Pages

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

LP is for LB - Part 1 - Full Size Astronauts

As I think I've said before, I have a problem with these, as they are clearly 'astronauts' (late Program Mercury suits, with the strapping carried over to Program Gemini, not the earlier, more common, Mercury suit with a diagonal zipper/seam?), but, they are carrying firearms, which in my mind makes them 'spacemen' . . . it's a thin demarcation-line but you have to have them or you could never put anything away!

Astronauts; Culpitt Astronauts; Culpitt Spacemen; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Hong Kong Figures; Hong Kong Figurines; Hong Kong Toys; ID; ID Ltd.; IDL; LB; LB Astronauts; LB Lik Be; LB Spacemen; Lik Be; LP; LP Astronaughts; LP Lik Be; LP Spacemen; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Space Toys; Plastic Astronauts; Plastic Spacemen; Plastic Toy Figures; Solpa; Spaceman; Spacemen; Vintage Astronauts; Vintage Plastic; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Spacemen; Vintage Toy Figures;
I first covered these here, briefly and small-scale only, nearly 11 years ago (December 2009), and - after hitting it big with larger-scale examples (an eBay lot and the legendary Barry Blood's sell-off at 2009 or '10's PW magazine show) followed-up that post with a guest slot on Moonbase Central. Since then we have returned to them a few times as the odd lot's come in, and the logo was revisited . . . yeeaahhhhsss; I had to have a good look at the logo a little while ago!

Known as IDL, ID or ID Ltd. for the longest time, in around 2001/2 (or a bit later?), work - by several people - in several issues of One Inch Warrior led to the general acceptance of LP as the maker/mark except in Pennsylvania and Florida where IDL continued to hold sway until a few months ago! I'm now calling them LB, as we know they were produced by Lik Be of Chaiwan, Hong Kong.

These are the original set of eight different sculpts, they are surprisingly inactive and even a little two-dimensional, but they were some of the first unique figures to come out of the colony with little of other 'western' figures about them and are well sculpted, well proportioned (for a bunch of six-footers) and nicely finished.

They are manufactured in factory-painted hard polystyrene and were glued into various window-box sets, which - similar to the contemporary Blue Box sets - came in one, two and three-tier versions, and deeper boxes with accessories. Consequently they always have the remains of the glue and/or the paper from the backing card left on them.

Bases are usually a blackish-green, but some paler ones turn-up and we will look at the smaller ones later.

Astronauts; Culpitt Astronauts; Culpitt Spacemen; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Hong Kong Figures; Hong Kong Figurines; Hong Kong Toys; ID; ID Ltd.; IDL; LB; LB Astronauts; LB Lik Be; LB Spacemen; Lik Be; LP; LP Astronaughts; LP Lik Be; LP Spacemen; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Space Toys; Plastic Astronauts; Plastic Spacemen; Plastic Toy Figures; Solpa; Spaceman; Spacemen; Vintage Astronauts; Vintage Plastic; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Spacemen; Vintage Toy Figures;
Quite soon they were replaced with polyethylene soft plastic figures, and other colours were introduced (which make them more 'spaceman' less 'astronaut' - in my books!), and we see here soft plastic figures mirroring the gun-metal of the originals, a flat grey, green, white and red examples.

Some were still glued into the tiered-sets, while others where clamped by card cut-outs, or held by rubber bands, in the end they came in styrene-blister packaging, but by then . . .

Astronauts; Culpitt Astronauts; Culpitt Spacemen; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Hong Kong Figures; Hong Kong Figurines; Hong Kong Toys; ID; ID Ltd.; IDL; LB; LB Astronauts; LB Lik Be; LB Spacemen; Lik Be; LP; LP Astronaughts; LP Lik Be; LP Spacemen; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Space Toys; Plastic Astronauts; Plastic Spacemen; Plastic Toy Figures; Solpa; Spaceman; Spacemen; Vintage Astronauts; Vintage Plastic; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Spacemen; Vintage Toy Figures;
The all over multi-coloured painting had been reduced - briefly - to a three/four colour on the front of the figures only, which lead quite soon after (it seems) to the final unpainted versions and here we see all three versions, in their probable order of issue, time wise, each in white (the creamy one in the middle is sun-damaged I think; not a colour variation).

Astronauts; Culpitt Astronauts; Culpitt Spacemen; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Hong Kong Figures; Hong Kong Figurines; Hong Kong Toys; ID; ID Ltd.; IDL; LB; LB Astronauts; LB Lik Be; LB Spacemen; Lik Be; LP; LP Astronaughts; LP Lik Be; LP Spacemen; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Space Toys; Plastic Astronauts; Plastic Spacemen; Plastic Toy Figures; Solpa; Spaceman; Spacemen; Vintage Astronauts; Vintage Plastic; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Spacemen; Vintage Toy Figures;
Unpainted samples I have found so far; white, black, blue, red and green, although (going on the robots - next post) there may well be pink and pale green examples out there, and maybe the earlier flat grey or even gunmetal?

All the figures so far (above four images) have the same LB (LP) mark on the base underside along with a blocked MADE IN over HONG KONG, they don't have the same numbering of the robots (next post) and probably date from the 1970's.

