B is for Big Box of Bounty - WWII & Modern Combat

The next instalment of Chris Smith's latest donation to the Blog is the 'meat & two veg' of Toy Soldier Collecting, unless you specialise in ancient & medieval, the Wellingtonian era, space, Wild West, Britians ceremonials, farm or zoo, but you know what I mean, and that's the introductory paragraph taken care of, phew!

 

Three paratroopers this time, all yellow, but from three sources and a nice pair of Airfix Red Beret LMG-gunners, to compare in future addition to the parachutists page, while the holding-reserve pose is unusual in yellow, even at this smaller size, where the odd blue or red one has turned-up over the years, they are usually green!

 

One of the Galoob-like, or supplied by Galoob, sailors, from the Realtoy-Dacron et al. sets, and three of the tentatively ID'd as Pioneer or supplied by/to Pioneer, copies of the same set, the copies being manufactured in a softer silicon-rubber, to the denser PVC-replacement of the Realtoy figures.

 

Unknown seated's, four of the common'ish US moulding ones, in two colours (and there are a lot of colours to find!), and three others; the big chap may be from a battery-operated Jeep or similar toy, the middle one anything, the chap on the right of both shots is one of the crewmen from any one of a number of Hong Kong, fictional/Sci-Fi'ish, novelty rocket launchers, also/sometimes known as Crickets, in this shade, possibly the Codeg 'Rocket Firing Armoured Car'?

 

And the smaller chap here is probably the Codeg driver, while Chris had managed to ID the big fella', he's from the Mecanno Mogul range of Tonka-rival heavy steel-plate toys, namely the eponymous Army Mogulwagen. and I have a feeling Chris sent the driver many parcels ago . . . not sure you can have 'Namely' and 'Eponymous' in the same sentence?

 

And there seem to have been two versions, or a pre-production/press (with integrated MG) one, and this version, which is probably another Stadden sculpt, from the Havent factory, they are about four-inches?

 

These are interesting, I think I have a small sample somewhere, but new poses here, and obviously Marx 45mm copies, which is why I had some - borderline small-scale! But they are a tinny polymer, maybe 'propylene, and quite poorly finished or 'flashy' possibly from that late 1980's/arly 1990's plethora of re-issues from Hong Kong, Brazil or Mexico? Does anyone know for certain, from whence they hail?

 

A handful of "Aitchkay" rack-toy fodder, but all interesting, with two of the 40mm Monogram copies, a small Aussie knock-off, a Japanese Deetail clone, but not the more common chrome-coated, Kwong Wah one, which have the ovoid base, but a full oblong-based copy, along with a pair of the recent, but relatively unique sculpts, copies of New Ray, I think it was decided, in the end?

 

A similar line-up of the smaller scales, with - from the left - Supreme 40mm, Galoob 20mm Micromachines, 30mm Airfix Para' clone, a new colour of Galoob 30mm (Battle Squad?), and another 20mm, along with the roughly 28mm Universal-Matchbox MG-gunner who is 'after' Galoob!

 

Saving the best to last and sandwiched between two of the GI Flats, are two figures who are both familiar, and totally new to me. The chap to the centre-right, is obviously the Timpo GI radio-operator, but not the usual early-British 'Khaki Infantry'', rather a soft PVC polymer, possibly Polish, or East German? He's painted as UN, but that could be home-paint/repaint?

 

While I'm sure I've seen the other guy, but I'll be damned if I can remember where or when? He's a marbled polyethylene ('polythene'), with an interesting pose-sculpt of changing his magazine, the base is closest to the bigger PRB swivel-heads, with a pronounced bevel, while the sculpting and pose are vaguely Marx-PMC 54mm GI-like, in execution? He also comes across as being a bit cereal-premium'y? Is he French, Greek?

 

Can anybody add anything on either of the middles figures, now Chris has kindly sent them to the Blog?

P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Everything Else!

Sadly, all good things come to an end, and this is what didn't end-up in the other folders for whatever reason! Mostly because they were mixed shots, although a fair bit of the TV/Movie stuff ended up here rather than in the sci-fi post, but, well, it's another post!

 

A Phidal dome-headed 'Mysterio' (one of the things I hate about Marvel/DC is that many of the heroes and villains are named by five-year-olds, like 1950's cleaning products, shine'o, cleanrite, rinsit, floorbrite!), a pair of Fortnite figures, the one on the left is a stamper, the one on the right might be from a key-ring, hard to tell.

 

The Archer is The Archer/Clinton Barton/Hawkeye from Marvel? The other three still have question marks, Mobile Man ?. . . Or Cellphone Man!

