As a continuation of the previous post (if you watched the Plaid Stallions video), and as a follow-on, off the back of the recent Blog donation from Brian Berke, we are going to have a first overview of the MPC astronauts and their clones, it's not the best, as I have more samples of the Hong Kong knock-off's in storage, but with the ones Brian sent, I have enough for now, and we can return to them another day for a look at the other examples.
MPC originals, the reason I was so happy to get these the other day, is that while I have a few, currently in storage, they are from the XL5 set, and are gold, silver, yellow, orange, and a dark red I think, and I didn't even photograph them properly when I did the set, concentrating on the accessories and character figures! While these are the iconic ones from the missile, rocket and space base sets, and the ones most copied, if this post is anything to go by.
Some of the earliest copies are among the poorer, being slightly smaller, less well detailed/moulded and marked with a simple Hong Kong, various versions exist, and it's they we will look at again, as it's the weakest part of today's post. These probably date from the mid 1960's and ran through to the early 1970's, although there seem to have been so many of them, some corner shops probably had a few into the early 1980's?
Better sized (in comparison with the originals) but very flashy ones here on the left, sold by Payton in the 'States, but probably other people, or as generics elsewhere, they have some nice colours though? While on the right, is an early example of the later, better copies, which might be late Ri Toys, early Hing Fat, or someone else?
Some of the older moulding hung-around until the 1990's at least (they're probably still out there somewhere, waiting for a client/buyer!), and here we see a generic with a gate-fold head, still folded for shipping, in a 'more' realistic colourway of white/silver.
Head up and over-printed to
Henbrandt (
HB, not D, not P), for some reason both my cameramen are a pale mint-blue, I say 'my', but this is the feableBay image, I think, although I did purchase the lot, it went off to storage a while ago!
A renaissance in the 1980's/90's led to new copies which were closer to the originals, with more substantial bases, so they stood-up on carpets a bit better than the previous ones, with their thin bases, and we got them unmarked (as in the image three-above) or marked Hong Kong, from the
Hing Fat stable, and seen here with or without a code (No.433) and wearing three different logographies, the white eagle sets being the ones un-coded.
And I suspect the eagle came before the GI logo (which was still in shops in the 1990's, before the current, two kids logo, took over), which puts the silver/white combo' competing with the earlier copies, and the red/white/blue as later? Although this low-res (historical?) image from
Hing Fat's catalogue shows both colour-ways, running together, with the late card, along with elements of the later 'fat NASA-nauts' sets.
While an Italian reseller/importer ('jobber'), A. Ronca SAS, carried sets with a smaller figure count, but an added flag, and stand, bargain! The company may still be going, now as a reseller of kitchen appliances, but they are in a different town, so I suspect an unconnected company with a similar name.
And while the colours of the blues obviously vary in the above shots, in this one we see a very different shade again, a sort of sea-blue?!
At about the same time as the generic/
Henbrandt and generic/
Hing Fat sets were popular,
Nasta Industries were carrying similar figures, with slightly lighter bases, alongside their
LB (for
Lik Be, obviously!)-supplied figures, also in a red, white & blue colourway.
Those early ones from the smaller rack-toy, pester-power cards, they are pretty poor quality, but probably date way back to when Hong Kong was first getting-going, and they may have been rushed out.
Comparison with MPC, the outer pair, obviously!
My current black & white sample is probably close to or actually the same ones as seen in the generic/
Henbrandt sets above, mid-1980's, I think, and slightly better than the earlier knock-off's on those pocket-money toys. Also donated by Brian Berke, in a previous parcel!
Comparison with an MPC, on the left.
Now, I only have five of these here, six with the yellowish-one, and they are unmarked, so probably not actually
Hing Fat, but rather from the fuzzy-pictured generic set, next to the
Payton image above. Clearly a redesign, they ran into the 1990's and can be found in various packagings/sets. The yellowish chap could be either, but being baseless we don't know if he's from a marked or unmarked set, and if marked, whether it said 'China' or 'Hong Kong'!
Comparison with MPC, they are the pair in the middle.
Three odd's I have here (more in storage) and all interesting, the one on the left in yellow, has had a base added to the most annoying of the figures, both the baseless figures, by all makes/pirates keep falling over, so putting a base on it was long-overdue, except I don't know when this was made, or for what set!
In the middle is a solid'ish, subscale copy, which I was pleased to find, but I can't now remember if I found it in a Chris or Peter donation, or at a show, myself, but if it was either of the afore named, it should be in a plunder post, attributed to them with thanks. I also can't remember if there was more to it, such as Hungarian, Argentine, a Spanish sobre, or French premium, but I seem to recall it was something like that - a bit of a story?
And the third is another of the painted ones which turn up from time to time, we looked at a different pose when
showing the Giant 'Space Paratrooper' here, and I think I have a third now, painting matches that para' apart from the gold helmets of the non-parachute toy ones, it could point to a carded set from
Giant, or it could be a red herring, ultimately neither black nor flesh are surprising colours to find on boots or faces, while the gold could be screaming "
Not related!".
These are both a bit rubbish, and could be from those early carded ones, or something else, base-mark is similar to others, but the melted-effect of the letters suggests the marks were pantographed with everything else, from someone else's product! The faded orange guy looks like
he could be one of the Wilton ones?
Nasta Industries are looking like the real cheepies, but with better overall quality and a smaller, fainter, Hong Kong base mark. And again with the red, white and blue, ♫♪♫ "It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one" ♪♫♪
While the
Nasta industries header-card artwork is taken from a movie still of the epic, operatic
2001 A Space Odessey by Stanly Kubrick, and - needless to say - they're nothing like the figures in the pack!
I
had one or two here, to add to Brian's sample, and it's given me three
shades of blue, two whites and a silver chap! Apart from the one guy with a
space rifle and the other with a sidearm, they are really quite a
peaceful/exploratory bunch, in suits similar to
Lik Be (
LB)'s Mercury/Gemini era suits, which is probably when
MPC issued them, any
Hong Kong clones (the strangely poor ones) coming a few months later? There were also re-issues in grey.
But, the story doesn't end back at the start with the MPC figures . . .
. . . as the 'goldfish-bowl' figures,
sometimes issued as space paratroopers, are also the
MPC sculpts but greatly scaled up to 80-odd millimetres (about 3½ banana stalks)
. I have plain coloured (red white and blue again?) in storage along with silver I think, but these three have come-in more recently, and they were available in various forms through the 1970's and possibly into the early 1980's?
While
Theo van der Weerden sent this shot to the Blog. He got them, a bit bashed-up, in a mixed lot at a Dutch flea-market, and I don't know what marks they have, if any? So they might be Hong Kong, or something more local - Belgian, Dutch or French
bazaar types. But they appear to be crude (hand-copied) versions, possibly taken from the bigger goldfish bowl figures, and maybe 70mm, or thereabouts?
So many thanks to Theo and Brian, and as I say, we'll return to these another day, as there's plenty more to say/look at, but for now, a decent-enough overview of the MPC astronauts and their many clones.