RTM is for Rack Toy Month! F is for Fun-Tastic Fighters of Fire and Felony!

Well, saved July with a quick plethora of posts over 48-hours, lots going on in real life I won't bore you with; it's just life and it happens to all of us, but it did mean I just couldn't justify faffing around with toys on the internet! Although I posted the odd bit elsewhere, but they require simple uploading to the anonymity of auto-produced meta-data on the part of the host servers - a Blog actually requires a little actual work!

But, here we are, bloody August already! The weather's given us 20 years to live, which is nice, at least we have a target date now, I knew my '2055' was a bit optimistic when one of the activist science sites dropped to 2050 a while ago, now we're looking at 2040'ish!

But have any of your neighbours chucked out their tumble-dryer or dish-washer? Their Kärcher pressure washer, their four-wheeled gas-powered BBQ? Their fucking-great 4x4-crossover-SUV-utility Truck? No! So we're all going to die - quite soon . . . might as well enjoy tatty rack-toys while we can!

We actually saw variations of these sets some time ago here, with the same figures, and while these have been in storage since forever, the older post was ten years ago, so they 9the two paires of sets) are closer to each-other than to now!

Also there are three F's here; Funtastic, Fun-Tastic and Funtastik with a 'k', I haven't looked into it properly, but I think we worked out in the past that the first two are UK (one word) and US (hyphenated) branches of the same Hong Kong based jobber/shipper (with connections to many other rack-toy importers/carriers), while the 'k is another second use of the term as branding.

The figures; seen before more than once, following the Fantastic tag will reacquaint you with all sorts of polymer tat, including larger pose-counts of these, which seem to be copies (or just re-packs) of figures also carried by Ja-Ru.

The funniest thing about these is that the helicopter is a poor copy of the Thomas the Tank Engine helicopter, or at least I thought it was, I now can't find it, so it may be another kids license, I've definitely seen it in blue or white with a  face on!

Q is for Quis Es Quo Vadis . . . or Question Time!

In the last donation to the blog from Chris Smith, you may remember there were a couple of small Romans, around the 50-mil mark, we;; they were interesting and in the correspondence that accompanies such donation I mentioned to Chris that while they looked new-ish - production wise - they were also 'new' to me.

A day or so later Chris sent me a link to some on feebleBay, and I started watching it, in the end I watched it for two, possibly three cycles before I felt I had the funds/excuse to bid, put in the minimum bid required crossed my fingers and stopped watching it (fatal if you keep watching, that's how you get in bidding wars!), a couple of days later I had a 'please pay' message in Yahoo, and Bob's yer' uncle - they were on their way!

These are they and they seem to be A) a complete sample of one of each, of eight poses, in B) two colours, with C) four more-military looking types and three who are closer to gladiators in general costume/equipment, with one who's a bit Bi!*. But I stress, there could be more poses and/or more colours, however - I haven't seen them!

As to the origins? They have features, 'signature' features even, in-common with the smaller sized pirate or Ninja output of RedBox (HGL in the UK), Toy Major and/or Dollar General (or Dollar Tree?), or even those Imperial 'vs' paired sets and are very similar to a set of nights currently under dozens of phantom brands on Alibaba and Amazon, in various configurations, with and/or without (or only) mounted company, and/or siege equipment. Ironically the knights are sometimes called Roman Soldiers!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000858094738.html

and

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001166827243.html

But I have been unable to find these as current, or in any packaging just the odd lose one? They could just as easily have come from Funtastic, Funrise, Peterkin, Ja-Ru, Playwrite, Unique or any other import 'jobber' who issues bi-coloured sets of protagonists, cheaply manufactured in the Far East as rack-toys or party-favours?

* Shield-wise they could all be Gladiators, and I have searched as hard under that moniker and 'Toy Romans' or 'Roman Soldiers'? I shall call them Etruscan's!

In the searching for info on them I found these all over the place as un-packaged generics; buy the cheapest you can find with free postage is my advice, all-in with postage they vary from the £6.18p I paid, up to 40+quid!! There's one born every minute - don't let it be you!

He's in the style of the 'antiqued' novelty pencil sharpeners which have been a staple of museum and touristy gift-shops and stationers since the 1960's, but a larger piece, and modern, Chinese-made - obviously! He's in a die-cast alloy and carries no clue to manufacturer either in person or on the sales sites, but ticks a box and makes an excellent statue for smaller figures!

