L is for Liberty . . . Toy Soldiers

The last of this mini-season on the AWI, and we return to the figures for the forth time in less than a year (I said that yesterday, but it's a bit neat, as I've added to the 'whole' each time!), and again we have Bill Nevins to thank for the imagery.

One of the things that were missing from the posts last year was the Shell bag with header, and here we have the evil local representative of the hated occupier (surly that should be 'legitimate government'? Ed.), one; Lt General Earl Cornwallis! From both sides - of the bag; he never 'crossed the floor'!

Close-ups of both sides of the header, the mounted 'officers' become 'lieutenants' in the MO76 retail, carded-issue, but are otherwise indistinguishable from Washington and Cornwallis as far as the figures go; Paul Revere gets a grey jacket and non-weapon hands.

You can produce regular cavalry by swapping their gold facings for the white of the infantry, indeed, once you've picked a few of these up, including the later clearance and copies, you can swap various facing with various jackets to make specific regiments or imagiments - new word!

"What unit are you with soldier?"

"1st-15th Imagiment Sah - Foot & Mouth!"

Some forts get a decent 'starter set' of figures - being at least one each of all figure sculpts but no Paul Revere nor Hessian/French colour-ways. The above seems to have an extra marching Bluecoat and missing marching Redcoat, but a typo on the white boxes seems to be the '1 Standing Bluecoat' - all the sets I've seen in pristine condition have two.

Compare with this old screen-cap of an ebay lot, the marching Brit's marched-off again (well - they left him in  a French fort!) but the rest are 'right'. This tray is to be found in the white printed '76 fort boxes and [presumably] the Jefferson Sales Corporation sets, but Bill says they (the figures) don't come in the plain brown 1776-coded set (with hard plastic fort), which rather mucks-up some of my musings on the time-lines of the sets over the last two days, but without one of the boxes it's still be to better sorted.

At an RRP of $1.49, the Shell fort was too cheap (even in the early '70's) to have the figures and doesn't suggest it has them on the above card, so it looks like the soft plastic forts were first made available in a box yet to be rediscovered, but similar to the 1975 box, they then carried over into the white boxes (with figure tray), then the hard plastic fort appeared as the 1776-coded box (no figures) the quality being offset against the price of a big ticket item, the soft plastic forts being retained for unit-cheapness made-up by/with the added play-value of the figures.

Like Airfix selling you just a hard-plastic fort in a box, or a full battle set with figures and a soft plastic version of the fort - which they did for a while and at around the same time - early 1970's? By 1975 all Airfix forts were hard plastic as all Innovative ones seem to have been in the end?

The pamphlet (issued with some retail cards but all forts it seems) we looked at the other day is © 1972, 1973, 1975, and clearly shows the grey, hard plastic fort with the metallic charcoal accessories, while the Shell card seems to be hinting at the gold soft-plastic fort. And do earlier pamphlets have less dates on the front cover?

They seem - in fact - to have run alongside each other for a while, the soft plastic as Shell and the code-101 Revolutionary Fort box (although its instructions were 'Liberty'!) as a stand-alone play-set after the '72 premiums, and before the '75 retail figure-cards? Then with the hard plastic code-1776 full Fort Liberty as a budget 'accessory' to the '75 retail issue.

At some point, the pinky-grey soft plastic fort was issued as an 'off' batch, possibly mid-term, ending up in some white (code 101) boxes and some plain (code 1776) boxes, before the hard plastic - Bill is sure his 'soft grey' is in a code-1776 box too? The hard-plastic eventually replacing the soft in both box types, but only for the . . .

. . . final sighting; this was the Jefferson Sales issue, hard-plastic with the (a?) figure tray but with no mention of 1776, either as a code or as a bicentenary! It does however have the MO76 flyer, Fort Liberty title and MO76 fort instruction-sheet - a right old curate's egg!

More digging is needed, we need to find an original Shell carton (from '72) with a date and code and contents to settle this!

Listing

Shell Petroleum 'Liberty Toy Soldiers'

Premiums (bagged with header-card, all sets © 1972 - bases fitted to figures)

Unit 1 - Kneeling Bluecoat, Standing Redcoat

Unit 2 - Kneeling Redcoat, Standing Bluecoat

Unit 3 - Marching Bluecoat, Marching Redcoat

Unit 4 - American Officer on Horseback

Unit 5 - British Officer on Horseback

Unit 6 - Standing Frenchman, Kneeling Hessian

Unit 7 - Indian Scout, Standing Minuteman

Unit 8 - Kneeling Minuteman, Molly Pitcher

Unit 9 - George Washington on horseback

Unit 10 - Cornwallis on Horseback

Unit 11 - Paul Revere on Horseback

Unit 12 - Cannon

Purchasable Accessory

? - Fort Liberty (© 1972 (?) carton unknown, with moving gates, jail, British and American flags and flag-pole, soft plastic only - no figures)

