W is for White Buttons & White Ghosts

I shot the first of these in Sainsbury's a couple of weeks ago, found the second a few days later, and Brian Berke sent us the rest a few days ago, and they illustrate one of this year's Halloween trends - short, fat, stumpy white ghosts with cartoon faces!

 

The white button toys in Sainsbury's, among the only Bloggable novelties I found this year (there is another post's-worth), and technically, well, factually, they aren't white-button, they are pull-back & go, so I lied there!

 

I then found this Ghost candle (right) of similar size, both about 70mm high, in The Range, and this design of short (height-to-width ratio), fat ghosts with -  mostly - silly faces, is a real trend this year, with basically this design, found as soft toys of pillow-size, large ceramics of the TKMaxx decor-types, blow-ups and etc . . .

And these - branded to Daiso (of Japan) - are white-button's . . . I suspect, from the left, a jiggler or runner (the ghost), a jumper (the pumpkin) and, obviously, a walker Zombie? Not seen over here, maybe next year, or maybe in another region. And, we find the same basic design of the ghost, possibly with flappy arms? Thanks to Brian for the shots of this last trio.

 

Daiso/Seria seem to be a chain of 100-yen stores, like pound- or dime-stores, but a different value point, in Japan, and also operating to similar values in the local currencies of South Korea and Singapore.

P is for Performing in the Spotlights Candle Light!

Why has it taken me nearly eighteen years to work out you can use basic HTML tags in the title bar? Doh!

 

Just a quick box-ticker, I bought these at a Squires garden centre, last autumn (2024) and got them lost in Picasa somewhere, a set of novelty circus candles, by Smiling Faces, a bit cartoonish, but fun cake decorations, with wooden icing-spikes!

 

 

That's it really, they are what you see; a set of Novelty circus candles, by Smiling Faces!

 

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!

C is for Colouring In!

Mentioning - as I did earlier - circa-1975 colouring books, this is dated 2024!

 

Note the rockets! I popped into McDonald's back in the spring, and found a bunch of these left on one of the tables, presumably some kid's party had been and gone, anyway, the girl cleaning the floor said I could have one if I wanted, so I did!

 

In my dotage I may even have a crack at it, but with proper pencils rather than the supplied set of four wax-crayons, (ham-fisted, for the use of), which bear a remarkable resemblance to those seen from Henbrandt in a previous post here at Small Scale World.

P is for Plastic Pods for Prehistoric Plodders

From the 'We buy buy this shit so you don't have to' departmennt, comes news of two new capsule toys, both currently findable in The Works, where pocket money means prizes!

These were odd, they weren't in their own stock-box, but were sharing the box of the capsule below, and contents varied from polypropylene fold-up dinosaur 'balls' to these, where I could easily see one had two dino's the other a skeleton dino' plus accessories. Branded to The Works with a simple sticker, they are clearly otherwise a generic with no true maker's mark available.

Another minor difference was that the skeleton had a dry-brush weathered rocky-outcrop, while the pair's was undecorated plastic. I couldn't work out why they both had a little spigot and thought they may be scenic items left-over from another toy, but realised they received the section of plastic-plant fish-tank water-weed frond; to make a tree-fern!

There were others, and while I didn't look at all of them (so don't know how much of an aberation the pair is, or the undecorated piece, I quickly chose these, as they are three versions of Stegosaurus - the green and 'bone' being the same sculpt, the blue a different species with more 'boards'! And the transparent eggs mean you CAN choose what you get for your £2.

These were branded, to an Undercover / Under Cover of Nuremberg, Germany, and were frankly disappointing, especially for a German product, you expect some Asian-import warehouse off a tired industrial estate in Shefield or somewhere to churn-out shite contents, however you tend to expect more of the Germans . . .

. . . but I think this is a bit naff! A mini-sheet of micro-stickers, three tiny pictures and three half-size, wax crayons - we buy this shit so you don't have to! 'Blind Bags' it's a crap concept really; guaranteed to do unnecessary damage to the planet!

Y is for You Can't Hold a Candle to Them!

Chris Smith sent me the most incredible link a while ago, and I was so amazed, I didn't even look at the price as I hit the buy-it-now (BIN) button! It wasn't terribly clear how many were whole or - indeed - how many were damaged, but then they still had an ocean to cross, so it was cross-fingers-and-see-what-turns-up time!

