M is for More of a Ramble than a Return!

We looked at these a while ago here, when I got my main sample, both carded and loose, but since then a few more have joined the 'legion' and more details have emerged which change the narrative slightly, so we'll have a meander through  them . . .

. . . starting with the most recent additions, which are two of the original (except they aren't 'original' anymore!) Legione Spaziale (Space Legion) figures from the previous post; an orange one and a fleck-marbled yellow one, along with two much better versions - in the 'proper' pulp-era metallics!

New ones added (orange asterisks) to the rest I already had, along with a bronze one kicking about and with a helmeted bronze version in the poorer sculpt-finish of the [not] originals, gives me six poses and three generations; poor, not-so-poor with helmet (1) and good (2).

But what we saw previously is only half the story, the better moulded ones are the originals, the poor ones are complete piracies, even down to . . .

. . . the packaging! They are a little bigger and it's a tighter-cropped image, so they appear even bigger, but basically one set - on the left - is a pulp-era set (1950/60's), the other is a cheaper fake (and that's the correct term when you're copying the product and the artwork), designed to look like the original, possibly as late as the mid-late 1970's?

That was sort of 'it', as while I had these two images and was pretty sure that they were mine and that they were the small copies (they are a mix of old Archer and Premier/Tudor Rose poses) I couldn't find them, so I didn't know for sure!

The blue guy is the Premier/Tudor Rose pose; also covered by a company in Australia - if memory serves - in the larger scale.

Then - looking for them - I managed to find two lots, which with the new pair and the bronze 'kicker' gave me twelve, or a small shed-load! Which I haven't photographed as they are only the three poses and the information is in the other images above and below, but I'll show them in the future when I've found all the poses in the better sculpts.

I also found the Christmas cracker prize ones, and another oddity, so thought 'fuck it' and grabbed the Lido (et al) box while I was at it . . .

. . . to get this comparison of smaller 'pulp' spacemen done! We'll look at the helmeted one (unknown I) in a second, while the blue one with an added base (unknown II; ee's 'armless! Or; it's der Milo from Venus!) will be back in the next post, the rest are - hopefully - annotated with clarity?

The Post premiums are the smallest, while the cracker giveaways are heading toward a standard size, the rest are less than half the size of the Archer and Glencoe (Archer re-issues) sets - which we will look at another day, with the originals (a) slightly taller than the copies (b and unknown I).

I saw another of these the other day, same colour, same helmet foxed with a tub of glue-fumes, different pose (but from the six), so I suspect (guess, assume, presume, imagine!) that A) he was/they were possibly a single thing, bubble-gum, cereal, pasta? Something like that, and probably Italy (as per the other two versions) or France, and B) is the original of the multicoloured copies, being ever-so-slightly better detailed, but much worse that the true originals, i.e.; the chronologically second of the three versions, and the first of the two generations of piracies.

So, someone made the original Legione Spaziale and may have given them helmets (which have been lost?) but I've never seen them, then someone-else copied them, with badly or heavily glued-on helmets (which do survive!) and issued them singly (?) as some kind of premium/giveaway or capsule/pocket-money toy? Then a while later; they (or a third party) found (or obtained) the tool (of the copies) and re-released them in candy-colours without helmets (there were no helmets in the big stock-bags from which my previously-seen sample came from) on a copy card of the original Space Legion. But . . . that is all, mostly conjecture?

Ghosts in the machine!