Playing in Picasa!

A quick sketch I managed to fire-off out of the bus window as we went through a village with an unpronounceable name somewhere near Rimini! Do you have a brand for the little plastic ones?

Both Peter E and Mark the 'Man of Tin' confirm Funtastic - Phew, at least I had them in the long-list! See comments.

T is for Two - Boxed Dinosaurs

Except that there are three boxes with seven animals so the 'T is for . . . ' trope doesn't really stack-up but you'll see what I mean! A big box from TXMaxx the other day, and two from 2017 and the now defunct Poundworld-Plus.

I also shot this shelfie in TKMaxx, about twice the size (of this morning's Poundland set) and five for a tenner they work out as less of a bargain, but still cheap and also reasonably sculpted and decorated, although a bit gapey-mouthed 'Chinasaur'! They're branded to NBC Apparel, which I think is also an in-house, phantom brand?

Top left to bottom right we seem to have; velociraptor, stegosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, spinosaur and triceratops. That last one's a tad too babyish-looking!

We may have seen these, certainly we've seen other examples from the same multi-branded set of six models, and we saw some of the Poundworld-packed ones, but I don't know if I showed any from this sequence which I found in Picasa. Dated to the end of June (right) and beginning of July (left) 2017, so they may have been left out of other posts?

Triceratops and spiky-bastard-a-saur, they have been carried in two color-ways by at least four brands and in five or six packaging types(both sides of the pond) including pairs and trios, and would here (packaging has long gone) be branded to Toy Bank.

Other brands and known outlets are/were Henbrandt (singles in counter dispensers), Lollipop/LP (carded), Pounland/Funtastic (separately boxed) Out of the Blue (singles) all in the other - common -colour way, then TXMaxx (pairs and triples, brand-mark unknown) and these - both in the later paint-scheme.

F is for Four Wheels Good . . . Two Wheels Better!

Time for an occasional round-up of motor-cycle madness that is those motorised bicycles seen here, or acquired since we last looked at such things; which must be more than a year ago as some of the images are dated May 2017!

Pretty sure this is Elastolin (but it could be Lineol), and almost certainly a post-war version from a pre-war mould, as it has been 'converted' to Swiss nationality (with a new helmet) in order to hide its previous origin or use as a Nazi, or Nazi-themed 'war toy', which was one of the stipulations of obtaining permission for re-starting production under Allied denazification regulations.

Its construction is quite clever, with a combination of tin-plate bike and composition rider joined permanently by a part of his armature making-up the handlebars buried under a composition headlight, something similar is happening at the foot-rest/engine level too.

Photographed at the same time and an early Britains machine, I've Mercator Trading to thank for allowing me to photograph both. This is a standard 54mm to the previous machine's 70-odd millimetres; and - a heavy lump of lead!

This is fantastic! First, it's a tricycle, second, it's another, rare use of the 'Make: India' tag; and it won't be the last - 'Terranova' sent it with several equally interesting stable-mates (who have been near the top of the 'long' queue, twice since Christmas, only to be put off!), so we will see them too, at some point.

Made by Centy Toys (new tag!), it's an auto rickshaw, tuk-tuk,  tut-tut, Tukituki or motorised tricycle, depending upon where you are when you encounter one, has a pull-back motor and - as you can see form the posed Berserker - around 60/65mm. CNG stands for Compressed Natural Gas, which Tuk-tuk's are going over to.

It's one of the great frustrations of the blog that I know what's missing; all the stuff Hasbro and Mattel don't look at, all the Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, South African or Brazilian domestic product, locally produced toys from Ankara, Ulan Bator, Lagos, Mombasa, Tripoli or even Moscow; so it's nice to see one - Thanks Brian!

On the left; also sent in by Brian this shelfie is a colour variation of another, which was sent in by Mr. Berke as well, along with a similar but different design, both branded to FunTastic, with; on the right - an unbranded generic pocket-money toy of the same ilk, these, judging by the size of the hook-slots, being slightly larger that the approximately 54mm reported by Brian for the FunTastic machine.

