B is for Beetlemania!

No, it's not a typo, these were a bit of a present, or payment in kind, for a favour I did, and, as I owed the favour, an unnecessary kindness really, but I'm not complaining, although they are mostly outside the parameters of the collection, or, would have been, a few years ago!

 

It's a plethora of Beetles in the 1:30-1:48th scale range, who also manage to break down into pairs, which makes them are easier to compare or look at, as those pairs, but we have two from Scandinavia, two from Hong Kong and two from the UK.

 

The British pair are to be looked at quickly, as they are after-market lumps of poured resin, in a scale somewhere near 1:48th, but a tad bigger I suspect (1:45th?), and despite Google being hopeless these days, or because if it, I've been unable to find out anything about the maker, A.J. Baldock, beyond the label pointing to the late-1980's/early 1990's as a likely date, I well remember those mail-order add's; "Buy now and get your first 200 free", or "Your reorder code is here", with choices of about four colours of text and six colours of label!

 

Two lumps of poly-vinyl, on the left of each shot, the Tomte Laerdal Police car version from Norway (around 1:40th/1:35th), I can remember these, a few were still around Southern Germany in the late 70's (have I just shoehorned my time in Southern Germany into a post, to box tick someone else's recent stuff? I think I have, it's an easy game!), in white and puke-green, with Polizei down both sides!

 

On the right, the Galenite (1:43rd) from neighbouring Sweden, in the standard saloon (? . . . bubble) configuration, you can see the Galenite is the far-better finished model, while the Tomte is quite lumpy or 'melty', but the Tomte's always have the better wheels!

 

Two (of 1:32nd compatibility) from Hong Kong, and quite similar. From the 'emergency' green driver, one is tempted to suggest Blue Box or Tai Sang for one, and the body-shells are so similar, you wonder if they aren't two versions/tranches of the same toy?

 

But I suspect one (possibly the blue one; cruder wheels) is just a close copy of the other, that they are both based on a Western (or South American?) die-cast model, and Tai Sang may not have had anything to do with either? The white one is hollow, the blue has an interior moulding and steering wheel, in addition to the driver.

 

They (Blue Box) did have a driver for their small-scale Jeeps and Austin Champs, in the same colour, but may have bought them in, so it's not empirical enough to draw those kinds of conclusions. Belly-pans both rule out A-OK, lack of a pull-back motor rules-out Lucky (who tended to a roof light for Fire Chief or Police vehicles) and FE, bumper rules-out Larami, lack of paint rules out most of the rest I can find, so right now, your guess is as good as mine, your knowledge, better!

 

Wheels!

 

♫♪♪♫ Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning, running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind ♪♫♪♪

 

By length! It's not the size, it's what you do with it!

O is for Odd Ossuary

OK, so to the last post on the Gogo Crazy Bones from Magic Box which have been in Picasa for too long (as have lots of other things, and they're still there!), not least because they have limited pull for most Loyal Readers, beyond this box-ticking exercise!

 

So, I bought a final big lot which came with a Gogo's tin, I didn't shoot these as to a certain extent they were much of a muchness, both with the ones in the original post, and the first few of this sequence, But note, in answer to my comment in the preceding Crazy Bones post, here we have a decent number of dark greens in both opaque and transparent. Likewise with the blues and a bunch of candy-mice and bubblegum pinks.

 

There were also a lot of the glass-clear ones, with more transparent in the reds and oranges, but it was the odds which proved more interesting and are looked at below, by visible marking, the reason being, I didn't look so closely at the original post's figures/bones;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/10/c-is-for-crazy-bones.html

 

. . . but suspect a few of the undecorated ones in that lot were from the groups below. It should be noted that the link in that original post also talks of Coca-Cola premiums somewhere, but below are various issues/tranches of their offerings.

 

Apparently issued by Imperial, who pops-up here, regularly retailing novelty tat, and things which look like other people's things, those non-Brabo bendies, for instance, and here they have gone to Israel of all places, and found a Laor Toys, to make several tranches of their Jojo's, over three or more years in the mid-nineties.

 

A whole set of T-Shirts?

 

I assume Tim Foot is the 'designer', however, I don't know the significance of 'Haxey', but will put it separately in the Tag list for those who do! And these seem to predate Gogo's by a year at least, however the collector's wiki, seems to have various producers of these 'bones', before Magic Box blew the gaff wide open?

 

Metallics, China, not Israel, and not of the same quality as the later Magic Box ones; quickly worn away with play, likely a high shine spray, rather than a genuine heat-coating or dip-plating?

 

Don't know?

