D is for Donnnnn'Pushhhh Meeeeee!

After you've enjoyed the risibley funny sequels - which certainly didn't pan out in the real-life Iran, Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan - as empty-headed action-movies, it's worth remembering in the original, John Rambo (for it is he!) was a disgruntled, ex-grunt 'patriot; shooting-up his own neighbourhood!

On another site someone was asking about Rambo figures the other . . . month? A while ago anyway! So I've got this little overview together, despite most of mine being in storage, in fact; they never came out, but the narrative can still be expressed with what I do have!

The above shows the header card from a line of Maqueta Rambo (Rambo figures) rack toys coming out of Mexico, by Gemelo-Plast (Ruben Juarez Gemelo), who are using copies (lower centre) of older - probably Arco figures (lower left) taken from the marked Arco smallies (lower right) which we looked at back in the early days of the blog.

This was in the bag, another has a jeep, a third a jet-plane, and it's just a question of getting past it with a box-tick, so we can get back to the figures!

This is all the Gemelo's I've ID'd so far, each bag has a small mix with duplicates, so I can't be sure I've found all of them, 'bowman' and 'crossbow' Rambo's are missing for starters? Large lumps of - probably - polyethylene and I guess the odd red ones are 'commie-bastards' to be deaded? The standing firing is a simplification of an Arco (?) crossbow pose - you can see he still has the explosive arrow tip!

Here we have the smaller, definitely Arco and larger 'probably' with an Airfix figure for scale, below which we have a newer set, which while not portraying the Arco sculpts, do nevertheless carry an air of Rambo (or Platoon; is that meant to be Willem Dafoe's Sgt. Elias, second from the right?) about them. All the above - bar the Airfix cold-war warrior - are courtesy of Chris Smith I think, mine are elsewhere!

I've actually just grabbed these off the blog (so you should have seen them before!), as it (right-hand image, also from Chris) shows a bigger, baseless Rambo with bow, who may be a third iteration ofArco's, or another copy, but is of better quality that the Mexican ones, although is probably from the donor set for them?

On the left a set I found to explain another point sometime, credited to Black Temptation (an Amazon or Ali  Baba phantom brand if ever I read one!), we can see the first three of the poses (reading English-wise) are based on the Arco Rambo sets.

In the past we've seen a clear Rambo or Rambo knock-off in silver here, probably from a  rack-toy type mini-playset? While this crossover set mixed old Matchbox poses with Arco influenced figures and all the Reisler WWII prone figures!

H is for How They Come In - Week 18 - 1 Overview & Army Men

Hot on the heels of Peter's lot (looked-at a couple of days ago) came another parcel, from Chris Smith and it's a cracker, which should have been published yesterday (or weeks ago!) but I was struggling with the Internet, or certain parts of it, yesterday!

I could get on Faceplant with no trouble at all from start-up, Hotmail was intermittent, YouTube was slow but trying to get on mine or any other Blog was not happening, and even getting Google's page up took forever, once I was there I could get to Blogs through their URL, but even then images needed to be reloaded and the blue-circle never stopped? Hay-ho, it's working now (middle of the night by the time I get these loaded!), so, onwards and upwards!

I think I bought my assistant off with some cheesey-dreamies as it was a trouble-free opening and this is a shot of the initial 'excitement sorting', it's just awesome, as every time you remove something, especially the larger pieces, you find half-a-dozen other things underneath, rapidly running out of room, you have to bring some order to the chaos . . .

. . . which is what has happened in this shot; like the last big lot from Chris, I started with thematic piles by subject matter which are;

1.      Trees & plants

2.      Robot 'set'

3.      Weapons, scenics and equipment

4.      Wild West

5.      Sci-fi / Fantasy

6.      Ships & boats

7.      Aircraft

8.      Ceremonial and historical soldiers

9.      Farm & zoo

10.  Ancient & medieval

11.  Prehistoric Hominids

12.  Dinosaurs & Chinasaurs

13.  Flags!

14.  Cartoon / TV/Movie-related

15.  Money box/bank

16.  20th century soldiers / 'Army Men'

17.  Civilians

18.  'Halloween' / Horror

19.  Sports

20.  Vehicles

And we can then meander through some of the piles looking at highlights and with both the above photographs it's a case of 'what can you spot', but we'll be looking at lots of them in close-up, the second biggest was the 'Army Men' pile which as it was closest to me, got shot first!

