R is for Rubber Retro Rocketry

Sort of box-ticking, as we've definitely seen one of these in a shelfie, and I have a fancy I've subsequently bought one and posted it, but I can't find it under the Tag, so, whatever! While the other seems all new, so we'll start with it!

 

New from Legami, a kids craft glue-stick with a retro rocket on the cap! The veritable flood of such stuff '23/'24 has slowed a bit, and I haven't been checking the usual haunts as often this year, so may have missed a few! But fun item to add to the others.

 

This pencil top was shelfied at a trade show, and we looked at the back-pack sharpener a while back. I though I'd got one of these too, but I can't find it on the Blog, so if it's had two outings; lucky it! The 'perfumed' rubber smells of soft, Cornish, butter fudge, which is not as overpowering as the usual strawberry or tutti-fruity you get in similar cases.

F is for Follow-up - Sticky Stretchy Space Men, Unguent Unicorns and Zlimy Zombies!

We've seen these a few times now, in recent years, from at least three makers, here's another trio, from two additional brands! Courtesy of Peter Evans, these would seem to confirm a quiet trend in younger kids toys, but really a re-hash of the old gum-ball capsule machine toys from the 1970's, when they tended to be monsters, insects or lizards, rather than actual figurals!

 

These are both from Huggables, who I think have a couple of show-reports in the queue, I'll try to dig them out and get them up tomorrow, it's always nice to clear a few of them in RTM! And we have the titular zombies and unicorns, one pose each, four colours, three of each colour.

 

I seem to recall from my own misspent youth, that they are best coupled with a catapult, so they hit the window with such a whack, they stick for a minute or two, before gravity starts to drag them down the window, like slowly dying slugs. All good, clean fun, except for the person who polishes the windows!

 

Kandytoys are doing astronauts, or 'Star Voyagers' (!?), who look very similar to those previously seen here at Small Scale World by Scrunchems, although these have different backpacks, and sharper detail, so the usual sub-piracy from China, as we used to get from Hong Kong!

 

Card backs were an afterthought, as I was putting them away, and don't add much, or list other sets, but it seems there's a dozen or so of the 25/30mm figures types out there under at least six brands. Try smaller or independent/small-chain toy shops or garden centres, and convenience store's revolving rack-toy trees.

H is for Have Screwdriver, Will Travel, Interstellar!

This is all courtesy of Peter Evans, with the carded set coming last year around Christmastime, and the figure being in the latest donation, which I picked-up the other day!

 

Apropos the construction sets we saw in the shelfies from Brian the other day, and credited to a Huan Le Play of china, it's sub-branded, on the reverse, to 'Toys' and imported by Yelsa of Luton?

 

It's the figure we're interested here at the Command Centre, the shuttle's a bit naff, and he's a fully round, slightly juvenile sculpt, but, a useful, and cheerful looking, addition to the pile!

 

However, this almost identical chap has finer detail and a better finish, both in paint and overall sculpt (although the first guy's star-spangled visor is pretty neat!), so the suspicion has to be that the Huan Le set is a knock-off of whatever toy the second geezer came from? Cheers Peter!

S is for Several Sculpted Spacemen

In addition to the two - quite sensible - rack toys, and the loose figures I used for the first narrative post, there were also some more assorted or generic spacemen and astronauts among the plunder of the first weekend in July, and which are the subject of this second space post.

 

Martin let me have these, pretty-much at cost, and a maker's name has come out since we last looked at them; Anabea, from Argentina, I think there were only the four poses copied from Deetail, but there is an alternate alien head used sometimes.

 

The Reisler also came from Martin, and is a duplicate of one previously seen, however this time he has a clear helmet, as opposed to the blue-tinted one we saw last time, a piece of Hing Fat junk from modern China, and a Cherilea pod-foot. I think my based sample is fair enough now, but I'm short on the pod-feet ones, with mostly HK or Marx soft vinyl versions.

