These are a bit of a puzzle, however there are a few clues which may help ID them by jogging someone's memory, and their 'story' as far as I am concerned (and the clues) has changed over the years!
I first found the guy on the left (50mm,
soft polyethylene), and wondered if he may be from a die-cast or plastic car
set, as he seemed to be as likely carrying a picnic on the beach in his
Hawaii-shorts as he was carrying White Bossy's stuff in the ulhu! Particularly
that manufactured-looking, US-style, lunch-box in his left hand, which is more
Bondi Beach than bondu-baggage!
I also considered that he might be a cake
decoration; the splash of paint being the driver of those particular thoughts?
However, I then picked-up a pair of what I
guess is slightly earlier figures due to their extra/second colour (hair/packages),
and in conversation with Mr Morehead (of PW
fame) and Mr Begg - who were present - it was decided they must be Hong Kong
Africans (which happen to be unmarked - not that uncommon), due to the poor
paint - none at all on the rear is a Lucky/LP
trick, and totem poles, very few totem poles get turned by the painter!
There they sat for a while . . . well until
I took this shot the other day - with a second spearman coming-in at some
point. These four were all in storage and I'd forgotten - when I shot the
images - that another has come in more recently . . .
. . . who - as you can see - is another (early?)
two-colour chap, equally undecorated on the rear, and another 'carrier'. His
'baggage' is even more contemporary-looking than the other chaps 'lunch-box',
being like a military 'Norwegian' liquid/hot-food container . . . or a
fire-extinguisher?!
Which-
I think - brings us back to die-cast or plastic vehicles, maybe a safari
Land Rover type; the spearmen just scaring a predator or sorting some game for
the camp-fire? Equally they could - still - be in the cake-decoration frame,
but it's a long-shot now, although another long-shot - given the painting -
might be board-game playing pieces, with maybe a forth - yellow (?) - one, out
there somewhere?
There is something of the Africans from the
Manurba-Heinerle-Layla school about
them, particularly in the translucence to the thin areas of plastic, but the
bases are too-thin I feel and the paint is a bit of a barrier to those
thoughts. I favour the plastic safari play-set theory; Hong-Kong, 1970's?
As the first four to turn-up made two
pairs, a typical accessory-figure count for one of those cheap plastic vehicles
(cheap then - have you seen where prices are going on them now!), the fact that
a third has turned-up raises the additional questions of how many poses were
there and whether any others are as war-like as Master 'Spearman'?
Has anyone had one, got one, or remember
the name of it - whatever it was, or do you posses more sculpts/poses?
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