G is for Gygax Monsters - Part III - Hans Postler

I'm pretty sure these are all copies of Holly, rather than Holly product, and from the leery colours of both plastic and casually sprayed paint, the 'Chine' and the bar code, mid-to-late 1980's or more laikely second half of the 1990's? But an interesting chapter in the Gygax Monster story, with most of the monsters in the one set and the possibility that other assortments may have had the missing sculpts?

 

Header card, much of a muchness, and a pure coincidence that Hans Postler and Holly Plastics both have an HP monogram!

 

Bag and contents which we're going to dissect below!

 

Six more conventional dinosaurs, all copies of Holly's products, and, at least five of them (green and brown) also used by whoever produced my favourite childhood set of silicon rubber dinosaurs, which we saw here, in Fleetwood colours. There are soft silicon copies of the Gygax Monsters too, once you start looking for them, they turn-up everywhere, like LB (for Lik Be) astronauts!

 

Two cavemen, also ex-Holly, although originally Marx, MPC or someone!

 

The 'meat & two veg' of the business, seven of the Gygax Monsters, including two named, the Bulette (top left) and Rust Monster (bottom right), the oddest, and hardest to find after the Owlbear, is the Chinese dragon, which I failed to see on the Holly carded set, and had to add, an hour after I published last night, doh!

 

The one I call Gator is called Lizard Man by some people, but as an unnamed 'Gygax', can be whatever you want to call him! Likewise the one which I call Ardvark, some call 'Armadillo' or Armadillo Man.

 

On the subject of naming: some sources mention Kaiju, Ultra Man and 'Pachisaur'/Pachisaurs, but most of the mutterings don't agree with each other, and seem to be people trying too hard to make connections, links or a narrative which really isn't there. A couple of guys, mucking about, chose three monsters, at random, out of a bag, and named them, just the three!

 

In one case Pachisaur seems to be being used just to sell 'merch', while another guy has a very detailed graphic, but the two most important links are greyed-out, because, as he himself admits, it's not clear if they exist as links at all! Another Gygax AD&D monster was called Pachisaur, but doesn't resemble any of the Holly Sculpts closely.

 

Scenics

 

Close-up's of the Phoenix

 

Plastic colours and distribution.

 

Polyethylene play mat.