L is for Lone Ranger

I Posted these elsewhere the other day, not something I collect, and we never went down the Wild West route with our Action Man (men?), so purely for those who will like a look, or enjoy the nostalgia hit, it's the The Lone Ranger line from Marx Swansea's 1978 catalogue.

 

Hi Ho! Silver, Away!

T is for Two - Childhood Survivors

In all the sorting of the last two-and-a-half-years, I found two fascinating pieces of childhood ephemera, from or related to Palitoy/Action Man, which I thought I'd chuck up here under the nostalgia heading . . . 

 

I can actually remember when the parcel eventually arrived, a while later (probably the 'winter of discontent'? So 1973/74'ish?), as it had about six or eight hands, two feet and ankle assemblies and the elasticated-loop with chromed-hook for mending the waist of my older painted-head figure which had come from a Church-fete.

Then we had two grippy-hands men with flocked-hair, one each, and they needed new hands as the fingers were starting to crack-off from the inside! Which left some spare! But we had got older in the meantime and took greater care of them, so I don't think we ever even used the other hands, or one of the feet and matey from Modeller's Loft (Alan Hall?) bought them from me in the 1990's!

 

Bugger-me if I haven't got enough for a guard dog, or a sentry box! I think it was supposed to have been sent off for the sentry box, we'd got the guard dog a few years earlier, he came with a ridiculously gold-anodised chain which would have looked better on a Mr. T doll!

I don't know why it never got sent, but I suspect it was 1980, and the whole divorce, house-move (to here) and teenager thing all came together after a few months in a caravan or two . . . I don't remember the Action Men ('Action Mans'?) ever coming-out at this house?

Funny how I can remember the name of my brother's figure, but I can't remember the names of either of mine or the guard dog, which definitely had one? Painted-head might have been Douglas, thinking about it!

C is for Canoes - 23 - Marx

I've recived shots for a 24th post, which won't surprise you, you had no idea of the plans, but they were originally for 22 posts, which stated to look like more a week or so ago, although the original 24th was to be Thomas-Poplar, but I may hold them for now as we covered them quite well a while ago here, and they can be a stand-alone post in a few weeks, or something?

 

In the end we might have got to 30, but I pulled the posts on Modern Metal production as the images were mostly current commercial ones sent to me more for reference, and likewise a Ron Barzo post, where I think The Toy Soldier Company are still using all the images! But, Dogs Of War, Frontline, Jon Jenkins and Little Legion all have very good white metal native canoes, Barzo have done two or three over the years, in resin, and I meant to do the Crescent slush-cast lead one, but it didn't happen!

 

Did we do the five-piece plastic Cherilea one? Oh yes, years ago, now tagged, and the other day, with bits and bobs in other posts . . . My 'eemies' have very small victories, but they have very small minds! Heehee!

 

Marx UK version of the Johnny West canoe, Now I have a confession to make here; when we were kids I hated the Marx 12" Wild West set, for a number of reasons, all of which fail to meet the test of retrospective scrutiny. To wit: Wild West (we had Action Man, and he was all WWII-to-Modern), PVC accessories (like late Action Man sets!), Hong Kong manufacture (well a lot of Action Man's stuff especially the stuff shared directly with GI Joe was firmly stamped HONG KONG!), different articulation (they still pose well), lack of real-cloth over-clothing (they are well detailed) . . . it was simply some sort of childhood/childish snobbery!
 

The fact is, as 'any fool know', they are very well-made, characterful and the PVC accessories have mostly stood the test of time, if I had a better budget and more space I'd probably start collecting them!

 

Luckily I don't have enough of either, but for those who do, they don't seem to be that rare (but then neither is Action Man these days, after the heady gold rush of the 1990's, a lot has come out of the woodwork!), although, I'd collect through part/bitty/job-lots, as the near perfect ones are often set far higher than they are worth!

But the canoe doesn't seem to come up so often and may be worth any premium it carries, there were none available when I looked on evilBay the other day. A US made version, shown above, I think.

 

Marx also did a 54mm/1:32nd scale canoe, and this is Brian's reissue. We saw the nominally 'HO' one, in the small scale post a few days ago. Many thanks again to Brian for the images.

T is for Toy Fair 2018 Reports - Action Man

A weird thing happened at the Toy Fair; there was a display of the Action Man retro re-boot up on the mezzanine walkway round the main hall, lovely stuff, but lots of DO NOT TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS signs liberally spread about the smallish stand, so while Peter chatted to them I took the rather poor video that kicked-off this side-season of fair reports.

