T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - HGL - Rack Toys and Counter Displays

As I'm well behind with the Toy Fair '19 stuff, and as it's Rack Toy Month, it seems to make sense to combine the one with the other by clearing one of the UK's bigger Rack Toy, novelty and pocket-money plaything importers from the 'Toy Fair '19' sub-queue!

POS (point of sale) novelties included wind-up robots (becoming another perennial favourite here at Small Scale World) in red and black (left hand bin) although there were several color-way/design combinations on the two base-plastic colours, for a four or six 'set-count'; two or three black and the same - red?

The right hand bin is larger scale - several times life-size - insects, which may be of interest to insect collectors, but they may already have found them, January was a while ago now!

Smaller blister sets and larger, bagged sets with header-cards containing all the common tropes; insects, reptiles, farm & zoo animals and dinosaurs, there's also a single - Halloween-ready - bat (sans blister), and a slight departure on the normal fare; a set of flying birds, or birds in flight!

Some close-ups; I didn't think to get the birds properly and the bat was a balancing afterthought crop! The birrds are a departure and you can see the mallard clearly, I think/suspect the others may include an eagle, vulture and owl? But the orange one may be another duck-like bird and you'd half-expect a sea-gull?

I think a few of the dinosaurs have come-in over time, in mixed lots, and while these are technically generics, with the animal collectors often having the China-maker's name, it's nice to be able to round a few up next time I sort the 'unsorted' and scribble an HGL moniker on their bag!

Larger scale farm and zoo sets include counter dispensers for the biggest and tubs for medium-sized animals (54/60mm compatible stuff in the main), while the little zipper-satchels with their animal-pining, vac-formed trays bear a striking resemblance to the small-scale horse sets from Brayer!

When the biggest animals come-in they tend to go back to charity, but I always photograph them for the archive, and shots like this might help ascribe them all one day. The bigger insects we saw at the top also have a counter-top dispenser, huge snakes were a regular in the toy-box when we were kids, often an 'attendance prize' when leaving someone else's birthday party - and a pack of cetaceans, which brings us to . . .

. . . the oceans! Sharks! It's all sharks for 2019 . . . I think there's a dolphin in there somewhere, but basically sharks are it! They all seem to be the same line but in a variety of packaging options. Then there's the cartoon one with a pink-monkeys foot in its mouth!

Pan-out and it's still 'all sharks' on the left, while on the right we get down to the serious animal for the serious young animal collector to seriously collect - My mother volunteered for many years at the Bernardo's charity shop in town and reports that there were several small boys who would come round buying the dinosaurs and nothing but. And they knew all their proper names, no "kerthunkersaurus" from them!

I think we've seen most of them before, but to note are the larger squidgy ones and the small rack-toy bag of older 1970/80's sculpts still going strong.

Again, these were all in last year's shots I think and I know I highlighted the Magasaurs branding across the lines/range then.

The smaller bag and the tubs have the older sculpting while the larer bag looks to have all new sculpts with the more on-trend decoration taken from the more colourful lizards and birds alive today, rather than the dowdy twin-tone or monochrome, often muddy decoration of the past.

Note: HGL has totally replaced H. Grossman formally (corporate usage), but Megasaurs.com has not replaced Ozbozz, just sits alongside it!

HGL is for H Grossman Limited, Ozbozz and Megasaurs!

A while before I attended the Toy fair, I had spend a whole pound on one of the carnivores with a 'tick' on it which had come into one of the Charity Shops after Christmas and which I had already shot ain TKMaxx, and we'll have a quick shufftie at it and another HGL-branded dino, to close the day of dinosaurs on Small Scale World.

I don't know if it's actually supposed to be a T-Rex, Giganotosaurus, Megalosaurus or an Alaosaurus or whatever (most of which are bigger than a Tyrannosaur I believe?), I just assume it's Tyrannosaurus, here being brought low by the biting, snapping of a little lizard-leech-raptor'saur of some kind! {Quickly checks the model - it's got T-Rex 2 stamped on one foot!}

The little leech-like lizard thing, on some models there's quite a bit of blood, mine's got quite a clean wound, but 'Rex looks pretty peeved, with or without his mouth open!

This is not one of the jaw-movement activated voice models, more of a Britains crocodile mechanism, albeit without the bloody-great handle that the vintage animal had under its muzzle!

I also picked-up this HGL-branded whatever-'tops (Septaseratops?), which I think is from an older line, as I can't find it in any of the show-shots, it's sub-branded to Ozbozz but over-branded to H Grossman, not HGL. The 'Dinosaurs' logo on the tag is very like the font on the box for the squeeky-toy's in the previous post, but with an additional 's'.

Also it's quite like the otherwise-unknown Dimetrodon from this morning's second post; both in the treatment of the eyes and the overall colour-scheme?

T is for Toy Fair 2018 Reports - HGL - Dinosaurs

Continuing with the Toy Fair reports and we're looking specifically at HGL's Dino-stuff, which is all (or mostly) being re-branded to 'Megasaurs' with their own website.

Here we see large stand-alone models and counter-display cartons with various toys at different pricings, some with moving parts, others with electronic actions, there are wind-up walkers and hand/glove puppets as well. To the far right, there appear to be dinosaur pencil-tops.

