F is for Follow-up - Rubber Capsule Toys

When I popped into that party shop up at Clapham Junction back at the end of January, among the Henbrandt and other bits I grabbed were these two, who are useful only for showing how this stuff 'does the rounds'.

Silicon'rubber 'streatchimal' reptiles, one - a snake - in Henbrandt pack, the other - a lizard - in Giftworks packing, both animals were in both packs in the dispensing tub, but no other sculpts were to be found, although I suspect there is a larger selection in the whole 'set' somewhere?

They are both in that clammy, cold silicon which feels wet; but isn't, and both have the same metallic finish as the Henbrandt and/or Tobar/Hawkin's Bazaar stretchy robots and dinosaurs previously seen here at Small Scale World.

Below them is a spare Henbrandt alien I found in a box of something else for 50p the other day. The second time (previous was a blue egg-head with a squished hand) it's happened; but different venue - I suspect there was a bit of horseplay going on in a warehouse somewhere, and the aliens found their way into other stock boxes as 'incoming' in a surreptitious war between the 'Days' and 'Back-shift' or just between two packing-lines!

This has been sitting around for ages, and isn't all of them - as the other Henbrandt's are missing - the Tobar (top four) differ from the Henbrandt offering in having no paint, all four came from Hawkin's Bazaar.

Paint differences also show with the various smilies out there, some having only eyes - previously tested to destruction! There are also size differences, as these are all from 20p capsule dispensers, clearly some are slightly more value for money than others!

The image also shows how they are stored - with notes where similar figures are in the same bag - and it indicates how the capsule-toy stretchy-aliens and smilies are gathering for the invasion!

News, Views Etc . . . S is for Seasonal Stuff

Part two-of-two looks at the Easter half-term stuff, a few recent minor purchases and a couple of other bits.

Movies

Films likely to have an effect on toy production, coming to a cinema near you in the next few weeks (or days) include a Smurfs cartoon; The Lost Village, a live action Power Rangers movie and (fancy that - with all the other news stories surrounding the brand recently?) a Pepper Pig feature 'My First Cinema Experience' is in cinemas from the 7th April; a hour's collection of 5-minute cartoons stitched together with sing-along sections. For older kids the Japanese manga-made-flesh Ghost in the Shell looks likely to produce merchandise - if it takes off?

Easter Events in the UK

Kew Gardens are running a Moomin Adventures 'Fun for all the family' thing from the 1st to the 17th April.

Moomins are also to be found staring in the Southbank Centre's Adventures in Moominland, now extended to August 2017

Also on London's South Bank is an exhibition run by artofthebrick on DC Superheroes . . . modelled in Lego.

The Acton Depot Museum of Transport for London (TfL) are having a double open day on April 22nd/23rd with rides on a live-steam garden railway.

Sticking with railways; the Epping Ongar Railway have an egg hunt on their full-size, steam line with Bertie Bunny putting in an appearance!

Kenwood House (Hampstead Heath) are also running an EasterEgg Hunt, with kings, Butlers and Roman Centurions helping kids solve the clues.

While the Wetlands Centre in Barnes have an Easter Giant Duck Hunt, staring Dusty Duck - also 1st-17th April, with an additional Celebrity Dusty Duck Trail from 1st April until the 21st May; Michaela Strachan seems to be involved too, so I may go myself!

Further afield Willows Activity Farm in Hertfordshire (St Albans) are running an Easter Eggstravaganza event from 1st-17th with a Peter Rabbit theme.

Other egg-hunts are being held at London Bridge (Saturday) and in Battersea Park

Museums

Rachel Whitread (the first female Turner Prize winner back in 1993) has revealed a permanent exhibition called 'Place (Village)' in the V&A's Museum of Childhood. In situ since the 25th march, it consists of 150+ vintage doll's houses, all lit from within, but empty "...evoking haunting memories and melancholy", arranged on a bank of shelving like a hill-side village.

Notting Hill's Museum of Brands (Ladbrooke Grove) is also holding an egg hunt over the half term holiday.