Again, mid-sort shows piles of like-figures being sorted from the main pile, although unrelated figures may end up in the same pile, this is because when they get further sorted into the main collection similar figures are often together; I know I've mentioned in the past the quandary over whether to sort alphabetically by makers or thematically by subject, it's bit of a hybrid arrangement at the moment!

Final 'exploded view', the blue rifle should have been in pile '3', but fell out of whoever it had got caught-up in as I was sorting them! It looks like a Christmas Cracker (budget range) novelty 'charm'.

Highlights not covered below include the two Aurora kit-figure Russians in shop-window display paint (I think, top right), some Matchbox Mega-Rig and Battle-King figures (centre) and a Corgi pair, various Airfix clones including some more Russians, Toy Story Tim-Mee clones (middle left) and another of those Spetznaz types I got all confused with a while ago, I think this is the other size, but I'll dig them all out and compare before I get it wrong again!

The pale yellow ones (middle top) are a new form or version of Airfix US Para-clones, and as I've now ID'd the third set I did have, I'll do an update on that Airfix page soon . . . ish (I must stop making rash plans as promises!).

Chris has contributed greatly to the parachute toy sub-collection and this lot contained six, the two blow-moulds on the right being different versions of a new (to me) variant, the Tim-Mee copy is possibly a Toy Story thing, but a knock-off I suspect, not a licensed one - which we have seen here. Next to him is a less common version of the smaller ones, while the two Airfix clones weren't duplicates of any I have here, and there are quite a few, but with about eight variants and many colours, there's loads to find!

Colour variations and mould variations of figures we've probably seen before, except the painted chap, who will get a full collage on the Khaki Infantry page, when I do the next update, as he appears to be A) an earlier, unmarked, better-quality version of the 'Empire'-marked one we looked at a while ago (from Adrian Little) with the scalloped-out base and B) possibly British? It's a hard call, the plastic could be HK'ish, or even South American, but it could be British, it's bloody-interesting anyway!

The figure on the left (a non-exact Airfix US Marine clone) is marked Macau which makes it quite unusual, then two larger figures one an HK copy of a US (?) maker and the other 'Rambo' probably Arco, they made the smaller Rambo set (see tag list) with bases, and I think these larger baseless ones were them too - plastic is the same and poses are similar? Finally a really nice, dynamic pose of sniper, who pulls DNA from the Airfix British paratrooper sniper, but is by no means the same.

Not from Chris, but currently on sale under the probably phantom-brand of 'Black Temptation', these hark back to the previous Rambo figure (and the mentioned smaller set) in that one or two of the poses here are taken from there! You get 12, six green and six . . . primrose! There's a bit of Marx and a bit of Bundeswehr in there too!

Back to Chris's donation to the Blog, and saving the best to last; Chris got a nice 'score' of Tiny Trojans, among which was one which hadn't been painted on the base and another which has a pod-foot effect caused by a short-shot on the tool and he kindly sent both to the Blog.

The significance of the unpainted base is there as all my brown weapon and/or black helmeted ones have plain bases, while the pea-green helmeted ones always have painted bases, as did the rest of Chris's substantial find, so it's not that it's an interim or crossover 'version' but rather a mistake!

All superb stuff and I can't thank Chris enough for sending this lot to the Blog, except by sharing it with you, the loyal readers and next-up we'll have the ceremonial/historical types!

V is for Variations on a Theme

As per yesterday's third post, when I first sorted these out for last Friday's  'Jiggle-O-Chrome' shots, I ended-up with three piles, they have now all been re-united in one bag. Unlike the Wild West figures, these are all marked on the base, but in common with yesterday's set share an eclectic mix of donor-paths.

So, the first pile was 'Armymen'; dark green, and included some figures taken from the old Arco set of Rambo figures, a Matchbox radio operator, Airfix running German infantryman and three prone figures of more original design, the left hand one is closer to the Atlantic Marine than the Airfix one, the middle guy might have a bit of Airfix Russian grenade-thrower about him, and the right-hand one looks vaguely European . . . Atlantic, Layla? I've seen those crossed ankles somewhere . . . Reisler? It is isn't it? The Reisler wire-cutting guy?

The second pile was paler 'Armymen', and had the variant of the Airfix running guy who seems to have originated in a set of Hong Kong figures sent to France, I know mine come from Samewise (link), there's another Rambo pose and I'm not sure about the grenade thrower, the prone are again interesting with a BAR-gunner and another Reisler-like figure, while the two standing figures look familiar but I can't place them right this moment - coastguards?

It was looking like they probably belonged together with the first lot, but I try to be diligent in these matters and was at the same time building a third, smaller pile of . . .

