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.

L is for Lord of the Jadas

I can't remember where I found this now, I have a feeling it was discounted, so probably TKMaxx, but I can't swear to it, it was in the last few weeks though (July shots), so may still be out there, if like me, you do regularly irregular sweeps of all the likely sources!

Having waxed lyrical about these Jada die-cast figures in the past, and specifically their decoration/paint-finish, I have to say I don't think these Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) figures, are quite as nice as some we've seen, but the green cloak guy has the lustre I liked so much on my first figure, while the silver chap could march straight into any 28mm biblical force, although at 40-odd-mm he'd have to be a specific Philistine!

S is for Shot on the Shelf!

A few shelfies which were a bit too big or pricey for Rack Toy Month, here; and I think they may have been shot over some time in three stores?

 

New 'Britains' farm sculpts from Tomy, shot at the Country Market store in the garden centre near Borden a while ago now, I don't remember the git=rl being in even the last tranche of real Britains, while the vet/farrier is a totally new sculpt.

 

While these are the latest iteration of mouldings over sixty or seventy years old!

But you wouldn't transport postpartum ewes, with both their lambs, AND a ram!

 

Just a bit of fun - sleepy-cat chopstick rests! Homesense, Farnborough.

Just the kind of thing which will be appearing in those charity shop bags of mixed scale/era/make figures, quite shortly I'd imagine! Jada Toys, I couldn't tell if it was a polymer figure or another of their die-casts with a matt finish? About 75mm? TK Maxx, and I'm tagging for Gaming and TV/Movie as a film is due in 2026!

G is for Gygax Monsters - Part I - Introduction

The 'Monsters', with dinosaurs and the odd prehistoric mammal, actually came before Garry Gygax nicked them, or their designs for his fledgling monster list, published as a guide to his Fantasy Role Playing system; Dungeons & Dragons, which predates the Nottingham Mafia's Wotzit-40,000, by years (indeed, GW were involved with D&D at the very start), and specifically, the 'Advanced' (AD&D) version.

 

Originally a hardbacked volume on soft low-density paper, like comic/TV annuals of the time, the frontispiece carried an illustration of my favourite, a mutated kerthunkersaur, which, due to Gygax's adoption of it, has become known as the Bulette, which presumably must be said in an outrageously put-on comedy French accent, or Belgian, like the Policeman from 'Allo 'Allo! ?

 

Other people have done most of the legwork on this one, so have a gander at these links for a better story and background than I could rehash here; 

 

Wikipedia page on Gary Gygax 

 

Wikipedia page on the 'monster manual'

Gygax story on Tony Di Terlizzi's page

 

More on DM David's page

Gygax didn't use all the monsters, nor the accompanying dinosaurs, but alongside the Bulette, he would christen two others, the Rust Monster, a mutant crustacean, and the Owlbear, which defies description, but was clearly meant to be a Prehistoric Mammal, in the vein of Timpo's Megatherium.

 

Later versions of the book were actually a loose-leaf folder/binder, and I'm not sure how complete mine is, as I don't seem to have shot the Rust Monster from either tome, but these were all taken some time ago and have been sat in Picasa since March '23!

 

I don't have an Owlbear yet, so we won't see many through this series of posts (which I'd forgotten were nearly ready, and are very 'rack toy'), and no, I’m not going to pay $500+dollars for something Hong Kong and ephemeral, which will eventually turn-up in a mixed charity lot for 50p or a couple of quid, max'!

 

These both share features of some of the other models found with the three Gygax Monsters, and the Glabrezu is very close to several, but has, here, been given two extra arms!

 

It wasn't just Gygax who used the toys though, and this Gold Key comic-book cover for Dagar The Invincible (shades of Trigan Empire or Burroughs' John Carter?) from 1972, uses one of the non-Gygax 'Gygax Monsters', if that makes sense, and we'll be seeing it in the subsequent posts of this series.

 

Really? Because I used one Gold Key image, in context, for another subject altogether; small plastic monsters, you published, the next day, a whole pageful, garnered from all over the internet, in an exercise in quality plagiarism! You might as well climb to the top of Mount Everest, with the largest bullhorn known to man, and the largest loudspeaker, and shout "I'm really insecure!" at the whole world, 'cos that's what you just told us!

