C is for Contributions to Charity Coffers!

I've not been 'doing' the Charity Shops in the last few years with the same diligence I used to, not enough time/inclination, and a different life-routine means I just don't pass them like I did, but there have been a few small purchases in recent weeks/last couple of months, and this is a quick view of the resultant plunder!

 

A few bags in the Blue Cross, which I always check as that's where I got those Britains Herald ECW when I first started checking Charity Shops again after a hiatus of a few years, and the other week they had a bunch of nice bagged animals, from which I selected three (the lady in front of me in the queue had a nice bag of Dinosaurs!), to which I added a resin Hippo from the 'White Elephant' (ox-blood hippo!), or knick-knack shelves.
 

Clockwise from the top left; A bag of Britains in various states from very play-worn (tiger) to quite mint (baby hippo), then that lump of resin mud-lover, a nice group of Chinasaurs, including two gape-mouths, and a new version of my favourite childhood rubber Dimetrodon, but in a more ridged PVC-alike, than the usual silicon-rubber of the originals, but nice to know the tool is still out there and in use!

 

The last bag had a mixed lot of smaller animals, and while I'm not sure about the orange pig, the other three in that corner (green and blue) probably do go together and look like they might be modern lesser-brand or generic chocolate egg prizes. The startled lion-cub is probably Kinder?

While the larger bag was a whole bunch of MEG Kitty in my Pocket toys, which gave a whole shot each of gingers, black & white and/or or floofy types, smudgers and a more oriental looking group of greys! I have a few in with the cats, but always knew they'd turn up cheap eventually, so nice sample for pennies!

 

I was actually passing the next day and popped-in to see if there were any left, I don't like to be greedy and had only grabbed the more interesting looking bags, the day before, and found two more bags, while a couple of larger animals were procured next door!

The biggies from DEBRA UK; I can't remember now which was which, but there were a Papo, Schleiech and Triple-A among these, and I think this is a Schleich rhino and generic elephant? It'll all come out in the wash, when we look at them again in more thematic posts, another day!

 

Again I can't remember which brand the tiger was, or the elephant, but the moose is interesting, as it's Kinder, but far too big for the normal eggs, so it must be a Maxi-Egg toy? I've noticed they are gaining popularity, especially at Christmas/Easter.

The other bag was a right-old mix, with farm and zoo, branded and unbranded, for some reason the pig-shot snuck into the collage twice, so you can see what they look like, before I sort the contrast! Doh!

These - found in Phyllis Tuckwell  a few weeks ago - weren't really Charity-shop priced, but lacking only the backing card, were a clean sample and I've since seen what people want for them on evilBay, and decided they were a bargain! And the rest of the packaging went to recycling weeks ago, so the missing card - was not missed!

 

Being Disney Stores, they are more tourist oriented, lacking firm set/line lists, coming and going, not necessarily found in all territories and unbranded beyond the carrying store, who isn't a toy manufacturer. one of the other sets online - for instance - is much bigger, while some small die-cast vehicles (Luke's 'landspeeder') are in the rather bitty range!

 

They look very similar to the Applause set, so maybe there's a connection there, but they are - at least - solids, so 'toy soldiers' rather than action figures, although action figure size at about 100mm!

Finally, this pair came in a week or so ago, £1.10p for the lot, and it's for charity!

The sea-life are all equipped with pencil-topping holes, the dragon is another capsule/Christmas cracker looking type and the two Fairies are, I think, from the Flower Fairies (Interplay - IP) which we looked at in a London Toy Fair revue a few years ago, and which, again, I suspected would, if successful, end up in mixed/charity lots, so more samples procured against future thematic posts!

F is for Fairy Flowerpot

We've had a few of these Interplay - IP's shelfied since we first saw them at Toy Fair 2018, always in TKMaxx so a continuous relationship there, and - as with some of the Christmas stuff - not necessarily clearance or end-of-line, but more likely just loss-leaders to keep the toy section ticking over and looking well-stocked - I think I first saw them there weeks after the Toy Fair?

Anyway, some might be interested in these near 54mm fairies, I've yet to find any in second-hand sources so for bow we rely on shelfies and these are a week old and TKMaxx as stated.

"Includes easy-grow seeds" and "Grow a plant in the flowerpot house" suggests you plant above a false floor in the dolls- fairy-house flower-pot?

As I say the fairies are about 54mm (I haven't actually measured them, I don't tend to wander about in department stores whipping out my tape-measure . . . Ooh Missus!) so are useful only in fantasy settings as they are hardly dressed as saloon 'galls' or combat refugees, the other two reasons 54mm women might be of interest to figure collectors of our ilk.

And you get a rabbit, but a bit too cartoony for animal collectors who lean toward species-typical purism.

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Interplay

As we were looking at pinky-purple stuff earlier, we might as well get these out of the way; although there was a bunch more of the same gear on Schleich's stand which is still to come!

Called My fairy Garden and coming from an outfit called Interplay (IP; which is lucky 'cos that's the title of the post!), you get real grass seed, compost and a flower pot or tray, along with fairy stuff for scenic diorama modelling. Sets are in different size-price brackets.

They're useful - for 54mm fantasy; if nothing else, and well modelled, with lots of little itty-bitty things of the sort you'd find in a Playmobile or Lego house set, but slightly more realistic and scaled smaller.

I didn't get to handle them, but I would imagine a PVC or PVC-like polymer for the horses unicorns (everything's unicorns at the moment!), larger mouldings and fairies, polypropylene for the buildings and smaller accessories.

There's a website and the pictures will further speak for themselves . . .