T is for Tattle Tale

Mentioned at the time, but not included in the post, the third Tattle Tale from Phidal I bought back in 2023, it still needs to be cleared out and ticked-off, so here it is;

 

As with the others, it contains four figures from one of the larger sets, and we'd only just seen the 10-figure 'Lightyear' set at the time, hence it's being held-over for a bit (three-and-a-half years!), and again, I don't know if some of the other figures are in another Tattle Tale, and would advise not buying any of these if you already have the larger sets.

R is for Roveing Reporter's Rack-toy Round-up #3

Brian's third visit this year, was to Hobby Lobby (similar to our Hobbycraft, but ours carries less of the kind of stuff we're about to look at here), where he found some useful sets of classic rack-toys, which seem to tick all the boxes!

 

 

Cold-blooded critters; the amphibians hidden among the lizards again, and we now suspect some Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, because birds are, and they are the direct descendents!

 

Fantasy; and there are more poses here than with the set we saw the other day, including a prone one, I never know if it's lying down, or the equivalent of sitting? Also there's five colourways, not four, but perhaps a more assorted assortment, in fact it looks like each colour is a different pose, with about three in each colour/pose?

 

Farm . . .

 

 

. . . and Zoo!
 

With sets dedicated to temperate/woodland animals and arctic fauna. Sculpt-count is good with these sets as well, but, as Brian pointed out in the eMail, climbing, price-wise. Still cheaper than the European equivalents though (those Peterkins are closer to a tenner, with the cheaper ones £7.99), and I dare say a mix of new sculpts, older sculpts and the odd rip-off of Schleich, Papo, or similar modern brands.

 

The others; insects and marine/sea-life. As with all the above, some look familiar, some look all new, but the suspicion is that where similar, they will be copies, so are 'variants', as far as collecting goes? All the above seem to contain duplicates, possibly pairs of everything?

 

What some of you have been waiting for, the combat troops, sculpts we've seen before, but they appear to be clean, new sculpts, rather than pantographed sub-piracies, of 'Fritz' helmeted generic US/NATO types, with the daft ATGW firer! Vehicles are simple moulding we've also seen before, as are the interlocking wall sections.

 

But these are probably more interesting, ACW types, and I don't think they are the Billy-V/Americana ones from BMC, nor the Hing Fat chaps, so new sculpts? I don't know enough about them, but if they tickle the fancy, I suspect they'll need a purchase over there, to get them over here! In fact, they look like copies of Accurate/Revell? And there's some useful artillery in there, with metal axles?

 

Many thanks to Brian for his visits to Dollar General, Daiso and Hobby Lobby, this year, highlighting the inevitable inflation (resulting from Trumps tariffs), and covering current production in/for the US. I did manage a trip to B&M a couple of days ago and found little, and will also check the rest before the end of the holidays.

A is for Again, I'm Afraid!

We've seen these dinosaur pencil tops from Depesche already, but not together, so here they are again, and it should be a last time for them, as they're not deserving of one post, let alone the three or four outings they've had, but that's how the cookie's crumbled on this one!

 

Thinking I still needed one, and that this was it, I grabbed this pencil top a while ago now, and took the shots, only to realise while looking for something else, that I already had it! Not then being able to remember which one I did need, I bought the other two earlier this year.

 

Velociraptor

 

Triceratops

 

Carnosaur of some kind, assume T-Rex!

 

Because it turned out I had actually got all three, and we've already seen them here, I broke the glue seal on these to shoot them as stand-alone figures, although two of them are only standing-up due to careful angling of laptop and camera! So best left on the ends of their pencils! 

 

Family group; They are good sculpts for what they are - quite small, and ephemeral novelties, and I've been getting mine from an independent garden centre and farmers market, but I dare say they are available elsewhere, including zoo or museum gift shops?

P is for Peterkin's Packs of Plastic Pets

Actually, we've looked at the cats and dogs previously, but there's no good synonym for 'animals' beginning with p? I grabbed most of the outstanding Peterkin sets, when they appeared in one of the local garden centre's as post Christmas re-stock, then Peter Evans gave me another the other day, leaving two duplicates to be shot close-up, and a box-ticking check-list of the others, adding to the Peterkin Tag!

 

We saw the Birds, bagged, a while ago, so here they are 'in the flesh', pretty standard selection, unnamed on the packaging but I'm guessing here, from the lop left - Goose, Swan, Vulture, the Ashamed Eagle (currently looking for a new home, Canada; it's got more gravitas than a Beaver?), another Goose, the Guinness Toucan, an Owl, a Parrot and a Parakeet?

 

Giant Insects and small Unicorns, there seems to be two poses, each in four colours, and we may have seen them undecorated from another rack-toy issuer?

 

A mix of Cetaceans and Sharks, again, pretty standard, and pack-scale, rather than 'in scale', and some reptiles, which includes amphibians and a living dinosaur!

