I is for International Rescue

Shot these on Mercator Trading's stall at Sandown the other day, purely as eye-candy. we looked at them years ago, but they were sitting there, so why not? The character figures from Thunderbirds, who were added to the existing Ovni ('UFO') line from Comansi at some point.

 

Bones and the Boss are obvious, but as far as the brothers go, it's a case of what colour you paint the sash, I think! There may be some clues for the more dedicated aficionados, but I'm only a casual, childhood-nostalgia type fan!

Seen with a couple of the smaller cereal premiums from Kellogg's, which also got issued by Tom Smith in a set of Thunderbirds Christmas crackers. You can find them in a more stable polyethylene, but these are more of the soft PVC ones, which were kicking about in large numbers a few years ago, and tend to get squished in the pack.

Home painted, we have Bones and Lady Penelope, although different sizes, both sets get across the woodenness of puppets quite well I think? That's it, just box-ticking some eye-candy!

F is for Follow-up - Comansi Space

Very-much following up on this old post, a few more have come-in over the last year or so, and we're gonnarave a quick shufftie at 'em!

On the previous occasion they were all the later unpainted production, while today's are all earlier painted figures and these four came in loose, and, a bit like the Lik Be figures, they are that half-NASA, half 'spacemen' type which is sometimes harder for me to get my brain around! But the amount of weaponry leaves them in the spacemen camp! And as you can see -  a high spacewoman count!

 

A rather naff TV tie-in was this card, and it's ONLY a card, the contents are the same-old 'OVNI' (UFO) figures from Comansi, and indeed, as a similarly painted/quality sample of four, the loose figures may be from one of these sets, as you do get four figures!

As you can see, these, the contents, are very similar to the loose sample, with a duplicate pink-lady, or at least I think she's a lady, the guys are so effeminate and lipsticked-up it's hard to tell who's what, and nothing wrong with that, but I see a future where we all have to wear a badge just so people know how to address us without insulting, and/or whether they can hit-on us, or not!

Pink . . . Person, from both sides, that's it, pretty much the same Tags as last time, no monsters, no aliens and no Thunderbirds, just the space people pretending to be Battle of the Planets characters, heading for the discotheque!

 

And now I'm off for a shower and an early night, because . . . it's the London Toy Soldier Show in the morning!

S is for Spacemen...by Comansi; Ovni and Thunderbirds

We've looked at these Spanish Comansi figures before, both the Thunderbirds and the Ovni (UFO) figures, but new colours and new poses guarantees a return visit!

Bagged set of rubber-horrors like mine, as I think I said last time: In this form they are common, box-fulls turn-up at Sandown Park regularly, so don't pay over the odds BIN prices for them on evilBay! As polyethylene figures (left-hand lot) they are a tad less common, but only a tad!

[I now can't find them in the tag list, so maybe I never posted them? A return there then at some point, although mine might be the same pink/yellow ones? I seem to remember telling you all about their deformation in rubber, but sometimes I'm just 'writing' an article in my head as I handle figures which I then forget to photograph!?]

A much better sample of the Ovni figures than we looked at last time, again earlier ethylene, I haven't discovered yet how many poses there are, but it's probably a few more than shown here?

Close-ups of the base marks, I don't know if the numbers are in-house stock codes, or wacky 'futurist' dates, and if the later, why the difference? The painted originals are the rarer, box ticked.

N is for Now Let's Play Space Legion UFO's

I was so keen to sort out the stuff from the Birmingham show, I'd put most of it away before I thought about a show report, so there wasn't one! But a lot of it will appear here soon one way or another as I got some things specifically with the blog in mind, and shot other things while I was there with the same reasoning.

This post is a case in point, I bought some of these and photographed the other two, all are available from Mercator Trading, link to the top right, who may well be taking them to the Sandown Park toy-fair next (this coming) Saturday.

The title of this set translates to 'And now let us play', and it's a nice Italian space set from - I don't know - maybe the early 1970's? One of the things I like about continental 'cheepie' toys of the 1960's and '70's was that a lot of it was produced domestically, so while the HK stuff we had in UK was also what the Americans got, the Spanish and Italians produced their own, Germany had Manurba and Jean, the French just re-issued earlier hard-plastic figures in bags of brighter coloured unpainted plastic.

This is just that type of carded rack-toy: the rocket is a common design which also turned up via Hong Kong and was later copied/produced by some South American 'cheepie' experts, while the figures are quite unique. The full card is top left, any Italian followers have an idea on the maker? They are not the known Co-Ma designs but I don't think they are Cane either so any clues out there?

10/08/2017 - Now ID'd as Torgano and added to the tag list. 

Over the Alps in Spain a more established company; Comansi, produced two space sets: the quite common Thunderbirds sets (which like the Beatles I published earlier tonight - command a price way above their actual value), and this Ovni set, or 'UFO'. Having pretty-much missed UFO the UK TV series (too young, or was it on ITV? We didn't do much telly when we were kids - always out on the heath playing 'Army', fishing for Airfix at the local tip (rubbish dump) or building 'camps') I didn't know if these bore any relation to the TV series, but a quick Google suggests not, so just generic UFO's!!

Indeed one seems to be a rather topical (in current popular [read; American] culture) zombie! I've seen other versions of the claw-handed alien/robot, and other humanoid poses. Again - do any Spanish followers know if there is a link to something on TV over there? Does 'zombie'-man have something of significance in his hand? Also - like the T'bird set, I think these were latter re-issued unpainted in that floppy silicon rubber?

Back across the Alps went Caesar, and if we follow him - we get back to these...I love these, so these are the ones I bought. Definitely earlier then the others, based on the old Ajax/Archer/Lido/Pyro/Kleeware/Tudor*Rose generics of the classic 'pulp' fiction era, but smaller at 45mm and in a hard plastic, these were already in my collection as 'Unknown Italian Space' in a silver styrene, and they will stay unknown Italian for the time being as the card only has a title!!

They came either 5 to a card, or 10 to a little bag, which looks like it may have ended-up in something else, soap-powder, Christmas crackers (did the Italians have Christmas Crackers in the 1950's? One tends to assume the rest of the world has the same cultural 'stuff' and they don't always!), or some other premium? The bag has a little metal tie that will open you finger if you're not careful!

The carded ones are all one colour, while the bags have various colours and flecked/marbled ones. I've also seen them in black plastic, have some silver ones somewhere as I mentioned and I'm sure gold ones will turn-up eventually.The green marbled one points to other greens, but I've yet to see blue.