J is for Japanese

Having had the Blue Box and Rado boxes out to take the photographs for last nights post I shot these off at the same time. I have a bit of a 'thing' for the Japanese, mainly because so few have been made it's quite possible to get all variants of every one made, although having said that, I'm short on 'New Production' figures and both the Speedwell figures and these Blue Box originals!

So - my few Blue Box originals, I was really lucky to split a pair of the mounted figures a few years ago and while he does fit on this horse (sans base) it's unlikely that it is the horse that he's supposed to come with, for one thing he fits so far down the mounting spigot leaving enough daylight for one of those HK copies of a Britains or Timpo saddle-cloth, yet this horse (copy of Britains Herald ACW) has all the detailing moulded-on. He fits quite well on the Barratt and Britains donkeys which is how you usually see him in friends display-cabinets, but someone must have an original?

I have several duplicates of the unpainted poses above, so they must have been commoner (the G.I.'s in 50mm also had an unpainted phase), but the painted (well; 'remains of paint'!) guy in the middle seems to be less common.

Rado/Ri-Toys went with a set of at least 12 poses, some based on other peoples figures with a couple of the Airfix poses instantly recognised. The darker ones with heavier bases are later figures by Hing Fat who seem to have picked-up (or - more likely - ripped-off) the mould at some point.

The lower shot are the figures in 30mm released in the UK by Marksmen, I've seen these attributed to CTS or someone recently, but as they were getting their stuff made in HK, they would have encountered the Rado moulds there. Rado (as Ri-Toys with the tree logo) issued an ACW set with the horses missing from the Marksmen sets. They are taken from the old Marx moulds which have the previously mentioned connection with Blue Box, where Rado seem to have got/taken a lot of their ideas.

The upper shot show a similarity (but only that?) between a Rado 50mm and a Marksman 30mm pose, the other shots are colour variants and the base-mark changes between the Rado (two on the left) and Hing Fat figures, the Hing Fat are deeper and have the same 'MADE IN CHINA' as their spacemen. The Hing Fat figure is also of slightly poorer quality, so copy rather than mould I think, but it could be down to production factors as it's not that noticeable?

Blue Box also did a nice set of Australians, seen in the upper image, with the Rado re-moulds below. The marching guy has been given the same base as the farmhand/zoo keeper for this shot, but I think he may have been from a larger-based vignette.

Upper shot just shows the sizes of tonight's figures in comparison with each other. Lower picture is both a comparison between the Rado and Blue Box gunner, and the mounting holes in both the marching figure and the machine-gunner from Blue Box, again I've never seen these in a mint box, but someone must have one? Are they mounted together on a single large base or vignette/diorama thing?