A is for ♪♫♪♪♫ All-in-All, Theyyyyy're All Just Bricks in the Wall ♪♫♪♪♫

Definitely ticking the 'other collectables' Tag, these are a fun novelty which seem to have been with us forever, or at least the mid-1970's, when I got my first, but, being a magpie, I now have four! Fake sponge bricks!

 

The collection,

"More than two of anything . . . "!

 

My original Christmas stocking brick, one of the 'practical' gifts which were always included; novelty soap, toothbrushes, combs, wiggly straws, things which, however-much fun they were, were also meant to be used daily! It's a soft bath-sponge material.

 

This was my second, it's a harsher foamed polyethylene, still a batheable foam, but more like garden-game balls, or pet-toys, and was given away at corporate newspaper events, or even with a daily-paper? I can't remember the promotion now, but I dare say, given it's The Sun, that they were for throwing at 'Lefty' politicians, or foreigners?

 

Once I had two, the track was inevitable, and over a few years I picked up two of these, more modern brick design, and made of recycled foam-rubber granules, much heavier, and not so good for washing!

 

In the US, they remain a strong, current phenomena, with corporate logo's to the fore, I think they are for throwing at referees' in disgust at their decisions, although I've never seen a clowud of them hitting the pitch, so I guess, once you've paid money for one, your desire to retain your investment in bricks & mortar, mean you hang on to it and just shake it threateningly toward the Man In Black?

 

While this is Art! A design by Alexander May, for a concrete-block sponge!

 

There was a trend for mattresses made out of the same heavy, granulated-foam, of my third brick, but often in greys or neutral colours, and they were a favourite of early fly-tipping when they started to break up, and you'd see this stuff in the rubbish pile, odd-shaped lumps, which looked exactly like concrete!

 

A very commercial one here, from Milton Bradley (MB Games - that's almost like LB for Lik Be!), and hitching a ride on the trend . . . nay, 'craze' for all things Karate, back in the 1970's - "Ah, Soh, Grasshopper!".
 

Contemporary one, available, new on the Internet as I write, this is expanded-polystyrene, and looks to be pre-coloured, so a few chips or a knocked corner would only add to its aura of realism!

 

Also current, but a bit naff, and more of a face-cloth? There's a sponge-foam core, but it's covered in a printed-pattern fabric 'pillow', sewn-flush, and over-printed with crude holes, I'd leave this on the self, as the point of the collection is that they look vaguely like bricks, and this doesn't! Although, I guess it does, if you don't display the 'holes'!

A is for Actually, I Quite Liked It!

Another board game and this one's got 54mm'ish figures which will happily go with Star Wars Command figures, and a few of the other metal, PVC or resin figure sets issued over the years in that 54-60mm goldilocks zone, as called for by fans, but never supported well enough to last long in the market-place!

It wasn't a bad fillum, it just wasn't what people wanted, which is not the same as what you might expect, which is a good movie, with a half-decent plot and a big budget, which is what we got! Yeah, some of the acting could have been better, but that's what happens when you mix kids and animals, or Gungans! "Yessur'masser, I be pickin' many cott'n today sah!"

 

The board - as you can see - was a complicated arrangement of slot-together card levels, platforms and other bollocks, and went straight in the recycling bin! I was after the figures! I kept the big ball-firing weapon-thing, but I didn't photograph it, because it's a bit naff, to be honest!

 

Characters, our two Jedi hero's and a princess, classic story, boy meets girl - the first three movies were a 'Western in Space', the second trio were a series of romances and bromances that went bad, Disney before they even owned the franchise!

 

The 'soldiery', two Gungans and two Nabootian Palace Guards, has anyone considered that bloody humans clearly came to, and claimed, someone else's planet? Or the above-water bits, at least!

 

Some of the models are in more than one part to allow for dynamic posing within the twin constraints of production and standard, or pretty standard games-box size. Or games-box shelf-size, this was issued when 50% of production, or thereabouts, in Western territories, would have gone to Toys'R'Us?

 

The bad guys, although we know two of the 'golden boys' above will turn out to be pretty effing awful! A pair of Trade Federation goons, The Emperor, Darth Scrawl'led all over his face and several Battle-droids.

