About Me

My photo
No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

S is for Soma's Star Rider Space City

Picked this up a few weeks back going unloved and un-bid, on that there evilBay, a month or so ago, I had no idea it existed and was looking for something-else entirely when I found it. Not really a rack-toy in the traditional sense, but I bet that when it was originally retailed it would have been half the price of a Bluebird Mighty Max or Polly Pocket set, and a quarter of the price of a similar Galoob Star Wars toy?

Aliens; Astronauts; Folding Playset; Galoob; Giogi; Kinder; Pilots; Play Set; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soma; Soma Holdings; Soma Industries; Soma Play Set; Soma Space City; Soma Toy Soldiers; Space City; Spacemen; Spaceships; Star Raider;
Folding-up to very small (6"x4¼x1¾-deep - 150x100x44mm), there's enough play-value to keep any kid happy in a caravan on a wet week in Rhyl! These days - of course - it'll either be too-hot to play in a caravan without cooking yourself, or so wet there's a danger the caravan will float away!

Aliens; Astronauts; Folding Playset; Galoob; Giogi; Kinder; Pilots; Play Set; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soma; Soma Holdings; Soma Industries; Soma Play Set; Soma Space City; Soma Toy Soldiers; Space City; Spacemen; Spaceships; Star Raider;
Fully unfolded; the gun-tower has shades of 'Hoth', the rest is - dare I suggest - more Flash Gordon than Coruscant! It comes with four of the diminutive little HO-figures I think I've shown before (we'll look at them again in a second) and a small truck the seller (alkim96) kindly added to the lot before sending, but which hadn't been in the sales shots.

Aliens; Astronauts; Folding Playset; Galoob; Giogi; Kinder; Pilots; Play Set; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soma; Soma Holdings; Soma Industries; Soma Play Set; Soma Space City; Soma Toy Soldiers; Space City; Spacemen; Spaceships; Star Raider;
And this is it, I think it's based on one of the ex-Giogi/for-Kinder mini fire engines, dated to 1997 (the Soma set) that's quite possible, but only as a vague copy; the Kinder ones were clip-together while this is screwed, following the Micro-Machine principle.

Aliens; Astronauts; Folding Playset; Galoob; Giogi; Kinder; Pilots; Play Set; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soma; Soma Holdings; Soma Industries; Soma Play Set; Soma Space City; Soma Toy Soldiers; Space City; Spacemen; Spaceships; Star Raider;
"Plastic smalls" as those with little finesse refer to them! I think we have looked at these before, and I think I've only added the four new ones, all duplicates, this is one of each from my sample, spacemen in grey and 'pilots' in green, each numbered on the base from 1 (on the left, purple and orange) to 12 on the far right.

Aliens; Astronauts; Folding Playset; Galoob; Giogi; Kinder; Pilots; Play Set; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Soma; Soma Holdings; Soma Industries; Soma Play Set; Soma Space City; Soma Toy Soldiers; Space City; Spacemen; Spaceships; Star Raider;
My whole sample, most of them came mint with their aircraft and or 'spaceships' all of which went to charity about 20-odd years ago, found in generic packaging (I think) in Woolworth's it was only the little Soma on the base, and I think I'm right in saying the fighters came with one figure, the spaceships with two, hence the imbalance.

Also I don't know why I'm missing grey-5, as I should have all of them? You can also see there are some minor colour variations within each sub-tranche, but schemes stay true. Hopefully, one day, I'll be able to show you all of them, but they are not a high priority, with only two found in addition to the new four, over the years.

I have joked (at length) on the assorted panoply of weapons, clothing, equipment and headdresses so won't bore you with all that again, you can see what an eclectic mix of 1990's 'straight-to-video' post-apocalyptic B-movie extras they are! And they make an excellent set of extra bounty-hunters for Galoob's Star Wars Micro-Machines!

4 comments:

Doug said...

Hey Hugh!
I have a bunch of these guys squirrelled away as well. They more or less fit with the Micro Machine Star Wars figures from a couple of decades ago.
I got mine from the small hard plastic space ship sets, some from those vending machine eggs that you see in malls, and others from (?).
They make good generic space men, space pirates, etc.
All made of the same soft vinyl plastic.

Hugh Walter said...

Absolutely Doug! A fine bunch of HO/20mm bounty-hunters!

Funily enough I have a small PVC spaceship from Soma which doesn't seem to have anything to do with them but being instead more like the sets of 12 figures . . . carded they were probably also capsule toys?

H

Doug said...

You know, I came across a bunch of eraser like spaceships a while back.
I bought a bunch.
They are easy to cut up (engines, weapons, etc) and reglue into other ships.

http://dougssoldiers.blogspot.com/search/label/spaceships

These were from an importer in clear plastic tubes of 72 ships.
The Soma ships I have are all hard plastic.
I doubt if you could cut them without a dremel.
I have a couple of the big battery Soma ships, but they didn’t come with figures.
I bought them in a department store Christmas gift box set with a bunch of the little ships.

Hugh Walter said...

No, mine is about 50mm long, single PVC lump in bronze with paint highlights.

I had the spaceships (plastic?) and fighters (die-cast?), but off-loaded them at the time as they were a bit big and/or not what I was then collecting! Doh!

H