Already seen on the Blog, these sets (along with larger assortments) have been in both The Works and TKMaxx for several years now, on-and-off. Note in the foreground both 9 and 12-figure assortments of more dragon-like creatures. The unit-price to trade is also interesting compared to the retail prices!

The larger 7-piece sets, we did see a huge set before Christmas (2016?) with a volcano tub of mini-saurs a bit like the Geoworld iceberg in the previous post.

I took a close-up of the squatter, not even the legendary 'Tyrant King's' are safe from revolting proles! We'll be seeing more of it before the day's out.

Dino Backpacks with a tree, rocks, different animal assortments and the odd egg! To either side you can see those fluid-filled continuous worms themed to dinosaurs, dinosaur skeletons and both dinosaur Grow Eggs and plaster/gypsum eggs with embedded models.

Dinosaur slime (with dinosaur), slide-projector and tubs, along with header-carded bags of dinosaurs in two sizes - I think Brian Berke sent us shelfies from the coast of similar (non-HGL branded?) bags back in the summer?

I rather like the giraffe-like colouring of the stegosaurus in the larger bags, and the tiger-striped T-Rex for that matter! Light-up, glitter-putty, Goo Egg anyone? I think I'll pass; thanks!

Finally we have roaring models, more moving heads, friendly/cuddly dinosaurs and a larger version of the tubs. The box to the far left seems to have squeezy dinosaurs of the same type as dog-toys!

R is for Return...to H. Grossman's 'Deadstone Valley'

You know that shite I said I wouldn't be buying more of, only to buy more when it got reduced to silly money? Well, they (The Works again!) got another set in and reduced it to two quid! That's JUST two 'squids people!

A pirate and a colonial explorer type...Hrrummmphh! How could you say no, and I had to buy a set for someone else, so buying two was easy, same queue, same till, same card, same bag, same journey home!

These had a different grave, which although less durable that the vac-forms we looked at last time, are nevertheless a more successful attempt, being a printed, pre-formed card box with a press-out panel for the sarcophagus and memorial stone to sit in.

There were a bunch of flyers in the containing carton.

The display carton and a look at the various ways these figures are attached to the end wall. Some have a stud-and-hole system, others have a dove-tailed, double groove while the explorer has a tip-and-slide (into a rectangular space with a chamfered undercut) base, although he has the holes for non-existent studs, so there must have been a change of plan with him!

On one level they really are rubbish, but as I keep finding them they are growing on me - as a side collection!

D is for Doh!

No, not Simpson's toys, although there are plenty...back on the 12th of this month I stated "...not something I'll be in a hurry to track-down the rest of..."

Well, inside a fortnight, they went from ten, to five, to three pounds, so I couldn't turn down a bargain of that level, could I? I doubt it'll go any lower - at 3-quid it's practically being given away!

The Undertakers Set from H. Grossman's Deadstone Valley play set, still in The Works, but not for much longer at 3-quid a pop!

Note how the back of the box and the contents seem to include lots of figures not mentioned on the website or smaller cards we looked at two weeks ago, clearly a range that's being cleared before it's had a chance to find it's feet, just like the Horrible Histories stuff, and the concurrent Star Wars Commanders range. There is a clear and damaging disconnect between the marketers or publicity people and the actual 'toy' people in the industry at the moment.

Two corpses and three dodgy-looking characters from the graveyard/burials team. The graves are the rather lame vac-formed moulds sprayed green and given two anachronistic rock-wall stickers?

The headstones are interchangeable so once you've got a few duplicates you can start mix-and-matching your graveyard...hey, don't knock it - if you're a goth; you're probably wishing someone pointed you at this range a while ago!

Separate shovels and moving arms, this had the potential to become a great series...add a zombie element, a game-playing mechanism, themed sets of corpses...clowns, dancers, teachers, school kids? Note also the slot-fixing for these 'dead heads' that the ballet-dancer didn't have.

However...the heads of the three living poses don't fit the dead ones (quality control), in fact one is loose in it's owner's neck but still won't fit in a corpses neck. And why is the undertaker 70mm+? These missed opportunities to build a figure-based toy range are becoming annoying...speaking as a toy figure collector! I'll be looking at the Star Wars sets soon!

D is for Deadstone!

Currently in both 99p Stores (single carded figures) and my perennial favourite The Works (boxed sets with several 'dead' figures and the graveyard staff)...

For 99p you get a lot, issued by UK importers H Grossman under their Ozbozz distribution branding, the company website no longer has details of the Deadstone Valley toys, hence their now appearing in clearance outlets, but the Deadstone Valley website still seems to be supported?

There is also a code in each set that can be used on the above website, and - doing a quick bit of research on the range just now - it seemed some of the figures have a head-swap feature, a second quick check - of this chick - confirmed that she has indeed got a plug-in head!

I'd add that the Works' set seems to include figures not included in the website's listed 12, a vampire for starters...and they have a slot-base system not apparent on this figure, so the 'real' source may well be continuing with these, or has issued some sets ex-HGL?

A bit gruesome and not something I'll be in a hurry to track-down the rest of, but they will be of interest to someone and if you're that 'someone'; now's the time to seek them out, while they're cheap!