G is for Going . . . Going . . .!

A cheap segue to look at the Hilco space figures, but there you are; I'm clearly a manipulative bastard! No, I thought there were similarities between my broken unknown spaceman and the Hilco figures (although I think 'technically' these were/are the full "Johillco"?), not least that he's in the same state as most of them, who are getting increasingly brittle!

He is similar to one of the [Jo]Hilco figures, but probably only because both are channeling the100-odd-mm  Archer 'space' grenade-thrower (looks like a foam or Velcro lawn-dart!) pose. The picture on the right is from a series I took in 2012 and destined for a future post, the guy on the left has (at time of shooting) just had his weapon's tip glued back on . . . ohhh! Misses!

Because this is how I found them - for the second time in recent years! The kneeling guy was OK and the shooter just needed a little work on his . . . err . . . tool! But panic-central guy was in a hell of a state! The two yellow arrows show previous mends, and getting the left hand guy back together was exactly like working with chalk.

How they look now (March 30th), and they won't move until I've bought a box of cotton-wool, at which point the bubble-wrap will be replaced with a bed of the stuff, and a second layer will be placed over them, thick enough to hold them firm when the lid pushes it down, but not so wadded it breaks them again!

I shot these on Adrian's table at Sandown Park's toy fair (back in 2012), you can see the kneeling guys tend to survive (with care) and fifty-years from now he'll be the only pose in collectors' collections! But the waist of the robot is a definite weak-point.

I thought I had a robot, as I remembered gluing one (at the waist), but I think I must have mended some of JB's years ago. In the meantime I shot this guy when I posted all the robots a while ago, and as well as the comparison/group shots, I posed him separately (as I must have subconsciously known I didn't have him?), so we have four poses and a broken duplicate in the whole image.

I don't know how many there are altogether; the early PW guidebook (B&W editions) have a similar figure with a base which they think isn't from the set, while the full-colour edition has a very nice pre-production test-shot never released (which looks to be in a non-chalky, therefore, lasting polymer), along with a walking figure which takes the set-count to five?

Also, despite the Hilco/Johillco comments at the start I wonder if they were only ever Cherilea? Firstly; Cherilea are known for their early, chalky, explosively-brittle shite and secondly while these are from Johillco hollow-cast moulds, later, Cherilea also issued them in hollow-cast . . . looked at here, where a sixth pose is the crawling figure.

There are also two (Cherilea-only) monsters (a cata-slug and a running gecko-dragon thing) neither of which have I ever seen in plastic? However, I think I have seen the rocket and separate launch-ramp in plastic? Joplin adds a Buck Rogers Treen-type and a vending-bot, along with a seventh 'human' (the plastics are always painted as green 'Martians') spaceman holding a dumbbell aloft! Joplin believes the boxy-bot and 7th humanoid never went to Cherilea.

But it's not clear when the mould went to Cherilea, and what packaging any Hill plastics might have appeared in, but for Cherilea to issue them in late space boxes already printed for the hollow-cast figures seems sensible?

Wilfred Cherrington is credited with designing these, and it may be that - with or without permission (?) - he took the mould as part of his severance from Hill, which would make the plastic figures a Cherilea thing.

Summing up of the preceding text!