Toys and Stuff

Thursday, October 1, 2026

Play Along Toys AOME LOTR - Weapons and Warriors #48200 Uruk-hai Siege Ballista - Pt 1 Box and Contents

Finally, we're getting into some heavy artillery for the LOTR! I've had this thing banging around The Cave for years and unfortunately, it got a bit damaged, but that will be covered in another post. The set includes a ballista, a bolt, and two Uruk-hai soldiers. The ballista comes in pieces and requires minor assembly - however, whatever instructions may have been included were lost years ago and can't be posted here as part of the write-up. The bolt can be made to fire as attachment points for a rubber band or piece of elastic have been molded into the piece. I haven't tried it - yet!

Sometimes Junk Happens - 45mm Infantry Pose 1

Let's not mince words here.

These are crap!

Being a part of a job lot of German soldiers (which arguably, weren't all that great either) these are good examples of how not to make toy soldiers. They are poorly executed, difficult to determine what country they represent, and if that's not bad enough, on two of the figures the words 'HONG KONG' are crudely sculpted upside down in an arc on their back!

On the bright side' I'll have a few sets of soldiers to post here in the coming days/weeks.

Pose 1

I thought at first these were German Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) because of the helmet and what looks like a potato masher hand grenade. But that grenade is totally flat - like a spatula! The unit's cook?

If you look closely at his back you'll see the words 'HONG KONG' backwards, upside down, and in an arc across his upper back. Now that's classy sculpture!

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Miscellaneous Toy Soldiers: A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That

While busy trying to photograph and edit photos for the next installments of stuff in general, I came across a bunch of photos of Little Green Army Men that were part of various job lots and I thought now would be as good a time as any to post them. Unfortunately. I didn't take down measurements on some of these.

Airfix 50mm - SP

Airfix is major player in the Little Green Army Man world, but these are the only figures I have from them

Del Prado 050 Rangers Technician Normandy U.S.A. 1944 - Cast Metal

Monogram - HP

The Revell figure to the left is 1/40 scale and came with their M2 Long Range Cannon Kit (which will be the subject for a future post_

Revell 1/40 scale - HP

These came with Revell's Bridge Layer kit

Revell 1/40 scale - HP

These came with Revell's Sherman Tank kit

Premier 45mm - SP

Rapaport Bros Mold 5673

Cast pot metal

UNK Mfr

I'm pretty sure I can track down who made this when I get the time.

This guy looks similar to Ideal's bazooka guy except this guy has an ammo round laying by his right knee

Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Ideal #4867 Turbo Jet Car (1959)

Here is a really cool vintage toy I got earlier this year: Ideal's #4867 Turbo Jet Car from 1959. It had been on my bucket list for ages and when this near pristine, working example (minus box) came up for a decently low price I jumped at it. The car closely resembles the 1954 General Motors Firebird I concept car from 1954. I have several spaceships in the collection whose design borrows heavily from these various jet cars of the 1950s & '60s and - as a toy - this was the OG.

The measurements:

-Car 11" (27,94cm) L x 5.25" (13,33cm) W x 4" (10,16cm) H

-Launch pad 10" (25,40cm) L x 5" (12,70cm) W x 4.25" (10,79cm)H

- Overall 13" (33,02cm) L