About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

SAS is for Secret Army Supplies

A follow-up to this post which I published only a few weeks before I got this at Plastic Warrior's show in May, and it serves to show not all rack-toys are 99p or a dollar! Both Arco and Larami (among others) had price-positioned lines in 1, 2, 3 and 5 dollars, through the '70's and 80's.

I'm pleased to see that the shortage of poses for the 'enemy' force is as obvious here as it was in my sample, so it's not that my loose example was slewed, rather that Galoob decided to cramp the enemy's style!

Interestingly the set's code (5220) is the same as the Army Gear set, only with a different backing card and like the other card, it shows the unpainted figures coming with the accessory sets, while the 20-figure set has the camo-painted chaps. With the possible exception of the Army Gear medals, both lines seem identical.

The Rainbow Toys tie-in probably has something to do with it, did Galoob buy Rainbow and re-brand to Army Gear, or did Rainbow keep Army Gear going with a rebrand?

The flash has rather hidden the little rubber bases which are in a little compartment down the bottom left of the card, they are also in as short supply as my loose figures but with ten bases for 20 troops, that too was deliberate - sometimes you don't require hindsight to see why a line failed - what were they thinking?

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