P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Sci-Fi and TV

We find ourselves looking at another favourite subsection of mine, the Sci-Fi/ & Fantasy stuff, although there's some media-related in here, there's also some in the final 'mixed' post.

 

Both seen before, I suspect, a Poundland Pterodactyl and an old novelty skeleton.

 

Ger'Nomes! A probably Euro-premium or Wundertüte, with a thick layer of paint to be removed and what I think might be the Tobar John Major jobbie in the middle, but either side is some even-more interesting fellows, if more pixy'ish! A multipart PVC one to the left which I suspect is another Xandria piece from the Netherlands, and, on the right, an ex-keyring chappie, who may have been a Leprechaun, but he's not really green enough?

 

Among the small-scale stuff were two totally new to me/Blog/Hobby astro-alien types (red and green on the left) which are probably small 1 or 2 ¢/p type gum-ball machine's capsule prizes? The 12-wheeled micro-rover is in the style of Micromachines, but from somewhere else I think (anyone know?), and the blue chap is another premium/gumball prize type, being a reduced-scale version of the old Manurba sculpts,

 

A handful of post-Giant stuff includes a red alien from the big bags issued by Novelty Headquarters Inc., and is a useful find! While we have one of the blow-moulded derivatives of them behind, the eyes are everything with these, and he has both! Strangely, despite being on the blog lots of times now, some people were struggling to ID them the other day despite being followers of-, and [occasional] commenters on- the Blog, almost . . . deliberate amnesia!

 

When they are that desperate to post the same thing days later, they are feeling threatened by you, plagiarism, even of ideas, themes or subjects is the sincerest form of flattery!

 

I know, but this was a half-full folder! Two modern takes on cavemen, and another of the small ones in polystyrene which turn up from time to time, I now believe they came as scenic accessories, with an Aurora type range of model-kits from Life-Like, which were actually inherited from Pyro, so could be either?

 

The mini blue 'superhero' came as companion pieces to larger ones on Pound Shop cards a few years ago (probably still a few out there somewhere), a Cylon Warrior from Mattel's 1978 Battlestar Galactica line, I have the Earth pilot somewhere I think, a lovely Terminator, sans arm, but possibly an unlicensed rip-off piece, and an MB Games piece courtesy of the Nottingham Mafia!

 

The Superman keyring was a very generous inclusion in the package from Chris, as I think I know guys on Podstalions who would swap an arm for something both vintage and DC! In the middle is . . . a dough/cookie cutter? Something like that, infant crafts of some kind, but figural, and apparently glowing with radiation! The Orange guy may be a racing driver, and I vaguely remember doing a show-repot on a company at Kensington Olympia who had a bunch of similar figures?

 

As well as the Giant knock-offs, there was a smattering of the Lik Be (still LB, for obvious reasons) robot/alien types, always useful, and in this early, clean/sharp state, possibly HG Buck Rogers fayre? Many thanks again, to Chris Smith, for sending these, for me to share with the rest of you.
 

S is for Shelfies - Morrison's

Morrison's supermarkets have taken a leaf out of the 'George at Asda' type business model, and invented the in-house Nutmeg branding for what is collectively, or sometimes rather euphemistically called 'homewares', and among them are the inevitable Poundland-type tat, of which a few are always figural, and I shot these back in April;

The world is groaning under the weight of this stuff, but, if it's figural, I have a sense of duty to annotate it when I encounter it! And, let's be honest, the picture has been the same in toys since the first Tramp Steamer arrived from Hong Kong filled with cheap polymer knock-offs, 70-odd years ago!

It's pored resin, which is pretty stable, so on one level will last forever, whether at the bottom of the ocean or in land-fill, without doing much obvious harm (except possibly confusing future alien archaeologists), but the trouble is, it chips easily, and those chips end-up being ground under-foot into micro polymers which will end up in the environment and/or the food chain.

It's no longer a question of if or when you get micro-polymers in your body, but how much is there already, and the family cats, dogs, local squirrels etc . . . Butterflies were down so much this year an emergency has been declared.

Mini pot-Gnomes, about 90/100mm maybe, they have those weird rods in them which I haven't managed to identify the material of, they may be a coated steel or something more exciting/exotic like a reinforced carbon-fibre?

 

I rather liked this, the mouse is a bit big for role-play, but if you fantasy wargame in 54mm (and some do), this could have a use somewhere in the background! That's it, a few bits I saw out and about, a while ago now!

G is for Gnomeville!

