The foot figures are easy to identify as they have a a 'HONG KONG' mark in very small letters that are graphically arranged to make two little oblongs to the naked eye. Also see how while similar, the colour 'palette' is very different from a Giant Sample.
A close-up of the Jogging horse, again - easy to identify as he doesn't have the all stretched-out legs of most other HK horses. Mounted figures again are Giant poses, but much glossier and in different colours, my two samples being one - pastels, and the other - primaries; red and blue.The larger card is similar in style and graphics to a non-Giant chariot set we will look at in the fullness of time.
6 comments:
are you going to do all the hong kong horses thanks nairn
Hi again Hugh,
Maybe you have already heard this sometime, but I am almost sure those indians and cowboys from Hong-Kong were copied by some spanish company. I'm almost sure I played with those same figures as a kid (late 80s), and I think those indians are somewhere at home, I'll take pictures of them next time.
It could also be the other way round, that is, the spanish figures being the original casts, and those the copies, I don't know.
Hello both;
Anon - It's a mute point, but I seem to have the time on my hands and some of the figures so I will be working on them in the coming weeks and months, It's funny, someone else asked me to help him with an article he was preparing for PSR, but at the time I was knee deep in two legal actions and a whole heap of whoop-ass which will all be explained here once the time is right, but now I seem to have started it anyway, however it's not an easy project and will take some time...
Gog - Are you thinking of Montaplex, they certainty used the horse I call Mexican Small in some of their sets, but a decade or two (1970/80's) after Giant had got the ball rolling and most of the sets I'll be publishing were issued (1950/60's), so the originals were/are HK, but someone in Spain must have imported some from HK or Macau, Singapore or Taiwan, so it would be nice to see some Spanish cards?
Cheers
Hugh
Sorry - Nairn - not 'Anon'...Doh!
No, I am not talking expressely about Montaplex/Montaman, I had a big box and it was probably filled with figures from different sources, there might be some Montaplex in the group. Montaplex is best known (at least in Spain) for their paper envelopes containing Airfix-type figures or their montaman series, that included a man with accs, or whatever. My grandfather used to buy me many of these sets.
The apache with the rifle (blue, right side), the indian pointing with his hand (center, light blue), or the cowboy hitting with its rifle as a club (red, upper side) were copied by some spanish brand, that's 100% sure. If I find pictures, I'll send you them.
Do - I'd love to see them, there was a Sobre company called Proes that did small scale Indians and Cowboys, but they were copies of Marx, MPC or Rubenstein...the same ones the French copied in big scale at some point?
Also the Italian firm of Baravelli used a Hong Kong horse, possibly this 'Jogging' one for their Roman Cavalry?
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