C is for Canoes - 9 - Not Giant!

Actually Mikephil in the US and a generic here in the UK, and I've never known if that's pronounced as a rather clumsey 'Mike-Phil', the smoother 'Micky-phil', or something esoteric like 'Mike-a-phil'? Guidance from US or Canadian readers gratefully received!

 

We did actually look at this briefly many years ago, and it will need to go on the Giant blog at some point, but they aren't Giant, they use the two sets of six (and only six) Giant foot figures, possibly even the old tool cavities, but with the lesser, non-Giant mark (Made in Hong Kong), and with new connecting runners, joining them together in rows, one of cowboys, and this one of Indians.

 

The Mikephil (I'm now saying Mick-effhil in my head!) shots here are all courtesy of Brain Berke, the generics are from the collection, except the green one which was a fleaBay image I took years ago, as you don't often see the green canoe.

 

Note that the Mikephil one has a monochrome image in blue-and-white on the back mirroring the full colour image on the card fronts, the generics available over here just have plain, undecorated card backs.

These images might have been used last time? This shows how the strips of figures are attached in the bottom of the canoe; the connecting pieces routed in the base of the tool are wedged in the little forked/slotted studs, holding them long-enough (one or more connections often pop-out while still in the packaging) to further hold them in, with the angled blister!

Brian did a scaler, and I have a yellow boat with the figures, unusually, placed-in facing the other way! Commonly the figures are firing/moving to the right, except the cowboy on the other end, but someone reversed some!

 

I must assume all colours of figure can be found as boats and vise-versa, but some seem commoner than others, so maybe the missing ones went to a country/region where they were less likely to survive the tests of time, like Mexico for instance?

 

One of Brian's sets in situe, the boat seems to be another brighter chartreuse yellow, to my aged lemon, but it could just be flash, the teepee is looking darker in the other image? It's also a perfect demonstration of how most '54mm' totem poles are better scaled for 25mm figures! Thanks again to Brian, for his images/examples.

 

And note this post is really about the canoes, the figures are far more interesting, and complicated, and, while we did touch on them briefly, a long time ago, here, I will do them properly as a series of posts on the Giant blog another day. And, the boat is a scale-down of another we'll look at in these posts, itself apparently; a full-size copy of a third!

T is for Two - Space Tanks!

We like a good space tank here, we even like a pretty poor space tank...and when two join the fleet together...well!

Marked LP LB for Lik Be, this is the tank utilising the - probably Roco Minitanks - Panzer IV chassis. Often found also in Mikephil packaging and having various body-types, this in the 'Engineering' variant! Nicely scaled for gaming in HO or OO-gauge sizes.

While this little chap is closer to 30mm for figure gaming purposes, and while made in China (frowned at by the tin plate collectors as cheap shit), it's quite an early one (1960's - early-70's?) with a few plastic components and three rear-firing missile tubes...missing the missiles.

This appears to have been copied by Marx, in small-scale plastic for some of their play-sets, so must be an early China tank...or 'chinatank'

Since corrected to Lik Be / LB.

O is for Other Things (LB part 2)

Tying up a few loose ends, with LB and others, the aim will be to rename the last few and next few posts so that they are in some sort of order and can be found together in the future.

These are all 6 poses of the Robots in small scale (25mm), with slight variants, the gunmetal being soft ethylene, the chromium-plated one's like their 54mm brethren are a hard styrene, most a neutral grayish, but the lower fat one can be seen to be an emerald green under the chrome. The lower 'biker' is yet another unfinished project of mine, undercoat and mapping pen highlights wait for a blue (Police?) wash and tyres, while the upper fish head seems to have factory painted eyes?

These astronauts are unmarked, but the base is very similar to the LB marked Robots and both were still being sold from cake decorating display stands in the late 1990's, so inclusion here is guaranteed, there are only the two poses.

These divers are also marked LB and were probably sold as fish-tank decoration as well as for cakes. I don't know if this was all of them, and they (Lik Be) are probably responsible for some of the older sharks and octopi that turn up in mixed lots from time to time?

Two more marked LB, now, Culpitts carried the astronauts by Lik Be, but tended to move Gemodels product when it came sports and pastime figures, or the HK copies of same. Were these released in direct competition with one of their main clients, or did Culpitts carry these as well? And...How many more were there in this set/series, 6/8?

Both these and the divers are approximately 45mm, polyethylene.

A colour variation that came to light courtesy of wishes to remain annonymous, paint remains show a common scheme of green base, blue belt and gold helmet.

A Mikephil carded set, these are standard marked figures, the vehicles are very similar to the ones below, but slightly different, slightly more detailed/complicated. Of interest; they are not vehicles issued with Spacex or Golden Astronauts. Roco give up their Pz.IV, or at least the chassis again!

Since corrected to Lik Be / LB.