Metro is for Play Set

Only two images, but having mentioned Pioneer in the previous posts . . . and an important post here as it fleshes-out several musings on Small Scale World over the last few years, and it does so through the medium of what the dim-witted branch of the hobby derisorily call 'plastic smalls' . . . in public, on the record!

A classic rack-toy; which, when bought (late 1990's) was probably still in the sub-pound price-bracket. An under-scale house, raised flower-bed, picket fence in three parts and store-front, all in polystyrene (or polypropylene - I've never opened it), a blow-moulded soda-dispensing coin-op' machine, a die-cast pick-up truck in the Matchbox 1-75 or Hot Wheels style and a small PVC figurine. It's notable for being aimed more specifically at little girls, rather than boys with blokey army-men or both siblings with a unisex plaything.

Actually . . . I think the 'store front' might be the raised deck of the house!

But, I hope the more observant of you will be thinking "He's shown us this before" - I haven't, or "I recognise that figure" - you should! It's the Galoob 'everyday' clothes Pink Power Ranger figurine, copied in a larger size and they've hardly changed the paint-job!

Fully marked to Pioneer, this is on one level only circumstantial evidence, but strong enough to become empirical over time if the absence of something stronger continues. I have suggested those Realtoy-Daron copies of Galoob soldiers might be connected to Pioneer and that some of the other 'might be Pioneer' figures . . . err . . . might be Pioneer! Also there's the question marks over the Zita and yesterday's Stonegalleon (and the contributed Firefighters - which I haven't forgotten about; Theo and Brian!).

Well, I suspect quite a bit of it is Pioneer, probably most of it and that those larger copies of the Galoob figures used by Dacron, Realtoy and Sky Marks ARE Pioneer as is this figure, along with the carrier deck-crews and possibly both baseings and sizes of the firefighter/mechanics and the painted/unpainted GI's seen in previous posts, even the Zita/Stonegalleon may well be Pioneer, as all the combat types/sizes/paint treatments share some poses. It even explains the one softer Realtoy firer in flat-green paint.

Contemporary with the other known makers I keep mentioning in these posts - New Ray, Smart, Soma, Supreme - as they were, if not working together, at least watching each-other very closely as they exploited the same pocket-money and window-box niches in the late 1980's and 1990's. With the lesser Wing Mau and K&M (before they adopted the Wild Republic moniker) also producing bits of this stuff. While in their larger 1:32^nd scale Street Muscle series, Pioneer produce very detailed and well made/painted driver-figures

And it's ironic that 2019's frantic Google'ing, astronaut post and firefighter/mechanic follow-ups have been confirmed by something so inconsequential which was in the collection all along! I imagine today's card was one of four-to-six with the other everyday-clothes Power Rangers similarly scaled-up.

And if this is all confusing, the Pioneer or Realtoy tags will get all the musings up on one or two pages, in reverse order of the evidence coming together - with help! I would have brought them all together and re-shot them, but they are away already! I have had some more of the smaller unpainted green ones come-in and they confirm the links tighter with pose duplications.

Oh! And it's sub-branded to the UK importer HKT with a  sticker!