R is for Retro Moon Man

If you have a theme - stick to it! This is actually the last one in the queue for now, but that's not to say I won't find another in the next few weeks, or certainly over the next few months. We're back to Legami, with another retro/deform/NASA astronaut, and this one is a pencil sharpener, with a shavings-collecting back-pack/life-support unit!

 

 

  

He also has one of those movement-triggered LED lights, hidden behind his opaque visor, so when you pick him up or shake/move him, he lights up, like some near-critical loon, about to go nuclear!

R is for Rack Toy Rascals

Not cake decorations! An excellent find at Sandown in September was this carded import by Merehall, more commonly associated with the larger, boxed plastic vehicles, from the old Crown Colony of Hong Kong, and doubly fascinating for being figures, previously known their role as Culpitts and other cake decorations, but also seen here (link below) as open-front, boxed teams.

 

"Collect your own team", it says, and with 12 figures, including the keeper on a card that’s possible, but, not all the known poses/shirt numbers are here, there's no referee, nor any other team strips?
 

So, were there other cards, with the other colours we've seen here before, were the other cards assorted to the point where all known poses could be found? And did some cards have the better team-strips of the carded sets we looked at last time - assuming each card was a singular colour-way like this one?

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/06/n-is-for-nearer-but-further-away.html

R is for Return to Wooden Jolly Boat!

Brian took a few more shots of his wooden boat with those slightly 'deform' PVC pirates, from some infant toy, I think, and I found another in my files, along with a couple of Guttenberg Project images, so quickly . . .

We had a swimming-pool at school, which was an old outdoor, unheated, circular thing with no shallow-end, and a low wall round it, with half-round bricks on top. It was freezing, even in the summer, except '76, it got quite pleasant in the heatwave, but started to go green and got over chlorinated, making everybody's eyes sting!

 

But we were allowed to sail/float boats in it, in break-times, supervised by the 'duty' teacher, and while the rich-kids all had big battery-operated things which inevitably filled with water and sank (to huge cheers)*, and would need to be recovered with the leaf-net, us poorer kids would have wooden vessels of various kinds, of which this is very reminiscent of some. I had a little green Star yacht, which actually worked when it was breezy, but otherwise just bobbed-about, becalmed!

 

* The biggest cheers were kept for when someone reached too-far trying to get their toy boat out, and fell in, fully clothed - usually several times a term! Always funniest in the Winter, when their teeth would chatter like a cartoon skeleton's, as they were marched off to Matron!

 

 

I don't know why I took this shot? But I did, I don't know if they came with the ship, I can't remember? Neither can I remember if I've Blogged it, nor do I have the time to check - I'm supposed to be getting changed for work! But it's the same figures, and I think four poses have appeared so far, in varied paint versions?

 

I went off last night and found these on the Project Guttenberg, from Ships of the Seven Seas by Hawthorne Daniel, in order to try and ID these, but they are all toys and don't quite fit any of the outlines. The illustrations here are all 'full sailed', and I think Brian's is more of a sloop with light sails?

F is for Flying Jeep, H is for Hafner, M is for Malcom, R is for Rotabuggy

Brian Berke, roving reporter in NY, sent me these a month or so ago, and they got put on hold because of Rack Toy Month (and everything else he'd sent the blog), and the fact that I needed to play a bit of catch-up with the queue, but it's a fascinating thing, which nearly 'happened', and was performing well in tests, when it was pulled, purely due to advancements in Allied glider capacity/abilities.

 

The R. Malcom & Co's., M. L. 10/42 'Hafner' Rotachute-Rotabuggy, Flying Jeep, it's a Jeep . . . wot flu!

 

Utilising the New Ray Jeep, itself a nice model I haven't tracked down yet (well, I'm miles behind with larger scale vehicles, and they aren't a priority!), Brian has built a model of the Hafner Jeep for his troops, and above is the work-in-progress shot, showing how he went about it.