 

Some Bulettes, probably three Holly Plastics on the left, a later (?), smaller copy in 'aqua' and an even smaller sub-piracy to the right, but all five have the same treatment vis-à-vis paint application, and eyes, as well as similar gate-marks and such like, which is important, as while there will be six or maybe seven posts (hopefully by the end of the week!), the narrative isn't clear and many answers will remain.

 

I suspect that rather like Tai Sang, with their many farm and zoo animals, as early generics or later under Blue Box, Redbox and Sunshine Series etc . . . Holly may well have had more than one production line, or factory, or farmed some of the work out, to mates, or other enterprises, with duplicate tools, or permissioned copying, to fulfil orders?

 

This is my sample as at 2021, with the Lik Be (LB) minis in the top left corner, and most of the rest conforming to the general look of Holly Plastics, however markings are different and that's how they are sorted for now. You can see (it's not the best shot, and Picasa is currently refusing to open it?!) that most of the output is more conventional dinosaurs, and ones we have seen here before.

 

The big bag, bottom centre, for instance, is basically the same contents as the set Bran Berke found for a previous Rack Toy Month, years ago, in a seaside shop in Blackpool (I think, I did ask him, but it would take too long to find the eMail!), and were, therefore still around until quite recently, while others have had an over-marking, or re-marking with 'China', since the heady days of the 1970's.

 

Here's a mixed lot, also looking like Holly with no Gygax's, but it does carry the full size versions of the two mammals, also copied by LB as mini's, in the prehistoric set we saw here, while the arrow-headed amphibian (Diplocaulus) to the far right is another one (like the Owlbear) which seems harder to find than most of the others, suggesting a tool was lost or damaged, or lost a couple of cavities, early in the full set's run?

 

Awesome Kids recent'ish set of Britains Deetail knight knock-offs, with four of the 'winged wisker' monster (Glabrezu), upon which the artwork for the above Dagar #2 comic may have been based (there are three very similar sculpts, none of which Gygax used), so some of the tool's cavities are still around, even if the whole set, or most of its parts, are lost, or, just lost on a shelf somewhere?!

Again, no Gygax types, and while you might think this to be a generic for Woolworths or Littlewoods, the old catalogue people, they had 3-spot ladybirds, for the famous clothing range, until recently, while the equally famous, or even iconic Ladybird Books had a 7-spot, so I guess this was just bandwagoning, and I think they might have been in WHSmith around '78/79? But I'm not sure why I think that?

 

Anyway, there's lots more to come, and hopefully it will all start to fall into place, or at least, make a little more sense by the end of the week. So: not really 'Gygax' monsters at all, but always going to be Gygax Monsters now!

S is for Shelfies - Smyths

I was actually in Smyths the other day looking for Halloween stuff (there was none) and the displays were pretty-much the same as these shelfies, which I actually shot back in August, but which I didn't get around to posting in Rack Toy Month, so, basically - all still available from Smyths!

This has previously been seen in B&M, seems to be a generic, but similar to HGL / HTI stuff we saw here a few years ago, I think I now have some of these in the loose stash courtesy of Jon Attwood's donations or charity-shop bags?

 

These are the sort of thing which will start turning-up in charity bags in about 18-months time, so worth knowing, simply to attribute, at a later date; Epoch Games, also gets them in the Tag-list! Seems to be a variation of Buckaroo or the old load-a-camel game!

 

Unbranded generic here, and again the dinosaurs look familier?

A full display of Schleich, with fantasy, dinosaurs, wild and domestic animals, both boxed and single-pick items. You can't fault the attention to detail and realism, but the price takes them out of the reach of poorer kids, in a way Britains didn't really?

Just Play have these out at the moment, there have been so many chunky vinyls of Disney's main characters, there's a book to be written on them at some point, in the meantime this will help ID five of the many thousands!

Pokemon blisters and boxes, again several ranges over the years, all quite small scale, and running to many characters/poses, I think these were Mindstorm Toys, but probably licensed from Tomy or Mattel, both of whom have had the properties for twenty/thirty-odd years now?

Cartoon characters in Hot Wheels cars . . . and things! A perennial favourite with younger kids, I have a small self-published tome in the library by a Don Elliot (Comic Character Cars), which covers these up to the 1980's, from many makers!

Finishing-up this batch with bubble-liquid bottles topped-off with hatching dinosaur eggs!