L is for Lazy Lizard Lounges in Lucky Bag!

So, I said in the shelfie-post the other day, that I'd bought a test one, and I dare say those of you who know me well enough, might guess which one it would be, farm? Unicorn? Noooooowh! Dinosaurs, of course! But it turned out to be doubly disappointing!

 

The first disappointment, it was mostly flat, paper product, and yes, I know kids love colouring, kids love stickers, kids love puzzles, but in my day it would have been a plastic or rubber dinosaur, some sweets, and something which made a noise! We buy this shit so you don't have to!

 

One small surprise was that the stated eight items, were in fact nine; they clearly think coloured-pencils and a colouring sheet count as one item? And it was also interesting to see some of the contents branded to both Playwrite (WH Cornelius, ex-WHC / Success) and Henbrandt, who are rivals in the same pocket-money, novelty field.

 

The second disappointment though, was that the otherwise, kitsch, but cool-looking inflatable dinosaur, was so cheaply made, it leaked air from a half-welded seam, and I had to try and carefully close the cap (no valve) without pushing so much air out, it wouldn't stand up! You win some, you lose some, and now we have half-an-idea what all the bags contain . . . no figures, no sweets, no whistles, rattles or blowers, except a blown blow-up!

F is for Follow-up - Supreme and it's Customers

Well, we seem to be at the end of Rack Toy month, yet I've barely touched Rack Toy Month; hardly any of the stuff left over from last year (a couple of the knights posts?) got done, hardly any of the other stuff earmarked for this year's RTM, none of the Indian Canoe posts (which have been added to), a bunch of shelfies from Brian B, non of mine (well those daft wheeled dino's aside!), it seems not much really, yet we've seen over 30-posts so there must have been something!!

Anyway, I think, while I have other stuff to go, and some H is For's to clear before the next Sandown Park show (only a few weeks away?), I'll try to keep going with the HK/China cheapie stuff through September, just to get some of it out of Picasa.

In the meantime - two pieces which missed the Supreme posts; the above was in Playwrite's 2006 trade catalogue and shows one of the smaller sets, consider selling these (note the different contents of the boxed one)  at a petrol station or corner shop for £5.50 (if bought in at the blue price) or a mere fiver (if bought at the red price) and there's always a least 25% profit  in there, plus, those red and blue prices must have some profit for Playwrite built-in, so god knows what the 'Unit Price' is, but it must be less than peanuts, pound-for pound, or kilo-for-kilo!

This got missed in the final post of that previous sequence (The Supreme tag will get all of them up), it's a Toysmith set of the cheap polyethylene versions of the small Esci copies as also carried by Halsall / HTI and Kandytoys.

News, Views Etc . . . Paratrooper Page

The third part has been held-over as I ended-up with a load of stuff to add to the second part, which was uploaded the other day, so I've just added to that as an early update.

Kicked-off by some images from Brian, I added a few screen-caps of current offers and shots from the recent Toy Fair 2020 in London.

T is for Two - Rack Toys - In The Shops Now!

Something current, something new, something waxy (?), something err . . . green! A couple of recent pocket-money purchases (not everything makes it into the Friday 'H is for ...' posts!), pound each; we buy it so you don't have to!

Well! They're bears, look . . . teaddy-bears, what's not to like! PlayWrite are the new branding of what used to be Success or WHC, parent - WH Cornelius. Still importing and jobbing wholesale tat to the corner shops and independents (where they still exist) using contacts they've established over more than 60 years in the business.

Light them and their little hearts melt! Murderers!

These were in Poundland, credited to GE of Willenhall (Wolverhampton) and while cheaper than the WHSmith set we saw awhile ago, seem to be the same set, only there's two more, and a new sculpt (bottom, middle), having based the others and coloured some with art markers, I'll leave these as they are for now, but Wild West dioramists may have other ideas!

T is for There are Two Things That . . .

. . . fall out of the sky; rain and bird shit! I did say - the last time we looked at them - that I was running out of titles for the growing plethora of paratrooper posts! AND, as they keep coming-in to Small Scale World; so I have to keep posting them. I'm sure you can understand that as an ex-infantryman, it was only a matter of time before I dug-out the old rivalry! Fancy - jumping out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft, gripping a bed-sheet . . . idiots!