 

Two K&M-Wild Republic on the left, with two new, baseless figures on the right. I think I may have seen their set, and if it's the one I'm thinking of, it's quite an infantile thing, for such realistic figures? A chunky flag-pole would appear to be missing.

 

A very cleanly marked 60mm Tudor Rose copy of Premier on the right, while on the left is a giant, 100mm-odd, polyethylene version of the Archer spacewoman, I think she may be one of the ones you see singly in bags marked A-OK USA, although there are plenty of parallels with the Hong Kong knock-offs, the quality is better. There should be an equally huge helmet, but it may be convertible for something else at that size - some of the modern travel-bottle sets have round-bottomed containers?

 

These Marx 60mm guys didn't survive the trip to Whitton, but I have better examples, so I guess it's off to 'recyce' for them, before their free-radicals contaminate anything else . . . Soylent Metallic Blue, yummy!

 

Also four post-Giant clones came out of the woodwork in the course of the day, three of the type 'C1' and a commoner 'C2', all grist to the mill;

 

https://butisitgiant.blogspot.com/search/label/Astronauts 

 

There is a bit more sci-fi/fantasy in the TV-Movie/Cartoon post, still to come, and thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin for their part in what was a brilliant day.

T is for Tyo Typical Types

Well? A sort of theme was the space-sets I managed to pick-up over the weekend, and the matching loose figures, from two genres we've covered here recently, so a quick post on them, and the bonus was getting two-more brands associated with them both.

 

Haglon taking the Lik Be clones, and Trafalgar the MPC copies, Trafalgar Toys (better known for their tie-ins with LJN, Mego and the Hong Kong subsidiary Lion Rock) would have been a rival to WHC, Grossman and the like, and, indeed, this card may be in the archive as LJN?

 

But Haglon (Hagemayer) were more of a shipping operation, as far as I understand it, like with container ships, port space and warehouses in Holland, shipping all over Europe, and apparently adding their moniker to some of the stuff they shipped-in, that would have extended far beyond toys, which were probably a minor concern among all the household and garden goods, haberdashery, pet supplies and the like? And I'm sure I've seen this card as a generic. We also saw them as Woolbro a while back;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/07/lb-is-for-lanky-bods.html 

 

As supplied by Haglon! The 50mm knock-offs of LB's finaest, apparently limited to four poses (did they pantograph one of the Clifford sets?!) are not hard to find, although it took me a while to garner a decent sample, I'm now going for one of each colour! These came from four sources over the weekend.

 

MPC originals, in two slightly different shades of red, we looked at their oeuvre here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2024/04/mpc-is-for-many-plastic-cosmonauts.html

 

and these are grist to the mill, but again, there comes a point when you are just looking for individual 'better' figures, or a specific pose-colour combination, and these are clean!

 

Seen in the link in an unreadable, but probably generic set (next to the Payton bag), the Trafalgar ones are the better versions, very close to the MPC, solidly formed and with thicker bases than the other three or so variants.

 

While these are the Henbrandt/Hing Fat third-generation (like Payton's, but worse) sub-piracies, and again, of limited use, but they'll all be sorted into the master collection, before any are passed on, probably to charity, but that's all a few years away, still.

 

Tim-Mee, so keen to cash-in on Star Wars (AND Battlestar Galactica, everyone forgets that was a year later), grabbed one of the MPC sculpts, with the barest of modification, and there was one in the plunder, last weekend, which was lucky for the completeness of this post!

 

Which gives us, from the left:

• Haglon-Hagemayer/Woolbro (and others?)
• Tim-Mee
• MPC
• Trafalgar Toys (et al)
• Hing Fat/Henbrandt (et al)

Making more and more sense, every time we visit them, and thanking Adrian Little, Brian Carrick, Colin Penn, Isaac, Matt Murphy, Martin Fahie, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for their input on the day or over the weekend.