 

Scale here is all over the place, but it makes the Komodo Dragon perfect for 54mm figures, while a giant Chamaeleon dwarves a Frilled Lizard.

 

Possibly the poorest sculpt is the crocodile/alligator thing, which harks back to the gape-mouth dino's of the 1970's (which you can still find occasionally!), while a couple of snakes in the background are vaguely a Cobra and a more generic green Mamba/Tree Python.

 

Presumably a 'Giant Galápagos Tortoise', but not one of the more distinctive breeds, so rather a large normal tortoise! And two tree frogs, neither of which species am I going to try and guess!

 

I didn't get a good shot of the Dinosaurs, but I have a feeling this will prove to be a duplicate set too, so I'll open it and shoot them properly another day, maybe for next year's Rack Toy Month?

  

 

 Farm set

 

 

 'Zoo' set (wild animals)

 

Both pretty standard, both eight-counts on the mouldings, and I wouldn't be surprised to find a lot of these are based on other peoples previous stuff, their (Peterkin's) combat infantry set are clones of earlier mouldings by other people.

R is for Roveing Reporter's Rack-toy Round-up #1

The Blog's New York-based roving reporter Brian Berke, seriously anticipating Rack Toy Month, sent these shelfies, back at the start of January, although he was probably aiming at the novelty-post element of the Christmas season, but for some reason, too much stuff, or my tardiness (checks history, 122 posts over Dec/Jan, so too much stuff!) that never happened, so we're looking at them now!

 

Erasersaurs re-purposed as Romantisaurs, but the only thing which renders them romantic is the sticker on a separate sheet behind them, which has the added bonus of saurian wordplay! Greenbriar claim responsibility for this mawkish nonsense, but they are possibly new sculpts, and I don't think the big Sauropod has been seen in other Dinoraser posts?

 

Thingy and Stitch, I've never seen it, and keep getting it confused, in my head, with the TV-show within the Simpsons; The Itchy & Scratchy Show, a violently slapstick cartoon, knock-off of Tom & Jerry, watched with glee by Bart and Lisa? But they look to be polymer solids, so there's a place for them here, if only temporarily, when they start to turn up.

 

And the same can be said of these, in fact, we saw a similar solid, 54mm Barbie from Mattel, in a recent plunder or donation post, with more in the queue, so these are probably an extension/different wave of the others?

 

Generic Action Figure, Seal Team Six, waiting for the SAS to show them how to do it!

  

Yes, I've looked it up, yes, I'm adding it to the Tag list, but it's still a larger Action Figure, and I have to draw the line somewhere (she's a 'good guy'!), but question - they've named the enemy raiders 'the Kharn', does this mean the long-forgotten owners of Bluebird's intellectual property can sue, or are all alien race names fair-game?

 

I'm trying to avoid Paw Patrol too, thankfully they are too big, but at some point, some small ones are going to come-in, and I know they're already Tagged, and, if they don't interest you, they may be ideal for kids/grandkids?

 

Many thanks to Brian, who has subsequently sent two more lots (I just found the latest in Gmail!), so we'll be returning to the budget-basements of the Big Apple, before the Month's out, if we don't just all get evaporated by the sun first! 

M is for Mixed Magnanimity Mound

I know! But after nearly 20-years, even the thesaurus starts to fail you! It's a charity lot; soon after the last posting in this vein, I popped into a couple of the charity shops in Fleet and managed to come away with five things of vague interest, and these are they!

 

Another duck! It wasn't until a guest post back in 2012, that I had fully appreciated the whole sub-branch of ducks, since when I've probably added as many ducks to my own stash as were in that post, with a similar range of sizes and materials, they are - in the most part - real tourist kiosk/gift-shop/overpriced 'boutique' type stock, but they are fun, and one day we'll look at them all together!

 

A teeny-tiny hedgehog, which is so small it can keep the [believed to be] Playmobil one company! And a gape-mouthed, Chinasaur, rubber-jiggler, who may well be from the same set as the one Chris sent, which we saw here a few days ago? There were several sets of these sculpts, back in the day, and they occasionally still turn-up, so, hard to age.

 

A slipware porcelain cat, probably a fairing, or cheap, corner-shop/local hardware store ornamental, I thought the colouring of the glaze was quite good, even if it has a rather daft face with anthropomorphised eyes!

 

I think these would have been called Empathy Counters, and while you don't seem to be able to get this exact set any more, there are several other similar sets, and these five mouldings are still found in a larger early learning/maths/coordination set, in a yellower yellow!

 

From Edx Education, they fill the same role as that old set I was pleased to track-down a few years ago, or the Houghton Mifflin stuff in the 'States, and gets five more animals in six colours into the stash! Made of 'eraser' rubber, they would be mistaken for such, if not known.

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!