Astronauts; Culpitt Astronauts; Culpitt Spacemen; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Hong Kong Figures; Hong Kong Figurines; Hong Kong Toys; ID; ID Ltd.; IDL; LB; LB Astronauts; LB Lik Be; LB Spacemen; Lik Be; LP; LP Astronaughts; LP Lik Be; LP Spacemen; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Space Toys; Plastic Astronauts; Plastic Spacemen; Plastic Toy Figures; Solpa; Spaceman; Spacemen; Vintage Astronauts; Vintage Plastic; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Spacemen; Vintage Toy Figures;
There was a late re-issuing of the figures in the 1990's (the originals must - from their suits - date from the early 1960's) of unmarked (left hand) figures; I bought a set of these between 1997 and around 2002 for the editor of Plastic Warrior in the Ballon Shop in North Camp from a large counter display tub (of the sort used at the same time by Imperial the US 'jobber'). The marked one is probably the 1980's iteration and is more 'worn' than a true colour variant.

What is notable about them is that they were a return to a hard plastic, but it's not a styrene (the marked one may be, actually!), so probably a polypropylene or Nylon/Rayon material (?) and their final indignity was to be cleared from the factory with no chromium-plating in what are probably neutral-granule colours (two on the right)

Astronauts; Culpitt Astronauts; Culpitt Spacemen; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Hong Kong Figures; Hong Kong Figurines; Hong Kong Toys; ID; ID Ltd.; IDL; LB; LB Astronauts; LB Lik Be; LB Spacemen; Lik Be; LP; LP Astronaughts; LP Lik Be; LP Spacemen; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Space Toys; Plastic Astronauts; Plastic Spacemen; Plastic Toy Figures; Solpa; Spaceman; Spacemen; Vintage Astronauts; Vintage Plastic; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Spacemen; Vintage Toy Figures;
Alongside the Lik Be originals, their metaphorical (or sometimes 'actual') cousins in the colony were churning out copies, and there are two generations of based clones, these are the better versions, although measurably worse than the donors (as you can see; measurable by eye!), with the earlier ones aping the full paint of the proper chaps, and then unpainted figures being sent out.

They have a simple HONGKONG base mark, in a similar but less well defined hollowed-base cavity. I suspect the set shown on the right were once supposed to glow in the dark, but it's an unstable additive and is yellowing and fading-out of a semi-transparent neutral plastic.

Astronauts; Culpitt Astronauts; Culpitt Spacemen; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Hong Kong Figures; Hong Kong Figurines; Hong Kong Toys; ID; ID Ltd.; IDL; LB; LB Astronauts; LB Lik Be; LB Spacemen; Lik Be; LP; LP Astronaughts; LP Lik Be; LP Spacemen; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Space Toys; Plastic Astronauts; Plastic Spacemen; Plastic Toy Figures; Solpa; Spaceman; Spacemen; Vintage Astronauts; Vintage Plastic; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Spacemen; Vintage Toy Figures;
The other set are sub-copies in around 50mm, and can be found in gunmetal samples, or multicoloured batches. They only copied four of the poses though, and while I suspect they are HK product, they could be from somewhere else, being unmarked?

The French produced a lot of this kind of piracy as 'bazaar' (rack-toys) as did the South Americans, while to a lesser extent locally-produced knock-offs or unmarked HK stuff was available in Greece, Italy and Spain? Speaking of Greece; Solpa carried unmarked, cruder-still copies of the LB figures, but they had more poses cloned.

Astronauts; Culpitt Astronauts; Culpitt Spacemen; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Hong Kong Figures; Hong Kong Figurines; Hong Kong Toys; ID; ID Ltd.; IDL; LB; LB Astronauts; LB Lik Be; LB Spacemen; Lik Be; LP; LP Astronaughts; LP Lik Be; LP Spacemen; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Space Toys; Plastic Astronauts; Plastic Spacemen; Plastic Toy Figures; Solpa; Spaceman; Spacemen; Vintage Astronauts; Vintage Plastic; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Spacemen; Vintage Toy Figures;
The other clones are the novelty sucker-toys (top, far right), shown with what I believe are early/late pairings of - from the left; LB (LP); same-size clones; 50mm clones. I only have the one sucker-figure, but there are several generations of them and we'll look at them with the robots - next post. The lower shot is one of each type/variation of the larger-scale figures, found, so far!

Astronauts; Culpitt Astronauts; Culpitt Spacemen; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Hong Kong Figures; Hong Kong Figurines; Hong Kong Toys; ID; ID Ltd.; IDL; LB; LB Astronauts; LB Lik Be; LB Spacemen; Lik Be; LP; LP Astronaughts; LP Lik Be; LP Spacemen; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Space Toys; Plastic Astronauts; Plastic Spacemen; Plastic Toy Figures; Solpa; Spaceman; Spacemen; Vintage Astronauts; Vintage Plastic; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Spacemen; Vintage Toy Figures;
The feebleBay purchase which got the 60-mil collection off to a fine start; my desk-top in the spring of 2009, further colours and some of the piracies came in Barry's little grey bags, that May!

Moonbase has so much more on these; the best thing to do is spend a few hours browsing their LP tag, they also have more sucker variants, baseless copies and the Solpa figures.

X-Plane, Mercury and Gemini suits;

No comments:

Post a Comment

Put your bit here and thanks for visiting....Feel free to correct, add something, ask a question, have a dig or blow a metaphorical raspberry!