And this is what turned up, miraculously a good more than half, were passably 'complete', and I say "passably" as we shall see in a second or two, playwear has rendered a lot of them even more blobby than they were when minty fresh, which would have been pretty blobby, as they are basically made of crayon wax!

There are four simple poses of generic WWII/Early Cold War types, which, clockwise from the green pair are; Sentry with slung rifle on right shoulder, holding SMG across body, water-cooled Maxim/Browning MG and a bazooka/ATR. And the SMG (where discernible) is more Soviet Bloc than NATO, so really generic!

Colour variation would suggest they were actually made from wax crayons - one of the Crayola big 64-caryon sets maybe? Bottom left is the broken ones, but I've kept them for some of the colour variations!

Equally, how they came about is a mystery to me, but I'm assuming some kind of home-moulding kit? They came from the 'States which is home to the Mattel Thing Maker (1962?),  which had many mould- or accurately mold-sets (were they for fighting the monsters?), the Kenner Presto (1972?), the Mold-a-Rama coin-op's (1962 to the present day) and more recently the Toymax metal molder (which could take wax) among others (did Hasbro have one?), but the closest I could find was Emenee's Formex 7 sets with the Dyna-Cast which was another wax moulder, and they did do a military set, sadly with four larger scale figures?

Size comparisons; above with the early war, under-armed, cash-only thank you Mr. Churchill Flying Fortress (from Adrian Little), also in wax and below with an Airfix USAAF pilot, you can see the wax figures are a pretty perfect HO-gauge compatible 18mm.

Many thanks to Chris for finding them, and does anyone know where they came from, other than America, which I just told you! A brand; we're looking for a brand! They could even be something more commercial and pre-manufactured, or cast from home-casting metal war-gaming figure moulds?

Later - Correction on the numbers - counting the two images - at this late stage! - It's about 82 good ones to 100 broken, so just under half, some of which have been given away already!

Later still - might be Kenner's 'reusable plastic' Mold master set from 1963? Also found the Rapco - Plasticast and Gabriel - Monster Machine! but putting Kenner in the Tags . . . for now!

A teeny bit later . . . yeah! That's it- 1963 Kenner's Electric Mold Master toy maker No. 1410, now I've got to track down all the AFV's!

S is for Shelfies

A quick round-up of shelfies I've taken over the last few months and not used in specific articles . . .

Currently in The Works, there seems to be only the three variations and the only variation is the figure, so to get all three you need £18, and will end-up with a lot of duplicate stuff, so a Shelfie seems to be the answer for future identification when they turn up loose.

The figures are around the 54mm mark, with two subscale tractors and animals in various sizes. The square 'tube' is quite long - you can see about a third in this shot - as there is a play-mat in the lower section.

Going, going . . . fire sale at Poundworld will end soon, these are - clearly - a bit 'pink and girly' but they are solids, around 80mm, and again, should they turn-up in mixed lots in a year or a few; label them ITP Imports!

Twins! Vacuous-looking twins at that!

I think I shot these in TKMaxx and I just like the fact that other brands are fighting back against the hegemony of Lego with cool licenses of their own, Brian B has sent me a fantastic Bending Unit which will go in the next Lego-likey post!

Wilco-branded (Wilkinson's - the real reason Woolworth's died), these are large, mixed scale PVC type animals, and again will help ID them in the future.

Back to the closing-down sale at Poundworld Plus here in town, these were reduced to 80p so I got the blue one . . . motorcycle! The vehicles are really 'cheap and nasty' and typically - for these days - no military option, but a motorcycle is not to be sniffed at; for less than a quid!

These are statuette crayons, with a pointed-bit hidden behind the battlements of the catchy packaging. With a King, Queen, princess, wizard and witch; that soldier's got a lot of guarding to do! But they're figural! NPW, who's novelties have featured here several times in the last few years; these were shot in TKMaxx.

These . . . TKMaxx . . . I just don't really get? It's apparently a glass drying mat, but with four semi-flat ballet-dancers. How are you supposed to dry the glasses? If you catch the dancer as you place the glass over it with wet hands you may drop the glass, what about shallow glasses? What about narrow champagne flues, or champagne bowls, why only room for four? Or do you place the glasses between the dancers, in which case; why have them? And even if that's the case there's only room for about six, and no mugs, the handles will get in the way - the whole concept is just daft!