These are markedly bigger with Mr B reporting that the avocado-green one is suitable for Barbie/Ken dolls, so 5, or 6-inch, with the left hand pair (equipped with child's stabilisers!) in the 4-inch bracket? Neither is branded and all brand-marking seems wholly imaginary!

Been in Picasa so long I can't remember which the new one is! I think it's the khaki one with the brown base? At least two (the motorbikes), possibly all three, are likely game-playing pieces/movement counters and vary between 15mm (orange), HO-OO compatible and near 30mm (the bicycle), with the upper-pair soft-metal flats and the orange one a die-cast mazac type.

Seen before (possibly from Peter Evans), the one on the left (around 60mm scale/size) has been joined by the one on the right (from Peter Evans!), it has a colour variation plug-in head and slightly darker sand camouflage, crude and fitted with stabilisers, it's 'pocket-money', it's rack-toy 'nothing special', but it's a bike, military and welcome here! Cheers Peter . . . for both?

{I Thought we'd seen it before, but I can't find it on publishing, so maybe not . . . I've probably got some unused images somewhere! And I think he's closer to 80mm-equivalent!} 

We finish this round-up with a dearth of 'bikes! I have sooooooomany loose, often unknown seated figures, riders or torsos/part figures in every size/scale and material imaginable. Mostly from die cast toys or long-lost plastic models of motorcycles, pedal-bikes, horses, camels, cows, donkeys, aeroplanes, circus acts, tank turrets, jeeps, fire-engines . . . you get the picture!

These are three of them who have come in over the last few years, and I know what they are so they can close this post.

From Budgie (Morestone (Morris & Stone)), we are looking at three of at least five variations of these motorcycle-riders, and two sculpts; from the left AA Automobile Association) or Dispatch Rider, The [Isle of Man] TT (time trails) Racer and the RAC (Royal Automobile Club) patrol-man.

The AA man got the same paint-scheme as the military dispatch-rider, so it's hard to call, but he is a different sculpt with a smaller 'cartridge-box', so may be the later numbered DR Rider? All three have seen better days and lost their machines, but they are 54mm, plastic figures!

More M'bikes when they've built-up again!

A is for A Tail of Six Dinosaurs

Tail - tale - dinosaurs . . . never-mind! Brain sent a bunch of dinosaur shelfies the other day without knowing I had just bought another from the range in Poundland Plus, nor why I had bought it, and it's led to my digging out a few other images for a post which - if nothing else - is instructive of how the toy industry works at the bottom end!

These are they (Mr. Berke's shelfies, that is!); three dollars . . .  is what; one-eighty? Something like that! And for that money you can't complain, nicely blister-packed with backing-cards and a decent level of decoration, my complaint - voiced before now - is the rather obvious joins where separate mouldings are fused-together to give the impression of, or allow for poses which would otherwise have proven difficult or impossible with only undercuts.

By the 'other' LP; Lollipop Toys (or Brooklyn Lollipops Import Corp. as they call themselves!), there are six in the whole line, and you may have recognised one or two of them, as they have popped-up on the Blog in the past.

This is the range in its entirety, the upper shot being from Henbrandt's old catalogue, the lower shot from the back of the Poundland one I bought and Blogged a year or two ago. You can see that both companies were (are?) getting the same colour schemes, which also those carried by Brian's shelfie herd.

But, I'd already bought my 2nd 'Dippy', this time from Poundworld Plus, and now in a different scheme (right) to the [common] previous scheme, as we saw with the Funtastic one on the left; Funtastic being what the industry calls a 'phantom-brand' of Poundland, I tend to call them made-up brands or imagibrands!

The new one is by Toy Bank another phantom-brand . . . of the same group! This time the sub-branding on the box is 'Little Fossil Toys', which has to be added to Green Gecko and Pirate Monkey in the ever spiraling-upward list of cross-referenced 'brandlettes'!

Packaging - clockwise from top left - for Lollipop, Henbrandt and Poundworld Plus, note however, that the counter display carton from Henbrant's catalogue is wearing the logo for Zhong Jie Toys, a company already supplying Poundland (or was it 99p Stores? . . . Aaaaarrrrrhhhhh!) with wild animal models!