Speaking of the last time we looked at them, opening the post is this image from Brian B which I've previously mentioned I'd forgotten to use, being a variation of the other Jaru cards we've looked at; dated to 2014 it's two years newer than the previous examples, despite being quite scuffed on the rack! And follows the same design we've looked at once or twice now, going back to the 1960's - at least.

And speaking of Henbrant - as we were in yesterday's 'dog-post' - these two are being carried by Henbrant as single-figure novelty/party favours. Again; common designs around at the moment (Airfix clones of the paratrooper with SMLE and the Afrika Korps officer) and looked at here at Small Scale World under a couple of brand-marks already.

The last time we saw them they were in Playwrite and Unique branding (the Playwrite being this size, the Unique slightly bigger), which is another piece of synergy (we had some yesterday!), as these . . .

. . . are by Playwrite! But the synergy doesn't end there, as Peter Evans (roving reporter for Plastic Warrior magazine) reminded me on Tuesday-last that Playwrite is the new moniker for WH Cornelius / Success (WHC) who I had just mentioned to him weren't at the Toy Fair, but they were - as Playwrite! Although I didn't see these on their stand, I did find them a few hours later in the party superstore!

Another much-used paratrooper design; with every likelihood of the rest of the para's coming out of storage before July, we will recap all the old ones with the storage ones and see them all together. And a figure-design also being used . . .

. . . by Aeromax / New World Toys in this carded example also sent to the Blog (and closing the post - like bookends!) by Mr. Berke.

This version of the sculpt has been bling'ed-up with the addition of a flashing LED and a translucent body material. He'd be more fun if he wasn't equipped with one of the new style 'net' canopies which I think are a bit naff!

S is for Skeleton Skull Knights

Looking at PVC lumps; these came-in just before Christmas, there are quite a few of them around, and while I have a some in storage (odds and sods) I didn't get sets when they were common first time around, but now they are mostly enjoying re-issues, or what looks like - in this case - copy of copy status!

99p Stores via PMS these are 'Skull Knight Knight's From Hell'...so they're knights then? Apart form a few dodgy round shields there's nothing to place them historically, but as with Zombies, there are no rules, they're make-believe! Shaun looked at them in much greater depth here - I love the psychedelic bag of eight figures!

Eight rather soft poses, leading to some odd posing which requires a bit of hot-water treatment down the clinic! The lower shot compares them with some of the commoner 'other' skeletal warriors, left to right: Dark World (Canada Games), Heroquest (MB Games via Games Workshop) and the Egyptian-looking 100 Piece Army Skeleton Warriors currently available about the place - also including a 'Battling Pirates' set.

Four more of the larger figures, with the painted original which was issued by Playwrite as Tomb Warrior Skeleton Warriors the baseless one is the mounted version. The final figure is one of those odd pencil-tops with a hollow too big for a pencil...I'm guessing they start life as American Halloween cake decorations, and end-up here as bagged rack-toys, or gum-ball prizes?

Various Christmas cracker and gum-ball skeletons, and a Chap Mai 'Skull Fighter' giant next to the 99p Store/PMS one.

Shaun's got more here

P is for Poopertrooping, Parachuteing Para-Jacks and Paratroopers!

One of my oldest and favourite 'side-bars' or side-collections, and I've mentioned several times that I would do a post on them - when I got the rest out of storage! However, I've picked-up enough in the last few of years to not have to wait, and while this sample is a bit light on the older, vintage ones which are present in the main (in store) collection in greater numbers, that just leaves the excuse of our returning to them again one day!

Picked this up this year somewhere, but I can't remember where, which is a bit daft as I've bought very little this year so it must have been either a Plastic Warrior show acquisition or in a box of mixed stuff I got back in the summer at Sandown?

There's nothing in any of the main 'turn-to' sources on Fairchild, but a quick look in my already well thumbed FIM Vol. 2 by Adrian and co. reveals a nice model tractor and the DNA of Robert Newson's researching of the 'phone-books of the world all over it. Further help then came from Google, and at the risk of accusations of plagiarism, a thumbnail sketch follows...

The company appears to have been formed in 1963, incorporated with company No. 769862 and was dissolved (as Fairchild) in 1978 (FIM 2 states that Selcol closed in '68, so presumably the decade '68-'78 were the Selcol Fairchild years?). They seem to have been polyethylene based manufacturers while Selcol were into the brittle-setting polymers: the polystyrenes of their toy instruments and the set resins they used for their records (mostly 6" children's works); shellac/Bakelite (if they were still being used for records when Selcol formed) and poly-acetate.

