101/30 is for Airfix US Paratrooper Clones

Had the dithering desperadoes over at shitestuff (see this-morning's post) managed any sort of cursory search for some Hing Fat stories with real merit, they might have placed a feather in their cap with this, as it seems to be the missing set of Airfix US Para-clones, I having only managed to ID the two types; from Henbrandt (and others, I think Hans Postler (HP) might have handled them too) and Artform Industrial.

Most of the images on Hing Fat's web-site (which is so poorly maintained it shows different results depending upon which page you're on, so a folders-within-folders/leftover's thing going on there), show what are clearly the un-attributed copies on the Airfix page (I will re-use this collage over there).

However, it's now not so clear which set is which re. these and the Henbrandt-carried ones and I will have to pore-over all these crappy images to decide; it's alright looking at them together, you can see one lot are slightly smaller (or larger depending on which lot you finger first!), but deciding which is which from dodgy catalogue promotional's and evilBay images is less easy.

However we have some clues to work with, we know - for instance - that the pirates have at least two sets of base-marks not including the better originals (with extra poses, almost certainly not Hing Fat), we know that there are at least five versions of the astronauts, some of which (the better ones) probably aren't Hing Fat . . . so, with effort, it will all become clear.

And I think I have a better image of Billy V's set from Hing Fat, but a further complication is a fourth type and new colours have both turned-up, so the Airfix update may be a week or two yet.

To further muddy the waters, Hing Fat appear to have a second set of very good versions!

I think these are actually the Airfix (CTS or TSHQ/Present Past?) figures, shot by Hing Fat for - falsified - publicity purposes, the join-lines, base dimensions  and the flat edges to the bases all seem to match the Airfix originals, the bases are more typically Airfix than Hing Fat, and no figures of this quality have turned-up in rack-toys sets, Hing Fat-marked, or generic!

Returning to one of the collaged pictures and a point made earlier today, the minimum you could order would appear to be 288 sets, not many people can drop orders like that and you'd probably have to order far more than that,  the first few times to become a trusted-enough customer to then purchase single cartons, this stuff has to go in a shipping container and travel half-way round the world; they won't go to that effort for an order which has a cost price of less than, what? 200-quid?

Someone like the Toysaurus could order multiple container's worth and have one sent to the UK, one to Aus' and the others to the States, where they can be broken-down and road-or-rail transported to distribution hubs and stores. But they would order these, or astronauts, Pirates or Wild West, as would Jaru, Imex et al, not rugby footballers, or - sadly - Terracotta Army?