S is for Star

I've always called these S-for-Star because I have about six Star's in the archive and I didn't know which one was responsible for the figures we're about to look at, and neither of the companies I thought might be in the frame (a Taiwanese Star which left Hong Kong around 1954 when the civil-war ended and Chiang-Kai-Shek's supporters retreated to Formosa, and a modern Star with three factories in mainland China) have subsequently proved to be this one!

'This one' being the Star Plastic Toys Manufactures Limited. As this is the third of these posts in a row you will be getting two things about Hong Kong toy makers; they either have several titles/brands/brand marks (Tai Sang / Blue-Box / Red Box et al) or a really long title, or both! As well as premises in Hong Kong, they had a showroom/office in The Toy Building in New York (200 Fifth Av.) back in the day and they also used Staristic, SPToy and Startoy.

We collectors know them for their crude knock-off copies of Britains Swoppet 'Modern' khaki infantry, which they sold with the logo (and no other markings - hence my S-for-Star - top), or branded to/for various customers (here the German-European Dickie group - middle, another's called Alme - 'Arizona' ACW sets) or as unmarked generics, which could be the little trays or loose in header-carded bottle-bags (bottom).

On the left is my generic with its atmospheric artwork . . . A US GI, advertising Germans with SLR's and '58 pattern webbing! On the right an old feebleBay image of two Wild West sets, also generics - note the Lone Star copy swoppet bases, they did (later?) use the rounded ones, but so do several further-generation copyists, generally Star provide a better pose range and a slightly higher quality figure sculpting/finish.

Back to the 'Germans' and we're going tan on the fifty-eight (is that a Q-Anon code woooohhhh!). They basically copied all the Britains Swoppet body sections AND the upper torso of the Herald khaki infantry officer, and then stuck the bodies on any-old legs.

There are only the two helmets, possibly copied from Minimodels (German helmet) and - obviously - Britains (the piss pot), and quite a few colour combinations exist between body and webbing/PLCE colours.

Upper torsos and webbing are a soft, stretchy PVC, the rest of the components are in a bog-standard 'Airfix' or soapy polyethylene.

Although all the figures in my first set (Star marked) have the Britains SLR (FN Fal.) copy, one of the new sets has a copy of the Timpo Guardsman 'At Ease' pose's weapon, with a base-locating spigot, on a couple of the figures; this may be a Timpo original as it's very good, but the set was mint, with no sign of the figures having been removed from the card (not easy without damaging or dimpling the card), but perhaps Dickie also handled Timpo imports and filled empty hands with Timpo spares? I think it's just a good copy - I'll see if others turn-up!

Artwork; Blue Box's Patton Tanks attack a Churchill, pity we didn't get a decent rack-toy of that machine! While a Pz.Kfw V, Panther is about to get it in the side from a T36½! Not an SLR is sight!

A couple of other figurals from Star, the driver of the fork-lift truck is quite common in various forms, the original was M.A.C (Mobile Action Command) figures from Lesney/Matchbox, but marketed by Star as Action Jack (? I think?) and copied - poorly - by Montaplex in Spain as Montaman in Kiosk Sopresas (surprise bags).

And I don't remember a plain black sheepdog in the recent posts on the subject here, so that's another one to find!