News, Views Etc . . . U is for Update - Giant or What?

Quick look at the Giant Mongol Cannon has gone-up over on that Blog.

News, Views Etc . . . Not Giant!

Today's Rack-Toy Month post is over on the Giant . . . or What page, clue; they're not Giant!

An overview of the gold-plastic Trojan Greeks who are Roman!

http://butisitgiant.blogspot.com/2021/08/golden-trojans-non-giant-gold-plastic.html

News, Views Etc . . . Mighty Rome in Miniature

Bit of a Brucey-bonus; I'm supposed to be doing about five other things I said I'd get done in the last-few/next-few days, but I wanted to get this off the desktop . . .

. . . an update to the Hong Kong small-scale Romans page, with Baravelli's foot and mounted Giant sub-piracies added at the bottom of the main section. I will try to sort out those last bits as well; still needs text and the Britains full-sized sculpts, which I Blogged a while ago, should have done it then . . .Doh!

W is for Well . . . these are Interesting!

Back to the very lowest price bracket for rack toys with these, which are - without doubt - Interesting Toys. A shilling (1-) was 12 old pence, which became 10 New Pence - I think! Heay, I'm a child of post-decimalization, no good asking me about florins and shit, init!

It seems that these were a 'brand'; for as I find more of them, the evolution of the card art through the 1960-70's is clear and the contents are pretty consistent on colour/style, with a slight improvement in value for money in the later 1970's multi-blister versions.

On the left is the missing set from the Monogram post the other day! The middle is a mix of real low-budget, cake-dec, novelty cack isn't it? Two sports cars, a yacht without a sail, a railway passenger coach and a bottom-voiding ore-carrier! The one on the right is a low-res from feebleBay and is presented as it seems to have a logo, but a bit blurry to fully make out.

I'd like it to be a large 'G' with the lower line being an artistic PMS as that would be the Gardener's firm; a stalwart of the colony's toy industry before 1973, but I know it's just wishful thinking, it seems to be some kind of sea serpent, or maybe a graphical realisation of a Chinese character/pictogram?

These two we've seen before; both two- and three-blister cards with slightly better contents. Airfix guardsmen copies, ex-Giant poses of Trojan/Greco-Roman types (mixed with ex-Woolbro pose Cowboys & Indians! And the MPC mini-plane piracies we've seen before.

A quick look at the figures in the right-hand card might lead you to think they are Britains copies, a closer look will reveal Airfix in the mix, but a study of the figures shows that actually they are copies of the EKO copies of the aforementioned firm's figures, the Airfix poses having the egg-shaped bases of the EKO, rather than the usual square ones of Airfix, and with the crawling figure EKO also copied being present.

H is for Hong Kong Romans

A new page has gone up looking at the Hong Kong 25mm'ish Romans (Trojans?) from Giant and their ilk. it's at the top of the page, or here; Hong Kong Romans

A is for King Authur Pendragon of 'The Round-Tabled'

Arthur's knights were almost certainly dressed as late Romans, so labelling a bag of Roman cavalry as being so is not as far fetched as it might have seemed to a 1960's war-gamer, as the seminal works on such matters and the preliminary articles in the modelling press hadn't been published at the time these were sent to adorn the 'dollar-trees' and racks of the West's newsagents, corner shops and dime-stores.

However neither the eponymous King Arthur nor his father - Uther Pendragon - could be seen as the model for the spelling! Nor can one ignore the fact that these are High-Empire, not late 400AD's.

A bagged set as it arrived home with the weeks shopping - if you were lucky. The poses are the same as Giant, but the quality is much poorer and the colour palette is again nothing like a similar sample of Giant originals...and Giant would never give you this many figures in one 'retail unit'!

Close up of the figures and horse, this is the horse I call 'Rim-Saddle', die to the fact that in re-cutting the mould to clean-up after a poor pantographing/copying from the same size, a raised edge as been introduced to the outer edge of the saddle, saddle-cloth and other detailing.

This example is Rim-Saddle type four, but I'll go into the types in the same detail as I looked at the mini-trucks after we've seen most of the horse types, as it would be too confusing to try explaining them as we went along without the ability to see them all together, and then look back at the separate posts - such as this one.

The 'palette' of colours - much glossier/shinier than Giant and predominately a dark pastel pink, heliotrope pink and army green with a smattering of primary's and a deep purple...

Smo-----oke on'the War--t--'er;...A Fyiee'yer In The Skyiee!

It should - however - be noted that all the mounted HK Romans are direct descendants of the Giant ones, and it's only horse type or colours that set them apart, the odd positions of the leg-mounted locating-studs are always slavishly where the Giant ones are found and of the same design, unlike the many Cowboy and Indian sets we'll be looking at.

C is for Chariot

Paul over at 'Paul's Bods' has been treating us to a real nostalgia hit with his refurbished Atlantic Chariots in the last few days (his 'before' shot of the Roman chariot looked uncannily like mine of 32 years ago!), which seemed like a good excuse to roll out a couple of Giant chariots, not that I need an excuse; somewhere in the infinite universes - of the current string theory and CERN findings - I am blogging nothing but Giant ancients...every day, twice a day!

A poor angle this one, shows the chariot all right, but the horsemen are a bit hidden, Paul (Morehead; my editor at Plastic Warrior) is always telling me not to shoot too high!

But of interest here are the red and green horses, these are both clearly marked GIANT and came with this group, but in wacky colours is not normally the Giant way, there are bags of multi-coloured horses in the post-giant boxes, but Giant usually went with Black, solid or translucent white and a range of browns? Although I do have some more odd-coloured horses in the Cowboy & Indian box.

Main constituents of the Giant 'Ancient' range - fort was covered a while ago. Most of the figures are taken from the Britains Trojans, with a couple of Marx poses (standing to the right). The chariot was a nice little thing, with the decoration looping over the wheel-mounts.

Two-horsed variant/copy here; Lucky Clover

Larger sample here; Lazy Post

I'll be looking at the two-horsed ones in detail another day, and will find an excuse to return to these again!

L is for Lucky Clover Toys

Hard to tell if these came before or after the ones we looked at the other day, they have the same title, but the mouldings are not the same, and the figures would suggest a later production. However they were on sale at around the same time, so piracy of piracies would seem to be the answer, as it often is with these HK guys!

There was a third set, a western fort which will be covered another day, when I try to make sense of them. Lucky Clover's artillery was unique'ish, being a copy of the Marx gun-barrel (as per. Giant) but with a different carriage (also Marx in origin) and heavier wheels.

These British ceremonials are the fixed-head ones as opposed to the separate heads of the larger carded sets the other day, again based on Crescent originals. Also like the other day's, these put the 'Mongol' tower tops on the 'European' fort design.

Chariot is a two-horsed articulated version with a smooth floor, as the figures - again - have the chariot mounting-hole filled in, of the two non-Giant gold plastic types, these are the more well-detailed mouldings with the 'HONG KONG' in a semi-circle round the 'scab' of the chariot mounting-hole.

L is for Lazy Post - again!

Tired and busy, so another quick dip into the archive;

First up is a close up of the two moulding variants of the Herald/Britains Robin Hood figure, note the feather.

A comparison shot similar to the one I showed when covering the WWII range with Tudor Rose a while ago, but with other figures. From left to right; Holgar Ericson 20mm for Comet/Authenticast, US 'Grunt'; Spencer Smith 25mm ACW Confederate/Slouch Hat; Spencer Smith 25mm 'Connoisseur Range'; SAE/Swedish African Engineers 30mm ECW musketeer.

Gratuitous shot of three Giant chariots!