R is for Roveing Reporter's Rack-toy Round-up #4

Some of you may have had a weird alert for a post you can't find, this is due to my being an Aspergic idiot, and wanting to have four posts between each of Brian's posts, forgetting I'd done four because of the 'help wanted' post, which now isn't wanted (don't know, don't care), so, yeah, 'Hyperspeed' will post again in a few hours!

 

In the meantime, Brian sent a last minute set of shelfies from Dollar General in the 'States, and it's about half stuff not generally found on the Blog (but you never know who's visiting, or why), and half, some useful stuff, and here it is;

 

Wot? No caps!

 

Above is the stuff of less ineterst to the Blog, although the Mickey is a solid, and Spiderman has a solid fan-base, whatever size or figure type, and it's always nice to see figures who aren't WASP's, if you know what I mean, and it's a growing trend, to be encouraged.

 

Looks like fun, although some passing little scrote has squidged his head-in!

 

Both solids, and with existing, even 'vintage' figures of both Sesame Street and The Muppets, from Schleich, Comics Spain (and others), and a couple of breakfast cereal producers, a whole sub-genre of figure collecting, and/or TV/Movie related stuff.

 

Lego-likey, and always like Lego-likey as it's not plagiarist, lying, expencive Lego! And it's always interesting to see how 'other bricks are available' producers design their mini-figures, here we have real waists/hips and ripped shoulders! These officers could easily arrest any Lego mini!

 

I've seen similar in B&M and elsewhere, but not something that's lighting-up my universe! Although I 'get it', and they are the collectables of the future.

 

This looks nice, and a 'solid'?

 

I've also seen these, we may have had shelfies in the past, these here are possibly more colourful than the ones I've seen in UK stores, and like those minis we saw the other day, are window-walkers, in that sticky, cold, very-soft, silicon type polymer.

 

Many thanks to Brian Berke as always, rack-toys to be found in Dollar General, now. The four post thing was accidental, but after two, it made sense (to someone on the spectrum!), to continue it for [self-imposed] compliance sake!

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.

R is for Roveing Reporter's Rack-toy Round-up #2

The second set of images from Brian Berke were all taken in a New Your branch of a Japanese firm called Daiso, and are mostly beyond the parameters of the Blog, but it's a movable feast, and water-pistols/ray guns have crept in over the years!

 

With Dinosaur!

 

Although not the same, this double-decker looking firearm, reminds me of Deckard's piece from the original Blade Runner movie, I'd call it 'seminal movie', but there are about five versions, and the better ones have been watched by the least numbers of viewers!

 

 

Clip-together, or basic constructional infant toys, it's a "yes" from me for the motorcycle, which seems to be a finer model, still on the runner, the other two are more grandchild fodder, but I hope Brian won't mind me pointing out, he does look at this stuff with a grandfather's eye now!

 

Both marked Series B, I must assume another B was the Roaches, with other critters in the Series A, whenever that was current? Ants, Spiders and ? Maybe?

 

Daiso had also sourced some stuff more locally, and these last three are from Jaru, a US jobber/importer of some standing, in both years and ranges, squishy stretch-monsters are cool! Thanking Mr Berke, and there's more to come!

L is for Lucky Large Bags!

We saw the two current issues of 'cornucopia' back in December, and one of these in Jan., and there was another, similar beast, in the queue, until I visited Peter Evans the other day, and he gave me a second, so we're looking at them both today, the contents being quite similar to each other, suggesting a common source for the contents, if not the management/corporate origin.

 

To be honest, I can't remember if this was fund in B&M, The Works or somewhere else, maybe The Range actually? Or when - it looks like it may have been this last January. Contents are close to those of the Hunter Price International/Toymania branded one, we saw in May, with the same toys, including the stretchy dinosaur-caterpillar thing, but with a 15-count, rather than the 20 in that previous sample - missing are the two maracas, the two flicky things (ID'd by Mark as 'slap-bands') and the yo-yo.

 

While the latest sample is another of the Toymania ones, but now reduced by 50% to ten items, even the catersau/dinopillar has 'bought it', but, as you can see the car, spinning top and others are identical to the previous set above, so clearly they are from the same stable. As they (this and January's) are both 'Series One', it may be a price-point thing, rather than a 'shrinkflation' second tranche?

D is for Donation - Peter - Books, TV, Movie and Licensed

OK, so we're on to recognisable characters, although these days, they are coming so thick and fast, from so many streamers, with all the old favourites getting darker (Batman) or lighter (the dreadful Disney Pooh) makeovers, alternate universe versions, good and bad clones (Spider-Man, or should it be Spider-Men now?), indeed, the whole Marvel/DC thing is disappearing up its own arse, as Andy Warhol once predicted, albeit with choicer language!

 

Another Smiley (we've seen one or two recently), but this one has some age, and unlike the modern ones with their overprinted faces, his facial detail is sculpted-in. A Batman keyring, a bit of a caricature, this one, and a Gamorrean Guard from Hasbro's Star Wars Command.