 

A driedecker, no, that's a WWI plane, 'Droidecker'? Wookiepedia says spell it 'Droideka' (also known as destroyer droids ('destroyers' for short))! In Red Barron red, so that's all making far more sense than it should be, really! "You have five seconds to comply!", in my best 'Open Bank Holiday Monday' voice!

 

More parts!

Plotting! They're plotting, the bastards!

There's more in storage, and I didn't bother with the big Disney-Vietnam vinyls, but the recent Clone Wars Wookie is a tad on the big side, with the key-rings and Hologram Series (pink and blue) being a tad on the small side, but painted and based they would all be useful 'army builders'. Also seen is a Star Wars Command kneeling stormtrooper and what I think is a knock-off (from Chris?) keyring.

The late, and much missed Boysey-boy taking an uncharacteristic interest in the subject at hand, I still well-up every time I pass the big pet-shop in town as I have no reason to go in and explore the treats section, we'd just discovered those Bonkers catnip treats which are like cocaine for cats!

P is for Polotoys

Another set of old 28/30mm role-play gaming-figure, or similar knock-off's, you can see how they would have gone well together as a pair mid-posting on the 31st of last month, but, there you go, I totally lost sight of them in the bottom centre of my desktop, where I'd left them to remind me they were there - hey-ho!

Polotoys seem to have been incorporated in 1985, and share the Blue Box building in Hong Kong, so may well be another branding of Tai Sang, but they haven't got enough of a presence online to dig that deep, more of a straight marketing 'brand mark', than one with board-members and press-releases etc., . . . one supposes?

 

Similar to some Games Workshop stuff, and you may recognise the MB Games poses from Heroquest (also GW in a roundabout way, Citadel?) but again I think there will be other names in the frame as the victims of the plagiarism!

As per the Blue Box Japanese yesterday, I seem to have had two photo-shoots! The pink dragon is a bee-eye-tee-cee-haitch to photograph, and I know I have one or two more somewhere, as I shot a different one (unknown at the time) in a comparison shot a few years ago.

 

The horses, possibly based on the old Nottingham Mafia poses, but so simplified as to be new sculpts! And with no rider in the Polotoys set, I tried the Toy Major one, and he does a fine job of filling in, a tad too big for the mount maybe, but . . . it's fantasy, and it's probably a Steppes pony!

While this comparison with some DFC (Dimensions For Children) daemons, gives a good idea of the size which is heading toward 54mm. As always Shaun has all of it here, with packagings, the Schilling set is very interesting as the 'H' branded Deetail clones have been linked to Kwong Wah in the last few weeks (subscribe to Plastic Warrior magazine), which would mean the contents have been bought-in from more than one source.

B is for Brief Board-game Bonanza!

Another box which got shifted from the garage back to storage was this one, but it was jammed at the bottom, and while I like to carry-on like I'm still 25, the simple fact is - I'm not! So I had to break the tape and temporarily empty-out the horizontal games laying on the top, to make it light enough to jiggle about while lifting, 'cos it's a big box; it had a boiler in originally!

A mixed bunch, the Star Trek only has large 54/60mm card flats, and I think I picked-up a lose set a while ago, so this will probably go at some point, but there's a few treasures in here too, we saw the Formula 1 game ages ago, and the Belagerung with Marx figures (I can't remember if it was here or One Inch Warrior magazine though?) and we've seen the 3M Feudal figures, loose.

Tri-Tactics (Gibsons) is also card flats; beautiful old litho'd ones, we've seen the Show Jumping plastic flats once or twice I think and the Keys to the Kingdom figures? While there's so much on Axis and Allies now on-line I may never bother with a full post, but they're there for comparison shots and the A-Z!

I photographed the contents of the other box back in the summer of 2020, and a couple of those posts are still in the queue (although I don't think Shogun has turned up yet?), but I'm going to quickly look at three of these, which have already been sealed back-up again and gone-on to the store.

Waddington's Camelot, we have seen the pieces here already, they have been in one or two mixed lots, but we may return to them here, to compare with some black & white ones I think I have somewhere.

