I have a soft-spot for these, we had a few in the figure toy-box when we were kids, bits of them reappear in the
Giant oeuvre of small-scale Hong Kong piracies. also; when I was working for a toy dealer a few years ago I came to appreciate how many paint and plastic-colour variations there are.
I got a bunch in the big purchase a while ago, the odd one has come in with bits and bobs and I have Mike Melnyk to thank for the rest. We have touched on them before and the 'King' figure has been looked at in detail, next to the French copies.
So, on the top row we have 'simple' or reduced paint versions, these were late
Lone Star and tend to get a wash (heliotrope pink one), or all over colour (black one) with a few highlights...the middle one's just 'been shown' a paint brush!
Middle row are early re-issues by
Marlborough? Or
Dorset? Or both? Then the figures found their way to
Toyway who sold them in Gold (bottom row) under
Timpo branding, with or without the stab-and-hope silver 'highlights'!
The 'High' period - proper paint schemes. Most of the figure-production was in a gun-metal/silver plastic with a painted base-coat of silver or gold armour, but other plastic colours were used (bottom rank). I wish I could get a tin of the metallic green used on the King figure, I've tried making it by adding olive to silver but it doesn't dry right!
Some fresh, clean, bright examples of the silver figures. The out-painters seem to have had a guidance sheet, but freedom to vary colours. The silver paint on these is nice and shiny. I can't believe I just wrote that line...this is becoming a rather banal post isn't it? They're self-explanatory, you know them...box ticked!
Like all early
Lone Star these are getting quite brittle now and the spear-man on the right broke as I was putting them away...boo-hoo...hay-ho! Weird thing: No Archer? How can we celebrate Agincourt in October with no sturdy yeomen of the bow?
Variations on a theme - the last chap came-in the other day and is another plastic colour, but with poor paint. I'm not sure how many poses there should be - there are 8 poses in all, above - or if I have all of them? It's in the
Plastic Warrior specials on
LS, but mine are away at the moment, can anyone tell us?
Elsewhere on the blog;
Bagged from Cavendish
Fake Frenchies and
More
The King (scroll to bottom)
Very informative article.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Btw do you know how many different colours the King came in?
Not offhand Anon, but we know from Dorset/Toyway that it's a single runner tool, so he must come in every colour you find the other knights in so . . . Silver, Gold, off-gold, metallic green, white, pinkish-white, greyish white, purplish white, and . . . ? With the axe-version only in the early colours and the sword/Richard I in the later colours and re-issues?
ReplyDeleteIndeed, if you are to dedicate yourself to finding them all, you could tell us, through colours available, when the tool was changed and which colours lie either side of the change! Happy hunting!
H