Interim Play-set

101 - Men of '76 Revolutionary Fort (© 1973 - white carton, with moving gates, jail, British and American flags and flag-pole, soft or hard plastic - includes below-listed figures:)

Muster List (bases fitted to figures)

1 George Washington

1 Standing Bluecoat [seems to be a typo printed on all boxes, actually: x2 are present]

2 Kneeling Bluecoats

1 Marching Bluecoat (Afro-American features)

1 Standing Minuteman

1 Kneeling Minuteman

2 Cannons

1 Cornwallis

2 Standing Redcoats

2 Kneeling Redcoats

1 Marching Redcoat

2 Indians

1 Molly Pitcher

1 Fort

Innovative Promotions 'Men of '76' (blister cards, all sets © 1975 - all bases separate)

501 - Set No 1

Muster List

1 George Washington

1 White Horse

1 Standing Minuteman

1 Standing Bluecoat

3 Stands

502 - Set No 2

Muster List

1 Cornwallis

1 Black Horse

1 Field Cannon

1 Marching Redcoat/Cannoneer

2 Stands

503 - Set No 3

Muster List

1 Paul Revere

1 Brown Horse

1 Indian Scout

1 Kneeling Redcoat

3 Stands

504 - Set No 4

Muster List

1 Field Cannon

1 Molly Pitcher

1 Kneeling Minuteman

2 Stands

505 - Set No 5

Muster List

1 American Lieutenant

1 Brown Horse

1 Kneeling Bluecoat

1 Kneeling Redcoat

3 Stands

506 - Set No 6

Muster List

1 American Trooper (Afro-American)

1 Field Cannon

1 Standing Redcoat

2 Stands

507 - Set No 7

Muster List

1 British Lieutenant

1 Brown Horse

1 Kneeling Hessian

1 Standing Frenchman

3 Stands

508 - Set No 8

Muster List

1 Standing Redcoat

1 Kneeling Redcoat

1 Indian Scout

1 Standing Bluecoat

1 Kneeling Bluecoat

5 Bases

509 - Set No 9

Muster List (not necessarily in correct order)

1 Standing Minutemen

1 Indian Scout

1 Kneeling Hessian

1 Standing Frenchman

4 Bases

510 - Set No 10

Muster List

1 Aaron Burr

1 Field Cannon

1 Standing Bluecoat (Afro-American features)

2 Stands

Accessory Fort

1776 - Men of '76 Revolutionary Fort (© 1975 - plain carton, with moving gates, jail, British and American flags and flag-pole, hard plastic only - no figures)

Jefferson Sales Corporation (© unknown - full-colour, foil-laminate carton, with moving gates, jail, British and American flags and flag-pole, hard plastic only - no figures)

? - Fort Liberty

Contents (to be confirmed, assumed the same as Innovative)

1 George Washington

1 Standing Bluecoat [typo printed on all Innovative boxes, actually: x2 should be present]

2 Kneeling Bluecoats

1 Marching Bluecoat (Afro-American features)

1 Standing Minuteman

1 Kneeling Minuteman

2 Cannons

1 Cornwallis

2 Standing Redcoats

2 Kneeling Redcoats

1 Marching Redcoat

2 Indians

1 Molly Pitcher

1 Fort

Generics (clearance, blister-cards)

? - Various contents

Star Toys - S For Star (blister-cards, Timpo-style bases)

606 - Redcoat Soldiers (1x foot, 1x mounted, 1x gun in pieces, horse is Timpo-copy)

607 - Bluecoat Soldiers (1x foot, 1x mounted, 1x gun in pieces, horse is Timpo-copy)

Sub-Piracies (blister-cards, Timpo-style bases)

? - Various contents

F is for Fort Liberty

The sharper-eyed among you will have noticed that the pinky-brown 'grey' fort in yesterday's post was actually called Fort Liberty, not the Revolutionary Fort of the 'gold' fort. In fact it was in the same box (with unreadable date) as the . . .

. . . 1975 retail issue as seen here. And . . . before we go any further; I am loving the stock-code number of this later issue - That is too cool for mathematics' school!

This is the standard boxing for Fort Liberty, usually in a hard polystyrene plastic, and a mid 'Mediterranean' grey - the same grey as a lot of plastic kits. You can see the earlier box behind it, while that had a resealable 'play set' type box, this is basically a standard carton with minimal over-printing.

Here's what I reckon is the time-line of these fort sets:

The 'gold' (soft plastic) fort came first, when Innovative (as a relatively new company) offered, or managed to persuade (?) Shell into running the Men of '76 as a 'liberty' premium, several years before the big year (actually 1976), beginning in 1972 (or '73, the earlier date could pertain purely to production contracts and/or artwork rather than availability) in its (screen-printed) white box, as Men of '76 Revolutionary Fort.