Dean's second - bi-lingual - version of the Peter Rabbit Race Game, original sets had hollow-cast lead figures, fully painted and supplied by Timpo, the tool for which these polyethylene plastic ones were moulded from, a third 'heritage' version was issued a few years ago with 'antiqued' chrome-finished mazak-alloy pieces. I think the lead ones have been seen here? Squirrel Nutkin is the odd one out, with a full/all-over coat of paint, on cream-white plastic.

This came from Matt Thier of White Tower Miniatures, who saw it and saved it for me nearly 20 years ago, and he let me have it at his cost, which was car-booty pennies I seem to recall, so many thanks to Matt, for that!

An Italian-language (Noris toys or games) one or two-player game, you are Ivanhoe (or Roger Moore; even if he looks like Tony Curtis!), fighting the baddies of King Prince John!

Figures are semi-flat, in the European premium style, about 25mm and hard polystyrene. The TV series was actually an early ITV joint UK/US co-production and Roger Moore hated doing it apparently!

MB is for American Heritage!

American Heritage was an umbrella brand-mark for a series of Milton Bradley (MB) products (now MB Games and since 1984 part of Hasbro's portfolio) which seems to have begun with trading cards of 'old timer' cars around 1961 (some of the images of which - I'm pretty sure - ended-up being issued as place-mats here in the UK?), but which through the 1960's and into the 70's gave us three board games with figures, and two others which pique the interest of war gamers, but which (all five) are really family games with family-game mechanics.

We're looking at Hit The Beach, obviously channeling the US WWII pacific campaign, and in particular the island-hopping of the Marine divisions. In addition to the American Heritage moniker, there was also a further universal - to the five games - Command Decision Series sub-brand marking with a circle of stars.

I've  posed the ships and 'planes; when new the four US units are on the runner with the two accessories just laying on the blank area of card, held there by the runner, from which they need to be removed! Normally they hide under the board with the other ten Japanese machine gunners.

The island is a strangely symmetrical archipelago with a central feature and various islets to be 'hopped', while the Japanese figures look a bit like one of the Dunkin (and others) bubblegum premium sculpts, but I'm sure it's more coincidence than any copying, by either side.

The US forces or 'beaches'; blue beach, red beach &etc., consist of two US Infantrymen and two Marines along with one-each of the Naval and Army-Air support, figures are bigger than the commoner Battle Cry 20mm ACW's, at around the 30mm mark and I think it's fair to say the Marine has a more gung-ho attitude!

The vessels look like armoured tugs, but the Liberator bombers are rather nice, red and black are upside down so you can see the crude landing gear, that's it, another box ticked, it's been a while since we had a board game, although there's still about five [shots taken] in the long queue! Actually we had the Tri-Ang checkers, only the other day . . . Doh!

It doesn't seem to have been a particularly big seller (by the time it came out US involvement in the Vietnam War had seriously ramped-up and anti-war feeling was beginning to be heard), and when they were re-issued in 1975 it was dropped/replaced by a fifth game, which was set firmly in the more 'patriotic' era of the 1770's - as the bicentennial approached!

The American Heritage series:

• Battle Cry - ACW (1961 & 1975)
• Broadside - 1812 (1962 & 1975)
• Dogfight - WWI (1963 & 1975)
• Hit the Beach - WWII (1965 only)
• Skirmish - AWI (1975 only)

Y is for Yet 'Ee is or Yet 'Ee isn't . . . a Yeti?

I had this chap marked up as a knock-off Chewie from the War of Stars, but, he doesn't have a cross belt liberally adorned with quick-release para-buckles!

Also, he has 'cartoon' hands with three chubby fingers, so I wonder if he may be from a set of something related to kids-TV like Scoobie-Doo or Tin Tin? Is he a Yeti, a Wookie or Mr. James the school-teacher, hoping not to be unmasked by some pesky kids in a hippyfied camper-van?

Posed with a few other hairy lycan types, namely Tim Mee late production Galaxy Laser Team's oh-no-no-no-absolutely-not-no-never-a-wookie . . . err 'Wookie' and MPC's bat-eared wool-uff-man!

Posed with Applause's Luke (hair's wrong for Luke, is it the other one? Dirk Buzzlight? Dick Lightly?), he is still not tall enough (the furry one) so he remains a mystery, but someone must have him pegged?!