I was lucky enough to shoot the gnome Village at Chez Evans a few years ago, but following some natural event, they have moved to a new town, South-West of the old metropolis, and I got to shoot it the other day, so, a bit of fun . . . 

 

Overview

Lesbian gnomes, off the Pride!

Newer houses have eco-roofs!

Top right is the same house Peter sent me, to start my own Gnome house 

once I've settled somewhere!

Maybe the streets of London are paved with gold

or have they found a Roman horde?

I think this might be the posh-end of town?

Village centre!

Guardian Fairy!

 

Many thanks to Peter for letting me shoot the inner sanctum!

C is for Christmas - At Poundland

From Hobbycraft (see previous/'older' post), I moseyed-on over to that there Poundland to see what their festive offerings looked like, and was pleased to find A) a few bits worth Shelfie'ing for you, loyal readers, to look at and B) a couple of bits worth purchasing for the stash.

I wasn't ever going to buy these, they are shite, they have been covered in more shite, they are priced as if they are far better quality shite than the shite they actually are! But . . . and it's a valid 'but', they will appear in those 20/40/50p baskets in charity shops in a few years time, either in this condition, or so tatty they can be stripped back to the (probable) neutral granule (think - greyish-white) plastic and re-painted or left plain; a generic cake-decoration style pumpkin coach!

The wheels are actually a leftover of European margarine premium/US Wilton cake decoration coaches of the 1950's, but in those cases they worked, indeed the European one came both assembled in a mail-away box and loose as a clip-together 'kit of parts'.

A pair of small 'nutcracker' tree-decorations, very tempted and I might go back for them, but two of each is more than I would want, so needs some thought, but as I haven't seen many worth shooting, and because we did a lot of them a while back, here they are!

I did grab these for a pound of your Earth money, knowing I had the other five in the bag and having surrendered my opposition to resin years ago! An eclectic mix, but I think they are meant to be put in hollow-plastic 'capsule' baubles which seem to be making a come-back, having last been seen in numbers - in the nineteen-seventies!

Reasonable sculpts for what they are and what they are charging, and three Christmas tropes ticked-off, birds, deer and bears - polar! they would all benefit from a bit of home-paint though?

These are also resin, and a quid-a-go, with a gingerbread man (who looks more like a teddy bear), a very happy snowman, similarly jocular Santa Claus and two ger'nomes; one tobogganing and the other opening (or wrapping?) presents. There is one other - sixth - sculpt . . .

. . . a grizzly bear, carrying a Christmas tree with two birds - probably complaining about the loss of their nest! It came home with me, it's fun! Again a resin casting, base apparently sanded after painting!

All the above in Poundland right now. I would add that there was nothing in Wilkinson's I would give house-room to, and apart from the astronaut we looked at a week or so ago, nothing in ASDA or B&M; they have plenty, but it's a matter of taste/preference with these, isn't it?

I haven't been to look in Tesco, and our Sainsbury's isn't big enough, neither apparently are our local Flying Tiger's both of which aren't getting the bauble issue this year, bigger stores are and I may try to get over to Guildford who I'm assured - by the Basingrad staff - do have some.

F is for Follow-up - Bits & Bobs . . .

. . . or a bloody eclectic trio right now! A few things which pertain to or reference previous posts here at Small Scale world and we have figures, animals and scenics!

I took a family 'group-shot' with the two Peter Evans sent me, before I sent him the other one which Chris Smith had sent me! I think they are more Leprechaun than 'true' gnome (or dwarf!) and while they are Hong Kong, seem to be 'after' the output of Fontanini, although whether it's homage or like-for-like pricey I'm not sure?

Both sides and different view-points.

So; we're up to four of six, which means we're up to eight of twelve! I picked up another of the Poundland PVC animal sets the other day, sadly I'm hardly going to Poundland now (over a month since the last visit) as they've stopped doing my vape juice, but I discovered it in ASDA, so I go there instead, the [Covidiot] risk is the same, so one venue is enough! But it means the last two may remain elusive?

Chris Smith sent these in as a follow-up to the sentry-box posts, and they are fascinating, marked as you see, I suspect they are from a wooden or tin-plate fort or box-accessories from a die-cast vehicle set rather than 'toy soldiers' per se, and give us another tag! See below!

I recognised them when I saw them, but had no notes on them, I suspect I saw them in JB's collection years ago, I'm pretty sure they were the same green (with a red painted roof, not clear in the above shots), and they were definitely in the same warped or twisted condition, which will be due to instability in what appears to be an early polystyrene, but could be thick celluloid?