The bringing together of the two therefore would have created a rounder whole (geddit!) with both halves complementing each other and the new group doubling its range of options within a still pretty nascent industry.

FIM 2 gives the Selcol/Selmer side of the story and I'll list both the Selcol and Selcol Fairchild stuff I've found in the A-Z pages, along with Fairchild and Gala Goldentone entries and a Selmer cross-reference.

The only other toy items I've found are a rather nice motorcycle 'Speed Cop' (Selcol) and a Tudor*Rose'esque fire engine/ladder-truck ('Mercedes International Giant Fire Engine') from Selcol Fairchild based on a Mercedes Benz LA 328/4 (? hey - I'm using Google here; don't shoot the messenger!) or LF 3500 with short cab - the front bench is enclosed, the rear-facing seats are open.

There's also an interesting story (I'll flesh-out in the A-Z with links) of a piece of blatant plagiarism that Fairchild delivered on Louis Marx, pertaining to toy dogs (possibly the food premiums which people struggle to ascribe to various sources?), which Fairchild won ['escaped'] by dint of dates/times of registration, not because they weren't Marx's designs, they were!

The case is now used by litigation students as a classic study in that angle (timing) of corporate law and the importance of registering your designs before you give a handful to a passing Brit!

Here he is on the top left, showing how he has been copied and reduced over the intervening 50/60-odd years. The blue one being bought in Asda a couple of years ago, Asda being a subsidiary of Walmart, the US jobber Jaru has got it's product into the UK high-street....or out-of-town shopping plaza!

In storage I'm sure I have several of the Fairchild sized ones in early, unmarked, British-looking plastic, so it seems they were plagiarised themselves or - given the Marx case - copied theirs from someone else?

The similar (holding spare 'chute) pose in orange and blue, came in pairs from - I think - 99p Stores (over a year ago) and represent value for money, although they look like the android cops from THX1138!

Apart from the ubiquity of the above pose down the years, there have been several other sculpts that went the distance, the Lone Star pose was copied by one of the other early British makers and several other manufacturers but they are in storage so will have to wait, but here: the two upper pictures show other common designs, the GI jumping with rifle ready - No messing with him! - and the S-shape, possibly the commonest pose, with a myriad examples carded, boxed, bagged and stuffed into gum-balls, lucky-bags and Christmas crackers, in various sizes, the smallest I have in the main collection is only about 25mm; these are around 35-mil for the blue one.

Below we have in the left hand picture the Trojan blow-mould we looked at here with a Hong Kong copy of an Ajax spaceman fitted with a loop for shroud-lines, and an original 'Pooper-Trooper' in synthetic rubber from Imperial.

To the right we see a standard HK figure of a seated GI (from a US original?), again with a loop added, aimed at the pocket-money purchaser of the late 1960's.

Here we see two of those commoner designs, in various sizes, on carded examples from the 1960's. As kids we had the catapult-plane, but as a separate loose item from the glass-partitioned, waist-level bins in Fleet Toys, and given that it's made of polystyrene, it took a lot of punishment, in the end it lost a flap, and would just bury itself in the ground two feet in front of you at full speed! The artwork on the left-hand card is shared with several smaller HK rack-toy's cards.

Back to modern production, the movie Toy Story 3 has produced various parachute sets (this one by Giochi Preziosi for the Italian market), not only tying-in with the film, but also promoting the 'Ride' of similar ilk which has been put into all the Disneyland theme parks.

Below them we have a mix of ex-Airfix and more original poses, in two sizes sold as 'Party Favours', singly as the smaller ones from Playwrite and x6-carded, larger, from Unique Industries of Philadelphia and Ontario.

The card to the top right was from Tobar via Hawkin's Bazaar and appears to be polystyrene, hollow and in two parts, glued together like some of the current kids magazine freebies we've seen (Octonauts and Night Garden)

Old and new, the Timpo chap is far more common than his prices on evilBay and at shows would suggest, he was obviously a premium-priced (compared to single figures from a stock box) member of the WWII 'toy soldier' ranges, available as Brits, Jerries (storage!) or - this - Yank (stuffed in a bag). But, he was also a member of a popular 'general toy' group...the parachuting figures of this post.

As such it was produced and shipped in vast quantities, I've seen boxful's of these with dealers over the years, boxful's - there are a couple of boxful's on evilBay tonight.

