'GI Flats' is for every Tom, Dick and Harry!

When I first learnt what these were they were known from the other side of the pond as Kilty's Bonnie Built which rapidly became Kilty's 'Bonnie Built' and for some time now has been Hardy's - Bonnie Built and Kilty, along the way they have been joined by Pal and Remco, most of the work being done by Kent Sprecher, with Brad de Santis adding information via Plastic Warrior magazine (I can't fined the issue but was 8-10 years ago? Credit to him too anyway), later the Internet gave-up a [now looking rather dodgy] JC Penny link and today, here, we will have a box-ticking-plus look at them; adding the Argo, Loeser's and Spencer chapters to the story.

From regular contributor Brian Berke comes this group which was very useful as my samples are small and - when he sent these - were in storage; however the storage lot (and the paperwork) are now out of storage, so between us I can show you everything except the stretcher team, so you'll still need to lok for them elsewhere!

A simple set of relatively simple (as in 'generic') GI sculpts, usually in a neutral 'army' green or dark olive-drab, but sometimes in bright, primary colours and usually in hard polystyrene, but sometimes in soft polyethylene, and while usually unpainted, I do have one I think is commercially painted!

As a two-parter they can become separated but definitely my favourite from the set, the little machine-gunner and his gun; the earlier water-cooled version of the browning .30cal, with its cooling-jacket but sans water-can!

Elusive, but I may have a coloured rider miss-directed to another box (Unknown Mid-Scale Wild West Mounted!) but I know I haven't got the horse (I do have a similar sitting donkey in blue which I think is a Crackerjack premium!), the rider bucking the trend of the set in having a fully-round'ness, but with a flat horse he has the comedy appearance of the donkey-priests recently covered in Plastic Warrior.

And to be fair (or accurate) while the horse is pretty 'flat', the rest of the set are quite thick and with the near fully-round heads are better described as semi-flats, 'demi-ronde' on the continent, with some quite dimensional sculpting details; the bazooka-mans right foot for instance.

Mine are the 54mm versions as opposed to Brian's 50's but I'm not going to attempt to put a name to them as I suspect they are UK sourced from an as yet unidentified maker; Kleeware, Tudor Rose, Cheerio or Reliable could all fit the frame?

Brian's fearless fighting fellows with the Crescent 'berserker' as a scaler, you can see these are around 50mm mark. Note also that the advancing guy has the bayonet seen in Kent's pictures, on both sizes of US issued figures; over here we seem to have had an early outbreak of H&S syndrome, because they were removed . . .

. . . as we can see here in the left-hand shot. We find the joint-line running across the region where the bayonet should be, it may not be 'health and safety' (probably not; given all the other pointy-pieces in the set) but actually a production problem, which reached over to the Café Mexiq coffee-premium figures on the other side of the Channel, and was most easily fixed by blanking-off the offending area of the mold-tool? I had to use the MG to get the bayonet tips in focus!

On the right - two of mine showing the difference in size as well as base, the bright green version is the French Café Mexiq and UK Christmas cracker prize version, I dare say they got other outings as Wundertüten or 'Lucky Bag' prizes. [Incidentally - we'll be returning to both shortly!]

Another size'er; Brian's mirrored with mine. Now, I think my smallies are the same moulds as Brian's, but more interesting is that mine - although a styrene - are made of an odd plastic with a certain texture, best described as 'cellular' or compressed-foam, rather like the recycled plastic of a lot of those Polish PZG figures, and it may-be they were part of a tool-run made with a high percentage of 're-grind'.

Also note that the 54mm guy's base is squared-off like the bazooka-man or MG-gunner's while most of the others I've seen; both Kent's multi-coloured Bonnie Built and the Spencer (below) are rounded, so there's at least three versions of these, before you start counting the soft-plastic ones separately.

And there's a certain irony in the fact that the 'berserkers' are almost as flat!