Remember my paint-tray-guilt-stupid-Brit-thing purchase the other month? Well, it's from the same range, in the same (older?) scheme; Out of the Blue, probably a contractor rather than a phantom, and while I can't remember the counter display, I bet it was the same as the Henbrandt catalogue shot . . .

. . . and I'll bet there are other contracted and phantom brands out there carrying these six rather good, usually very cheap, foamed-PVC (or similar) dinosaur models, indeed, I think I mentioned TKMaxx having sets of three about two years ago, with different graphical packaging! In fact I thought I'd taken a shelfie, but I can't find it so I may not have!

More dino's - later today.

K is for Kandytoys Kombat Kars Keep Koming

Title's a bit lame, then but they aren't all going to set the world alight!

Picked these up the other day (charity shop, but not the same one as the kandytoy pull-back 'plane!); we've looked at some of them before, we've looked at shelfies, we've looked at other brand-marks, so this is really just to get the pictures up here to be found with the others, which means there'll be some odd-looking tags if this is your first visit to the Blog, but otherwise and in any event . . .

. . . 'box scale' die-cast and plastic AFV's, some with a use in small-scale war-gaming, seen a lot in the last 5-7 years, carried by various brands, Chinese source unknown, but some pointers to Pioneer, or a group, busy mould-swapping - indeed; I'm coming round to the idea there are two sources with items from both being 'mixed-and-matched' in/for the orders of/by shippers/end users.

Here wearing Kandytoys moniker; I think the large multi-shelf, window-box set in Smyth's over Christmas was by them, but not with these among them, they are also sold individually and in 'single-shelf' window boxes (HTI).

So far the commonest in the range, these have been found in Poundland, 99p Stores (before their demise) and The Works as well as an independent and under several brand-marks on-line (Little Angel) and retail (Funtastic).

I haven't done comparisons with the others, as we had a long article in Rack Toy Month, and a couple of follow-ups, and they are the same toys as my samples just different colours (VAB-alike) or markings (Hummer), both seen previously on the  Alibaba page's of Avitalk, Kids Car and Little Angel's

The tank; it's even poorer in the flesh than it was looking in the press-photographs/shelfies! Not as common as the previous two vis-à-vis the various combinations seen, sometimes replaced by the better moulding of a Merkeva, but still seen in several lines.

However - at around 1:100 it may have a use in some of the current commercial AFV-based gaming systems around? It's the sort of up-armoured/upgraded/locally-modified M48/M60 you tend to find in those - what used to be called - 2nd world (now 'developing') countries aligned with NATO or the American 'sphere of influence' . . . not for much longer methinks!

These may have been in some of the boxed sets, but I haven't encountered them before and they seem to be newer additions to the wider range.

They are not to the same quality as the other ones we've seen associated with these lines before; the smaller 'Army Force' graphics one (also Kandy's; 'Pro Engine' line) and the larger Funtastic model, being more tinny in construction (like the Hummer) and rather stretched for bog-standard 6X6 trucks?

Also the tilt on the GS/Troop-carrier in this pair is not removable; as it is on the other two.

But the rather daft-looking, multi-rocket pack (harking-back to the toys of the 1950/60's is easy to remove, leaving you with a flat-bed to convert into something more useful!

They also have a 'sit-up-and-beg' look caused by the vehicle models being out-scaled by the wheels, which appears to tip the vehicles forward, even though the cabs are already too high!

News, Views Etc . . . More Stuff!

MPC Mini Ships

Donald D. Hood got in touch from the US of A with loads of fascinating minutiae on the MPC mini-ships, he has real life stuff going-on at the moment, but I'm hopeful that at some point he will flesh out his revelations for the Blog.

In the meantime; it appears many of the MPC vessels are in fact copies of models from other manufacturers, for instance - the Varicella was previously issued as a die-cast by Tri-Ang Minic (along with one of the tugs), several of the battleships seem to be copies of earlier Renwal mini's and the tramp steamer may be from a Lindberg (Pyro) set, along with both ACW 'Ironclad' vessels?

Anyway - hopefully more to come on this one. He also confirmed that there was a retail issue, but of smaller-quantity sets than the comic offers.

Other Ships . . . and cats!

While we're on ships, I found these decorating pedestrian underpasses in Basingrad the other day.

 I don't know the connection (I'll Google it)** between square-rigged, three-decked warships and landlocked Basingstoke, but I'm guessing that if the floods allow either of these to hove into view, you'll be beyond the help of the flooding-helpline!