 

The surface of the previous shot wasn't level and I could only get two of them to stand-up by turning them round! So here they are leaning against the backdrop the tight way round! I think the chap on the left is probably a 'solid' from Kinder, they have many of these hard plastic figures, a subcategory to the dedicated collectors, and this may be a specific character, or part of a set I'm unfamiliar with, and I could try looking him up, or not worry, if you know, you already know, I'll have a session in the future ID'ing all sorts when I label them up!

 

While the red guy might be a stamper or a keyring, or another source altogether, there is a lot of this Fortnite stuff in the queue, both Peter Evans and me have located a fair bit, and it was mostly shot some time ago!

 

An Anime/Manga schoolgirl keyring, the closest match I can find are free images, but named characters with green uniforms do exist, however with green, black or red bows? Her interest here, to us, is in the over-moulding of the different colours of vinyl. She's a relief flat - which should be 2½D, shouldn't it; not quite 2D, not quite 3D!

 

Somehow escaped the military post, becase it was mixed combat and historical, I guess! A cake decoration figure, seen before here, a copy of Airfix AWI, scaled-up, two dark green versions of figures more usually seen in dung/khaki, a Marx 50mm Training Centre figure, and a premium flat ascribed to Bonnie Bilt in the 'States, a Timpo copy who might be Polish, or a BR Moulds piece, and finally a US 'comic flat' also AWI.

 

Disney bits, including two princesses, one of which may be a knock-off, a large LotR Elven archer (presumably Legolas?) from McDonald's, who apparently came without a bow, even though he's clearly firing a bow, due to 'health & safety'? The martial-arts chap on the end will be from Mulan or something similar, I haven't followed the recent releases, just become aware of them through social media or Phidal!

 

The guy on the left here is probably a driver from an omnibus/tram/streetcar model kit, someone like Pyro maybe or a smaller maker, Palmer? Someone like that? Although he's also quite Parker'esque! The heavy chunk of ersatz PVC on the right is from Harry Potter, and is a statue which came to life at one point I think, again, I haven't read or seen any HP stuff, but did get Steven Fry's excellent reading of the first book, one Easter on the Radio, years ago!

 

The small scale here consists mostly of Galoob, from pretty-much all their lines, but there's a Mattel or two in there too (Action Man or Batman villain with pistol, and the firefighter), and a Bluebird Snow White sitting on her own, while a Zizzle Cap'n Jack stalks her!

 

Kinder bits, to go in the Kinder bits zone! I think that monkey may be another from the set which included my CAD-monkey mascot! The helmet is a soft polyethylene knock-off of Lego, while I'm not sure about the large lady, but she's certainly Kinder-like enough for the shot!

 

Also Kinder, but mostly mucked-about with.

They'll go in the future project zone!

 

And bringing us to a close on these posts, the 'Halloween' shot! The two ghosts are also Kinder I think, or one of these sets we looked at a year or two ago, the spotted mushroom is a Go-Go Crazy Bone I think, not so sure on the blue (robo-elephant?) thing, while two earlier novelty flats, probably from 1970's (or earlier) Christmas crackers, finish it all off.

As always, very many thanks to Chris Smith for finding, saving and sending all this stuff to the Blog. It's not just that we get all these posts out of each parcel, with something for everyone and lots to ID, but that in the future, there will be more in specific subject posts, a better picture of everything or anything, and I am very grateful to all those who save or send stuff to/for the Blog/Archive/Collection, especially where, like the probably broken cat flat above, it might otherwise go in the bin, a first sample is a first sample, whatever the condition, so, thank-you very much Chris.

G is for Groping in the Garage!

Nothing exciting, I was pulling stuff out of the garage earlier in the year and found the multi-drawer cabinets I keep all the odds and sods in, by which I mean sewing, boot-polishing, kitchen, plumbing and hardware stuff, but there happen to be six drawers of mostly Micro Machines (in a minute) and a couple with keys and key-rings, which we will look at another day.

Spaceships, mostly Galoob Star Wars stuff, but some Aliens, Star Trek and Soma found their way in as well! AFV's also contain some knock-offs (Kenner Microverse etc.) and I think here I have most of them but one day will consult the Micro Machine Meusuem to identify my gaps and then find them on evilBay (none of them are rare) so I can do complete lines-ups for year/wave, when I do the A-Z entries.