Also - having suggested a lack of connection to Lone Star's later plastic toy soldiers, I have a half a thought Slikka may have been mentioned in Plastic Warrior magazine (years ago), but that might be a false memory conflating with the die-cast Togga novelties?

Added later after checking, but before publishing - pp.121 of Norman Joplin's 'Big Book of British Hollow Cast' shows a DCMT set with two lead/hollow-cast guards in these sentry boxes (not, or barely distorted) along with a mounted horse-life-guard hybrid! Presumably all from Harvey, so these were probably DCMT's first foray into plastics as they had previously carried a metal box in the style of Crescent's tin one but in lead.

Makes you wonder if Togga's Woggles weren’t also DCMT?

H is for How They Come In - The Small Envelope!

Wung its way to me it did, no warning had I got . . . Chris Smith kindley thought I hadn't had enough plunder during lockdown, and he was sort of correct, but I spent on FeeBay for a few bits, but he sent a top-up parcel the other day . . .

. . . with some items for other things and some because they've been seen or mentioned, it is that later lot I've shot outside the bag! The rest will appear here in the near future, but you may spot some clues in the above!

Robots; Chris and I managed to ID the Hong Kong red & blue robots he sent just before Covid struck, and by way of continuing the conversation (they will get their own post when I find something in the collection that goes with them and which I thought I'd found but now can't find! Doh!) sent these individuals.

From the left, I thought this was from Robots, but it's from the earlier Iron Giant, the head being worthy of a law-suit over the later film's main characters' I think! Then two PVC Japanese Manga/Anime 'bots, I have little idea over either, but suspect the red one os a Transformer, the white one (a pencil top) possibly from an older franchise like Atomic Boy or Atom man or whatever it was! The final figure is a Kinder astronaut, but he looks robotic with all that silver.

I also received two gnomes needing re-gnhoming! (hey - it's Chris's joke not mine!), a small one which may also be a Kinder, and a larger one, which I told Chris I might offer to Mr Evans of Plastic Warrior magazine, before realising he sent me two others (in my Gnome Village 'starter kit'; see Blog passim) from the same set, so may already have it in his community?

I think the larger one is a Hong Kong copy of an old Fontanini sculpt, but I'm not sure, so don't quote me on that one, just musing out loud, on the posing!

Cheers Chris - keeps me going!

H is for How They Come In - Week 17

I had another parcel of lovely things for the Blog arrive just after lockdown, from Peter Evans which included a gnome-village starter kit! Sadly I haven't the necessary planning-permission paperwork to begin development here, but they will be a future project!

Normally coming at the end of these posts, she was in there so quickly I'd only got the outer tape cut, so she helped herself to the packaging!

The only way to alleviate the situation was to send her on an early tea-break and surrender possession of the bag Peter had used as packing in the end of the box, which she 'trophied' in her 'nest'

Leaving me free (without assistance!) to sort the plunder parcel into photogenic piles of plastic peeps!

We're looking at most of it below, the two animals 'on card' are from Poundland, and I had purchased a sample myself (luckily a different pair), so they'll be a separate post in the next week or so (I'm busy in the garden!). There were some more of the Kinder superheros as well, and a HK Teepee, along with the Gnome House which will be backdrop to a Gnome 'round-up' - maybe in the winter.

Three from the Gnome starter kit and - would you believe it; so soon after the last 'round-up' - but another Spanish terracotta figurine, this one a traffic-cop to add to the officer and gendarmerie we've seen recently. While the guardsman is unusual; I'm assuming he's a garden ornament . . .

. . . due to the long stick or spike? It's made from some weird pressure-rolled fibreglass/resin compound, which is literally harder than steel, if it was a steel bar I would be able to bend it further than I can in the material it is made of! I can see a couple of hack-saw blades going to recycling in the eventual removal?

Alongside a close-up of Mr Motorcycle Policeman! One day I'll have to do a comparison with the diminutive EKO riders!

These are lovely! They come to enhance landscaping/scenery kits as part of the educational range from Scene-A-Rama. When Peter said they were in the Toyway catalogue I though "Where, I didn't see them?", but that's because they weren't illustrated, so anyone who fancies a set needs to be finding WSP4445 American Civil War Soldiers from the Scene Setters line. Currently $10.99 plus shipping from Woodland Scenics and Amazon (US).

They are 28/30mm compatible, which blew my idea of comparing them with the Merten and Elastolin ACW's, but a comparison with Spencer Smith would be so one-sided as to be not worth the digging in the attic!

