F is for Follow-Up - MPC GI's

I was putting away all the nice things from Brian Berke, and I found the bag of MPC bits which have come in over the last year or two, and picked one of each, old & new, 54-and-60mm and took a line-up for the family album!

 

I also checked with the original post on the subject, and except for a couple of the above pale-green 54mm's, they are all new colours or poses, or colour of an existing pose, and as I thought, the four darker-olive ones here (from Brian) are all additions!

 

The other day I mentioned the similarity between some of the European gum-premium figures (Americana, Boomer, Dunkin, Mundi, Ola and/or whoever including Montaplex piracies!) bore a close resemblance to the MPC figures, and as you can see - the proof of the pudding is in the eating, or just seeing! Even down to the AT-rocket in the dust/mud by the bazooka-man's knee.

M is for Mundi Toys . . . Dunkin, Montaplex et al!

A proper return to one of my favourite sets of small scale, technically intermediate scale at 30-35mm, toy soldiers, the 'Dunkin' bubble-gum premiums, and while I will show you all of them, I think I may still have to find one?

We looked at my then, small collection, near the beginning of the Blog, 2010, and at the time it was popularly considered that Dunkin were the primary source, with the other sources being secondary.

 

But I now suspect that Mundi Toys might have been the first/major user, with the various gum-manufacturers dipping-in, in turn, among which we know Mundi were themselves one, Dunkin was another, Americana probably had a pop (although I have yet to find an envelope for them), GC (General de Cofiteria S.A.) 'Boomer' and Wikö among others, as and when there was available production-time from the supplier (who may or may not have been Mundi or Dunkin), or a gap in their own promotions schedules.

Above, we see the Mundi bubblegum 'Sobre' on the right (Soldados en Accion - 'Soldiers in Action'), containing one piece of Tyler's chicle and one figure. On the left is a blister-set with a pair of vehicles and the Dunkin pack (Hazañas y Combates - lit: "Feats and Combats") in the middle. The Mundi are different colours, my - mint - envelopes contained yellow Americans, while you can see the blister has a number of metallic-blue ones, the figures we are looking at below are probably all Dunkin.

I actually had some trouble, shooting these, so we have two sets of photographs for both the Americans and the Russians! Here they all are on the carpet, which they rather shrank into, and I had to play with the light and contrast to render them viewable! 20 poses/sculpts, common to all three nations, for a total of 60 unique figurines.

 

Above are the grunts, I thought I'd sorted them into riflemen and tommy-gunners, but I notice there's a tommy-gunner hiding in the top row, so it's four and eight, not five and seven! Below them is an obvious officer, the command/support trio and some heavy weapons with the third grenade thrower.

 

I've seen these - rather ridiculously - credited to Airfix as the influencer! However I think the author was just looking for an excuse to get them in his tome! In point of fact they are mostly after MPC (54mm and 60mm) and the Marx 54mm, if you need a second source, but it's MPC poses and 'after MPC' in the main. The grenade thrower without weapon, though, is ALL Britains, as is the being-shot character! It's true, the kneeling radio operator looks vaguely like the Airfix HO/OO paratrooper one, but he also looks like a reverse sculpt of an early (1950's) kit figure!

 

The Russians, there's only 19 of the 20 present here, with the sentry and guard dog absent, we've seen him before, in green, and I'm pretty sure there's a couple of red-ones in the storage sample, now. Last time I divided them into summer (tunics and helmets) and winter (greatcoats and fur-hats) uniforms, this time I grouped them thematically as the US troops.

 

With five standing about, five fighting for their lives, five moving-up/advancing, and five miscellaneous! Being red plastic, they were the worst to photograph, and I ended-up in the bathroom, shooting them against the mirror, where - of course - the point of focus shifted to 'imaginary space'!

 

Now, I've said before, when I first encountered these, it was with a couple of the diggers, and I thought they might be Afrika Korps, but I notice Dunkin have them as Chinese, with the Mundi sobre envelope showing a sketch which is more British-Commonwealth? I guess this lot are your flexible friend! I tend to think of them as Japanese, especially now I have the swordsmen - top row, 2 & 5.