 

So, we have a kid's craze in the mid-1990's, major player is Magic Box, an unknown Spanish company who will become a global giant off the back of them, who call their product Gogo's Crazy Bones, and which are designed to be used like Roman or pre-Roman knuckles, in a variety of games, rules for which were included in the blind-bags they were purchased in.

 

Flat colours, Metaflek, clear, semi-transparent, metallised, decorated and undecorated, possibly used as premiums by Coke-cola, Hubba-Bubba and others, rival brands, unique sets per. Country, special issues for smaller organisations (UK's FIFA World Cup team), convention and swap-meet exclusives (usually an existing moulding in a special finish), there must be several thousand to find, I've picked up a couple of hundred or so now, and that's too many!

 

A couple of useful links for those who are really interested;

 

Fandom

https://crazybonespedia.fandom.com/wiki/Crazy_Bones_Pedia-Wiki

 

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo%27s_Crazy_Bones

C is for Charity's Colourful Carrion

This was a smaller purchase, around the same time as the others we've seen, i.e., more years ago than I care to remember, or have actually remembered! Nothing new with these, but the last post is interesting . . . ish!

 

Anodised metallics, with a transparent blue monkey on the left, it's actually one of the more realistic Crazy Bones so far, with the yellow tiger/cat (2nd post) a close, but demented, second, then I think we have a butterfly, a Hitler Dog (it's just the flash!), another animal and two pirate skulls.

 

Pastels and purples! See; not really a Hitler Dog!

 

Everything else Gogo! I quite like the ghost, bottom-right. Overall there haven't been many dark green ones from Magic Box, have there? The last post in this sequence will add further to the story, then we may have a more rambling post on all these blind-bag things, then there's more from Brian and some larger ones, before maybe some more Kinder and Lego?

D is for ♫♪♪ Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem . . . Crazy Bones! ♫♪♫

Another quick box-tick of colourful weirdos, this was a charity bag in 2018, I can't believe I've been threatening to post these on and off since 2016, I knew I'd put it off for a year or two (it's hardly high priority), but a decade? How fast has that gone!

 

Playing!

 

Blacks, whites and greys.

 

Some proper reds.

 

Greens.

 

Tart's nail-polish colours!

 

Camel dung!

 

Blues.

 

Oranges, yellows and caramels. 

 

Another factoid to add to the previous stuff, this was the first one with Metafleck type glitter inclusions, in a semi-transparent polymer, I have no idea if that has any significance beyond a new variant, but it might have!

B is for Bones, Box-Ticking Crazy Bones!

This is from the folder 'Crazy Bones II', except they have five mentions in the Tag list already, but some of those mentions are in passing, of the Magic Box stuff in these next few posts, when they came-in, and are now all part of the capsule and blind-bag Picasa clearance exercise!

 

The original post was here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/10/c-is-for-crazy-bones.html

 

And, because I've learnt very little more about them, nor given them much more thought, beyond editing the posts in vaguely artful ways (by colour, alright! I sorted them by colour!), they really are just box-ticking, so any genuine fans who might find them, might feel inclined add comments of merit (like - are there any rare ones!), for those of us who remain no more than mildly curious!

 

Metallic finished ones.

 

Comparison between the 'traditional' ones and the metallics of the same moulding.

 

Blues.

 

Reds, yellows and oranges.

 

Pastels, purples and greens.

 

A couple who came in around the same time with more mixed lots, and this was all happening back in 2018, the flood of these to charity-shops seems to have receded, but for a couple of years I was picking up huge bags of them for pennies.

 

Something to add to the previous post's info' is that it seems that a late (or even 'contemporary' a few years ago) issue of Gogo Crazy Bones had these flat, triangular bases with curved tips, I don't know the significance of them, or whether they all had them, but it was taking them further from the original 'bones' concept, which, of course goes back to antiquity and a dice-less, dice-like game played with knuckle-bones, as is Jacks!

D is for Donations - Peter & Chris - AFV's

On the Military hardware section of these posts, and both Peter and Chris have included a few AFV's in the stuff they've saved for the blog, which, being not figures, tend to be more incidental, so I've shoved them into one post;

 

Micro armour odds-and-sods, I think the hull is a challenger, and that these are probably GHQ, the quality is better than the Skytrex I had as a kid, and the lack of cut-wire gun-barrels also precludes them?

 

Largish jeep, from the wheels I'd say pretty modern, so kind of grist-to-the-mill, but still a useful sample, especially if I don't already have one!

 

Ideal board-game pieces, these are rather piling up in a tub somewhere, and I'll have to think of something to do with them, they are fictional, and fun, and there are a few variants to be sorted out, reverse colourways etc.