A nice selection of clones, I'd spent 30-odd years collecting the small-scale clones but it's taking a while to get on top of the larger ones as there are so many, but lots like this (Chris Smith has sent a bunch recently too - post coming) are building a bigger picture and/or filling the gaps which can be matched-up to other imagery from shelfies, the old trade catalogues or web-pages.

The seated guy is an Italeri kit-figure I think, while the intermediate scale Matchbox 8th Army is new, and possibly a sub-copy of Wing Lung's similar figure

Modern vinyl; with a nice police-dog and handler from Dacron/Wings et al! The astronaut is from a RedBox space-set I shelfied a while back (No I didn't, it's still to come I think, we looked at a Johntoy one with very similar figures, so similar they may be RedBox too!), the Galoob will join his mates and the pink one will be in a big post one day.

I think they're Carama (I have the notes somewhere) but they were contract manufactured back in the 1990's for both Tesco and Sainsbury's supermarkets, Woolworths and then their late branding as Chad Valley (just before the collapse back in 2009), all here in the UK, along with other brands in Europe, each lot having different base-markings (to reflect contracts or batches?) and coming in three or four sizes, some commoner that others (the 'German' firefighter standing being the most common; in all sizes and several paint treatments), so there's still much work to be done before they get a proper Blogging.

Two 'Disney' princesses pose before the walls of Archie McFee! One or both may or may not be Phidal, generic, or capsule toys, time WILL tell!

I think these are from one of the bulk assortments from Preiser, but the qulity isn't there in the sculpting/finish, and I thought - so soon after Blogging the Pyro's - that they make a good, generic, ship's crew! Which they may turn-out to be?

In the shenanigans with Girly-girl, I looked over my shoulder and took a quick snap of the ongoing pile! The remains of the Wild West sorting, the ongoing parachute page stuff, a large bag of lions, a Pyro/Kleewar/Lido sort-out, Chris's parcel and some other stuff!

Many thanks as always to Peter, who has already sent another lot, mostly for Rack Toy Month! I also have to get on with a PW178 review as 179 has already dropped heavily onto the door-mat . . . and it's a cracker!

G is for Gnomes G'down-under!

Also from Mr B, and also hanging around in Picasa, these were shot at a garden-center or tourist-trap gift shop, I can't remember which, in New Zealand while he was there a year or so ago.

Gnome-Gnapping! Who'd of though it? Two mechanical, near-nano robot alien froglingtons with their egg-shells still attached have grabbed an unsuspecting Gnome, in the middle of his break-fast and pushed-off with him over their wiry, metal-robot shoulders, and I used to want to move to New Zealand - it's clearly a madhouse of unrestrained crime and debauchery!

Meanwhile, and unbeknownst of their possible fate; a family of Gnomes wait for the staff to mow their grassy-clothes, gently growing in the warmth of the sun!

It's funny but you can see that passing potential customers pick the Gnomes up by their hats/heads as their flocking hasn't worn off, but the more people who pick-up the snail or hedge-pig the less likely they are to sell, as the tattier they get!

Do they have them (hedgehogs) in NZ - probably a pest of ground-nesters aren't they? They should collect them all up, and send them back here, ours are endangered! Also - that's one snail the Hedgehog isn't going to eat, it could smother him!

All larger items, included here to 'make' Ger'nome-day! Cheers Brian!

W is for ♪♫♪ . . . We're the Gnomes From America, Woo'ooo-hoo!

. . . We're the Gnomes from America woo'ooo-hoo, we're the Gnomes that any'body can buy . . . dah, dah, dah da'da-darh . . . dah, dah, dah da'da-darh - whoo-hoo! ♫♫♪

As you may have guessed, these were also in Picasa, courtesy of Brian Berke and waiting for 'Ger'nome' day; no, it won't become a 'thing' here . . . merely occasional! In-stores now, that side of the pond; I'll be looking out for them in Poundland, it's the most likely destination here . . . and I don't doubt Peter E will be on the look-out too!

I think that Fairy Garden is the brand-mark, Forest Figurine the over-brand, but with the Greenbriar/DTSC partnership of respectively; US/Canadian importers, claiming for them, they are both probably phantom-brands?

And, throwing back to my point about the naming of the gnomes in the first post; these are being called 'Fairy' even though Disney's Snow White would recognise them as Dwarves, and I think they are classic Gnomes.

Also there are marked differences in size and painting between the see-saw pair and the three stepping-stone menders (I assume that's their occupation from the Fairy Crossing title), but they look like gardeners! So they seem to have been sourced by the two importers from more than one maker (or - at the very least -  two catalogue lines?).

Many thanks to Brian.