 

Although without 20 Germans, and in an odd scale/size, this set has always been a bit problematical, and it's their charm rather than their usefulness which has me staying loyal to them. If they are Chinese, then we could assume we are looking at the three main powers in the Cold War, which makes more sense?

The rest of the 'stuff', clockwise from the top left. The missing Jap'/Chinese pose is a prone shooter, he looks familiar-enough for me to think I may have one somewhere, but, equally, he may be the still-elusive 60th pose for my samples?

 

Colour variations on the Russians in red, when we looked at them last time, there were a bunch of green ones which may well have been Mundi issues, or Montaplex, who did all these, in various colours, some quite whacky, but whether from the original tools or as lower-grade copies I don't know yet.

 

Then the missing guard-dog from the above line-ups, and another colour-variation shot. Below them are the typical base marks which may or may not be mould-release pin-marks, and are something in common with lots of the output of Olà (ice cream premiums), Raja and others (in addition to those already named above), some of which output is believed to have come from the Heimo works; I don't know why?

 

Bottom right has the recipient of some wargamers snack sticker, rather than a national army identity I suspect, but whether it was a clementine, mandarin, satsuma or tangerine is currently unknown; intensive research, however, remains ongoing! Finally, slight colour variants of the US Machine-gunner.

 

There is still a Mundi Toys (they exhibited at the New York toy fair in September), but they are SRL, not SA, and are somewhere in Bolivia nor do they seem to carry this kind of stuff.

 

And this is one of those posts where everyone has given me a few figures over the years in addition to my own finds, so thanks, alphabetically to; Graham Apperley, John Begg, Andreas Dittmann, Peter Evans, Tony Harrington, Mike Harding, Adrian Little, Gareth Morgan, Trevor Rudkin and Chris Smith.

Pirates is for Crazy Comic Piraten Serie Piratas Bucaneros Filibusteros Corsarios Berberiscos . . . and Then Some!

I didn't know how to tackle this lot, and ended-up with far too many images, some of which I know are other peoples, and which have been left out, although one or two have been kept in. Also, in the end I decided to go with the vague order they seem to have been issued in, but it's not necessarily a true timeline, so bear that in mind.

'THE' Pirate Premiums

 

Appearing around Europe in the early 1970's, there were different configurations of them, with the UK getting a paltry six poses which we have seen before, and other people getting the full twenty.

They first seem to have appeared in Spain (and Portugual?) as Arial soap-powder/detergent premiums, where they are subdivided into five groups of four figures, and next time we visit them - when I bring all mine together - I will shoot them in this order;

 

http://chicledunkin.blogspot.com/search/label/Piratas

 

Full translation of that page;

 

Aunque estas figuras son mas grandes que las Dunkin, para mi es una serie totémica, la recuerdo perfectamente de mi infancia......

 

Although these figures are larger than the Dunkin ones, for me it is a totemic series, I remember it perfectly from my childhood...... 

En realidad son figuras de unos 5 cm, 20 piratas que venían en el detergente Ariel en 1971-1972 mas o menos. 4 colores mates preciosos (para mi los mejores del mundo, los europeos son mas brillantes y en america el plastico demasiado duro...) en plastico blando (lo que hace mas dificil encontrarlas sin defecntos) amarillo, verde, rojo y azul.

In reality they are figures of about 5 cm, 20 pirates that came in the Ariel detergent in 1971-1972 or so. 4 beautiful matte colors (for me the best in the world, the European ones are brighter and in America the plastic is too hard...) in soft plastic (which makes it more difficult to find them without defects) yellow, green, red and blue.

En el paquete recuerdo que venia un dibujo de los piratas agrupados en 5 series de 4, Piratas, Bucaneros, Filibusteros, Corsarios y Berberiscos. Si reunias una serie te daban un premio en metálico y si conseguias los 20 supongo que te darian otro mejor.....

In the package I remember that there was a drawing of the pirates grouped into 5 series of 4, Pirates, Buccaneers, Filibusters, Corsairs and Berbers. If you collected a series they gave you a cash prize and if you got the 20 I guess they would give you a better one.....