**Nothing on Google, but it seems one of them is looking like HMS Victory?

The cat is a running gag in Basingrad between one or more graffiti artists and the local authority; which seems to tolerate the understated and artistic stencils! I photographed the other three in a separate set of underpasses some distance from the mosaic ship murals, a couple of years ago for my - then more-active - Faceplant page.

Bible Stories

This chap has been sat in Brain Berke's Folder for too long, he sent it soon after I Blogged the others, shelfie of David (of Goliath fame) from Beverly Hills Teddy Bear (via Greenbriar/DTSC)

Maxxi Toys

Peter Evans has sent another Apache Clan Collection set to the Blog, this one with the 'trotting' cowboy horse, and two new figures, there was the same bag of candy drops, along with another two pieces of fence (so I can now make a four-sided mini-corral) and palm.

While the figures are a bit semi-flat or demi-ronde both would look very acceptable with a re-paint and the cowboy has a plug-in bag of swag, which would make a useful piece of Stagecoach luggage!

I should also point out the cowboy has suffered the same pants-failure as Mr. I. Wraite's Indian and further; that Stuart Asquith had found the same figures in Funtastic branded packaging in Poundland stores; as reported in Plastic Warrior magazine No. 159 a few years ago (20 months odd?), a full report in that issue's letters (back issues available) shows four different foot figures and six foot Indians not seen here - yet!

The pirate set Brian B found

Artwork's apparently stolen for DVD's or Game packaging!

29-05-2018 - Now known to be being carried by Aliki on the continent and Liberty Imports in the 'States.

Smyths Christmas Stock

I was over in Farnborough checking out the almost empty aircraft-hanger that is Smyths new superstore, looking for Halloween stuff (they had none!) the other day, and picked up a catalogue, I also took the above shelfie of the only thing on their half-mile+ of shelves which caught my eye. It's the same Street machine stuff we saw back in Rack Toy Month (and a recent News, Views . . . it's the bottom-row which really interests), but without the Pioneer branding, nor the Pro Engine Series stuff.

Of more interest are these four sets in the Christmas catalogue; I'm sure there's more around if you Google them, but while some 3D printing stuff is taking a while to get fully off the ground, it is interesting to see really quite cheap aids to modelling (as these are) in the kids stores. I might try 6 or 7? And if you've got kids, you've got an excuse for buying!

They seem to be UV light-activation systems with a reactive polymer-gel or paste, rather than liquid-deposition or powder-based laser-sintering systems, but I can see applications there for war gamers and modellers?

Building armatures, or building onto wire-armatures for instance, scenic efforts, trees, barb-wire entanglements maybe? And with the moulds on the magic maker looking to be flimsy styrene vac-forms, you could develop your own moulds for repeat items, small bunkers, sand-bag emplacements, conversion turrets, wheel/tyre halves etc...

Blog

Several records/near-records have been broken in the last few days, with most posts in a year, 2nd best month ever and definitely still on track for the 3-millionth hit inside 11 months - ten to go! And I will post the 2,000th (visible) post here, any day now, if indeed this isn't it, I've been busy away from the Blog this last week and got behind with 'housekeeping'!

News

Not much since the last News, Views . . . ; all the quarterly results (which generate the toy-related headlines) have been posted and caught by the previous few posts. I think there was another Lego plug in the 'i' and there was more on the Toysaurus (US-side) but I haven't done the cuttings this week yet.

One story which did grab me, although not really affecting the hobby directly was the one about evilBay, Amazon and Co. profiteering from overseas sellers not charging VAT, this is not about second-hand toys or cack like that, but rather new goods, electronics and higher-end consumer-stuff, which are offered at below high street prices by sellers over the Channel or Irish Sea, and which should include VAT, to be taken by the platform and handed to HMRC.

It's not an immediate threat to us, but - as a bit of a scam - it'll become a stick for governments to beat the silicon-valley people with, especially when old-media, establishment paper's like the Daily Wail decide to crusade on the issue.

Link

The Scythian exhibition at the British Museum now has a Blog-post.

A is for Army Men - RTM '17 - Part IV - Mostly Smaller Scale Crappytoys!

