J is for Juguetes Alni

A return visit to the Blog for this Argentinean toy producer, and frankly, they have managed to beat the level of poor quality shown in the first visit with this set of 'Soldiers and Armour'.

Even painted-up and given a diorama background, they manage to make the Atlantic AFV's look sensible! The wheels though look very useful, nice sculpts and I can think of several contemporary toys that would benefit from a tyre-change with these!

The picture doesn't improve when you get the bag open! The figures missing (seen in the artwork); seated and with carbine across body, are both seen in the previous set we looked at here, and seem to make the pose total seven figures as six mouldings.

Shades of Monogram/Revell and both Marx and MPC, can be seen in the sculpts but they appear to be 'based-on' rather than straight pantograph-copies. The ammo boxes are very crude and differ from the round-topped 'pirate' chest seen last time.

A universal 'cradle' takes various items either as direct plug-ins, or attached to a variety of plug-in spindle mountings, swivels or clamps. The rocket has the same tail as last time, but a sharper point and longer middle-bit!

If Alni was teaching young Argentines this is what armies were made of in the 1970's, it's no wonder the Falkland Islands are still called the Falkland Islands! That'll upset some, but really it takes a special kind of stupid to out under-perform the very worst of mid-70's Hong Kong rack-toys, which this set manages!

A is for Alni or Argentina

I'm sure these have been covered in the more 'definitive' works, but they are new to me and raise an interesting question, namely; is Industria Argentina actually a company as has been claimed, (including by me) or rather a more over-arching mark like the common Empire Made or Hong Kong (now China) marks, W. Germany or even the England or Gt. Britain marks of the past?

  

Although they carry the Industria Argentina mark, it is only as a minor addendum to the larger Alni trade-mark, and with the previous set also carrying RM as a larger addition to the Industria Argentina mark, it seems that this is simply 'made in...' or 'manufactured in Argentina' and the various marks are separate concerns!

At 35 to 40-odd millimetres these figures are wholey compatible with other mid-scale brands such as Starlux, Reisler, Elastolin and Merten, although they are much cruder then all the aforementioned makes; the apparent Adrian-style firemen's helmets being in fact American M1's with netting painted silver!

 

Shots of the box and another view of the contents, there are the dried and flaked remains of a couple of motor-race type chequered 'flags' on the wings of the dingy and both the tool box and MG mounting are simply glued on, there are signs however that an earlier version of the MG mount was a plug-in one;  holes in the deck.

The missile/torpedo things are a bit of a problem to me and I think that while they may well be Alni, they were probably added to this set as a last-minute thing. The blue of the nose is not quite the same as the blue of the flag on the dingy, so not from the same batch of granules, the red tails are (like the rest of the assembly) soft ethylene plastic, while the tool box/locker in the boat is a hard styrene yet the mid-section of the weapons is the same as the oars in both shade and material.

Also the artwork is relatively true to the rest of the contents (three crew, MG, boat and oars) ignoring the ship and two planes, but there is no victim to be rescued? I've seen many of the South American toys with wacky missiles on equally wacky AFV's and my guess is that the missiles are from one of the more esoteric toys in the Alni stable and are an afterthought for added play-value.