K is for another Kwong!

I think I said there were more Kwongs when we looked at the second the other day, and here's a third, there are about seven or eight in the four sources I'm using but so far the rest don't seem to interest us.

I posted these years ago saying I knew the logo but couldn't remember it, I them found it (KM) and added it to the post in my customary salmon-pink with an announcement in one of the first 'News, Views Etc . . . 's.

But the KM was only a logotype for Kwong Ming, and while I can see myself looking for one of those ducks (for completeness you understand!), this should be the last time we visit them here, as they only seem to have produced the one set of figures.

Which - for the second time - are these! We can be pretty confident they made them rather than buying them in, as they encapsulate the same production technology used on the wide range of cheap, rack toy, pocket-money guns seen in the larger ad'.

Namely; two polystyrene hollowed shell-halves, glued-together with the trigger/firing mechanisms caught in slides and recessed points or on catches. Except that with the figures; kept as lightweight half-shells to fall-over when hit. Not strictly 'flats', neither are they semi-flat but more 'relief mouldings' or hollow relief-mouldings?

Rather dwarfed by the Kwong Ming Stormtrooper, 'Berserker' sneaks-up from behind to give us the 70mm measurement we need! That's them, but when I say we won't need to see them here again; they will get an A-Z entry sometime!

ID'd is for Indentified - 2 KM - Gun Set, & 3 - Milton Bradley - Star Bird

A couple more from old WTF posts that have since been ID'd, one ages ago by me courtesy of a rack-toy on evilBay, the other by a reminder from Plaid Stallions the other day.

So those funny hollow-semi-flats we looked at back at the start of the Blog were from a rack-toy shooting game called Military Action Force Gun Set by a - probably - madeupbrand; KM, but it could be a Kader [Manufacturing] brand/subsidiary?

The figures (one each of the three poses) came with a plastic toy pistol modelled after a Luger Parabellum and six balls which might be a silicon/rubber type or a blow-moulded type? The figures providing the targets to be knocked over!

[Now known to be Kwong Ming Plastic Pty. of Hing Kong]

Milton Bradley's TV advertised toy came around the time we moved house and while I vaguely remember the adverts on telly, I better remember the contemporaneous Big-Track which has also been on Plaid Stallions (an excellent nostalgia hit of a blog) alongside this Star Bird Command Base.

And when are 70's fashions coming back, I want a pair of high, five-button waistband, purple, brushed-cotton flares . . . with orange pocket-flashes and five inch turn-ups!

I had ID'd this years ago, but failed to leave a note where I could find it, so it's been stuck in the MB folder on the dongle! However cropped out of those old eBay shots (not watermarked) are some figures I think are home-painted on orange plastic - the orange seems to be commonest with the white and yellow less so, Kent Sprecher has one somewhere which looks redder?

Also a shot of earlier box art showing what seems to be the Tim-Mee 30mm downscale appropriated by Milton's design studio with the power-pack the original was carrying, removed.

By the time of the German language edition (Supervogel Operationsbasis on Plaid Stallions), the MB figure had replaced the better looking one in the artwork. Box-art and catalogue art often contains models that never actually leave the factory, either 'as advertised'; or at all!

F is for Flats, unknown Flats

[Was being a tired (lazy) git last night and have edited the text and retaken the photo's!]

I've been meaning to show the first of tonight figures for a while, as they have been appearing on eBay a lot recently, and present a mystery or two. However in getting them out encountered the second lot, which seem to go together - after a fashion - so here they both are...

I'd always thought these were unusual (I've only ever seen the one pose?), similar to some early Marx or Thomas with the flat feet and solid construction, and they do pop up on eBay quite a lot, I've seen a bottle-green one (as I was bidding on the brown one) and there was a red-brown one on last week but in a junk lot at a 4.99 start price, which - not unsurprisingly - went unsold for the third or forth time.

Anyway, when I saw the metal one back in Jan. I thought, 'Oh Wow, they're taken from an old Hollow-cast mould', but with nothing in Joplin, bid 'blind' and waited with baited breath (that's a bit over-dramatic for a 99p lot in the post!) and was interested when it arrived to find in was a solid (probably why it's not in Joplin!).

Still believing it was the original, I was even more surprised to find it's quite a bit smaller, and must - in fact - be a home-cast (or commercial) copy of the plastic one! So...who, where, when? For either the metal or plastics! The plastic is a real UNA/VP/Kentoys colour?

The figure on the right is a mismould, taken out while still too hot, he has contracted forwards, but has still made a reasonably usable figure/pose variant. Metal figure is 70mm, the plastic 72mm.

[Peter Evans has identified these as being by Li-lo, which means the metal one is almost certainly a home-cast copy, if they keep turning up on eBay, I'll flag them as a dodgy set-up!]

Looking for the British 'Tommy' led me to the box 'Unknown Flats - Military', where the next biggest are these 65mm hollow-backed German 'Fritz' characters, I'm guessing they were from lucky-bags, or a shooting game? It's only a guess, anybody have any idea on these chaps from the wilder fringe of Toy Soldiers?

[20th Nov. 2015 - They were branded KM, came with a spring-loaded pull-back action pistol and six orange ball projectiles, blistered on a card, they are targets in a shooter game! The 'Combat Force Military Action Gun Set']

[2018 - now known to be Kwong Ming Plastics Pty.]