Worth a side-collection of their own, due to figure variation (nationality/plastic colour, early/late heads, headdress, mould differences) and the number of different parachute designs that they were issued with*.

You do still find them for sale occasionally, in smaller rural general stores out in the 'Shires', away from the cities, where they haven't been snapped-up by holidaying dealers, that is, to be shoved on feeBay for ten times what they were asking in the backwater store!

While the final entry in tonight's round-up - BJ Toys Skydivers -are a modern take of the old Imperial Pooper-Troopers, being silicon-rubber caricatures. Currently available somewhere but I can't remember where - The Works maybe, they haven't been mentioned yet

This post has only scratched the surface of this subject, remember Action Man (GI Joe/Gyperman) came with a working parachute! Well worth a bash at collecting these if you're looking for a small-space collection that will cover different scales and materials, ephemerals and the odd big name!

* Off the top of my head...

- Black/white radiating stripes
- Black numbering on white (with lettering?)
- Black on clear radiating stripes
- Black on clear rings
- Black on clear ringed-chequerboard
- Blue/white radiating stripes
- Blue on clear radiating stripes
- Blue on clear rings
- All blue?
- Red on clear rings?
- Yellow/white radiating stripes
- Yellow numbering on white (with lettering?)
- All yellow?
- Khaki on clear radiating stripes
- Khaki on clear rings?
- Khaki on clear camouflage (large blobs)
- Khaki on clear camouflage (liner/string blobs)

That's up to a 'maybe' 17, can anyone confirm/add to the list?

I is for Iwako

Right...total surfeit of vintage crap in the last few days so lets have a look at some modern crap! This crap is - on one level - real crap, but it's also trendy-crap which means that in about 15 years time you'll have 30-somthing's on whatever replaces Facebook, or whatever Blogger's morphed-into going "Ooh, I remember collecting them back in the twenty-teens!"

Take the Deiner Industries robots I posted right back at the start of this blog as a minor make, they now have several web-pages and a couple of forum threads across the Internet, dedicated to them by the LRG (little Rubber Guys) collectors, who are a generation below me.

Anyway lets look at them...

 ...except of course - you've already seen them...there are great piles, tables, racks, tubs and other displays of them in WHSmith, Paperchase, Staples, Rymans, all the toy chains, most of the independent toy shops, Wilko/Wilkinson's and most supermarkets!

You just saw them out of the corner of your eye and dismissed them as crap - correct, well done, move to the back of the class and muck about!

But a massive collectability-factor with endless colour variants means they are taking-off like Loom-bands did last year (readers in the US had the bands craze a year or two earlier...I won't be covering them here, nor Hipsters with Merman hair-do's!!! Planet's going to the dogs...), and as new packaging types come out the older ones get reduced - and they're not expensive to being with - so collecting on pocket money budgets is a goer.

The above are the two standard formats from Iwako themselves; carded sets of 6 or 7 items and individual bags with a header card.

Ty have re-packed some in the hope of repeating the success of their now fading Bennie-Babies, but giving them a name and doubling the price hasn't helped when the originators are flooding the market with their originals!

There are non-animal subjects around like these trucks, although these might not be Iwako originals, the Wilko ones seem close but not quite (see below), however they are cheap, with the three cats being offered for 49p

Anything coming from the Far East is soon copied in the...er...Far East! these are fakes, found in an Independent toy retailer and were also only pennies. They (Playwrite) are quite poor, with daft colours and a poor register for the components, the Wilko ones are closer to the originals but made in China, not Japan

A comparison between various Iwako and non-Iwako giraffes, some dice (also Wilko) and a nice Battleships game from WHSmith wihich was around five or six quid I think, but I couldn't resist it. Wilko also do three larger stacking space-ships, but I forgot to photograph them!

All these are made from a new hybrid synthetic rubber, which is a softer version of the stuff HäT used on their Assyrian Chariots, it is gritty, easy to tare and not very good at the job it's earmarked to do...erase pencil lead!

However the old PVC and soft styrene that made the best 1970-90's erasers were very damaging to the planet and the UN are keen to get PVC phased out completely in time, so this stuff is presumably a step toward that goal?

Some more shots, it's all self explanatory. Apart from a bear that was blogged here a while ago; I was bought the first few as gifts, and since last autumn have been building up a small collection specifically for this post, that's them done and I won't be seeking any more, but they will start to come in in mixed lots in a few years - guarantee it!

Link:
Iwako Company Website