Helicopters, not many, a feature of the hobby refelceted in the few newsprint images I could find to paste on the drawer-front, although the same was true for the spaceships! Civil cars, trucks and buses, the motorcycles - being closer to 20/25mm - were in their own box in the main collection, as were the ATV's, speeder bikes &etc. The lid of the really useful box limited the opening of the drawers!

Ships and 'planes, quite a few planes, not so many ships, but they didn't make many and I think they are all there? There's about three versions of the ICBM-sub, and a rather natty bright-green mini-submersible (visible).

The drawers need work; when I glued the little cuttings on, so I knew which drawer was which, the PVA/wood-glue dried invisible, but time (20+ years) and storage have not been kind to my efforts! The cuttings came from Collector's Gazette back when it was newsprint.

That's it, just . . . an image-clear of stuff to come, sometime!

H is for How They Come In - December 2020 - II Chris - Space & Sci-Fi

I should have added the TV/Movie image to this post to balance them better, but sometimes I lose the wood for the trees with the number of Toy Soldier posts currently in Picasa!

So a swifter read than the others, but heay-ho; there's a shot in the next post which probably should have gone with the cartoon stuff in the previous post (which was the TV/Movie image!), that's how it shakes down!

Smaller scales/sizes - from the left; an interesting figure who looks capsul'ey to me? A Putty from Galoob; another capsule-toy type I think (is he a character anyone recognises?); possibly another Galoob Micromachine, a character from Marvel or DC, which might make him late Kenner; a nice mini-Keshi of a sort of lobster-man, and a figure who looks like one of Hasbro's Air Raiders, but doesn't actually appear to be one?

A small group of space vehicles - fact and fiction; with two Bruder/Giodi/Kinder types, an Apollo Eagle Lander cake decoration (issued by Blue Shield in the 'States) and the lower half of Airfix's funny little Bell Aeronautics LFV.

This is nice, I haven't ID'd it yet (probably a die-cast or play-set accessory), about 30mm and PVC, I can't make my mind-up whether the visor is meant, or a home enhancement with a marker pen - I suspect the later.

I have apologised to Chris for not crediting him the first time I blogged this, but it was obviously because having shot it for these posts in December last, I then sorted it away, and found it again months later, with some surprise! A pop-up knock-off of an LB astronaut/spaceman! Cheers Chris!

H is for Hummmm . . . ?

This is a quickie, but nevertheless interesting as far as Hong Kong/China tat goes, if only for it's oddness, and the fact that it explains something which has always bugged me, vis-a-vix some unpainted 'Galoob' figures in the collection!

First weirdness is that this is basically an old VHS video-case, with a paper-card, windowed wraparound and a shaped, inverted-blister tray where the actual tape would otherwise lay. I assume the GIA is an attempt at a play on words, i.e., instead of MIA (missing in action) they are going with G.I.'s in action? No, it doesn't really work, but I couldn't find a better explanation in my slowing brain!

Contents are two really cheap die-casts (the tank's turret already has a huge crack from alloy-disease, despite never having been played with) and two figures. The figures are the unpainted versions of Galoob's Army Gear / Secret Army Supplies figures, which explains them, and why, when I found an SAS set, by Galoob a few weeks after that first post; they too, were painted.

They seem to be the same figures just unpainted, so may have been a clearance thing, and while I don't think the tank is Pioneer, the plane is rather better, and these could be early Pioneer, but it's only a thought and I won't tag them as such; they are clearly marked-up to the Golden Wheel Die Casting Factory Limited and dated to 1991.

The video-case thing was also common at one point, back in the day, they could be used for fancy stationary sets, make-up sets, aroma-stick/burner sets, greetings-cards, emergency tool kits . . . you know; sort of novelty tat round Christmas time!

Metro is for Play Set

Only two images, but having mentioned Pioneer in the previous posts . . . and an important post here as it fleshes-out several musings on Small Scale World over the last few years, and it does so through the medium of what the dim-witted branch of the hobby derisorily call 'plastic smalls' . . . in public, on the record!

A classic rack-toy; which, when bought (late 1990's) was probably still in the sub-pound price-bracket. An under-scale house, raised flower-bed, picket fence in three parts and store-front, all in polystyrene (or polypropylene - I've never opened it), a blow-moulded soda-dispensing coin-op' machine, a die-cast pick-up truck in the Matchbox 1-75 or Hot Wheels style and a small PVC figurine. It's notable for being aimed more specifically at little girls, rather than boys with blokey army-men or both siblings with a unisex plaything.

Actually . . . I think the 'store front' might be the raised deck of the house!

