I'm calling these Fonplast rather than Fontanini
because Fontanini had their own range
of toy figures, the African natives, pirates and Cowboys & Indians sat next
to the smaller versions of the nativity figures in peoples toy boxes - with a
full range of Fontanini marks on them
- indeed; they tend to have a full set with cavity/stock number, 'spider' mark,
'Depose' and 'Italy', while these only have a paltry 'Italy'.
However, there are various clues as to the
fact that they came from Fonplast,
not least is that no one else in Italy was producing Elio Simonetti designed
figures, in dense, flesh-pink, PVC-vinyl, while Fonplast was producing all the PVC-vinyl, flesh-pink, dense,
figures designed by Elio Simonetti . . . for Fontanini - who owned Fonplast!
A set of Turkic warriors of the early
Ottoman Empire era, similar to but not the same as those carried by Cané, copied from Elastolin,
as Simonetti was working for Cané at the time, and Fontanini were letting them copy their
Vikings while they (Cané) were borrowing their
number-one sculptor, it's possible that the figures were designed by Simonetti
for Elastolin, they are very
different to other Elastolin stuff,
and follow Simonetti's styling; and that he gave permission for Cané to reproduce them, as 'rack toys' in another (Italian) market.
Whatever the truth, it seems Fontanini didn't have a set of Turks
otherwise? Now; when the grand children of Emanuele Fontanini set-up Fonplast in 1963, they would have needed
to practice on something and practising with the composition figures still
being made by Fontanini a few miles
up the valley would have been daft, impractical and technically impossible. I
think these figures, which are quite uncommon, indeed - were hardly known until
a number of undecorated castings appeared recently - are those 'practice'
pieces.
Described by some as ACW and others as
Garibaldini, the presence of a
lasso/lariat suggests these are meant to be US cavalry, to fight the set of
Indians below. I'd like to say Custer's 7th, but what looks like a 7 in the
image above is actually a star on the guidon.
It would appear that before (or as) they
were tooling-up to produce for Fontanini,
the Fonplast factory experimented
with a cash-earner; a small range of 'Toy Soldiers', which are the figures seen
here. I don't know how successful they were, but the fact that they seem so
hard to find (excepting the recent find) would suggest they didn't take of - or
even happen; commercially - see below.
There's a pose missing if they were all in
sixes? Also apart from the above three sets, I am aware of no others, but the
Turks would have needed an 'enemy'?
They don't have the more domed bases of Fontanini either, even the little 40mm
'Zulus' had the grass-etched dome of the rustics/nativity figures. These have a
very commercial looking 'toy' figure's flat base.
But the older-looking packaging of both the
African warriors and the pirates contain soft-plastic polyethylene figures,
with the painted, vinyl figures apparently coming later (from the same moulds).
If we assume the early experiments with other plastics (styrene and ethylene)
were carried out up the road by Fontanini,
that makes sense, with Fonplast not
handling them (the moulds) until they were up and running with the PVC
production, they were actually set-up to engage in.
The smaller-scale, factory-painted figures - Africans, the
pirates, Cowboys & Indians and rural/pastoral types - were still being sold
in the UK as cake-decorations from point-of-sale stock-boxes in the late 1980's,
while the 'antiqued' white or cream polyethylene ones were much earlier.
Another clue as to the origin and fate of
these figures is seen here; there is in this recent find - which I'm lead to
understand was part of a bigger find in Italy - of otherwise near-mint, finely
manufactured figures, clear signs of short-shot and heat problems with the moulding.
These are three of the Indians, but
problems are also evident on the cavalry and I wasn't checking as I chose the
figures from a larger sample, so I don't know how many of the figures in total
had problems, but it seems to be about a quarter of the total?
Having worked with an plastic-moulding
machine (lower pressure extrusions not high-pressure injection-moulds) my first
thought was that it was problems with foreign-bodies on the injector-head, the
blackening is usually a sign that something has got stuck to the inside of the nozzle,
over-cooked and is contaminating the new resin as it flows over the contaminant
. . .
. . . however, all the gate marks are at
the tops of the figures, so that explanation doesn't fit.
The holes (on the left above is a similar
blemish on one of the Turks) are simply where the plastic has got too cool to
finish filling the cavity, something which is easier to understand when you
realise the figure concerned was to be filled from the sword blade at the other
end - I'm not sure which is the gate mark and which is a jigget, or if they are
both gate-marks but I have highlighted them both anyway.
Of course trying to fill a large (65/75mm
figure) cavity from a small opening at the opposite end was going to be
problematical and while the blackening remains a mystery, the evidence is that
all did not go well in the manufacture of these figures and with most of the obvious problems on the bases - as far away from the injector head as it was possible to get - I think these were an over-ambitious, sprue-gate too small, first try?
Finally; while this recent find is in a
condition anyone who's seen them will tell you is 'near mint', there are signs
that prior to being released to the market in the last year or so, they have
been cleaned, and cleaned of a thick layer of dust, the sort of dust which has
aged to a layer of fine, greasy, soil on the figures.
These figures appear to have been in
storage, as an unpainted, slightly damaged, stock of 'seconds', for a long time
- probably since they were made. As - to my knowledge (and I don't know
everything!) - the 'firsts' haven't been seen either, I propose as a theory
that they never got a full commercial release at the time, although some may
have dripped into the world from out-painters, or via the children of Fontanini/Fonplast factory workers?
And that these 'seconds' are it; the
'firsts', the survivors of a trail run, failed experiments with a new
technology, pulled-line, whatever - there's a story there still to be
discovered. One thing I'm sure about, they are Fonplast and/or Fontanini,
not some spurious company called Italy!
How many companies in the UK marked their
figures 'England' or 'Made in England'; how many French companies marked
'France'; German companies 'Germany' or 'W. Germany' and err . . . Italian
companies 'Italy'.
The idea that 'he who makes things up as he goes
along' should think to invent another company; 'Italy-Dus'(it's his second this
year - DGN post coming soon!) on such
flimsy evidence as a base mark is extraordinary, that people are swallowing his
guff is more so, especially when he's taking what he's publishing from other
people's books - and happily admitting it as he regurgitates it, with errors,
yet without proper credit!
PS - Don't forget it's the London Toy Soldier show tomorrow.