I think this was - as much as anything else - a testing of the water, by this newish company, possibly with/on a sale or return basis - meaning that Shell had no financial liability if the promotion flopped? The 'flyer' note on Kent Sprecher's Toy Soldier HQ points to a flexibility among service station owners/franchisee's with regard to the retail pricing of the fort which would suggest Innovative were accepting any 'hit' to the pocket?

Bill Nevins (a New York collector who's supplied all today's images) remembers buying left-over's at a gas station, which may have been stock or display, but seem to have been from a less successful outlet, however the point is; I believe the promotion overall was far more successful than anticipated, and so the [interim] 'grey' (also in soft ethylene) was issued as a stop-gap, in the plain carton.

A plain carton which was already in the procurement line for a hard plastic fort destined for the 1975 'rack toy' Men of '76 retail issue. That change being [perhaps] due to feedback from customers - not liking the bendy walls? The same carton we saw with that 'grey' fort at the head of yesterday's post and are looking at here with a hard plastic fort?

It's all conjecture, complicated by the final shot today, but those are my thoughts, can anyone help with a date on a carton with the soft plastic, pinkish 'grey' fort in it? Or share their thoughts on the various issues. There is no doubt that this is the commoner of the MO'76 forts on eBay, but possibly not as common as the one below, which I have seen several times?

Confirming Bill's 'rule of thumb' as mentioned yesterday; the polystyrene forts have accessories (main-gates and whole 'jail') in a colour probably best described as metallic coal!

You can also see how much more rigid the hard plastic fort is, but it's always a compromise; large flat areas of polyethylene will tend to warp in the short-term (and go brittle over time), but take a lot of punishment from clumsy little hands, while hard styrene's will build a more solid structure, which however - can be more easily damaged during the construction and dismantling phases, tabs being easily snapped off - for instance!

Problems which with modern toys - in the same sort of price bracket - have been alleviated by using polypropylenes or other modern plastics which have the better properties of both the older materials; being flexible enough to take punishment, yet rigid enough to retain shape.

All those action-figure play-sets, Galoob aircraft carriers and fold-out mini-van city's and things are made of many different proprietary polypropylenes (PP's), high density polyethylenes (HDPE's have a high tensile strength) and various polystyrene/styrol (PS's) hybrids

Bill also sent this which is an old Internet image, I have seen a few of these (Jefferson Sales Corporation of Oak Park, Michigan) and have a theory (another?!!) about them to:

Note - there is no MO'76 branding attached (although all the Innovative bumph is included), and the artwork (a full-colour, photographic-quality, laminate 'foil' [sheet of paper!] over the carton's card) is similar to the Arco set of Noah's Ark Brian Berke (another New Yorker - it can't be denied; those New Yorkers know their toy soldiers!) sent us last year - ie; I think this is a clearance item or exercise in flogging an already very successful line for another few furlongs, through a jobber (as they call them in the 'States), what we'd call an importer - or what anyone might call a repacker/wholesaler!

Dating from maybe '77-'79? It's lost the MO'76 tie-in between 1776-1976, and been given the standard 'Christmas catalogue' artwork of two impossibly cute'sie kids grinning like loons as posed by the photographer! Indeed - this type of set may have been responsible for some of the odd-coloured bases, or those without the Innovative mark.

Bill wondered if the common occurrence of the hard styrene grey fort was down to a UK issue, as he has seen a few in our evilBay portal, but I don't remember them being available over here. I was a 'mere' twelve-year-old in 1976 so I should have been the ideal age-group to be attracted by such a thing, do any of you 'old gits' in the 60-something bracket remember them being sold here?

It has to be said - while our political (and military?) bigwig's would have attended various official functions in the 'States and/or those organised by the US embassy in London, it was a celebration of a war we err . . . lost! Also it was a really, really, really hot summer! We were all lying in the shade or panting on the beach with our Tudor Rose bucket & spade and tipper-truck! By September '76 the South of England looked a bit like Ethiopia!

So I don't think there was much of an appetite in the High Street or on the coiffured lawns of suburbia for celebrating the bicentenary, although I do remember the hype surrounding it as all the ad's in glossy magazines for American products (airlines, cigarettes & booze particularly) were draped in bicentennial/'76 iconography.

And the news programmes on telly carried various '200-years since this or that specific action/event' type tail-ender stories occasionally while there were historical programs and such-like. I think there was a National Geographic 'special' as well?

Tomorrow we will tie-this up with a forth look at the figures in less than a year! And thanks to Bill Nevins again for the photo's.