Now known to be from the board game 'Bigfoot' from Waddinton's and Milton Bradley/MB Games, and the later 1980's version, not the 1977 version which also has a Bigfoot model still to be added to the collection! He's had two bars removed which would enable him to slot into the game apparatus and kick rocks at the cartoonish running player-figures which i also have somewhere

B is for Best Non-Boardgames Game . . . With Pigs - Ever!

I can't remember when I first Played Pass the Pigs but it was a long time ago, and while I have the old wood-alike, mahogany-brown, parallel-sided, plastic-case in storage with a full set of all two porkers, I couldn't resist grabbing this for a couple of quid in a charity shop the other day. In fact - I think there is a little bag of them in storage with slightly different colours of plastic, or nose/trotter paint.

If you've never played Pass the Pigs, can I suggest you do. It may not deserve the 'Best Toy Ever?' tag, but I'm giving it anyway - as it's a while since we had one here - but it's definitely the most fun you can have with two pigs in a family setting without getting yourself arrested and carted off! As this weekend is all about visiting families and stuff, now is the time to rush out and find a set.

The case has been given a make-over, using design styling from 1990's remote-controls and the 2000's Nokia mobiles; it now looks like something Captain Kirk might ask 'Bones' for . . .

"Pass me the porker-patcher . . . I've . . . got . . . to . . . to  . . . learn . . . to . . . communicate . . . with them"

"Jim; you're not well, you need to rest now"

^^ Captain; your insistent belief that these small, naked, pink creatures hold the secret to life, the universe and everything is illogical, besides; I happen to know it's 42 ^^

Basically it's a dice game with pigs! Two of them, cleverly designed to fall several ways, some more commonly than others, leading to variable point scoring, with a race to 100 for as many people as you happen to have in the room and at a loose-end.

Pigs landing on either side are a 'Pig Out' and you lose all your points that move. All other likely landing positions are scored as follows, with single scores applied as part of a 'Mixed Combo', or some harder to attain poses earning quadruple points for doubles.

Moves are as long as you want them to be, you can score once and Pass the Pigs, or be a 'Pig-head' and throw again, you can keep doing so until you get a 'Pig Out' or something worse!

Pigs leaning the same side (either a marked or un-marked side-pair) is the commonest result and earns you a measly 1-point, it's called a 'Sider' and there's no 2-for-a-double!

The 'Double-Razorback' gets you 20 points, or 5 as part of a 'Mixed Combo', the similar but not-illustrated standing 'Trotter' is also 5-or-20.

A 'Leaning Jowler' (on the left in both shots, the pig is arse-up and resting on its nose and an ear) brings in a right royal 15-points, with the extremely unlikely double scoring a 60. On the right is a plain 'Snouter' with the pig resting on its nose only, for a 10-shot, the double; 40 points.

If the dice pigs end-up touching (and remember they don't roll straight, they're pigs!), that is the ultimate crime, known as 'Makin' Bacon' (the "...something worse." and you lose all the points you've accrued in the game so far - boo-hoo, it's like the Snakes and Ladders serpent at 98 which takes you back to 4!

Recognised as a theoretical result, but considered impossible, this is the 'Piggy Back' and would A) require some fancy dice pig-flicking, B) be a pointless thing to practice throwing, as it gets you a swift exit from the game for failing to wrangle you pigs in an appropriate fashion.

A throw resulting in a combination of two different point-scoring landing positions is called a 'Mixed Combo' and scores at the lower (non-double) scoring of the poses.

A quick shot scale-sizing them with various farm figures from Britain, France and Hong Kong, with a larger Chinese figure in the centre, these two little chaps often turn-up loose in mixed lots or 'bundles' of farm or farm & zoo animals on feebleBay having escaped Pass the Pigs.

The point counter (and umpire) is known as the swineherd and there is a gambling variation. This (illustrated) version is issued by Winning Moves, although  others have carried it in the past; originally David Moffat, commonly; MB Games (my storage edition).

Boardgamegeek Passing the Pigs

One of the pigs is called Hugh . . . Hugh Pigfellow . . . Soooowwweeeee!

F is for Football - 3 - O is for Other!

