them as minis!

One of the weirder aspects of the Aldi ones was that the insert card contained instructions on how to reverse the card so you could use the tubs as a unitary display system; a stack of little clear cabinets!

This being on the outside of the insert. But, "Hold on?" I hear the brighter of you asking, there's a side missing anyway, why would you need to turn in, to hide the artwork? But then you'd be displaying the instructions for the display faff, on the two wings, so you'd need to fold them out of the way too, and . . . and . . . it really doesn't make much sense? Not only that, but I think the point was that the blank side was supposed to have a sticker on it, hence 'turn' and 'reverse'?

 

In the event, they put stickers on all four sides, not only that but A) on the inside faces of the tub, and B) the type of paper stickers which will be a bugger to remove without a lot of effort, mess and the intervention of a solvent? The whole thing was a nonsensical daftness which clearly hadn't been thought through, or executed properly, by anyone in design, marketing or the art department?

 

The blind bags themselves give no clue as to the contents.

 

As it happened, they were then - in the run-up to Christmas '22 - further reduced to something like £2.50, to clear the stillage for the next bargain, and sorting through them to remove those which had been raided, I bought the lot! As a result, I had a fair few duplicates, not least these Hot Wheel cars (also a Mattel brand), so I 'unboxed' some!

 

Which revealed also, another odd aspect of the 'stacking' instructions - three different box designs which didn't stack between designs, and with no lids, didn't really stack at all, with or without reversed card inserts, or removed stickers??? Actually 'stacking' like empty yogurt-pots - inside each-other!

Barbies, board-games, bears and other recognisable brands of our childhood were included in the series, and this is the contents of another tub. The board-games and other - originally closed-box - toys were represented by simple stickers around small polymer tiles.

 

A couple of the tubs went on the scanner, with dubious results in the 'success' field!

Contents of another tub, stacking hoops from Little Tikes (now MGA Entertainment), a bucket & spade, a Barrel of Monkeys (Lakeside-Milton Bradley-Hasbro), a rocking horse and an early Nerf gun. The monkeys are no more than about 8mm at the longest line.

 

The full line of the first series, I think, in the end, I managed to get everything except a Magic 8-Ball, but I ended up with a lot of tat, and while I meant to take more shots of the mini toys, they ended-up going to storage, and will have to wait for another day, but there's plenty on the Internet for those whose 'research' consists of hoovering up other peoples efforts.

 

And while I was relieved to get one or two Skeletors for my dozen-or-so He-Men, I was gutted when friend of the Blog, Tom Clague, posted his trio (with Teela) on Faceplant and alerted me to a second series!

And - of course - now I have to get the 'army men', who look to be marginally larger than the monkeys!

This second series, like the Horrible History figures from Worlds Apart, seem to have gone straight to a few dealers, suggesting that you need to know where the good trade-auctions are, if you want to get this stuff as a year-round earner, in your evilBay or Etsy shop! And with another Nerf and a Pepper Pig, some more modern brands are in there.

 

Branded to Super Impulse USA, but, with both Hasbro and Mattel to the fore as representations, licensing must have been a nightmare!

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?

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!

W is for We Buy This Shit So You Don't Have To!

I managed to get a bloody parking ticket the other day, so this little lot from Poundland has proved to be more expensive than it should have done!

 

Peter Evan's; Plastic Warrior magazine's roving reporter, told us about these garden/houseplant ornaments, on his Faceplant group a few weeks ago, so while I was in Farnborough on another mission, I popped into Poundland and grabbed a handful, at a quid each they weren't bank-breakers, and will make useful additions / accessories to or in the stash. The little tree is broken but it's the only one they had left.

These are interesting, as we saw . . . no we didn't, they're not on the Blog, so they must be in the queue somewhere, I'll hold on that for now then, and just say - these are fun! Blind Bag collectables, from Toikido (as in 'toy-kid-o'?), also responsible for the 'Amoung Us' blind bags, seen here recently.

 

And we'll have more on them later today now (as I've just found a whole 'missing' folder of shelfies I sort of knew I hadn't found . . . or had lost?!!), without chains in their heads, I can confidently predict there won't be a Series 2, as we will see later today, these are a clearance exercise!

Lucky Bags! The modern take on them, and contents are very disappointing, for figure collectors; a four-year-old would probably be very happy with a colouring thing, a bouncy-ball (always good for annoying adults) and a bunch of stickers!

 

These aren't shit! They were in Peter Evan's last parcel to the blog (just in time for Rack Toy Month!), HTI set of China animals, the Panda is similar to the AAA one we've seen twice recently, but that would be too much of a coincidence, and actually this one is a little different and smaller!

 

Neither are these shit, but interesting, manufactured by Gulliver in Brazil, they are somewhere between the 1:76th and 60mm of the Atlantic originals they're copied from, at about 40mm, but are here being handled by a Fanabri of Portugual.

 

Easily findable on eBay, or they were a year or so ago, you get 2-5 mounted and 10-15 foot in an assortment of bright/primary colours which appear to be identical to the Brazilian output, or leftover production taken in lieu of debt, apparently Gulliver (Brasil) folded with debts, as did Gulliver (Germany)!?