But, I hope the more observant of you will be thinking "He's shown us this before" - I haven't, or "I recognise that figure" - you should! It's the Galoob 'everyday' clothes Pink Power Ranger figurine, copied in a larger size and they've hardly changed the paint-job!

Fully marked to Pioneer, this is on one level only circumstantial evidence, but strong enough to become empirical over time if the absence of something stronger continues. I have suggested those Realtoy-Daron copies of Galoob soldiers might be connected to Pioneer and that some of the other 'might be Pioneer' figures . . . err . . . might be Pioneer! Also there's the question marks over the Zita and yesterday's Stonegalleon (and the contributed Firefighters - which I haven't forgotten about; Theo and Brian!).

Well, I suspect quite a bit of it is Pioneer, probably most of it and that those larger copies of the Galoob figures used by Dacron, Realtoy and Sky Marks ARE Pioneer as is this figure, along with the carrier deck-crews and possibly both baseings and sizes of the firefighter/mechanics and the painted/unpainted GI's seen in previous posts, even the Zita/Stonegalleon may well be Pioneer, as all the combat types/sizes/paint treatments share some poses. It even explains the one softer Realtoy firer in flat-green paint.

Contemporary with the other known makers I keep mentioning in these posts - New Ray, Smart, Soma, Supreme - as they were, if not working together, at least watching each-other very closely as they exploited the same pocket-money and window-box niches in the late 1980's and 1990's. With the lesser Wing Mau and K&M (before they adopted the Wild Republic moniker) also producing bits of this stuff. While in their larger 1:32^nd scale Street Muscle series, Pioneer produce very detailed and well made/painted driver-figures

And it's ironic that 2019's frantic Google'ing, astronaut post and firefighter/mechanic follow-ups have been confirmed by something so inconsequential which was in the collection all along! I imagine today's card was one of four-to-six with the other everyday-clothes Power Rangers similarly scaled-up.

And if this is all confusing, the Pioneer or Realtoy tags will get all the musings up on one or two pages, in reverse order of the evidence coming together - with help! I would have brought them all together and re-shot them, but they are away already! I have had some more of the smaller unpainted green ones come-in and they confirm the links tighter with pose duplications.

Oh! And it's sub-branded to the UK importer HKT with a  sticker!

E is for Enforce . . . Peace!

Ah yes, bringing freedom and democracy to the barbarian hordes, one invasion at a time!

Continuing a theme, and these are contemporaneous with the Woolbro set we saw earlier; real, proper rack toys I was picking-up in odd newsagents and general stores as I drove around Britain in the late 1990's and early 2000's in a variety of driving jobs or jobs with a lot of driving involved - one store opposite a car park, off a one-way system in either Uckfield or Hailsham (?) on the A22 gave-up a lot of interesting stuff, some of which wended it's way to PW Towers!

Casually branded to a 'Stonegalleon' with randomly positioned stickers, these are in every other respect generics, but a brand is a brand for labeling purposes, and I thought we'd seen my single loose example here as Stonegalleon before, but I only mentioned him in passing, so this is the confirmation!

Simple polyethylene 'readymade' and die-cast AFV's, polystyrene traffic signs and a PVC figure each, they were probably around .99p each or £1.50 at a stretch?

Similar to the named stuff from Realtoy, Smart and Supreme, and the bits I suspect to have originated from Pioneer, the figures are around 45/50mm and quite soft, and the SAM-launcher chap is referencing the Galoob-Realtoy pose. I don't think these are Pioneer production, but copying it; the camouflage is simpler that my green (believed to be Pioneer) one or the Zita imports, and they are a tad smaller, but not as small as the other Pioneer line.

The LAV-alike (bottom corner of left-hand set) is poor, while the 'technicals' are cheapo die-casts, but this Marder MICV is all-plastic and probably a poor copy of the - now quite venerable - Roco-Minitanks model? That's it . . . more peacekeepers . . . enforcing!

MMPR is for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

I know so little about the Power Rangers I thought I'd Google it to see if there was anything I should know and "Oh boy!" what a can of worms I dug-up! Homophobia, exploitation of non-unionised actors, racism, a US TV-show using stock-footage of three other Japanese shows crashed together with A-Team like footage shot on the backlots and in the valleys round LA (funny how the 'City of Angels' has so much filth and darkness attached to it), umpteen companies and or marketers involved, several license and character switches/arguments and, yes; it should have been 'morphing' with a 'g'. . . 'cos they morph into Power Rangers!

Anyhoos; the real reason for my Googling - what each colour means/represents and/or whether they have specific names - turned up that there were various people in each colour and one chap had three colours, so we can ignore the whole sorry mess and just look at an overview of the [non-action-] figures out there . . .

