P is for Posts Passim!

One of the things I like to do here from time to time, as I'm sure you've noticed, is a few posts with a narrative tale or connection running through them but with the first post covering both Wing Lung and the Knight Toys I thought we'd already got in the tag list, with these, it was a question of do I go Wing Lung/Knight-Knight-Wing Lung or (as has been the case) Wing Lung/Knight-Wing Lung-Knight, such is the executive stress / excitement level here at Small Scale World!

As the figures are dominant the first follow-up was the Wing lung, and this post is [was going to be?] a briefer affair, leaving as many questions as it arrives with.

Two sets, this is the first and they are in no particular order, of immediate interest is that we get two brandings; JE Toys and PMS (more usually associated with 99p Stores, but I think this may pre-date those now defunct emporiums of tat) on a sticker, the back gives us a clue that PMS might have imported this set from a wholesaler in Spain?

The contents are much-of-a-muchness, with figures that could be from Pioneer or Supreme (softish vinyl) or someone else, and are copied from the larger polyethylene ones associated with the Wing Mau Trading Co., and Hing Fat. And an eclectic mix of vehicles and accessories which may be from several of the lesser makers in that part of the world.

I would point-out that the early CGI image on the back of the box is quite sophisticated and would have required a large memory to render, prior to being converted into a '2D' .jpg or .png image for print.

The second (or 'other'; there is no order here) set is branded to the aforementioned Knight and Fancy It Agencies Ltd., the same combo as the toob, two posts ago, with Gausini in the mix on that occasion!

Contents are similar, but less, with the vehicles replaced by die-cast jets. The rocket, people-carrier and figures are the same, however the street furniture is different with the large 'facility sign' being a copy, although it's not clear and the different artwork could be batches rather than copying.

In all the complication of trying to ascribe rack-toys to producers, the only thing that really matters to a figure collector is the figures, and these are they! Soft'ish PVC vinyl and around 30mm, there only seem to be the three poses in this size - here compared with the venerable Airfix set.

As I said above the donors were probably Wing Mau (Hing Fat being the next-generation pirate) but the maker could just as easily be Pioneer, Supreme or an unknown party. Also I think I logiced (I know, but it should be a word!) that Wing Mau (or their owner) were probably middle men, while early Hing Fat seem to have copied Rado Industries late stuff, so even the donors are a question mark!

Indeed given that Pioneer are essentially a die-caster of small vehicles, and given the number of figures associated with their vehicle sets now, both home-branded and generics/other brand-marks, it may be they were themselves buying them in from a third party, in which case I'd be tempted to say Supreme/SP Toys, but, their own 40mm figures are so poor, they can't have produced the more delightful figures we've seen from Pioneer associated sets!

Now JE Toys are known to the die-cast collectors (there's a less than clear thread here), while PMS are an old-school importer/sourcer/wholesaler from the UK via Hong Kong (now also with offices in Shanghai and India) and not the in-house brand I'd suggested when I kept finding their stuff in 99p Stores - mea culpa!

While - with two sets in three days jointly fingering Knight/Fancy It - we might assume they are a joint shipping-branding exercise, who happened to select another set/set-combination from whichever middle-man in Hong Kong/China was putting these together to hawk round the trade fairs in the 1990's. They now seem to have moved out of toys and lost the fancy knight on horseback!

The few JE Toys the die-cast guys have identified seem to be at the poorer end of such production, garish decorated and slightly squashed, die-cast uppers on plastic lower-halves (I think I may have some of their AFV's), while these (the upper set) are more Pioneer in quality? Equally if an import from Spain (juguete Espania?) there may be two JE's under discussion here!

The two motorcycles in the initial set above are completely different, one a reasonable quality, mostly die-cast with plastic finishes, rendition of a Harley Electraglide (or Roadster?), the other a cheap, generic, all-plastic model of a Japanese street-racer of the sort you might find in a capsule-dispensing machine, Christmas cracker or lucky-bag type setting, so probably came from two different of the up to 600-odd [at any one time] yet to be named (within the hobby) toy makers recorded in Hong Kong over the years?

So it all proves nothing other than that it's never clear, wheels within wheels . . .

M is for Multiple Branding

We seem to have a post or two like this every Rack Toy Month, not so much out of design, more by accident, but they do serve to illustrate how these things are never as simple as even I might make them seem sometimes, and definitely more complicated that some people like to make them out to be as they make it up as they go along!

So this is a right minestrone of a Curate's egg; the figures are definitely Wing Lung, the packaging carries branding for Knight and Gausini, import details for Fancy It Agencies and there was probably another agency (packer/shipper in Hong Kong/China) bringing the contracts together?

I thought Knight has been seen here before, but they haven't (there is another one coming), Gausini seems or sounds Italian, but now redirects to Dteinei which also sounds Italian but has Chinese spellings and seems to be Canadian? Fancy It will be the bone fide UK-importer, and the contents could be bought-in from several sources of which one is definitely Wing Lung.

The contents are run-of-the-mill stuff and with the exception of the known Wing Lung figures, nothing more than generic fare, stuffed in a toob with a cord carry-handle which dates them to the 1990's/2010's . . . not that such toys aren't still around, they are! Just that that's how long they've been in the collection!

The toob is packed out with two vac-formed end-cups; another recent practice, while the rest of the contents are second or third generation copies of old 1970's products found in one version or another in many rack-toy play-sets.

The known Wing Lung portion of the contents (and everything in the previous image may also be Wing Lung's output?) consists of a small number of copies of the Matchbox US and German WWII figures (and a couple of Brit's) in the 40mm size, going quite well with the Ideal radar trailer - bottom right.