Debajo os pongo un scan del trozo de carton donde venian los piratas Dibujados, Aunque no pone el nombre de cada grupo yo si recuerdo cuales eran, El jefe de cada grupo es el primero por la izquierda del dibujo. Como veis, el orden en que los puse segun los recordaba no era el mismo del cartón, pero iba bien encaminado ¿no?

Below I put a scan of the piece of cardboard where the Drawn pirates came. Although it doesn't say the name of each group, I do remember what they were. The leader of each group is the first one on the left of the drawing. As you can see, the order in which I put them as I remembered them was not the same as on the cardboard, but I was on the right track, right?

 

Just a note on the first paragraph, he's not saying Dunkin did these in a smaller size, but that they are bigger than the other Dunkin he collects which are usually around 25/30mm and also tend to come in 20's.

We need some pictures here . . . 

In the UK, Kellogg's issued only six (top left image), with Coco-Crispies and Puffa-Puffa Rice (a Quaker Sugar Puffs knock-off!), and the same colours as the Ariel premiums, there are all four versions of Cascanueces in the bottom-left image. The duplicated olive-green figure and the two white ones are oddments who have come in recently.

 

Cereal Offers do them better justice here

At around the same time Americana bubble-gum were issuing them in Germany (and South Eastern France/Italy?), as Piraten Serie, with these two images from old evilBay auctions showing that in addition to the 'standard' four colours, they also got creamy-white ones

The above three iterations were all manufactured by Tito, a premium maker in Portugal, and most carry the Tito mark somewhere, along with the given name. At some point in the late 1970's the mould-tools migrated to Peru, where the colour range got much better!

 

This is my Peruvian sample as they arrived, they are of mixed parentage however, or might be, so these are the notes I made when they arrived, I've listed them alphabetically for now;

• Arrigon (the only figure marked on the feet)
• Al Epacha (Tito mark on trouser cuff, name down cloak)*
• Barbarrója 'Red Beard'
• Cara Cortada 'Scar Face' (letter 'A' is visible, might be bootleg)
• Cascanueces 'Nutcracker'
• Corsario Azul 'Blue Corsair'
• El Arana 'Spider'
• El Bisco 'Biscuit' (no Tito mark, reversed letter 'F' is visible, might be bootleg)
• El Jorobado 'The Hunchbacked' (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
• El Manco 'The Lame' [hand not foot]
• El Pecas 'Freckles'
• El Pupas 'The Baby'
• El Tuerto 'One-eye'
• Ivan
• Jack el Negro 'The Black'**
• Morgan (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
• Mustafa
• Papatalo ('The Unbeaten, Unconquered'?)
• Sebastian
• Taric (no Tito mark, letter 'E' is visible, might be bootleg)

* might be Ali Epacha or Al Iepacha . . . 'The Pasha'?
* *Not apparently a racist epithet, the features being clear and of European or 'everyman' appearance, with long straight hair, so; black-hearted, or up to no good!

 

Check Juan's comment below for more on the origin/meaning of these.

 

A similar grouping but I moved them around and swapped a few colours out to make it a better image, a few months later, then kept both for the post anyway! The quality of these is as good as the Euro-issues, but you can see from the notes, that things are starting to go pear-shaped on the tool, specifically with the text and logo-markings, I now suspect these are all the ex-Tito moulds and not bootlegs, as we are about to look at some bootlegs!

At around the same time, some company in the USA, Rubenstein International Inc. (1977) started shipping these fellows in from Mexico, bags have multiple pose duplicates and what appears to be a limited number of poses, but that remains to be confirmed by multiple samples, and I suspect all 20 poses might eventually turn-up.
 

A limited palette of colours includes red, blue, yellow and white, similar to the Euro-issues, but look at the flash and the overall quality, if there are bootlegs out there, these are they, or someone thrashed the tool to within an inch of its life, between Peru and Mexico!

http://vmminiartemonocromaticos.blogspot.com/2010/07/p.html

This guy seems to have only used eBay images without captions or context, so it's not possible to conclude what any of this means, but interesting colours, and suggestions of other issues somewhere, I particularly like the jade-green set of 20 figures. But you can also see the olive and white ones I've started picking-up, so someone around here had issues of both . . . Bonux, Christmas crackers, Maltese festival treats?