Or at least, this was going to be the small scale post but a number of larger ones crept in so it's not, also the numbering rather peters-out around the time we find out what happened to the 16 some of you may have noticed yourselves not noticing so far! In other words - it's the loose ends of what has been no more that 'What's in the Fritz-helmet/Modern Chinatroops' unknown's box'!

Seen before on the Blog, more than once I think and being carried by various brands at the moment as the default small scale, they are actually around 30mm and a second shade of silver-grey - distinct from the silver - surfaced in the 'Big Bag' from Peter Evans.

I re-shot the shelfie (right-hand picture) I got so fuzzy last time and we can see rust-brown still to enter the collection here at Small Scale World Towers while Brain Berke shot the left-hand bag when he was last in the UK, it showing an apparently darker green set of figures.

Here the same figures are being offered on Alibaba by an 'E-Toys', made-up brand if ever I read one, but clever and you wonder why no one else thought of it first, but maybe they have!

Number 16 has been in the collection for a while and may date back to the Hong Kong era, but he has the chalky look of more recent China production.

The broken figure seems to be Hong Kong, but without a base it's not clear, he also seems to be quite original? Next to him is a green, soft PVC, copy (?) of the believed to be Galoob for Realtoy (et al.) in denser plastic. I've put the question mark in brackets as he may be from the same factory/mould, just for a different contract, and some of Micro-Machines own figures - especially the early, unmarked, small scale 'combat' ones were in softer PVC anyway?

The other three are small-ish scale (all in this shot are around 40mm) copies (or homage) to the ring-hand MPC figures, I have no weapons or helmets for them so don't know if they had them but suspect they must have, if only by going by the little belts - which are removable! I'm guessing gum-ball machine capsule toys, but they may have had a header-carded bag, or blistered outing too?

Speaking of Realtoy and moving up a scale, if anyone tells you the figure lower left is Realtoy, tell him he's making it up as he goes along - again! The Realtoy one is bottom right and we looked at them here a while ago.

The upper image shows the unknown 50mm figure, a couple of the denser/harder PVC Realtoy (et al.)'s; they have also been marketed as Daron and Sky Marks, while I've been told they were Galoob, and certainly follow Galoob poses; along with the softer 'copy'.

In the lower image we see the various colours now found, the sailors being consistently painted the same, the others coming in desert-sand, olive-green, a 'Russian' SF/SWAT/Urban camo', a general camouflage and the woodland green 'copy', however there is a commoner reverse camouflage with sand as the dominant background and blobs of green and brown but I don't have one in this pose!

Similar figures (looking odd as they have no belt-order/webbing) are being offered by Smile Station on Alibaba and evilBay (upper shot) or at least they were a year or two ago, I can't find them now, but that's made-up brands for you, easy come; easy go!

Another set of similar figures were Blogged here.

While the various unknown carrier-deck ground-crew in the lower picture manage to look like both the unknowns; the five in black PVC are very similar to the green chap but a tad taller, while the lower three are in a soft silicone-rubber and look like the not-Realtoy figure!

However, I now know the lower chaps aren't carrier-crew, they were sold in a Realtoy-like, but unbranded/generic window-box 23710 Die Cast Metal Airport Play Set, two per card, so that may where the larger unknown figure originated, not the civil airport; but another generic window-box!

Found these on Alibaba, they look to be all new poses, of some merit and in a smaller scale; mabe45mm judging by the accompanying vehicles? And - note two new variations of the CAD-CAM-hulled AFV we looked at the other day.

Those Tamiya 1:48th copies (which Arlin Tawser ID'd here a while ago) came-in again, in a larger sample with the 'Big Bag', still unknown, but by adding one 'missing' figure gave a photo-opportunity of 6 poses x 4 figures x 2 armies for a 48 total which I suspect will prove to be the/a full-set/set-count? Miss-moulding has reduced a couple of the B.A.R-gunners to mere riflemen!

Finally, we looked at Skylark yesterday with a nice set of figure sculpts in a larger scale but in the smaller scale they are offering these really poor copies of some pretty poor 1990's copies of copies of Airfix, which (the 1990's ones) were also issued with Majorette AFV's.

A is for Army Men - RTM '17 - Part II - Newer or Smaller Crappytoys!