A triumph of farty-art idea over practicality, hundreds of people were involved in designing, tooling, producing, packing, procuring and shipping this Caca!

It seems to me to be a sublime example of everything that's wrong with consumerism, as espoused by Thatcherite-Raganomics and the mantra of 'market forces' for the last 39 years. A totally impractical, ill thought-out, relatively unnecessary product, packaged to appeal to a certain type of 'lifestyle' cretin or brain-dead fashion-victim! People with bows behind their family pictures, matching his'n'hers anoraks and pink loo paper! The same people who've been buying waistcoats over the last two weeks.

The figures have fully-round skirts and plinths, but chunky block-flat bodies, they are silicon-rubber (I think), around 50mm (not counting the base) and could be fun; taken off the mats and displayed with the Britains, Gem and other dancers, but they represent our need to keep consuming until there's nothing left, it's not a good sign.

C is for Candles...Three Candles!

Weird...it doesn't seem to work...I'm sure that was funny the last time I heard it! No matter...do you remember when Tom Clague sent the picture of the GI Candles, well I picked these up sans box/liner the other month from a cake-decorations shop in Basingrad.

But I hadn't recognised them from last April's post, and the way they were stuffed into the tray and hidden at the back of an old-school glass display cabinet/counter unit, I thought they were resin like just about everything else in the store, so passed on them as a rather odd take on the Hong Kong clone thing, when she actually had all five.

Close-up of one of the figures, a nice jade green wax and assuming the wick runs down through one leg only, you could end-up with a rather macabre battle-casualty...'Stumpy'! Tag list says Noup Design, and you know they're Matchbox clones.

[Later the same night...]

I forgot I'd photographed another one a couple of days later...the platoon runner/signaller guy, with that wick he looks like a particularly evil gnome! "Oooozzzziii Neinnmilllimeeeeetterrrrr!"

News, Views...etc...Space Candles

Tom Clague has sent me this picture, which he took in a store 'down-under' somewhere...

As Tom pointed out they are Matchbox sculpts...as candles! I did Google Noup Design and couldn't find them but I did find ten-stud Lego bars as candles and cartoon bombs with fuses!

Tom makes music of a trancy ethereal nature, and gives it away! Details of the new album - which features Airfix astronauts on the cover and mentions Gerry Anderson - are here;

Mood Processor

and the free download is here;

Dropbox

In other news, I updated the Foreign Terms and Figures pages yesterday and should add some more to the Khaki Infantry page today.

W is for Wax-wing, White and War 'plane!

One of the more unusual things to appear on this blog (along with jelly Daleks and woollen football mascots!) This came to me via Adrian at Mercator Trading and when he was handing it over we both thought it was just a very brittle old plastic model (I also thought the markings were French...it's a very bright red, alright?)

Anyway, when I got it home I noticed among all the bumps, scrapes and lumps of 'extra plastic' a couple of slightly less white lumps in the underside, picking them off and putting them in my mouth - as you do (what do you mean 'you don't'!! Hey, I've got Asperger's, I'll put anything in my mouth, it's the childlike reflex of monkey-investigation...we are - after all - only monkeys!), and realised they were a couple of semi-transparent wax granules that had clearly been picked-up by the still warm moulding all those years ago.

I say "all those years ago" with such authority because (while I had at first assumed it to be a 1939'ish French bomber), after realising that it was carrying British markings (red in the centre), I was at a loss as to the 'plane's type. It seems to be a Turret-less Flying Fortress, of which we did have a few early in the war, these proved a tad vulnerable in the bomber roles, so where handed to the anti-submarine chaps for long-range maritime patrol work (or the survivors were!). The only real clue being the ventral bulge running down the spine on the aircraft and the fact that while having four engines....it doesn't look like a Lancaster or Stirling...or Sunderland! It is otherwise a very crude moulding, due wholly to the material.

Maker is likely to remain unknown (it's about 3-inches long), but the following who were all still making wax-dolls or dolls heads in the 1930's could be in the frame; Morell, Lucy Peck (both demised sometime in the 1930's) and Pierotti (still going in 1942?). Anyway your ideas on date, maker and aircraft-type appreciated in the comments section!

 Above image added - 16th December 2015 - found here