 

This is an interesting one, on one level it's a teeny novelty rack-toy from China in a generic bag, but it's in the style and material of, and the same size as, the Phidal interactive book figure Duke Caboom (Captain Canuck knock-off from Toy Story), and the suspicion is it might be from the same source/factory, maybe a cancelled order, on clearance, and is compatible with the better-known figure? We can compare in a later post of this series!

Disney . . . for girls! And we have two from Frozen, Kristoff and Elsa, both capsule toys, one Kinder the other a lesser make I think, possibly both seen before? Bo Peep from Toy Story, a larger figurine from a source unknown to me, and a less definite 'fairy' like figure, almost certainly a Kinder something?

Some Japanese Anime/Manga thing, don't know anything about him, but nice figure.

Alternate Hulk in red? Actual Hulk from Phidal, we saw another recently, but they are very different shades of green, a Hotwheels figure from Mattel, shades of General Grivous in him, a damaged LB knock-off in 50mm (in the wrong post!) and a stamper;

 

I searched 'yellow suit' and 'horns' for both Marvel and DC, and couldn't find anything looking like him, although I knew several of the new characters have a similar look, then I remembered the flyer from the Fortnite post, and there he was, top left in the 'legendary' section, so a Fortnite character.

 

Current, or very recent Kinder, in two separate lots from Peter here, and interesting as they seem to be copies (fully licensed, the Playmobil logo is all over the packaging) of the children from that toy line, but with clip-together waists, to get them into the eggs. DC Superheroes, they have all the better ones! And, I guess, you add them to your Playmobil tub, as children dressing-up as DC characters? No accessories, but the hands are full-size for standard Playmobil stuff, and - with these - there's already a lot of value packed into the standard-priced eggs.

 

No idea on the Superman, the diver is also in the wrong group-shot, but hey, there he is, definitely to be further sorted (he's probably still in a bag with the other three!) a modern stretchy-smiley, with the over-printed face and a Homer Simpson of the size of, but not from the Monopoly set, so maybe a lesser capsule toy egg issuer like Zàini - LZ or Maraja, like the Kristoff from Frozen above?

 

I suspect these are from a kid's comic or magazine/periodical, they are that two-halves-of-substantial-polystyrene, glued together, which you see with a lot of the cover-presents, we've seen Clangers, Peter Rabbit and Octonauts here so far, this is the Fat Controler from Thomas the Tank Engine I think, and clearly two different issues, one realistically finished, one all in silver?

Super-deforms, I recognise a couple of the recent Marvel Spider-People, don't know the other two. They might be from a blind-bag set Brian Berke sent images off, but I can't find them on the Blog, and I can't find them in the ever-growing Picasa queue, so possibly badly tagged, however, the search did reveal how much of this blind-bag stuff is out there, and how much we've seen, one way or another!

 

Two more, not much idea on the issuers, I think Chewy may be Kinder, the sucker Captain America is the first licensed figure of the type I've seen, but there is a growing bag of the generic cartoonish sucker 'monsters', in the style of Shopkins, Moshlings, Smashers, Ooshies or Superzings, from which he's taken!
 

On the left another superhero I think, but I don't recognise him or his line/make, then a Barbie, which looks Kinder, but is a whole figure and wouldn't fit in an egg, so some other cheap bagged, capsule or rack-toy line? Disney dwarf, and another Fortnite stamper, easier to ID, as most of the female characters seem to have those armoured knee-pads!

 

Thanks again to Peter for saving all this for the blog, quite an eclectic mix!

B is for Big Bag

Just a quickie, another 'lucky bag' type thing, in the same vein as the two cornucopias we saw a while back (Christmas?), and with very similar contents of little use to military figure minded peeps such as yourselves, but, we buy this shit so you don't have to!

 

Courtesy of Hunter Price International, under the Toymania branding, I think I got this in The Works, it was back last August, but I think I've since seen it elsewhere as well? Asda carry Toymania, as do a couple of the Sub-Poundland discount stores.

 

Contents include a quite good sample of 18 standard novelties or party gifts, including light-up cars, bouncy-balls, a shaped slinky, maracas clackers/clappers, blow-ball balancer, 'helicopter', spinning tops, a couple of stretchies, a balancing bird, a disc 'baseball' firer, and two weird bookmark things? Clearly designed to keep two smaller people happy, without fighting over who has what.

 

The stretchy unicorn has a hole in its arse and can pass through itself?

 

Two-colour stretchy smiley.

 

The weird bookmark things? They seem to utilise memory-metal, to roll up or unroll, but why? I think I'm missing something in my old age; both space-themed, they would make useful bookmarks, but I suspect they have another function?

 

It's funny, but memory-metal, is a bit like 3D printing, apart from one or two esoteric medical applications, both technologies have been used primarily to make toys, novelties and other short-life, ephemeral crap! While I don't think Nano Carbon or Buckminster Fullerine have even had a decent application yet, beyond research and being talked about as the next big things . . . it's almost like we are running out of ideas, even as we keep having them, if you know what I mean, ceasing to strive for excellence and sliding back to an anti-democratic, belligerent, less enlightened 19th century mindset! 

 

The launcher of the 'helicopter' disc, they had a period of being 'UFO's didn't they?

 

That't it, might keep younger kids happy for an hour or so!