M is for May's Visit - Purchases

So, back to May, and a visit to London, to pick up some stuff Peter had found, saved or got at a car-boot for me, but while I was there we dived into a couple of shops on the journey to/from the Toy Project charity shop, and I managed to find a couple of things of interest.

 

The pictures say it better than I can, on this one! A couple of daft animals on motorcycles (not 'cars'?), which are neither terribly cartoony nor caricatures, or any kind of licensed character, more like realistic big-heads, so heading straight to charity, where they will find similar trike-mounted dinosaurs, currently in Poundland!

 

But a nice bag of model animals with four of the 'big 5' (tiger instead of leopard) and other iconic ones including North American (Grizzly) and Asian (Panda) animals, along with some useful scenic items, and a strange modular base, which looks like it might interlock with some of those white-button vehicle track-ways?!

 

Probably a generic with a phantom-branding to Toey Play®, who have a presence on platforms like Amazon, but aren't on the Animal wiki's so are probably other recognised Chinese manufacturer/s products? But, for such a big box, it was cheap as chips in an anonymous general store.

 

These, seem to be very good for what they are, which is dirt-cheap rack-toys ffromKandy Toys, certainly both compatible with and of equal quality to the current Tomy-Britains or New Ray stuff (where I think they may from, or be copies of), so, if you're into farm animals, look them out?

 

I also bought a few bits at the Toy Project, but I broke them down and photographed them with all the figures in Peter's box of bits, for me, so they will be sprinkled through the next series of posts, but you can spot paratroops, Phidal's and board game pieces!

L is for Lots of London Loot - One of a Few!

A fair bit of stuff has come in over the last few months, most from Peter Evans, some from the late Michael Hyde's estate, some of it donated, some of it paid for, but often not for much, and some bits which have got in there, but may be from other sources, because they all got shot in batches. So I'm just going to post it all as H is for's.... but as L's! With many thanks to Peter and thoughts for Mike and the Brother who survives him.

 

Useful bits and parts including most of an Airfix 88mm gun and tractor, but the obvious item of interest is the box at the top left, which is a further packaging of the teeny-tiny AFV models we've seen a few times now, such as here - as Empress.

 

Another box of bits, half of them Rocco Minitanks, the rest quite an eclectic collection of components, beebo's and oddments! The Rocco will prove perticularly useful, I have a large tub with most of the main range (the first 150-odd numbers), and many of them are missing the odd bit!

 

Unbranded, as a generic, the Hing Fat American revolution figures, not sure it all the poses are here, and for reasons of intrinsic idiocy, I photographed the majority of the poses present in the red, and only the remaining odds in the blue, when it would have been better to shoot them the other way! Another project which went on the back burner, but will be done one day is a page on/of the Bicorned/Tricorne forces from Marlborough to the French/Indian wars, and I can shoot the blues then!

 

A bag from The Toy Project, which I didn't open, but which had some useful bits in, astronauts from two sourses, a kitten and a puppy and a Corgi/Dinky (?) firefighter. The kitten looks like it might be from a board game?

A cereal premium Wellington, I only mentioned them the other day! And a blow-moulded bear, which was probably flocked once, and almost certainly a key ring, the use of the latter employment leading to the loss of the former coating!

 

The vatican guard from MM, one of the more eclectic sets of 'HO/OO' figures, and almost certainly from Mike's collection, he had got around to undercoating one-each of the three poses, the full set is covered by Dave over on PSR, from the style and material, I wouldn't be surprised to learn of a connection between these and Caesar Miniatures?

 

The Life-Like State Coach kit, it seems to be complete, so will get a making in the future, if only so it can be photographed 'whole', it's an old Miniature Masterpieces tool, a strange tie-in between the - then - nascent giant, Revell and the soon to fade Adam's Action Models. Thanks again to Peter for getting all this to the Blog.

L is for London Loot - 2 The Toy Project

Another feature of my annual/occasional visits to London on toy business [It's not a business, it's a game!] is the visit to The Toy Project charity's shop in Archway, and while it's not actually that cheap, it is for charity and if you're having a 'day out' in London, you should budget accordingly, and I always limit myself to what I like the look of, rather than what it's going to come to at the till!

This lot is just for fun, I'm not going to try ascribing everything, it's all get better sorting another day, but I think I ended-up with 37 items, most civilian or TV/Movie related, and here we have three Phidal or Phidal-likes, a catapult-novelty superhero and a large chap who may prove to be a Ben Ten thing?

 

Two pine/fir trees, one wooden, one hollow polystyrene, both shot on the radiator, as the - freshly laundered - T-shit I shot the rest on wouldn't allow the wooden one to stand up long enough to focus the camera, but they looked daft lying down!

 

Another Ben Ten, different make/line, one from one of the Insect movies from a while ago now, and an Avatar figure from Kinder I think?

 

Hermione, Hasbro and Haddock!

