C is for Collectivism

Or 'collectivisation' . . . we saw in the previous post how modern Russian collectors were 'accusing' an Odessa factory of "copying" the MKI riders, but the thing is, under the Soviet system of socialism (which was the other side of the Fascist coin, and had little do with socialist principles for not very long!), it wasn't about copying in the piracy sense of the word, but rather being allocated the permission, or even ordered to produce something which might have appeared first elsewhere.

We've seen it with Progress, where the set of revolutionary cavalry were issued in the Bulgarian factory in Sofia, in primary colours, by Progress Russia (probably one of the Moscow plants but they had several) in red plastic (and by at least two other plants) and we're looking at it now, where we find one (of several) Odessa plants producing items previously credited to Kultbyttovarov (Craft Workshops) - who were also in Odessa

It's the micro-ships, or a complete 'Marine Parade' micro-navy! З-д "Полимер" г.Одесса = Z-d "Polymer" h.Odessa = Zavod "Polymer" from Odessa = 'Odessa Plastics Factory' are the culprits this time, and . . . being only just down the road from Kultbyttovarov in a nation with umpteen time-zones, whatever the relationship between the two plants and/or the two mould tools' was; true-piracy it wasn't.

You get . . .

Marine Parade Complete Set

• № 01 Destroyer

• № 02 Battleship

• № 03 Boat (x2)

• № 04 Submarine (x2)

• № 05 Torpedo Boat

• № 06 Hospital [ship]

• № 07 Cruiser 'Aurora'

They come in many other colours, I was watching some blue ones the other day but they were a bit tatty and then I found the whole set so grabbed them, but neither colour is particularly easy to photograph.

The Kultbyttovarov ones (two green above, red below) are if anything the slightly better mouldings, and are about a millimeter longer and have smoother waterlines but are otherwise the same, albeit wearing the logo missing on The Odessa Plastics' ones.

So it would appear that whenever, whoever (by way of a Communist-party apparatchik) gave the clearance for the second factory to cover the same models as the first, he or she was talking to Odessa Plastics about Odessa Kultbyttovarov!

Different logo to the cat/bear's head of Kultbyttovarov on the Odessa Plastics Factory flyer, and with the markings only found on one set, we know they are separate production tranches from different tools and that - consequently - even ignoring colours, we have twice as many to find . . . the beauty of collecting!

My whole fleet steaming into action to give Fritzie a bloody-nose! Although the 'Torpedo Boat' is more of a post-war surface-to-surface missile carrier of rather fictional design? And the Aurora is an old WWI/Dreadnaught-era vessel

You may have noticed the Hospital ship is in need of a doctor itself; the seller had several sets and they all seem to suffer the same shrinkage damage, but good ones are out there as this page can attest.

The scale too, is all over the place, rather like the MPC 'minis' and a comparison is needed, but that can be for another day!