The Tower of London is also gearing-up for an event; the 'Go Medieval at the Tower' festival, which will be running over the bank-holiday weekend - 29th April/1st May - with knights sword fighting, archery with crossbows and other attractions recreating the world of warfare from 1445.

The National Army Museum in Chelsea (the old Duke of York's barracks) is re-opening after a three-year refurbishment/upgrade.

Recent Minor Purchases

Charity Shops

This was a 50p bag in a charity shop in Basingrad the other week, nothing exceptional and we've looked at the Cherilea chickens already, but a full set of 4 Corgi calves and rather tatty B&S (Barratt & Sons) giraffe were worth 50p - each!

The yellow camel is another of those tinny, dense, propylene-like versions we looked at when I did the premium animals (seven or eight years ago?) so there are definitely at least four origins of them including the US originals. The green one is a Kellogg's bog-standard one and by comparing the forelimbs it's easy to see that the harder ones are copies, not the same moulds being re-used.

Another Torres bull - joined by Matchbox bulls and Blue Box mini-cattle - I have a whole stadium of them now! The set of three HK rabbits have good paint and the Britains medieval charger must be worth another 50p? As - indeed - should be the Timpo farm's heavy-horse.

The two vinyl bears are modern 'CHINA' marked in the same vein as the Henbrandt we've been looking at. The goat's nice but the two HK sheep look to contain bee's DNA! The rest's mostly damaged shrapnel, or common/HK shite, but for 50p you can't fault it!

These were from the Animal Charity shop also in Basingrad a couple of months ago now; the smiley is also a bendy toy (yes! Another one!), but he's so small he's a bit stiff and I could only bend him forward a bit and slightly move his arms up.

The Bear's resin, but more anthropomorphic that the 'teddy' designs of the other resin bears we looked at last year, so she will go with similar stuff in storage eventually, unless I can put a brand to her.

Capsule Toys

As we're looking at smiley's; these blobs were 20p 'gum-ball' capsules from a corner shop on Friday last, same machine but different eggs/packages, the pale one with the cruder face being branded to CBG Bv. (Brabo) of the Netherlands, the other one to FIAM of Turin, Italy. I'm sure they both come from the same Chinese factory, just different contracts/different batches, I'm equally sure they also conform to the previous versions seen here at Smallscaleworld, I'll try not to test them to destruction!

What also set these two apart from the other 2 or 3 we've looked at in the past few years and which links them together, is that while carrying different branding, they have both been in the machine for so long they have 'stuck like that', failing to spring back to their original shape as the others did when released from their capsules, a situation which prevailed after 'hot-water' treatment was tried.

Don't Forget

Details available from;

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And they are on Paypal.

The old website is to be run-down/retired. And also don't forget that table prices have been reduced this year.

Finally

Peter Rabbit is being given a starring role on the new 50p piece. Designed by Emma Nobel there are full-colour enamelled limited edition type things available from the Royal Fail website and plain stamped metal ones, due for general release, but these 'specials' rarely seem to make it into your small change! Jeremy Fisher, Tom Kitten and Benjamin Bunny will follow quarterly through the year.

G is for Gift Egg Updates - 1 - Overview

I didn't know whether to use this as a last post roundup, or a first post intro, but guessing a lot of the die-hard 'Toy Soldier' purists will quickly get pretty sick of little novelties (and it's not December so I can't use that excuse!), especially five posts of them; I figure if we start with the bits and pieces, we can end with a short post...with proper figures!

In the beginning there were gift eggs, and they were egg shaped and full of gifts! Originally these were made of waffer-thin wood, by the inter-war period tin was common (and is making a comeback as trinket storage/jewelry boxes) with papier-mâché and heavy, pressed card also popular, but by the 1970's it was another item of human construct ripe for a plasticisation!

Kinder themselves (still the market leader) have made two changes to packaging in the last year or so, firstly the wrap-around was changed to two foil halves (of which one is shown flattened above) joined pole-to-pole, and more recently they've been turning-up with two moulded plastic halves or 'clamshells' like a lunch-box snack-pack dip! Because when the world is knee-deep in plastic waste; let's find more things to make out of plastic!