And probably; a capsule toy, GI Joe and Plastoy respectively.

Pokemon? Unknown? Minion and Spongebob Squarepants?

Three renditions of Snow White, one of which is bound to be a Phidal!

A right-old mix!

Nice pirate lady, the bear might be a corporate mascot,

the bloke could be another Ben Ten figurine?

Dragon, Leprechaun and creepy-Crawley!

Hasbro Napoleon from the Night at the Museums franchise, a nice sea-horse, Tomy era Britains farm-hand, capsule Ninja, sky-diver and a BMC (?) redcoat! Which was 37 items! All grist to the mill.

A is for And so to London - The Toy Project

Back in September I managed a day up in London, ostensively to meet Peter and thank him in person for all the parcels he sends the Blog (two in the queue in the last three weeks!),  but also to visit The Toy Project's shop at Archway, I've blogged them before, so just enjoy the pictures;

A rather charming, oldy-worldy look to the shop, although it is a modernised building, but only to sort of 1970/80's standards, it runs right back and is filled with good things!

Details and contacts;

Shop: 81 Junction Road, Archway N19 5QU 

Opening Times:

Monday 11-6pm
Tuesday 11-6pm
Wednesday 11-6pm
Thursday 11-6pm
Friday 11-6pm
Saturday 10-5pm

Sunday–closed 

Email: j.garfield@thetoyproject.co.uk

Website: https://thetoyproject.co.uk/

Tel  +44 (0) 207 503 9590

And, because we have looked at these a few times now, it's a case of what can you spot, what do you like . . . 

Corinthian footballers!

Shopkin blind-bag and similar types

Bogglins on the left, 

Crazy Bones and similar on the right - in a home gum-ball dispenser!

A tub of Smurfs, a tub of Trolls

and more blind-bag and Kinder type stuff

Gormiti . . . or the other ones?

Another tub of Shopkin type stuff . . .

. . . and more Kinder and Gogo's!

Larger items, Britains farm

All sorts, I could half-empty this if I was feeling rich, 

just to top-up the novelty junk bags!

Ditto - a lot of Kinder bits here!

Big boys - Britains, Papo, Schleich, ELC, Supreme and Plastoy

More . . .

. . . and more!

My modest purchase; Papo pirate (bottom right), penguin-pirate, a few Phidal/Phidal-like's, a Kinder Robot, a 'funnimal' tiger and a small green alien/mecha', probably from a board-game, there's tons of this stuff on evilBay these days; originals, 3D-printed replacement parts and after-market expansion packs. I was most pleased with the mini coach - bottom, centre!

A 'thank-you'; one in every bag of bits!

H is for How They Come In - While in London!

I managed to get up to the party shop at Clapham Junction again this year, it's a routine now, I don't really look at my watch on the second troll round the show (after the pub!), but once it's obviously dark and heading for five' or six'ish, I get the over-ground back to Clapham and wander up to the party shop (which closes late).

I have a little mosey round, and head back to the Station, find an hour or more's the wait for a Fleet stopper, so get the next up-line to Waterloo, grab a burger and get the fast-to-Woking service out of there which slides through Clapham without stopping! It used to be every half-hour from both stations, but since privatisation it's got steadily harder to go anywhere conveniently - thanks Tories!

But before all that shenanigans, Mr. Evans handed me a pack from The Toy Project (one of several toy charities both sides of the pond) as soon as I arrived! They actually weren't at the show this year - having not been invited - but Peter had been up and picked me a handful of useful figures, among which were another Beatle (Macca-moneybags is the left-hooker isn't he?) cake decoration, some Lucky Toys (et al.) figures and a farmer from one of the sets Pagett/A-Z were carrying a couple of years ago.

The Piratical chap in yellow might be from a board-game, he seems to have a cocked or tricorne-hat designed to stack something (counters) on and a very board-gamey base? A Disney princess type and small PVC farmer (New Ray?) make up the lot - thanks Peter, and you can support The Toy Project here.

So to the party shop; they had moved everything around and while the novelty/party-favour section was larger, there was less there of interst to me/you, but I managed a set of Iwako knock-offs including a third iteration of the micro-tank, this time branded to Symex and the same guns we saw last time (The Works) as a single, but now three!

I also bought these as they were dirt cheap, and I think they are a re-shoot of an old 1970's tool; the 'rubber jiggler' / hollow finger-puppet dinos', here a bit stiffer, but still rubbery! Actually there's a fair bit of dinosaur stuff gathering in the queue so we will have a dino-fest soon! And note they have been bought-in as Asda clearance (I vaguely recall eschewing them in Asda as too expensive around the 4/5-quid mark a year or two ago?), so they may still be findable in Walmart 'over there'?

As it happens, the Iwako and 'Rock Star' boxes were both still here, they went to storage last week but I quickly shot these 'cumulative' shots before I shipped them out!