UFO is for UAP - Hinstar / Avra / DAS / Dival / Eugene / Simba - Galaxy War Striker, Star Warriors

Chapter two of this particular story, and my first encounter with it, I'd picked up a few loose micro-mech's a few years before I got my dog-faced trio with their big, blue space-taxi! And one of the first to get a good write-up (as Hinstar) about 16-years ago, but I now can't find the site?

 

Marked on the underside as Hinstar without a date, each of the three machines (only one is strictly a saucer), comes with eight robots, which I assume are based on/cloned from commonly licensed 'Mechs', from Japanese or US Kid's TV output?

 

Imported into the UK by DAS, into Greece by Avra, and Germany and it's neighbours by Simba, they are all brand-marked Eugene, and I have a screen-cap which seems to indicate a Dival also imported them to somewhere, but Google won't search for Dival, defaulting to 'Devil' without the option to search for the asked phrase/task instead?

 

My original sample, shot in 2013, at the time they were in the Galoob boxes, as someone had authoritatively stated they were Micro-Machines, not an attribution I was ever happy with, they didn't have Galoob quality, they didn't have MM bases, they didn't have Action Fleet or Army Gear articulation, and they were both polyethylene and clear knock-offs?

 

But you can see they had three colourways, and more than eight sculpts (I still haven't tried to work out how many sculpts there are?!!), with metallics that vary from batch to batch and are best described as Brass/Gold, Copper/Bronze and Silver/Gunmetal/Aluminium. The one on his own at the bottom is mould-damaged, and quality on all is no better than rack-toy 'army men'.

My three, with the original 9 and others which have come in I should have enough to calculate the total number of poses, but simply haven't got round to it yet! Generally the colours of the robots tie-in with each ship, but there were larger space-station sets which may have got a larger mix of figures.

 

While one issue (Holland?) got human or humanoid figures in primary colours which I haven't tracked-down yet. Their vessels may all be different colours too, the pale blue 'arrow-head' is navy-blue plastic in the Dutch issue.

Two spaceships and a flying saucer, which has offset 'battleships guns' sticking out to be broken off! All these sets can be traced back to Polly Pocked, not the Mighty Max most websites suggest (for all three sets), as Max himself owes his existence to Polly, who predates him. Equally, Galoob, who had the most success with this stuff, were only exploiting an existing idea from Bluebird Toys.

A couple of interactive parts, with a moving radar dish and sliding 'elevator' capsule, mine all came together about 18-months ago, but then went straight to storage, so I can't remember offhand what details the other two had, the silver one may have had sliding seats, and the orange dome in the brown one may have done something?

 

The Greek Avra sets, they were issued as the above three designs as well, with an Avra sticker, but here have been given new ship designs (on the same Eugene cards, slipped into the Avra boxes) and you only get five robots per card/box.

T is for Two - Novelty Vehicular Thingies!

Just a quickie, but as I was sorting stuff to put back into storage I was shooting all sorts of old friends and things I'd forgotten I had, and batch throwing them on Picasa against the possibility of being stuck somewhere in the near future, possibly for months, house-hunting, while everything is in the said storage; these are two of the things I'd totally forgotten being the owner of, and, while 'only' novelties, they are both quite cool from a toy soldier perspective!

We get used to seeing the Award, Grace or Star branded wagons - copied from European originals, typically Timpo or Britains - on feebleBay from time to time, but how about a money-box!

Imported by a D.A.S. of London in an otherwise un-branded/generic packaging. I think this is (or was) quite recent, from the CE mark; 1980's or 90's maybe, I also suspect it was a charity-shop purchase, but can't actually remember where it came from or when, one of those last Birmingham shows, 2011?

She looks a tad Britains in origin, he . . . Elastolin medieval? The whole wagon (with figures) is in hard polystyrene with 'propylene wheels and horses and an 'ethylene plug to release the savings, hopefully to buy another wagon!

It would benefit from a 'paint down' from the current scheme of psychedelic puke! Obviously, painted or not, it's wholly compatible with 50-60mm war gaming or figure collections which is why it's in mine!

While this is more geared toward H0 or 00-compatible war-gaming collections, for which a coat of grey or olive-green would be the minimum requirement! No branding at all beyond the CF stock code prefix, it's a fun thing with two forms of power/locomotion.

Verging on 'shelf' or 'big-box' toy rather than rack-toy, it would have been rack toy budgeted I suspect and it's possibly a bit earlier than the wagon above - late 1970's? It may - of course - have been an overpriced element of the Hoverspeed gift-shop/duty-free exercise? I well remember the piles of Airfix ferry models at the Purser's window of the Enterprise Spirit class ferries we used to get - now a much sought-after kit!

A pair of batteries in the body drive a vibrating mechanism ("Oh Matron!") which causes the brushes to move the hovercraft (Saunders-Roe SR-N4 Mountbatten Class) across smooth or flat surfaces, while a secondary single battery-motor of a pretty standard slot-on design (dozens of toys came with them when I was a kid) will drive it round the local pond, boating lake or bath!

That's it, a couple of boxed-items, box-ticked!