So, to a document from the archive which I believe - from the handwritten 'Work Sheet' in the top right-hand corner - may be a packing list for the factory (or out-worker) packers?

Why there are no contents listed for the Artillery Squad Set I don't know but I'd hazard a guess or two; if it is a packers list - this sheet's owner simply wasn't responsible for the Artillery packs, or that the Artillery packs were sold still on a runner with the gun, or even that they never 'happened'?

But five lines have been left in the document for them to be added, Kent mentions them happening elsewhere and they seem to be the larger Lido design also used by several others.

Brian's standing firer - all [one] of mine are damaged! Again - the smaller figures have much narrower bases, even relative to the overall reduction is size.

Text reads;

$2.98

Complete

Just roll Cannon-cars, harmless shells automatically fire and knock over the plastic soldiers!

New "Argo" toy sensation—as full of action as a real battle! Your boy will love it! As he rolls the strong steel cars, they fire rat-a-tat-tat—shoot a continuous stream of "shells" that dwindle the enemy ranks! And see all he gets! 5 Cannon-shooting armored cars with rubber wheels. Steel ambulance with bell that clangs as it dashes along. He gets 10 realistic plastic soldiers including stretcher bearers, 40 harmless "shells," 50 cardboard road-blocks, targets, soldiers. Only at Loeser's in all New York.

It would appear that the 10 plastic soldiers are one force, the other being cardboard, as there appear further to be five targets and five piles of logs in the picture, can we assume there were 40 card soldiers - not shown in the image, because they were a bit naff?

". . . in all New York"; a territory or store exclusive then, available elsewhere with other jobbers or under other branding. And someone needs to give the stretcher team Congressional Medals of Honour! If it's the famous Frederick Loeser & Co. of 5th Avenue, they closed forever the following year! Argo was - of course - Jason's fleece-finding ship of Cyclop's-blinding ne'er-do-wells.

The advert is from the 16th-of-something 1951 and I thought it may be the same New York Daily Mirror as that Marx set the other day, but the date's written along the edge of the page, not down it - in a column - and the font is slightly different, so as it's the same year it must be a different NY paper?

The one in the middle is the soft plastic figure, and probably - only 'probably' - factory painted. TSHQ lists soft plastic examples, but doesn't mention paint.

He looks to be the same as the green one in every other way, from a cursory glance, but is actually quite different, having his mould-release pin marks on the other side, this could be a sign of another set/maker, or just a reversed cavity in a multi-cavity-per-pose tool, I suspect the former, but it's an open 'call'.

You can also see that while the small figure is 10-12, maybe 15% reduced in scale/size, the equivalent reduction in the width of the base is nearer 50% making them harder to stand-up and almost impossible to use with rugs or carpets!

Text reads;

100 TOY SOLDIERS (N-988) . . . A real Spencer buy! With the kiddies in mind we made up this special assortment. It has everything! All plastic and realistically khaki colored. Enough for little ones to fight mock battles. Youngsters will find Bazookamen, Machinegunners, Infantrymen, Flamethrowers, Corpsmen, soldiers with bayonets and hand grenades and stretcher bearers. 100 Soldiers from 1” to 21/4" high. ............. $1

Theses seem to be the 54mm versions; I don't know where Spencer operated, whether it was a local/single-State thing like Loeser's or a more national, wider thing, or even a catalogue? Pricing puts them (or this ad.) in the 1950's. 'Corpsmen' is (or was; 70 years ago?) the American term for army medics.

There is a Spencer Gifts, operating all over New York it seems, either as stand-alone stores, or franchise 'kiosks', selling the tat we love to Blog here, there was also a Spener's Gifts advertising in American TV guides in the 1970's, if all three are the same company we will be returning to them here at Small Scale World - as Spencer's Gift's - shortly; with Britains guns and Lucky-LP stuff!

