S is for Supreme / SP Toys...and Titan...Ackerman et al.

We looked at the vehicles for these sets (or at least the military sets, some of which had militarised versions of the civilian or police vehicles) a while ago Here [I've linked the 'Supreme' tag, so this post will be at the top of the page after you click it], so it's about time we looked at the figures!

As this is a Toy soldier blog, we'll start with the military figures;

The very large '800' series sets that contained all the really quite nice vehicles found in the above link came with a number of figures, the contents of three of which are illustrated above, with a shot showing some of the colour variations. Camouflage blobs were a dark olive or dark chocolate brown going onto a yellow or tan field, weapons were black and flesh varies from a pale tone to a bright candy-pink.

There were only four poses though! And the figures are not award-winning sculpts, being generic 1970's infantrymen, who can presumably be marketed anywhere, including at home in China! As can be seen there was some variety between contents, but with each figure in a shaped coffin-section of the larger tray, the contents of each numbered set was always the same.

These sets were all either green vehicles or 50/50 green and 'desert'. As I stated in the original posts, I have seen desert versions of some of the vehicles I only have in green hinting at what the contents of some of the missing numbered sets were, the rest may have been civil versions - in the large size - of the smaller sets...

...which can be broken down into Police, Fire, Trucking ('Road') and Mechanics 'Speedway' as well as the military themed sets. All the above being '900' series; there are medical/ambulance sets as well, while the '600' series included space sets - in storage!

The truck set and the garage are both over-stuck with an Ackerman sticker, they are Still Going and are an import agent for cheap toys, household and other 'bargain' goods. As I recall the three large sets were all 'Ackerman' despite being bought in Wilkinson's two years running, where they were only made available at Christmas (mid/late-2000's), these smaller sets can still be found on the odd 'dollar tree' rack about the place - and not just under the Ackerman, Titan (see below) or standard Supreme labels.

Note the close-up, about 25% of the figures carry numbers; the numbered/not-numbered figures sharing space in the same sets.

On the left are the numbered figures, all poses can be either A or B, and each pose is then numbered 1-4, so the guy with binoculars is either un-numbered, or he has A1 or B1 on his base. All the civilians I have found so far are smooth-based, but numbered ones may be out there?

The smaller accessories from the larger sets are real gap-fillers in the insert tray (compare with the other vehicles we looked at way back when), but I guess the top three have some use, the semi-flat, detail-on-one-side-only motorcycle is however a complete disappointment!

So - the above were all 30mm, but there are also given 'HO'  (23mm) and '1:72' (25mm) figures from the same source (Supreme / SP Toys), while Titan also carried unpainted 35mm figures in other sets (yellow figures above). As can be seen in the top left image, Titan were/are another importer, but they prefer to have their sets printed-up as Titan, rather than accepting generic Supreme sets. Although, as we can see bottom left, so did/do Ackerman - sometimes!

Titan Toys International (one of at least four Titan's in toys!) seem to have ceased trading, while FunFings has been usurped by a craft jeweller's on Etsy!

Some of the small figures have a similarity with other Chinese makes like New Ray or Soma, but there are differences and in the larger scales Supreme have issued some interesting 'toobs' we can look at another day!

The various scales, with the exception of the yellow figures - probably not sourced from Supreme - and the numbered soldiers, all figures have smooth bases, no more than four colours and usually a glossy appearance, and there are a few more civilian poses in the 30mm range, and probably many more in the 23/25mm ranges.

The figures in the Cargo Express set from Titan have squared-off bases more in line with the 23 and 25mm ranges, not the ovoid ones of the other 30mm civilians illustrated loose above with the soldiers. Note how the 'Germanic' fireman, is a copy of the better detail - also Chinese production - figures with flesh-coloured bases issued in various sizes, in imported play-sets sold by Tesco's and others from the late 1990's through to today (Carama? Yat Ming?).