 

Basically Brian seems to have used a stiff paper or card, over a plastic frame, and when I was a modeller, I often used tissue paper for vehicle tilts/canopies - after a couple of coats of Humbrol they became quite robust, if you use a stiffer paper - a bit of Basildon Bond or something - you're laughing, it's as good as plastic sheet. Also, some people now wash the paper with super-glue to get even more plastic-like rigidity.

 

Finished and posed with the Lone Star paratroopers, who seem perfectly suited to the task, it really looks the part, for more on this machine, there's always Wikipedia:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafner_Rotabuggy

 

Strangely I have a memory of seeing this in the Airborne Forces Museum, at Browning Barracks in Aldershot as a kid, but if the only one (at Middle Wallop) is a 1980's mock-up, I must be imagining it, because I'm thinking of '71/72? There was a long series of cabinets along the window side of the museum as you entered, which contained models made by the modelling club of Depot Para', and it's likely there was a model of this there maybe? But I have a - presumably false - memory of one, out on the parade ground with the air-portable Land Rover on Hercules pallet, and the similarly bound Humber Hornet with Malkara missiles, which were parked near the main-road past the barracks.

 

Fiddler's Green, a name we've seen here before, also offer an all card model:

 

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Flying-Jeep.html

 

It looks more like a mini-moke, but it's a bit of fun. And, to be honest, their page (scroll down) is better than Wikipedia's for imagery and history! And it didn't fail, it wasn't unsuccessful, it was working, when it was pulled, because it was easier to land a jeep with its gun, from a glider, without a big hollow tail attached!

 

Funny how people get all excited about things like the German Maus, a monumental waste of time, money and material, while we were towing people down the runway in these! I hope all that window area was plexiglass, not real glass, you wouldn't want to fly hot into a war-zone with all that glass, 12-inches from your face?

Many thanks to Brian for the shots of this fascinating scratch-build.

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Six, That's It!

The last of the Stateside shelfies sent to the Blog by Brian Berke, from New York, and I think this is the last of the stuff from the Queens' novelty stores or touristy speciality stores?

 

Buzz!

 

Big Truck!

 

Batman!

 

Not my scale, but an interesting line-up of unusual - to me - figures, from all these new movies I haven't seen, I guess! A dearth of accessories, though, so larger sets needed first? Or are they hidden behind the card/paper inserts?

 

There are so many Disney Princesses now, including lots of 'solids' who have come into the collection, in mixed lots, especially those from Charity Shops, that an ID page may be a future project? The early ones are seared into our brains, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty with their distinctive dresses, but in the last 20/30 years, they have been joined by dozens of new ones, some of whom are known for more than one outfit!

 

There is another glider/hand-powered 'plane post in the long-queue, and as classic rack-toys go, you can't beat flying stuff! The upper one though seems to be a sort of mini Nerf gun!

 

Couple of 'UFO' or 'Space Disc' launchers, ubiquitous when I was a kid! Many thanks to Brian for getting all these shelfies to us in time for Rack Toy Month, and I seem to have got back in the habit of posting, so I'll try to carry the momentum into September!

R is for Rack Toy Round-Up - North America - Five of Six

The penultimate batch of Brian Berke's rack toys shelfies, and  a few more of interest, but more of a box-ticker for the Tag-list, although I know some people have interests different to mine!

 

Didn't know Buzz had a cat . . . Alien cat at that!

 

Imaginext, a Fisher-Price/Mattel property, gets a fair few mentions on Little Rubber Guys, usually in the 'what is this' section, due to the number of parts and constant new production cycle, and there are some interesting things among the sets and accessories, but the figures are semi-deform.

 

Monster trucks!

 

Interactive dinosaurs.

 

Could use a coat of paint!

 

Nice, it's surprising how many sea-life sets there are out there, or probably not surprising if you were always a fan, but we had mostly Britains farm and a bit of zoo, with some Cherilea and Crescent animals, as kids, I never remember sea-life, but there's a growing side-stash of sea-life in the collection, with people like Marx having a stab.

 

More Hunson, I thought these were flocked, at first glance, but i think they are one of the new soft-feel polymers? Thanks as always to Brian for taking the time and trouble to go out and find this stuff and get the images to us.