M is for Miscellaneous Modelled Miniatures

This lot dates back to March of last year, when a group of us had our Christmas breakfast and 'show and tell' a tad late, well, a quarter of a year late! Anyway, while indulging in friendship, good home-cooked food and a bit of reminiscing, both Adrian Little and John Begg gave me tubs of bits . . . I respond well to tubs of bits, bags of bits, boxes of bits . . . !

 

These were from Adrian, who had noticed the similarity between the old MPC sculpt and the Hing Fat 'NASA-nauts', with simplified sextant and skien of rope. A green-washed (verdigris!), probably Kinder Napoleonic/colonial era staff officer 'mocherette' completes the line-up.

 

You can also see that the better-marked Hing Fat (or copy?) is the worst sculpt, and while I've lost the reference, I know there was a better yet, Hong Kong marked one, although the definite Hing Fat, on the left, was also originally, Hong Kong rather than China marked. Hing Fat did - of course - also issue straight copies of the MPC chaps in their slighter Mercury/Gemini suits.

 

I think John gave me this chap, large, around five or six inches (in storage now!), and possibly Marx? But I don't know, and lots of manufacturers had a stab at larger beach/garden wagons, stage-coaches and the like, which from his posture is what he might be from, rather than a horse rider, but I don't even know that for sure?

 

This seems to be an ex-Imperial Toys moulding, you can see where all consumer information has been removed from the chest area. Twin-headed dragon/monster in a softish PVC or similar polymer, does anyone recognise it?

 

An articulated baby, in a soft polyethylene, in a Kinder style, but possibly too large for Kinder, so another question-mark? Damaged Britains Jesey cow, probbaly Kinder elephant (Disney's Jungle Book?), and a Blue Box (or Redbox?) crocodile.

 

Poor shot I'm afraid, but they will mostly return here one day in other round-ups or comparisons, the plastic truck is nice, the old-fashioned car is probably Kinder, can't remember on the black space vessel, but I think it was marked?

 

Bottom left is a pull-back-and-go motored novelty from the pocket-money shelf, the white die-cast is a sub-piracy of something better I suspect and the Matchbox Jeep with recoilless rifle completes the group.

 

Having seen the Cosmix knock-off of MUSCLE the other day, here's Remco's answer to Mattel's import from Bandai, they are original sculpts, slightly larger (heading for the full 54mm), and more recognisably wrestlers, that some of the MUSCLE figures, who presaged Skibidy Toilet or Brainrot, by being made out of spanners, chains, bolts, shop tills, tyres, Rubik cubes or whatever, one was a pile of combination-locks!

 

Mixed lot of Nottingham Mafia output, but in these coloured plastics probably from a Milton Bradly tie-in board-game, the Space Marine's Space Hulk maybe? Or one of the add-on/extension packs?

 

Odds and sods for the spares boxes, aircraft kit parts, a base from something (anyone recognise it?), a Kamley/KS gun in need of a wheel/axle assembly and a ball-bearing puzzle, apparently given away by a railway company as part of the forced privatisation which has proven so successful, against all the naysayers had to say at the time!!! Although it might just be an 'Intercity 125' giveaway?

Thanks to Adrian and John, all useful stuff, one way or another! Plastic Warrior in less than Five Days!

M is for Moon Scout

That's Moon Scout, Google, it might be Moonscout or Moon-Scout, what do the bot's think? Moon. Scout. There's quite a few Moon Scout's out there, this one is from the New Bright Industrial Co., Ltd., of Kowloon City Road, Hong Kong, purveyors of the finest Moon Scouts, and the latest addition to Operation Wind-up Russet Twig!

 

I bought it without really looking at it, as it was obviously in excellent condition, however, there was one disappointment; the driver, so obvious in the artwork, and who would have rendered the whole thing a Jeep sized 1:32nd'ish vehicle, was not actually there, the clear-red cab hiding the mechanism of the walkers! Boo!