So starting to wind-up the mini-season of footballers with the odds and sods who have come-in over the last seven-or-so years, it's not a priority of mine (sports or football) so it's a mixed bag which only gives a flavour of what's out there, although three theme's are obvious - premiums, cake decorations and board-game playing pieces!

And these probably fall into the former category, semi-flats, seeming a set of three-a-side plus a referee, but that might just be a coincidental happenstance from the make-up of the sample, which I can't remember the origin of but it could have been that Swagman's Daughter feeBay seller with the website, I got lots of interesting stuff from her?

60-mil-ish, I've managed to break the ankles of the white one trying to straighten it! Without a ball they look like they're busy inventing extreme tai-chi!

Now, if you are a completist, or an eclectic collector, or a 'small-scale everything' type (that's "Plastic smalls" to the PSTSM!), or if you spend a lot of time on fleaBay you will have encountered these, in ones & twos probably! They go way back to the 1950's and have been issued under various names and artworks, and are part of a magnetic board-game, interactive 'plaything'.

Originally called Super Soccer 'The Magnetic Football Game' by Balyna, an imprint of Toogood & Jones of Whitstable, Kent; the figures are manipulated by magnetic rods . . . actually - if you want to know more - just Google it, or keep an eye on evilBay as it comes-up quite often, and there's no point my explaining - at length - something I'm not showing you!

The important things to know are that there are slight variations over time in colour of plastic or shirt-paint AND sculpt quality, and the rare ones to find are the goalies, one in white strip with a white base, the other green/green, at only one each per set, they have survived in smaller numbers, although the whole game is only five-a-side.

I know I have a larger sample in storage, but can't remember what colours I have, I think I've got white goalies, but I'm not sure about the green, and I don't have a board/set as it's not my 'thing' at all!

Incidentally; the same Toogood & Jones/Balyna are behind the odd small scale cricketer I showed as unknown once, with the 'ball-receiving' base, he's one of nine fromthe non-magnetic Discbat Cricket Game. While another title for the game was Soccerette.

The larger 'also-rans'! With both an Airfix (far left) and a Wilton (far right) for sizing, these are; from the left - three poorly painted 'old school' Hong Kong cake-decorations, in the style of the larger Wilton/Anniversary House set, but smaller at 50-to-55mm. A pair of gold Total Oil premiums (recentlycovered by in full John Begg in Plastic Warrior magazine - Issue 168); Terry Cooper on the left and Allan Ball.

To the right we see a pair of soft ethylene cake-decorations from the 1970/80's, each of which has a ball. There are other poses and the moulds seem to have gone through several hands over their history, I've quite a lot in storage, so hopefully we'll return to them soonish for a better look at pose, paint, plastic and base variations.

In the centre is a Corinthian 'big head' and to miss-quote a famous footballer and manager; "Do I not like them!", they tend to often come in with large mixed figure lots, I really dislike them and they normally go straight to charity, but this one happened to be around for the photo-shoot. Actually there's another one somewhere (only came-in the other day), green-strip with a dark green base, but someone's chewed his arms off!

Ahh . . . more 'plastic smalls', the small-scale 'also-rans' with an airfix figure on the far left and one of the Balyna (I have no idea if it's supposed to be pronounced Bal-nee-yah, Ball-near, Bally-na or Bally-ner?) second-in from the right as sizers.

The others are - from the left again; Waddington's 30mm Table Soccer player, rather piller-like, they are among the earliest here and conform more to counters than figures, although they have a printed-pitch playing system. Then we have four Italian sourced figures, probably from a board game and donated to the Blog by Dario.

Next are two British board game pieces (MB's 'Pro Soccer'?)**, one of which winged its way here via MoonbaseCentral (thanks guys!) and another pair from Italy (also thanks to Dario) which may be from a board game, or something more akin to the Spanish 'sobre' concept?

The last one has a locating stud, so has been posed on a borrowed Balyna base, he may be from a pierced-board travel-game, or something more like the Balyna (a clone of . . . perhaps?). There are loads of these smallies in storage, so we will look at them again one day!

**I have images of an Australian version with heavier figures (other team in white), it seems to be the common one (there are two on EvilBay today), and both the fact that it's called soccer not football, and Milton Bradley are a US-based parent, means the ID's not 100% fact, as they seem to have left production to local offices; but they are certainly similar.