I sort of recognised the TC-334 code-format
and in searching for something similar, ended-up with the stuff for the rest of
the post, but not the name of the maker/importer I think they may be from?
Anyway; as you can see, a carded bottle-bag
rack toy with artwork from another source (Tamiya?)
and a set of figures which are drawn from Airfix,
Matchbox and modern (JaRu type) rack-toy sculpts.
When I say Ja-Ru, I think their large rubber ones were among the first with
the 'Rambo' M60 pose and the guy with the little Uzi/Ingram's thing and radio,
but there are so many of these around now, and who was first is a moot-point.
Mixing 'Fritz' helmeted GI's with Matchbox's
WWII Americans and Airfix's
Rumanian-helmeted para's isn't that novel either as there are several versions
of them around too!
Their size also places them closer to the
earlier issues, but not necessarily; as the overall quality of the sculpts is
screaming sub-sub-piracy! The weapon is best described as belt-fed
combat-shotgun I think - for when you absolutely, positively have to kill every
living thing in the woods!
Similar sets with similar sculpt-mixes are
all over the place at the moment (we've looked at dozens in RTM) and a few have
surfaced in the last few days.
The older (2017) Henbrandt (A) set is very similar to the unknown US set, and while
the two images may look the same, the Ackerman
set is clearly 'supplied by' as their image is 57KB to Henbrandt's 250-odd
megabytes, so it's been through the eMail system a few times to have got
its file-size so reduced. Still finable on Amazon
under a search for Ackerman, but rebranded
to other phantom sellers.
In the middle is the current (or 2019)
Henbrandt set, more poses, but same low quality.
The upper shot is the Henbrandt listing in full, while below is D&D Distributors (similar stock-code to Brian's set, but no
banana as it's prefixed TY for 'Toys') catalogue image, of particular interest
in that the figure-shot shows similar Matchbox
clones, while in the toob-shot they are full of Hing Fat product (codes 1800/1860), but with generic packaging/artwork!
Tobar have been running with these for several years (and supplied Debenhams's a couple of Christmas's
ago), they are also larger than 54mm , but stick with a better quality all-Matchbox clone selection!
While they are also in this year's Keycraft line-up; with the same bag and
box, but different artwork. Both sets (Tobar
and Keycraft) might be via-Jaru (three spellings - one post!)
though; I seem to remember one of the original sets sent by Brian (or shelfied)
was these figures? Actually - I think the box is thinner and the count's
dropped from 48 to 32 figures!
Maybe after I've got the Paratrooper and
Firefighter pages sorted it will be time for a rack-toy 'Army Men' ID'ing page?
Many thanks to Brian for the shots, and past rack-toy clone stuff.
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