But then - when we went down onto the floor of the main hall - there was another outfit, also displaying them! "Can we take photo's?" I said, "Of course" came the reply! So I don't know what the first lot thought they were protecting . . . at a trade show? Promoting stuff?

Anyway I shot off a few, they're not the best, but then 12-inch action figures aren't really what Small Scale World is all about, nevertheless, I loved my Action Man back in the day and actually sold my childhood collection to the man behind these figures, back in around 1995/6! And they are Toy Soldiers!

Timely too; as Moonbase had a ‘Mini Season’ of TV ad’s earlier in the week!

Also, these have been around for a few years now? I can't remember when the 50th was but Allan Hall from Modellers Loft down there in Dorset (to whom I sold mine, and who is responsible for the three volume work on them) obtained the licence from Hasbro for these many years ago now, and took them to the odd PW show or two and Harfield's  a while back, the 50's have been out for a while now and there were 40th's over a decade ago? It [the license] now seems to reside with an outfit called Art + Science International.

I never liked the 'tiger suit' of the paratrooper, but the latter British Para' was quite outstanding. The box is based loosely on latter boxes from the 1970's, the original was smaller and windowless if I recall correctly?

They are not part of the revamped Hasbro range of all-singing, all-dancing, action-movie types with all the fluorescent idiot-sticks, interactive-whistles and flashing-bells from the owner of the Action Man rights, these are a UK-specific, limited-run, retro 'thing'.

The chap on the left was originally the first tranche / first figure released and came straight from Hasbro's GI Joe, where he is close to the US Army/Marine Corps recruit/basic training uniform of the 1960's, we used the cap with our desert set-up for a Free French FFL type.

I once really upset a Bundeswehr paratrooper-officer 'Fritz' who was staying with my parents by setting-up my Cherilea/Sharna Ware desert half-track under the cherry tree with a face-veil 'camo-net' on sticks as an OP for my three Afrika Korps-dressed Action Mans, went and got Fritz to come and have a look and found him to be rather appalled by what was (looking back) probably anathema to him - a war toy, depicting Nazi-era Germans! He - having been raised in a climate without many such toys - clearly thought I was taking the piss, but I - as a kid - just wanted to impress him!

On the right is the classic British Tommy with Battle Dress and Sten gun, albeit a rather odd stocked French resistance looking type.

I don't know if they've been cleverly matched to the originals or if the/some of the original Hong Kong-based tools were tracked-down but the resemblance to the various outfits of my youth are uncanny.

The footballers were quite problematical back in the day, both the socks and the shirt/jersey sleeves showing a tendency to ladder and unravel into long stings of fluffy fluff! So I hope these are better made.

Likewise; I only hope the wet-suit has been made out of something more modern and hard-wearing that the melty-crumbly suits we had as kids, I well remember the sleeves of our action-man's orange suit slowly getting stickier and stickier as small fragments meandered-off  and stuck to the carpets like little mandarin amoeba!

Again; the skis, ski-sticks and snow-shoes all look to be accurate representations of the ones we had when we were young, and the M1 Garand (in white, there was a brown one as well) looks equally authentic?

B is for Bat Toys - Argentina Part I

Back to Argentina (or 'believed to be' Argentina), back to blow-moulds, back to dolls, back to Bat Toys! Listed under the unknown moniker, they are indeed blow-moulded Bat-dolls, probably from Argentina!

The man-bat himself with a cape made from [soon to be illegal; they already are in Kenya] shopping-bag polyethylene! We've seen a similar Tarzan here and given the size, they really are dolls, they even have the same plug-in arms as the cheap rip-offs of Action Man/GI Joe. This one's about ten-inches with only his arms moving.

The Boy Wonder (who appears to be Joe 90 moonlighting out of season-three) has five points of articulation in pink ethylene attached to a red torso, his cape is either a replacement or made with slightly less love than Batman's, same shopping-bag supplier though! [The next day . . . see comments - might be Mexican?]

We've also seen the Batman parachute toy before but I had a spare image kicking-about in Picasa, he was around eight-inches I think, while Robin is twelve-inches+. Thanks to Adrian at Mercator for all these.

News Views Etc...Action Man Auction

Anybody got any money left after the holiday season?

Action Man Auction

Bound to be a few bargains and some rare pieces there.