C is for Canoes - 9 - Not Giant!

Actually Mikephil in the US and a generic here in the UK, and I've never known if that's pronounced as a rather clumsey 'Mike-Phil', the smoother 'Micky-phil', or something esoteric like 'Mike-a-phil'? Guidance from US or Canadian readers gratefully received!

 

We did actually look at this briefly many years ago, and it will need to go on the Giant blog at some point, but they aren't Giant, they use the two sets of six (and only six) Giant foot figures, possibly even the old tool cavities, but with the lesser, non-Giant mark (Made in Hong Kong), and with new connecting runners, joining them together in rows, one of cowboys, and this one of Indians.

 

The Mikephil (I'm now saying Mick-effhil in my head!) shots here are all courtesy of Brain Berke, the generics are from the collection, except the green one which was a fleaBay image I took years ago, as you don't often see the green canoe.

 

Note that the Mikephil one has a monochrome image in blue-and-white on the back mirroring the full colour image on the card fronts, the generics available over here just have plain, undecorated card backs.

These images might have been used last time? This shows how the strips of figures are attached in the bottom of the canoe; the connecting pieces routed in the base of the tool are wedged in the little forked/slotted studs, holding them long-enough (one or more connections often pop-out while still in the packaging) to further hold them in, with the angled blister!

Brian did a scaler, and I have a yellow boat with the figures, unusually, placed-in facing the other way! Commonly the figures are firing/moving to the right, except the cowboy on the other end, but someone reversed some!

 

I must assume all colours of figure can be found as boats and vise-versa, but some seem commoner than others, so maybe the missing ones went to a country/region where they were less likely to survive the tests of time, like Mexico for instance?

 

One of Brian's sets in situe, the boat seems to be another brighter chartreuse yellow, to my aged lemon, but it could just be flash, the teepee is looking darker in the other image? It's also a perfect demonstration of how most '54mm' totem poles are better scaled for 25mm figures! Thanks again to Brian, for his images/examples.

 

And note this post is really about the canoes, the figures are far more interesting, and complicated, and, while we did touch on them briefly, a long time ago, here, I will do them properly as a series of posts on the Giant blog another day. And, the boat is a scale-down of another we'll look at in these posts, itself apparently; a full-size copy of a third!