Unboxing Box No. 4

 

The YouTube and internet phenomenon that is the unboxing video is still a bit of a puzzle to me.

Different from a finished, made-up kit review or playset review, this is watching someone unpack their latest present or purchase. Unless you want to see what is in a particular box set, it could be pretty dull.

However unpacking a bits box or job lot of Broken Britain’s figures (not just Britain’s but of all makers and scales) is a genuine rummage into the unknown. In the words of Forrest Gump about Life as a box of chocolates, “you never know what you gonna get.”

I received as presents from the family four shoeboxes of toy soldier odds and ends that I had stowed away for Christmas, some old, some new, some red, white and blue (two packs of the BMC Yorktown 54mm figures).

Box number 4? I took a bit of a gamble bidding £30 or so on this small child’s  suitcase of mixed toy figures, having glimpsed one or two interesting figures.

What treasures can you see?

Ebay Screenshot – glimpses of toy town treasure? Some figures clearly broken.

I spotted a  Wendal aluminium Toytown soldier figure or two – including the hobbyhorse for the Toytown Officer but was the Officer included and unbroken?

This could have been a box of brittle decaying plastic tat.

I was pleasantly surprised – this box of surprises formed box number 4  of my Christmas toy soldier presents.

Share with me this owl pellet of figures and toy bits, as I unpack this scrappy bits and bobs and scrapings of someone else’s toy box.

A hollow plastic rhino and damaged metal Bison for repair. 54mm scale.

Great plastic Pterosaur with folded wings and metal 54mm grey gorilla (Charbens or Cherilea?)

One solitary metal penguin …

Plastic 54mm foxhunter and five hounds. Hilco Plastic? Possibly worth the whole bid price?

Small 54mm scale farm animals, mostly lead and some grubby flocked examples of pigs and sheep. Damaged metal Roydon 1950s windmill.

Three beautiful large lead animals, one damaged for repair and a plastic grazing horse

50-54 mm Farm workers, numbers 1 Crescent farmhand  and 3 are metal.  Roydon metal sign post and (Roydon?) well. The other figures  are plastic, the farmer (an unmarked copy of?) an early Britain’s Herald type with moving arm.

Two 54mm Roydon blacksmiths or farriers and anvil.

Small lead or metal trees and bushes.

54mm Metal cowboys needing repair. First two Timpo, last three Britain’s.

54mm metal  cowboy and horse to repair. This lead horse with a broken leg thankfully won’t get shot by me as the Lead Vet of the Remount Department.

More bashed and broken 54mm lead American Indians to repair. First two Johillco. Third from left Reka? Last two Britain’s second grade paint.

A variety of sizes of Cowboys and Indians in colourful plastic, the largest Crescent (left) and Lone Star (right) 54mm.

A metal doghouse, garage, railway and farm bits and bobs.  Mixed  scales, plastic and  metal.

Fences, small scale figures and a little red Charbens  phonebox with opening door and …

… A glimpse of the phone shelf inside the Charbens phone box. This phone box is potentially worth more than the bid price of the box of figures.

I was a bit worried that I had bought an expensive box of broken and brittle plastic tat but this unbroken  little red phone box seems to be worth more (based on other ebay listings) than the suitcase worth.

Plastic green  zoo fencing and metal wagon ends and fences.

Lead (Second figure from the left) and plastic modern or WW2 figures, 54mm to 60mm – stylish and lively poses. Lone Star Harvey no. 1, 5, 6 and the magnificent 7th!

I still find it exciting and interesting to find new figures that I don’t have or have never seen for real.

Before job lots or individual figure sales online, it was difficult to affordably find such figures, locked up in a slightly older generation’s toy boxes and biscuit tins in the loft.

This fascination probably dates back to the mid 1960s when my late Dad bought a box of odds and ends random plastic figures from the family next door for our family toy box, their boys having outgrown them. Some of these were always at odds with our staple Airfix 54mm figures. Many were mysterious because they were no longer in the toy shops. Some of the larger 60mm cowboys and Beton WW2 were an oversized oddity, less used. However the different handfuls of a few 54mm figures by Crescent and a handful (literally) by other manufacturers such as Lone Star  Harvey became some of my elite troops and command figures.

Some of the brittle breaking 1960s plastic 54mm for possible repair? Cherilea.

An attractive small red metal canoe with 30mm plastic Indians

The scrapings of someone else’s toy box? Metal Buffer, plastic pen topper, pilot or driver figure etc. I vaguely recall having such a pilot / driver but can’t think for what toy.

 

There was a Toytown  Officer and his horse in aluminium by Wendal and the rifleman (with bayonet intact) to join two bashed others in my collection.

The two Toytown figures again, if bought separately online, are worth more than I bid for the suitcase of figures. The child’s small suitcase that it all came in is useful for storage.

I hope you enjoyed sharing with me the joy of discovery. There are  some useful figures and bits and bobs for the gaming table along with some more interesting figures for rotating into my few wall mounted display cabinets. Figures off such  ‘parade’ duty go back into those stout plastic Really Useful boxes for a rest.

Hope you enjoyed this Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog unboxing blogpost.

Posted by Mark Man of TIN blog on Pound Store Plastic Warriors, March 2019.

Pound Store 42mm farm

Simple and attractive  box art

Found this on my travels in a National Trust gift shop for the not strictly pound store price of £4.50 (but hey it’s for charity). Pound store bizarreness and  quality though!

It is available online too https://shop.nationaltrust.org.uk

What you get squeezed remarkably into one small box 

I look at these play sets part with the eyes of the child I once was and part with the slightly more adult eyes of the gamer and figure converter.

The National Trust shop product shot on their shop website. 

The calves are small enough to be cows in a smaller railway or gaming scale.

The piglets are pleasingly stocky and wild boar like (lunch for Obelix and Asterix).

The rabbits (?!?)  are just plain bizarre. The chickens and ducks repainted are good for farm vignettes.

The wobbly fencing would make good corrugated iron panels at smaller scales.

What I find most fascinating are the cloned farm figures which are in that indeterminate 40 to almost 50mm sizing. They are in slightly soft plastic, rather than hard and brittle.

Figures to scale. A surprisingly buxom wench (left). The Winston Churchill /  farmer is equipped with pipe, whip or crooked stick and shotgun, proper “get off my laaand!” stuff. 

 

How the mini farm set fits with 42mm figures (Irregular Miniatures WW2 British tommies). Armed Inspection by the Ministry of Ag, looking for illegal hidden  pigs? Saving the Nation’s Bacon!

Throw in a slightly battered vintage car and you change the character of the farmer –  a  junk shop find of Ford Model T Yesteryear model  in the process of being repainted khaki to a staff car. 

It all packs back inside the building and into the box – neat! Great as a child for holidays.

I think the figures will repaint well enough for civilian figures, as will the outhouse repainted to a small distressed farm outhouse. It is a clone of Britain’s Plastic small farm buildings that I still have.

Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, 2 September 2018

The Mini Farm set is manufactured by www.keycraft.eu, an interesting low cost plastic toy trade retailer with lots of business retail insights on their website. The Sceince of Impulse Buys? Note:  Trade only.

The Science of Impulse Buying – Who could fall for impulse buys of such low cost, brightly packaged toys? 

Keycraft import the usual suspects – repackaged copy Matchbox US infantry clones (with no enemy) sold by several outlets including book shops.