About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

N is for New Finds, Pt.7 - Gold Daleks and Pencil Tops

Or...B is for Bluesky, Blueprint and Bluw Ltd...

So, this little lot of interrelated things were all coming in to the collection over Christmas just gone, as I went about seeking things out for other smaller people, the linking trends being names with blue in the title, gold Daleks and/or pencil tops!

So the first purchase (back in the late summer/early autumn?) was the Bluesky pull-back motored, hard-styrene space-shuttle pencil-top and astronaut rubber (that's 'eraser' to those so childish they can't say rubber without giggling), there were other designs, I can't remember them but I know I then found more on the Internet but this was the one with a figure, so this was the one I got. Can't remember where either, but it was a cheepie shop - I think?

Then at Christmas I was passing through Basingrad and found a little old model shop clinging on to the pile of new precincts joined together with poured concrete. In a mug on the counter he had white, yellow, blue and orange Fatleks along with a TARDIS as pencil-toppers, this time by a company called Blueprint out of Harlow, Essex (importers I imagine), I bought a yellow one.

At around the same time Dr. Who Adventures were re-running (?!) their pencil-toppers, so an issue was acquired.

This meant I needed to go back to Basingrad to get a TARDIS (for comparison!) and another - blue - Dalek...because it was there and er...the orange and white ones had gone! The TARDIS is a pen top, not a pencil top.

A week before Christmas doing last-minute shopping for jelly window-stickers (a tradition) I found this die-cast key-ring of the new-old-shape gold Dalek in Robert Dyas (UK hardware chain) and had to have one...for comparison! I also couldn't resist taking it part to see how it was put together. it's a very robust little model but the eye stalk is the softest PVC ever. This is the Bluw contribution.

Then just after Christmas I got this big one in Waterstone's bookshop, it's part of the range of little boxed games and 'executive toys' they do on a rack near the tills. I've previously bought the little set of foam aeroplanes. I suspect it's a re-boxed toy from the action figure lines but is unmarked?

Comparison shots include the Character Options minis in black and gold, a styrene Fatlek from Dr. Who Adventures/HMA and another of the Basingrad Fatleks - in orange, because...

...in January I returned to see if he'd been restocked and he had, so red, orange and white were added t the growing pile of approximately 35mm Fatleks!

The shots to the right are the final comparison for now and include two colour variations of the DW Adventures pencil top, the Blueprint pen top and a resin Police telephone-box from Harburn Hamlets.

Now when I wrote '(?!)' above, that's because when I was putting all these away I realised that the Christmas Adventures TARDIS pencil top (which came with a note book) was different from the one issued with a Fatlek and other things a year or two ago (see blog passim), so HMA have issued two different TARDIS's (what IS the plural - Tardis, Tardii Tardises or Tardis's?), but that will have to wait for another day when we can also look at the Dinky and Wardie/Mastermodels Police boxes!

Relevant Links;

Church Street Models - Basingrad
Bluw - Daleks
Blueprint Collections
Bluesky Designs Pullbax

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