It has to be pointed out that the size and levels of caricature of these pirates, means they would mix quite well with the Antipodean Crazy Pirates we saw here

 

But we finish with darker stuff . . . 

 

I was hoping Giselle over at Mokarex would have something useful for this post, as she still owes me about 40 images under the 10-for-1 rule, but her pirate page is shit, she's nicked the Cereal Offers artwork, but all chopped-up and low-res, while she's photoshopped some eBay Peruvian figures which are not the Kellogg's colours, the page purports to represent! Only two of them are right . . . Thieves are thick, you see, somewhere to the left of the bell-curve!

 

But we end with this piece of hilarity from Kent Specher in the 'States, image used for research purposes, with full acknowledgement, wouldn't want to blame anyone else for this dog's dinner of a complete joke.

 

First;  They didn't make tea, they made chicory-coffee! Ersatzkaffee! Then we find there are too many poses, Linde only carried 14 of the designs! Why is there a Tito/Ola ice-cream premium Roman from the Asterix sets in the middle of the already too-big group, at 'K'? And the colours are all wrong!

Unbelievable, staggering incompetence, make it up as you go along to make up for a lack of research; *sloppy* is - I believe - the term used in Pennsylvania! The truth, had he bothered to look for it, is here;

https://www.lindefiguren.at/fotogalerie-linde/piraten/

 

And I've posted links to that site several times I think; most recently when we looked at the spacemen! Again, I've translated the page for English readers;

14 Piraten gibt es von Linde. Von links nach rechts heißen sie: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon und Cara Cortada. Der Name ist am Rücken oder an den Beinen zu lesen, daneben sind die Linde-Piraten natürlich immer geprägt. Die zarte Kennung kann leicht übersehen werden. Am häufigsten ist die Farbe blau.

There are 14 pirates from Linde. From left to right they are: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon and Cara Cortada. The name can be read on the back or on the legs, and of course the Linde Pirates are always embossed next to them. The delicate identifier can be easily overlooked. The most common color is blue.

Wesentlich seltener sind sie in den Farben gelb, grün und rot.

They are much rarer in color yellow, green and red.

20 Piraten wurden von der spanischen Firma TITO produziert. Nur 14 davon gibt es mit Linde-Kennung. Ob es Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas und Barbar Roja (siehe Abbildung) auch von Linde und auch in weiß gibt, bezweifle ich. Die Tito-Piraten wurden in Tüten verkauft. Tito produzierte auch die bekannten Dargaud-Figuren. Die Linde-Piraten waren natürlich im Kaffee.

20 pirates were produced by the Spanish company TITO. Only 14 of them are available with Linde identification. I doubt whether Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas and Barbar Roja (see picture) are also available from Linde and in white. The Tito Pirates were sold in bags. Tito also produced the well-known Dargaud figures. The Linde Pirates were of course in the coffee.

And the Linde are logo-marked and likely to be slightly different-sized copies (I don't have any, so I don't know for sure), most of their stuff was copied, as Kent would know if he'd read the series of recent articles in a certain magazine I won't mention, by an author I won't mention either, as neither would want to be associated with this in any way, but Kent knows!

 

What Kent has here, what's in the above image, is either Peruvian  product, from the old Tito/Ola/Dunkin (et al.) group of tools (likely, with the Roman present) or Mexican bootlegs, and which, from the state of it, the colours. and the Roman (!!!!!!), is a test-shot or factory sample of some kind, probably off of evilBay, to which, with no knowledge of the subject whatsoever, he added a shit-ton of text with no research or checking of even basic facts with all the available resources!

 

19 pirates! Not Linde's 14, not Ariel's 20, but 19 . . . and a Roman, in a different size! "Look Ma, I gave them all letters!" But he thinks he can come over here and tell me I've got 'Lots wrong'? Staggering arrogance.