 

Which means you can drop the scale, to a four or six-man mobile office/command centre or 'people-carrier', around the 30-40mm mark, something which is reinforced by the scale of the safari-ladder on the rear of the vehicle, which also makes it around the same scale as the Soviet walker we looked at here

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/04/p-is-for-popovs-patented-plastic.html

 

Which, obviously calls for a fuller comparison when they are brought together, but which makes the Soviet toy the reconnaissance 'Scout' to this follow-up bruiser! I've seen white-bodied versions of this, as per the box-art, on evilBay, but frankly, the silver-chrome effect is 'spacier'!

 

Unlike the clockwork of the referenced one above, this one is packing batteries, and with more 'up and down' movement in the legs, I'm confident it will outperform the Russian effort, as our tanks are outperforming theirs, in Ukraine, right now!

 

Both are quite common, I've passed-up two of the Soviet offerings in the last few years, unless I see one in the box, I don't need another, while I've been passing these, usually somewhere down the back-wall, at Sandown Park for over 30-years! Now I've a boxed one, box-ticked!

D is for Donation - Peter - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Probably the best subsection after historical, for general interest, and new figures, due, as much as anything, to the large number of die-cast or big-box play set enhancers, or small run/low pose-number figure sets; drivers/pilots and play-accessories, novelties, or game-playing pieces, which turn up, and both donations have stuff which is new to me!

 

And we'll start with these which are all new to me, allowing for a couple of missing figures, they would seem to be a 48-count, split into four sides, each of 3x4 poses, although some of the poses are very similar.

 

Something of Groot, or Ents here?

 

Flamers, if you study the hands you'll see they are different sculpts - just!

 

Likewise with the second and fourth poses here.

 

Is it Earth, Fire, Air and Water?

 

A simple 'CHINA' is the only clue to these, who would have required a quite large bag or box. They are a softish PVC-alike polymer, possibly a silicon, but not the old glossy type of Diener erasers? Anyone recognise them, I don't think they can be that old, and may be/have been, from a game?

 

Two probable game-players here too, either side of a magnetic ger'nome of unknown origin. That's 19 out of 19 totally new items! Good start!

 

This is all new as well, or is it? We may have seen it here as a 'paint-your-own' shelfie, possibly from/in The Range, as I suspect that's what it is, I wondered if it might be/also be glow-in-the-dark, but it isn't/doesn't.

 

HG or DFC types, they all need a bigger sort out, as quite apart from three or four companies issuing this stuff through the 1980's, mainly, there were also sub-piracies, and base variations, which all need to be properly annotated.

 

I think we've seen these before, one Halloween, or in the build-up to, and despite the disparate nature of the and/or the materials they are made from, I seem to recall they were all the contents of one big-bag, from one of the UK's major supermarkets. It was a few years ago now, and recent years have seen no similar offerings.

 

Grist-to-the-mill here, but the more of these which come in, the more paint/finish variations pop-up, especially in the treatment of helmet visors, and the amount of paint on the figures, NASA-types, from four or five sources, here we see the smaller, believed to be Pioneer (for Realtoy/Dacron) and K&M (Wild Republic) sculpts.

 

A trio of MPC clones to be sorted into the collection, and a number of the Mon Desir chocolate egg premiums, but four sculpts we didn't see last time, so possibly-probably an earlier 1st, or later, 2nd tranche?

 

Five of the Lik Be (LB) spacemen, these are the later - Clifford era - version, following the paint scheme of earlier issues, but simplified (no green air-tanks, unpainted bases) with no paint on the back halves of the models, and the strangely blue-eyes; really late sets being unpainted.

 

And finally . . . an ornamental ger'nome, of the fairground side-stall prize variety - hoop, hook or shoot the ducks, fish or clowns, get a ger'nome, to take home! A solid chunk of polystyrene, decorated by automated or stenciled air-brush, it's very much in the same style as the Irish passenger-jig we saw a few years ago, as a PW show-purchase.

 

And, when I said it was a month to the next show the other day, it was actually two months, but now, it's only about six-weeks! Thanks to Peter Evans for all the above, does anyone know who the first lot are, or the pair with the magnetic Gnome, or for that matter, what he is?