Note; no mounted officers, and I can't quite get it to add up to 100, the MG's seem to count as a 'soldier', the ammo boxes likewise and I think there should be 14 each of the two poses at the back, which gives 99-items 'in frame', maybe with the mounted figure left off the photo . . . due to his naffness? Which; 70 years later - is seen as mere nostalgic charm! That would give a more likely 101-count.

With flash photography Brian's sample magically change colour! These are pretty-much the same shade of olive drab as mine, but a better/smoother quality plastic, I also silhouetted mine holding them up against Brian's on the screen until they blocked the image out and they matched - even to noses and rifle tips, so I guess they are all the Pal one's shown on Kent's site - you should get about 40 in the little bag on that page?

As I suggested in my contribution to Plastic Warrior magazine a few years ago, the Ammo-carriers are the stretcher bearers. Obviously with little plug-in ammo-boxes, the right hand's hole seemingly filled-in.

The multi-coloured ones available this side of the pond ('Mexiq and crackers, et al.) have another version with the other hole (in the left hand for holding the ammunition-boxes) also filled in - as a marching officer?

Comparisons with a few other semi-flat WWII/GI types, except the Osul figure which is a Portuguese colonial era-uniformed figure. Thanks to Dario for the green 'Italy' figure and are the Australian figures Aussie Woolworth's or Sanitarium premiums?

Known Issues - Alphabetically

Built Rite (Warren) (purportedly - from a senior member of the 'old guard' might be confussion with Bonnie 'Built')

- Multi-coloured 54mm versions (maybe)

Café Mexiq (Coffee premiums)

- Multi-coloured 54mm versions

'Christmas Crackers' (probably Tom Smith)

- Multi-coloured 54mm versions

Hardy / Bonnie Built

- Army Combat Miniature Figures (54mm khaki versions)

J.C. Penny (Department Store)

- Whirlybird Helicopter (+/- 30 figures, a tank, gun, truck & jeep - Remco re-box? See note below)

Kilty (29¢ per set, 54mm khaki versions)

#100 - Infantry Marching (8 marching, 1 officer)
#101 - Infantry Combat set (2 Bazooka, 2 grenade, 2 standing firing, 2 fixed bayonets)
#102 - Machine Gun Squad (2 mg, 2 MG gunners, 2 ammo carriers, 4 ammo boxes, 1 each - bazooka and standing firing)
#103 - Medical Squad (4 bearers, 2 stretchers, 2 marching)
#104 - Artillery Squad (contents unknown)
#105 - Tank Squad (1 tank, 1 each standing firing and fixed bayonet, 2 each bazooka and Grenade)

Loeser's (New York department stores, 1951, 54mm khaki versions)

- Argo (5 tin-plate, free-wheeling, canon-shooting armoured cars, ambulance, 10 plastic soldiers, 40 shells and 50 cardboard roadblocks, soldiers and targets - look to be the 54mm versions)

Pal (29¢)

- Pal Playthings (approximately 40 figures? 50mm versions)

Remco

- Bulldog Tank (reported by TSHQ, unknown quantity, 50mm versions)

- Motorized Whirlybird Monkey Division (Red Herring? - they used the Marx 50mm copies we lookedat here)

- Whirlybird Motorized Rescue Helicopter (as previous)

Spencer (Dime-store chain, $1.00, appear to be 54mm khaki versions)

N-988 - 100 Toy Soldiers (5 stretcher teams, 5 ammo box carriers (giving 20 figs) 10 each of most others, 15 standing firing, 15 slung-rifle, appear to be 54mm version)

Unknown

- Soft plastic, multicoloured 54mm versions (factory painted?)

In addition they probably did service in Pinyata, as wundertüten or in 'Lucky Bags', having themselves thrown out of windows wrapped in coloured paper at Maltese religious festivals, they were also issued in Christmas crackers and I bet some Hong Kong ones will turn-up one day!

So that's three new names attached to these for your archive; Argo, Loeser and Spencer, new to the Blog, new to the Internet (I think!), new to the Hobby!