 

One of the mini-tanks we looked at some time ago, but will return to, there's more on them in a download folder somewhere, and a couple of trees which escaped the 'odds' folder, the one on the left, a copy of a Cherilea-Phoenix window-box accessory, the other a current'ish Poplar, and a very new re-sculpt/evolution of the old Lego Lombardy Poplar, whose evolution we looked at in a previous post once.

This was a superb find by Chris, as I have a pair of these bobbing-commander tanks, unmarked, and possibly in a darker green, which is how you can find them across the pond too, so this one with its clear Peter Pan marking adds a whole 'nother paragraph to the story, which includes a different tank and those easter-bunny trucks! Presumably - a mould-swap?

 

Three micro-armoured cars, which we will return to one day, as there are three types of these Daimlers, two types of the little gun which often accompanies them, and only one version of the 'carrier', but with sets to look at and different wheel-axle types, worth a proper dive, one day.

 

Behind them is a probable Kleeware, or Pyro original on the right, and one of the metal axle trucks from the river-ferry sets, I call Type 5 or 5/6/hybrids;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2011/10/m-is-for-mini-trucks-part-6-types-5-6.html

 

Click on the 1-ton Humber Tag, for more on them! And many-thanks again, to both collectors, for finding/saving/getting this stuff to the blog, for me to share with you.

Z is for Zorro

I can't believe we haven't had that title yet, given Z is one of the hard ones to find decent titles for! Heay-ho, we've had it now, and the Zorro in question is a set of chocolate egg collectables from Maraja from a good while ago, and which I found as a complete set, probably on feeBay, back in 2022.

 

Piled with the insert sheet.

 

Good guys and babe!

Bernardo (Zorro's deaf & mute valet), Zorro (Don Diego de la Vega) and the dancer.

 

Bad guys!

 That's it, simple box-ticking exercise; gets them in the Tag list!

N is for New World, in the Old Country!

I must confess, I've not been as active as a purchaser, this year, so while there are Sandown Park and BMSS purchases to come, and lots of new production for Rack Toy Month, most of the stuff in the 'this year' section of the short queue, is donations, and this is no exception!

 

The Blog's roving reporter from across The Pond; Brain Berke, was back here in the motherland, for a few days, the other week, and took the opportunity to send us something nice from the breakaway colony, without the reciprocal postal charges that is 'The World of Trump'! Although, he may have been equally shocked by our domestic charges! Luckily, I managed to get Charles to pop-over, last week, and pour oil on the troubled waters of an illegal, tariff-free transfer of rare matériel!

These are lovely, WWII-era US composition, and, while I'm guessing Playwood Plastics (ultimately bought by Transogram) or Moulded Products, I don't know for sure, and they could even be Empire Forces or Historical Miniatures. In the style of, and maybe after actual poses of Barclay or Manoil slush-cast, pod-feet toys? Obviously - further input appreciated on these!

 

These are also really nice, clearly marked with the Bergan-Beton BT (Bergan Toys) cypher/cartouche, they are the hard 'styrene set of interim figures, coming between the glued-on base, first version (whose tool seems to have gone to Reliable, in the independent sovereign nation of Canada) of which I have a few, and Canadian ones, we saw here recently, and the soft plastic versions, of which we've also seen both US and Canadian examples.

 

They are a fine sight, and, of which I had none. In fact, handling them, they have the same charm and historical heft, as those game-playing pieces from a recalcitrant Germany, we saw here, the other day.

 

 

With the Beton's toward the 60mm, you can see the composition chonka is closer to 80mm, hence the possibilities of them being from any of the four above-named, known for such stuff. There was also a single polystyrene figure from Archer, later issued in soft plastic by Plastic Craft, and while he's missing the tip of his weapon, he's a first for the stash, I think, so gratefully received - thank you very much Brian!

I is for It's Another One!

Peter Evans sent us a football set! No, not another take on the large set we've looked at about five times now, or more, and no, not the smaller version, which, as a complete set, remain elusive, but a wholly new set, with some of the elements of the other two!

 

 

How he found them, in a generic shipping bag, of the crinkly, cellulose-something variety! Two goals, cupping (or 'netting'! I'll get me coat!) the players, as they do in the bags of the larger set.

 

 

Three-a-side, with a referee, smaller than the other two sets, around 40mm, with new poses, but the same hard polystyrene material, and separate green-plastic bases, although loose with these, glued-on in the case of the previously seen sets.

Detail on the figures is poor, but it just shows - if you look around, there's still lots of this stuff out there, I know cake decorations or novelty figures aren't everyone's cup of tea, and they certainly aren't 'toy' or 'model' soldiers, but it's out there!

There are two cups, so, in these politically-correct times -  both players can win!

 

A bit of a rushed post - thanks to Peter for the set!