T is for There's Only 12, or 24!

And definitely not the 33 reported elsewhere by a couple of idiots who've never corrected, removed or apologised for their nonsense, being delivered as fact, and argued over! It's the Blue Box individual Famous Historical Characters tonight!

 

We did look at a couple of these right back at the beginning of the Blog, I picked-up a couple of painted ones in an early large-scale purchase, both duplicated here, along with a later damaged Duke of Marlborough, also duplicated here but in chrome, the damaged one is painted, all are hard polystyrene plastic.

 

But here are two new ones, Alexander the Great and Richard the Lionheart (or 'Lionhearted'), and the Alexander sculpt has since reappeared as a pawn in die-cast mazak/zamak chess sets, I believe. A straight lift from Blue Box, or are the chess sets a Tai Sang thing too, they did have die-casting works?

Two loose ones which I think were PW Show purchases? Did I hide them in those posts? They may have been evilBay or contributions/donation, I really can't remember, all these Blue Box posts have been in edit, slowly growing over a few years now. These are both new in this antiqued/chromium finish.

Comparison between the two Lord Nelson's, you can see how the 'chrome' is just sprayed on, people banging-on about vacuum-plating are talking about something completely different, which is the thick, sharp (when it flakes) layer added to larger, smoother, plastic components, or die-cast toys . . . think those huge robots in the 1980's and 90's. this stuff is a separating substrate, where the 'shine' layers-out or films on the surface of a carrier/holding medium.

I've yet to find the packaging for the painted ones, but suspect it's the same cards, either run alongside, or issued a year or two earlier or later, these would have been aimed at museums and gift shops who might have ordered one or other of the two types, or only a few of the 12 different figures, which were;

 

Painted on Cream Styrene (chronological listing)
- Alexander the Great
- Julius Caesar
- Richard the Lionheart
- Robin Hood
- Henry VIII
- Sir Francis Drake
- Duke of Marlborough
- Napoleon
- Admiral Lord Nelson
- Davy Crockett
- Geronimo
- Buffalo Bill
 
Silver-Chromium Finish (Alphabetical listing)
- Admiral Lord Nelson
- Alexander the Great
- Buffalo Bill
- Davy Crockett
- Duke of Marlborough
- Geronimo
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- Napoleon
- Richard the Lionheart
- Robin Hood
- Sir Francis Drake
 

So with Buffalo Bill I now have half the sculpts, but even with other-finish duplicates am no more than a quarter of the way to full sets of both! Another reason for suspecting the same cards for both types - they only ever come in ones or twos! I may have the Nappy Blowapart somewhere, too?

 

And thanks to whoever corrected me on a couple of the titles a while back!