And if you're wondering why some of my Rubenstein images are the same as his, it's becasue we took them from the same seller about a year ago!

Z is for Zoo Animal Premiums

This post is entirely the fault of the 'Philosophic Toad' who in her question on the Bonux post, got me started on a day's research which has resulted in my not doing a clients garden, not picking up some cash and not going to the shops! As a result I've run out of coffee and tobacco, can you imagine trying to sort out 11 lots of half-understood animals without nicotine or caffeine? Toad - you owe me, however, for you delectation, and the interest of any other interested passers-by, here is my take on some (not all!) of the non-domestic animal gifts, giveaways and premiums issued over the years. [Toad made-up by sending me two images of the original ad's, and a follow-up post has now been done, when I've more time I'll re-do them both into one, but in the meantime, if you open them both in two tabs, you can flick between the two for a slightly fuller - if more confusing! - picture. new post is here; Update ]

I'll do acknowledgments first this time;

Kent Sprecher's Toy Soldier HQ provides an image of the Lido mouldings here;
Wild Animals

Jean-Claude Pifret's 'Figurines Publicitaires' gives a list and photographs of the Bonux/Mir/Omo ranges.

Wayne Ratcliffe's Cluck Vol.2 gives lists and dates for two sets, and I have a photocopy of the original advert for one set which seems to have come from Vol.1.

Lots of Spanish and Portuguese language websites/pages were found but my lack of both languages meant they were of limited use, however they did contribute to the overall picture, so thanks to the many, everything else is my own guesstimation!

The first picture shows the Kellogs animals as laid out in the Cluck Vol.1 picture, with three other animals, two of which are seen in the Lido set, linked to above; Buffalo and Moose, the Wild Boar is in the same vein, but could well be a Dom/Manurba moulding, or similar (Jean/Big, French premium?). The Lido link means these were almost certainly provided by Tudor*Rose.

Issued by Kellogg's in their Puffa-Puffa Rice and Coco Krispies breakfast cereals, announced as 'Zoo Animals' in kids comic in May 1971 (Hotspur, 22nd May to be specific). A set of ten (still no Wild Boar?) were issued in Canada (and the USA?) in Sugar Pops, also by Kellogg's as 'Big Game Hunters Favorite Wild Animals' (and everything in the picture has been hunted and shot by humans in the last 200 years...), these would most likely have been Lido Originals.

We then hit this set, very similar, but much finer sculpting, and a larger range. Now the first thing you'll notice is - during the photo-session I labeled-up the group to represent the missing figures in the list of animals issued by Kellogg's at some other period (still unknown to me) in the 70's, however, as I was doing the photo's it struck me they may have been Cadbury's not Kellogg's. Ratcliffe's notes in Cluck Vol.2 on the first (8 animal) set gets to mentioning a pose variant of the Buffalo and Nabisco "shaped biscuits", and I think he was confusing the two sets as the same set.

I was already thinking of the Cadbury's Animal shaped chocolate biscuits and Google has not helped! However, I have one 1980's plastic flat of a blue Elephant with a big square base marked Cadbury, so they may well have had a similar promotion in the 1970's?

Because I photographed them as if they were the Kellogg's set below, I left out the two bottom left, if they were issued with biscuits, then they will be part of the set, as will the two Tigers, as I was looking for one! The Moose behind the Tigers is in a hard nylon plastic and points to another source of these animals somewhere? Again apart from the red Moose, these are Tudor*Rose in style and colour, why they needed to re-design 10 of them is anyone's guess, but clearly newer production methods led to finer castings.

I can't just publish a photo of the image in FP without the permission of the author/publishers, and don't have time to seek it, so will describe as best I can. There are two sets of animals, both sets are in both gold and Silver/Gunmetal with a painted Giraffe and variants of 3 of the larger set giving 30 to look for, with others bound to be still undiscovered/yet to be ascribed.

In the larger set The Bear is the same as that in the second set above, with the Moose and Zebra similar and the Camel and Giraffe bearing a good resemblance. In the smaller set the Hippo and Rhino are the close matches. The similarity's weighted against number of unrelated castings would suggest piracy in a different vein to the above sets, where the 8 are clearly the same.