But maybe not as new, or not all as new as some of yesterdays so my note then, about the titles, holds-fast - they're bullshit!

The top row are quite decent figures as far as finish goes and would paint up well, the Rambo-Murphy with his linked belt is a pain, yet seems to be in most of these modern sets! 17 is a small sample of no consequence and very poor quality, but we'll be looking at worse in a minute, while the 18b's come - surprise, surprise, chooks - with those I have numbered 18A! But first . . .

. . . these are the same as the 18B's, but so far haven't come with A-equivalents; different contract: different mix! They are the figures that came with the two better-plastic Tiger-Sheriden-T62 hybrids we looked at the other day, but not the Rex take on Imperial where the AFV was from the same mould, but the tank, Jeep and figures different - different contract: different mix.

So the additional A's for 18 are a larger size, even to having some of the same, but bigger poses! Material type and colour is identical and they will have been added to give each set a better appearance/play-value; today's kids weren't raised on war comics or war films and don't critique rack-toys as we might have, back in the 1960's or 70's, but they do know when they are getting total shite as opposed to vaguely cheap shite!

To be honest, the size difference is down more to the bulk of the sculpting, the A's are better-fed!

The Hunson sets (nice tanks) are carrying 18B only while Jaru's carry the full range of both A's and B's.

Bases are the same but each marked differently to reflect the contract, whether the request was made by the shipper, importer or originating factory will be down to the vagaries and structure of each contract, while some importers will request a . . .

. . . personalised base-stamp! Here Jaru [Ja-Ru] making sure you don't forget who sold you the figures long after the packaging has gone, but they are the same figures that at least two other concerns have marketed in recent years . . . possibly through or via Jaru! And you may remember Brian burke sent us a shelfie of sandy ones with different cart art (#1658 Army Command) but the same base-mark, last year.

This base marking is a recent thing with China, and as I've mentioned several times recently is down to improvements in QA/QC, the clamping-down of health and safety and - coupled to both - the resultant need to have traceability in toys (or all consumer-goods).

In recent weeks I've seen several toys asking you to keep the packaging "for future reference" and "dispose of carefully" or "recycle packaging please", you can't make it up!

A few orphans, the painted ones may be earlier, this pick and silver, stab and hope paint-job was very 1970's, and if it wasn't for the inclusion of the Audie-Heston with his linked-belt you'd easily think these were earlier than they probably are?

24 and 25 may go together, but as lone samples looking slightly different I'm not making the connection - except conversationally; as I just did! The 26 figure carries the same New Ray note as 11/12 yesterday? 27 aren't; being yesterday's 7!

Huicheng are offering a set which looks familiar but the standing ready guy sets it apart as another set of clones, but with a thin thread of its own 'DNA', while I just can't make out any of the figures in the Zhorya set ("Millennium edition" so been around a while?), which means it may belong with yesterday's post, but they had 10 images and this post only had 9, so he got collaged with the Huicheng!

This set was missed in the first photosession, but they are so poor as to not be worthy of inclusion, but I'm not fussy here at Small Scale World, so, here they are; awful - aren’t they?!

They seem to have taken at least one pose from all the other sets we've looked at so far, yet were sold is such small mixes you wouldn't have got every pose - although that a fair criticism of lots of these sets.

They were so poor when I saw them 'on the hook' I shelfied them in rejection of the idea I might part with a quid - yet somehow have ended-up with a bag-full anyway, in three colours!

Yet; it's gets worse than Poundland's - much worse! Look at the backs of the figures in the left-hand pile and you'll see the best thing to do with these is paint them as mutant-zombies! While you can't see or judge the backs of the Ming Tong's, it's clear from the bases and pose-count they are the same as the Chengji figures, and probably from someone else!

But then these are probably sold so cheap, if you're a 5-year old kid from a low-income family in Samarkand, Ulan Bator, New Deli or from the slums of Lagos, Nairobi or Sao Paulo; you're not going to be fussy; indeed; you're probably not going to know any different.

The sad fact is; here in 'The West' . . . that is the 'developed' West . . . our own kids (not to mention their younger parents) are becoming so distanced from the military and so oblivious to the tradition of 'toy soldiers' as a staple of the toy-box - they'll accept this shite to keep quiet for a hour, too, because they don't know any different.