W is for Who Knew! 54mm . . . Giant?

Oh yes-indeedie, ladies and gentlemen! Not only that, but it's not that rare and I've seen several since I picked-up mine! Well known for their diminutive HO-compatible figure sets, the Rosenberg's Giant Plastics Corporation of New York also imported at least one set with a decent'ish 54mm/1:32^nd scale figure of an astronaut!

Fly Time for a dollar . . . reduced for quick-sale to 69-cents! And another of the ones I've seen was similarly reduced so it was a 'batch thing'. You get a bunch of 'summer activity' toys (as this stuff is not appreciated, by parents, in-doors!), including two gliders, two 'sycamore' propeller novelties and a parachute toy of a blue 'space capsule', within which you can secrete the figure.

The twisted steel bar is the launcher for the propellers, the small red flicky-bar is for the gliders and the larger red handle is for the capsule.

It took me a while to work out he went in the capsule, as I thought he WAS the 'parachute toy' as a space-parachtist - there are several out there, and that while he could be used as such though the loops formed by his arms, the artwork suggested that's his flying pose or something if you pretended he has a back-pack, or maybe he wass supposed to fall out of the capsule at apogee and fall back?

Anyway, whatever the truth (there's no instructions on the reverse of the card), he has a plug-in back-pack and some minimal paint and seems to be a unique pose?

These ex-MPC figures turn-up from time to time, the gold paint, poor detail and lack of originality suggest they are nothing to do with the Giant sets, but they may well be, or from similar '2nd generation' knock-off sets? I've seen two or three different poses now, and both the white plastic and black boots are/can be obvious similarities/coincidences?

Despite what some say, Giant were never manufacturers, being only 'jobbers', and as a result we can find the same stuff in other sets, here the capsule, parachute and figure are marked-up to a M. Shimmel Sons Incorporated also of New York, and it has instructions! Which explain exactly how you string him up - as a parachutist - set him in the capsule in a specific way and then launch the capsule, so he does parachute back to earth, while the capsule crashes into the ground, momentarily forgotten!

Giant; isn't it . . . or not . . . as the case may be!