LP is for LB - Part 2 - Full Size Robots

Alongside the - previously 'LP' - astronauts were six robot types, although some people think of them (or some of them) as aliens; some of the packaging back in the day wasn't fussed and it's fair to say several of them can be painted-up as life forms.

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?