My sample in its entirety (actually that's not strictly true, there may be some more, somewhere else?), bottom row are all 20mm oddities, which I assume are from gum-ball/capsule machines, top row will be looked at last in this post and we're about to look at the larger ones but the lone yellow chap in a Ranger'esque bodysuit (far right middle row) is, I think, from a Mega Bloks set - they clip into the gap between four studs?

These were probably also capsule 'prizes' although whether they all came originally in a key-ring casket or not, I don't know. I suspect that - in common with a lot of this stuff - they had as many marketing iterations as could be thought-up for them, in various parts of the world, by various wholesalers!

Full-on 54mm Power Rangers, I need to find a pink one, and a lose blue one would be useful for the full set, produced for Kellogg's Frosties by Crocco (who also supplied other stuff to the rival Weetabix I think?), there is a glow-in-the-dark white one to find as well; the usual likelihood of finding a green one or a white one are unlikely, both are the unloved Power Rangers in Toyland, so it's refreshing to see Crocco doing one of them!

Galoob Micromachines, except, not MM size, closer to Action Fleet/Battle Squads, but without the action figure element. Red's trike is a trike, but Blue and Black both get sidecar combinations which can be converted into plain motorcycles for a bit of variety! I'm missing a blue with both hands up - like Yellow (below).

Black (who was African American!), and the two girls; Yellow (Asian - Red was a Native American!) and pink (her parents probably vote Trump!). Black was the last of the original line-up to leave (citing racism), upon which a member of the production crew suggested he'd never got on with the rest of the cast & crew - despite lasting longest?

Read the whole thing on Wikipedia, it's everything that's wrong with capital, marketing, pop-culture and licensing!

Putty Patrollers -  yeah, well; whatever was happening behind the cameras, it WAS aimed at kids! These are the bad guys. Galoob never got round to green or white Power Rangers.

If anyone can help with ID's on the smallies, that would be appreciated, they may be like Kinder, with little simplified vehicles, but with 7,000+ results for 'Power Rangers Figures' on evilBay I wasn't going to hang-around and try to find out!

P is for Plastic Power . . . ♪♫ I Gotta' I Gotta' I Gotta' Jigga' Jig-Jig . . . Yeah! ♪♪

There are moments when you struggle to believe you've done something, and at Sandown Park the other day week month one of those moments overtook my ability to escape them and I bought a twelve-inch doll in order to add a one-inch doll to the collection!

A crime; a sin; a monumental act of stupidity I have still to fall-for a possible four-more times! Still, it's a while since we added a Galoob to the tag list, and getting the Spice Girls into the metadata won't hurt traffic!

Probably my favourite spice-girl (if I have one?), Posh was a haughty, humorless, thin-lipped tart, Baby was . . . well; a baby! Scary wasn't and Ginger was a bit OTT, but little Mel C was just a spunky Liverpudlian with a bit of attitude and 'up fer'it, jahnowhatahmeeen yer scally!'

Years ago, we had half a pallet of these to shift at the on-line auction house I worked for and they were bloody hard work, with a 99p start-price 'business-model' at the firm, we let a lot go for 99p, even whole sets of five, some people got mega-bargains!

I nearly got my mate JB to bid on a lot for me at the time, but I couldn't bring myself to subject him to the ignominy of taking delivery of-, or providing house-room for- five Spice Girl dolls! I did get him to bid successfully on the Star Wars stuff we were selling at the same time!

I daren't check what they go for now, but suffice to say I paid too much for it, I won't be telling you what that was, and you can be assured that everything bar the little figure was dropped into the Blue Cross animal-charity shop last Monday [last, last, last, last, last, last, last Monday now]! Sometimes you have to cut your losses and run, to save face; not with your mates, but with the chap in the mirror!

The little figure, however, is in the collection for keeps, I've been waiting for them to turn-up in mixed lots since I first became aware of them, and that was so long ago I gave up waiting and bought a whole caboodle a fortnight ago, just to get one!

Marked with a number and based to match the later combat infantry and Star Wars Micro Machines, the Galoob DNA is clear and as a standalone figure, just a young civilian woman; suitable for O-gauge railways! I wonder if that's where they all are; waiting for trains!

By now you've worked-out that each of the Spice Girl dolls comes with its own doll, the packing of which mirrors the packing of the larger dolls box, I still have four to locate and that's it . . . a bit horrid, but it had to happen - Toys is toys . . . all of them!