But for simplicity's sake, I'm thinking of
them as robots here, and, because in the small scales they were usually in some
form of metallic finish; I've always thought of them as robots, having
collected the small ones first!
While the Spacemen have grown considerably
over the years as a sample, I don't think I've picked-up a single extra robot
(in the large scales) since I last blogged them a decade or so ago, both here
and at Moonbase, so this post is more of a re-hash!
Only four of six in the earlier
chromium-plated line, and one of them is a silver-sprayed late version, run
after conversion to a key-ring, or even a key-ring, sans ring! One of the
missing poses is below (next image) but the other has eluded me, although
that's probably because Bill over at Moonbase has amassed a stunning collection
of the 'Wotan' bot!
And there are generation of these which
match the well-painted spacemen, but they seem to be quite uncommon, which may
be in part down to the thinner arms and and/or legs and sticky-out bits leading
to damage and a trip to landfill?
These turn-up occasionally with different
contents, and their level of survivability suggests late 1970's-early 1980's?
The pink bot is one of the missing poses in my small sample, but both it and
the green one are key-ring pierced and soft ethylene to match the tank and
spaceman. The space-tank is also the poorest type with no pull-back motor and
very-proud (of the body) carpet-wheels leaving it looking a bit daft.
While all sizes of both spacemen and robots
were issued as Cake Decorations over here and in various window-boxed and
carded sets, it seems the large-scale robots were converted to key-rings quite
soon which may explain their being harder to find, compared to the astronauts
in their un-holed form?
Where the collection has gained is in the
field of 'rubber jiggler'/sucker-bots, where I have scored a couple of lots in
recent years, but these aren't LB (LP), but various generations of copy.
I've yet to ID the marking on the green
ones (top left) although it's missing from the similarly painted sample (which
also has a different HK mark) to the bottom right. The simpler painted ones in
yellowy-orange have similar HK marks to the larger-lot, but look like those
issued or marketed by Mei Kee (marks MK or T [-in-a-circle]) of the New Territories.
The detail and marking differences point to
more than one maker, but batches - over time - could have equal variance? or
several smaller plants could have been working on larger orders (with Imperial maybe or someone like that; one
of the capsule-toy importers?) with sets of duplicate moulds.
Thankfully I have lots of Wotan-bots in
these jiggler samples!
I think I shot this after I'd found a few
more, or realised that the contents of two bags were the same issue, anyway
they are the bottom-left lot in the previous shot, but with additional poses,
some colour variations and a couple of damaged samples.
I've inset a screen-cap of a Mei Kee compared with the middle-left
one. Are they the same? I have a feeling the MK ones have a slight rim or ring-edge to the sucker?
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