The Ziani Frozen we looked at a year ago (I got the little dwarf thing, you may remember) but I've since had a session of scanning the paperwork into the archive, while these two Trolls (one of which I think we looked at in the novelty posts last Xmas) are both imported by CBG of Belgium (not Minot!) from WF Industrial of China. The paper slip of the earlier being replaced by, yes, you guessed it...a printed plastic sheet - that's not going to find its way into the environment between the sweet-shop and home/school is it!

The drag-racer in the upper shot was broken, some of Kinder's suppliers in the 1980's used a silver plastic which was very frangible, and is almost impossible to glue, however I have a method...I coat both halves in a cyanoacrylate 'super-glue' gel, then put a blob of that plumbers-sealant between the two and wedge them together.

The sealant evaporates away to nothing in minutes but bonds and fills nicely, being mixed with the super-glue gives the whole thing added robustness...or at least I like to think so! Time and chemistry will tell if it's a busted-flush?

Below is a bunch of Kinder motorcycles and such-like (pedal trike!) from the 1980's and 1990's.

From that same lot (I got at the PW show back in May) came most of the ships, I've left them in the bags as they are a real bugger to set-up for photography and I have a bunch-more in storage, so one day we will come back to them and do them justice.

Below them a selection of lorries and vans, we looked at a couple of them with the other novelty mini-trucks in December-last, sorry! Another racing-car for the project...but I think I already have the yellow one, so it can stay on its low-loader.

This is brand-new, bought last week for a quid in Wilkinson's (Wilco) and branded to them; it's an egg full of rubber dinosaurs no bigger than a fingernail! Four poses and four colours, packed as two each of two each, I suspect you would only need two eggs for all four of all four, but one's enough to give you the idea. Same new crumbly rubber as other things we've looked at though.

G is for Gift Eggs and Capsule Toys - Part II - Current or Recent

This would have been 'the last three weeks if I hadn't just lost two weeks to real life crap AND tonsillitis? At fifty-effing-one...what's that all about? The UN's 2011-declared planet-wide carcinogenic atmosphere, that's what!

Anyway penicillin's kicked-in and these are from late May-early June now, so all still findable!

£1 gum-ball machines (no chocolate!) at the moment, from Tarco International and of the choice, I got the one I'd have most wanted, first shot! It's (robots don't have a sex...not even sex-robots!) around 54mm compatible so I might try and get another for a UNIT dio/vignette with some Deetail or Airfix para's, although; with only 6 in the set it would be worth trying to get the set, I don't know how the maths works out on a random pull, but it'll be maybe as few as 11 purchases?

The others look to be more 30mm size wise, and the Tardis would join a growing collection of small-scale police telephone boxes! From the fact that the K-9 is 'exclusive' suggests the other five have been available previously or elsewhere, it's a very nice little model anyway.

Mimi is slowly collecting these and the first 6 had no duplicates (a baby Rottweiler has been added since the photo-shoot), they are also in sans-chocolate £1 machines, but it states they are series III and I haven't noticed series's one and two anywhere?

Imported by Idea Vending, an outfit called A&A Global Industries seems to be the master behind the throne, and they go quite well with the current Schleich puppies, size-wise.

Back to Zàini and chocolate; these are available about the place (One-stop convenience-store for this actual one) and again I was lucky to get one of the more useful figures, as again there are half-heads looped as charms and some less useful figures!

I feel this is my reward for getting through a Christmas day round my Brother's where small relatives had a doll which played the Frozen theme on an eight-second loop endlessly...and if you tried to sabotage the thing it switched to Spanish until the little ones used tech-magic to 'reduce' the torture back to English!

We looked at the Fravend Alien in a new production round-up a while ago, and I've since found a traditional yellow 'smiley' and this blue one and stuck them in the archive without testing them to destruction like the first green one!

And from the same machines we have that old 1960's perennial; Trolls, the licence is held by Russ Berrie, I suspect these via Brabo-CBG of Belgium are not sending many royalties back to East Rutherford, Nujoisey! Both these are in 40p machines (definitely no chocolate!), or were they 20p? I'll check next time I do the rounds!