. . . bog-standard, Airfix umpty-something-generation copies in a third shade of green! Because they have been copied from already appalling figures, they do look a little different to the other two lots with a flashy join-line and lumpier detailing, but the base edge matches . . .

. . . and they all have the same mark? So as with the Wild West set, I think they do all go together, and further, the CHINA is the same as yesterday's set so I'm guessing they are from the same source.

All together and - again - from behind; is the grenade thrower from a WWII Japanese figure; BMC or AIP . . . Rado? And the Rambo rocket Launcher now looks a bit Cherilea modern/NATO 54mm swoppet!

I have heard several anecdotal (and not so anecdotal - from the horse's mouth) stories of rich Singaporean, Malaysian and Hong Kong collectors [or businessmen claiming to be collectors?] offering European collectors big-bucks for whole collections. Could that have anything to do with this sudden flowering of variety in army men pose-counts in sets which had been getting a tad tired through the turn of the century? Or are those Russians working with Chinese producers feeding their spare figures to the awoken very awake dragon?

More thanks to Peter E for another interesting and eclectic set of modern-production figures.

PS - I think all five prone figures are ex-Reisler sculpts? Brilliant . . . unless you're Reisler!

T is for Two - Movie Characters

Another couple of stand-alone pieces shoved together under the 'T is for...' trope, we're off to the movies today and it's to the VHS paradise of the mid-1980's 'Home Cinema' experience we turn!

Totally unmarked, but it's got to be John Rambo! Frown . . . check, clenched-fists . . . check, sleeveless-vest . . . check, knotted-bandana . . . check, M60 ammo-belt . . . check, bad-attitude . . . err . . . he lives in the controlled environment of a carded, self-seal bag, so I don't think so! Also Mattel (see below) had the licence at one point, through Arcotoys? A search was not helpful - we need more quality Bloggers!

I know - that was Arnie', but either of them could have been parachuted into each-other's 'action movies' without much change! Steve Wright in the Afternoon, best thing that ever happened to popular-radio - Wharkkwharkkwharkk . . . "Get the geese off!" I'm wondering if he may be from a short-lived board-game, given that he turned-up on his own and I've seen or found no others?

Battlestar Galactica was a lower-budget, rush-job designed to cash-in on the Star Wars phenomena back in the late 1970's, which was better than it might have been and Mattel grabbed a licence, issuing a couple of light-and-sound space-fighter toys each of which had a little pilot figure.

The figures are of a mini-action figure design, but come in at around the 50mm mark. Four points of articulation (hips - riveted loose through the groin; shoulders - sealed into the torso-halves) and are very hard to keep standing-up, they really only had to sit in their cockpits or die spectacularly as the owners narrative directed! The grey Cylon Warrior seems rarer than the earth-bound human. Note - the arms and legs are the same mouldings on both figures!

A is for Arco or Argo or Ahco or Giant!

I've been looking for these for a while and they turned-up the other day in another box of other stuff! I was trying to find them following the post and discussion here Argo Toy Soldier with RPG with the blog's owner 'M-7'. Since his post there has been more information diseminated around the place and it seems that ARCO (who sometimes put ARGO or AHCO on the base!) were some new framework for the old Giant importer of the 1960's. however they seem to have mostly sold through to Mattel as a budget brand.

Clearly based on the film Rambo II - First Blood the figures here are from the Mattel carded rack-toy 'Vietnam US Recon'. The references to the film (head-band, RPG and er...bow!) date this set to no earlier than 1985 and while the figures are typical HK/China stock - quality wise - they are none-the-less, original poses.

The lower shot shows the A for Arco logo, it's clear that an earlier Hong Kong mark has been removed, so this might be a post 1997 reissue, or...near-1997 as the film Rambo III was issued in '96?. Whatever the relationship with Giant and/or Mattel the one thing that is absolute is that they weren't the second biggest producer in Hong Kong as someone has suggested; Universal, Lucky, Marx and Blue Box all being bigger for a start!


Big 'John' Rambo himself - all ready to take out a Hind D with a bow and arrow! Yeh...whatever...in the first movie he ran amok in the good old US of A...probably with an unregulated firearm...you can see where this is going can't you;

For god's sake (and the sake of your children) join the civilised world and regulate guns dudes! And hey - Hollywood; instead of taking good European films and ruining them, why don't you stop churning out violent pap (soma for the brainless masses) and learn to make films as well as your own Independent sector...just a couple of thoughts there for the good'ole'boys as BATMAN - the Darkened Franchise goes mortal.