Bonux are nominally linked with the larger ones only. Mir seem to have the larger set too, with a Hippo from the smaller set (to my eye it should be with the larger animals) leaving Omo with most of the small animals and the largest of the three Hippo's plus the painted Giraffe.

Animals similar to all the above sets were also made by Marx and Renwal/Plasticraft, again; good pics on Toy Soldier HQ.

The second Kellogg's set; 'Zoo Animal' is actually the set in green, red and brown bottom right with the missing Gorilla and snake, they are similar to the set in the larger picture which are the bubble-gum animals from Mundi Toys/Tylers and Dunkin, both selling to the Iberian Peninsular.

The Kellogg's set is not identical, with loss of detail on some, while others are noticeably larger. Note that apart from the Snake, all the Kellogg's are duplicates of the larger series from Spain, and as the Spanish set was issued in 1967, it's fair to assume the Kellogg's set was the copy rather than vis-a-versa.

I think the long-horned red thing belongs were I've put the missing animal card '2nd/3rd Deer' but it's hard to tell from the packet. The Tylers/Dunkin soldiers I covered a while ago came on sprues of 8 figures before being broken down into packs, so with Ratcliffe reporting the Kellogg's coming on sprues, in fours, that makes sense as you could cut an 8 figure sprue of animals into two 4 figure 'spruelets' and ensure 4 different animals in a box with a 25% chance of new animals each time you ate your way to another purchase!

The other side of the pack from Mundi Toys, I think it translates as Animals of the Savanna (or Velt?), along with similar products from Tito (cartoonish) and Olá (the name for Wall's Ice cream in Portugal and southern France), I can't find the source for my having ascribed them to Olá, so it should be taken with a pinch of salt...The Tito are marked with their little wobbly-diamond. Finally a comparison between the Kellogg's and Spanish Hippo's.

leaving us with a further size comparison, main picture, bottom, from the top left reading L-R; Kellogg's, Cadbury?/Nabisco?, Kellogg's, Mundi/Dunkin, Olá?, Unknown.

To go with the unknown Elephant is a Giraffe (smaller inset photo.), above them is a small sample of tiny soft PVC/vinyl rubber animals [Schlicht 'Minis' with the little black-dot eyes worn off!] and a group of Christmas Cracker gifts of recent origin to the left, both with Spanish bubble-gum Elephants for scale.

My sofa during this afternoons constructive activity! That box on the right is 'Animals, Unknown, Wild' and contains about 150 envelopes like the ten on the board! So it's gona'be a long life if the man upstairs wants me to finish this task!!!

Further study;
Wikipedia; Animal Biscuits

Still No Ducks

S is for Sobres by Tylers, Dunkin etc...

Another set of premiums that are hard to place - producer wise - are these soldiers, issued by various bubble-gum brands in Spain. Tyler's by Mundi and Dunkin both carrying them at one point or another and probably others. Indeed, although I only have samples of Tyler's packaging, I've seen the Dunkin bars and they are to all practical purposes the same shape/size.

The Russians, available in green or red, in summer dress (top row) or winter greatcoat. The Millionsoldiers website used to have some blue figures which I think were Russians? But the website seems to have died? I have no idea if this is all the poses, I suspect not.

The Japanese, these seem very hard to find, but then I would have said that about the others until I'd gained a few! For years I only had the man with the spade and used to think they were Afrika Korps!

The US troops. Again while I have spares, the overall size of my sample would suggest that there are still poses to locate. The influence of late production Marx and MPC dates these nicely to the early/mid 1970's!

The Tyler's/Mundi envelope and figures, all US troops but in a more garish yellow, note the third grenade throwing pose! If these yellow figures and the blue ones mentioned above are taken as Tyler's, then one could assume that the more 'realistic' colours were Dunkin, sadly it's not that simple, and will be more about batches than anything else!

Inset is a Jap who seems to be factory painted? It's unlikely he would have been a premium, out-painting would have made him prohibitively expensive from the profit point of view, so someone must have tried to market them as stand alone or boxed set figures?